Formula for Success

Originally Posted Friday, November 14, 2014

Oh hell. . . let's start the weekend with a pretty picture.  "Pretty?"  O.K.  I don't want to get into it now.  I am only just coming back to myself from whatever ether they put me under.  It has been one week and my head is beginning to clear.  I had two compliments on my haircut yesterday, so perhaps that is beginning to heal as well.  There is a weekend stretching before me and I wish to amble through it with a bit of elegance and grace.  I am practicing those just now, but there is a need for much, much more.  Habits.  Develop good ones they told us when we were young. They were right, of course.  We are made up of habits of body and habits of mind.  Try changing a few and you will feel the strain.  It may be easier to make wholesale changes than small, daily ones.  I think of the notebook of little Jay Gatz and his formula for success.  I am simply trying to practice decorum and decoration.

But isn't the picture pretty? 

I have some great ideas (I think they are as of now) for working with my old images and making them something else.  I will try to turn the ideas into matter this weekend.  I will try.  I can see what I want to make in my head.  Seeing it on the wall will be much harder.  After all the work, I will then see if the ideas are good at all. 

"Birdman."  I wanted it to end.  I found it a misery, really.  I didn't know that the movie was a fictional biopic.  Looking at Keaton was torturous if you are of a particular age.  I have broken all the mirrors in the house. . . only to look into one much larger than life.  It is a story about an aging man who wants to stay relevant.  Are you familiar with the Greeks?  I did not feel purged, though, at film's end.  I couldn't say, "But for the grace of God. . . ."  The movie made it clear.  There go I. 

My advice to everyone is to avoid the film.  If you see it, make certain you've flushed all the pills and thrown away all the old ropes. 

The girl in the picture would have no interest in the film one way or another.  She and I will ever be joined in the moment of this picture.  It is a curious, almost sacred, thing. 

Gray, drizzly skies and sinking temperatures.  Decorum and decoration will be my defense.  I will take two old, expensive watches in for repair.  Maybe.  I hate wearing a watch.  But the crocodile band on one is so beautiful.  The watch itself is slim and elegant.  As I would be. 

But it is too late to adopt a formula for success now, no?  Those habits must be formed when we are young. Besides, I am unable to amble just now.  I am walking with a decided limp and only for short distances. 

Perhaps I am not as clear headed as I thought.  It seems I am still under the influence of those ethers.