FYI

I inhaled for 40 years.  Ideas, stuff, people.  Most of that is encumbrance that I am now exhaling.

I had 4 great grandfathers.  One died destitute and alcoholic and alone.  One died young in the flu epidemic of 1919.  One killed himself depressed in an asylum.  The other was a notorious philanderer who lived a long time, but we don't know much after he was run out of the family.

My maternal grandfather died of cirrhosis in his mid 50s.  He had been, before he was fired for drinking on the job, an Army colonel and an English teacher.  My paternal grandfather died right after retirement of heart disease and a prescription-drug fiasco.  He was a renowned athlete and the director of the YMCA.

My father seems healthy.  If he takes after his mother, he'll live well into his 90s.  I don't know much about him as a person because he doesn't talk with me, but he was one of the most highly-regarded planetary scientists of his generation, a very young professor at MIT and later at the University of Arizona.  He has spent his retirement so far working as a volunteer in the Mormon church's genealogy program and as a consultant to the Chinese government on space exploration.  I inherited my omnivorous curiosity from him, but my manner from my mother, mostly.  Actually, I'm not much like either of them.

I don't have any sons.  I have three daughters, and I think they love me and like me.  I had one big bout with depression, which I explained at the time with reference to boring and frustrating circumstances, but I think it was mostly chemical.  I talked with a shrink and she told me a few illuminating things about sleep and exercise and meditation, etc., but what I remember best is that she told me that daughters of depressed fathers develop a reflex to please men.  She thinks the martyrdom complex in women comes most often from the childhood habit of trying to please daddy, which seems sensible enough, though who knows?  I have a deep and bad habit of dramatizing my suffering so that people don't think I have it too easy, and the girls notice this.

In recent years I have felt my eagerness to impress older men diminish.  I've also noticed that I don't feel like looking good or, really, performing in any way at all for others.  I used to really strive for the appearance of effortless grace, to come across as Oscar Wilde, Rudolph Valentino and Jack Kennedy all in one excellent shirt, but now I bathe only when I really need to, wear jeans and old sweaters most days, and frequently find food on my sleeves.  Sometimes I see a beautiful woman and it doesn't even register.  I've pretty much stopped dusting off my secret weapon, too: I hardly ever sing songs and play guitar at parties anymore, which is how I used to hook 'em with wit and charisma.  At least the drunk ones.  As I've become less social, however, my taste for alcohol has abated, and now I prefer coffee.  Used to be I loved a late night of drinking and laughing with friends, acting stupid and blowing off my worries.  Now I prefer coffee in the morning with one friend at a time, and I am returning to earnestness and articulate holding-forth.