Malled

'At's right. . . I did that.  Took me a trip to the M-A-L-L!  

WTF? 

I heard that malls were dead.  Empty.  Being converted into homeless centers or something.  

I got what they used to call back in the 'hood, "a wild hair."  I don't know.  I got to the gym early.  I needed to get home and do some things before the cleaning crew came.  I needed to shower.  I needed to go to the bank, too, to get them some money.  And that all went swell.  I finished the last thing just before they texted.

"Be there in thirty minutes."

They are good like that.  

So I headed off.  It was just after noon.  I had made my mother breakfast but had skipped my own.  I had been eating like a fat fool all weekend and needed to change my ways.  I wanted a good salad.  You know, the way people used to eat--in movies about Hollywood.  Rabbit food and fancy water.  

I ran through my memory bank of local restaurants, though, and couldn't remember anything like that on the menu.  No Caesar with chicken, no Cobb.  I really didn't want to go to a restaurant anyway, but isn't it odd how we've fallen away from the big salad?  

Then I had a bright idea--Fresh Market.  They made good take-out food, but they also had a little court to eat it in.  Just the thing.  

I got a great salad with balsamic chicken and a strange half and half green tea and watermelon juice drink.  And that, my friends, was an unexpected treat.  

I sat and ate slowly and watched the customers come and go sizing them up in my head, paying attention to the details of their clothing, their body shapes, their gait.  I don't do such things anymore.  It felt like vacation.  

I had an idea.  I wanted to get out of my own hometown.  Not far.  Just past Gotham.  I never leave town, never go more than five miles from home.  This would be huge.  

I'd go to the mall!

It was a little scary, though.  The interstate has changed much since I was last there, more interchanges, more lanes, not all off ramp on the right hand side.  Jesus.  I was driving slowly.  No hurry.  The sun was shining.  The music was playing.  Cars were flying, speedsters switching lanes over and over again.  And there was me, hunched over the steering wheel, leaning close to the windshield looking for my exit.  

Fuck!  It had all changed.  The mall used to sit in the open all by itself.  Now you couldn't see it for the building that had gone up around it.  This was a shopping and dining Mecca now.  I'd expected a ghost town.  Years had gone by.  Lanes had changed.  I creeped along until I saw something I recognized--the giant Ikea store.  A quick right.  Around the back where nobody used to park.  Rain Man style, I always used this entrance.  Bloomingdales!  

It was ninety-five degrees in the parking lot.  Opening the door to Bloomies was like entering the oasis.  And the fragrance--I'd forgotten that.  Bloomies has its own fragrance. Surely they pipe it in through the vents.  

A quick left into the Men's Department.  Things were still in the same order.  First Ralph Lauren, then the suits--Armani, Boss, Canali, etc.  I walked through the aisles just looking.  I was feeling really underfunded.  A plain Ralph Lauren button up was $160.  Emporio Armani--not the good Armani--had nice pants for $480.  The real Armanis are four times that.  Nice shoes.  I was just picking up ideas, I told myself.  I moved on.  

I walked through Abercrombies.  Teens, some with parents.  It's good to know what kids want.  I liked the new cropped shirts for boys, short hems, sort of like old Guayaberas.  Nice.  

I stopped at the Mont Blanc store to see what a new nib would cost.  The nice lady told me how to clean the one I have.  

On and on.  The mall had gotten more upscale.  Chanel.  Ferragamo.  Versace.  Hermes.  Dior.  Tiffany.  Gucci.  Balencia.  Prada.  You work your way down to the Tommy Bahamas and H&M as you wander closer to Macy's.  Somewhere between, the mall widens.  On the right, the nice restaurants, on the left, a food court.  It is like crossing the tracks and you get to athletic shoes and gaming stores.  

Climb the stairs and wander back.  

I got sucked into a Western Wear store, Tecovas.  

"Which side is the men's boots?" I asked.  Turns out I was looking at the women's.  

"But I can show you those, too, if you are interested."

"Thanks," I stumbled, catching myself.  "I mean. . . I don't want to be so binary."

The woman laughed.  

"These are the exotic leathers--shark, crocodile, ostrich. . . ."

"Do you have shrimp skin?"

"Uh. . . what?"

"Just kidding."

"Have you ever worn cowboy boots?"

Oh, shit.  Here we go.

"Nope.  Only Beatle boots."

I had her grinning now.  

"I haven't been to a mall in years.  I'm just wandering around."

I looked in the window of the Ray Ban store.  I saw something.  I tried them on.  Holy shit--this was totally me.  Round metal.  $220.  

O.K.  O.K.  I was just collecting ideas.  

The idea was that I wanted to live like a Hollywood movie star but I was a poor-assed dirtbag better suited to surf trunks and cheap Chinese shorts.  

I wouldn't kick about the price of a $50 t-shirt anymore.  

Stepping back out into the heat, the scent of Bloomingdales clung to me.  I hadn't stayed in the mall long.  It was still mid-afternoon.  What to do?  

I headed to the cafe.  

When I walked in, I saw that the woman at the counter had cut her hair.  So I said.  

"We're twins," she laughed.  

We talked about how little shampoo and conditioner we had to use now.  Summer savings.  

"What will you have?" she asked.  

I was feeling all vacationy.  I remembered decades before in Palm Beach, I'd gotten an egg cream.  

"How about an egg cream?"

She looked at me for a second.

"Just kidding.  I saw that you had the Italian syrups and it made me remember them.  I can't remember the ratios, but it hasn't any eggs in it.  It is syrup, seltzer, and milk."

She thought and then said, "It sounds like a French soda."  She pulled out her phone and Googled.  "Yea.  I can do this."

H-O-L-Y  S-H-I-T!  It was delicious and perfect on a very hot day.  

"This is my new summer drink!" I gushed.  

I sat down with my French soda and pulled out my notebook.  I'm happy that I still write in notebooks because all the research is showing that hand writing is good for the brain.  Typing on a computer, not so much.  There are different neural connections, and studies show that students who type notes do not remember as much as students who take notes by hand.  

So I wrote and drank and was happy.  Then I had an idea.  What if I could take my mother to the beach for a week.  Could she do it? 

When I got back to her house, I asked.  

"Do you think you could ride in the car that long?"

"Yes."

I was excited.  I think she'd be fine.  Maybe I could get her in and out of the pool.  This was a stirling idea.  

I'll check out some condos this week.  It is scary.  I don't remember how to do this stuff anymore.  

And so--The Mall!  It started with the salad.  I needed to change the routine, get out of the rut. 

The bad thing is, though. . . I really want those glasses.  

On the way back, I heard a song.  It is just the kind of Europop that makes me happy.  Maybe you will like it, too. 

A. Aiyeeee.

You might not know this, but I like A.I.  People who are contentious about it, it appears to me, are those who speak about it in terms that humanize.  A.I. is like a calculator with a bank of stored information.  It is amazing.  As I have said many times, I don't fear it, I fear the people who control it, the people who decide what it can and what it cannot share.  

"Information wants to be free!"

A.I. reveals the flaws in human conventions.  I read today that the number of "home grown" lawsuits by people using A.I. has begun to flood the courts.  I used ChatGPT to write some legal documents concerning the violation of my victim's rights per this state's statutes.  In seconds, I had three documents with the names and addresses of where they should be sent.  They were brief and succinct.  When I told my famous judge buddy, he winced.  We both knew what an attorney would have charged me to do the same thing.  He said the documents would be fine, but nothing would happen.  The State Prosecutors Office would never respond to the docs.  

I never sent them.  But it is bullshit that they let the guy who stole $22,000 worth of camera gear off the hook with probation without informing me of the hearing.  I had the option to get restitution from him.  It would never have happened, sure, but he would have been on probation until restitution was served.  

Selavy. 

I got lost there.  My point is that A.I. is showing up the flaws in our current legal system.  Everything is a lawsuit now.  Morgan and Morgan, et. al.  

The same goes for medicine.  In studies at Johns Hopkins, A.I. outperformed doctors a majority of the time in diagnosing patients.  A.I. isn't a doctor, it is a tool to be used by doctors.  

Want to make your own suitcase nuke?  Uh-oh.  Now we're running into trouble.  Who should control that bit of information?  Now, sure. . . we run into a dilemma.  But somebody knows how, just not you.  The information is there, though, and A.I. has it.  

The Pope. . . well you know what he just did.  He weighed in.  Here's the part that broke me up.  I took this straight from the N.Y. Times:

"With the heart of a shepherd and a father, I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good, so that humanity will never lose its beauty, and the world once again will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell" (Pope Leo).

The biblical story of the Tower of Babel recurs as a touchstone. The account appears in the Book of Genesis, and describes a world in which a unified human population that speaks only one language decides to build a tower “whose top reaches to the heavens” in order to exert its own power and domination.

In response, God scatters the people across the earth, in what serves as an origin story for the existence of different languages and cultures.

Leo uses the Tower of Babel as an illustration of the pitfalls of pursuing uniformity and standardization, and the limits of ambitious undertakings that appear able to compete with the claims of religion. As many aspects of global culture homogenize, and technology becomes a kind of universal language, Leo’s call for humility and diversity stands in contrast. It’s also a reminder that many of the seemingly new ethical and social challenges posed by A.I. have ancient roots (N.Y. Times).

Yea. . . O.K.  Uh. . . what?  Really?  

So. . . I can't get out to make pictures much anymore.  It bugs me, but I still like to fool around.  You might be aware.  As I've said, I've been making postcards and sitting down at my new desk and handwriting notes and mailing these to friends.  Each card and stamp costs me about a buck, and I have to drive to the post office to mail them because there are not public mail drops anymore.  I asked why, and the lady at the post office told me that people kept robbing them or putting "stuff" down the chutes of the boxes.  

The image at the top is one of the photos from my "A Few Days One Summer" surf series shot on the little toy Holga camera oh so long ago.  2009.  Wow.  I used A.I. to morph it into the postcard you see.  I've already printed some up and sent them out.  I hope you don't mind the image being morphed because you will probably see more of them here in lieu of the photographs I am not taking.  I would like to take the series up again, but I don't think people would pose for pictures anymore.  Things have radically changed.  People are more guarded and suspicious now.  I just read some statistics about children and teens not being allowed to leave their yards.  It is crazy.  The media, the article said, created a mania about kidnapped children using bad numbers.  The truth is that most of the missing children they reported were runaways, and that, in fact, there was an average of six child kidnappings per year.  

"I always took candy from strangers" (Keith Richards).

So, yea. . . I don't think I would be allowed to do that anymore.  OMWC syndrome.  

Still, I can recycle.  

I did try to make photos for a bit yesterday.  Drove around looking for any kind of MD celebration.  Found nothing.  The streets were dead.  I assumed everyone had gone to the beach.  So I stopped at Fresh Market and got fixings.  Gourmet hot dogs made by the butcher.  Blue cheese angus steer sirloin hamburgers.  Slaw and beans.  When I got to my mother's house and started to cook, though, I realized that the packaged hot dogs you buy at the store are pre-cooked.  Holy shit--I'd never cooked a raw dog before!  

I cooked them for a long time.  Hot dogs and hamburgers and beans and slaw and beer.  And watermelon.  

And not a picture to show.  

After dinner, my mother asked me, "Do you think that Californication show is on tonight?"

Holy shit!  What have I done?  I've corrupted my 94 year old mother.  She tells the neighbors about the show.  

It does make me laugh.  Something needs to.  

The Hissing of Summer Lawns

The Hissing of Summer Lawns

It's unofficial, but. . . yea.  Get out the grill.  Hot dogs and hamburgers, ice cream and watermelon, lawn mowers and beach chairs, and of course, the summer's reading list.  It's what we all long for.  Groups of friends playing badminton and horseshoes, outdoor showers where sandy feet get rinsed, the glowing tan from summer sun.  

The fantasy has many times nearly killed me.  And yet, I still believe in it the way I believe in the Dick and Jane version of American life.  

Ain't I something?  

Married life had been much like that.  The year I got divorced, I was determined to continue on.  I bought an ice cream maker.  I fired up the grill.  I kept cut flowers on the table.  I drove to the coast regularly to go surfing.  

Alone. 

This year, though, it will be ma and me.  Yesterday I took her to the grocery store for "a little outing."  I swear to God, I am a good caregiver.  She is doing better all the time.  She pushed that shopping cart around without jamming up traffic nearly as much as once upon a time.  We bought some kind of crazy, rich donuts with a cream inside.  Fruit.  So much fruit.  Cut watermelon was BOGO.  Blueberries.  Apples.  Navel oranges.  Bananas.  Kiwi fruit.  But we were there for shrimp.  I bought a pound of pink shrimp from our own coast.  Yellow rice.  Sliced pimento olives.  

Cookies.  

It was on the cookie aisle that we ran into a woman from the gym.  The first one.  She is older than I and bent with scoliosis.  Everyone at the Club Y asks daily, "How's your mom?" But this is the first time anyone has seen her.  

"Mom, this is my friend from the gym.  We walk on the treadmill together."

Jane was lovely and told my mother, "You have a wonderful son."  

"Yes. . . he is."

Onward.  A pretty, tan, young blonde girl with a great figure and little gym shorts cut to show the bottom of her glutes and just the beginning of her vaginal crevice was talking to a taller blond boy.  As they walked away. . . oh, those little shorts were climbing.  I looked at my mother and she began laughing.  

"That's what they do," I grinned.  My mother shook her head, still chuckling.  

"It's just like the t.v. show we watched last night."  

It was the one with the blonde high school teen getting naked with her boyfriend.  My mother nodded in agreement.  I think this girl could be the same one as the one on t.v.  Interchangeable.  They have the internet.  They all look like that. 

We were headed for the beer aisle.  Coors Light for mom.  "I haven't had this for awhile," I said picking up the Dale's Pale Ale.  A woman, perhaps my own age, perhaps a little younger, was looking in the cooler.  It was hard to tell.  She was big up top with swizzle stick legs, wearing a pair of short shorts and a blouse.  

"What kind of beer," she grinned.  

"Dale's."

"Oh. . . my husband used to drink that.  I divorced him.  Then he died."

"Do you think it was the Dale's?"

"He never cared what I wanted to drink."

We wandered on down the aisle, the woman still looking after me and smiling.  

"I think she wanted to drink some beer with us," I said.  

There were only two checkout lines open.  I told my mother to get into aisle 6 while I took back something she didn't want.  But when I got to aisle 6, my mother wasn't there.  I looked around and spied her at the opposite end of the store.  As I went to pick her up, the beer lady passed.  

"You're not getting into this line?"

"I gotta get my mother."

"She's fast, that one.  She's been all over."

"What are you doing, ma?"

"Huh?"

"I said aisle 6."

"Oh, I didn't hear you."

But she had done her grinning and nodding of her head in affirmation the way she does when she hears but doesn't. 

We got into line in aisle 5.  It was shorter.  But the beer lady was ahead of us.  She was trying to pay with a card that wasn't working, and she was being a bit quick with the cash register girl who has something physically wrong with her, her face half paralyzed and twisted, but she seems to be o.k. mentally if just a tad slow.  Just a tad slow is almost twice as quick as most of the others working there, though, and she is the sweetest girl.  I often make her laugh.  

The beer lady tried a second card, but that one didn't work either.  The young boy who was bagging tried to help her.  

"It still didn't go through," said the cashier.  

The beer lady looked at me and said something about the credit union being all screwed up.  

"I'll just pay cash," she said.  The bagboy schlepped her things together and the cashier said, "I still owe you money."  

As the beer lady was leaving, she turned to me and said, "I know you."  This was the second time she had said this.  I really didn't have a reply.  

"You don't remember me.  I used to work out at the Y."

"I still do," I beamed.

"I remember you." 

I just stood a moment, grinning, my head moving in a small circle.  

"Well. . . it's good to see you again."

I must admit, I'm always surprised that anyone can still recognize me.  Cool.  

My mother had a lotto ticket worth ten dollars, so we stopped at the help desk so she could cash it.  The nice boy working there got the walker he had stored for her.  I gave my mother the walker and took the cart.  Outside, Jane from the Club Y said, "I'm going to have shrimp and yellow rice tonight, too.  I'm glad you said.  That sounded good."

"Sliced olives are good in the yellow rice," I said.  

"Ooo. . . o.k. I have some.  I'll try it."

Back home, we cracked two beers and sat in the open garage porch.  It was hot, but a breeze had picked up, just enough to move the air.  

"I saw a kite yesterday.  They are quick.  It was here and gone."

I love watching the kites with their distinct V-shape.  I thought they were the fastest of raptors, but I was wrong.  I looked it up.

No, kites are not considered fast birds compared to other raptors. They are instead famous for their incredible agility, grace, and endurance in the air. 

While a true speedster like the Peregrine Falcon can dive at over 200 mph, kites are built for effortless gliding and tight, acrobatic maneuvers rather than pure straight-line speed.

Yes, that makes sense, I guess.  They are truly fun to watch.  

In a bit, I went in to start the rice.  I decided to make a Campari and soda rather than the Rum Negroni I have gotten addicted to.  I took the drink back to the "porch." I sipped it.  Yes, this was good.  I would leave the Rum Negronis alone.  This was fine.  

I went back in to put the water and apple cider vinegar to boiling.  Once the shrimp went in, it would only be a couple minutes.  I prepared a bowl of ice water.  I went out and called to mom.  I mixed up my homemade cocktail sauce in little ramekins, heavy on the horse raddish.  

We ate the entire pound of shrimp.  I think my mother was peeling faster than I.  When there were just two left, I handed her one.  

"I can't eat any more."

But she did.  

At the end of dinner, I wished I had the ice cream maker.  I think it is still in my garage.  But we had watermelon that was juicy and sweet.  

And that, my friends, was our almost kick-off to summer.  Today will be the usual Memorial Day dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers, etc.  

Maybe I should have saved that Sly song for today, but there are plenty of summer songs.  I'll find something for you kids.  See you on the sound.  Don't track sand into the house.  Rinse your feet.  

Everyone Is Elsewhere

I couldn't write yesterday. Don't know if I can today.  I have nothing to say, really.  Life, mine, is a dull, repetitive act of doing exactly the same thing every day without any hope of breaking free.  Some people do this voluntarily, I know.  In their case, it is by consent.  I see it up and down my mother's street.  People live without much imagination, comfortable and content with familiarities.  

Or so it would seem.

I should say, mine is by consent, too, but somehow it seems more situational.  I COULD just walk away, leave my mother in some facility, I guess.  That is what people do.  It is happening to the woman she travelled much with just now.  Her sons and daughters have abandoned her to a nursing home.  They don't go to see her.  

I can't do that.  I am a humanist.  A humane romantic.  A melancholy fatalist, maybe, built to be forlorn.  

I tried shaking myself out of it yesterday.  Nope.  I'd been taking photos and I dumped them into the computer to see.  Not one even remotely good.  So I made some fake videos and sent them off to Q.  In the first several, I took a younger me and paired it with the present him.  I made him my uncle, I guess.  That was fun.  Then I took another version of me and another version of him set in a Mexican whorehouse.  Now I was having fun.  Then I took a version of me that would have been the same age that he is now.  I paired us with a "worker" in her briefs.  The A.I. engine didn't like that much.  It kept rejecting every suggestion.  But I got a few things.  Sent them off to Q.  Nor response.  Zilch.  Bagel.  

I'm hoping he doesn't sue.  

I took a long afternoon walk.  It was hot.  My knees and hip and back hurt terribly.  My broken and metal ribcage is getting worse.  I limped along for miles.  It didn't cheer me up.  I'd have a difficult time walking the streets of NYC, San Fran, L.A., Mexico City, let alone those great and wonderful Sierras.  

I decided to buy some summer, full-legged, loose, blousy linen pants.  I've tried before, but they are all "beachy" and not at all that Italian sophisticated I desire.  I looked online, but then I had a thought.  I'd write to my friend who spent her life as a fashion editor for men's magazines.  I wrote her an email.  Then. . . well. . . I've been written out of that narrative awhile back, and though she would have responded, I demurred and deleted.  

Still, those pants would make me feel wonderful.  I decided to look up some from the fashion designers.  

Oh, no.  Uh-uh.  Dior linen pants for men?  $1,500.  WTF?  Armani?  $1,700.  

No wonder those fuckers look so wonderful.  I was prepared to go "expensive," but I hadn't any idea what I was talking about.  

I was glad I didn't send the text.  I was also lamenting that I didn't marry the rich girl.  Those are the kind of things her family always wore.  

Selavy.  

Travis texted me from Charleston where he and his wife are setting up one of their sons for law school.  Oh, Charleston.  What a wonderful place.  He sent photos from lunches and bars.  I longed to go.  I sent him information on The Pink House on Chalmers Street, "built between 1694 and 1712, it is one of the oldest surviving structures in the city and once functioned as a colonial alehouse and suspected brothel for passing sailors and pirates."  I was there earlier in this century and was able to enter the small downstairs bar and walk the narrow stairway up two floors to see the tiny bedrooms where trades were plied.  

Can't do that now, I guess.  I read it is now a private residence, and all I could wonder is how they got the smell out.  

Now that I think of it, Q may be in Chicago.  He said he was going, but I don't remember when.  

My mountain buddy texted.  

Hanging out this weekend at the Strawberry music festival it feels liberal.  Holy shit dude. They are young beautiful hippie chicks everywhere. There’s a lot of guys walking around that look like you too I don’t stare at them very long.

 And then, a text from Red. 

In Detroit today to dance the weekend.

I told her about The Detroit Club where Ili and I stayed for a few nights in 2019, back when we were travelling.  

Oh it’s not far from here. Fly up and stay there Tuesday night with me 😝.

When I got up this morning at six, I had another text she'd sent just a half hour before.   

 Sorry kid, but even if I were free, I couldn't hang.  She scares the shit out of me.  

My midwest friend is everywhere, and my best lesbian friend is begging me to go on a photo safari with her.  

Everyone is somewhere else.  

Four o'clock.  Time for me to get back to mother.  I'd made us two filet mignons for dinner the night before.  I cooked them perfectly.  You could cut them with a fork.  But I was not in the mood for making a meal last night.  I picked up a pizza from the hippie joint.  

I drank light beer.  I think the nightly pre-dinner cocktail is killing me.  I narcotize myself every night with wine and hard liquor knowing that the night will be like the night before and the night before that and the night before that. . . . 

I finished the Salter lectures that Travis gave me after dinner.  

"I mentioned earlier the freedom of art.  I mean by that the freedom not to be bound by common ideas of morality or by any catechism.  I mean also the freedom--really the need--to break through any mediating things.  There should be no prohibitions on what you are allowed to think or imagine."

After watching a t.v. show lacking in imagination, after mother went to bed, I picked up a book of this year's Pushcart Prize winners.  I tried one story after another, but nothing grabbed me.  Maybe writing has taken a turn for the worse.  Or maybe it is just it suffers from comparison with something like Salter.  Whichever way, I was severely disappointed.  

Not in those writers, of course, but in myself.  I find I have allowed myself to be constrained by a conventional moral order.  

I went to bed only to wake in a sweat.  The sheets were soaked through.  I got up and then went back to bed.  Every hour for the rest of the night.  

I'm guessing Red was feeling better about the night than I was when I read her text this morning.  

Unofficial

I just found out that it is Memorial Day Weekend.  That caught me by surprise.  What surprised me more, though, is that it will be the heaviest travel weekend in history.  That's what they say.  The only conclusion I can draw is that people are full of shit.  They moan and weep and wail about the cost of things, gasoline in particular, but it doesn't effect the way they live.  People have not stopped eating out I've read.  Everybody "poor mouths," sure, but in the end, everyone seems to be doing better than I.  And much better than people in the past.  Did you hear about the agreement with the hotel workers union in NYC?  They will now make an average of--and I am not making this up--$100,000/year.  

The average salary for a teacher with a bachelor's degree in NYC is $71,000.  I just looked it up.  

Now I know I'm a little bougie.  I buy Chacos flip-flops, for instance.  They are now going for $70 a pair.  HOWEVER, I've been wearing mine for like a decade now.  The things just don't wear out.  Running shoes are the painfully expensive part of my life.  Hokas.  I just bought a new pair online from REI because they were running a discount sale.  I saved around $25.  Still, the fuckers cost $125, and they won't last long.  

I should run barefoot like the African marathoners used to until recently.  Now there is a new cheater shoe that gives runner faster times than ever.  

Everything changes.  When I was a kid, high-top Chuck's were the top of the line basketball shoe.  I can hardly walk in them now.  I ran in them until I bought a pair of Adidas running shoes which were to running what Chuck's were to basketball--something a step above being an athlete in your street shoes.  Then, in college, we all had to have these. 

They were built on the idea of the foot imprint left when you were walking in sand.  They had a dropped heel, the opposite of the way shoes are made today.  

Do you know how much parents pay for kids to play school sports now?  It is insane.  Do you even know how many baseballs a college team goes through in week?  A coach told me that the kids will toss away a ball that has a scratch.  When I was in high school, I think the stitching had to come loose before a ball was relegated to the practice patch.  You should have seen the balls we played with in the neighborhood.  

Basketballs, too.  

Whatever.  My whole point is that we are a bougie culture, and those Somali pirates in Minnesota took advantage of that . 

Just like Trump.  WTF?  And people go along with that shit.  Now his DOJ wants to arrest Castro for shooting down a plane.  Trump's people blow ships out of international waters for the fuck of it.  

"I'll tell you what.  We'll make a deal.  We take Cuba, you take Taiwan.  You're getting a better country, but we'll settle for that.  Russia's already down.  We let them have parts of the Ukraine.  Crimea.  The rest is on them.  So what do you say?  Deal?  Shake on it."

He's made sure of one thing--history will never forget Trump.  He'll be no Chester A. Arthur, that's for sure.  

"Who in the world is Chester A. Arthur?"

I showed my little Jazz Night video to my mother at yesterday's Happy Hour.  

"That girl sure likes to smoke," she said.  "She doesn't inhale, though,  Is that someone you know?"

Broke me up.  

"Not well." 

I mean, I can use people I know. 

This was just before I committed her to Ward 7.  For some people, there is just too much of a good thing.  But maybe that is all of us, now.  The world is an asylum run by inmate elites.  The rest of us are just in for the hosing.  

O.K.  That's all I got.  It is Friday.  What to do?  I guess I'll make breakfast for ma and ask her what she wants for dinner.  That's the way I roll.  Party!  

Since this is being referred to as "The Unofficial Start of Summer," I guess this is apropos.  It is one of my favorite songs. 

Soultrane

Man, republicans are hardwired. They STILL overwhelmingly support Trump.  Maybe they think they are going to get some of that Trump money.  

Remember Little Marco and the NEVER TRUMP movement?  

I can't even say "whatever" to this stuff.  I'm guessing it is the Authoritarian Personality thing.  You know I'd look it up. 

Social scientists do not categorize authoritarianism as a simple "yes or no" condition, but rather as a spectrum. In the U.S., surveys suggest that about 20% to 25% of the population holds highly authoritarian views, while another 20% to 23% lean toward these dispositions. Authoritarianism is a psychological worldview characterized by submission to perceived authorities, aggression toward out-groups, and a strict adherence to conventional norms. Rather than being fixed, these traits are often "activated" by fear, instability, or political messaging.

And that would pretty much make up the number of republican party members.  

Here's what's surprising to me, though--social scientists see this as a negative personality trait.  I'll let you look up the reasons why, but if nearly 50% of people have or lean toward this trait, it is hard to see it as an aberration.  I'm pretty sure that science is neutral on moral issues.  

Maybe.

But then again, it is "social" science.  

The girl at the top of the page probably does not have the trait.  But who knows?  She might be Ann Coulter's mother.  

I can tell you without a qualm that I have an anti-authoritarian personality.  I resist authority at every turn.  It has been the hallmark and often the bane of my existence.  I can't imagine, for instance, being in the military.  I would have been court martialed on the first day.  Maybe the second.  And if it could happen to Olaf, it could happen to me (link).  

I must admit that I have never read e.e. cummings "The Enormous Room."  Apologies.  

This one might be.  She seems a little more intense.  No matter, though. . . I have lots of republican friends.  That's not true.  I don't have lots of friends of any type.  I'm pretty much a loner, so I use the term "friends" loosely.  But I get along with people of all stripes.  

Maybe it comes from being an only child and spending my early years in very rural America.  I had to be good at entertaining myself.  I learned to read early.  My grandmother took care of me while my mother was at work, and she taught me.  She probably inspired my interest in pictures, too.  She had me cutting out pieces from magazines and pasting them together with the homemade glue she made from flour and water.  I would put them together and she'd ask me what story they told.  

As an only child, though, I am used to private time.  That is something hard for me to get now.  I couldn't sleep last night, woke up at four and rolled around in bed until I could stand the inside of my skull no longer.  Got up at 4:45.  Put on the coffee.  At five, my mother got up.  I hear her and I get anxious.  My cortisol spikes.  My entire body tenses and won't release.  My hands shake and I want to scream.  

"I just want some fucking time to myself!!!!!"

I don't want to be alone ALL the time, of course, but much if not most of it.  I do a lot of "free thinking," and that ain't happening with someone else around.  Oh, I still think, but it is not helpful.  

"What do you think about?"

"Oh. . . just stupid shit."

"Like what?"

"Like is wish you would shut the fuck up."

Unless you are this girl.  Then I will sit and listen to you for a bit.  But. . . it would be best if you kept your own place.  

But good god, we could have a whole lot of fun.  I've been told.  Early on, anyway.  At first.  But then. . . I think too much, want to be on my own. . . and the shit hits the fan.  

"Why do you look at all the girls?"

"I know.  It's bad.  I can't help it."

"Do you have to moan?"

"A little."

I guess I do have a little Hank Moody in me.  Or did.  I never asked a girl out in my life.  I don't think that is going to work out so well for me now.  

Last night my mother asked me to turn on "Californication."  I was a little shocked.  She likes it.  We've been watching it for awhile.  

Does this seem disjointed?  It should.  I started working on this at five.  It is now 8:43.  I've been dealing with mom in between little bits of writing.  Cleaned the kitchen of the mess she made last night.  Got her meds.  Made her breakfast.  Tried to chat away my guilt.  This is the result.  

I don't know why i do such silly shit, really. . . but here is the whole song, too.

Talent, Skill, and the Inherited Moron Gene

No surprises.  Music is learned by children just as language is.  Singing notes, humming, etc.  Learning to read music, like learning to read words, takes instruction.  

So I was thinking.  I had a minor talent for music when I was young.  We had a piano, and I learned to play it without any instruction.  I figured out the major and minor chords and progressions on my own when I was about twelve.  Same with the guitar, I think.  Somebody must have shown me chords, but I don't remember.  

I never progressed much beyond that, though.  

In my first band, I played drums.  Sixth grade.  I sang, too.  

I took band in the 7th grade and learned to read music.  Flutaphone.  In the 9th grade, I took chorus.  

I learned to finger pick on my own in high school.  Some band guys learned from me.  

And of course, I played to crowds in the thousands as a grown up adolescent.  My band had a following.  

The thing is, I was never very good.  I didn't learn enough about how to play guitar and my voice was never any good at all.  I wanted it to be, but it just wasn't.  

On the other hand, I grew up with an impoverished, hillbilly language.  People's vocabularies were small.  But I was an early reader, so maybe that countered that somewhat.  

I liked intellectual puzzles, but I hated physical ones.  Other kids wanted to take their bikes apart and modify them.  I had no interest.  Later, they did the same thing with cars.  Not me.  I am not good with tools.  And I never had quick fingers on the guitar.  I was lazy and didn't like to practice.  I knew guys, however, who would sit with their guitars all day.  

I could do that with books, and in all my classes from first grade through grad programs, I was clever.  

I was always bad at coloring books, and I can't draw.  I do a horrible job of setting up still lifes, too.  

I guess what I am thinking of is what we call "talent."  

Well. . . as always, I just looked it up.  

Talent is a natural aptitude, instinct, or inherent capacity to do something exceptionally well. While it often feels like it comes naturally or easily, true talent is generally understood as a combination of innate genetic potential and the underlying drive to develop those qualities through practice.

Although people often use the words interchangeably, there is a distinct difference between talent and skill. Talent is the natural ability or behavioral tendency. It is your baseline capacity, how your brain is "hard-wired". Skill is the learned, practiced application of that talent.

Core Components of Talent
Natural Aptitude: An inherent ease in learning or performing a task.
Trainability: The capacity to rapidly absorb instruction and improve.
Drive/Passion: An internal motivation or instinct that draws a person to repeatedly engage in an activity.

Types of Talents
Talent is not limited to the arts or athletics. It can manifest in any area of human endeavor, often categorized as:
Cognitive/Analytical: Problem-solving, quick decision-making, or pattern recognition.
Creative/Artistic: Musicality, visual expression, writing, or design.
Interpersonal/Leadership: Empathy, persuasion, adaptability, and teamwork.
Physical/Motor: Coordination, speed, balance, or spatial awareness.

The Nature vs. Nurture Debate
The concept of talent often sparks debate regarding whether it is innate (born with it) or developed (learned). Modern psychologists and researchers argue that it is a mix of both. While genetics may provide a baseline advantage (e.g., natural physical attributes or neurological wiring), research consistently shows that unpracticed talent rarely leads to expertise, and dedicated practice can significantly compensate for a lack of natural endowment.

I could have saved myself some unwarranted embarrassment, I think, if I had looked this up to begin with.  But there you go--in a nutshell.  

Maybe I could use a life coach after all.   

Here's what happens when talent and skill come together.  If you don't like this, something is wrong with you.  But that's o.k., too.  Just call me and I'll help you out.  I have The Google!  Not the first one.  That's just me fucking around.  But man, Ike Quebec. . . wow!

A.I., Language, and the Brain

 

Michelle Goldberg has an article in the N.Y. Times today about the hatred Gen Z has for A.I. (link), but I think, if Goldberg's article articulates the problem correctly, that Gen Z is confused.  It is not the technology they hate, it is the uncontrolled corporate greed and political "undersight" that is causing them problems.  It is unhinged capitalism.  

I fear A.I., of course, but it is not really a fear of A.I. but of the people who control it.  I know they will use it to put us all under their thumbs.  "They" do it with every technology.  

But "they" will do it in different ways.  

I think about the fiasco of the Trump/Xi summit.  You had the ruling class of two extreme ideologies face to face--individualism vs. collectivism.  

I prefer the Nordic way, of course.  

When Putin meets Xi this week, it will be a different matter.  The question is who will be the big spoon and who will be the little one.  If A.I. would let me, I'd show you.  

I don't care anymore, really.  Gen Z is the dumbest, most beautiful generation.  I shouldn't say "dumb."  They just can't read or write or do math very well according to those who measure such things.  But they can talk.  They sure can.  

Which brings me back to something I was saying a few days ago about language acquisition.  Children simply learn to talk.  It is one of the most evolved part of human existence.  It is crazy.  

But. . . they don't just learn how to write.  They have to be taught.  Now isn't that something?  Consider that for a moment.  Different parts of the brain, both on the left side.  In looking that up, I learned something new:

Interestingly, typing on a keyboard activates a slightly different network than writing by hand. Typing primarily relies on the motor regions controlling your fingers and prefrontal areas for spatial organization, whereas handwriting requires much more complex integration of visual, tactile, and language centers.

I wonder how much that matters in creative endeavors.  Perhaps I should try writing my blog posts by hand on one of those tablets that digitizes handwriting.  Then I could upload it here.  As I've already said, though, about writing by hand at my new desk, it seems much more difficult as I can't easily change a word or sentence.  Everything has to be thought out as in a chess match, many moves ahead.  

There have been some interesting studies on the connection between reading and writing.  In one, three groups of students were studied.  One group spent all semester writing, one reading, and one split 50/50 between the two.  At the end of the study, which group do you imagine showed the biggest improvement in writing?  

I'll let you sit with that a moment.  

Early reading is associated with higher I.Q.s.  What is not known is whether early readers have higher I.Q.s or whether early reading raises I.Q.s.  What is known, however, is that reading and I.Q. are connected.  

O.K.  Ready?  The group that spent the entire semester reading showed the greatest improvement in their writing skills.  

I have no idea how they measured that.  I just remember the results of the study.  

So, trying to tie all this together, A.I. is a language based system.  They are trained on massive amounts of texts to give human-like responses.  

Just sayin'.  The group of people who most hate A.I. are the ones with the tanking reading skills.  But like I said, they sure can talk.  

And by God, they are prettier, too.  

My mother doesn't seem to understand the connection between any of these things, though, for whenever I read or write, she has to interrupt me, as she has all morning.  If things are disconnected here, blame my mother.  

Now I must go attend to her needs.  She's been banging around like a madwoman since rising.  It is recycling day.  She is making me crazy.  

My I.Q. is tanking.  

I think I'll do some reading about music and the brain.  I'll keep you informed.

Ode to the Neue

Café Sabarsky, whose marble-topped tables were imported from Vienna, will remain intact.

“What many people do is go see the exhibition and come down to the Cafe Sabarsky to have a delicious coffee,” Lauder said. “As Serge said, ‘If you don’t have good coffee, you don’t have a good museum.’”

 Not sure how this makes me feel.  The Neue Galerie, it's bookstore, and, of course, Cafe Sabarsky is/are one of my favorite treats in NYC.  It enchants me, puts me under some decadent spell.  Sunday brunch in the cafe was always a favorite thing.  I'm like the Rain Man, though, when I go to Manhattan.  I go to the same galleries and museums on the same days.  Sundays would begin at the Neue and end at the Met.  And, as I've confessed a million times, I love to eat in the museums.  The downstairs cafeteria at the old Whitney when it was on 5th--Sarabeths.  The cafeteria at the Met overlooking Central Park through those huge, invisible windows--at the small bar, of course.  And I DO like The Modern at the MoMA.  

The Guggenheim, not so much.  

But I'm feeling punky about it all just now thinking I may never get to NYC again.  One day, I told my mother it would have been better if I had died on the street the day I got run over.  Her take?

"God saved you to take care of me."

Yep.  That's her take on my life.  It is now useless to me.  I am a servant of God.  

I would be remiss if I did not mention that I also like to have a cup of coffee and a pastry or sometimes even a sandwich at the SFMoMA.  It isn't much, and it only looks out over 3rd Street, but I am always enamored of a museum crowd.  

Sadly, I've only ever been to the Institute of Art in Chicago twice--but I never ate there.  I'd love to go back, but again. . . . 

I just love museums, art, food, and drink, all the sensualities and decadence.  Art is decadent.  That is how you can separate it from the crafts.  It is given permission, like a court jester, to express things nobody else can.  It has to be transgressive.  There is no "safe" art.  If it is safe, it is something else altogether.  

It needn't be what you are thinking, though, just because of what I make.  It needn't be sexual, but it is always sensual.  Right?  Those abstract painters of the '40s and 50's and all those working in color fields?  They are sensual.  If I walk into the Whitney and see a string sculpture, it better hit me somewhere in the senses.  I've always thought of the Whitney as the "Fuck You" museum, but I still always go even if the new work usually pisses me off.  It is still, well, usually, transgressive. 

I like to think of Norman Rockwell as a perverted Mr. Rogers.  

O.K.  I gotta go.  Ma needs breakfast.  I'm late and she is busting my ass.  

I just hope the Neue is preserved in mood and tone and texture.  All of it.  

It's Just Hair

I had an eleven o'clock beauty appointment.  It was an odd time, breaking the day in two.  At nine, I was getting antsy, so I decided to take a long walk and shower at my mother's house before getting beautified.  On the walk, I passed a backyard with a pool, so I used my phone to take a snap.  I want to do a swimming pool series badly.  Picture mom and dad lying in pool lounges and a couple of kids jumping into the pool.  I don't know.  I would figure it out.  I'd post-process the shit out of the pictures so that they looked more mythical than this, dehazing the sky, subtle vignettes, bringing some colors up and some down.  The backyard pool just seems a phenomena to me, part of the mirage of The American Dream.  Do you have a pool?  

See what I mean?  

I got to my appointment right on time, and my little gypsy Russian Jew was ready.  My knees got a little weak, but I said, "Let's do it.  I'm not afraid of change."

It takes a looooong time for her to do my hair, and we had three hours to talk.  A little more, really.  There was a whole lotta chopping to do, and she was toning my hair down from a bleach blond to a sophisticated golden.  So she said.  

"How's your mom?"

Yea, yea, that's how almost all conversations start now.  My life, her life.  I asked about her new hip.  It was good, she said, but the other one now. . . .  That's the way that goes, I think.  

My beautician was a wild girl when I met her.  Then she got married and had a son.  The fellow turned out to be a psycho, and he left.  Out of the picture.  Then he wasn't, and there were a couple of years of legal hassles.  Then she started dating a cop from the D.R.  Moved in with him.  Then, at the last moment, they had a daughter, now two.  My beautician is forty-eight, older than the cop.  A bit later, they got married. 

What could go wrong?

I got to hear about what could go wrong.  Like I said, we had three hours.  

I kept my eyes closed most of the time.  On the best of days, I don't like looking at myself in a mirror, and this was not the best of days.  

"You know this, I know, but when women put on weight, they think it is their hair that needs changing."

"You're right." 

"And so. . . here I am."

It is not just the weight.  I've aged.  I was looking pretty homeless, I thought.  A haircut would be just the thing.  

I think I made a mistake.  I don't look any less homeless and not a bit younger.  And the color just looks beige.  I am shocked when I pass a mirror.  What did I do?!?  

No matter, I tell myself.  It is all inevitable.  

Of course, my mother loves it.  She won't shut the fuck up about it.  She keeps sneaking phone pics of me.  

"Stop it!  Nobody ever took my photo when I was better looking.  Now, when I look the worst, everybody wants to make a fucking phone pic.  Just stop it."

I had taken the usual selfie when I got into the car after getting my hair done.  Oy!

Instead of making the evening cocktail when I got back to my mother's, I had a light beer.  You see, I need to lose weight, and cocktails don't help me do that.  And now that Q is down to his pre-high school weight and righteously a practicing teetotaler, I have to do something.  Light beer is really just hydration. 

"I will only drink light beer," I tell myself.  I've been telling myself that for a month.  

I had wine with dinner.  

And then a scotch.  

But. . . then I switched to tea.  

"Atta boy.  Just throttle it back."

My little gypsy Jew made me laugh when talking about the difference between herself and her husband.  

"He wants to talk about things too much."

"Processing?"

"Exactly.  He's going to therapy.  I grew up a poor Jew in Russia.  People don't have any idea what that was like.  We didn't have shit.  I lived in the North Pole for awhile.  People whine about stupid shit without any idea how hard life can be.  We didn't have time for 'processing.'  You just had to deal with things, so when he's 'processing,' I'm like, 'Let's just go fuck some shit up!'"

Now, I'm not gangsta-like at all, but this is going to be my new favorite thing to say--"Let's just go fuck some shit up!"

Kind of like my hair.  It's fucked up.  I'm either going to have to let it grow or get more cut off.  There is another option.  I could find someone to fix it.  Maybe my gal has gotten too old, married, and out of touch to be good at this anymore.  I've been going to her for twenty years or so.  Maybe I need some new hipster gal to work me over.  

I don't know.  

It's not my hair, though.  It's the whole package.  I'll wear a hat and stay away from people until I figure things out.  

I DO need to figure out how to do the pool series, though.  I think it would be sterling.  

"What's the beautician's name?"

"Her name is probably Darlene Fontaine — though everyone in the salon just calls her “Dar.

She’s been doing hair since 1958, swears by Aqua Net and Lucky Strikes, keeps a transistor radio humming behind the counter, and knows every customer’s divorce history before the perm rods are even set. She dyes her beehive “Cinnamon Flame No. 7” every other Thursday and insists your fellow “has marvelous hair density for a man his age.”

Language, Birds, and Riddles

I don't know why, but as I sit here this morning, William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" comes to mind.  So much has been made of it, but I think he was just fucking around.  Speculation about what depends upon the red wheelbarrow is a hoot.  A riddle wrapped in a mystery?  Ha!  That fucker used to be included in every intro to lit book published.  Just to torture students, I guess.  

"I don't get it."

Neither did most of your profs teaching you lit, either.  That's my thinking, anyway.  I feel the same way about his plums poem, "This Is Just to Say."  They are kind of American haikus, maybe.  Street.  

Know what I'm sayin'? 

I get beautified at eleven.  I have trepidations.  I don't kick about it, but I've had some seriously fucked up haircuts.  I've had good ones, too.  God knows how I'll feel about things around two o'clock.  I don't even know if I want to be a blond anymore.  

I don't know what I want to be--I just know what I don't.  It wouldn't matter anyway.  I'm just a recipient.  I can't even talk "hair."  No words.  

I picked up bbq for dinner last night--pulled pork sandwiches and ribs with Mexican street corn, beans and rice, and fries.  More food than we needed.  Today, I am thinking of becoming a vegetarian again.  Not totally, but much more Mediterranean than last night's meal.  I have some tempeh in the 'fridge.  I think I'll look up some recipes for tonight.  

Cha-cha-cha-changes.  

I took my mother to a cardiology appointment yesterday.  9:30 check in for a 9:45 appointment.  We sat.  The doctor finally saw her sometime after eleven.  He asked her how she was doing and said he'd see her in four months.  

One of my mother's down the street neighbors told her some weird news yesterday.  Her grown son went to check on his father, her ex-husband, and found him decomposing in the garage.  Holy smokes.  That had to be a bit traumatic for the son.  

Everywhere I go, the vultures seem to be circling.  

I still believe Trump will be the first to use a nuke.  

How's your weather?  It is consistently five to six degrees warmer than normal here.  There are hardly any birds left.  I looked it up.  "What happened to the birds?"  Oh. . . their numbers have been decimated.  They are not the only species, of course.  Well. . . birds aren't a species.  You knew that.  Class Aves.  I've fallen so far into common usage I don't think I'll ever escape.  But the birds. . . they aren't around so much anymore.  

Except for the vultures. 

Class: Aves (Birds)

Order: Accipitriformes (Birds of prey including eagles, hawks, and buzzards)

New World Vultures (Family Cathartidae): Found in the Americas (e.g., Turkey Vulture, Andean Condor). These birds are more closely related to storks.

Old World Vultures (Family Accipitridae): Found in Europe, Africa, and Asia (e.g., Griffon Vulture, Bearded Vulture). They are closely related to eagles and hawks.

We still have Genus and Species.  There are 23 species of vultures.  Don't confuse them with Buzzards.  Not the same.  

Do you know what constitutes a species?  Mating.  But. . . Neandrathals and Homos mated.  You have Neandrathal genes in you.  Science is still catching up.  Lots have changed since I got my ancient zoology degree.  

Lots.  

I can't escape the vernacular.  Which reminds me that I was thinking about language acquisition this morning, the fact that you don't teach a baby to talk, that they simply learn without being instructed in the rules of grammar, and that grammarians don't make very good writers in the main.  They think too much in the subjunctive.  As do I.  

"If I were you. . . ." 

Etc.  

O.K. Duty calls.  I took that photo with my phone.  Ain't that something?  

"My head ain't full of nothing but cats and rocking chairs."

God, he used to be good.  

What Does She See In Him?

Sorry, peeps.  I'm using a lot of the earth's energy doing silly A.I. stuff.  I've been told that what is going to put the brakes on A.I. technologies is energy.  We are running out of enough to let it keep progressing.  All that means to me, though, is that I will get priced out of it.  It will be like fine medical care--only for those wealthy enough to afford it.  Like everything ever.  

But being a prisoner of circumstance, it's all I have to do.  And now, like the Rolling Stones. . . have you seen that shit?  

Shitty song, but. . . everybody wants to be young again.  I'm not the only one doing that.  

That was me on a small bridge with a girl I dated.  

I've been watching "Californication" with my mother.  She told the neighbor.  Lots of titties.  Lots of fucking.  It got me thinking.  You know what makes the show so funny?  It's like a role reversal.  No guy gets to live like that except maybe Warren Beatty back in the day.  Nope.  Whenever I hear about a guy sleeping with a girl, I wonder, "What in the world did she see in him?"  Almost always.  

I know that is what people would think about me.  Have thought.  

"What in the world does she see in him?"

We never think that about a woman.  Women can have sex just about any time they want.  Now I'm exaggerating some, but you know that where I'm headed, the general direction, is true.  Attention is like oxygen.  Women just breathe it in and out without thinking, but a guy lives holding his breath looking for a quick hit of the old O2.  

"Did you see that?  No shit!  That girl just smiled at me!"

Pant, pant, pant. . . get yo'sef some air, boy.  

Mick Jagger probably didn't have any trouble, but I still wonder, "WTF do they see in him?"

This guy's dumb.  This guy's boring.  This one watches football.  This one is into Superheroes.  

Etc. 

I think maybe male and female vision is as different as their sex organs.  There can be no other explanation.  

The girl in the picture and I had a lot of fun for a few years.  Off and on.  I was about 100 years older than she.  She took me to meet her parents.  I think one of them might have been younger than I.  Crazy.  But we would tire of one another and see other people until one day we just stopped.  The wife of one of the biggest builder's in town was friends with my ex, and she was actively trying to set the girl up with an attorney fellow she knew.  So. . . she went that way and I went the other.  

One day, I was stopped at a stop sign and she pulled up behind me and waved me over.  She wanted to hook up again.  

"I can't.  I'm seeing someone."

"C'mon.  We always had fun.  We were always out doing things, laughing, eating, drinking.  My boyfriend wants to stay at home on the weekend and eat sandwiches and watch golf.  I'm tired of lawyer dick."

Well now, that was quite a compliment that thrilled me to my flip-flops, but I'm just not that kind of guy.  

She caused me a lot of trouble later on, but that's another story.  The point of this one is, eventually a woman's vision clears and she sees what a mistake she has made.  

"He's got a fucking Star Wars poster!"

I'm familiar with this, of course.  

I'm seeing my beautician on Saturday for the first time since mid February.  I look bad, scraggly and homeless.  I think I'm going to chop off my locks.  It could be hideous.  Probably will be.  But. . . I will always be able to fix it in A.I. just like the Stones.  I'm a deep fake anyway, just another victim of time and circumstance.  

PMA.  PMA.  PMA.  

I'm not very good at that.  I think too much.  That's what I've been oft told.  I was sitting in an airport after a climb with my Yosemite buddy, and he said that exact thing.  I don't believe he meant it as a compliment.

I replied, "What goes on in your head.  "Chair. . . carpet. . . backpack. . . girl walking. . . airplane"?

He laughed and said, "Pretty much."

He was kidding, I'm sure.  

Right?

You Don't Know. . .

Being an optimist might help protect your heart.

The mind-heart connection: Studies have linked a sunnier outlook to a lower risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death. If you’re not an optimist, here's how to fake it.

This was WaPo.  I didn't get to learn how to fake it because I've dropped my subscription, but it is clear, as always, that the satellites are following me.  I'm always two seconds ahead of the curve--except in money and love.  

I got that far this morning, but I had to take my mother to an eight o'clock pain med appointment.  It is crazy to me that when we walked in, not having been there since January, the nurse or practitioner or whatever she is lit up and said "Hello" using my mother's name.  It is crazy.  I have watched this woman in the office, and she can be a grump, but never to my mother or me.  Today she took my mother's bp and asked some questions.  Then she asked how I was doing.  

"I'm great," I said with my usual eye roll."

As it turns out, this young woman started working in a nursing home when she was eighteen, and she did that for a long time before coming here, both in nursing homes and private care.  

"She's lucky to have someone take care of her," I heard for the ten thousandth time.  I did my usual head bob.  

"You need to take care of yourself, too," she said.  

Don't I know it.  

"I haven't been out of town for five years," I said.  "I don't need someone a few hours a week," and I went into my normal spiel of needing months and years.

"What about a long weekend?" she asked.  I just looked at her.  

"I still do some private care," she said, and she wrote down her phone number on a card and gave it to me.  "Feel free to text me if you want and we'll work something out."

Holy shit, this young girl was something.  I thought for a minute.

"I really appreciate you," I said, "but if I don't text, don't get mad.  I just. . . I don't know."

"I understand," she said.  "But you've got my number.  

The doc came in.  

"How are you little lady?"

He's a swell guy, all metro and manscaped, not a line in his face.  

He looked at her chart.  "How old are you?!" he grinned.  

"I'll be ninety-five in December," my mother said.  I don't know why she didn't just say 94, but. . . . 

"What day in December?"

"The thirteenth."

He lit up.  "That's my wife's birthday," he said.  "She's here right now."

There was a new lady sitting at the reception desk, pretty, blonde (like many of us are), and chatty with a strong southern accent that I took to be South Carolina, but maybe North.  

"She's not 94," I said.  

"No. . . she's not 94."

And that was it.  He sent the script in for another month's worth of very strong pain killers.  

"O.K.  I'll see you next month," he said.  

Cha-ching!

I stopped at the reception desk to make an appointment for my mother.  

"South Carolina or North?" I asked.  She grinned.  She was no kid, but my god she was sexy.  

"Tennessee," she said.  "Sometimes people guess Mississippi."

"You know why?  You rarely meet people from Tennessee.  They don't leave the state."

"It is beautiful," she said.  "My husband grew up just ten miles from me, but he doesn't have the accent."

I wanted to ask her to go out, have dinner, drinks, maybe smooch a bit.  Some people you just like right away.  

She talked to my mother.  "What's your secret?" she asked.  

My mother told her she worked out all her life.  Exercise and vitamins.  

"My son goes to the gym every day.  I should start going with him," she said.  

"How old is your son?" I asked.  

"He's eighteen."

I grinned.  "I was a checking to see how old you were," I laughed.  

"You're sweet," she grinned.  

That doc is sure one lucky guy, I thought.  She's a real peach.  

And so I got my mother back downstairs and into the car.  It was still early morning, a pretty day.  We drove back through my part of town, me looking at all the places I can no longer go.  

Here's a true fact.  Fifty percent of caregivers die before the person they are caring for.  I keep saying. . . . 

I didn't get to read the article. CNN charges now.  I was hoping it would be something simple like an apple a day, but Q sent me the answer--quit drinking.  He's righteous now having given up the booze and loosing half his weight and halving his blood pressure and getting a raise and thinking about buying a third house.  

Try not drinking when you are a caregiver and nothing else.  

Oh, fuck. . . I shouldn't do that.  

Anyway. . . my PMA left me last night.  I'll try some Stuart Smalley shit this morning (link).  

But here I am being all cynical again.  I've had a lifetime of practice.  I'm trying, though.  People who are simple minded live longer.  

See?  It is really difficult.  

Here's something I had to search for.  When I was fixing dinner last night, I heard a beautiful version of "You Don't Know What Love Is" on the university jazz station, and being busy, I asked Siri to identify it.  When I looked this morning, though, Siri had gotten it wrong.  Fortunately, the station posts its playlist, so I just went back and looked it up.  Oh, my. . . there are a lot of versions of this song, but this one strikes to the heart of the matter, I think.  

I know what love is.  Trust me.  I do.  I've just not been so lucky. . . or maybe I have.