In another in our series of the signs of aging, we examine today the inability to feast.  Thanksgiving has just passed, and for some reason I had a definite plan to eat far too much.  I simply wanted to wallow in food.  About the only thing in the typical Thanksgiving Day meal that I cannot stomach is stuffing.  Strange thing, that, since stuffing is what I most wanted to do to myself.  I envisioned three full plates heaping with turkey, green beans with almonds, mashed potatoes, yams, gravy, dinner rolls with enough butter for three on each, and endless glasses of a good inky ,buttery white wine to wash it all down.  The plan included at least two hours for this activity, followed by minimal movement.  

Why I wanted this is still beyond me.  Perhaps it was nothing more than a gastronomic midlife crisis.  I just wanted to prove that I still could eat like I did in my Twenties.  Perhaps it was a reaction to the constant watchfulness I now practice (Die Wacht am Diet!), though not always very well.  I just wanted out of the cage; to stop worrying about it for a day.  To hell with high blood pressure and the inability to easily bend over and tie my shoes!  Who cares about that shit?  That ain't livin'!  I'll show ya' livin', Boy!  Bring me that platter of turkey, and those rolls....

Yeah, whatever the reason . . . I didn't make it.  I got as far as a plate and a half, and two and a half glasses, and a few rich cookies, and it ended.  The appetite was GONE, not to return until around 9PM when we were safe back home and the feasting done, and then all I wanted was a slice of left over turkey between two halves of a slice of sourdough.  There was contentment.  The food was great, as was the company.  The wine was excellent and there was no shortage of it, but I felt oddly deflated.  It was as though I had the hot young thing all set up to fool around with all afternoon, but I could only go once and that was it and didn't want no mo'.  

I did have that full feeling, but it was a compact tightness in my stomach (which projected in front of me like the sonar bulb on a destroyer), not the expansive, sleepy, carbo and tryptophan fullness I used to get.  It was not that comfortable feeling of all of me being full like one of those huge sex pillows you could get back in the Sixties.

Where did that go?