Abiding the Great White Dude

Roger Angell's article in a February New Yorker about getting old (he's 93) started off pretty well and I was really enjoying it. I do not personally want to live that long, I think. I am sharp as a tack and do not wish to have people saying that about me when it is no longer true. People don't keep me around for my good looks, so I am not terribly worried about losing them, but nor am I particularly loved for my slow and easy charm (as I do not have much). Once I've lost my quick wits, I'm of no use to myself or anybody else, and I can't imagine I'll hold on to those into my nineties. Still, there is Angell, keeping it together pretty well, maintaining at least a sharp wit (though whether he is quick I can't say; the article may have taken ages). So in sum: he's getting old and his body is falling apart; this is pretty much what I would expect from getting old and I'm not excited about it but it's not unpredictable. People die around you left and right if you live long enough, and he finds this survivable (I am not sure. I take old people dying pretty well. I deeply resent it when people die young. So I am not sure if I start outliving people in great gulps how I will be.). He's learning different ways of communicating, and I found this part of the article fascinating -- how your thoughts get shorter and you adapt the things you think about to fit that. Short poems and short witticisms, both easily memorized and easily dredged when appropriate. So he's got me, I'm thinking, my mind is with him, and then: THE PENIS. Oh my god, dudes, can you really not write five pages without sticking your penis in there? I just wonder. Fascinating thing you may not have realized about aging dudes: they still like getting it on and talking about it. Which would be ugh I guess a little boring but fine except he does insist on going on about it with that exhausting icky coyness that he's managed to keep off the rest of the article entirely. Sex! It's not just for young people! Nudge nudge! And his wife was totally okay with him doing it with other ladies if she died first! Ladies, Roger is single and primed for action! 

I'll be over here trying to keep my smartypants mouth shut over whether he lies about his age and height on OKCupid. Well, never mind: I can assure you that he does, because the Great White Dude can get old and liverspotty and wise and know all of Auden off by heart, but he's still looking for a nice young woman to cook for him and arrange a porter for the baggage he will insist he does not have. Barf.