Category Archives: happy

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Sexually active

At a clinic visit this week the Medical Assistant screens me. “Are you sexually active?”

I say, “Um, what do you mean?”

“Are you sexually active?”

“Um, I do not have a partner.” By now, I really want to laugh.

She still looks confused. “You are not sexually active.”

“Ok.” I try not to giggle. Apparently her question series does not cover um, solo sexual activity and I resist telling her about the downtown sexual health and toy store. The new multispeed, multipattern suction toys are, well, enlightening and INSPIRING and EXPLOSIVE.. Or, um, something. Snort.

Let’s just study the dome. This is from Venice and tells the story of Adam and Eve.

I have sent a message to my physician saying that they may want to rephrase the questions. “Do you have any sexual partners?” would be more enlightening as far as sexually transmitted disease risk. Heh. The whole thing cracked me up. My blood pressure was still 108 over 70. Ha, so there, heart disease. My English/Scots father’s family is adapted to tobacco and alcohol and my father ran a low blood pressure even with 55 years of unfiltered Camels in his lungs.

Heh.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dome. This is the Basilica San Marcos, which has multiple domes. This one tells the story of Adam and Eve. I now want to paint one of my ceilings. The bathrooms have too much moisture. I suspect this will not enthuse future realtors.

Alone and lonely are not the same thing.

Fantasy is good.

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Love tale

An older couple comes to me in clinic. She is losing her memory, they explain. They are looking for a doctor who will respect her wishes. Once she goes in the nursing home, no intervention. No antibiotics, no shots, no iv, no hospital.

Yes, I say.

It is about a year before she goes in to the nursing home. I do my regular visits.

After a number of years I happen to meet her husband in the hall. “She is talking about her twenties.” he says. “She lived in an apartment and ran errands for her uncles. I am hearing all sorts of stories I never heard! I go home and type them and send them to the family.”

“That is wonderful,” I say. He visits daily.

I go on to her room. She says, “That man comes to see me. He says he’s my husband. I don’t remember, but he is such a nice man!” I think she falls in love with him again daily. He visits and is where she is in her memory.

Some time later the nursing home calls me. “She has a fever of 101 and has not eaten for two days.” I go visit and call her husband. “Should I do anything?”

“No! She’d kill me!”

“Ok. She might die.”

“I know.”

She doesn’t die. The fever comes down and she gets out of bed and is thirsty.

There is a year between my years at the hospital and setting up my private clinic. We send out postcards, trying not to send them to anyone who has died.

Her husband comes to the clinic opening. “She died last year,” he says.

“I am so sorry! We tried not to send postcards if people had died!”

“It’s ok,” he says, “I wanted to come and thank you.”

He dies about a year after she does. I hope they are together again.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: true love.

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Happy

Happy

May Sarton writes of happiness, in the quiet at home.

I am so happy when I dance that I smile with joy.
I wonder about the Sufis spinning
and if it is the same.
The poetry has that joy
and anyone who calls God/Dess the Beloved
has my attention.
One who was almost a friend
would laugh with me at restaurants.
Twice strangers thank us for having so much fun.
say our laughter gives them joy.
Thinking about happiness,
I think of my son’s capacity for joy
and wonder where he got it.
Surprise: from me, I think.
From me.