He Died and He Was Dead

 

"He died and then was dead."  

Hemingway died last night.  Blew his brains out.  He just couldn't stand it any more.  The point of Burns' documentary?  "Fame's a bitch, and then you die."  I guess.  They covered a lot of ground last night.  I kept wanting to jump in and add some things, but what can you do?  Hemingway's life could not be covered in six hours.  I think more is known about Hemingway than about any other human who lived and died prior to 1961.  

Mostly, I wanted to talk about me and what I know and where I was and what I experienced.  How Hemingwayesque of me, eh?  

I have probably told much of it here in the blog before.  Who knows, though?  That is a lot of writing to go through to try and find it, and I probably wrote it better back then than I would today.  Yes, I'm certain I have written it all before somewhere in the past.  I, too, know how to mythologize.  But it is all true.  Every last sentence.  

The enormity of what I might write here wears me out this morning.  I will simply move on and talk about something else.  

Did I tell you about what I did or what I am planning on doing?  

O.K., then, let me tell you about what I am not going to do.  I am not going to rent a miniature car for $1,500/week.  I am not going to pay $400/night for a hotel room on the beach.  I'm not even going to pay $80/night to sleep in my car at a KOA campground.  Those are all prices I found when researching travel yesterday.  

First Covid, now this.  Meanwhile, gas prices are going up.  At best, I will be sleeping in a Motel 6 by the interstate on the outskirts of Lubbock, Texas.  Maybe.  Retirement isn't turning out that well at all.  I may have to become a capitalist after all.  Only the corporate crowd can afford to go anywhere now.  They call it "sucking off the corporate tit," but really they are milking those of us not on it.  They say that college kids have no interest in becoming educators any longer.  Huh.  Go figure.  

I am, however, in all likelihood going to go somewhere for some days in the coming week.  I have to.  I must.  I have become a paranoid shut-in and everything "out there" seems hostile to me in one way or another.  I have been taking small steps.  Yesterday, I spent the day "out."  I wasn't in my house much at all.  I went to lunch and ate at the bar.  There were only four other people there and the doors to the outside were open and nearby.  I went to a small--no, tiny--museum of folk art.  I walked for awhile taking photographs.  It was almost like learning to live again.  

I didn't even cook a meal yesterday.  Thai takeout called to me.  

The weather was splendid and my little home comfortable, and I wondered why I'd want to travel.  

Like Hemingway in Cuba, I will need to be Hectored into leaving town.  

Oh, but wait.  How'd that work out for him?