I was born in 1949 and the Life Clock, located on the World Clock, claims I will live until the fairly decent age of 85. I'm still shooting for 103 as long as I stay in good health. I expect to be traveling around the world Couchsurfing until I'm 97. Here: Look at these actual Couchsurfing statistics by ages of travelers who only need a free crash on somebody's couch somewhere on one of the seven continents:
It's free. No charge. And so many of them speak English. I am trying to take an email refresher course in French, which I studied in college and couldn't talk my way into a glass of wine with in Paris, but I still can't roll my "r's" and it's probably hopeless. I studied Spanish in high school and finally gave up trying to roll my "r's". So I took French, and they wanted the fancy tongue moves I seem incapable of performing in a standing or sitting position. (I wonder if we lay down?) If only they accepted French kissing as a language skill. Everyone speaks English in Europe it seems. And everyone hates you if you don't even try to speak their language. They can get mean, even vicisious like one German postmaster in Munich that I thought my slap me for my poor Deutsch. What did he want? I took a four night crash course in it--one hour once a week--and I was ready, "Ein glass bier, bitte," That was all I cared to learn. Oh yeah, and Danke.
| Ages 50 to 59 | 63,656 | 2.2% | ||
| Ages 60 to 69 | 21,305 | 0.8% | ||
| Ages 70 to 79 | 2,856 | 0.1% | ||
| Ages 80 to 89 | 516 | 0.0% |
Want to see how old you will be when you move on to that greener pasture? Go to Life Expectancy Test at Life Clock.
I hope you know your cholesterol numbers to get a more authentic reading. Hell, I have such good "good" cholesterol for some strange reason that they hardly docked me for smoking. Unless, of course, they would have said I'd live to 103 except for that.
I'm quitting June 10. That has been my "Q" date for weeks now. I got my shrink to take me off bloody awful Topamax that helps "maintain your mood" (yeah, one long nasty depressed one). It was just featured in yet another study that proves people really do lose weight when they take it. I'm only on 50 mg. but I keep wondering if the weight I lost this year and last will be right where I left it when I look behind me after a few months off of it.
Here's what the study I read yesterday said. Even though 7 out of 10 people participating in the study were losing good amounts of weight, many elected to drop out because of Topamax's nasty side effects like tics, numbness around your mouth, strange leg and arm movements which can become a very bad condition called Tarditive Dyskinesia, but, I think, most of the people probably had the same big complaints as I: It's like trying to function on some kind of crazy psychedelic somebody whipped up in their bathroom and put lots of cyanide and other goodies in. I had some of that. It was called, fittingly,"UFO's." It hurt your cells when you were coming down off of it. It was nasty, nasty shit. The people who knew I had taken it before and asked me if they should take it and I said "Go for it," were very mad at me. There were only one downer in the house, a Seconal, and the men all agreed that as much as they would love to have it for the horrible whips and jangles it should go to the lady of the house. Nowadays, as feminism has made some progress since the 70's, that would never fly nor would I allow it. (That's a bloody lie. I'd gobble that sucker up before anyone knew we had it.)
Anyhow Topamax will put you in size 8 leather pants but you will be a total space cadet. You can't think or focus even the day after you take it. I can barely freelance write anymore. I keep starting over until I have about seven rough drafts going and then I lose them or can't figure out which ones I've edited and which ones I haven't. It's rough trying to concentrate on anything when that shit has been in you.
So as of today, Dr. Eyeball (close enough) told me I can stop the Topamax and instead take one of my favorite anti-depressants, Wellbutrin, which doesn't cause weight gain and can help you quit smoking. I also have to take the second dose early in the evening because as I put it oh so professionally to the doc, "It will jack me up, huh?" Yes, and that's always good news to a stimulant seeking heat missle like myself.
But for now, I'm living to 85 and I put this old body through some tricks, hairpin curves, chemical and alcohol benders where I didn't come up for air, addictions to everything from codeine, to Seconal, to Tuinal
I entered this old mixed bag blog in the Top 100 Sober Bloggers Directory. So now the blog needs more booze, drugs and recovery in it. Just as well. I am itching to write about all the things I have been finding and researching and thinking about on those topics, but I give up, as of tonight, on the Chicago Alcohol and Recovery Examiner pub tool which will not let me even make a simple link or paste my copy from my original to the tool. And it really is a Capital T Tool. My first week on the job I left my article on the Tool and wrote a note to my supervisor/manager that she'd have to finish publishing it if she wanted it because they didn't pay me enough to deal with that crap. She told me she had so many thousands of reporters that she manages and couldn't possibly, but she did it. God love her. Maybe she wants to do the article that has been molding on the Tool for a week now. We are all just slaves on the Examiner's content farm. Yeah, they hate Google's new algorhythm which leaves their kind of content farm content written mostly by inexperienced writers who, no shit, write about "Alcoholism and Addition Problems" more than a few times to let you know that they really think that is how addiction is spelled.
- If you want to read good writers, the cream of the formerly sotted crop, stick to reading "The Fix.: Addiction and Recovery Straight Up." They always have interesting stuff and information you don't see anywhere else. It's how I found out about the Sober Blog Dir. and the new blog I'll be reading now "Stark Raving Sober."
