By Paul Bendix
About this blog: A 32-year resident of Menlo Park, I regularly make my way around downtown in a wheelchair. This gives me an unusual perspective on a town in which I have spent almost half of my life. I was educated at UC Berkeley, and permanentl...
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About this blog: A 32-year resident of Menlo Park, I regularly make my way around downtown in a wheelchair. This gives me an unusual perspective on a town in which I have spent almost half of my life. I was educated at UC Berkeley, and permanently injured there in a 1968 mugging. Half paralyzed at 21, it took me 11 years to find full-time work. A high-tech job drew me to the Peninsula in the early 1980s. After years as a high-tech marketing writer, I retired and published my own book, Dance Without Steps (Oliver Press, New York, 2012). Having long aspired to café society, I frequent Peet's on Santa Cruz Avenue. Rolling through our downtown, I reflect on my own life - which I have restarted several times. My wife died in 2009. I remarried in July, 2013.
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Okay, it's not exactly sex, partly because it's so frequent. Daily, in fact. But it is definitely sexy, my call from this woman who wants me to consider getting down on the floor, presumably with her.
She phones about midday. We never talk, but her recorded voice always stirs me. She is full of evocative language about being on the floor and how it would be good to have an Alert. The latter being a product, some sort of pager. She goes on to explain that I am destined to fall on the ground. And I really get it, this falling on the ground, vis-à-vis gravity. Also, the part about my hips. There is a danger of breaking them, or one of them. Whose hip, hers or mine, is unclear. But she is thinking about this, the two of us being on the floor and getting up to something that involves not only hips, but hip breakage. There is nothing sexier than an active imagination.
Anyway, she keeps calling. Thing about her Alert, is that I may be eligible for a free one. No charge. We are on the floor. Something is happening with our hips. And there's no charge. Except that I do get a charge from this woman and her persistent imagery. I have been selected, that is the other thing. I may be eligible. Okay, I'm married, but still eligible. See what I mean? It's really cool.
I sort of wonder if it's my personal magnetism that has drawn this woman and her phone calls. After all, I'm 67 years old. Good thing I'm still Alert.