A Midwest State of Mind

Originally Posted Saturday, March 22, 2014

This is what you look like when you take your fashion advice from Gertrude Stein.  Mustaches are making a comeback among the aging hipster crowd.  This is what you look like when you are about to become the literary icon of your generation.  That is what happens when you take writing advice from Gertrude Stein.  Silly hats have long been iconic among the aging hipster crowd. 

I have nothing of my own to offer. 

I made a mistake last night and went out drinking with a buddy.  We had too many and stayed out too late, and now I feel the wrongness of it. It is that time of year here when everything happens from Spring Break to Bike Week to the PGA tournament to the 12 Hours of Sebring races.  I think there is a large rodeo, too.  There is an Art Festival this weekend and now with Google Maps every hillbilly who doesn't know what to do with himself can find my hometown.  Where once the Boulevard was beautiful, it is now Downtown Disney.  And now they can get an expensive burger which is much cheaper than anything else (I can tell you what it cost me last night--I didn't have a cheap burger).  Everybody is everywhere.  Things are crowded.  I am not a good man in a crowd. 

But tonight is the party I look forward to all year, a clean, well-lighted party in the garden backyard of a friend.  There will be a band and food and drink and I want to relive the feelings I've had before sitting under the soft light on a cool evening listening to a jazz trio under the moon.  It is impossible to relive anything, of course, and wanting such as that can only lead to disappointment.  I will try to go without desire, but it is practically impossible. 

It was wrong to go out last night, wrong to leave my cave.  It was not really fun.  It was at first, and that is where I should have left it.  Never be the last to leave the party.  It isn't wise.  It isn't cool.  Eventually, people will tire of you. 

Old Ernie knew.  He was never up late.  Even at his own parties, he would check out and go to bed.  He wrote early in the morning.  He was midwestern and knew the value of that as a midwesterner is bound to do.  I am built that way, too.