Firebrand

I went to the little meet up in the Factory City yesterday.  I was going to take the train, but I didn't like the departure times.  I would have had to leave either an hour and a half or over three hours after my arrival.  I needed a better escape mechanism.  

I drove. 

I am no good in large group settings where you need to go from table to table to speak to people.  To whom should you talk?  Where should you look?  How much time with each person?  Wait. . . did so and so just snub me?  Why are they spending so much time talking to him?  

Etc.  

I sat at a table with my old college roommate and a few other people who came and went.  Asocial people, more or less.  I stayed long enough to finish three gin and tonics.  

"Did you take the train?"

"No. I drove."

"Are you O.K. to drive?"

"Are you shitting me?"

It was early.  The sun was just setting.  Some people had only recently arrived.  I didn't want to get into a long and difficult night.  I hadn't eaten.  I wanted to go home.  

The entire day had gotten away from me.  Most seem to now.  I have projects in mind, but I am very late in getting to them.  More and more is left undone.  I am not so much in command of my world anymore.  So it seems.  

"I'm a climate scientist.  If you knew what I knew, you'd be terrified, too."

That was the tagline to one story this morning.  Most of the news was about Biden's State of the Union speech.  I didn't watch it.  

"I'm a political scientist.  If you knew what I knew, you'd be terrified, too."

I'm sure that could have been another tagline for another op-ed.  

The drummer from the old band wrote that Keith Richards' flashbacks must be horrifying.  

"I've been having flash forwards lately.  They are much worse."

I looked at the headlines on the webpages for both CNN and The NYT this morning, both declaring Biden a real firebrand last night.  

"See Joe Biden's Response to Marjorie Taylor Greene's Interruption"

Real click bait.  How could I not?  After a long commercial, Biden came on.  Holy shit.  The doddering, stuttering, mumbling old man came out swinging?  Like I couldn't see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears?  He's gotten much worse in the last four years.  There is a weird combination of fear, confusion, and anger in his beady little eyes.  It is terrifying.

That clip was enough.  I wanted no more.  

The day lies before me like an open wound.  Not really.  I just thought that sounded "literary."  It's good, right?    But I can't think like that.  It is Friday, gateway to a fun weekend.  What shall I do? 

"Have fun, silly."

Oh, yea.  That's right.  Have fun.  But what if I get caught?  I mean, what if someone reports me or files a complaint?  

"Oh, Christ. . . you're incorrigible."

Maybe I'll find a drum circle and dance naked with dervish twirlers.  Drink gin, smoke pot, howl at the stars. . . .  I need to check the hippie calendar of events.  Surely there is something going on.