Bad Start to the End of the Year

Habits are hard to break.  Breaking with several at the same time is terrible.  Confusing.  I began my Dry January yesterday.  It seemed a dumb affair from the start.  Doomed.  It is a mental thing that requires unwavering discipline.  Given my life circumstances at the moment. . . . 

I'm also trying to give up the gym, at least for Dry January.  You would think that would be easy.  Rather, I am adopting a calisthenic routine.  There is an outdoor gym in a park nearby.  There is the sound of birds and plenty of sunshine, but it lacks society.  I mean, when I go to the Club Y, I have social interaction.  There are the gymroids, of course, but there is a host of secondary players, too.  It is fun to be among the amiable.  

On the very first day of calisthenics, however, I was doing some bending toe touch things and my inner ear went berserk.  I haven't recovered.  If I move wrong or roll over in bed at night, I get the spins.  I thought it would go away, thought that the the crystal would find its way home, but it hasn't happened yet.  I am walking on a stormy ocean, my body incorrectly interpreting gravity.

And so, writing here in a new, more interesting way is impossible today.  I can only write my complaint, as dull as ever.  

After Christmas, my mother has taken a mental turn for the worse.  She is more confused, more forgetful, and more difficult.  Her mind is slipping, but her body won't quit.  

If my mother had a gas stove, I'd be tempted to turn it on without the flame and sit with her as we both entered the eternal ether.  

I remember once telling a class that Sylvia Plath committed suicide by placing her head in the oven.  The kids were squirming and one boy spoke up.  

"Jesus. . . how could she stand it?  That must have hurt!"

I realized then that they were thinking of their own electric ovens.  Ho!  Yea. . . that would hurt.  

Virginia Woolf filled the pockets of her coat with rocks before entering the river.

Such things.  

But that photograph. . . oh, that gives me pleasure.  Late December on the Boulevard.  Tank tops, shorts, and shopping.  I love the blur, and I would shoot everything on a slow shutter if I didn't feel it would become too redundant.  But I do love the impressionism of the thing.  

The joy of being a flaneur.  And a voyeur, too.  I will have cards made u[ that I can pass out to people who query.

"What are you doing?"

I have fallen in love all over again with my newest, nearly silent Leica--on burst mode.  It is a new world.  But last night, I dreamed of that Big Assed Black Cat Liberator Aero Ektar.  I will load it into the car and make some pictures with it again.  I have two friends, twin brothers, who have lived together their entire lives.  I have never photographed the two of them together before.  It is difficult to photograph friends, I find.  Too much fear of failure.  But what an opportunity I am passing on, I think.  Maybe I will try.

Dilemma.  

I can barely function with this dizziness right now.  It is awful and makes me want to go back to bed.  There is a thing called the Epley Maneuver that you can do to try to move the crystal back into place, but you need to know if the ear affected is the left or right.  I am hoping that things just straighten out on their own.  If they don't, though. . . . 

Isn't it ironic?  I mean, this happens on the first day of Dry January.  I'll be fine, though, without the liquor.  But it isn't fun.  It is almost impossible to feel distinguished or dapper or elegant without a cocktail glass in hand, isn't it?  Rather, one feels like a preacher at a New Year's Eve party, a stick in the mud, someone whose sole quality is Puritanical.  I much prefer Nick Charles, "The Thin Man."  Nick and Nora knew how to live (on her money).  Rather, I feel like a man in a stiff black coat preaching against the sin of pleasure.  Health is one thing, but elegance is another.  

Still, it is hard to be an elegant fat man.  Yes, there is that.  He wasn't called "The Thin Man" for nothing.  I will drink again once I am svelte.  O.K.  Maybe not svelte, but not the waddling messy mass of a lump I am right now.  

Here's to having a figure!