I do not exist. But then we already knew that. I am clearly a figment of my own imagination. As, probably, are we all.
Most particularly, I do not have a credit rating. That’s what happens when you pay cash and use debit cards for forty years.
Usually this does not matter. I don’t want credit. But now that the airlines have turned us not only into non-paid employees, who print our own boarding passes, check ourselves in, and handle our luggage, but have also made us adversarial competitors with all other passengers, I did finally respond to the endless offers United Airlines sends me and applied for one of their credit cards whose benefits include priority boarding. They turned me down because I don’t exist.
Carol exists.
I could probably get her to sign for me, which has a certain whimsical quality, such as having your parents do so when you are an adolescent. But I won’t. That is making life entirely too symmetrical. Instead I’ll pay United the extra $39 or so for priority boarding on each flight and carry a purse. Actually it is called a laptop messenger bag, which I recently bought in the never ending struggle to reduce my carry on baggage. But it looks to me like a purse.
I’ve also downsized from a 15” MacBook Pro to a 13” MacBook Air; an iPad to an iPad mini; and Bose noise canceling headphones to Bose noise canceling earplugs.
Smaller and lighter is definitely better. For GANNET, too.
Not only do I not exist, but I am also not a threat.
I applied for Global Entry and had my interview a week ago. I’ve been investigated, photographed, finger-printed, and approved. Anything that enables me to avoid a line is worth a hundred bucks.
———
In an email to a friend this morning I wrote,
“Even though everything is on schedule, when I look out our windows at a pre-dawn sky from which snow is due to fall, it is difficult to believe that I will be at sea in a few months.“
“Even though everything is on schedule, when I look out our windows at a pre-dawn sky from which snow is due to fall, it is difficult to believe that I will be at sea in a few months.“
He wrote back, “When was it that you were really at sea, something more than a few days out and back?”
The answer is October 2009 when I completed my fifth circumnavigation with the passage from Bora-Bora to Opua.
I must admit that doing housework has lost its zest. When I dusted and vacuumed yesterday, I just didn’t feel the usual thrill.
It’s definitely time to go sailing again.
———
Last night on what poses as the evening news on television, a doctor who was talking about end of life decisions asked her elderly father why he thought people don’t talk about death, and he reasonably replied, “Because they fear the unknown.”
I thought about writing an entry ‘on dying’ until I realized that it’s already written. You just have to look around this site and piece it together. I’m not going to do all the work. A few poems. Quotes used in front of books. Some of this journal.
‘Almost dying is a hard way to make a living,’ I’ve written. And the pieces where I almost died are the best known and were reprinted in the most countries.
I don’t mind the unknown.
Having carefully prepared, I like that GANNET’s voyage will be something new to me and that sailing such a boat as far as I plan an unknown.
Of death, I don’t expect the unknown. I expect oblivion, which is not troubling.
I am apprehensive about suffering at the end. It must have hurt getting in here; and it will probably hurt getting out.
What has changed over the years is my being with Carol.
When a woman marries a man her own age, she can expect to be a widow. When she marries a man almost a generation older, it is a near certainty.
My life has not gone as I expected. I could have done more. But upon reflection I would not have changed places with anyone else who has ever lived. My regret will be in leaving Carol alone.
On the other hand, I recently had an annual physical. My blood pressure is 120/70. My pulse 47. I am disgustingly healthy. Still a force of nature. I may outlive you all.
Now, if you will excuse me. I have hardwood floors to polish.
