I got a call last night from the fellow who gave me Covid. How do I know that? I don't. I don't even know that I had it, but I still blame him since he had just come from Australia and Thailand by way of South Korea, the earliest countries to be hit by the virus. He never got sick, I guess, or if he did, he never said so. He is coming back to town and wants to get together. Oooo. I didn't say so, but I'm not sure. I still harbor certain emotions about that.
He is suffering from the pandemic, though. He quit a job at the third largest university right here in my own hometown to work for a college in the Middle East. His work is in international education. The job he took did not suit him, though, so he quit. He was sure he was going to get a better one. He had a couple different options, one in the Far East and one in Eastern Europe. Then came corona. He hasn't had a job since. International Study Abroad programs are dead in the water. God knows when that will open up again.
He is dipping into his 401K while he tries to find something. There are few jobs to be had in any area other than tech, and he is not a techie.
Woe is him.
So if you are locked down with an income. . . count your lucky stars. I do. What few there are.
I found this interesting.
Film critics like the film "Cuties" much more than the general audience does. I wonder what lies in the gulf? I guess the secret cabal of democrat politicians running the child sex slave trade out of that pizza parlor might be in danger now. Look out Hillary Clinton. We know that Progressives and QAnon are each looking to Burn the Witches. America is a Puritan country, goddamnit, and whether you are piously religious or simply ideologically pure, the desire for retribution is equally strong.
Burn the Witches, I say. The Pope was right. The earth is flat! Copernicus is the Devil.
Sorry, mom. I can't seem to quit it.
In self-defense, I ordered these.
I plan on being the coolest motherfucker in town. And the brokest. But when your spirit is broken, only "things" will make you happy. I will buy my way out of this depression even if it ruins me.
My mother called to tell me that Trump was going to be on t.v. in a few minutes last night. He got delayed. He was late. I told her that he was doing lines of Adderall to get focussed. It is well known, I said. "What's that?" she queried.
I didn't turn it on. Q had called while I was on the phone with my Covid buddy. I called back in case he was in need of some sage advice. He wasn't. He just wanted to crow until he was called in to eat his dinner. The skies had cleared above his home. There was blue sky and sunshine. He showed me. Such are the pleasures that excite us now that we are enduring in End Times. That and a good bottle of wine.
And so a new day breaks here in the cloudy south, one hurricane walking ever so slowly across the coastline and six more potential hurricanes coming our way. Mere mortals sit and wait upon their collective fate. No matter where you are, I imagine there are equal horrors to abide.
Unless you are a Trumper. They seem to enjoy all this somehow. They accept chaos as the natural order.
And you know. . . maybe it is.
Very few people realize that Alceste is the tragic hero of Molière’s comedy The Misanthrope.
ReplyDeleteThose who do not comprise the puritanical ignoramuses on the left, right, and especially the middle of the pollical spectrum. I am not just speaking about C.U.T.I.E.S. anymore. The barbarians were always going to start burning down something, this was just the flashpoint.
I am becoming more of a misanthrope myself as I age in part because I am tried of idiots not staying in their lane. As you have stated quite elegantly, I never tell an aeronautical mechanic how to fix an airplane, I would expect that mechanic and any other ignoramus who has never made so much as a nickel as a writer to stay out of my business.
I mean, I know where this age of dismissal of expertise and the celebration of anti-intellectualism comes from. Every idiot is compelled to sit in a classroom ergo, every idiot feels that he she or it is an expert in teaching.
Even your most inept communicator has written at least one letter, or tweeted one meme, or puked up a verse or two to a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day the contents of which were exclaimed to be the finest symbolic expressions since Homer by the recipient. In the barter of affection/attention/sex no one ever tells the complete truth. The talentless sap then goes on to believe he knows something about writing.
And as you say this is all fine and dandy, I would never leap in to tell an overheated high school football jock that his prose was garbage. The poor boy will peak in life soon enough.
But I do wish all of these non-experts would stay the fuck out of my business. And it is my business. Sloan Wilson once told me there was only one reason to write and that was to make money. Every year I believe him more and more. I think there are two: for money and for yourself. Writing for any other reason is dilettantism.
So if the mechanics, florists, pharmacists, heart surgeons, business CEOS, clerics, imams, rabbis, and other cranks keep interfering in my business, I shall fell obliged to start tossing Molotov cocktails into theirs.
Oh, I used to really jealous of Covid buddy. I mean I thought he was living the dream. I was hex #013220 with envy. Not so much anymore. He’s throwing snake-eyes now. It just goes to show the house always wins even against lucky bastards.
ReplyDeleteGulf of Stupid? No. That will get me one step further from the Gates of Heaven. Or a good reincarnation. Or something. Cause I'm definitely going somewhere fun again.
The mind needs to be tended. Like a garden. Opened. Challenged. Continually. New things. Old things. Not just "your own things," but especially those things out side your own things. Even if you never leave your town - have interest in what is out there. And get out there - even if it is just a trip to the museum or park or baseball game (cause there will be baseball games again) get it in books or PBS or learning from family or friends. Nature.
Not the shit that a lot of people feed their heads with continually. That causes brain damage. Ooooopsers.
I dunno. I'm super stoned and a bit tipsy. I drank bubblies tonight. Prosecco. Yay!
People just gotta be kinder and more accepting. Me at the top of the list. "I shall love thou fellow Stupid People." SEE? LOOk. I'm no good. And I'm not that smart but I give myself credit for at least being interested and not letting what I don't know stop me from trying to know or at least acquaint myself with cause you can't know everything, ya know?
I have confessed before, my own failings with regard to people who care not to explore what majesty there is to explore in this life we have been given. Oh the tragedy, heartache, humiliation - it is what makes us able to love another easier, I believe.
Maybe it is more a lack of imagination. And not that stupid word.
I'm sure I wrote at least one poem for that rascal, Molière because of c.c. It's definitely partly his fault. Thank you dear old friend.
I was going to tell a story but I got side-tracked.
The Big News is:
We went out to a restaurant to eat. AND MY MA WENT. We were the only ones out back outside with heaters and lights and delicious drink and food. Celebrating my birthday and of course being together. Ma was on cloud nine.
Rock those new shades, C.S. What motherfucker are you going to be? Let me scroll back up "coolest."
Wait.
Aren't you already?
ReplyDeleteOh I'm up way too early. Since 5Am.
The photo is something. I admire the ambiguity. I am bothered by it and drawn to it.
Well, kids. . . we'll always have The Isolation. They can never take that away from us.
ReplyDelete