Little By Little and Was By Was

I'm going to have to leave my tropical paradise and move to the desert.  I've been sneezing and blowing and scratching my eyes for days now.  I can barely move or think.  That is a handful of oak catkins.  Times that by ten billion and you have what lies in the streets surrounding my house.  My deck is covered, my car yellow.  Should I go homeopathic or allopathic?  I don't think osteopathic will do me any good.  I don't like taking drugs, though.  

I'm going to check in with Kennedy's Department of Health site to see his recommendation.  It's probably bear grease and whale blubber.  

There was a fellow living three houses down from me.  He was a weird guy with a little dog.  His house was as old or older than mine, set far back from the road toward the creek that runs behind the house.  It's a very deep lot, and the house was obscured by a stand of plants and shrubs to which he tended.  He had the typical long hair and beard of a recluse.  I'd see him ever so often coming out to the mailbox, always holding his little dog.  He was an artist and did a lot of work for Disney.  I imagine they let him work at home.  He did not fit the Disney image.  But that they hired him at all is some sort of testament, I guess, to his talent.  

one day anyone died, I guess
(and no one stopped to kiss his face)

I didn't find out for months that he had died.  My neighbor mentioned it one day awhile ago.  Another neighbor at the end of the street asked me other day if I knew that the fellow was dead.  

"Yea. . . he's been dead nearly a year now, I think."

I wondered how long it took for anyone to find out?  Nobody ever came to his house.  And what about the little dog?  His truck still sits in the driveway collecting leaves and pollen.  The plants have taken over the yard.  The man from the end of the street said, "I heard that coyotes are living in the house now."  His wife is a veterinarian, so I didn't scoff.  I drove behind a coyote running down the street one day, and he cut off into the brush-filled lot, so it makes sense.  And I'm guessing that is what happened to my little feral cat.  

It was hard to tell, but I would guess the fellow was around my age.  It makes me wonder if he died of natural causes or just decided that shit was no longer worth it.  

My new young friend tells me about her life.  It's much better than the old recluse's.  She's a cool kid, more thoughtful than most people I know.  She is burning the candle at both ends right now, and I envy her.  There is nothing but future for her.  She hasn't fucked up her life yet.  She still has "The Dream."  But she will.  Somehow.  If she doesn't do it herself, it will not matter.  Nature has a plan.  She wants to get married and have kids.  A good man, she says.  Someone stable who will treat her right.  She shows me pictures of potentials.

"He'll be boring," I kid.  "He'll begin by having that medium kind of corporate success.  He will be bland and work his way up the ladder.  After awhile, you will have vacations at resorts and maybe a condo at the beach.  You will quit working to raise your children and have lunches with the village housewives on the Boulevard.  You will become enamored of material things, jewelry, clothing, and will join the racquet club where your husband will talk about sports and upcoming golf tournaments with the other men.  His leisure outfit will have come from the pro shop.  He will fit in with the others well.  Your children will go to private schools and you will take them to soccer.  Is that what you want?"

She just laughs at that.  

"You're silly.  Send me more music."

She is at the end of her crazy days and about to enter the serious life.  She will do well, I think, and I don't want to dissuade her, but the life she aspires to. . . I don't know.  I really have no life advice except to tell people "don't do what I did."  I am being disingenuous, of course.  My life has been fairytale material and I've enjoyed it immensely . But, as I say, it really doesn't matter much.  Nature has a plan and it isn't in our favor.  Ask my old gone neighbor.  He was a successful artist living in a very nice 'hood.  What happened?  I sure would like to know.  

"Come see me tonight.  I'll buy you drinks."

But I don't go.  I don't leave the house.  If I did, it would be to go photograph at the little league wrestling thing again.  But I can't motivate.  I don't want to leave the house.  

And so. . . I'm missing this.  The champ was defending her title.  I'll bet it was really something.  

Rather, I get takeout from the Greek place and put on "Conclave."  It won some Academy award, I think.  People told me that it was a good movie.  It wasn't.  It really wasn't.  I guess certain people liked it because the new Pope turns out to be a hermaphrodite.  They like the shocking moral/political aspect of it, I imagine.  But man, that movie was a real drag.  It wasn't worth the six bucks I paid for it.  

Sorry to give away the ending if you haven't seen it.  All I can say is "don't."  And I can tell you this--I'd already guessed that.  It seemed obvious to me.  I was in no way surprised.  

I don't want to tell my friend that there are only so many hours, so many days, that you feel the way she does.  Burning that candle.  Girlfriends, boyfriends. . . crazy times.  You can tell certain things, of course, but it all gets Lost in Translation.  

Ha!

e.e. cummings understood, but a lot of good it did him.  He was, by all reports, not a happy man.  What artist is?  I saw this meme the other day and thought it very apropos.  

I think my friend is probably better off, whatever that means.  

I should probably do something now rather than think.  I did that all of yesterday, and today I feel like I've slept in a tomb.  I'll go out among the throng and listen to the inauthentic laughter from women of a certain ilk.  

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain