Simple Things

Nicole and Perroni

So much happened yesterday that I don't have a plan for how to write it.  Nothing happened yesterday.  Both things are true.  Some things happened.  Of course.  But I'm reporting on the internal world.  So many things.  

I was up late drinking with my buddy from Tennessee.  He called me as I was finishing up my evening meal, a complex salad and a pasta and eggs with sautéed scallions and green peppers dish, a sort of weird take on spaghetti carbonara.  

"Dude.  I've been downtown drinking with my investor buddies since four.  You wouldn't believe. . . are you home?"

For most of my life, when someone answered the phone, you knew exactly where they were.  But with the invention of shoe phones. . . .

"Yea, I'm home."

"I'm driving by your house right now.  Is it alright if I stop in?"

I put my dishes in the sink and poured two whiskey's and took them out on the deck.  Tennessee was, as I've learned the saying goes, coming in hot.  

It was eleven when he went home.  

In between, there was some drinking.  And tales.  Many, many tales.  And I learned more about his life and how many millions of dollars it takes to be middle-class wealthy in this town.  He married young.  He came from a poor farm family, he says.  

"Did your wife's family have money?"

"Oh. . . yea.  I mean, they were southern wealthy, you know, not like wealthy here.  But yea. . . ."

I found out what "southern wealthy" was.  It is what Tennessee is.  He is not Uber-wealthy like some others we know.  

I'm like the family at the top of the page.  

But he likes my house.  He walks around and looks at the old craftsmanship in the place.  He says he likes that I have kept it intact.  He says that when I want to sell it, he'll buy it.  

"What the fuck would you do with this house?"

"Not tear it down."

Because that is what would happen if I sold it.  They'd clear the property for new construction.  It's what they do here now.  

He told me about his investor buddies.  They are starting a new fund, he said, and they were inviting certain people to invest.  He might as well have been speaking Latin.  I don't know shit about money.  I had a little bit once, but I spent it.  

By evening's end, however, he wanted me to start a clothing company with him.  He explained how it works now.  It seems simpler than it was when I wanted to start one decades ago.  Automation and technology have solved many of the old production problems.  

It was late, though, and I think he just wanted me to make some money, too, maybe become "southern wealthy."  He has no idea how lazy I have become.  

O.K.  Discretion is the better part of honor, they say.  No, that's not it.  Valor.  Better part of valor.  My version is more apropos here, though.  I've left everything out as is only appropriate.  The evening wasn't dry.  

Red texted.  She is in Vegas again after the 4th.  I should come out, she said.  She sent a photo to tempt me.  Vegas.  Hmm.  I started thinking about it.  That's pretty weird and easy.  It will be about 120 degrees, probably.  Even weirder.  I'm thinking about it.  

And, of course, the Fontainebleau.  I need to book that.  

The girl who won't ask me out texted a selfie from the plane.  She was heading back.  My mood shifted.  A totally different vibe.  There are emotional poles, of course.  

My new old friend texted, too.  We are both romantics.  Too much so.  Maybe there are not two poles.  Maybe there are simply multiple vortexes.  

There are some women who want me to make pictures of them.  That is something, too.  What can I do?  No studio.  Tennessee says I need to get another studio.  He, like most people, doesn't believe I never dated any of the people I photographed.  Never kissed a single one.  

"Ah, man. . . don't bullshit me."

Some became friends, but nothing romantic.  I am a romantic.  Have I told you that before?  I just want to fall in love.

"You're so full of shit."

Yea, yea, yea. 

I want to make photos like the one at the top of the page by Nicole and Perroni; however,  I think I'm getting too old for field work.  

But that's it.  Nothing happened.  It was just too much.  

Simple things can make me weep.