Although we officially celebrate his birthday with a day off on Monday, my dad would have been 96 years old today. Oh, and Martin Luther King Jr would have been 87. While my dad died too young at 74 (hard to believe it’s been close to 22 years already), I find it truly astonishing that King was only 39 years old when he was assassinated. At this stage in my life, 39 seems like a kid. I would definitely like to be 39 again (though if I could choose an age, I think I’d go with 34 – things were still pretty good back then).

In an effort to stave off my own death, I finally went to see a doctor yesterday. First time (other than the occasional trip to the Urgent Care) in more years than I can recall. I couldn’t get an appointment until the afternoon, so I had to sit around all day thinking about it (though I did get a few things accomplished in a losing effort to keep my mind off it).

I really hate the thought of getting caught up in the medical/industrial complex, but I’m a bit past what folk medicine can do for me at this point. In fact, my BP was so high, they immediately have me a pill and wouldn’t let me leave until it came down (they had me lie down for a while, even).

Yesterday was fairly painless (nobody tried to stick anything into any of my orifices or anything like that), but I now how all this works, and now I’ll be thrust into the world of tests and appointments, and a lot of people trying to stick things up my ass.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But you can only walk around feeling like your head’s gonna explode for so long (before it actually does).

It doesn’t help knowing that if my dad had stayed the hell away from doctors, he might still be alive today. OK, well, probably not. But he’d certainly have lived longer (and better) had he avoided the urologist that set the wheels in motion to cure his prostate cancer, since it was the cure that killed him in the end (hey, at least he died cancer-free).

Oh well, time to hurry up and get this week over with already. Enjoy your 3-day weekend, if you’ve got one.