This may be the most popular image I've ever made. Lots of reasons for that, I think. The subject matter is good, the composition and layout, and my post-processing of the image is wonderful, too, though I don't think I can replicate it as I've already explained when I first posted the image. And the subject isn't challenging or controversial. It was so well liked, I decided to share it on a site called "Inspired By Edward Hopper." I know. Silly. But I wanted people to see it. It wasn't posted for over a week, and I forgot about it. Then it was posted and it got a handful of "likes" along with some disparaging remarks.
"More like a Rockwell than a Hopper."
"not enough loneliness"
Whatever. I knew better than to post it on a social media page. Nothing good comes from anything on social media. Lesson learned.
Then the thing blew up. It got a hundred likes in a day. Two hundred in two days. Now I was following along. It hit 400 and my chubby had grown into wood. Oh, man, I thought, nobody has ever gotten this many likes on this page for sure. I felt myself. . . something. . . .
Then someone posted a picture and in the first day it got over 2K likes. Wood went limp. Goddamnit, man. . . why did you play the game.
I still like the image, but now I am one of the war wounded, a victim of social media violence.
I won't do it again. . . never. . . I promise. This is how people become suicidal or, conversely, mass murderers.
I can only laugh at myself.
I didn't go out with "the boys" last night. Some people weren't going and Tennessee said we should just have an early dinner close to home. I was torn, but I said o.k. We went to my favorite Italian restaurant. I got there just before the storm. It was a horrendous storm with lightning popping all around and perhaps a couple inches of rainfall in a very short time. Tennessee didn't get there before the storm and had to sit in his truck to wait it out.
It is the time of terrible, violent storms here in my home state. The deluge is just beginning.
We ate at the covered outside bar on the sidewalk side. I'd been sitting next to a bunch of old, white business guys at the small inside bar who were talking as if to the deaf about their business deals.
"We should hire a new MBA just out of college. . . ."
"No. . . we need someone who is still in law school. We'll pay them $70,000/year and make half a million. We have room in the office. . . ."
"Yea."
I wanted to pop the cocksucker in the ear. I mean these fuckers thought they were smart, but they were stupid. The Olympic Surfing competition was playing on the t.v.s overhead.
"Where's that?"
"It's on an Island in the Pacific. I can't remember the name. It's close to the Seychelles."
Another "genius." I wanted to tell him what a stupid shit he was, that the Seychelles were in the Indian Ocean.
Rather, I went to the outside bar.
Tennessee and I ordered. Halfway through our meal, a blonde woman took the seat on my left. Tennessee was on my right. She ordered and the bartender brought her a glass of wine. She looked to be fairly proper and prosperous, but she had tats on her arm and hand, so she was a bit of a freak show, too. But she sat straight, well-composed and unsmiling looking straight ahead into the bar, occasionally checking her phone. I assumed she was waiting for someone.
Tennessee had finished his dinner. I still had half of mine on my plate, but I was not going to finish it. I would box it and take it home. Tennessee excused himself to go to the bathroom, and when he was gone, the woman on my left said hello. She asked me if I had been watching the Olympics, and I said no.
"Have you?" I asked her.
"Yes."
"I cancelled my cable, so I'm not even tempted. My life is commercial free," I said. "I can't stand to watch commercial t.v." Then I looked at her and asked, "What's your sport?"
"I've taken up surfing," she said.
When T got back, I offered her my hand and said, "I'm C.S. This is Tennessee."
"I'm Anne," she said.
And T was off to the races. He's chatty.
"Where do you surf?"
"Costa Rica, Nicaragua. . . "
She spoke in a low, flat, certain tone with a cadence and a particular inflection I recognized. I knew how old she was before she said it. She was 45. I know 45. She owned her own business, a tile company, and had a certain combativeness that isn't unattractive--until she threw me shade. That didn't work out well.
"Really? You know all about that, eh?"
It was a worn out, typical complaint to me, one I can argue in my sleep. And so I started in with the "let's talk about you" conversation. Married but separated, in therapy with a psychiatrist.
"I would have guessed that," I said.
"Why?"
"The language, the phrases, the way you argue. . . it's pretty typical therapy-speak."
Tennessee wanted to mediate, but I didn't care. Earlier when T told her that our bartender was a pilot, she shot back, "And that's surprising because she's a woman, right?" He tried to back it up.
"No. . . I'm just. . . ."
But me, being me, said, "Sure. She probably has to have a man as a co-pilot, you know?"
Her assumptions were typical. She got combative. Now for me, this was fun. It may have been for her, too. Who knows?
"I don't know you. I just met you. I'm not judging. . . it doesn't matter to me. You're obviously smart. . ." she offered.
It seemed she was ready to go. Rather, she ordered another glass of wine. She wasn't going anywhere. T was flirting with her, making jokes at my expense.
"Does he do this all the time."
"Sure."
"No. . . I love him. This is just what we do. When I was out of town for a couple weeks, he told everyone I had an AIDS test but didn't like the results and I was waiting to take another one."
It went on like that until the bar closed. She put her number in Tennessee's phone and wandered off to her Air B&B.
When I got home, I ate the rest of my dinner with a glass of wine. I woke up when the wine glass slipped from my hand and poured red wine over my pants.
The boys we stood up were texting photos of their waitress. "She needs you to photograph her," they said. She was pretty. I think I agreed.
I just got a text to meet some girls at a bar on the river at the local springs. I am fat. They are not. It is the girl who almost/might have asked me out. She just sent me her location finder. If I go, she'll ignore me, though. She's done that before.
Still, life has intruded in some way into my solitary existence. I guess I will go to the springs, knock back pineapple/coconut frozen rum drinks, and let them look at my belly.
I hope I don't die of embarrassment. I used to be such a handsome lad.
No comments:
Post a Comment