The End of the World Cafe

 

Born in 1864, died in 1943—forgotten by the world, left to languish in a mental hospital.

What was her story?

She came to Paris to study art at a time when the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts was open only to men. Undeterred, she joined studios that welcomed women. There, she met and became the lover of the celebrated sculptor Auguste Rodin. Their relationship was one of fiery passion and shared artistry—they created side by side, their collaborative genius preserved in works housed today in the Rodin Museum and Musée d’Orsay.

But Rodin, already entangled in a long-standing relationship with another woman, eventually left Camille. As his reputation soared, hers plummeted. She was scorned, shunned, and dismissed—not just as a lover but as an artist. Alone, distrusting, and out of favor, she struggled to sell her works.

Adding to her isolation, her brother, the renowned poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, played a pivotal role in her downfall. Camille, seen as "too modern" and a source of familial shame, was forcibly institutionalized by her family. For 30 years, she fought to explain the injustice of her confinement, writing anguished letters to friends and family, pleading for release. Her clarity and heartbreak resonate in these preserved writings.

On October 19, 1943, Camille Claudel died of malnutrition in a French hospital. No family members attended her funeral, and her body was buried in a common grave.

Decades later, the world has finally recognized her brilliance. Her legacy has been restored: her sculptures now stand proudly beside Rodin’s, and a museum near Paris is dedicated entirely to her work.

Camille Claudel is no longer forgotten. She is honored as the visionary she always was.

I don't know.  I read this the other day and it just stuck with me.  Life can be pretty fucking shitty.  People can.  

Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused

I got a text from my band's old drummer (or my old band's drummer) who lives in San Francisco last night.  No, he didn't just live there last night.  He's lived there for many, many years.  He sent the text to me and my old college roommate (or the other way 'round) who was in the band, too.  

"How are you guys doing? I’ve been trying to check in with folks, because the struggle, fear and angst."

WTF, man?  I wanted to tell him. . . well. . . this is how I DID  respond:

"I have none of that. It is just more of the same here at the End of the World Cafe. We're just waiting for The Big One. End Times, man. No Ideologies Allowed."

I was only being slightly sarcastic.  I've never been a typical liberal, the "strong letter to the editor" type.  I've always preferred the Woody Allen response in I don't remember what movie--"What we need to do is get a group together and go up there with baseball bats." 

Oh, but I'm alright, I'm alright
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant

But it does get tiring, all this Hitleresque bullshit.  All you can do is join the resistance like those who joined in France in WWII.  Lots of "intellectuals," as they are apt to be called in some sorts of journalism, took up arms and did very brave things.   

The Right is doing the River Dance on the heads of liberals right now.  It sexes them to laugh about Crackhead Harris and Tampon Tim.  And what has been the typical response?  Oh. . . yesterday I heard on NPR that dancers from The Kennedy Center did a silent protest on the sidewalk outside the building.  They were brave.  It must have been terribly cold.  Yup--they marched in simple, synchronized moves.  Holy shit!!!  I'll bet that scared the living shit out 'em!  The fascists won't be able to stand that kind of thing for very long.  

But it's alright, it's alright
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

But I should have told my friend is SF the truth.  I'm not doing as well as I used to.  I'm living in fragments.  The world is wicked and people are strange.  All the gods seem to have abandoned us but the ones of rabid fury.  I'll fight 'til the end with my hands and feet, but fuck. . . I don't even know who's on my side anymore.  The lines seem to have gone dead.  Where did everyone go?

I'm sure that is what Camille Claudel kept wondering.  "How in the fuck did this happen?  I just want to make some art!"  

In dark times when everything seems to turn against you, it can be difficult to find a friend

Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
You can't be forever blessed
I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

Last night as I prepared dinner for my mother and I, a really good rendition of pork chops, Brussels sprouts, and little red potatoes, I danced to the music on the college jazz station.  My movements would only stay in time for a little bit before my knee would go or I would jiggle my way out of rhythm.  But it made me feel good and made my mother laugh.  I used to do my silly dance while cooking all the time.  It gave my girl sweet belly giggles.  I'm no dancer, but that will never stop me.  I'm not going to quit now.  And I'll sing my silly songs.  I'll still be here performing at the End of the World Cafe.  

My Life. . . In Ruins

It's seems so long since I left my life and home.  Oh, I go to my house every day, but only for a minute.  After my mother's cast came off, I felt I could leave her for a bit longer, so I tore my living room apart to make a "studio."  Yesterday, I spent the day tearing down the studio and making back the house. I had to.  The cleaning crew comes today.  I was a week off on my calendar.  It took hours to put things right.  Many trips back and forth from the house to the garage

I miss my life and home.  

My drinking life began again with a happy hour trip with the boys.  I drank lightly.  It accelerated on my birthday, or probably the day before.  By Valentine's Day, I was back at it.  

I am either depressed or have gone insane.  O.K.  I understand that they are not mutually exclusive.  

"I would have thought you already knew about crazy," one witty interlocutor said yesterday.

"Sure.  Now I know the difference between crazy and insane."  

My head is a bucket of writhing snakes that, once started, can't be stopped.  They will settle down on their own from time to time, but I can't control when they become active again.  

"Coffee is the most important meal of the day," I say.  It is true.  It is when the horror of the night before settles down and I regain a smidge of control.  That doesn't mean I'm happy.  Not by a long shot.  But for the moment, I am released from the python's grip.

Later, when I see people I know, I don't want to speak.  Conversation is just too difficult.  As the old poem goes, I cannot unfrown myself.  

And then there was the disastrous weekend.  I enjoyed the attention of a young woman, but eventually you run into the wall.  

Yesterday, I was able to get into the dentist in the afternoon.  I just wanted him to reattach my crown.  

Nope.  

"I don't think the ceramic will hold.  I'd rather put a gold crown on it." 

This came as a shock since once he replaced a gold crown with a ceramic one.  The fucker hates me, I know.  

I made an appointment at the reception desk.  That little bit of news cost me $100.  The gold crown trip will be $2,000.  I think I need to get out of the expensive part of town, drive to the southern regions of the county in Area 13, and find a dentist who will just put the old crown back on.  

I'll be broke before Trump leaves office.  If I even make it that far.  

Last night, I'd had it with "The Rifleman" and "Gunsmoke."  I was sure I was going to do something regretful.  My mother said she wasn't hungry, that shed eaten a bunch of cottage cheese and fruit before I got back, so I made myself the same meal I'd had the night before, scrambled eggs, chicken soup, and sliced tomatoes.  I threw in some potato chips for fun.  And wine.  I liked the wine.  A lot.  I liked a lot of wine.  

And when dinner was done, I poured a big scotch and sat with my mother to watch the news.  Another accident with an airplane.  For half an hour, CNN kept showing the same video footage and having different commentators say the same thing over and over and over with the promise of an upcoming update.  

"We need to know the condition of the infant," one expert opined.  

"Why?" I yelled.  "Why do we need to know?  I don't need to know.  You may want to know, but you have no need you fat fucking. . . . "

Where did that come from?  Fortunately, my mother can't hear me most of the time.  I got up to clean the kitchen of my dinner mess and the rest of the plates and pots and dishes my mother had left for me to clean from her day at home alone.  That is when the t.v. channel changed to cowboys.  So, after the dishes were done and the counters and table wiped clean and after I'd taken out the garbage and closed up the garage for the night. . . I poured another drink.  

I sat in the living room and checked my email.  I checked my texts.  I needn't have.  I sat alone in my mother's living room and looked at the framed pictures on various coffee tables. . . the lamps, the carpet, a million degrees different from the mood of my own home.  No bookshelves.  No artifacts.  No frangipani burning in stone oil lamps.  

I picked up Cormac McCarthy's "The Passenger," and began.  In a little while my mother came shuffling through the room.  

"I'm going to bed.  You can have the t.v. if you want." 

"Thanks.  Goodnight."

I read a little more.  I woke up at 11:30.  I'd fallen asleep in the recliner.  Did I?  Or had I just passed out?  

"I need a mind eraser before I sleep," I thought.  "What do I have that would work?"

I woke at five.  I got up, went to the restroom, and went back to bed.  I lay there, but I only thought things I couldn't control, despairing things.  How do people do it, I wondered?  How does my mother?  I look at people and can't believe they go on.  They exist, and that seems to be enough.  I've never wanted to merely exist.  

I don't feel I'm truly living at the moment, and I'm failing when I try to.  

I think my life has just been too fucking good.  I've had too much fortune, too much excitement, too many rich experiences, too great a journey.  I was born in a shack without an indoor bathroom on the banks of a river in Southern Ohio .  If it had not been for river overflowing the banks and flooding our house, I would have lived with the hillbillies and overdosed on heroin like the rest of them.  Rather, my life has been a bildungsroman.  

People tell me that this is life, that I'm a good son.  I'm not.  I'm an asshole.  

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned."  

I cry into the night's sky and ask what this means.  And all I get back in answer is, "the cold twinkling of a distant star."

Yesterday, after the dentist, I took a little time to myself to work up some of the pictures I've taken.  Oh, fuck. . . it was fun.  And there was the music.  A song that I love came on, a version I had never heard before.  I sent it to my new friend who says she likes jazz.  

I'm foolish that way.  And you know what they say.  

I Don't Want to Be a Photographer Anymore

I don't want to be a photographer anymore.  It sucks.  It used to be easy.  It used to be fun.  Now. . . I don't know.  It's probably just me.  

I left my mother and drove to my house to get my lighting equipment ready and packed in the car for the trip to the coast.  I broke down the lights and tripods and cables and packed them up, but I couldn't find the trigger for the one I would use to trigger the others.  I searched, looked in boxes, went from room to room.  Think.  I knew which camera it had been on and knew when I took it off.  I got on my hands and knees and looked under furniture.  It wasn't to be found.  I texted my new friend and asked her to see if she might not have accidentally packed it with her things when she left.  It is small.  It would be easy.  

It was almost time to leave for the coast.  I would have to rely on another flash trigger that was taped up and suspect.  It was all I could do.  

When I got on the interstate, I pondered why there was so much traffic on a cloudy, rainy, windy Sunday afternoon.  Oh, shit.  It occurred to me.  Today was the Trump 500.  I hadn't been paying attention.  Why hadn't I paid attention?  

Still, the traffic flowed fairly well, and I got to the beach town on time.  I had eaten only a yogurt in the morning, and it was now one.  Maybe I needed a little food in my stomach before the shoot?  I came to a McDonalds just a mile from the studio.  Why not?  

On the second bite, there was a crunch.  It was a crown.  WTF?  Fortunately, I didn't swallow it.  

My tongue spent the rest of the day bothering that stump of a tooth.  

When I got to the studio, the fire-eater was putting on makeup.  She had just given a private pole dancing lesson.  She showed me around her studio.  It was huge.  One room was lined with mirrors on three walls.  There were eight poles.  The room was dimly lit in purple light--just as you might suspect.  In the second room, aerial silks hung from the ceiling, those and some circus hoops.  It was quite a thing.  This could be fun.  

While she got ready, I began unpacking the car.  I brought in lights and cables and stands and bags full of cameras.  The silks studio had a nice wall, I thought, so I sat up in there first.  But there would be no fire-eating.  Then I found out there would be no silk or pole performance.  The fire took too much prep and the poles took too much warm up.  So what the fuck was I to do?

It didn't matter.  When I set up the lights, the trigger I brought wouldn't work.  I was sweating bullets.  I jacked around with it and got it to work about one out of eight times.  I had to think.  What to do?  She was a nice person and waited patiently.  She had a couch in the waiting room, and there were windows.  Maybe we could shoot there.  But it was stupid.  The whole thing was a disaster, and after not so very long, she said she had to get ready to go--get this--do a fire-eating shoot.  

Sick in stomach and heart, humiliated, I packed up the equipment and said goodbye.  

The fun wasn't over yet, though. When I hit the interstate, it was moving at a snail's pace, stop and go.  And then the skies opened up and the torrential rain began.  Brake, gas, brake. . . brake. . . stop, sit. . . . 

When I got back to my house, I unpacked the gear thinking absolutely I would never do this again.  I went to the liquor cabinet and poured a drink.  I'd have to call the dentist first thing, but it was probably not going to be as simple as just cementing the crown back on.  Surely not.  

I called my mother to see if she had eaten.  Of course not.  She told me to stop and get something to bring home.  I told her about my crown and suggested scrambled eggs and chicken soup.  

I wasn't going to drink anymore and had no liquor.  I stopped at the liquor store and got a bottle of scotch.  

All I wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch tv.  

What the fuck was I thinking?  

DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY — The crowd cheered, the cars roared, and President Donald Trump again basked in the pomp and pageantry of one of America’s premier sporting events.

NASCAR is Trump country, White House officials have said, and Daytona’s famous race is at the heart of it. Volusia County, where the speedway is, voted for Trump over Kamala Harris by a 22-point margin in November. 

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in 2023 found that 42 percent of Republicans said they were fans of auto racing, compared with 25 percent of Democrats — the most significant margin among the nine sports included in the poll. 

My night was full of bad dreams.  Thoughts more than dreams.  What do you do at night to slow a speeding brain?  

I am tired this morning.  I'll be spending most of my day packing up the stupid home studio I set up and putting everything back in place.  It will take hours.  I'll call the dentist first.  I have to stop and make appointments for my mother at the physical therapy place.  But all I want to do is lie on my couch and try not to think.  

I'm overtaxed.  I'm out of steam.  

I don't want to be a photographer anymore.  

We Did It

Jacques Oliver

Well. . . we did it. I'm not sure how it will turn out. I had to leave right after the shoot to get to my mother's house. But we had fun. She is excited and wants to do more. Or wants me to do more. I am worn out with it. After all the work, I was not happy with the "home studio." I learned something, though. I don't think I'd do it again. There were things I wanted to do but didn't. I forgot to do them. But she was game. 

After she was gone, I left the house in a hurry. When I got to my mother's, I realized I'd forgotten to bring back my laptop. After I ate dinner, I told my mother I thought I would drive back and get it.



"Do you want to ride along?"

"Sure."

She hadn't been out in a few days, so this would be her Saturday night thrill. As we passed the Boulevard, I said, "Look. People go out at night. Isn't it crazy? This is going on while you watch Gunsmoke. Do you want to go bar hopping?"

"Sure. Take your mom out. Ha!"

When I got back to my house and pulled into the driveway, I saw that the kitchen door was open.  Wide.  My heart skipped a beat or two.  WTF?  I cautiously approached the house wondering if someone was inside.  I had left all my camera gear lying about.  What would be gone?

But when I walked in, everything was quiet and just as I had left it.  My head was whirring.  I went from room to room.  Everything was the same.  I looked around for strange animals, armadillos or possums or raccoons.  Nothing.  

Had I done this?  I couldn't believe that it was true.  Surely I didn't just drive off with the kitchen door open.  There are old girlfriends who have keys.  No. . . that makes no sense.  

I'm questioning myself.  Is it stress?  Dementia?  

I'm anxious to get back to my house this morning to see if everything is safe.  Maybe I should change the locks on the doors.  

When I get home this morning, I have to pack up lights and stands and cameras to take to the coast for the fire-eater shoot.  Only. . . she says the fire-eating schtick takes a lot of prep, so we probably aren't going to do that.  I told her last night I had no idea what I was coming over to shoot, but if we have fun, I'd be happy.  I was just being nice, though.  I really don't want to go.  It's a long drive and I won't get home until dark.  

But I will buck up.  There is a wind advisory today, though, and it will most likely be raining on my drive home.  I couldn't ask for more.  

I bitch if I don't make pictures, I bitch if I do.  But life with mom will continue for awhile longer.  There is nothing I can do about it.  

I think all I'm really interested in, though, comes through the lens of a camera.  

We'll see.  

My Funny Valentine

D-day.  Why'd I decide to do this?  My house is too small to make a studio set up.  After working in a large space with all the lights set and in place, spending the day trying to replicate it has been a fool's errand.  

Selavy. 

Buy the ticket, take the ride.  

Maybe I can just take a shot like this photo.  It's a joke, of a kind.  The girl I am shooting has a lovely face and I sent her this photo and a lot of other fashion photos by Jacques Oliver (link).  He's quite famous in "the business."  She oohed and aahed over them, so I had to tell her something.  When Oliver shoots, it is like a movie set.  There are hair stylists and make up artists and set designers and wardrobe people and equipment grips.  Funny enough, I had a rare text from Skylar who was working on a project in the Caribbean.  She sent a picture of the cast and crew at the end of the day relaxing in chairs at sunset overlooking the Caribbean water to a distant mountain.  

"It takes a village to make a photo," I wrote back.  

Those are called "smoky eyes."  You'll see them a lot in fashion magazines.  And those lips are made up, too, outlined and rouged by someone who knows.  I had a friend who was a big time fashion model, one of the first Virginia Slims models.  She was in the glossies all the time.  She couldn't do this.  She didn't even wear makeup outside a shoot.  Everybody and everything is a kind of fiction in photographs.  I can't do that.  Neither can the girl.  We will not "just take a shot like this photo."  

What will we do?  That is the paralyzing question.  In the studio, I was always working with a theme of some sort.  Today is amateur day in every way.  So. . . holy smokes!  

Don't expect to see the pics.  Not this time.  

What has me by the cojones, though, is the time and energy used up already.  I spent half of yesterday hauling in more lights and cables and stands and reflectors from the garage, then hooking them up and trying to make them work.  I'd forgotten how and even now am only hoping it will work.  I moved furniture and set up a canvas backdrop that might be o.k.  But I really don't have the room to set the lights properly.  

At three, I had to give up and go find something for wardrobe.  Just plain slips, loose camisoles. . . something.  I drove all over the county.  Did you know that stores have quit selling slips?  It is true.  I went to three department stores and then to a mall to search.  Oh, Christ. . . the traffic.  I was panicking.  Everywhere I went, I was told they only sold those things online.  When I had the studio, I could just drop into any store and get what I needed.  

After half a day, half a paycheck, and a lot of pride--was I a tranny or just some perv?-- in the very last store of the day, I found a couple things.  

It was late and I had to get to my mother's.  I called.  

"It's Friday.  Let's party!  Do you want me to pick up a pizza?"

"Sure."

I hadn't thought about how many people might want pizza on a Friday night from the organic hippie place.  

"Can I get a medium pizza with everything."

"O.K.  It should be ready in forty-five minutes."

It wasn't.  

When I got back to my mother's, there was a car in her drive.  Shit, piss, fuck, goddamn.  It was people from her church.  I walked in with the pizza and groceries and said hello.  I put the pizza on the table and wondered if my mother would invite them to eat with us.  I went to the restroom.  Fortunately, when I came back, they were gone.  

"This is a really good pizza," my mother said.  She was right.  I ate one too many slices.  

It was after seven.  The girl texted me some photos of herself made up and dressed for the night.  She was going to a cool new bar, she said, and sent a link.  She was very excited.  And goddamn. . . she was hot.  

"Oh, fuck honey—you’ll be put away wet for sure tonight 😍" I texted back.  

"what does that mean? 🤣"

Whatever.  She'll probably be bloated and a bit haggard when we shoot.  I'll blame all my failures on her.  I'll be adamant about it.  

"How can I make photos when you look like that?!?!?"

Now, it's time to man up and get on with it.  I still have much to do before she arrives.  Much.  

As I walked through the grocers last night before picking up the pizza, I heard a song.  Hard for me to believe how long ago it was that I first heard it.  There had been a girl for whom my heart was breaking daily.  Yea, yea, yea. . . I hear you.  It's not an uncommon condition for me.  But the song took me back to her.  I was staying at a resort beach on the Gulf Coast with my mother at the time.  Ho!  Yea. . . that's funny, too.  But this song came on and I just lost it.  

Almost did in the grocery store, too.  

"aw, lover. the music knows. it holds the memories."

And that, my friends, was my Valentine.  

Now. . . the horror!

No Candy, No Cherubs

Saturday!  She wants to shoot on Saturday!  I have so much to do to make that happen.  

But let's back up.  

I had to take my mother to the ortho at one o'clock yesterday.  That meant my day was split.  I went to my house after cooking breakfast for us to take a long walk.  Soaked and showered.  By then, it was time to go back to my mother's.  

We got to the doc's on time.  Never saw the doctor, though.  A minion came in and cut off my mother's cast.  Then they took her for X-rays.  The PA came in, put up the images and said everything looked good.  See you in two months.  She left the room and another minion brought in a removable brace.  My mother is supposed to wean herself from it over time.  Then we got the boot.

WTF?  

I brought my mother home and did some necessities for her.  I left the house at three and went in search of plain camisoles and slips.  I stopped at three stores and two vintage shops.  Nada.  Zip.  Bagel.  

What happened?  I used to be able to just run to Target and get such things easily and cheap back when I had the studio.  

I went back to my house.  I still needed to remember/learn how to use the strobes again.  I have forgotten everything.  It is all stressful, all work.  I set up stands, put up strobes, set a radio trigger, put on different diffusers and boxes, then got a camera.  It worked. . . sort of.  I still have problems to resolve.  

She is excited.  I've worn myself out.  I'm sick with it.  

I don't want to be a photographer anymore.  

So I say.  

"You'll be great. . . no worries."

I have no idea what she thinks we are going to do.  

My brain is boiling.  I can't sleep.  Up at 4:30.  Why?  There is nothing I can do at 4:30 in the morning!

I make coffee.  When I go to pour it, something has gone wrong.  The coffee is everywhere.  Symbolic, I wonder?  An omen?  

It is Valentine's Day, but I have no Valentine.  Anybody I have ever loved is in love with somebody else.  I thought to make a Valentine's card to put here as I did last year, but what's the point?  I could.  I could make one with a big red broken heart.  

But that is stupid and too much trouble.  I need to spend my time worrying.  My hands shake, my mind wanders and jumps.  I have a shoot on Sunday, too, way out of town.  I don't care so much, though.  I will never have to see her afterwards.  The Saturday girl. . . I don't want to disappoint her.  

But the deck seems stacked.  

Why am I so stupid?  

I will be very busy today.  

Shit--I'd better get my mother some flowers and a card straight away.  It's O.K.  I can do that.  Before anything else.  

I need a fainting couch.  A divan.  But where would I keep it?  You know what I really need?  

Ha!

I'd better get busy.  I'm not as quick as I used to be.  

And I was never any good at Valentine's Day.  

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere

I'm not sure who the artist is.  Maybe Alan Spazalli.  I like it.  I want to photograph it.  I wish this were my photograph.  

Rather. . . why did I get into this.  I am anxious.  I don't want to be a photographer anymore.  But then, you know, something good will happen. . . that is all I can hope.  

I've been obsessed with planning since.  Costuming.  Makeup.  Hair.  I'm overwhelmed by the technical aspect of it.  I carried the heavy boxes of gifted lighting from the garage to the house yesterday.  My back--oy!  I opened the many cases.  It's been a long time since I worked with studio lights.  I seem to have forgotten everything.  There are pieces I can't quite understand and I'm too embarrassed to ask.  I have to get this figured out by Sunday.  

After that, of course, it is what to do with them. . . how to illuminate.  There are hot lights, too. . . movie lights with fresnel lenses and scrims of all kinds.  I've never used them before.  I want to. . . but do I take a chance of experimenting now?  

The girl from the Irish pub texted me yesterday.  Well?  What were my ideas.  When were we going to shoot?  I spent a long time after that texting.  I asked her to send me pictures of how she wanted to represent.  She did some quick mirror selfies with the kind of clothing we discussed.  Holy smokes!  You'll see.  But she surprises me.  She's not what I expected--but is anybody?  Well, yea.  I don't like to think I am easily charmed.  O.K. . . sure.  There's no fool. . . .

I looked for images to send her.  I was careful-ish.  

"I've been doing small, odd projects of late. . . small time wrestling and women's roller derby."  

I sent her some pics.  

"Which one do you want to do?"

Then I sent some of the old pics.  

"I don't want to scare you."

"Ha!  Your buddy already showed me your photos.  I know what you do."

I had a studio then.  I hope I can still.  

"I have a couple options on places to shoot.  The easiest is my house, but if that is uncomfortable. . . . "

I mean, really. . . an old man with a camera and a "home studio"?  Fuck me. . . how have I come to this?

"Sure. . . we can shoot at your house."

I spent too much time with her to get done what I thought I needed to get done before returning to my mother's house.  I couldn't help it, though.  She charms me with flattery.  I used to tell my students that flattery always works whether it is sincere or not.  I don't trust it, of course. . . but there are times when I'll take it.  

She said she worked that night, that I should come in.  She'd buy me drinks.  Or she could come by after she got off at ten.  Would that be too late?  I told her I was staying with my mother.  

Could I sound more pathetic?

As I prepared dinner for my mother and myself, I was thinking about the musical score for the shoot.  It is important.  Very.  I thought I hit on the right groove.  This would set the tone.

"ha-ha.  i was thinking more vibe. i love jazz music, vibey music, amy winehouse."

"Uh-oh."

"What?"

"Kidding.  I can do that."

I'll ask Q to make me a playlist from this.  He's supposed to know such things. 

Later, she sent me more photos.  She is like all the college girls.  They grew up with social media and more.  They all know how to be in front of a camera.  They are beautiful and glamorous.  I looked at the pictures and wondered if I could make anything that would be better.  They all seem to be excel as both models and photographers.  They all have a certain fashion sense.  

I will surely fail, I thought.  There is so much opportunity.  Things have gotten more difficult.  I have the postproduction stuff but they have IG filters.  

I can't get that painting out of my head.  I want to make photographs like that.  A little white face paint, a little rouge and some rags.  

I think bodies are beautiful.  Not mine, but others.  I want to start there and build up.  First the body, then the costume.  Most people have some paranoia about their bodies.  They want to hide the flaws, but that is the place to start.  First the acknowledgement.  I can do the rest once the paranoia is gone.  

But first I have to prepare for the fire-eating pole dancer.  I have no idea what I am in for.  I have to put lights and backdrop and stands into the car and drive an hour and a half to her dance studio.  I've got a lot to get ready.  But I also have mom.  I need to take her to the ortho at one today.  That fucks my day up good.  It wasn't a problem when I didn't have much to do, but just now. . . .

Yesterday was the full moon.  Maybe the girl was influenced.  Maybe she won't feel as eager today.  Maybe it was the gravitational pull on my bones and blood.  I need to be careful.  

It will be 87 degrees today, 17 degrees above the average.  This is not the great news you might be inclined to think it is.  "Spring-like weather," the local weather people coo.  They should be calling it "disaster weather."  But we must act "as if" things will be o.k.  We will not suffer and die.  

We will make pictures.  

WTF Did I Do?

Here's a mystery that I didn't know existed until last night.  I was looking through images by Modigliani, and found that almost, if not all, his nude models are lying with their heads on the left side of the canvas.  What is up with that?  

If anybody knows, please inform me.  I have found one exception.  

Why was I looking at Modigliani's nudes?  Because I've made a big mistake.  Do you know how long it has been since I gave up my studio?  "Too long" is a good answer, but the actual number of years is shocking.  I've not shot with a model since.  

Actually, I've not made one but two mistakes.  The first is that I have a session with a fire-breathing pole-dancing instructor on the coast this Sunday.  How this even came about has become lost to me.  But it did.  I looked at her IG page and got in touch with her.  She was very willing to shoot.  We are going to work in her dance studio.

WTF?!

I have been in a "state" since.  What was I thinking?  What am I going to do?

Oh, at first I was pleased and excited.  So much so, I contacted the waitress from the Irish pub.  

It's C.S., one of the perverted Billionaire Boys Club harassment group that comes once a month or so to plague you at the pub.  I haven't been with the group the last two trips, and I can never trust a thing they say or do when I am not there to defend myself, so forgive me if this text seems out of line.  But Tennessee said you wanted to make some photos.  It was all vague.  I'm not sure they understand that I am not a commercial photographer.  I don't do glam shots.  I hope they haven't misled me or you.  I had a studio for many years but gave it up long ago have been working on non-human projects since.  So. . . there is full disclosure.  But I make nice pictures if you are into the creative stuff.  Did you want to work together or was that pub talk?  Either way, let me know.  I don't want to be a creeper, but I don't want to not reply, either.  Just sayin'.  

I had a response in about ten seconds.  Oh, yes, she said. . . she really wants to.  She sent me her IG account to look at.  

I'm fucked.  My stomach hasn't been right since.  I had a nice, peaceful, placid life.  I didn't have to do anything ever.  There was no stress, no performance anxiety. . . just a constant whining about not making photos as I drank coffee and tea at the PhotoBooth Cafe.  

Well. . . I'm in for it now.  I'd better think of something.  Today I'll be breaking out all the equipment I think I will need.  I have a lot of it.  Recently, a commercial photographer gave me all her lighting equipment.  I thought it would be shit, but it is all top notch stuff.  There must be six or seven thousand dollars worth of lighting, stands, diffusers, reflectors, etc.  I haven't tried any of it yet.  I'll be breaking it out today to see.  

Christ on a Cross, I need a studio.  I need a big printer.  I have ideas.  I just don't have the means.  

What is the saying?  Something is the mother of invention?  What is?  I can't recall.  

Oh, yea. . . necessity.  

I'll need a soundtrack.  I'll need to make that.  Something slow, calming. . . mood inducing and hypnotic.  

I doubt there will be any Modiglianis, though.  I won't have the couch.  

No matter.  I don't want to repeat myself, right?  Not like that hack Modigliani.  

I don't want to do it at all.  It is too stressful.  I would rather go on vacation.  Sky sent me a picture postcard from the Caribbean yesterday out of the blue.  I don't hear from her very often now.  But it was providence, I'm sure.  It came just after I began to realize what I had let myself in for.  

She is living the White Lotus life, she said.  Perhaps I am meant to be thinking of Gauguin.  

"Stop it!  What happened to all those journalistic projects you had in mind?"

"They scare me."

"Everything scares you."

It's true.  And I'm lazy to boot.  Life can be simple.  It is easier to look at images than to make them.  All that is left for me to do now is to embarrass myself.  

Like I said. . . I'd better think of something.  

Tranquility

Truly out of pics.  There is a barrel of which I am scraping the bottom.  I mean, it is a picture, and pictures are interesting, but. . . it is just a pictures.  It is nice, though, serene and tranquil.  

Since I was a child, I've been drawn to things that are quiet and peaceful.  I played in a New Wave Punker band, and we had a good portion of success, but I never listened to the music otherwise.  My bandmates could tell.  My listening habits were as they have always been, mellow.  It is part of my DNA, I guess.  

Last night, as almost every night, I prepared dinner for my mother and myself.  It was a fair amount of work.  I asked Alexa to play the university jazz station.  I was beginning to get irritated by the rather thankless routine, but the music helped.  Here is what the dinner prep sounded like.  

It's the kind of jazz the station often plays, a sort of popular version of the genre, but it was calming as I chopped garlic, sliced tomatoes and an avocado, put spring mix into bowls and added the chopped toppings.  Chopped the ends off the smallest Brussels Sprouts I've ever seen, about forty of them, I think, and put them in the double boiler.  Prepped the small red potatoes for roasting.  Opened a can of baked beans.  Sliced a pork tenderloin into medallions and put it in the pan.  Then, all things ready, timed each thing so that all would be ready at once.  Plated dinner knowing the mess of pots, plates, and utensils that I would have to wash afterwards.  

Oh. . . and two glasses of wine helped, too.  

Later, a glass of scotch and YouTube, I put on travel videos so my mother could watch with me.  We were in Mexico City.  I haven't been since. . . holy shit!  I need to go back.  And then we were in Vietnam.  Oh, yes, I need to go there, too.  We traveled to the great Buddhist temples.  And there was temple music, and I thought of my long, only partially successful journey into Buddhist ways, the search for peace and tranquility.  

I thought of Kendrick Lamar's performance the evening before and wondered.  The stuff is anathema to the way I long to feel.  I remembered a most wonderful afternoon in the Mission District of San Fran, sitting on cushions in a darkened, softly lighted room while a fellow whose name I always forget played temple music on big horns and gongs and drums.  I would go there every day if I could.  It was the trippiest, most wonderful moment I could imagine.

They should play rap music in hospitals.  Loud.  A lot.  It would be good for patients, help them heal.  Studies show. . . . 

I kid.  But, you know, it is a hateful, violent world and maybe that is the music that is called for.  

"I got bitches in the living room getting it on. . . guess what?  We don't love 'em whores!"

O.K. O.K.  That's all I know, and it is only because of The Gourds.  

In yo mama's booty.  

One friend signed off when I dissed the halftime show.  Q berated me for not recognizing genius.  But he's like that.

"I grow old, I grow old. . . shall I wear my trousers rolled?"

The thing I kept wondering last night after dinner while watching travel shows was if I would get sick eating the food in Viet Nam?  Bourdain did it with Obama.  I don't know.  I hate getting sick.  I am awfully careful in Mexico and South America and have avoided it, but I have avoided a lot of tasty things, too.  

I've asked my friends from Africa, South America, and Mexico who live here if they get sick from the food when they go back to visit.  The answer is a resounding "yes."  

I wondered if the Aztecs would like rappers and thought they probably would.  They'd have liked it much more than Mariachis, I think.  

I prefer the Mariachis.  

When I cleaned the kitchen, I asked Alexa for the music again.  It was the same, only different.  I'm sure it would drive most of my friends out of their minds.  It's not my favorite, but I've never really minded elevator music.  It kind of reminds me of a pleasant afternoon trip to the mall, sitting in the Bloomingdale's women's shoe section while a girlfriend shops.  Yea. . . that is exactly what it reminds me of, soft music and gentle, happy voices whispering to me, peaceful and serene. 

Tranquility now!

Namaste.

And So It Goes

The day went exactly as I had predicted.  After coffee with mom, I went home and took a long walk through town, past the churches and the Sunday worshippers, past the big lakeside condos that become more attractive to me all the time, through the gold course past the historic Gamble Rodgers home where a wedding group was listening to a jazz band outside on the patio, then down the Boulevard busy with Sunday brunch goers.  Back home, I soaked and showered and readied for a mimosa.  The evening meal and the Super Bowl lay ahead.  

I got two birthday cards.  One was from the attorneys I had after the accident.  The other was from Bradley's Saloon.  Their's came with a gift--a free drink.  They have been sending me this card every year since I first went to the old Palm Beach betting parlor and speak easy way back in the previous century.  I have no memory of giving them my birth date, but it was my favorite bar until they moved across the river.  

I got the obligatory b-day texts from those who have such things marked on their e-calendars.  The Factory group, for instance.  

"Happy birthday!!!  Have a GREAT day!!!"

Colored balloons float across the screen.  

It doesn't really matter to me.  I don't like birthdays, especially mine, and I don't remember anyone else's except my mother's.  I've been told that for some, birthdays are more important than Christmas.  I am a relationship failure in this, I guess.  Making a celebration disables me.  I am too anxious.  It took me decades to learn how to write a simple "thank you" note.  I couldn't simply say "thank you."  Oh, no. . . I needed to write something epic.  And so I work myself up and put too much pressure on myself to make something memorable.  And I fail.  Miserably.  

And so I spent my birthday alone as I have so many times before.  I received no presents.  I got no cake.  

This is not a complaint, not a pity party for me.  It is just a fact.  I have had girlfriends in the past who threw parties for me.  They used to do that at work as well.  I would not go to work on my birthday just to avoid it, but it didn't matter.  When I came in, my office would be decorated and there would be cake.  

I've never been comfortable with the attention.  

I got to the cafe mid-afternoon.  There was the usual Sunday line at the counter.  The pretty ballet dancer was working.  Ahead of me, young Photo Booth girls were ordering complicated coffee drinks that took forever to make.  Then one of the girls would take a sip and turn to her friends and say, "Oh. . . yea. . . this is good."

When I got to the counter, the serving girl smiled.  

"Your hair looks good like that.  I like it!"

I had it pulled back in that movie "dirty secretary" way, hair falling from the tie.  

"Thank you," I said.  "I'll have a half caf, half decaf caramel mocha latte with oat, soy, and almond milk, steamed and frothed with cinnamon and. . . and. . . ."

"You can have anything you want," said the dancer smiling and looking me in the eyes.  

Now that can take a fellow's breath away, I'll attest.  

"Then I'll just have a big-assed mimosa," I laughed.

"No more Dry January?"

I hadn't been in for weeks and couldn't believe she remembered that.  I had the impulse to tell her it was my birthday, but I thought she might ask how old I was.  Ho!

"Nope."

And so she went to work slicing the oranges and putting them through the squeezer.  She is the only one who will do this for me before five o'clock, and I guessed that I was as irritating to the people behind me as the mocha girls had been to me.  

"Here you go--a big-assed mimosa."  

"Thanks," I cleverly replied.  I'm like that.  Just.  

And so I took a picture of me and my hair.  I am going to have to request that someday they clean the mirror.  

I sat at a table and pulled out my notebook, but first I replied to some of the birthday texts.  There was a voice text singing the Happy Birthday song.  I replied with my birthday selfie.  

"This is me in the immediate," I said feeling my oats as the saying used to go.  Then a big hit off the mimosa.  Having not had one in so very long, it was good fun.  And when it was gone, I called my mother. 

"I'm heading to the store to get stuff for dinner.  Do you need anything?"

I made a simple spaghetti and broccoli meal, and I opened my first bottle of wine since December.  I bought a nice one, and it was very good.  Then the Super Bowl.  I'm sure the NFL lost their audience after the big halftime spectacle.  That is when my phone went silent.  And that's the way it stayed. 

It is another springlike day here, ten or eleven degrees above the norm, a brightly lighted and cloudless sky.  My mother is up and I must tend to the day.  I'll see if she wants breakfast.  I'll take her car to get it washed after the gym.  Then I'll come back to make dinner.  I probably need to strip the beds and wash the sheets.  Not "probably."  

They cheered Trump at the Super Bowl.  And so it goes.  They say Kendrick Lamar is a musical genius.  Huh. This is more my kind.  I'm a foolish fool. . . for love.  

(link)

Quiet Celebration

I'm plumb out of photographs except for the ones I shouldn't show.  This one is by Saul Leiter, Paris, 1959.  Oo-la-la.  It is one of my favorites.  Old Saul flew under the radar until very late in life.  He just kept taking pictures.  He is famous now, but he wasn't when he took them.  He really wasn't even appreciated.  Now, of course, everyone wants to have done it.  

Such is life.

Today is the big day.  I threw myself a little party last night, just me and a bottle of scotch whiskey.  I stayed up past midnight.  I read my horoscope.  It is amazing how accurate they seem to be in the big picture, isn't it, about the personality traits and talents and longings and desires and even the way one seems to behave?  

 By gosh, ain't it the truth?

So. . . I will take a long, limping walk in the sun and maybe go to a cafe for a mimosa.  Then it will be back to my mother's house to cook dinner and turn on the Super Bowl.  As much disdain as I have for that commercial enterprise, it is part of my DNA by now having watched them all.  It will be the Trump/Swift show.  Drinking game anyone?  

Maybe not for me, though.  After succoring myself with that friendly scotch until it was today, I took a Xanax and went to bed.  I only woke up at 8:30 because my phone kept pinging.  

Maybe I'll wait to start fresh again on Monday.  That seems more like it.  Today may require some anesthesia.  

It's not just pictures I lack.  I haven't anything to tell.  

I HAVE come to realize that it is not simply the multitude of loud commercials on the old t.v. westerns my mother watches that is making me crazy.  It is the constant, loud, musical score they add to them.  Why this has only just become apparent to me, I don't know, but yes, there is a constant orchestrated cacophony that runs through every program like a pestilence.  

So, yea. . . a long, quiet walk and thoughts of long gone things will be the ticket for a little while.  

I'll see you at the celebration.  

Friday Night Blow Out

I blew it out last night.  I bought some "real" beer, a Funky Buddha IPA, and drank it outside with my mother.  When I went in to make dinner, I opened another.  Friday night--party!!!  I was making tacos again so we could use up the rest of the lettuce and shredded cheese and other ingredients before they went bad.  I had forgotten to get taco seasoning, though, so I had to make it from scratch.  Chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, smoked paprika, oregano.  Unbelievably, my mother had them all.  I had little faith, but it turned out great.  So. . . what to do afterwards?  Well. . . I had thought to bring the remains of a bottle of scotch from home.  Yup.  Just in case.  So I poured a "real" drink, not one of those skinny things you get out.  

It went right to my head.  

So. . . I poured another.  

My mother was giving me grief.  

That was my party, though.  I'll be back to tea tonight.  I must.  I mean, I felt good and was too happy for a moment.  I wouldn't want that.  

There is a "big" little league wrestling match tonight.  I got excited when I saw that, but I don't think I'll be able to go.  I just don't think so.  

In a bit, I will need to go back to my house to meet the plumber.  I'll find out the bad news early today.  I'm hoping it is not as bad as it might be, but hope is a fool's paradise they say.  Whatever.  I need to keep my emotions at bay and not let them roil the waters.  They will do me no good.  

Still, I feel the need for a tranquilizer.  Maybe that was the impetus for the party last night.  

The sun will shine and the air will be warm today.  The local weather people are giddy with it.  I know this because I have commercial tv here at mom's house.  They are either corrupt, evil, or stupid though.  Our temperatures are averaging 10-12 degrees above normal.  This is NOT good news.  Things are trying to bloom far too soon.  Animals are confused.  The ocean water stays warmer than usual and stores energy for a giant hurricane season.  

"Wow. . . we are blessed with another spring-like day today, so get out there and. . . ."

I will settle down this week.  I will get back a little zen and sip teas and read and be a chill, mystical hippie once again.  I take my mother to the ortho on Wednesday, and we will see how she is doing.  Maybe the cast will come off, but I am doubtful.  It doesn't look like my cousin will be coming to stay with my mother this winter, so there is that.  

Will I watch the Super Bowl tomorrow?  Of course, I will have it on.  It will be awful, though.  There will be no flow to the game as they stop action often to break to the million dollar a second commercials.  Then the hideous halftime show that lets the players completely lose the rhythm of the game as they sit in the locker room for a half hour or more.  I think really all one needs to do is watch the second half unless one is just into celebrities in advertising.  But you know. . . who wants to be left out of the Great American Experience.  If people still went to work, they would be talking about it around the water cooler on Monday.  

"Water cooler?"

Copy machine?  

The bigger question is what will I cook for dinner?  

But just now I must ready myself to meet the plumber.  Fingers crossed.  

An Ether of Fire

I left my mother alone for most of the day yesterday.  I was going to meet the boys for a five o'clock outdoor happy hour, so I stuck around with mom until noon, taking her to the drugstore to pick up a prescription and getting her some groceries.  I prepped the things she would eat for dinner.  And at noon, I left the house.  

I won't go into the fiasco at the drugstore in much detail.  I'll just say my mother has gotten so used to me doing everything for her, she can't or doesn't want to do the normal things that must be done in life.  I let her make the transaction with the druggist.  My mother can't hear and so it began poorly.  When it came time for my mother to pay, there were questions on the credit card reader to answer.  Why a drugstore would require so much from the elderly picking up prescriptions is beyond me, and they are making their own trouble.  My mother was beside herself.  

"I can't read this.  What does it say. . . what?"

The counter woman, who wasn't pleasant from the get-go, was very put out.  I, however, remained a non-participant.  I could have stepped in and done it all, but I wanted to see how my mother was faring.  

Fifteen minutes later, the transaction was mercifully over.  Back in the car, my mother said, "Everything is hard."

"I see that, and it makes me wonder.  What are you going to do?"

"I'll be fine once I can use two hands again."

Uh-huh.  

Back at the house, I prepared for the day, packing up the things I would need in transition, getting dressed for the gym.  When I walked to the car, my mother's 91 year old neighbor was there.  She was yelling something for a second or third time trying to make my mother hear.  I asked my mother if there was anything I needed to do before I left.  

With trepidation, I backed the car out of the driveway not to return until well after dark.  

I don't think I've given you any numbers on my weight loss.  That is on purpose.  I was at a hideous weight.  I've lost a lot of lbs, and that number is not complimentary, either.  All I'll say is that I am now four pounds from my goal.  I can hit that I think, by the end of the month.  In the effort to become young again, I've been jogging on the treadmill at the gym, only a little bit at a time.  In between, I walk.  My knee won't take a solid, long run, so I am baby stepping it.  But it is good.  I keep my heart rate up in the fat burning area, and I sweat like a drunken pig.  After two mile on the treadmill, I get on the bike for 20 minutes.  Random hills.  Legs a pumping.  After that, I spend twenty or so minutes on a good, long stretching and breathing routine.  This is the advantage of not working, although, somehow, I did all this, and more, when I was working, too.  Everything they say about retirement is true.  You can't believe what you once could do in a single day.  

And so, after the gym, I went home and took a long Epsom salts soak and a shower.  Then I threw the towels into the wash and went to the cafe for a green tea.  It was uneventful.  When I came home, I put the towels in the dryer.  I still had an hour before meeting the boys, so I decided to light a cheroot and have a sip of beer on the deck.  I haven't been able to do this for five weeks now.  The day was glorious.  

Until I looked in the sink.  There was detritus covering the enamel.  WTF was that?  I turned on the water to wash it away, and the drain backed up.  Uh-oh.  I ran the water with the disposal going and it drained.  No. . . it came up into the sink drain next to it.  Holy shit!  I kept working at getting the water to drain, but it wasn't working.  Of course I thought right away that the maids had done something.  I hadn't been living here for five weeks, hadn't, in memory, even run water in the sink.  Then I noticed something.  There was water on the floor under the washing machine.  Shit, piss, fuck.  I went outside to look at the drain thing where you can feed a snake into the pipes.  Things got worse.  The wood was wet and rotten.  Something big was wrong.  My heart sunk.  There was nothing for me to do.  I would have to call a plumber and start there.  This, I was afraid, was going to be huge.  

So I lit the cheroot and sat out and calmed myself.  Whatever, I said.  Shit happens.  You'll just have to get it all fixed.  Expensive pain in the ass, but there is nothing else to be done.  

I tried to put it out of mind, or at least on the back burner.  There was nothing to be done at 4:30 in the afternoon.  But holy smokes. . . what did I do?  My life. . . what happened?  I felt disembodied, floating in an ether of fire.  Money is flowing in the wrong direction, but now instead of a trickle, it was a flood.  I would be broke soon enough.  I needed another income.  

Etc.  

I met the boys at the beer garden.  They were sitting at an outdoor picnic table.  I hate sitting on a bench.  I need back support.  But there was nothing to do.  I ordered one of the lighter beers and told them of my plumbing woes.  I got the usual response one gets to such tales of woe.  They'd rather talk shit, not dread.  There was a young waitress to chat up.  I put my elbows on the table for support and listened to the chatter.  

"Run away," I told the waitress when they started grilling her.  "I'm not kidding.  Run away.  Lie.  Don't tell these guys anything.  Make shit up.  Trust me."

Rather, they got it all out of her.  College student.  Played water polo.  Had grown up here and went to high school nearby.  I could only shake my head.  But she seemed o.k. with it.  She smiled and laughed and played the game.  

When she left, I said, "You know she likes girls, right?"

"Sure," they said.  "She played water polo.  She has lesbian piercings.  And the tats."

It was true.  O.K.  

I went inside to order food.  I didn't want the pub food they served outside, so I got some shrimp tacos.  When I came back, they were all eating ribs and wings and sharing the largest pretzel I'd ever seen.  More drinks.  I was still nursing my beer.  As we finished eating, the waitress came to clear the table and take more orders.  What the hell, I thought.  I'd have a scotch.  

Jesus Christ. . . it was good.  It was really good.  While they all drank their foo-foo margs and old fashioneds, I inhaled the scotch.  

Some of the billionaires boys club showed up at another table and Tennessee went over to join them.  He'd already picked up my drink tab, and everyone else had settled up.  

"Shall we go across the street?"  It was going on eight.  The boys were ready to light it up.  

"I've got to get back to my mother," I said.  The boys just nodded.  The two groups were now merging and it was sure to be an action packed night at the Irish pub.  Terrible and wondrous things always happened with this group.  I was only half sad to miss out.  

Before I got back to my mother's the phone blew up.  It was Tennessee.  The waitress was asking about me, he said.  

"Bullshit."

There were photos.  In a minute, the phone rang.  Tennessee put her on the phone.  

"Why aren't you here?"

Then, Tennessee.  "She wants you to take pictures of her.  I'm serious.  She said she needs some professional photos."

Smoke and mirrors, but then I got a text.  It was her phone number.  

"She's serious," T texted.  

Yea, yea, yea.  O.K.  That was nice.  But I was going back to my mother.  I had a big problem at my house.  I wasn't able to enjoy the moment.  

"Hey, mom.  Did you eat?"

We ran through the day.  I told her about my plumbing problem.  It's always something, she said.  Yes, I said, it certainly is.  

We watched tv. and I drank jasmine tea.  I hadn't done badly--one light beer, one scotch, and some shrimp tacos.  That was fine.  I wanted to crawl into a bottle of whiskey and forget about things, but I wouldn't.  

It was time for bed.  I wondered if I would be able to sleep.  Would I think about the plumbing or would I flatter myself and wonder about the girl?  I lay down and tried to think of nothing.  I listened to my breath.  And there I was. . . floating in an ether of fire.  

Zzzt. Zzzt.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore.  I'm not really doing anything.  Some days, I am just listening to that imaginary voice crying, "Next."  

Yet all around me, the ideological struggles continue.  Most of the time, I'm just not having fun.  I'm supposed to go to a happy hour today.  I'd just be gone a bit.  I've cleared it with my mother.  

But I'm not really interested in going.  

My friend from the midwest went to Africa for an adventure safari.  She sends me many photos.  And I think, o.k.  

My mother has become peripatetic.  She shuffles in half steps across the floor from place to place, room to room, a non-ending slow motion misery.  When she sits, there is the incessant sound of jars opening and closing.  Then the t.v.  

In my misery, I have made the mistake of responding to some people in online forums, one writing, one photography.  That should tell you everything.  As Mark Twain said, it is difficult to win an argument with a smart person.  

It is impossible to win with a stupid person.  

I was seeking distraction, I guess.  

I have nothing else this morning.  Nothing at all.  

How Do We Do It?

I almost read the news today, but I had to stop.  It's all too hideous.  Rahm Emanuel writes an op ed that the dems have become "the party of permissiveness" and that it is "ballot box poison."  Duh!  Where the fuck has that wisdom been?  Very few people are pulling for what has become known as "The Woke Agenda," yet that is what the dems ran on by and large.  Now Schumer has the chutzpah to stand in front of a mic and say, "The American people won't stand for this," whatever "this" is at that time.  Sure they will.  Dems still run around like their hair's on fire while we watch "Trump vs. The World."  We're living through the worst nightmare in generations, but it is taking on the mask of normalcy.  People descry Musk, but it is Trump.  

Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump.  

I almost read the news today. . . oh, boy.  

What's hot?  Kanye West and Bianca Censori.  I'm almost certain you didn't watch the Grammys, so here (link).  This is what people care about more than politics.  On the flip side, don't make AI nudes.  AI is for making war.  

How is Kanye West even a thing? 

Fuck it.  I went for a chai yesterday at the cafe.  When I sat down, the big fellow who asked about my camera a week or so ago was there.  He'd asked about my Leica Monochrom, then told me about his Leica M6.  He'd been a photographer he said, but was "reformed."  Still, when I saw him, he had his Leica with him.  He's a big guy.  Really big.  Not tall, but tall enough with shoulders at least a foot and a half thick.  He looks like a power lifter with that old time power lifter belly.  I had my GFX medium format camera, so I walked over and said, "This is the camera you want."  He picked it up and gave a little "ooo," for a moment, then looked around and took a couple pics.  

"Wow. . . this is nice."

"I'm telling you.  You'll want one now."

In a little bit, he yelled over to me.  He was looking them up online.  I could tell he'd gotten bit.  He'd get one sooner or later.  

A while later, I looked at the photos he'd taken.  Mother fucker.  He'd taken the photo above.  No thought about it.  He just put the camera to his eye, pointed, and shot.  He wasn't worried about someone yelling at him.  Like I said, he's a big guy and has an attitude to go along with it.  I was pissed and felt the fool with my photos of lamps and drapes, etc.  Photography is about skills, sure, but it is 50% guts.  

I don't seem to have them anymore.  

I've come to the realization that I can't take photos of people I know.  I'm too self conscious.  I don't like to do it.  So. . . it is drapes and lamps and street signs.  

And despair.  

But I do like strangers.  

It was still early in the afternoon yesterday when I left the cafe.  The sun was out and the air was warm.  I should go and take photographs, I said to no one.  So I got into the car and headed south.  But I didn't take any photos.  Nope.  I went to a Barnes and Nobles.  I hadn't been to it for many, many years.  I'd read that they had made a comeback, that they were under the leadership of the guy who headed Waterstones, and had turned around and were making a profit again (link).  Waterstones is one of the finest bookstores I've ever been in, and I've tried to be in them all.  

When I walked in, the store looked exactly as it had when it opened decades ago.  Every book category was in the same place.  The cafe looked the same.  The magazines were next to it.  The lit crit section, I'll admit, was a tenth of its old size.  There was really nothing there.  The CD department was half populated by children's gifts.  But that was about it.  The art and photography section was still mostly fashion books.  I did see some photo books I had not been aware of, and unabashedly, I took off the plastic wrappers and sat down with them.  If they were any good, I would buy them.  

There was a book of Eggleston portraits.  They were terrible.  Worse.  There was a book of Alex Webb photos.  Boring.  Magnum street photos.  Nope.  Several others which did not hold my interest.  It was not a waste of time, though.  I was beginning to like my photographs again.  

When I was through looking at books, I headed to the grocers to get the makings for a Greek Salad a la me.  Earlier, at the liquor store, I bought a pack of those new THC drinks.  And when I got back to my mother's, I sat with her and drank half a can of a Margarita doper's brew.  I needed something to take off the edge without calories.  I thought this might be the ticket.  

As we sat staring out over the lawn and waving to the passing neighbors, my mother said, "I'm going to miss you when you are gone."

Jesus Christ.  Here we go.  I downed the THC drink.  I miss my life, such as it was.  I'm a good son, I think, but I'm a lousy servant.  I do what I do, but I can't help feeling a seething resentment.  It is wrong, I know, which makes it worse.  So I breathe and grin.  But my nerves are shot all to hell now.  I am someone who needs quite a bit of alone time.  The constant presence of other people wears me down.  Some biological switch must be triggered in the brains of people who live with a spouse and children.  There must be some dopamine thing that happens.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I'm not built right.  But surely there must be nights when people think of poisoning the entire family or just running away.  I'm sure of it.  I've heard women say in a voice subduing viciousness, but barely. . . "Mommy needs some time to herself."  I guess that is when the biological switch must flip.  I surely can't be alone in this.  

"Mom. . . it's not like I haven't been coming to see you every fucking day since. . . ."

I said it and wanted to take it back.  

"I know you do.  I'm just saying I like having you around."

Fuck me.  

I had another airliner bottle of Johnny Walker in the liquor store bag.  I poured it into a glass.  When it was gone, I needed more, so I opened another can of pot water.  

"How's your mom," people say now instead of "hello."  It's what people do.  What can I say?  She's no different than the week before or the week before that.  Her bone is healing we hope.  We'll know when we go to the ortho next week.  

"She's eating well," I say.  

"Well that's good.  You're a good son."

That's what everybody says, to which I respond, "No. . . I'm an asshole."  That is truly my response.  

I don't know how the masses do what they do.  I truly don't.  Maybe they are happy, but I don't see it.  Maybe they are comfortable, though, and that makes it palatable.  I don't know how any of us do it, really.  Two sides of the same coin.  The human condition.  It takes all our time not to think about it.  It's best read in a book or watched on t.v.  We've learned that from Plato/Aristotle, haven't we?  Catharsis.  We feel better after the performance and are ready for a comedy.  It's what we do.  It's how we get by.  

I guess.  

But. . . that fucking guy, huh?  Just taking a picture like it was nothing.  WTF?  

A Simulacrum of Life

I'm still writing here as if it matters, as if anyone still comes here at all.  I have no idea.  Meanwhile, the Substack page grows.  This I know, for I get data on the fly.  But I am dedicated to this now as I am to my journaling.  Whether people read or not, it is legacy stuff.  A dirty little flawed legacy, sure, but what do most people leave?  I know in my own hillbilly family, the legacy is overdoses and prison sentences and a few addled surviving children.  Children, though, are legacy if you subscribe to the Taylor Sheridan way.  

I have two dead cats, a dead dog, and a blog.  What the fuck is legacy anyway?  

I am overwrought, so forgive me.  I have become irritable and snappish.  I would like to have my life back again, such as it is, but I am servant to my mother's needs for what may be an interminable amount of time.  I was happy for a brief moment yesterday.  After the gym, after a soak in the tub and a shower, I sat down at the computer in my own home for a moment to work on a couple photos.  I turned on "my" music.  I haven't heard it for a month.  It put me in place.  Surrounded by the detritus of my life, old artifacts and hand woven 19th century plant dyed rugs, a whale's tooth and two poison dart guns, prints from old photo chums, now well-known, the Russian pine cabinet and, of course, the scent of essential oils. . . my excessive indulgences so contrasting with the frugal environment of my mother's house, neat and trim but without personality, looking like any other decor you might walk into in the neighborhood, lock, stock and interchangeable. . . for a moment I was happy.  

In the late afternoon, the sun came out and I went to the cafe for a decaf latte.  When I sat down to write, nothing came to mind, yet I was still happy.  It was a crazy joy like floating just inches above the ground.  I haven't felt that well for a very long while.  

But time and circumstance. . . the clock harkened me back to my mother's when I would rather have gone "adventuring."  I felt as if I might belong in the world again.  I felt attractive-ish and sure, and that is when the urge to wander will strike.  

Rather, I walked to my car and pointed it in the usual direction.  

When I got to my mother's house, the across the street neighbor was there.  She made a big deal out of telling me she was going to vacuum my mother's house.  

"Good," I said.  "That's just the thing.  I'll wait out here."

It pissed me off, you see, as if it were an accusation or insult.  I'm doing 20 hours a day with my mother, but if someone spends fifteen minutes, they consider themselves a hero?  Whatever.  

"You might want to wash the windows while you're at it," I spat.  

Determined to lose more weight, to become younger and prettier, I opened a faux beer.  I could feel my attitude plunging.  Decaf and alcohol free?  I was leading a fascimle-life.  

When the girls were done inside, they came out to sit and tell me all about it.  Then the neighbor wanted to tell me the non-adventures of her life.  She should get a blog, I thought, so she could bore the void as I imagine myself doing, or as C.C. quotes, "another stain upon the silence."  People, in the main, however, don't read let alone write.  Just look at what has happened to the check out counters at grocery stores.  Remember all those terrible popular paperbacks that used to line the shelf in front of the conveyor?  Gone.  Not even a Danielle Steele or a Stephen King or any of those silly Harlequin Romance novels.  

Eventually, the neighbor stood up and said she had to go.  She stood for another twenty minutes retelling her weekend with her daughter and son-in-law.  Payment, I guess, for vacuuming the carpet.  

It was nearing sunset, so my mother followed me into the house where I was to get to work preparing dinner.  I needed the two cans of tuna I had bought and placed on a cupboard shelf, but they weren't' there.  I did a little search.  

"Mom, where's the tuna?"

"What?"

Louder--"Where are the two cans of tuna that were sitting here?"

"They should be there."

I tore the cabinet apart, but they were nowhere.  I snapped.  

"Goddamnit, mom. . . what did you do with them?"

My mother's memory is going and I shouldn't have.  She began looking, moving things about in her crippled, slow motion way.  

"Jesus Christ.  I don't feel like driving to the fucking grocery store."

O.K.  Now you know.  I can be like that, a petty little shit.  It put my mother back.  She went to anther cabinet in the dining room.  On the bottom of one shelf were cans of tuna.  Not fancy albacore free range or whatever the fuck, in cans that  I didn't recognize.  They would have to do.  And so I made the noodle and broccoli bowl with tuna and cheese.  My mother was silent and I was feeling the red rush of remorse all over.  When I plated the food and sat down, I said, "You know what I think happened to the tuna?  Remember the other night when you said you didn't want dinner and I made a tuna sandwich, then you said you wanted one, too?  I don't think I replaced them."

She just stared at me and nodded.  Didn't seem to help much, nor did the meal which was pretty fucking lousy.  And I was paranoid about the tuna.  God knows how old the cans were.  It tasted funny to me and I was sure we would both die of ptomaine.  I could only eat a little.  

As it turned out, I was going to have to go to the grocers anyway.  I needed milk.  

"Do you want anything?"

She shook her head.  I cleaned the pots and pans and dishes before I left.  It was seven-thirty, an hour at which I hadn't been out of the house for a month.  I walked into the night.  It was peaceful.  No t.v.  No shuffling mom.  Just a big, starlit sky and the sounds of early evening, hollow and distant.  I took a deep breath and stood still fora minute or two and felt the involuntary vibrations begin to leave my body.  I am not sure why, but I recalled all the solitary evenings on my sailboat at anchor, just me and the big empty night into which to dream.

Who knew so many people went out at seven-thirty at night?  Not a housebound boy.  The store parking lot was full.  My stomach now was churning with real or imagined toxins.  But there was a liquor store next to the grocers, and I decided I would go there after getting the milk.  In spite of the possible gastro suffering I was sure to experience, I was feeling light again, as in the sun filled afternoon.  

Walking the aisle toward the milk, I spotted a pair of nice legs in black running shorts and a black top.  A true blonde.  She felt me coming, I guess, and looked my way.  I am lonely, and as lonely men will, I romanticized her.  She was in her mid-thirties, maybe, not a kid, and had a mature body.  There were a few of the inevitable age lines in her face.  She was not one of the dermatology women who live in my part of town, and I liked her right off.  We would certainly be lovers for a long, long while, maybe forever, and we would laugh and go to beaches and play shuffleboard and eat tacos, and I would take her sailing and hiking and. . . 

As I got closer, she looked into my eyes and smiled.  Something in me tightened up.  It was a true smile, a certified, verified smile.  I knew I was looking slim and interesting if not handsome.  Women know what such a smile will do to a man.  They know they can take his breath away just like that.  They know it, but they don't know the severity of it.  They can't even begin to imagine.  

I got the milk and turned back to retrace my steps, and as I came closer, she turned and smiled again.  Then. . . "Do you have a dog?"

What sort of quiz is this, I wondered?  Should I say no, but I used to?  Or should I say, no, but I know dogs?  

"Nope. . . no dog," I said.

"Oh. . . you look just like someone I see at the dog park."

"No. . . not me."

Shit, piss, fuck. . . goddamn!  Was it over just like that?  

A few steps later, it occurred to me. . . she had mistaken me for my actor friend.  He always takes his dog to the dog park.  

I should have said I had a dog.  

When I went to the checkout, I kept an eye out for her, but to no avail.  That was all the adventure I was getting for the night.  I crossed over to the liquor store.  I needed to kill the ptomaine in my belly, I assured myself. 

This wasn't drinking.  This was medicine.  

I looked behind the counter to see what kinds of whiskeys they might have in small bottles.  Johnny Walker Red--$2.95.  Johnny Walker Black--$5.95.  

"Give me one of those little airplane bottles of Johnny Walker Black," I said.  

When I got back to my mother's house, the t.v. was blasting some commercials per usual.  I grabbed a glass and went into another room to open and pour the whiskey.  I was hiding it.  WTF?  I poured 3/4s of the bottle and added some soda water and sat down in the living room.  Jesus, there wasn't much in the glass.  I turned on my laptop to check my emails and texts.  I didn't get far before the whiskey was gone.  I poured the rest of the tiny bottle into the glass.  Done.  I felt nothing.  I knew then how heavy I pour the scotch after dinner.  I was wishing I had a bottle.  

After checking my computer, I went into the t.v. room with my mother.  She seemed disconsolate.  I felt penitent, but what could I do?  

"You can watch what you want," she said. 

"Do you want to finish that 1884 series?"

"Sure.  Whatever."

I put it on.  It is not a happy series, and this was the end.  Death and despair were everywhere.  It was not yet ten when it was over, but neither of us wanted to stay up, and so my mother said a simple "goodnight."

And that is how things go.  And will go.  I have no pictures, no stories, nothing but the making of meals and cleaning of kitchens and decaf coffees and near-beers with too little whiskey on the side.  

But for a moment. . . there was the music and the paraphernalia and the sweet scent of life.  And goddamnit, the mistaken smile of a woman I needed to love.