Just as I wrote this, a banner flicked across my computer screen from the N.Y. Times. Robert Redford died, age 89. With his money, I imagine he went peacefully. Money makes the difference. Have you ever read an article about the wealthy who have long term residency care suites at Mount Sinai Hospital? My mother's place is the nicest in town, but it ain't anything like that.
When I visited my mother yesterday, she said the woman we have eaten with a few times at the rehab center asked her how old I was. The woman replied, "No way! He's the same age as I am."
"So was the fellow we ate with yesterday. He was a couple years older than I."
The Golden Years.
And yet. . .
When I came home from the gym yesterday, there was a big van parked in my driveway, the rear doors open, tools on the ground.
"!!!"
When I walked up, I looked in back of the house, and there was a guy working on my gas line.
"Hey, you're the gas guy?"
"Yes."
"Are you putting on a new meter?"
"I was just shutting you off."
"Holy smokes, I didn't realize that you were coming today."
"We're here."
I started scrolling through messages on my phone thinking he was wrong.
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
"About five minutes. I'll go ahead and put in your new meter now that you are here."
They needed me to be here so they could get into the house to restart all the pilot lights.
"Oh, man. . . thank you. I'm sure glad I got here when I did."
When he'd finished putting on the new meter, he came in to check the pilot lights.
"Are you a photographer?"
He saw the cameras on the dining room table I had taken out on Sunday.
"I guess."
"Me, too."
"Really? What do you take photos of?"
"I do mostly astro photography but I just started taking pictures of cars, too."
Oh, boy. I didn't want to get into this. But he started asking me a whole lot of questions about cameras, so I should him some of mine. He saw some of the big framed Pola-things I have hanging. He got excited and started showing me his photos on his phone. The astro stuff was interesting. And as always, I was finding out about his life. Like I say, people like to tell things. He was from New York, Westchester County. He was a plumber there but had a friend who got him a job here with the gas company. Easier work, he said. He didn't have to crawl around in dark basements with rats the size of dogs that didn't fear you. His parents lived here. He was a tall, half-Black kid. He said he'd been spending a lot of time in his parent's pool and was starting to get dark. He liked road trips. He'd just bought a new sporty Saab and was going to a car show this weekend on the far coast. But, he said. . . we should get together after that. He'd bring over his cameras.
Yea, yea, yea. Just what I wanted. Reluctantly, I gave him my phone number. What could I do? He'd done me a solid by putting in the new meter.
I had a new twenty-something pal of the wrong gender.
Whatever.
Later on, I got a call from the carpenter. Just checking in. Considers me a friend, he said. Wanted me to know he was taking off for a week in Hillbilly Country, Ohio, the next day.
I'm overwhelmed with my shitty life, so I told him I had decided to hire someone to pressure wash and paint the house and apartment. He said that he should do it.
Cha-ching.
"You've got something that people like," my mother said.
"Yes. . . all the wrong people."
People talk about charisma. I've said long ago that I think I have figured out what it is. It is a form of hypnotism, I believe. Some people learn early in life that they can command people's attention and unconsciously develop the skill with inflections and movements. Maybe it is a cadence of speech. Maybe it is the way they look into your eyes. These were the ideas I got, anyway, from being in the classroom and working with people in my studio. There is a power of suggestion, I think.
Isn't that the title of a famous book?
Brando had it. I watched him work it. But not everyone can be hypnotized. There is always a subset with which one can work. Just like those televangelists. Watch them. They have their audience in a trance, but it only works on some.
Maybe all forms of attraction develop this way. I've certainly been hypnotized by the women I've fallen for. They absolutely put me in a trance.
I think one of them is still working her bad juju on me .
It was too bad I didn't have it with the girl in the fur hat and boots on Sunday. I did, I think, but the spell was broken by her two friends. But her eyes were saying "yes."
So, yea. . . I went to the outskirts of proper society to make pictures then. Got photos of a couple strip clubs. That photo at the top needs one of the strippers leaning against that hurricane fence to make it good.
The "Milk Spa" was long gone. I think. It looked like it was abandoned, but who knows. Probably shut down by the authorities if the name of the place is a suggestion of what went on in there.
The old "Asian Massage." Releases tensions, they say. Probably.
I have to admit, I am not as confident running around certain parts of town as I used to be. "Running" is a joke. That's the problem now--I can neither run nor fight--and there are often some unruly looking characters lurking in the corners and the shadows. In the past, I was a little nervous, too, but I always figured I could get myself out of trouble. Now I just look like a wounded fish flopping around in water filled with reef sharks.
Still. . . I try to soldier on.
It is house cleaning day. I have a lot of mess to put away before the wrecking crew comes, mostly photographic, but there is a lot of paperwork I've been dealing with concerning my mother, too.
Fortuitously, yesterday I got something in the mail about a seminar right here in my own hometown giving information about services and resources available for caregivers. It is one of those stiff cardboard adverts that you get tons of, ones I don't usually glance at before tossing them into the trash. Yup. Providence, I guess. I'm signing up for it. Next Saturday.
"Enchantment." That is what I think they call it, that spell one falls under that we identify as love.
I could use a little enchantment right now.
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