Summer weather is gone. Winter is here. It was 33 degrees when I woke up this morning here in my own hometown. Now for you who live in cooler climes, this may not sound shocking, but then you have not experienced the cold here in my sub-tropical south. It is unlike other cold, I promise. I've travelled far and wide, and I have felt fine in freezing temperatures in other places. Not Boston, though. Boston and Chicago were fucking worse than cold. I assume it is for the same reason as here--humidity. This cold goes right to your core. There is no stopping it. It is what might be called "bone cold."
There is that, and, of course, the fact that we are not used to cold here. The streets now look like something in Oslo, people wearing big down coats, hats, scarves, fur boots. . . .
It can wear my southern ass out. I don't like to wear long pants and shoes anymore.
So there is that.
T. and I were in the gym at the same time yesterday. He came over with his phone and a big smile. JP, the professional photographer, has asked to see some of the pics I had taken that day in the studio. T sent them to him. He called right away and said, "Wow!" or something like that. He asked if he could use some of my pics on the website. He was sending them to the clothing company.
"Next level."
Made me feel kinda good. There is nothing really keen about them. Just a guy in clothes posing for a magazine. What JP was reacting to, I am guessing, is the treatment, the post-production work I put into them. I spend a lot of time on a photo to make it look the way it does, more than most. I have developed my technique over many, many, many hours. What I do is not obvious, but, I always hope, it is "felt." I was guessing that JP "felt" it.
Selavy.
So, once again, the shit I do is being used--for free! I give a lot of stuff away and ask little or nothing in return.
Oh, I shouldn't say that. After the gym, T and I went to one of those Michelin recommended restaurants that doesn't have a star, an Udon noodle place, and T picked up the tab. But, thinking back, I think I got the last one. I like to pay my way. Hemingway code. The tab always arrives, one way or another. The trick, he said, was to get your money's worth.
In life, I think I have.
Yesterday, my new color laser printer arrived just before I headed back to mom's, so I haven't set it up yet, but it is just another expenditure in the process of making things I will either store in a tub somewhere, give away, or burn. I am looking hard at buying another ink jet printer, too. Expensive. I want a big one. Why?
I'm an idiot who likes to make things. Some people buy cars, others boats. Well, I've done that, too. What can I say?
But yea. . . I am itching for another big printer. I need to figure out a way to recoup some of the money.
They are supposed to pressure wash my house and apartment today. I pity whoever is doing that. Were I them, I'd wait for warmer weather, but I don't think the workers have that option. I hired a "company," not an individual. I'm paying the boss for "oversight," I guess. They begin caulking the 100 year old wooden planks on Monday. That's a job a couple other painters declined. The contractor building the house across the street said I was wasting my money, that I should have the entire house done in Hardy Board. I think he's nuts. My house, built in the 20's, is sided with cypress. Still, it makes me nervous. I have nightmares now about owning a 100 year old wooden house here. I bought a 70 year old house when people still envied such things. Now, it is absolutely a teardown. A beautiful teardown. But I get offers to buy my house every single day from unknown buyers. They tell me to just give them a price. They don't want the house, of course, just the lot. They want to build on it. People want new things now.
I doubt the wisdom of staying. The wealthy gymroids? As their kids go off to college, they prepare to sell their own homes. They will move to condos. Why?
"I don't need this shit anymore. We want to be able to lock the door, spend three months in Europe, and come back without worry." That is what they all say. It makes some sense. Many have already done it. They have condos all over the place, one here in town, one at the beach, one in Tennessee or North Carolina. I heard the difference between the two yesterday from another wealthy guy at the gym. Republicans move to Tennessee, democrats to North Carolina. I don't know if it is true, but it sounds true. And it makes me giggle. So much for "opposites attract."
I can't go anywhere anyway. My mother will outlive me, I know. I will spend the rest of my miserable life as a caretaker. My hillbilly cousin who was coming down to stay with my mother? She keeps putting it off. Originally, she was going to be here already. Now. . . a couple weeks. Whatever. She won't stay long, and I won't know how to live in my own house. Just as I begin to get used to it, I'll have to move back. That will be for the rest of my time here on the planet, I am almost certain. In a nursing home, my mother would probably be dead by now. Here at home, she may be miserable, but she gets stronger and more determined.
"You're a good son," they say.
Selavy.
I will try to begin my notebooks today. The only way to get better is by doing it all the time. Yea. . . I'll start today. Going to buy a little pouch container to put some of the needed things into that will slip into my courier bag with my small notebook so I can be a geek at the cafe over my decaf con leche.
After Michelin recommended Udon noodles, T and I went to the Cafe Strange for a coffee. The tall girl without eyebrows was there, not working, but sitting at the bar writing. T noticed her when he went to the bathroom.
"The girl with the tattoos all over her legs," he said, had given him a scary look.
"Yea. You never know."
When we were leaving, T went next door to the convenience store to get some Zinns, so I walked over to her.
"Remember the photo I took of you? I saw it in my files the other day. Almost two years ago exactly."
She looked at me as if I were bothering her.
"Happy Anniversary," she said.
"Yea. . . o.k." I felt like a nerdy creeper and started to slink away.
"Take my picture again sometime," she said.
"I tried. You told me no."
"I probably wasn't feeling I looked good that day. Try again."
She looks absolutely nothing like that picture now, her hair grown out, halfway down her back, no eyebrows. . . it is fairly startling. So. . . I will take her picture again some day. If she is in the mood.
I'm too sensitive. I need more chutzpah. I should go into every business on "the strip" and ask the people working there if I can take their photograph. Could be an interesting series.
"What have you got to lose?"
I hear that a lot now. It is not comforting. What can I say?
"Just face the music and dance."
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