What the Day Might Hold

Holy smokes, I've gotten old.  I stayed up last night watching "Beckham" by request.  Fell asleep on the couch after she left, sort of.  When I got up to go to bed, it was one o'clock in the morning.  Tossed and turned all night.  Stayed in bed until eight, but it seems to have done me no good.  My body is humming and buzzing.  

"Bitch, bitch, bitch.  You're such a baby."

Yup. It's all fun and games 'til someone gets their eye put out. 

But I kid.  The days and nights are wonderful now, the sun shining brilliantly in the clear blue sky, the evening as gentle as a hand upon your cheek.  And I am going to have fun today.  That's what we do, we men of leisure.  We eat and drink and enjoy our days and nights.  

Or we are like Rain Man, slaves to our routines.  But we are all routinized to some degree, eh?  

I worry a lot.  It is difficult not to.  I think it is an inherited trait.  My father was a worrier.  I'd find him sitting at the dining table, a Camel between his fingers, staring into the void nodding or shaking his head in agreement or in disagreement with whatever internal conversation he was having.  

"What's up, pop?"

"Oh. . . nothing."  

It took me years to learn about the "nothing."

"Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. . . .  What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. . . .  Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee."

But that is hindsight, and hindsight is not always correct no matter what they tell you.  Maybe that wasn't it at all.  

When I got up, I remembered that I had not prepared the coffee maker.  As I began the process, I saw the little feral at the door looking in.  I went out into the already brilliant day and gave her some food.  When the coffee was ready, I sat outside for a bit, drinking, thinking.  

It is time for a second cup of coffee now, and then the day.  What marvels might it hold?  There's no telling when you are a man of leisure.  Let's go see.