I’ll be fifty<\/a> in two days.<\/p>\nThere’s any number of pleasures I tend to deny myself because they’re scientifically proven to be less than good. They’d shorten my life. There are tasks I don’t enjoy that I should do. They’re said to lengthen my life. All these are to add days at the end, when I won’t be feeling particularly well, in any case.<\/p>\n
Why not gorge an entire bag of Fritos with green onion dip? All that oil, salt and unneeded carbs costs about 18 hours at the end. The dip, another six. A sack of chips and tub of dip every week or two from here out will drop my expected death from 82 years to 81 and seven-eighths?<\/p>\n
I’ve worked late into the night for six months on finding my preferred ratio of dry vermouth to gin in a traditional martini. Every experiment cuts about two hours off the end of my life. Mr. Hyde? Dr. Jekyll finds that his research indicates that one or two martinis a week to be worth four or five days at the end. … Besides, olives are a vegetable.<\/p>\n
The hypocrisy of driving to get a walk means that I don’t bicycle to the park through car exhaust nor endure the taunts of North Street dragsters. And that good-for-me walk happens to be in an well-tended park, among trees and flowers … and sorority girls, jogging every which way.<\/p>\n
Of course, I’m a moderate guy to begin with. I don’t gorge daily or drink daily. What I’ve realized in the weeks leading up to the Big Fifty is that it’s not the end of life I need to worry about. I quit smoking 21 years ago because it made me cough and hack at the time. If salty snacks too many and too often make me bloated now, now is when I need to cut back. If I drink too much now, now is when I can do damage and must cut back. If a lack of walking saps me now, now is when I need to allow myself to find pleasurable exercise, in nature or games.<\/p>\n
I am not going to join the treadmill club. That’s boring. And boring is wrong when you’re fifty.<\/p>\n
Which finally is my point. That’s OK: This has been a ramble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock A pet peeve is one of those list poems, It’s why Whitman bores me then I feel guilty, because isn’t he some kind of Poetry God? But for the last 29 of my fifty years, I’ve bound myself with society’s popular rules. If its wisdom is questionable My wisdom must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2174,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/08\/we-are-dons-draper\/","url_meta":{"origin":367,"position":0},"title":"We Are Don’s Draper","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I watch Mad Men religiously. Of all the plot points, the least should be the main one, the secret identity of its lead, Don Draper. Most of the other characters don't know, but the audience got the gist from the get-go. It became a non-issue for me after reflecting on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":359,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/09\/fifty-fifty\/","url_meta":{"origin":367,"position":1},"title":"Fifty Fifty","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock Any number of self-appointed TV experts in recent months say either \"40 is the new 20\" and \"60 is the new 40.\" Oprah Winfrey said the latter to David Letterman when she interviewed him a couple of weeks ago. They were discussing his toddler son.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":289,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/03\/a-driving-walking-ramble\/","url_meta":{"origin":367,"position":2},"title":"A Driving, Walking Ramble","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Not every book works well as an audio. If it's adequate, it may not be a successful work-commute diversion. For most of eight years, I've had a long-enough drive (20 minutes one way) where audio books are more satisfying than, public radio. Spoken word holds the attention better than even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2595,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/12\/4th-quarter-no-overtime-soon-overdue\/","url_meta":{"origin":367,"position":3},"title":"4th Quarter, No Overtime, Soon Overdue","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A final book list will close the 2010 year of Brick. After years of not starting then false starts, I resolved last January to keep a list of books on the home computer. It's a vanity project -- well, both the list and Brick are -- but it's been instructive:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mr. Boo Klist"","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":858,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/01\/street-oath\/","url_meta":{"origin":367,"position":4},"title":"Street Oath","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"CONWAY, Ark. -- Circumstances kept My Beloved and I away from our inaugural plans. With a rough idea and a bit of luck, though, we became better witnesses to a slice of history. The Shady Hill manse is 959 miles from the Washington Monument so the biggest piece we could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":377,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/12\/a-hawkeye-on-values\/","url_meta":{"origin":367,"position":5},"title":"A Hawkeye on Values","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock Alan Alda is not necessarily a genius, though he's been a documentary host on PBS. Nor is he a hero, though he played one in M*A*S*H. He even may have had co-writing (aka ghosting) or close editing (aka ghosting) with either or both of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}