Birds and Squirrels

We have multiple bird feeders now, some that are seed, some that are liquids, some that are cakes that hang from cages.  I think we might have a sock, too, that we have yet to hang.  And the birds come.  They are like wild pets.  The most beautiful of the birds is the Painted Bunting, a small bird in the cardinal family that is so brilliantly and wildly colored it takes one's breath away.  Why is it that I've never seen one before?  It seems I might be the only one.  And Catbirds.  They are so subtly beautiful.  And of course we have the pairs of monogamous Cardinals, several. There are two types of warblers and two types of Woodpeckers and of course Bluejays and Crows which are not attracted to the feeders.  There have been a few Florida Hummingbirds, but they have not come very often.  The birds seem to know us now and feed very close by.  We have two bird baths.  Ili changes the water daily so that we do not breed mosquitoes, and the birds love to come to the fresh water, as do the squirrels.  And so in the morning with coffee and in the evening with wine, I sit and watch and call to the birds.  I am getting pretty good at bird calls. 

I have a degree in zoology, but I never would have guessed I would take so much pleasure in bird watching, especially from my own deck.  Is it age?  I wonder.  After bird watching, there is good food and drink and the leather couch.  I've gone soft. 

Well, I was softened up a bit as the gangsters used to say. 

But that is life at present, if you are wondering why there are no tales of adventure and daring.  I am waiting to be able to try water.  You know, swimming pools, the beach.  I think it might be good for my shoulder, but the therapists have said to wait. I won't much longer.  The weather is rapidly turning.  Who knows, though.  I could drown, though my ortho says he's seen one armed people swim. 

He's a funny one, that doc. 

Ili is trying to switch me from whiskey to tea at night.  I'm allowed to drink after work, but I get cut off early so that I might sleep better.  Whiskey is not a sleep aid, they say.  But it is pain, not whiskey, I tell her, that keeps me awake at night.  I can find no comfort. 

Tea, she says, shall be your comfort.  You will see. 

Birds and squirrels.  I'm waiting for a snake or two. 

Burning the Past

Sorry for not posting.  I had been anticipating the K-pop phenoms, BTS, appearing on SNL, then afterwards, I was overwhelmed.  I was waiting for Q to write about how much his son enjoyed them and that he was giving up the guitar for sing-dancing.  I don't know.  I just thought, maybe.  I read that BTS had broken all the records, that they were bigger than the Beatles.  I don't want to disparage. . . completely.  This must be how my grandparents felt when those crazy mop-tops first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show" all the girls pulling out their hair and crying, etc.  And look at how that turned out.  Without the Beatles, I doubt we would ever have gotten the classic "Ebony and Ivory."  Oh. . . that Paul McCartney. 

Whatever.  Notre Dame is burning, as they say, and everything is flux.  Cathedrals and museums are of little interest to the young.  They are iconoclastic and prefer boy bands to monuments--and who can blame them?  Remember being young in the back seat of the car as your parents took you to see the world's oldest tree or a statue of Ulysses S. Grant?  Or maybe it was Robert E. Lee. 

Hell, we all spend more time with Instagram than books, anyway.  You know its true. 

Accusatory Culture

This is a photo from Russia in the late 19th or early 20th century.  I found it on the internet.  A bunch of them.  It reminds me of what I wanted to do in my studio when I got it.  Looking at these Russian photographs, I'm reminded that I still want to make photographs that look like this.  They are the most beautiful things.  The project I began so long ago was a take on old anthropological photos from this era.  My contention was that they were not accurate portrayals of what they meant to expose, that is "other cultures."  So I just got some exotic looking things and made up my own exotic cultures.  You may remember.  They were done with the old Polaroid film.

I'm sure I'd be criticized now for cultural (mis)appropriation or something worse.  We live in accusatory times, in an accusatory culture.

I read a story today about some "white people" who opened up a "Chinese" restaurant called Lucky Lee's in Union Square (link).  They claimed the food was healthier, cleaner. . . or something like that. No gluten, no MSG.  Well, they got flamed on social media and are trying to make amends.  Haven't people learned anything?  Can you imagine Trump apologizing for being culturally insensitive?  This restaurant is doomed, I'd guess.

I haven't eaten at a Chinese restaurant since I came back from a trip to China over a decade ago.  I think that makes me guilty of something.

Maybe I could make a series of pictures of the staff of the so-called "Chinese" restaurants.  I could publish their health department ratings on the bottom of each photograph.

But I have gotten very paranoid about food.  It is wondrous to me that I used to eat out all the time and would eat just about anything.  Food prepared by others in restaurants looking to maximize profits seems, well, dirty and unhealthy.  It's bad enough what they do to food at the grocery store.

Dirty little hipster hands.

God, I wish to make those photographs.  I'll be posting more, for sure.  They are wonderful.

Vaqueros

The a.c. fellas worked all day, a long day.  I got to sit and answer questions.  It was awful.  But the fellas were nice guys, very polite to one another.  They were Hispanic and spoke in English around me but in Spanish to one another.  It was tough, hot work, but they never cursed nor complained.  Rather, they laughed and joked and helped one another along.  They had that cowboy mentality, or should I say vaqueros. 

By seven o'clock, I had a new a.c./furnace.

The house seemed to take a long time to cool down.  My gut was in spasms. What if. . . ?

It was 64 outside this morning when I woke up.  Not a good test.  I worry, of course.

Oh, and I was disabused of the idea that I had 0% financing.  It was the fellow who owns the camera store who wised me up.  He said they had the same deal on cameras.  It is through a company called Equiscam or something.  It is really a deferred interest plan, he said.  Make sure you pay every month early.  If you miss one payment, they charge you all the interest at once.  Whoa!  I am not that good at keeping up with pay dates.  I will need to get to the bank and set up autopay as soon as I can.

Maybe right after I rush to the post office to mail my tax extension form.

Oy.

I was at the camera store to pick up the film I took in from my old Diana and Helga cameras.  How long ago did I do my surf series?  Seven years?  The film in that leaky old plastic camera had pictures on it from then.  That is why, I guess, you see the image of the backing paper on the photographs.  Light leaks over the years.  Q said they looked cool, so I will trust that.

I loaded three Diana and one Holga camera(s) up with film the day I shared the woman's Diana images with you.  I haven't shot a single picture with them yet.  I might, though.  I mean. . . I could.

There are so many things I might do.

Watching the Workers

The a.c. boys are here now.  Nice guys.  There was a crew of four, then a supervisor, then the salesman, then someone I didn't know what, and now there are just two installers.  The ducts are clean.  The outside unit is installed.  My financing is done.  Can you believe 0% interest on $10,000? I told them I was going to take that money to Trump's stock market and gain back some of my money.  Do you think that would work?  I'd probably crash the market.  Still, you can't beat 0% with a stick.

They promise me I will have a.c. by the end of the day.  It is a big job.  They have to haul big units down and then up into the attic.  They are cheerful enough about it.  The cracked three of the stairs on my beautiful sliding attic ladder, though.  Vintage 1926.  What can I do?

I stayed at my mother's last night.  Got a taste of that again.

The house is open to the air and bugs.  It is a cooler day fortunately.  I had to take the day off work.  When the workers took lunch, I popped a beer.  I want to sleep now, but that is not possible.  I have to keep answering questions.  They are all versions of, "Do you want this to work?"  I say, "Yes, of course."

Cha-ching.

You've all been through it.  That's what I'm telling you.

A.C. Blues

A.C. went out just as the sultry air came.  Slept last night on top of the sheets, arms and legs akimbo, fan on high.  It did not get cool in the night.  I will sleep at my mother's tonight.  The air conditioning bandits come to install a new a.c./furnace tomorrow.  Big project.  I have to stay home from the factory to watch them. . . and to pay what is getting perilously close to ten grand. 

The roofers say they have found and fixed the leaks.  I'll have to wait for the next big storm. 

All this adulting sucks. 

To Make Photos

It is Saturday night, and Ili is in the air coming back from a trip to one of the big cities.  I have had time alone.  I thought I might make pictures, but it was too much.  I rested and watched photo porn.

I have to get better.  I've realized you can't make street photography at home.  Huh.

But I did take some film to the lab, three rolls that have been sitting in my old plastic cameras, the Diana and the Helga, for many, many years.  One roll confused the fellow who would be processing it.  He was young and had never seen the film before.  It is a black and white film that used the color processing C-41, an old Ilford film.  They haven't made it for many years and he was young.  Fun.

Other than that, there is nothing to report.

Nada y pues nada.

I asked Q tonight if he thought Van Morrison knew forty years or so ago that he was making music that would sound so good now?  Did he know that none of his peers would be able to hold a candle?

In response, Q sent me some of Morrison's good music.  I am going to go to Vimeo and see what they have of his now.

Careful

I took this photo a long time ago.  She was a "feminist painter."  That's how she described herself.  Her paintings were pretty good for someone starting out.  They were better than that.  She'd wrestled on the boy's team in high school.  She was impressive, dramatic.  I think she might have hurt a man who tried to sniff her hair if she didn't want to be sniffed.  She was leaning in before it was popularized.  We kept in touch for some time, but I am bad about that.

Since I got run over, my relationship to the world has changed quite a bit.  Most women could beat me up now, and so I am learning what it is like to be careful.  Phrases like "stay safe," and "take care" had no meaning for me.  "How do you do that?" I'd ask.  I wasn't sure of the steps, so to speak.

I am learning.  Mostly, it boils down to avoiding danger.  That used to be anathema to me.  Now. . . well, I've learned to look the other way.

Q says the accident will probably save me from being beaten to death.  Others, too.  Maybe they are right, I don't know.

I am learning to live with physical weakness.

I should say, though, that I am highly motivated.  That is how the therapists describe me.  Two days of physical therapy a week.  Two days of upper body weight workouts in the gym.  Two days of legs and aerobics.  Hell, yesterday I bench pressed 100 pounds for fifteen reps, and that is after only two weeks.  I started with just 45 pounds.

I used to bench 305, but not for reps.  Just once.

I still can't use my left arm for many things, though, and it hurts all the time.  Same with my ribs.  I can't even describe how my ribs feel.  They are foreign objects, thick and swollen and full of strange and weird sensations.  I don't even want to be bumped.  I am nowhere near as tough as the girl in this picture.

But I can walk and talk and write.  I want to see if I can still make pictures.  I may try to use my 8x10 camera today, and perhaps some of my 4x5s.  Just to experiment and relearn.  Just to see.

Don't count on it.  One of the results of the accident is that I tire quickly.  Perhaps.  Or maybe I've just gotten lazy.  These are not mutually exclusive, of course.  It may be a combination of the two.

I'd like to take pictures of people again, but I'm not sure what I'd do.  I'd need a theme.  I can't just take random portraits.  And I'd need something safe.  Provocative is the new devil.  Pictures are exploitive.  At least if they are taken by OMWC.

But I am weak and careful now.  Perhaps there will be an allowance.

Read Your Shakespeare

A powerful storm just blew through.  I heard it coming for about twenty minutes before it arrived.  Then the rain, the thunder, and then. . . "POP!"  The lights dimmed, went out, and came back on.  The power box outside my house was the source of the pop.  I was certain some circuit had blown, some electronics had been irrevocably damaged, but as of yet, I've found nothing.  Still my skin crawls.  Popping electricity is never a good sound.  

Nor, for me, is the rain.  The roofing man comes at nine this morning.  I will have to deal with that.  

My tax guy called.  

I have medical bills that are overdue.  

Adulting, as they say, is very, very hard.  I am too old to begin now.  But I can't figure out how to avoid it.  I've never learned the lessons one needs to learn.  I've been frivolous and cavalier.  You can't be that so much any more, at least I can't.  There is more paperwork with retirement.  The corporation has taken care of everything so far, the money, the insurance, retirement.  Now they just hand me a folder full of papers and tell me "good luck."  I don't know how to do any of this.  

I'm good at buying cameras.  Nothing about that is in the folder.  

I thought retirement was going to be about eating well, exercising, meditating, writing, and taking photographs.  I can see now that it is all going to be about worry.  

Should I drink so much coffee?  Am I getting enough fruit and nuts and vegetables?  I should probably eat more fish.  And alcohol?  I'll need to consult my physician.  

Or my swami.  

I've had a good run, but poor old Uncle Joe is just a metonym.  Old people have had it.  Even Elizabeth Warren.  

I should have read my Shakespeare more closely, I guess.  He told the tale.  

All's well that ends well.  

Right

I asked my buddy, the male feminist, about women.

"You're a feminist.  You know how to treat the ladies, right?"

"Sure.  I just love 'em.  I love to hold 'em, and squeeze 'em, and smell their hair.  I just love to kiss 'em."

No, that's not what he said.  That's what I told him was a new form of feminism.

Oh, I had the lunchroom in stitches.

No I didn't.  Seemed like someone farted in the room.  Was that my intended outcome?

It's complex.  I've never asked a woman out on a first date.  I don't offer the first kiss.  I am too paranoid at being rejected.  Now, however, I'd be afraid of getting the Creepy Uncle Joe treatment.

I've already lost any argument I might subsequently make, of course.  I began with a personal defense.  You know that such a person is not to be trusted.

But in the lunchroom, I was making a point about the 2020 election.  While the right backs a man who says he likes to grab 'em by the pussy, the left is axing hair sniffers and long huggers.

"Oh, I just love to sniff their hair."

Creepy.  But it is scary, too.  It's o.k. for now.  We're only after rich white guys and a couple rich black guys.  But wait.  Lesbians are beginning to tell, too.  Only on powerful white women, maybe, but it will trickle down.

And that fear will keep old Uncle Donny in the White House, I'm afraid.  I mean, I'm really afraid.

But as my lefty friends say, you can't have a revolution without spilling a little innocent blood.  It's just part of the price we pay.

I'm not defending.  If Creepy Uncle Joe wasn't creepy, he'd have been president in 1988.  But he got caught cheating.  Remember?

Doesn't seem people do.

Nancy Rexroth

Nancy Rexroth (born 1946) is an American photographer noted for her pioneer work utilizing the Diana camera. In 1977, she published Iowa – the first printed monograph of work completed with a plastic camera (Wikipedia).

Her work was just acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum (link). 

I've been looking at her photography quite a bit lately after reading an interview with Alec Soth.  He says he was influenced much by her work and said he owns several of her photographs.  Long ago (in the 1990's), I got infatuated with toy cameras and used them quite a bit.  Then I got interested in other things and put them aside.  They've been sitting on the shelf since.  Two days ago, I picked them up to look at them.  They still had partially shot rolls of film in them.  Hmm.  I took them out and began shooting with them again.  The old Diana camera takes 120 film, but shoots 4.5x4.5 images.  You get 16 images per roll.  When I finished the film, I took it out and found that it was Fuji Velvia, a positive slide film.  There are not so many places that process slide film any longer.  I wondered at what might be on the roll.   I will send it off to The Darkroom, a film processing place in San Clemente, California that I've been told is top-notch.  Curious as to what I shot so long ago in color. 

I still have a couple shots left on the Holga.  I don't think that film is as old.  I'm pretty sure it is Tri-X, so I will be able to develop it myself. 

Rexroth's photographs are beautiful and evocative, more about light and shadow than subject.  I am going to begin using the toy cameras again.  You can buy new Holga and Diana cameras from Lomography, but I've read that they are not the same.  To wit. . . I just bought a "brand new" 1960s Diana still in the box, never used, on eBay.  The Diana 150.  Screwy plastic lens with all sorts of imperfections.  I will shoot with it for awhile since I've spent a million dollars on Leicas and lenses, and on medium format Hasselblads and Mamiyas and Rollieflex.  There is nothing more appealing than a plastic camera when you have all that. 

I'll show you the results soon.  Probably.  Maybe.  We'll see. 

Pest Control Down to a Science

I read about a hormone that makes rats more intelligent today in the N.Y. Times.  There is still a lot of research to be done, so I don't think I am going to get the benefits of it.  Oh well, neither will anyone I know (at least while I know them).  Human limitations being what they are, I guess I'll have to suffer the same fates as those who have come before me. 

Still, I am not cheered. 

Not much is cheering me of late.  I'll tell you more about it later.  How much later is the question. 

A Man of a Certain Age

Sick weekend.  Did little.  Watched Ili pot some plants, put some in the garden.  Bought more bird food, hangers.  Whistled to the birds.  Watched the Monarch, Little Chrissy, mate.  She has stayed around and is feeding.  We are certain it is her.  She will give us more Monarchs.  More bird species come.  A hummingbird hung around a long while.  The cardinals become more tame.  The squirrel who built the nest is starting to get thick.  I spread fertilizer on the lawn and shrubs, then sprayed Miracle Grow.  It is.  Barely ate.  Drank tea.  Slept.  Did nothing.

I wait to see what will happen.  The future is uncertain.  Mine.  The roofing contractor has not called me back.  Everything is problematic.

I must give up if I am to go on, just give up on many things.  There is me, and there is the world.  The world is great.  I grow smaller and more alone.  It is what happens.

I sent this article to Q (link).  He is reaching the vicinity of "a man of a certain age," so to speak.  Ili  tells me I am such a man and that laws protect me from physical attack.  I will get a t-shirt that says so.

Ha!

Umcka

One day, this photo will be interesting.  

I'm still sick, but I am holding.  Sore throat and chest congestion.  But the secret to stopping sickness or keeping it at bay is Umcka.  Ili got me wise to this a long time ago when it was very difficult to find.  Now it is more widespread.  But if you've not used it, do at the first sign of a cold or flu, and keep using it throughout.  It will certainly shorten the duration of your illness.  Plus lemon water and grapefruit and grams of vitamin C.  And plenty of fluids as we've always known.  

That is all I have for you in my Great Suffering.  More and better soon.  I hope.  But one never knows, I guess.  Fingers crossed.  

Sure

Sure.  And then. . . the flu.

Losing

Woke up this morning to a beautiful rain falling on the roof.  I lay in bed comfortably listening to the first big spring storm.  

When I got up, I made coffee and looked out the window at the wet, wet world.  The plants were happy, I supposed, but there would be no bird watching.  

I didn't want to disturb Ili, so I went to the guest bathroom where I heard a drip, drip, drip.  I thought it was the faucet in the tub, but there was no water on the nozzle.  Dry.  I reached up and felt the shower head.  Dry too.  WTF?  Then I saw the source.  The ceiling was bulging with water.  Adrenaline.  

Later, I found another leak in the bedroom.  

Is there any winning?  The roof is two and a half years old.  I called the roofing company, but they have not called back.  

I am destined to be poor, I think.  And depressed.  

I'm tired of losing.  I want a break. 

A Flawed Life

Stupid picture of chair/ottoman/wall, etc.  I have nothing else at the moment.  So why post? 

Compulsion. 

I looked back at some of my journals the other day.  I used to write in them obsessively every day for many years.  Oh, there are millions of pages, impossible to read, but you (I) can pick and choose at will and find little gems.  It is funny, I find, how little of your life you actually remember.  I, I mean.  Reading my own journals from years ago was like reading about somebody else's life.  Truly, I remembered little until I read it, and then the thing would come back to me as a sudden thrill.  Our (my) lives are more interesting than we know.  Mine has been thrilling. 

I am going to begin journal writing again.  All the details I can't write here.  To write a narrative gives one's (my) life shape and meaning.  As Salter said so poignantly, the one who writes it keeps it.  Everything else is lost. 

Some of what I read, however, is embarrassing.  It felt like being James Franco in the #MeToo era, or like being Lena Dunham any time.  Fortunately, it's a journal.  Maybe I'll edit out all the parts I don't want to remember or want anyone to know in the future.  Surely. 

Look at all those remotes in the little monkey-adorned metal ivy pot in the picture above.  It would be more embarrassing if there were not a book and a magazine lying there, too.  Laying.

A photo, like a journal, is evidence.  Perhaps it is best to have neither.  But no. . . it is better to have lived a flawed life than to not have lived at all. 

God in His Heaven

Ili came back from the beach yesterday.  I was at a birthday party on the Boulevard at a bar I would never eat at again since having an undercooked meatball for a snack with my buddy while drinking martinis.  We were both ill for many, many months.  But I could drink the mimosas and then when Ili joined us, mojitos.  We were with a group from the factory, and they all know my history with Carrothead, the comedian.  I didn't see him when I walked in, but apparently I passed him as I came by the bar.  I made a joke to my old college roommate who has had two hips replaced that I always get into shoving matches at bars when I go out and that if anyone gave me any shit today, he would have to deal with them.  Everyone thought I was referring to Carrothead.  I went on about how busted up I was but that I could still throw a right hand, etc.  It finally got through to me that Carrothead was there.  Ha!  My peeps had finally seen the showdown.  He had one of those wheelie carts for his leg.  I don't know what was wrong with him, but there we were, two cripples.

I will have to give the whole Carrothead thing a rest.  Nothing good will come of it.  As the birthday boy said, I've made more enemies in town than friends.  Now it could be time for retribution.

I'd rather stay home with Ili.

Old people are funny.  Older than I am, I mean.  I overheard three of them talking at the Y on Saturday.

"There was a doctor at the hospital blacker than that (he pointed to a black piece of furniture with an astonished look).  And he was a good doctor!"

He must have been in his 80s.  What is one to say.  He was trying to give props.

Last night at dinner, my mother looked at us with astonishment, too, when she said, "They now have a third box you can check for gender.  It is X or something.  Can you believe that?"

She must have seen it on FOX.

CNN is shitting itself after the Attorney General's letter.  Scrambling to keep the investigation alive.  No collusion after two years of, "Oh, we've got him now."  Dems have set themselves up to lose the next election.  Six more years of Trump.  I'm going to invest heavy in the stock market.  It will be interesting to see how the 100 or so Dems running for president react.

I'll keep tending my garden, feeding my birds, watering the herbs.  God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world.

Only the Wealthy Can Afford To

I am a hermit by nature.  I am certain of that.  Ili left Friday for the weekend.  I could do anything I wanted to.  I could fill the house with hookers and blow and take pictures of the shenanigans.  I could have gotten in my car and gone looking for pictures and trouble.  I could have gone to little cafes and coffee shops and. . . .  And what?

In truth, I've had a bad stomach the entire time she has been gone.  You can't trust food any more.  It is corporate and it is toxic.  Every day you can read about a recall of a million pounds of hamburger or chicken strips or spinach or salad or strawberries.  And that is just what gets caught.  People who eat in fast food restaurants expect to be sick.  Most of them don't recognize the source.  They are always gassy and bloated and taking shits that sound like the trombone section of the symphony warming up, but that just seems normal to them.  It is, in part, why they are so mean and sour and why they flame on social media.  They never feel good.

The New York Times published an article about the screen time gap between the rich and the poor.  Once upon a time, it was the rich who could afford screens.  Now, it is the rich who can afford not to have them.  Studies show, they say, that kids who start life with screens have altered brains.  And not for the good.  There is more depression in people who have more screen time.  Only the rich can afford to send their kids to schools that eschew computers in favor of 3D objects which, again studies show, are more valuable for a child's brain development.

And the proof is in the pudding (putting?), i.e. the nation's leading twitter god--Trump.

The article scared me a bit.  Instead of going out into the world of humans, I chose to stay home.  And what did I do?  Well. . . when Ili is here, I don't get to do much photographic development.  I would rather spend my time with her than working in photoshop.  Alone, however, I get curious about how to represent images again.  I have ideas, and they need time to be proven worthwhile or not, lots of hours.  Photoshop has been updated so many times since I lived alone and could work on images into the night that I am awfully unfamiliar with what it will do now.  Many of the shortcuts and commands have changed.

Alone with a crampy bloated belly, I decided to go to school and learn some photoshop again.  I sat on my very comfortable new couch and watched video tutorials.  I drank a beer to calm my belly, then some whiskey, and I took my first nap on the leather wonder.  It was dreamy.  And when I woke up, I tried to watch some more March Madness, but there were more commercials than I could stand, so I went into my computer and decided to try some techniques I had in mind.  The image above is the result of about an hour's work.  Was it worth the hour?  Not in terms of the image I produced, but in terms of what I learned (both to do and not to do), sure.  The picture is a combination of hand coloring and some photoshop tools usage.  The tutorials taught me some things I could do now that I could not do in previous versions of p.s.  If I had more time (which I will not have when Ili returns), I could experiment to perfection.  But the downside would be that I would be spending an hour or more on every photo I showed.  That is a millisecond to a painter, I know, and I wouldn't mind doing it, really.  Maybe when I retire.  Yes, then definitely.

I really should have gone to see my mother and cousin, but I didn't want to have to interact with anyone, so I told them that my belly was bad and that I was simply going to stay home which was the truest of true statements.  The truer statement, however, would have been that I didn't want to be around anyone, that I was enjoying my solitude and monastic ways.  And if my belly hadn't been bad, I would have enjoyed them more.

Bad food and bad screen time have a lot in common.  But you can eat good food if you are careful and can spend a lot of money.  Good food is only for the wealthy, just like good screen time.  The bad thing about fast food and bad screen time is advertising, psychologists, and the shit they put into everything.  Food companies spend a lot of money learning how to make you want to eat.  Colors and flavors and presentation.  Screen time has been taken over by the same folks.  They know what you will get addicted to, and they load your screen with things you haven't asked for.  Looking at this blog, for example, is only bad for you because of the content I put into it.  But there is not advertising, nothing to make you want to eat or drink or continue hitting buttons.  All there is here is a negative example of how to live your life to the fullest.

Speaking of which, I am getting better, I swear.  I work hard to get back to physical fitness and I try to live with as much gusto as I did before.  It is working.  I am almost abnormal once again.

This is what you get with Ili out of town.  But now I must get on to other things.  I have chores to do and a long, long walk.  And this afternoon, I must go to a surprise birthday party on the Boulevard, something I pretty much dread.  But these are people I like, and I must go.

To wit, my monastic life must end.  So long sweet solitude.  Adieu thoughtfullness.  Farewell selfishness.  Selavy.

Special Sauce

Have I used this pic before?  I am very bad at organizing files.  No, that sentence gives me more credit than I deserve.  If I have. . . well, it is worth looking at once again.  Why do all my old NYC film shots look so good?  I don't seem to get that same tonality any more.  I have too many tools and try too hard, I think.  B&W film, a simple scan--done.  It is purer, perhaps, or at least more to my taste.

I wake in the dark two and a half hours before sunrise.  Ili is gone and I can't sleep.  I will go back to bed with the sun and sleep a couple more hours having read the papers, surfed the net, drunk the coffee, and eaten a bowl of high fiber cereal.  Fiber, you know, is the key to life.  Eat your veggies.

I tried watching some of the NCAA tournament last night.  This used to be one of my favorite things of the year.  My college roommate and I watched it together long after we left college.  The highlight had always been Al McGuire and Billy Packer (and Dick Enberg) doing their schtick, Al being our favorite, of course, offbeat, an artist in contrast to Packer who knew the rudiments of the game, intuition vs. study, perhaps, panache vs. the everyday.  But we loved them both, only siding with McGuire but enjoying Packer, too, the games made more exciting by them, and perhaps they were.  Players weren't all pros yet.  Offbeat players would emerge as heroes.  Games were close.  Upsets were plentiful.

Now, players are trained from birth.  They play one sport and perfect it.  They are all better than the players were when Al and Billy made it fun.  There is less zen to the game now, or so it seems to "a man of a certain age."  The players are much better athletes, but the teams are far less interesting to me.  I just like it when the little guys can win.  It doesn't seem to happen as much anymore.

Go U.C. Irvine!

I don't want to become nostalgic.  That is the last encampment.  I'm not ready to go there yet.

But damn, I really did enjoy that show.  It had some special sauce.

Leaps and Bounds

Went to the doc today for a two month checkup.  I tell him what I am doing.  He tells me I am doing well.  Keep doing therapy, he says.  Not recommending surgery yet.  I am relieved.  I am not ready for another surgery right now.  I leave the office hoping, but my arm feels dead.  Still, I make progress every therapy session and every workout.  I try to stay positive.  It is not about being able to clean the shower, I laugh, but about ego.  Looking good.  That one made the therapist smile.

I will skip the factory today.  Ili is out of town for the weekend.  First time alone since the accident.  Today was the first time driving myself to a doctor.  Felt odd, a bit scary.  Lonely, really.  What will I do, I wonder?  What am I able to do?

There is the usual and the mundane, of course.  Yard work to be done.  I will go to the gym.  The hours will pass unremarkably.  Perhaps I will take my first nap on the new leather couch.  Surely that.  Perhaps I will make some photos, but don't put good money on it.  But maybe.

The day is gorgeous.  I must take advantage of this weather.  I sit in a dark room writing because my laptop is dead.  I need to get a new one.  Maybe that, though it is another $3,000 down the drain.  I am having trouble pulling the trigger on that one.

That is the shape of things.  Leaps and bounds.  Leaps and bounds.

Moon Cycle

I'll write tonight in case I can't write tomorrow.  Super moon and all of that.  Ili is at a Moon Cycle group tonight.  I made that up, sort of.  A friend of mine has a meditation/yoga group, and she invited Ili to come.  God knows.  I asked my friend if they were going to cut the head off a chicken and drink the blood and throw the bones, etc.  I said I didn't want Ili coming home with her hair chopped off and a new tattoo.  There will be healing crystals for sure.  Whatever makes her happy.  

I am not the mystical type, so a lot of what they do is silly to me--but as I always say, it's easier than science.  I like horoscopes, though.  They are always right.  

Chakras and rakai.  I don't know.  

The moon will be out soon.  I will go to look at it alone with a glass in my hand.  There will be the normal melancholy and inwardness.  It is something I enjoy.  

I shouldn't be so dismissive.  One of the things I have learned in life is to eat more fiber.  Science is only now catching up to its importance.  But people knew.  There is a wisdom that leads science in the right direction.  It is just difficult to know.  

I hope Ili has fun tonight at the Moon Circle.  That is not what it is called.  And I hope she doesn't come home with a new tattoo.  

The Dangers of Spring

What is spring like?  The morning began wet and cool, but soon the skies cleared to a robin's egg blue.  The birds are at the feeders, and the sprouts have been nurtured by the rain.  It is truly spring here.

How will I shed winter?  This is a more auspicious day for me than New Year.  I make my resolutions now.  More water.  Much more water.  Less alcohol.  At least a little less.  Less meat.  More grains and vegetables.

And maybe photography.  I have ideas.  If I can turn them into pictures. . . well, we'll see.

Trump's troubles don't keep the democrats from self-destruction.  As Howard Cosell used to say, they are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  They are fools.

Check your horoscope.  You do not want to take any chances today.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

  Remember why April is the cruelest month.  We'll need the clairvoyante to get through these troubling days as the waters begin to flow, the sap to rise.  Beware the dangers of Spring.  

Oh, Winter

Dreary day.  It already seems a long week.  Maybe it is the coming equinox that has me by the throat.  Tomorrow, it is spring.  And a full moon.  There will be blood letting and a throwing of the bones.  Ili will do a moon circle dance and come home strange.  And I?  Oh, I will do the same old thing, of course.  But it feels like the end of something.  Winter doesn't want to let go.

I am out of sorts.  I want to say that in Yiddish, but I can't remember the word. 

Oh, winter. 

Bird Brain

My laptop crapped out, so I've been posting from my phone.  I only say that to explain why I have been making so many errors.  I can barely see the things I type. 

Exciting weekend.  We had a Monarch caterpillar attach to the underside of one of the boards siding the house.  We watched it form a chrysalis a couple weeks ago.  It took about two weeks, but yesterday, it "hatched."  We made a video of it.  It happened quickly.  Then it hung on the house.  Ili said it would take a couple hours to dry, but the day turned cold and gray, and it was still hanging there at nightfall.  When she got up this morning, Ili went to check on "Chrissy" as I called her.  She was still there.  Ili, the worrying type, feared that she was dying.  "I'm going to give her" (it is a her) "some nectar," she said.  I was in a hurry to get to my physical therapy and left Ili to her tasks.  When I got home an hour later, Ili was sitting in a chair facing the wall.  There was an extension cord hanging from the outdoor plug.  On the ground was the heating pad. 

"What's going on," I asked?

"She fell."

"Uh. . . did she have any help?"  I saw the cotton ball stained red with hummingbird juice on the ground.  The butterfly was on the heating pad.

"I put the heating pad on the ground, and she climbed up on it."  She showed me a video of just that.

"She climbed up there?  Wow."

Just then, little Chrissy began flapping her wings.  She was beautiful.

On my way to the factory, I got a text that little Chrissy had flown away. 

The end.

Great tale, eh?  This is the sort of excitement I have now.  It is fun and fascinating.  We've put up four bird feeders and have learned all the bird calls.  We watched a squirrel build her nest in the camphor tree.  New leaves have exploded all around us.  We have coffee and/or cocktails on the deck morning and evening watching the world around us.  It is beautiful.  It is fun.

Oh. . . and I have begun taking photographs again, too.  That is a good sign, I think.  Just a tad more energy than I had before.  I will make vernacular pictures now.  You'll see. . . soon enough.

Until then, I'll be the guy with the Jane Hathaway birding outfit and binoculars.  You'll see me when you walk by.  I'll wave.  

Whiskey: The Road to Ruin

Ili purchased this at the local Art Festival yesterday for me/the house.  It is a 16x16 print by a female photog from Santa Fe.  That is where Ili wants to move.  I hear it every day.  Land of enchantment, I reckon.  The artist did nothing to dissuade her.

The photo is matted and framed in white.  We thought to put it over “the library” (liquor cabinet”, but the whiteness of the picture did not go with the teak, so it ended up in the kitchen.  We admire it.

We were invited to an annual party for the arts at an art collector attorney friend’s house last night.  It is a lovely affair in a most wonderful, beautiful setting, but after a full day that began with a mimosa breakfast at what is about to become our favorite morning cafe and continued with a walk to the Boulevard festival (and more drinks) and me taking photographs again for the first time since being obliterated, we made a spaghetti dinner and drank wine, then whiskey, and decided to watch a documentary we found on YouTube about the birth of the blues.  There was no getting up from the supreme comfort of the new leather couch after that.  My only regret is not hearing the wonderful gypsy group, The Cook Trio,” under the cool night’s sky.

But I still get extremely tired and want to be still when the lights go down.  I’m better, though.  Pretty much spent the day on my feet.  I’ll do much the same today without the booze, I hope.

Mother comes tonight for corned beef and cabbage.  I’ve never made it before.  We’ll see.

Better Every Day

I had a full day, but now I sit alone, and I am sad.  Ides of March?  Surely.  Mercury in retrograde.  Something.

Mostly me.

I am doing better every day.  That is what I tell people because that is what they want to hear.  I'm tough.  I look O.K., but I don't look the way I used to.  And it bothers me.

I went to the gym today and lifted more than I did a few days ago.  I get better every day.  That is what I say.  I am truly up to regular women's weights now.  The tough girls still swear at me if I get in their way.  There are mirrors in the gym, so I am not unaware.  But I tell you, I look O.K.  I just don't look the way I used to.

One shithead kid was giving me the goofy eye today.  He is a young, good looking prick, his first year out of high school, I think.  His muscles are growing.  He gets stronger.  He doesn't like me.  I know why.

After the gym, I walked to the Art Festival.  No art.  Two booths out of a hundred or more that were interesting.  I took my little Ricoh GR.  I took the picture above with it as I walked through the streets.  I walked and walked, then came home.  Between the gym and that, it was the most active day I've had since the accident.  Since I was run over.

When I came home, the wrecking crew still had not come.  And then they did.  I was tired and wanted a nap, but that was not going to happen with them here.

And now I am tired and sad.  I can't do the things I used to.  And I worry.  I feel myself a bore.  If I am not in love with me, who can be?  I need to feel my love again.  We need to love ourselves.

It is dark now, and all around town (including next door and across the street), there are parties.  I am not capable of that.  I will sit and watch t.v.  Fear and Self-Loathing.

I drink scotch, of course, to kill the worms from the really bad tuna in the Poke bowl I just ate.  Mostly ate.  Eating out is a terrible disappointment.  So the scotch.  I am drinking a good one, the last of the bottle.  Then I will try Suntori from Japan.  You know, the one Bill Murray advertises in "Lost in Translation."  I am hoping it will be good, but just in case, I bought a bottle of my old standard table scotch.  It is bad to begin drinking better whiskeys.  It is expensive.

Drinking whiskey and watching t.v. and feeling bad for and about myself.  Ides of March.  Mercury in retrograde.

No worries.  I'll be better tomorrow.  I get better every day.

Forget Caesar

Ides of March, an ominous day.

Beware!  I think I'll stay away from the factory today.  I have an a.c. guy coming to give me a quote on a new system.  Probably an inauspicious day for that.  I wasn't aware.  In ancient times (?), March 15 was a day to settle debts.  I read that on the internet, so you know it must be true.

Life after vacation is always tough, even for me.  Especially for me.

I have little time.  After the a.c. guy come the wrecking--I mean cleaning--crew.

No, I don't think I'll go to work today, though I fear I may just be staying home to mope.

*     *     *     

The a.c. guy was just here, took a look, and gave me a quote.  OUCH!  But what can one do?  I'll call another company and see what they say, but I'm pretty sure all the major players are going to be similar.  And as soon as I have it installed, someone will say, "Oh, man, I wish I would have known!  I've got a guy who could get you a real deal. . . ."

Ides of March.  Forget Caesar.  The debt collector is here.

Perfection

We've yet to perfect human behavior, and I don't know why, but as a result, life gets complicated.  Maybe it's just me.  Other people seem to do fine.  They get lots of "likes."  I am part of a couple group texts.  They drive me crazy.  Someone will post something then somebody adds something like an image and then the whole thing blows up with each person trying to "like" or love something or somebody more than anyone else.  Then I'll write something and the group goes silent.  I think they just switch channels or something.  Nobody ever "likes" what I post. 

That is not what I meant, though, about perfecting human behavior.  I just sort of bled over into the other thing.  I was thinking of face to face interaction.  How can it go so swell for so long and then one day just turn to shit?  There is something wrong with the human psyche. 

But another person need not be involved, really.  I've had weeks alone where I have been happy and content only to wake one morning in a most sour and hateful mood where and when nothing seems like fun. 

I want perfecting. 

Sure, you want more specific details.  Nope.  Can't happen.  Just can't. 

This weekend is the local Art Festival, so my own hometown will be quite crowded.  Saturday night is the annual art party at one of my friend's house, a beautiful affair carried out to the sounds of a Django Reinhardt gypsy trio.  I look forward to that.

Can I say "gypsy"?  

 Some days are better than others.  What can I tell you?  Here's hoping for a wonderful weekend.  I'll keep you informed. 

The Hillbilly Curse

The leather couch is worth every penny I spent on it.  No, it probably isn't, but it is.  Nothing has ever been as comfortable.  Certainly not.  And it is beautiful.  I could have spent thousands less (not including the ottoman), but I wouldn't be as happy.  Nor as broke. 

Per usual, however, as soon as I spend exorbitantly on something I want, something I need quits working.  It was true when I bought my first Leica camera.  The next day, the a.c. went out.  That was twelve years ago.  It happened again this weekend.  And it is not just the air conditioner.  There is a natural gas furnace attached to it, so both must be replaced.  The more I think about that, the dumber it seems.  But now it would cost more to separate them. 

The new a.c. will cost much more than the couch. 

This is the hillbilly curse, I think.  My mother and father would never spend money on a luxury.  Cost was always the first priority.  With all things.  Including my clothing. 

And that has made me what I am in many ways.  I've spent everything.  I have no reserves.  Foolish, people say.  I know folks not as old as I who have paid off their homes, who own other properties besides.  They are frugal and practical people. 

I am not. 

My ex-friend Brando always spent everything.  He even spent money he didn't have.  Mine and some of my friends' comes to mind.  I've not done that.  But I have never been able to save anything.  I may have said that you never know what will happen in the future.  You could die suddenly.  And then, I almost did. 

I have had a great time and what I consider to be an interesting life.  No reservations, as the famous man once said. 

And I love the f'ing couch. 

But I know someone will tell me now, "Oh, man. . . did you pay retail?  I could have gotten it for you for a very deep discount." 

I've heard it before.  Often.  It is part of the hillbilly curse.