Chris offered “Coffee? Tea? Water? Wine?” and I asked if there was any beer. There was. I had an Anchor Steam and hoped for analgesic effect. We discussed aging and the attraction to comfort. Agreed one had to resist that. One had to be willing to fall. The sun found the spots on the window glass while we talked.

After awhile I began to wonder what it would be like to have sex with Chris. The idea surprised me. It would be totally inappropriate. But still…watching Chris’s mouth instead of hearing the words…

“I have to get going,” I said as I set the empty beer bottle on the small glass-topped table to my right.

“Are you sure you’re up to walking? I can drive you down the hill…”

“I’ll be fine. I probably should walk. Keep this thing from stiffening up.” I shook my left leg. “Thanks for letting me recover here.”

“Will you let me know you got home all right?”

I smiled at the concern. I took Chris’s number with me. Headed down the hill to my own house, telling myself my knee would be okay.

I made it home and called. We agreed to get together again, but we weren’t specific. I filled the bathtub with very hot water. I rolled a big joint and got into the tub with a new magazine. I soaked my knee and back till the water cooled.

My knee seemed to be no worse than it ever was: stiff in the morning, stiff in the evening, stiff after sitting still. But my lower back grew tighter and more tentative with each hour, and by the afternoon of the next day I had trouble straightening up. I tried aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and naproxen. I tried brandy and mooched a Vicodin from a neighbor. I tried rest, but I lacked the patience. Eventually I even called the doctor.

That’s how I was sent to bed for New Year’s Eve. I told Chris, with whom I’d made some unorganized plan, that I was sorry but I didn’t even want to see anyone. I meant to stay down and be quiet.

I bought myself three quarters of a pound of tiger prawns and a bottle of good brut champagne. I ate early because I love prawns and couldn’t stand having them in the house without eating them. I love champagne too, but not by myself. I wasn’t in the mood for it when I ate the prawns, and I didn’t really want to wait till midnight. I opened the bottle shortly before 9, and I toasted the new year with New York.

My back hurt. While most computer-users shut their systems down, and the extremely cautious unplugged their machines and tallied their water bottles, I tried to get comfortable on my bed. While the Internet didn’t begin the anticipated usage interruption that would send ripples of glitch in and out of the network and make loggers-on evaluate their connect times, I glugged champagne and pushed pillows around my torso in a search for spinal support. I was quiet, perforce, but less contemplative than I intended. Even so, some ideas became clear.

“The most important thing is to feel better,” I thought, and I smiled as I committed myself to giving my 50 year-old frame more care. I lay on my side with one pillow beneath my right cheek and one against my lower back. I thought the words and subordinate goals fell into place like marbles percolating through holes in a plastic cube. Clarity like a map.

Body (kids) painting (kids) work (kids) friends (kids). My children are no longer dependently young enough to be first. And friends (sex?) are admittedly last. Adrift in modulated discomfort on my king-size bed, I didn’t reach for a tether. Coming to rest against my own pillows, I understood myself to want, for then, attention to my body, and noticed joy.

The phone rang. I would have had to twist around and almost sit up to answer. The machine was downstairs and I could hear Chris’s voice, checking up on me and wishing me well. I wasn’t sure what Chris and I wanted of each other, but I knew it could wait. I settled my face into my pillow, aimed my eyes at the television, and paid attention to myself.