Sleepless and Cheating

 I haven't time to write this morning, so I am cheating like a jr. high school boy.  

By late morning the street is already green with it—hats, scarves, the soft insistence of celebration. Inside the pub, the air is cool still, the wood faintly damp from the early mopping. Glasses stand in ranks. The taps gleam. There is a moment, brief and unrepeatable, when nothing has yet happened.

She is there.

Her name is Aoife. It is said quietly, almost without emphasis, as though it belongs more to the room than to her. She works behind the bar with a natural authority, not asserted, simply present. There is no haste in her, though everything she does is quick.

Her hair is dark, drawn back but imperfectly, so that strands escape and fall along her cheek. She does not correct them. They are part of her, like the way she stands—weight slightly to one side, a subtle curve through the body, not posed, not careless. Her face is pale, though not delicate. There is a strength in it, something withheld. Her mouth is full, the lower lip soft and faintly parted as she concentrates. The eyes are gray, clear but unreadable, as if they reflect rather than reveal.

When she moves, it is without display. She turns, reaches, pours. The gestures are exact, economical. There is no wasted motion, no effort to charm. And yet one watches her. It is difficult not to.

By noon the room has filled. Voices overlap. Laughter comes too quickly. Someone begins to sing, not well. The door opens and closes, opens and closes, letting in brief rectangles of light and cold. The day presses inward.

She remains unchanged.

It is not indifference. Rather, she seems to exist at a slight remove, as though the noise belongs to another register of experience. She hears it, of course—answers when spoken to, meets a gaze when necessary—but nothing adheres to her. The hands continue, the body continues. Pint after pint, each one poured with that same measured patience, the dark rising slowly, the foam settling into a pale crown.

A man leans across the bar, calling her “love,” then “darling,” as if the word itself might summon something. She does not respond to it. Only to the order. Her voice, when it comes, is low and even.

“What’ll it be.”

Not a question, exactly. A formality.

There are moments—small, almost nothing—when she pauses. A glass held just so. A look that lingers half a second longer than required. In these moments, one feels something might be disclosed. But it is not. The pause ends. The motion resumes.

I watch her as one watches a figure in a painting, aware that the distance is part of the experience. She is not performing, and yet everything is seen. The light catches in her hair, along the line of her cheek, the bare forearm as she reaches. There is a warmth to her skin that contrasts with the cool interior of the room, a suggestion of something more vivid, more private, than the scene allows.

At one point she looks directly at me.

It is not an accident. The gaze is deliberate, held. There is no challenge in it, no invitation. Only recognition—of being observed, and of permitting it, briefly.

Then she turns away.

The afternoon deepens. The room grows louder, less distinct. Glasses clatter. Beer spills. The floor becomes tacky underfoot. Outside, the light begins to fade, though it is still early. Time loosens, stretches.

She continues.

There is, in her, a sense of duration. As though she has always been here, or will be. The day passes through her without altering anything essential. One imagines her afterward, when the last customer has gone, when the lights are lowered and the door is locked. The same movements, slower now. The same silence returning.

But this is not seen.

Only this: the crowded room, the rising noise, and behind the bar, the figure of a girl who remains, in some quiet way, apart from it all—present, visible, and yet not entirely given.

Existential Quandaries

It should be the most exciting time of the year here in my own hometown.  Spring Break.  St. Paddy's Day.  March Madness.  The Art Festival.  The Rodeo.  It all comes to a head in the next week.  But I am blah.  I can't even pick out a photo to post.  I don't seem to have a thought in my head which would be wonderful if I were feeling glee.  But for the thousandth time so far this year, I will "change my life."  

I ran into a woman I used to date for a short while, a veterinarian who I stayed friends with.  She put both my dog and my cat down right here in my home.  I had just entered the grocery store and there she was leaning on her shopping cart looking awful, shorter and worn, wearing a back brace.  She looked at me with tired eyes.  

"Last time I saw you, you were getting ready to have back surgery," I said.  She looked exactly like that now.  

"I'm going to have another one," she said.  "This is the fifth one.  This time it is in a thoracic vertebra.  I can only stand for about ten minutes," she said.  

We talked mostly about suicide.  When she put down my dog, it was instantaneous.  There was no shudder, no contractions at all.  The dog was just there one second dand gone the next.  Pentobarbital.  

"Man. . . that's how I want to go," I said.  

"I'll put you down," she grinned.  There was a reason we quit going out together.  

She told me that was the way she planned on going.  She'd hook up an IV and shoot the drug into the line.  "It works so quickly, I'd be afraid I'd pass out before I finished the injection."

I told her I had a stash of pills, but I didn't know if they were enough.  She told me how many I would need.  

"The problem is if you take them all at once, you might puke them up."

"Yea."

I said that doctors die at home using barbiturates, "But I don't think even they can get pentobarbital.  I don't think they are legal in the U.S. anymore."

"Yes it is  It is used to treat epilepsy.  They are cheap, too.  I prescribe them for epileptic dogs."

Holy shit!!!  I will Google today how to give a dog epilepsy.  I need an epileptic dog!  It is the safest, most pleasant way to take yourself out if you don't have access to the other stuff.  

"But that will be a hard day, you know?  Thinking that would be your last day on earth?  I'm sure you'd be thinking 'tomorrow.  I'll wait until tomorrow.'"

She told me she'd thought about it, but had decided that there were still people who needed her.  I almost chuckled.  She meant the people who need her to put their animals down.  

"I still do some good in life," she said without any irony at all.  

And that's the way it goes, I think.  Life is an empty void and we stand naked and shivering on a one foot piece of land, and it is awful and it is horrible, and yet. . . we don't take the leap.  We stand there and stand there until our knees won't hold us and we are tired to death.  That is something like Camus' take on it, anyway.  Like Hamlet, the only real question is to be or not to be.  For Camus. . . is life worth living?  And the answer?  Well. . . people overwhelmingly choose to toil on.  And so we roll the great boulder up the mountain like our champion Sisyphus.  

One might ask, "Does he have free will?"  Great question.  I was debating that with two profs once.  I lost the argument, but it is O.K.  The most reasonable answer, it seemed to me was not that he could choose to roll or not roll the boulder but how he felt about it.  

Hell of a thing, ain't it?

So when I returned from the store, I went out to finish up the last 10% of the mulch work.  I had ordered too much and had to determine what to do with the remaining mulch.  I decided just to spread it out over the driveway.  I put on my gloves and hat and went out and got the pitchfork, rake, and wheelbarrow.  Across the street, the same scrawny guy was working on the curbing.  

"How'd you feel last night?" I asked him.  "I could barely move."

"I slept well.  My legs hurt," he said running his hands across his thighs," but I put two heating pads on them." 

I told him I thought I was getting too old for this kind of work.

"How old are you?"

I told him.  

"Wow.  You're in pretty good shape.  You look like you go to the gym."

"Oh. . . I've got some gym muscle, but it ain't the same as cowboy muscle."

He chuckled and bobbed his head.  We talked for awhile.  Turns out he grew up in a neighborhood that my neighborhood used to fight with.  

"You were the rich kids," he said.  

That one broke me up.  It was called "Crime Hills" and still is.  We were on the lower end of the working class neighborhood scale, but where he was from. . . worse.  They didn't get to eat, apparently, because they were scrawny as shit, but you really didn't want to fight with them because they would never stay down.  They never quit fighting, kind of like the apocalyptic retarded pit bull I like to mention.  

"When did you graduate," I asked him?  

Holy shit!--he was fifteen years younger than I.  

I got back to work with my pitchfork, but whoa!  Everything hurt on the first forkful, mostly in my back, but in my right hand and wrist, too.  That little guy working across the street was working every day, and he told me he had built his own 4,000 square foot house, too.  

"Me and my buddies," he said.  

It was on five acres, and he said he had to work all the time.  

"I could have paid a company $500 to mow, but I wasn't going to do that."

What pleasures he took in life, I don't know, but there he was, the Existential hero toiling on not knowing either Existential philosophers, I assumed, nor Sisyphus.  

But I'll say that having that little fellow thinking I was muscled up made me feel better than the vet did going in for her fifth back surgery.  

I cooked up a beef stew for my mother and her niece that night.  I hadn't eaten a thing all day.  The stew and the wine pretty much set me straight.  

"Not today.  Maybe tomorrow." 

I will need to try to find a little joy here today underneath gloomy skies and bad weather.  

"I can't go on.  I'll go on."

Thank you Mr. Beckett.  

Strange music for a gloomy day. 

Guess you'll have to go to YouTube if you care to hear it (link).  

Cowboy for a Day

The more stuff you have, the more you have to work.  

Unless you have more money than I do. 

Mulch day.  One Saturday out of every year, I spend the day spreading mulch in the beds around the shrubs and trees and in the driveway.  Long ago, I had three driveways to do.  That just occurred to me now.  It took me two days to do that.  But I put granite down on two of them, so I am able to do the work in one day now.  

Makes me feel like less the cowboy than I used to be.  

So did the laborers working all around me.  There was a hillbilly finishing off a poured cement curb with sanders and saws.  It looked like hideous work.  When the delivery truck dumped the mulch, I took this photo.  The little guy was watching me.  Sheepishly, I said, "I have to send this to my buddies to show them what a cowboy I still am."

"If you spread all that you sure will be."

Next door to him there were four Mexicans working like devils clearing brush and cutting trees and throwing it all into two BIG dumpster trailers.  We were all men at work.  

I ate a bowl of cereal and took two water breaks.  By mid-afternoon, I had 90% of the mulch spread--but I was 98% worn out.  I left the rest for today, but I always do that.  

The little guy working the curbing was still at it.  The Mexicans finished up before he did.  I realized they were working on Saturday and probably had Sunday off.  Then it would be another six day workweek.  I was Cowboy for a Day, but if I had to do it every day. . . . 

And so, I don't feel as much like bragging today.  

I still have a lot to do, though.  Did I tell you about my sod lifter?  I write so much in so many different places, I can't be sure.  It is, apparently, an old fashioned tool you can't find anywhere any longer.  Some remnant of the 50s or 60s, I guess.  I lost mine.  I was devastated.  I went to store after store to find another, but with no luck at all.  There is a place called Tractor Supply, though, that sells one online.  It didn't look quite the same, but I have gardens, mine and my mother's, to clear, so I ordered it.  $75.  

Yesterday, getting my rakes and pitchfork and wheelbarrow ready, I found mine hidden in the shed.  Yay! 

 Shit. 

I will clear the gardens this week.  There is a lot of yard work to do, too.  Then I have to pressure wash my brick patio and work some granular sand into the cracks.  T is going to show me how to do it.  

And, of course, the two gravel driveways need to be re-rocked.  

Last night, I could barely walk.  I fell asleep on the couch, but when I went to bed, I could barely sleep.  Didn't, really.  I'll feel like shit today.  

So maybe I don't play "Big Balls in Cowtown" this year.  Still, I did what I have done before.  I'm still Cowboy enough for that.  

The leaves and pollen fall like rain.  Cars left outside are covered in a golden yellow powder.  The streets are lined with oaks in my own hometown and the gutters are full.  

And still, no birds.  

I made a delicious pho last night, though, and I am making a beef stew for my mother and her niece tonight.  The promised rain has yet to come.  Tonight they now say.  

My weekend alone was more a serf's than a sultans.  I think I looked like Friar Tuck pitching that mulch.  

So here's the song for this year.  "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford," a man who looks like he never did a day's labor in his life.  

Rather than "Cowboy for a Day," I'll let you watch a show I watched with my grandmother in Ohio every afternoon.  I'm sure it scarred me for life.  If you don't know what I'm talking about. . . well, now you will. 

13

I was going to spend Friday 13 at home by myself.  I was looking forward to that.  It's time to start a new regimen, water, fruits and vegetables, reading, writing, arithmetic. . . the works.  

That didn't happen.  

I took my mother to the cardiologist mid-morning.  We were out by noon.  It was the last day for me to deal with a CD that had come due at the bank that hassled me about using my Power of Attorney status months ago.  I called the bank on speaker from the car with my mother to see if we could take care of things over the phone.  

Nope.  

Could I come in alone and do the deal?

The lady on the phone would have to check and call me back.  

I drove my mother to the drug store to pick up a prescription.  McDonalds was across the street. 

"Do you want a hamburger for lunch?"

I have eaten at McDonalds more times in the past few months than I have in the rest of my life.  I got a Big Mac, fries, and a coke.  

We took it all back to my mother's house and ate.  I knew I shouldn't, and afterwards came the regret.  

The bank lady called back.  She needed a copy of my PoA.  She would have "her team" take a look, and since the CD matured on Saturday, I would be able to come in Monday afternoon--afternoon only because they would need to prepare the documents--and take care of it.  

"You should have a copy of my PoA on file. I gave it to you last time."

"No, I don't have it.  Can you make a copy and email it to me?"

My mother doesn't have a scanner, so I said I'd have to photograph it with my phone.

"Oh, no . . . that won't work.  Can you bring it in for me to make a copy?"

Piss shit fuck goddamn.  These people have worn me out.  

"What time do you close?"

"We are here until five."

I was going to the gym from my mother's house.  I had my gym clothes in the car and I decided to change.  Big mistake.  The room had a mirror.  I looked like those pictures of old, fat men on European beaches.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  That Big Mac was sitting heavy in my gut. 

I sat with my mother until my cousin came back from shopping.  It was mid-afternoon by the time I left.  

Gym.  Home.  Shower.  I'd have to hurry to make it across town in Friday traffic to get to the bank before it closed.  

I was going to make pho for dinner, but I hadn't gotten to the store.  I stopped at the good Greek place for takeout chicken and salad.  But. . . . 

I got a text from my conservative friend.  He was in town.  Could I meet him for a drink? 6:30?

I got home just before eleven.  Friday 13.  

Now I am up and waiting for the delivery of sixteen tons of mulch.  I feel like shit.  I just want to go back to bed.  I think I need rehab.  

Tonight, though. . . home alone.  

It is notable that none of my nights out have been with women.  Think about that for a minute.  

The girl in the picture at the top of the page gave me her phone number.  She wants to make pictures.  Not that one.  The one with her back to the camera.  Yea.  I haven't reached out to her.  

Here's the girl I should have married.  I swear if we met, we'd have been a match.  I can just tell.  She could have ruined me.  I know exactly how it would play out.  I'm a sweet boy and would have gotten trampled all over.  Instead of me, though, she was with the dick playing guitar.  You can tell just what kind of guy he is.  You can tell just what kind of woman she was.  She left music and bought a coffee shop in Canada.  I thought for awhile about going there.  I wanted to meet her.  Just to see.  

I saw her in concert in a small place just after her first album came out.  Been obsessed ever since.  

"Women's Lib"

She told me, "The one who dies with the most toys wins."  

Girls and their toys. 

Girls will be girls, I guess.  That's what they say. 

We've come a long way from the old neck massagers of my mother's era. 

These were actually advertised in the old Montgomery Wards catalogs.  $4.99.  The Relaxer gave "a deep, penetrating massage."  Bennies in the morning to get you going, "mother's little helper" to cut the anxiety, cocktails before dinner, and barbiturates at night to calm you down.  Does anyone think the '50s and early '60s were boring?  

And yet, with all that, ennui was rampant.  

Then came "Women's Lib" and the gates of Hades were opened.  Now look at the mess we've gotten into.  

Sorry.  I was just trying to connect with the photo.  I wonder if the Google God will ding me for this one.  

I went out with the gymroids last night.  It was a bigger crowd this time.  We were going to the good beer garden to sit outside, but the rain closed it down so we went to the Irish Pub across the street.  It was the first time we'd been there in almost a year since my Miami friend had her graduation party there, the last time any of us were there.  

The place sucks.  I had a Guiness and said I had to eat but wasn't eating the shitty fare there, so four others decided to join me at the good Italian restaurant a few blocks away.  Dinner turned into a circus as people passing by joined us then wandered away.  The famous judge brought his wife and son and sat with us, too, and I told him about my camera/court/State Attorney's fiasco and asked him what to do.  He shrugged, told me the "justice" system was fucked, and said I could do a couple things but it wasn't going to do any good.  

"You're just screwed," he said.  

"I would have liked some lube," I quipped.  

But there it is.  There is too much crime to handle, apparently.  The courts have been overrun.  

There were plates of food we all shared and many bottles of wine, and once again, I threw in my card with the others and for the fourth time in just over a week paid $120 for a meal.  It was never the meal, of course.  Two nights in a row, first the Brazilian barmaid and then the Clown Show.  

I'm staying in this weekend.  I'll make a pho tonight and early in the morning, sixteen tons of mulch will be delivered to my drive.  O.K.  Not sixteen tons.  But I will have to spend a day moving it by myself once again.  

I'm getting too old for this shit.  

Oh. . . I know you have been worrying about my laptop situation, so let me put your minds to rest.  I restarted it and now it is working fine again.  I think it wanted to install the new OS.  So I did the same to my big desktop computer where all the photo processing magic happens, and everything has gone haywire.  It just doesn't work now.  I can't update my massive collection of Adobe products and my passwords don't open up things like Chat or Grok now.  It is a Safari problem, I think.  Apple.  It used to be the friendly company with the motto, "Do no evil."  

That was then.  This is now.  Apple is now the monster that ate New York. 

And that is what I've got for you today.  I have to get ready to take my mother to the cardiologist early this morning.  It is going to be a lousy, rainy weekend, so they say, and I want to get myself settled in for some serious alone time.  How much longer I will have that is not quite known.  

I must warn you, that is not the end of The Girl Show.  Nor of Bike Week in general.  I don't think I'll be making any new photos this weekend, so this is what you get, a stain on my otherwise pristine career.  

And so. . . . 

Girls, Girls, Girls

Went out with Tennessee for dinner last night.  I hadn't seen him since we went to Bike Week last Thursday.  We ate at the Mexican restaurant because he wanted skinny, spicy margaritas.  We ate at the bar, of course.  The barmaid was from Brazil.  She was pure Portuguese though, with the highest cheekbones I'd ever seen.  I couldn't quit staring at them.  

"Are those real?" 

"What?"

"Your cheekbones."

"What?  My cheekbones?"

"Yea.  They look like implants."

She lit up.  "Nobody's ever said anything about my cheekbones."

She stuck around and talked as she made drinks.  Bartenders are like dancers.  They know how to make money.  T talked her up.  She wants to make photos with me now.  

T's my Pimp Daddy.  

Truthfully. . . I don't have much desire to follow up with these women.  I do, but I don't.  I kind of like the freedom of events and making pictures in the streets.  

I might as well use up the stage dancer photos.  I like them, of course.  They tell a story about who we are, where we live, why. . . .  People have different reactions to these images, but the story here compels me--the posture, the audience, the tats.  One day. . . . 

What can I say?  It was a biker town, a biker crowd.  This was a place of worship.  I understand, but I'd like to take photos of the rabidly religious, too.  If they were only having a festival near my own hometown that is so impossible for me to leave, I would go.  When everyone in your hometown looks like the Cleavers, a photographer could just about give up.  Oh, a photographer can take pictures of his cocktails and dinners and objects around the house, and he can chase after shadows and light, but only so many and so much.  But what he really wants is a shot at something shocking or bizarre.  Not always, but please, oh lord, give him a shot at the spectacular on ocaission.  

Especially if he's lived too long in isolation.  

Yea, I got out of town, and for a few moments they were dancing and a prancing and I was doing what I could.  I think I made a lot of photos for my very few hours out.  

If I had a studio now, I would just ask people with "a look" to come for a portrait.  I'd hand them a card and tell them they looked awesome and to come just as they were right then.  

Oh. . . I have so many fantasies about what I might shoot if I were this or that.  

"I want to take your picture, but I want you to think about a question as I do."

And I have a hundred questions to ask, some philosophical, some about memories, some seemingly inscrutable.  

"Why can't you just do it on the street?"

Yea, I know.  I told you I had fantasies.  You might not know it from reading me, but I am really very, very shy and full of self-doubt.  But that is a secret a lot of us keep to ourselves, isn't it?  

O.K.  I'll wrap it up before the laptop dies again.  I did o.k. today, though, and still have 35% of my battery left.  But the tiny computer fan has been running the entire time.  

Everything grows old.  Time and circumstance.  

George Shearing was a piano player, but he lets the vibes have this one for a long while.  

Just Crows

I know.  This isn't the promised lady show.  I've decided to hold off on that for a minute.  I woke up at four this morning which is the new five.  I had to make a decision.  Get up or try to fall back to sleep?  Y'all, as we say in the Sunny South, have been there.  You try to fall back to sleep but your mind begins to race about all the things you need to do or the troubles of your time or you harken back to darker days, romances gone wrong, etc.  

I decided to rise and shine.  

I put on the coffee, then I made the day's first mistake and read the news.  That certainly takes the shine off the day.  

Now it is 5:05/6:05 and the sun is far from coming up.  What to do?  My little laptop is suddenly not able to run on battery for even two hours.  It heats up and the fan runs most of the time.  It is "old" in computer years.  I bought it in 2019.  Still, I don't have the urge to spend money on a new one.  If I were to update everything I need to now, I'd be spending close to ten thousand dollars.  Maybe choosing to pursue pictures in the digital age was a mistake.  "They" have me by the balls, though.  My laptop will no longer run the newest version of Photoshop.  How about that?  

I type and watch my battery percent drop prodigiously.  Maybe I should have stayed in bed.  

The boyz at the top of the page have the right idea--make a robot out of scrap.  Nothing digital, nothing mechanical, just pieces from a junkyard stitched together.  Only two things can stop The Bumblebee.  You'd know this if you watched enough 1950s and '60s B horror movies--electricity and water!  

Dragging the shutter with these two turned out awesome.  Tell me that ain't Omar Little from "The Wire" reborn.  

I think the weather is what troubles me.  It was 90 degrees on March 10 here in my own hometown.  That is about fifteen degrees above the norm.  There have been no birds this winter and there are hardly anything but crows here now as we approach the spring.  I suddenly have terrible allergies and am constantly sneezing and blowing, eyes and throat itching.  But to the local t.v. news people, it's just, "How about that--it's beach weather this week!"  No mention of the coming disasters, not a hint that these are "End Times."  

But what can you do?  I've been telling my friends that sure as shittin' somebody's going to use a nuke.  It seems more and more likely every day.  Whatever happened to the neutron bomb?  Well. . . depending on what you read, they were dismantled in 1996 OR the U.S. has a stockpile of them.  

The people die

But the buildings? They stay.

Neutron bomb, everybody wants one.

Neutron bomb, the pentagon's got one. 

Drop it on those dirty Euro peons.  

That sung to Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme song made famous by New Suburbans.   I could put the "Tell me Ronnie are you going to use your Raygun," line in, but it would age the thing.  The navy kids from the nuke school that was here used to love to dance to that song.  They were near crazy for it.  

Welp. . . welp. . . you little welp. . . my battery has fallen into the teens, and though, as Epstein would say, that's a lovely place to be, I'm going to have to wrap it up.  

Maybe I should have used color. 

Gomer

I have a dilemma.  I don't want to post all my BW pictures in a few days, not knowing when I will be out to make more again, but I don't want to drag out my BW adventure forever, either.  I have three good pictures from this stage event and a couple more "backstage," and they should all go together, I think, but. . . then I'll be back to looking for pictures to post on a blog that has for a long time relied on photographs.  

And so. . . I will choose to eek them out.  And it isn't all girly pictures I have, either.  I did pretty good at Bike Week.  

So we'll set the "stage."  I wanted this to look as much like the Playboy in the Jungle scene from "Apocalypse Now" as I could.  Here are the early Gomers taking photos with their cell phones of the PG to R Bikini Contest.  Boys will be dogs, as they say.  It can't be helped.  It is genetic.  It is God's plan.  While we label both men and women "human," they are not the same.  Obviously.  

Men have less genetic material.  

I'll go out on a limb and say this is essentially a MAGA crowd, though I didn't see any of those hats.  Odd, I thought.  But hats there were, and that is what separates me from the throng.  That and my assumption that I have more estrogen than they.  

I figure my mix of hormones is about that of my lesbian photographer friend.  She likes my pictures and disdains lesbians.  She married a "straight" woman, and that is where all her crushes lay.  She has been in touch recently asking some camera advice and says we still need to go down to her hometown in Okeechobee on a photo adventure.  Scares the shit out of me, but yea, we should go.  

I should go anywhere, though. 

The faux-stripper show wasn't much.  They didn't give each girl enough time to show their talents.  Mostly they were standing around while the goofy MC yacked.  You know what they say--give an asshole a microphone. . . and one day he could be president.  

One day, though, it could be she. 

The Gomers got to applaud for their favorite girls, and the field was narrowed to three.  The awful part was that the other girls didn't get to leave the stage but were made to line up behind the favorites.  It was already a done-deal, though.  There were no surprises.  Everyone knew who was going to win, who would be second, and who would be third.  

When the girls came off the stage, the earlier energy seemed to be all gone.  

Date night and the next morning, you know?  

For the rest of the day, the only women we saw under forty were the ones serving drinks or the few who were dancing on platforms trying to get some kopeks. Mostly we saw people hopelessly clinging to some movie version of a Brando bad boy biker. 

Not my dead ex-friend.  The other one.  

Oh, lordy, I should post those other photos, but I will wait.  My days ahead look to be filled with essential duties, not art.  And so. . . . 

Another Gomer gawking at the girls.  But wait. . . what?. . . is that Gomer wearing a hat?!?

Hey, You

Truth or Dare.  It's time to TRY and tell the story of the barmaid.  What the hell time is it, anyway?  Waiting on the sun.

No matter.  Some stories are timeless.  Not so sure about this one, though.  

We decided to drive down the coast to a restaurant in another town.  But oops!  I made a mistake.  We had passed the restaurant I was talking about miles before in another town.  I hadn't been to the coast in so long. . . .  It didn't matter, though, because T and I were not talking about the same restaurant in the first place.  

We were on Highway 1 and had to cross the bridge over the river to get back to the coast.  It is a lovely river and the bridge is high so that you see miles of river and mangrove from a god's view.  It was late in the day, a beautiful golden hour, and I nearly wept from the beauty of the thing I had seen most of my life but now not for a very long while.  

But that is not the tale.  

There are two restaurants in town that you can never get into without a wait, and tonight, the lines wrapped 'round the buildings.  T had never been to one of the two, the one with the rooftop seating, and that place seemed less crowded, so that is where we went.  

"I've got to piss like a racehorse," T said as he went to find a restroom.  

"How long did they say the wait was?" I asked man standing out of line against the wall."

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't gotten to the hostess yet."

The line was at a standstill, so I walked ahead to see what I could see.  What I saw was T talking to a barmaid.  He saw me and pointed to two empty seats at a small bar.  

"Is it O.K. if we take these two?" T asked her.  

"Honey, you two can take whatever you like."

Cha-ching.  $20.  Boom.  This girl knew what she was doing.  She was a moneymaker.  

We were seated next to the station where she was mixing drinks. 

"You two can watch me make drinks all night."  She said that without ever stopping.  She was making drinks for the entire downstairs restaurant, and as the waiters and waitresses put down their orders, she would glance and mix without pause.  She was a perpetual motion machine, but it didn't keep her from talking.  

"What can I get you?" she queried.  

T got a chocolate tequila martini.  No kidding.  I was shocked, too.  I had the usual Negroni.  

She brought the drinks and two menus.  

"Can I bring you starters?"

"Pan seared scallops wrapped in bacon sounds good?" T asked me.  

T's a talker and the girls like him.  I'm a listener, and sometimes in the past. . . . 

It was the usual thing--how long have you been working here, blah blah blah.  Then. . . "Are you married?"

"I'm getting a divorce," she sneered.  

"Kids?"

"Three."

WTF?  She couldn't have been over 19.  

"Wait, what. . . you have three kids?"  I was astonished. 

"We were only going to have one, but that guy couldn't pull out of a driveway," she quipped.  She said she was 30.  

"What?!?!?"

The couple sitting at the bar next to us apparently knew this, and the woman looked at me and said, "Can you believe it?"

"No."  I looked at the barmaid who hadn't stopped mixing drinks for a second.  The servers came cautiously to her on tiptoes like nervous cats, and I could tell they weren't messing with her.  

"Oops," she said looking me in the eye, "that wasn't right."  She grinned and kept mixing.  

"Three kids and a job.  Do you have a lot of support?"

She frowned. "Not really."

"Where are your kids tonight?"

"With my ex."

"Wait.  You are getting a divorce and have an ex?  How many times have you been married?"

"Just one.  I already consider him my ex."  She sneered.  

"Well what did you like about him when you met him?"

"I met him at A.A.  We were both court ordered."

"Oh, sure. . . there's a formula for success.  It's pretty weird you went to A.A. and are a bartender.  Is it hard?"

"Oh, no.  I drink. I've had two DUIs since then."

T and I were just shaking our heads and laughing.  We'd finished the scallops and the best pesto pasta I'd ever tasted.  

"Do you guys want dinner?"  

We took her recommendation, a seared tuna steak on a potato pancake with edamame and crunchy noodles.  We ordered wine.  

She worked and we chatted.  Dinner came out and holy smokes, the tuna steak was huge.  It was a good call.  

While we ate, she mixed, but she was up for talking.  

"I can top that," she said in response to one of our queries.  "I'm a felon."

My head spun.  

"For what?"

"Xanax."

Holy shit.  It was the whole catastrophe.  I looked at her for any signs of rough strife, any hint of criminality, any telltale signs.  Nothing.  Her face was benign.  

"Do you have a lot of support with the kids now?"

"My mother watches them once in awhile, but she's not really into it."

"Brothers and sisters?"

"Not really.  I was adopted."

There it was!  It was genetic.  

Chat chat chat.  Then T did what he had been doing all day.  

"This guy is the best photographer I know."

"Really," she said offhandedly.  

"Yea."  He picked up his phone.  "Do you want to see some of his work?"

"Uh. . . sure."  Again offhandedly.  

"I don't know,' I said shaking my head, but T already had the phone pointed in her direction.  He was scrolling.  She looked at me and said, "Wow. Those are great."

"Thanks.  Wanna make some pictures?"

She quit mixing for a minute and punched her name and number into my phone.  Yea. . . she wanted to make some pictures.  

T said, "Let me see your phone."  He looked at her name, then typed something into his.  In a minute his eyes were popping.  He'd found her Instagram page.  He put his phone under the bar and turned it to me.  Yea. . . our girl was no church lady.

One last drink for the road.  The bar was incredibly stocked.  They had seemingly everything in the liquor store.  I ordered a scotch.  When she poured it, she just looked me in the eye and grinned.  Yea, it was a good pour.  

Dinner done, the check always arrives, and it was a good one, but I had no objections.  Dinner had been great and the company even better.  The price never matters as long as you get your money's worth.  I felt I had and tipped accordingly.  

"What nights do you work?" T asked her.  

"Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday."  

"We'll be back."

The road home is always the road home.  My first day out had been a pretty good one.  I was full with it now.  We drove through the dark to the interstate half an hour away through moonlit southern prairie and pine.  T put on some music and we recounted the day's highlights.  

Bike Week.  What a concept.  What a freak show.

What a girl. 

Leap into the Future

I'm sitting in my chair buzzing.  The time change, of course, but I didn't handle it well.  Go to bed earlier or later?  I don't know.  I did what I often do on beautiful Saturday's and sat inside for a large part of the day.  It was coming on two when I finally drove over to see my mother.  I feel guilty leaving my cousin there alone with my mother so much, and so I was dripping with it yesterday.  I stayed for an hour and told them I would be back later.  I went to the gym, then home for a shower.  

And a nap. 

I woke up around five-thirty.  Shit.  The day had gotten away from me.  Not me.  I was fine. It had gotten away from the caretaker.  I didn't have anything to make for dinner.  I would have to go to the grocers, so I decided that I would go to my mother's after dinner.  That is what I told myself, but I don't think I was actually convinced. 

Still, I had the makings of a plan.  

I made a Rum Negroni and sat out on the deck.  Perfect weather.  The neighbor across the street was blowing leaves out of his pebbled driveway just as he had the day before.  Not an intellectual, not a thinker, he likes things that make noise.  He walked around in a marijuana and beer stupor as usual shouting out instructions to some unseen person in that volume of the hearing impaired.  That is what happens to people who like noise, I think, loud trucks and power tools and the like.  

Fortunately, he's gotten a battery powered one, so the volume wasn't quite that of a gas powered blower.  I had to give him that.  

Halfway through my cocktail, the neighbor next door came over and sat down.  This is not so very common and occurrence, so I figured something was up.  He asked how I was doing, so I launched into my sad and lonesome narrative concerning the life of a sole caregiver and the stunning pleasures of being home for a bit.  Just then, my favorite dog came loping up, a giant, blond labradoodle.  He's the most solid boy you could imagine.  Patting him is like patting a slab of granite, but he looks you straight in the eye and smiles--I shit you not--and appears to be talking, then he'll put his head in your lap and lean heavily in.  He's just a big old lover dog.  

The son of the owner was walking him, a kid in his twenties.  I'd seen him the day before I went to Bike Week.  He and his father were going over that day, too, so I asked him if he had fun.  He'd gotten food poison that night, he said.  

"Did you eat carnival food?"

He had to miss the next couple days of going over.  

"I thought about going again today.  Saturday should surely be the show.  I guess tomorrow will be everyone leaving."

"Yea, Sunday isn't much.  People are partied out and going home."

He stayed and talked a long time, and when he finally left, my neighbor said he had to go.  It was after six, and I still needed to go to the grocers.  Reality creeped in, so I called my mother.  

"I got jammed up here, mom.  I don't think I'll make it over tonight."

Guilt.  I don't believe in it.  It is a terrible thing.  

But I am surely driven by it.  

At the grocery store, I decided on a T-bone.  I spied one that was cut more like a Porterhouse with a big hunk of filet, so I thought it a big score.  

Brussels sprouts and a baked potato.  Not baked.  Microwaved.  

It was after seven when I sat down to eat.  I had taken a chance on a bottle of red I had never tried before.  It was a terrible choice . 

A little scotch.  A little t.v.  Off to bed.  It was only ten. 

I woke at midnight.  Oh-oh.  I decided to take a sleep aid.  

When I opened my eyes, the room was bright.  But when I looked at my old 1970s analog LCD screen radio clock, it was just before seven.  I hadn't changed the clock.  It shouldn't be this light before seven.  Spring ahead, and now it was eight.  None of this made sense other than that DST is a horrible thing for the body and the mind.  I'd fucked up and would pay the governmental price.  Nobody likes changing the clock--but we do.  This alone should tell you something about democracy and the power of elections.  This simple example alone should tell "the people" that what they want doesn't really matter if it doesn't coincide with what lobbyists are paying for.  

Democracy at work.  

So there is the Xanax and there is the day and there are my plans which already seem shot.  I promised myself I would work in the yard today, would rip out my dead garden and put weed killer on the lawn.  I went to the university ag website yesterday, and I am already a week behind schedule.  Gotta be done.  Fertilizer at the end of the month.  

But all I want to do is go to the giant Farmer's Market around the "famous" lake in Gotham and keep practicing and experimenting with my camera.  Maybe I will give up thinking about studios.  Maybe I'll develop a new way and a new interest.  

"Go, Buddy, Go!"

But my mind and body are swampy just now and the day could easily get away from me.  It already has.  We've time warped into the future once again.  

Boy. . . I've got pictures to show you, but now as many as I originally thought, so I am going to show some restraint and not post them all at once.  They won't last so very long, not the best ones, and I'm still tinkering with post-production, so. . . I'll hold off.  

Besides, I still have the story of the kooky barmaid to tell one day if I ever get my head on right.  Not today, though, that's for sure.  

Funny thing about my photos, I'll confess.  The crowd was more than 80% male, but the majority of my pictures, I think, are of women.  Don't know how that happened, really.  Beats me.  But I'm sure. . . well. . . we will eventually see.  

But today. . . in the spirit of old hillbilly and redneck bikers, let's play something apropos.  

The Stars Aligned

It worked, I think.  I like it.  Smeary, impressionistic. . . .  shot from the hip.  I have a lot to choose from, but it is going to take time.  And labor.  The photos don't come out of the camera this way.  T wants me to teach him about photography, but like most people, he wants them to come out of the camera just fine.  I suggested he buy a Fuji camera, which he did, because you can funk up the photos with Fuji film simulations right in the camera.  He isn't going to sit down and learn Photoshop and then spend the rest of his life experimenting to find looks he adores.  Most photographers don't.  The commercial photographer we shot with in his studio shops his raw images out for processing.  Many photographers use pre-packaged effects.  That's o.k.  I just don't.  

So. . . it takes a lot of time.  

After having my first day off in over a year, though. . . I was a new man.  People noticed.  Hell, getting away and taking pictures and drinking beer and having dinner was like. . . well, it was like living again.  

"You needed it," they said.  No shit.  Not simply one day, though. I need a life.  

But I felt better yesterday than I remember feeling in a very long time.  And I want more.  I seriously thought about driving back over to Bike Week again today, but you can't swim in the same river twice, they say, and I have found that to be true.  

But that doesn't mean it would have to be worse.  I mean it could be even better.  

Dilemma. 

What I really need to do is work, though.  I will call and order the mulch today to be delivered next week.  Today I will rip out my dead garden and begin giving my lawn it's spring treatment.  But maybe I will go somewhere for lunch today, too.  

And of course a couple trips to mom.  Some days she is doing great.  Other days, not so much.  

I got up at five-thirty this morning and set right to working on pictures.  I worked for two hours and got four pictures done.  This is by way of saying, I've already been on the computer a long while today and so I am going to save the story of the dinner barmaid for a later telling.  I don't have it in me just now.  

I have sent some of the Bike Week/Day pics around to people and have gotten good feedback.  It feels good to be making pictures again with a camera and not just with A.I.  I like the A.I. images, but I know. . . you know.  

I think my horoscope must have been good for a few days because I heard from some people I had given up hearing from again.  Apparently, I'm not yet gone. 

I heard from several of the old factory crowd.  I got texts from the illusive Red and from my young friend in Miami.  My best lesbian buddy wants me to go south on a photo expedition, too.  And my midwest friend has me on a group text with three of our female friends about meeting up at some small seaside town for an art exhibit where everything is projected onto the buildings downtown.  It all warmed the cockles of my sad and shrivelling heart.  

Selavy.  The planets will move and the stars will shift and we will change tonight back to DST, and I'll not hear from anyone again for a very long time.  

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

 I've been sitting too long now.  I must move.  I no longer "keep up with the news cycle," so I have a little more time and am happier.  I think I'd enjoy a weekly newspaper that could tell me briefly what I had "missed," all those things over which I have no influence or control but about which I might feel strongly.  

So it is Saturday all day, and it would be good to have an upbeat song.  Let's try some Portuguese in French.  That might do it. . 

A Few Adventure Hours at Bike Week

We didn't leave town for the coast until after noon.  It turned out to be way too early.  Weird shit doesn't start happening until after five, he said.  Well. . . at least I got out of town.  

Bike Week, the small part I saw, was exactly what I expected.  Sort of.  I really had no idea of the number of motorcycles that would pack into that town.  I didn't realize there were even that many in the entire country.  And the crazy thing to me was that people go to look at the bikes.  Up and down mainstreet, people stood behind barricades as motorcycles slowly went by revving engines for hours.  I imagine it never stops.  Everywhere people taking pictures of motorcycles.  

Unimaginable. 

But the crowd--it was mostly an aged thing.  I don't think I saw more than a handful of people under thirty, and hardly any in their thirties, either.  It was not a pretty crowd.  

But I HAD expected to see weirder shit, naked people dancing in the streets, I guess, or having sex up against walls--I don't know why.  Well, yes I do.  It's kind of why I went.  

The International Speedway was packed with corporate bikers looking at motorcycles and eating hot dogs.  Various other places around town were doing much the same.  There must have been hundreds of thousands of people--85% male. 

There were derelicts and old guys jacked on steroids walking with lats spread and chests out.  Everybody seemed to get along.  

I was excited to use my Leicas for street photography, though.  I had two with me, one with a 35mm lens and one with a 50.  I was especially excited about experimenting with something I thought would look rather good.  I put a strong neutral density filter on my lenses so I could shoot at 1/8 of a second.  Now if I were really going to do it right, I would have shot at that speed with a flash, and I had brought two, but T was not to keen on that.  

"It's really noticeable," he said.  

I waited until the end of day to shoot that way, and I thought they were coming out well, but next time, I will shoot at 1/15 of a second.  1/8 was just a little too much.  

I would like to go back on Saturday.  

I don't know how much fun T had.  I was in a zone, just making pictures and not talking about what we were seeing.  He kept trying to talk to me, but I didn't really hear him.  

We walked for hours.  

At some point, we stopped for a beer, and just where we were, there was a bunch of nearly naked girls.  We were by the big stage staires that the musicians climbed, but apparently they were now getting ready for a girl show.  I don't know why, but I was able to walk among the girls and into tents and up the stairs taking photographs.  

"You look like you are supposed to be doing that," T said.  Apparently it was true because nobody questioned me.  

To keep myself in the realm of fiction, I made this from an actual photo T made of me.  I look better in the actual photo, though!  

As we drank our beers at the bar, the pretty barmaid was kind of chatty.  The girls like T and he loves to talk them up.  He told her she would have won the bikini contest if she'd been in it, and it was true.  Then he told her that I was a great photographer and asked her if she wanted to see some of my pictures.  She did.  My gut kind of tightened, but she ooed and aahed looking at me with a newfound respect.  

"You like them?"

"I love them."

"Do you want to do some?"

"Yes!"

T liked talking it up, and two more times, barmaids put their phone numbers into my phone so that we could arrange a photo shoot.  Unbelievable.  

"See what I do for you?"

"Probably fake numbers."

But T is clever and had already pulled up their IG accounts.  It was true. 

"I don't have anyplace to shoot them."

I need everything.  I need a studio.  I need a big printer. I need a new computer.  

I need a lot more money than I have.  

These were not the pretty barmaids.  These were girls on their way to dance somewhere, I guess.  Such is Bike Week.  

Around five, we headed off to get dinner in another coastal town.  There are two main restaurants there and they sit side by side.  There are blocks and blocks of parking lots for them. . . all full. . . but T has a big assed truck and pulled it into a field that cars wouldn't park in.  Now the challenge--how long was the wait.  

There was a line, but we passed it by and went straight to a small bar.  There were two seats.  

"Can we take these?" T asked the very pretty barmaid. 

"You guys can certainly take these.  You will get to watch me make drinks all night long."

She was a swell gal with a crazy, shocking tale to tell, and while we drank cocktails and ate pan fried scallops wrapped in bacon, then wine with HUGE filets of tuna on crunchy potato pancakes with edamame and delicious noodles, and then a very generous pour of whiskey, she leaked it little by little.  I don't have time to tell it now, but I will, eventually.  

T showed her my photos.  She wants me to photograph her, too.  

T dropped me off at nine.  I'd been on my feet without sitting for four hours walking hard sidewalks and now my back and hips and knees were tight and sore.  I grabbed my camera bags and did a Frankenstein walk to the house.  

I didn't have the energy to dump the cards into the computer.  I poured one drink, watched the day's news, and packed it in just at ten.  

But I was up before five this morning and decided to download the photos before anything else.  That took a good long while.  Then I perused them giving little stars to the ones I would come back to.  Then I cooked up three photos, the ones you see.  Nothing I do is instant, and suddenly it was eight o'clock.  

I have rushed this telling and have done an incredible injustice to the day.  I could have taken my time in telling you that I might be making photographs again without sounding a sleazy braggart, but I don't have time to fix it now so I will have to seem the fellow you see in the illustration, a creepy old guy with a camera.  

Selavy.  

Just remember, though. . . I have no life and I'm a good son who takes care of his mother.  I had my first full day off in a year, but not really as I went to see my mother in the morning before we left, so. . . . 

Until tomorrow. . . . 

Broke Ass Fool

Yesterday was a continuation of the way things have been going.  I had no callback from the State Attorney's Office, so I sent an email.  

Here is the letter I just sent to the Assistant State Attorney about my stolen camera gear.  I’m sure it will have no impact.  

Dear Mr. Lawyer, 

I left a voicemail for you yesterday concerning a letter I received from your office about case number 09i-l-lk-ll-K/P, State vs. Villian.  I was confused as the letter stated there will be a possible hearing about Mr. Villian's violation of parole.  When I called your office on Monday, I was told he had accepted a plea deal giving him probation in July 2025.  For years, I received letters from the State Attorney’s Office informing me of court dates that were later postponed, but I received no information about the July plea deal.  Over a year ago, in a phone conversation with another Assistant State Attorney, I was asked if I wished to ask for compensation for the over $22,000.00 of photo gear that he sold to Better Photos that belonged to me. I was told at that time he was facing many years in prison but would probably get a year or less.  What I could ask for, I was told, was compensation, and that after serving his sentencing time, he would remain on probation until the compensation was delivered.  

That was the last conversation I had with anyone about this case.  

I was informed, too, that the woman with whom he sold my photo gear received nineteen months in jail.  Again, I had received multiple notices of court dates over the years that were always delayed until a later date, but I received no communication about this.  

Now that the plea deal has been settled, am I simply out of options for your office to ask that I be compensated for the over $22,000 dollars (replacement cost) of stolen camera gear?  

This has been a long and frustrating saga for me, as you might imagine.  I look forward to hearing from you.  

Sincerely, 

Victim

Well, that is not it verbatim, but you get the gist.  I sent the letter to an attorney friend who told me that I should not have had to pay to get my stolen property back.  No, I said, the detective was at the photo store with me when I identified all my equipment and he told me I would have to pay back what the store had paid to get my equipment.  

"He's a cop, not an attorney."

So I looked it up on The Google. 

The State Pawnbroking Act states: To obtain possession of stolen property held by a pawnbroker, the victim must notify the broker by certified mail, return receipt requested or in person, evidenced by a signed notice such as the one in the brochure, Guide to Rights and Remedies of the State Pawnbroking Act. 

The notice must contain a description of the property and must be accompanied by a copy of the law enforcement agency’s report of the theft. If the court orders the property returned to you, you may also be able to recover your attorney's fees and costs from the pawnbroker. The court will order the person who stole the property and sold it to the pawn shop to repay the pawnbroker the amount they received, plus any associated fees, as part of restitution if they are convicted of theft. 

Shit, piss, fuck, goddamn!!!!

 I was sick at heart.  

There is nothing I can do about it now, though. 

Selavy . 

And so. . . life goes on.  

After that, I began going through the piles and piles and piles of mail I have thrown onto a desk top for God knows how long. Per usual, if you leave stuff long enough, you can just throw it away.  But!. . . I did find a check for $2,500 from the bank who holds my mortgage.  The letter said I had overpaid into my something fund.  Holy shit!  

Because I don't have a shredder, I take all my statements and things with personal info outside and burn them.  I know, but burning things is fun.  When I went back into the house, though, I couldn't find my check.  Holy shit. . . had I burned it?!?  

I started searching the house in a panic.  No, no no. . . but finally. . . I found it.  I looked at the check lovingly, then noticed something.  It was only valid for 180 days.  Six months.  I closed my eyes and counted.  No, no, no, no, no!  

I am nothing if not a buffoon.  

When I deposited the check later, the cashier didn't question it.  Now I'll have to wait to see what the other bank does.  

A fool and his money. . . . 

I went to my mother's house twice yesterday to see her.  I started collecting her info for income tax.  I called Block to see what documents my mother had used the year before.  I had everything but one.  My mother couldn't remember anything about it, so I will have to get in touch and see if they will re-issue the W-whatever.  

Life is work and then you die.  

Last night, I told my mother that Tennessee asked me to go over to the coast for Bike Week to make some photos.  I said I might go.  My cousin said I should, and so. . . 

I think I will.  I'm not sure what I'll get as I have never been before, but this will be the furthest I've travelled out of town for years.  If nothing else, I'll see the water and drink some beer.  I will try hard not to piss anybody off and get my camera smashed.  

But I'm feeling like a broke-ass hillbilly today.  I need a handler.  When the frivolous girl I would eventually marry moved in with me, I was far behind in my mortgage payments.  She, at a tender age, took over all the finances.  

"Can I buy this magazine?"

"No."

She got my finances straightened out pretty quickly.  When we got divorced, though, she got it all back.  Ha!

I just like to go places and tell stories and make things.  I'm a child.  

With a wicked imagination.  

There is a video above this, but I checked and it doesn't become visible right away.  Wait for it to show or run your cursor over it.  I don't know. . . 

I'll Never Get That Time Back

Dare I?  Dare I take a photo of a friend who looks like this and turn her into a painting by Frida Kahlo?  O.K.  Of course I do.  But do I dare to show it?  I mean, given the times?  

How long does consent last, anyway? 

And is it still my "creation" after converting the image using A.I.?  

I feel it is.  

You should see it printed. Then maybe you'd say. . . ah!  

I bought a new printer that would allow me to use thicker art papers in the top feeder.  Making a print using the top feeder is a lot easier and more predictable.  

It was a cheap Canon printer.  I'm sending it back.  The quality is shit.  

There are some great thicker art papers made for inkjets that will not feed through the top feeder.  It is frustrating, and I wonder how the companies who make them are able to sell them.  

I had a lot of time to set up and use the printer I had ordered yesterday as I waited on the gas guy to come check my meter.  I was given the option of 8-12 or 12-4.  I took the former.  

"The tech will call you half an hour before coming.  Make certain you have your privacy settings on your phone turned off."

At 11:45, I still had not gotten a call.  From the tech, I mean.  My phone rang a lot, and each time I answered it, it was a spam call.  I decided to call the gas company to see what was going on.  I chose the automated option to have them call me back when a representative was available.  Twenty minutes later, I got the callback.  

"No sir, we don't give times.  He will show up sometime today."

I called bullshit on this having just been given the option the day before.  

"You don't need to be there anyway," said my rep.  "He's just going to read the meter."

I was pissed. 

"What the fuck good is that going to do?"

I didn't say that, exactly.  Something milder.  

I was getting nowhere, and I gave in.  

I never did get the call from the tech.  I don't even know if he came.  

Meanwhile, I was having a devil of a time making a decent looking print.  It turns out that none of the paper companies make paper profiles for that particular printer, so I was using profiles that were close.  

Nothing really worked.  Now comes the pain of repacking the printer and paying shipping cost to send it back.  I should have bought it on Amazon.  

That is what I get, though, for trying to go with a cheap option.  Lesson learned.  

Just read we are changing the clocks again this weekend.  WTF?  Will this never end?  

I haven't gotten a callback from the State Attorney's Office, either.  I just keep swinging and missing.  It's the mirror I broke, I'm sure--combined with the voodoo hex my spooky ex put on me.  I should have ground that glass into dust and buried it instead of simply throwing salt over my shoulder. 

I'm always willing to take the easy way.