Sometimes Music Is the Last Refuge

Originally Posted Sunday, July 21, 2013

My images continue to evolve.  I don't know if you can tell.  The photography is the same, but the process changes.  Subtle things, but I work hours and hours and continually tweak the way I work the image.  I've worked many, many hours this weekend cooking up things.  As I work, I listen to music from my vast library placed on random shuffle.  Bruce Springsteen reminds me of someone.  Tom Waits someone else.  Leonard Coen, too.  All the girl singers just remind me of me.  So I sit alone and listen to music and work on pictures.  It is a last refuge of sorts.  But today. . . today I decided to venture out to buy. . . shooooos.  I really need to get new shoes.  So, idiot that I am, I worked out, went to the diner, then headed out for the Premium Outlet Mall--where they have a converse store--at one o'clock. 

Big mistake. 

The interstate was a nightmare.  I drove through sixteen miles of the shit only to pull off an exit and wait through three cycles to get through a light.  Then three more for the next.  Then, a ten mile an hour trip for a mile down a jam packed road.  Only to get to a parking lot without parking.  Cars circled like vultures.  I drove around for about twenty minutes looking for a spot.  There was not a chance.  And so, I showed them.  I went home. 

A two hour journey with nothing to show. 

I tried to get my friend to have a cocktail.  To no avail.  And so I poured the first at home.  Mmm.  I went back to working on images.  More drinks.  Buy seven, it was obvious that I would be eating and drinking alone on a Saturday night.  A trip to the liquor store, then, plus the grocery store for something to eat. . . in front of the t.v. alone.

A friend emailed to tell me she was at a wine tasting party with people worth knowing.  She sent pictures as evidence. 

Sunk. 

Television is no good.

*     *     *     *     *     

The gray morning let me sleep in, waking, falling back to sleep, ibid.  One never really awakens after that, not fully.  Coffee.  The Times.  I read it, then it changes.  New stories.  I read again.  Government regulations that used to keep barriers between them and commerce have been compromised since the '80s.  Now they manipulate prices.  Arabs don't like women who cry rape.  The Obama administration has prosecuted more cases of leaking secrets than all other administrations combined.  Some people are very angry about the Zimmerman case.  Australians are not allowing boat people to settle in their country.  Summer street fashion in NYC reflects the weather. 

Oh. . . and sleeping alone is O.K. (link).  Whew.  Thank goodness.  I needed to know.  I was afraid to admit it.  I have been sleeping alone for quite some time.  There.  It is out in the open. 

I have been feeling the big hollow for some time now.  There is only so much of that a person can take.  I must change my routines or perish.  I read that in the Times today, too. 

Most of the non-commercial blogs I read have gone dormant.  Is that what people do in summer?  Take a break?  Maybe readers, too.  Yesterday, I had a blog and nobody came.  It was the least visited posting since the beginning.  Summer, maybe.  But why put the blame elsewhere?  Everything must go to market.  Most businesses fail.  I'll need to decide what sort of capital it will take to get this thing up and running again. 

The day is gray inside and out.  I sit and wait.