Ommmmm

Big day, yesterday.  It began at the infamous museum that got busted for trading in fake Basquiats.  They fired their curator, but that wasn't enough and the big money donors went elsewhere.  And then you realize that there is no art without money.  Hardly, anyway.  Without some bucks coming in, you end up with a blog.  Dear Jesus. . . is there anything more pathetic?  

And so, I was a real hoot. The exhibit was a contemporary art showing of artists in the state.  I don't know what happened, but holy shit. . . it was awful.  And I was quite vocal about it to the great amusement and horror of my companion.  

"Why aren't you doing this?  It is all about access.  There is nothing technical at all about these photographs. Just take your friend into a public bathroom, pull out your iPhone, and say, 'Hey, Ginger, show your tits in the mirror!'  There you go.  You've got it."

Of course, I was right.  Photography is about more than access, but without access, you are just taking photographs of your cocktails every night.  Give me access to what I want to photograph and I'll set your universe spinning.  When I taught photography, I tried to drill this home.  People take for granted the things they have access to. They don't even see them.  One day, however, you go. . . "shit, piss, fuck. . . I don't know why I never took photographs of that!"

Or you do if you have any artistic moments in your shriveled little soul.  Oh what I couldn't do with access to Q's family, for instance.  I've offered to trade homes with him for awhile.  He could have some solitude in my house and I could exploit his family in every way imaginable.  I don't think his ex, though, is going for it.  But if any of you out there have something to trade. . . . 

Just remember. . . I wasn't always a food and drink photographer.  My imagination runs deep.  But I have access to nothing any longer.  I have no "ins" and I've lost my confidence and my nerve.  I've become a shut-in.  

Except for yesterday.  After the horrors of the museum, we went to lunch.  Our favorite barkeep was there.  We sat in you usual places minus one.  I like it when we can sit on the corner of the bar so we don't have to turn our heads more than a few degrees to talk.  My arthritic neck doesn't like turning 90 degrees any more.  But we had to sit side by side.  At least she was on my most maneuverable side.  

Food and drinks and good talk between child-free only children.  She'll be gone in a couple of weeks and I will miss our outings.  She queries, "But you'll be coming up, right?"

"Oh, sure, just like everybody else.  'Save a room for me,' they say.  Once you put this place in the rearview mirror, though, you will make a new life and new friends and you won't mind that people don't really come up to visit.  Indeed, when they say they want to, you'll be, like--'Well. . . I'm renovating that room right now. . . it may not be a good time.'"

She laughed and nodded.  She knows it is true, by and large.  

"But yea, I'll come up." 

Who knows?  

We ate and drank into mid-afternoon.  She had another date coming up, a ten course chocolate and wine pairing, I think she said, up in Grit City.  

"The guy doing it is like a chocolate artist.  He does chocolate sculptures and stuff."

It sounded slightly more appealing than what we saw at the museum.  

"I think I'll not go home first.  If I do, I won't want to go out again."

She is like me about that.  We both like being home, early bed, etc.  For her, bed is REALLY early.  She went to bed at eight the night before.  She gets up at four in the morning, though.  Now that she no longer will be working at the factory, I wonder.  

Another of my factory friends made a surprise resignation yesterday.  People were in fair shock. There was no warning.  I got a text from her early in the day telling me what she intended to do.  Everyone, it seems, is tired of factory work.  I don't think the pandemic was good for us.  

After I left the restaurant, I went straight to my mother's.  It is hot and the mosquitoes are apocalyptic right now, so we sat inside.  Sitting on her couch, I fell asleep straight away.  I would wake a bit when she would say something, and I would answer, then I would fall straight back into slumber.  I did that for about half an hour.  Was it the sangria?  I don't think so.  I've been out of it for days.  It is a little worrisome.  

After my visit, I came home to the cat and a cocktail.  And texts.  Lots and lots of texts.  As I sat down with the salad portion of dinner, I got a text from the girl who won't ask me out.  It surprises me now.  I think every time now, "Well that's it."  

As I was eating in front of the t.v. that I was not watching and which was playing nothing, a screen saver option popped up that ws an hour and a half of I forget what the description was music.  I was curious and clicked the button.  Some hideous plastic looking colored blobs started oozing across the screen, things that I felt were unwatchable, but the music--oo-la-la.  It was a combo of trance and meditation music, I think.  It put me in the zone.  My entire body relaxed.  I closed my eyes and drifted.  Yes, yes. . . this. . . .

Swoosh!

The conversation continued.  I was put in a mind to tell a story about my climbing buddy and I going to see a fellow who blew Tibetan horns in a nightly ritual inside a big room full of cushions and couches in the Twin Peaks portion of San Francisco.  I didn't want to go, but it turned out to be a most incredible experience.  My buddy had been before and he knew.  I went into another dimension.  I'd never relaxed so much.  It was close to Nirvana.  

That is what I wanted to tell her about, but not with my thumbs.  

"I guess I'll never get to hear the story then, will I?"

I thought I knew what she was hinting, but I am cagey.  

"You'll just have to read the biography, I guess."  

We'll see.  

I texted my climbing buddy quickly.  

"Hey, what was the name of that fellow. . . . "

He didn't text back.  

"C'mon man. . . I'm trying to impress a girl." 

A text came in. 

"Karma Moffett."

I put that into a YouTube search.  

I sent it right back to him.  

"No shit!"

I listened to it for a minute, but of course it was nothing like the experience that afternoon in Moffett's studio.  Nothing at all.  

I returned to the trance music on my television.  

"This is how I will spend my night's," I said.  "This is great and wonderful.  I need to get back to a hippie life."

"Hippie life?"

"Yea, you know, candles and incense and tie dye, yoga and meditation."

It had been a hell of a day, very social for me.  In a bit, I cleaned up the kitchen and took myself to bed.  

Before I put out the light, though, I thought to call up some mediation music on my Apple Music app.  I let it play softly when I lay down to sleep.  I thought it would end on its own, but hours later, it was still playing something, and it was very irritating.  I got up and shut it off.  

And slept fitfully for the rest of the night.  

Now it is time to make a decision about the day.  I am thinking beach with part of my brain, but the lazy part is not buying it.  At this point, it is a coin toss.  

Such is life.  My indecisiveness continues.