Leap into the Future

I'm sitting in my chair buzzing.  The time change, of course, but I didn't handle it well.  Go to bed earlier or later?  I don't know.  I did what I often do on beautiful Saturday's and sat inside for a large part of the day.  It was coming on two when I finally drove over to see my mother.  I feel guilty leaving my cousin there alone with my mother so much, and so I was dripping with it yesterday.  I stayed for an hour and told them I would be back later.  I went to the gym, then home for a shower.  

And a nap. 

I woke up around five-thirty.  Shit.  The day had gotten away from me.  Not me.  I was fine. It had gotten away from the caretaker.  I didn't have anything to make for dinner.  I would have to go to the grocers, so I decided that I would go to my mother's after dinner.  That is what I told myself, but I don't think I was actually convinced. 

Still, I had the makings of a plan.  

I made a Rum Negroni and sat out on the deck.  Perfect weather.  The neighbor across the street was blowing leaves out of his pebbled driveway just as he had the day before.  Not an intellectual, not a thinker, he likes things that make noise.  He walked around in a marijuana and beer stupor as usual shouting out instructions to some unseen person in that volume of the hearing impaired.  That is what happens to people who like noise, I think, loud trucks and power tools and the like.  

Fortunately, he's gotten a battery powered one, so the volume wasn't quite that of a gas powered blower.  I had to give him that.  

Halfway through my cocktail, the neighbor next door came over and sat down.  This is not so very common and occurrence, so I figured something was up.  He asked how I was doing, so I launched into my sad and lonesome narrative concerning the life of a sole caregiver and the stunning pleasures of being home for a bit.  Just then, my favorite dog came loping up, a giant, blond labradoodle.  He's the most solid boy you could imagine.  Patting him is like patting a slab of granite, but he looks you straight in the eye and smiles--I shit you not--and appears to be talking, then he'll put his head in your lap and lean heavily in.  He's just a big old lover dog.  

The son of the owner was walking him, a kid in his twenties.  I'd seen him the day before I went to Bike Week.  He and his father were going over that day, too, so I asked him if he had fun.  He'd gotten food poison that night, he said.  

"Did you eat carnival food?"

He had to miss the next couple days of going over.  

"I thought about going again today.  Saturday should surely be the show.  I guess tomorrow will be everyone leaving."

"Yea, Sunday isn't much.  People are partied out and going home."

He stayed and talked a long time, and when he finally left, my neighbor said he had to go.  It was after six, and I still needed to go to the grocers.  Reality creeped in, so I called my mother.  

"I got jammed up here, mom.  I don't think I'll make it over tonight."

Guilt.  I don't believe in it.  It is a terrible thing.  

But I am surely driven by it.  

At the grocery store, I decided on a T-bone.  I spied one that was cut more like a Porterhouse with a big hunk of filet, so I thought it a big score.  

Brussels sprouts and a baked potato.  Not baked.  Microwaved.  

It was after seven when I sat down to eat.  I had taken a chance on a bottle of red I had never tried before.  It was a terrible choice . 

A little scotch.  A little t.v.  Off to bed.  It was only ten. 

I woke at midnight.  Oh-oh.  I decided to take a sleep aid.  

When I opened my eyes, the room was bright.  But when I looked at my old 1970s analog LCD screen radio clock, it was just before seven.  I hadn't changed the clock.  It shouldn't be this light before seven.  Spring ahead, and now it was eight.  None of this made sense other than that DST is a horrible thing for the body and the mind.  I'd fucked up and would pay the governmental price.  Nobody likes changing the clock--but we do.  This alone should tell you something about democracy and the power of elections.  This simple example alone should tell "the people" that what they want doesn't really matter if it doesn't coincide with what lobbyists are paying for.  

Democracy at work.  

So there is the Xanax and there is the day and there are my plans which already seem shot.  I promised myself I would work in the yard today, would rip out my dead garden and put weed killer on the lawn.  I went to the university ag website yesterday, and I am already a week behind schedule.  Gotta be done.  Fertilizer at the end of the month.  

But all I want to do is go to the giant Farmer's Market around the "famous" lake in Gotham and keep practicing and experimenting with my camera.  Maybe I will give up thinking about studios.  Maybe I'll develop a new way and a new interest.  

"Go, Buddy, Go!"

But my mind and body are swampy just now and the day could easily get away from me.  It already has.  We've time warped into the future once again.  

Boy. . . I've got pictures to show you, but now as many as I originally thought, so I am going to show some restraint and not post them all at once.  They won't last so very long, not the best ones, and I'm still tinkering with post-production, so. . . I'll hold off.  

Besides, I still have the story of the kooky barmaid to tell one day if I ever get my head on right.  Not today, though, that's for sure.  

Funny thing about my photos, I'll confess.  The crowd was more than 80% male, but the majority of my pictures, I think, are of women.  Don't know how that happened, really.  Beats me.  But I'm sure. . . well. . . we will eventually see.  

But today. . . in the spirit of old hillbilly and redneck bikers, let's play something apropos.  

The Stars Aligned

It worked, I think.  I like it.  Smeary, impressionistic. . . .  shot from the hip.  I have a lot to choose from, but it is going to take time.  And labor.  The photos don't come out of the camera this way.  T wants me to teach him about photography, but like most people, he wants them to come out of the camera just fine.  I suggested he buy a Fuji camera, which he did, because you can funk up the photos with Fuji film simulations right in the camera.  He isn't going to sit down and learn Photoshop and then spend the rest of his life experimenting to find looks he adores.  Most photographers don't.  The commercial photographer we shot with in his studio shops his raw images out for processing.  Many photographers use pre-packaged effects.  That's o.k.  I just don't.  

So. . . it takes a lot of time.  

After having my first day off in over a year, though. . . I was a new man.  People noticed.  Hell, getting away and taking pictures and drinking beer and having dinner was like. . . well, it was like living again.  

"You needed it," they said.  No shit.  Not simply one day, though. I need a life.  

But I felt better yesterday than I remember feeling in a very long time.  And I want more.  I seriously thought about driving back over to Bike Week again today, but you can't swim in the same river twice, they say, and I have found that to be true.  

But that doesn't mean it would have to be worse.  I mean it could be even better.  

Dilemma. 

What I really need to do is work, though.  I will call and order the mulch today to be delivered next week.  Today I will rip out my dead garden and begin giving my lawn it's spring treatment.  But maybe I will go somewhere for lunch today, too.  

And of course a couple trips to mom.  Some days she is doing great.  Other days, not so much.  

I got up at five-thirty this morning and set right to working on pictures.  I worked for two hours and got four pictures done.  This is by way of saying, I've already been on the computer a long while today and so I am going to save the story of the dinner barmaid for a later telling.  I don't have it in me just now.  

I have sent some of the Bike Week/Day pics around to people and have gotten good feedback.  It feels good to be making pictures again with a camera and not just with A.I.  I like the A.I. images, but I know. . . you know.  

I think my horoscope must have been good for a few days because I heard from some people I had given up hearing from again.  Apparently, I'm not yet gone. 

I heard from several of the old factory crowd.  I got texts from the illusive Red and from my young friend in Miami.  My best lesbian buddy wants me to go south on a photo expedition, too.  And my midwest friend has me on a group text with three of our female friends about meeting up at some small seaside town for an art exhibit where everything is projected onto the buildings downtown.  It all warmed the cockles of my sad and shrivelling heart.  

Selavy.  The planets will move and the stars will shift and we will change tonight back to DST, and I'll not hear from anyone again for a very long time.  

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

 I've been sitting too long now.  I must move.  I no longer "keep up with the news cycle," so I have a little more time and am happier.  I think I'd enjoy a weekly newspaper that could tell me briefly what I had "missed," all those things over which I have no influence or control but about which I might feel strongly.  

So it is Saturday all day, and it would be good to have an upbeat song.  Let's try some Portuguese in French.  That might do it. . 

A Few Adventure Hours at Bike Week

We didn't leave town for the coast until after noon.  It turned out to be way too early.  Weird shit doesn't start happening until after five, he said.  Well. . . at least I got out of town.  

Bike Week, the small part I saw, was exactly what I expected.  Sort of.  I really had no idea of the number of motorcycles that would pack into that town.  I didn't realize there were even that many in the entire country.  And the crazy thing to me was that people go to look at the bikes.  Up and down mainstreet, people stood behind barricades as motorcycles slowly went by revving engines for hours.  I imagine it never stops.  Everywhere people taking pictures of motorcycles.  

Unimaginable. 

But the crowd--it was mostly an aged thing.  I don't think I saw more than a handful of people under thirty, and hardly any in their thirties, either.  It was not a pretty crowd.  

But I HAD expected to see weirder shit, naked people dancing in the streets, I guess, or having sex up against walls--I don't know why.  Well, yes I do.  It's kind of why I went.  

The International Speedway was packed with corporate bikers looking at motorcycles and eating hot dogs.  Various other places around town were doing much the same.  There must have been hundreds of thousands of people--85% male. 

There were derelicts and old guys jacked on steroids walking with lats spread and chests out.  Everybody seemed to get along.  

I was excited to use my Leicas for street photography, though.  I had two with me, one with a 35mm lens and one with a 50.  I was especially excited about experimenting with something I thought would look rather good.  I put a strong neutral density filter on my lenses so I could shoot at 1/8 of a second.  Now if I were really going to do it right, I would have shot at that speed with a flash, and I had brought two, but T was not to keen on that.  

"It's really noticeable," he said.  

I waited until the end of day to shoot that way, and I thought they were coming out well, but next time, I will shoot at 1/15 of a second.  1/8 was just a little too much.  

I would like to go back on Saturday.  

I don't know how much fun T had.  I was in a zone, just making pictures and not talking about what we were seeing.  He kept trying to talk to me, but I didn't really hear him.  

We walked for hours.  

At some point, we stopped for a beer, and just where we were, there was a bunch of nearly naked girls.  We were by the big stage staires that the musicians climbed, but apparently they were now getting ready for a girl show.  I don't know why, but I was able to walk among the girls and into tents and up the stairs taking photographs.  

"You look like you are supposed to be doing that," T said.  Apparently it was true because nobody questioned me.  

To keep myself in the realm of fiction, I made this from an actual photo T made of me.  I look better in the actual photo, though!  

As we drank our beers at the bar, the pretty barmaid was kind of chatty.  The girls like T and he loves to talk them up.  He told her she would have won the bikini contest if she'd been in it, and it was true.  Then he told her that I was a great photographer and asked her if she wanted to see some of my pictures.  She did.  My gut kind of tightened, but she ooed and aahed looking at me with a newfound respect.  

"You like them?"

"I love them."

"Do you want to do some?"

"Yes!"

T liked talking it up, and two more times, barmaids put their phone numbers into my phone so that we could arrange a photo shoot.  Unbelievable.  

"See what I do for you?"

"Probably fake numbers."

But T is clever and had already pulled up their IG accounts.  It was true. 

"I don't have anyplace to shoot them."

I need everything.  I need a studio.  I need a big printer. I need a new computer.  

I need a lot more money than I have.  

These were not the pretty barmaids.  These were girls on their way to dance somewhere, I guess.  Such is Bike Week.  

Around five, we headed off to get dinner in another coastal town.  There are two main restaurants there and they sit side by side.  There are blocks and blocks of parking lots for them. . . all full. . . but T has a big assed truck and pulled it into a field that cars wouldn't park in.  Now the challenge--how long was the wait.  

There was a line, but we passed it by and went straight to a small bar.  There were two seats.  

"Can we take these?" T asked the very pretty barmaid. 

"You guys can certainly take these.  You will get to watch me make drinks all night long."

She was a swell gal with a crazy, shocking tale to tell, and while we drank cocktails and ate pan fried scallops wrapped in bacon, then wine with HUGE filets of tuna on crunchy potato pancakes with edamame and delicious noodles, and then a very generous pour of whiskey, she leaked it little by little.  I don't have time to tell it now, but I will, eventually.  

T showed her my photos.  She wants me to photograph her, too.  

T dropped me off at nine.  I'd been on my feet without sitting for four hours walking hard sidewalks and now my back and hips and knees were tight and sore.  I grabbed my camera bags and did a Frankenstein walk to the house.  

I didn't have the energy to dump the cards into the computer.  I poured one drink, watched the day's news, and packed it in just at ten.  

But I was up before five this morning and decided to download the photos before anything else.  That took a good long while.  Then I perused them giving little stars to the ones I would come back to.  Then I cooked up three photos, the ones you see.  Nothing I do is instant, and suddenly it was eight o'clock.  

I have rushed this telling and have done an incredible injustice to the day.  I could have taken my time in telling you that I might be making photographs again without sounding a sleazy braggart, but I don't have time to fix it now so I will have to seem the fellow you see in the illustration, a creepy old guy with a camera.  

Selavy.  

Just remember, though. . . I have no life and I'm a good son who takes care of his mother.  I had my first full day off in a year, but not really as I went to see my mother in the morning before we left, so. . . . 

Until tomorrow. . . . 

Broke Ass Fool

Yesterday was a continuation of the way things have been going.  I had no callback from the State Attorney's Office, so I sent an email.  

Here is the letter I just sent to the Assistant State Attorney about my stolen camera gear.  I’m sure it will have no impact.  

Dear Mr. Lawyer, 

I left a voicemail for you yesterday concerning a letter I received from your office about case number 09i-l-lk-ll-K/P, State vs. Villian.  I was confused as the letter stated there will be a possible hearing about Mr. Villian's violation of parole.  When I called your office on Monday, I was told he had accepted a plea deal giving him probation in July 2025.  For years, I received letters from the State Attorney’s Office informing me of court dates that were later postponed, but I received no information about the July plea deal.  Over a year ago, in a phone conversation with another Assistant State Attorney, I was asked if I wished to ask for compensation for the over $22,000.00 of photo gear that he sold to Better Photos that belonged to me. I was told at that time he was facing many years in prison but would probably get a year or less.  What I could ask for, I was told, was compensation, and that after serving his sentencing time, he would remain on probation until the compensation was delivered.  

That was the last conversation I had with anyone about this case.  

I was informed, too, that the woman with whom he sold my photo gear received nineteen months in jail.  Again, I had received multiple notices of court dates over the years that were always delayed until a later date, but I received no communication about this.  

Now that the plea deal has been settled, am I simply out of options for your office to ask that I be compensated for the over $22,000 dollars (replacement cost) of stolen camera gear?  

This has been a long and frustrating saga for me, as you might imagine.  I look forward to hearing from you.  

Sincerely, 

Victim

Well, that is not it verbatim, but you get the gist.  I sent the letter to an attorney friend who told me that I should not have had to pay to get my stolen property back.  No, I said, the detective was at the photo store with me when I identified all my equipment and he told me I would have to pay back what the store had paid to get my equipment.  

"He's a cop, not an attorney."

So I looked it up on The Google. 

The State Pawnbroking Act states: To obtain possession of stolen property held by a pawnbroker, the victim must notify the broker by certified mail, return receipt requested or in person, evidenced by a signed notice such as the one in the brochure, Guide to Rights and Remedies of the State Pawnbroking Act. 

The notice must contain a description of the property and must be accompanied by a copy of the law enforcement agency’s report of the theft. If the court orders the property returned to you, you may also be able to recover your attorney's fees and costs from the pawnbroker. The court will order the person who stole the property and sold it to the pawn shop to repay the pawnbroker the amount they received, plus any associated fees, as part of restitution if they are convicted of theft. 

Shit, piss, fuck, goddamn!!!!

 I was sick at heart.  

There is nothing I can do about it now, though. 

Selavy . 

And so. . . life goes on.  

After that, I began going through the piles and piles and piles of mail I have thrown onto a desk top for God knows how long. Per usual, if you leave stuff long enough, you can just throw it away.  But!. . . I did find a check for $2,500 from the bank who holds my mortgage.  The letter said I had overpaid into my something fund.  Holy shit!  

Because I don't have a shredder, I take all my statements and things with personal info outside and burn them.  I know, but burning things is fun.  When I went back into the house, though, I couldn't find my check.  Holy shit. . . had I burned it?!?  

I started searching the house in a panic.  No, no no. . . but finally. . . I found it.  I looked at the check lovingly, then noticed something.  It was only valid for 180 days.  Six months.  I closed my eyes and counted.  No, no, no, no, no!  

I am nothing if not a buffoon.  

When I deposited the check later, the cashier didn't question it.  Now I'll have to wait to see what the other bank does.  

A fool and his money. . . . 

I went to my mother's house twice yesterday to see her.  I started collecting her info for income tax.  I called Block to see what documents my mother had used the year before.  I had everything but one.  My mother couldn't remember anything about it, so I will have to get in touch and see if they will re-issue the W-whatever.  

Life is work and then you die.  

Last night, I told my mother that Tennessee asked me to go over to the coast for Bike Week to make some photos.  I said I might go.  My cousin said I should, and so. . . 

I think I will.  I'm not sure what I'll get as I have never been before, but this will be the furthest I've travelled out of town for years.  If nothing else, I'll see the water and drink some beer.  I will try hard not to piss anybody off and get my camera smashed.  

But I'm feeling like a broke-ass hillbilly today.  I need a handler.  When the frivolous girl I would eventually marry moved in with me, I was far behind in my mortgage payments.  She, at a tender age, took over all the finances.  

"Can I buy this magazine?"

"No."

She got my finances straightened out pretty quickly.  When we got divorced, though, she got it all back.  Ha!

I just like to go places and tell stories and make things.  I'm a child.  

With a wicked imagination.  

There is a video above this, but I checked and it doesn't become visible right away.  Wait for it to show or run your cursor over it.  I don't know. . . 

I'll Never Get That Time Back

Dare I?  Dare I take a photo of a friend who looks like this and turn her into a painting by Frida Kahlo?  O.K.  Of course I do.  But do I dare to show it?  I mean, given the times?  

How long does consent last, anyway? 

And is it still my "creation" after converting the image using A.I.?  

I feel it is.  

You should see it printed. Then maybe you'd say. . . ah!  

I bought a new printer that would allow me to use thicker art papers in the top feeder.  Making a print using the top feeder is a lot easier and more predictable.  

It was a cheap Canon printer.  I'm sending it back.  The quality is shit.  

There are some great thicker art papers made for inkjets that will not feed through the top feeder.  It is frustrating, and I wonder how the companies who make them are able to sell them.  

I had a lot of time to set up and use the printer I had ordered yesterday as I waited on the gas guy to come check my meter.  I was given the option of 8-12 or 12-4.  I took the former.  

"The tech will call you half an hour before coming.  Make certain you have your privacy settings on your phone turned off."

At 11:45, I still had not gotten a call.  From the tech, I mean.  My phone rang a lot, and each time I answered it, it was a spam call.  I decided to call the gas company to see what was going on.  I chose the automated option to have them call me back when a representative was available.  Twenty minutes later, I got the callback.  

"No sir, we don't give times.  He will show up sometime today."

I called bullshit on this having just been given the option the day before.  

"You don't need to be there anyway," said my rep.  "He's just going to read the meter."

I was pissed. 

"What the fuck good is that going to do?"

I didn't say that, exactly.  Something milder.  

I was getting nowhere, and I gave in.  

I never did get the call from the tech.  I don't even know if he came.  

Meanwhile, I was having a devil of a time making a decent looking print.  It turns out that none of the paper companies make paper profiles for that particular printer, so I was using profiles that were close.  

Nothing really worked.  Now comes the pain of repacking the printer and paying shipping cost to send it back.  I should have bought it on Amazon.  

That is what I get, though, for trying to go with a cheap option.  Lesson learned.  

Just read we are changing the clocks again this weekend.  WTF?  Will this never end?  

I haven't gotten a callback from the State Attorney's Office, either.  I just keep swinging and missing.  It's the mirror I broke, I'm sure--combined with the voodoo hex my spooky ex put on me.  I should have ground that glass into dust and buried it instead of simply throwing salt over my shoulder. 

I'm always willing to take the easy way.  

Working Too Hard

My life feels so very awfully terribly confused right now.  It seems I'm going in many different directions at the same time.  I often wonder, "Is it just me?  Am I selfish?  Incompetent?  Both?"

I broke my mother out of rehab yesterday, but it was a bit of an ordeal.  My mother was up and packed and calling me before I'd even finished my coffee yesterday.  

"Hold your horses, mom.  A lot of stuff has to happen yet.  You have to be checked out and released by the doctor."

Shortly after, I got a call from one of the facility administrators.

"Your mother is wanting to leave the facility now.  We usually need a few days to process a patient out.  Could you give me a call back?"

My cousin texted that she was going to have something to eat and then go up to see my mother.  I had to call her and say she might be walking into a shit storm.  She decided to wait.  

The jail break occurred just a little before four.  Apparently, we had rushed the process.  As we were waiting for the final paperwork, one of the fellows my mother had meals with, a swell guy, told my mother he was going to miss her.  I think he might have had tears in his eyes.  It can get lonely, I guess, in a facility like this.  As he walked away on his walker, I was feeling quite heavy with emotion.  

Not mom.  

I packed her things into the car.  Then her.  It was about a mile to her house. 

I started putting together her meds.  I'd bought a plastic pill organizer with four containers per day for seven days, twenty-eight containers to fill with four different pill combos per day.  It took me awhile. 

"Do you want to sit outside?" I asked my mother.  She did.  

And she wanted a beer. 

She downed it pretty quickly.  Before I knew it, she was calling for another one.  

"You know I don't tell you what to do, but. . . ."

She decided to hold off on the second one.  

We were sitting in the garage, my mother, her niece, and I, when the woman from across the street came over.  I gave her my chair and said I'd call later.  I had a whole lot of things left to do.  

And so I left all the responsibility of my mother's first night home to my cousin.  

My house is a disaster right now.  Things are a mess.  I have photo gear and a weeks worth of important mail lying everywhere.  

Important paperwork.  I had addressed two of them that afternoon.  The first was a letter from the State Attorney's office that confused me.  It said that the fellow who had stolen my camera gear and got caught selling it at the camera store over two years ago had violated his probation and was coming to court next week.  I didn't understand this at all, so I called the number the Assistant State Attorney had provided in the letter.  

Zippo.  Blank.  The number was a black hole.  A mechanical voice asked me to enter the number of the party I wished to reach.  I only had the one phone number, so I entered that.  Nope.  Bagel.  

WTF?

I searched for another number, and at the bottom of the page in small print was a number for another office.  I called that one and got a person.  I explained my dilemma and the person said she would transfer me.  A woman answered.  I went through the litany of confusion once more with her.  She explained that the fellow had gotten a plea deal in July.  WTF?  I was never notified, I said.  What happened to the girl who was also arrested.  She was the one with whom the former prosecutor wanted to make a deal for probation.  

She received nineteen months in lockup!

"So. . . she got nineteen months and he got probation, and I was never notified.  A year and a half ago when I talked to the prosecutor, he asked if I would like to try to get a judgement for compensation.  I probably would have a hard time getting it, he said, but since [the fellow] was facing twenty years worth of grand theft charges but would probably get less than one, they could stipulate that he would stay on probation after he did his time until he had paid back the lost funds.  That was the route I said I wanted to choose.  Now what?  I'm just out the twenty-two thousand dollars without ever having a chance to make a statement?"

The lady said she would transfer me to the Assistant State Attorney.  Of course I got to leave a message.  It was a long one, and halfway through my explanation, the recording ended.  I had options, though.  I could press 3 and leave my message once again.  O.K.  This time I was a speed talker like the announcers on a drug commercial explaining the side effects of the drug.  

I wait to hear back.  Probably won't.  

No wonder people become thieves.  

That took half my afternoon, but that was quick compared to the next call.  My gas bill had jumped from twenty-four dollars this month last year to two hundred and sixty four dollars this month.  I looked back through my past statements and my bill had consistently been in the twenty dollar range.  So I called the gas company and was put on hold waiting for "the next available representative" for half an hour.  When I finally got connected, I was speaking to a moron.  She kept asking me questions like, "what temperature do you have your thermostat set to?"

"I understand the logic of lowering your thermostat.  I don't need advice on that.  I need an explanation of the over two hundred dollar jump in my bill."

Christ, it went on and on and on.  Finally she said, "Can I put you on hold?  I want to check on something." 

"Sure."

Fifteen minutes later.  

"What I CAN do is schedule a technician to come out to check your meter."

He will be here between eight and noon today.  

That was just a little of what I still need to deal with.  

I was fortunate, though, to be home when the FedEx driver showed up with the new printer I had ordered early last week from B&H.  They sent it express two day delivery.  It was supposed to be here last Thursday.  I kept checking to see if I was going to need to sign, but nothing said that I would.  

I did.

The new printer is sitting in the middle of my living room floor waiting to be set up.  The cleaning crew comes today and I have an hour or more of putting things away before they get here.  

I woke at one last night.  Don't know how long I lay in bed thinking, but I know I am very sleepy this morning after getting up at 5:30.  Sleep disruptions will kill you.  So I read this morning.  So will living too long.  I just know that.  

And so. . . that is my Full Worm Moon saga.  Mom came home on a Blood Moon.  I haven't checked with the online soothsayers to see if that is good or ominous.  I don't think I will.  

The only advice I can give you, kids, is try to keep your chin up.  

It makes a great target that way.  

As Fast As I Can

I'm busy again.  My cousin got to town late in the afternoon.  I gave her all the appropriate tools and instructions and then took her up to see my mother.  I will get my mother home later today after she has been released by the doctor.  There is a lot to do.  

I just read this in the Times this morning.  People keep telling me that such and such and so and so will pay for my mother's care, but I keep finding out that this is not the case.  This piece was written by a doctor who had to use hospice.

When my siblings and I decided to put our father in hospice care at his home in the spring of 2021, his Alzheimer’s was near end-stage. He could barely get out of bed or dress or feed himself. Hospice care seemed to be the best way for him to end his life with dignity.

Nearly all Medicare hospice patients receive care in their residence. So, as is standard, we enlisted the services of a Medicare-approved hospice agency.

We soon encountered a harsh reality, however. Dying at home isn’t easy, even with hospice care. The hospice system, we learned, requires family involvement in the dying process to a degree that even we, as a family of doctors, weren’t comfortable with. We were responsible for bathing my father and helping him use the toilet, changing his clothes and, most daunting, administering morphine and other sedatives to treat his pain and anxiety. A nurse was scheduled to come to the house only for about an hour twice a week. Getting an aide to help with basic activities of daily living was nearly impossible.

The main problem was funding. In 2024, the average per-patient Medicare payment to hospice agencies was about $200 a day, with an annual cap of $33,500. That outlay would barely pay for a part-time aide, yet it is also needed to cover medications, medical equipment and nurse visits. So hospice agencies are forced to shift the bulk of responsibilities to families as the dying process unfolds over weeks or months.

 Compounding all these issues is the fact that dying in America is increasingly corporatized. Today, about three-quarters of hospice agencies are for-profit, and many are owned by private equity companies. It is hardly a stretch to imagine that many of these companies skimp on care to protect their bottom line.

This does seem to be the case.   

I've been surrounded by the aged and dying for a long time now.  Every doctor's appointment, every hospital visit, every rehab stay.  It does not make me cheery.  

Now I must get busy.  The day is a beauty, but I won't get to enjoy it much.  I must run, run, run, as fast as I can. . . .

Testing and Pretending

Just kidding.  I don't even like cars.  However. . . I have watched all the seasons of "Drive to Survive" on Netflix, and last night I fell asleep on the couch after watching one episode of the new season.  I don't like cars, but I had a fascination with F1 race car drivers when I was a teen that came from a couple of movies and, probably, Playboy magazine--and here was the thing I imagined, my takeaway that seems to have dominated a large part of my life thereafter.  

A race car driver swaggered because he had tested and knew his limits.  He knew how far he could push before he failed.  Other people only ever imagined their limit having only fantasized about it and never having really tested it.  I wanted to be able to swagger.  

I tested my limits in many ways with many things.  And this is what I learned most of the time: "Quit it."

I've said many times, "Pretending's fun."  

One of my curses has been having a romantic imagination and reading too much.  I wanted for awhile to solo sail around the world.  I bought a sailboat.  I even crewed on a 30' racing sailboat in a series race called The Lipton Cup which we won.  But I soon realized I would probably die if I tried to sail around the world alone.  There were many reasons, but one stood out--I couldn't fix a fucking thing if it broke.  I've already confessed that.  

So I tried climbing rock faces and giant mountains.  

I met people whose feats scared the hell out of me.  

I tried lots of things.  I was o.k. at some, but there were many better.  

So, do I swagger now?

Fuck no.  I limp 😂!

But I did learn my limits, and that was an important life lesson.  

So, you know. . . sometimes, I still pretend.  Just push the play button. 

There are some things that I can't pretend about.  My cousin from Ohio will be here this afternoon.  I will bring my mother back home tomorrow.  For the past two days,  I did my duties.  I cleaned the house, mopped the floors, got rid of old things in the fridge, washed the sheets and made the beds. . . etc.  My own home life will again take a hit, not the one it will take when my cousin leaves, but quite a hit nonetheless.  We'll see how it goes.  I think my mother will need a lot of care.  

And I still have everything to do around my own house, though I am beginning to have the idea I might hire someone to lay all the granite rock in the driveways.  I tweaked my back making beds yesterday.  I'm trying to imagine the damage I could do shoveling granite.  

I took some photos yesterday.  I was experimenting.  It took awhile for me to get the process right using a dark filter and flash on my Leica M, but I think I got it now.  All I have right now are photos of things in my yard, though, and nothing to show.  Maybe later.  

Maybe not.  

I can only hope you are enjoying my A.I. creations.  What I have done there will make it's way onto paper in various ways sometime. I can't say "soon,"  but I will do what I can.  

O.K.  The sun is shining and I gotta scoot.  There is much to do today and only a man who knows his severely hampered limits to do it, so. . . .

When I preview this post, I see that you have to go to YouTube to see the video, so you can either click on that or on this link (The Cuba Project).  

Or. . . here's a version that is only the music. . . but you are missing some good visuals with this one.  

Change of Plans

 And then, just like that, plans change.  My cousin will be here tomorrow it seems, so I have much to do to get my mother home.  I'm thinking Monday.  My stomach clenches.  I'm going back to work.  Sure, I will have more of my own time than when I am living with her, but I still must do all the technical things for her care.  And this is only the prelude to what will come in a few weeks.  I'll be back to full-time caregiver.  Having had this time at home, it is going to be hard.  

But enough of that.  I turned down another happy hour with the bros.  I just don't seem to enjoy it anymore.  In fact, my day went pretty much as planned.  I spread some rock around the perimeter of the house.  I took a bag of dirt and filled in the hole in my mother's yard.  I went to the auto supply store and got new wiper blades and wiper fluid.  I stopped in to see my mother who was sitting with a group playing a game I'd never seen before.  I went to the gym for a very brief workout.  I got liquor then went to the grocers and got what I needed to make the seafood stew plus a good crusty bread.  

All good.  Now let me back up.  

When I got to the auto supply place, I tried taking off my wiper blades before going in.  I tried.  And tried.  But I couldn't figure them out.  So when I went into the store, I asked the twelve year old boy working behind the counter which blades I needed.  He walked me over and recommended one brand.  Then came the hard part.

"I can't seem to get the old blades off."

"I'll do it."

He rang me up to the tune of $64 fucking dollars and walked me out.  It took him about a minute.  When he left, I opened the wiper fluid and opened the hood and started pouring.  I realized I'd never put any wiper fluid in the Xterra in all the time I'd owned it.  Carefully, I aimed the gallon of light blue fluid into the the little opening, amazingly without spilling.  Pour, pour. . . wtf?  How much fluid does that little thing hold?

It took the whole gallon and still didn't reach the top.  That is when I began to have my doubts.  I looked under the car to see if it had just run out onto the ground.  Nope.  So I closed up the hood and started the car.  I pulled the wiper handle to squirt the window washer fluid.  Nothing.  Again.  Nothing.  Again and again and again.  Now I was wondering if I had put the washer fluid in the wrong place.  What was there?  Oil.  Coolant.  I didn't put it in either of those.  Brakes.  Power steering.  I didn't think so.  

I tried again and again.  I guess the pump or something is broken.  Piss shit fuck goddamn.  My fault, I'm sure.  I should have put the fluid in years ago, I guess.  

The stew turned out poorly, too.  Cod, bay scallops, and peeled shrimp.  Something made the whole thing taste like fishy iodine.  Not terrible.  Still.  Carrots, celery, and potato.  Crushed tomatoes.  It just didn't come all together as it usually does.  Don't know.  Beats me.  

I had no deserts in the house.  Still, an adult beverage and the new season of Drive to Survive.  Two cups of tea and then some hot Ovaltine (malted) with milk.  I was ready for bed before ten.  

I got up at five, so I will go to my mother's house and get to work after I post this.  I think my mother will enjoy her nieces company more than she does mine.  They are hillbillies and talk hillbilly shit, stupid stuff I can't do.  They eat shitty food from cheap places or some salty, fatty thing they fix at home.  My cousin doesn't enjoy my cooking, so. . . .

My mother will cry when she decides to go home.  And then she will be stuck with me.  Not the same circus at all.  

I need to make some photos.  It is a cloudy rainy day.  I should shoot film and make some blurry ones, but Quasimodo with a camera seems to draw a lot of attention around these parts.  Quasimodo just wants to stay in his bell tower.  

I guess I should mention the possible End of the World.  I've warned you, but I know warnings do no good.  What could you do, anyway?  Build a bomb shelter.  I just don't trust Trump and his Criminal Band of Jokers to succeed at anything, let alone war.  I am of the mind that the war won't stay in the Middle East this time.  

But what I think is of miniscule importance.  It is informed only by paranoid intuition.  So I suggest you discuss it among yourselves.  If I were you, though. . . I'd make as sound a financial plan as you can.  I think I'll start looting my rich neighbors' houses soon.  

O.K.  I must get with my pick and shovel to work.  You know the song. 

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, 

It's off to work I go, 

With a shovel and a pick

And a great big dick, 

Hi-ho, Hi-ho.  

I think that comes from "The Ginger Man."  J.P. Donleavy.  Was a must read when I was a budding intellectual undergrad.  It's still in print.  I just looked it up.  Has been ever since it was published.  Sold millions.  How about that?

Here's a little song to get your day started.  Gentle and easy.  Just what we need. 

Big Night Out

Well now. . . it seems these pictures of '50s mom are resonating with a lot of "folks."  Makes me happy.  There is just something plain wholesome about them, isn't there.  Oh, I know the past was a dirty little secret that people just kept quiet, by and large, but as in the Victorian era, there was a lot of mask wearing and coded language.  It was early morning coffee, and mom had just popped a benzedrine to get her going after the barbiturate that helped her sleep the night before.  

Good god, those were the days!

I went to Happy Hour with the boys after visiting my mother yesterday.  Mom seemed a little glum.  She is ready to go home, but the launch date has been pushed back to maybe Wednesday.  I understand she wants to go home.  That is how I felt almost the entire last year.  There are many similarities, sleeping in a bed not your own, not having your own things surrounding you, nothing to do but watch television or read.  The difference is she doesn't have to do all the work, doesn't have to cook or clean or prep the day's meds, doesn't need to run anyone to the endless stream of doctor's appointments. . . etc. 

That is not what is on her mind right now.  I understand.  

Still, I have another weekend at hand.  Sort of.  There is a lot to be done before mom goes home, and I'm just the man who needs to do it.  

And so. . . out with the boys.  We had the gold standard sidewalk bordering seats at the nice restaurant and bar on the Boulevard, and it was an endless parade of beautiful young women walking by.  How did everyone get to be so beautiful?  I guess I have been gone for a long while, and maybe that is the reason.  

But there was something else, too--a fair amount of young and very attractive women on the arms of older men.  And when they walked by, the women almost always looked our table over like. . . like what?

"Rented," Alain said.  

Ooohhh. Sure.  It has been around, but it seems to have become more public.  

"We need to take him down to Costa Rica for a weekend and get him laid."

That got the boys going.  Sure, soon.  

"You need to pop that cherry, boy!"

Yea, yea, yea.  I had little enthusiasm for it other than a weekend in Costa Rica.  I don't want a hooker.  These boys are all jacked on testosterone.  I'm running on estrogen.  I want women to fall in love with me, flirt with me, court me. . . .  

But it didn't make me glum.  I just was.  I had nothing clever to say, nothing at all, really.  It felt like something was broken in me.  I felt like gum on somebody's shoe.  Life had passed me by.  None of those girls were going to pick me out of a crowd.  

We drank drinks.  I was going slow, though, for I hadn't eaten a thing all day.  Is this an old man thing?  It happens all the time now.  I just forget to eat.  I ordered a beer and a lobster roll.  Then I had a Negroni.  This place makes outstanding Negronis.  Of course the Negroni, nice and red as it is, gets me catcalls from the crowd.  

"Can you put a little umbrella in that for him?" Alain queries the wispy young waiter with the man bun.  

In a bit, I order a hamburger.  So does everyone else.  We are tired of waiting for the famous judge to show up.  

He never does.  

After burgers, they order another round of beers.  They all get light beers and I an IPA.  When the waiter brings them, he says, "Here you go, fellows, three girly beers and one manly one."

Ho!  This guy took a big chance with his tip.  But the boys get a kick out of it.  

I only take a sip of mine.  The boys are ready to hit the next bar.  

"Why aren't you drinking?"

"I just don't want it."

"Too manly for you?"

We split the tab evenly and all leave good sized tips for man bun.  

The next bar, a few blocks down the Boulevard, is owned by a friend.  It is not my favorite, though, for it serves just beer and wine and snackable food.  There is liquor--kind of.  It is some special deal.  The owner doesn't have a liquor license, but he is able to sell liquor made by a local distillery on their license somehow, but only theirs, and they do not make scotch.  All the liquor drinks are cocktails that I don't care for, so I just have water.  We sit at the bar with the owner's wife while some guy with a guitar strums chords across all the strings and sings.  

"I can't stand a strummer with a guitar.  This guy sucks."

The d.j. objects.  

"This guy is very popular.  He's got quite a following."

"Sure.  I'll bet.  He sucks."

He continues to quarrel about it, but I won't relent.  The performer is awful, but people flock to bars to hear "the music."  

Whatever. 

I listen for awhile to the talentless guitar player and the round robin of conversation, but I am a bum, and so in a little while I say, "Sorry boys, but I'm buggin' out."

Nobody objects.  

Home by eight.  

And that was My Big Night Out.   

The morning is gray and drizzly.  It will rain today and tomorrow they say.  O.K.  I will spend the weekend on my couch.  I will make a seafood stew for one.  With crusty bread.  It sounds delightful.  I don't watch much t.v. anymore except for YouTube, and mostly I just put on music now, but maybe I'll watch a movie.  I read that "Sentimental Value" is now streaming.  Maybe that.  It sounds like a movie for grownups.  

I will burn the Lampe Berger, drink hot cocoa or golden milk, and good hot teas as the rain, soft, I hope, falls upon the roof.  There is work to be done, and though I had good intentions, I did none of it yesterday.  I will not pressure myself, though, and I will try to do a little of it today.  Doing a little makes me feel better than doing none at all.  That is the gentle way.  

Let's just be sentimental one more time. 

Sad Songs for Lonely People.  Such a thing.

Working Man

I finally got to work yesterday.  It felt good to get things done.  I started with cutting up a bunch of old boards that have been laying around outside for far too long.  I cut them into three foot sections hoping the garbage guys will take them.  If not. . . there are other ways.  Afterwards, I drove across town to pick up some meds and then went west to the Home Depot where I bought some bags of granite to put on the ground next to my newly painted siding.  Got two batteries for my circular saw for what I considered an outrageous price since I hardly ever use tools, but my old batteries won't hold a charge anymore.  A few more items, too.  

When I got home, I spread the granite.  I will need a ton more, so I think I am going to have it delivered to re-rock the drives with enough for making pathways and covering the ground next to the house.  Granite is heavy.  I'll be sick of moving it in minutes and will wonder why I didn't hire somebody to do it. 

I'll order the big pile of mulch for the driveway, too.  

Today, though, I am going to clean my mother's house in preparation for her return.  While there, I will wash my Xterra.  

I think.  

I never know what I will do.  Some days I just don't want to work.  Maybe I'll take a nap instead for I am scheduled to go out with the gymroids for happy hour.  I don't want to, but I've already committed.  

I just thought I'd throw this in.  No narrative.  Nor reason.  I didn't sleep much last night and am too tired for narrative.  Outside the city is working on the power lines and two yard crews are mowing and blowing.  I just want a second cup of coffee and some danish.  I don't really think I'll get much done today, but as they say. . . there is nothing that can't be done tomorrow.  

Temptation

Good news!  My mother has a plan for aging at home.  

Me. 

We met with the staff at the Four Seasons Rehab Center yesterday afternoon.  My mother has made a determined comeback, apparently.  They said she could go home depending on when I wanted her.  What could I say?  She wants to go home.  

"I tell her we all want to live in our own homes, but it doesn't seem to resonate."

And so, by the end of the week, I will be back to caretaking.  There is a lot to be done.  She called her hillbilly niece who said she could leave to come down on Saturday.  Sounds good, right?  People think that will make it easy.  

"You should take a trip, go somewhere.  Take advantage."

Really?  Her regimen of meds is complicated, and I wouldn't trust it to my mother's niece.  I will prepare them with labels for days at a time in a big, plastic pillbox I bought for the occasion.  I will need to pick up her meds and take her to the numerous doc appointments that now must be rescheduled.  My mother's niece is not going to do a 20 hour shift the way I did, so I will need to go sit with my mother every day to give my mother's niece a break.  

I will, for a few weeks, get to sleep in my own bed, though.  After that, I move back in.  

I asked about getting some help for my mother's care.  It is all out-of-pocket, I was told.  I argued, not vociferously, of course, but in a well-reasoned manner.  Unexpected, I guess, for then the social director recanted.  There are ways, but not really.  She will set up a meeting with some Medicare people for me, she said.  

And so it goes.  

I had an inquiry about these pics.  I don't have nudes of my mother, so I just posted these as a suggestion that she was not always 94 years old.  My mother was a real hottie in her youth and even longer.  She was the sexual fantasy of the neighborhood boys, I am sure.  I had my own about one of the mothers down the street.  I shouldn't say "sexual."  They weren't about me humping Mrs. Jones.  It was way more nefarious than that, more of a visual, sensual thing, I am certain, where she sits in her underwear smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and is nice to me.  Who can remember?  But when I was a kid, we didn't see pictures of naked women except on calendars at the auto repair places.  

I guess these images rather reflect all of that.  

I can, though, remember the smell of the breath of those coffee drinking, cigarette smoking women.  But they always wore perfume. 

So. . . I am enjoying my days and evenings at home.  Last night, I hazarded a Negroni on the deck after getting the rehab news.  Wasn't sure how my diverticulosis gut would react, but my nervous system reacted as it should.  Maybe even better.  I ate a safe dinner of rice, steamed brocolli florets and garbanzo beans, with scrambled eggs all mixed together in a bowl.  I watched something on t.v. as I awaited the Trump Bowl later on.  Around 8:30, I think, I fell asleep.  When I woke up, it was 10:30.  I went to bed, but of course, I couldn't fall back to sleep.  At midnight, I gave up and took a sleep aid.  

I didn't wake up until 8:30.  Hence the late posting.  

I read about the State of the Trumpian Nation this morning.  My god, I'm glad I didn't sit through that.  No information there, just outrage.  

Today I must get busy.  I've been both lazy and sick and then even more lazy.  I've babied myself.  I haven't even gone to the gym in almost a week.  Don't know if I will go today.  There is much work to be done, and I'm the only one to do it.  This lazy streak must end.  

Nerd Rich and Proud of It

Since this blog has become somewhat of "The Misery Tour," I'll post Robert Carradine's Hollywood Death Mask here--and tell a story.  I'll also post his Life Mask, too. 

Forgive me for repeating myself, but a eulogy is in order.  When my conservative friend still lived here, long ago, I would go to his house and drink up his wine and whiskey and eat his food, especially on a Friday night.  It was his house, but I had rented it for years, first from his brother, then from his mother.  It was a groovy old Florida bungalow built the same year as the one I live in now, but this was right next door to Country Club College and had a big screened in front porch that was half of the undercover porch that sat on the front of the house.  Out back there was a huge deck where untoward things used to happen when his brother lived there, but that is another story best told in low voices in the flicker of candlelight.  My friend owned it now, though.  I bought my very own house, but I still went to the old house often.  

One Friday afternoon when I stopped by, a new guy was there.  The hors d'oeuvres were out and the red wine uncorked.  So was the new fellow.  He was a smart alec which was typical of my friend's friends at the time.  '80s.  Wolf of Wall Street wannabes, etc.  I had learned to hold my own with this pack of coyotes, so I spent a while trading barbs and jabs with the two of them--until something clicked.  

"Hey. . . wait a minute. . . you're. . . ."

Realize, I'd only seen him in two movies, "The Long Riders" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," movies in which his parts were smaller.  But both of his brothers were in "The Long Riders," too, so I knew he was a Carradine.  

"Man, I love Keith's films.  I just flipped out over "The Moderns."  

Robert was snide about his brother.

"I made more money doing "Revenge of the Nerds" than he has made in all his films."

I, of course, had not seen "Revenge of the Nerds."  But now that I recognized him, I was a bit more deferential.  My  conservative friend was a pilot (had won the National Aerobatic Championship competition recently) and was flying Carradine down the next day to compete in the Twelve Hours of Sebring race.  It was to be Carradine's first race.  

Not much of a story, I know, but. . . he told me his brother had painted the pictures in "The Moderns." 

"I'll get you one," he said.  

He never did.  I guess I'll never get one now.  

Scary, though. . . a man my own age.  

But at least my gut is better now.  And yet, the misery continues.  I can't use my right pointing finger.  The nail is black and blue halfway to the tip and the finger is still swollen.  

Last night, not yet trusting meat in my tender gut, I cooked a frozen pizza and did the thing I've done so many times.  I couldn't wait, and the first bite scalded the roof of my mouth.  A big blister formed and then popped.  I had a one inch piece of skin flopping around for the rest of the night.  It "disappeared" while I slept, so now I simply have a raw tender spot that my tongue won't leave alone.  

Freud? 

I have a meeting with the staff at the rehab place today at two for an evaluation of my mother's condition.  Realizing that the hospital was adamant about not sending her there because it was short term "rehab," they kept insisting on sending her to a nursing home where we know what happens.  Today my concern will be how I get the help I'm going to need for my mother's deteriorating health using Medicare and not paying out of pocket.  My mother has bad osteoporosis, stenosis, sclerosis, etc., but her organs are pretty healthy, so I think she will live (in pain) to be a hundred.  I'll go broke quick enough if I have to pay for her care.  So, today will be tricky, indeed, with my mother sitting in the room.  I have to be careful with how I phrase my concerns.  

Is there an upside to this post?  It is 34 degrees this morning here in the Sunny South.  Crisp and crystal clear.  I should get out with a camera somewhere. . . but I won't.  Actually, I have a ton of labor I had planned to do around the house that I am putting off for a few days until it is warmer.  But work there is and plenty of it.  It will be good for me.  That is what they say.  I've got my circular saw batteries charged and am ready to do some damage.  

I really shouldn't be using power tools.  I've had enough trouble with simple kitchen tools and door jambs lately.  

That's it.  That's what I got.  And a song.  None of the ones I have cued really go thematically with this post, but that is probably a good thing.  I'll just pick one and let it live on it's own.  

Maybe something to get you out shakin' it on the dance floor.  Go ahead.  Nobody's watching.  Whatever way you like.  

The Dying Animal

Mom wasn't always old, of course, but now that is all people see.  It is difficult for me.  Sad and terrifying.  Phillip Roth wrote a book titled "The Dying Animal."  That is what we are, Dying Animals.  It is stupid not to preserve everything we can in our lives, especially when we are young, but "younger" is better, too.  There needs to be a record, I think, though in the end it doesn't matter, I guess.  Still, it is nice to pretend that it does or will, to have the illusion that we will remain once we are gone.  

I don't want my picture taken anymore.  Nobody took it when I was young.  Now people with their phones are always wanting to put me in some dumb fucking picture.  Fuck that.  I love photos of the young Cary Grant.  Even Trump does.  But I hate seeing him toward the end.  He was still better looking than most men his age, but that isn't the point.  

Pepsi had an add long ago that went, "For those who think young."  I try, and I think I do.  But the body. . . oy!

Yesterday I told my mother I thought I had a bout of diverticulitis.  Ironically, I said, I hoped it was that or else it could be something much worse.  I rallied a bit late in the day and went to see her right before dinner.  

"You had me worried," she said.  

"You've had me worried, too. . . for a year.  It has stressed me out."

Indeed, I think stress is what brought on the attack.  That and too much liquor.  

So yesterday I didn't eat.  That is what you do when you have an attack of diverticulitis.  My gut was still worrying me with little but constant pain, but I had my fingers crossed.  Around three, I decided a walk might be good for me.  And indeed, at the time, it seemed so.  Once I had showered, though, the nagging pain was still there.  It either was or I imagined it to be intermittent.  

When I got home from visiting my mother, I ate a can of chicken noodle soup.  Here's my gastronomical recommendation--drop an egg into it.  That's what I did.  It made a sort of egg drop soup.  Strands of egg thickened it.  I had it with a slice of fresh white mountain bread from the bakery.  Clear liquids and white food, they say.  White rice.  Bananas.  I was wondering if vanilla ice cream was included in that.  

I took a nerve pill and went to bed.  I didn't waken to pain during the night.  I am still paranoid and think I feel some sensation deep down, so it will be another clear liquid diet day.  Toast for breakfast, another egg drop chicken soup for dinner.  Tea.  

The finger is a mess, too.  My fingernail is half black.  The nail has weird and painful sensations.  I will surely lose it.  

Other than that. . . I'm a mess.  What is there to say?  

I keep reading that people are not in favor of A.I.  Who are these people?  I saw a "town hall" with Matthew Mcconaughey, just a clip, telling young actors like Timothée Chalamet (really?) that A.I. is not going to be stopped and they need to trademark their voices and images so that they own them.  I find this silly on so many levels.  A.I. will make their own new stars if it comes to that.  They might train their engines on past stars, but the new ones will be unrecognizable amalgams, just as writers steal the styles of others until they synthesize their own.  But that is not the thing that really struck me.  It was the rationale behind it--$$$!  It wasn't about art.  It was simply commerce.  Like. . . "I deserve to be rich because people like to see me act."  I abhor the amounts of money paid to celebrities and athletes.  It is a large part of the insanity in this country.  

But some people fear A.I. technology. 

"It will take over.  It won't be stopped.  Eventually, humans will be puppets."

Something like that.  Too many 1950s sci-fi movies, I think.  Oh, don't get me wrong--I loved those old sci-fi movies, and just a whole lot of other stuff, too. 

If A.I. can make those movies, I'm all for it.  And the music.  And anything else.  

Hey. . . maybe it can make photos of me when I was younger and better looking.  I think I'll work on that.  

O.K.  This ain't there yet, but you can tell it's coming.  This was made for zero dollars by kids on a laptop.  What do you think some studio with bank will do?

This Life Is Killing Me

Things went to shit last night.  Stress, I reckon.  Cleaning up after dinner, I sliced my right pointing finger open.  Not sliced, really.  The tip of a very sharp kitchen knife cut small and deep.  I had the devil of a time getting it to stop bleeding.  I used a styptic pencil for a long time, and finally wrapped it tightly in a bandaid.  I went back to the kitchen to take out the garbage.  Coming back into the house, I closed the same finger in the door.  Hard.  The nail went blue right away and did not stop throbbing all night . 

But it got worse.  Woke up with a terrible pain in my gut.  Wouldn't let up.  I finally realized it was probably diverticulitis.  I didn't get an hour's sleep all night long.  

The pain has lessened but it is still there nagging me.  I can't sleep.  I can't stay awake.  It is going to be a miserable day.  

Mystery Hole

"I have a lot of work to do around here still."

"Like what?"

"I need to do the driveways.  Mulch the one in front and re-rock the other two."

"Re-rock?  I've never heard that before.  Do you hyphenate that?"

"You bet.  I love the hyphen.  I love a good hyphen and I love a dash, and I especially love the ellipses."

Today will be a work day.  When I finish this, I will head out for the Home Depot.  This seemed like a good and noble idea a couple days ago, but I am face-to-face with the monster now, and I do not feel as fresh for it.  I fell asleep on the couch last night, not even watching television,  and woke up at 11:30.  Afraid I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, I took a Tylenol P.M.  Taking one of those approaching midnight is not a good idea if you are hoping to wake up and get to being productive.  Uh-uh. . . I wouldn't recommend it.

Already, though, I've used the hyphen, the dash, and the ellipses.  At least there's that.  

My Satruday workday, though, started on Friday afternoon.  As was reported, the neighbors had spied a hole in my mother's front yard.  Not knowing what to expect, I dutifully went over to look.  Sure as shittin', there was a hole.  A perfect hole, not sloppy.  I looked in.  It was eight or nine inches deep, and as one reported, there was a piece of pvc pipe.  

What the fuck was I looking at?  I reached my hand into the hole to feel around.  Dumb, right?  Nothing squirmed or bit me though.  I reached into the pipe with my fingers and dug out some dirt.  The pipe was attached to nothing on the side pointing toward my mother's yard.  It was on the border between her yard and the next door neighbors who live in Georgia but come down on weekends some.  They have been remodelling the house for a year in preparation for moving in. . . eventually.  

I was stymied, so I walked across the street to the handy fellow's house, the couple who always invite my mother and me to holiday dinners.  

"I HATE asking people for favors, but if you have two minutes, I'd like for you to look at something and tell me what I'm missing.  You know more about this stuff than I do."

He followed me back across the street.  He looked in the hole.  He put his hand in.  

"I have no idea," he said.  "It doesn't make sense."

"That's what I thought.  Good.  I am not as dumb as I thought."

After a minute he said, "Get a shovel.  We need to dig it up to find out."

I paused.  He wanted to dig up the yard.  I said, "I don't know," but I turned to walk back to the garage.  "Get a picture of this," I told him.  "This really isn't my thing."

I cut through the grass and pulled out the dirt.  Loe and behold, the pipe popped out.  It was simply a piece of four inch pvc pipe about two inches long.  It was connected to nothing.  

"What the fuck?"

That didn't explain the hole, though, so the neighbor took the shovel and kept digging.  About two inches below where the pvc pipe had been, he found another two inch pipe.  He dug and found it was going toward the street.  

"Ah-hah!" he said.  

"Yea, but the soil isn't swampy.  There is no water puddled up around it."

He decided it was an irrigation pipe.

"We need to turn on the irrigation," he said.  

My mother's irrigation meter/timer is from the '60s.  Nobody knows how to use it.  It is connected to a shallow well.  The neighbor started flipping and punching things.  

"Man. . . nobody knows how this works," I said.  

But he was undeterred.  For awhile.  He never got it to turn on.  I have no idea if it will ever come on again.  

We went back to the hole.  The across the street neighbor who lives next door to the other one, came over to see what we were doing.  We were three old men looking into a hole. 

"You're mother had a drain line put in for her washing machine," said the new guy.  "They didn't want to go under the slab, so they ran a new line out down the side of house."

That made sense to everybody.  

"Sure, it's a drain line.  If it were a water line, it would be under pressure coming from the street."

Duh.  

The first neighbor went across the street to get his prober, a long. slender metal rod with a handle for pushing into the ground to find pipes and such.  He started probing trying to find the drain line.  We had already dug up the yard from where we saw the pipe running to the street, but there was no pipe.  Then he spotted a clean out drain that was covered with grass.  He pushed in the probe.  Ah--the line took a turn toward the clean out drain.  

"If it is a drain line, it doesn't make sense that it blew out a hole in the yard."

"It could have gotten so backed up. . . who knows, it may have bee backing up since they put it in."

"I don't know. . . ."

He had me run the washing machine on a rinse cycle and we waited until it drained.  No water showed.  

He said he'd help me dig it up later if I wanted.  Right now, he had to take his wife to the doctor.

"I do this kind of stuff all the time.  I enjoy it.  I didn't like the way the drain lines ran at my house and I re-routed them.  Hell, it's just pipe and glue."

"I don't know.  I don't do this, you know?  This is the kind of thing where I go, 'shit, I need to call a plumber.'"

"Man, a plumber's going to cost $800.  I like doing this.  I'm a Renaissance man.  I can do it all."

I looked at him and grinned.  "A Renaissance man didn't do the work.  He knew how to do it, but he didn't dig the ditches himself.  He just knew it needed to be done."

He laughed and nodded.  Then he said let him know as he turned back to his own home.  

I filled in the holes we dug and put the grass back on top, all but the original hole.  I put a garbage can over it and put flags around it so nobody would step in.  Then I went inside, washed my hands, and got in the car to go and see my mother.  

Driving there, though, I thought about the hole.  If water had caused it, the offending pipe would be exposed and not be two inches beneath normally damp dirt.  A drain pipe wasn't going to blow a hole from eight inches below the ground.  Fuck no.  The hole was still a mystery.  If an animal had dug the hole, there would have been dirt on the grass in front of it.  Nope.  I had no idea how it got there, but I was pretty sure I knew how it didn't.  

When I told my mother about it all, I said, I'm just going to fill the hole back in.  "If a leak caused it, we'll see another hole, right?  I'm going to fill it back in."

And I will. . . with some trepidation.  

But now it is time for the Home Depot.  Today is just dumb work, nothing technical.  I kind of forget what I had in mind to do today, really, but it will come to me.  

I'd like to be on the Boulevard somewhere for lunch this afternoon, though.  And then off to see my mother.  

So I'd better get started.  Yup.