Went to see my internal female organs doctor this morning. She said, at my age, I was no longer at risk for cervical cancer and didn’t need a pap smear but, elsewise, was willing to do one every other year, so I am waiting till next year. I get my mammograms in Tampa at Moffitt, so we didn’t do that.

She had her nurse weigh me (I never look), and also took my height, and I have lost a half inch since two years ago, the last time I remember having this done. I was dumbstruck. I am losing the fluid in my cartilage. I can remember how excited I was, in New York, when, after studying ballet for a year, my spine straightened and I was now, instead of 4 ft., 11 and a half, a full 5 ft.. I danced around the room. Jay measured me on a post in the loft and wrote my height down. We drank to my new stature. And now that’s gone and I am a miserable 4 ft. 10 and one half, and the last time I was that size, I may have been 11.

I told Ed to memorize me because soon he might not able to see me at all.

Incidentally, Harry Harrison, who died recently, invented “aaarrrgghhh” for a comic strip he was writing way back in the 40s or 50s. By the time I met him, he was heavy into sci fi and became a major writer. Sigh. We used to kid him that “aaarrrgghhh” would be what he was remembered for.

xx, Teal