April 22, 2021--Boxers & Briefs

 For no good reason we haven't chatted in months. Perhaps six. A long time.

So he asked me when I called what I've been up to.

"Not much," I said. "I think I'm a victim of the pandemic."

"Sick? The hospital?"

"Thankfully, not that kind of sick. Physically I have no complaints. My neurologist the other day said I should just enjoy myself. 'You had the two shots. You're fine. So just forget about COVID.'" 

I said, "He's my kind of doctor, looking not for obscure illnesses but for diagnostic reasons to live day to day.

"So, that's what you've been up to? Trying to lead a simple life? You were always so activated. I don't recognize what you're turning into."

Feeling hurt and unfairly characterized, I said, "I've been trying to use time meaningfully.

For example?"

"I intend to learn Spanish." 

"Did you say intend?"

"You got me there," I confessed. 

"Anything else?"

"I reread most of Hemingway's novels. That took a few months. And the major biographies. Also James Mellow's three volumes about Gertrude Stein and her circle in Paris in the 20s. He was a part of that"

I began to feel good about myself.

"You said most of them. Why not get the job done. Read all of them?  That's what a pandemic is about. I almost said for. It takes time out of life's equation."

Now he was smiling. I could see that; we were chatting via Zoom.

I decided to take this down a level and said, sheepishly, "I'm growing a ponytail." I reached back to touch it.

"I guess that's something. A little pathetic at your age but I suppose OK." 

And one more thing I thought would impress or puzzle him, "After 70 years I switched from briefs to boxers."

He didn't ask why. 

Actually, there's quite a story associated with that.