Gail's Blog

I have to admit that I have been obsessing about my age lately. I've allowed my hair to go grey because I want to dare to be myself, as God has me right now. Yet I am wondering if God cares that I look older than my peers who color. I don't think she does. Also, I am reasonably fit but I still have droopy skin and a crinkly neck. I work with people who are ALL YOUNGER THAN I, a first in my life. I feel alternately hot and over-the-hill depending on how I'm feeling at any given moment. It is unsettling to feel hot when I really am not. Gail as Older Person I simultaneously want to be as fit and up-to-date as possible to offset my age as well as to just be as I am, sinking into comfortable sloth, gluttony, and evil humor as befits my status as a senior citizen. So I'm ambivalent. My close personal friends from high school might remember that I've always been this way. In adolescence I was a hippie (not going into details) but as a performer I was glamorous.

I am keeping my promise to myself to walk/run almost every day. So far so good. On the left is a picture of myself doing my run. And if you believe that I have a missile defense system to sell you (no one wants a bridge anymore). I set out walking one minute, jogging another, alternately. Now I am jogging five minutes and walking one or two. I need to warm up, walking five minutes first. I never needed to do that in my fifties (Ah, the good old days!). My knees complain but not a lot. I sweat and that feels like I'm accomplishing something. Maybe I'm an accomplished sweater now? Or sweat-er. I can be proud of that! I am happy with this decision. It spurs me to use time more wisely. I'm awake at six anyway, thinking about how much I don't want to get out of bed. Why not get up and get moving? So I do. I notice progress. Yesterday I didn't feel like my muscles were on strike, at least a third of the time. During the school week I could go up the two flights of s

We recently lost Ginger to liver cancer, aka Old Age. Before that her brother, Bear, was also lost to us. He was old, too. It is a difficult transition going from dog to no-dog. Some of the ways I list below: I drop food on the floor and look to make sure someone eats it. Oops! I have to clean it up myself. I come in from work and no one greets me, tongue lolling, eyes sparkling, tail wagging, saying, "Oh my God, you're home!! I thought you'd NEVER get here!" Leaving the bedroom, I don't have to check to make sure there are no dirty laundry baskets around, tempting someone to eat the crotch out of my Victoria's Secret undies. I no longer put the trash up on the sink, or on my husband's dresser. No raider is going to take dirty tissues and God knows what else. In the kitchen we don't put the trash up on the counter anymore. In New Jersey, when Ginger was already old (last summer) she dragged the dog-proof trash can with the locking lid into th