So. I’d promised a Johnson Family update some weeks past, yet, as of this date I’ve been unable to string enough cogent thoughts together re: said family to create writings that might provide any useful information, thereof. Maybe that should have been, or better said, “…provide useful information, thereabout.” And now, having spent the last eight minutes cogitating over the proper placement of commas in that last sentence, I find myself wondering if I have enough mental alacrities to cogently speak to any subject.

OK, do you speak cogently “to”, “of” or “about” a subject? And while we’re stopped in grammatical reflections, allow me to pre-apologize for my ADD.

With alacrities used herein to mean quicknesses, take, for example, last names. I’ve been forgetting people’s names and mostly their surnames. The worst memory faults are coming with last names of people with simpler first names. Like Bob, or Jim, or Barbara. Or Anna. Yesterday I was speaking with this nice lesbian couple over to the line to purchase Powerball tickets at the Chevron station. I was maybe third from the back of the line and they were in front of me. As the line was slow moving, and I’d overheard the nice ladies talking about their pending wedding, I interjected myself into their conversation.

I caught that they are from Austin, visiting Santa Fe as a sort of pre-honeymoon scouting trip, and that they were having difficulties identifying an Austin venue for the actual wedding. Me, always the helpful sort even when unasked, inserted myself into their conversation.

“Pardon my interruption, ladies, but my sister and her woman were married out to the dock at our place there to Austin. Anna did all the party planning and I bet she’d be willing to help.”

The one woman looked at me like I’d just shit on her head, but the second quickly moved between us and said to me, she says, “It would be really helpful to speak with someone who knows the town. We just moved to Austin and are yet unfamiliar. We have joined the local community, but haven’t made friends yet.”

“Well,” I started, “Anna’s a big wig with the Austin Lesbian Club, or whatever it is they call the lesbian confab that meets on a Thursday over to Guerro’s Taco Bar, and she can help you with that as well.”

That caught the interest of the other lady, and she says to me, she asks, “Anna who? What’s Anna’s last name?”

“Ah, uh, ah…” I was flummoxed.

Took me maybe thirty seconds to say, “Oh yea, it’s Johnson. Anna Johnson.”

Now, the new readers hereof might not think this such a big memory thingie, but it actually is. See, Anna was born Anna Johnson. Then she married me—the third of ten suffragettes—and divorced me to marry my sister, Sister. Having completed the surname trifecta, Anna Johnson-Johnson-Johnson is all Johnsoned up, factual information that should make the remembrance of her name a simple mental task.

I can’t figure what it is that’s causing these lapses of synapsis. Is it simply the process of aging and my olderating? Did The Great Radiator alter my brain functions as well as those of my alimentary tracts? Worse of all, might I be getting the starts of a genetic dementia passed from Mother to me?

OK, let’s stop for a second. I know with certainties that the alimentary tract involves the processing of Solid wastes in our bodies. Is our urinary system also alimentary, or is it considered to be a totally separate tracting? Me, for my part, I consider that since both liquids and solids, and solids containing liquids, enter all through our mouths, then the two systems are conjoined at least from the start. A well-oiled digestive tract will remove the liquids to be used elsewhere then eliminated through the bladder, so I get that there are two separate spigots as terminus. But, does having differing last stops mean separatenesses in total?

It’s like a Subway System to me. Two guys get on the train together at Broadway—one guy the swimming coach and the other is executive chef for the Dean of Women and both from over to Columbia University—and travel over to the Greenwich Village area, whereat the swim coach transfers to a train to Yonkers and the other guy keeps on to New Jersey. In comparison to the alimentary track analogicals, first guy’s a liquid rider and the second a solid. Both start at the same entrance, one—while still inside the hidden chambers and transportations of the system—exits the initial tracks to head to a not that unpleasant bedroom community, and the other, Mr. Solids, travels all the way to the end of the original tracks and into the shitter.

What I do know is that my personal solid and liquid waste systems have been fucked into dysfunctionalities since contracting the dreaded prostate cancer and having endured the attendant multiple visitations to The Great Radiator. Hell, one side effect is that sometimes when an urge to purge hits, and the hitting is with significance, I know I’d best sit for relief, as my body’s subway system sends conflicting signals to the tracts. You know, the sign says, “Yonkers,” but travels instead to Paramus.

Likewise, I can say with purity of heart that the occasional urgencies plagued upon the middle of my body will affect my mental stabilities and alacrity of thought with great effects.

Do not stand, or otherwise tarry, between me and a bathroom when an urge strikes. I’ll run your ass right on over and not stop to apologize. I’ll seek you later to make amends, but I’ll not stop, or even attempt a, “So sorry,” over my shoulder.

Anyway, having found myself with difficulties rememberating the last name of an ex-wife—said ex having my same lastie, and thrice times at that—it has dawned on me that maybe I’ve never been good with names. I can remember the color of the stains on the edge-worn white panties Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson wore the first time I personally removed them from her flanks (green from the grass in which she squiggled), and the first two words Sammie said when I eagerly placed my face where panties had formerly resided (“That tickles,”), and her first words after that first sexing (“Interesting,”).

But I can’t remember my own last name when it sits behind my third ex-wife’s first.

Ugh. Total fucking ugh! What’s next? What part of me will show its deteriorations next? Eyesight weakening, memory fading, prostate withered like plum to prune,  knees aching with Morning’s rise.

“Dear God, please don’t let it be my pecker. Please, pretty please. I swear I’ll make better use of it if you’ll just let me use it. Amen.”

So, while it’s still working, let’s all fuck Walmart with my pecker!