“Old age isn’t a battle,” the protagonist thinks to himself after calling a former colleague who is dying in a hospice. “Old age is a massacre.”<\/p>\n
“This book came out of what was all around me, which was something I never expected — that my friends would die,” Mr. Roth said. “If you’re lucky, your grandparents will die when you’re, say, in college. Mine died when I was a schoolboy. If you’re lucky, your parents will live until you’re somewhere in your 50’s; if you’re very lucky, into your 60’s. You won’t ever die, and your children, certainly, will never die before you. That’s the deal, that’s the contract. But in this contract nothing is written about your friends, so when they start dying, it’s a gigantic shock.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Reminds me of that line from Fight Club: “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”<\/p>\n
Dad, meanwhile, was giving himself milestones, in the “I just have to live until . . .” dates, like his grandkids’ visit last summer, or my wedding last March. Now that there are no big events to “live until,” he has to start living for each day.<\/p>\n
If I have to tell the rest of you again<\/em> to make the most of the time you have, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. . .<\/p>\n(More coincidentally, my iTunes just shuffled onto “O, Death,” by Ralph Stanley. You know I wouldn’t make up something so obvious.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today marks the one-year anniversary of my dad’s quintuple bypass (or clock-resetting, as he calls it). He’s recovered pretty well, but he’s gotten kinda sedentary again, which led to piling on some weight. He also doesn’t seem to attach any psychological significance to the fact that he’s been compulsively buying “designer” watches off of Ebay. … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Happyish Anniversary!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-eW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2021,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-bypassiversary","url_meta":{"origin":926,"position":0},"title":"Happy Bypassiversary!","author":"Gil","date":"April 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Today marks the third anniversary of my dad's quintuple bypass surgery, ably performed by Dr. Peter Praeger. I can't speak for the doctor's line of heart-healthy food, but he did a heck of a job on Pop. Many happy returns, Dad!","rel":"","context":"In \"praeger\"","block_context":{"text":"praeger","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/praeger"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16304,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-554-brett-martin","url_meta":{"origin":926,"position":1},"title":"Episode 554 – Brett Martin","author":"Gil","date":"September 12, 2023","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 554: Brett Martin \"The arc of Difficult Men involved this moment where the interests of business and art were in confluence. The fragmentation of media meant that in order to survive, you needed to have an identity. And in order to have an identity, you needed to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/martin2023comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/martin2023comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/martin2023comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/martin2023comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/martin2023comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1469,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2-years-and-counting","url_meta":{"origin":926,"position":2},"title":"Two Years and Counting","author":"Gil","date":"April 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the second anniversary of my dad's quintuple-bypass! I'd put his e-mail address here so you could send him well-wishes, but I know you'd just write him goofy questions about how strange I was as a kid. Anyway: best wishes, Dad!","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2-years-and-counting#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8456,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/anniversary-call","url_meta":{"origin":926,"position":3},"title":"Anniversary Call","author":"Gil","date":"December 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I went to my former company's Christmas party this past Friday. It's sort of a tradition, if you don't leave on bad terms, to come back your first year out. I was glad to see my old coworkers, and I was reminded of all the dread I had about making\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":524,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/success","url_meta":{"origin":926,"position":4},"title":"SUCCESS!","author":"Gil","date":"April 27, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Dad succesfully underwent a quintuple bypass this morning! The surgeon says that it went well.(Dad didn't say anything, since he's currently unconscious in the cardiac intensive care unit, but he oughtta be awake in a couple of hours.)Thanks again for all the support! (We'll need it during his rehab\/recuperation)","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2758,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-oct-31-2008","url_meta":{"origin":926,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Oct. 31, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"October 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Slappy Halloween! Time for some oddball links! Boomshakalaka! NBA Jam was one of the greatest video games of all time. * * * Ron Rosenbaum hated Dr. Atomic. To be fair, I hear he also hated Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. * * * He's the got the biggest bombs of them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"AC\/DC\"","block_context":{"text":"AC\/DC","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/acdc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}