Look away, delicate women.  We're going deep into the Testosterone Territories here.

Hidden in my core, beyond the ruffles and flourishes of my oh so SoCal Lifestyle, is the gateway through which peace and happiness are funneled.  The pelvic region.  While, for me, it has rarely served as any sort of headquarters, I do understand the esteem in which it is held by many men, as well as the contempt it can attract in the weaker sex.  But lately, as I advance toward Seniority, I am enjoying -- and I use that term extremely loosely -- a renewed focus on the locus.  My pelvis is rising to the dawn of a new day, because there my prostate sits, scoffing at my state and grinning at my pomp.

Having already bred, and at forty-five (mph?) clearly sliding down the KY-jellied slope toward death, my obsession has shifted from the thrill of procreation to the wonder that is male hydraulics.  For Today's Man On The Go, the prostate is the hub around which life and schedules and worries revolve.

While the charts in my urologist's office depict the creature as walnut-sized, the powers of my insomnia and imagination bring it in at about the shape and girth of a giant sea anemone (clenchus reticulatus).  And like marine mollusks, we fellas depend upon the consistent flow of briny currents to make us happy and healthy.  My tide has been ebbing for a few years now, and so, semi-annually, I go down to see My Man In Scrubs, he takes me by the hand, so to speak, and what ensues is no day at the beach.

So far, I'm okay.  Nothing malignant.  The only thing that's spreading is the res ipsa, to the extent that it is officially in a condition called benign prostatic hyperplasia, a common state of affairs, I'm told.

While having a hyperplastic one sounds like it may make a man the life of the party -- and I suppose it can if it's the right party -- what it does give me is entrée into a whole new club.  While I have enjoyed my status as the elder father among most of the daddies I know, I'm just now feeling my oats as the youngster amongst the Lords of Hyperplasticity.

And apparently, there's a uniform: sandals and socks, dark barn-door-sized opthamological sunglasses for driving through plutonium and bike lanes, pants above the diaphragm please, a hat for going slow in the fast lane, and a t-shirt which graphically celebrates having visited a buffet in Branson, MO.  Since today I officially begin the second half of a ninety-year-old life (I should live so long), I'll be dressing appropriately.

There is one article of gear I don't yet need, but it does fascinate me.  The urge to understand the science of absorbency depends upon how far along one is on the continuum of that understanding.  There comes a moment in one's own personal philosophy where it is more fruitful to trade Hegel for Kegel, and while that moment has not yet arrived for me, I do have a membership at Costco and I'm prepared to buy in bulk.  

I don't mean to imply that I'm all done with the old slap-'n-tickle.  Heck, my slap to tickle ratio remains near that of my late thirties.  It's just that anniversaries of one's own birth have a way of bringing out the ghosts of functions passed.

Speaking of tiny functions, we'll be having one here this evening, just the immediate family, for some cake and candles and who knows what other surprises.  As I begin another go-'round of the Sun, let me just say that I'm grateful for the opportunity to inflict this sort of thing on you.  My pelvis and I thank you for reading.

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