An Audience of One

I went to my new financial advisor yesterday to invest my retirement payout.  The market is sure to crash now.  Whatever I do financially, you should do the opposite.  If you want to make real money, invest in a liquor store.  Have you ever seen one of those fail?  I don't think you can, though.  They are not traded on the open market.

But what do I know?  Nothing.  Not about this.  That is why I invested in the most conservative plan. I will neither make nor lose much money.  That is what I was told, anyway.  I am like everybody else.  I want high profit with low risk.  But it doesn't work that way.

I don't know enough to gamble, nor do I have the disposition.  The advisor showed me that I could check how the fund was doing anytime by going online.  Oh, no, I said.  I'll check it every quarter, maybe. I couldn't stand to watch what it does more than that

That started my day.  I came home afterwards and finally finished with the books.  There are no more boxes nor piles lying around on the floor.  Other than that, though, everything looks the same.  The shelves are all overflowing.

In the afternoon, I began cataloging pictures.  It seems useless.  I don't know what to do with all the proof sheets and negatives and Polaroids and prints.  I'm trying to reduce the load, but I don't know how.  Here are negatives in plastic holders.  They are cut into six strips of six negatives.  On every strip, there may be one negative I want, but you can't just cut the one out.  It needs to be a strip.  So I keep five I don't want in order to have the one I do.  Same goes with the proof sheets.  They have to match the film strips.

I threw away some Polaroids yesterday, but that didn't feel very good.

I'm even inundated with digital files.  I have too many external hard drives with images I shouldn't keep.  I can never find anything when I want to.  I am not very organized in my methods.  Some people are good at labelling and making electronic picture groupings.  I am not.

Oy.

I am enervated and lackadaisical now.  I am crashing in my third week of retirement.  I do not seem to have the old joi de vivre.  I am listless.  I sit in a chair and think far too long before I do anything. I have no audience.  I worry and fret.  It is a revelation to me, really, this.  I have always thought of myself as a solitary fellow eschewing the human chatter and blather.  I preferred being alone.  But I always had an audience, every day.  I had something I thought I didn't want.  Now I wonder how someone can prefer to work from home.  Q works from his computer all day, I think.  I was driven by performing for the crowd.  I begin to understand why people are driven to social media.  They need an audience.  They want to perform.

Maybe I should run for office.  I could hold rallies.

I need to be careful or I will end up with dogs and cats.  "O.K. kids.  Gather 'round."

The sun is not coming up today.  A gray shimmer, the day is cloudy and cool.  I have a luncheon date this afternoon.  It causes me stress.  I don't know why, but it does.  And this is disconcerting.  What do I want to do, sit alone in a chair and ruminate?

No.  I think I want an audience of one.  Just maybe that is it.