One of the interesting perks of cougardom is the ability to give young, hot guys the eyeball without attracting much scrutiny.  I would think it more creepy to be getting the lecherous eye from someone old enough to be one’s mother than for a guy to be eyeballed by a female of the same age, but maybe they just write off old bats like me as harmless and assume I’m not looking.  I am looking.   I can’t help it. My great-grandmother was checking them out and looking at the beefcake well into her 90’s.  Some things never change, and I guess it’s not too terrible to be caught admiring the scenery.

Speaking of young, hot guys- maybe this is crude of me to point out being that I was at the hospital with a friend- but one of the ER Dr.s was rather easy on the eyes.  Easy on the eyes and half my age…well maybe late 20’s-early 30’s.  Leave it to me to notice, and it was probably a good thing Jerry was out trying to find Bob while I was reeling in my tongue.  I never used to give younger dudes a second look, but since guys my age and older generally are missing hair and/or teeth, and tend to be slovenly and paunchy, I guess I can’t help but to notice the hot young things.   I can hide behind relative obscurity knowing that deep down I remind them of their mothers.

Shame on me, although I still find it unnerving when I observe that some of Steve-o’s friends are rather hot.  These guys are half my age.  Twenty years ago…I would have been afraid to talk to them.  Today I make cougar jokes with them.  Hopefully this means I am harmless after all.

I give Jerry a lot of critique- some deserved, and some not so deserved.  Since I tend to be very harsh on myself, I can also be harsh to the point of cruelty with others.  I have to really watch that in both my attitude and my conversation with Jerry.  In spite of all his idiosyncracies and rough exterior I know he is only trying to shield a heart that is far more sensitive than mine.  He lives in the nebulous world of emotions that I can barely acknowledge, let alone navigate.  I’ve been emotionally stunted ever since I can remember, so it’s exceedingly hard for me to put myself in someone else’s place.  Empathy is not my strong point!  I know that biting sarcasm isn’t the most constructive form of feedback , and there are times when I should certainly hold my tongue more than I do.  I have my own trainloads of baggage and enough dysfunction in my own family to write my own twisted sit-com that would give the drivel on network TV a run for its money.  I can see it now-check it out- the chronically depressed, forty-something, menopausal, PTSD-suffering, pathologically anti-social mutant troll chick tries live with both a painfully “normal” family and  superdysfunctional in-laws!  I’m on Prozac for a reason.  Better yet, send me on a road trip- or like last night, leave me to while away hours waiting with friends at the hospital by making shallow conversation and trying to see the humor in my surroundings.  Hospitals can be filled with hilarity (and even hot young residents…) if you know where to look.  I still think it was funny- the last time my mother-in-law was in the ER Porky grabbed a few plastic bracelets that said “FALL RISK” and stashed them in my purse so I could put them on Jerry when he’s wasted.  The difference there is when Jerry falls while drunk he just sort of rolls around.    Then he spends the next day complaining that the beer shits gave him a wicked case of the hemorrhoids.  At least I don’t suffer from hemorrhoidal itch. Yet.

I try to save the most biting sarcasm for my own personal ruminations- a case of find the humor in it, or cry my guts out.  Maybe this is why I enjoy British humor so much- it tends to be dark and sarcastic.   Some people don’t get the humor behind the scene in Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail when the guy with the cart was coming around to collect the dead.  I get it.  Humor is where you find it.  Life on this earth is a limited time offer.  Might as well laugh when you can.

On the bright side: The above distressed 1985 Camry Wagon is not my car.