Go Ahead and Jump--The Water Is Deep

It doesn't matter what I put up any more.  Somehow, I have killed the blog.

"How did it happen," he asked.

"Two ways.  First slowly, then quickly."

I always thought that was an accurate account of dialog in "The Sun Also Rises," but it should read, "Two ways.  Gradually, then suddenly."

I like the quote, but it is not really accurate.  The blog had hit some crazy kind of numbers and I was going mad with work and art and all of it.  I had a slight breakdown, and decided to quit writing.  I did. It lasted days.  But when I began again, it was all over.  Things were done.  They have never come back.  Perhaps readers saw me as another Willy-Nilly, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I am rather a Steady Eddy.  But the world is fickle, and I am stupid, and east is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.  Or something like that. Groucho Marx said it much better than I can.

So I post an image that one of my friends adores.  He or she can identify him/herself he s/he wishes.  But there it is.  Images popular with my friends and others who I know from from this blog sometimes never make it to the site because of content.  But with the numbers I am now running, few people will ever see it anyway.  C'est la vie.

Today I practiced non-engagement, and the day went well enough.  Last night, I woke at three o'clock in the morning and could not go back to sleep, so I used some of the hippie sleep aid and went back to bed.  I slept until seven-thirty and awoke feeling. . . interesting.  Maybe it helped my non-engagement.  At the factory, I worked like a demon, and after work, at the gym, I exercised like one, too.  After a shower, I went for high protein sushi and sat alone at the table on the veranda on a Friday night as couples and families walked by, usually going to the movie theater, but some were going to bars for cocktails and fun. A fellow I know who used to play football and who is a bit younger than I and who, long ago, used to be my silent rival as we were both attracting some of the same women, and who I secretly chose as my physical benchmark and said he would get fat before me. . . walked by with his wife.

"Pick it up there," I heard the voice say as I turned.  It was him.  And he looked great.  He took his minor football fame and became a realtor with his jersey number always around.  And it was brilliant.  He made a fair fortune.  He married a model who lived in L.A. and I thought, "ho-ho-ho, he will be miserable.  That will never last."

But it did, and now they have two beautiful children and one of the big homes in this old, established town.  He is a good guy after all, though maybe it was the wedding and the kids that turned him, and he  has retained his rugged good looks, and his wife is still very desirable.

Without thinking, I threw him a peace sign which was silly here in the land of Nod, but he smiled and waved and his pretty wife smiled, too.  And there I sat alone eating sushi on a Friday night, and I thought no wonder they can smile knowing what a man like me looks like eating alone on the veranda of a restaurant at seven-thirty on a Friday night.

Oh, yes. . . it got to me.

But then I thought of what I was to do tomorrow so early in the morning, a thing that is strange and worse and which I would not report here.  And I thought of how people would react if they knew about that or about much of the life I keep secret and separate from the one that people can view from outside.  Or even the few readers that remain here for that matter.

I am just an observer and a recorder, but I am something else, too, a provocateur, perhaps, though not really, for the world when you go into it alone without anyone to tell you "no" is a very weird and strange place.  It is like a David Lynch movie for sure.

But I am scared.

And I wasn't able to procure the party favors.

Tonight I go through the checklist of everything I will need tomorrow and make sure everything is there before I pour a scotch.  And suddenly it is nine, nine-thirty, and everything is ready.  Everything but me.  I am nothing, I know, but a little baby boy.

But there is little in the world that beckons me, and I will go where I am beckoned now, I reckon.  I have a cat and an old house and a job at the factory, and I have a few friends all of whom have families and so are not at liberty to explore the way I have decided to do.  I think we are all cursed and that there is no way to win.  The house has all the odds.  But I am will go tomorrow just to see what happens.  As my friend C.C. likes to say with that horribly ironic grin as he eggs me on, "What can go wrong?"  He is the devil.  "Go ahead and jump," he calls, "the water is deep."

As this site tanks, Q goes public.  He has made a monetary site on which he stakes his future.  He is more of a marketer than I.  He is big on Facebook and loves to engage the public.  Go help him out at his new site and hit the ads or meters or whatever and make him money.  Oh, yea. . . I'm not talking to so many people any more, am I?  Well, old sport, I'm sure you'll make it on your own.  I'm counting on it.  The well is running dry, and I will be living with you and the family before you know it.

Oh. . . and though you can't know. . . wish me staunch good luck in the morning.