When The Wheels Come Off

For me as much as for anyone, there are no shortage of reminders that I am only human. Once I get to be riding very high in any respect, there always comes the humbling moment to bring me back down to terra firma. This is the case where the body is concerned as well as the mind. I never have been the kind of person with an aptitude for athletics. My greatest achievement of that kind was to block two shots in succession during a pick-up basketball game during the sixth grade. After that, it's all downhill. If I were ever to forget that and let myself believe that I were in possession of physical attributes allowing me to go above and beyond the capacity of ordinary men, recent events would surely have set me straight with no possibility of confusion.

It will be no surprise that this humbling came in the context of partying. I have a lot of friends these days, and my friends throw a lot of parties. At these parties there is not always a lot of alcohol and never substance abuse, but two things on which you may rely as a near-certainty are themed costume parties and dancing. Always is there dancing. I will never be described as the finest dancer in the group, but I'm always game. On a recent weekend, a string of parties was planned. It started off with a party of complicated provenance held in the neighborhood of MacArthur Park, right down the street from the Mexican Consulate. It went rather late and was marked by nearly uninterrupted thumping music and dancing to match. I did my best, and then went home.

The following day was to feature a pool party out in Encino. I picked up some snacks, rode along with a friend and arrived an hour after the planned starting time. This is to say that I was right on schedule as defined by the prevailing arrival time of the group. A pool party tends to be distinguished from other types by the involvement of swimming and related pool activities. We swam and tossed a beach ball around. A swimming contest was held. Dancing was not on the agenda. I shoehorned it in, to the delight and praise of onlookers. This followed the aforementioned pool frolicking in the hot sun, and there I was in the absence of adequate protection against its deadly, despicable rays.

On the way out of the party and during the drive home, I was made aware of another party to take place that night. This made for two in a day and three in 36 hours. God knows I an loathe to miss anything to which I am invited. It feels rude and akin to leaving money on the table, to employ a metaphor. I wasn't feeling terribly bad at this point, and felt only the logistics of reaching the party's location was a real sticking point. I got home and took a shower. That's when I knew that the party machine had finally ground to a halt, and there was no more mirthful output to be had. Numerous attempts were made on me, which I certainly appreciate as a mark of how good my friends are, but I stood strong. I even resisted the siren song of an entirely different event- this an impromptu sojourn out to a bar.

As I said, I don't like passing things up. I accept it as a necessary thing, like negative space on a painting. Going out five nights in a week is good fun, and you can do that every week. Going out seven nights a week is great fun, but you are going to die before you can enjoy very many repetitions of that. I begrudgingly pass up two nighttime excursion in the interesting of continuing to live with full possession of my valuable mental and already meager physical faculties. When all is said and done, I hope to be the coolest old man with the best stories around.