symptoms of old age: you cannot get stronger

Bo was running a little ahead of our heavily panting primate-protagonist, but the eskie has stopped and taken a seat on the sidewalk, shaking his canine head as he watches his master stumble onward.

~~~

”That couldn’t be rightly called even a half-jog, now could it?”

Phew... no, you’re right... wooo... ohhh... what is even a little unsettling to me is that I do not seem to be improving. I think I’m actually getting worse. I suspect this is one of the disheartening symptoms of old age: you cannot get stronger, even if you work out.

”Wanna give up?”

Nooo. I think it is still good for the body, good for the mind, sweat out some toxins and help keep a little nimble, and maybe slow down the aging process a shade or two.

”I don’t know, you actually look a lot older huffing and puffing like that. You look like you could keel over at any moment with a heart attack.”

*Snort* I forget how funny you can be. If I knew you were this funny, I would have taken you on the comedy club circuit. Maybe we could have beaten C. K. Lewis. Or maybe open for him.

”Or we could do David Letterman’s ‘Stupid Human Tricks’”

Heh, sure, anything for you, buddy.

Gabe

Monk woefully rubs his bare stomach.

~~~

I think that DiGiorno’s four-meat pizza may be too heavy for my stomach.

”I think your stomach may be too heavy for the pizza, and too heavy for your body.”

Very funny. But it’s getting smaller again, don’t you think?

[Gabe laughs]

”ha, ha, um, sure, ha ha, yeah, okay, maybe a little bit, anything you say!”

You know, if you hadn’t dropped me, I’d probably still be below 190, maybe below 180.

”Oh, no! Aren’t you getting tired of that same joke over and over again!”

Who’s joking?

”Then we’ll just have to consider it a good closing line, a goodbye.”

Okay. So long as there are no hard feelings.

”You mean there aren’t? You don’t have hard feelings? that you keep throwing in my face.”

No, not really, it’s history. No hard feelings on these pages anyway. I just won’t be making any calls to Florida, nor receiving any.

”You can say that again!”

But it was fun while it lasted, right?

”Yes, it was. You’re the one who shut me out.”

Well, I wasn’t interested in being a girlfriend and having to hear about your lovers, especially not after you promised that I would get to be one of your lovers.

”Monk, I could kill you.”

I think you almost did.

Sugar

Just to be clear: yes, bosses left me & @lindseywiebe in charge of the @WinnipegNews website, and our first goal was to fill it with cats.

-- Sugar Tweet

She’s cute, isn’t she?

[Gabe shakes her head smirking]

”You are still crushing on her.”

No, not at all. But I do wish we were still good e-friends. Though, I suppose she wouldn’t feel that she has anything to say to me, and thinks I’m just a dirty old man.

”You are a dirty old man!”’

I know. But I still have feelings.

be friendly to people

That Asian widow, who we will call Sun-he came by to pay Pop another visit, like it’s becoming a regular thing. Maybe she is just very lonely, but I wonder if she has designs on Pop. She would make concerted efforts to get me into the social circle when I heated up my chicken pot pie and prepared for dinner. I couldn’t get into it, and although I tried to be politely responsive, I’m sure I was gruff and short, like I just really didn’t want this to be happening.

Gabe disapproves.

~~~

”I’ll tell you what, Monk, if I ever saw my son act like that toward a guest, I would slap him senseless.”

What? I tried to be cordial.

”Sure you did. As cordial as an iceberg.”

I was responsive to anything asked of me.

”As minimally responsive as you could possibly be. It was plain that you sorely didn’t want to be there talking to her and that you wished she would go away.

It’s not like she is here to see me.

”Is this the way you always are with everybody?”

Yes, pretty much.

”Uh, this could be a big part of your problem, don’t you think? You might have friends if you were, you know, friendly! That’s a first step: be friendly to people. Some of them might then become your friends. It’s funny how that works.”

But there’s no one here that I really want to be friends with.

”Would you like to have friends or not? Because I thought you felt sorry for yourself for not having any.”

Maybe I want to be someone else. Someone richer, smarter, better looking. And, now, younger too. That way I could be friends with richer, smarter, better-looking people.

[Gabe laughs.]

”Yeah, you know, Monk, I thought you were a little different, perhaps a little side-tracked, but, wow, I don’t know what to say. That’s a serious pile of ‘fucked up’. If you were a teenager, that might be one thing. Monk, dear, you need some serious head-work - maybe electric-shock treatment!”

[She holds out her hands as if she is holding the electrical probes and is ready to apply them, “Buzz, buzz!” Monk waves her off.]

No thanks. I’ll stick to the sensitive artist routine, the literary route.

”The problem with that is: you would need to produce some art, some literature - just a haiku would be nice!”

I’m still getting the mannerisms and the exalted attitudes down. Give me time!

”Life only lasts, at best, about a hundred years.”

That’s not my fault.