Other People's Music

Other people's music is like other people's dreams.  Sort of.  I've never heard another person's dream that fascinated me. On a minority of occasions, I've had someone recommend music that has interested me.  Too often, though, you listen to the song and go, "What the fuck?  Really?"  What's the success rate on this stuff?  I can't imagine it is more than 20%.  So. . . I am not offended if you listen to the music I put up here and say to yourself (or to others), "What the fuck?"  I am like that, too.

But I am alone and have nothing to do but listen to music and write and look through pictures and mope and tune into what my body is doing and feel that I am dying.  I mean, I'm doing a lot of feeling sorry for me.  I worry about the world, too, but it is mostly about me.

Tomorrow is the first day of spring, the vernal equinox.  Surely it will bring a change.  We need a change for the good.  I need something to take me out of this funk.  I can think of only one thing, and as unlikely as that is, nothing else I can think of seems it will do.  You could give me my money back.  You could give me a new car.  But I know, as you may have realized, too, that there is only one thing that will do.

Maybe two.

My mother, who I talk to multiple times a day since I can't visit, reported that suicide rates have gone way up since the corona virus has really hit.  "You wouldn't ever do that, would you?"

"Well, mom, you know, I mean. . . I don't want to walk around with my kidney in a bag.  There is a certain quality of life. . . you know. . . I mean. . . ."

That didn't go over really well.  "You're tough," she said.  "You're tougher than that."

"Tough" is a relative term.  I was tough when I got run over.  Sometimes, however, it is tougher to do one thing than another.  You don't always know which.  But I'm an only child.  Mom doesn't have replacements.  She is tougher than I ever could be.  My life has been a fucking extravagance, a crazy circus, a wild ride I'm not sure I did anything to deserve.  Born in a tiny house without indoor plumbing, with a billboard for siding, then moving south and growing up with hillbillies and cracker rednecks in a poor Southern neighborhood, I somehow lucked into every extravagance and luxury I could never afford.  I've had adventures beyond my abilities.  I've had affairs beyond my dreams.

Lying in a bed with a tube in my throat. . . no.  Sorry, ma.

Holy smokes!  As I write, I have music playing on t.v.  This just came on.  Who is that in the opening scene!  Ha.  I knew I had good music taste.

.* .* .*.

After reading Tom Hank's text in the N.Y. Times this morning, I am more convinced I have corona.  Our symptoms are the same, and he has been in quarantine for a long while now.  I just can't seem to shake this fatigue and achiness.  I can for awhile, then it comes back.  I will stay in quarantine.  I am cancelling the maids visit.  I will have much more time to sit and mope.

I try to imagine what it is like to feel o.k in the Time of Corona.  I think people feel pretty confident that this inconvenience will pass them by.  I get texts from people who now work from home.  They are happy.  They don't have to get dressed, don't have to drive.  Their main concern is how to stay entertained.  They tell me of their boredom.

I would love to be merely bored.