Another Roadside Attraction

What happened to the car project thing--what was it called?  It seemed like a good idea, do-able even.  But what happened?  Where did it go?  Christ, I swear. . . I can't even remember its name. 

Life piles up?  Shit happens?  Too much drink and sleeping pills?  Or maybe. . . you know. . . the scary thing?  

True though.  I DID take a Tylenol PM last night at 11:30 and I am groggy still this morning.  I only took one of the suggested two tablet dose, but sometimes just one knocks me out.  It did last night.  Sometimes two won't, but other times I can't wake up the next day after taking them.  Strange.  No consistency there.  

I think I remember the project had the word "America" in it.  I can't remember the other one, though. I was excited about it.  

Selavy.  

Strange happenings all around.  The city has spent the past year putting the power lines underground in my neighborhood.  They are underground now, but the telephone poles are still standing.  There's a clue.  They are not power poles but telephone poles.  I don't know if the telephone lines have gone underground.  Do telephone companies still use lines?  I do know that the cable lines are underground now but the cable company isn't ready to hook up to them yet.  And, of course, the street lamps are attached to the poles.  It seems pretty complicated.  

But yesterday across the street, a subcontractor was taking down the transformer from the telephone pole.  And when that was done, and I thought this part really weird, they cut about three feet off the top of the pole.  To what end, I wondered?  They repeated the act all over the neighborhood.  The thing is, the cuts weren't even clean.  The tops of the poles look mangled and broken.  

I think it will be decades before the poles are gone entirely.  

More dynamic living.  The inspirational photos I put up on the blackboard, you know.  I looked through more of the old photo boxes.  I found a bunch of negatives that I had taken to the to the photo store to be developed and printed.  I had those crummy prints that are difficult to look at from just after the turn of the century.  Most of the photos aren't aiming to do more than document my life at that time.  No projects, nothing like that.  Just photos of who I was with, what I was doing.  I found some that I would really like to see more clearly, so I have been scanning them.  I'd forgotten how much I hate scanning and how much time it takes.  Still. . . .

I went to Michaels, the national arts and crafts store, in the afternoon.  I'd looked up magnetic blackboards and tiny magnets on Amazon, but it occurred to me that I might be able to just go out and buy them from a store.  You know. . . like people used to do.  

It was like adventuring into the past.  An afternoon drive instead of a nap.  There were things to see.  I would have to come back this way, I thought, with a camera, like I used to.  

But shopping. . . it takes a long time.  In a big department store like that, you don't know where anything is, so you stroll up and down the aisles, ADHD kicking in, and you begin to examine things you didn't come for.  

"What's this?  This is interesting.  It's like a little 3D printer.  Whatthehell?"

Half an hour later, I found one of the two people who worked there.  

"Hello.  I'm looking for little magnets for a magnetic blackboard."

"Oh. . . I'm sorry, uh. . . ha. . . I don't work here."

"Oh my!  I'm sorry!  I saw the. . . " 

She was pulling at her red shirt and grinning. 

". . . red shirt and. . . oh, my."

We were by the framing department.  Surely there was somebody in there that might help.  

An hour later, I was back to the car with a large magnetic blackboard and a bunch of little magnets.  The afternoon had slipped away, so I drove straight to my mother's.  

In the morning, I realized I needed some vitamins, so I ordered them on Amazon.  They were on the porch when I got home.  Know what I mean?

When I got home from mother's, I was too tired to mess with the blackboard.  Not tired, exactly.  I'm using the word poorly.  What was it?  What's the right word?  

Kerflumpt?  

I had eaten a bowl of the leftover chicken and bean stuff from the night before around one o'clock.  I wasn't really hungry and certainly not in the mood for cooking.  Did I have enough "fixings" to make a Greek salad?  Half a cuke.  Sure, I had red onion.  Half a green pepper.  Feta, yes.  I had some leftover garbanzo beans.  A little chopped black olives.  Oh, my. . . the Campari tomatoes looked bad.  Really bad.  WTF?  I'd try to use them anyway.  They squished under the knife blade.  Salt,  Oil and balsamic vinegar.  

It wasn't ideal.  I ate about a quarter of it before I realized I hadn't put in the tuna.  I got up and added it.  It tasted worse.  

What happened?  A good day gone off the tracks.  It was fatigue.  Yes, that's the word!  I wasn't tired; I was fatigued.  Maybe it was hormonal.  Maybe it was time for Hormone Replacement Therapy.  Everyone is doing it.  

"In my fifties, I started noticing that I was getting fatigued in the afternoons.  At night, I was tired but couldn't sleep. I asked my doctor about it. He did a simple blood test and told me that my testosterone level was considerably down. He put me on TRT, and now I feel like I did when I was a teen!?

That photo of two douche bags, one looking like a penis, the other looking at the penis's wife's hooker implants.  The photo is an instant classic.  

All of them, of course, are using hormone replacement, just like RFK Jr.  And a whole lotta republican congressmen (gendered) and senators, too.  Obviously.  And Hegseth is surely dosing.  

O.K.  Three cups of coffee and some banana nut bread, and I'm starting to wake up.  What the hell did I just write?  

No matter.  

Maybe I'll retitled the project.  I'll need to since I can't remember what I originally called it.  Perhaps. . . "Another Roadside Attraction"!  That sounds pretty good.