Tuesday, March 18, 2025

You Can/Should Skip This One

Man oh man. . . the days come more quickly than I can prepare for them.  I never have enough photographs anymore, at least not ones of which some people might approve, and I can't keep up with the business end of things.  I got an email from the roofing company asking me if I had gotten something notarized.  I hadn't known I was supposed to.  They can't start work until I do.  I thought my part of the job was simply to get the big bucketful of money.  

The house is a mess of photo gear and the detritus of my living in it once again.  I have at least an hour's prep work before the maids get here.  And I have a lot of prep for an upcoming home studio session once again.  

I can't keep things straight in my head.  

Do you know that old ELO song, "Don't Bring Me Down," the line that goes, "Don't bring me down. . . Bruce"?  That exact line was playing over the speakers at my mother's therapy place when I got a text telling me that the fellow who hired me for a lifetime of work at the factory had died.  Now that was weird.  

What was weirder is that when I pulled the song up on YouTube, it had the lyrics on screen, and the line isn't what I thought it to be all this time.  It goes, "Don't bring me down. . . groos."  WTF does "groos" mean (link)?

Bruce was a nice guy.  He was a "published" poet.  Quotes because it was all vanity press stuff "his people" would raise money to pay for.  I guess, though, that it would be hard to get a company interested in publishing a volume of poems.  

Late in life, after marrying his college "sweetheart" and adopting a daughter who was then grown and had her own child, he came to my office one day to say he was getting a divorce.  I knew his wife and daughter well.  

"Oh, my.  Why?  What happened?"

"I guess we're good enough friends that I can tell you.  I'M GAY!"

Of course the mind automatically begins to run through things, but surprisingly, at least to me, I burst out laughing.  

"Jesus, Bruce. . . I hope we're good enough friends that I can find this. . . uh, not funny, but. . . I mean. . . I don't know.  It's just such a seismic shift."

He got a new haircut after that and began his internet dating life.  He was in his sixties.  

RIP old pal.  

It was a week of death for the factory, I guess.  The fellow who chaired my hiring committee also died.  It seems to be going around.  

I keep getting similar messages from different people lately.  

How are you doing?  

I don't know how to respond.  It is unnerving.  

I've had some good times.  I've had some bad times.  Sometimes I have no times at all.  

Maybe I should just tell them about my allergy.  

 I'm looking pretty shabby.  Haven't seen my beautician for a very long time.  I asked her if I should get a beauty treatment.  She said, "let me see," then didn't text back.  What happened to the love?  

I'm not invited to parties, I can't get my hair done. . . what is going on?  I need to check my horoscope.  

I took a pretty good fall yesterday off a platform at the gym.  My gymroid friends were all standing there when it happened.  It seemed that I had a lot of time to think before I hit the floor, sort of falling in slow motion.  They all looked shocked.  Did the old crippled man get hurt?  I could have.  Probably should have.  But it didn't seem like it.  I got up with a smart comment and blamed them for not catching me, then I continued my workout.  

Last night in bed, I woke with lower back pain.  Hmm.  

O.K.  I have much to do and little motivation, so I had better get started.  Winter is ending and the Spring work will commence, and you know what that means.  BBC.  

I don't know, though, if I have it in me.  

There is only one way to find out.  And so. . . . 

Boy. . . was this a shitty post.  Apologies.  But they can't all be winners, can they?  

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