Fridays Are For. . .

I need to go to the far off market today and make some pics. . . right?  Or what?  It is going to be a beautiful day.  Yea. . . I need to go.  But here's "the thing," as they used to say in an older parlance--I think that I'll feel guilty.  

True dat.  

You see, I'm kind of worn out.  Oh. . . you hadn't heard?  Ha.  But now the pot is beginning to boil over.  Let me catch you up in case you have just stumbled onto this blog or if you only come for the photos or if you only scan the page without paying attention.  

Have I covered my entire audience?  All three of you?  

Last year, I thought for certain my mother was dying.  I cried many times in the hospital.  I moved her into the nicest rehab/care facility in town.  She was not doing well there, and though it was nice, it was not home.  

"I want to go home," she said.  Of course she did.  And so I took her home and moved in to take care of her.  Good care.  And she got better.  And better.  Good food, of course, and someone to do the work of an entire staff at the rehab facility.  My life was spent for a good part of the year on the road taking her to her many, many doctors appointments.  

She sits.  She moans with nearly every breath.  But she walks now, around the house, bent over like an "L", holding onto things as she moves from room to room, slower than a sloth.  

"Oh! Oh! Oh!"

She burps and farts continuously.  O.K.  I won't go further.  

My own troubles have been plenty.  My house has been under constant repair for many months now.  I'm not only paying for repairs but for everything involving my mother.  I've not used her money for anything.  I've watched my bank account shrivel.  

Still, I've stretched my daily stay away from her house now from two to three to sometimes five hours a day.  Not without consequence.  My mother will call me at three-thirty, four, in a panicked voice.  

"Where ARE you?!?"

I get the hangdog face when I put on my gym clothes in the morning and head out the door.  

If you are still here--I'll tell you what I did yesterday.  

As I was leaving around eleven after giving her her morning meds and having prepared those for the afternoon, having made breakfast and having cleaned, ready now to relieve some of my anxieties at the gym, just as my first foot crossed the threshold, she says to me. . . she says:

"Some day I'm going to need my car."

I tossed her the car keys in my hand.  

"Here.  Take them.  I'll see you later."

It got messy from there.  

I felt anger and guilt for the rest of the day.  

I met the painter at my house after the gym at noon.  Not the painter, really, the guy who owns the company.  I walked around with him and the head of the paint crew looking over the house and the apartment, he pointing out everything that needed to be done.  It was a lot and they could do it, but I could feel the cost mounting with every step.  He wasn't making any of it up.  It is just what needs to be done.  I thought of a Peter Mayle book I read about his buying an old house in Tuscany and having it repaired.  It was hilarious at the time.  

One o'clock.  A shower.  Two o'clock.  I had things to do.  A new pair of "running" shoes.  Hokas were on sale at REI.  I needed to get matts cut for the pictures I'd given T.  And since I'd be on that side of town, I wanted to run to the new photo place that had photo books to see if there was anything new that I wanted.  That was the logical first stop.  

All the books were gone.  "Sorry," said the hipster girls behind the counter.  

Wasted time.

I went to the art supply store and got the cutting done.  More multi-colored hair girls who missed out on going to Minneapolis.  They seemed pissed off about it.  

Three-thirty.  Fuck it.  I wanted to make classic photographs.  I wanted a cafe con leche.  I went to The Strange.  I sat outside, but I was pissed as I didn't have my notebook.  I had a pen and brought out a big napkin thinking I might make some notes.  There was nothing to look at there at the cafe that day.  Three kids came from inside.  They stood by my table for a moment.  One of them said, "Whoa, nice camera.  What is that. . . is it a Leica?"

This happens often enough.  The three kids gathered 'round where I sat.  They asked the usual questions.  Was I a photographer?  What kind of pictures did I take?  My usual response is to ask people who some of their favorite photographers are.  They have no response.  I say I take photos like many of the photographers they don't know, or try to, anyway.  The ones whose photos they never look at.  But the kids were cool and fun.  

"This is our first time here," one of them said.  "We're not from here.  We're from Philadelphia."

"They are," said the pudgy one with glasses and wavy hair falling below his chin.  "I live here.  I go to college."

"What's the weather like at home?" I asked. 

"It's fucking cold," the two from Philly laughed.  

"What are you doing here?"

"We came for a big punk festival." 

"Really?  Which one?"

I didn't even know they still had punk rock festivals.  They told me the name.

"Where is it?"

They told me it was out east on the highway in a warehouse.  

"Sure sounds big," I scoffed.  "A warehouse?  Must hold, what? a couple hundred people?"

They squirmed and struggled with embarrassed laughs.  The chubby one said, "I think most of it is in a field."

One of them pulled out his phone and showed me the poster ad for it.  

"Who are you looking forward to hearing?"

They named some bands that were "big" that I had never heard of, but they had "death" or "violence" or something in their names.  

"Are you set with party favors?" I giggled, then realized I sounded like a pusher.  

"Yea."

"You guys are going to be a mess. What do you do in Philly?"

"We're in college."

"And your here?  Hasn't school started yet?"

"Monday.  We fly home and go straight to class."

"Well, fuck it.  Nothing ever happens on the first day of class anyway.  'Hi--tell us your name and a little bit about yourself!'"

The kids were laughing.  

"Then they will give out the syllabus and tell you there will be a syllabus quiz next class, so. . . ."  

A girl in a black poodle skirt and boots walked by and went inside.  The boys had been standing around me for a long while now and it was getting awkward.  They were beginning to shuffle stances from one leg to the other.  

"Do you think she is going to the festival?" I asked.  The kid named Azcar, the "leader" of the group, looked after her, then in a minute said, "I think I'll go find out."  Then his partner from Philly said, "I think I'll go see if she has a friend."  The chubby one followed.  

Four o'clock.  I still had time to go to REI.  

The fucking shoes were not on sale.  I put them on.  They felt good, so I bought them anyway.  

I went home, got the things I needed and put them in my mother's car (I was driving the Xterra), and said shalom to my little nest.  

Friday night.  

When I got to my mother's, she was sitting in the garage.  The morning's actions remembered, the guilt and anger still lingered.  I went inside, got a Guiness 0%, and came out to sit with her.  The morning didn't come up.  

After dinner and the news, I gave her the remote.  

"Here, watch what you want."

I cleaned up the kitchen and went to the living room to read.  In a little bit, my mother said there was nothing on as she passed through on her way to wherever.  I got her eight o'clock meds and went in to sit with her.  

"We could watch a movie," I said.  I scrolled through my list of "maybe" movies I'd saved.  

"The Longest Week."  2014.  Never heard of it.  Jason Bateman, Olivia Wilde.  The trailer looked good.  I put it on.  

Holy shit. . . this was just what I needed.  The first half, anyway.  Great photography, good cinematography, witty dialog.  It reminded me of a Woody Allen movie shot by Wes Anderson.  Why had I never heard of it before.  Oh, yea. . . 2014.  I was in the studio day and night.  

My mother said, "I'm going to bed.  Goodnight."

Of course this took twenty minutes.  I paused the movie.  When she was gone, I put it back on.  

And then. . . it kind of tanked.  The Wes Anderson shots seemed gone.  The witty repartee took on a romcom flavor.  The plot complication became predictable.  Then Bateman got hit by a truck on his Vespa.  This was going to get interesting, I thought.  He's going to have to deal like me.  

Nope.  He ended up with a bandage above his eyebrow.  The movie never got better.  But oh, that first half was marvelous.  I would watch that again.   

10:30.  Check my messages.  Other people's lives are better than mine.  So it would seem.  Everyone trying to figure out which side to join in Minneapolis.  There are no heroes there, no good guys, just bad ones.  There is no way to root for anyone.  Partisans.  A plague on them all.  

Bed and restless sleep.  I shouldn't drink so many fluids before bed, but rather than whiskey. . . . 

And now. . . do I go to the market?  If I do, do I tell my mother?  

These are the pathetic concerns of my life.  I'm only here to make you feel better about yours.  By comparison, you know?  

And yet. . . my life is better than the lives of a majority of the people in the world.  

"Hey, ma. . . whataya want for dinner?"