When I was sick

When I was sick I lay in bed for a long time.

 

When I was sick Mom put her hand on my forehead and filled my glass with ginger ale.

 

When I was sick Dad lay in the next bed for half an hour as we watched Born Free. He listened to my scratchy voice that he could not possibly have understood but made like he did.

 

When I was sick my brother, also ill, farted in the top bunk bed and I farted louder below. We laughed ourselves to sleep.

 

When I was sick I watched Rocky and Bullwinkle and The Today Show. I watched the 1976 election returns, which meant little to me, and coverage of John Lennon’s slaying, which meant more.

 

When I was sick I woke up in what felt like the middle of the night but was only 10:30. A light shone in my sister’s room but nobody else seemed to exist. It might have been a dream but Mom came and filled my glass with water and put her cool hand on my forehead. Then I knew it was real and fell back asleep.

 

I wonder if I ever woke up or if I’m still wrapped in that blanket, thick with memory and warm with love.

Do as I say!

Critics knock Obama for not being optimistic enough about the economy. These same folks criticized Bush for sugar-coating the situation. Apparently there’s a middle ground, an exact spot on the psychological dial to the very fraction, that must be reached by the president or we’re all toast. Because, goodness knows, we’re all mindless automatons whose every waking thought and feeling is dictated by Big Brother.

 

It makes me feel a little embarrassed, actually, because even as I mock the pundits for telling us what to think about what the president should tell us what to think, I know that all the pundits, politicians and economists have the same basic message for us: don’t act like Dan.

 

The economy needs more irrational exuberance and less macro-Danism or we might as well dye our shirts pink because we’re going communist. I don’t own a home — I just don’t want to deal with the upkeep as a single person — and I’ve driven the same car for 14 years. Sure, I buy my books, but I do so online at a significant discount and I forego cable and the more expensive Internet connections to make up for the cost. Now everyone has the frugal bug, even more than I do, and it’s filling unemployment lines the world over.

 

If all of us were more centered, if we unchained ourselves from the need for material possessions, if we all were less like wanna-be CEOs and more like Buddha or Jesus, the result would be catastrophic. Such tomfoolery would lead to job loss which would lead to food shortages which would lead to war which would lead to nuclear annihilation.

 

The stakes couldn’t be higher, so, for the love of God, book that weekend in Paris, buy that new Lexus, build that McMansion. The fate of the world rests in your wallet.

 

Unless Obama tells you not, in which case, forget I said anything.

Where has the sizzle gone?

There was a time when I would have imaginary sex with every woman I thought of in bed. Perhaps we’d snuggle afterward but it was a hot snuggling, with the stroking of naked parts and vibrant laughing. Now we may not even be naked. I may massage her neck or we may simply lie back to back. There’s no snoring yet. That’s the next step. These fantasies are following the trajectory of a real marriage. In my late 40s she will have hot flashes, throwing off the covers and complaining about the heat of my farts. I’ll climb toward 60 and we will share pains in shoulders, backs and hips. Massaging will come in handy again. Then one day she’ll be gone and I’ll be alone, like I really always was, dreaming of love’s silent moments instead of living them.