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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
GRUMPY 1/26/2013 10:06:54 AM
There are times when I am grumpier than others. Then there are times when I am more grumpy than usual. Not that I go out of my way to be one way or the other. It just is. Sometimes.
People around me do not understand this, not that I expect them to. Circumstances seem to force themselves on me that makes me grumpy (or grumpier) especially when I do not want to seem one way or the other. I cannot control the way it is. It just happens, usually when my peers and I least expect it.
For example, the files in my new office are a mess, not that they were in any great shakes when my office was in the finished part of the basement. My daughter and her husband decided, during their last visit, that my daily journey to the subterranean level was, after my 2nd to last headlong tumble down the stairs — breakfast cereal in hand — was not feasible. They moved me upstairs to the main floor.
I now work out of my wife’s old digs (the room to the right as you enter the manse) and they subsequently moved her to my old basement office, computers, files and all.
I have to admit it is a much better arrangement; I no longer have an excuse to fall down the stairs — or even up them, whichever will be my lot — in fact, a whole week went by before it happened again. And then, as I was going to bed, I made it all the way to the top step. Then — kerplop! All the way to the bottom! The front stairs got me this time, far from the basement.
Two days in bed, and I was as good as new. Well, almost.
Even shutting down the electronics each evening is easier from the first floor and abandoning my workstation is quicker and less frustrating, despite my computer’s diminishing tenure.
The poor machine and I are going to part company as soon as my good wife makes the determined purchase. I think the computer I currently use is a Dell PC tower I bought for my youngest daughter when she was a freshman in college. Having written seven novels on it — plus six years of weekly op-ed columns — not to mention all my financial data and the 264,859.3 emails received dailyand sent + other tidbits — the sad instrument has had its day.
Not to be denied the muse for which I continue to breathe, I even taught myself the type left-handed. True, I sacrificed accuracy for speed, but I am working on a movie script called MY LEFT HAND. It is not going well.
By the time this current epic is published, I will have a new, more efficient device installed (I doubt if you will notice any improvement). But I will; count on it. The present machine requires at least an initial RESTART, and it is constantly in the NOT RESPONSING mode. Colossal pain in the ass.
The files, however, may or may not experience a re-working. I recall my wife saying, “Put what you want organized and re-filed in a pile on the desk. I’ll take care of it.” The pile remains unattended in the center of the desk.
Primary Lateral Sclerosis has its rewards, not counting my erratic balance and falling down once in a while. I no longer can cut my own viddles, feeding myself is an exercise in sloppiness, taking daily showers, shaving or dressing myself (watching me put on my socks, zip up my fly, and get out of upholstered chairs has to create serious belly-chuckles for my in- laws and out laws).
But by the same token, I am no longer asked to take the dog out, vacuum, dust, carry dirty clothes down to the laundry room, empty the dishwasher, change the furnace/air conditioning filters, blow the leaves away, take out the trash, or do any of the hundred-and-one chores other normal ‘men-of-the-house’ are born to perform.
Being something of a lazy lout, anyway, PLS is definitely a blessing in disguise. Even my car, a derelict 1996 Olds Cutlass, gets driven less than 5,000 miles a year (there is still a ¼ tank left over from New Year’s Eve 2011); also I am no longer required to have an Emission Test when applying for my annual tag, not that I could sign or make out a check, anyway.
Maybe they figure it is tough enough just getting in and out of bed each day. At 81, I have done, said, and been all I want to do, say, and be. I have been everywhere worth visiting, flying First Class and being wined and dined lavishly abroad and at home.
In bed by 10:30-11 is smart money (Ben Franklin was right.) I rarely get up before 10 am (if you phone or stop by, you better have a damn good reason!), which gives me even less time to be grumpy. Retirement has its privileges.
Although I plan to be around until 2026, I have to admit that the ailment that has befallen me, with its various frustrations and all, has made me content being as grumpy as I want.
