Testosterone Blues

Dearest Rachel –

There’s an old joke that I remember only vaguely – I’m probably going to get most of the details wrong, but as long as the setup and punchline are intact it shouldn’t matter – about a fellow my age or maybe older, who’s worried about feeling his age. He tells his friend, or maybe a doctor, or maybe a friend who is a doctor about it (hello, Lars!), and said doctor friend makes a recommendation regarding a change in lifestyle. Again, it probably doesn’t matter whether it’s something logical like a change in diet or increased exercise, or if it was something comparatively magical, like a supervitamin or a prescription drug; the point is that it seems to work. Elated with the results, he goes to his doctor friend with the good news.

“Your suggestion works wonders! Every time I [do whatever it is you recommended], I find myself feeling like a twenty-year-old!”

“That’s great! Didn’t I tell you this would happen? Congratulations!”

“Yeah! There’s… just one problem…” the main trails off, with a sheepish look on his face.

This prompts an expression of concern from his friend. “Oh? What is it?”

“I can never find one who’s willing, when I do…”

***

Admittedly, I’m not seriously looking for a twenty-year-old (although you spoiled me into wanting someone with an energy, a joie de vivre far below their actual age, which leads me to be less than eager to find someone who might otherwise be a peer), but I’ve learned that the things that I’m doing to myself in an effort to attract ‘Megumi,’ whoever she might be, has the ironic effect of making me want her to show up at my side even as I’m doing those things. She literally can’t get here fast enough.

It turns out that exercise, and particularly resistance training like weightlifting (and perhaps to a lesser extent, hill cycling), boosts the body’s testosterone production (and it supposedly works regardless of whether you’re male or female – or, presumably, any one of those umpty-million alleged genders in between, although presumably it will shift one down the continuum toward maleness, I shouldn’t wonder). This, while providing benefits such as increased muscle mass (and hopefully, a transition and migration of fat cells stored in my abdominal region to supply muscles I’m attempting to build in my arms and legs) and improved heart and lung health – thereby also increasing energy and stamina, to a certain extent – also has the unintended consequence of ramping up certain… desires. It’s what testosterone does, after all. In that hour or so after a workout, in particular, I’m dealing with an acute increase in the hormone, and everything associated with that – and I do mean everything associated with it.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal if you were still around, of course; while I never engaged in any formal regimen like I am these days, there were days where the mere upkeep of the house would require a certain amount of exertion. In the summer and fall, there was the lawn (and chopping wood for the fireplace, which we really haven’t used much since you left; sorry to disappoint you); in the winter, there was the driveway to shovel. After working up a such a sweat, I’d generally take a shower; either you would join me in washing up, or you would walk into the bathroom as I was finishing up, and offer… what we would refer to (in a nod to Monty Python, of all things) as ‘a bit of fun.’

Speaking of which, I could just as easily imagine you finding the current situation with the bedroom heater (specifically, its communication issues with the thermostat) to be equally well-suited for you to greet me after emerging from the shower with a Carol Clevelandesque “My, isn’t it hot in here…” invitation. Either way, none of this would have me turning your offer down, unless we were in a hurry to go somewhere (which was far too often, in retrospect). I never understood those sitcoms where the men had no interest in their wives, who seemed so much more eager than they were for that sort of thing. Then again, that may have been the joke, for all I know.

And yes, I realize that you didn’t always do this sort of thing – I’m sure my nostalgia filter paints you as being more libidinous than you were in real life. All the more reason for me not to pass it up when you did offer; and to be fair, the fact that you did offer quite often, and willingly, allows me to remember this aspect of you so fondly.

It’s also particularly conspicuous in its absence these days.

***

It probably doesn’t help that the fitness room has piped-in music, some of which I will on occasion actually recognize. It seems that, given the usual cycle of pop cultural nostalgia, what I will hear from time to time (when I actually bother to pay attention) is late-80s material – just the sort of stuff that we used to swap back and forth with our letters back in the day.

It was about the time that you started college that Peter Gabriel’s album So came out, with a number of particularly good songs on it. Up until then, I had never been a big fan of his work, either with the band Genesis or on his own, until I was subjected to it continually at university, but I will admit to enjoying this particular album. Heck, you might remember my pulling off the iconic “boom box over the head” routine to his (and ‘our’) song “In Your Eyes” when I visited you for Homecoming that one year (and, since it occurred over Halloween, I was dressed as the Doctor Who antagonist Sharaz Jek, whose black-and-white mask recalled the split-face mime costume I wore the first time I tried to talk to you – and yes, I still remember how silly it felt to be talking dressed as a mime).

Well, the other day, as I was in the midst of climbing another hill on the exercise bicycle, I realized that I recognized a song from that album being played on the speaker system. However, it wasn’t one of his sweeter ballads like “In Your Eyes,” “Red Rain” or “Mercy Street,” or even the punchy “Big Time,” which I always enjoyed, despite its egotistical lyrics (which I always took to be satirical, in any event). No, this was his other major hit, “Sledgehammer,” which always seemed a bit too over-the-top, in terms of innuendo, even for my tastes. I’m not sure you could even call it innuendo, in fact, so much as straight-up Freudian symbolism, as the singer extols all the, ah, enjoyment his intended could have with him. The first few images of the video, in fact, don’t even bother with symbolism, but pretty much spell out the activity he has in mind.

Not the sort of thing for me to be dwelling on when I’m already fully aware that I’m dealing with testosterone poisoning.

Assuming ‘Megumi’ is out there, and I can actually find her, this overdosing myself may be less of a problem, and more of an additional benefit. I can only hope.

Until then, keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.