Mixed Blessings

So Trump has his own Lewinsky now.  It is what people want--SCANDAL  Of all the fucked up things Trump does on a daily basis, this is what is going to sink him?  She's in her mid-thirties for Christ's sake.  She nutty, sure, but that's kind of attractive, right?  For awhile, anyway.  If anything is going on, it must be consensual.  Power imbalance?  I've covered that.  That'a a greasy pole, I think.  If she is willing to change his diaper, that's up to her.  And you know she will make fabulous wealth from this one day in the future.  She'll write a tell-all that everyone will have to read.  There will be a Netflix special.  I get a kick out of her brother.  He seems to be fairly amused by the whole thing.  And I mean, who wouldn't want someone who is willing to run behind your golf cart trying to keep up or who would stuff herself into the trunk of an SUV just to be with you?  

This is just what a lascivious populace desires.  You know that, though.  They are slavering for the Epstein videos.  But this. . . this is now.  Live before a libidinous audience.  

At least it has shut my fucking conservative friends up for awhile.  I don't hear them calling, "But what about Biden?  What about Obama?"

Trump has fucked the whole world.  Why focus on one nutty lady?  

I guess she's simply a metaphor.  

I'm coming off a busy Saturday.  I've decided to lose my belly.  A fool's goal, I know, but I think I cand do it--a little.  I've cut out sugar.  That's a baby step, easier than giving up the hooch.  But that is getting a cutback, too.  Skipping breakfast, I left early for the Physical Fitness Club to kick my ass on an inclined treadmill. If you can't run, and try as hard as I have, I can't, this is the next best way to burn up bad calories.  I soaked through my gym clothes for the first time in a good while.  This will be a constant practice.  I may have gotten some endorphins going. I was feeling good.  

Home and shower.  I ate a hard boiled egg and a can of sardines.  Upping my protein intake.  Bored yet?  Yea.  Me, too.  

I drove to a nearby town to pick up a prescription.  Decided to take the Xterra.  I wanted to try something. I drove to the pharmacy with the windows down and no a.c.  The engine didn't even begin to overheat. Now, the test. On the way home, I ran the air conditioner.  As long as I was moving, it was fine, but when I had to stop at a light, the temperature began to climb.  

When I got home, I put all that into A.I.  You needn't read what follow next.  I'm putting it here only for illustration.  A.I. is helpful.

Overheating only at idle or in traffic points directly to an airflow issue, meaning not enough air is moving through the radiator when the vehicle is stationary.

Primary Suspects

    •    Faulty Auxiliary Electric Fan: This fan should kick on the moment you activate the A/C. If it fails, the radiator cannot shed the massive amount of extra heat generated by the A/C condenser while stopped.

    •    Worn Mechanical Fan Clutch: When your Xterra is warm and idling, the main engine fan clutch should engage to pull high-velocity air. If it spins freely without resistance, it is failing.

How to Test and Diagnose

    1    The A/C Visual Fan Test: Start your vehicle, pop the hood, and turn the A/C on high. Look at the auxiliary electric fan. If it is completely still, you likely have a blown fan motor, blown fuse, or faulty fan relay.

    2    The Rolled-Up Newspaper/Magazine Test: With the engine hot and idling, carefully try to stop the mechanical fan by pressing a rolled-up newspaper against the edge of the fan blades. If it stops easily, the fan clutch is dead and must be replaced. If it chops up the paper, the clutch is working.

    3    The Spin Test (Engine Off): Turn off the engine. Try to spin the fan blades by hand. If it spins freely with no resistance for more than two rotations, the fluid inside the clutch has leaked out.

So. . . it is either the fan clutch or the auxiliary fan. I'm feeling most certain the mechanic never checked these things.  I am going to take the car back in to query him on this.  A.I. referred me to a YouTube video showing me how to replace the fan clutch.  There are a lot of things to remove to get to it, and I don't have the tools.  To have a repair shop do it should cost between $500 and $1,000 dollars.  To buy a new car is going to cost me a minimum of $31,000.  Mostly more.  So . . . decisions.  

I felt pretty good about knowing.  I got into my mother's car for the next leg of the journey--bike store. They had the Aventura bikes that are most highly rated, but they had just gotten them in and the sales clerk couldn't answer many of my questions.  I thanked him for his efforts and told him I was just going to look around. Then another clerk came over.  He knew a little more.  Did I want to take one for a ride?  Oh, no, I said, not yet. I'm just kicking the tires today.  But when I left the store, I was pretty sure I would come back.  I just wanted to research a few of the things these fellows didn't know.  

Off to the photo lab with a roll of Scala b&w reversal film.  I'd shot it--how long ago?  Two years?  When I bought the film, I didn't know you needed a special developing kit to reverse it into slide film.  But the film lab does it.  I can't wait to see what it looks like.  

"It is beautiful," the fellow at the lab said.  Good. I have many rolls of that film I can shoot.  

I jumped over to the brewery to pick up another pack of Punks tall boys.  I really like that beer, and it helps me cut back on the hard liquor cocktails.  It takes me awhile to drink one.  It takes me a second to knock back a big-assed scotch.  

Then I had an idea.  My mother has not been wanting to eat much that I cook.  Since her shot for osteoporosis, she has had a bad stomach.  She is certain it is a reaction to the shot.  This happened in a worse way with the first one.  

I called her. 

"Hey, mom. . . I don't want to cook a big meal if you aren't going to eat it.  If you just want soup, I think I'll take myself to a sushi dinner early and then come home to fix something for you."

She had just eaten a bunch of cottage cheese and pineapple, she said.  She didn't want dinner.  Well then. .  .

Half an hour until the restaurant opened, but a storm was coming, so I thought I'd get ahead of it.  When I got to the restaurant, I hadn't been the only one to think this way.  There were people standing in line at the door for the five o'clock opening.  As we stood under the arcade covering, the rains came.  It was a downpour.  

The people before me were seated at tables.  I was the first at the sushi bar.  Not for long.  The fellow behind me was alone and seated there, too.  At different ends, we had different waitresses.  I liked mine.  She had a pretty face and said she would like to come home with me.  She didn't say it out loud, but I am sure she did.  She said it every time she came back to see if everything was o.k.  I, for my part, could barely speak above a whisper, but she heard me fine with sparkling eyes and a pretty smile.  

I am The Rain Man, ordering the same meal--spicy tuna kobachi with avocado, edamame, miso soup, extra sushi rice.  Sake. 

Everything was excellent.  I was hungry but I ate slowly and consciously.  As I ate, I thought of all the ways the restaurant could be improved.  When the place first opened many years ago, it was an experience.  The music was distant and mysterious.  Who'd ever heard such music before?  Now it is louder, the music of a sports bar.  It is wrong.  And they should bring steaming towels for your hands before the meal.  Didn't they do that in the beginning?  I can't remember, but it would add much to the experience. I thought of the Wild Orchid I had stumbled on in Chelsea just before it closed.  Christ, I wish I could call up that experience for you. Everything from the servers hair and handmade clothing, the handmade menus on Japanese papers, hand colored, the colorful foods served in beautiful bowls, the music. . . .  

But this meal was excellent.  I was feeling fine.  

When I got back to my mother's, though, the house was warm.  I looked at the thermostat.  Piss, shit, fuck, goddamn.  The system had shut down.  The rain had not cooled the world down.  It had only intensified the heat.  The humidity was 99%.  I grabbed the shop vac, the extension cord, and the little attachment and walked through the spongy back lawn.  By the time I had everything hooked up, sweat was dripping from my forehead and my nose.  I turned on the vacuum and went inside. I pulled the cap off the drain line.  The water level dropped.  I went outside and turned the vacuum off.  I came back and poured half a gallon of 30% Xtra strength cleaning vinegar down the drain.  I waited five minutes and went outside to turn on the vacuum.  I ran hot water from the tap into a gallon jug and poured it into the drain line.  The vacuum was sucking it through.  But then, the suction stopped.  I went back outside to reattach the hose.  I went back inside and poured another gallon of hot water through the drain line.  I went back outside to check the line.  It had begun to rain again.  Great.  I pulled the hose off the drain line to see if it was draining, but nothing was coming out.  Maybe the shop vac had drained all the water from the line.  I put the hose back on the drain line and went back in the house.  I could hear the suction and put my hand on the open drain line.  Suction.  I put the cap back on and let the vac run awhile longer in case there was any water in the drain pan.  I went back outside, turned off the vac, coiled the extension cord, emptied the vac tub. . . blah blah blah blah blah.   

When I had everything put away, I turned the a.c. back on.  The thermostat lit up.  The compressor and fan came on.  We had air conditioning once again.  

My clothes were soaked through and through with sweat and rain.  My food and sake buzz was long gone.  I made my mother soup of which she took two bites.  Fuck it.  I poured a whiskey and sat on the couch thinking about the curse that someone has put on me.  My witchy friends tell me it is possible.  They believe that people can put the voodoo on you.  No peace, no love.  

It's o.k.  I'm going to lose my gut.  I'm going to quit waddling.  It is Sunday.  No breakfast.  I will take a very long walk.  I'll not be afraid of beer if I want one.  And maybe a good sandwich.  But no sweets.  After the whiskey last night, I switched to green tea.  I'm cutting calories, I swear.  But drinking cups of tea before bed has a consequence.  

Selavy.  

Now here's the finale.  There is nothing worthwhile on t.v. and I gave my mother the channel changer.  She put it on some MMA fights.  I guess she thought I would like that.  We stayed up until 11:30.  Crazy.  I dreamed in the night of making repairs on things.  

I'd rather have been dreaming of my own Lewinsky.  

Damaged

"I want to be a model."

"Do you know what a model is?"

"What do you mean?"

"A model is a simplification of reality.  Is that what you want to be?"

"Why are you like that?"

We see a lot of pretty faces in advertising.  Mostly women.  Bodies, too.  Companies get criticised, of course, and some attempt to challenge our sense of what "beauty" is.  But studies show that babies, sat in front of a group of portraits, will spend more time looking at pictures of "pretty" people more than the "others.."  A pretty picture makes them smile.  

Babies are awful.  

I've always been captivated by old circus and carnival posters.  When I was a kid, they freaked me out, of course.  I was scared by a midget clown when I was very young.  My mother said he felt bad about it.  When I was a teen, I used to sneak into the fair to see the weirdness.  One night, we jumped a fence behind the trailers and came face to face with the Wolf Man.  We jumped right back over the fence.  Once, my buddy's step-father said the fair would pay us to help with tearing down the rides when the fair ended.  How he knew this, I don't know, but it was true, and as we worked, the "freaks" played together in the midway, something you can't imagine without seeing.  Later, when I was in college, I went to the fair with my girlfriend.  I was shocked to see that the Human Blockhead was a fellow I'd gone to high school with.  I watched him pound a nail into his face and put needles through his skin. 

As I've told you, I grew up in a bad neighborhood with cretins and violent morons.  The Human Blockhead, I thought, was very representative.  

Once in a film class, I showed Tod Browning's "Freaks" on the last night before Christmas break.  When I turned the lights on at the end of the film, the students sat quietly until one brave soul asked, "Why did you do that?"  

"I don't know," I said. 

I was stuck at home a long time yesterday as the HVAC maintenance guy did his work.  I've had the same guy coming out every six months for years, and having grown up in a working class neighborhood, I am always conversant with workers.  I'm surprised this fellow and I haven't had Thanksgiving dinner together yet.  But he is chatty which gives me confidence that he is taking good care of everything he has to do.  While waiting, I was scanning the film I got back the day before.  It takes a long time, and as I was sitting at one desk, I opened a drawer.  Drawers are always adventures at my house.  As I rummaged around, I found little carnival posters I had made to put up in the miniature circus I had bought piece by piece and had assembled for the tenant's son.  Oh, man, it was crazy good, each piece with its own little puddles of light, each playing it's own carnival music so that the cacophony sounded just like a real midway.  I had forgotten about the miniature posters I had printed out. I decided it would be a good idea to turn them into postcards to send to my friends. 

Yea, I know.  It was just an idea.  

Still, I made a couple.  A.I. and me.  Later, when I looked at what I had made, however, I was. . . 

shocked.  How typical.  How chauvinistic. Of course the man has two heads and the woman has none!  Embarrassed, though alone, I tried to remedy that quickly. 

Obviously I suffer from something.  Damaged in some way.  

I lived among freaks in my youth.  When I was in college, we were "freaks."  

"I never considered myself a freak. . . but I love to freak."

You may remember that line from "Easy Rider."  Probably not.  Did you ever watch Tod Browning's "Freaks"?  I showed that film the last night of my film class once, just before Christmas break.  When I turned the lights back on, the kids sat silently, then one brave person asked, "Why did you do that?"  

That's what I always liked about the photographs of Diane Arbus.  She showed how freakish were the things we thought normal and how normal was the freakish.  

Her brother was the poet Howard Nemerov.  They were lovers.  

I like the carnival.  I just don't want to live there.  

O.K.  A quick note.  Here's something fun.  What they call a Fun Fact.  My mother told me she thought I hated her yesterday morning.  Boom!  Life keeps getting richer.  I guess I'm just not as miserable as I should be. 

I think I'll go look at e-bikes today.  The big bike store here sells them.  I'll take a look.  I expect long gas lines are coming like they already have in other parts of the world.  I'll try to avoid them as much as I possibly can.  I remember gas lines from my youth.  You could only buy gasoline on certain days which were determined by your license plate number.  There were sometimes fistfights at the pumps when people tried to cut in line.  I never need to go far, really.  An e-bike would work fine. 

Places all around the country keep flooding but the rivers are drying up.  Parts of the country are parched.  Next come the floods. 

Last Days, baby.  End Times.  You ain't seen a freak show yet like what is coming.  We'll all be speaking in tongues.  

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder.  

Small Steps

I watched a swarm of dragonflies dart about as my mother and I sat out with cocktails in the late afternoon.  Never thought about them much, but suddenly I was fascinated.  They bounced around through the air like nothing I'd ever seen, up and down, side to side, stalling and spurting, and I wondered what on earth they were about.  I picked up my phone and asked Siri, "What do dragonflies eat?" It seems they were helping us out.  They eat flies and mosquitos and other flying insects. They have giant eyes with millions of lenses and can see practically 360 degrees.  As far as my mother and I were concerned, they could become permanent residents.  But the adult dragonfly doesn't last too long.  Most of their lives are spent underwater as nymphs where they feed on, yup, mosquito larva, but also tadpoles and even small fish.  They may live as nymphs for years before they climb out of the water and shed their skin.  Then it is only a matter of days.  They evolved long before there were dinosaurs dating back 300 million years.  Some fossil dragonflies had wingspans of two feet.  All of that is interesting, of course, but none of it matches watching them fly.  And their capture rate is over 95%.  They are one of the best predators on earth.  They are able to do some sort of calculus to predict where their prey will be. Crazy.  They are tremendous predictors.  

Don't fuck with the dragonflies.  As scary as they look, they are your friends.  

I got another roll of film back yesterday.  Much better.  There is hope.  But remember my telling you about photographing the barber?  Well. . . those pictures suck.  I told him I'd bring him the photos, but I don't want to show them.   What should I do, just not go back again or go back and tell him his pictures suck?  Dilemma.  None of the photos were wonderful, but some will be illustrative enough to post some days on the blog.  And so, I'll shoot some more.  

Umm. . . I guess things went o.k.  She wants to go out again on a Friday. . . when she can drink.  I know that is not what anyone wanted to hear.  

I won't post the photo one of my gymroid buddies sent me of the fat they removed in the surgery to reduce the size of his under eye bags.  It's pretty gross.  I'm waiting to see how that works out for him.  $4,000 out the door.  

I did OK thinking more about my own well-being yesterday.  I have to keep it in mind.  I'm cutting out sugar and liquor.  Not totally, but I have been far too indulgent.  It shows.  Small steps.  Baby steps.  But I'm thinking more about self-care and am adding just a few more minutes and a few more things each day.  Nothing huge.  Maybe I can creep up on my old self again.  

Maybe I shouldn't use the word "creep."  But in this context, it sure sheds some light on its origins, doesn't it?  The conversion of a verb into a noun.  According to Merriam-Webster, the verb is 1,100 years old.  The noun as used in describing a despicable person came into use in the 20th century.  It can be turned into a gerund and/or an infinitive as well.  Those are both verbals. 

You're welcome.  

I read some reviews of Rachel Cusk's forthcoming book, "M."  I've not read Cusk, but she sounds a bit like an English version of Michel Houellebecq, and I really like Houellebecq so now I feel a bit out of the literacy club for not knowing Cusk.  I'll have to try to remedy that.  

A little every day.  

T called last night.  He and his wife are coming back to stay in their beach house about 90 minutes away.  He wants me to come up.  Maybe I can make it one day for lunch, but I told him I need to be back by six. He is getting tickets for some fights here in town, too, and is anxious for me to go.  "You've got to get someone to sit with your mother," he pleaded.  He is going to invite Alain, too.  We all went to the big fights here together. . . how long ago?  

To live even a partial life again, though, seems like an abandonment.  As Woody Allen once said, "I can't enjoy myself when someone else is suffering."  I'm an empath to a serious degree.  

Last night I made delicious pork chops.  My mother wasn't hungry, so there is one left.  I think I'll have that for lunch.  With applesauce, perhaps.  Just a pork chop and applesauce.  I can't remember the last time I ate applesauce.  I used to like the kind with big apple chunks in it.  When was that?  I think it has been decades.  

It is Friday.  I'll have to figure out something fun to have for dinner tonight.  

And I'll get more of this.  It is my new favorite beer.  I shared one with my mother last night, and she liked it. It is a lager with a bit of bitterness like an IPA, but it is much smoother.  This instead of the first cocktail.  Maybe another.  Stay away from the nightly scotch(es).  Baby steps.  Lentils are a good idea.  I keep forgetting about lentils.  I'll look up a good, hardy lentil recipe for tonight.  Maybe something cheesy and spicy.  With rice.  Cups of green tea and television.  

Friday night. Party!  

Sad, Not Bad

Are you curious?  

"Fuck no."

There's nothing bad to tell.  It was just what anyone with half a brain might expect, two people sitting at a bar chatting.  I ordered a martini before she got there and a board of cheeses, cold cuts, olives, etc.  When she got there, she ordered a sparkling water.  

"I still have to run," she said.  

So here's the takeaway.  I've been taking care of my mother and not myself.  I've been up since 4:30 with that in mind.  

She's a cool cat.  Frequent traveler.  She has three trips lined up in the next three weeks.  She dances ballet, goes to the gym, runs, does yoga, and doesn't have a television or a microwave.  She goes to bed at 9:30.  I realized that is how I used to live.  I can't now.  I am unable to exist in my own life.  It has slipped away from me.  Invisibly.  

So this morning, I sit here with coffee in the dark trying to come back to myself in some meaningful way.  

She loves saunas.  She dated her high school history teacher.  She's dated older men but was afraid to tell her parents.  It's not that she doesn't drink.  Some of the best times she's ever had were when she was drinking.  Her breakup with her boyfriend now is feeling like the right thing.  He was footing the bills when they traveled, but the itinerary was always his.  She has more fun when she travels with friends.  

I listen.  I'm a good listener.  Now I need to focus.  I need to regain some of the life I've had to abandon.  I'm not feeling low, exactly, just. . . good things don't come to those who sacrifice.  That's all a bullshit fable. The tenant's mother has been doing what I'm doing for many years now.  That she lives in her own home with her things is an advantage I don't have, but still she has been physically and mentally destroyed by caring for her 104 year old mother.  The tenant said her mother cried for days before she left.  Nobody who hasn't done this alone for years can begin to understand.  What you once were just disappears so gradually you don't realize it until it might be too late.  

Yesterday afternoon, I didn't feel as groovy as I used to.  And last night, not sleeping, I seemed to be revisiting all the eyes I ever caught and all the heads I'd ever turned.  How'd I do it?  It's a mystery to me now.  

But I can still iterate that I have never asked a girl out for the first date.  

I told my friend I wouldn't be calling or texting, but if she wanted to, whatever, let me know.  I'll not be the creepy old guy blowing up your phone.  If I don't hear from her again, that's o.k.  There was another thing of which I was reminded yesterday.  It was nice to be asked out, sure, and it is fun to be something akin to desirable, but I'm too romantic to go through the mechanics of things without feeling I'm in love.  I am a showoff in many ways, but I don't put notches on my belt or marks on my refrigerator door.  

But what I wouldn't give to be in my own house, to read and listen to music, to be able to go to the gym in the morning and take long walks before dinner, to sit on my deck and watch the birds.  To burn incense and my Maison Berger lamp oils, to work on pictures whenever I was moved to do so, to have cocktails on the Boulevard with friends.  To walk to the dock some nights just to watch the stars and moon and to listen to the frogs and the crickets and the splashing of fish and the hooting of owls.  To get in the car and drive to some good part of the state for a few days or to take a cheap flight I found on Google Flights to cities I've never seen.  To visit my friends all across the map.  

I have lost all of that and have lost myself.  

See?  I told you I wouldn't say anything about my "date" unless it was bad.  No, it wasn't bad.  I'm just sad.  

Still, people I don't know stop me to say, "You've cut your hair!"  I grin the grin of somebody running for mayor and say, "Yes, a bit."  Maybe there is still some little part of me left.  

It is a bit weird, I think, that all of my friends now are people who have only known me as I am at present.  Not all my friends, but the ones in town.  New friends.  They don't know me any other way.   For them, this is it.  I've become friendly with another fellow from the Club Y.  He's a swell guy, is a recruiter and has a firm of about twenty people in a building adjacent to The Boulevard.  His brother has been partners in several successful restaurants on The Boulevard and around town, and he is opening up a new one now.  Their mother lives at the end of my street.  The restaurateur is a fisherman and has invited me to come out with him whenever I would like.  Both brothers have had their share of madness.  The recruiter is a degreed chiropractor who never practiced.  He ran a restaurant instead.  And it was all smoke and blow and alcohol, he says, and he wrecked his marriage and his life. 

"I haven't had a drink in twenty years."

"What do you do at night?"

"I go to bed." 

He stopped by the house with his wife one day, and she was very sweet.  They have houses in a couple places in the state and a condo in Palm Beach. 

"I've accomplished everything I set out to," he told me yesterday.  "Big houses, big boats, expensive cars.  And I'm not happy. I've been having a lot of anxiety lately.  I just want to simplify my life." 

He told me how much money he made a year and said he was in the top 1%, "but barely."  He places people in big corporations and said, "I know how much money people make.  I know what salaries are.  There is so much money here it's crazy.  I just want to sell everything, downsize. . . ."

I know his brother is stressed out about the restaurant, too.  

I asked the recruiter how he was coping with his anxiety.  His eyes went a little wild.  Some positive thinking manifestation thing called Quantum Physics.  And, as I have suspected, "Prayer."

I guess it is like Groucho said: "Money will never make you happy. . . and happy will never make you money."

I'd like that old pleasant melancholy I had been able to maintain most of my life.  This is the first time I have ever been depressed.  It's a deep hole.  I've had anxieties, of course, but running usually cured that.  I think walking would help, too.  But the depression thing is new.  I am trying to cope.

I felt guilty yesterday sitting at the bar drinking a martini and eating a charcuterie board knowing my mother was waiting for me to make her dinner.  I was really only half in the moment.  

But the world is on fire and I don't think there is any going back.  The planet will never be as it was again, I fear.  

Adapt or die.  

I may go back to bed in a little while.  I need to take better care of myself.  Quasimodo needs to sleep.  I'll need to get up again soon, though, to give my mother breakfast and meds.  

Selavy.  So they say.  

I'll Only Tell If It Goes Bad

I have a "date" with a twelve year old today.  Am I nervous?  Wrong question.  Am I fit enough?  

There you go.  

I'll only tell you about it if things go wrong.  Nobody wants to hear about it otherwise.  Like if I get roofied and she steals all my candy, yea, there's the story you want to hear.  That's a good story.  Or if the barman puts Visine in my cocktail.  Something like that.  

"Well, what did you think would happen?  Happy ever after?  You're an idiot. . . did you know that?"

What are my choices?  Yes I knew it or no I didn't?  There's no good response to that question.  Let me phone a friend.  

"Hey, ma?"

Yesterday, I picked up a roll of slide film I had developed at the hipster lab.  You'll like this one.  Remember how happy I was that the pretty blonde woman who worked there remembered me, my name?  Yea.  Not yesterday.  I was a complete stranger.  Never saw me before.  I tried to be clever, but she had rather talk to a couple who were also there.  I looked at the slides on the store's light table.  Wow.  They did a great job developing them.  But there wasn't a single shot there that interested me.  An entire roll of bupkis.  I didn't bother looking at them again when I got home.  

I'm not sure I want to keep shooting film now.  It is expensive.  I DO like, however, not seeing the images for a few days or a week after taking them.  If I'd shot Saturday with a digital camera and saw I had nothing that same day, I probably wouldn't be interested in going out again for a good long while.  Maybe that is the advantage of film.  Delayed non-gratification.  

The tenant came back yesterday from her summer stay in Minnesota.  My sphincter tightened as I worried about what troubles will plague me at the apartment.  My bank account is shrivelling as quickly as my manhood.  The A.I. fix on my mother's air conditioner is only temporary.  Since my great victory, the fan has continued to run twice.  I had to "fix" it again this morning.  Sooner or later, it will require something expensive.  My anxiety grows disproportionately.   

I read this morning that America has a loneliness epidemic, especially among men.  40% of men surveyed said they had no close friends.  They felt nobody cared about their wellbeing.  They should have my friends.  They want me to shit my pants on a date.  I mean, that's caring, but in the wrong direction.  But I get it.  My close friends have all moved far away.  It is the great American migration.  People are mobile.  People don't grow up, live and die in the village where they were born.  Except for Gen Whatever.  I don't keep up with the names of gens.  But whoever the 30 year olds living at home with their parents are--that one.  

Which reminds me.  Parents are complaining about the treatment of their sons and daughters in the military.  How about that!  It began in the schools and then the colleges, professors getting scolded by mommies and daddies.  I sat through a lot of those meetings where mom was indignant and the son or daughter (usually the son) sat sheepishly quiet.  Now, I guess, military generals are fielding the calls.  

"My son told me that he couldn't EVEN shower for three days!"

I'm not saying conditions in the military are good.  But I always wonder who decides to go into the military, especially as a sailor or a soldier?  

I think that Arday's mother was complaining about her son's treatment, too.  I won't say who sent me this, but it was a colleague who has rotten disdain for the way degrees are sold in Cracker Jack boxes now.  Academia has become a broke ass mule.  

"This is the Title Page of Jason Arday’s dissertation. lol 😝   Possessive apostrophe rather than plural! In the fucking title!"

Now, I don't always agree with Michelle Goldberg, but I always think she is smart, and I would recommend her editorial on this topic. 

 link

So we live through WOKE 2.0 and MAGA 1.5 with Trump punishing allies and sucking up to enemies and Democratic Socialists ready to take on the republican establishment.  It is going to be a hell of a year, loser take all, winner leave town. 

But hey, you can always bury your heads and watch The Evening News.  Lead story for the past three days?  Ready?  America grieves for the "tragic" loss of an "icon" who turned to drugs to help her cope with her fame and gave up her child and then wrote a tell-all about her troubles.  Her mother (yes) blames it on her toxic boyfriend.

"And tonight, what we've learned today about the death of. . . and the boyfriend with whom she had a troubled relationship.  More on this in just a moment."

This is what happens when I have time to think on days when I don't have to take my mother anywhere early in the morning.  I think I'm better off under pressure and time constraints.  When I am able to sit and think what to write next, I get crazy.  

And so, I'll end with something that has disappointed me.  I remembered a story about Jackie Gleason.  The guy was truly amazing.  He did everything well, pool, golf, cards, acting, music. . . and drinking. He was legendary.  I remembered a story about him playing golf with Arnold Palmer.  On the first day, he was leading Palmer by a couple strokes, but that night he partied all night and so the next day Palmer beat him badly.  I looked the story up yesterday, though, and A.I. told me it was an urban legend.  There is no documented source for the story, it said.  The only source it found was a golfing magazine in which Palmer said it wasn't true and that he could beat Gleason in everything but drinking.  There is another legend about Palmer's manhood that Trump famously referenced at least once.  I should ask A.I. if that is true, too. 

Have you ever had an Arnold Palmer?  

Is it true that Palmer's wife always kissed his balls before he played in a tournament?  Again, A.I.: 

"No video or audio recording of the alleged event exists."

I think the story about Gleason is true, though.  The guy was amazing, bigger than The Abominable Snowman or The Loch Ness Monster.  He even won an Academy Award nomination for his role as Minnesota Fats in "The Hustler."  

I heard this song the other day and had to look it up.  Gleason did everything, man.  Just about.  

Bag of Broken Bones

As the song goes, what a difference a day makes.  I wish I could have finished my tale yesterday when I was full of piss and vinegar.   And I was.  But the story now takes many twists and turns, one of the most miserable being a visit to the ortho for a gel injection in my knee.  My doc retired, so I saw a new guy.  He wanted new Xrays.  Understandable.  So they did three.  Then they put me in a room where I waited for an hour and a half.  Miserably.  I have a problem with the vitreous humor in my eyes that some people get.  The vitreous humor is the liquid gel-like material that fills the eyeball.  

"Sometimes, as we age. . . ."

It can get "sticky" and start to pull at the lining of the retina and cause tearing.  I've had this for a long time.  At night, sometimes, I see sparks of fireworks in my eye.  This is what happens when the retina tears.  The result is that particles float around in the eyeball.  Floaters.  I have a lot of them, and sitting in a stark, bright room with white walls reminded me of that.  In the hour and a half that I sat there, I got more and more depressed.  I did an inventory of the damage my body has sustained over the years.  I am a bag of broken bones.  I started with my head and worked my way down.  Broken nose, deviated septum, chipped teeth (all from fighting), terrible arthritis in my cervical vertebrae (rear ended in my teens), torn rotator cuffs in both shoulders (falling on an ice climb, dislocation playing basketball, Vespa accident), broken collar bone, several breaks of the left scapula, broken AC joint, and seven broken ribs, two plated (Vespa accident), broken wrist (basketball), compressed discs in my lower back, knees, and two crushed big toes (dropping very big things on them).   By five o'clock, I was wondering if I had been forgotten and everyone had gone home.  

When the doc came in, he barely introduced himself.  Said a few words and picked up the tray with the large needle.  

"Did you look at my Xrays?"

"Yes."

That was it. Yes.  He didn't ask how the knee felt, nothing about my health and wellbeing.  He just said, "You need to start thinking about a replacement."  

He was putting the needle in a part of the knee that the other doc had not.  OK.  I guess there are many ways.  But motherfucker, did this hurt. And when he started the injection, I thought I might pass out.  When I opened my eyes, he made a joke to the two people in lab coats he had brought with him.  I was in too much pain to remember what it was.  He said, "I'll see you in three months," and was gone.  When I stood up to leave, my knee buckled.  I limped out of the office in pain.  My knee hurt during the night.  It hurts now.  I am having trouble walking.  

Now I've only mentioned the mechanical issues.  There are others.  And I've been chewing on them all.  So, I am not full of yesterday's enthusiasm.  And I have to take my mother to the dentist in a bit, so I don't know if I have time to tell my tale.  

And this old computer keyboard isn't working so well anymore. 

I'll have to be quick.  

So I was coming into the Cafe Strange feeling grand.  The parking lot is small, but a car pulled out just as I was pulling in.  I felt like picking six number in the lotto.  When I walked in, the cafe con leche server was working, and when she saw me at the back of the line, she lit up.  

"You cut your hair!"

"Yes. . . I don't know how I feel about it. . . ."

"I like it."  

When I got to the counter after she filled other orders, she grinned and said, "Mimosa?"

"If you are still making them."

"Always for you.  Only for you,"

"You look like you're doing well.  You practically glow."

"Fifty-fifty," she said, and she went to squeeze the oranges. When she came back I asked what was wrong.

"I broke up with my boyfriend.  It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.  My heart hurts."

"Why'd you break up with him."

She smiled like a devil. "Because I'm more fun."

"Well!," I exclaimed.  "Did you live together?"

"No, but we live on the same block."

We talked about relationships for a minute.  I told her about the tenant, about Ili, and she said she couldn't stand to see her boyfriend with a new girl.  I told her I'd dated women who were younger, and I certainly wasn't as much fun.  

"I've dated older men," she said, "and they were a lot of fun."

New customers were lining up, so I said I'd let her get back to work.  

"Come see me before you leave," she said. 

When I'd finished the mimosa and the counter was clear, I went to say goodbye.  I try not to fool myself.  There's no fool like. . . you know how it goes.  So what came next floored me.  I'll make it quick. She wanted my phone number.  We are having happy hour cocktails on Wednesday. 

WTF?

Nobody likes that story.  I understand.  So let me skip ahead.  Yesterday I took my mother to a doctor's appointment, and afterwards I asked her if she wanted to go to breakfast.  She said no, so I asked her if she wanted an egg mcmuffin.  Sure, she said.  We ordered, paid, and pulled up to the window where a pretty, young female was working.  She smile hugely and asked, "Did you order the two egg mcmuffins?"

"Yes." 

"Did you order two cokes?

"No."

"I have two right here.  Do you want them?"

Oh, yea. . . I was on a high.  Maybe I wasn't looking so much like Quasimodo as. . . 

"You two are a cute couple," she said.  "How long have you been together?"

I fell a hundred and fifty floors.  Loud thud.  

"Since I was born," I said.  

It took me awhile to see the humor in that one.  More than a minute.  

After breakfast, I went to the gym.  I was not going to tell people about the happy hour date, but man, I couldn't resist pairing it with the McDonald's story.  I told it to the Shock Jock.  He laughed and laughed. After my workout, I was sitting at a table with him when a woman trainer who just won some body contest walked by.  We we are friendly.  She was wearing a pair of leopard skin shorts.  I don't know what got into me, but I hooted.  She didn't respond, and the Shock Jock callee her name. 

"I thought I heard somebody hoot," she said.  

Does your husband know you are wearing those shorts?" I asked.  

"What?  Yea."  She laughed. 

"You know what would look good with those?"

"What?" 

"High heels."

Then I told her the story.  She looked concerned at the first part then laughed hard at the second.  Yes, people much prefer to hear the second part.  Nobody likes the first. 

So I sat in the doctor's office and counted my miseries and thought about Wednesday Happy Hour.  I shouldn't go.  She probably wants me to lend her money or something equivalent.  I'm old, but I'm not a fool.  

But I'd like to have somebody to drive the car while I take pictures.  That would be nice. 

Well now. . . it's time to take my mother.  I told the tale too quickly, but what can I do?  My life is not my own.  And I'm down in the dumps about my knee.  I don't have time to go back and check my grammar, look for repeated words or phrases, none of it, so I will have to once again post the draft.  

Selah.  

The First Step

 I have a big story to tell and no a lot of time.  I have to take my mother to a doctor's appointment this morning, so this is most likely going to be a tale poorly told.  Too bad, really.  I'd like to think had I the time, I could really make it sing.  

Let's just go with chronology.  It is the simplest, quickest way to a narrative, or perhaps, if you are a postmodernist, narrative death.  

Q sent me a quotation from Foucault about the monster in us.  I wrote back that I was a mere beast and not a monster.  Yes, he said, "the beast with one back."  Funny enough.  Then, "the beast with one hand."  So I sent him an image of Onan. 

He quickly told me that he was a devout Onanist.  

I'll say this--it is an easy worship.  Maybe one day we'll talk about our mastubatory practices here.  

Probably not.  

Enough of that, though.  I had to make my mother breakfast.  Eggs and protein toaster waffles. She loves those things.  

Now came the first, most difficult step, as I reported yesterday that I would try to take.  I got a pair of big clippers and went into my mother's backyard to trim her wildly out of control crepe myrtles.  It was still early, but man, the heat was brutal.  Or maybe it was the humidity.  But probably it was the drinking.  I had sweat through my clothes in five minutes.  In ten, I was panting.  In fifteen, the middle of my back was stinging from working the giant sheers against the thick, wild branches.  In twenty, my lower back was killing me from bending over to pull the twelve and fifteen foot stalks into the yard.  I worked for an hour.  So it seemed.  The yard was full of big stalks that needed to be cut into pieces and put into bags for yard trash day.  Sweat was dripping off my nose.  I decided I'd done enough for the day, more than I had planned on.  Those branches weren't going anywhere.  

I got my mother to come outside and take a look.  She would see things and I would do a bit more pruning.  I told her I would finish it up later, though.  It was getting late and hot, and I wanted to go make some pictures.  

"We have that big Porterhouse steak for dinner tonight."

"What?"

"See you later."

The a.c. blew cold against my damp body and gave me chills.  But I was drying.  I thought about going home first to change, then I decided against that.  I was going to sweat like a. . . a. . . heathen. . . walking in the heat, so I pointed my little chariot in the direction of a distant part of town.  Traffic had already picked up and it was slow and frustrating going.  I was getting antsy.  I wanted to walk on empty streets.  

I pulled the car to the side of the road and parked.  I had eight shots of slide film in my Leica R5 to shoot up.  I grabbed a roll of Porta 400 and stuck it in the camera bag.  I didn't think I would take many photographs really.  I was thinking more of just putting in some miles. 

But it was one of those days when you see things.  I was seeing things and shot off those last eight shots quickly.  Good.  I wanted to get them to the lab.  

I came upon a fellow sitting in front of a barber shop.  It was a good barber shop.  You'll see, eventually.  He was a young Black male with tats on his neck and arms and cropped hair that was dyed bright red.  I nodded.  

"Do you work here?"

He gave a Mona Lisa grin and nodded.  

The shop was empty but well lighted.  

"Do you mind if I make a photo through the window?"

"Go ahead.  You can go inside if you like."

"Cool." 

So I did. I don't know if I made any good pictures, but the place had about eight chairs and was old time fancy.  When I came back out, the fellow asked, "What are you shooting?"

"You mean film?"

"No, what are you taking pictures of?"

"Oh, abstractions, reflections. . . colors."

Yea, I felt dumb.  

"Is this your place?"

"No.  The owner isn't here today."

"Do you mind if I take a photo of you?"

"Go ahead."

"I'll bring the pictures back when I get the film developed.  When are you here?"

"Everyday but Tuesday."

"Alright, then.  I'll see you again."

Well, I thought, that was fun.  And I walked on.  And on.  And too soon, I'd finished the second roll of film.  But it was fine, for once again, my clothes were soaked.  I was excited to take the film to the lab, but I drove a long way around through parts of town I would have stopped to make photos if I had brought more film.  I've been a dumbass about not bringing enough film.  I had black and white film in my Leica M, but I would save that. There was another pop-up market in the parking lot behind the film lab, so maybe I would use it there.  

I had to park far away from the lab.  Cars lined every street.  I don't get it, these little "vintage" hipster markets where they sell old clothing, but I needn't.  I grabbed the two rolls of film to develop and my Leica and headed for the store, and as soon as I turned the corner onto the main street. . . wham!  I love these kids.  Costumes.  They spend a whole lotta time making up their looks.  I'm a fan, and I want to make photos of them all.  I stole some photos from the hip, but I needed color film, really, to capture the colors that they wear, the clothes, the makeup, the hair.  For the millionth time, I thought I should rent a space and set up a photo booth.  

"Photos.  One dollar."

When I got to the door of the film lab, a young couple was walking out.  Everybody is young, I think, who shoots film.  They were a pretty boy and girl.  

"Wow.  Nice camera," the boy said. 

"Thanks."

Inside it was cool and dark.  

"Dropping off?"

"Yea." 

I filled out the order forms.  Oh, shit.  I left my wallet in the car.  Long walk.  I took more photos.  

When I got back to the lab, the fellow who worked there said, "Nice camera."  Those Leica Ms are just lovely works of art.  They are truly beautiful.  I remember desiring them so badly but not being able to justify the cost.  At some point, however. . . the heart wants what the heart wants.  

When I went back on the street, I wandered the market.  It was bigger than I thought going on for blocks.  But I felt obvious walking around with the camera.  The market had just opened and wasn't yet crowded.  I took a few pictures and decided to bail.  There was a good brewery just down the street that had fabulous beers and terrific boiled peanuts--in many flavors.  

I sat outside.  It was hot.  The beer was ice cold.  The waitress was cute with crazy dyed hair, short shorts, tats, a great face, nice figure.  She smiled the smile of a woman working.  I wanted to take a thousand photos of her.  One day I would ask her.  

This was Crazy Larry's hangout, the retired NASA engineer.  He comes here with his scratch off lotto tickets most days.  Once, he told me, he'd gotten a ten thousand dollar scratch off ticket and had given it to the waitress.  

"I'd won one before, and it was too much of a hassle.  You have to go to the lottery office and fill out all these forms. . . .  They let me drink here for free now."

Indeed, I once asked a server if that was true.  Sure as shittin'.  

I sat in the heat with wet, sticky hands busting open the peanuts and sucking out the meat like a madman.  I looked around.  These were not the cute hipster kids.  These people were older, not old, but young parents. The women now pushed strollers or carried babies on their hips or both.  Once cute, I'm sure, they now looked broken down, their faces carrying a heavy disappointment.  The men looked something else, more irritated or perhaps just bored.  Once flat stomachs now protruded.  The women did not make costumes.  They wore. . . what everyone else wore, or whatever, and I wondered why.  I'm sure they were like the kids in the market once.  What made them do it?  What made them succumb?  I have never figured it out.  They must have had trashy daydreams at some point.  They gave them up for. . . the dull thud, thud, thud of this.  

I'm sure I looked like quasimodo to them sucking and slurping, fingers wet and shiny, my shirt clinging to my belly with sweat.  

"Among the throng, but not of the throng."

Yea, right.  But I felt glances from some of the mothers. Probably not, but I felt certain of it.  

"You're an idiot. Did you no that?"

They play awful rock music here, but I heard something I liked. 

"Siri, what is this song?"

Holy moly, this was good.  Not great musical talent but a fun sound. It reminded me much of my old band, New Suburbans.  Just raw garage.  This was turning out to be an outstanding day. 

When I had finished sucking and sipping, I took my stuff to the trash can.  I stepped inside and asked if they sold any of their beers to go.  Indeed, they had a cooler full of canned beer.  Hell yea, I grabbed a pack of four tall boys of what I had been drinking, "Punks in the House."  

On the way out, I saw Crazy Larry working the lotto.  He didn't want to talk.  Maybe he didn't recognize me with short hair. 

Back in the car, I decided to stop at The Cafe Strange for a mimosa, if my friend was working.  If not, I wouldn't be able to.  Everyone else tells me no.  But she usually works there on Sundays, so I'd take a shot.  

And this is where the narrative gets very, very, interesting.  But guess what?  I'm out of time.  I knew I couldn't do all this before we had to leave.  And so. . . for now, this is on the QT.  Just between us.

I don't even have time to go back to correct any errors here.  I have to post it just as is, straight from my fingers to your ears.  

A Free Day: Total Paralysis

And so. . . .

I cleaned my mother's windows in the morning.  Some of them.  The ones we look out, front and back.  They were filthy.  Now the rooms are bright.  While I was finishing up, one of my mother's neighbors with a lot of her own troubles came over for a visit.  She wanted to take my mother out to eat and maybe get her nails done.  Would mom rather do lunch or dinner?  My mother seemed dazed and uncomprehending, and she looked at me with terrified eyes.  It took awhile to get my mother in the game.  I let the woman keep talking just for fun before I yelled at my mother, "Lunch or dinner?  Which one?" 

"Dinner, I guess."

"Do you want to get your nails done?"

"Sure."

The neighbor would pick her up at three.  And suddenly, just like that, I was free.  I could do anything I wanted.  I could have a beer in the afternoon.  I could go anywhere I wanted for dinner.  When I got into my car to leave, my mind was a frenzied jumble.  I'd go home first and make a plan.

I never made a plan.  I never left the house.  I was as uncertain and confused as my mother.  What would I do?  I don't know how to have so much freedom anymore.  When I looked up at the clock, it was six. I no longer had time to get dinner.  I didn't want to go anywhere anyway, I told myself.  

I got a Big Mac on my way back to mother's.  

I am, by any estimation, pathetic.  

"How was dinner?"

"It was good." 

She'd had fried shrimp, one of her favorites.  

"Did you do alright?  Were you able to sit o.k.?"

"Yes.  I did fine."

Shit. I mean, I was feeling. . . guilty.  I don't take my mother out to eat.  First she makes salmon, then she has a half day outing.  I think she's getting better.  I'm need to start taking her out for beers or something I guess.  But she has given up beer.  She is now drinking my whiskey.  True.  Maybe that is why she is feeling better.

In the evening, my mountain friend sent me a video of a little concert on a hilly green, two women on a stage playing guitars and singing.  

"This is what I do," he wrote.  He sends me such things all the time.  It pisses me off since his own mother is here in the same or worse condition as mine.  But he is able to feel o.k. visiting once a year and calling sometimes because he has a family and lives in Cali.  

"You need to bring your art to Burning Man.  Crash for twelve nights.  Make memories with a girl."

"I'll see if mom feels up to it."

Nobody gets it.  Or maybe I don't.  

I put on the television.  I watch bookends of my photographic desires.  One made beautifully aesthetic photos without going anywhere, sitting alone, drinking coffee, and listening to music in his studio apartment (link).  The other had gallery and museum shows and was well known.  He travelled and photographed incessantly in the American street (link).  

My blood was racing.  What do I have left?  Six weeks?  Six months?  How long before I can do none of it any longer?  

I sat in my house the entire day without moving.  

I will move today.  I will trim the branches of some bushes that are growing into small trees in my mother's backyard.  After I make her breakfast.  

If I were free, I'd already be out with a camera.  Before the heat.  Before the rain.  

So I say.  But time is running out.  

Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  

I am gaining an appreciation of those who have nothing inside them trying to escape, who are content with dinners out, family vacations, golf. . . .  

"But what of us who have all the desires of the artist but none of the talent?"

That was a good film.  Too bad he only made one like it.  His Bergman.  But it underperformed at the box office.  Naturally.  

"O.K.  Buck up, laddie.  There are things to be done, and you are just the fellow to do them."

There's another big Ribeye in the fridge.  There is always something to look forward to.  

But first I have to get off my ass and out the door.  The first step is always the most difficult. 

24 Hours

It is Saturday, and I've thought to go out and try making pictures once again.  It is strange how that works, though.  Sometimes every photo you take feels like a good one, and other times you can't make a photo on a hundred dollar bet.  A couple weekends ago, I was on fire.  Since then, nada.  And after a couple nada days, I have a very hard time motivating myself to get out and try again.  

"Why?  I mean, why do you want to go out and make pictures?  Of what?  What's the point?  It's kind of weird, don't you think?"

Yea, I'm starting to think.  It is kinda weird.  Maybe I could do something else.  Like what?  Go shopping?  I am not sure what other people do.  Oh, I could work in the yard, I guess.  People do that.  Wash the windows.  Get with others and play a game of Scrabble.  

The windows DO need to be washed.  

Already this morning, though, I've had a small victory.  The internal fan on the HVAC system here at my mother's house wouldn't turn off.  It just kept running when the outside unit shut off.  This happened once before and I called the engineering firm with whom my mother has a service contract.  The guy who came out said it was the capacitor and that it would cost about $1,000 to replace it, but he said he wouldn't do it, that the fan motor used very little electricity and that they were built to run forever.  

Then it started working again.  Cool. 

This morning when I got up, it was continuously running again.  Just running.  So. . . have you ever used A.I.?  I asked for some solutions.  Yup. It said to turn the thermostat way down below where I usually set it, wait awhile, then turn it back up.  

And Bingo!  That worked! 

It also told me that this was caused by a faulty thermostat, not a capacitor, and that replacing a capacitor should not cost more than $400.  

At least the engineering firm didn't charge me for the kid's "advice."

This victory is coming off the heels of a wonderful night's sleep.  I don't remember waking once.  And that followed a surprising dinner--by mom!  Kind of.  She said in the morning that she would make salmon patties for dinner.  Really?  I was shocked.  I didn't think she had it in her, but I love her salmon patties and said, "Sure."  I had to do the heavy lifting, of course.  I opened the can of Sockeye salmon, but she had already crushed the crackers and cut some onion.  I cracked a couple eggs into the mix for her and added wine to moisten it when she said the mix was too dry, then I oiled the pan and did the frying.  But man, those patties were perfection.  Look at mom.  It was nice, too, that I had bought her sunflowers to brighten up her day.  

So the past twelve hours or so have gone swimmingly.  I'm a little upbeat.  

Maybe I should wash her windows.  

My Physical Fitness Club visit yesterday went well, too.  People were chatty, and I met a new, very friendly, very pretty woman who was sweet, and some of the other women told me how much they like my hair now.  I'm not quite on board with that, but it was nice.  This is my only social outing, by and large, so I was feeling upbeat after. 

Then I followed the Shock Jock to his house to look at the e-bike that he wants to sell me.  Never had I been to that part of town.  He had a nice house and a cool dog, but the bike was not really an e-bike, not the kind I want, but a pedal assist bike. You can't just let it act like a little motor scooter.  You have to pedal all the time.  I asked him not to be offended, but that wasn't what I was looking for, so we sat and talked a good while before I split.  

Going home, a big pickup truck was blocking one of the roads I was on. I didn't know why, then I saw the fellow grin and try to push it out of the way.  I got out to help him.  

"It just quit on me," he said sheepishly. Together we tried to push it uphill into a driveway.  We were able to move it a little, but not all the way. 

"Can you get by?"

Cars had lined up behind us, and just then a tall boy got out of the car behind me.  

"This looks like a three man job," he said, and indeed, he was right.  We got the truck out of the road. Although the driver was thankful, as I got back into my car, I thought now the shitty part of his day has just begun.  As I drove away, though, I thought about me. Look at that, I smiled, jumping out to help a fellow push a truck just like you were a kid.  

I decided to go to Whole Foods and buy nice things for mom's, including another big container of tapenade, a nice bottle of wine to compliment the salmon, ripe watermelon for desert, and, as reported, sunflowers.  

Back to my house.  I showered, had a protein drink, part of my new plan because I don't eat enough protein-rich foods anymore having only breakfast and dinner.  Clean, physically fit, and full of amino acids, I decided to cook up another couple of film scans for viewing.  

Then came the crazy rain.  The rain here is not like the rain in other places.  It is like the rain in Viet Nam, I've been told by people from Viet Nam.  The weather here is much as it is there, they say.  Beautiful Viet Nam, not the one from old war-torn movies.  The one where rich French families went to vacation.  But yea. . . the summer rains.  

And when the rain has passed, the air is cooler, so when I got back to my mother's house, we sat out for awhile and had a cocktail.  Backing up, then, I'd say maybe I've had a good twenty-four hours or so.  Nothing big.  Just minor happiness.  

I'll take that.  

But the question remains.  Will I go out with cameras?  

Probably, but I don't think I have a vision today.  Maybe I'll go to the little hipster record store in the hipster plaza and peruse their good book section.  Maybe I'll wander and find some little magic somewhere once again.  A shaved ice truck.  A strange home goods store.  Maybe I'll sit somwhere and have a beer.  

But. . . I think I'll wash my mother's windows first.  At least a few.  

Have Your Bot Call My Bot

I just found that on one of my blogs I have to O.K. comments before they appear.  I didn't even know they were there. I just released them.  Glad to have seen them, too.  Evidence that I may still have an audience.  

"Have your chatbot contact my chatbot.  We should do lunch."

 I read an article yesterday that reported there is an app that can, with 99% accuracy, detect writing created by A.I.  You can subscribe to it for $20 a month. . . and I wonder why?  I mean, who needs to know?  I guess it might be handy for lazy teachers and professors who don't want to handle writing assignments effectively.  I thought about signing up for a month just to run my blog through the app.  I think my use of ". . ." and "--" and hanging italicized sentences might be mistaken for bot writing.  So I've read, anyway.  But nope, I swear, I am fucking up the writing all on my own.  But do I care if you are having A.I. write your memos, letters of recommendation, etc?  Not a bit.  Why would it matter?  After the bot has done your job, you still look it over and approve or disapprove of it like any good admin, right?  Back at the factory, after I left, they hired a VP with an Ed.D. who is as illiterate a person as you will ever read. Then--BOOM!--A.I.  Everyone knows she doesn't write her memos any longer.  It is a standing joke, one which has not raised her esteem in anyone's estimation.  Were I working there still, I'd have A.I. summarize her briefs so that I got the gist and not the bloviation.  

And I'd probably do something scandalous, too.  

I'm just a little scamp. 

But I don't really blame her.  Writing is fun until you have to do it.  Unless you adopt a character.  At lunch on Wednesday, my secretary and I were having a good laugh over the way I'd write return emails in response to some disgruntled complaint.  I would speak the words I was writing in the voice of a 1940's movie actor, many times William Powell in "The Thin Man."

"Dear Mr. Equitone, It has come to my attention. . . ."

It really helped make a miserable chore fun, and my secretary was always delighted.  She'd laugh and clap her hands in approval.  

"And so we will attend to this most pressing matter without delay.  Sincerely. . . ."

Those old actors were really something.  A.I. can't match them.  

I recently got fooled by some A.I. music, though.  Again.  Damn!

That same app that can detect A.I. writing is not very good at catching A.I. images.  But, and this was something new to me, A.I. companies are embedding secret codes in images that identifies them.  Hadn't thought of that.  If they can do that, doesn't it seem obvious that they can embed other codes, too?  

A.I. is watching you!  You can't escape.  

As I've said from the beginning, the people in charge of A.I. scare the shit out of me.  

"Dr. Eldon Tyrell.  CEO, The Tyrell Corporation.  Our Motto: MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN!"

 Still, I like fooling around in it to make things.  I'm like J.F. Sebastian, "living a lonely, isolated life in the abandoned Bradbury Apartments."  

"I make friends. They're toys. My friends are toys. I make them. It's a hobby."

Rusted brandy in a diamond glass
Everything is made from dreams
Time made from honey slow and sweet
Only the fools know what it means

Temptation
Temptation
Temptation
I can't resist

What the hell, we might as well end on a song.  I've posted it before, but I'm not sure anybody listens to what I put here anyway.  I can say with great assurance, this isn't A.I. 

 

Temptation, temptation, temptation
Oh, temptation, temptation, I can't resist
I know that she is made of smoke
But I've lost my wayy

She knows that I am broke
So that I must play
Temptation, temptation, temptation
Oh, whoa, temptation, temptation, I can't resist 

Dutch pink and Italian blue
She is waiting there for you
My will has disappeared
Now my confusions oh so clear 

Temptation, temptation, temptation
Whoa, whoa, temptation, temptation
I can't reisist

The Troubles of the Bourgeoisie

It was a beautiful day.  I had no idea what to do.  

I did nothing.  

I came back to my mother's house early.  It was too soon to have a cocktail, I thought, but. . . .  After a bit of sitting and staring, I read for an hour.  But I was outside in the garage porch, and it was hot.  I was sitting in a plastic leather lounger, and I was sweating.  I decided to make an early dinner.  I wasn't making much.  

The news.  More t.v.  Bed.  

I need human interaction.  

"Hi.  I'm one of the boys from the neighborhood.  What's your name?"

One good luncheon date has put my present life in perspective.  It is miserable.  

"You need to be careful what you say out loud.  When she's gone. . . ."

Oh, trust me, I would be full of guilt.  But not to worry.  I'll be gone before she is, the last years of my life spent in empty servitude.  

The film lab sent me an email at noon.  My film was ready to pick up.  I had shot slide film and was excited to see.  

I was surprised when I walked in.  The pretty blonde woman at the counter reached into a bin and pulled out my film.  I'd only seen her once, and she wasn't there when I dropped the film off to be developed.  She didn't ask my name, just smiled and handed the rolled up strip to me.  

I put the film on the light tray on the counter and started looking through.  She was talking to another customer as I went through each slide with a loupe.  

"Funny, isn't it, that when you get your film back, you wonder where all the masterpieces you thought you made have gone."

She looked at me and said, "Well. . . slide film is tricky."

"Oh, no. . . I don't mean the processing.  I meant the photographer."

"Oh. . . yea.  Ha."

The excitement was gone.  I had my cameras with me, and I only needed to make eight exposures to finish another roll, but it was hot and there seemed to be no magic in it anymore, so I drove back home to start scanning the film.  And that is when I began to wonder.  I had shot this roll on the old Canon film camera.  And the film was older.  The slides looked either underexposed or underdeveloped.  The colors were not saturated.  What was it--me, the camera, the film, or the lab?  

Food for thought.  Maybe shooting up the 100 or so rolls of old film wasn't the best idea.  Thrifty, sure, but I could be screwing up what might have been some good photographs.  

Or was I just shitting myself?  Was I able to make "good photographs" anymore?  How would I know?  I wasn't winning any awards.  Nobody was clamoring for a print.  I wasn't a social media star.  I don't even know how that shit works.  I've posted some photos, but like ten people see them.  

Vivian Maier never showed anyone her work.  Eggleston said he only liked his own photographs.  Did he mean all of them or only some?  

Why should it matter?  As I said before, speaking to the void, making pictures should be fun.  And as a photographer from Belarus sagely told me by email so long ago, "When you can't make photographs, don't try to make photographs."  That's pretty much the same thing, right?  

I wonder what happened to him.  Sasha.  And his girlfriend.  I still have a photo of her that he sent me hanging on a wall in my house.  A sad ballad, I think.  

The rest of the photos I bartered for are by women who are doing quite well.  Three in particular.  When I traded out one desk for the one T gave me, I found, among the many, many other things stored away forgotten in the drawers, a birthday card from one with a small hand colored photo pasted on.  I'd forgotten about it completely.  It warmed my heart.  

But that now seems long ago and far away.  

It is going to be another bright sunny day.  I wish I could spend it at the beach.  Take some photos.  Sit in a beachside pub and drink a cold beer and eat a fried fish sandwich.  Talk to the locals.  Which reminds me.  The last time I was at the beach, the only time I've gotten out of town for the day in years, was Bike Week.  I still have the phone numbers of two women who wanted me to make pictures with me.  Not "with me"--you know what I mean.  Lunch with Red one afternoon.  Lunch with the factory women yesterday.  

That's it.  That has been my social life this year, at least with any females.  

And mom.  

I'll go make breakfast for her now.  I bought some of those whole grain protein frozen toaster waffles for her.  She asks for them all the time now.  But I'll fix eggs and Canadian bacon and toast with honey and a side of Kimchi for gut health today.  She hasn't lost a pound on my watch, and the old machine keeps ticking.  Vitamins and minerals and good fats and proteins.  

And about 30 prescription pills a day.  

I'm going to look at my buddy's e-bike today.  And who knows, I might even go out and make some pictures that only you will see.  

And that is better than what 90% of the world's population will have today.  Mine are the troubles of a bourgeoisie, First World privileged baby.  

And I'm just the fellow to document it.  For you.

Selah.