I've become a street photographer armed with an iPhone. A raccoon chased down a sewer by Sandhill Cranes while out of frame a feral catch lies watching. I could probably sell this for more than any of my brothel imagery. Everyone who saw this reacted immediately: "What a great picture." There is nothing like the oddities of everyday life to capture the human imagination. And I won't say that it is simpleminded. There are great symbolic and mythical tales referenced here. It is simply one of God's Great Mysteries.
Speaking of which, many of them have been collected in the two volume set, "The Norton Anthology of Religions, Volumes I and II" (review one) (review two). I sent the review in an email to Q this morning with the subject heading, "must have." A few minutes later, he sent back an email saying they would be at my door on December 22. "Merry Christmas." I am certain to become the nation's leading plagiarizer. What better place to pilfer ideas about the meaning of things? Or the lack thereof. I haven't been able to find much meaning lately. All seems simply random misery.
I woke in the middle of the night after a bad day. I have fears about my health that will eventually drive me to an appointment with some sawbones/chemical dispenser. After that, I'll be looking for faith healers and witchdoctors. In the end, it doesn't matter, really, for nobody can save you. Contemplating it has thrown me into a deep and dark despair.
Some of you have gleaned that I have been somewhat in love of late. If I could give any advice to anyone, it would be to avoid this irrational emotional state at all costs. Steel yourself against these violent emotions. Do what the happy people do--like enough, don't love. Wed your soul to someone you can stand, not someone you want, someone who can make you laugh, not someone who can make you cry rivers. I know that not everyone is built like me. I am pretty certain that many people have never felt things as deeply as I too often do. It is a horrible condition that only severely transforming drugs can palliate. You will not be the same person after you take them, but that is the idea, no?
I sent a selfie to a woman I have not seen for a couple of weeks. Her response about my appearance sent me into a downward spiral. I have lost a lot of weight and don't look like my old robust self. I know it, but it is difficult to know, really, looking in the mirror every day. I just don't seem to be recovering my strength and vitality. One day up, two days down. But, I tell myself, I was off my feet for most of five weeks with no gym and really no exercise of any kind and a very limited diet.
But throw into the mix the sort of emotional misery that accompanies a break up and perhaps the resulting reaction is exponential.
Maybe it is a perfect storm. Yesterday was my longtime secretary's last day. We have a stronger relationship than I might have expected. I've tried to ignore her impending departure, but yesterday as I was leaving for lunch, I asked her if she would be there when I got back. She looked at me with sad eyes and quietly said, "No." I couldn't have predicted the sadness that swelled my heart. It took everything I could muster not to break out in tears. We simply hugged and said, "O.K. I'll see you later." Back at the office later, I could feel the horrible, empty vacuum.
The horror of the day had started the day before, really. I had not heard from "the girl" for a week, not since the famous "walkout" at the restaurant. I was O.K. I was strong and justice was on my side. Nobody knew the things I imagined, the happiness I knew she was experiencing. Nobody saw me check my email, my phone, too many times a day. Nope. I was a hard nut. Then, the day before yesterday, I received a one word text. The emotional nut was cracked. Things began to pour out. The crack became a fissure, then a crevice, then a chasm.
Near the end of the day, I sat immobilized, bereft. . . dying.
"Are you O.K.?" one of the co-workers I am close to asked.
"No."
"I'm finishing up work in about twenty minutes," he said. "Let's go to that bar you like. You need a drink and some counseling."
"Yes," I said. I sat slumped in a chair in his office and waited for him to finish up. My boss stopped by. He would come, too.
By five, we were three guys in a good bar ordering specialty cocktails. Two of us were gay, one of us wishing to be asexual. The conversation was fun and witty. I tried one of the other fellow's cocktails, a Ginger and Rye. Holy smokes! I was feeling better. After my Old Fashioned, I decided on three of his.
By seven, I was home, drunk and numb. I made some edamame and poured some sake and sat down to watch "Homeland."
At nine, a text came in from another woman wanting to know if I was at the bar. I told her I had been but was home now. One more scotch and I was ready for bed.
I woke in the night feeling good. Then not. And the vortex of horror caught me in its swirl. My knee hurt, my back. My G.I. system was rotten from my mouth to my butthole. Another Christmas alone. I couldn't control the panic, couldn't slow my heart. All manner of worries crowded one another in the dark, all things I hadn't done, all things I needed to do, all things I would never.
I got up and took a Xanax, drank a big glass of water. The goddamned thing would not work fast enough.
I could not get up in the morning. The panic was gone, but the mind was still spinning. No anxiety, perhaps, but an abundance of dread. I have never taken multiple Xanax in a single day, but I read online that it is allowable.
My buddy who has a house in Yosemite called. He said that he and his family were going to stay in their rental house forty minutes away for Christmas. If I wanted to come out, I could have his house to myself.
"Bring the girl," he said. "There is no one in the valley this time of year. It is beautiful."
I don't know if I could stand to sit in his empty cabin in an empty valley with nothing but the cold deadness of winter all about. I don't know what spooks might come to haunt me. The thought, truly, is terrifying. I'm not sure I'd ever come back.
And so today I will try to put one foot in front of the other. I will do some practical things like cleaning out the refrigerator and doing loads of laundry. My mother writes to tell me about her spartan diet, and so I have that to look forward to for the holidays. The hillbilly music is beginning to scare me like the Cormac McCarthy books I am reading and have read. The day is cool and blue and bright but seems to promise nothing.
* * *
Upon further reading/thinking:
"Caravaggio had a notoriously rackety lifestyle, which ultimately led in May 1606 to his fatal wounding of an opponent in a brawl, his flight from justice and his tragically early death in exile two years later. This kind of disorderly existence was by no means uncommon among Rome’s artists at the time and their experience of the city’s seamy side fueled a new artistic interest in poor and lowlife scenes and characters — as is vividly illustrated in “The Baroque Underworld: Vice and Destitution in Rome,” at the Villa Medici in Rome."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/arts/international/painters-of-the-dark-side-of-rome.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-middle-span-region®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region
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