By the Balls

I try to live a good and healthy life.  I try to be creative and caring, smart and compassionate. . . etc.  External factors, however, are breaking me apart, tearing me down, whoopin' my ass.

To wit.

Yesterday I was useless at the factory.  The day started well.  Having stuck to my diet and barely drinking, people commented on how good I looked.  Well now.

By lunch, however, I was in a funk.  I sat at my desk staring at the computer, contemplating all the work I needed to do.  It was like an iron hat.  I couldn't do it.  I tried.  I pulled up forms that needed completing, letters that needed to be written, and then I Googled photo things.  I'd come back to the open forms, but nothing happened.  I felt catatonic.  Gripped.

I remembered that I had to renew my auto tag and decided that I would go after lunch.  The day was beautiful.  It was a wonderful day.  Photogenic.  Driving away from the factory was liberating.  It is what I was meant to do.  I was born to flee.  I put on the college jazz station and they were playing the best music they've played in months, crazy, wonderful songs.  There was the world I didn't get to see, the world of the retired, the unemployed, housewives and the rich.  This is what they did while I sat at the computer filling out forms.  I have been wasting my life, I thought, and soon enough it will be gone.

The tag office was full.  I didn't care, really, except that I was squeezed into a chair between people who didn't appreciate me sitting there.  I thought the place would be empty at two o'clock on a Monday, but apparently it was a holiday of some sort.

As I settled in for a long wait, however, my number was called.  The whole thing took less than zero seconds.  I was legal before I knew it.

I had seen something as I drove up to the tax agency that I thought I should photograph.  It was nothing, and it was out of the way, but I didn't want to go back to the office, and this was my new ethos.  Photograph everything every day.

And so I did.  It was pleasant parking in the strange lot, taking my camera out, walking around in the fresh air, watching people go into the large business center.  So much so, that I did it again.  And again.  Anything I saw that I thought would make good picture, I would stop or turn around or drive to, park, get out, and photograph.  At one point, I found myself walking through a large empty field surrounded by apartment buildings, a sewage station, I think, and a school.  The sun was brilliant.  The sky was streaked.  I felt strangely and thrillingly alive.

Back at work, I stared at my computer screen again.  Nothing.  I couldn't make myself work.  And so I turned it it off, packed up, and told my secretary I would see her in the morning.  I wanted out, that was all.  I would have time to go to the grocery store, take a walk to the track and run just a bit, and then get on my scooter and take a few pictures.  The radio station was still playing great music.  I got out of the car at Whole Foods to a jazz standard I can't remember the name of, something Joe.  Shit.  I love that song.

At home, I changed clothes and headed out.  What a great day.  People were still working, sitting at their desks and watching the clock.  Not me.  I was on the road to well-being.

About a mile from the house, I stepped funny, I guess.  There was a searing stinging pain in my hip that took my breath away.  It felt like my hip came out of socket, perhaps, or some tendon got pulled. It was about thirty seconds before I could move.  And then, I couldn't walk right.  I tried, but my leg would not obey.  I didn't think I could make it home.  Every step was miserable.

Why, I wondered?  Why?  It didn't seem fair.  Was it because I left work early?  Is this some cosmic justice?  I limped into the house and took a shower.  Everything was off.  My entire leg was cramping, my back tightening up.

Last night, I woke in the night.  It felt like I had been run over by a bus.  Every part of my body hurt.  My knee was hurting, my back, along with the usual, my shoulders and elbow.

This morning is no better.  I walk like a corkscrew.  I'm fucked.

And it is time for the factory again, where I will try, really try, to do the work that has amassed.

This is all part of what is coming, the thing I have dreaded, the Last Age.  I am in a downward spiral both physically and mentally.  This things has really got me by the balls.