This morning I woke up wrapped in a sheet like a mummy. Nothing odd about that but my bedclothes, a t shirt and boxers, were in a pile next to me and they were wet. I turned on the light and little bits of what looked like jello glistened in a pool of a phlegm like substance. Next to that was some crumpled Mylar. It was as if some sorority birthday girl had broken into my room and vomited a night’s worth of Jell-O shots onto my clothes. However, on examination, the Mylar was not a balloon but an emptied gel pack and I was able quite quickly to deduce what had happened.
Last night was very hot and being down to one poorly working air conditioner that I left in the living room for Dan because he is ill, I must have gotten up and gone to the freezer in the middle of the night in search of a frozen turkey with which to sleep. I’m basically vegan but once had a frozen turkey stored in my freezer but I don’t want to talk about that. Anyway, finding no frozen turkey, I grabbed the next best thing, a frozen gel pack. Unfortunately, it somehow sustained a hole and, upon thawing some time later, evacuated its contents all over my body. I was able to rouse myself enough to remove my bedclothes. It’s a shame I finally buried the juvenile raccoon I had in the freezer for so long.

As Sidonia pointed out, I have now reached an age where I can no longer discern the difference between 30 something year old men and teenagers. Not by sight anyway. Perhaps by behavior.
Today on my run, I slipped on some moss, skinning my knee. This happens frequently but this time, I attracted the attention of a red headed boy with alabaster skin who ran to my aid, asking if I were hurt. I assume he is a teenager because I often see him, from the vantage point of my dilapidated porch, visiting my neighbor’s son who I know is a teenager. He looked concerned, no doubt fearing I had broken my hip, and offered to help me up, asking if I lived far. I hypothesize that, for him, I evoked a grandmotherly presence, someone who thought he was the smartest and handsomest boy in the whole world, who baked his favorite cookies and who happily sacrificed her Judge Judy Meet And Great ticket money to send him to Coachella.
Several years ago, back when I could still differentiate between children and those approaching middle age, I tripped on a root and fell, breaking my front teeth. I walked back home, holding my mouth, blood and saliva pouring from my hands down my arms to my elbows. I passed several 30 something year old men on their phones and not a one seemed to notice. To them I was invisible, just a barren spinster whose desiccated ovaries have ceased to produce and whose breasts hang on each side of her sternum like spent wine bladders. If one of them actually were to see me at all, he would be reminded of his mother who, when last seen at Easter dinner, mentioned to his date, his first failed attempt at the Bar exam, how, before this, she had given up a trip to Paris to pay for his LSAT tutor and how, as a teenager, he had cystic acne.

30 something year old men are so obnoxious. I mean obviously 20 something year old men are, as well, but I just see them as children now so it’s not the same. By 30, they’ve put down the bong and stopped going to keg parties. They’ve graduated college and started a career. They’ve decided to get in shape and it’s really easy for them because they are only 30 something. They can run a seven minute mile with little effort. I’ll be doing interval training, running as fast as I can and two of them just breeze by me casually having a conversation about a new mountain bike or how one of them saw Aidan Quinn at the co op and he drives the same Prius. Just a couple of masses of gleaming rippling muscles with no fat flying past me like I’m a fucking sloth. I hope to see one of them when they’re 50 something. He’ll be sitting there at the Rosendale Café with his crotch goblins and his still good looking wife because she’s 10 years younger than him and does Pilates or whatever is trendy then. His hair will be thinning and he’ll have a big paunch and I’ll sneak up to him and whisper in his ear, “Not so fast anymore are you, plump boy!” and then I’ll take off cackling on my Rascal.