'Choose Carefully, My Friend'

As the Most Interesting Man in the World might say. An Iranian medical journal published a study of a 21-year-old who developed a permanent erection after having the phrase “Good luck with your journeys” tattooed on his penis. (Harper’s Magazine, “Findings,” Jan. 17, 2012) Evidently his tattoo "took."

I'm unsure where this story should be filed: either it goes in my "Too Much of a Good Thing" file, along with stories about, say, breast enhancements gone awry . . . 

. . . . or the Ladies' National Basketball Association

.  .  .  or elderly people who should be wearing clothes but aren't, showing far too much skin:

Or it goes into my "Be Careful What You Wish For" file:

(Exhibit A: Ray Wuz Here B4)

I've already suggested "condoms with scripture verses embossed on them" for the devout - Romans 9:18 comes to mind: "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden." But up against a condom, if you'll pardon the expression, a tattoo would be a commitment. Judging by this photo, penis tattoos in predictable motifs hold their niche among the cosmetic arts.

Viagra advertisements caution users to consult a doctor if, upon application, an erection lasting more than four hours should result. I always figured that should the circumstance present itself in my own person, a doctor would be the last person I'd call. But on further reflection, I may have been rash  - I can see the incommodity of such a permanent or persistent state (its unpredictability being an incommodity every chap has learned to live with).

It may have been the inscription itself more than the cosmetic procedure that occasioned the lasting inconvenience. "Good luck, indeed," sniggered some unseen cosmic malefactor, and perversely granted the poor fellow his wish in spades. “Based on our unique case,” wrote the study’s authors in the cautious understatement of genuine scientific endeavor, “we discourage penile tattooing.”

In any event, the recipient of the tattoo prudently consulted his doctors, alas to no avail - the authors of the journal article note that subsequent attempts to alleviate the difficulty with surgery proved unsuccessful. “Because of the painless nature of erections, moderately good preservation of erectile function during intercourses, and disappointment with former surgery, the patient has declined to undergo further therapies, and lives with his condition.” Thereby making a virtue of necessity or lemons from lemonade, however you choose to see things.

So it seems that eveything has worked out, sort of. I'm unable to ascertain whether "Good luck with your journeys" is a Koranic verse, but I can't imagine The Prophet ever having said it. Choose carefully, my friend. Name it "Herman" if you must, but in case it takes, don't name it "Pee Wee."

Mustard After Dinner

"I, who am on my way out, would readily resign to anyone who came along what wisdom I am learning for dealing with the world. Mustard after dinner - I have no use for a good thing of which I can make no use. . . . It is an insult and unkindness of fortune to offer us presents which fill us with a just resentment that they failed us in their season."

           - Michel de Montaigne, Essays (Book III, Essay 10, "Of husbanding your will")

Age brings in its wake benefits exceedingly dubious. To your face people call you "senior" and offer you "senior" discounts, while behind your back you are simply another old fart. Younger people are described as "fit," "athletic," or "buff"; older people are merely "active," like yeast or fungus, or (worse yet) "spry." And upon turning 50, there are the sudden attentions of the AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. Ready or not, retired or dead, you begin to receive publications, notices and advertisements from an organization whose solicitations, a month earlier, you would have hotly regarded as an insult. 

But imagine my horrified surprise ("I, who am on my way out . . .") to find, in the latest screed from AARP, a full-page ad with the banner line "Sex. It's Never Too Late To Learn Something New." This page flogs a 50 percent discount on "4 Better Sex Videos" plus three free videos entitled "The Art of Oral Loving," "The Art of Sex Positions," and "The Art of Orgasm" (which latter promises "secrets for intensifying 'the Big O'!"). (Oh, please.)

 "You didn't even take off your turban"

I say horrified surprise because . . . well, for any number of reasons. First of all, this appears in what I had taken to be a staid and age-appropriate publication, never previously having troubled myself to thumb its graphically perky but otherwise dreary pages. I mean, thought I to myself, this is like learning that my grandfather might have used Viagra, had there been such a remedy when he most had need of it. 

Before Viagra

It seemed unbecoming to find such explicit rubbish in pages I had supposed devoted to "senior" issues like how to choose a Medicare plan or how the latest Congressional shenanigans will hasten the End Time.

But fundamentally I found it horrifying because I thought that sex was what I had been doing for nearly five of my alotted decades. I've been around that block often enough; I'm familiar with the Grand Tour, so to speak. I've pretty much done it all - the instinctive and puzzlingly-named Missionary and the Missionary-cum-Pony variation, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans . . . 

. . . the Seal and the Nun, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Priest and the Bicycle, the Lotus and Bamboo Shoot, Little Red Riding Hood . . .

- you name it (thought I), I've probably done it. Or haven't I? Maybe what I've been doing wasn't sex?  No, I realized, what they're selling here is better sex. It's technique. They think to change the rules of engagement, which as everyone knows is a) the Approach With Bribe,

"I brought you a little. . . ummmm . . ."

. . . b) Getting Her To Your Place . . .

. . . c) Getting Her Settled . . .

 "I won't be a minute, just checking e-mails . . . "

. . .  d) and the Engagement, or more vulgarly, the Business:

Four simple steps. How much could all this have evolved? And why offer all this new information now, as though to rub my enfeebled nose in it? Why weren't these lessons included in My Weekly Reader when I was only eight and might have profited by them sooner and for longer?

 "Sure, I've got a firehose, kid."

But on calmer reflection, I realized that these things are as much a matter of Nature as they are of Art. "The laws of Nature teach us what we rightly need," my alter ego reminds us. From time immemorial, on any other Grand Tour, things have remained pretty much the same - whether it's the Vuelta a Espagna, the Giro d'Italia or the Tour de France, a man rides a bicycle pretty much as he has always done.

Uh-oh - what the hell is this?!!

Cosmic Lemons, Lemonade Sea

"When life gives you lemons, rent a storefront in the trendy part of town and make artisanally squeezed lemonade at $14 a glass."     - Bike Snob NYC

                                                         

The Little Lemonade Stand of Life

Life is funny. It wasn't that long ago that I was complaining about having to pay my taxes. Complaining isn't exactly the right word here - let's just say that I was acknowledging my civic duty, but reflecting in a negative vein about what I'm getting in return, viz., the grudging ownership of a corrupt and bankrupt medieval principality somewhere near the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram Range that begins with 'A.'

On the other hand, I did record my elation at having applied for Medicare. This milestone is, like most milestones, a mixed blessing inasmuch as milestones generally mark the passage of one's days, and to qualify for this little prize you have to have reached a point at which, willy nilly, you begin to surrender certain of the powers and perquisites of being a large primate.

"Sure, I used to swing - both ways."

My point here is that sometimes, all you have to do is mention something that might use a little improvement, and the tables turn just the way you wanted them to. If I play my cards right I can break even - take back in medical payments what I pay out in taxes. That way, I'm not really leaving a balance on either side of the ledger, so I'm not contributing to the GDP. Which is just another way of saying that, provided I get sick enough, I will no longer officially exist. Or to put it another way, mereo, ergo sum. And that means I'll no longer have to do certain things, like comb my hair. . .

. . . or sit up straight

Not officially existing, in my lexicon of financial terms, need not mean the same as being entirely forgotten. So long as the Social Security Administration grants me a minimal existence by keeping me on its rolls as a beneficiary I'll be happy. So far, so good. Not everything is entirely rosy on that score however. They acknowledge my existence (much like that of a lesser god, a distant star or an awkward weather system . . . )

. . . but their letter apprising me of my new favored status ("Notice of Award") was sent from the department of Retirement, Survivors and Disability Insurance. That seemed to me a little bit of "giveth and taketh away" in the same breath. It is beneath mention that this is not a select group, nor do any of these designations include poor Miguel. I am neither retired nor disabled, and I like to think of myself in my cheerier moments as more than merely a survivor.

Survivor making artisanal knishes 

Let's be clear about this: being alive isn't necessarily the same thing as "being a survivor." It seems you would have to have survived something, like eating an artisanal knish, to qualify for the title.

"Knish, anybody?"

And then talk about making knishes out of lemons, this other thing happened as well, just like mentioning taxes and being immediately taken under the government's sheltering wing.  I had posted some time ago what was beginning to seem a premature announcement of my return to gainful employment somewhere in the Great American Desert - in Nevada, to be precise. But, like the pages of the calendar flipping across a movie screen . . . 

 

. . . the days passed, the phone was silent, the e-mail came and went with its empty promises of Viagra and ExtenZe offers. Forty days and forty nights I fasted in the desert; I complained, I raised my hand against the Cosmic Lemon, I cursed my humors and the fruit in my loins (lemons, assorted citrus). And the Cosmic Lemon heard my plaint and there issued forth lemonade in the desert.

There must be a moral here somewhere to help navigate this Sea of Lemonade we call life. In my case I'd say the moral is complaining will get you everything you want. It usually seems to work.