Circa 1980

If you are anything like me (and I hope you are not), after visiting your mother late on a Friday afternoon instead of heading off with your friends to a pub, you decide to have a lovely sushi dinner alone at a fabulous Japanese place where, unexpectedly once again, the chef comes over to say, "Welcome back. . . nice to see you again."  And if you get the Tuna Kobachi Poke Bowl with avocado and some miso soup and decide to forego the sake in favor of a good green tea, and you take phone pics of everything and send it to a woman who wrote you a brief hello in the morning, and you even drink the filtered water the waitress keeps brining you. . . you will wonder what to do next because. . . your friends who are out carousing have shunned you.  Once again, you will be home alone on a Friday night wondering what the fuck happened to your life, and that is where the trouble begins.  You will light a cheroot and pour the medicinal whiskey to kill the worms, and you will go out to the deck where there will be no cat, or at least not the little feral you have fed for so many years.  

That's right.  I think this time she is gone.  She survived the storm and came around for dinner the day after, but I haven't seen her since.  

So you sit and think, which is hardly ever a good idea any more, until the cheroot goes out and the whiskey glass is empty and the mosquitoes begin to find you.  You go in, check your phone. . . and nothing.  For the millionth time, you think, "Maybe I should start making plans in advance," but you are a spontaneous creature used to being found.  It just isn't you.  

So, trying to fight despondency, you turn on the television.  YouTube.  And this.

And if you are a sad fuck of a person, and you have all the time in the world on a Friday night with nothing else to do. . . well. . . I warn you. . . it is over four hours long.  Don't do it.  No. . . no. . . !!!

But I did.  I know I'm losing readers left and right as I become a confessed imbecile, but all I can say is a hater's gotta hate.  These are my remaining years to waste however I wish.  And in a day or two or ten. . . I'll tell you a secret if things go the way I hope they do. . . but I shouldn't make promises I might not be able to keep.  Who knows what fates the gods have in store.  

As my mother so often says. . . anyway. . . . 

I was going to write that there must have been a factory somewhere that made these. . . but I realized that is more demeaning than funny.  Not that comedy isn't based on demeaning someone, however. . . .  But there was something in the water or air circa 1980.  There must have been.  It's like circa 1939 for men.  They were a different breed with distinctive tastes and personalities.  Circa 1980 for women.  Apparently, they just knock me out.  I have no defenses against them.  

I Googled "famous women born in 1980."  Holy shit!  I haven't even gotten to "circa 1980" yet.  They are like a Venus flytrap for me.  I even know they are, but I can't resist.  I'm sure it isn't every woman born then, but there are some.  My oh my. . . there are some.  

I only knew of Kristen Bell from one show, "House of Lies."  I never watched her t.v. show, "Veronica Mars," or any of the silly movies, like all the other silly movies the women of circa 1980 made, but I apparently can't get enough of her or any of them just sitting and talking and charming the bejesus out of me.  

Yea, yea, yea. . . I've become a shallow version of a very sad man, but what did you do last night?  Were you reading Proust or attending one of your MENSA meetings?  

That's what I thought.  

Besides, after Kristen Bell, I started watching this. 

I only got part way through before it was midnight and way past my bedtime, but it is pretty darn good.  And don't forget, there is a college scholarship with my name on it, not yours.  And I was a semi-good and somewhat known scholar and a niche photographer with a studio and a following of other, more famous photographers.  And did I tell you the chef came over to greet me last night? 

So. . . yea.  Circa 1980, haters.  

It's O.K.  I put your silly ass down in my head sometimes, too.  I think it is just part of the human impulse.  

I'll be hitting you up for a little jingle sooner or later to put into the scholarship kitty, though.  

I have plans for a big, outdoor Octoberfest thing this late afternoon and early evening with friends, so there is that.  After, we plan to go to a Puerto Rican festival across the highway.  It is a neighborhood thing, I think.  It will be a bit saucier than the Octoberfest for sure.  

Well, that's it.  My big confession.  I'm not unaware of my sins. . . I'm just kinda addicted to them.  

Now I will go and put away the cat bowls.  I'll miss her, of course, but I won't have to worry about her any longer.  She decided to be wild as in the old fable, The Dog and The Wolf.  

A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by. “Ah, Cousin,” said the Dog. “I knew how it would be; your irregular life will soon be the ruin of you. Why do you not work steadily as I do, and get your food regularly given to you?”

“I would have no objection,” said the Wolf, “if I could only get a place.”

“I will easily arrange that for you,” said the Dog; “come with me to my master and you shall share my work.” So the Wolf and the Dog went towards the town together. On the way there the Wolf noticed that the hair on a certain part of the Dog’s neck was very much worn away, so he asked him how that had come about.

“Oh, it is nothing,” said the Dog. “That is only the place where the collar is put on at night to keep me chained up; it chafes a bit, but one soon gets used to it.” “Is that all?” said the Wolf. “Then good-bye to you, Master Dog.”

Better starve free than be a fat slave.

I will tell you, though, that feral cat was both fat and free.