She’s Got Her Troubles

Drinking with my friend Emily: who knows where it might lead.

I’m getting a bit wary about having a pint with Emily; all sorts of dire stuff seems to befall her afterwards. One time she ended up half dead and hints at my involvement: what the bloody hell does she expect when she leaves the pub and goes on to cram her pudding chute with tofu. I’ve tried to explain to the girl my mother’s wisdom that there’s a difference between scratching your bum and tearing yourself to pieces, but it just doesn’t sink in. Anyway, I’ve got my own health problems to cope with, none of which involves alcohol or strange semi-edible plants. My problem is a bit more complicated than Emily’s; it’s a threefold disorder, a combination of aging, blindness and introversion, which for simplicity’s sake I have decided to name ABI. I feel quite certain that in future medical chaps and chapesses will be grateful for the brevity of the acronym.

I’ve Got Mine

Aging will, of course, visit my fellow bloggers and maybe words like ‘update’ and ‘bio’ will eventually return to haunt Emily, while dear Ange will forget where to put her apostrophe. Whilst I’ve got their attention, I might pass on a thought or two to assist their journey. One of the great fallacies associated with aging is that you can sort of delay things if you keep moving; to back this theory the buggers pump you, and themselves, with little homilies like ‘use it or lose it’. This sort of crap denies you the luxury of doing what you really enjoy: sitting quietly with a beer. How on earth do these people reach the conclusion that my life will be lengthened if I suddenly start acting like St Vitus? As I’ve opined before, it’s uniquely possible that I never had ‘it’ to begin with, or that I voluntarily decided that I didn’t need ‘it’ anymore.

Night Life

It’s complicated this age thing; almost impossible to attach a time frame of value to. When I was about 10, anyone over 30 was ancient; when I was 30 anyone over 70 was seriously old, but age seems to find a way of getting its own back; at 70, I find that the 30 year olds are all patronising know-it-alls and the pre-teens are ungrateful little sods who regard the goodies that I didn’t have as their entitlement, based on the fact that their mates have got them. There are, of course, negatives with my newly discovered ailment, but lots of goodies too: mercifully, small talk has all but disappeared from my life; I can’t say ‘Did you see that!’, and anyone who does instantly cringes in embarrassment. There’s little point in discussing television or the cinema, all of which tends to kneecap idle chit-chat. These days I prefer issues or idiocy, which is why a beer with Ems is always good value. In fairness, our last trip to the pub went off without serious incident, which has caused me to reflect that a dollop of tofu and a brush with death might have slowed her down a bit: I bloody well hope not!