Fatso Revisited

As I close up the storage unit, I bring home the cases of Polaroids I took in the early days of the studio and the project Lonesomeville.  Just as I began, Polaroid went belly up, so I started buying up film off eBay.  A lot of it was already in bad shape, the colors shifting toward a hard cyan, the emulsions drying up and streaking.  So. . . there are hundreds--thousands?  I don't know--of images I never cooked up.  Yesterday, I had finished scanning a box of old prints and decided to see what I could do with one of the old Polas.  This was it.  Of course I like it.  It is mine.  I can't be objective, and I wonder if it really has ANY value.  

No matter, though.  No matter at all.  

I've processed Saturday night, but not for articulation.  It's simply something "back there" now.  You never know, though, if monsters will reappear at some future date.  That's what makes them monsters.  

Again. . . no matter.  I'm a Ready Teddy.  

One thing that I can tell you about the night, though.  There were group pictures, and I am hideous.  I know there can be no fixing it, but today I will start to try.  It remains to be seen, however, how lazy and weak-willed I've become.  

Or, you know. . . testosterone and Ozempic!

Or. . . hookers and blow? 

"Man, he sure lost a lot of weight.  How'd he do it?"

"Aw, c'mon dude.  Are you shitting me?  He looks like death sucking on a soda cracker.  I don't think he sleeps.  It's all Joker Product and Russians, man.  That boy's been living at the Hookilau."  

Maybe I'll pay a surgeon, too.  Nip/Tuck.  

"Did he have his skin stretched?  He looks like ten pounds of poop in a five pound bag."

No, no. . . my idea is just healthy living.  I need to start early and keep a schedule.  Idle hands are the devil's workshop.  

I made small red beans and pork for my mother last night.  It is her favorite.  I cut up carrots and potatoes to cook with it this time.  It didn't seem to make any difference in the flavor, though.  I think that the vast amounts of wine I use to cook it overwhelms those subtle flavors.  But holy mackerel, it was good.  

"Why don't you have a girlfriend?"

That's Marlene, my mother's 89 year old neighbor.  She's a hoot, a very tall woman with long arms and legs and a big voice.  She has macular degeneration and has only peripheral vision, but she rides her tricycle for miles every day around the neighborhood on her tricycle.  She's always fun.  

"You're good looking and funny, you cook, you're nice to your mother. . . ."

"I know!"

"There's lots of women out there looking."

"Sure, sure. . . I'll just get out there and throw my line in the water and see what I end up with.  As my dead ex-friend Brando used to say, though, be careful of the bait you use 'cause that's going to determine what you catch.  I'm using an old car, some cheap Chinese shorts, a Haynes t-shirt, and some flip-flops.  What do you think I'm going to reel in?"

"Well, if you're going to put it that way," she laughs.  

The fellow on Saturday asked about my mother.  How does he know anything about my mother?

In my effort for a more rigorous and structured life, I went to the exercise course yesterday.  Did the old man shuffle again.  Felt good.  Then I stopped at the grocery store.  Tennessee called, and I sat in the car and talked for a long time.  When I stepped down from the truck, my knee was bent and very tender.  It took many painful steps to loosen up.  Still, I couldn't even try to run on an artificial knee.  I will call the ortho today and try to schedule another shot of hyaluronic acid.  Oh. . . shots.  I will get my flu and Covid vaccines, too.  

My mother's friend's daughter is a nurse with a Ph.D.  "She won't get the vaccine," my mother reports.  

"Why?"

"I don't know, but she won't do it."

"All the doctors I know do."

Do people on the spectrum know that they are?  On the spectrum, I mean?  

I was working on that Pola when Duke Ellington was offered by my Apple station.  He was pure magic and genius, and this music has colored my mood.