Road to Recovery (Redux)

Originally Posted Saturday, August 30, 2014

That is over, I hope.  A week of excruciating misery, a month of agony, a summer of relentless work.  I stayed at the job late yesterday to help my boss.  Friday afternoon had slipped away, and since I had not been to the gym all week, when he asked "Who's up for a drink," I thought fuck it, I don't want to go to the gym late on a rainy Friday night, so I suggested a place I like that makes great cocktails, a small, wooden bar with a highly regarded restaurant whose entrees I do not adore but whose appetizers are wonderful, an unusually expensive place with classic bartenders and hipster servers and an eclectic music selection that you cannot predict.  Three of us went.  I had to tell the other fellow that it was a gay bar to get him to go, but it was only a joke for he had been there before.  I got there before either of them and ordered an old fashioned.  When my boss came in, I had him try it.  He took a sip and coughed just like in the movies.  No shit, I loved it.  "That's strong," he said, and I knew right away he didn't often drink cocktails.  He ordered a vodka and ginger ale with bitters.  The other fellow came in a bit later and ordered something red that should have had an umbrella in it.  No matter.  They seemed happy enough.  I ordered some tempura tacos for everyone as appetizers and and they liked them so I ordered more.  My boss and I have been a bit prickly with one another, he reminding me of my late arrivals and early departures, me trying to remind him that he wouldn't like it if he didn't keep me on his side.  Friday night cocktails in a Manhattan-style bar went a long way to repair that, I think. 

And so it goes. 

After a couple cocktails and appetizers, I was in no mood to cook, so I stopped and picked up a tray of sushi on my way home.  After a couple of scotches and some staring at the end of a bad movie with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson (so sad what happens to people) and went to bed.  Slept long and woke up feeling like I'd played in an NFL game the night before.  Now it is time to start over, from the beginning, on the Road to Recovery.  How many times have I told you this before?  I know, but it is better to keep trying than to give up.  A little gym, a walk, some water and healthy food, a book, perhaps and surely a nap, then a drink on the veranda of the bar attached to the little indie movie theater with a girl I know and then the movie "Boyhood."  I may practice walking with my new little camera, too.  Beautiful music.  A cat that loves me.  Three days off.  Plans for future travel.  Maybe life could be fun again. 

Where many of you live, I hear, there is already a hint that fall is soon to come.  Here it is the dead of summer, but if you are observant, you will notice the change in light.  The sun has moved much further to the south so that shutters are no longer necessary while I sit at the dining room table to write.  The shadows are a pinch longer and sharper, but only a pinch.  The real shadows won't fall for another three weeks, but I am watching them with great anticipation.  It is this falling of shadows that keeps me in touch with you and the places you live.  I am thinking of leaving the tropics for a long weekend.  I want to go to Quebec City.  I hear it is already chilly there.  I have a trip to NYC booked for early October.  I've never been to NYC then.  I must be ready for something new and different, a city without summer tourists, without the visiting college students and hordes of Europeans, with shorter days. . . I almost anticipate it feeling a bit hollow and more lonely.  I confess. . . it almost frightens me. 

But today is a day of repair, not just for my body but for my abode.  I have at least three weeks mail piled up unopened on the floor.  It will take most of the morning to sort it and pay what I need to pay.  And so I go. . . to repair.  I'll let you know how that goes.