Yesterday Today

My mind is everywhere this morning.  This could end up being a journal entry (like a lot of what is here, I guess), or it cold be some trippy phantasmagoria.  I am here, I am there.  Yea, cool cats. . . I'm everywhere.  

First observation of the morning--some stains upon the silence are worse than others.  Was Beckett speaking of writing when he made his declaration?  Living with my mother now, it becomes obvious to me that much it is auditory.  Obvious statements of fact, of course, that are proposed as mundane commentary, for instance, or the constant moving of plates and forks and bottles across a wooden table, the forceful setting down of the morning cup of coffee, not just plunked but then slid back and forth turning my nerve strands into barbed wire, a useless, unnecessary cacophony.  

To whatever Beckett was referring, I am inferring.  But I think my statement holds up either way.  

The noise abates momentarily.  I try to regain my composure.  Where was I?  The morning's bliss is already dissipating.  I am no longer everywhere.  I am here, anchored, heavy.  Fuck. 

Oh, Christ. . . what did I have in mind?  I am lost.  

I read a headline today (not the article) that many therapists are using ChatGPT for both their clients and themselves.  As you have probably garnered if you have been here much, I am not a fan of therapy or therapists.  Nope.  And especially not of this "many."  WTF?  It is idiocy.  They are asking for advice from a company who is balls deep in creating social control?  Do they not know that the responses of "the tool" are curated and censored?  There are things it just won't say or do.  

From a creative perspective, it is poison.  The tool is constantly changing, the "guardrails" getting strained and "disinfected."  I need a stable tool as much as a painter or a musician.  If every time one sat down to play an instrument but of a sudden the resulting sound had been altered . . . well, I don't know what you would do.  If a painters paint colors shifted every day. . . .  

Etc.  

So the therapists are working with an inconstant if they rely on A.I. to help them.  

I desire unconstrained consistency from "the tool."

Emboldened by the little taste of endorphins I experienced this week, I went out to the exercise course to try a little jogging.  Again, slow and careful, but this time on the uneven surface of the earth, a soft track of compacted soil.  I did more than jog.  I skipped, "ran" backwards, did slow crossover steps and side hops.  Just a little, I told myself.  You can come back slowly.  

I was driving the old Xterra.  Fixed up and running fine.  Took it through the car wash.  

And then, the a.c. quit working again.  

I had to get back to my mother's house.  I was taking her to Costco.  She is walking some again, like a Frankenstein sloth, sure, but it is an improvement.  

When I got to her house, there was a car in the driveway.  Shit.  It was some of her friends.  

"You should have been here awhile ago," one friend said to me.  "There were five women in this room.'

"Sure.  That's my heart's desire, to sit in a room full of broken old women.  Can't believe I missed that."

Of course I didn't say that, but sure as hell was glad I missed it.  

I opened a Beer Lite and sat down to hear the chatter.  Now it was all directed at me.  But they had been there awhile and were just getting ready to leave.  

And then they were gone.  

"I'm guessing you are not wanting to go to Costco now."

"No. . . I should go.  Let's go."

Mom pushed the giant shopping cart.  She has shrunk so much.  She looked tiny, surreal, something out of Wonderland.  But she moved it an inch at a time.  I walked behind.  It was torture, and not simply psychological.  My lower back, hips, and one knee were killing me.  

"Oh, boy. . . I fucked up this time," I thought.  The running may not have been a good idea.  

Up one aisle and down another she inched.  I would stop and lean on anything I could trying to take the weight off.  

"Can you get this for me?"

I'd put things in the cart.  

On and on and on, millimeter by fucking millimeter.  I would have been happy for her if I had not been in such pain.  I just wanted to get this nightmare over.  

Out of the entire ordeal, I got a bag of coffee.  A big one that used to cost eleven dollars, now twenty.  Thanks, Trump.  

It was dark.  It was late.  We'd been in the giant warehouse over an hour.

"I'm not cooking.  What do you want?"

We drove down the highway looking for takeout.  

I ended up at the grocery store.  Bought a box of fried chicken.  

Back home.  Made a salad.  Heated up a can of beans.

The whole thing sucked.  

Fuck me. . . I poured a whiskey.  I turned on the t.v.  It was late.  I went to YouTube for news.  

I gave up  on that.  

At the gym, the film professor was asking me if I'd watched this or that.  Then he told me a really bad joke about two economists that made him laugh over and over again.  Then he asked me if I had watched the guy on YouTube who destroyed things.  

"Physical things or ideas?"

"Physical things."

"No."  

He went on to tell me about this guy's show for far too long.  I realized then that you get a glimpse into someone's soul from their YouTube feed.  

"He gets like a billion views every time he posts."

YouTube never recommends such things to me.  I get feeds about the arts, music, and literature.  I get recommendations about philosophy.  Some movie things.  And. . . o.k. boxing and MMA. . . and female pole vaulters.  

Yea. . . a glimpse into the soul. 

I forget that I am paying for a subscription to HBO, but I remembered last night and checked to see what I had been missing.  A Nikki Glaser special popped up--"Someday You'll Die."  2024.  Hadn't I already seen this?  I put it on.  Didn't seem familiar.  So. . . holy shit.  Have you seen this?  It is exactly how I feel about youth and aging and death (link).  

My mother didn't seem to be paying attention, but toward the end, she said, "This woman is horrible."

"Really?  I think she's great."

My mother and I are far apart on what we like.  

When it was over, HBO suggested "The Substance."  I hadn't really been interested in seeing this film, but the film prof and his wife told me to watch half of it and turn it off.  So I did.  

It was a stupid movie with a lot of T&A.  I liked that part, but the movie dragged.  I think the director was too influenced by the pacing of Kubrick's "2001."  I mean it was slow and hollow and fluorescent.  

I took a Tylenol and an Advil PM and went to bed just before ten.  I was hurting.  I was beat.  

I woke up an hour later.  I was puking into my mouth.  I caught it in time so that it didn't come up through my nose.  I little burning in the throat, but not that hours of burning in the nasal cavity.  

The dreams that followed. . . I was dreaming about writing in the morning about the dream.  It seemed so profound.  

And I dreamed I was having such an incredible night's sleep.  

If Ingres, Botticelli, and Messima were one painter. . . .  I've created some wonderful templates in Chat.  I just hate that it won't let me use them the way I wish.  

My mother is up and walking without a walker today.  She wanders around now banging into things, banging cabinets, making noise.  What can I say?  Hillbilly determination and good home care.  I am not as mean to her in life as I am here on the blog.  

I somehow made a little video, "Hopper Creeper #2," that I am not certain I can put on YouTube.  I don't want to get banned.  They, too, are Nazi's about content.  So. . . this is just for the perverted few of you who come to read about "Last Night This Morning."  

That was one idea I had for a blog title.  Hmmm.