Chaos

Yesterday.  It overwhelmed me.  I want to put it in the rearview mirror. . . but it will be impossible for awhile.  And yet. . . it seems my health has returned.  I don't know.  Yesterday is a goulash.  

I went to the gym.  I did half a workout.  Everything was fine.  Tennessee was there.  He would come on Wednesday to repair the pipes on the guest bathroom sink.  He said it would be easy.  I never believed that.  

Just before I left for the gym, though, there was a knock at the door.  It was Mr. Tree.  

"You don't return my calls," he said.  

"You don't leave messages," I said.  "I don't return calls if there is not a message.  They are usually drive-time calls, people going somewhere who are looking for distraction.  Just hey, man. . . what's up?"

We sat outside on the deck and chatted for awhile.  Then. . . 

"I was here yesterday.  I walked around your yard."

He began to tell me what tree work I needed.  

"Man, I'm tapped out.  This is a bad time of year.  I have a lot of big bills that come due in December and January."

"You can pay me next year," he said.  "I need to keep my guys busy."

WTF?  I walked around the yard with him.  He showed me things.  

"How much?" I asked.  

He said prices had gone up, but I was his "brother" and he'd take care of me.  I caved.  Before I got out the door to go to the gym, the big trucks were here and the fellows working.  

On the street, the city's workers were still doing the work to put the power lines underground.  There were big trucks and heavy machinery lining the street.  

When I got home from the gym, I needed to eat.  I cooked up three eggs, sliced some sourdough bread to toast, and sliced some tomatoes.  I'd see how my belly handled that.  

When I finished, I was going to take a soak and a shower.  The phone rang.  It was Tennessee.  

"Do you mind if I come over now to fix the sink?"

And the ordeal began.  He brought in his bag of tools.  Turns out, he didn't bring the one we needed.  We took the pedestal sink apart to move it.  All the bolts were rusted, though, and wouldn't turn.  He tried to cut the bolt, but the tool wouldn't work.  He pounded and pried.  Once we had finally unbolted things, he dissembled the pipes.  The one running into the wall was a problem.  It was the one that would require us to tear into the wall to get to the coupling where it went into an old cast iron pipe.  The flange on this end was gone.  

We made a run to the hardware store.  

The new pipe didn't fit.  It needed to be cut.  We didn't have the right tools.  I tried to hold the pipe steady while he cut it with a saw.  We needed two vices and a different tool.  I tried to steady it with vice grips against an iron deck chair.  The vibrations were so great, I almost broke a bone in my hand.  Twice.  

After half an hour of this, the pipe was cut.  

The pipe now fit, but it was a Jerry rig at best.  It was either this, though, or tearing into the wall.  He attached everything and we moved the two part pedestal sink back into place.  Attaching the brackets now, though, was problematic.  The bowl of the sink was sitting on the bracket ledge and I lifted and shifted it while he moved the pedestal into place.  Shift left.  Shift right.  

I suggested we run some water in the sink to see if the Jerry-rigged pipes leaked.  They did.  

A roach that had been in the long unused drain ran across the floor and behind the door.  I closed it to step on the roach.  When I opened the door, though, I stepped on one of the tools lying on the floor.  I stumbled and grabbed the broken door handle I hadn't fixed right since Red broke it one drunken night a year ago.  The handle came off and I started to fall.  I reflexively put my hand out to the sink to balance myself.  

The sink, the brackets, and six tiles came tumbling down.  T caught the sink.  I looked at the mess.  

"Fuck me!"

We considered what to do.  We decided I would have to buy a new sink.  

"They are one piece," he said.  "I can replace the tile.  If you get a cabinet style sink, none of this will show anyway."

He pulled up sinks online.  The bathroom is small.  A cabinet style would shrink the room unbearably, I thought.  

We put the sink outside on the deck.  Just then, the big claw thing across the street roared into action.  It tore into the roof.  The house began to crumble.  Above and around us, the tree guys were working.  Neighbors were lining the street to watch the house come down.  Everything was total chaos.  

"Wait a minute," Tennessee said.  "I think I can put this one back up."

He began to explain.  It would not be as solid, but. . . . .  I just shook my head.  

"Whatever."

As he worked on the pipes, I went to the garage where I had some leftover tile.  I brought it back.  It was the tile from redoing the other bathroom a couple years ago.  The tile in the bathroom we were repairing was 4.5" x 4.5".  The new tile was 4.25" x 4.25".  Fuck!

"You can get some at the Tile Depot," he said.  

"Nope.  No I can't.  They don't make it now.  The manufacturers do this on purpose so you have to redo everything."

I went online.  I was right.  

"I'll have to do a deep dive in the garage.  I may have some of the old tile in there."

I doubted it, though.  The last time I used the 4.5" tile was 1996.  It was probably long gone.  

The day was fading when T got the pipes back together and the sink in place.  He turned on the water.  The pipe didn't leak.  He began to caulk things, but we would have to finish the whole thing tomorrow.  We needed some hardware.  But right then, we needed a beer.  

We sat on the deck watching the tree guys and the house across the street go down.  The contractor building the new house drove up.  He is a filthy rich motherfucker we know from the gym.  He is not one of the gymroids, though.  He doesn't go out with us.  There are reasons.  His is a long and dirty story not to be told here.  

He saw us and came over with a shitty grin looking at the neighbors in the street.  

"It's a crime," I said.  

He shook his head.  "I'm just hired to do it," was his reply.  

He stayed a minute then left.  

"He's a weird guy," I said.  

"Yes."

We spoke ill of him for a bit.  Then we went back into the house to clean up the mess.  

It was dark.  The tree guys were still working with flashlights.  The house across the street was just a pile of rubble.  T called his wife to tell her we were going to get something to eat.  We were both still in our gym clothes from that morning.  

"Let's go to. . . ."  I named a fancy place on the Boulevard.  He laughed.  We were heading to Taco Tico instead.  

We sat at the bar.  I was uncertain, but I ordered three pork tacos.  I'd see now if my belly was able to handle such a meal.  

We ate.  We kibitzed with the barman.  We watched the crowd.  Pretty women, big, pumped up men.  I felt small, old, dirty, and incompetent.  We talked about the mishap.  

"Man, I was just about to have it all hooked up," T said.  I could say nothing.  I just nodded.  

Back to my place.  T loaded up his tools and headed home.  I was wiped.  I cleaned the tub and ran hot water and Epsom salts.  It was nine o'clock.  I lay in the tub and tried to bring the day into focus.  Everything was upside down.  

After showering, I sat down for a minute.  I turned on the t.v. "Maison Close."  That is the name of the French brothel series.  It DOES take place in the late 18th century.  The sets and cinematography are beautiful.  I envy the colors, the textures, the furniture, the blankets and ink jars. . . .  It is all so "me."  

A couple of pills and off to bed.  

I wake in the dark, just before dawn.  I make the coffee and open my laptop to the news of the day.  Holy shit.  My personal chaos is just a microcosm of the state of the country, of the world.  Trump World.  

I hope you fuckheads are happy.  

They are.  

I need to find some serenity.  It doesn't seem possible.  

Sing, Dance, Laugh

Is the NFL considering banning the "Trump Dance"?  Really?  I'm not in favor of celebratory dances anyway.  That is not my culture.  I come from a hillbilly/cracker/redneck background where praise for doing something like scoring a touchdown was non-verbal, as were most things other than extreme anger.  When you made a really good play, you'd get a head nod, or maybe, just maybe, a hand clap.  We all thought about something like that as, "Look, he did what he was supposed to do."  It was the failure to do what you were supposed to do that shamed the defense.  They didn't stop it.  So, after a touchdown or a spectacular play, we simply tossed the ball to the ref and walked stoically off the field.  

Since childhood, I've suspected praise and blame equally. 

Having said that. . . WTF?  You might ban one thing but not another?  Screw that.  I do the "Trump Dance," but I am not a Trump supporter.  It is the dance of an old man.  It is funny.  In truth, I can dance no other way.  Arthritis, etc.  

If you want to really laugh your ass off, go to one of those bars where they have a band playing old rock songs.  There you will see it, old people reliving their youth. . . in their heads.  Their bodies, however, are telling another pathetic story.  I don't mind.  Everybody should sing and dance.  But we should laugh to.  Laughing is good therapy.  So, I say, sing, dance, and laugh away.  

But Jesus H. Christ. . . don't go banning things.  I mean, truly. . . look inward for your own hypocrisies.  We are all hypocrites in one way or another.  

Hell. . . that's the center platform of deconstruction if I think about it in a certain way.  None of us can perform the theory.  More importantly, though, we all stray from it from purposefully from time to time.  

How in the holy hell, though, do I live in a world in which Trump is the central figure?  Don't tell me.  I know.  

These are End Times.  

There is no other explanation.  Look for the coming of The Beast with Two Backs. 

I mix up my scriptures and Shakespeare sometimes.  They sound somewhat similar to me.  But Red States will cure that.  They are certain to teach only one.  Shakespeare?  Are you kidding?  Who needs that?

I am writing long before sunrise.  I think I am going to feel much better today.  I've been taking in an average of about 800 calories a day since I got sick.  I've had no liquor and hardly any food, just clear soups, rice, and eggs.  Today, however, I might try some fruit.  I plan to stay off the hooch at home at night alone.  It is the solitary drinking that has turned me into Quasimodo.  I have become hideous.  I decided last night that I would go to bed "straight," too.  Nothing to help me sleep.  I slept for a couple hours at a time.  The last time I woke up, it was just before five, and I said "fuck it" and got up.  I'm going to try to break my sleep aid habit.  My body is a temple. . . etc.  

Bodies are temples, of course.  You know how I feel about that.  They are beautiful things. . . for awhile.  Then. . . the worse. . . and worst. . . .   Though, I think, that is very much an American advertising thing with which we have been inculcated.  It is not so much that way for Europeans.  They are more used to seeing the aging body, I think.  They were not sold the whole youth movement Pepsi generation thing, or at least they didn't buy into it. . . as much.  But what do I know?  I shouldn't opine about what is or isn't European culture.  It is a myth, foreign soil. . . .  

But I started watching a new show last night, a French series from 2010 that takes place in an upper class brothel in the 1800s.  I watched two episodes but I can't remember its name.  It may be set in the 1900s.  Jesus. . . and I wasn't even drinking.  It is subtitled, so there is that.  It runs for two seasons and seems pretty good, so now I think I"m an expert on what "Europeans" value.  

About the series. . . I'll keep you informed.  

The sun has just come up.  The world outside my door is rosy pink.  I will take a walk and try some exercise at the gym.  Maybe I'll take my camera somewhere later and pretend.  As they say, pretending's fun.  

The Twelve Weeks of Christmas

I don't want to jinx myself, but I think/hope that I might be through the worst of it.  I don't think I have a pain in my lower abdomen this morning.  I haven't really tested it yet with a bunch of movement, but it is, at least, better.  I have scarcely eaten for the past few days.  Last night, though, I had my most substantial meal, a can of Campbell's chicken and rice soup with two eggs dropped in to make a kinda sorta egg drop chicken soup.  I'd recommend it.  

I will take a walk and maybe try to do a small, light workout at the gym this morning.  Maybe.  To be seen.  After that, Tennessee is coming over to do a little plumbing work that has been on hold for about six months.  Fingers crossed, I hope this works, for the plumber I called said he would have to tear the wall out to fix the thing.  

Wasn't that fascinating?  Sorry.  I haven't anything else.  I haven't left the house for days.  I have basically sat still.  I did manage to take a couple walks.  And I can report this.  On the Boulevard, the Christmas decorations are already up.  Yup.  AND they have installed speakers on the lampposts that play Christmas music.  It is not The Holidays any longer.  Trump is King.  I expect to hear religious prayers through speakers when Christmas is done.  

Truthfully, I don't mind it being Christmas.  I grew up anticipating Santa.  Away in the manger never interested me, but there was a magic surrounding the Christmas season.  Back then, however, it was the Twelve Days of Christmas, not the Twelve Weeks.  O.K.  I exaggerate.  But it wasn't the Christmas season until after Thanksgiving.  After that came the big Christmas Parade.  All we kids had to do was wait that one out, so we made our little cut out hand turkeys in our elementary school classes and colored them with crayons and put them on the classroom walls in anticipation.  After school, we played football in the streets until dark, for it was football season and we were seasonal kids, and we watched our black and white snowy t.v. football games on Sunday.  Then we were back in the streets.  Our parents were glad.  Punishment for being bad was to be stuck in the house.  It was punishment for both parents and kids, and usually the sentence was rescinded when our parents couldn't stand looking at us any longer.  

Thanksgiving was alright.  The Packers played the Lions every year.  That was the traditional Thanksgiving game.  Later on it was the Cowboys playing Somebody, but I was not a kid anymore when that blasphemy came about.  We all had color t.v.s by then.  

After Thanksgiving, the lead up to Christmas was tremendous.  Some nights, perhaps, our parents might take us out to see the Christmas lights.  We would go to stores and buy whatever gifts we might give to friends and relatives, and, of course, parents would take us through the toy department asking us what we hoped Santa would bring us.  As Christmas came closer, Santas appeared in shopping centers and department stores and we would go sit on his lap and nervously tell him what we wanted.  This was confusing, of course.  Was there more than one Santa?  Oh, no, our parents would say, these were just Santa's missionaries sent out to find out what children everywhere would want on Christmas Day.  

Yea, we were all idiots then.  But someone's older brother would always shit on our hopes and tell us there was no Santa and that all the toys were wrapped up and stored in the closets in our parents' bedrooms.  And one day, we got brave enough o sneak in and look.  

"Those are not for you!  Those are for other people.  Santa brings yours on Christmas Eve."

Whatever.  The jig was up. 

So. . . I don't mind that it is Christmas once again, but I am guilty about it.  I'm a trained multiculturalist.  I love all the people.  We were told about Chanukah as children.  The rest of it, though. . . bagel.  

I doubt kids ever believe in Christmas anymore.  I'm sure they see their parents watch "Bad Santa," etc.  When I was a kid, all we had was "Miracle on 34th Street."  

Santa--"What's the largest nation in the world?"

Child Natalie Woods thinking. . . "I don't know."

"Why, it's the imagination!"

Little Natalie didn't believe in Santa, but. . . well, it turns out fine (link).  

You had to believe, just a little bit. 

Like everyone else, though, I grew up and by the time I was in high school, I was calling it "The Miracle on 42nd Street."  

Ho, ho, ho.  Everywhere a Ho.  

My drama teacher told me I was too young to be such a cynic.  She was only a year out of college, and she told me that at her apartment, but that is another story.  

I'd better get to feeling better and start making more pictures for I am just about done with the roller derby stuff.  I have gotten tired of going through the thousand raw images and working them up to look like anything at all.  The weather is nice now and I should be out.  I just have to get some "umph" back in my body and mind.  The body is shot and the mind is following, I'm afraid.  The Mike Tyson fight probably brought a lot of people down.  It was clear that age beats you up no matter who you are.  It is difficult to pretend after watching that fiasco.  It was a liver punch to the aged.  

I had no idea I would tell you all about Christmas today.  My mind is a mystery to me.  

Here is another mystery, too.  WTF?  She's celebrating the Twelve Weeks of Christmas.  

I won't end on that one, though.  One of my old friends likes to play Snoop for her little daughter.  I was shocked, but she scoffed at my. . . whatever.  My friend in the midwest went to high school with Snoop and is a fan.  She said he was pretty normal then.  So here. . . wake up the kids. . . Snoop Santa Dogg is coming to town.  

I don't think that I'll be hearing this one on the Boulevard.

Quandary

Quandary--what to post.  I am still working on the roller derby stuff, but I don't feel I should post those every day.  I have "new" Lonesomeville stuff, but I've probably shown enough of that.  Well--heh--you can never show enough of that, can you?  Still. . . I need to mix it up.  I haven't made those mushroom pictures yet.  Wanna see another house?  Yard signs?  A picture of a cat?  It's difficult to post a picture (or more) every day.  Try it.  You'll see.  

Old NYC pics.  They are meant to inspire me to go back.  You'd think it would be easy.  There are many cheap flights from here.  Sure, accommodations will break my bank account, but when I get there, I eat pretty cheaply, and it is all walking and looking at art and taking photographs.  Walking gives me pause now.  I keep walking miles and can do it, but it is slower and more painful than it used to be, enough so that I worry about my ability to "see" things on the street.  I don't know.  I should go and try.  But. . . Thanksgiving, my mother's birthday, Christmas, New Year.  I have to be around for my aging mother's sake.  

It seems there is always something.  I wish I were like other people and could sometimes prioritize my own life, but I feel I am indebted.  

I think I feel better this morning.  I am pretty sure it was/is a case of diverticulitis.  Painful.  Awful all around.  But yesterday, after eating nothing all day, I made eggs and rice for dinner.  One of the best meals I've ever had.  I was very hungry, I found, and it went down easy.  Didn't bother my gut at all.  Cream of Wheat with eggs for breakfast, I think.  

But because I stress very much when I am sick, certain this it, sitting alone with my own sick thoughts. . . well. . . I don't do very well.  I fall deep and far into a terrified depression.  What will happen after I'm gone kind of shit.  As shitty as life can be and pretty much is, fuck, I'll miss it.  I love things so much.  Of course, I think it will be my fault when I die.  It will have been something I did.  I will feel a terrible embarrassment and a tremendous guilt about it.  There will be no one to take care of my stuff.  It will all have to go into a dumpster.  The house, the money, it all goes to my soon to be 93 year old mother.  That will be a big burden for her to handle.  And what about the million photographs?  The billion worded journals that I don't want to destroy but don't my mother to read?  

It is all too troubling to think about when I feel devastated by illness, so. . . last night I took a Xanax.  By nine, I was asleep.  By four, I was awake.  I tried to sleep for another hour, but it was fitful.  I was in a hostile Arab country and strayed into a neighborhood where I got lost as in a Paul Bowles novel.  I was fascinated but knew I was in trouble.  I didn't know the language and couldn't read the signs, though the script looked beautiful to me.  

Somehow, I made it back to my American acquaintances, but there were four men and three women, and I was the odd old man out.  They were all paired up and I was. . . discouraged.  

While the Xanax was kicking in, I was watching the new season of "Diplomat" on Netflix.  Have you seen it?  A man, a successful but controversial ambassador, is replaced by his wife.  Their relationship is fraught with problems. He gets blown up in a terrorist attack and she goes to see him in the hospital.  She breaks down, climbs into his bed, and weeps.  I was weeping, too.  When I was in the hospital inches from death, my girl came back, climbed into bed with me, and weeped.  

Fuck me.  

There I sat alone in my living room, hours away from some terrible death, eating eggs and rice and drinking Gatorade, turning into Xanax jelly, an emo deluxe at best, weeping.  

So I went to bed and dreamed of wandering lost and alone in an Arab land.  

Huh.  

I feel better this morning.  I hope.  It is always difficult to tell before I get out of the chair and begin to move.  Sitting still, talking to you, I can pretend for awhile, but once this is over and the day begins. . . I am faced with "The Truth."  

I swear it has never set me free.  

Nope.  Coffee and an anonymous stream of consciousness is the better bromide.  We (you) may each fool yourself in different ways, but sure as shitting we are all running from reality in our own way.  When it confronts us, it is never, ever fun.  Reality is grim.  Our lives are like those nature shows that present the beauty and joy of wild things, lions playing with their cubs, the love of elephants, etc.  But that is not nature.  That is just anthropomorphism/personification.  In nature, everything lives with terrible parasites.  Everything fears being attacked and eaten.  

That is the reality.  Movies and books and tv shows and music--they are there to keep us from thinking about that.  

I think I may be losing my mind.  The hole seems too deep this time.  

Oh. . . what the hell.  

I should have just stuck with the roller derby.  

Sad Travesties

I stayed up for the sad travesty of a fight last night. I kept telling myself and others I was going to bed. I don't like staying up late. Netflix was a joke in many ways. Stupid commentators. Dumb celebrities of a second or third order. Nobody of any rank was there. And, of course, Netflix can't do live broadcast and the image kept freezing, the little circular dial spinning. . . spinning. I was texting with an old colleague and some others. They were having the same problem. I decided to try watching on my phone. That worked. I told my old colleague.  Same. 

But it was taking too long. The fight would not start until after midnight. 

"I've had it. I'm going to bed."

Then, later. . . "I lied." 

I should have gone to bed. The roller derby was more entertaining than the Tyson fight. It was inevitable, of course, but we all want to believe in miracles, don't we? How odd, though--people were rooting for a felon, a man who bit off another boxer's ear, a rapist, and just an overall mean man. 

"Good things happen to good people," I heard one of his ex-trainers say. Ha! That one broke me up. 

"He's in a good place now. He has a lovely family, loves his children. He has settled."

Tyson has a wife? Kids? WTF?

But the fight might have proven his former trainer right. Nothing good happened to Tyson last night. He looked old, worn, and maybe worried before the fight had even begun. His legs were stones, his reflexes about a half second behind. He didn't look like a boxer anymore than Jake Paul did, but Jake was having his way. A second rate fighter would have destroyed either of them. 

That's what we all get, though, those kids who were rooting for Paul and all the old men hoping to see a miracle defeat of time. It was, in the end, what we all knew deep down it would be, a scam. A joke. 

Remind me NEVER to think I can fight anyone ever again. Not even Carrothead. 

Earlier in the day, I found out what happened after I left the party Thursday night. It got crazy. 

"You would have loved it," Tennessee said. "Small hands was asking for you."

We call her small hands because the first night we met her, she laughed at all our stupid shit and was very gracious about it. She was well paid for her pleasantness. When we left, I went over to apologize for my stupid friends as if that would exonerate me, and I shook her hand. A real shock ran through me. Her hands were tiny. Outside, I told the others about it. They became obsessed. It was so odd, I wasn't certain I was right, but the next time we saw her, Alain shook her hand and confirmed it. 

"Bullshit," I said. 

"No, I'm not kidding. When we walked in she asked me where my buddy was."

Oh, golly. . . how I want to believe that is true. However. . . I don't. 

"She called some of her friends and told them to come up, that her boys were here. They were all early twenties and university students. Everybody started ordering shots and then somebody broke out the Peruvian marching powder. It got crazy."

Tennessee was going to come help me fix a plumbing problem but he said he was too sick to do it. 

"Monday," he said. 

He sent me pictures of the girls. Hmm. 

"They like older men," he said. 

"Sure. How much did they chip in on the bill? Sure they like older men."

Turns out that Black Sheep took one of them "out" after the bar. 

Later in the day, I was telling the story of what I had missed the night before to a woman prof who has a kid in his early 20s. 

"For this generation, it isn't bad. It's just transactional. It isn't shameful. They don't think it as wrong. It's not like other generations who would say prostitute. It's just having fun."

"Sure. Like they say, 'I'm not gay, but $50 is $50." 

I had upped the price a bit for this story. 

"Yes, something like that."

I was absolutely glad I had come home. I felt worse on Saturday than I did on Friday. I was hoping, I guess, that it was a flaring up of diverticulitis and not something worse, so I had only Gatorade and canned chicken soup with a little white bread all day. I sat on the couch and watched tv until the fight. It was stupid to stay up, but. . . . I went to bed at one. 

All this under a full moon. Perhaps it was the cause of it all. 

I missed a most beautiful autumn day. I thought of women who loved other men being excited and happy by it, going to cafes and festivals and feeling the joy of life, living and loving as I sat alone in fair pain thinking about dying and death. I pictured them smiling, giggling, and happy under the prettiest skies and feeling the freshest air on their cheeks. 

"I love you," I could hear them say. . . to someone else. Their husband. 

And Mike Tyson is a happily married family man?!? 

Surely God hates me. 

I am hoping to feel better today. If not. . . the worse or worst. 

No matter. I watched time's victory last night. I saw the ravages of living. The Baddest Man on the Planet looked to be the Saddest Man. Had he fooled himself? Don't we all? 

That time is best, 
Which is the first, 
When youth and blood are warmer.

It is Saturday.  It is beautiful outside.  I hope to take a walk.  

Small Town

I got a call yesterday from the State Attorney's Office.  They have finally charged the two people who sold my cameras to the photo store.  Wow!  What was that, two years?  The fellow on the phone explained to me the charges against the fellow.  

"All told, if he got the maximum sentences, he'd get 45 years in prison."

I knew that wasn't going to happen.  

"He'll probably get one," he said.  

The girl has not been charged in the robbery, only trying to sell stolen goods and for something else that I can't remember.  

On the restitution thing, he said I had three options.  One was to get a judgment against him.  Then it would be up to me to collect.  Another was that he could be sentenced to parole after prison until he paid me the full amount.  

"One other option would be to make a deal so that if he paid you, he wouldn't go to prison."  

I want the fuckers to go to jail, but I want my money back more.  I will be subpoenaed to testify in court, maybe in December.  

"But there is likely to be a continuance, so it may not happen this year."

I had been contemplating calling the state's office this week to find out what was happening.  Huh.  

I didn't feel well all day, but I decided to take a walk, a bath, a shower, and meet the gymroids for dinner and a beer.  We were meeting in the beer garden outside, but I walked in through the bar.  When I sat down, a fellow from inside came up to the table.  

"Hey. . . I'm sitting with a group of attorney's inside.  We were calling your name, but you didn't hear us.  Remember me?  I'm __________."  

I didn't.  Then I thought he might have been my divorce attorney.

"Oh. . . yea. . . you worked with ___________."  ______________ is my Yosemite mountain buddy's brother.  He worked for a big law firm downtown.  

"Tony. . . yea, we worked on a couple things together.  You used to date Mary __________, right?"

I thought a minute.  I didn't recognize the name.  

"No."

"Are you sure?"  He repeated the name.  Maybe she was someone I knew who got married and changed her last name.

"I don't recognize the name," I said.  "I was married to Emily."

We were both ten degrees of confused at this point.  After a few pleasantries, he went back inside.  I explained what I thought just happened to the table.  Then another fellow came walking up.  

"Hey, we have a bet inside.  You're Tom Nowicki, right?"

Ohhhhhh.  This keeps happening to me.  

"No, no. . . I know Tom, but I'm not him.  But this has been happening a lot lately."

Tom is on the Apple series called "Bad Monkey."  He has long hair and a beard, so. . . . 

The fellow turned out to be the son of a woman I used to know long ago when I dated the daughter of the extremely wealthy family.  She owned a big real estate firm, and I had actually gone to her second or third wedding.  I knew her daughter, too.  It was really a small town then.  

Tennessee, it turns out, had bought the woman's house down on the big lake from a person who bought it from the realtor.  

"I have a trunk in the attic that belonged to your mother," he told the attorney.  It had been there for years.  It was full of letters from Europe and little trinkets.

"I was born in Germany," her son said.  "That could be my stuff."

"Sorry for interrupting," he said.  "I'll go back inside and tell ____________ he owes us all drinks."

When he left, a retired judge we all know walked up.  He was a bit famous for being the judge on a made for t.v. trial you would all recognize.  I told him what had just happened.  

"Oh, _______________.  Yea, I know him.  He heads up the largest law firm in the country.  I've had plenty of nights out on the town with him."

The night wore on.  They all wanted to go to the Irish pub across the street, but I was done.  I had a hard time getting away from Tennessee, though.  

"I don't feel well," I said.  "I'm out."

A few minutes later, I got this. 

"She's asking about you."

Then I got a FaceTime call from the pub.  It was the girl.  She is a waitress there.  

"Where are YOU!"

I could hear the boys laughing in the background.  We chatted for a minute.  Funny girl.  She'd put up with all of it because it was nothing but the gratuities would be wonderful.  The waitresses love to see the Billionaire Boys coming.  

I still feel like shit today.  I think it might be diverticulitis.  I've had it before.  I'm going to try to wait it out, but when you get old, all you really do is wait for the bad news.  

Selavy.  

Just Science

It feels as if the Trump Presidency has already started.  Matt Gaetz, JFK Jr., some guy from Fox. . . and maybe a football coach as Secretary of Defense . . . .  Who knows?  We're gonna party like it's 1999!  

When will the buyer's remorse hit?  When does the reclamation project begin?  

It's just science, I guess.  The magnetic poles are shifting, the major ocean currents are dying.  Those are just facts.  Life as we have known it. . . etc. 

Maybe that is why people around here have already put up Christmas decorations.  There is a sense of urgency.  

I've quit reading news articles.  Maybe I should quit looking at the headlines, too.  I read the science sections, but they are depressing me more every day.  

I didn't get enough sleep last night.  I'm going back to bed.  I need to rest.  I'm going out with the gymroids tonight.  They seem happy enough.  

Theory

RFK Jr. isn't the only one with theories.  I have some of my own.  I woke up this morning with a stuffy, runny nose.  How can it be?  I haven't been anywhere and have seen no one but my mother for the past 36 hours.  Not even the gym.  I did my exercise outside yesterday.  But. . . there was a space launch yesterday, and I've noticed an uptick in illnesses every time there is a launch.  Again. . . nobody tells us what kind of chemicals are in a space launch's exhaust.  Giant plumes and trails at which everybody marvels--full of what?  I didn't know it was going up.  I just saw it while driving.  Otherwise, I would have put some tinfoil in my hat.  

I have no other explanation.  

The Billionaire Boys Club members are taking their victory lap and doing their celebration dance.  I don't care, but I'm not obligated to keep quiet, so I wrote a group text last night after another of their IG or X nonsense posts.

"That’s good bullshit echo chamber Russian bot reporting 😂

You guys can do your victory dance when he puts in tariffs and gets rid of all the cheap labor.  Then White Boy Rodney can dig the ditches, roof the houses, and work in the animal slaughtering houses.  White Boy Rodney has been pissed he’s been cheated out of good employment 😂

That’s why he voted for Trump!

He’s just been waiting for an opportunity to get off the crack pipe!"

O.K.  I'd been drinking, I think.  But when I turned on the television later, this came right up.  

Holy shit, I thought. . . I might be right!  My lefty friends are worried about the Vance presidency, but I think that people are going to regret Trump before his four years are up.  Still. . . Trump's only a cheeseburger away from going to meet Elvis.  

I told you on Monday that I caught up with you all, that I am now on the new time.  And it is fucking me up.  This was at four o'clock. 

I don't start drinking at four.  I was ready for bed at seven.  This will be a no drink Wednesday, I think.  It is Wednesday, right?

The camera in the background is the medium format Fuji I bought some time ago but have not really used.  I forget why.  I have a big assed lens mounted on it that weighs pounds, and that is part of it.  It is not really a walk around camera.  It is but it isn't.  Its use should be more intentional.  I think I will intentionally use it today.  It would be great for portraits, but having no one to photograph. . . .  So maybe clusters of mushrooms--or are they toad stools?  I'm no mycologist, that's for sure.  But I bought a pack of very expensive mushrooms at Whole Foods yesterday.  They are a mix of different types, whole 'shrooms, very big and some very scary, twisted, odd looking things.  People go to the forest to find mushrooms for all sorts of purposes, to heal and to kill, but these, I hope, were grown in a "House of 'Shrooms."  I've read they are easy to grow.  Still, these big ugly fuckers kind of freak me out.  I think I'll put olive oil and Kosher salt on them and put them on a pan and broil them with garlic.  I'm betting that they will taste like butt, though.  Dirty.  But they are supposed to be really good for one, and I'm all about that, so. . . . 

I like that photo at the top of the page.  It may be my favorite of the shoot, though I haven't worked my way through the second half of the images yet.  I still struggle over using monochrome or color.  

I like them both.  In this case, though, I think the color might add something.  

And now I must get to work, so I'll leave you with a little smokey, bluesy, noir-ish jazz from a Manhattan basement club. . . but wait!  This is supposed to be a Dry Wednesday.  Oh, well. . . what the hell. . . .  There are worse things.  

Jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot and killed by his common-law wife, Helen Moore, during a break between sets at Slugs' Saloon in New York City's East Village on February 19, 1972.

He was 33.   

Uncertainty

I work on the pics.  I keep trying to find a process that I like, one that I can do consistently.  Sometimes, I think I have found one, then I look back at a previous version and think I've gone too far.  And then I'll start over again.  I'll end up with several versions of the photo, then I wonder if the image was worth the industry.  Then I begin to slide into self-doubt and don't want to make photos anymore.  

Other times, I'll think I've nailed it. . . for a bit.  I've sent out some wrestling pics to the promoter and some derby pics to the organizers.  

Crickets.  

They love their standard out of the camera reality looking pictures, I guess.  That's what I tell myself.  

"Not everyone wants. . . ."

"What are you going to do with the photos?" my mother asks me.  Indeed.  

"It's supposed to be good for people to have a creative outlet.  I read that in the AARP Bulletin."

That seemed to satisfy her.  

When I had the studio, the photos were as much about the person I was photographing as anything else.  We talked a lot.  I was trying to break through some psychological walls.  Talking was fun.  It was a revelation.  

When I make photos on the street, it is another thing.  I'm trying to see the world around me and what goes on.  I'm trying to tell a contemporary story for other times.  

During Covid, I just took photos of inanimate objects.  Houses and buildings representing the lives they housed.  Mansions and shacks, the exteriors of businesses.  And then there was the peripherals, the paraphernalia of life.  Those photos were cold, though, and perhaps it is with a sense of the dread of that time that I look back on them and feel a void.  

This stuff I'm trying now, this walk into offbeat happenings. . . what am I doing?  If I am going to continue, I have to find the spine connecting it all.  Still, I'm learning a lot about the sorts of photography I'd never done before.  

Maybe it's the crickets that set me back the most.  I can send them the straighter versions of things, the least processed photographs.  I can make those in a Texas second.  I'll keep the other stuff for myself.  

"What are you going to do with the photographs?" becomes "Why do you make those photographs?"

That one is easier.  I'm a peeper.  I like to look and then hold onto the thing.  

"Creepy."

Yea.  

It's easier not to argue.  

"Every picture tells a story, don't it?"

"Yea. . . about YOU!"

That's the scariest part.  Every photo tells you more about the photographer than the things in the frame.  Think of all the selfies, the photos people take of their husbands, wives, and children.  I'm fascinated by them all.  

So, I spent yesterday trying to work in color, but I'm thinking the photos are better off monochromatic.  Even with the manipulated colors, they look too "normal."  I don't know.  I'm still working.  You are getting to see the flow.  You are seeing a lot of pictures of which I hope to have a few "keepers."  I'd really like to please these people, though.  I would like to go back.  I don't want it to be a one and done.  

Yes. . . I'm probably going in the wrong direction with the color, though I think they are subtly different.  Maybe, though, the black and white stands out more and is a bit more dark and noir-ish.  

I keep thinking that I really need an assistant.  I have ideas that would require one.  I can't do everything by myself.  Plus, it would be nice to have a second voice.  As irritating as a relationship can be, it's nice to have two brains instead of one when the shit comes down.  

"I don't know. . . let's go through the options."

Consensus.  

If you are going to make things for public consumption, though, you'd better have a pretty thick skin.  I mean, Modigliani died broke and sick in a cold water flat in the winter with all those paintings nobody was buying.  His most beautiful wife, though, held him in her arms while he died.  There was, at least, someone who believed in him.  

Criminy, she looks just like his paintings!

"The day after Modigliani's death, Hébuterne was taken to her parents' home. There, inconsolable, she threw herself out of a fifth-floor window, killing herself and her unborn child."

The Pantsuit (for Q)

It's been a week of changing the clock ten minutes each day.  I'm now caught up with the rest of you.  I'm on Standard Time.  It's also been two weeks since I got double vaxed, so I am now good to go.  And go I want to, given the right circumstances.  Circumstances aren't always favorable in my life right now.  

Selavy.  

I saw Bill Burr's opening monologue for SNL on YouTube yesterday.  Oy.  He bombed.  But he said something funny that struck a chord--it was the pantsuit that did the democrats in.  That one stuck the landing for me.  The pantsuit is not a fashion statement.  It can't be.  I worked for a CEO for half my career, a woman with a strong personality.  When she got hired to replace the outgoing CEO, he showed her around the factory on her first day.  I was the first worker he introduced to her.  He touted my recent trip to Cuba to present at the International Hemingway Conference.  She narrowed her eyes and gave me a cold look.  I had told everyone she was my favorite candidate because she had the best legs.  She did, and she showed them.  But what she said to me when we met was, "You remind me of my ex-husband."  

Ice. 

I later found out he was a fishing charter boat captain in Key West, and she and he were known on the island as "Barbie and Ken."  Ken, so it is told, was a bad boy.  He liked women.  And so. .  . .  

She came in as a Democrat but the factory was in a Republican county and had a Republican Board, and it didn't take her long to change her party affiliation and start wearing. . . wait for it. . . Pantsuits!

We never saw her legs again.  She had a love/hate relationship with me for the next twenty years.  And guess what happened when she retired.  They hired a clone.  The woman was an ex-college swimmer, but she wore the exact same Pantsuit as her predecessor--right down to the color.  

I'd seen them each in public.  The predecessor lived in my neighborhood, about a mile away, and we'd run into one another in restaurants and grocery stores.  She was never in a Pantsuit.  

Yesterday, after seeing the Burr thing, I sent a simple text to many of my friends: "The Pantsuit did the democrats in."

Q took exception to that.  "Write a post about your thoughts here, then delete it. Trust me. That’s nonsense."

It has been a long time since I read works on semiotics, and I couldn't pull shit out of my hat at the moment, so I just Googled "Semiotics of clothing" and sent links to the first two articles that popped up.  I didn't bother reading them.  I was thinking of Roland Barthes, of course, but I hadn't eaten anything all day and was just sitting down to dinner after a couple cocktails and I wasn't in the mood for serious academics.  But yea. . . they made me read Barthes in grad school.  It was the beginning of the death of literature and the birth of its replacement--theory.  

And now only 2% of college students get degrees in literature.  

I'm not in the mood this morning to go searching for the appropriate Barthes writings, either.  If you are interested, don't be lazy, look them up yourself.  I'd suggest, however, find some explications of his ideas.  Barthes can be very difficult to read.  

So, Q, I stand by my statement.  A Pantsuit is never a fashion statement, it is an ideology.  

But, you know, a Jumpsuit is a different thing.  That's what they put prisoners in.  But wait--I'll have to think about this for awhile.  

I spent the day working up the roller derby pics.  Some of the swish pan stuff kinda worked.  I'm still working on the early part of the shoot.  I think the photos get better further on.  I'm not sure, though, that the roller derby people will be so interested in my stuff.  They are used to the pictures anybody with a camera can take, things like this. 

But maybe I'm wrong.  Or maybe they're right.  I've lost all confidence.  So it seems.  

Here's a song I love for its ironic "rock and roll" theme paired with a most lovely shuffle rhythm--boom chicka chicka chicka boom.  At first, I thought the song was by Ana Egge. . . but it is not.  The vocal phrasing is lovely.  

Plum Tuckered Out

Jesus H. Christ. . . yesterday I found out how old I've gotten.  I went to the Roller Derby early in the morning.  It was quite a day.  As I said, I hadn't wanted to go.  I'm glad I did.  It was good for me.  It was fun.  The people were super nice and all interested and happy that I was making pictures of the gals.  I was given free rein.  No restrictions at all.  I could go wherever I wished, even into the center of the ring.  There were a lot of people there.  There were scoring officials, record keepers, six refs. . . I don't know what all.  The women, the men. . . they were all lovely.  The staff photographer was the husband of a woman who used to be on the team until she broke her ankle.  He'd been shooting the team for years.  Another woman was taking photos with a press pass around her neck.  She was on the team but had torn her ACL and had surgery from which she was recovering, so she was taking photos of the matches.  She was super nice as well.  I tried to explain that I wasn't doing event photos, that mine were going to be a little different.  

"I think I saw some of your work online," the staff photographer said.  "I think someone showed it to me."

!!!!!

Probably not, though, I thought, 'cause everyone was still being nice to me.  I had sent in my "credentials," and used my titles for the first time.  It turned out that the staff photographer and his wife were both teachers.

"Most of the girls on the team are teachers, too."

So maybe that's why they were being so nice,  

What I learned talking to the players, though, was that there are a lot of injuries.  Many women were sidelined with some pretty bad stuff.  As it turned out, they were trying to up their game to get into a bigger league.  This day, a lot of the newbies were getting a chance to play.  There were three teams, and all the players were from the same group.  It was an inter squad day.  The winners of the first match played the third team.  

The games were long.  I was there for over four hours.  I took a lot of pictures.  Finally, I had filled up two memory cards on my camera and I sat down.  I realized I was completely exhausted.  I hadn't eaten all day.  Hadn't had a drink except the coffee in the morning.  I was still feeling weak and a bit ill from the night before. 

But we'll get to that.  

First a little tech talk.  I took three cameras, my trusty, faithful Canon 5D DSLR, and two Leica M10s, one with a 35mm lens and one with a 50mm.  The Leicas were useless this day.  I mean, in the arena lighting with people moving this quickly, manual focus was virtually impossible.  I was trying out what is a new technique for me, swish panning the camera at a low shutter speed to blur the background while keeping the subject sharp.  That is how I started the day.  But I lost confidence in my ability with the Leicas quickly enough and switched to the big Canon.  I used two lenses, the little plastic toy Holga lens and the 24-105mm zoom lens.  The photo at the top is with the Holga, the one just above with the zoom.  It took me half the day to figure out what I was doing.  I have everything from sharp, normal images to the swirliest, blurriest things you have ever seen.  Thank God I took over a thousand shots.  

"What do you think?" the staff photographer asked.  

"This is hard.  I've never shot anything like this before.  I'm hoping to get one good one at this rate."

"Yea. . . I shoot a couple thousand every time and end up with a couple I like."

I've seen his photos online, so I knew he was doing event pictures for the team.  

I'd shoot and chimp and think I was blowing it.  But I kept making adjustments and started having more confidence.  I was learning a lot quickly.  

But I had to keep my wits about me.  Things were moving fast and I was trying to dance about to catch the action.  At one point during a stop in the action, I walked from the center of the ring to the outside, but some of the girls were coming onto the track pretty quickly, so I instinctively made a quick, sprinter-like start.  Ho!  I don't have that in my bones anymore.  My bad knee buckled and I lurched forward pretty certain I was going down, but instinct and adrenaline saved me.  I made a few stumbley steps out of their way and to the edge of the track.  Everyone in the stands saw that one, and I gave an embarrassed fuck me grimace back.  I felt hideously old and crippled.  

Later on, I was in the center of the track and tripped over the box of water bottles the refs and scorekeepers kept there.  I felt a rifle shot of pain through my bad knee and stumbled a few awkward, arthritic steps again feeling I might go down.  One of the scorekeepers looked at me sympathetically.  Once again, I could only manage an apologetic grin.  I could feel my knee swelling and stiffening right away.  My most common mantra was on repeat in my head. 

"Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me." 

At the breaks and between matches, though, as I walked around the arena, people would look and smile and talk.  They were like a big family.  And it was, pretty much.  Husbands and friends came to the match.  Everyone seemed to know everyone else.  It was its own little community.  

The hours passed, and the day wore on.  By the time my camera cards were full, it was halftime of the second game.  When I sat down for a moment, I knew I was done.  I reckoned I hadn't been on my feet for four solid hours since. . . I don't know when.  In the interim, I have fallen apart, I guess.  My bones hurt.  My joints hurt.  My muscles hurt.  WTF?  How old had I become.  

When the staff photographer came over, I told him I'd shot up all my memory, so I was done.  I said I was sorry this was the last game of the season, that it had been crazy good fun, that everyone was so very charming, etc.  He asked me if I had a website.  

"No," I said.  "I am too lazy." 

He had one. Everyone has one.  I should have one, too, but it is true.  I've been trying.  It takes too much of my energy to whittle down the photos I would post and then build the site.  There are ways in which I am just another hobo.  

And so. . . I packed my cameras into the big canvas bag and limped toward the exit.  

I walked into a big, bright, glorious afternoon.  The arena was inside a giant, beautiful park full of tennis courts, sporting fields, incredibly complex paintball courses, a giant, well groomed clay BMX track. . . and just plain park overlooking a huge lake.  Incredible, really, as it is bordered by two very bad parts of town.  On one side is a state highway overrun with hookers and crack dealers.  On the other side is my old neighborhood.  Once full of white crackers and hillbillies, it is now full of Blacks and poor immigrants.  I came down crack alley, so I decided to leave through my old part of town.  

The roadways have changed.  What was the main artery through it has become a four lane road.  I thought I might drive by my old house, but I couldn't figure out onto which road I should turn.  There were barriers separating me from many of them.  When I realized I had gone too far, I decided to keep going, telling myself I'd come back another time.  Indeed, I was thinking that I would try to get in with some paintball team or do some BMX stuff, and there was a great, giant flea market just made for my Leica cameras if I didn't get beaten, robbed, and killed.  

I drove past my old high school, now grown giant in size looking much like a state prison, past the home where Jack Kerouac once lived with his sister who died there, where once there was a small zen garden Kerouac had built to memorialize her, past the citrus juicing plant owned by one of the wealthy families I had come to know, past the Frito Lay plant where, when I was still young and had friends who worked in such places, a man had fallen into the vat of cooking oil.  Those vats are shallow, as it turns out, only inches deep, but the man died of his viscous burns nonetheless.  The plant shut down for a few days and my friends stayed home while they drained and cleaned the vat.  At least that was what the people said.  

And then I was crossing the highway where I worked in a gas station for a little while when I was in high school.  It is long gone, as is the old RC Cola bottling plant that once employed many other people I knew.  I drove on, down the streets I used to take once I had a car to go to what is now my own part of town, past the Jr. High School that was then named Robert E. Lee, past the big high school that was my own school's rivals, and back into the parts of town I still go, the lawns becoming green, the cars newer and more expensive, the houses larger and the properties landscaped.  

I was famished.  I wanted to stop at some deli pub and get a sandwich and a good beer more than anything I could think of.  And then I realized--I no longer knew where to go.  My own village now had only expensive fu-fu restaurants.  The old deli where my old friends used to meet every Friday afternoon at sidewalk tables was long gone.  What had become of me?  How had I become so insulated, so isolated from the good old common world?  

It was almost time to visit my mother when I got home.  There was no way I would make it.  So I told her.  Then I dropped into an Epsom salts bath to soak.  A shower.  Then. . . fuck it. . . a Campari cocktail and a cheroot.  That is what I wanted.  So I sat out on the deck and thought back over the day.  I had downloaded the images from the two memory cards and was encouraged that there might be something there.  At least a couple.  I was tired, I was hungry, and I was curious to eat somewhere out of my own village.  All over town that night, things were going on.  There was a big Cows and Cabs event in the park off the Boulevard where tout le monde, or at least the socialites of the area, would be paying large bucks to mingle and eat the foods prepared by the "most famous" chefs in town.  There was once a time when I would have been at such a thing, back when I was an aspiring hillbilly with Gatsby-itis, but those days are long gone.  There was a street jazz festival in one direction and something called The Electric Daisy Concert at the pro soccer stadium downtown featuring all sorts of bad music.  

And more.  

But I wanted to eat like I used to with my adventurous friends who after drinking Friday afternoons would all head off to dinner at a little Cuban restaurant connected to the Cuban grocers, or to one of the good Greek restaurants in town.  Yea. . . that's what I wanted, a Greek dinner.  I knew where one was, not in my part of town but close enough, so I put on a decent t-shirt and headed out into the night.  

And boy. . . it was crazy busy.  Every street, every bar, every restaurant was hopping.  This is what's going on while I sit in my home alone?  

I pulled into the parking lot of the Greek place and took a table outside.  The waitress was Greek, of course, young, and she spoke a beautifully shy and accented English.  She had soft eyes and a warm smile.  She wasn't glamorous but simply plain and pretty.  I liked her right away.  I ordered a gyro and a Greek beer.  And holy moly, the sandwich was huge and great as was what passes in the U.S. for a Greek salad.  Why, I wondered, didn't I get out beyond the confines of my village?  Sure, people annoyed me, but I'd get used to it again and even come to enjoy the milieu.  

A couple came to sit at the table next to me.  Oh, Christ, they were a show, he small with a narcissistic gym build, lean and vascular, tats over his arms and legs, a small one on his neck, she in a white skirt and a white midriff top made to show off her giant breasts.  He was noticeably older than she but trying hard not to show it.  

Good God, this was fun.  But I wanted a dining companion.  And therein lie my quandary.  I used to have friends who would go out for dinner or drinks without planning.  Not so now.  My world has changed for the worse.  

I need to make new friends.  

When I got home, I was beat, but I wanted to try to cook up a few images just to see.  I started with the first ones which were all on the front end of the learning curve.  I didn't want to start with the better ones.  But there are so many. . . and it takes me sooo long to cook one up.  I am a bit overwhelmed.  

But here are a few I took in the first few minutes before the matches began, when skaters were preparing and just warming up.  There will be more.  Many, many more. .  . until you get sick of them.  It is good for me, though, so.  

I think I'll contact the little league banked track stock car people now and see if they will let me shoot.  I may be old, but goddamn. . . Big Balls in Cowtown. . . y'know?  

Here's a song that came on when I was working on the images just before I went to an early bed.  What the fuck. . . the music always gets me when I am working on the images.  And sometimes. . . it just kills me.  This one killed me bad.  

I am going to get a life. . . if there is still one left to get.  

It’s been a long time driving
To get me good and gone
In the morning light I can see you in my memory
And still hear the remnants of your song

Left a record turning on the table
That old soft familiar hum
I still hear the echoes of your silence
When I said tomorrow I’ll be gone

If you felt the weight of the words I am saying
You would not wait you’d just pull me back home
But you always wait yeah you’re always late
Cause you know I’ll come right back to your arms

Your dresser’s still filled with all my clothing
My shoes still lined up by the door
Will I be back someday to collect them
Or just stay away and buy some more

If you felt the weight of the words I am saying
You would not wait you’d just pull me back home
But you always wait yeah you’re always late
Cause you know I’ll come right back to your arms

You Don't Know What Love Is

I thought the election was over, but it seems we are already in the throes of the next one.  There can be no off days in politics anymore, it seems.  The constituency must be bombarded with "what went wrong"s and "what if"s and predictions about the future.  Let me tell you what is going to happen.  

Just kidding.  C.S. Nostradamus is taking a break.  I've been 100% right so far, but it has done no good.  As we know, the major news outlets monitor this site and mine it for ideas.  They will have to come up with their own for awhile.  I just don't have it in me. 

So let's stick to facts.  Women are subscribing to the 4B movement.  Someone read "Lysistrata."  Hard to believe.  Nobody reads anymore. . But, there will be no dating, no marriage, no sex--not even anal.  Nope.  This is good for me.  The rest of you can find out what life without sex is like.  I mean with other people.  

I'm sure both men and women, however, will find the pleasures of homosexuality.  My old saw will become cliche--"It's just sex."  

I'm investing in a sex shop, buying stock in Doc Johnson Enterprises (link).  I wouldn't even know about this, but one of the women who ditched me was friends with somebody high up in the company.  She was well stocked, or so she said.  

As my mountain friend, the ex-broker, always told me, "Where there is pain, there is opportunity."

It doesn't matter to me.  I'm a cuddler.  I find great comfort in holding someone I love.  I'm very much a sensualist.  I miss that.  But as I have discovered throughout my life, not everyone is as crazy for that as I.  

"Get the fuck off me. . . I can't breathe!"

Oh. . . curse those cold, cold hearts.  But apparently, those 4B women. . . . 

American men will have a choice.  They can become like their Japanese brethren, the 草食(系)男子 herbivore men, or they can become part of the online community of incels.  

Or, as I say, they can just have sex with one another.  

"Do you want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?"

I kid.  I don't expect there to be any changes made.  There are other ways to change people's minds.  I think the 4B women were already not so thrilled having sex with men anyway.  For a passionate person, it would be like joining A.A.  

"Hi.  My name is Chrishawn, and I haven't had sex in 29 days.

"Hi Chrishawn."  

I'm guessing that many men who have been married for a long time might be relieved.  I think the same might be said of many married women, but this is a woman's movement, so. . . . 

"My body, my choice."  

"Amen."

Everything seems to be weaponized now, even sex.  

This is all just a joke, a morning's riff.  Like I said, it really doesn't matter to me.  All I've ever wanted was My Own True Love.  It now is apparent that I will never have her.  I'm like a soldier in a foxhole in an old war movie, writing letters to my lover back home, looking at her photograph I keep close to my heart and waiting ever waiting to hear back from her.  

However. . . while I've been gone. . . . 

So, bros. . . join the club.  And buy stock in Doc Johnson.  Funny name, eh?  

Ironically enough, I am going to photograph the women's roller derby today.  I thought it was tonight, but it is this morning at ten.  What?  Holy shit.  I'm glad I looked that up yesterday.  I also found some photographs taken of the team in action.  I don't think this is going to be good.  I doubt I will get any pictures I will want to use.  I am not going to be able to get close enough to the action, I think, and the lighting is bright and awful, not at all the noir I was hoping for.  Indeed, the women don't look menacing.  I think I'm in for a big disappointment.  But I've committed, so I will head out in just a little while.  

I'll have to find something more scary to photograph like a drag racing crowd.  There is a track here on the outskirts of town.  I'm sure to get my ass kicked there.  

Just an afterthought.  Most of the women I've seen preaching the 4B movement online are young.  Statistically, young people don't use marijuana, drink less alcohol, and have far less sex than previous generations.  Now that girl who made a billion dollars singing songs dissing her old boyfriends makes sense to me.  Pity that football player who dates her.  What can that be like?