10%

I'm doing a pretty good job at not being despondent this holiday season.  I've done a good job, I think, of not looking back.  "Further" as Kesey proclaimed.  Well. . . maybe that is overstating it, but I'm at least inching ahead.  Poco y poco.  

I've realized, for instance, that I am impatient.  Badly so.  Always have been.  And that is why my kitchen is such a mess.  Holy Harry, as they say, just take a look inside my refrigerator.  And my cabinets?  Oy!  I am always hurrying through things, trying to get finished, doing multiple things at the same time.  What happens?  Oops!  When I watch crafts people, they are patient and meticulous.  They never hurry a thing.  They may work quickly at times, but if they are good, they do not work sloppy.  

I am sloppy most of the time.  I hardly ever screw a lid back all the way.  Seriously.  And hell. . . just look at the blog.  I don't go back and fix things.  The writing is "automatic."  What would it take to write, let it set a bit, then go back and meticulously edit?

But have you ever been to hillbilly country?  Yards full of junk.  That's where I grew up.  It must have informed my internal landscape.  

They say confession is good for the soul.  And so. . . I am trying, in this late stage, to be more conscious of taking my time, slowing down, and not rushing.  I think I've made 10% progress or so.  Everything cannot be done at once.  

Sometimes I think and say that I am lazy.  And that is true, too.  I think and say that I have taken no photographs, and that isn't true.  I simply think I can't post pictures of the same thing over and over and over.  I can, though.  I have been "less lazy" than I think.  Again, maybe 10%.  But I have put myself out "there" a little.  Wrestling, roller derby. . . and whatever comes next.  

And I've learned more about editing the pictures, too.  I can do things now that I have never been able to do before after the fact.  It seems that I am not so lazy or sloppy when it comes to editing the photographs.  

50%.  

I've learned to shoot in ways I've never shot before, too.  I had to.  On the job training.  

I have gone through old studio files this year.  I've cooked up hundreds of old photographs, and I like the processing better, at least often, than what I did before.  I have redone some of the old photos, but there are many, many new ones that are terrific.  They bring me great pleasure, but I can only share them with a few.  Some, I am not able to share at all.  The world is too dangerous now.  How in the fuck did we ever get so confused that the Woke Jihadists and the Puritanical Trumpers came to rule the scene?  

But "artists," whatever that is and they are, must do the unacceptable to know what is possible.  Right?  

C.C, just texted me, "As Lenny Bruce put it: 'Every society needs its deviants.'”

Sorry to lay that on you, old chum.  

So. . . ."further."  

I was exhausted yesterday after a day of birthday partying and going out with Tennessee.  It was another Saturday when I didn't leave the house.  Didn't shower.  Only went to my mother's house.  And then, feeling unable to make a meal, I went to a Greek restaurant and ordered a gyro.  To my surprise, what came out was not a sandwich.  The meat lay on top of the salad with a side of warm pita.  It was just what I needed.  

And then home for a whiskey and the tub.  Warmth and magnesium and liquor steeped my soul.  I was wholly holy whole.  

It was early when I dried and dressed and sat down on the big leather couch.  All about were Parties of the Season.  There was a time in my life when I thought it impossible to attend them all, but now. . . I'm not part of the social circuit, not in with the in crowd or any other, really.  But, as I sat alone on a Saturday night, the second to last before Christmas, I did not give in to grief or despair, nor to thinking about what others were doing, not even those I never hear from.  I did not think for a moment "poor me."  I did not feel pathetic and left out.  Nope, for that is the way to Shitsville.  Rather, I focused on what I had, what most of us have, really, which is truly amazing.  Music and movies on demand.  Books both physical and digital.  A refrigerator, dirty as it is, with food.  A roof and walls and a deck on which to sit and drink and smoke and think.  Focussing on what others are doing is the road to hell.  

And so I watched t.v. and drank too much whiskey and took sleep and pain aids and slept like an angel the whole night through.  

I may drive out of town today or tomorrow to take some photos of the season.  Grit City and beyond, north and south and to the coast.  

I shouldn't write that, though, for I may not, and then I will feel pathetic.  Maybe.  But I'm getting over that, too.  

10%.  

My mother had a great time on her birthday.  After I left, more neighbors came to her house with sweets and gifts, and people from her church as well.  She was full, and I was happy.  

I'll see if she wants me to make dinner for us tonight.  

I hope your lives are full of parties and lovers and family fun right now, but if not, don't despair.  There are billions of people who would trade lives with you.  Make yourself a cup of hot chocolate or buy a fruit cake.  Hell, give somebody something.  It will make you feel better.  I'm pretty sure.  

Hey. . . have you heard this one before?  I was driving and it came on the college radio station.  And here's how good my life is.  I picked up my phone and asked Siri, "What song is this?"  

Tell me I don't have it all!