Dullard

 

Strange times call for strange pictures.  I don't know if that is true, but yesterday I spent time mucking about with post production tools and made this. I don't know how far down this path I'll go.  Probably not far.  But maybe occasionally.  

You see, I did not move much yesterday.  I got up, as usual, made coffee, read, wrote, as usual, then decided, after bumping around the house for a bit, to go back to bed.  I didn't get up again until noon.  

It was a cloudy day threatening rain without really raining, and maybe it contributed to my mood. I am much affected by weather.  I wasn't ill, but I acted like I was.  I tried to read, but that was no good.  I was going to go for a walk, but I didn't.  I wanted to eat, but I couldn't think of what I wanted.  It was one of those days.  

Eventually, I ended up in front of the big computer flipping through images on the hard drive.  Mucked about.  And that is how this image came about.  Mucking.  

I've been oh-so-careful with my drinking.  There are limits I do not wish to exceed.  But fuck, it was Saturday and I was kerflumped.  

"Hey, ma. . . do you want a beer?"

"Sure.  Why not?"

There we were, drinking beer and not talking about politics in her open garage, the gray street empty with just the hint of rain.  

"I think I've been wearing this t-shirt for three days.  I haven't even showered since yesterday morning."

It sounded like bragging.  

"Well, honey, I can't smell you from here."

I sniffed my underarm.  "Pizza."

We talked about my cousin who was in the state now, on the coast, vacationing with her daughter and grandsons and my other cousin who lives there.  I began telling my mother stories about my mountain friend out in Cali and how he not only let but encouraged his two young sons to fight.  He grew up that way with his brothers and is a pretty tough motherfucker.  I told her how he always wanted to do dangerous things which led me to tell her about how we used to walk through the backyards in the black neighborhoods around the lake, and how we were chased by a pack of blood hungry hounds led by a dog apparently named Lucifer (that's what the lady on the porch was yelling at him) when we rode our bikes through the neighborhood and how they almost caught us at the end of the road when we had to make the turn onto a highway, we taking a right angle, they cutting the corner through an empty lot, my buddy ahead of me, my legs and heart pumping at their adrenaline filled limits, finally just staying out of reach of that big bull terrier's jaws.  I told her about my buddy walking through the neighborhoods of East St. Louis alone.  Then, for reasons that are incomprehensible to me, I told her about taking one of our buddies to a whorehouse in Mexico City.  Not a nice one, but a rough one on the outskirts of town where the street lights had failed, where the houses were not finished being built, how a big fellow yelled out, "Hey, Gringos, we've got beautiful girls inside."  I caught myself, though, and got out of the story, but my mother wanted to know if the fellow got laid.  The story is much longer than I am telling here with many lurid details, some unsavory, indeed, but I laughed my way through it somehow and wondered what the fuck was wrong with me.  

God knows what my mother thinks of me now.  She probably went in and changed her will.  

When I had finished doing all the damage I wanted to do that day, I said goodbye and headed to the grocery store.  All that was left to do was make a dinner of grilled chicken thighs, steamed spinach, cut roasted potatoes, and a sliced avocado salad.  I opened a bottle of wine and started the grill, washed the spinach and put in into the steamer, cut the potatoes, oiled and seasoned them in a big bowl, wrapped them in foil and put them and the chicken on the grill.  I peeled and sliced the avocado and smothered the pieces in a little salt and a lot of red pepper.  I cleaned up after myself as I went, so with everything cooking, I could finally have a sip of wine and turn on the news.  CNN was reporting dire things about Trump's health, but later, as I was eating my finely prepared meal, they played a just released video of Trump sitting at a desk in the hospital suite.  

He didn't look nearly as bad as he did the day before.  Indeed, he didn't look bad at all.  Even Doctor Gupta couldn't find anything alarming in his appearance.  Nope.  As predicted, the president will pull through.  Soon, we won't have to be nice to him anymore.  

But the news, as you know, is not my thing now, so I turned off the t.v. and cleaned my dinner plates and plumped my cushions and sat down to read for awhile.  Later, I decided to watch one Roger Barnes sailing video.  Then, with minimal ablutions, I was off to bed.  Because I have been waking up choking with apnea lately, I decided to take an antihistamine tablet after I brushed my teeth.  

I woke sometime in the night realizing that it had not been an antihistamine tablet at all.  Rather, I had taken a muscle relaxer.  The two look similar, both small and round.  Shit.  I wanted to pee but I couldn't move.  

It is rainy today.  The sun did not rise.  Nor did I.  Not for a very long while.  

So, I have slept more hours in the last twenty-four than I have since they kept me doped up in the hospital.  And today looks like another sleepy one.  How many hours can a man sleep?  I guess I am going to try to find out.  The question at the top of my mind, though, is--will I shower?  I don't feel the need.  I'm still wearing the same t-shirt I've slept in the past few nights.  It seems fine.  I don't know.  

These are the problems and challenges I face now.  What to do?  

All I can do is wait and see.