Somatic

I've done it again, of course, have taken on too much, and now my throat is scratchy and my nose begins to run.  It is psychosomatic, I know.  For instance, yesterday my stomach began to churn as I ate leftover food from a Thai restaurant that I had. . . oh, I don't know. . . since Monday, maybe.  Not long.  Been refrigerated.  Still, fried pork rice from a sleazy Thai restaurant. That is what I kept thinking as I ate.  Of course there was nothing wrong with the food, but for the next hour I could feel the coming food poisoning as my stomach. . . no need for details.  Then I had a shoot in the studio that went late. And I started drinking early.  So by the time I began to clean up after the model was gone, I could feel the disease taking hold.  I am not really sick.  Not physically.  It is nothing more than the mental illness that haunts me.  You see, I am really Theodore Cleaver at heart, but like Fritz the Cat, I fall into adventures that stun and excite me.  One need not have these adventures, and indeed for much of my life, I kept myself from them.  But living alone. . . well, you begin to give yourself permissions.  And once you realize that there is no one at home to tell you no. . . .

But "Mom" is always right.  I put "Mom" in quotes to indicate June Cleaver and not that drunken, insane woman you might have had masquerading in your house as "mother."  No, the "Mom" who told you in sweet though sometime stern tones to make your bed and shine your shoes and brush your teeth.

"You don't want to end up like poor old Mr. Jones, do you?"

Maybe Mr. Jones looked like fun to you, but you knew what she meant.  And later in life when you let yourself slide down that slippery slope, when you quit combing your hair and shining your shoes, after too many late nights doing questionable things, the image of Mr. Jones would appear, and you would fear that somewhere some "Mom" was warning their children that they didn't want to end up like you.  Did they?

So, yea.  The sore scratchy throat and runny nose are manifestations of the other thing.  But I swear, I am beginning soon to clean up everything.  I will re-landscape and repair the sprinklers.  I will give away the 1985 Volvo that has sat in the driveway for a year now collecting. . . oh. . . it is such a painful symbol of who I have become.  I will take everything out of all the rooms in the house, clean, paint, and put back just what is needed, and maybe not even that.  I will buy new things and make a showcase home.  I will pressure wash and begin to paint both mine and my mother's houses.  I will mulch the driveways and talk to an architect about designing the sunroom I want to add.  I will buy new clothes and become present on the Boulevard once again.  You'll see.

Of course, I will have to give up everything else, for doing all that alone will consume me.

It will be uncharacteristically gray here for days.  The air is sticky and clothes are impossible.  My hair has a life of its own.  I'd best stay low at the factory for I feel that anything I say will indict me.  I am guilty of anything they want to pin on me.  Theodore Cleaver.  Wild at Heart.