Tuesday, June 24, 2008

On living too long


I filled one of those internet questioמnaires about how long I have to live and it says I have thirty to fifty years to go. Taking into account my already excessive, prodigious, improbable age, it is far more than I expected. What shall I do in this time? Oro y mujeres, was the motto of my admired conquistadores. But mujeres is not anymore a realistic option for me. Regarding oro, no one counts real gold coins, and a figure in my bank statement excites me even less than a woman of my age. I see myself sliding to the typical old age life of Israeli Hungarian Jews, I see myself in the future walking to the shil in the Hungarian Jewish neighborhood of Bney Brak, then sitting around a table with other Hungarian Jews learning some complicated text till lunch. Bney Brak food is sweet, greasy, truly disgusting, and to crown it, I was never able enjoy a meal with csámcsogó Hungarian Jews around, so there is no danger of me adding weight. The sweet red wine they drink is nauseating, and I never could pass down the watered 98 degree industrial ethanol they call vodka, so in my declining years I shall never enjoy the joy of getting drunk in good company (that is a good thing Germans have in life and we dont). In the evening, I shall sit in a cool dark corner and attend my luftgescheft business, say dealing in some exotic intangible good such as diamond derivatives, in order "to be all what I can be", as in the Marines. I have met people in Bney Brak who talked about K.und-K. Hungary as it was yesterday. They live to legendary ages and no one ever gets Alzheimer.

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