Descending, looking for the eagle

I had an appointment last week for a checkup with my surgeon who repaired my busted left shoulder and I was dreading having to confess that I hadn’t done the exercises, but I did — a person should not lie to your doctor — and he was okay with that. I can lift my computer case up and into the overhead on a plane and I can shampoo with both hands and put on a jacket. The shoulder doesn’t hurt. He said, “If you’re happy, I’m happy.” He is a perfectionist, as you expect your surgeon to be, not a hobbyist, but he also knows that allowances must be made. Past the age of 75, a person has to make their own choices. I’m a writer, not a mountain climber. Modern medicine took care of a congenital heart problem that tends to kill people off around age 59 and I am almost 84. My left shoulder shrugs. I’m happy.

I’ve been wrestling with a book for a year and a half. I want it to be good because it’ll be the last book I write. The world has heard enough out of me, time for an Old White Male to dump his stack of unfinished work, the screenplays, three novels, a musical, files full of promising beginnings that petered out, and use his remaining time to take long walks and see the world. There are historic sites in New York I’ve never visited: the Stock Exchange, Trinity Church, the Tenement Museum, the Morgan Library, Macy’s, the Brooklyn Bridge, which I’ve never walked across, Yankee Stadium. There are books I should read, such as Proust’s. I wrote a limerick about him but never read his stuff, which strikes me as ungracious.

Mature white male seeks wellness on West Side of Manhattan

I am dreading Wednesday when I must go see Dr. Taylor, the surgeon who did my shoulder replacement, and confess that I have sinned and not faithfully followed the exercise regimen and so my left shoulder is not fully functional. It aches a little, it’s stiff, doesn’t extend fully, and I repent. On the other hand, what does “fully functional” mean for a man of 83 and 5/6ths? I can still shampoo my hair with my both hands and pull on my underwear. I’m not a rock climber, I’m a writer and a stand-up comic, I enjoy my work, I love my life. I live with a dear woman who fascinates me and also does household repairs and manages the finances. I am an Episcopalian and look forward to the Resurrection and the amazement of my Brethren ancestors that I was allowed through the gates.

So I’m not a model patient. I suffer from Repetitive Exercise Resistance Disorder going back to high school and the trauma of chin-ups and the rope climb in gym class. I looked it up on a wellness website and the symptoms describe me to a T — occasional irritability, mood swings, weird dreams, certain melodies going around in my head, a twinge in my neck, and, what’s most crucial, the inability to call up a therapist and make an appointment. I can dial the first four numerals and then no more.

A happy landing and the life to come

Life is a gift, dear friend, and you can go along for days, weeks, absorbed by nonsense and then one day you’re on a jet plane, a window seat, as it’s descending toward LaGuardia through dense cloud cover, the plane bucking and bouncing in the storm, and the wheels are lowered and still no sign of ground and there is a prayerful hush among the passengers, even the baby in row 8 who was crying so hard is silent, and you’re thinking of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper the Day the Music Died, and then suddenly you’re zooming low over rooftops of houses, an alley, someone’s backyard, cars whizzing by on a highway, and then WHUMP you’re on the runway and the pilot reverses the engines hard and you are alive, everyone takes a deep breath, life resumes.

This happened to me last Monday. I hiked through the terminal promising to be a better person and I still intend to clean up my act, walk two miles a day, cut back on carbs, read Scripture, contribute to the food bank, and give up pork sausage in protest against cruel treatment of pigs in honor of the pig whose mitral valve is in my heart.

My happy weekend in the sunny South

I flew from New York last Thursday where a big parade in lower Manhattan celebrated the Knicks winning the NBA title and I flew to Raleigh where on Saturday crowds gathered downtown for a parade celebrating the Hurricanes winning the NHL championship, two joyous public events that had nothing to do with me, meanwhile my Brazilian friend Lenny is cheering for Brazil in the World Cup. I’m happy for all of them. The Latino kid with the tattooed arms, who runs the elevator in our building, was in a state of delight the morning after his team beat the Spurs in the closing seconds to take the title.

Everybody wants to be part of a great cause, a tribe, a fellowship, a sisterhood — everybody except Henry Thoreau the great American killjoy who chose solitude. Sit on it and spin, Henry, and when you come back to Concord, do something about your hair.

Where we went and why

A long day of writing is like a day of canoeing down a creek, twisty, some unexpected pleasures since I love writing whereas I hated canoeing. Other than that, they’re similar. I was paddling my canoe in Manhattan last Thursday and Jenny reminded me that we had a date to go hear the Met Orchestra play Bruckner and we should leave in half an hour. So I put on a jacket and took note paper and pens and took a train to Columbus Circle and walked to Carnegie Hall.

I’m not high on Bruckner and she is because she’s a musician and Bruckner wrote some gorgeous delicate passages for strings in between the detonations of brass. But I am glad to give the man another chance. He was a humble organist trying to break into the world of Wagner, Brahms and Beethoven, and who am I to turn my back on him?

Sunday morning once again

It’s been almost twenty-five years since I entered the pillbox community, men and women who own a little plastic container of fourteen little compartments, which we open morning and evening and take our pills, a sweet ritual for me, marking the time since I likely would have died. I was born with a heart defect that Dr. Mork heard when I was 12 and told me I couldn’t play football and that Dr. Orszulak surgically repaired when I was 60, an age at which numerous Keillors had dropped dead. The pills are to keep me functioning. There is no pill to make a man exercise regularly but otherwise I’m okay.

So in a couple months, I’ll be as old as my grandma Dora who used to send me a dollar on my birthday. She died of a stroke. I take pills to ward off strokes.

Another Monday night in Manhattan

A bagel got stuck in the toaster Monday and I stuck a fork in to pry it out and then smelled smoke and saw that a hot pad was in flames on the lid of the pan I was frying bacon in and I grabbed the hot pad and knocked the lid slightly askew and a big grease fire commenced and meanwhile the bagel was smoking. I put the lid on the pan, dousing the fire, and held the hot pad under the faucet, meanwhile the kitchen was full of smoke.

There are times in life when a man is grateful that his beloved wife is not on the premises. She was up in Connecticut visiting family. I am a professional humorist and my wife is a violinist, which is to say she is a perfectionist. Violinists don’t stick a fork into a toaster and don’t leave a hot pad sitting on a pan on the stove near open flame and they don’t eat bacon. They’d put kale on a bagel and slices of avocado spritzed with a light vinaigrette dressing. A humorist does dumb things often — it comes with the job. If I were a perfectionist I wouldn’t be in this line of work, I’d be a dermatologist and have perfect skin and remove precancerous moles from old ladies’ necks and advise them against Botox.

It’s a beautiful summer, says me

It’s good to be home after weeks on the road in motels, back in my own shower stall, not in alien ones designed by cruel engineers, where you must stand directly under the shower head when you turn the knob, not knowing if a clockwise turn will give you an Arctic waterfall or an eruption of hot lava. At home my office chair is set for accurate typing, not a cheap motel chair that’s a few inches too low and you glance at the screen and 797ebw33bq2yb0qtbrb9rt8ggwy.

And at home I have a cushy chair that when I sit in it and close my eyes, I fall asleep. A nap chair. This is crucial for any writer. The ten-minute snooze is the cure for writer’s block. You come to a dead end, you just sit in the chair, and minutes later, open your eyes and the road opens before you. So many writers in my generation tried to achieve this by taking LSD, peyote, heroin, cocaine, gin, etcetera, but the answer is: the nap.

I can’t help it, I’m a happy man

I like being old. When you reach your eighties you finally get to say what you think and people will listen and not interrupt even if they know you’re wrong. Being wrong is a privilege of old age. So shut up and listen and don’t contradict me.

My speech to the Class of 2026

I was chosen to speak at your graduation because I am phenomenally successful, America’s favorite columnist, a best-selling author, winner of countless awards, in demand as a speaker, a frequent consultant to the Vatican, the Pentagon, the U.N., and CNN, and it’s all because I was not bright enough to go into a technological field — my math skill ended with the multiplication of fractions — so instead I majored in English and read Melville and Henry James and the Brontës, which prepared me for a career in baggage handling, but now A.I. has come along and changed everything to my advantage. A.I. is an ace with numbers and it is El Estúpido when it comes to language.