Playing the part of me

My life as a human being is a performance. Like everyone, I was assigned a part in the Grand Social Experiment and made to figure out how to play it. Each day when I wake up I have to recreate the world and my role in it, put on my costume and make up, and go out on stage. A day is a string of tasks, each one a little creative piece. I have a need to perform my tasks as effectively as I can and to uphold my standards of style and aesthetics. In 63 years I've gotten good at it, with my bottomless pit of curiosity and my desire to know everything worth knowing about the universe (as long as it doesn't require too much math or deep concentration on complicated, abstract verbal arguments).  And my profound sensitivity and my need to be loved and affirmed and to express my empathy and appreciation for everyone but especially the actresses, the ones bearing the Mark of the Feminine. A writer named Leslie Jamison is my new girlfriend. I know her only through reading part of her essay Grand unified theory of female pain in VQR and then reading a number of reviews of her book of essays on Amazon. Leslie goes around the world doing very interesting things and writing about them as they relate to her attempts to make sense out of her life. She elicits strong reactions all along the spectrum of love-hate. She's thin and pretty, too, if photos are to be believed.  I have lots of girlfriends, most of whom will never know their status or even know I exist. I'm in acceptance of all that. I'm just trying to play my part as well as I can. Lately, I find myself not wanting to get cranked up to take on those little tasks. Today is another case in point. When we get old, it becomes too difficult and someone has to take care of us until we die.