Portrait of a Worker as an Old Man

I couldn't sleep last night, couldn't breathe.  I woke over and over and over again choking, gagging.  Phlegm from my sinuses.  It was maddening.  So much for the dignity of work.  

Yea. . . I worked.  I had to.  After the reconstruction in the kitchen, things were a mess.  I got scrub brushes, sponges, mops, and rags.  I filled a pan with water and TSP (trisodium phosphate), something that cleans almost anything.  I scrubbed the ceiling.  My broken body was not a fan.  I stood on a ladder, reaching with my left hand above my head without an AC joint, holding on to anything I could for balance.  But it had to be done.  I scrubbed the ceiling, emptying and refilling the pan as it became mud.  I scrubbed and then rinsed the entire thing, and then I dried it with towels.  Then I did the walls and cabinets.  Same thing.  And then the floor.  I did, however, feel a bit heroic.  Cleaning the kitchen took hours.  I had emptied the kitchen counters of all things, so when I was finished, the kitchen looked new.  But I realized that the floor planks which had warped from water leaks was coming apart.  I had sanded the floors, painted them, and then polyurethaned them 28 years ago.  Had it really been so long ago?  Something will need to be done.  

Later.  

When the kitchen was finished, I had a decision to make.  The carpenter had called to tell me he was sick and wouldn't be working for a couple days, but. . . he wanted his money.  Many thousands of dollars of money.  He also told me that the new siding needed to be painted with a cement sealer.  He gave me instructions on how to do that.  It was midafternoon when I finished the kitchen and I was pooped.  I needed to get the renovation permit for the coming tankless water heater notarized and emailed back to the company doing the installation.  I also needed to stop by an orthopedic group to see about getting my mother an appointment.  

So I paused and I thought.  It was 95 degrees outside.  Still. . . the siding.  I decided to finish the work.  

It didn't take so very long, nothing like cleaning the kitchen.  It had been a productive day, but I knew I would pay for it.  All the bending and twisting and working overhead would have bones and muscles barking that night.  

And sure enough, after showering and dressing and printing out the permit, walking seemed a chore.  

But that is not why I couldn't sleep.  Phlegm clogged my throat.  Surely it was from cleaning the kitchen or perhaps working with the cement sealer.  Whatever. . . I don't find such work so very heroic.  It is the stuff that kills you, I think.  

I will struggle today.  I must tote my mother around to doctors and labs after I put my kitchen back together.  

After all the work, clean as a bean, permit notarized, and being just a block from the Boulevard, I decided to pop into what had become my favorite bar to get a Negroni.  They make a great Negroni there.  I think it is the smoked orange peel that does it.  

The bar was open, but nobody was around.  One fellow sat at the bar eating.  Two bartenders were standing in the back talking to a waitress.  I stood for a bit but no one paid attention to me, so I walked over to ask if they were serving outside.  

"Yes, I'll send a waitress out."

"Send her with a Negroni if you will."

I plopped down into the very comfortable low seating and waited.  And waited.  And waited a bit longer, but no waitress came out.  Perhaps they didn't like my look, I thought.  Maybe they don't serve hippies.  No matter.  It was a bad idea to begin with, sitting alone at a sidewalk table sipping a small, $15 Negroni.  

I walked back to the car.  

That's just the way my life goes now.  It just is.  

So I shopped for groceries and went back to my mother's.  I opened a beer and turned on the news.  Oh, my!  Virginia Giuffre’s mother is up in arms over the Epstein Files, and all I can wonder is how anyone can take her seriously.  I mean. . . where was good old mom when her "child" was on the "Lolita Express"?  At the time this took place, Virginia would have been charged with prostitution even as a minor, not lauded as a victim.  

I understand.  The past was bad.  We are better now.  Still. . . where was good, concerned mother?  

But man. . . this stuff draws a greater audience than the Magruder Files and the Kennedy Assassination Files combined.  

Someone sent me a song yesterday saying, "This should be your theme song."  Yea, yea. . . it might be accurate.  

"Ooh Woo, I'm a rebel just for kicks now."

 

The Dixian Life

I watched a documentary on Otto Dix last night (link). I've linked it, but I am not recommending it for 1) he is not everyone's "cup of tea," and 2) it really isn't a great documentary. It does have its moments, though.

This came after a horrific day of carting my mother from pillar to post.  I figure I am now working 21 eight hour shifts a week.  

"I'm melting!"

We went to her primary care doctor.  She is nobody's favorite doctor, but she is "what we got."  

My mother needed her walker, so I packed it into the car.  Still, she was barely able to make the voyage from the front of the large medical building to the elevator.  We managed, then sat in the doctor's waiting room until she was called.  Since she is now soooo slow in movement, I stayed seated as she made her tortoise way to the door.  She turned to me and barked, "Let's go!"  She is completely dependent now.  She isn't going to try to deal with anything on her own.  

She was weighed.  Her blood pressure was measured.  It was, of course, high.  We sat for an hour in the little examination room waiting for the doctor.  When she finally arrived, she asked my mother how she was doing.  

"What?" 

"How are you doing?"

"I can't hear you."

The doc was wearing a Covid mask, so my mother couldn't see her lips.  I answered for her.  After that, my mother didn't try to respond.  The doctor directed all her questions to me.  When she asked for blood tests, I said that they had almost drained my mother of blood in the hospital and that she should have access to all those records.  She left to get them.  

Half an hour later, she was back.  

Skip ahead.  She wrote my mother prescriptions for Percocet and a blood pressure medicine.  My mother needed to get an appointment with the cardiologist fast.  She ordered a brain MRI, with dye and without it.  She ordered another blood test that could only be done at the Quest location because the sample had to be frozen.  I needed to make an appointment with a back specialist.  

We stopped at the cardiologist's office.  I take my mother for an appointment tomorrow afternoon.  We drove to the drugstore, but the prescription wasn't ready.  We got takeout from McDonalds and came back to her house.  I began calling offices.  I called the ENT docs to get an audiology appointment.  My mother finally admits she can't hear.  

"Thank god you were there."

Yea.  

I got a receptionist on the phone who barely spoke English.  I had a difficult time getting her to understand why I was calling.  Finally, she tried to contact the audiologist, but the audiologist wasn't in.  The receptionist would have to call me back.  

I called around to different places to schedule an MRI.  Three or four calls before I found a place.  They wanted a lot of info over the phone.  First, of course, was what insurance my mother had.  I asked my mother for her Medicare card and she threw her hands in the air, flustered.  The call was long but finally settled.  I take my mother Tuesday afternoon.

It was three.  I told my mother I needed to go to my house.  First, I needed to go to the gym.  Absolutely.  I did a brief workout and then went home to get a package that had been sitting on the doorstep.  Traffic was building.  The carpenter had not done much work, apparently.  I still needed to wash down the kitchen with TSP, then a clear water rinse.  But that wasn't happening today.  I needed to do that, though, and put all the boxes of things sitting in the dining room and living room back into the pantry before Tuesday.  The coating on the shelves still needed a few days to dry.  I must paint the siding the carpenter has put up before the plumber comes to put in the tankless water heater.  The entire house needs painting, too, but that isn't immediate.  The carpenter didn't seem to want to be the one to do it.  

"It's a lot of prep work," he said.  I don't think I can afford him.  

I showered, dressed, and headed back out into the afterwork traffic.  I had several stops to make.  Traffic was at a standstill.  I got groceries.  I got the drugs.  

Back to my mother's house.  Unload the car.  I have to carry two bags back and forth to my house to have what I need.  Groceries.  I sat down and drank a light beer.  I had asked my mother if she wanted salmon patties for dinner that morning.  That sounded like a good partner with the asparagus in the fridge.  It is one of the things she makes for me that is tasty.  She said she would walk me through it.  

Now, however, it seemed she had never made them before.  She couldn't really answer my questions.  I broke crackers.  Added an egg.  Added the canned sockeye salmon.  I mixed them.  They were pretty wet, so I added more crushed crackers.  Asparagus steaming, I put oil into the big pan and let it get hot.  Three salmon patties.  I had no idea how long to cook them.  I probably made the patties too thick.  They burned a bit.  

My mother barely ate.  I poured a drink and watched the news.  I would clean up later.  My mother sat at the table looking again and again at the pill bottles, turning them, reading them.  I put on the Otto Dix doc.  It seemed to me he had one of the best visions of existence I'd seen.  I've liked Dix' work.  I love going to the Neue Gallerie in NYC.  It is one of my favorites.  Dix' work has been prominently featured there along with so many other master artists from Germany in that era.  I love eating at the Cafe Sabasrky for Sunday brunch.  I love buying books and trinkets from the gift shop.  But tonight, I felt I was living in a Dix painting.  Dix said that photography couldn't capture reality as could painting.  Maybe he would feel differently today.  Photography isn't just photography any longer.  You can do anything with a "photograph" now.  They are must pictures.  

I looked through old emails.  2013.  Here was one that felt like Dix.  I could make many more.  

My mother went to bed early.  My t.v. algorithms suggested a show, "Modern Love."  I watched two episodes and went to bed.  

My mother was up and down all night.  She makes noises that wake me.  She moans loudly.  I am becoming a zombie.  

The carpenter called this morning before seven.  I had not gotten out of bed.  My phone was apparently on silent.  He texted me.  "Call."  I did, but got no answer.  My neighbor texted me, the one who recommended the carpenter.  He said Bob was sick and wouldn't be able to work today.  Later, the carpenter called.  He couldn't work, but he wanted his money today.  

I have much to do.  I need to print out a City Permit for the gas heater, sign it with a notary, scan it, and email it back.  I must wash down the kitchen today.  I need to paint some kind of coating onto the new siding.  The wooden deck has not been painted since last spring and is beginning to crack in the heat.  I must get that scrubbed, pressure washed, and painted soon.  I need to call some roofers.  

Autopilot.  That's all I have.  

"I'm melting."

Pops

This is one of the NYC street photos in my files.  I just selected it at random.  It is an unusual street photo, I think, in its proximity to the subject.  It is more portrait than street.  And I have tons of them.  They are very impressive printed large--32"x24".  I can envision a gallery full of them, huge portraits of strangers walking by.  I find the unengaged human face fascinating.  I was influenced by Mark Cohen I am sure, but he was more aggressive in his photos as he often used a flash.  I didn't disturb the subject in any way, so all the faces are lost in thoughts. . . of what, we'll never know.  

Yesterday, I met a real character.  I had to go to the paint store to buy the little liners for the paint tray.  When I walked in, there was man in a tank top waiting for his paint to be mixed.  I joked with the guy behind the counter that I should have bought two of the liners yesterday.  The man in the tank top said, "They come in handy."  

I smiled. 

He was a thick boned guy, thick all over.  He was broad in the shoulders slathered in mature fat that hid what was an obvious physical power.  He looked at me out of the corners of his small eyes made smaller by squinting and the thickness of his skull.  His head bobbed and weaved as he spoke through thin, tight lips that curled in a provocative smile.  He was eyeing me up, being friendly in a way I was familiar with from growing up in a bad neighborhood with some very brutal people.  He was the kind of guy who would walk into a bar in Texas saying "steers and queers" for the hell of it.  

I smiled.  

"Yesterday I watched a young guy hitting the bag in his backyard.  I noticed he kept dropping his right hand.  He looked at me and asked me if I wanted to spar and I said sure.  When he dropped his right, I caught him good and set him back about four feet on his ass."

He said all this like he was telling me what he had for breakfast.  But when he illustrated throwing his punch, I noticed he bent his knees a came up with a twist of the hips.  Yea, he knew how to throw a punch.  

"Wow.  Gloves or were you just bare knuckles?"

"Just these," he said making a fist.  "I asked the kid how he liked getting knocked down by an eighty year old."

"Impressive.  Were you a fighter?"

"I fought Golden Gloves when I was at Ohio State.  I lost to this big black guy, Cleveland Williams.  He was taller than me and I thought I could go under him, but he caught me and won the fight."

"Cleveland 'Big Cat' Williams?!?"

That seemed to irritate him a bit . 

"No, Cleveland Williams.  We went out and had some beers after that.  He was a good guy.  The next time we fought, I beat him."

"That accent doesn't sound like Ohio."

"I grew up in Cincinnati."

"Sounds more like Kentucky, maybe."

"I was born in Kentucky." 

"That's some pretty bad boys down there."

"There's bad boys everywhere," he said.  

"Yea, but I have some cousins from Kentucky meaner than hell.  If there is nobody else around to fight, they fight each other."

"I went down to Looavul--Looavul, not Louisville, with a friend of mine.  We walked into the bar and he said straight off, 'You know the difference between a pretty woman and an ugly woman?  There ain't nothing but ugly women here.'  And the fight broke out.  And when it was over, we all sat down to drink together and everyone was friends."

"My uncle was a boxing promoter in Dayton."  

He nodded and was quiet for a minute.  Then he said, "I was signed up for the Marines.  When I went down to Paris Island for training, I got drunk the night before and shot somebody.  I did five years for that," he said looking at me out of the corners of his slitted eyes.  "I was in the prison in Huntsville, Texas.  That was a very rough place.  Somebody dies there every day, but you never hear about it."

"I guess you tough in there," I said.  We were outside now and he was getting into his van with the painted advertising on the side.  He was an eighty year old ex-boxer, ex-con bad boy still working hard for a living.  And I believed what he said.  He could still knock a man out.  There were some twisted genes in there somewhere that made him what he was.  

I held out my hand and said, "My name's C.S."

He took it without much enthusiasm and said, "I'm Pops."  

"Maybe I'll see you around. . . ."  

He was the kind of guy I was familiar with growing up,  a guy always looking for trouble, and he knew how to find it.  

I take my mom to the doctor this morning.  God knows what will happen there.  It is with her primary care physician, and the two of them do not get along very well.  I'll have my work cut out for me, I'm sure.  The carpenter is continuing his work today. The price is rising.  He put back the washer and dryer in the little cubby and I painted the shelves, but that is all I could manage.  My nerves are bad now, and when I asked him how much he would charge to paint the house, he kind of winced and said. . . "It would be a lot.  There is a lot of prep work to do."  He wasn't encouraging.  I may have to do it myself, and I can, but climbing a ladder to paint the second floor apartment scares me now.  That's a horrible admission, but I'm already broken badly.  I don't like ladders in the first place.  Thinking about all the work I have to do on this old wooden house put me over.  I did what I could do and collapsed.  

Still, I had to make dinner for mom.  She didn't eat much.  She went to bed early, then, a bit later, so did I.  

I'm trying to calm my nerves, trying to find something to give me peace.  Debussy on guitar seems to help a bit.  

Is Painting a Room a Reprieve?

I don't know if my mother is regretting her decision not to go to a rehab hospital yet.  Anyone who calls or stops by and asks how she is doing gets the same reply--"Oh, honey. . . I'm not doing well at all."  She sits in a chair or wanders a few feet with the walker.  She moans.  She can no longer remember what meds she is taking.  Her blood pressure remains way too high.  She barely eats.  I sit with her, but there is nothing I can do except go down with her.  

And I am.  

Yesterday I had to leave to work at my house.  First, however, I went to the gym.  I didn't feel well at all, and the least exertion had me sweating bullets.  Sick sweat.  People were friendly and stopped to chat.  They always asked about my mother.  I kept working and sweating and chatting, and by the end of a what took longer than normal workout, I was feeling better.  I had a bottle of water in the car and drank it down.  I went to the house to paint.  

It was hard painting in that little cubby of a pantry.  I had to squat with bad knees, bend with a bad back, twist and reach with a terribly broken thorax.  Thorax?!

Whatever. 

Several times I thought about stopping before I finished.  And then I didn't, and then it was done.  I felt a hundred times better.  I drank more water.  I had been feeling so badly, I hadn't eaten all day.  It was o.k.  I washed out the brush and the roller, two things I usually don't do.  Rather, I'll stick them in a bucket of water and let them sit there forever.  But no, I cleaned them well and will reuse them today.  

I showered.  I washed my hair, gave it good conditioning, brushed my teeth with my power brusher, creamed my face with my beauty unguents, conditioned my skin. . . you know, things one can do at home.  

It seemed the sickness had left me.  I went to my computer and looked at a folder I put together what seems a lifetime ago for my proposed website.  It was the NYC folder.  "Fabulous," I thought.  Would anyone else?  There are so very many good ones. . . I need to work on it.  

Then it was time to do a grocery run and get back to my mother's house.  It would be a vegetarian meal with tofu.  I had brought my big Dutch Oven from my house so that I could actually cook well.  My mother's cookware is not to be recommended.  

When I got to her house, she was sitting in a chair with the heating vibrator pad she has spent most of the last year on.  I made the several trips from the car to the house carrying the goods.  I sat down to talk with her, but she couldn't hear me.  I tipped one of her light beers and put the brown jasmine rice to cooking.  Then I began chopping the vegetables--carrots, broccoli, potatoes, mushrooms, onion, pablamo pepper. . . . 

I dried the feta and cut it into slices and put it into a pan on medium heat to sear a bit.  Teriyaki.  Then I added garbanzo beans.  In a bit, after seasoning, I dropped in the vegetables.  The rice cooker popped.  I put spinach into the vegetable mix.  Holy smokes, the colors were beautiful.  

I'd made too much, as usual.  When I dished it for my mother, she said she couldn't eat all of it.  

There was a knock at the door.  The neighbor lady came to visit.  She sat at the table while we ate.  

My mother complained.  Her head hung down.  The neighbor looked at me with meaningful eyes.  Yea, yea. . . what can I do.  

"If you need anything. . . ."

And of course, "You need to take care of yourself, too."  

When the neighbor left and dinner was finished, it was 6:30.  We watched the Evening News.  

My mother needed something from the drugstore.  It was seven and not near dark.  I haven't been out at seven for. . . ?  It felt liberating.  I just wanted to keep driving.  Go to a cafe.  Drink with pretty women.  Anything.  

Back home, I cleaned the kitchen and sat down with a glass.  I searched Amazon Prime for "South Park."  I pulled up the latest episode, the now infamous tiny dick Trump episode.  It was on Paramount.  Somehow, I was able to watch it.  Do I have a subscription?  I must.  

"What in the world is that?" my mother asked.  She'd never seen anything like this before.  

Even for me, the episode was shocking.  Those boys have big cojones, I think.  But they nailed it, nailed the whole State of the Union.  We are a nation of bullied cowards now.  Everyone looks over their shoulder.  Everyone thinks twice.  

Google's got their eyes on me.  I wonder who else?  

I need to make that website, but I have so much to do.  Today the carpenter will be back to finish up his work, I think.  Then mine begins.  I will see if he wants to do more.  

It's only money 😧.  

My mother moves around slowly, moaning, not speaking now.  I don't know what she thinks she is accomplishing by sitting in her home suffering.  She will have to sit alone all day again today until I get back sometime this afternoon.  For all the good that yesterday did, I feel I am back in the same place.  The sickness returns.  

But the veggie meal was good and cleansing, and there is enough left over that I can heat it up and cook a bit of cod or haddock to go with it tonight.  

And so, my blog continues to spiral into the void.  It can't be helped.  There is nothing to do about it.  

I think I REALLY need a massage.  No. . . a spa day.  I need to be pampered for awhile.  

Ibid

Spent Sunday morning in the E.R.  Same thing.  The E.R. is not a care center.  They treat the issue and get you out.  This time, they just gave her morphine as a shot in the arm.  Didn't have the same effect, so they gave her a shot of something else in the other arm.  Blood pressure stayed high.  The doctor was a smart ass and liked to ask gotcha questions.  He talked to me like I was a student who hadn't done his homework.  

"What's causing her blood pressure to be elevated?" he asked me in the smarmy tone of someone needing to be superior.  It didn't matter. 

"You want me to say pain."

"Right.  It's a shock to the system, so. . . . "

He gave her the option of going to a rehab hospital.  

"No.  I'm not going.  I have two friends who went and they said they'd never go back.  One of them got MERSA while she was there.  The other one wanted to leave it was so bad, but they wouldn't let her check herself out."

So. . . he gave her a prescription for a stronger pain med and said so long.  

She seems to be managing the pain so far.  

Me?  I'm not doing so well.  I think I am having panic attacks.  I feel very, very sick.  I'm weak and shaky and can't really focus my thoughts.  I wake in the night with horrible fear.  I can feel my body breaking down.  

But the number of things I need to do keeps mounting.  I absolutely have to paint the kitchen cubby today.  There is so much more that needs to be done around the house.  I am not the man for the job, however, and the bank account is shrinking rapidly.  

I never go for massages.  I've had maybe three in my life.  I think, though, that maybe a little human touch might help to settle me down.  I need to relax, that's certain, but I can't keep taking pills.  The cumulative effect is getting to be too much.  The same with whiskey.  I'm going to have to give it up.  

But the clock is winding down no matter.  

Sometimes music helps.  

The Broken Road of Life

I was right.  Pictures cause me trouble.  Yesterday's picture got the Google po-po looking at me again.  

My buddy, the detective novel writer, stopped by my house yesterday while I was there with the workers.  He's a friendly guy and I like him a bunch.  Long ago, I produced an award winning documentary that featured him as the primary informant voice.  Little Q directed the hour long project.  I've known the guy to some degree for a mighty long time.  

"What's your email address.  I want to send you something."

I wondered what it could be since we were standing eyeball to eyeball and he was telling me nothing.  He writes columns for magazines, too, mostly about food and wine, so I figured it would somehow be connected to that.  

Later in the day, I got the email.  It was an invitation to his Substack page.  It invited me to like and subscribe.  I could read for free, it said, but. . . . 

A fellow's got to make money, I guess, but I was a little. . . I don't know.  He could have just said give me four dollars a month or something when we were talking.  

Substack is huge.  Many of the good writers of the day now have Substack pages.  I read some excellent writing there.  Some of it mine.  But given what has been happening in my life this year, I've not really had the time to keep posting.  If I get cancelled here, though, that is where I will go.  I actually have readers there who have offered me subscription money to "keep me writing."  I have been, however, reticent to take it.  Unless I know I can sustain the thing, I feel I'd be defrauding them.  

I'm that kind of guy.  

But there is not censorship on the Substack site.  My god. . . you can't believe some of the things I have seen there.  I guess they have algorithms, too.  

Substack is only going to get bigger.  Trust me.  

My life is not getting any better.  I am taking my mother back to the E.R. this morning.  She's in terrible pain.  She can't sleep.  She needs relief.  I tell her that the E.R. is going to do the same thing they did last time.  They will get her blood pressure down and give her morphine which will alleviate the pain for a bit, then they will give her the option of going to a rehab facility or going home and dealing with things on her own.  

So one more cup of coffee, and then I'll spend the day in an E.R. room again.  

Yesterday, I washed down the floor and walls in the little cubby in the kitchen that holds the washer and dryer.  It was hotter than hell in there with the a.c. off.  I went to the paint store and for once the grumpy guy who works there was nice to me.  He helped me out, told me stories, said it was nice to see me.  He must have started taking meds.  The carpenter had a helper and got a lot of work done.  He is going to come back today to get more of the outside of the house closed up.  I was going to paint the walls so we could move the washer and dryer back in.  

That ain't going to happen.  It is depressing.  I am not able to sleep with my mother roaming the halls all night long.  I am feeling very ill now.  My body is buzzing with fatigue and unhappiness.  But I'll have to get used to it, for it looks like this thing is going to play out for a long, long time.  Backs are not something easily fixed.  If they could fix backs, a lot of players would still be in the NBA.  But my mother has to get some relief.  Her misery is terrible.  

And so, what I had planned to write today will have to wait.  As soon as she is ready, we will away.  

Naked and Afraid

Back when I was in the classroom, I would wonder aloud if people were happier now than in the past.  The answers always surprised me.  Now, however, I wonder myself.  How does one measure happiness?  Somebody seems to do it.  I read every year about the "Happiest Country" or "Happiest Places" in the world.  Surprising to me is that Finland is always high on the list.  I watched a 60 Minutes episode many, many years ago about the Finns.  Apparently, their language does not inspire jokes.  There are really, it seemed, no jokes in Finland.  If all of this reporting is accurate, then jokes may not make us happy.  

What does?  

I'm guessing that maybe it is, in the footsteps of Einstein, relative.  

I have enjoyed camping in my life.  In the wilderness.  I would not enjoy camping, however, on a resort island next to the Four Seasons Hotel.  The joy camping brings to me, I guess, is relative.  

For the majority of my adult life, I have held fast to the belief that you learn nothing from "happy."  "Happy" is a mindless state.  There were states of being that encompassed far more profundity than happiness.  

So I have come back to the old question, "are we happier now than were people in the past?"

Everywhere I look, I see images of "happiness."  Social media, of course.  Everyone, it seems, is eating at a fabulous restaurant with beautiful friends or are sailing on huge yachts in Miami drinking champagne and laughing with skinny girls in barely bikinis.  Everyone seems ecstatic.  

Even watching television at my mother's house, people with every known disease to man from erectile disfunction to liver disease are enjoying dinners, playing golf, romping with the grandkids, because they are taking some pharmaceutical concoction.  I watch and think I should get a disease so that I can be happy, too.  

So, in the past, in a time before photography, before media other than newspapers sold on street corners, or, perhaps, longer ago, when word of the world was carried by mouth. . . were people happier?  

I've often complained here about all one is expected to do in a day to have a long and healthy life.  I've been thinking about my old heroes lately, and the way they lived.  The famous explorer, Sir Richard Burton, for instance.  When he went into the blank sections of the map on the African continent, did he tale along everything he needed for a long and happy life?  Did he follow a healthy diet, make sure he did his stretching and got in his steps?  Did he get enough fermented food?  

I don't think so.  Deprivation was more the rule.  

He died at the age of 69.  

Hemingway, of course, didn't make it so long.  But he wasn't happy.  Neither was Burton at the end of his life.  

I think my parent's generation was more content than happy, but I can't decipher the correlation between the two, really.  They are both abstract concepts to me.  

Were Boomers a Happy Generation?  Gen Z is supposedly not.  I remember lecturing about Gen X, having fallen upon the idea early on on my own that, being the first generation in America who would do worse economically than their parents, they had donned the garb of prisoners--sheared locks and baggy, chain gang pants and decorative chains.  Even band names--Alice In Chains. 

Millenials are now the new Boomers.  They are getting richer and will be the target of Gen Z's ire.  Millenials will be cock blocking Z from all the good things in life.  

I, personally, don't believer in "generations."  It is a form of intellectual capitalism as far as I am concerned, serving the needs of inferior minds for pat generalizations.  

Still. . . who is happier?  

It is relative, I think.  

I am wrestling with the problem just now.  Would it be possible for my mother to be happy now?  I am suddenly in favor of happiness over any sort of profundity.  Is there a path for me to happiness now?  If so. . . what is it?  Where is it?  

Are the residents of retirement communities like The Villages happier for being there?  Would my mother be happier around people who cannot hear well, cannot see, people who are not ambulatory?  

Maybe.  I think it is relative.  

Thank you Mr. Einstein.  

I believe that most people I know now are happier than I.  There are many factors.  

"Money will never make you happy," the old saw goes.  And then there is Marx, not Karl, who said, "and happy will never make you money."  Are poor people happy?  Are rich people happier?  

I DO think my mother would feel better in a room full of people who suffer equal maladies.  Right now she is camping in a little tent on the beach among the sand flies next to the Four Seasons Hotel.  

I had one moment of. . . of what?  Levity?  Is that akin to happy?  Well, I laughed for a few moments.  I watched a comedy special that someone I will not name for fear of implicating him sent to me with the note, "I think you'll enjoy this."

I'm often skeptical.  But right now, I am fairly desperate, so I clicked on the trailer.  H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T!  You click on it, too.  You'll know right away if you want to watch this thing or not.  I did.  I laughed a lot.  I think I wrote about 80% of his jokes.  The glee it brought me, I'm certain, is not for most people.  I'm sure he is hated and reviled.  

Again. . . relative.  

I guess.  

Better Off Skipping This

I may have to just forego photos on this blog until and if I can ever begin making them again.  I've nothing but old photos now, most of which would only bring me trouble.  So it seems.  

I may have to forego the writing on this blog until and if I can ever begin living again.  I've nothing but complaints and miseries now.  So it seems.  

I can always opine, though.  But I am weary of that, too.  

I am eschewing friends now.  There is nothing they can do for me.  

"I feel sorry for your mother."

"Tell your mother you are going to rehab."

"Your mother brought you into the world.  Now she is going to take you out of it."

I went to my house for a minute yesterday.  That just about undid me.  It is a mess.  I need to start cleaning and painting the reconstruction and putting all the things I've taken from the kitchen back in.  My house is small.  It doesn't take much of a mess for me to realize this.  The carpenter is supposedly coming today to work on the exterior.  He has his own problems, and his problems become my problems, too.  

My mother made a bad decision in not to go the rehab place.  There she would have had medical attention and physical therapy.  Here, she has me who can do neither of those things for her.  I can be and am a personal valet. I spent half of yesterday driving her around to banks and to pick up her new eyeglasses.  

I managed to get away for a minute.  I went to lunch at a Michelin noodle restaurant.  It did me no good, though.  I sat alone at a table and was ignored by the pretty Asian waitress who actually seemed disdainful.  

As I write, the carpenter sends me pictures of the work he is doing this morning.  It doesn't look good.  My mother is doing badly right now and I need to set up some medical appointments, so I can't get over to talk to him for a bit.  

My stress level is too high for me to be really functional.  Yes. . . that is it.  I am not really functional right now.  I'm in a simple existence mode.  Basic things are difficult.  My body aches.  Maybe I'm sick. . . or worse.  

My friend from Yosemite is in town just now.  He called and left a message.  He wants to get together, take a hike, have dinner.  I haven't the energy for that right now.  I don't have the energy to call him back.  

There was a time when I dreamed of sailing a boat alone around the world.  It's a good thing it was a dream.  At the first real trouble, I'd have gone catatonic.  

My mountain friend is different.  "The worse, the better," I use to say was his motto when we were climbing.  "You like doing this shit.  I like having done it."  

It's true.  I like the effect more than the process.  

Just as I write that, my phone rings.  It is him.  I don't answer.  I can't.  

Tennessee has called three times.  I've not returned them.  

Mr. Tree keeps texting me that he can come meet me.  Why?  I don't reply.  

Other's are full of questions.  I haven't the energy.  

My mother's phone is full of voicemails.  She doesn't know how to retrieve them any longer.  I play them.  Many are from the hospital following up on her care.  She doesn't wish to respond.  

I don't sleep.  I lie in bed and think about what I am dreaming.  It is the strangest thing.  I go under for a moment then rise back to the surface.  It isn't sleep.  I don't know what it is.  

Just now, I have invitations to go out.  Isn't that ironic?  I don't respond.  

There is a look in my mother's eyes that I am avoiding.  I want to say, "What makes you think you will die before me?"  And it is true.  The doctor said she is in good health otherwise.  Her major organs are strong.  She can't see or hear or think well now, but heart and liver and kidneys are still kicking. This painful existence could continue for another decade.  

I feel my own health failing.  My system is breaking down.  How long do I wait?  

That's it.  That's what I have this morning.  I won't bother you with this shit anymore, either.  There is nothing anyone can do at this point other than give platitudinous offerings.  It is wrong of me to put people in that position.  

And so. . . you'll hear from me when I have something other than this.  There are lots of good blog posts from the past.  I go back and read them sometimes.  I can be funny.  I can be wry.  Sometimes, I think, I am even insightful.  

But not today.  And so, as the saying goes. . . until then. 

Tales Best Untold

Trump has ruined everything. . . unless you like him.  For you, then, Trump has made things better.  

But I'll get to that. . . maybe.  No promises. 

I spent just shy of eight hours in the Emergency Room yesterday with my mother.  It was unnecessary.  They did a CT scan, took blood and urine samples, and had the results.  But my mother's blood pressure was elevated.  So we waited. . . and waited.  I don't usually show my irritation in these situations for I know that is counterproductive.  Most times.  But I had been sitting in a cafeteria chair or pacing four steps back and forth across the floor of the very small room.  My mother had a set of rotating nurses, each with a different story on what was going on.  We saw the doc at 9:30.  By four, I was losing my mind.  There were three stories floating around.  One was that they were keeping my mother overnight for observation.  Another was that they were going to place her in a rehab facility.  Yet another said that she was going to be discharged.  Having not seen the doc, we had no idea what the CT scan or the blood and urine tests revealed.  

This hospital group is big on satisfaction surveys.  I know this having spent most of the past seven months in them with my mother.  They send multiple people around the rooms to ask how the patient's experience was.  When one showed up in the ER room, I tried to hold back my anger, but my answers were not very flattering.  

And within moments, the doc showed up.  He was a peppy little guy.  He was having a good day, or so it would seem.  He ran through the options with my mother.  When my mother finally heard that one was going to a facility, she nutted up.  Nope.  She would not go.  She'd rather have me take care of her.  

24/7.  

That is not what she said, though.  She could take care of herself.  She knew a woman from her church who couldn't walk, so her husband put up railing all around the house so she could hold onto it.  She could only use one hand.  When he died, she stayed on her own, pulling herself around the house with one hand alone.  

Hence. . . my mother could take care of herself.  

So when we got home, I went to the grocers and bought the makings of the evening meal.  Then I prepared it.  Then I cleaned up.  My mother took care of everything else sitting in a chair talking on the phone.  

See?  A person can do anything they want to if they just have the mindset.  

I'm done with that.  My mother had broken no bones.  The cemented vertebrae were fine.  She needs to see doctors for her blood pressure and everything else.  She can no longer drive, so. . . .  

I've been driving her car.  It is too difficult for her to get in and out of my Xterra.  The car is a Corolla.  I am an old man driving a Toyota Corolla.  Sweet.  

I do like one thing, though.  Bluetooth.  Goddamn, it makes driving so much better.  Is this how people have been living?  It is another world. 

So. . . that photo at the top of the page.  It's allowed, right?  I mean, it would seem that the fellows in the bike cab are saying "yes" to having their photo taken.  Unless, you know. . . something happened and they changed their minds.  

People are photographed all day long, at least in my hometown.  There are cameras all over the Boulevard and adjacent streets "to keep you safe."  You are photographed at every convenience store, every street light. . . .  But taking photos of people can be very dangerous now.  

"And what about the children?!?!"

Oh, we should never forget about the children.  Nineteen people died including three children.  

A cop pulls over a Black Man in Jacksonville, Florida, because he doesn't have his headlights on in the rain.  The cop asks the Black Man for his driver's license but the Black Man doesn't oblige.  He rolls up his window and sits in his car ignoring the policeman's demands.  The po-po decides to break the window and punch the Black Man in the face.  He then drags him out of the car and punches him again.  

It is all on camera.  Several.  Everything gets photographed now.  But don't take pictures of people without their permission.  It can be dangerous.  Especially if you are filming a cop.  

The Community is outraged, but the D.A. decides not to press charges against the cop.  

Now we got ourselves A Failure to Communicate.  You are supposed to do what the po-po tell you to do.  

You can fall on either side of the fence on this one.  But the po-po is saying the camera doesn't reveal everything.  I think that is true.  

Were I the Black Man or The Community, I'd be asking for something, though.  How many tickets does the department and this officer in particular write for not having headlights on in the rain?  

The video doesn't seem to show rain, either.  The Black Man says it wasn't raining.  

Oh. . . the policeman was White.  

We live by the stories we tell ourselves.  My conservative friends live by different stories than my liberal friends.  Everything we know is brought to us through narrative.  We are the stories we live by.  We are the stories we tell.  

That is what I was thinking about yesterday as I sat in the confines of the tiny E.R. room.  I made my living explaining this for a long time.  Science is a story.  Mathematics is a story.  Religion is a story.  All of culture is.  Obviously, the two men in the tale above told themselves different stories about how that situation should go down.  They will end up in court where attorneys will tell stories.  Everything is a story.  

We like some stories and don't like others.  And so. . . there will be a judge and jury.  

Trump has a narrative that a majority of people like, though it is about a 50/50 split.  The thing many people like about Trump is his willingness to shut people up.  

"Don't let them tell THAT story!"

It is getting very, very scary.  Colleges, newspapers, and television networks are shutting the fuck up, at least about the things Trump doesn't like.  You may not be able to get the flu vaccine you want this fall because of the story RFK jr. likes to tell.  

Trump likes the A.I. story showing Obama being arrested, on his knees, and in a prison cell.  That is the America in which I live now.  In the story I've been telling myself, such a post could never happen.  

But what do I know?  I'm just an old guy tooling around in a Toyota Corolla.  

That's not a story I ever told myself, either.  

The sun is up now, and so is my mother.  I must go attend.  

Did I ever tell you my story of love and adventure?  No?  Oh. . . I should. . . sometime. 

It Comes Up From Behind

I should write tonight because I don't think I will be able to in the morning.  My mother has asked that I take her back to the hospital.  She is not doing well.  My house is a wreck, though my carpenter swears to me things are going well.  I don't know because I have not been there.  I've been sitting with my mother.  Today, her AC quit working.  I was, as they used to say, "beside myself."  My mother can no longer deal with the simplest task, so everything is up to me.  Luckily, within a couple hours, the repairman had come and straightened it all out.  

She sits with the blood pressure machine.  Her blood pressure is high and won't come down.  She is dizzy and is afraid to walk without the walker they gave her at the hospital.  She moans with every breath.  

So tomorrow will be another hospital day.  

"You've been going through a lot lately, haven't you?" she asked me today.  Holy shit.  

"Ya think?"  

My hair is falling out and my waist is growing exponentially because of the cortisols.  I checked my own blood pressure tonight.  It was almost as high as hers.  I haven't felt well since I began sitting in the hospital with her every day.

I won't go into it any further.  If I were a reader of this blog, I'd quit.  I'd look for some crazy, fun, 15 year old girl's blog.  But I think most have already given up here, so. . . . 

'Cause here is the truth, I swear I used to be fun
Go ahead run, run, run, run, run, run, ooh. . .

Turn, Turn, Turn

I felt like a snail riding on the back of a turtle yesterday--Wheeeee, Wheeeee!  I mean. . . it felt like a breakneck speed though nothing really happened at all.  Kind of like stepping out of the hospital after a week's stay.  

First off, I met the carpenter.  It was/he was as I feared.  But I didn't find that out right away.  I asked him how he was with all intentions of asking whether or not he was up for this job.  He mumbled and moaned as we moved the washer and dryer out of the little cubby where he would be removing the floor.  Then we went outside to have another look.  He pulled off some more of the rotten joist--but it wasn't rotten through and through.  Indeed, much of the joist wasn't rotten at all.  That is when he saw that there were joist abutting this one running in the opposite direction.  I was looking with him as he shown his flashlight underneath.  I stood up.  I thought a minute, then I said, "Bob. . . tell me I'm not crazy.  Tell me that isn't as bad as you thought it would be."

He looked up at me for a minute.  

"It's not as bad as you thought it would be."

Fuck yea!

"Good.  Good.  Maybe I'll be able to sleep now.  My anxiety has. . . ."

"Maybe I'll be able to sleep, too.  I was awake all last night trying to think of what to do here."

I knew it!  I knew he was worried when he said, "I've got this. . . don't worry."

He has decided that he doesn't need to take out as much floor as he thought.  He will cut a little section. . . .  I feel like he's got this now.  

We talked for a long while, then he left to get stuff he would need at the lumber yard.  He doesn't need me there to do the work, he said.  He was bringing a helper.  So I gave him a key to the house.

But it wasn't long before he called me.  

"I just wanted to tell you. . . my birthday present. . . I'm getting a colonoscopy on Monday."

He had just turned 65 the day before.  This may be his last job, he said.  

I had to stick around for the electricians who were coming between noon and five.  It was nearing noon and I was hungry, so I called the company to see if I would have time to run out and get a sandwich before they came.  

I did, so I went to Chic-fil-A.  

Not long after, there was a knock on the door.  Two electricians, one Black, one White, each about twelve years old.  I took them to the electrical panel and told them the problem.  The Black kid looked at me like I was stupid.  I walked to the corner of the house and said, "Come here."  He just looked at me.  I crooked my finger.  "Come here."  Finally he did, slowly.  I pointed to the kitchen light.  "On," I said.  Then to the other kid at the box, "OK, flip the breaker."  The a.c. and the light both went off.  "Off," I said.  "That is what I'm told ain't right.  You can't run kitchen lights off a 220 breaker."  

The Black kid started mumbling about amps and wattage. . . I don't know.  Then they started taking apart junction boxes (I just learned that term) and following wires--red, yellow, black, white.  

I'll skip ahead.  There was another electrical box in the attic.  After a long while, they came down the ladder and said it was alright.  Weird, they said, but alright.  

"O.K.  Just amuse me for a minute.  So the wire that comes from the pole to the house carries 220 volts, right?"

"240. . . 220, yea."

"And so something reduces that voltage to 110?"

"120. . . 110. . . yea."

"And so all boxes are fed by 220 volts?"

"Yea."

There is something called one pole and two pole, or maybe it is poll, I don't know.  What I do know is don't stick your tongue on them to see if they are live.  

That trip cost me $140.  But things were good.  I was tired.  I took a nap.  

When I got up, it was four.  I have been really fatigued.  Things are wearing me down badly.  I needed to do many things including making dinner for my mother. . . so I concocted a drink.  I was making a Negroni, but I was so out of it, I left the gin in the shot glass.  The Negroni looked small, but it tasted fine.  I took it to the deck and kicked back.  When I went back inside, though, I saw the gin I hadn't drunk.  

"Good lad."

When I got home, my mother told me she had fallen that day and had to crawl across the floor to the bed to pull herself up.  

"I called Debbie," she said.  "She came down and sat with me for a couple hours."

My mother was using the walker in the house now.  

When dinner was done, there was a knock on the door.  It was the across the street neighbor.  He was bringing cornbread he had just baked.  Mom asked him if he wanted a drink.  

"I'll have some of that good whiskey," he said.  He stayed for a couple of big pours while we argued about political shit.  I think it made my mother nervous.  

"His father always did this," she said.  

After an hour or so, the neighbor left and I cleaned up the kitchen.  It was approaching nine when I finished.  I sat on the couch and commandeered the television.  I put on YouTube music and let it take me wherever it went.  

At nine-thirty, my mother went to bed.  I stayed up listening to music until ten.  

So. . . since I don't have to rush over to my house this morning, I thought I might get to go to the gym.  I thought I might have something approaching a more normal day.  Then, just moments ago, my mother called me.  She needed help.  She was dizzy and wanted me to help her to bed to lie down.  

"I may need to go back to the hospital," she said.  "Something's not right."

And so. . . this is my life.  I'm expecting a call from the carpenter sometime telling me things are worse rather than better, too.  

I felt liberation was near.  I was almost happy.  

Piss shit fuck goddamn.  

The Ravages of Time

I have about three minutes to write.  No, I should already be packing to get out the door.  I need to meet the carpenter at my house in eight minutes.  It is a fifteen minute drive and I am just on my first cup of coffee.  I'm no good in the morning.  I'll be late.  I'm not sure I want him to do the job anymore anyway.  He calls me everyday with more problems, both about the house and his health.  Yesterday he called to ask me what symptoms I had when I was sick.  I guess he was ready to blame me for his illness.  But no, my symptoms were nothing like his.  He can't poop, he says.  Then he launched into a long complaint about what we are going to need to do, the problems we face, his uncertainties. . . but don't worry, he says.  Today I plan to confront him about his abilities to do this.  I have a fear that we will open up the kitchen floor and then he will call and tell me he is too ill to continue.  

I am paralytic.  It would be nice to have someone to succor me.  To friends, outsiders looking in, it is just something to get through.  It would be easier if I had a loving touch.  I want to lie in someone's lap and have my head scratched until I fall asleep.  Everyone looking in from the outside has someone to scratch their heads.  

I think.  

The only thing worse than being alone in  hard times is having a partner who no longer loved you, who wouldn't touch you or scratch your head.  Yea. . . that can be worse.  

But I'm a mess all on my own.  

"You've always been a loner.."

"I've always been a lover."

I made boiled shrimp and yellow rice with chopped olives for my mother last night with a shredded cabbage and carrot salad to go along.  It was awfully good.  When we were done, before I cleaned the kitchen, I poured a whiskey and turned on YouTube to something my mother could stand to watch.  The sea, the hills, gentle hikes, etc.  Eventually, as I let the algorithms choose, music videos popped up.  The first was "Watchhouse," the music duo that was originally "Mandolin Orange."  We had watched several Mandolin Orange videos the night before, but here they were now, older by a decade, maybe, now married parents.  

"Good god, ma, look at what time does to people.  It is terrible.  I hate it.  I'm against it."

"Yes."

They played on without the vitality they once had, desultory in appearance and movement.  

"This is what he has done to her.  It's his fault.  She was so wonderful.  I would have married her," I said.  

"You would?"

"Yes, straight off, just from seeing the videos."

It was definitely his fault.  He was one of those passive/aggressive ideologues, I'm certain, and she just fell in love with him like falling down a deep well.  And then they did what people do, a hitched mule and donkey team pulling their wooden cart down the little dirt road of life.  

One day, they will wake up and wonder, "What went wrong?"

It's not just them.  It is the inevitable tragedy of life.  First you are young, and then you're not.  And then, if yo are like many people, you watch the re-boot of that show about the women in NYC with a character named Carrie or Kerry, I think.  Now they are in their fifties and sitting around with their group of friends.  I have never seen the show, but it is unavoidable.  It was popular.  It was everywhere.

And that is what many people do, too, as if they are in some time-stamped fraternity or sorority. 

Or some live alone in horror at the way life inevitably goes.  

So now. . . do you want door number one or door number two?

"What's behind door number three?"

"You don't want that one, I promise."

Then a long documentary on what it claimed were the Beatles in rare footage playing at the Indiana State Fair in 1964.  They made, it said, two million dollars for their American tour.  They got $100,000 for this appearance.  Can you imagine that that made them tremendously wealthy back then?  

And then. . . the concert.  Holy shit--all I could think of was the uproar about Epstein.  The Beatles were living in a teen fever dream.  The crowd was almost nothing but hysterical screaming girls apparently approaching orgasm.  There can be no other explanation.  

"What made them scream like that?" my mother asked.  "What was special about the Beatles?"

"Nobody knows," I said.  "It was just the confluence of almost everything.  It was the seismic shift in culture." 

It looks crazy now, like somebody had drugged the water supply.  But The Beatles were a really good band.  There is no denying that.  

It turns out, though, that the documentary is wrong.  It was not 1964.  The Beatles had already made their first film, "A Hard Day's Night."

Their first American appearance was on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, my birthday.  I watched them that Sunday night.  The next day, I didn't comb my hair.  I was a Beatle.  

You don't need to watch it all, but fast forward to the concert just to see the crowd, and ask yourself a question or two.  

"Oh, but times were different then."

That's all I'm saying.  

Age of Consensus

I hope people are not misreading me on the Epstein thing.  I am no fan of the sleazy bastard, a shit heel on every level.  And anyone who needs to see the Epstein files to know that Donald Trump was part and parcel of the club is really dumb.  Of course he was.  I think it is perversion on the part of those obsessed to be consumed by this salaciousness.  It is more Puritan America at the ready.  The age of consent in most European nations is 14.  France just raised that to 15 in the past year.  And I can't help but wonder if it is because we keep infantilizing youth.  And yet, just now, England is considering lowering the voting age to 16.  

In the U.S., you can sign up to be part of the military, can be a Green Beret killing machine, but you cannot drink alcohol.  An 18 year old high school student can vote.  

If you want to really get off, kids, look up the Age of Consent in the U.S. for the past century.  There are still states where it is 16.  The age of consent in Georgia was at one time 7.  

And let's not overlook our" help the children decide what gender they want to be" debate.  

"Do you want surgery or hormones, honey?  Or both?  It's up to you."

But of course, this is merely about identity and not that other, baser thing. 

Well, I'm sure I've enlightened you now.  You're back on my side of the argument.  Bingo!

It doesn't really matter to me anymore, though, other than intellectually.  My life is a prison cell of care and concern.  

I went home yesterday to prepare the kitchen for destruction.  Did I tell you that the carpenter informed me that we would have to tear out the kitchen floor to get to the rotten joist?  That he will need to get some kind of jacks to hold up the roof?  

"It's getting to be a bigger project. . . but don't worry. . . ."

Sure.  I'm not the worrying kind.  So I needed to empty the shelves and put all that in another room.  I couldn't do it.  I was overcome by some strange paralysis.  My body shook, my breath was quick and shallow.  I went to bed instead.  Is the term "nervous breakdown" still used? I believe that is what I had.  

When I got up, I came back to make dinner at my mother's.  We can't talk, really.  She doesn't hear me and so I have to yell.  Now we sit mostly in silence.  I had brought my Amazon Firestick with me, and so after dinner, I decided to steal her t.v.  I couldn't possibly watch "her westerns."  I pulled up YouTube and let it play music videos for us.  

"Mom, you can just pretend we are watching The Lawrence Welk Show!"

Everyone is going to the beach.  It sounds awful--shark attacks, skin cancer.  No, no, I'm better off staying right here, safe and sound and away from the terrible sensual fray.  

One day, though, I hope to sit in a cafe again, a place where the beautiful people go.  

Hey, friend. . . watch these kids cook!  Know what I mean?  

Gotta Change

My mother is home from the hospital.  I am staying with her.  I've just deleted the long post about that.  I'll save it for my therapist.  

It is godawful hot here in the sunny south.  All year the temperatures have been much above normal.  This is the new normal.  

You know, I'm going to quit writing about the horrible things in my life.  No kidding.  

But, having said that, I can think of nothing to say.  I need to work on a sunny disposition.  

Still, I feel like a man shrouded in more chain than he can swim with, and the water is deep.  

I'll go and work on that.  I'll look for a happy mantra.  

And I'll see if I can find some pictures of flowers and puppies or sunsets at the beach.  

My situation is dire.  Something has to change.  

The Vandals Took the Handle

O.K.  As I've stated many times, I don't care about the fantasy lives of the Epstein obsessed.  Epstein's dead and his girlfriend is in prison, but the desire for more, the lust to see the reported videos and photographs, the mania to know about the client list--but wait!  I just got interested.  Trump has done it again!  I'm back in Trump World.  

"Obama did it!  The Biden Crime Family!  They put my name in the files!"

Then he fires Comey's daughter who is one of the few people to ever see those files.  The Brohemes are going to have to make some tough choices.  

"Who do you want to live with. . . mommy or daddy?"

Some are already coming back to the pride.  Others are holding out. . . barely.  It is a brilliant Trumpian move, I think.  Most of those silly fuckers are going to believe anything.  

For me, the tell is that they, by and large, misuse the word "pedophile."

My conservative friend loves to repeat the meme, "Lolita Express."  He, of course, has never read the book.  Nor has he read any Nabokov at all.  

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. 

"What sort of filthy animal would write such a book?"

"A professor at Cornell University.  He was also a lepidopterist."

"I'll bet he was!"

Old Humbert Humbert goes from being a pedophile to something criminal.  It doesn't turn out well for anyone.  It is, by any account, an excruciatingly sad cautionary tale.  

Wonderfully written.  

You would read it with the same glee as you would "Crime and Punishment" which is, in many ways, more pleasant.  Redemption in each novel comes through confession. . . if redemption it can be called.  They are, by and large, each in their own way, a merging of the Old and New Testaments.  

Which is why people watch those religious shows on t.v., I imagine.  I've been fascinated myself.  Some old musician comes on and recounts the devilish life he lived in his youth--the sex, the drugs, the deceit--to a captivated crowd.  This goes on for a long while.  And then, the denouement. 

"In my darkest hour, when I was on the verge of ending it all--I discovered Jesus!"

"Hallelujah!"

 And the band begins to play!

Old vices, old remedies.  "But for the grace of God. . . ."

I'm pretty sure that if there is any cooking of the books, Trump's people will be putting Obama in those Epstein files.  Both of them.  You know Michelle is a man, right?  

There is some weird shit going on, though.  This one baffles me (link).  

Remember when Trump bombed Iran?  No?  Yea. . . that was along time ago in Trump time.  

* * *

Well. . . that was fun.  Nothing else is.  My mother is still in the hospital.  I am sick.  The carpenter is here with a $25/hr helper because he doesn't want to be around me in case I have "The Covid."  Who knows?  

"Everything is Covid now."

I have to meet the man from the plumbing company here at one so he can see where the new $4,000 (installation included) tankless water heater goes.  It's the best one, of course.  

I will call my mother in a moment to see if there is any talk of discharging her today.  There should be, I imagine.  Then I have a whole new set of challenges to face.  

I was going to take pictures, wasn't I?  I was going to buy a printer, I think.  When was that?  I want to get back to my fey imaginary life again.  Reality is breaking my bones.  

I have no idea what they are doing outside.  I know they have ripped out the rotten part of the fence between my house and the neighbor's. I think they have removed the hot water heater, too.  I won't have hot water in the kitchen for a long while now, but I have another that services the master bath.  

I'd better stick my head out and see what's up.  It is bound to be bad if history is to be trusted.  

"Don't worry, honey.  It will be alright.  One day soon, that old sun is gonna shine again and you will be glittering like gold.  You know I love you.  It's going to be alright."

Fumes

It has to be one of the largest hospitals in the nation.  It is many hospitals.  There is a Children's Hospital, a Cancer Institute, and other specialized buildings.  It has massive conference halls and teaching labs and a nursing school.  I guess you'd call it a "campus."  Walking from one of the many parking lots will take you awhile.  I only noticed a few days ago that there are air bridges connecting the parking garage to several buildings so one needn't walk in inclement weather.  The parking garages are many storied and quite often full.  For ten dollars, you can have a valet park your car.  Every walkway is full of people.

My mother had her surgery yesterday afternoon.  Late.  Her doctor was a gem.  I looked him up.  He is the head of neurology for the hospital and he teaches at the medical school for the university.  He has lectured and published in peer reviewed journals.  

He called me when the procedure was over to say that everything went well.  

I went to the room where they were holding my mother.  She was full of misery and complaints.  I stayed with her when they took her back to her room.  She had to lie flat for an hour.  She whined and bitched and complained.  Eventually, after six hours of hospital sitting, I left.  When I called her later to see how she was doing, she was complaining.  

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know.  I need somebody to talk to."

For fuck's sake, sure.  I could feel my blood pressure spike.  

"We all do," I said.  "You have just gotten used to doing nothing and having everybody take care of you."

I was blowing a gasket, I could tell.  I wasn't feeling well.  I've picked up something in these long days and hours in the hospital.  My throat is sore.  My nose is running.  I keep sneezing violently.  My house is falling apart around me.  I am sick of it all.  

I made dinner from whatever was in the house last night.  At some point, sitting up, I fell asleep on the couch.  I woke up as usual around eleven.  I cleaned the kitchen, took my nightly pills, and went to bed.  I woke in the night with terrible dreams and a bloated stomach.  It was 2:30.  I went to the bathroom and walked around the house.  I went back to bed.  I was dreaming but thinking about what I was dreaming.  Strange sounds kept waking me.  I felt like giving up.  What the fuck was I doing in life?  It wasn't living in the old sense of the word.  

When I woke, the sun was up.  It had been up for a long time.  My body was shot, heavy as lead, dull.  I knew I would be bringing my mother back to her home today.  I didn't have it in me, I thought.  I'll need to stay with her.  There was too much to do.  I wanted someone to take care of me for awhile.  Maybe longer.  

I have chills, but I know I must rally.  There is no help for it.  My responsibility.  My burden.  

My mother, I know, is not going to "get better."  There will be a series of things that doctors can "fix," but she will not get better.  Still, she may go on for a long, long time.  Needing care.  

Fuck, I feel like shit.  I just want to take pills and go into a coma for awhile.  

The phone rings.  I can't get to it in time.  It is the carpenter.  He leaves a message.  Vague.  He is not happy with his trip to the doctor.  He says something about starting the job here.  I should call him back, he says, but I haven't the strength right now.  I wonder if he is the man for the job.  

Rain.  Lots of rain.  Flooding on the Gulf Coast.  It is only mid-July.  I can't see out of the windows for the condensation.  It will be sticky from now on.  

Have you read about all the things you should do to stay healthy and age well?  It's a lot.  There is some, if not much, conflicting information, though.  

When people look at me now, I wonder what they see.  It is not comforting.  Once bright and shiny, I am just worn the fuck out.  I might as well simply move my mother into assisted living and go with her.  She'd like that, I know.  

O.K.  I'm just journaling.  I should delete all that, but I won't.  I want it on "the permanent record."  

"And if I die before I wake. . . "

This is not what I wanted to write about.  I wanted to write about my hospital observations.  A hospital is one of the better examples of a democratic hierarchy.  It encompasses and employs every "walk of life."  There is dignity in it, I believe, but a staggered, weighted one.  Being a cashier at the hospital cafeteria, I think, carries more grace than working the same job at a McDonalds.  It is much the same, of course, but there is an adjustment in protocol, too.  In the hallways, if you don't know, you have to guess what position the man or woman wearing scrubs has. . . .   Techs speak to nurses.  There are hierarchies in those ranks.  There are nurses, head nurses, ward leaders, nurse practitioners, and there is a deference one to another.  There are doctors, but there are hierarchies there as well.  The doctor overseeing the floor or wing is deferential to the specialist.  Watch the nurse's posture when he or she accompanies the doctor into the patient's room.  Watch the person cleaning the room step out quiet as a ghost.  One nurse kisses her husband goodbye when he drops her off before he goes to work at the auto shop.  She tells him she loves him.  Just then a doctor drives by in his new Ferrari.  The janitor steps off the city bus.  

It disturbs me in deep ways.  It is a matter of aspiration.  Choices are not equal, nor expectations.  

And yet, there is a dignity one assumes when stepping inside, a nobility of purpose, etc.  

I am not up to writing this, though.  That was awfully and terribly clumsy.  I just have the dreadful feeling that the nurse and the mechanic somehow are not going to make it.  Watching them there on the hospital steps was heartbreaking.  

I've got to go.  There are many people wanting things from me just now.  My gas tank is empty.  I'm running on fumes.  My mother, I'm sure, is waiting.