Bruised Gender: Going Through "The Change" Ain't What It Used To Be

I don't know about you, or at least I'm not willing to divulge how much I know, but when I was a lad, before written language had been invented, when people talked about menopause they euphemized it as "The Change," and yes, you could tell it was s'posed to be Capitalized.  "Your mother's going through The Change," they'd tell me in whispers when the hot flashes or shortened temper hit.  I didn't have a clue what that meant, but fortunately I was able to find out on the street, whence springs all knowledge and truth.

I opened the paper of record, The New York Times, this morning and was greeted by a photo of Caitlyn nee Bruce in a lacy dress, in profile enough that what stand out most (yes, I did) are a breast and a butt cheek.  They're not Kim Kwality or Kwantity, but clearly C/B learned something in all those years as a Kardashian.  And granted, the photo was in the "Arts and Leisure" (not sure which of those the pic depicted) section, but still:  don't we get enough of this crap from the rest of the media?  Does "The Gray Lady" really need to join the cockoffany?  Or perhaps She, too, desires "The Change" and wants to become a man--or a Shih Tzu.  I'm thinking she'd have to be The Daily News or maybe The Daily Racing Form in order to be macho enough.

So now when we say "The Change" we don't necessarily mean menopause, we may mean "men oh stop; let me be my true self."  And, like me, you must have given some thought to the logistics of this Brave New Change; probably, like me, more thought than you want to, which may be "any."  But the whole process, as I imagine it, has a certain grisly fascination, particularly the disposal of artifacts.  I've also thought of that in terms of breast reduction surgery:  What do they do with what's left?  I don't know, but here's a proposal:

People of a certain age will remember the movie version of Joseph Heller's wonderful novel Catch-22.  In it there's one scene where two nurses, gabbing all the while, attend to a patient wrapped head-to-toe in bandages, only holes for the eyes, and all four limbs in traction.  This poor guy has an IV running to his arm, a catheter to another bag hanging on a stand.  The IV solution bag is empty, the catheter bag full.  You see where this goes, right?  Yep:  again, without any interruption in their chatter, the nurses swap the bags, pull the curtain to, and continue on to serve the next patient.

Here's what I'm thinkin', then, and I'm sure by now that you can see where this is going, too.  Line 'em up side-by-side for the operations, and do a direct exchange, one to the other:  out--or off--with the old and in--or on--with the new.  The doctors would stand between the two tables and simply pivot, left to right, right to left.  Efficiency greatly increased, no muss, no fuss, no waste.  If we're trying to cut healthcare costs, here's one small step for a (wo)man, or whichever.

Oh, lighten up.  Jonathan Swift once suggested, in apparent seriousness, that the English eat Irish babies.  He still wins.

I just hope that Cait is prepared to earn seventy seven cents for every dollar Bruce used to make....

Livin' in the "U's" and "A's" (Apologies To Steve Miller)

Greetings, again, from Chautauqua Institution, USA, (mostly) Liberal Gated Community, you oxymoron fans.   Chautauqua is located, for you GPS users, at the corner of Indolence and Lassitude, just off Languor Squared, across from Torpor Aerie, where live the sleepy hedges trimmed to the shapes of eagles' nests.

Life is slow here, but maybe not quite slow enough for me to stay out of trouble.  Lemme tell you about it, but first some background.  Sometime during the aughts, during the rain (not a misprint) of GWB as "president," the Smothers Brothers appeared here, with their wit and political satire intact.  At some point Tommy was riffing on Republican'ts and received a smattering of boos.  He stopped and said, with some surprise, "Are there some Republicans here tonight?"  This time, a smattering of applause, to which he replied "Don't you  read the papers?"

When we pulled into our rental on Saturday, one of the first things I noticed was what was obviously a Republican't flag hanging from the porch of the house next door.  You know, the classic elephant symbol in red, white and blue.  Never saw one, hope to never see another, 'though I expect they'll be a thing.  I mean, even if just the Republican't presidential candidates displayed them they'd darken the skies like passenger pigeons used to.  Be nice if they, too, became extinct.

Aaanyway, Saturday evening I was listening to music on the porch at a not excessive level when the owner of the flag set out to walk his dog, a yappy little terrier of some sort.  He stopped to tell me that what I was doing was not in the Chautauqua spirit, that folks here like it quiet and go to sleep early.  I guess so: it was about 8:30.  At 62 I'm still getting yelled at for playing my music too loud: "Aw, jeez, c'mon Dad, pleeease?"

As I said, the guy's dog is a yapper.  Yesterday she started at about 7:15, as I was lying in bed attempting to read.  And the thing is, Mr. Law and Order is an old softy when it comes to his precious: no one attempts to shush it until it goes on for 10 mins. or so.  And this behavior went on at intervals throughout the day.  So in the evening, as the superhero duo Yapper and Enabler returned from their evening constitutional, or at least the part that elite activist judges haven't overthrown yet, as I was again sitting on the porch listening to music, I stopped him and said "You didn't have any qualms about complaining about my music the other night.  I've been coming here for 16 years, and have walked all around the campus this week, and the only dog I've heard barking is yours."  His reply as he began to drag the dog toward his house--and I'm not making this up--was "Okay, fine then, I'll just kill her."  Perfectly reasonable adult exchange of ideas, eh?  For Fox Noise, anyway.

Every once in a while the right rejoinder comes at the right time, not hours later when you're lying in bed.  So just before he slammed through the door I said "No, I see that you're a Rebublican:  just build a fence around the country and keep her out."  It'll be interesting to see what today brings....

Enjoy my vacation, everyone.