Nothing Animate

Time to get new flowers, but at least I had something to photograph for awhile, even if it was innate.  No psychological exchange involved, no need for appeal.  Maybe I can become a connoisseur of the innate, a purveyor of inanimate photography.  

There is a psychological element to this, though, isn't there?  Subject/object interaction?  The Human Gaze?

The cat turned up again looking none the worse for wear.  She was sitting at my kitchen door looking into the house through the bottom pane when I was leaving to go see my mother.  I gave her a bowl of food telling her she didn't love me, then drove away.  When I came home, she was waiting on me.  Laconically.  I made a Campari and sat out with her for a bit, then decided to go to the great bbq place for dinner.  

I, of course, made illustrative pictures to annoy my friends.  

Beer, of course, always gets applause.  It was a bittersweet IPA from a local brewer.  I decided to sit out as the inside bar was full and the place was noisy and felt, I don't know, claustrophobic and grimy.  But it was hot outside.  Not just hot.  The air was heavy.  Is.  It wraps itself around you like a wet wool blanket.  But the beer was a bromide, cold and good.  

It is important, it seems, for restaurants to have two things "these days"--silent televisions flickering overhead and irritating music.  Now I will hand it to this place, for they have eschewed the silent t.v.  And usually, the music isn't all that noticeable or bad, but last night the speakers were blaring out some kind of pop Puerto Rican disco shit. . . I don't even have a name for the genre.  And I wondered who would listen to this bubble gum/hip-hop stuff.  Then I noticed that just about everyone walking up the sidewalk, across the patio, and into the restaurant started singing and moving to the music.  Really?!  I mean, for real, just about everyone.  Children, too.  I was stunned.  

I am far removed from the popular mind, it seems.  

My food arrived.  There is a tall, thin waitress there I have mentioned before with short bangs and crazy hair who looks as if she could be a popular model but for the flaky tats place randomly over her arms and legs.  And as I mentioned last time I was there, she might have the mind of a twelve year old.  I don't know.  I just got the impression listening to her talk to her friend when I was last there.  When she put the food on the table and took my number, she barely recognized me as being there.  She, I thought, must be responsible for the music.  

In the street, shitty cars with extra loud pipes revved their engines to make their exhaust pop and explode.  This is an important part of a certain segment of the culture here in my own hometown.  I looked around the patio.  Nobody else seemed to be bothered by it.  I'm not a grumpy old man.  The world is dynamic.  

"You just need to accept it.  Not your world."

As always, the food was supreme.  I got texts back.  Mostly ❤️s, but some inquiries.  

"Floyd's?"

"👍"

As I finished dinner, the sun slanted onto the patio casting long shadows. I picked up my phone.  I was too lazy to move and just snapped a pic from where I sat.  

"Hopper" wrote back my conservative friend.  Fairly observant, I thought, for Hopper always said he could spend his life painting the light falling on the side of a barn.  If I hadn't been so lazy, though, it might have been a much better snapshot.  

When I got home, there were two cats on my deck waiting for me, my little feral the neighbor's beauty.  They were in their usual places.  

"Well, hello kids.  Look at you."

The little feral started talking and followed me to the door.  But I was done for the day.  I was full and wanted an after dinner scotch.  I sat on the couch and pondered things.  

Ping.

It was a text from my friend, the girl who kind of asked me out but never quite. . . my friend.  

"What drink is on tonight's menu?"

"So many scotches,"

"Ha-Ha,"

And just now, just as I wrote that, she sends me a "good morning" text.  This is followed immediately by a text from my conservative friend.  All by way of saying, I am like one of those kids whose socialization is all online.  I'm probably "turning Japanese."  Lone dinners, stray cats, drinks, and texting.  

And, of course, a blog.  

Really.  I'm fucked up.  

There are, of course, the occasional lunches and once in awhile nights out with gymroids.  There are invitations to cross state lines to come for a visit.  Red wants me in Amsterdam.  

I had a dream last night.  Want to hear?  Kidding.  But these dreams keep coming, so vivid and real.  I wake and remember every confusing detail.  But why?  Why so many vivid dreams, all in color?  Something's going on up there in the old cabeza.   I'm starting to feel like a character out of a Dickens novel.  

Or maybe Balzac.

Maybe I should give up on dead flowers.  It was my fault, in the main.  Cut sunflowers are thirsty and I kept forgetting to add more water to the vase.  They would have died anyway, of course, but I'm afraid I hastened their demise.  

Fresh flowers and a scented candle might do me good.  

"Can I lay my head in your lap for awhile?  I just want to sleep."