Loopy

I'm still loopy.  It feels permanent.  There seems to have been a sea change of sorts.  Perhaps it the giddiness one might feel in the face his certain demise.  It is absurd, but what can you do?  You can protest, of course.  Anger doesn't work, nor reason.  So then. . . the gallows humor, sort of like telling the executioner a joke about his wife.  "I have some pictures at the house if you give me a minute."

I may have told you this already.  I don't know.  I seem to have lost parts of my memory.  So I'll tell you again.  I tried to use my debit card the other day, the one I've had forever, but I couldn't remember the PIN. Yes, I have a suspicion I've told you that.  It still has not come back.  But the weird part is that I find it funny rather than terrifying.

I woke this morning thinking for the first time that I am not the man of anybody's dreams.  That has thrown me off a bit.

The girl from yesterday's post, the one I took to sushi, the one I tried to give "The Wisdom," has called a couple times to make sure I am coming to her house to shoot with her.  Her voice was happy.  Maybe I wasn't as bad as all that I tell myself knowing better than to tell myself that.

"Come at eleven.  I'll still be in bed.  I'll leave the back door open.  You'll have to come in that way."

Fool, I tell myself.  

Naomi Wolf has an article online today entitled "Is Pornography Driving Men Crazy."  I just wrote a long commentary on it that I then deleted.  I don't want to get into it today.

It is Friday and it feels like Saturday.  I am excited not to be in the hospital this weekend.  I must begin my Road to Recovery.  Long walks, maybe some yoga.  I'm not ready for anything else.  I feel fragile.  Which reminds me of something.

The city has put new gutters and curbs in my neighborhood whose streets are winding unlike most places in town.  We did not want them.  But I have to say the workers have been swell.  Two days ago, there was a knock at the door.  It was a fellow working on the roads.  He said that they noticed that with the new construction, the water drained down my driveway (water had almost gotten to my kitchen door in a heavy downpour) and so they were going to put in an apron that would prevent that.  Good.  When I went out to my car, there were about ten workers standing around.  They had to move my water meter, they said.

"Which one, for the house or for the irrigation?"

"You have two?"

"Yes."

"Where's the other one?"

"They are next to one another."

They scrummaged around and found it.

"We almost paved over this one."

One of the workers was using my water hose to wash the carnage from the storm off my deck.  I'm telling you, they were taking care of me.  And I was a boy among boys, male as all heck.  I know how to carry myself in a group of roughnecks.  One of the fellows asked me,

"Which one of these is for irrigation?"

"Well, now," I said, "why don't you turn one off.  If the water keeps flowing out of the hose. . . ."

Several of the fellows started laughing.

"Listen, if I come home tonight to take a shower and the irrigation system comes on, which one of you do I call."

Oh, we were fellows alright.  Pals.

The next morning, I walked out.  One of the guys from the day before was standing in my driveway, a big black man.

"They're going to do this driveway for you today, too," he said.

"Well, that's great," I told him.  "You guys have been marvelous."

Oops.  You should have seen the subtle shift in his eyes, the almost imperceptible backward motion.  Right then I thought to fuck with him by asking if he wanted to come in for a little cup of tea.  "I like photography," I would tell him.  "I am thinking of doing a project about working men."

It is the chemicals, I tell you.  They have changed me.