The Future

I heard my mother talking on the telephone yesterday.  It was my hillbilly cousin in Ohio who comes down in the winter and stays with my mother for a couple months.  I don't tell my mother what to do, but it irks me.  She comes into the house, does what she wants, rearranges things so that it suits her, all while acting as if she is helping my mother.  They eat shit food.  But I guess my mother likes it, so I keep my trap shut about it.  What I heard was that my cousin was packing to come down.  

"When is she coming?" I asked my mother.  

"I guess she's going to leave on Saturday."

I was surprised as I'd heard nothing about this before.  

"Well. . . I guess I'll be heading home by Monday, then."

I felt two ways about it.  I worry about my mother's care on the one hand, though I know my cousin is much more fun in ways that I can't be.  She talks stupid shit constantly and the tv is always on some ridiculous show.  On the other hand. . . I'd be going back to my life.  I'd still be coming to my mother's every day, but nights would be my own.  

My feelings were definitely mixed.  

Then last night just before bed, my mother said, "I don't know if I want her coming down just now.  I am all set up with you here.  I might call her and tell her not to come yet.  Do you think I can do it?"

I just shrugged.  I was looking at another month.  I don't know what will happen yet.  

There's a picture of my closet.  It's a comedy.  Hanging t-shirts.  It breaks me up.  This is how I separate the gym t's from my formalwear.  Ho!  I'll bet I haven't put on a button up shirt more than five times since I retired.  I remember reading that when John Huston got ill and moved to Las Caletas off the coast of Puerto Vallarta, all that hung in his closet were white t-shirts and white linen trousers, and I thought, "Now there is a man with taste."  

To which I aspire.  

Huston is one of my bad influence heroes.  

I have nothing else to report.  It was cold and damp and awful yesterday, and after I got up and read and wrote and made breakfast, I went back to bed at 10:30 and didn't wake up until 1:30.  I thought about going to the gym, but I never made it out of the house until it was time to make dinner.  I got shrimp, peas and yellow rice.  We ate and watched t.v. and I went to an early bed.  Woke up this morning well after sunrise.  As I've said, I'm worn to the bone.  

It is still cold and humid, but they say we'll see sun today, so that is something.  I'll try to leave the house.  It is Friday, time to party.  Ha!  

My future is uncertain.  But isn't that the nature of "the future"?  

I need a little of this.