What's twenty-six on the outside and sixty-two on the inside?

Me.

I began yesterday morning drinking coffee out of what to most would appear to be a terracotta human head whilst conversing with one of my dear coworkers who had a) just returned from her first trip to New England and b) had just met up with her new boyfriend. Her easy grin and the nearly visible perfume of roses exuding from her skin a la Teresa de Avila could have meant one thing alone: she had it, and she had it bad. As I and my coworkers grilled her like the Khmer Rouge for information about the lad, she pulled a picture of him from his website. As we smashed into a knot to gaze upon his countenance, muffled "ooohs" and "ahhhs" heedlessly emanated from our throats from the place that can't help but talk to a kitten in that voice that makes you seem developmentally delayed. She turned to the jury of her peers and asked what we thought of his picture. We all agreed that he was, indeed, a strapping young thing and very easy on the eyes. "Are you just saying that because you are my friends?" she asked. We assured her that, no, we weren't sparing her feelings because she was dear to us and that we would always be honest with her.

It was at this point that I deigned to open my trap and let this escape:

"Oh, man, like when people bring you their babies and the thing looks like a cabbage in a kilt and you have to coo over it? No, we wouldn't do that to you."

A cabbage in a kilt? As soon as I said it I realized that it came from a place - a dank, cold place that smells of river plants and mothballs - where my inner old man lives. He's not one of those cute old men who sits out in front of the drug store and waves at all of the passing traffic. There are no twinkly eyes, no Werther's Original butterscotches for the neighborhood children, no clumsily-palmed five-dollar-bills for the grandkids. No, my inner old man drinks bourbon out of a sack and breaks wind intentionally when teenagers pass his park bench. He gums corn off the cob at the Elks Lodge annual Fourth of July picnic shamelessly and makes up stories about wars he was never in while pointing to scars procured in tragic gardening mishaps.

And he's getting out and about a whole hell of a lot more.

I shall return to thee with reports of how my birthday went shortly, but until then, I remain,


Domonic