this week

THIS WEEK i got my first white hair, received a sexual come-on from a sixteen year-old, and found out i have an incurable STD.
Okay, not necessarily (that last one, i mean).
And none of those things are connected (in case you're wondering).
And i'm no believer in anything so self-important as karmic balance, but those first two things together? Fun!
UPON discovering my white hair (a cute lil' feller in my red beard), i immediately scheduled a party. I had to do this myself, as i don't have a group of cool friends to do such things for me. Ready to confound and contradict the dysfunctional dictates of this ageist society, i invited all to come celebrate my ascension to wise community elder. I'll have to hope that the evolutionary basis of white/grey hair (a sexual signal that alerts potential mates to desirable "long life" genes) will kick in subconsciously in females around me...as the conscious reaction our society instills in us is generally more akin to wailing and sackcloth. My party invitation was essentially a silly gesture to promote thinking and talk among people too far away to actually show up, but i thought it was important. So next time you know someone who's discovered their first grey, throw them a blow-out celebration! Sincere, not mockery. Generations from now, our descendants will honor us with statues, for making old age venerable again.
AND...if ever an agnostic who doesn't drink might be tempted to say "god bless alcohol", it's when a drunk female comes on to you. I was on the beach doing yoga calisthenics, when a rainstorm left me the only person in sight. Undeterred, i continued. A group of four female teenagers soon came along. Their ebullience left little doubt that they'd been at some watering hole (and were well-watered). When they caught sight of me alone on a rainy beach doing a dhanurasana, they expressed mystification. When i told them what i was doing, one of them became fascinated, and got down on her stomach to mimic me. I went into a headstand, as two of them walked on. The other two came closer, and the bold one asked me to support her in a headstand. I told her to wait one minute. Her friend pressured her to go - i got the sense that they were on vacation with parents, and were overdue. When i arighted myself, she asked me to give her a session the following morning (after asking about my marital/girlfriend status). I didn't ask how such things were relevant to yoga, but told her when i'd be on the beach again. She ran off.
I was both touched and saddened. Touched, for libidinous reasons. Saddened, because i thought of all the truth that alcohol releases...truths that are crying to be let out. Foremost, the fact that we live in a repressed society, walking around in a constant haze of subconscious (or not so sub) misery over all the SEX WE'RE NOT HAVING. If this isn't the outright, inhibition-lowering, number one reason bars exist, it's at worst tied for first place with the general need to simply escape reality. This poor young creature has a howling sex drive that our society provides no outlet for, that isn't furtive at best. I was also sad because, even in her blurred state, and though she was obviously in no position to be in any kind of monogamous relationship with me, she still framed her come-on in the context of sexual possessiveness. All my hopes for how much more spiritually evolved the younger generation is, suddenly flew away.
I was also saddened, because i had a sudden insight into all the intimacy i've missed in my life, by avoiding the bar scene. Before this young woman knew anything about me she couldn't have learned from a photograph, she was all over me. I'm not saying i ever could have made a career out of hooking up with drunk chicks, but...just the chance to be around people who are perpetually lowering their inhibitions is, well, an intoxicating thought. And then there's me, soberly dedicated to never taking advantage of any woman in any way, spending a life far more alone than not.
Lonely ponderings in a broken world.
AND...i have HPV.
Or not.
You'd think the most prevalent social disease anywhere might come with some sort of test whereby we might KNOW whether we have it, but...no. Not if you're a man, anyway. Unless you, a male, has some sort of visible symptom that can be biopsied, you're out of luck. So why do i think i might have it? Because i had a wartlike blemish on my abdomen. I acid-dissolved it before realizing it was the only way i could have been tested. Why might it have been an HPV flat wart? Because two years ago i had an affair with an HPV-positive woman. She was asymptomatic and we used condoms...but HPV doesn't necessarily care about that. Do you know how many people reading this will get one of the hundreds of HPV strains out there? Four out of five. I spoke to at least six clinics in search of something called an HPV rectal swab test, even visiting one who told me they could do it (but were wrong). Although it presumably exists somewhere, it's so unreliable that it does NOT exist here. In my search, i had given up hope that i (an american without medical insurance - surprise!) would be able to get this test at a walk-in, sliding-scale clinic. So the test would cost $200. This means i was prepared to take it in the ass, both literally and metaphorically.
I did get a nice free gonorrhea/syphilis test out of all this, plus the knowledge that many health care workers are genuine, caring people who hate this capitalistic system almost as much as do the patients who can't afford to go to them.
So now i have to hope(?) i get another blemish. Could it have been any one of a number of other things, including a regular wart? Absolutely. The body creates all sorts of unscheduled growths - i have one friend who had brain and tooth tissue removed from a place where brains and teeth most decidedly do NOT grow (unless we're speaking metaphorically again).
And that was my week.
I love you all.

P.S. For a most curious follow-up, see: http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/03/this-week-1-addendum.html