KISSING A FUTURE DEAD WOMAN

I can remember staring at myself in the bathroom mirror — zeroing in on all the smooth skin on my 18-year old face. I’d spend hours mentally etching an imprint of my youthful features for the purpose of reviewing it at some distant future date…when I was an aged 30 or so. Sort of a mental time capsule.

The memory’s as fresh as yesterday. Today, I’m 60.

You know you’re at death’s door when you go to parties and start to hear the choruses of:
“You look great!”
“I would have never guessed.”
“You look 10 years younger!”
“You’re so young for your age.”
“You hardly have any gray hair!”

I have this urge to reply: “Yeah, that’s because all the brown hair moved away a long, long time ago and left nothing in it’s place!”

But I don’t.

My wife has practically hired a PR agency to push this point home to me:

“I’m so old,” I moan on a Sunday morning after a trip to the mirror.
“Yes, we’re doomed,” she jauntily responds.
“What are you talking about!? Where did that come from?” I say.
“We’ll be dead soon,” she says, very matter of factly.
“Wow, we better get busy and have breakfast. I don’t wanna go on an empty stomach.”

Or she’ll start this next-lifetime diatribe:

“Next lifetime, I’m going to be born half-Asian, half-African American. That’s such a gorgeous combination.

“And I’m going to live in Connecticut and go to college.

“No, maybe Colorado. Wait! England might be my true spiritual home!”

“What?” I say. “Is this happening tomorrow morning or something? Have you already bought a ticket to Hartford?”

Well, we’re not gone yet, so for now we’ve moved to Downtown L.A., into a loft that’s loaded with newly minted 30-year old “adults.” They’re all young professionals, producers and working artists, fresh out of their vacillating 20’s — ambitious, able and still awake at midnight.

Unlike me who’s pleading for a pillow at 9:30. In fact, I’ve got to hold myself vertical at 9:00 PM or risk a tongue lashing from my wife: “You are NOT going to bed at 8:30. Next thing you know, the early-bird special will be considered a wild night out.”

Last Saturday, we’re at our friend’s 30th. He’s a corporate lawyer out of USC and lives a few doors down the hall. I immediately gravitate to our gay friends from the first floor, the only other people in the loft who aren’t half my age. We’re yukking it up, talking about 1962, the Madmen TV show, and fitting into that one last suit in your closet so you can show up at the Golden Globe Awards.

The first to the leave, Lyn and I are excusing our yawns, and slow-stepping down to our apartment.

My wife chuckles:
“What’s so funny?” I say.
“Remember when you were talking to Bob and Russell?”
“Yeah, you know how we like to chat it up. So?”
“The people at the table were referring to you guys as the Silver Foxes,” she says.
“You mean they were referring to Bob and Russell as Silver Foxes? Yeah, I see what you mean, with all that gray hair.”
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” she says.

It’s true: I’m doomed.