Bunnies or Hares?

O.K. Let's try this. Yesterday was a disaster. I'll recount it for you. I know you can't wait. Oy! But it is all I have unless I make something up. . . and that would take too long. So let's dive right in. . . shall we?

I woke up feeling badly.  Poorly?  I didn't feel too well.  I made the coffee, did my ablutions, and sat down to read the news.  No news.  Nothing.  I had no internet.  I tried futzing around with it for awhile.  When I unplugged it all and waited to plug it back in, it would work.  For a few minutes.  Then the modem/router went dead.  I did this a few times before I called the internet provider.  We went through a bunch of things and it was working.  Good.  Within seconds of hanging up, it quit.  I decided to use my phone as a hot spot so I could read and write on my computer.  I used to be able to do that.  No more.  No m'am, no sir.  AT&T has decided to charge for that service now.  I was told I would need to sign up for it on another plan.  WTF?  I hate corporations.  It's time for a revolution.  

I made an appointment to exchange my modem/router.  I had two hours to wait.  I felt like poop and went back to bed. 

The replacement is bigger.  It is in two parts.  No more modem/router.  They are separate now, uglier, and take up more space.  Whatever.  I moved furniture, pulled cables, and got it hooked up sweating like a sick patient.  It took me awhile.  And then. . . 

Nothing.  

I called the internet provider.  What they had not told me at the cable store was that it had to be turned on remotely.  It took awhile.  I had to unhook it so I could read numbers off the back of the modem.  They were tiny.  Flashlights were involved.  

From start to finish, it was a six hour ordeal.  

My body ached.  I had chills but no fever.  My belly was not good at all.  

I ate some chicken soup. 

I called my mother mid-afternoon.  No answer.  I left a message.  

"I think I caught something from you and your crew.  I feel like poop.  I don't think I'll make it over today."

My mother had been feeling badly, had a fever, etc.  She's been running around with my cousin to every store and cheap restaurant in town.  She's been to socials and luncheons.  I thought she may have Covid, but she never tested.  Her neighbors have come around.  They've been sick, too.  I suspected they all had it and had passed it around and had given it to me.  Nobody tests for Covid anymore.  It is just a thing that goes around now like the flu.  

I sat at the computer and worked at organizing photo files.  I had cleared a portable hard drive so that I could put all my travel photos in one spot.  It was only 1TB, but I figured that would be enough.  I went through other drives finding multiples of folders with the same name but not the same number of photos, so I would have to open both files on different drives, then import the images from one to the other.  Laborious and time consuming.  New York, last century.  New York, early century.  Many, many NYC trips.  So many photos.  San Fran, both centuries.  Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba.  Three Cubas.  Many Yosemites trips.  L.A. just before I got run over.  Then Cali with Ili, Detroit, Miami (multiples), Paris.  I still have all the old trips to Europe to find. . . Paris, London, Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria.  China.  

1TB will not be enough.  Transferring all of this is taking hours and hours.  When that is done, I will make selections to put on the website I am building.  Oh, don't you worry.  These will not look like your father's slide show.  Maybe some, if he was good.  

Around five, I was feeling worse as one always does near sunset.  I needed to make a grocery store run.  I had only consumed coffee and chicken soup.  It would be a very simple dinner.  

The cats were waiting on me when I got back.  That is my life.  

And YouTube.  While I ate, I watched vids on Dark Matter, and Dark Energy.  They make up 95% of the universe.  So "they" say.  "We know it exists.  We just don't know what it is.  But we can measure it, just as we could measure time and make accurate calendars before we knew the earth rotated around the sun."  

Makes sense.  We can measure what we don't know.  I am fascinated.  It is good to think of things beyond identity politics, beyond the puny self.  

"But what about me?"

We are not important.  It is good to remember that.  I needed distraction.  A lot of it.  

Then. . . I searched for "The Russian Revolution."  Good lectures.  The Czar was a shit.  So were Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.  They were elitist thugs.  It all intertwined with WWI.  And the aftermath that brought Hitler and Mussolini to power.  I watched that, too.  There is a constant theme in much of history.  

I watched an interview with a new photographer.  She is schooled in color theory and design.  Her photographs are pastels.  It makes me think that I should take some art theory classes at the university.  I'll look into that.  

By ten, I'm done.  A Tylenol and an Aleve P.M.  I sleep nine hours, and when I get up. . . it is Easter.  

I am groggy and don't know how I feel yet.  When I finish this, I will think about trying a walk.  I have gotten nothing for my mother and cousin.  We are going to my mother's across the street neighbors' house for Easter dinner.  I do it for my mom.  Same people as Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'll need to get champagne.  I bought some wonderful chocolate covered cherries at Whole Foods the other day on a whim.  They are decadent.  I will go and get some for my mother and cousin.  They won't like them in all likelihood, palates addicted to cheap waxy candy and soft serve ice cream from Cracker Barrel.  

Selavy. 

There's the dull report.  But I'll have Easter dinner to write about tomorrow, another scintillating tale.  

I have been having terrible dreams.  I could tell you about those.  Ho!  I'll just say that I am in a panic.  Tomorrow I have my doctor's appointment.  All my nightmares could come true.  

But let's not end like that.  I hope you have egg hunts and Easter baskets full of chocolate eggs and Peeps and that your Easter dinner is wholesome and happy.  

The images, by the way, are by Maggie Taylor who was married to my old photo prof, Jerry Uelsmann.  She has a new exhibit at the PhotoEye gallery in Santa Fe right now.  I'll see you there. 

No Internet

 No internet today.  Maybe later.  I think I need a new modem.  I can’t do this from my phone so well.  Horrible at typing with my thumbs.

A Man Walks into a Bar

I didn't have the day I predicted.  I didn't have a very good day at all.  But some days are like that.  You can't predict.  So. . . after visiting my mother, I decided I would go out for dinner rather than cook.  I felt fat and awful, but I think I overcook at home, and though it is healthy stuff, I eat too much.  That is the only explanation I can come up with.  I decided I would go to my favorite Italian restaurant up the street.  I would sit at the bar, order some food, and watch the crowd.  The bartender I like was working with the same girl that was there when I went with Tennessee.  When she saw me sit down, she smiled and gave me a high five.  Nice.  But I am a shy wreck of a man.  Always have been.  And I have NO GAME.  When I was young and prettier, it was cute.  Now. . . not so much, I think.  Still, I don't like to bother people.  At least not until I get to know them.   I ordered a Chianti Classico and she handed me a menu.  I said, "I know what I want.  It's the sautéed shrimp and scallop thing in a white wine sauce over pasta."

She named what she thought it was.  

"Isn't that in a red sauce?"

She thought a minute.  "Well. . . kind of. . . . "

Neither of us could see the menu without glasses, so I told her to pour the wine and I'd turn on the light from my phone like all old men do.  

Gamberoni E Capesante Fra Diavolo.  She was right.  It was with a plum tomato sauce.  

GAMBERONI E CAPESANTE FRA DIAVOLO 25.95 SAUTEED SHRIMP AND SCALLOPS SERVED WITH PAPPARDELLE PASTA AND FINISHED IN A SPICY PLUM TOMATO SAUCE

I sat with my wine and waited.  The bar was full.  When I sat down, the man next to me said hello.  Pleasant fellow.  He had a bottle of wine in front of him that had a label shaped like the one on a bottle of Cristal champagne, but it was a red wine.  He was alone but had ordered a bottle.  I wondered at that.  Would he drink the entire bottle or was money simply not an issue?  Just then, the other bartender brought him a plate with two meatballs.  They looked good, but I remember my mother telling me once after I got sick on meatballs I was silly to have order that.  

"You don't know what is in them," she said.  I haven't ordered meatballs since.  

I looked around.  The outside tables were filling up.  It had been a drizzly, overcast day, but just an hour before, the skies had cleared and the temperature and humidity turned lovely.  It was a Thursday night, the new Friday.  

The crowd was older.  I looked from where I sat to the outside bar.  An older, very distinguished couple sat across from me on the street side.  He was my age, fleshy but well dressed.  She had platinum hair that was from the pages of Italian Vogue and a perfectly sculptured face with magnificent skin.  One couldn't help but notice her.  She wore a pair of big sunglasses that complimented her hair.  The couple was in deep conversation, she doing most of the talking, he doing most of the listening.  She had a lot to say.  

Next to me was a woman in an Angora sweater and designer jeans.  She sat with her back to me facing a man of obvious money--a pinpoint Egyptian cotton Oxford and a racing style sports jacket and five hundred dollar tortoise shell eyeglass frames.  Her sweater was cut low, and I could see the flawless olive skin of her upper back complimented by a tiny gold necklace.  She had a big diamond on her finger.  He wore a black onyx ring.  

The bartender brought me slices of bread and olive oil with balsamic vinegar.  This was a treat from her.  They never do that here.  She smiled and I smiled and said thank you.  

"You're a moron," I thought to myself.  "That's it?  Thanks?"

Like I say. . . I have no game.  

Outside, the woman with the platinum hair removed her sunglasses and her looks completely changed.  Her eyes had been lifted so much, she looked a bit alien.  They were pinched up and angled a little oddly.  She looked like many of the matrons in Palm Beach I have there.  Yea., I thought . . I'll let Tennessee get his eyes done first.  

The two bartenders were huddled together talking in hushed tones.  I could see the "other one" say, "Yea, he's nice looking, but. . . ." and I couldn't see her lips after that.  I hoped they were talking about me, but I knew that wasn't so.  I looked around the bar.  Who?

The fellow with the meatballs asked for his check.  

"I need to get back to the office," he said.

The "other" barmaid asked him if he wanted a bag for his wine.  He did, but she was to take a glass first.  

"Oh, yea," she smiled.  She got a glass and began to pour a little copa, but he insisted she take more.  

She brought a plastic go bag over.  

"Is this alright, or would you rather have a brown paper bag?"

I almost said, "Sure. . . nobody suspects a brown paper bag," but I was wise enough to keep that to myself.  

"Somebody brought their stuff in a grocery bag, but I can take it out."

"Yes, that would be better," he said.  

She came back and corked he bottle and put it in the grocery sack.  They exchanged warm pleasantries and smiled.  As he walked out, I said to her, "You didn't tell him that it was gym clothes you took out, did you?"

She laughed.  It was the first time I'd seen her truly smile.  I should have asked her about the wine.  

The bartender brought my dinner.  Oh, yes. . . sautéed shrimp and scallops over big pasta ribbons.  The woman with the Angora sweater turned to look.  I couldn't tell her age.  Her skin was tight and very shiny, her eyes deep set beneath a prominent brow and cheekbones that I questioned were real.  She smiled into my eyes but didn't speak, and in a minute she turned back to her fellow.  

The meal was perfect.  It was just what I wanted.  For most of my life, I wouldn't eat this way.  Meat, fish, poultry, and lots of it.  This is what I had been missing out on.  

A fellow in a Hawaiian shirt and a deep tan walked in and sat where the fellow with the wine and meatballs had been.  He was loud and apparently thought he was friends with the barmaids.  A "regular" I would guess.  

"What can I get for you?" asked "my" bartender.  

"Grey Goose," he said as if she should know.  

'I know what that is," he said to me looking at my dinner.  "That's something something fria something!  That's my favorite dish here!"

"Yessir," I said.  "It's really good."

I watched the bartender shake up the grey goose with ice and pour it into a glass.  Three olives.  

The fellow took a sip and sighed.  He sat back and looked around.  I could see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye.  Then in a loud voice meant for the room he said to the bartender, "You two look like sisters!"

In a flat voice without looking, "Yea. . . you said that last time." 

They do, perhaps, both dark haired northeastern Italians, though they couldn't be more different in countenance and demeanor, one with a perpetual smile, the other with a long-standing scowl. 

The man with the tortoise shell glasses called the bartender over.  The woman in the Angora sweater said she wanted a dirty martini.

"How dirty?"

She thought a minute.  "Medium dirty," she said.  The man said something I couldn't hear and they both laughed.  She turned and looked at me.  "Some people give up chocolates.  I gave up dirty martinis."

"Yes," I said, "but not tonight."

"No," she said into my eyes, "not tonight."  

Pinpoint Egyptian cotton is going to have a time tonight, I thought.  I tried to guess what he drove that night.  

The light and the air were soft.  The couple outside called for their check.  They, too, were known by the bartender.  It was, it seemed, a "regular" crowd.  I liked them fine.  

"You got more tan than the last time I saw you," the bartender said to the man with the Hawaiian shirt.  I looked at his obviously dyed "Just for Men" hair.  

"I went sky diving," he said.  

"Really."

"Yes.  I'm a sky diver."

"My old college roommate got into that."

"Where?"

"I don't know.  We kind of lost touch."

"If she's from around here, she probably knows me," he said.  

"You don't get tanned from skydiving," I thought.  He obviously went to a tanning bed.  

When the bartender walked away, he put a napkin over his glass and put his olives on top, got up, and went away.  Maybe he went to the restroom, but I thought he was off to do a bump.  When he came back, his leg was bouncing.  Then his food arrived.  Unbelievable.  Two meat balls.  WTF?

Dinner finished, I pushed the plate away.  The bartender came over.  

"Do you want anything else?"

"Do you have any coffee beans?"

She smiled.  "Do you want a Sambuca?"

"That would be fine," I said.  Last time I was there, neither of us could recall the name of the drink with the coffee beans.  

"Is that a Sambuca?" the man with the meatballs asked.  

"Yes.  I like to have one after an Italian dish."

"Of course you do," he said emphatically.  I wasn't sure how he meant that.  

When my bartender had a minute, I motioned her over and leaned close, my hand shielding my mouth from the lady next to me.  The bartender leaned in.  

"Is that an Angora sweater?" I asked.  

"I don't know what that is," she said.  "I'll look it up."  She turned to get her phone.

"No, no. . . don't bother with that."  

She leaned in closer, squinted her eyes disapprovingly, frowned, and said in a low, conspiratorial voice, "I'm not a fan."

It was still daylight when I finished my drink. I wanted to linger, but I didn't want to order another, didn't want to sit on the stool like another lonely "regular."   When the "other" bartender asked if I wanted anything else, I shook my head and handed her my credit card.  It is a red one, a not very subtle bank card.  Those won't get you many dates in this town, but it went well with my black t-shirt and cheap Chinese "linen" shorts.  

Getting up to leave, I stood up slowly.  My knee was stiff, of course.  I loathed walking away with a limp and stood for a minute so that I wouldn't wince at the pain.  Whatever.  Jaws clenched, I limped slowly toward the door without looking back.  I wasn't one of those guys.  

There was still half an hour of daylight when I got home.  I didn't want a whiskey.  Whiskey is not something you drink in daylight.  I decided to go with what the overly tanned fellow had.  I put ice in the shaker and poured in the vodka.  Three olives.  

No cat.  She had not come for breakfast, either.  Just then, I saw some strange paws walk behind my car.  I waited.  Holy shit. . . when it stepped out, it was a huge raccoon.  Big, walking in that hunched back way that they have, but maybe a little different.  You're not supposed to see raccoons in daylight.  Only rabid ones walk around in the daylight.  I got a chill up my spine.  Just then a second, even larger raccoon came walking down the street.  Frightened but curious, I got up to see where they were going.  "This is stupid," I thought.  "You can't even run."  Still, I followed from a distance.  The second one stopped and turned to face me.  I stopped to, then I spoke.  

"What the fuck are you doing?"

It wasn't so much what I said as the tone.  Authoritative.  Commanding.  Bold.  I took another step forward.  He stared.  

"Hey," I said, and took another step.  Why?  I don't know.  It made no sense, really.  But I wanted to see where they were going.  With my second step, the raccoon turned and went behind my across the street neighbor's house.  I thought about going up to his door to tell him, then thought that was pretty stupid.  

"Hey, Ebb. . . uh. . . I just saw two raccoons walk behind your house!"

I came back to the porch, picked up my drink, and went inside.  I didn't want to wait and see the rest of the raccoon clan.  

"Maybe that's why the cat hasn't been around," I thought.  Maybe the 'coons had been looking around her food bowl at night.  I should probably take them inside after she finishes eating.

With the setting of the sun, I turned on the television.  I dialed up one of the March Madness games, but I tired of that very quickly.  I switched over to YouTube for another lecture on postmodern fiction, this time from a prof from Yale.  I'd watched her before.  I critique her deliveries and her assumptions.  She surely has published some really good criticism, but her classroom delivery needed work, I thought.  But she is a bit of what the boys used to call "a looker."  

Judith Butler, the eminent feminist theorist, has just come out with a new book that is making waves.  Her thesis is that biological gender is a social construct.  This should help fuel the Trump campaign.  

But that is for another time.  I need to get out more.  Telling you about the world "out there" is a good antidote to the miserable interior dialogue I have been reporting lately.  And you know. . . a story might break out.  I mean, you never know. . . something might actually happen.  

Sandalwood Beads and Birkenstocks

Let me begin again.  That was some very boring prose.  Report writing, really.  Discard. Delete.  

But now what?  Should I tell you what I did or what I will do?  I should make up a story about that rich little hippie girl who rubs me up with fragrant oils.  I could tell you true tales, but I am not sure that is allowed.  I have been thinking a lot about that, though, as I go through my incredibly large cache of untouched photos.  Not the studio stuff, just travel photos and photos of everyday life.  I'll stop once in awhile and cook one of them up and wonder why I never did before.  But then I remember I had virtually given all that up.  I was otherwise engaged.  Oh, but you should see the stuff.  Maybe you will.  Maybe one day I'll tell tales.  So much that is pretty and fun.  

I tend to delete the bad parts.  They do no one any good.  

You should, too.  

Because we don't live in Myanmar or Haiti or Syria. . . aren't forced into labor nor threatened with rape or beheading. . . . 

"Gather ye roses while ye may," said the good poet.  And though things seem to be going to shit, we still may.  

I spent yesterday as I said I would.  I did a long cardio workout, then stretched, took a schvitz in the sauna, came home and showered and took a nap.  When I woke up, I let myself linger awhile just enjoying being lazy without guilt.  "This is a luxury," I thought.  Maybe I was practicing "gratitude," you know?  I read about that in an advice column once.  

Oh. . . and my dinner. . . let me tell you.  Sautéed veggies and mushrooms, garlic and jalapeños, over whole grain pasta topped with teriyaki tofu.  A citrusy sav blanc.  

Then I grabbed my new digital medium format camera and a tripod and headed out into the night to try some dark photography.  I drove around town stopping from time to time.  I got nothing worth showing, but the whole thing was intriguing, and I will do it some more until I get proficient.  Most of my experiments lately have not panned out. . . yet.  They might, though.  I keep refining.  

"Why?  What is the point of driving around photographing the dark?"

Yea, I'm not unaware.  There is no grand purpose.  But what did you do last night?

"Taxes."

Well, there's that.  When I got home, I listened to a couple lectures on postmodern literature.  

"Why don't you do something practical or useful?  You're like an infant."

I know.  

"Did you listen to your music, too?"

A little.  Dope Lemon.  I like the hippie vibe.  Did you know they imprison and kill artists in China?  The ones who don't toe the party line?  It's true.  Hey. . . who's your favorite photographer?  No?  Novelist then.  

"Stephen King."

Right.  There you go then.  I mean, I have to admit, he writes novels.  They are very popular.  

I don't live in a town that has a lot of hippie girls.  There are a lot of alt.women, laissez faire feminists, bleeding heart Woke activists. . . but not those gentle, happy hippie girls who like to make bracelets and bake brownies and see the world.  I don't think you can even find a drum circle here.  Happy hippie dancers with dirty feet who smell like patchouli.  There are no food co-ops that I know of.  But there are ten thousand cocktail bars packed with men and women all dressed up and looking to score.  

I just reminded myself of the bartender at the good Italian restaurant.  She was a happy girl.  I hope she passed the bar exam.  Maybe.  She said she wasn't sure she wanted to be a lawyer.  I should ask her about drum circles, get close enough to see if she smells of patchouli.  

O.K.  That was not a report, but a report might have been better.  Some days are just like that.  I'm happy, though.  I have a good day planned.  The good photo gallery has a new show up, and I will go to see it today.  I have a big discount card I want to use at the REI store, too.  And I will go to Whole Foods to get more hippie food.  It is drizzling now, but the sky will clear by afternoon and it will be sunny and temperate for the next few days.  

Let me check my horoscope.

Mar 28, 2024 - Are things really going this beautifully for you, Aquarius? This is a question you might ask yourself now. All looks perfect as career, romance, education, and spiritual matters seem to crystallize into a wonderful life. Don't waste time worrying if this is all too good to be true! You're concerned about the future, but right now, live in the moment. You're creating some great memories, if nothing else. Enjoy!

Well hell yea!  My mood is goofy and light.  I think I'll put on my sandalwood necklace and Birkenstocks and go have some fun. 

Talent Interrupted

It's not really night yet.  It is after seven, but there is still another half hour of sunlight.  I don't want to watch television, and I don't want to go anywhere, so perhaps I'll write.  There are things I will forget or have forgotten already that are on my mind.  But I have eaten and had drinks, so I may be too muddle-headed for it.  We'll see.  

I just got back from the liquor store.  It is a chain, but they have hired some really "alternative" people.  It's O.K. with me.  I get along fine.  So the boy with the full neck tattoo and the--I don't know, maybe 22mm gauge earrings--checks me out.  He likes me, it seems, but maybe he is just a friendly guy. 

"How's your day been," he asks?

I think for a moment.  "It's been really chill."

"That's great, man."

I look at him for another moment before I say, "All my days are pretty much like that."

"Oh, man. . . I wish mine were."

I want to tell him to wait long enough and when he is not able to do much of anything else, they will be.  But I stop myself.  I just smile a friendly smile and bob my head.  

They like me at the liquor store. 

I forgot to tell you that my day, yesterday, ended as badly as it began.  When I was leaving the grocery store and got into my Xterra to back out of my spot, I cut my wheel too soon.  The truck next to me had an extra long bed.  Big mother.  Brand new.  I heard and felt a scraping.  

"What the fuck was that?!" I absolutely said out loud as I hit the brakes.  I looked in the driver's side mirror and saw.  Then I looked up and saw a fellow walking toward the truck.

"Is that your's?" I asked.  

"Yea," he said.  

I pulled up, parked, and got out.  

"Let's see what I did," I said.  

There was a nick on his back light.  Nothing much.  I was wondering how many hundreds of dollars I would be willing to pay him to go home.  

"Nothing much," he said smiling.  He was a real redneck with a southern accent.  It was at least a $90,000 truck.  

"Let's see what happened to mine," I said.  

Oh, yea.  I had engraved mine pretty good.  

He was an alright guy.  I like cowboys.  If he had been a fucking real estate agent with more money than balls, it would have been a different story.  But he wasn't.  He was probably a Trumper, too, but he had a heart.  He looked like he had made his money legit.  

When Tennessee called me later on his way to the Blue Ridge Mountains to finish his cabins, he was stuck in Atlanta traffic at six.  

"What the fuck were you thinking, dude?  Atlanta at rush hour?"

I told him my story.  

"Yea. . . you're lucky it was a redneck.  If it had been some pansy who just liked driving a truck. . . ." 

I can't back that Xterra up for shit.  I can't tell you how many things I have hit.  This is the second time I have hit a redneck's truck who looked at it and waved his hand like, "It's a truck.  They take a beating."  

Hippies and rednecks sometimes have a lot in common.  

I had two deliveries today.  I like having packages in the mail--don't you?  I needed underwear.  I only wear them to work out in or for walking so I don't chafe my chubby little thighs.  I thought about going to the mall, but the traffic is always bad and it takes to long, and I couldn't be sure they'd have "my brand," so I just ordered on Amazon.  I got another package today, too.  I saw that Agfa was making a new Scala b&w film that develops as a slide, a positive rather than a negative image.  I'm a fool.  I ordered six rolls and the requisite developing chemicals.  $138.00.  I don't really want it now.  I have maybe sixty rolls of different films sitting around.  I am trying to finish off the rolls I have in my cameras now and can't.  I had to go to a store in one of those new communities that look like a Disney set today, one where they first build the big, luxurious houses, then the smaller ones, then the luxury apartments, then the not so luxury apartments, all built around a little Disneyesque "downtown."  Oh, they are clean and nice. . . for awhile.  But they keep building and the place goes further and further down the tubes.  Since I had to go, I took a camera and thought to walk around and finish the film.  Only six frames to go.  So I walked and I walked, and I took one photo.  The place is just one replica after another without texture or variety, every patio, every facade, looking just like the other.  

All in all, I am having a hard time finishing the film roll.  Thirty six exposures.  So. . . why am I buying more film?  You can't make pictures in the suburbs.  You can, but you can't.  You need texture and grit.  Or access to filthy rich older women lying poolside with their toy poodle, Gucci sunglasses, Chanel slippers, etc.  

Access is everything.  

* *.*

That's as far as I got last night.  I was interrupted.  I'm not sure where I was going with it all now.  Probably the same place I always go. . . nowhere.  

I woke this morning with some feeling of dread.  Surely I've overlooked something, done something wrong.  I woke remembering that I still haven't filed my taxes.  I've done them, just haven't filed them.  I have to write a big check which pisses me off because the rich gymroids have set up corporations and LLCs in such ways that they avoid paying taxes altogether.  One of them was trying to explain to me what one can do to get money after paying off a house, something to do with insurance. . . I couldn't follow.  He tried explaining to me what he did and how it benefitted him when his house was flooded.  Talking to me about money is like talking to a dog about life.  All I hear is "blah blah blah, Spot. . . blah blah blah."

I should have married an investment banker.  A nice one.  

So maybe it is the check I have to write that is getting me down.  No. . . wait. . . it is the doctor's appointment that is weighing on me, I am sure.  Yup.  It really freaks me out.  

I was kibitzing online this morning about news headlines with my conservative "Yea. . . what about Biden" republican buddy.  So many of the headlines are screwy or obviously lopsided that it is fun.  Then I asked if they still published the daily horoscope.  I went to the top of the WaPo page and hit the search icon.  Sure as shitting, they do. 

You can make resolutions about your life at any time. If you want change, there is no time like the present! It's a good day to make a fresh start, turn over a new leaf, and put bad habits behind you. You shouldn't wait any longer, especially if you feel the urge to change right now. You have clarity now, which isn't always going to be the case. Cut out the bad and start focusing more on the new.

Good advice.  Then I wondered if they still had a cartoon page.  I hit the search icon again.  

Nope.  

"No Beatle Bailey is an indicator that the rest of the paper is suspect," my buddy wrote.  I never liked the cartoon page, really, even as a kid.  The only one I looked forward to was "The Phantom."  What a weird one that was.  

 I could never really figure him out.  He carried a gun and didn't have a cape.  So why was he in a mask and tights?  

The day is gloomy and so am I.  What to do?  Be gentle.  Do some cardio and stretch.  Maybe sit in the sauna.  Avoid alcohol and drink healthy tea.  Find a rich hippie girl who loves me, braids my hair, rubs me down with fragrant oils, strokes my face and tells me everything is wonderful.  

Is that too much?  Why is everything so hard?

(Warning: The following song is not for you old people)

I Worry About You

I wrote a blog post last night.  It began, "I think I like writing the blog at night. . . ."  When I read it this morning, though, I deleted it.  If I let all my blog posts sit overnight and then read them in the morning, I would probably delete the majority of them.  Now I will write in the usual way, straight out of my head with no re-reading or editing.  Surely it will be one I would delete tonight.  

Maybe it was the call I got from Q last night.  Apparently he had just gotten back from NYC.  The boy is always going somewhere.  I'm not sure where he stayed or what he did, but he seemingly had a good time.  He called me from his car on the way to the grocers, so the conversation did not last long.  Part of what he told me, though, was that I needed to get out, have friends, talk to people. . . .  The subtext was that the blog sucked, that people are tired of hearing the inside of my head.  

Wow!  If he thinks he's tired of the inside of my noggin, he should try living with it.  But he's not the only one who has criticized the writing lately.  What can I say?  You gotta dance with the date you brought to the ball.  

What else can I do?

He asked me something about retirement, if I was happier or having more fun or something.  That's when I was pretty certain he doesn't really read the blog.  

"For sure, dude.  My life is one hundred times better now.  All I do is have fun."

For those of you who do read (anyone?), you know that my retirement was the equivalent of "The Perfect Storm."  

Still, I know that people are worried about me.  That's nice.  

"How are you feeling?  Are you better?"

Puzzled.  "Better than what?"

"You were feeling kind of down."

More puzzled.  "Never better.  Fit as a fiddle."

"Oh, good."

Then it occurred to me.  There are conversations that happen when you are not around.  I mean me, when I'm not around.  

"Where's your buddy?"

"He's at home curled up in a fetal position.  His ovaries have been hurting."

Fucking Tennessee.  

This happened at the gym yesterday after I was not told I was dying.  That has to wait another week.  When I went to the doctor's office yesterday and signed in, I was told I did not have an appointment.  

"I have a card that says I do."

Brow furrowed, the woman with what I assume is a very low IQ looks at her computer.  

"I don't have you down.  Did you bring the card?"

"No.  It is at home."

Now she's got something.  

"You need to bring the card with whoever made your appointments signature on it."

Total bullshit.  But she is going to plow ahead.

"You should always call the day before to see if you have an appointment."

I'm too savvy to argue with a moron with some power over my situation, so I just stand there looking at her waiting for something to click in her partially developed brain.  She looks for another appointment time and sets me up for next Monday.  

I have another week of depressed anxiety before Doctor Death gets to fuck with me again.  

I shouldn't curse so much.  And it is not nice to call people morons.  I'm taking too many liberties here. 

When I got to the gym, I wasn't in a talking mood.  I am not one to start conversations anyway.  I never believe that anyone is hoping I will come over and say something to them.  I think, in truth, they would probably rather I didn't.  If I know someone, I will weakly smile and wave in recognition, but that is just a common courtesy.  I especially never start a conversation with women at the gym.  I watch fellows do it all the time, and I note the way women react.  If a women like some boy, she will let him know.  She'll smile and say hello or ask him how he's been.  But you can see the tension in their bodies when they catch a glimpse of some fellow making a beeline for them in the mirror.  

Not me.  No, sir.  Not old C.S.  

So I'm working out, keeping my eyes to myself, when one of the pretty, young gymroid girls says, "Where's your buddy?"

She's talking about Tennessee.  

"You look kinda lonely," she giggles.  "Do you miss him?"

"Oh, sure.  My life isn't the same when he's gone.  I don't spend a lot of money going out for dinner and drinks.  I don't have anyone sucking up my good liquor."

She laughs.  We chat.  I think she has a little crush on T.  

A bit later, another woman wants to know what's up.  "Are you feeling better?"

Jesus.  For awhile, Tennessee had people convinced that I was a Furry.  When I missed a few days at the gym, he told everyone I was at a Furry convention.  One older woman asked what that was.  

"Oh, he dresses up in an armadillo costume,"he told her.  "It's his spirit animal."

She thought that was nice and asked if I would be willing to dress up one day and read to he children's group.  That story just about never died.  

The two retired nurses come by.  I tell them about my morning.  

"Who's your doctor?"

I tell them.  

"Really?  Do you like her?"

"No."

They suggest that I get another doctor.  

"As you get older, it is important that you have a doctor you feel good about."  

I tell them how I feel about doctors.  I complain about the psyche evaluation questions I have to fill out every visit.  

"Do you ever have thoughts of harming yourself?  Really?  They make sure that everyone lies to their doctor.  She gets paid for that!  What a scam."

"It's required by law," they tell me.  

Wow!  What a crock.  Some lobbyist got that through.  Cha-ching.

"It's also required by law that she report anything like that to the proper authorities," I say.  

I realize that I am not doing myself any favors here if I want people to quit asking me how I am doing.  

"Oh. . . he was talking about lying to his doctor on the psyche eval.  That's scary." 

I think the blog has started spilling over into real life.  Maybe there has become a blurring of lines between the character here and the real me.  

Real me?  Wouldn't that be something.

A long time ago, a photographer from Belarus with whom I traded photos wrote to me, "When you can't take pictures, don't take pictures."  Good advice.  And when you can't write?

Well. . . I like the photo I posted today.  I wouldn't know how to explain it to someone not schooled in "the fine art of photography."  There is a visual history you'd have to know.  Eggleston.  Cohen.  Etc. Fragments.  Uncertain elements.  Negative spaces.  Intrusive, provocative, imbalanced. . . blah blah blah.  

"Everything is photographable."

"Why do you take photographs?"

"To see what things look like when they are photographed."

Do you know who said that?  Those are famous quotations.  

"How can they be famous if people don't know them?  That's rather contradictory, don't you think?"

Yea, I guess it's like those song lyrics--"Can you still have any famous last words/ If you're somebody that nobody knows?"

Last night the street collapsed on itself
In fact, it broke right in two
And I fell in
The strawberry vines
Into a pool of strawberry wine
Strawberry wine and clouds
Burning in the desert, surrounded in flowers
But the stems breaks the armor
And the morning comes
Until it's all just the same things again
Oh god
Don't spend too much time on the other side
Let the daylight in
Before you get old and you can't break out of it
My old friend
'Cause its getting winter, and if you want any flowers
You gotta get your seeds into the ground,
And I worry about you
Why? Because you want me to
Can you still have any famous last words
If you're somebody nobody knows
I don't know
Somebody go and ask Clair
She's been dead twenty years just look at her hair
Strawberry blonde with curls
She gets hair done then she gossips
With the younger waitress girls at the bar
The old Irish Rose
Drinking strawberry wine
Until it comes out her nose
She spent too much time on the other side
And she forgot to let the daylight in
Before you get old you'd better break out of it
My old friend
'Cause its getting winter and if you want any flowers
You gotta get your seeds in to the ground
And I worry about you
Why? Because you want me too
This fella downtown, he jumped off a bridge
He was angry about a letter he received from his friend
He fell in
To the arms of the most beautiful girl
That have ever, ever lived in the history of the world
And with nothing left to lose he got screwed
He sold his apartment before they made him move
Then he jumped straight in
To the San Francisco Bay
Now he lives on Molly's farm
Picking berries all day
Don't spend too much time on the other side
Let the daylight in
Marty was a kid when he learned to steal boats
His dad was a deejay on the radio
He fell in
To a life of riverboating crime
He's the man you see in prison
If you want strawberry wine
Strawberry wine and smokes
He sent a letter to his friend
Explaining one night on coke
He and Clair
Jumped right in to the strawberry vines
And lord knows you get lost
On that strawberry wine
Don't spend too much time on the other side
Let the daylight in
Now I'm getting old and I gotta break out of it
My old friend
'Cause its getting winter and if I want any flowers
I gotta get my seeds in to the ground
And if you worry about me
Don't bother
Why?
I'll be fine
I'm just sitting here laughing
Little old me and my
Strawberry wine

Depressed or Dying?

I will have to write again "the night before," as I have a doctor's appointment early in the morning.  The annual.  It stresses me out beyond belief.  I know people who go to doctors all the time.  I can't stand it.  I don't trust them.  They are corrupt like college basketball, having sold out to the medical corp for the money.  When I was in dire straights after I got run over, my doctor wouldn't even see me because she didn't take accident cases.  Hard to get paid, you see.  You might wonder why I don't get another doctor.  I researched it.  Most doctors don't take accident patients.  That's the medical system.  That's America.  

I will go tomorrow and my doctor will tell me I'm dying.  Not in those words.  Just "probability."  

"Why are you so upset?  We all die."

Yea. . . .

So. . . I am fucked up tonight.  I skipped a cocktail party because.  Just because.  

I didn't get my early start today as I predicted.  I didn't even wake up until well after dawn.  I think I am depressed, dying alone and all.  I don't mention it except here.  Out there I'm "better than ever."  But, you know. . . I have to tell someone.  

I've gotten some critical comments of late about my supposed life here on the blog.  I'll keep my responses to myself.  

Maybe I need to listen to some gangsta rap music for awhile.  Everything I have been listening to makes me cry--lost love, loneliness, death. . . .  Perhaps I need more of this (link).  Know what I'm sayin'?  In your mother's booty, in your mother's booty.  You know you gonna get capped.

I found out I CAN rap as long as I don't use words.  Sort of like the Italian fellow who used to do American rock and roll with made up sounds (link).  I have the rhythm and the beat and the intonations down.  I've studied the gestures.  I need to be more thuggish.  Yo. . . yo. . . .  

But my ovaries get so swollen.  

Rather than getting "an early start," I drank coffee, dunked biscotti and worked on more old photographs.  I have so many.  They make me happy and sad.  Mostly happy.  But I'm low, so maybe not.  

Seriously, though. . . I think it is the doctor thing.  Or perhaps the music.  

Do you listen to the music I post?  I think most don't.  I know some, however, who have made playlists from those songs.  They are like me. . . emo and moody.  Probably.  

So I didn't leave the house until three-thirty.  I went to my mother's, but I took a walk on the trail by her house first.  Nobody was about, and I realized how little one is absolutely alone outside with their thoughts in an urban/suburban environment.  I walked and I thought for almost two hours.  I walked with a camera.  I took a few pictures, too.  And. . . I have HOPE.  I think my vision was working. 

Probably not. 

But the walk was good.  Then I sat with my mother and cousin.  My mother is not doing so well, but I can't really talk to her.  My cousin wants to do all the talking.  I think I am climbing into the grave with my mother.  It is difficult not to.  

After tomorrow, though, no matter what the doctor tells me, I want to be off.  Out and about.  Seeing the world.  

Or I will be a shut in like all the old Hollywood stars who became reclusive and lived out their lives alone (link).  Pretty good company, though.  

Toss a coin.  

"So what's the picture?"

"Oh.  I like it.  It is the stuff I like.  I can't post the other stuff.  Just this."

"O.K.  I know what you mean." 

"Do you?  Really?" 

"Yea. . . I think so."

"There's so much beauty. . . and so much misery."

I'll let you know what the doc says.  

Maybe.  

The Melody a Cowboy Holds So Dear

I'm becoming a shut-in, I think. Rather than driving to the beach and photographing the famous German filmmaker, I stayed at home. Not just at home, but in the house. I didn't even take a walk. It wasn't until 4:30 that I left to go to my mother's. I didn't shower. I won't. I'm going nowhere. What, you might ask, do I do inside all day? Lately it has all been music and photos. I have been going through my MASSIVE archives and have become endlessly fascinated. I think the only things that are real are these photographs. They are as accurate as any memory you or I may have. They are not "literal" for sure, but neither are memories. I manipulate photographs consciously. Memory manipulations is. . . you know. . . we all do it. Defense mechanisms the shrinks call it. Good music and old photos and I am suddenly in a time warp. I don't mind, either. The hours pass unnoticed.

But tonight I had to drive to the liquor store just after dinner, just past sunset, and oh my goodness. . . there are things you just do not see from the windows of the house.  I love the world, really.  It is a marvelous place, worthy of pictures and of words.  

But I get ahead of myself.  I am writing tonight in case I don't tomorrow.  My plan is simple.  I will leave the house early in the morning, and begin my day.  In case I do, I will have this to post.  

How far back do I go?  Nothing really happened until I got home from mother's, so. . . . 

I went to the grocers.  I was going to eat a simple meal, Amy's Organic Macaroni with tuna and broccoli.  It is a go-to standard here.  But. . . the grocers had no Amy's Organic Macaroni.  I wish this blog had millions of readers so I could lambast this chain who has essentially run every other big chain grocery store out of town.  Oh, they used to be good.  Once they had monopolized the market, though, they became greedhead pig fuckers raising prices and narrowing selections.  It's all about the money.  

"You know I used to love her, but it's all over now" (link).  

I had to make on the spot decisions.  What would I cook for dinner.  I stood in the frozen food aisle for a very long time. . . thinking.  I had some mushrooms.  I had whole grain spaghetti noodles.  I had already put the broccoli in the cart.  A green pepper and a jalapeño and an onion.  Sautéed with the mushrooms.  But what else?  O.K.  Whole grain spaghetti noodles and garlic over a can of tuna topped with sautéed vegetables and. . . I got it!  I'd top it all with some shredded cheddar.  Kosher salt, pepper, red pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.  

Too much prep, but kid. . . it was good.  

I needed beer.  Beer rather than harder stuff.  *F&^#S--the fuckers didn't have Dale's Pale Ale, either.  I bought a six of Funky Buddha IPA instead.  

Checkout.  The pig fuckers have gotten rid of most cashiers, too.  Self checkout by the score.  O.K.  Scanning isn't hard.  Put the jalapeño pepper on the scale.  Now find "jalapeño peppers" from the alphabetical menu.  Nope.  Nope.  Nope!  

"Hey. . . lady. . . . "

The half simple grocery store helper comes over.  We go through the menu together.  

I wish this blog had a million viewers.  

After dinner on the patio as the sun went down, some neighbors walking their dog waved.  

"Haven't seen you for awhile.  How are you doing?"

"Couldn't be better," I lied.  

"Great.  That's what we like to hear."

Yea, I know.  That's what people want to hear.  Nobody wants to hear your problems.  

It is later than usual by the time I clean the kitchen.  What to do?  I can watch the March Madness highlights on Max.  They whittle a full game down to ten or fifteen minutes, virtually every play but nothing else.  Why do I watch it?  I am not a fan any longer of college sports.  Kids no longer play for colleges.  They play for "athletic programs."  I am stunned at the brazenness of announcers saying this though I know I shouldn't be as both they and the kids are part of a billion dollar business.  It has nothing to do with college any longer.  Still, people wear the colors and cheer for the uniform.  I am not immune.  

Each morning and night, I text my old college roommate about the games.  We used to watch them all.  March Madness held a special place.  It was magical.  We loved hearing Billy Packer and Al McGuire argue about the games.  We, of course, admired McGuire who had quit coaching while he was on top and bought a motorcycle, let his hair grow, and toured the country like an Easy Rider Jim Bronson, a rebel at heart.  But we watched all sports together.  We played them and watched them and we talked and talked and talked.  And today, I realized that was the magic.  It wasn't the games or anything else.  It was the talking and talking and talking.  

I can't watch the games now, but I realize I could if. . . . 

We are older now and have gone our separate ways long ago.  He has something now that diminishes him, Parkinson's or Lewy Body. . . .  So I watch the games in fast forward and text him in between.  But I know I cannot sit here and watch a game alone tonight.  

There are the 8mm films I took of us in college and all the stills.  They are true.  Good God, we were beautiful in our youth.  

But of course, we all were.  

He and I played basketball every day.  Incessantly.  He was a lefty and had a sort of beautiful game.  That is what the fellows say.  Mine was not so beautiful.  I was more a workhorse, a battler and a garbage cleanup fellow.  He was six-four, I was five-ten.  We were like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid or Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick.  Minor league.  But we won or placed in tournament after tournament against elite players, NFL alumni and graduated NCAA b-ball players.  We were slow white guys, but we were smart and knew the game.  We beat teams that on a physical level we should never have beaten.  We walked like heroes.  

Much later, when we formed a band, we played in front of crowds in the thousands.  We had "something." 

Now, during March Madness. . . whatever.  

Sitting with the old photographs is much the same.  My god. . . my life has not been mundane.  I become, of course, conscious of all the mistakes I have made.  Too many.  But Christ. . . don't YOU judge me.  Look at your own life now.  

That is how I feel tonight.  

That picture on top is Paris in October.  It was rainy.  It was Fashion Week.  We stayed in a fabulous apartment on the Isle de la Cite just across the bridge from the Isle de St. Louis.  It was owned, I must admit, but a woman who did social arrangements for Donald Trump.  But it was pretty near perfect.  Per usual, there are very few photos of me on that trip.  When I look at the ones that do exist, however, I think it is probably a good thing.  A year after my accident, I didn't look so good.  Those pictures bear a great resemblance to Quasimodo.  Our apartment was only a block from the Cathedral de Notre Dame, so. . . you know. . . apropos?

I have written away the evening now and will go to watch those game recaps on Max.  Then it is off to bed.  I have this in case I get an early start.  If not, though. . . you don't mind reading two, right?

Even My Shirts Are Wrinkled

It is still Spring Break, I assume.  There are festivals.  I've been invited to Grit City to take photos at the Mutts and Suds Festival.  Dogs and beer.  I'm taking a hard pass on that one.  I'm also half expected to go to Cracker Beach to a bar called Coconuts where they used to have "Bikini" contests every Saturday.  Who knows?  It's really a throwback crowd, so they might still.  But I would be there to photograph a famous German filmmaker.  I have half a mind to go.  I still don't know.  I stayed up until one last night listening to music and working on photos, then took a Xanax so I could sleep.  I get jacked and could stay up all night when the music and the images are good.  I lose all track of time.  Luckily, I didn't open my eyes until nine, so I got eight hours sleep.  But the day has gotten away from me now.  I should go, but I am so loathe to go anywhere any longer. . . .  

We all know what I need.  

I hadn't gone to the gym for a few days and people were wondering where I was.  They said I hadn't been myself lately.  I'd been "grumpy," they said.  Tennessee, always my buddy, told people I was home curled up in a fetal position.  He said my ovaries were swollen.  Nadia is a woman I have known since my yoga days, a couple decades ago.  We barely spoke to one another then, but we remember one another.  She is slightly older than I, a total Swede from Minnesota, thin and well built and still quite attractive.  We have become friends at the Physical Culture Club in the past few years and talk fairly often.  She is now friendly with the other Gymroids, too, especially Tennessee.  When she asked him where I had been and he gave his smart ass answer, she reportedly said, "Well. . . we all know what he needs!"  

Nadia!!!  That, I think, is sooo out of character for her.  

But the world has gotten weird.  There are far more beautiful people than ever before.  Many reasons.  But it is true.  And yet, they are less happy, have difficulty sustaining relationships, and have far less sex than in the past.  We have become worse than Puritans about sex.  Porn, of course, is a problem, but A.I. porn is worse.  If you read statistics on it as I did today in the Times, it is epidemic.  They are putting people in jail for creating it now.  The Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, is suing two men for making "deep fake" porn videos using her image.

As I've said many times, we should all be required to post nude pics of ourselves on the internet so that it isn't such a thing.  I'm a big fan of the Ivy League and its Seven Sisters colleges nude posture photos from the 1940s through the 1970s (link).  The '70s, of course, brought the big porn rage then the backlash and we began the road back to Puritanism once again.  HBO did a series about it that was pretty raunchy which is why, I think, it didn't last (link).  "The Deuce."

It's a dirty world, I guess, and somebody has to clean it up.  That's what they say.  But it won't be James Franco.  

I'm not a fan of porn for more than about a minute, but I like looking at people.  Who doesn't?  Tennessee got it right, though, and I think he knew it.  I'm kind of an emo.  Sex is sex, Nadine, but sometimes you just want someone to hold you in the night.  

Well. . . I do.  I know women who don't want to be held in the night.  

"Get the fuck off me, I'm suffocating!"

The Deuce to them, I say.  

I certainly don't object to the bikini contest as long as they haven't forced young girls into it.  It's better than Mutts and Suds, though by and large the crowd is about the same.  

So. . . is she A.I.?  They, I mean.  Of course they is, just like Kate Middleton.  It's been through Photoshop.  Funny. . . people don't mind A.I. that puts a glamor glow or some other flattering filter on them.  Our world has been A.I. for a pretty long while now, in tech years, anyway.  

I'm envious of young people, of course.  They already have a youth fixation.  They are worried about getting and looking old.  My friends in their forties look like they are in their twenties, many of them, at least, those with money, because they started with botox and other beauty procedures early on.  When I see a photo of myself with them, I wish I had started that shit sometime ago, too.  They look like they've never had a serious complicated thought in their lives.  I, on the other hand, look as if I have pondered all the problems of the world.  Alicia Menendez on MSNBC is a great public example.  She is forty but looks like an embryo (link).  The film director I might photograph today is in her eighties.  German.  Not an embryo.  

It is supposed to be raining but the sun is shining now.  I should go.  Even though it is a cracker coastal town, it is still the beach.  I can ruin my skin a tad more, deepen the lines around my eyes and mouth and get a few more sunspots to boot.  But it won't matter.  Like I said, it's a cracker town.  They may start out young, but hard jobs, drugs and drinking, old cars, and rental housing will take its toll.  

Time and gravity will have its way.  

Thank goodness for A.I.  

Still. . . even broken old hillbillies sometimes need to be held through the night.  

And yes. . . my ovaries hurt.  

Lazy

The lazier I get, the happier I am.  I don't mind being "lazy" anymore.  It feels good.  It makes me almost giddy.  It has been the most glorious weather for three days running, sunny, cloudless, temperatures that rest "like a soft hand upon your cheek."  And for three days, I barely moved.  I didn't do anything, even shower.  I don't think I stink, though.  It's my new diet.  I smell like strawberries.  I'm filled with helium. 

It can't continue, though, this laziness that isn't exactly laziness.  I don't lie around in bed.  I've ben busy making photo experiments, going through cameras, trying filters and lenses in new combos, and even ordering a new/old black and white positive slide film with its necessary developing chemicals.  I think that was probably a mistake.  After buying the chemicals which were described as "simplified," I read up on the process.  It takes a mighty long time to develop this film and a lot of crazy steps.  I'll do it, but I'll surely make mistakes and get pissed off and wonder why in the hell I want to shoot film when I have so many wonderful digital cameras.  

And yet. . . I'm excited.  

Most of my editing experiments went awry, too.  Selavy.  You know the old saying.  There are a lot of them.  Pick one. 

But I am exaggerating a bit, I think.  I have gone to the grocers, to the liquor store, and to my mother's.  And people have come by the house in the evening.  And there are, of course, the endless lascivious text messages from various women.  O.K.  I DO make things up.  

But I skipped out on walking and the gym.  Now that I think about it, it has only been the exercising I have eschewed.  No wonder I feel so peppy.  

And of course there is skipping the news reports which certainly must lighten my mood.  I don't want the moment by moment opinions and commentary.  My teachers were wrong.  I don't need to "keep up with current events."  Indeed, I think a weekly paper is just the thing.  

"A man walks into the cafe."

"Who?"

"Bob.  A man named Bob walks into a cafe."

"What does he look like?"

"He's wearing checkered pants and a cook's white button up jacket."

"Is he a chef?"

"I don't know.  Our conversation was brief.  He asks me what I would do if I was on a boat with four cigarettes and no matches.  I just look at him.  Then he says throw a cigarette overboard.  The boat becomes a little lighter."

"Jesus." 

 "I know." 

That actually happened.  Life is strange.  

Here's a song that I think gets better as you listen.  Give it a minute.  I love simple songs, duets and such.  But if you want the studio version, I'll put that here, too.  It might be a little too hillbilly for you, though.  I won't judge you if you don't like it.  

The Over/Under of Happiness

I'm sure all anyone will be talking about today is the new Happiness Rankings by Country.  

The U.S. fell from 15th to 23rd.  It seems that young people are much unhappier than old people.  C.C. says that it is because old people know it will all be over soon, but you must look at the anomalies like Israel.  I almost commented that the happiest countries are the ones with the most homogenous cultures, but then I realized so are the most miserable on the worst list.  I'm glad I caught myself on that one.  

What makes young people so unhappy?  

Old people.  

All this chart tells me is that the young will eat the old.  I think, though, that will leave a bitter taste in their mouths.  

I would have no idea how to gauge how happy I am.  The real me, not this C.S. character.  He is a schizo who dwells in light melancholy when he is not manic or depressive.  Well. . . maybe he is a bit like his creator.  

But I have never hated old people.  I moved into an apartment after college in what had up until then been reserved for retirees on fixed incomes.  I was one of the youngest people to live there.  There were two others.  I would walk with the old folks and sit out and talk with them in the early eveneings.  They would bake me cookies and tell me I reminded them of someone.  

Even now, I spend almost every day with the over 90 crowd.  

I would never eat them.  

Rather, I am still pretty much meat-free and loving the flavor.  I feel like I'm floating.  I think I'm producing helium.  It is lovely.  

I went to the Cafe Strange for a decaf cafe con leche in the afternoon.  I felt the need, not for the coffee but for the experience.  It was packed.  As I sat down at one of the sticky tables, a cafe con leche girl with slight epicanthal folds walked in wearing very small cut off jeans shorts, cowboy boots, and a veneer of a top.  She was with a pan-boy, pale, wan, small, nearly transparent.  They were very happy giggling, touching, laughing.  They walked straight to the Photo Booth and made secret photographs that I could only imagine.  And when that was over, they left.  I liked them, but I fear for their happiness as they age.  All about me were tables of young people gathered in twos or groups whose conversations sounded much more sophisticated than mine.  My experience of age groups and happiness seem to be skewed in the opposite direction.  I don't think C.C. is correct.  I don't think knowing it will all be over soon makes old people happy.  

He was kidding, I know.  As the tagline on an opinion piece in the Times read this morning, "You Know You Are Old When You Spend the Evening Talking about Your Knees."  

Did I tell you about mine?  

While I was sitting with my coffee and writing in my notebook, an old fellow, a bit disheveled, walked in with a bedraggled labradoodle.  He came up to my table and stood close beside me.  I say he was old and .  He was probably my age--but really much older.  

"Excuse me."

"Hey, man. . . what's up?"

"What is this place?" he asked.  He stood mouth agape taking in the lights, the crazy art on the walls.  

"It's a cafe."

"Oh, he said, still gazing about him, "I thought it was a restaurant."

"Well, they do serve food.  I wouldn't eat it, but they have coffee and wine and beer and a full bar."

He didn't say anything for a minute, then, "I'll have to come get a beer sometime.  I haven't seen a place like this for a lot of years."

"Yea, it's sort of hippie, isn't it?"

He kind of shook his head and wandered off.  In a few minutes, I saw him put his dog in a car and drive away.  

The cafe started out as a video rental store many, many years ago.  I used to go there with my dead ex-friend Brando who knew the owner's father.  They were both architects.  The place had the best selection of videos in town, most of them bootleg copies.  They did a hopping business then, but as video tapes became a thing of the past, the place successfully transformed into a groovy cafe.  Used books line some of the shelves where the videos used to be.  

Last weekend they had a celebration/reunion and advertised a call for all the Old Strangers to come on Saturday night.  They were going to screen the first movie they had ever rented out, "Rebecca."  When I went in yesterday, they were selling a zine with photos of the place over the years.  There are still some Old Strangers who go there.  

It is an odd place certainly, but I think by and large the people who go there are happy.  They seem to laugh a lot.  

I think we in the U.S, probably have a different idea of happiness than do those people in Nordic countries, however.  I think that their version of happiness is much more subtle.  Or was.  Social media has probably altered what young people conceive of as happiness which is about as subtle as their rage.  It is easy to blame social media, and surely that assumption will be born out by research one day, but I blame shitty parents, too, those helicopters who want to be their kids' friends, want to be just barely more than equals, who dote over and talk about the little fuckers constantly and make them play soccer or tennis or whatever from the time they can walk.  And the other kind, too, those hillbilly/cracker/redneck fuckers who jack their kids up on conspiracy theories and arm them to the teeth and take them to MMA sessions so they will know how to kill a motherfucker.  

Well. . . I guess just parents in general.  But it is probably social media.  I just get very tired of hearing about how great everyone's children are.  

"Oh, Barry came home almost in tears yesterday.  He was afraid he was going to get a "B" in biology, but he found out he aced his final and so he was on the honor role this period.  I thought I was going to have to go up to the school and have a talk with that instructor."

"They're ALL on the honor role, you idiot!  Everyone gets good grades now.  Teacher's are not allowed to give bad grades."

O.K.  I've outed myself on this one enough.  It is the fault of social media.  

"My mom is on the computer all the time now.  She's on some dating site."

All the kids laugh sarcastically.

"Yea, my dad is on one, too, but he hardly ever gets a date, and when he does, he talks about how awful the woman turned out to be."

Eyes roll. 

"At least your parents aren't still married!  Mine drive me crazy.  They won't leave me alone.  It's worse than school when I come home."

"Hey. . . we should smoke it up before we have to go home."

Wow--this went sideways.  I blame most things on Hunter S. Thompson, but I'll throw in Kerouac and Bukowski and the whole Literary Rat Pack of the 80's, too.  Not that anybody reads anymore, but it doesn't matter.  Not everybody read "Interpretation of Dreams" when Freud published it at the turn of the 20th century, but everybody was influenced by it.  Shit just gets in the culture.  

Tennessee stopped by last night to look at some repairs I need to make.  When we were done and I walked him to his truck, a car pulled into my driveway.  There was a big dog staggering around in the road.  

"I think that dog got hit by a car," T said.  I thought it was the dog who loves me, the big Labradoodle named Ace.  I started calling him and walking down the street.  The lady in the car asked, "Do you know him?"  

"I don't know if that is him or not." 

Tennessee followed me down the road.  The dog was staggering away from me. Then another big dog came out and got between us.  Then I knew whose dog it was.  The two dogs lived down the street from me in the big brick house owned by a contractor and his pretty, skittish wife.  I've only seen them about twice in the years they have lived there.  

The dog kept walking and falling and struggling to get back up, his buddy running circles around him and barking.  

"It's o.k., it's o.k." I kept saying.  I caught up with them just as they turned down the long driveway to the house.  I thought the healthy dog might try to attack me as I walked to the door, but I heard a woman's voice call him from the back of the house.  I rang the doorbell and went to see the other dog who was just standing in the drive.  Then the front door opened.  It was the woman.  I realized I was barefoot wearing shorts and a t-shirt and carrying a glass of whiskey.  I like making a good impression.  

"Is this your dog?"

"Oh, yes. . . . "

"I think he might have gotten hit by a car.  He was staggering around in the street and. . . ."

"Oh, no. . . he is old.  He's had a couple of strokes.  I've thought about putting him down. . . ."

I didn't say, "Holy shit, lady!" but I thought it.  She thanked me for bringing the dog home, and Tennessee and I headed back to the house.  

It was nine-thirty when T went home.  I sat on the couch and listened to a reading of Didion's "Slouching toward Bethlehem"--sort of.  When I woke up, it was midnight.  

It is another, maybe the last, in a string of unbelievable days.  I must get out into it.  These days make me happy.  But of course, you know. . . I'm over thirty.