Hot Flash

Thoughts on May 23, 2026

Now I get it, all that talk about the vicissitudes of menopause, I get it, ladies and gents, I get it, and it only took one hot flash to trigger that come-to-glory moment. It’s true, guys, what they say: menopause - it’s really unpleasant. The point of my tale is that I have no testosterone left due to treatments specifically designed to kill off every last vestige of my swagger. Not to mention my pecs. A lifetime of down-and-gimme-twenty-five damn near gone to waste. Flabby has become the operative word. Or is it,simply,“Oy”? So, here I am, minding my own business, when, all of an instant, it feels as if I’m inside a volcano. It’s not so much a flash but a flush that begins somewhere and then builds to everywhere. Then there’s all the other stuff. My hair is thinner. My skin is drier. A pleasant mood is the carrot on the stick, however much of this other stuff hangs on.

I don’t like this getting older one bit. A lifetime of Zen and, still, I see no advantage to it. A small coffee free from Macdonald’s as long as I’m there by 6am, Tuesday? Big deal. Discount bus rides to some tawdry casino with a bunch of geezers? No thanks. Golden years? More like the rust belt. Used to be I’d rise up out of bed in the morning and do push-ups. Now, I figure I’m lucky to rise up period. We fancy dying in one’s sleep is the ideal. One goes to sleep like one always does except one doesn’t wake up, like an afternoon nap, kind of. But, is it really so? How do we know what happens in one’s sleep, really? Maybe the Grim Reaper with his scythe swoops down from somewhere, and that’s it. No fuss. No muss. On the other hand, maybe it’s a horror with one’s mouth clamped shut unable to even scream? Maybe something is bearing down on us and we can’t get away until we do, until the screen goes black? Fade out but forget the final credits. They’ve already been run. Oy.