Mortality Rate

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Bad Bad Girlfriend.

The song is still in my head. I wake but the lights are still off. No one is awake yet, the sun has not yet risen. It's time to sneak out and get my shower. I look at my watch. It's twenty after six. wha? Suddenly as if in cue, there is activity in the dorm. People walking back and fourth, talking about smoke break. Then it dawned on me, it's Saturday. They turn on the lights at 11:00AM on Saturdays. No shower for the Hobo today.

I try sit ups but they ache right off the bat. I stop. The Doc warned me about over- training at my age. "When it starts to hurt, stop." He tells me. It started to fucking hurt today. I literally crawl out of bed and find the FNG up and about. That means a thirty second piss for me. I've estimated that it is impossible to move my bed, get my gear, open it and take out my baby in thirty seconds. It takes me about a minute to take a leak though.

I make up my bed at the same time as the FNG. I get my jacket on at the same time as the FNG. I get my gear at the same time as the FNG. I head out the door just behind the FNG. I walk down the block just behind the FNG. He turns the corner and I continue on. Last night I noticed that the FNG had made friends with Robert. That was good, he was beginning to settle in.

I make my way to Astor Place Starbucks and for the first time I noticed the young counter girl. She greets me with the same smile she always does. "I remember you from last time," she says. I wonder. With my rate of return, she should have recognized me a long time ago. I smile back. I can be a jovial fellow when I want to. "I'll see you later," she says cheerily. Yeah, she knows me, because this will not be my only cup of coffee for the morning.

I find my seat in the Eye of God. The chairs and tables are arranged all wrong. I take a few minutes to arrange them correctly. A chair is out of place. I reach for it and find a Skeksis's feet are right next to it. He is sitting across from me, actually where he always sits in the morning. I look up at him, my face asks is he using the seat. He shakes his head, no. I slide the chair away, closer to my table, and rest my gear in it. Yeah, this Skek is here every Saturday morning, sitting across from me. He wears a scraggly beard, nappy hair and a tired jogging suit. I sit down facing him. We know each other by now.

I have an annoying habit that I fall into now. When the nose hairs tickle my nose, I pull them out. By the roots. It looks like I'm picking my nose, but when I jerk my hand away from my face and my eye starts to tear, you know that I wasn't searching for a booger. The first hair that I nail is gray. A gray nose hair. A GRAY nose hair. It's not as bad as ear hair, but I'm not a kid anymore. Time is passing, and my body is changing from something that was once mine, to something now belonging to Father time. He's lining up my chips to cash them in.

I don't really want to grow old. I'm sorry, but I hate growing old. I honestly thought that I would be young forever. I thought that life stood still. But as I look at this gray hair, I'm reminded about my mortality. My father is an old man now. His youth spent. He's just living every day as it comes. He gets up to a score of mornings, and goes to sleep on a score of nights. They all become the same. He's waiting for death to claim him. He has no other goal than to get up and watch television.

I've watched About Schmidt, and it's a sad, sad movie and maybe that's why a tiny, grey hair effects me so. I lay it down in front of me, staring at it as if it would get up and walk away. I pull out two more hairs to see if he had a brother. No, the rest are black. Not that I mind. I hate nose hairs anyway. I just hate the gray ones more.

My time is shorter now going further than it has been in the past. Soon will come middle age, which isn't exactly middle age. That's only if I live to be one hundred. If my genes are as good as my father's I could live until my eighties. Which means that I'm at middle age already at forty six. My body is responding perfectly to its age though. I am at the best that I can be except for my weight. I'm doing well.

Adam Duritz, lead singer of Counting Crows, walks past me, filling his coffee with cream. How do I know these people? No matter the movie star or musician, porn star or sports star, no matter, I'll recognize them. Ask my brother about Salman Rushdie. I saw him walk past by the Fifth Avenue Starbucks uptown, and my brother didn't believe that it was him, so I did what every red blooded jack ass would do. I chased his ass down, and in his face I called out his name. The man was taken aback by my boldness, but did admit that he was he. He was also shorter than I thought he would be. He reminded me of a school teacher.

I watch Adam, as if I'd expect him to launch to the ceiling and stay there. But he did what everyone else in Starbucks would do...make his coffee. I'm thinking about another cup of joe for myself. So I wait until the line dies down and hop on. The bathroom line is just as long, and I wait for it, but I know what my luck is like on a Saturday, waiting for the bathroom line to vanish. Fat Chance. Rotsa Ruck.

So, I end up holding my piss until the SHOUT OUT.

Chris Tucker is standing at the subway entrance again. Hand out today, no hat. Seems like today he's doing pretty well. It must be the magic of the weather. The day has warmed up considerably. I can tell this by what the women are wearing. Guys, are boring, and for the most part, will strip down to undershirts. But women..now women will go bare midriffs, low cut blouses, high skirts, silks, the whatnot. This causes chemical changes in men, and everyone is happy. In this more cheery atmosphere, everyone is more gracious, generous.

Chris Tucker is making bank.
And for the first time in a millenia, I am bored.
I'm actually either bored behind my baby or too tired to keep writing. I think I may be too tired. I've dropped off to sleep twice only to awaken in a slumped position in my chair. I need to stop hopping out of bed when I wake. There could be a little more sleep to be squeezed out of my body. Could be.

I make ready for the SHOUT OUT.

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