I'll rage against the dying of the light after my nap

Denial is not a lifestyle choice.

Fitness swamis tell us that if you are over 50 you should avoid exercising that builds muscles and tones and shift your focus to work-outs that improve your quality of life. Isn't that what a doctor tells a patient to do when the options have run out?--let's now focus on the quality of life.

Instead of aerobics, I know in my vintage heart that I should be taking brisk strolls through air conditioned malls while keeping an eye out for early bird dinner specials.

Our health club is an adjunct to the Emirates Airlines Aviation College. Most of the aerobics and weight training classes are made up of these 20-something, hard body flight attendants and when they jump jacks, squat, lunge, run to, fro, round and round and karate kick the air, I and my feeble knees try to keep up. Still I get this feeling that sooner or later, my decrepit joints are going to blow. How long till they shatter like crystal goblets dropped from on high is anybody's guess. But the safe money is on sooner.

Fortunately, most of the class, being flight attendants, are emergency medicine certified. It's comforting to know there will be someone around who can commence CPR when I finally do go down.

Whenyaout?

"Going on hols" my British colleagues say--that is, going on holiday which is the British English word for vacation. Some of my vacations have been such unholy, depraved affairs that I find its Brit slang usage inappropriate.

The high today will be 107 F. By the first week in June, today's weather will be remembered as autumn-in-Vermont-like sweater weather. We are released from occupational obligation on June 5th. By June 6th--D-Day--a lonely silence and ghostly emptiness will fall upon faculty housing as we all stampede for the airport like herds of panicky deer fleeing a wild fire.

My decidophobia has me in its grips--again. We decidophobes, we creatures of habit and botchers of multiple choice exams aren't particularly fond of our ruts (I like to think that I'm always more in a groove than a rut).

It looks as though I and the missus will once again make a beeline for the bolt hole of two previous summers--Siem Reap--while this time avoiding too much time in Bangkok, which is getting stale.

So what's in S.R.? Well, once one has taken in Angkor Wat--not once but twice, there isn't a whole helluva lot to do except get a nightly buzz on and play alternative country music with Kevin in some Khmer biker bar. Sounds like bliss to me. Sleep late, brunch, nap to the sound of monsoon rains on our windows then plan for dinner. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Butcher some Gram Parsons and Steve Earle tunes.

Oh, and vacation porking. Can't forget about vacation porking. Love vacation porking.

This year, I hope we can make a trip into Laos--the overlooked middle child of Southeast Asia. On this Laotian Tourist Website a selling point is how "every village has its own special charm. You’ll get a look at genuine rural life, free from any Western influence." Between the lines that means out houses, cheap beer and no sex trade.

Wherever we don't go, however long we don't stay out, whatever we might not find out there in the verdant Asian jungles, if by August I am mysteriously, inexplicably looking foward to work, it will have been a nice break.

What I've Learned 3

Regarding What I haven't learned.
Sardonic: Warren Zevon's lyrics
Poignant: Warren's Zevon's 1996 Anthology "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"
Shapooing with liquid soap: Use a loofah.
It's "relevant", not relevent
Now, if I someone could tell me how to properly reverse my direction when swimming laps without water flooding my sinuses. . .