Did I Feel The Difference?

Shitty camera, shitty drugstore developing, shitty pic.  But that's me as I was when I met Patrick a long while ago.  As I sat with him and his young friends in the cafe yesterday, did I feel the difference?

I was a cool biology teacher then.  I was living in a beautiful wooden house next to Country Club College.  The house was, to me, a writer's house, a Hemingway house, with a big screened in front porch, high ceilings with ceiling to floor bookshelves, and a huge back deck where an infamous hot tub once resided.  The house was owned by my conservative friend's brother who was a local legend.  He had lived here for some time, and it was known to be a party house.  The hot tub was the infamous part as "the boys" would pull women out of the Steak and Ale my friend's brother owned, not from the restaurant but from the disco in the back.  Marijuana and cocaine were the party drugs of the day and the hot tub was the piece de resistance.  Many, many stories circulated around certain circles about the orgasmojet, but I was not part of that circle.  Nor did I know my conservative friend yet.  But his older brother had smartly bought up many rental properties in town and had started a management business.  This photograph was actually taken at my girlfriend's apartment a minute before I moved from my own tiny residence in an apartment building for retirees.  It was a big step.  I was moving in with my girl.  I had a sailboat on the coast, a VW bus, and now a romantic house and a beautiful girl.  What could be better?  What cold go wrong?  

When I moved in, I filled he bookshelves.  Most of my books were paperbacks, of course, and hardback books I had gotten from used book and remainder stores.  But I was in love with adventure and travel, and I did own many, many adventure travel narratives and guides.  

The house next door was owned by an old man who had built an apartment connected to the back of his house.  A beautiful young couple lived there, and they, my girlfriend, and I made friends.  I met Patrick through the couple.  They were inveterate travelers and apparently had some financial backing.  They planned to travel the world.  Patrick, too, and when they saw my bookshelf, they would come over and peruse my travel books for hours.  We'd drink cheap wine and beer and dream about the exotic places we might go.  

Such things never last, of course, and the couple left for parts unknown.  The VW bus was becoming a piece of shit, so I bought a brand new CJ 7 and a house.  The girlfriend left me and I sold the boat and got a graduate degree in literature and a job at the factory.  I started dating the only daughter of the ultra-rich family, and much of my serious travel began.  

Around the same time, Patrick's grandmother died, and he came into a little money,  He decided to spend it traveling through Mexico, Central and South America.  My dead ex-friend Brando had influenced him in this, I believe.  After Patrick came back, his career as a creative took off.  

I hadn't seen him for a few years before I ran into him at the big Christmas Street Fair a couple weeks ago.  Yesterday, when I walked into the Cafe, he was there.  He invited me to come and sit with his friends.  

I have always been a loner, and I have become even more so since retirement, Covid, and the split with Ili, so I was a little reticent about a group chat.  I wanted to drink my good jasmine green tea and write, but what could I do.  So I went to his table and was introduced to a young couple with a two year old boy.  We smiled and shook hands, and I put on my public persona, the one that hides my inherent shyness.  But the kids were great, hippie kids with big smiles and open hearts.  They were easy to talk to, though Patrick talked most as he loves to tell his tales in elaborate, circular detail.  Soon, another young woman joined us who was of the same ilk as the couple.  She, too, was sweet and very friendly.  Patrick told them about me as I was when we first met.  

 "He was teaching and playing in a band.  What was the name?  Yea.  They had quite a following."

"When was that," asked the young fellow who had just moved to town from Denver."

"Oh, shit. . . I forget the decades."

"Decades was a club on the Boulevard back then," Patrick began to explain.  

"No," I interrupted, "I mean actual decades.  I can't keep them straight anymore.  We played New Wave/Punk stuff."

"What was the scene like?"

"It was small then," Patrick said.  

I looked around the Cafe Strange with its Chinese lanterns and weird pictures and all the posters announcing band gigs and their dates and said, "The drummer of our band actually invented all of this.  He was a wonderful artist and made the first posters announcing band gigs in this town.  We had two songs everyone knew, "Neutron Bomb" and "Bad Jets," and he didn't put the name of the band on the posters, just a Bomb or a Jet, and everyone knew who it was."

"Oooo," said the new girl, "I like that.  I'd come to hear those."

"The drummer made elaborate sets for us.  We had a twenty foot canvas banner spray painted with bombs and jets in a very punk fashion.  We had a slide show we would project sometimes when we played of weird shit.  He made little silver bomb pierced earrings that people wore."

"The Boulevard Record and CD store across the street has a neon bomb in the window," Denver said.  

"Yea.  The original owner of the store was in a band at the same time and was friends with the drummer.  I'm sure that is where the idea came from."

Patrick, having had to listen for too long, launched into another narrative of the time.  Meanwhile, Denver's girl had begun breast feeding the two year old unabashedly.  She was thin and attractive and I had already had inappropriate thoughts about her.  I did everything, of course, not to look, but I loved the whole hippie aesthetic of it.  I was transported back to my college days.  Back to the original question in the opening paragraph.  Did I feel the difference?  Physically, sure, but spiritually, whatever that means, I was happy as a pig in shit, as they say, to be in the old familiar territory.  I dug the company muchly.  

We talked a little about the photo project I was wanting to pursue, and Patrick said he could facilitate some of it.  He is writing for a culture mag right now, and I said I would like to get such a gig. Photos and essays, I said.  Patrick told me he had a Substack newsletter and said he would send me a link.  I told the table that I loved this cafe for the visuals.  

"People come here looking so great.  It is the most visual place in town.  I want to photograph everyone.  I want to set up lights on this stage and use a large format camera."

"That would be great," they all agreed, and the New Girl said that yes, the large format thing would be the ticket.  I liked these people a lot and didn't really want to go, but it was past time to see my mother, so I slowly stood up trying not to show what an old cripple I've become, and shook hands and told everyone how much I had enjoyed the company.  

When I got home, I opened Patrick's Substack page.  It pissed me off a little because it was so good and so similar to what I do.  Yea. . . petty, I know.  But he had nice illustrations, too.  

Clever, I think.  But I am as charitable as I am petty, so I wrote him a note saying I enjoyed his Substack page and that I had enjoyed his friends, too.  

"Thanks for inviting me over to your table today," I said.  "That was fun.  I liked those people a lot.  Good hearts."

He wrote back that they liked me, too.  

Now I am subscribed to Substack and can explore.  The table said it had become overcrowded and it was often confusing trying to find a thing.  Overcrowding meant it had become diluted and more difficult to find a crowd of subscribers.  But at least, if I moved my blog over there, I would know if anyone was coming to visit.  I am not sure, however, if that is good or bad.  I haven't any idea here any longer, but if I found out for certain I was writing to no one. . . I am not good at taking rejection.  

Patrick said he would get in touch after the holidays.  He wants to get involved in my possible project.  I sat back in the silence of my house and thought about the young couple.  They were beautiful and I thought they would be a nice photo project in some way.  I am sure they would be amenable.  But, you know. . . my balls shrivel up anymore when I think about going out on a creative limb.  Still, it was nice to think about.  

Did I tell you I have been happy lately, or at least happier than I have been for a time?  I am, at least, not miserable.  And as I have said, letting go of the baggage of the past has thrust me into the present in a positive way.  

So far.  But as we know, our lives are not a steady state.  Disruptions abound.  

I want to find out if New Girl was Patrick's girlfriend.  She pulled up a chair to sit next to him, and last time I saw him, he mentioned he was dating someone much younger.  I don't know what I'm thinking.  Just that she was very visual, too.  I'm thinking I'd like to become part of the tribe.  

With camera.  

And pen.  

I think they'd like my house, my books, the frangipani, the vibe.  I'm a shaman, almost.  

Further.  

Denied Deeper Meaning

It is sort of freaking me out, but my good mood and happiness quotient are still quite high.  This is fairly surreal given everything going on around me.  My life's conditions haven't changed for the better.  Nothing has actually improved.  Probably quite the opposite, actually.  There is still much to be done, more work than I care to do, and my finances are heading in the wrong direction.  My romantic life. . . well, pretty much non-existent.  My sex life is still very active, but I have no partner. . . .  I have no studio nor anyone to photograph and my photo skills are degenerating.  My body is broken and I grow old.  The world is at undeclared war and now Trump 2.0.  I could and should, probably, be miserable.  

For some reason, however. . . I am not.  

I can't even show the photos I am so loving right now.  

I've manipulated this one here to make it less explicit.  I think the goddamn thing exudes a lovely decadence and deserves to be printed in platinum.  I know how to do the platinum and palladium prints. . . if only I had a studio.  I know how to do photogravure, too.  Travis has one of my photogravure prints in his home,  Every time I see it, I am shocked and pleased.  This photo would look lovely printed in photogravure, too.  For that, I would need a studio as well.  

But the question, as always, is who would show it?  Who would hang it?  People might have it if it were in a book and could be closed and put away on a shelf.  

I watched a video on the Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur last night.  She has a studio.  She makes a living from taking photographs.  She is fascinated with people's bodies, she says.  She especially loves hands.  The photograph she talked about most was of the hands of an older woman.  Aged elegance and grace.  Something like that.  Maybe I should do feet, but I know many people who are repulsed by people's feet.  Feet are disgusting, they say.  It seems impossible to win.  

The painted nude is O.K.  The photographed nude is not.  Anyone would hang a painted nude and nobody would batt an eye.  Well. . . unless it was Balthus.  Those must still be kept behind guarded doors.  I've loved Balthus since the first moment I became aware of him.  He is one of the few painters who can get in trouble for painting.  

I read a critique of the Tamara de Lempicka show at the deYoung museum in San Francisco.  The author, Sebastian Smee (hard to believe, I know), is a Pulitzer Prize winner for his art criticism, so I shouldn't weigh in on his observations.  

But I did.  I wrote a comment on his piece for The Washington Post.  Smee (for real) faults the paintings for placing style over content.  Lempicka "lost track of the 'deeper meaning,'" he says, whatever that is.  I assumed he meant something more ideological.  He wrote a book on Lucien Freud, and I should probably read that before I critique the critic, but I felt confronted by the conclusion to his article.

But honestly, I feel I can live without these pictures. Their immaculate aesthetic feels dated. They pander to the fantasies of the suddenly wealthy. Instead of a return to order, what they leave me craving is a return to reality.

"Deeper meaning" and "reality" were the "trigger" words for me.  And so I felt inspired to send a comment.  I feel a little bit like Hemingway about critics, though I was trained to be one.  Maybe Smee (not lying) will follow the crumbs and come to a devastating conclusion about my blog.  He could relieve me of my current happiness quotient and drive me to a desperate place.  

I heard a report about an execution of a prisoner in Indiana yesterday.  So many executions are bungled, you know.  Some observers have said the executioned suffered terribly and didn't die for an agonizingly long time.  The executioners, in those instances, were using a cocktail of drugs injected one after the other.  But Indiana didn't do that as some of the drugs were no longer available.  Rather they used one.  It is the one my vet uses to put animals down.  It is the one doctors recommend.  Pentobarbital.  Medical doctors can no longer get it, of course.  Only vets.  It is the close cousin of phenobarbital that was the sleeping pill used by many stars in the way back.  Marilyn Monroe, etc.  It is the one I so desperately wish to own.  

Observers of the Indiana execution say the prisoner went out quickly with no signs of misery.  I've had my hands on two of my own animals, a cat and a dog, that my vet has put down using pentobarbital.  They were there one moment and gone the next.  You can truly feel the instant when life has left the body.  It is instantaneous. 

My vet told me long ago that this was the most painless and effective way to go.  

I look out my window at the breaking day.  Fog.  It is somehow lovely.  A truck engine at the house construction site across the street ruins the quiet loveliness of the morning.  Such is the reality of things.  

Oh. . . I'd recommend "Bad Monkey" to you.  It is good.  My buddy is the narrator but is not present in most of the show.  Vince Vaughn, however, is up to his old tricks.  He is good and fun in this bizarre series.  The whole thing captures the Carl Hiaasen aesthetic perfectly, I think.  

But, if I may echo Smee (obviously made up), I'm not sure that the show captured any "deeper meaning."  

And isn't that what we all are seeking?

Not me.  I'm chasing rainbows and fairy tales.  

Old Possums and Armadillos

"You should have come to the party," my mother said.  She was speaking of the party Sunday night at her neighbor's house after they all went caroling.  

"How many people were there?" I asked.  

She thought for a minute.  "Maybe ten.  There were several pretty women there," she said.  

This surprised me.  I know the neighbors and the neighborhood, and the only pretty women there are a couple who are married.

"Who were they?"

"There were two who used to live in the house next to Marlene that moved, and there was a woman who lives a couple of streets away."

"How old were they?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"In their thirties, maybe."

Whenever I go to anything in my mother's neighborhood, it is all old people.

"Well. . . shoot."

My mother wants me to have someone.  Sweet.  

I went to lunch with C.C. yesterday.  I've gotten a 7 day free trial on Apple TV so that I can watch "Bad Monkey" which has my friend who I keep getting confused for as narrator and character in the series.  The first episode, opening scene, there is a bottle of Barbancourt Rhum.  I used to spend a lot of time in Key West and had good local friends.  This was before the cruise ships and condos came to town, even before Captain Tony was elected mayor with the promise, "I'm going to run this town like I run my bar.  If I don't like you, you're outta here."  I spent some nights sitting next to Tony at his bar as he regaled me with his tales.  His had been a life of adventure.  When they made the movie about him, it was shot right there in Key West.  Tony told me he'd get me a role in the movie, but I didn't live there, of course, and wouldn't be there for the shooting, so. . . fantasies and dreams.  

The movie turned out to be a dog, anyway.  

I was there the day Key West residents blocked U.S. Highway 1 and seceded from the rest of the U.S.  Oh, that was grand.  A stage was erected and people gave speeches.  It seemed then that the island would remain a haven for oddballs, writers, artists, and misfits forever.  

Nothing lasts forever, and eventually, as it always does, money won and the condos were built and the cruise ships came.  I haven't been back very much since then.  

But seeing that Barbancourt in the opening scene took me back.  That was what people used to drink on the island.  Barbancourt Pina Coladas sprinkled with coconut and topped with a shot of the dark rum was a daytime staple at the two bars on opposite ends of the island where the locals would go, the Atlantic side in the morning and the Gulf side after noon.  Days were consumed by gambling and nude sunbathers before the new guard came and ruined the island.  In those days, though, no one had air conditioning, and there was no cable television. Once those infected the island. . . well. . . much changed.  

I decided to stop at the liquor store on my way to lunch and buy C.C. a bottle of Barbancourt for Christmas.  Tragically, the shelf was empty.  The store was out.  Maybe it was because of the t.v. show, I thought.  I settled for a bottle of Pusser's Rum instead, the official rum of the British Navy.  It is one of the purest rums in the world and another of my favorites.

I got to the restaurant before C.C.  When I walked in just at noon, there was only one couple sitting at the bar, but they had taken "my" seats at the corner of the bar facing the giant windows looking out over the highway.  Disappointed, I took the corner facing inward.  

"Hey stranger," hailed the bartender.  "I haven't seen you for awhile."

Indeed, I don't think I had been here since last Christmastime.  I used to go more often, but I haven't been eating lunch out this year.  

"They took my usual seat, " I said.  

"It's their's, too.  They beat you here."

She remembered what I usually drank with lunch. 

"How do you do that?  It is a super power, I think.  Bartenders must have some genetic ability that others don't."  

She smiled.  

"Do you have a can opener?" I asked holding out a can of Creamed Possum with Groundhog gravy in a bright orange can.  "My buddy gave me this last Christmas and I thought we could open it today."

"I'm not opening that," she laughed.  "I don't have a can opener."

"This is a restaurant.  Of course you have a can opener."

"They might have one in the kitchen, but I'm no asking for it," she said, wide-eyed.

When C.C. showed up, he insisted there was nothing in the can.

"It's a joke," he said.  

"Bullshit.  Shake it."  There was definitely something in it. 

C.C. ordered a Negroni and we began to catch up.  After awhile, the bartender asked if we wanted to eat.  

"Sure," I said, looking at her to see if she would remember what I usually got.  Fucking amazing.  She nailed it.  I know I'm like the Rain Man about things, but still, this was crazy.  

C.C. and I caught up for the next three hours.  When we stood up to leave, my legs were stiff and didn't like feeling my weight on them.  I grabbed the can of Possum off the bar and C.C. grabbed his rum and we slowly crossed the parking lot to the garage where we each had parked.  

"Shit," I said, "we forgot to take a photo of our meals to send to Christine."  Christine is our onetime colleague who moved to the midwest.  It is a tradition that when C.C. and I get together, we send her a photo as a reminder of when she would join us, too.  But that is the way things seem to go, isn't it, old habits and rituals and friends seem to fall from our daily and weekly then monthly routines until we only remember the thing or things after the fact.  

"Further." 

I have forgotten to tell you about the Giant Armadillo that has taken up residence under my house again.  I've tried to dissuade it by various means which I won't tell you about, but I finally went to the Home Depot the other day and bought some granite rock to fill in the hole it has dug under my deck that it has made its entrance to what I assume is another deep hole that allows it to get under my house.  I have heard it recently in the early morning when it comes "home" from its nightly foraging.  It sounds like the beast is tearing the walls apart.  So I put down the rock before I went to bed a couple nights ago hoping it had already gone out.  When I looked the next day, it had moved the rocks and had tunneled back in.  I put in more rock and packed it tight.  This morning it looks like it may have tried to dig it out.  There was a slight gap, and I think that armadillos are like rats in their ability to flatten their bodies and get through small openings.  I've refilled the hole with more rock.

I will keep you informed.  

Hey. . . I have an idea.  How about some music?  Let's keep the holiday jazz thing going.  A little Miles.  Hip sophistication.  

Distractions

I'm done with film.  I really am this time.  It costs too much and there is no upside that I can find.  I took a roll of color film into the photo store yesterday because my buddy who runs the film lab said he was going to give 24 hour service on film.  This was welcomed news since they were so overwhelmed turnaround had lengthened to a week.  A new film lab opened up in town to give them competition and another one from Miami is opening soon.  I think I mentioned that I took a roll of slide film to the new lab and they f'ed up the developing so that I got nothing.  

When I took the film into the lab yesterday, the boy at the counter said I could pick it up next week.  

"What happened to the 24 hour turnaround?" I asked my buddy who was helping another customer.  

"Oh. . . we can do that for an additional five dollar charge."

"What?  Hey. . . you didn't say anything about up-charging the other day."

He just looked at me and grinned.  

"O.K.  Give me the 24 hour processing."

"It's one hour," said the boy helping me.  "We give the first five who order 24 hour pickup an hour turnaround every day."

So. . . o.k.  I was in.  

"Develop and scan," I said.  

"Will you bring a thumb drive or do you want us to email it for three dollars?"

"I'll bring a thumb drive."

Three dollars to email?  That was ridiculous.  Why?  

I knew they were staying open late for Christmas shopping, so I didn't go back until after I visited my mother.  Oh. . . shit!  I'd forgotten the thumb drive.  WTF?  I would have to pay the extra three dollars to have the scans emailed.  

When I opened the scans. . . how much had I just spent for this?  One photo, maybe, I might use, and it wasn't really good.  

I love using my Leica film cameras more than any other.  They are beautiful and I love the way they feel, but the truth is, they are very limiting.  When I carry mine, people will point to the camera and ask me what it is or tell me that the camera is gorgeous.  O.K.  Maybe nobody has ever used the word "gorgeous' before, but I had already used "beautiful" in the sentence before, so. . . .  But. . . it is just too much money and work for what I get.  

Having said that, I will probably still shoot black and white film with them because I can develop it myself for cheap and I have good scanners.  But digital cameras with autofocus are just better all around.  Don't let those YouTube influencers fool you.  

The perfect weather is gone, at least for awhile. It is warm and wet and nine degrees above the norm.  Just muggy with grey skies.  It is the New World Order.  Get used to it.  

Doesn't it seem like Trump has already been president again for about a year?  I swear, it doesn't matter what he does, it is in the news.  

BREAKING NEWS:  TRUMP TAKES A DUMP.

"Experts warn . . . ."

I'm tired of the word "experts."  It is overused in journalism to give their report the feeling of factuality.  But that is all it is, a feeling.  

Ramble. 

I am meeting C.C. for lunch today.  He had to squeeze me in.  He is working.  He is directing a play for a local college and is ghost writing something of which I have little info.  But he is writing and getting paid.  He makes me feel like a simp.  Well. . . no.  I am a simp.  It isn't a feeling.  

"Experts say. . . ."

The holidays continue.  I will eat.  I will drink.  I will take some (digital) pictures.  Life is good sometimes.  I think.  If we are lucky.  And there is music.  There is popular stuff, of course, but there is really and truly good music that makes life better.  And that stuff is pure magic. Writing and music and visual arts are good additions and distractions. . . 'til the whip comes down.  

Above the Fray (and Below)

The holidays are front loaded, I think.  Christmas decorations come out in November now in anticipation.  Then, in early to mid-December there is the lighting of the downtown tree and the big choir performance of carols at night in the park.  That Saturday there is the big parade ending with Santa.  There are more performances in churches and cathedrals, and then there are the BIG parties all over town.  What is left now is some caroling and office parties this weekend.  The colleges have closed and the kiddos have gone home for Christmas.  Other people are just getting out of town.  There now is that pure-Christmas lull.  

That is how it seems to me, at least.  

But I have done a remarkable job of keeping my head above water this year.  I have not wallowed in the season in any maudlin way.  I've enjoyed it quite a bit in fact.  I'm just floating, feeling somehow joyous and above the fray.  I've eaten more sugar than is normal--fruit nut cakes, a box of turtles, ice cream sandwiches, rich, dark peanut butter cups, chocolate truffles, and thick dark chocolate bars filled with hazelnuts.  It is obscene.  And I have NOT had a dry December.  I've had lunches and dinners with friends and have more upcoming, and there have been parties, too.  I've heard the band play carols in the park and walked the avenue lights with a girl who came to town just to see me.  And not once have I watched an old Christmas show.  I've even given up on the Hipster Christmas thing.  I may be doing better than the stated 10% (go back a post if you have missed that).  

Sunday, though, was much like Saturday.  I didn't leave the house until late afternoon.  Before I went to my mother's, I went to the cafe for a cup of tea.  The Sunday girl was working, the one who makes the mimosas for me.  There were a few people ahead of me in line.  The Sunday girl didn't seem as effervescent as usual, so I thought not to do more than give her my order without a lot of chat.  When I got to the counter, though, she seemed to pick up.  

"Did you have fun at the Grandma Festival?"

"Oh. . . yea. . . I saw some people I hadn't seen in a long time.  I didn't have a camera with me, though, so. . . .  I guess I had more fun than you?"

"I did alright.  I worked ten hours straight, but I kept it pleasant."  

She must have served thousands of people that day, so I was a little surprised that she remembered I had come in.  Pleased, too.  

The tea was a loose leaf jasmine green tea that they had been out of for a long while.  It was really good.  I sat and wrote in my journal like a dork, but everyone is a dork in a cafe anyway, most on computers, but still dorks, so I only feel a little sheepish with my Moleskine.  

At the bar was the girl who argued with me about the makeup of cafe con leche, the very tall, thin, and tatted up girl who has great looks and a bit of psychosis, I would guess.  She sat with a large drawing pad as I had seen her do a time before.  She wasn't working.  She just came to the cafe to draw.  I wondered a bit about that.  I was facing in a direction that put her in my eye line, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her turn a couple of times to look over her shoulder.  Then she turned square around and gave me a quizzical look.  I looked back, gave a weak smile, and a slight wave of the hand.  She stared for a few beats, then reached up and took out her earbuds.

"Hi," she said. . 

"Hello."  

She just stared at me with a quizzical look, so I asked nervously, "What are you doing?"

Oh. . . shit.  

"What do you mean?"

"Are you drawing?"

"Yes.  What are you doing?"

I held up my pen.  "Writing."

"About what?" she asked.  

I didn't know what to say.  I mumbled and stuttered. . . "duh duh duh duh duh. . . ."  But what actually came out of my mouth was too stupid and embarrassing to write.  And yet. . . I must.

"The Existential Void?"

"Good luck," she said. 

"Yea. . . it's really good."

The earbuds went back in.

Are you kidding me?  Or rather, am I kidding you?  I'm not.  Serious confession.  I have no game.  I have never always been shy around women.  And now. . . well, it is worse. 

When I got to mother's house, while we were sitting out, her across the street neighbor saw us and walked over with her two dogs.  I wasn't in the mood and since I'd been there awhile, I chatted briefly and said I needed to go.  My mother got up to give me a hug.  She patted my belly and I made my usual fat joke.  

"There are plenty of women who'd like to feel that body," my kindly mother said.  

"Really?  Where are they?  I'll drive over there now."

"What kind of girl are you looking for?" the neighbor lady queried.  

"You know.  The usual.  Twenty-five, educated, sophisticated, attractive."  

The neighbor lady just rolled her eyes.  

It is a standing joke, of course.  I say it just to piss people off.  It is a schtick, nothing more.  I don't even know how to talk to a woman anymore.  

"What are you writing about?"

I should have replied, "Tell me your most interesting story so I can steal it."  That would have been clever.  

Last night was a Full Cold Moon.  It hung in the sky like a big old talisman.  

"Yo. . . listen. . . I could use a little luck."

Couldn't we all.  

Oh. . . that photo?  Ha!  That's a hillbilly party on my very own deck--tequila and whiskey, tobacco and beer, and a couple of pistols at the ready.  I just like scaring the neighbors.  

And so. . . some music from "my people."  

I like scaring you, too!

10%

I'm doing a pretty good job at not being despondent this holiday season.  I've done a good job, I think, of not looking back.  "Further" as Kesey proclaimed.  Well. . . maybe that is overstating it, but I'm at least inching ahead.  Poco y poco.  

I've realized, for instance, that I am impatient.  Badly so.  Always have been.  And that is why my kitchen is such a mess.  Holy Harry, as they say, just take a look inside my refrigerator.  And my cabinets?  Oy!  I am always hurrying through things, trying to get finished, doing multiple things at the same time.  What happens?  Oops!  When I watch crafts people, they are patient and meticulous.  They never hurry a thing.  They may work quickly at times, but if they are good, they do not work sloppy.  

I am sloppy most of the time.  I hardly ever screw a lid back all the way.  Seriously.  And hell. . . just look at the blog.  I don't go back and fix things.  The writing is "automatic."  What would it take to write, let it set a bit, then go back and meticulously edit?

But have you ever been to hillbilly country?  Yards full of junk.  That's where I grew up.  It must have informed my internal landscape.  

They say confession is good for the soul.  And so. . . I am trying, in this late stage, to be more conscious of taking my time, slowing down, and not rushing.  I think I've made 10% progress or so.  Everything cannot be done at once.  

Sometimes I think and say that I am lazy.  And that is true, too.  I think and say that I have taken no photographs, and that isn't true.  I simply think I can't post pictures of the same thing over and over and over.  I can, though.  I have been "less lazy" than I think.  Again, maybe 10%.  But I have put myself out "there" a little.  Wrestling, roller derby. . . and whatever comes next.  

And I've learned more about editing the pictures, too.  I can do things now that I have never been able to do before after the fact.  It seems that I am not so lazy or sloppy when it comes to editing the photographs.  

50%.  

I've learned to shoot in ways I've never shot before, too.  I had to.  On the job training.  

I have gone through old studio files this year.  I've cooked up hundreds of old photographs, and I like the processing better, at least often, than what I did before.  I have redone some of the old photos, but there are many, many new ones that are terrific.  They bring me great pleasure, but I can only share them with a few.  Some, I am not able to share at all.  The world is too dangerous now.  How in the fuck did we ever get so confused that the Woke Jihadists and the Puritanical Trumpers came to rule the scene?  

But "artists," whatever that is and they are, must do the unacceptable to know what is possible.  Right?  

C.C, just texted me, "As Lenny Bruce put it: 'Every society needs its deviants.'”

Sorry to lay that on you, old chum.  

So. . . ."further."  

I was exhausted yesterday after a day of birthday partying and going out with Tennessee.  It was another Saturday when I didn't leave the house.  Didn't shower.  Only went to my mother's house.  And then, feeling unable to make a meal, I went to a Greek restaurant and ordered a gyro.  To my surprise, what came out was not a sandwich.  The meat lay on top of the salad with a side of warm pita.  It was just what I needed.  

And then home for a whiskey and the tub.  Warmth and magnesium and liquor steeped my soul.  I was wholly holy whole.  

It was early when I dried and dressed and sat down on the big leather couch.  All about were Parties of the Season.  There was a time in my life when I thought it impossible to attend them all, but now. . . I'm not part of the social circuit, not in with the in crowd or any other, really.  But, as I sat alone on a Saturday night, the second to last before Christmas, I did not give in to grief or despair, nor to thinking about what others were doing, not even those I never hear from.  I did not think for a moment "poor me."  I did not feel pathetic and left out.  Nope, for that is the way to Shitsville.  Rather, I focused on what I had, what most of us have, really, which is truly amazing.  Music and movies on demand.  Books both physical and digital.  A refrigerator, dirty as it is, with food.  A roof and walls and a deck on which to sit and drink and smoke and think.  Focussing on what others are doing is the road to hell.  

And so I watched t.v. and drank too much whiskey and took sleep and pain aids and slept like an angel the whole night through.  

I may drive out of town today or tomorrow to take some photos of the season.  Grit City and beyond, north and south and to the coast.  

I shouldn't write that, though, for I may not, and then I will feel pathetic.  Maybe.  But I'm getting over that, too.  

10%.  

My mother had a great time on her birthday.  After I left, more neighbors came to her house with sweets and gifts, and people from her church as well.  She was full, and I was happy.  

I'll see if she wants me to make dinner for us tonight.  

I hope your lives are full of parties and lovers and family fun right now, but if not, don't despair.  There are billions of people who would trade lives with you.  Make yourself a cup of hot chocolate or buy a fruit cake.  Hell, give somebody something.  It will make you feel better.  I'm pretty sure.  

Hey. . . have you heard this one before?  I was driving and it came on the college radio station.  And here's how good my life is.  I picked up my phone and asked Siri, "What song is this?"  

Tell me I don't have it all!

Giving Good Birthday

I was busy all he live-long day.  I'm not so used to that anymore.  Up and at 'em, I sent my mother email and text message birthday songs and messages, then picked up my mother's birthday cake, flowers, and a card.  Took it to her early in the morning and sat around talking for awhile.  I told her I was going to the gym for a second, then I would go home, shower, and pick her up for lunch.  

At the gym, I learned something.  Guess who else's birthday was yesterday?  Oh, yea, what irony--Taylor Swift!  What?  She turned 35, or so I was told by a woman at the gym who also shared the 13th birth date.  Well, now. . . I guess I understand Swift a bit more now.  

And it turns out I was wrong about the P. Diddy/Swift connection.  It seems she HAS been to some of his parties. . . or so my dark web source informed me.  She's a bad girl.  Bad.  

After the gym and some quick ablutions, I drove to my mother's house and picked her and her friends up and took them to the Olive Garden.  As always, the "all you can eat" soup and salad filled me up quickly.  I gave my mother her Chanel No.5 and the girls gave my mother presents, too.  Then she got her free birthday desert and the waitress and the table sang Happy Birthday.  My mother was pleased.  

After that, we headed back to my house for cake and ice cream, and oh, everybody agreed it was the best cake ever, a raspberry chocolate cake.  We ate it and the ice cream in the lovely afternoon air on the deck, but the girls, having never been here before, were enamored of my house.  

"It fits you," they said.  

By the time we had finished the cake and cleaned up, the day was moving on and the girls were looking sleepy, so I took them back and helped my mother in with her things, the presents and the leftover cake.  We chatted a bit, and by the time I got home, it was four o'clock.  I was pooped.  I decided to have a cocktail and a cheroot on the deck, and as I sat out in the cool afternoon air, I called Tennessee.  We were meeting up for dinner at five.  Yup.  Five.  We are early eaters, but it was important to beat the rush if we were to get seats at the bar.  

The cocktail picked me up enough, but I was still dragging.  Dinner with T--pizza.  I hadn't eaten anything but carbs all day.  

While we were eating and chatting at the outside bar, a fellow who had been sitting next to us came over and said, "You two should have a podcast.  I could hear your conversation.  It was hilarious."

Uh-oh.  

"You shouldn't be giving it away for free," he said.  

"Right.  Dinner's on you," I replied.  

"Sure," he joked.  "Put it on my tab."

He went to a table with his wife and another couple.  

"Shit.  What were we saying?"

We began recalling all the insouciant things we had said.  Much of it was. . . bad.  We were telling blue tales of some of the town's imperial families.  

"I think I said Black Sheep's name," I cringed.  "He probably knows the family."

"Probably.  I think I recognize him from somewhere." 

It came to light that he and his friends had walked out on a tab for several hundred dollars a few nights ago.  The bartenders had to pay it.  He apologized and gave them the money to cover the tab.

"Fuck. . . he should have doubled it for the inconvenience," I said.  "He's being a cheap bastard."

When we had finished dinner, I walked over to the table where he and his wife sat with another couple.

"Thanks for dinner," I said.  I was thinking that we should have told the bartender that he was picking up our dinner tab.  She would have done it, I think, just for shits and giggles knowing we had it covered.

T and I strolled down to the Boulevard to see the show.  The village was out.  The sidewalks were crammed.  You couldn't get into a restaurant or bar.  It will pretty much be like that day and night until Christmas.  

T has a big hoity-toity party Saturday night and is leaving town for the rest of the year on Sunday morning.  

"I've got something for you," he said.  "I'll bring it over tomorrow."

"O.K.  But don't sweat it."

"No, man, I want to see you before I go."

I hope it is no more than. bottle of whiskey.  But I am pretty much going off liquor until Dry January is through.  I'll stick with wine and beer through the holidays.  That should make the dry month easier to begin.  I need to start working on my teas and elixirs.  Spirit time.  Ommmm.  

No meds again last night.  I didn't sleep for shit.  I'm going to have to start doing my relaxation/meditation thing before bed, I guess.  It is work, really, but it is effective.  

Engaging my Shaman vibe.  

I will take it easy today.  No pressure to do anything.  I may try to finish two rolls of film that I haven't been able to finish up all week and get them developed.  I may work on the never going to happen website I keep telling myself I need to have.  Maybe I'll look for some hippie paraphernalia, charms and bracelets and the like, to make me groovy.  As I write, I am wearing a grey cashmere cardigan I was given years ago.  When I was younger, I always enjoyed wearing old man norm core clothing.  I thought it was fun and hip.  Now. . . I just look like an old guy wearing a cardigan.  Oy!  

But the damn thing is for sure comfortable and warm.  

O.K.  I need to get started planning my healthy life.   There is food to be bought, sage to be burned, candles to light, and trinkets to find.  Let's live softly this holiday weekend as in a morning sunrise.  

The photo is my mother, aged fifteen.  Love.  

Friday 13

Life is made up of minor things though we mark our calendars by majors.  I'm trying to clean my system a bit.  It happens.  So I've stopped taking anything to help me sleep.  I used to take things occasionally, but the practice grew until I was fearful that if I didn't take something for pain, anxiety, or whatever. . . so I stopped cold turkey.  Three nights now.  I'm fine.  I don't sleep so well, but it isn't terrible.  And Dry January is coming up.  I'm not making any New Year's resolutions, but I'm hoping some changes I am making will become my norm.  

The small things are your life.  The big ones are for the public.  

The small things are often the most difficult.  I was giving up the news, right?  Now I've subscribed to 3 newspapers and am reading them every morning.  Not reading all of them, obviously. . . but "keeping up."  I have a million things to do today. . . or at least a couple. . . and so I wanted to get an early start.  Sat down with coffee and the laptop, looked up, and an hour and a quarter had passed.  Trump, Putin, and Assad, sure. . . but also Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour and The Golden Globes controversies.  The best Hokas.  

The worst of it all is "The Best _______ of 2024" and "The Year in Review" stuff.  It makes me loathe the coming of January.  

And then there is P. Diddy.  Talk about your prurient interests.  It's so horrible, they say.  You know--"they."  The ones who take the deep dive into it all.  I know people with inside info.  They've seen things on the dark web.  I didn't know there was still a dark web.  It must be fairly twilight now.  I don't think I'd trust it.  But yea, you know. . . Diddy and LeBron James.  'Bron was wearing a little French Maid's outfit and getting the Greek.  They say Diddy paid him $500,000.  

Don't think I want to see that one, but thanks.  

I don't get it, though.  It was a party, a rave.  People were dying to go, to get on the list, to see Wonderland.  There are rules in such places.  Everybody knows.  Don't drink anything you haven't brought yourself.  Don't take other people's drugs.  I mean, unless you want to.  But you know what is likely to happen.  Hell, you can see it all around.  Why'd you go to the party?  To see what would happen.  

I'd go.  I'd want to see.  Such things, you know, out there in Zone 13.  Back "in the day," though, when people weren't all victims, a person might blame themselves.  

"I fucked up."

Not any longer.  Uh-uh.  

A female minor, 15, was dropped off outside some music award thing in NYC.  She went back to Diddy's party.  She is suing now, says she was drugged and raped.  She escaped, she says, and ran to a gas station to call her dad.  He was a good dad.  He came out, picked her up, and took her home.  

Years ago.  

It had to be.  When was the last time you saw a pay phone at a gas station?  Maybe she used their landline.  I don't have details.  But really, good old dad.  

WTF?

And then there are the celebrities.  Ellen?  For God's sake.  The Family Feud guy?  He pimped off his daughter to P?  

Salacious shit.  Pedo stuff.  It is terrible.  Awful.  

"My god. . . I've been watching this horror show for weeks!"

Yup.  People just can't get enough.  They were left out.  Didn't get the invite.  They can only live vicariously through the victims.  

Or is it through the perpetrators?  

I'll tell you one thing.  Just my prediction.  Sex will be demonized for a long time after this.  People will be making babies through a hole cut in a sheet the old Puritan way.  

Diddy was depraved. . . and everybody wanted to go to the show.  

I could never believe Puff Daddy was a thing let alone a billion dollar thing.  But then again, I don't get the whole Swiftie movement.  

Taylor Swift, I believe, was never part of the Diddy thing.  Maybe that's why Kanye dissed her at the Grammies.  

We know we shouldn't eat ice cream. . . but we do.  Now we can sue the ice cream company for selling it to us.  Surely. 

It is Friday the 13th.  Missed a Full Moon 13th by two days.  It is also my mother's birthday.  93.  I will try to make it special, but as I've confessed many times, it is not something I'm good at.  I will take her flowers and a card this morning, then take her and her friends to eat at the Olive Garden for lunch.  Piss off.  That's where old people like to eat, and it is kind of fun.  She told me that she wanted perfume.  True.  So I bought her a bottle of Chanel No. 5.  Why?  I don't know shit about perfume.  I do now.  It is $100/ounce.  Crazy.  Unless I tell my mother that, she will not know.  

So, yea. . . a million things to do. Or at least a couple.  

Let's clean this sloppy post up with a little not-so-diddy music.  I'm not so Diddy.  

Oh, shoot--and don't forget that the Geminid Meteor Shower will light up the sky tonight--just for my mom!

Creepy Love and Sexy Sex

I have a bone to pick. . . so I will.  It is two things juxtaposed. . . maybe three.  All have to do with Keira Knightly.  I just watched "Black Doves," a Netflix series in which she stars.  It wasn't "all that," but I watched the entire season.  There may be another coming, I don't know, but if there is, I might watch it, too.  But just "maybe", because I read an article the day after finishing the series in which Knightley disses a scene in "Love Actually."  She says she found shooting the card scene "creepy."  She still does.  

WTF?!  What a world, what a world, where a woman who plays a character who is a spy and an assassin cheating on her husband who works for the Prime Minister of England must say that this scene is creepy.  

So, if she found it creepy, one wonders, why didn't she say she wouldn't do it?  Well. . . we certainly can guess at an answer now, can't we?  She did it for the fame and for the money.  And that, friends, I find kinda. . . creepy.  

"I was only 17," she says.  Maybe that's a defense?  

My takeaway is that she finds love creepy but killing and cheating. . . well, she hasn't actually weighed in on that yet.  As far as I know, no reporter has asked the question. 

Does one really wonder at Trump's overwhelming victory?  Trump is a real creep, but now many people who adored the scene or who were heartbroken by it are lumped into the category, too.  

I read an article in the Times today that addresses the need to talk to children about "porn."  It is a thing that children come across on the internet now at an average age of twelve.  What concerns the informer in the article, a professor at Brigham Young University, is what kind of "porn" children are subjected to.  Much of what children see online is violent sex, he says.  He speaks of sexualized nudity.  

O.K.  

"Why does mommy paint her toes red and show them in her shoes?"

"She just wants to be pretty."

"I like girl's feet, daddy.  They make me feel all scrunchy inside."

"Uh. . . !!!!"

Yea. . . I don't know where I'm going with that, really.  I haven't thought it through.  I'm against violence.  I'm not against sex.  I'm not against nudity nor consensual things.  And I'm not against people feeling good and pretty.  And, as you all know. . . I'm a big proponent of love, actually.  

There.  I kind of put a bow on that confusion.  

Today will be Gorgeous on the old Weather Meter, though a bit chilly for the sunny south.  Still, it offers opportunity.  I will try to take advantage of that.  

O.K.  Here's something that I find fairly sexy.  What is the connection between "sexy" and "sex"?  

Yikes!

Make It New

I've had some messages asking if I was going to end the blog.  In truth. . . yea. . . that is what I was thinking.  I was getting depressed.  I wanted to put all things behind me.  I would start anew, I thought.  So I wrote in the journal, anyway.  

I met an old friend at the Cafe Strange Christmas Festival on Sunday.  The thing was big and weird.  Huge, really, stretching from the parking lot into and down the street, crossing the road and into the little hipster shopping center across from it and into another down the way, booths and tents set up to sell, well. . . hipster junk, I guess, but the crowd was never-ending and as strange as it ever gets.  I was afraid I would miss it as I was getting my hair done at noon on the way across town part of the county where there are Hispanic churches on every corner and lots of used tire shops, little homestyle restaurants, and shade tree car repair places.  But the hair was quick as she hardly cut it and didn't put any bleach in it at all so that I came out looking more beige than blonde, but I will address that later.  

As I drove out, my tenant called and I told her about the festival.  She said she was going to walk up to it.  She called me when I was driving back and I said I would meet her there and give her a ride home.  Of course, she knew many of the freaks.  I got stuck talking to one little smarmy imp who she introduced as "a writer."  Oh, you know, a good one, screenplays, short stories, poems.  Butter wouldn't melt in this bard's mouth.  He was a passive/aggressive little fuck, but fortunately the old friend came up and got me out of the conversation.  

I'd met him when I was living in a big old house next to Country Club College in the '70s.  He was just a kid then, but now, it seems he might be older than I.  At the time, his friend lived in a garage apartment next door and the two of them would come over and sit on the floor and go through my bookshelves looking at the adventure travel stuff.  I was teaching then, and they thought I (but probably more my pretty girlfriend) was groovy.  

He went on to become quite a big part of the "art scene."  His grandmother died and left him some money and he travelled  a fair bit then came back to become a jack of all arts.  He eventually got in with Gotham's burgeoning Art's Council and ran a big two story gallery downtown.  I hadn't seen him more than a couple times in ten years, so we caught up.  He had gotten fired by the city, so now he was writing for a cultural arts publication.  It gave me an idea.  I had many, actually.  He'd be a good resource in finding a studio, I imagined.  There was that, but I was thinking that maybe he could get me in with the rag he was writing for, too.  I was already thinking about moving the blog to Substack or maybe, just maybe, trying to write a story a week, a real story, edited, polished, with a sort of beginning, middle, and end, though maybe not a pat ending, and putting them out "there" as well.  

But I would need to kill the blog, I thought.  As I said, I was getting depressed.  Was it the season?  Who knows?  But there were a lot of things I didn't want to rehash anymore, a lot of things I thought better to be left behind and I was dragging much of it back up with the blog.  It seemed a morbid reminder of days long gone.  

So I repaired to my journal writing and sussed out all the things I needed to do.  But I wasn't.  

The girl working the counter at the Cafe Strange yesterday was one of the two kitchen girls who look like '70s punk rockers.  The boy in line ahead of me knew her from his past.  They were catching up while she put together his order.  

"I hear you are in a band now."

"Yea."

I knew it! 

When I got to the counter, when it was my turn, I said, "I heard you are in a band."

"Yes," she smiled with not a little pride.  

"Is the girl you used to work in the kitchen with in it, too?"

"Yea."

"Every time I saw you two working, I thought that you looked kind of '70s New York punkish.  I always thought I wanted to photograph you in some graffiti alleyway."

"That's a cool looking camera."

She pointed to my Leica which was sitting on the counter.  

"It is.  People always are interested in it."

"What kind is it?"

"It's a Leica.  Someday, I'll make photos of your girl band."

"Sure," she beamed.  No. . . I'm not just saying that.  But my balls were shriveled and just then when I should have asked to take her picture and do all the things I needed to have done if I wanted to shoot her and her punky girlfriend, I didn't.  I just took my latte and went to a table like some castrato simp.  

So I wrote in my journal.  How in the fuck was I going to. . . whatever.  

What am I going to do when I hear a song, though, that I think makes me hip for hearing?  I want to show it off.  And then there is Syria and Biden and Trump and the weirdness of the world, and I don't know what to do.  

So maybe. . . I won't quit the blog.  I don't know.  I'm like everybody else, of course, like the fellow who got fired from his city arts job, like the girl behind the counter who is proud to be a music "star," like all of you who want some recognition for being. . . something.  But I don't even know if this is being read or if it is a just static in the cosmos.  

If I continue, I'm leaving shit behind.  If I'm going to post, I've got to "make it new."  

I don't know if I can.  We'll see.  

But. . . there are some things I just can't leave behind.  

Like groovy music.  Here are some of Tennessee's kin, Melungeons, I believe.  C.C. says he has some blood, too.  But holy smokes, man, I love me some good mountain music.  

Time to Wind Up This Masquerade

 

Maybe Tomorrow

I have a real quandary today.  Should I write?  Should I tell?  Should I show?  My confidence has been shaken as is often the case with those who go on too long.  Have I gone on too long?  People don't read every day?  At all?  Shall I repeat myself with another retelling of what I have eaten, done, or drunk?  What show I've watched on television?  Who called or didn't?  How my mother is or what I did at the cafe?  

People love pictures of dogs.  I have dog pictures.

But I don't have a dog.  I had a dog, and I have pictures of her, too, but not anything from this year.  I have too many pictures poorly cataloged.  I went through a file of images I have worked on most recently.  Holy shit, there are so many. . . you can't imagine.  And these are simply the ones I've take time to cook up.  

Should I show you yet another picture of the neighborhood done with funky lenses?

Or shoppers on the Boulevard in my own hometown?

There are funny ones, like this.  

"Good things come in twos."  

I could go back into the enormous files of street photos I have taken in New York.  There are more than you will possibly wish to see.  

Have you seen enough, I wonder?  What to do?

There are photos from other cities, too.  

But why would you care?  Would you rather see some fungus?

I take photos of everything.  Maybe you'd like to see another experimental thing I've taken on the deck 

Oh, yea. . . multiple exposures morphed into one.  You've probably never seen that coffee pot before.  Milk jug?  I don't even know. 

Did I ever tell you about old girlfriends?

Oh, yes. . . I'm sure.  Old Crippled Casanova. 

Not my house, obviously.  Not my girl, either.  You may remember I started a project once taking photos of people in their own homes.  

Christmas portraits?  Street parades?

Should I tell you how many of these Christmases I've photographed over the decades (again) and how I was too ill to go yesterday?  Oh, man. . . I could thrill you with that account.  

I could show you photos from my various heroic adventures in underwater caves, on mountains, and across the seas.  Or running with the bulls in Pamplona.  Oh. . . I've already done that?  

I could show you pictures that my girl took of me in the hospital with tubes hanging from my chest, my arms, my nose, deep dark bruises and open wounds from head to toe. . 

No?  Yea, that's what I thought, too.  I could show you photos of my home life and love. 

That only makes me sad, though.  Especially when you all are with your own lovers, families, and friends.  

But you see. . . that's all I've got.  Oh, and of course. . . the studio project.  

Oh, sure. . . I have a billion more of them.  I have so many things that I can't even share with you.  

A trillion things.  

This post is a piece of dung.  From the look of current things, I think I am, too.  I wish I could do better.  I wish I could turn it into something resembling art.  But I spent yesterday dying, or so I believed.  I am trying to regain my footing today.  But you know how dying is.  Your mind becomes a jumble of old images, old things, and you wish you had done better.  You wish things had turned out differently.  You are aggrieved by the inevitable.  

But for now, I turns out fine.  I quit looking for meaning.  I went for entertainment.  I watched an entire season of a romcom series.  True.  "Nobody Wants This."  It is stupid.  Maybe not.  Maybe it is why many people are happy.  It made me feel better as did my small meal.  Yup. I watched the entire season.  I didn't leave the house.  

But. . . when it was over, another series popped up.  I watched the opening scene.  It was in a bar.  There was a piano and drunken people were singing, being led by a disheveled Santa Clause.  It took me a second to recognize the tune.  Oh, no. . . holy shit!  It was "A Fairytale of New York"!  Hook line and sinker.  

I missed a lot of years of watching things.  I kinda caught up with that Ferguson guy, but that was from a long while ago.  When I saw Kristen Bell in "Nobody," I was shocked.  She had aged ten years.  Then the opening to "Black Doves."  Was that Kiera Knightley?  It sort of looked like her, but what happened?  Oh, shit. . . ten years, too.  Is it inevitable, this thing?  

I don't know if I can go on.  Perhaps I will "make avocado toast."  You won't know what that refers to if you don't read every day.  I must assume that it will just be lost on everyone.  

My mother turns 93 on Friday--it is the 13th. 

Here she is 79 years ago at the age of 14.  We will make a day of it.  What do you buy a 93 year old woman, though?  She says she wants perfume.  

I will go in a bit to have my hair done.  I'd rather be walking about in the holiday air watching people shop and eat and enjoy the season.  But to what end?  You know. . . I have a whole lotta wrestling and roller derby photos I haven't shown you.  Street photos, and of course studio photos, too.  

But I'm feeling redundant.  I read an article about one of the absolutely great writers of our era, Alice Munro.  Turns out. . . well, if you care about it, here (link).  Of course, she is being cancelled.  The thing is, she turned all her pain into unbelievably well-written stories.  She often wrote about the same things, similar themes, recurring characters, familiar settings. . . but not every day.  It's probably too late, but maybe I should try crafting something rather than boring people who come to the blog from time to time.  I still write a journal for a private audience of one.  I would always have that.  And if the crafting of something didn't work out. . . well, only I would know.  

Maybe I'll see you tomorrow.  I'm not sure.  I mean, you might not be here.  But someday, I may not be here, either.  

I mean, shit. . . look what god has done to Kristen Bell, Kiera Knightley. . . and my mother!

"Look what your god has made of me!"

Into the Trees

Fruitcake or fruit nut cake?  I have always called it a fruit nut cake because that is what I like, but this morning, I looked it up.  Hey, kids. . . there are myriad varieties.  The ones I like have less flour and are more dense.  And they have nuts.  One night, many, many years ago, I came home from sitting on my sailboat alone on a Friday night.  I had been drinking and perhaps, though I can't remember, I had smoked a little boo, too.  It would have been a rare occasion, but it seems possible.  I was in my twenties and had been teaching for awhile.  An older woman, a student, had made me a fruit nut cake for Christmas the year before, and, though she was no longer my student, she surprised me with a cake the next Christmas, too.  It was the best fruit nut cake I have ever had.  That night, however, when I got home from the boat, I cut into the cake and was chewing fast and furious when I came down on an indestructible piece of pecan shell.  My molar split in two.  I picked out the pieces of my tooth and spit out blood.  

Andy yet. . . I still love fruit nut cakes.  That is how much.  

The English call them plum cakes, in case you were wondering what a plum cake was.  

Oh. . . Red didn't go to bed when I took her back to her hotel. . . of course.  She was not really up for "an early night."  Indeed, she had a story the next day of her various rompings.  I saw that Tennessee had FaceTimed me at midnight. He was out with the Billionaire Boys and wanted Red and me to meet them on the Boulevard.  Red was on the Boulevard just then, too, but not at the Billionare's Hooker Lounge.  Black Sheep, it seems, had been drinking for twenty-four hours straight.  The whole crew was unhinged.  Too bad, I think.  Red would have had some tales.  

I was invited out last night, but since I had been out three nights running, I declined.  I thought I wanted a night back in the old routine, though I knew it would sadden me, too.  Couples were out, eating, drinking, and enjoying the season.  I would have a Campari and a cheroot on the deck, fix dinner, and finish watching "Across the River and into the Trees."  

Before I started the movie again, I looked up the old reviews of Hemingway's novel.  One in particular surprised me.  

Tennessee Williams, in The New York Times, wrote: "I could not go to Venice, now, without hearing the haunted cadences of Hemingway's new novel. It is the saddest novel in the world about the saddest city, and when I say I think it is the best and most honest work that Hemingway has done, you may think me crazy. It will probably be a popular book. The critics may treat it pretty roughly. But its hauntingly tired cadences are the direct speech of a man's heart who is speaking that directly for the first time, and that makes it, for me, the finest thing Hemingway has done.

O.K.  Williams is an undeniable genius, so there was that.  

I dicked around on YouTube as I ate, then, putting the dishes in the sink, I started where I had left off.  I was not enamored of Colonel Cantwell.  Much the opposite.  I had no sympathy for him, nor admiration, in the least.  But I was in love with Renata. . . of course.  And, of course, the story of her affection for Cantrell is such a male fantasy.  It could never happen.  

The movie changes the novel's ending.  Rather than dying pathetically from a heart attack, the movie suggests that he pulled a Hemingway and blew his brains out with the shotgun Renata has brought him for duck hunting.  

And so it goes.  

In just a bit, the annual Christmas Parade will begin on the Boulevard.  The streets will be lined with tout le village and, now, the GPS crowd.  I first photographed the parade when I was in college.  I doubt that I will go again today, but it makes me sad.  Not to photograph, I mean.  

Last night I realized that I might have stayed home for a reason.  25 years ago last night, Sky first came to my house.  She insisted.  I told her I was going to Vespers if she wanted to join me, but she didn't show.  She was tied up with some boy at the Country Club College, and I didn't wait.  It was the first Vespers I'd gone to since my wife and I had split up.  I sat in the back of the chapel and dare I say tears came to my eyes.  When I got home, though, I had a call.  

"I'm coming over."

She terrified and thrilled me.  After that, I was a goner.  We've kept in touch to varying degrees over the past quarter century, but I won't see her this season, I'm afraid.  Selavy.  Life its own self, as they say.  

I was going to take my mother to Vespers tonight, but she changed her mind about going.  She does not think her back would take sitting in a pew that long.  I have not plans, so I may go alone.  Maybe.  

I think I'll buy a fruit nut cake today.  I'll get out and about.  I will buy that little live tree for Christmas, perhaps.  I may even climb the stairs to the attic.  

May and perhaps, of course.  My life is provisional.  

No matter.  I have memories, so here's to old times.  Here's to good living.  Here's to things that could never happen but do.  

Here's to the river and the trees and visions of plum cakes, too.