Autumnally Dead

 All Deadhead and Stones fucked up tonight.  Chillin' after a long, long day.  No worries.  Me and my baby cat were groovy on the deck tonight, her eating, me with a big ole scotch and a large cheroot, sun a setting, thunder clouds in the distance.  It was a fine first day of fall here with a slight breeze and just enough cloudiness to chase the heat away.  Indeed for a few moments, there was hope.  I took my mother swimming and lay in the alternate sun and clouds, happy and melancholy, having swum (yes, that is correct) two hundreds yards, twenty-five at a time.  Whatever.  I'm a fat beast of a swimmer and I have never liked swimming.  I could feel every broken bone and my insufficient lung with each stroke.  

But I'm a stud--and you know rider, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone.  

I went to the camera shop again.  I gave the repair guy something he needed for an old Polaroid processor.  He has never used the Polaroid Impossible 8x10 film and I have, so we are going to set a date for setting up and shooting some of that film.  I took an old lens I've had around forever, a brass, 19th century Wollensack 8x10 Rapid Rectilinear.  I bought it on eBay before I knew anything about large format cameras or lenses. Turns out that this one is a real f'ing beaut.  I was ready to spend a lot of money on an old brass lens, but this one will do fine.  Oh, buddy, I can't wait to try it out.  

The afternoon was bright and fine, and I should have shot some more glass plates, but I didn't want to bother.  Rather, I wanted to work on the story I had started the day before, so I went to the Cafe Strange and got a decaf Americano and sat outside and wrote awhile.  I don't think it was as good as the day before, but I got it down.  It was too hot sitting outside to write really well.  That was my excuse, anyway. 

Then it was back to ma's to fix the evening meal.  I think she thinks that taking her to PT, taking her to the pool, and cooking meals is what I really want to do in life.  She shows no sign of believing otherwise.  But I, my friends, am worn to a stub.  

Today, however, she is on her own.  I am meeting the birthday group from the factory for drinks.  One of my favorite people has gotten a job at a factory in Virginia for a lot more money and is leaving at the end of the month.  We liked one another from the minute we met.  She believed in me.  She always had my back.  I never had a doubt about her.  It is going to be very sad for me today when I say goodbye knowing I will in all likelihood never see her again.  After today, I may check out of this factory group.  I feel myself becoming somewhat alien now.  My time there is flowing ever further into the past, my relevance receding with it.  It will be difficult, but I think this will be my last hurrah.  

Besides. . . I got my ma to keep me busy now.