The Good News

Let's look at the bright side of things, O..K.?  Trump's War has raised gas prices.  It has increased the price of groceries.  

"Wait, what?  I thought we were going to look on the bright side of things?"

C'mon now. . . think.  People will probably drive less, right?  That is good for the environment.  Maybe the climate will begin to heal now.  There will be more car pooling and ride sharing, don't you think?  People will quit buying gas hogs.  And people are going to waste less food, too.  When they look in the fridge, they are more likely to find a way to use the broccoli that is starting to yellow rather than pitching it.  Leftovers are going to be eaten rather than thrown out.  That has already happened in my house.  People will just consume less of everything.  Everyone, that is, except the rich.  And as people see those privileged fucks live the lives of the New Gilded Age, they will become, as I have just read in a nice article today, proletraitized, if not radicalized.  "Eat the Rich" will become a popular slogan once more.  

Maybe I'm a Polyana, but I think this time Trumpism is going to take a hit.  

But don't listen to me.  I've been wrong many times before.  I'm just hoping.  

The happiest countries in the world, if you can believe those who rank such things, live in countries with the least disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots."  In those rankings, America is not the happiest of places even though most people seem to have much--cars, big screen t.v.s, cell phones, computers.  It is not what you have, apparently, but what you don't have that others do.  It is about discrepancy.  The less discrepancy, the better.

"You're talking Bolshevik nonsense now, that's what you're talking."

Fair warning.  Remember the Romanovs!

I waited all day for the gas person to come out and check my meter.  I was told someone would be here between one and five.  Nope.  No one.  I had a good morning, though.  I took care of much that needed care.  I renewed a CD.  

"Why are you putting your money in CDs?!"

I'm not a money guy.  

I rescheduled my mother's teleconference with the pain doc.  And a number of other things.  I was feeling pretty productive.  It was noon.  I was stuck in the house then, so I decided to do my income tax.  Turbotax.  Easy. . . except when you can't find your "Important Tax Information."  I had it all together. . . somewhere.  It was not where I thought.  I have stacks and stacks of papers that are of some importance but not filed away.  I went through them all.  Not once.  Over and over like I was missing something.  I went through drawers.  I went through the house.  Shit piss fuck goddamn. . . I couldn't find them.  

Wait. . . I had an idea.  Yes!  I won't tell you where they were.  It is too stupid.  I'll just say they were "in the house."  

Relieved, I sat down to input my tax info.  But. . . one thing was missing.  Social Security.  

And so I went back through everything again.  And again.  And again.  

O.K.  I went to the Social Security website.  I could download my 1099.  Perfect. 

Only it wasn't. Did I have an account?  I must have had one at some point, but I could find no evidence of that on my computer password search.  I decided to create a new log in.  Login?  

That worked, but when I went to download the form, it took me to another page.  They needed to confirm it was me.  They had to take control of my phone.  Photograph my drivers license.  Front and back.  And then, no shit, a selfie.  

That took me to another page, but not the one to download my 1099 form.  I clicked out of all the open webpages.  Now that I had my login info, I'd try again.  

And again. And again. And again.  I kept being directed to the page asking for all the photos again.  

I called the SS hotline.  Not much of a hotline.  I was on a 15 minute hold.  Then a tired sounding woman came on.  

"I can't get to the page to download my 1099.  I keep getting the security page over and over again."

"I can mail you a new form."

"O.K. But can you help me login and download the form?"

"No."

"Oh.  Can you direct me to someone who can?"

"No."  

And so Turbotax would have to wait.  I decided to wade through the stack of papers I now had scattered across the house.  

When I had finished, the piles looked just as they had when I first started looking for my tax info.  I need a caretaker.  

Three o'clock.  No gas person.  I decided to go through this year's files of photos on my computer.  

Oh, god. . . they made me sick.  I had tried.  I took a lot of pictures.  They were labelled by the date I took downloaded them, so I had to open every file to know what was there.  I'd taken my cameras with me a lot.  There was a house, a lake, cars driving by, a mural, a sign. . . . They were awful.  I could feel the cold hard truth.  I tasted pennies in my mouth.  

I deleted almost everything, not in one fell swoop, but day by day, week by week, month by month--picture by picture.  I was a shitty photographer.  It felt good to get rid of the evidence.  

Most of what I kept were photos of my mother and of friends, just like anyone else.  

Thousands of images no longer existed.  I felt better.  

My cousin leaves for the coast today.  She's probably already gone.  I need to get to my mother's house to babysit.  It will take a lot of prep.  I need to get coffee beans, milk, liquors.  I need to pack my things.  My carefree weekend just got taken away.  I'll need a computer, books, magazines. . . . 

And so it goes.  

I'll need to play some nerve balm music to calm me. 

Not Even a Song

Yesterday, I was blogging about standards and values.  I guess that is what I was writing about.  It's hard to tell.  Sometimes you just have to talk to come to a point.  I was just talking.  Something was taking shape, but it hadn't quite yet.  That's what happens, though.  You say something, then you ruminate, and you may change your mind or the thing you were slouching toward begins to take a more decipherable form.  There is, or was, an entire philosophy built around the concept that "writing is a process," and that revision is the key.  Somehow, in that theory, writing never ends.  

I hate that concept.  

No doubt, however, that it is difficult to say a thing properly.  Unless you are a genius of some sort.  That is why someone like Christopher Hitchens is so fascinating.  He seems to have crafted his words long before he spoke them.  

Onward.  Reporting is easier than opining.  No, not easier, just less susceptible to sounding foolish.  

My bachelor retiree days are coming to an end, first for a few days, then for the rest of my life, I guess.  My cousin is leaving for the coast tomorrow and will be gone a few days.  I will be living at my mother's house once again.  Twenty hour shifts.  My cousin will come back, she says, for a few weeks before she heads home.  At that point, I am the caregiver again for as long as my mother lives which I am absolutely certain is long than I will.  I sat with her all afternoon yesterday.  We went to the grocery store.  She pushed the cart around and shopped the entire store.  This is the same woman who could barely use a walker a month ago.  She is a freakshow, a hillbilly phenomenon.  

She no longer watches t.v., though, so there is that.  She seems to just sit and stare, but I will know more about that tomorrow.  

I have had a wonderful time being in my own home, but now I am thinking of all the things I didn't do in my lassitude and laziness, things I will be yearning to do in a few weeks when I am in lockdown.  There are places I should have gone.  And so I am thinking.  When my cousin comes back, I am going to confer with her and my mother and see if it might be alright if I slip out of town for a few days.  Truly, it's been years, so long, in fact, it almost scares me.  I'm not sure I know how to do that any longer.  I will stay in state so that if need be, if something goes wrong, I can get home again in hours.  Just to lie by a beachside pool and drink spicy margaritas for a few days, though, or to walk around Miami with a camera, or even further south into the Keys.  

But I get ahead of myself.  We'll see if it is even a possibility.  The Keys seems what might be called "a bridge too far."

* * *

I just deleted a big block of bad writing and bad photographs and now the day is wearing on and I have much to do before I wait on the gas man to show up and look at my meter.  12-5.  You know which time he or she will probably come.  

I'm tapping out now.  I've wrestled with things after the asterisks long enough.  Let's end it here.  

Without even a song.

Can You Please Yourself?

This is what you get from a Holga shot from the hip and developed and scanned at home.  It is kind of fun, but is it. . . worth it?

I almost asked, is it. . .  "art"?

The real question is whether it is interesting or entertaining.  

And of course, each of you knows the answer to that.  

But, would you like it better if I posted without pictures?  Or music?  Or other silliness?  Hell, Vanity Fair couldn't stay in business that way, and they only post once a month.  

I heard a government official on the evening news, I don't remember who, say they wanted someone to lead [some agency] who had "the highest moral standards," and I wondered what he meant.  What are the highest moral standards and where in the universe are they located?  

Of course, you can't find such a thing anywhere but inside your own noggin and in group settings where people agree with you.  It is a social construct.  Obviously.  

Only it doesn't seem obvious to people, does it?  What that fellow meant was someone who agrees with his concept of behavior.  Nothing more.  And yet, I'm sure by his own standards he, too, is guilty of "moral turpitude." 

How do I know that?  Oh. . . I've made a life's study of it.  Trust me.  I'm not like the others. . . I'm your friend.  

And you see, Trump isn't guilty of "moral turpitude" because he is free of moral concepts, just as is Putin and Xi and the Pope.  Moral concepts are a tools they use to gather power.  Their minds are free of moral boundaries.  

It takes a special person to live without a moral compass.  We used to call them maniacs.  

But what I have found in my exhaustive studies of the matter is that YOU live unconsciously driven by a moral paradigm you cannot truly identify, maybe something vague like "see no evil, speak none, see none."  You know. . . the usual childhood criterion.  

"Stop it!  Don't hit your sister!  Be nice or you won't have supper."

We live our lives by contradictions like, "Murder is a sin. . . unless it is necessary."  

Explain to me the morality of war.  Oh, you are against war.  You can turn the other cheek?  How many times?  

We live in uncertain times.  Ethics are situational.  

I know, I know, that is a little bait and switch.  Morality and ethics are not the same thing.  And perhaps I've intertwined the two to my own discredit.  

Whatever.  They are closely aligned.  I'm not going to delete and rewrite this post now.  

I should, though.  I should write about the big mystery--is what is in the box?  Hand Rolled?   I could have riffed on that instead.  

There are more Holga pictures.  More Bike Week, too.  But I keep asking myself the question--are they interesting or entertaining?  

It is like asking "is it moral."  We live by standards most often that we have trouble articulating.  "Art for art's sake," is about as vague and close as I can get.  

Let's listen to some music.  Some of you may like it, some of you might not.  It goes on and on and on. . . .  But as Rick Nelson said, "you can't please everyone so you might as well please yourself." 

I'm pretty sure you won't.  

Spoiled Morning

This will probably be a short post.  The adrenaline is still pumping, so I'm not concentrating so well.  Blood pressure is up.  Not what I want.  

The construction across the street continues.  I was just getting ready to write this when I heard s truck revving it's engine over and over.  I looked out the window and saw a big white pickup backing a trailer into the new driveway across the street, only it kept going over the curb and into my yard to do it.  I opened the door a walked out.  He kept doing it, so I yelled, "Hey," hands out as if asking a question.  The driver didn't respond and came over the curb again, so I said, "What are you doing?" 

"I'm trying to back. . . "

"You're driving into my yard."

Just then, the contractor appeared, the guy I know from the gym.  We get along fine.  He tried to play intermediary.  

"I've got sprinkler heads all along there," I said.  

"If we damaged anything," he said, "we'll fix them."  

"It's ok, but I've had a guy back a trailer into my palm tree."

The guy in the truck seemed amused.  He got out.  He was a big guy, 6'4", maybe 260, early to mid thirties.  He started talking to me in a passive aggressive tone with a shit looking grin on his face.  

"It's going to be fine," he said.  

That tweaked me. 

"Don't talk to me in a therapist voice," I said.  

He got hot. 

"I'm not the guy you want to fuck with," he said.  

Yea, I already knew that, but I was in balls deep by now.  

"You're a bad guy, eh?"

He stepped up to my curb aggressively.  I was standing on my front stoop.  The distance was short.  But fuck it.  I didn't stand a chance, but. . . 

"You want to do this?" I said standing what I hoped was confidently.  

"I'm right here," he said, hands at his side.  

"And I'm right here," I said.  I didn't move, just stared.  

The builder was jabbering nervously now and the big guy got back into his truck.  I was pissed.  I wanted to pound him, but I can't now.  I'm a fucking cripple. I don't look like one, but I am.  None of the structures on the left side of my body are good, ribs, shoulder, scapula, lung.  I do believe he could have killed me.  

But I didn't shake or quake or shit my pants.  I was just angry and somehow wanted to fuck that shithead up.  

It's a violent world now.  Every moron with an 80 IQ wants to be a badass.  That's what they got.  That and Trump. 

It was the "I'm not the guy you want to fuck with" statement that pissed me off.  Before I got run over to death, I would have pushed his buttons a lot more.  But there is nothing I can do now.  

Most days, I wish I'd died in that accident.  Not hyperbole.  I lost a lot that day.  

Now, here is what I was about to write before the thing.  Yesterday, I bought my mother a new blood pressure machine.  Her old one wasn't working anymore.  We were sitting in her garage, so I unboxed it and put it together and put the cuff on my arm to see if it worked.  It didn't.  I read the instructions again and tried once more.  Nope.  I read them again, took the connector of the cuff into the machine out and put it back in.  This time, it worked.  I read my BP--170/95.  WTF?!?!?  I took it again.  Much the same.  I was freaking.  I put it on my mother and took her pressure.  It was good.  

Holy shit.  I'm on two BP meds right now.  My BP is never where they want it, but this. . . . if I went for my upcoming physical with this, my doc would have me at the cardiologist and they'd run every kind of test.  

"Take your blood pressure when you go to the grocery store," my mother said.  I was headed there to get things for dinner.  My head was spinning.  Fuck.  I'd need to quit drinking.  But what else?  Like life wasn't already tedious enough.  

I did my shopping--carrots, celery, onion, potato, garbanzo beans, crushed tomatoes, and some spicy cooked pork from the deli.  I was making a garbanzo bean soup.  

That done, with great dread, I sat down at the blood pressure machine.  I could feel my blood pressure rising, of course.  The cuff tightened.  I tried to breathe deeply.  It felt as if I was making it worse.  The pressure of the cuff went down, and I looked a the screen--134/74.  Fuck yea--no worse than ever!!!!  

I felt light headed.  I felt like a man who had just escaped a fire.  Life was good.  Things were fine again.  I felt true glee.  

When I got home, I made a Negroni and sat on the deck.  I felt guilty about the Negroni, but not too much.  Then I made the soup.  Holy smokes, my friends, it was good.  

But now. . . yea.  That guy has kind of spoiled my day.  I can't get rid of it.  It is hard to be pissed and sad at the same time, but somehow, I'm managing to do that.  

I'll take a walk now and hope to let it go.  But I know I am going to see that fuckhead again, and I am sure I'm planning on what to do and say.  I don't plan on being the little spoon.  

My Only Sunshine

Another beautiful Sunday.  Another late start.  I am paralytic, stymied.  At noon, I decide to develop the film from the Artfest.  I put two rolls of film, the developing tank and reels, and scissors inside the black tent, slip my hands through the elastic sleeves, and begin the fumbling process of unspooking the film, cutting off the backing, then spooling it back onto the takeup reel.  It takes me awhile to get the film lined up properly.  

Get the measuring cups and cylinders and jugs and mix the developer, then the fix.  Fill the tank with water and agitate for a minute, then set the clock and do the same with the developer, the hypo, and then the fix.  Etc.  

I have music playing, and for 50 seconds of every minute, in between agitations, I dance.  If you could see that. . . but it makes me feel good.  It must be good for me.  

I take the reels of developed film to the bathroom to hang them up to dry.  They look good.  Alright.  I decide to go ahead and do the second batch.  

Wash spin repeat.  I take the two rolls out of the tank.  They are blank, just clear plastic with a pinkish tint.  WTF went wrong?  I stand in dumb bewilderment.  Had I mixed my chemicals wrong?  Maybe I poured from the wrong jug.  Piss shit fuck goddamn.  I don't feel like dancing anymore.  

It is almost two.  What to do?  I don't feel like walking uptown to the festival once again.  I sit down at the computer and cook up some things.  It is four.  I call my mother.  

"I have done it again," I tell her.  "I spent another beautiful Sunday inside.  I haven't left the house.  I haven't showered.  I'll come over in a bit."

I make a Negroni and go to the deck.  I'm traveling through life with eyes closed, I think.  No, I'm not travelling at all.  I am not producing.  Text come in every day from traveling friends.  Japan, Sweden, Spain, Arizona, Chicago, Minnesota. . . .  I feel my life slipping away.  

I get into the car to drive to my mother's.  I pass the usual walkers, people pushing baby carriages, women walking in pairs, husbands and wives, all looking self-satisfied, feeling successful.  They are living a little upscale.  New cars.  Private schools.  I think just then they are smug.  What do they do?  I mean other than make money and consume goods?  What do they have to be smug about?  Memberships at the Country Club?  

I include myself in this crowd, unconscious, unaware.  

How to wake up is the question.  What buttons need to be pushed?

Banksy has been identified.  He goes the way of all myths--the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman.  Everything must be known, every mystery solved.  

The room feels full, yet nothing in it holds. Two people share the same narrow space, the same quiet light, even the same small rituals, but something essential has slipped just out of reach—an understanding, a certainty, a reason for being. Their gestures hover in hesitation. The morning coffee, the cigarette, the worn surfaces around them—anchors that promise solidity but dissolve into habit, the faint awareness that life continues without explanation. 

Take Me for a Ride

I almost made a mistake and posted a fictional story about this girl, the festival, the after party.  Then I read it once.  Oh, god. . . the voice.  I am happy to delete it now.  The will probably be the victory of the day.  What follows the pictures is what is left after deleting the story.  I haven't time to fix that.  I must get on with the day.  But good gracious, that was some fiction writing at its worst.  

O.K.  I just had to make something up.  I have no pictures.  I have no story.  The day went on as days will.  I walked to the festival to take pictures with my little Holga, which I did, and to buy an encaustic work I saw the day before.  I finished my two rolls of film and went to make my purchase, but. . . you guessed it, it was gone.  She had sold it the day before.  She invited me to stop by the gallery where she is showing her work this month.  "I have a lot more there."  O.K. I said.  I will stop there when I drive over to see the Tomczak show.  

Four rolls of black and white 120 film sit on my counter now waiting to be developed and scanned.  I alway do my own developing and scanning, but I am tempted to take them to a place that will do all of that and have them back to me today.  I don't know yet.  I slept late this morning and there are chores I need to do.  

One of them is to get a Sunday mimosa at the Cafe I have not been to on a Sunday more than twice this year.  I don't know if the same girl who will always make me one is still working there, and I am curious.  

I just got a text from Travis.  He is in the patron's tent.  I've dallied too long today.  I'm thinking to get a breakfast at the bar of a restaurant at the far end of the Boulevard, just beyond the reaches of the festival.  It is a long walk and things will be crowded, but it could be fun.  But I'm torn between what I should do and what might be fun.  I am driven by guilt, I think, which is not always such a bad thing if it is in advance rather than hindsight.  I don't really have much hindsight anyway.  

One more confession before I go.  I was making a video of the fictional story, too.  It was taking far too long and is now abandoned.  This, however, would have been the soundtrack.  

Possible (If Unlikely)

I'm cheating, of course.  This isn't a photo from the Crap Festival.  It is another of the Bike Week pics.  I could have cheated more, though.  I think maybe I need more color photos here. 

Or even more.

Yea, A.I. colorized it.  It even, in one instance, unblurred the lady and recreated her face.  Yesterday's music selection of Iranian Jazz was also A.I.  

Oh, ye of little faith, those with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.  I went to the Crap Festival yesterday and it really was crap.  And I DID take my Holga toy camera.  And I DID, after many moments of doubt, take not one but TWO rolls of film.  I was going to develop them last night and scan anything that might have been of at least marginal interest, but I ran into a problem.  I always seem to run into a problem.  The two rolls of 120 film were of different brands, one Ilford and one Kodak.  I looked up the developing times.  Radically different.  What to do?  I didn't want to spend the time developing each roll separately, so I decided to take my Holga back today and shoot two more rolls, one of each, so that I can develop four rolls in two batches.  

Brilliant.  

But I must say, I don't think I'm going to be enamored with any of them.  They are, by and large, just people walking around in the street.  I don't get close with the Holga, not like I do with my Leica, so all I can do is cross my fingers and see.  

The day was gorgeous and the crowd not so much.  What do you expect on a Friday?  Retirees shuffling around in their none-to-glamorous attire.  And me.  Only here and there, a finely feathered bird would appear.  Saturday, however, should be another thing.  The Cruise Ships will roll in.  The crowd will be larger and some people MAY have the sense to wear something creative, beautiful, or interesting.  

Probably not.  We live in the 2020s.  It ain't like it was a century ago.  

O.K. Again, A.I.  But HERE'S the kicker--there was a LOT of A.I. at the Crap Festival. 

Tru dat!

And here you can wail and gnash all you want.  Some of it made the old printing press stuff from printmakers look tired and boring.  I'm not saying it was great, but neither was the stuff printmakers were kicking out.  A.I. is a TOOL, and artists will use whatever tool they have in their possession.  Look, for instance, at Maggie Taylor's work.  

She is the most famous digital artist--I needn't say "alive" of course.  She was married to Jerry Uelsmann,  the surrealist photographer under whom I studied.  Well, not literally "under whom," but he was one of my profs.  This digital creation is made from one of Uelsmann's own photographs.  Now Uelsmann, who studied under Minor White, was, at the time, the most valued photographer, in terms of dollars per print, in the world, and he created the first graduate degree pure photography program in the country.  The last time I heard him speak, he'd been teaching most of his life.  He had never used Photoshop, but of Taylor's work he said, "I feel like I've been teaching horse shoeing all my life."  

Now many people are doing it, not with Photoshop, but with A.I. I just now quickly popped in a request to make a Maggie Taylor style creation and got this. 

Now you can see that it is pretty shitty, but the idea is there.  A.I., being language based, takes a whole lot of "talking" to create something halfway decent.  It is not quick, not like this thing I got in milliseconds.  And afterwards, you need to work on it with many other digital tools.  So when you see a work that uses A.I., don't think it was like making a Jackson Pollock at the fair where you throw paint into a twirling machine and come out with whatever.  

"Fair?  What the fuck?  What are you talking about?"

O.K.  Some of my references are becoming obscure.  But you get my drift.  

There was only one artist in the entire festival that caught my eye.  She made hand painted photographic encaustics.  I don't know how she painted the pictures, but I think she did it with wax because the blue skies were of many hues, and even yellows and greens, but they did not totally blend together.  I was wondering if they might not have been done with acrylics rather than wax, but I wasn't going to touch them to find out, so I went around the booth to ask the artist.  When she saw me, she lit up and gave me a big hug.  It turned out to be someone I had been with at several Anna Tomczak workshops.  Anna became known for her 20x24 Polaroids in the "wayback," and was collected by museums everywhere.

She was known for her assemblage work as well.  She is the one who taught me the once secret and now well-known techniques for image transfers. That is where I met the woman with the encaustics.  I was an invited guest to the workshops.  For some reason, Anna liked me.  I don't think it was my work because I never really showed her any.  I think the encaustic artist was an invited guest, too.  She was really good, a mother and a housewife who did like my work with cameras and so we bonded.  

But I was truly amazed she remembered me.  It was for me, the shut-in, quite a delight to be remembered that way.  Even before I knew she had made the encaustics, I had determined to buy one, and I will go back and buy the one I liked today.  She is now represented by a decent gallery and she told me that Anna has a show at the big Center for the Arts right now.  I will go to see it this week.  

As I wandered around, once in awhile I'd hear my named called out.  People who knew me, not whispering behind their hands or being snide, but generally friendly people I know.  And that was a treat, too.  One fellow, the attorney who was supposed to go to Africa with Travis and me and our now dead ex-friend Brando--the one who throws the fabulous parties every Saturday night of the Art Festival, the one with the amazing art collection in his bachelor's pad with the amazing gardens out back, the one who always has the fabulous music, the great food, the full shebang. . . called my name.  We chatted for a bit and then he told me to come to the party tonight.  And no shit--I'll be able to go! 

This break from caregiving has been wonderful, but now I am beginning to feel the dread of going back to it once again.  A man released from custody only to be incarcerated once again after just beginning to fully enjoy his freedom.  My life has become the life of a true retiree only recently.  I spend my time as I want, only just beginning to know what I want to do.  This is how I was meant to live.  

It will be short-lived.  

But today and tonight, I will enjoy my newfound freedom as much as I can.  

And I will come home with a new piece of art.  

There will be pictures, I hope.  Maybe even a story.  I'm hoping for torrid.  Maybe I'll get lucky at tonight's party.  Maybe some young artist will fall for me, lick my neck and whisper in my ear and tell me things will be fine. . . for awhile.  

Wouldn't that be something?

Yes. . . as close to a miracle as one is ever likely to get.  Still, there is a potential in the offing, and what more does one need than a possibility, no matter how slim it might be.  

It's the only reason to stand on that little patch of ground, naked and empty, with the void surrounding us--and not take the leap.  

Potential and Possibility.  Now there's a fable I should write.  

 

Big Prick in Uptown

 

The "Art" Festival starts this morning in my own hometown.  Three days of crowds wandering through booths of ceramic ashtrays and bland watercolors of exotic locales, everyone with a fried dough or corn dog. . . . 

I'll be there.  

Travis texted me wondering if I got my credentials for sitting with the city's elite, eating and drinking away from the hoi-poloi like a civilized citizen.  Not his words.  My buddy runs the affair and has asked me to stop by the tent where that happens, but I've never gone.  I'm sure I'd see my ex-wife and others from my onetime social past.  Probably a lot of the people from the Club Y, too.  

I don't know.  I've just become a bitter asshole, I guess.  That's what Q tells me, anyway.  He called me the other night just to tell me so.  Oh, he soft-soaped it with telling me I was a good son, but I always take the insults more to heart than any sort of praise.  

Maybe that is why I stay away from people.  Surely, for instance, I'd hear whispers and feel the sneers if I went to the Credentialed tent.  

"Do you know that guy? Yea, he used to be married to her. He lived with Daddy Warbucks daughter for years. I don't get it. He's gotten strange. . . but he was always an odd duck."

Did I mention my paranoia?  

I should take my camera to the Crap Fest so that I can have something "new" to post here, but I'm parnoid about that, too. 

"Look, there's that guy. What's he doing, you think?"

It's hard to believe that I ever had a wife of a girlfriend.  

But it is spring, and the saps starts to rise and the creeks start to flow, and the bombs are dropping like crazy.  I live in Paradise, so I might as well enjoy myself today.  None of what I plan to do could I do if I were taking care of mom.  Yes, I should consider myself lucky for a minute.  I ate corned beef and cabbage, so I should have "the luck of the Irish."

That sounds funny, though, the luck of a  people who suffered through a potato famine.  What kind of luck is that?

Q is Irish.  He's been lucky.  

But there will be no topless women selling beer here in my own hometown.  All the weirdness takes place behind closed doors.  In public, there is a stodgy conservatism in the streets.  

That was an unplanned rant, obviously.  It's like the automatic writing of the mystics.  Spontaneous, written not by the writer but some spirit beyond.  Indecipherable.  

Maybe I should just treat myself to a facial and a massage.  That might be just the thing.  It's a simple exchange of values.  You give them money and they do things to your body.  It is obvious what each of you values.  It's like everything else, really.  

You know, I think I'll take a Holga toy film camera to the festival and a whole bunch of film.  Oh, yea.  There's an idea.  Yup.  That's just what I'll do.  Who gets mad at someone with a toy camera?  

I think I'll get the fried dough, too.  

Cesar Chavez Died for Your Sins. Oh. . . Wait. . . .

What is it with guys, anyway?  I mean about sex.  Popes and priests and public school teachers. . . and presidents and congressmen and on and on and on.  Now Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King.  I mean, I would have expected that from this Dugar fellow, but, really?  Sex sex sex.  Is that all fellows think about?  

Pretty much.  So say the shrinks, anyway.  

"[Researchers] found that the average man in their study had 19 thoughts about sex a day. This was more than the women in their study – who had about 10 thoughts a day."

This research refuted the old standard that men had a sexual thought every seven seconds. However. . . and this is my own brilliant idea. . . the researchers used college students in their study. Given that researchers also find that college students today do not drink or have sex as much as previous generations, I'd suggest a new set of guinea pigs.

In my own hometown, it seems that sex is about all the men think about. Your ribs can get pretty sore from elbows around here every time one of them sees an attractive girl.

Same goes for my gay friends. They are even worse about the boys. But you know that.

Anyway. . . . .

I did nothing yesterday but art related stuff. Not art, per se, but related. I had to fuck around with technology, printers, print drivers, paper profiles. . . then trying to find all the things I use to make image transfers. I didn't leave the house until it was late afternoon and I needed to go visit with my mother. I didn't shower or take a walk. I didn't even bother to cook. I ate leftover corned beef and cabbage.

It was rather glorious.

Today, however, I need to be practical. At least somewhat. A few hours of work on things that need taking care of.

But I don't want to. I'd rather spend my day making pictures again. I am, for all practical purposes, useless.

I woke this morning at four and read the news. When the sun comes up, I'll go back to bed.

Isn't that something?

Oh, darn. . . I just remembered that I wanted to write about Tamara Lempicka. I watched a doc on her a couple nights ago. Well. . . it will have to wait. But she was quite something, I think. As much as I hate to admit it, I am awed by scandalous women.  There is an entire YouTube channel about them.  

I just reread the thing I quoted.  Do you think it's true that women only have ten thoughts a day?

Luck of the Irish

Spring Break, baby, and everybody's by the pool!  

Kinda.  

Do you know what the number one destination for Spring Break is this year?  Yup.  My own hometown.  Well, the airport that serves it.  It makes me wonder why, but my friends seem to understand it perfectly.  We have attractions and parks here, and the kids can hit many beaches from here where the party's started.  

Except they are fighting and even shooting one another.  WTF?  It is true.  Four shootings already at the beach town I went to for Bike Week.  In contrast, there were none during Bike Week.  

All my college professor friends want out.  They say the kids are utterly useless.  They don't come to class, and when they do, they don't take notes.  And school administrators are forcing them to have high pass rates so that they can get funded well by the state.  It is even true at the Country Club College where the tuition is so high everybody must pass.  

Spring Break should be about drinking and trying not to pick up an STD.  That is fun.  But fighting?  What the fuck is that?

It is the Joe Rogan Generation, I guess.  Everything is martial arts.  Stand your ground.  

Etc.  

Well. . . if they enjoy that, good for them.  I'd much rather lie by the pool next to that woman with a margarita at hand.  That is a woman, right?  I don't want to be too binary.  

Or agist.  

But, you know. . . that ain't Spring Break, is it.  Just daily life at The Villages.  I should probably head up there and join the fun. 

O.K.  That's enough of that.  

I hadn't slept very well for the past few nights, maybe five hours a night, and so I got up yesterday morning feeling slow.  But I had things to do and I was determined to get them done.  I burned my mother's and my mail that had too much of our personal info on it.  That is always fun.  I pour 99% alcohol on the pile of papers and hit it with a torch.  That stuff is jet fuel.  

Next, I paid my mother's property taxes.  She can't handle that stuff any longer.  I am the worst at this kind of stuff, so she must be terrified.  When I first started dating my ex-wife, she was a young, fun, upscale girl who was spending all her father's money having fun.  But when she moved in with me, she started managing my money.  That is an illustrative story.  She has become one of the money mavens of my own hometown.  So. . . something is the something of invention, and as she transformed, perhaps I will as well.  I have become much more responsible with my mother's money than I am with my own.  I've spent my own money supporting her this year buying all the groceries, paying her bills.  

I'm a good son, they say. 

My mother has been getting letters from some health company in Spanish.  It has her address on the envelope and sometimes her name, sometimes someone else's, and it always says under the house address, "Apt. #1."  None of it makes sense and I fear what might be going on.  So I called the company.  After hanging on the phone listening to the most irritating jingly music "Ev-er," I got some homie who couldn't understand what I was telling him for a very long time.  I started again in my nursery school tone, but he didn't have my mother in his system, and after twenty minutes, I gave up.  

Went to the gym for my new "Age Appropriate" workout, then headed home to pick up the house and shower before the cleaning crew arrived.  I had just finished dressing when they showed up.  The woman who runs the show is really very sweet and we always chat for quite awhile.  But I had to run.  I was off to the bank to. . . do some banking, then a stop at the cool local hardware store for some surfacants.  

I walked into an empty store.  The workers were all sitting and leaning in clusters.  Two of them surrounded a desk by the garden supplies.  

"Hi.  I'm looking for surfacants."

"??????" like a dog you just asked if it wants a cucumber.  

"It helps weed killer stick to the plants."

"Oh. . . yea. . . I think there is a bottle back down that aisle on the top shelf, but dish soap will do the same thing."

One of the fellows walked me back and found the bottle.  Ten bucks.  I hesitated.  They were helpful, so what should I do?  

"O.K.  You guys helped me so I'll buy this. . . but next time I'm using dish soap.  Oh. . . I need some 90% isopropyl alcohol."

The joyless woman at the counter who never smiles barked, "We only have ninety-nine percent."  A different fellow walked me back.  

I explained, "Have you ever heard of a Lampe Berger?  No?"

I told him what it was and how it worked.

"The fuel for it is very expensive, so I wondered what it was made of.  I found out it was ninety percent isopropyl alcohol with a few drops of essential oil, and I thought I could make that myself."

When the mirthless lady rang me up, though, I was just a little surprised.  A gallon was $29.  Still cheaper than the Lampe Berger oils.  

As the maids worked, I decided to go to see my mother, but I had a wild hair.  I stopped at the grocers first and got a head of cabbage and a big load of sliced corned beef.  Right there, for the day, was a basketful of Irish soda bread.  I picked up a pack of Guinness and was on my way.  

My mother had company, so I put down the things and opened a stout.  I poured a little for my mother.  The friend told me I needed boiled potatoes to make it authentic, so I chopped some up and set them to boil.  In a little bit, though, my mother's niece took the lady home (she's blind and can't drive), and I began chopping cabbage.  Olive oil in the big enamelled cast iron pot.  I just cooked the cabbage down and threw in the corned beef.  I dished it up.  It was a hit!  And the soda bread?  Yea.  Never had it before.  Fantastic.  

By the time I was four Guinness in, T called.  He wanted me to meet him and Black Sheep at the Irish pub.  

"You wouldn't believe what's going on."

"I'm at my mother's and four Guinness in, but I'll try to catch up later."

I got home at five. The house sparkled.  I made a Negroni and sat out on the deck.  It was a beautiful day.  But when I finished the Negroni, I knew I was home for the evening.  I was not ready to go out.  I lamented, though.  Here I was free for a bit, but I wasn't joining the party.  Instead, I sit on my own leather couch and drink and think.  God knows what I was missing.  I could have taken my Leica and had some fun.  

But I didn't really care.  You see, that shot of the old guy was all flattery.  This is closer to reality.  Time marches on. 

Sleepless and Cheating

 I haven't time to write this morning, so I am cheating like a jr. high school boy.  

By late morning the street is already green with it—hats, scarves, the soft insistence of celebration. Inside the pub, the air is cool still, the wood faintly damp from the early mopping. Glasses stand in ranks. The taps gleam. There is a moment, brief and unrepeatable, when nothing has yet happened.

She is there.

Her name is Aoife. It is said quietly, almost without emphasis, as though it belongs more to the room than to her. She works behind the bar with a natural authority, not asserted, simply present. There is no haste in her, though everything she does is quick.

Her hair is dark, drawn back but imperfectly, so that strands escape and fall along her cheek. She does not correct them. They are part of her, like the way she stands—weight slightly to one side, a subtle curve through the body, not posed, not careless. Her face is pale, though not delicate. There is a strength in it, something withheld. Her mouth is full, the lower lip soft and faintly parted as she concentrates. The eyes are gray, clear but unreadable, as if they reflect rather than reveal.

When she moves, it is without display. She turns, reaches, pours. The gestures are exact, economical. There is no wasted motion, no effort to charm. And yet one watches her. It is difficult not to.

By noon the room has filled. Voices overlap. Laughter comes too quickly. Someone begins to sing, not well. The door opens and closes, opens and closes, letting in brief rectangles of light and cold. The day presses inward.

She remains unchanged.

It is not indifference. Rather, she seems to exist at a slight remove, as though the noise belongs to another register of experience. She hears it, of course—answers when spoken to, meets a gaze when necessary—but nothing adheres to her. The hands continue, the body continues. Pint after pint, each one poured with that same measured patience, the dark rising slowly, the foam settling into a pale crown.

A man leans across the bar, calling her “love,” then “darling,” as if the word itself might summon something. She does not respond to it. Only to the order. Her voice, when it comes, is low and even.

“What’ll it be.”

Not a question, exactly. A formality.

There are moments—small, almost nothing—when she pauses. A glass held just so. A look that lingers half a second longer than required. In these moments, one feels something might be disclosed. But it is not. The pause ends. The motion resumes.

I watch her as one watches a figure in a painting, aware that the distance is part of the experience. She is not performing, and yet everything is seen. The light catches in her hair, along the line of her cheek, the bare forearm as she reaches. There is a warmth to her skin that contrasts with the cool interior of the room, a suggestion of something more vivid, more private, than the scene allows.

At one point she looks directly at me.

It is not an accident. The gaze is deliberate, held. There is no challenge in it, no invitation. Only recognition—of being observed, and of permitting it, briefly.

Then she turns away.

The afternoon deepens. The room grows louder, less distinct. Glasses clatter. Beer spills. The floor becomes tacky underfoot. Outside, the light begins to fade, though it is still early. Time loosens, stretches.

She continues.

There is, in her, a sense of duration. As though she has always been here, or will be. The day passes through her without altering anything essential. One imagines her afterward, when the last customer has gone, when the lights are lowered and the door is locked. The same movements, slower now. The same silence returning.

But this is not seen.

Only this: the crowded room, the rising noise, and behind the bar, the figure of a girl who remains, in some quiet way, apart from it all—present, visible, and yet not entirely given.

Existential Quandaries

It should be the most exciting time of the year here in my own hometown.  Spring Break.  St. Paddy's Day.  March Madness.  The Art Festival.  The Rodeo.  It all comes to a head in the next week.  But I am blah.  I can't even pick out a photo to post.  I don't seem to have a thought in my head which would be wonderful if I were feeling glee.  But for the thousandth time so far this year, I will "change my life."  

I ran into a woman I used to date for a short while, a veterinarian who I stayed friends with.  She put both my dog and my cat down right here in my home.  I had just entered the grocery store and there she was leaning on her shopping cart looking awful, shorter and worn, wearing a back brace.  She looked at me with tired eyes.  

"Last time I saw you, you were getting ready to have back surgery," I said.  She looked exactly like that now.  

"I'm going to have another one," she said.  "This is the fifth one.  This time it is in a thoracic vertebra.  I can only stand for about ten minutes," she said.  

We talked mostly about suicide.  When she put down my dog, it was instantaneous.  There was no shudder, no contractions at all.  The dog was just there one second dand gone the next.  Pentobarbital.  

"Man. . . that's how I want to go," I said.  

"I'll put you down," she grinned.  There was a reason we quit going out together.  

She told me that was the way she planned on going.  She'd hook up an IV and shoot the drug into the line.  "It works so quickly, I'd be afraid I'd pass out before I finished the injection."

I told her I had a stash of pills, but I didn't know if they were enough.  She told me how many I would need.  

"The problem is if you take them all at once, you might puke them up."

"Yea."

I said that doctors die at home using barbiturates, "But I don't think even they can get pentobarbital.  I don't think they are legal in the U.S. anymore."

"Yes it is  It is used to treat epilepsy.  They are cheap, too.  I prescribe them for epileptic dogs."

Holy shit!!!  I will Google today how to give a dog epilepsy.  I need an epileptic dog!  It is the safest, most pleasant way to take yourself out if you don't have access to the other stuff.  

"But that will be a hard day, you know?  Thinking that would be your last day on earth?  I'm sure you'd be thinking 'tomorrow.  I'll wait until tomorrow.'"

She told me she'd thought about it, but had decided that there were still people who needed her.  I almost chuckled.  She meant the people who need her to put their animals down.  

"I still do some good in life," she said without any irony at all.  

And that's the way it goes, I think.  Life is an empty void and we stand naked and shivering on a one foot piece of land, and it is awful and it is horrible, and yet. . . we don't take the leap.  We stand there and stand there until our knees won't hold us and we are tired to death.  That is something like Camus' take on it, anyway.  Like Hamlet, the only real question is to be or not to be.  For Camus. . . is life worth living?  And the answer?  Well. . . people overwhelmingly choose to toil on.  And so we roll the great boulder up the mountain like our champion Sisyphus.  

One might ask, "Does he have free will?"  Great question.  I was debating that with two profs once.  I lost the argument, but it is O.K.  The most reasonable answer, it seemed to me was not that he could choose to roll or not roll the boulder but how he felt about it.  

Hell of a thing, ain't it?

So when I returned from the store, I went out to finish up the last 10% of the mulch work.  I had ordered too much and had to determine what to do with the remaining mulch.  I decided just to spread it out over the driveway.  I put on my gloves and hat and went out and got the pitchfork, rake, and wheelbarrow.  Across the street, the same scrawny guy was working on the curbing.  

"How'd you feel last night?" I asked him.  "I could barely move."

"I slept well.  My legs hurt," he said running his hands across his thighs," but I put two heating pads on them." 

I told him I thought I was getting too old for this kind of work.

"How old are you?"

I told him.  

"Wow.  You're in pretty good shape.  You look like you go to the gym."

"Oh. . . I've got some gym muscle, but it ain't the same as cowboy muscle."

He chuckled and bobbed his head.  We talked for awhile.  Turns out he grew up in a neighborhood that my neighborhood used to fight with.  

"You were the rich kids," he said.  

That one broke me up.  It was called "Crime Hills" and still is.  We were on the lower end of the working class neighborhood scale, but where he was from. . . worse.  They didn't get to eat, apparently, because they were scrawny as shit, but you really didn't want to fight with them because they would never stay down.  They never quit fighting, kind of like the apocalyptic retarded pit bull I like to mention.  

"When did you graduate," I asked him?  

Holy shit!--he was fifteen years younger than I.  

I got back to work with my pitchfork, but whoa!  Everything hurt on the first forkful, mostly in my back, but in my right hand and wrist, too.  That little guy working across the street was working every day, and he told me he had built his own 4,000 square foot house, too.  

"Me and my buddies," he said.  

It was on five acres, and he said he had to work all the time.  

"I could have paid a company $500 to mow, but I wasn't going to do that."

What pleasures he took in life, I don't know, but there he was, the Existential hero toiling on not knowing either Existential philosophers, I assumed, nor Sisyphus.  

But I'll say that having that little fellow thinking I was muscled up made me feel better than the vet did going in for her fifth back surgery.  

I cooked up a beef stew for my mother and her niece that night.  I hadn't eaten a thing all day.  The stew and the wine pretty much set me straight.  

"Not today.  Maybe tomorrow." 

I will need to try to find a little joy here today underneath gloomy skies and bad weather.  

"I can't go on.  I'll go on."

Thank you Mr. Beckett.  

Strange music for a gloomy day. 

Guess you'll have to go to YouTube if you care to hear it (link).  

Cowboy for a Day

The more stuff you have, the more you have to work.  

Unless you have more money than I do. 

Mulch day.  One Saturday out of every year, I spend the day spreading mulch in the beds around the shrubs and trees and in the driveway.  Long ago, I had three driveways to do.  That just occurred to me now.  It took me two days to do that.  But I put granite down on two of them, so I am able to do the work in one day now.  

Makes me feel like less the cowboy than I used to be.  

So did the laborers working all around me.  There was a hillbilly finishing off a poured cement curb with sanders and saws.  It looked like hideous work.  When the delivery truck dumped the mulch, I took this photo.  The little guy was watching me.  Sheepishly, I said, "I have to send this to my buddies to show them what a cowboy I still am."

"If you spread all that you sure will be."

Next door to him there were four Mexicans working like devils clearing brush and cutting trees and throwing it all into two BIG dumpster trailers.  We were all men at work.  

I ate a bowl of cereal and took two water breaks.  By mid-afternoon, I had 90% of the mulch spread--but I was 98% worn out.  I left the rest for today, but I always do that.  

The little guy working the curbing was still at it.  The Mexicans finished up before he did.  I realized they were working on Saturday and probably had Sunday off.  Then it would be another six day workweek.  I was Cowboy for a Day, but if I had to do it every day. . . . 

And so, I don't feel as much like bragging today.  

I still have a lot to do, though.  Did I tell you about my sod lifter?  I write so much in so many different places, I can't be sure.  It is, apparently, an old fashioned tool you can't find anywhere any longer.  Some remnant of the 50s or 60s, I guess.  I lost mine.  I was devastated.  I went to store after store to find another, but with no luck at all.  There is a place called Tractor Supply, though, that sells one online.  It didn't look quite the same, but I have gardens, mine and my mother's, to clear, so I ordered it.  $75.  

Yesterday, getting my rakes and pitchfork and wheelbarrow ready, I found mine hidden in the shed.  Yay! 

 Shit. 

I will clear the gardens this week.  There is a lot of yard work to do, too.  Then I have to pressure wash my brick patio and work some granular sand into the cracks.  T is going to show me how to do it.  

And, of course, the two gravel driveways need to be re-rocked.  

Last night, I could barely walk.  I fell asleep on the couch, but when I went to bed, I could barely sleep.  Didn't, really.  I'll feel like shit today.  

So maybe I don't play "Big Balls in Cowtown" this year.  Still, I did what I have done before.  I'm still Cowboy enough for that.  

The leaves and pollen fall like rain.  Cars left outside are covered in a golden yellow powder.  The streets are lined with oaks in my own hometown and the gutters are full.  

And still, no birds.  

I made a delicious pho last night, though, and I am making a beef stew for my mother and her niece tonight.  The promised rain has yet to come.  Tonight they now say.  

My weekend alone was more a serf's than a sultans.  I think I looked like Friar Tuck pitching that mulch.  

So here's the song for this year.  "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford," a man who looks like he never did a day's labor in his life.  

Rather than "Cowboy for a Day," I'll let you watch a show I watched with my grandmother in Ohio every afternoon.  I'm sure it scarred me for life.  If you don't know what I'm talking about. . . well, now you will. 

13

I was going to spend Friday 13 at home by myself.  I was looking forward to that.  It's time to start a new regimen, water, fruits and vegetables, reading, writing, arithmetic. . . the works.  

That didn't happen.  

I took my mother to the cardiologist mid-morning.  We were out by noon.  It was the last day for me to deal with a CD that had come due at the bank that hassled me about using my Power of Attorney status months ago.  I called the bank on speaker from the car with my mother to see if we could take care of things over the phone.  

Nope.  

Could I come in alone and do the deal?

The lady on the phone would have to check and call me back.  

I drove my mother to the drug store to pick up a prescription.  McDonalds was across the street. 

"Do you want a hamburger for lunch?"

I have eaten at McDonalds more times in the past few months than I have in the rest of my life.  I got a Big Mac, fries, and a coke.  

We took it all back to my mother's house and ate.  I knew I shouldn't, and afterwards came the regret.  

The bank lady called back.  She needed a copy of my PoA.  She would have "her team" take a look, and since the CD matured on Saturday, I would be able to come in Monday afternoon--afternoon only because they would need to prepare the documents--and take care of it.  

"You should have a copy of my PoA on file. I gave it to you last time."

"No, I don't have it.  Can you make a copy and email it to me?"

My mother doesn't have a scanner, so I said I'd have to photograph it with my phone.

"Oh, no . . . that won't work.  Can you bring it in for me to make a copy?"

Piss shit fuck goddamn.  These people have worn me out.  

"What time do you close?"

"We are here until five."

I was going to the gym from my mother's house.  I had my gym clothes in the car and I decided to change.  Big mistake.  The room had a mirror.  I looked like those pictures of old, fat men on European beaches.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  That Big Mac was sitting heavy in my gut. 

I sat with my mother until my cousin came back from shopping.  It was mid-afternoon by the time I left.  

Gym.  Home.  Shower.  I'd have to hurry to make it across town in Friday traffic to get to the bank before it closed.  

I was going to make pho for dinner, but I hadn't gotten to the store.  I stopped at the good Greek place for takeout chicken and salad.  But. . . . 

I got a text from my conservative friend.  He was in town.  Could I meet him for a drink? 6:30?

I got home just before eleven.  Friday 13.  

Now I am up and waiting for the delivery of sixteen tons of mulch.  I feel like shit.  I just want to go back to bed.  I think I need rehab.  

Tonight, though. . . home alone.  

It is notable that none of my nights out have been with women.  Think about that for a minute.  

The girl in the picture at the top of the page gave me her phone number.  She wants to make pictures.  Not that one.  The one with her back to the camera.  Yea.  I haven't reached out to her.  

Here's the girl I should have married.  I swear if we met, we'd have been a match.  I can just tell.  She could have ruined me.  I know exactly how it would play out.  I'm a sweet boy and would have gotten trampled all over.  Instead of me, though, she was with the dick playing guitar.  You can tell just what kind of guy he is.  You can tell just what kind of woman she was.  She left music and bought a coffee shop in Canada.  I thought for awhile about going there.  I wanted to meet her.  Just to see.  

I saw her in concert in a small place just after her first album came out.  Been obsessed ever since.  

"Women's Lib"

She told me, "The one who dies with the most toys wins."  

Girls and their toys. 

Girls will be girls, I guess.  That's what they say. 

We've come a long way from the old neck massagers of my mother's era. 

These were actually advertised in the old Montgomery Wards catalogs.  $4.99.  The Relaxer gave "a deep, penetrating massage."  Bennies in the morning to get you going, "mother's little helper" to cut the anxiety, cocktails before dinner, and barbiturates at night to calm you down.  Does anyone think the '50s and early '60s were boring?  

And yet, with all that, ennui was rampant.  

Then came "Women's Lib" and the gates of Hades were opened.  Now look at the mess we've gotten into.  

Sorry.  I was just trying to connect with the photo.  I wonder if the Google God will ding me for this one.  

I went out with the gymroids last night.  It was a bigger crowd this time.  We were going to the good beer garden to sit outside, but the rain closed it down so we went to the Irish Pub across the street.  It was the first time we'd been there in almost a year since my Miami friend had her graduation party there, the last time any of us were there.  

The place sucks.  I had a Guiness and said I had to eat but wasn't eating the shitty fare there, so four others decided to join me at the good Italian restaurant a few blocks away.  Dinner turned into a circus as people passing by joined us then wandered away.  The famous judge brought his wife and son and sat with us, too, and I told him about my camera/court/State Attorney's fiasco and asked him what to do.  He shrugged, told me the "justice" system was fucked, and said I could do a couple things but it wasn't going to do any good.  

"You're just screwed," he said.  

"I would have liked some lube," I quipped.  

But there it is.  There is too much crime to handle, apparently.  The courts have been overrun.  

There were plates of food we all shared and many bottles of wine, and once again, I threw in my card with the others and for the fourth time in just over a week paid $120 for a meal.  It was never the meal, of course.  Two nights in a row, first the Brazilian barmaid and then the Clown Show.  

I'm staying in this weekend.  I'll make a pho tonight and early in the morning, sixteen tons of mulch will be delivered to my drive.  O.K.  Not sixteen tons.  But I will have to spend a day moving it by myself once again.  

I'm getting too old for this shit.  

Oh. . . I know you have been worrying about my laptop situation, so let me put your minds to rest.  I restarted it and now it is working fine again.  I think it wanted to install the new OS.  So I did the same to my big desktop computer where all the photo processing magic happens, and everything has gone haywire.  It just doesn't work now.  I can't update my massive collection of Adobe products and my passwords don't open up things like Chat or Grok now.  It is a Safari problem, I think.  Apple.  It used to be the friendly company with the motto, "Do no evil."  

That was then.  This is now.  Apple is now the monster that ate New York. 

And that is what I've got for you today.  I have to get ready to take my mother to the cardiologist early this morning.  It is going to be a lousy, rainy weekend, so they say, and I want to get myself settled in for some serious alone time.  How much longer I will have that is not quite known.  

I must warn you, that is not the end of The Girl Show.  Nor of Bike Week in general.  I don't think I'll be making any new photos this weekend, so this is what you get, a stain on my otherwise pristine career.  

And so. . . .