Born Bad

I've not had time to work on the images I took this weekend, so this one has all the little nasty bits of dust still visible.  Maybe not so bad in this small version, but I will have to go back in and clean it up later.

I should have stepped back a bit and gotten the dog's feet in the picture.

At least it is in focus.

FedEx is bringing my camera to me now, the Leica M7.  I know this from their package tracking site.  The trouble is, I won't be here when the delivery comes.  What to do?  Beats me.  I may call them and ask them in a bit just to see.  They certainly won't leave it on my doorstep.  No matter, really.  I'll probably never use the camera, or at least not for six months.  I have too much guilt about buying it to keep it in my presence.  I see my old age penury coming on, all my financial foolishness tormenting me, taunting me in some Dantean dream.

More packages will be arriving throughout the week.



It is time for you to get ready for work.  You need to shower, pack your gym bag, etc, but you do not move.  You should, you know.  You should get ready to meet the day, ready to make the money you need to live, ready to please your employer.  You understand this in your high mind, but down deep there is a resentment at the requirement that you are not free to do what you want.  What you want to do is something else completely, but eventually, with aching bones, you get up from the table at which you have sat to read the news and drink your coffee, and you slump toward the bathroom.  Shower, shave, apply the products.  You hate all the clothes you wear to work even though you do not dress like the rest of them, but still you hate them.  You pick a shirt, some pants, socks and shoes.  You begin to sweat as you put them on so that the clean crispness of them is immediately compromised.  No, you do not look like them.  You could not look like them if you tried, not even with some guidance.  You always feel like the dime store Indians dressed in ill-fitting suits holding a handful of cigars.  This, you think, is what they make of you.

In the car, you realize the time.  Shit, shit, shit. . . again.  You speed down the highway cursing the lazy drivers, cutting in and out of lanes, hitting the brakes, finding an opening, then accelerating once again.  This is not good for you, you know, not good for your safety but not good for your health, either.  You know that because you've read reports of studies that tell you that.  Still. . . .

When you pull into the parking lot, you wonder which door of the building will be best to enter, which one will allow you to see the fewest people as you sneak into your office.  You get out of the car.  The parking lot hurts your back and knees.  You walk gingerly, not quite limping but something else that is noticeably odd.  That is what you are, you feel--noticeably odd.

You slip into the building smelling the change in the air.  You open your office door undetected.  Jesus, you think, I'm going to start getting to work on time.  "What is wrong with me?" you wonder.  But you know too well.

You were born that way, you think.  "I was just born bad."