What planet were we on. She left me alone, one minute. And the ___, what y'all call once-d call-ed computer. See, my mine slowing down, it needs another charge, we do have batteries that never run out, nuclear gone the way of....Think you finally on A. I. DOT ½ two point 0 configured for what? “Poor children, think Roswell's real. Roswell!” [she and I, though we were long past genders of any race by this point, thank God, thank G_d, thank whatever-does-that-mean Divine? We were communicating telepathically, the fun ends fast when you think, they know, you hide, they find, the joys of tech*no*logia? Tsk, tsk. Becareful* what you – ask for, she yes she finished my sentence thought paragraphs why did I bother] “Roswell! New Mexico,” ole hat high in the sky, polluted. “It was a purty site for some eyes once.” Ignoring the smash in their face, said I. She brought the popcorn, which we still ate. We all have indigestion, your history:

*don't forget your spellcheck; ours don't work since the last nuke, Ukraine, conflicts riven, holy lands once America, etc.

“Want,” that's what the guy'd posted on my page, next to some ol' arse-hangin'-out photo of me (that I couldn't ever remember posing for, even after downing a full pot of black coffee and staring at it empty). Then the dude double-lined to cross out the word, now replaced with “Need.”

I snickered.

Someone added: “Need?”

A bunch of friends “looooved” or commented, one with hate got called out (not by me).

He couldn't help it, he said.

Some lady hit “looooved” again. (I loooove this parting brush with age, sexism before my fully there at up-over-the-hill, all OK by me.)

An older woman I'd known a long time ago pointed out, screaming the ALL CAPS that I won't suffer you, that we need more pictures like this, so people still bother to visit the damn site these days.

I smirked. It did feel good. I mean who don't like attention – ha, is there a “loooove” button somewhere for that comment of mine? -- but where does it all lead in youth but to old age as for one and all as forevermore? Do you want to be on social media in a nursing home? I, for one, do not. Don't wanna be there now. Social media. Or nursing home. (Although both are fine places for some, those people over there!) My doctor told me last spring we release these chemical hits every time we reach for the phone to read a text pinging us. Ping, ping. Same with any of these other fleeting must-haves. The wants, the needs. Timeless our quests. The likes, the loves. Like, love. Ping, ping. Rain, rain. I looked up from the phone and the tablet and the desk computer. Rain, rain. A dancing light dose, no real douse or downpour. Already gone by the time we need it again. Needing another hit of something. More coffee. A fix in every direction and on the ready. Any available drug always called something else.

This guy “I'm seeing” told me yesterday afternoon he wants to have sex all the time. Wants nothing more. Just to have more sex and make more money. More, more. Ping, ping. A life of sex and money, but no don't go there, not related the two. He don't mix no business with no pleasure, as we used to say. He finally laughed when I put it that way with him, asking for confirmation. And in his response so casual, he reminded me why I spent any time with the dude, a first for me, someone male I'd started mentioning randomly to others deemed important in my life. Truthfully, he's not all that into work, just wants the money from it, and he's not all that nice either or into any real passion, but he does like to kiss!, or true sensuality, except from his side of things. Everything, always about him, and his wants so consistent, all needy.

“All about the fuck, no reason to say otherwise,” he confirmed, as if--

What planet were they on

Something had snapped in the poor, dear man. After his divorce or because of the divorce. No wonder the ex-wife Roxanne moved to the West Coast. Sweet hearts since kindergarten, they went to prom together both years, then hopped off to the same college for four more. Ping, ping. Don't recall all the details. No one surprised it all ended, the straight talk from last summer's reunion. For once, I kept my mouth shut. I was surprised. Very, in fact. She our homecoming queen and head cheerleader. He our quarterback, All-State every dang year. Perfect chest, both of 'em, good-looking the two, nice and of course likable back then, perfect teeth to boot on both. And the arches? They could've been foot models!

Their news started me questioning my own things.

Don't act like you don't remember, being there, doing the same thing

“They stuck on?”

He won't see his kids, they say. She not interested in making it happen, others do tell. He sends a check, or shit I don't know, it all on auto-deposit like everything else nowadays. Damn, he don't even lift a finger to write a check or lick a stamp every month, not even for his own flesh and blood to eat in peace and sleep in quiet? True, we don't lick stamps any more, I know, I know. Hmmm. Before COVID, that USPS¹ ahead of its time, eh? Any way, she was the bread-winner, Roxxie, she came from money on top of all that. That was the real problem, I decided.

A smart, old, partly hearing-impaired woman I used to know said she didn't realize how hung up men in our American culture were about money.

“No,” I tried to tell her, speaking in my own new-century old-sexist generalizations, “we aren't materialistic, that ain't it, just that they, we gotta be The Man.”

She didn't understand; blaming her hearing, she joked, and tried to let it pass.

“The Man. With The. Money-Wallet. Dollar $ign. Dollar $ign.” I didn't mind and I wrote it out fancy on the tablet to aid her ego ears. With her no misunderstanding on the words themselves, just their validity missing. Me shouting always forgetting volume never part of the solution, we argued about this every spring when I saw her after that. She lived in the upper Mid-West, somewhere that turns far too cold for far too long for both of us, and she'd come south each March to thaw out. Last time I saw here, she looked different.

I think I finally understand

[ Thank God, I knew what she said before she said, re-read the prologue again, sillies ;) ]

“You were right all along,” she said, so gracious, kinda unusual for her, Grace not any of her real names. Turns out after our last discussion, she'd gone home, started asking all these young fellas in casual inconsequential ways, letting it drop that she had a female friend (imaginary) who was loaded and she wanted to fix her up with a real swell guy. “It – simply – would – not – work,” one lasted long enough in conversation to tell her. Another as finale ripped, what kinda man would he be with a woman like that? “Rich!” she said she told him. “You'd never have to work another day of ya life! RICH!” He'd already skedaddled with the rest before the never-work-another-day part rang out.

“I apologize,” she said to me and hung her head, making my hand gesture of never mind pointless. My friend had her own set of issues, but I'm no therapist, so what do I know? She thought she knew people and really, reeeally thought she knew men, what with four ex-husbands, two of 'em still living, one gone missing wink. Ping, ping. I think she felt like she was bragging with all these details thrown upon me that day. Well, she finally logged onto the cool-kid website the other month. She was one of those last night to “loooove” my photo. (I didn't think she had it in her heart.) Not sure how she managed to find me or the eight?-year-old photograph, from back when I had lots of hair on my chest and the good kind of bulge in my muscle. Don't look the same today, do any of us since the virus?, but her digital loving-on-me thrilled. I look that good. Well, I looked that good. Old now.

The last woman I seriously dated had stayed out of the sun and off the beach all her life. A knock-out, she'll make a beauty of a corpse, turning heads of men and women in the funeral parlor. Now in these times, we all fall victim to this need for superficial approval, not only the women, and that's OK. They say it's because of the Gay Rights movement that men joined gyms and obsess over their looks. (Was that sexist too?) I dunno for certain about much any more. Still a looker me or no, was I ever? All that love on that website says somethin', right? How do you spell hate, but with flattery--

I quit drinking years ago. Unlike rich, foxy Roxanne. Alcohol alone damages more than a livery, what Roxxie calls her favorite body part, my guy said yesterday afternoon! The sauce drove the gal and my guy apart. Ping, ping. It was one of the reasons he was here once more and so soon, after lunch two days in a row, in between his money-making. P---

I want, I want. I need, I need. From my desk in the study, I pinged Roxxie's ex-, his name is George, the words this time. Now now now, my guy typed instantly back about that commented photo.

“Too small a hair to quibble over, even for a old, bald man like you, my sexy love,” he yelled at me straight from the bed in the other room. “Want? Need? Does it matter how when it feels oh so good?” He put down his phone he'd been pinging me from. I felt strong arms around my aging shoulders and a big nose against my right ear. His breath rock-n-reeked of tuna and onion. And beer. Ping.

My battery fully charged here.

Yours?

“Just enjoy your day off, tricks. Stopped raining, stop work, let's walk to the park. I can whisper in your ear who's checkin' ya out. I know what that does, then we come back, you know what that does.”

Sat-- in my adjusted lap. --seconds Longer. --than I needed. Rubbed his hairy chest and stared at his full-on set of capped teeth watered-downed-Clorox'drowned. The smokin-rod smile spoke yes, like some tried-and-true (naked) poser that I knew, but (I confess) {we all} (myself included) don't we Love that Talk and Walk and showandtell and tasteandtouch, (even if from afar and away from oh so many- WAY!)² About as much as drippy fauxcheese fakemelted over yet another slice of piping GMO apple pie, insecticide. mmmaybe more than even à la mode. Voilà! Whachasay? Grab ya dinted tines of aluminium-flaking fork and sit a spell and watch with Geo.-go-go-highspeed-Washington & Me (our IPO 'bout to begin). Have some fun for realz, now wontcha? While we click. and. scroll. for minutes more to waste away again a day again. Again. Again??? 'Til whole way back to lore o' fantasyland, yeah. Shoot the Pilgrims this time, we not to blame, we livin' live in H'wood here! God. Bless. US. : The New Americans. Unplugged that we are and from who for yet another yearnin' um um urn, with that store-bought battery?? fully draininggg fassst, our own rrripe errra's about to run--------------, out its own fffair beauty ssselfs same? me, inane the insane? admiration ever constant 'til it stops? Complain, they point at you.

[ But hey! don't get mad with me bucko's bud / sistah, and me, at me???I didn't write none-a-this-stuff, ya seen it all online last night*, thought I--we'd share, ya know ya know... we know: DON'T SHOOT the  messen.... ]

*and from so far away, this planet after y'all destroyed earth: social draining the water tables, how much energy to run them supercomputers, gas-guzzlers when you knew better, fat-cat eats and the science to prove that bleach... No one likes to be yelled at. Our minds, talking in bittersqueak, the new tongue of ages far from where you sit. You don't know, don't tell them, why not, yes, yes, why. It's like fastforwarding to the end, we all have a life to live. They don't have our batteries yet. The EV vehicles don't float down there yet? No. How sad, I agree. The waste not, want--.

Maybe we are better out here, hun. Where no broadband dessert, no grocery milieu, the road less traveled without wheels, no mighty Mrs.Ippi. Zooooom! She took off. I winked and didn't have to wonder: Remember:: I knew::: The thing brain thinking before I wished completely. Envy you, the crudity I do. When you had to ask or post or click, to know what others thinking.

[1]   United States Postal Service

[2]   now don't we?

♧

January 7th, 2025