There’s only so much joy I can wring from Mitt Romney’s so far doomed efforts to portray himself as a compassionate human being.

“Yes I have the Blues again, thank you for asking,” I tell Memphis Earlene and Scarlett. “If you must know I’m confronting mortality.”

Not their problem.

Memphis Earlene, blues avatar, is at least 100 years old and expects to live forever, barring the invention of Universal Happy Dust.  Scarlett is a dybbuk, which is one way of dodging the issue.  She’s been dead since 1956, but she has a restless spirit and refuses to leave until the party is over.

Time means nothing to them–they live in the world of myth, where time can stand still or move backwards.  Sometimes my imagination lets me join them.

Not today.   Thanks to global warming there is barely a sign of autumn color on the leaves.  Don’t think autumn, think Prolonged Indian Summer. Thanks to major medical advances an American woman who isn’t poor can expect to live long and prosper. But I’m feeling the acceleration of time.

Any minute now I expect to find myself 90 years old, having outlived most of my friends, and with nothing to show for it except childhood memories, like the complete words to the Micky Mouse  Club Theme Song and the names of the more significant Mouseketeers.

Cubby,  Karen,  Darleen.   

Don’t laugh.  It could happen to you.