Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Tranquility

Truly out of pics.  There is a barrel of which I am scraping the bottom.  I mean, it is a picture, and pictures are interesting, but. . . it is just a pictures.  It is nice, though, serene and tranquil.  

Since I was a child, I've been drawn to things that are quiet and peaceful.  I played in a New Wave Punker band, and we had a good portion of success, but I never listened to the music otherwise.  My bandmates could tell.  My listening habits were as they have always been, mellow.  It is part of my DNA, I guess.  

Last night, as almost every night, I prepared dinner for my mother and myself.  It was a fair amount of work.  I asked Alexa to play the university jazz station.  I was beginning to get irritated by the rather thankless routine, but the music helped.  Here is what the dinner prep sounded like.  

It's the kind of jazz the station often plays, a sort of popular version of the genre, but it was calming as I chopped garlic, sliced tomatoes and an avocado, put spring mix into bowls and added the chopped toppings.  Chopped the ends off the smallest Brussels Sprouts I've ever seen, about forty of them, I think, and put them in the double boiler.  Prepped the small red potatoes for roasting.  Opened a can of baked beans.  Sliced a pork tenderloin into medallions and put it in the pan.  Then, all things ready, timed each thing so that all would be ready at once.  Plated dinner knowing the mess of pots, plates, and utensils that I would have to wash afterwards.  

Oh. . . and two glasses of wine helped, too.  

Later, a glass of scotch and YouTube, I put on travel videos so my mother could watch with me.  We were in Mexico City.  I haven't been since. . . holy shit!  I need to go back.  And then we were in Vietnam.  Oh, yes, I need to go there, too.  We traveled to the great Buddhist temples.  And there was temple music, and I thought of my long, only partially successful journey into Buddhist ways, the search for peace and tranquility.  

I thought of Kendrick Lamar's performance the evening before and wondered.  The stuff is anathema to the way I long to feel.  I remembered a most wonderful afternoon in the Mission District of San Fran, sitting on cushions in a darkened, softly lighted room while a fellow whose name I always forget played temple music on big horns and gongs and drums.  I would go there every day if I could.  It was the trippiest, most wonderful moment I could imagine.

They should play rap music in hospitals.  Loud.  A lot.  It would be good for patients, help them heal.  Studies show. . . . 

I kid.  But, you know, it is a hateful, violent world and maybe that is the music that is called for.  

"I got bitches in the living room getting it on. . . guess what?  We don't love 'em whores!"

O.K. O.K.  That's all I know, and it is only because of The Gourds.  

In yo mama's booty.  

One friend signed off when I dissed the halftime show.  Q berated me for not recognizing genius.  But he's like that.

"I grow old, I grow old. . . shall I wear my trousers rolled?"

The thing I kept wondering last night after dinner while watching travel shows was if I would get sick eating the food in Viet Nam?  Bourdain did it with Obama.  I don't know.  I hate getting sick.  I am awfully careful in Mexico and South America and have avoided it, but I have avoided a lot of tasty things, too.  

I've asked my friends from Africa, South America, and Mexico who live here if they get sick from the food when they go back to visit.  The answer is a resounding "yes."  

I wondered if the Aztecs would like rappers and thought they probably would.  They'd have liked it much more than Mariachis, I think.  

I prefer the Mariachis.  

When I cleaned the kitchen, I asked Alexa for the music again.  It was the same, only different.  I'm sure it would drive most of my friends out of their minds.  It's not my favorite, but I've never really minded elevator music.  It kind of reminds me of a pleasant afternoon trip to the mall, sitting in the Bloomingdale's women's shoe section while a girlfriend shops.  Yea. . . that is exactly what it reminds me of, soft music and gentle, happy voices whispering to me, peaceful and serene. 

Tranquility now!

Namaste.





Monday, February 10, 2025

And So It Goes


The day went exactly as I had predicted.  After coffee with mom, I went home and took a long walk through town, past the churches and the Sunday worshippers, past the big lakeside condos that become more attractive to me all the time, through the gold course past the historic Gamble Rodgers home where a wedding group was listening to a jazz band outside on the patio, then down the Boulevard busy with Sunday brunch goers.  Back home, I soaked and showered and readied for a mimosa.  The evening meal and the Super Bowl lay ahead.  

I got two birthday cards.  One was from the attorneys I had after the accident.  The other was from Bradley's Saloon.  Their's came with a gift--a free drink.  They have been sending me this card every year since I first went to the old Palm Beach betting parlor and speak easy way back in the previous century.  I have no memory of giving them my birth date, but it was my favorite bar until they moved across the river.  

I got the obligatory b-day texts from those who have such things marked on their e-calendars.  The Factory group, for instance.  

"Happy birthday!!!  Have a GREAT day!!!"

Colored balloons float across the screen.  

It doesn't really matter to me.  I don't like birthdays, especially mine, and I don't remember anyone else's except my mother's.  I've been told that for some, birthdays are more important than Christmas.  I am a relationship failure in this, I guess.  Making a celebration disables me.  I am too anxious.  It took me decades to learn how to write a simple "thank you" note.  I couldn't simply say "thank you."  Oh, no. . . I needed to write something epic.  And so I work myself up and put too much pressure on myself to make something memorable.  And I fail.  Miserably.  

And so I spent my birthday alone as I have so many times before.  I received no presents.  I got no cake.  

This is not a complaint, not a pity party for me.  It is just a fact.  I have had girlfriends in the past who threw parties for me.  They used to do that at work as well.  I would not go to work on my birthday just to avoid it, but it didn't matter.  When I came in, my office would be decorated and there would be cake.  

I've never been comfortable with the attention.  

I got to the cafe mid-afternoon.  There was the usual Sunday line at the counter.  The pretty ballet dancer was working.  Ahead of me, young Photo Booth girls were ordering complicated coffee drinks that took forever to make.  Then one of the girls would take a sip and turn to her friends and say, "Oh. . . yea. . . this is good."

When I got to the counter, the serving girl smiled.  

"Your hair looks good like that.  I like it!"

I had it pulled back in that movie "dirty secretary" way, hair falling from the tie.  

"Thank you," I said.  "I'll have a half caf, half decaf caramel mocha latte with oat, soy, and almond milk, steamed and frothed with cinnamon and. . . and. . . ."

"You can have anything you want," said the dancer smiling and looking me in the eyes.  

Now that can take a fellow's breath away, I'll attest.  

"Then I'll just have a big-assed mimosa," I laughed.

"No more Dry January?"

I hadn't been in for weeks and couldn't believe she remembered that.  I had the impulse to tell her it was my birthday, but I thought she might ask how old I was.  Ho!

"Nope."

And so she went to work slicing the oranges and putting them through the squeezer.  She is the only one who will do this for me before five o'clock, and I guessed that I was as irritating to the people behind me as the mocha girls had been to me.  

"Here you go--a big-assed mimosa."  

"Thanks," I cleverly replied.  I'm like that.  Just.  

And so I took a picture of me and my hair.  I am going to have to request that someday they clean the mirror.  

I sat at a table and pulled out my notebook, but first I replied to some of the birthday texts.  There was a voice text singing the Happy Birthday song.  I replied with my birthday selfie.  

"This is me in the immediate," I said feeling my oats as the saying used to go.  Then a big hit off the mimosa.  Having not had one in so very long, it was good fun.  And when it was gone, I called my mother. 

"I'm heading to the store to get stuff for dinner.  Do you need anything?"

I made a simple spaghetti and broccoli meal, and I opened my first bottle of wine since December.  I bought a nice one, and it was very good.  Then the Super Bowl.  I'm sure the NFL lost their audience after the big halftime spectacle.  That is when my phone went silent.  And that's the way it stayed. 

It is another springlike day here, ten or eleven degrees above the norm, a brightly lighted and cloudless sky.  My mother is up and I must tend to the day.  I'll see if she wants breakfast.  I'll take her car to get it washed after the gym.  Then I'll come back to make dinner.  I probably need to strip the beds and wash the sheets.  Not "probably."  

They cheered Trump at the Super Bowl.  And so it goes.  They say Kendrick Lamar is a musical genius.  Huh. This is more my kind.  I'm a foolish fool. . . for love.  

(link)

Sunday, February 9, 2025

Quiet Celebration


I'm plumb out of photographs except for the ones I shouldn't show.  This one is by Saul Leiter, Paris, 1959.  Oo-la-la.  It is one of my favorites.  Old Saul flew under the radar until very late in life.  He just kept taking pictures.  He is famous now, but he wasn't when he took them.  He really wasn't even appreciated.  Now, of course, everyone wants to have done it.  

Such is life.

Today is the big day.  I threw myself a little party last night, just me and a bottle of scotch whiskey.  I stayed up past midnight.  I read my horoscope.  It is amazing how accurate they seem to be in the big picture, isn't it, about the personality traits and talents and longings and desires and even the way one seems to behave?  


 By gosh, ain't it the truth?

So. . . I will take a long, limping walk in the sun and maybe go to a cafe for a mimosa.  Then it will be back to my mother's house to cook dinner and turn on the Super Bowl.  As much disdain as I have for that commercial enterprise, it is part of my DNA by now having watched them all.  It will be the Trump/Swift show.  Drinking game anyone?  

Maybe not for me, though.  After succoring myself with that friendly scotch until it was today, I took a Xanax and went to bed.  I only woke up at 8:30 because my phone kept pinging.  

Maybe I'll wait to start fresh again on Monday.  That seems more like it.  Today may require some anesthesia.  

It's not just pictures I lack.  I haven't anything to tell.  

I HAVE come to realize that it is not simply the multitude of loud commercials on the old t.v. westerns my mother watches that is making me crazy.  It is the constant, loud, musical score they add to them.  Why this has only just become apparent to me, I don't know, but yes, there is a constant orchestrated cacophony that runs through every program like a pestilence.  

So, yea. . . a long, quiet walk and thoughts of long gone things will be the ticket for a little while.  

I'll see you at the celebration.  



Saturday, February 8, 2025

Friday Night Blow Out

I blew it out last night.  I bought some "real" beer, a Funky Buddha IPA, and drank it outside with my mother.  When I went in to make dinner, I opened another.  Friday night--party!!!  I was making tacos again so we could use up the rest of the lettuce and shredded cheese and other ingredients before they went bad.  I had forgotten to get taco seasoning, though, so I had to make it from scratch.  Chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, smoked paprika, oregano.  Unbelievably, my mother had them all.  I had little faith, but it turned out great.  So. . . what to do afterwards?  Well. . . I had thought to bring the remains of a bottle of scotch from home.  Yup.  Just in case.  So I poured a "real" drink, not one of those skinny things you get out.  

It went right to my head.  

So. . . I poured another.  

My mother was giving me grief.  

That was my party, though.  I'll be back to tea tonight.  I must.  I mean, I felt good and was too happy for a moment.  I wouldn't want that.  

There is a "big" little league wrestling match tonight.  I got excited when I saw that, but I don't think I'll be able to go.  I just don't think so.  

In a bit, I will need to go back to my house to meet the plumber.  I'll find out the bad news early today.  I'm hoping it is not as bad as it might be, but hope is a fool's paradise they say.  Whatever.  I need to keep my emotions at bay and not let them roil the waters.  They will do me no good.  

Still, I feel the need for a tranquilizer.  Maybe that was the impetus for the party last night.  

The sun will shine and the air will be warm today.  The local weather people are giddy with it.  I know this because I have commercial tv here at mom's house.  They are either corrupt, evil, or stupid though.  Our temperatures are averaging 10-12 degrees above normal.  This is NOT good news.  Things are trying to bloom far too soon.  Animals are confused.  The ocean water stays warmer than usual and stores energy for a giant hurricane season.  

"Wow. . . we are blessed with another spring-like day today, so get out there and. . . ."

I will settle down this week.  I will get back a little zen and sip teas and read and be a chill, mystical hippie once again.  I take my mother to the ortho on Wednesday, and we will see how she is doing.  Maybe the cast will come off, but I am doubtful.  It doesn't look like my cousin will be coming to stay with my mother this winter, so there is that.  

Will I watch the Super Bowl tomorrow?  Of course, I will have it on.  It will be awful, though.  There will be no flow to the game as they stop action often to break to the million dollar a second commercials.  Then the hideous halftime show that lets the players completely lose the rhythm of the game as they sit in the locker room for a half hour or more.  I think really all one needs to do is watch the second half unless one is just into celebrities in advertising.  But you know. . . who wants to be left out of the Great American Experience.  If people still went to work, they would be talking about it around the water cooler on Monday.  

"Water cooler?"

Copy machine?  

The bigger question is what will I cook for dinner?  

But just now I must ready myself to meet the plumber.  Fingers crossed.  

Friday, February 7, 2025

An Ether of Fire

I left my mother alone for most of the day yesterday.  I was going to meet the boys for a five o'clock outdoor happy hour, so I stuck around with mom until noon, taking her to the drugstore to pick up a prescription and getting her some groceries.  I prepped the things she would eat for dinner.  And at noon, I left the house.  

I won't go into the fiasco at the drugstore in much detail.  I'll just say my mother has gotten so used to me doing everything for her, she can't or doesn't want to do the normal things that must be done in life.  I let her make the transaction with the druggist.  My mother can't hear and so it began poorly.  When it came time for my mother to pay, there were questions on the credit card reader to answer.  Why a drugstore would require so much from the elderly picking up prescriptions is beyond me, and they are making their own trouble.  My mother was beside herself.  

"I can't read this.  What does it say. . . what?"

The counter woman, who wasn't pleasant from the get-go, was very put out.  I, however, remained a non-participant.  I could have stepped in and done it all, but I wanted to see how my mother was faring.  

Fifteen minutes later, the transaction was mercifully over.  Back in the car, my mother said, "Everything is hard."

"I see that, and it makes me wonder.  What are you going to do?"

"I'll be fine once I can use two hands again."

Uh-huh.  

Back at the house, I prepared for the day, packing up the things I would need in transition, getting dressed for the gym.  When I walked to the car, my mother's 91 year old neighbor was there.  She was yelling something for a second or third time trying to make my mother hear.  I asked my mother if there was anything I needed to do before I left.  

With trepidation, I backed the car out of the driveway not to return until well after dark.  

I don't think I've given you any numbers on my weight loss.  That is on purpose.  I was at a hideous weight.  I've lost a lot of lbs, and that number is not complimentary, either.  All I'll say is that I am now four pounds from my goal.  I can hit that I think, by the end of the month.  In the effort to become young again, I've been jogging on the treadmill at the gym, only a little bit at a time.  In between, I walk.  My knee won't take a solid, long run, so I am baby stepping it.  But it is good.  I keep my heart rate up in the fat burning area, and I sweat like a drunken pig.  After two mile on the treadmill, I get on the bike for 20 minutes.  Random hills.  Legs a pumping.  After that, I spend twenty or so minutes on a good, long stretching and breathing routine.  This is the advantage of not working, although, somehow, I did all this, and more, when I was working, too.  Everything they say about retirement is true.  You can't believe what you once could do in a single day.  

And so, after the gym, I went home and took a long Epsom salts soak and a shower.  Then I threw the towels into the wash and went to the cafe for a green tea.  It was uneventful.  When I came home, I put the towels in the dryer.  I still had an hour before meeting the boys, so I decided to light a cheroot and have a sip of beer on the deck.  I haven't been able to do this for five weeks now.  The day was glorious.  

Until I looked in the sink.  There was detritus covering the enamel.  WTF was that?  I turned on the water to wash it away, and the drain backed up.  Uh-oh.  I ran the water with the disposal going and it drained.  No. . . it came up into the sink drain next to it.  Holy shit!  I kept working at getting the water to drain, but it wasn't working.  Of course I thought right away that the maids had done something.  I hadn't been living here for five weeks, hadn't, in memory, even run water in the sink.  Then I noticed something.  There was water on the floor under the washing machine.  Shit, piss, fuck.  I went outside to look at the drain thing where you can feed a snake into the pipes.  Things got worse.  The wood was wet and rotten.  Something big was wrong.  My heart sunk.  There was nothing for me to do.  I would have to call a plumber and start there.  This, I was afraid, was going to be huge.  

So I lit the cheroot and sat out and calmed myself.  Whatever, I said.  Shit happens.  You'll just have to get it all fixed.  Expensive pain in the ass, but there is nothing else to be done.  

I tried to put it out of mind, or at least on the back burner.  There was nothing to be done at 4:30 in the afternoon.  But holy smokes. . . what did I do?  My life. . . what happened?  I felt disembodied, floating in an ether of fire.  Money is flowing in the wrong direction, but now instead of a trickle, it was a flood.  I would be broke soon enough.  I needed another income.  

Etc.  

I met the boys at the beer garden.  They were sitting at an outdoor picnic table.  I hate sitting on a bench.  I need back support.  But there was nothing to do.  I ordered one of the lighter beers and told them of my plumbing woes.  I got the usual response one gets to such tales of woe.  They'd rather talk shit, not dread.  There was a young waitress to chat up.  I put my elbows on the table for support and listened to the chatter.  

"Run away," I told the waitress when they started grilling her.  "I'm not kidding.  Run away.  Lie.  Don't tell these guys anything.  Make shit up.  Trust me."

Rather, they got it all out of her.  College student.  Played water polo.  Had grown up here and went to high school nearby.  I could only shake my head.  But she seemed o.k. with it.  She smiled and laughed and played the game.  

When she left, I said, "You know she likes girls, right?"

"Sure," they said.  "She played water polo.  She has lesbian piercings.  And the tats."

It was true.  O.K.  

I went inside to order food.  I didn't want the pub food they served outside, so I got some shrimp tacos.  When I came back, they were all eating ribs and wings and sharing the largest pretzel I'd ever seen.  More drinks.  I was still nursing my beer.  As we finished eating, the waitress came to clear the table and take more orders.  What the hell, I thought.  I'd have a scotch.  

Jesus Christ. . . it was good.  It was really good.  While they all drank their foo-foo margs and old fashioneds, I inhaled the scotch.  

Some of the billionaires boys club showed up at another table and Tennessee went over to join them.  He'd already picked up my drink tab, and everyone else had settled up.  

"Shall we go across the street?"  It was going on eight.  The boys were ready to light it up.  

"I've got to get back to my mother," I said.  The boys just nodded.  The two groups were now merging and it was sure to be an action packed night at the Irish pub.  Terrible and wondrous things always happened with this group.  I was only half sad to miss out.  

Before I got back to my mother's the phone blew up.  It was Tennessee.  The waitress was asking about me, he said.  

"Bullshit."

There were photos.  In a minute, the phone rang.  Tennessee put her on the phone.  

"Why aren't you here?"

Then, Tennessee.  "She wants you to take pictures of her.  I'm serious.  She said she needs some professional photos."

Smoke and mirrors, but then I got a text.  It was her phone number.  

"She's serious," T texted.  

Yea, yea, yea.  O.K.  That was nice.  But I was going back to my mother.  I had a big problem at my house.  I wasn't able to enjoy the moment.  

"Hey, mom.  Did you eat?"

We ran through the day.  I told her about my plumbing problem.  It's always something, she said.  Yes, I said, it certainly is.  

We watched tv. and I drank jasmine tea.  I hadn't done badly--one light beer, one scotch, and some shrimp tacos.  That was fine.  I wanted to crawl into a bottle of whiskey and forget about things, but I wouldn't.  

It was time for bed.  I wondered if I would be able to sleep.  Would I think about the plumbing or would I flatter myself and wonder about the girl?  I lay down and tried to think of nothing.  I listened to my breath.  And there I was. . . floating in an ether of fire.  

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Zzzt. Zzzt.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore.  I'm not really doing anything.  Some days, I am just listening to that imaginary voice crying, "Next."  

Yet all around me, the ideological struggles continue.  Most of the time, I'm just not having fun.  I'm supposed to go to a happy hour today.  I'd just be gone a bit.  I've cleared it with my mother.  

But I'm not really interested in going.  

My friend from the midwest went to Africa for an adventure safari.  She sends me many photos.  And I think, o.k.  

My mother has become peripatetic.  She shuffles in half steps across the floor from place to place, room to room, a non-ending slow motion misery.  When she sits, there is the incessant sound of jars opening and closing.  Then the t.v.  

In my misery, I have made the mistake of responding to some people in online forums, one writing, one photography.  That should tell you everything.  As Mark Twain said, it is difficult to win an argument with a smart person.  

It is impossible to win with a stupid person.  

I was seeking distraction, I guess.  

I have nothing else this morning.  Nothing at all.  

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

How Do We Do It?

I almost read the news today, but I had to stop.  It's all too hideous.  Rahm Emanuel writes an op ed that the dems have become "the party of permissiveness" and that it is "ballot box poison."  Duh!  Where the fuck has that wisdom been?  Very few people are pulling for what has become known as "The Woke Agenda," yet that is what the dems ran on by and large.  Now Schumer has the chutzpah to stand in front of a mic and say, "The American people won't stand for this," whatever "this" is at that time.  Sure they will.  Dems still run around like their hair's on fire while we watch "Trump vs. The World."  We're living through the worst nightmare in generations, but it is taking on the mask of normalcy.  People descry Musk, but it is Trump.  

Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump.  

I almost read the news today. . . oh, boy.  

What's hot?  Kanye West and Bianca Censori.  I'm almost certain you didn't watch the Grammys, so here (link).  This is what people care about more than politics.  On the flip side, don't make AI nudes.  AI is for making war.  

How is Kanye West even a thing? 

Fuck it.  I went for a chai yesterday at the cafe.  When I sat down, the big fellow who asked about my camera a week or so ago was there.  He'd asked about my Leica Monochrom, then told me about his Leica M6.  He'd been a photographer he said, but was "reformed."  Still, when I saw him, he had his Leica with him.  He's a big guy.  Really big.  Not tall, but tall enough with shoulders at least a foot and a half thick.  He looks like a power lifter with that old time power lifter belly.  I had my GFX medium format camera, so I walked over and said, "This is the camera you want."  He picked it up and gave a little "ooo," for a moment, then looked around and took a couple pics.  

"Wow. . . this is nice."

"I'm telling you.  You'll want one now."

In a little bit, he yelled over to me.  He was looking them up online.  I could tell he'd gotten bit.  He'd get one sooner or later.  

A while later, I looked at the photos he'd taken.  Mother fucker.  He'd taken the photo above.  No thought about it.  He just put the camera to his eye, pointed, and shot.  He wasn't worried about someone yelling at him.  Like I said, he's a big guy and has an attitude to go along with it.  I was pissed and felt the fool with my photos of lamps and drapes, etc.  Photography is about skills, sure, but it is 50% guts.  

I don't seem to have them anymore.  

I've come to the realization that I can't take photos of people I know.  I'm too self conscious.  I don't like to do it.  So. . . it is drapes and lamps and street signs.  

And despair.  

But I do like strangers.  

It was still early in the afternoon yesterday when I left the cafe.  The sun was out and the air was warm.  I should go and take photographs, I said to no one.  So I got into the car and headed south.  But I didn't take any photos.  Nope.  I went to a Barnes and Nobles.  I hadn't been to it for many, many years.  I'd read that they had made a comeback, that they were under the leadership of the guy who headed Waterstones, and had turned around and were making a profit again (link).  Waterstones is one of the finest bookstores I've ever been in, and I've tried to be in them all.  

When I walked in, the store looked exactly as it had when it opened decades ago.  Every book category was in the same place.  The cafe looked the same.  The magazines were next to it.  The lit crit section, I'll admit, was a tenth of its old size.  There was really nothing there.  The CD department was half populated by children's gifts.  But that was about it.  The art and photography section was still mostly fashion books.  I did see some photo books I had not been aware of, and unabashedly, I took off the plastic wrappers and sat down with them.  If they were any good, I would buy them.  

There was a book of Eggleston portraits.  They were terrible.  Worse.  There was a book of Alex Webb photos.  Boring.  Magnum street photos.  Nope.  Several others which did not hold my interest.  It was not a waste of time, though.  I was beginning to like my photographs again.  

When I was through looking at books, I headed to the grocers to get the makings for a Greek Salad a la me.  Earlier, at the liquor store, I bought a pack of those new THC drinks.  And when I got back to my mother's, I sat with her and drank half a can of a Margarita doper's brew.  I needed something to take off the edge without calories.  I thought this might be the ticket.  

As we sat staring out over the lawn and waving to the passing neighbors, my mother said, "I'm going to miss you when you are gone."

Jesus Christ.  Here we go.  I downed the THC drink.  I miss my life, such as it was.  I'm a good son, I think, but I'm a lousy servant.  I do what I do, but I can't help feeling a seething resentment.  It is wrong, I know, which makes it worse.  So I breathe and grin.  But my nerves are shot all to hell now.  I am someone who needs quite a bit of alone time.  The constant presence of other people wears me down.  Some biological switch must be triggered in the brains of people who live with a spouse and children.  There must be some dopamine thing that happens.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I'm not built right.  But surely there must be nights when people think of poisoning the entire family or just running away.  I'm sure of it.  I've heard women say in a voice subduing viciousness, but barely. . . "Mommy needs some time to herself."  I guess that is when the biological switch must flip.  I surely can't be alone in this.  

"Mom. . . it's not like I haven't been coming to see you every fucking day since. . . ."

I said it and wanted to take it back.  

"I know you do.  I'm just saying I like having you around."

Fuck me.  

I had another airliner bottle of Johnny Walker in the liquor store bag.  I poured it into a glass.  When it was gone, I needed more, so I opened another can of pot water.  

"How's your mom," people say now instead of "hello."  It's what people do.  What can I say?  She's no different than the week before or the week before that.  Her bone is healing we hope.  We'll know when we go to the ortho next week.  

"She's eating well," I say.  

"Well that's good.  You're a good son."

That's what everybody says, to which I respond, "No. . . I'm an asshole."  That is truly my response.  

I don't know how the masses do what they do.  I truly don't.  Maybe they are happy, but I don't see it.  Maybe they are comfortable, though, and that makes it palatable.  I don't know how any of us do it, really.  Two sides of the same coin.  The human condition.  It takes all our time not to think about it.  It's best read in a book or watched on t.v.  We've learned that from Plato/Aristotle, haven't we?  Catharsis.  We feel better after the performance and are ready for a comedy.  It's what we do.  It's how we get by.  

I guess.  

But. . . that fucking guy, huh?  Just taking a picture like it was nothing.  WTF?  


Tuesday, February 4, 2025

A Simulacrum of Life

I'm still writing here as if it matters, as if anyone still comes here at all.  I have no idea.  Meanwhile, the Substack page grows.  This I know, for I get data on the fly.  But I am dedicated to this now as I am to my journaling.  Whether people read or not, it is legacy stuff.  A dirty little flawed legacy, sure, but what do most people leave?  I know in my own hillbilly family, the legacy is overdoses and prison sentences and a few addled surviving children.  Children, though, are legacy if you subscribe to the Taylor Sheridan way.  

I have two dead cats, a dead dog, and a blog.  What the fuck is legacy anyway?  

I am overwrought, so forgive me.  I have become irritable and snappish.  I would like to have my life back again, such as it is, but I am servant to my mother's needs for what may be an interminable amount of time.  I was happy for a brief moment yesterday.  After the gym, after a soak in the tub and a shower, I sat down at the computer in my own home for a moment to work on a couple photos.  I turned on "my" music.  I haven't heard it for a month.  It put me in place.  Surrounded by the detritus of my life, old artifacts and hand woven 19th century plant dyed rugs, a whale's tooth and two poison dart guns, prints from old photo chums, now well-known, the Russian pine cabinet and, of course, the scent of essential oils. . . my excessive indulgences so contrasting with the frugal environment of my mother's house, neat and trim but without personality, looking like any other decor you might walk into in the neighborhood, lock, stock and interchangeable. . . for a moment I was happy.  

In the late afternoon, the sun came out and I went to the cafe for a decaf latte.  When I sat down to write, nothing came to mind, yet I was still happy.  It was a crazy joy like floating just inches above the ground.  I haven't felt that well for a very long while.  

But time and circumstance. . . the clock harkened me back to my mother's when I would rather have gone "adventuring."  I felt as if I might belong in the world again.  I felt attractive-ish and sure, and that is when the urge to wander will strike.  

Rather, I walked to my car and pointed it in the usual direction.  

When I got to my mother's house, the across the street neighbor was there.  She made a big deal out of telling me she was going to vacuum my mother's house.  

"Good," I said.  "That's just the thing.  I'll wait out here."

It pissed me off, you see, as if it were an accusation or insult.  I'm doing 20 hours a day with my mother, but if someone spends fifteen minutes, they consider themselves a hero?  Whatever.  

"You might want to wash the windows while you're at it," I spat.  

Determined to lose more weight, to become younger and prettier, I opened a faux beer.  I could feel my attitude plunging.  Decaf and alcohol free?  I was leading a fascimle-life.  

When the girls were done inside, they came out to sit and tell me all about it.  Then the neighbor wanted to tell me the non-adventures of her life.  She should get a blog, I thought, so she could bore the void as I imagine myself doing, or as C.C. quotes, "another stain upon the silence."  People, in the main, however, don't read let alone write.  Just look at what has happened to the check out counters at grocery stores.  Remember all those terrible popular paperbacks that used to line the shelf in front of the conveyor?  Gone.  Not even a Danielle Steele or a Stephen King or any of those silly Harlequin Romance novels.  

Eventually, the neighbor stood up and said she had to go.  She stood for another twenty minutes retelling her weekend with her daughter and son-in-law.  Payment, I guess, for vacuuming the carpet.  

It was nearing sunset, so my mother followed me into the house where I was to get to work preparing dinner.  I needed the two cans of tuna I had bought and placed on a cupboard shelf, but they weren't' there.  I did a little search.  

"Mom, where's the tuna?"

"What?"

Louder--"Where are the two cans of tuna that were sitting here?"

"They should be there."

I tore the cabinet apart, but they were nowhere.  I snapped.  

"Goddamnit, mom. . . what did you do with them?"

My mother's memory is going and I shouldn't have.  She began looking, moving things about in her crippled, slow motion way.  

"Jesus Christ.  I don't feel like driving to the fucking grocery store."

O.K.  Now you know.  I can be like that, a petty little shit.  It put my mother back.  She went to anther cabinet in the dining room.  On the bottom of one shelf were cans of tuna.  Not fancy albacore free range or whatever the fuck, in cans that  I didn't recognize.  They would have to do.  And so I made the noodle and broccoli bowl with tuna and cheese.  My mother was silent and I was feeling the red rush of remorse all over.  When I plated the food and sat down, I said, "You know what I think happened to the tuna?  Remember the other night when you said you didn't want dinner and I made a tuna sandwich, then you said you wanted one, too?  I don't think I replaced them."

She just stared at me and nodded.  Didn't seem to help much, nor did the meal which was pretty fucking lousy.  And I was paranoid about the tuna.  God knows how old the cans were.  It tasted funny to me and I was sure we would both die of ptomaine.  I could only eat a little.  

As it turned out, I was going to have to go to the grocers anyway.  I needed milk.  

"Do you want anything?"

She shook her head.  I cleaned the pots and pans and dishes before I left.  It was seven-thirty, an hour at which I hadn't been out of the house for a month.  I walked into the night.  It was peaceful.  No t.v.  No shuffling mom.  Just a big, starlit sky and the sounds of early evening, hollow and distant.  I took a deep breath and stood still fora minute or two and felt the involuntary vibrations begin to leave my body.  I am not sure why, but I recalled all the solitary evenings on my sailboat at anchor, just me and the big empty night into which to dream.

Who knew so many people went out at seven-thirty at night?  Not a housebound boy.  The store parking lot was full.  My stomach now was churning with real or imagined toxins.  But there was a liquor store next to the grocers, and I decided I would go there after getting the milk.  In spite of the possible gastro suffering I was sure to experience, I was feeling light again, as in the sun filled afternoon.  

Walking the aisle toward the milk, I spotted a pair of nice legs in black running shorts and a black top.  A true blonde.  She felt me coming, I guess, and looked my way.  I am lonely, and as lonely men will, I romanticized her.  She was in her mid-thirties, maybe, not a kid, and had a mature body.  There were a few of the inevitable age lines in her face.  She was not one of the dermatology women who live in my part of town, and I liked her right off.  We would certainly be lovers for a long, long while, maybe forever, and we would laugh and go to beaches and play shuffleboard and eat tacos, and I would take her sailing and hiking and. . . 

As I got closer, she looked into my eyes and smiled.  Something in me tightened up.  It was a true smile, a certified, verified smile.  I knew I was looking slim and interesting if not handsome.  Women know what such a smile will do to a man.  They know they can take his breath away just like that.  They know it, but they don't know the severity of it.  They can't even begin to imagine.  

I got the milk and turned back to retrace my steps, and as I came closer, she turned and smiled again.  Then. . . "Do you have a dog?"

What sort of quiz is this, I wondered?  Should I say no, but I used to?  Or should I say, no, but I know dogs?  

"Nope. . . no dog," I said.

"Oh. . . you look just like someone I see at the dog park."

"No. . . not me."

Shit, piss, fuck. . . goddamn!  Was it over just like that?  

A few steps later, it occurred to me. . . she had mistaken me for my actor friend.  He always takes his dog to the dog park.  

I should have said I had a dog.  

When I went to the checkout, I kept an eye out for her, but to no avail.  That was all the adventure I was getting for the night.  I crossed over to the liquor store.  I needed to kill the ptomaine in my belly, I assured myself. 

This wasn't drinking.  This was medicine.  

I looked behind the counter to see what kinds of whiskeys they might have in small bottles.  Johnny Walker Red--$2.95.  Johnny Walker Black--$5.95.  

"Give me one of those little airplane bottles of Johnny Walker Black," I said.  

When I got back to my mother's house, the t.v. was blasting some commercials per usual.  I grabbed a glass and went into another room to open and pour the whiskey.  I was hiding it.  WTF?  I poured 3/4s of the bottle and added some soda water and sat down in the living room.  Jesus, there wasn't much in the glass.  I turned on my laptop to check my emails and texts.  I didn't get far before the whiskey was gone.  I poured the rest of the tiny bottle into the glass.  Done.  I felt nothing.  I knew then how heavy I pour the scotch after dinner.  I was wishing I had a bottle.  

After checking my computer, I went into the t.v. room with my mother.  She seemed disconsolate.  I felt penitent, but what could I do?  

"You can watch what you want," she said. 

"Do you want to finish that 1884 series?"

"Sure.  Whatever."

I put it on.  It is not a happy series, and this was the end.  Death and despair were everywhere.  It was not yet ten when it was over, but neither of us wanted to stay up, and so my mother said a simple "goodnight."

And that is how things go.  And will go.  I have no pictures, no stories, nothing but the making of meals and cleaning of kitchens and decaf coffees and near-beers with too little whiskey on the side.  

But for a moment. . . there was the music and the paraphernalia and the sweet scent of life.  And goddamnit, the mistaken smile of a woman I needed to love.  


  

Monday, February 3, 2025

Trumpenomics

When there's a bar in every port. . . .  but I didn't go.  I planned to, but that didn't work out.  Still, beer and tacos were on the menu last night, and that was good.  I feel I gained a pound.  Am I going to be squeamish about my figure now, recording my weight day by day?  That remains to be seen.  I sure don't want to balloon up again.  I'm only two steps above hideous now.  I don't want to go back to three.  

But when a bar looks this good, right?  It is right out of an exotic old adventure film.  Anything might happen out of your wildest dreams.  Anything at all.  Hell. . . I sat here with an old love about a year ago. . . or was it two?  Some visage from the past, I know.  There are places where you can still dream and wonder.  They just seem to be getting harder to find.  

The bar is apropos of a world gone wicked.  Trump has turned the table upside down.  Stock up now on big bags of rice and beans.  That and greens and a little chicken or pork for flavoring are going to be your future sustenance if you are not one of the big boys.  As I've said before, it is no good being rich if everyone else is having fun, too?  You don't want to see the little people carrying on.  It is too disgusting.  

It has become obvious to even my conservative friends now that Trump, Musk, and Co. are jacked on adrenochrome and diet colas, and as H.S. Thompson used to say, the hogs are greased and out of the chute.  You'll play hell getting them back in the pen now.  Old "Giggles" Harris looks like soft core porn compared to the snuff film we are about to live through.  Now my most "reasonable" conservative friends are saying, "I don't care.  I just want to be left alone."  They know what they've done.  They and the Woke agenda adopted by the dems.  When your base platform is based on less than 1% of the population. . . well. . .  that just ain't good poker.  

But it's a fabulous thing that Trump delivered on his promise to stop the war in Ukraine on day one.  What?  Oh.  Well. . . at least he put into place some hideous tariffs on our closest allies.  Who in their right mind would want to keep the two large countries bordering ours as friends?  

At least Trump is closing down USAID.  If he were to take that budget and use it to improve infrastructure in the U.S., he could probably repair a bridge or twenty miles of highway, contracts going, of course, to people who contributed to his reelection fund.  

Infrastructure?  What did Trump promise on the infrastructure?  Right.  

I'm sorry.  I can't help it.  You can turn off the news and refuse to participate, but it won't help.  It's going to get you anyway you play it.  Unless you are one who has never had to ask, "What's our food budget look like this week, honey," it's going to get you.  Once the little people can't afford to go anywhere, the airports will be more pleasant.  With the national parks closed due to understaffing, they can be leased to private enterprises.  The money will flow, it just won't be in your direction.  If you are not one of the elite, if you are only working wealthy, you will feel it.  Trumpenomics will get you, too.  And the little people will rejoice, perhaps, for now, you, too, will know "the old thrill and despair of a penny more or less."  (Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily").

But this is apocalyptic writing and not my forte.  If I have one.  I'm no George Orwell, though I might aspire to "Down and Out in Paris and London."  Or better yet, "Burmese Days."  Yes, that's the one.  If you've not read it, I'd HIGHLY suggest you put that on your immediate reading list.  I swear I think it will serve you well in the coming days.  

That is what the photo of the bar reminds me of, I think.  Burmese Days.  What strange characters might we meet?  What mysterious or bizarre obsessions?  Let's go see.  

You come, too.  


Sunday, February 2, 2025

Unavoidable


I'm off the wagon again.  I had a light beer before dinner last night and it went straight to my head.  Oo-la--la.  That old, familiar feeling.  Really?  Yup.  It is true.  It was like being a teenager all over again.  

But I felt like I'd put on a pound or two.  Ho!

Tonight will be tacos and real beer.  Who knows what will happen?  

The first picture was taken with my medium format Fuji.  The second was taken with my phone.  I think there is a difference, but it is not so great, really.  It is but it isn't.  Phone cameras are good enough for most things.  

I'm using up all my silly images today in order to force myself out to make more.  More silly images.  



I am like Harrison in this, in part.  I love the marketplaces and cafes, but I am media y media on the museums.  It is a 50/50 pull for me.  

The clouds have returned. It is not good for my psyche. Clouds for days. My life has become a dull routine of caretaking, cooking, cleaning, picking up.  Such is my fate.  No matter.  Trump is determined to make life for the non-wealthy a grind and a horror show.  "They" want the working class to work and watch commercial t.v. 

"Hey, hey. . . hey. . . did you hear about the big halftime show they are going to have at the Super Bowl?!?!?"

Of course the morons have TikTok scrolling to keep them distracted.  I will admit that I am tickled sometimes, but I have books.  So many books.  

And shuffleboard.  I've found a shuffleboard court!  Tennessee owns some condos he rents out on a big lake here in town.  When I said I was getting into shuffleboard shape, he reminded me.  Oh, they are glorious courts high above and overlooking the big lake.  While I doubt that he will ever really get a happy hour group together there, I was overwhelmed with imagining cocktails and shuffleboard glancing past the pool below at sunset, the golden pink light reflecting in the distance, something cooking on the bbq grills and the wafting of smoke as the fat begins to drip.  I can see it all so clearly.  

But you know how such things go.  Oh, were they my condos, though.  Trumpworld could go to hell.  But I need money to escape it now.  My kingdom for some shuffleboard!


Hell. . . for a studio, or even just a printer.  Now I am worried about the price of avocados and those onetime cheap staples, milk and eggs.  What's a schlub to do now?  

My Trumper friends have already thrown their hands up into the air and said, "I'm not a fan of Trump," while blaming Biden for the Trump presidency.  

"Oh, sure. . . none of you assholes were for Trump.  That's why he got nominated by you republicans.  You opposed him all the way."

Fucking asshole cowards, I say.  But the ones with money care little.  The price of avocados will have no effect on them, and they like to see the little people work and suffer.  What good is having money if everybody's happy?  

That's all I've got, in the dialect of my hillbilly tribe.  I'm worn out but doing fine.  

We all wait with abated breath to see if the groundhog sees his shadow.  

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Put on the Silly Music and Dance!

February 1st.  I'm sitting with a bottle of Dom right now this morning as I write.  

Kidding.  But I WILL break my fast today, even if only symbolically.  I don't plan to take up drinking at the level I was.  It will be a damp February.  

That's the plan, at least. . . and we all know about "plans."

But this is not good conversation unless you are in A.A.  There is little that is less interesting than hearing about people's diets.  Exercise talk is right up there, though.  Maybe I'll start beauty treatments and massages and that sort of thing.  I think I might be able to fascinate you with that.  

"I had a little reaction to the botox today.  I couldn't feel my lips and apparently I was drooling." 

Now that is just a wicked guess.  But I could find out.  

Without a real life, however, I seem to have had two experiences--drinking and not drinking.  But, you know what happens to writing when one falls in love, right?  It is even worse.  

The best, I think, is when you can write about other people.  That takes some work.  You have to get out and be someone others will want to talk to.  That is a whole skillset in itself.  It is one easiest to develop in mid-life when you are most attractive to others.  It is much easier, I am guessing or projecting, if you are a woman.  I can't imagine the success I would have had had I been an attractive woman.  Men love to talk about themselves.  Jesus, as an attractive woman, I could have had men tell me anything.  Anything at all.  I could have been the Mata Hari of literature.  

But, you know. . . people grimace when an old person walks into a room.  You are, at best, a comic figure.  At worst.  . . . 

Still, as bad as the party is. . . I'm not ready to leave.  I can see that some people are still having fun.  

I will be more jovial with a drink in hand, even if it is a Michelob Ultra.  

My cousin may be coming to stay with my mother soon now, though, and it is the best time of the year here in my own home state, so I may take the opportunity to hit the road and travel here a bit.  Maybe.  It is hideously expensive now, especially at this time of year.  The state used to be a real paradise.  There were mom and pop motels on every beach on either coast.  You could get a room for $50 or $60 a night easily.  There were mom and pop places to get good fish sandwiches and icy beers.  And there were miles and miles and miles of empty beach.  Now, it is nearly impossible to stay anywhere near a beach for less than $300 and you will have to search hard to find that.  Plan on $400.  But you will still be fairly slumming because somewhere near you, there will be a resort with miles of pools served by fifty bars with the beautiful people wandering about ordering margaritas and h'ors d'oeuvres.  It will be the place to be.  But unless you are on the corporate tit or are a rich gymroid, you won't be able to afford it.  This place is money.  

As on my last trip to Miami, I end up staying somewhere else, far from where I want to be in something like a Yotel.  

In my thirties, I was still driving to the beach in my VW van with my surfboard, sleeping bag, and alcohol stove, and pulling into a spot under some Australian pines.  I would surf, get cleaned up, go to a Lum's restaurant right on the beach down the road, and get a beer steamed chili cheese dog and a schooner of icy beer as I watched the sun set through the big plate glass window.  Then I would head back to my spot under the pines to light a Coleman lantern, make a rum and coke, and read until I was ready to fall asleep on the floor of the van.  I'd wake in the morning, make coffee, find a place to do my morning ablutions, and surf along a deserted shoreline.  

That place is just a long string of big condos now.  

I miss the boiled peanut and smoked fish stands that lined the road back home.  Fresh vegetables.  Strawberries.  There were roadside stands for just about anything.  

I think of buying tackle and gear to go fishing, but the fishing spots have all been developed, too, and besides, there are no fish.  

You know, I think there might be a project somewhere in there.  Anyone care to GoFundMe?  

But, as I've said and done quite often. . . I like staying in the beautiful places, too.  I love shacking up at The Breakers, and I told Tennessee yesterday when he finished his workout and came out to see me sunning by the Club Y pool, "We should be doing this at the Fountainbleu, drinking icy margaritas and watching the scenery."  He gave me some advice on how to find a less expensive way to stay there.  Yes.  I would love that, too.  

There are other treats that have disappeared.  Shuffleboard.  There used to be shuffleboard courts EVERYWHERE.  You can't find one now.  That's a real shame.  Shuffleboard and cocktails.  I can remember playing with my parents and the other adults when I was a kid.  It was great fun.  Lots of jovial conversation.  That was usually just before piling into the car to head to some restaurant for dinner where they advertised the "Bottomless Cup of Coffee" on a big neon sign.  

If you don't live here in my own home state, you probably still have all that.  

I had a job that paid me very little money, but I was still able to afford a slip for my sailboat in a nice marina.  I travelled the globe with my buddies climbing mountains and running rivers.  I stayed in Key West with the famous artists and writers for next to nothing.  Now, if I want to eat at the newest restaurant on the Boulevard with the local "see and be seen" crowd, I have to pay $99 for a steak dinner.  Excluding drinks.  

After writing all this, I understand why I have spent so much of my time drinking at home and streaming shows on the t.v.  Dry January is over.  It is going to be a challenge.  

But right now, I'm looking forward to fish tacos and an icy cold beer.  Let's put on some music and silly dance!  That always makes me happy.  



Friday, January 31, 2025

Dry January

It is the last day of Dry January.  The day will be gorgeous, too, a high of 82 and a cloudless sky.  So they say.  My weight has hit a plateau, as weights will.  I've lost all the pounds I might, by and large, from simply cutting alcohol from my diet.  For all the weight loss, though, I still look like shit.  It took more than a month to put the weight on.  Without Ozempic or one of the allied drugs, it would take a long time to lose more weight.  Either that or I would have to cut out ALL of the bad things I consume.  Right now, I'm alcohol-free and sleeping without sleep aids.  I'm a real Christian Cowboy, I am.  But I have on occasion eaten chocolate and ice cream.  I've had toast.  If I eschewed that along with everything else for another month, I might get down to my preferred weight by spring.  It would be nice to not fear going shirtless in public, though I do have Warhol like scars from surgeries surrounding the wreck to keep me monstrous.

I am taking all things "under consideration."  I will, however, break my fast on Saturday, sure as shittin'.  I have had little trouble going alcohol-free, but I don't want to put myself in some lifetime psychological prison.  Nope.  I've been a good boy.  Now. . . I want a drink.  

Should I call my "sponsor"?  

I imagine myself keeping my tea loving ways at night when I am home alone--if I ever get back there--but I am not going to sip a cranberry and soda when I am out with the homies or sitting in a chic Miami bar alone at sunset waiting for the promised love of my life to show up.  

So yea.  Say hello to tacos and beer after a day of surfing.  

What? 

Just sayin'.  

I joined up on a site of Fuji GFX 50 sii lovers.  I thought I might learn something.  And I did.  I learned (once again) that such groups, as are groups in the main, are worthless and worse than a waste of time.  I got nothing but caught up in an exchange with an idiot about what a photo should look like.  He wanted to inform me on how to make a photograph "pop!"  I went to his site and looked at his pitiful photographs.  I refrained, however, from telling the idiot he had the aesthetic taste of a used car salesman, but barely.  

I've learned that lesson once again.  I am no longer a member of that tribe.  

I saw a video clip of an interview with Miles Davis who said he didn't listen to records.  Other musicians copy one another, he said.  The music is derivative.  William Eggleston said much the same about other people's photography.  I have looked at too many mediocre photos.  I will stop.  It is, I think, like watching commercial television.  It infects you and fucks up your vision.  

I should begin wearing one of those green or khaki photographer's vests that photojournalists wore in wartime back "in the day."  That should make me stand out.  

I should report that I think I am feeling better.  I don't know if it is pretending or hoping.  But. . . .  And my mother seems to be picking up a bit, too.  I take her back to the ortho in 2 weeks.  We'll see what happens then.  Will I get to go home?  Will I return and begin a productive life?  I do know that I will not wait to do my home repair chores until May again.  I will not be pressure washing and throwing mulch on a hot day this year.  Uh-uh.  Not this cowboy.  I have gardens to make and weeks to pull and all sorts of fences to mend--literally.  But, you know. . . BBC.  It is the annual test.  

I'm looking forward to that drink.  Is that bad?  Oh. . . I'm sure it is.  But why is life worth living?  Maybe some music and dancing at home with a glass of wine in hand to some lovely tune wafting through the frangipani scented air. . . . 

Or as Issac Davis (Woody Allen) says in "Manhattan," "Tracy's face."

"The memory of all that. . . no, no, they can't take that away from me."



Thursday, January 30, 2025

The Dying Animal


Donna Karen New York, a gold chain and a watch, a cigarette and a lighter.  Sometimes even a blind pig. . .  I don't remember taking this photo.  It surely was taken from the hip.  When I pulled it up from the memory card, I thought, "Sometimes, boy, luck is just the thing."  Life its own self, as someone once said.  

My view of life and humanity grows grimmer every day.  I am not the happy boy I used to be.  Oh, sure, I was always melancholy, but this is much different.  

My mother has been complaining that she thinks she broke her toe when she fell. 

"Look at this," she demands.  

I don't see anything.  

"Doe it hurt?"

"Yes.  My ankle too.  It's swollen."

It is the ankle on the opposite leg.  Again, I don't see anything.  

"Do you want to go to the doctor?"

"Yes, I think I'd better."

So yesterday I took her back to the ortho clinic with the walk-in patient thing that lets you get to see a PA and get X-rays and if it looks necessary, a doctor's appointment.  It is a nice thing, but it means sitting in the large waiting room again.  The waiting room is big and spacious.  This ortho group does a nice job.  But the room is full of people, and a room full of people is disturbing.  Maybe it isn't for others.  Some may find it funny or fascinating, but I see monsters, my mother and myself included.  In the wild, most of us would be quickly hunted down and eaten, too fat and hobbled and deformed to do anything about it.  I don't know what people are thinking, and of that I am grateful.  But I think I get too great a glimpse now living with my mother.  The window into the public mind must be the blaring of commercial television, the constant idiocy and jabber, the made up voices and purposely stupid and irritating commercials.  These voices surely run through the public mind day and night.  

The entire thing has me unhinged.  

As I say, the ortho clinic is sterling, and within minutes my mother was in for X-rays, and not long after, the PA came in to see her.  He was an older gent, perhaps in his 50s, and I thought about my undergraduate days in the university zoology program when people who didn't have all that it would take to get into medical school were thinking about applying to the Physician's Assistant program.  It was like being a doctor, almost.  These programs were something new at the time, but now PAs are everywhere doing all the things a doctor doesn't want to do--like talk to patients.  I have long thought of that horror.  You are the top of your class, smart, learned, and you get into medical school with others like you.  It is thrilling.  Eventually, you graduate, do your internship, and set up practice. And then. . . your days are spent trying to tell hillbillies they need to quit smoking.  Patients want to tell you things you don't need or want to know, and the brightest people you get to talk to in a day are usually nurses, one of whom you will eventually leave your first husband or wife for.  Things just didn't seem to go the way you had dreamed.  

But then. . . there were PAs.  Oh, fuck yea.  

I've looked it up.  PAs are well-paid.  It could be a satisfying life if you didn't try to pretend to yourself you were a doctor, if you accepted your role as a medical assistant with limited authority.  I'm certain, however, that is a rarity.  

Mom's PA certainly wasn't the exception.  When he came in, I simply nodded.  I let my mother do the talking.  The PA put up the X-rays.  Nothing, he said was broken.  There was arthritis in the first joint of the big toe she thought she might have broken and maybe a sprain in the ankle.  He suggested that she might wear a soft boot shoe on the painful toe foot to help her walk without putting pressure on it.  

And here's where the thing went off the rails.  My mother is a hillbilly, pure and simple.  Ask her a question.  She doesn't answer a question.  Not the way one would.  

"How bad is the pain?"

"Well. . . when I was a kid. . . . "

It is frustrating as hell.  The PA hadn't time for it.  

"Do you want to try the shoe?"

"I don't know.  What does it look like?"

"This wasn't a fashion question.  It is a medical one."

I bit my tongue.  He was holding himself too high and mighty, an intellectual giant among midgets.  My blood boiled a bit and I wanted to dress him down.  I thought to say, "Hold on, pal.  You've jumped to a mighty big assumption.  She said nothing about fashion.  She can't tie a shoe.  She has a broken wrist.  She is asking about the functional appearance, you moron."  But. . . I didn't think that was going to get us anywhere good, so I let it pass.  Besides, I know how frustrating my mother can be.  

When he left the room to get the shoe, my mother had obviously perceived his annoyance.  

"I'm not a good patient," she said.  

"You don't answer questions," I said.  "It can be frustrating."

But that is the hillbilly way.  Suspicion.  "Why do you want to know?"

The PA didn't come back.  He sent in some of the. . . I don't know what they were, technically.  Helpers in medical garb.  They fumbled around trying different sizes on my mother's foot.  There was also an ankle brace for the other leg that would never get worn.  

When we got back in the car, my mother said, "Well. . . I just wanted to know if anything was broken."

It was after noon when we got back to her house.  I'd eaten a yogurt before we went to the clinic.  Now I needed to go to the gym.  My day was going to be jammed up, my "free" time, I mean.  

I am not doing so well, as I've suggested.  I think I am getting better, but I am quite unsure.  In addition to the lingering thing, I have hurt my back badly so that I can not stand up fully without screaming.  I had no business in the gym, and yet. . . . 

I didn't get out until after two.  I went back to my place to soak and shower.  I was miserable, but the tub felt good.  After a shower, I lay down for a moment.  When I looked at the clock, it was going on five.  I had not eaten but for the yogurt.  I called my mother to tell her I was going to pick up some takeout chicken from the good Peruvian place.  She had told me earlier she was going to eat the leftover chicken, broccoli and rice from the night before, but I wanted to check.  O.K.  I was feeling low.  It had been a shitty day.  Now I was locked into the worst of the daily traffic.  I turned on the college jazz station and followed the interminable line of cars past my mother's turnoff and onto the major highway finally reaching the chicken shack.  But something was wrong.  There were no cars in the parking lot.  It looked like an abandoned building.  And. . . indeed, it was.  The place was no longer there.  WTF?  

I turned to go to my mother's house.  I couldn't think of what to eat.  I didn't want to face the traffic.  I would sit down, smoke a cheroot and drink a mocktail.  

I was shaky as I sat out with my mother.  I needed food.  I would have to go to the grocery store and figure something out.  It was late.  I didn't want to cook.  I guessed I'd get some deli chicken and. . . something.  

"Do you want to come?" I asked my mother in case she was getting cabin fever.

"No." 

The deli was out of chicken.  I was done in.  I couldn't think.  I walked to the frozen food aisle and got some enchiladas and some Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  

All I wanted was a drink.  I have had not trouble doing a Dry January, but last night, all I wanted was sit down with a couple whiskeys.  Today is the last day of January, of course, and I have been dry for nearly 40 days.  I've lost a lot of weight so far, from. . . well. . . I've lost a lot of weight.  Not enough, however.  Of late, I've even stopped taking anything to help me sleep.  My blood is pure.  My body is a temple.  

But Friday. . . . I don't know.  My outlook on things is pure shit.  I don't feel well and have nothing to look forward to.  So it seems.  My thoughts are dark and it is getting harder to put one foot in front of the other.  Yay though I walk through the Valley of Shit. . . . 

My mother is up now and complaining.  She didn't sleep well.  She is constipated.  Her arm hurts.  She shuffles from room to room.  It takes forever.  

"Can you open this for me?"

I will hear loud commercial television soon.  It is a disease.  People have become dumber, and "experts" don't know why.  This is a verifiable fact.  Reading scores for children continue their percipitous drop.  We're not talking about reading literature.  We're talking about simple instructions.  The kids at the checkout counter cannot make change.  They are easily confused.  "I need to get a manager."  The manager usually has the logical skills of a schizophrenic, a condition for which he or she is probably being treated.  

We've fucked everything up.  

The house next to my mother's is undergoing a facelift.  A man with a cell phone walks around talking.  A group of Mexicans works.  The man with the telephone will walk to his truck.  He'll come back and give instructions.  The Mexicans are stoic.  One of them is a young woman who is aging rapidly.  Maybe she is married to one of the other workers.  It is the end of the day.  She begins taking tools to the battered pickup truck.  It is getting dark.  The man with the cell phone left long ago.  Now they will go home--what is it like?  A small house on the outskirts, a carport into which they back the pickup?  Worn furniture and a small kitchen.  They take turns showering.  Do they cook or do they stop for MacDonalds?  Eventually they drop onto the couch and turn on the television.  The lawn, like all those around them, is mostly sand, cars parked on many.  They are glad to be home.  They go to worn beds and lie between old sheets under an old blanket.  They snuggle and kiss before they say goodnight.  Maybe there are kids, grandparents. . . .  There is barely time to think.  

I don't bother to imagine jefe's life.  I know that dick, too.  

I think of the title of a Philip Roth novel--"The Dying Animal."


Wednesday, January 29, 2025

The Year of the Snake

Welcome to The Year of the Snake.  It is the first day of the Chinese New Year, so I went to The Source to find out what to expect.  



How could I go wrong.  First off, I wanted to know the logic behind a Chinese Horoscope.  It is pretty clear.


Inarguable, really.  It seems pretty solid.  So, I thought to look at what the Year of the Snake had in store for me.  


But that's not all.  It also said, "In this year of true romance, single men will also meet their soul mates."

There you go.  

Last night, I was dreaming hard about My Own True Love.  I am sure it was the result of watching the Taylor Sheridan show "1924."  The show was recommended to me by a woman who thought I would enjoy it.  Not the Montana part, not the Indian part, but the Africa part.  For a long while, when I was driving my open Jeep and wearing palomino colored pants and linen shirts and doing my Tarzan bit. . . well, you get my drift.  If you have seen the show, you know what I mean.  It is true high romance of a kind by which I was indoctrinated as a kid.  That guy is the kind of man a boy was supposed to want to be.  

And so it goes.  

If you haven't seen the show, it's o.k.  All the Sheridan shows I've seen are crafted around the most blatant cliches of the past.  The dialog is cliche.  The action is cliche.  The characters are cliches.  There is nothing fresh or new about any of it.  

Which is what makes it so attractive to a certain audience.  I am watching it with my mother, because of my mother.  All she watches on t.v. are old westerns.  This is a western based on many of the cliches of those shows from the '50s and '60s.  Strong men, strong women, a tolerance for suffering, certain moral codes.  The Sheridan show has some nudity which is new for my mother, and it makes it quite uncomfortable to watch with her, but I just make fun of those scenes which are, dare I say, cliched.  

But cliches are comfortable, and the people I know who would be the first to criticize them live in a cliched world of their own.  The cliches are, perhaps, newer, though I think they come from certain periods of which they are not cognizant, but to me they are obvious.  And that's ok.  Cliches are cliches for a reason.  Once upon a time, they were fresh ideas that caught hold of the public imagination and became part of the mass lingo.  

There is a comfort in them.  Hell, after watching Sheridan, I have a desire to read an old Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe novel again. 

Last night, I dreamed of authentic love.  It was, in part, I'm sure, based upon what I had just been watching.  

There is a woman who lives in my mother's neighborhood a few streets over.  She's a real looker as they used to say.  She just turned 50 but she looks to be in her late 30s.  In clothes, at least, she has a body built by. . . you finish the cliche.  All the old men in the neighborhood are crazy for her.  She is divorced and has a son who just left for college in the fall.  I am not like the other men, of course.  I mean. . . I assume that there is a bucket of snakes between her ears.  At least that has been my lived experience.  And that means she is probably someone who might be attracted to the likes of me.  So I am cool.  Real cool.  

She walks her dogs by my mother's house and always stops to talk.  I am friendly in a neighborly way, but over the years, little by little, she has spilled bits and pieces of her life.  If she is walking and sees my car, she always smiles and gives a big wave.  I don't think she would be so friendly if I were as creepy as the old men in the neighborhood.  Just a guess.  

I've always wondered what her dating life was like.  She is an executive in a big bank, is always put together even when in her exercise outfits, and is surely a man magnet.  And, of course, I have intuited that she must surely be sick of that which is why butter would never melt in my mouth when we speak.  I hope that image works.  

Anyway, as my mother says when she wants to skip ahead in a story, a couple days ago when she stopped by, somehow her dating habits creeped up.  I said I couldn't imagine how people ever used a dating app.  She rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and agreed.  She launched into a tirade about bad dates.  

"People say the most inappropriate things," she said.  "I don't mean sexual.  They say things like 'I don't mind you being my sugar mama.'  That just isn't attractive.  I went through that with my ex.  It just isn't funny."

Of course I agreed.  Inevitably, at 50, she has an agenda.  And we agreed that experience makes finding someone to be with much more difficult.  There are too many red flags, too many things we know we don't want, and many fewer options.  

"It is just too much work," she said.  

"Yes," I agreed.  "The 24/7 thing isn't so very attractive anymore.  Someone stretched out on the couch with the remote wondering what you want to do."

"Dinners and drinks are fine, but when that's done, I want to go home. That's why I haven't dated since 2021."

Now that could have come as a shocker, but not for me.  I didn't tell her that I had her beat.  I just nodded in understanding.  I'm sure she has girlfriends with whom she goes for dinner and drinks.  I see "them" wherever I go.  

And yet I have dreams of high adventure and romance when I close my eyes. . . as in days of yore.  

When the neighbor said goodbye, I watched her walk away.  My mother said, "She sure keeps a good figure," and I replied with an old cliche--"Yes, she sure looks good when she's leaving."  Cliched, yes, but a nice oxymoron all the same.  

But the Chinese Horoscope holds out great hope for me this year.  They are usually pretty accurate, right?  

I'll try to be the strong, silent type.  



For those of you who. . . well. . . Charlie Watts was the drummer in The Rolling Stones.  I started listening to his jazz recordings back in the '90s, but I had never heard this one before.