Monday, I wake up around Six. I fell asleep in the other bed, in the other bedroom, around Three. At least I guess I did. Earlier I woke up around One A.M., lay in bed, the big queen size bed, till I finally acknowledge my need to urinate. I climb out of bed, walk to the bathroom, flick on the light, raise the seat, and void.

I go downstairs, decide a cup of decaf is in order, start one with the Keurig machine, listen to the pressure push the stream of hot water through the plastic pod, then take my cup of hot Dunkin’ Decaf.  I sit in my leather recliner,check football scores, the arrival/departure status of Amtrak trains and sip the coffee.  I start to feel tired again after reading and  pondering the state of the world. I say a Hail Mary, putting emphasis on the phrase “Full of Grace”, being too lazy to get out the Rosary and invest the twenty minutes it takes me to pray five decades.

Back upstairs I go. I position the pillow against my back, start the CD with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert Lieder. I last remember the fourth song. Next thing I know it is Six A.M.  I brew some real coffee with caffeine, read the obituaries, (my mother’s morning habit), then the sports page. Les Habs, the Montreal Canadiens, lost last night 3-2 to the Blackhawks.  I start a DVD (CBS’s World War I), paying half-attention to Robert Ryan’s narrative of the Pershing Expedition to find Pancho Villa in 1916.  I text with my friend in Connecticut over nothing in particular.

I hear Mrs CorC  moving about upstairs, starting her shower, then trudge upstairs to chill with her as she gets dressed for work.  I tease her about the foods she dislikes, veal, lamb, okra (gumbo), promising not to put okra in the soup I’m planning to fix in the next couple of days.

She is dressed for work, her teeth brushed, her I-Pad charged. She kisses me good-bye, half-heartedly, fearful this morning, of infecting me with some imagined virus.

She did not remind me to be a “Good Boy” today. I never ask what would constitute bad behavior, (looking at porn sites perhaps?)  If she only knew of the porn playing between my ears whenever I wished to imagine it, she would realize the futility of her admonition.

One day, in our ongoing but sporadic dialogue of why we don’t make love, she stated that menopause stifled her libido.  I can only speculate as to why she has made no inquiries with doctors, or psychotherapists, or even friends on how to restore said libido.   She is not, after all, singularly, uniquely, and solitarily afflicted with this dilemma.

“Why, my Beloved, am I NOT worth the effort?”

Off she goes……