Greetings from a Middle-Aged Author

Monday is my 50th birthday, and I’ve kind of planned the day out already. I’m going to wake up on my own at 5:30 in the morning, make myself a big bowl of oatmeal and a big mug of Postum, take some blood pressure pills, then some pills to counteract the side effects of the blood pressure pills, and then I will go out for the vigorous walk that the doctor recommends. When I get back, I’ll take some Metamucil, fall asleep and dream about Alice Faye. When I wake up from my mid-morning nap, I’ll realize with some shock (not to mention disappointment) that Alice Faye does not love me, and that I’ve slept through my pool aerobics class, so I’ll watch the morning reruns of Matlock and Murder She Wrote, then I’ll watch some Cavett on PBS before my early afternoon nap. Cavett is very thoughtful for a young person, I will think, as my head starts to nod. While I am asleep, Ira and Saul will come by for our bridge game, but I’ll be asleep, so they’ll go play bingo on 4th Avenue. The Hell with them, anyway. When I wake up, I’ll look around for those racy paperbacks about sexy ladies from Venus, a planet where no one wears any clothes and everyone is a sexy woman, which I stashed somewhere in the apartment back in the 1950s, and when I can’t find them, I’ll start boozing. At around 4:30, I’ll head over to Pete’s (you know, on the corner) for the early bird special, but on the way I’ll break my hip.