Beautiful Nature

Have I whined lately?  Certainly I can whine.  I had last night off, meaning I didn't have a shoot after working in the factory.  I went to the gym but drove on by.  I went to the store to get victuals for the evening meal, came home, dropped the grocery sack on the counter top, and went into the bedroom to take off my clothes.  I woke up an hour and a half later. 

I still feel tired this morning.  I have a shoot tonight, which I thought I could handle because I have tomorrow night off.  I did until this morning.  I had forgotten about a model I had booked some time ago.  I will be in the studio every night for the rest of the week. 

Models are clamoring.  "Where's my pictures?" 

But I am beat.  It scares me how hollow and empty I feel.  It is difficult getting from one room to the next, and what scares me is that it seems like something other than simply being busy.  It feels as if something is attacking my system.  I must get through the rest of this week and then next week. . . . There is always next week. 

But who will make these pictures while I'm off? 

I watch men my age who no longer work.  It seems great.  They look peaceful and content.  I wonder. 

I've been thinking about how we are no more than alimentary canals supported by a spine, wrapped in muscle, with organs to produce digestive enzymes and oxygenate the blood that carries nutrients to all the cells.  The brain. . . shit, it is a mere afterthought, really.  If the eating and shitting machine isn't working, our brains are not much of a luxury. 

The season has definitely changed.  There are spring showers here now, but more markedly, the sun is coming in through a different window in the morning.  It just moved to one that shines into my eyes today.  Ahh. . . those lovely shutters, though, which I had installed just for this reason.  I move one lever and everything is fine. 

Maybe I have a simple bug.  I woke up yesterday morning with a sore spot on the right side of my throat.  I thought it might just be a dry spot from snoring all night.  Either that or cancer, of course.  But there is the off chance that I have some sort of spring malady that is traveling through the sorry lot of humankind.  I will ask around today.  "Allergies," most will say.  "I've been taking Claritin."  My new friend, though, seems to be a bit of an herbalist.  I don't know.  I claimed that she was a borderline Wicken, but laughed that away.  Still, she wants to infuse lemon water with garlic and Umcka which I thought sounded like an exotic root.  Turns out to be an over the counter cold medicine.  A practical Wicken, perhaps. 

This morning, lying in bed, I thought about living in the middle ages and getting sick.  Herbs, cold fish soup, leeks. . . whatever.  "Oh, he's got the miseries," they'd say.  I picture myself lying in a stinking bed in a mud and straw hut breathing in the smoke from the fire, guts roiling, running out to shit myself every few minutes without toilet paper, my old wife with half her teeth trying to get me to drink some folk elixir, mice running along the edge of the wall, me covered in lice-ridden blankets, bedbugs, etc.  Just lying in the half dark with my own thoughts.  Perhaps someone with a religious title would come in to pray with me/over me.  The greasy stink of life. 

I've told you I have a degree in zoology from a pretty good school, right?  I got it because the animal programs I watched on t.v. made nature seem so pure and pretty.  Have you ever gotten next to a wild mammal?  Holy shit!  They are full of fleas and ticks and mosquito bites.  They have worms in their guts and parasites throughout.  Flies constantly try to lay their eggs in their eyes.  That is nature. 

It is easy to fall off the wagon.  I did last night.  I've lost a bunch of weight by changing my diet, but I want those tasty breakfast things again, the pumpkin loaves and raspberry things.  I want them with my coffee.  I want all of it--pleasure.  It is what we have to stave off the middle-ages, I think.  Salt and sugar and all the spices.  We live longer than they did even with fattening diets anyway. 

"Even by exercising moderately just 2.5 hours a week, a person can extend his or her life by an average of three and a half years.  Exercise is the single best thing you can do for your health." 

I read that on CNN today.  Who knew? 

Russians don't live as long as most of the populations in other first and second world countries.  But it seems that maybe they live long enough.  Who would you have rather been, Frank Sinatra or Jack LaLanne?  The magazines at the checkout stand at Whole Foods have covers of people smiling.  They always have a big ass smile.  Why are they smiling?  Because they are vegans or yogis or have mastered the art of. . . .  I hate their stupid smiles.  They just seem self-congratulatory. 

Look at the smiles of artists and writers.  A different thing altogether. 

Whatever.  I lost my way around paragraph two, I think.  Consider this a journal page.  I will color on it with pencils later.  Now, however, I must join the hoi-poloi.  It is what I do.