Old may be gold, but I was always more a fan of silver.

My body is in the process of completely shutting down. I know that technically with each breath we take, we are closer to the end; but I am not talking about oxidation. My body has decided to expedite this natural process. My range of mobility last week was limited to the bathroom and the couch, where I had to continually shift my body so that my knee stiffen in one position. I am not sure if this is a physical reaction to graduation, or just a subconscious effort to resemble my grandmothers, but one thing is certain: this knee condition has further confused my age ambiguity. My face looks young, my gait appears old, and I am neither getting cheap children's menu grilled cheese nor senior citizen NJ Transit passes. So, now you can just add broke to the list of grievances.

As soon as the long weekend ended, my flu/total bodily collapse commenced. Initially, my throat would hurt only in the mornings, which nicely balanced the pain in the second half of my body. By Wednesday, my head was on the verge of explosion and my ears were on fire. I was supposed to head into the city Thursday for drinks and love with friends I haven't seen all semester, but instead I got drunk off of Theraflu and watched The Office.

I usually intersperse my wallowing in self-pity with bursts of determination and positive energy. After seeing a second doctor on Friday, my father drove me to the YMCA to buy a swim membership. I decided I would start swimming again, in efforts to slowly get back into shape and strengthen my atrophying legs. I refuse to be imprisoned inside my own body, by my own body, and so I went swimming that very Friday evening. I was scared to push my knee too much, so in 15 minutes I walked over to the hot tub, occupied by three ladies in their late 50s or 60s. I hobbled over to the other end, where I could directly expose my knee to the jet.

One of the ladies seemed to have taken charge of the conversation, and directed all talk to her intimacy with the director of the swim program, John Duke. "So when I walked into the office to register, they were all wearing green. Even I was wearing green. But John was wearing red, blue, and white. So I said, 'Guess John didn't get the memo.' And he said, 'I am wearing green underwear.' and then, you know me, never shy, so I said, 'That means you should wash your underwear because it has algae on it.'" And she laughed. And I was so enamored of her capacity to tell mundane and hopeless stories with such vitality that I forgot about my throbbing knee.

The lady next to her said, "But why were they all wearing green?" The first lady sighed, explaining that that was part of the joke, that it was a coincidence. The third lady, who had a slight eastern European accent, shook her head. "Maybe it was for a specific purpose, like the environment." The first lady continued to protest, and the other two began talking about climate change, and then all three discussed the oil spill. I was spellbound by their confidence, and began to wonder why they wouldn't just join James Cameron in advising President Obama.

The calamitous oil spill reminded Lady One about the chlorine in the pool. A Hispanic man walked by the hot tub, and she shouted, "Hey! Hey! Are you the Chlorine Man? Are you the man who cleans the pool? Hey! You! Chlorine Man!" His delayed response led to shouts from the other two ladies, who temporarily replaced Jesus with the desirable Chlorine Man. He walked over, looked at me, and then looked at them. Lady One explained that the pool was so cloudy she couldn't see from her end of the pool to the aquacising classes. "Take it from someone who has taken care of a lot of pools, indoors and outdoors, this pool needs to be shocked." And then she complained about how Chlorine Men these days don't check the levels of chlorine every hour like they are supposed to, and then stood up and motioned to her pelvis, because that is apparently what Chlorine Men check every hour. John Duke passed by just then; as she batted her eyelashes, she told him coyly to shock the pool and clear out all the band aids on the pool bottom.

I know when I am a third (or fifth) wheel, and so, without the ease with which she had gotten up to thrust her pelvis just as Chlorine Men allegedly do, I trembled up and climbed out of the whirlpool. The women took no notice, and John Duke and the Chlorine Man seemed to be in a heated discussion about the cloudy water and the Lakers.

When I got home, my mother massaged my knee, and talked to me about Jennifer Hudson's new body and Suri Cruise's fourth birthday party. I explained to her the complications of pool maintenance and how glad I was that I didn't have to walk to school uphill both ways with my bad knee.