GIVING UP THE FIRST TIME

I don’t remember giving up, quitting, rising the white flag.

But here we are, and I’m not alone.

There’s the rocking chair, the TV, the food delivery.

As long as everything lasts, why not rot away quietly?

Why not? Here’s why not with Kurt Vonnegut:

Kurt: I’m eighty-three and I’ve been smoking since I was eleven.

I’m suing the cigarette company because it promised to kill me and it hasn’t.

Kurt lived a long life, wrote many books that I started reading in the early seventies and stopped reading in the late seventies.

I wasn’t giving up on Kurt, I’d just had enough and moved on. It happens with writers.

In fact, I still like him and give his books to my kids as presents.

If my memory is right, I started reading Saul Bellow after Kurt.

 

Saul: You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

 

Again with the memory: How many people even remember the first half of their life.

I’ll do the math: a seventy year old started the second half of their life at age thirty-five.

At thirty-five I was married four years, had two young kids, and a house in the suburbs.

Nothing unusual about that after a small town upbringing.

Grow up in a small town and you find many of the same values in the suburbs.

The anonymity of the city, the faceless chill of strangers, is a short drive away.

Instead, you get the anonymity of the suburbs and the faceless chill of the familiar gathered around the community mail box.

The difference is you learn to ignore people from a distance.

In the city it’s a half block away, in the suburbs it’s across the street.

 

Giving Up Is Cold

Kurt: The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.

 

Was Kurt giving up, or just enjoying a good smoke?

That’s not the question for Jerzy Kosinski, another writer elbowing in for reading time.

When he quit, he really quit. No taking up a two pack a day habit and hoping for the worst.

 

There’s a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return.

I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.

 

I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity.

 

In the account I read long ago, Kosinski dressed up in his finest suit, drew a hot bath, swallowed a lethal does of downers, tied a plastic bag around his head, and hopped in.

One man contemplates the wished for effect of cigarettes on his health, the other ties up all the loose ends.

Writers? What are you going to do next?

 

Fortunately, your’s truly is a blogger with a plan to post today, tomorrow, next week, month, next year.

 

Bloggers Don’t Get Bogged Down

As a rule, bloggers are nimble and crafty.

We’re giving up one moment and starting up the next.

We scour the internet for interesting stories that offer a new insight.

Instead of the same old rut to plow, bloggers can open up new horizons.

For example, BoomerPdx is on the forefront of breaking news.

Harry Truman didn’t lose the 1948 election; Kennedy probably lost in 1960; Al Gore probably won in 2000.

Sometimes the right guy comes out on top.

Sometimes we change our minds about who the right guy for the job of president is.

In terms of this blog post, Death Wish Vonnegut is not the right guy, and neither is the sharp dressing Kosinski.

The contemplative Saul Bellow? No, no.

Instead, vote for a candidate who knows the value of a good pedicure.

Giving up the urge to resist this is the right move.

Did I know I’d get the whole treatment? I did not.

Was it fun? More than I expected.

‘There’s the rocking chair’ turns into ‘there’s the toe nail chair.

‘There’s the TV’ turns into date time with wife.

‘There’s the food delivery’ turns into new shoes and food shopping.

Who’s got it better than that?

The first step is giving up old notions that have had their day, like pedicures are for women, women can’t be trusted to make decisions about their own healthcare, and women can’t be the President of the United States.