Another illustration from one of my old photos--me sitting at the White Horse Tavern where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death, where Jack Kerouac simply tried. It is early afternoon, August, 1983. I was staying at the Chelsea Hotel with my girlfriend of the time. Those were the days of museums and bookstores and the advice of a restaurant guide book that rated places with $ signs and 💋 symbols. We were looking for the most romantic places and the best bang for our buck. We ended up in some pretty fine places including Chumleys, the bar without signage, which we somehow stumbled upon one late afternoon. We found the places where famous authors, Kerouac included, had carved their names.
It was only part of a much longer trip that spanned weeks, but that has been told and may once again be retold in the future.
My mother is not doing well at all, but she holds on tenaciously to her life. All her organs are failing it seems, and she is in constant pain. There is nothing I can do to help other than the mundane daily tasks.
But I cannot do three eight hour shifts everyday on and on without relief, and so I slip out for hours in the afternoon. I go to the gym, drive to my house, shower and think of what to do next. The outside of the house is still a mess as the carpenter has not yet returned. The amount of work needing to be done overwhelms me. So I go to lunch.
Anything.
Something.
I'd gone to a a sushi lunch the day before yesterday. I wanted sushi again, but not at the same place on the Boulevard. It is very marginal. I had a fair tuna roll, but the miso soup was inedible and I sent it back. The better sushi place was closed however, so I decided to try an Asian market in Little Vietnam. Bahn Mi Boy. It gets a Michelin recommendation. But I wasn't down for a Bahn Mi, and chose dim sum steamed chicken dumplings and fried bbq tofu. I couldn't find the Michelin rec in my meal, however, and I would only recommend it if you are constipated. The iced Vietnamese coffee, however, was a real treat.
There are several restaurants in the marketplace served by a variety of high and low topped tables that I assume are rarely cleaned. People come, sit, eat, and leave. Bring your own cleaning supplies. But hey--we all want to be Anthony Bourdain, right? So I sat and ate and looked around at the busy market crowd, a mixed bunch but similar in some ways. Not a gym crowd. No haute couture. Old, formless clothes, square butts, many Asians but much of the city's hoi-polloi, downtrodden and beat and comfortable with others of their ilk. It could have been more interesting and maybe it sometimes is.
I felt no different from the rest. I was no standout.
Outside, the heat and humidity were growing and rather than taking photos as I had planned, I cowardly went home to take a nap.
When I woke, it was with a start. I panicked. I didn't know where I was or when. It took a good while before I made sense of things. I looked at the clock. It was time to head back to my mother's. First, however, a stop at the pharmacy, then the grocers. I would make a Greek salad for dinner.
My mother had made a mess in the kitchen. Before anything, I needed to clean up. I asked if she was hungry and got a "no," so I mixed up a small Campari and sat on the couch. My mother sat to my right in a chair, constantly running her hand over her face and through her hair, moaning with every other breath, never still but slow as a sloth, moving, moaning. I asked her about it. She looked at me with opaque, unseeing eyes, then shook her head.
In a bit, she said she was hungry. I got up and began chopping vegetables. I made two bowls rather than the one large one I would usually make. Cukes, green pepper, red onion, chopped olives, garbanzo beans, Campari tomatoes, tuna, feta cheese, salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. They were beautiful. I tore off a piece of baguette for my mother and another for myself. I poured a glass of Chardonnay for me. The BBC news played in the background.
She ate little. I left the table when I had finished to watch the news. My mother said she was confused about her meds. This was disturbing. She is confused about most things now. I realize I need to take over everything. I need to know her finances, where her papers are. I am reticent, though. Somehow it feels like greed. It feels like stealing. I think about the inevitable future, however far away that may be. There will be much to deal with that I have never prepared myself for. I am probably going to need help. Ili would know how to do all of this, an attorney who'd worked in finance, but I shouldn't think of that now. I'll need to find another lawyer.
My nerves are shot. I cannot get over whatever illness plagues me. I can't look into mirrors. My life now is merely moments of distraction.
But. . . I do like making pictures even if I am not taking them. That illustration based on the qualities of a Max Beckmann painting came from a photograph. I thought to ask AI to make a photograph from the illustration. Holy smokes! I find this very entertaining.
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