To See, Perchance, To Speak. . .

What is it about home that turns us into--someone not so highly regarded?  Rather, one thinks, why am I so cool when I'm gone and such a turd when I get back?  Maybe not everyone.  There are some who feel better in their own environs, who have carved a niche in the familiar.  I've heard people say it: "I can't wait to get home."  I only think about it when the money's running out.  To be a remittance man, the black sheep of a rather good family who is willing and able to send you 'round the world rather than have you fucking up the family name in their own home town.  "Hello, may I cadge a drink.  I'm a little short right now, but as soon as we get to Tangiers, there should be some money awaiting me."  Whatever.  As Thomas Hardy sort of said, home life is a dreary dream.

I should not speak at work, at home, or anywhere else there are people I must see again.  It does me harm.  My mind, you see, does not run on the parallel, and I have read too much.  No, it is not that, it is only that I took it seriously.  You must know what I mean.  Have you ever been acquainted with an art history professor whose house looks like something out of the Rent-to-Own catalog?  After studying the great luxuries and beauty of Rome and Byzantium, s/he opts for the cheap carpet and the balsa wood couch.  And the walls?  As my friend who worked for "the family" would say, "Forget about it."  Giant Olan-Mills portraits of children long grown.  They read only for vocation, I guess.  They were not looking for life's guidebook.

It is dangerous, I'm sure, to be too much influenced by art and literature.  I should have read the works and the accompanying biographies of those artists who produced them simply as cautionary tales, crossing myself and saying, "But for the grace of God, there go I."  But I made the mistake and absorbed it all, the deep colors and strange textures and smart, long narratives.  It is not that what I do that causes the problem, but the way I frame it when I tell it.  It is the crazy cock to my eye, maybe, or the intensity with which I speak.  Or maybe it is none of that but simply the details I wish to remember.

I don't know.  But I must become monkish again if I am going to survive.  I must observe and listen, smile and nod, and only speak anonymously here.  It is true, my friends.  Es verdad.