19 days to go before my wife and I take off for the Algarve.
Last night, I dipped into the first and last chapters of Dale Eickelman’s (Ed.) enlightening 1990 paperback, Muslim Travellers Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination. I’ve had this book for about a decade, and like to read different parts of it from time to time.
Rest easy, though.
I am not about to use the occasion to pretentiously digress on the finer distinctions between a hegira, rihla, or a simple ziyarra. I’m not even going to drone on with a tedious lack of originality on the subject of inner Spiritual Journeys.
After all, I am more of a lightweight travel writer or blogger than a heavy duty Sufi mystic.
So you can relax.
Any kind of overseas trip requires a certain amount of energy. You have to step lively and have the energy to put up with all the inconveniences of modern travel.
“Mass tourism is a phenomenon of our post-materialistic society. Possessions are no longer a priority — we just want to be entertained.”
Sociologist Paolo Giuntarelli
I was kind of getting tired of that scene, after 7 months in Gouna, and then 10 days in the Big Apple, especially as I drift more deeply into the second half of my sixties, and really start to feel the aches, the pains, the agony of the feet, the all of it.
Frankly, I was resigned to spending the rest of my days sitting around my attached concrete bunker in FLA while constantly bemoaning to my wife our right-wing neighbors and bristling with barely suppressed rage at any mention of the “age of Trump.”
Dudes, I was feeling old, tired, fat, low on energy, and bigly on moobs.
Then I had my annual Medicare-subsidized checkup, complete with comprehensive knee and back x-rays and thorough blood work to check my thyroid and testosterone hormone levels.
The results came back, and my good toubib did NOT change the Synthroid prescription I have to take for the rest of my life (due to Graves Disease) but also recommended I go see various specialists to have corticosteroid shots administered to both arthritic knees for my bone-on-bone walking issues; Tramadol and Diclofenac Sodium Topical Gel for my degenerative spine problems; and, yes, testosterone-therapy for my embarrassing hyponad issue.
So I did, and last week began self injecting liquid testosterone in my thigh muscles, and boy, what an unbelievable difference!
It’s like the fucking fountain of youth.
Almost overnight, the moob issue began to self correct. The nads are quickly returning to normal. I’m now finding those dreaded 30 lbs free weight curls a sudden breeze, and, most importantly of all, my general disposition has massively improved.
I have a new-found sense of self-confidence, so much so in fact, that I plan on getting a custom El Cid t-shirt made at Cafe Press before I go to Portugal.
Yes, testosterone therapy is turning me into a badder than bad hombre again, almost overnight too. Now I can strut out on to my driveway in the broiling heat of a Florida summer day and spend hours doing ostentatious yard work, as my pussy-whipped neighbors gape and cower in the underbrush.
Little do they realize what has turned me overnight into an El Fuerte dude who fears no one, a guy who now plans not only to go to Portugal at the drop of a hat for a month, but has also found the energy to plan side trips to El Andalus, when not mapping out long hikes in the mountains trails behind Tavira. (I have, however, chickened out of our plans to visit picturesque Loulé, despite its noirish vibe.)
Testosterone therapy is, like, unbelievable, man: it’s nuts that I didn’t do this years ago.
Well, now that I grown the cohones to stab myself with a needle every two weeks, l can honestly say that I don’t feel a day over 40 any more.
Yowzie!!!
Can visiting Pornhub via Tor and having frisky risky Carlos Danger thoughts be far behind?
Leaving Amerika 