More accurately, "The Joys of Living as a Single Old Guy."
Umm...let's see...
It mostly has to do with input and timing. What I eat; when I eat; what movies or TV I watch; when to go to bed, that kind of shit.
Personal hygiene. Still important, but on my schedule, which is very flexible.
Lots of time to ruminate, get ideas and think them through without interruption.
In fact, if I don't seek out interruptions there are none at all. This can be good or bad.
We've all heard the stories of old people who lived alone and were found dead days or weeks after they checked out. "There was a weird smell coming from down the hall, and we finally got the police to check it out. We forgot there was an old guy living there."
This solitude can be inspirational or one can go over the opposite edge and just stare into space for long periods of time, with no particular thought or aim, just sit and stare. That's when a strong cup of coffee is warranted, or maybe some calories, food.
These are things solitary people must be aware of, since there's no one there to say, "I'm hungry; you wanna get something to eat?", or, "Wanna get a few beers?"
Dehydration is a serious concern. So the solitary must maintain an awareness of these things. A few strategically placed mirrors can help. A chance glance at oneself can be a shocking reminder that it's time to eat, or bathe, or get some food. Other bodily functions remind us from the inside out, so usually not a problem, as long as all systems work properly. And remembering to eat, sleep, drink, bathe, helps keep the internals in good working order.
I was a solitary child. Alone, not lonely. I lived in my imagination, but it wasn't wild or far out.
Just alone. I never wanted to deal with the world much, saw little use in the pursuits of sports, competition, participation.
I used to dream of living alone in a cabin in the mountains. I decided all I needed was books to read; television; music; and food (potato chips and milk, mostly). I would be perfectly content with these simple things and no people.
I guess this is as close as I'll come to realizing that dream, and it's really close to what I expected. The major drawback is the trail of lives I attempted to interact with over the years, and the possible damage I did to them.
There was some real damage done, to the Others and to Me, but there was also a substantial exchange of joy and happiness, good feelings and thoughts. Some of those linger, and that's good, that's a good thing. If I had come here to live like this when I was eight or nine it would probably not have worked. I needed to be in the world for a good long time to become equipped to not only deal with isolation, but, in many respects, to embrace it.
This is a phase in my life cycle. It may be the final phase, but there's no way to tell. Any time of any life could be the final phase, that's the mystery of it all.
I don't think this is my ending place or time. I feel somewhere deep inside there's more to come, and the next stop will be as unpredictable and amazing as this has been, and as all the previous phases have been.
Life...goes on...in spite...of...everything...
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Slouching Toward Portland
It is hard to look yourself in the eye and realize you are not reinvented, just recycled. Things I’m doing now, decisions I am making, are more or less the same as those I made 35 or 40 years ago. The difference is I now have psychotropic drugs to rationalize with, to make myself feel bold and smart and in control. Take away the drugs and I would become the same unsure quivering mass I was back then, torturing myself over each and every move. Someone asked me not long ago if I could think of one turning point in my life, one moment in which I made a decision or something happened that altered the direction in which I was going. I answered no, but have since decided the correct answer is yes: September 11, 1975, between 1 and 1:30 p.m., EST.
Now I am starting to recognize the patterns repeating themselves. I am letting my hair grow (where it still grows, that is). I bought an expensive pair of boots because I needed a decent pair of shoes. I paid about the same as I did for my first Frye boots, 35 years ago, actually about $30 less. If I spent the equivalent for a pair of boots today it would be about $800; I spent $114, but expect I will not buy shoes for at least five years, so it’s worth it, justifiable, rationalized.
I am trying hard to think of myself as an artist. I draw a lot, and have completed frameable works in the last six weeks, and destroyed one ambitious landscape in black and white. I tried to fix it, but when a drawing needs fixing that also means it can’t be fixed. It either turns out good, or not. If not, it can’t be fixed, is better off gone, destroyed, which it is, no regrets. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes and not grieve over them if you expect to move forward.
For the last several nights I have gone to sleep about 10 p.m. and awakened between midnight and 2:30 a.m. When I wake up I put on the TV, usually some old movie or the Food Network, set the timer for 45 minutes or an hour and wait while the TV empties my brain, stops my thoughts, and I fall asleep again. I wake up between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. and start my day. Last night I dreamed about the post office, a ridiculous dream of delivering mail on an unfamiliar route, fucking it up totally. When I woke at 2:30 I watched Alton Brown making fried wontons until I went back to sleep. I woke at 7:30 this morning.
Yesterday I bought two books: “Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion, a novel, and “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. As a teenager I had read some of Upton’s work in the summer before I started high school. I was totally alone that summer. I have no memories of doing anything else except reading, often late at night into the dawn, alone in my room. I had a list of about 25 books from the high school, of which I was tasked to read 10 and show up on the first day of school with 10 book reports.
I don’t know what the rest of my family did that summer; I don’t recall that we went anywhere on vacation. I don’t remember seeing my brother, mother, or father. My only memories are of reading, being completely absorbed in books, and only at night, when everyone else was asleep. I would go to the kitchen in the middle of the night, make a sandwich and bring it back to my room with a large glass of milk, and read until the sun came up. I didn’t see anyone, had no friends. Anyone I had been friendly with during the school year was off doing something, had plans, vacations. I did not make friends easily; I was different: a loner.
Not much different than now: recycled, not reinvented, probably regressing but maybe not. You have to have moved forward in order to regress, and I’m not sure I ever did, especially now that I am recognizing all these old familiar patterns repeating.
Joan Didion was a celebrated new author in the 60s that I heard of at the time, but did not read until now, more than 40 years later. “Play It As It Lays” is an astoundingly good book, and I am going through it quickly. I started it last night, continued this morning, I’m about halfway through it. Now I know why she was so celebrated. Her style reminds me somewhat of Cormack McCarthy with punctuation. Terse, smart, engaging. I remember her from the 60s because of a title, “Slouching Toward Bethlehem”, a collection of essays. The title is from a poem by Yeats:
The Second Coming
W.B Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Now I get the ominous meaning, full of dread, so fitting in the 60s when she chose it for a title, but I have always just loved the words, and prefer to leave it at that. At any rate this is why I remember Joan Didion, and why I picked up her novel (not her essays) yesterday. After I finish the novel I will probably go back and get the essays.
I memorize snatches of Shakespeare to impress myself and those who listen in extremely rare conversations in which the opportunity presents itself to either recite or identify those few pieces I have committed to memory.
This is from memory:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
Until the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the road to dusty death.
Out, out brief candle; life is but a shadow,
A poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Macbeth
This too:
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.
But when the blast of war rings in our ears,
Then imitate the actions of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinew, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard favoured rage.”
Henry V
I memorized those two passages in high school. A few years later I met a friend who had committed to memory Lewis Carrol’s “Jabberwocky” and would recite it with dramatic flair. I was so impressed that I, too, memorized it, and to this day I can recite it, also with dramatic flair. I did just the other day, on request, after saying I had memorized it. It’s another ploy to look clever and smart. I have no memory of the story of Henry V , only one brief passage.
Now I’m working on Richard III: “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York…”
Life is challenging when you have only yourself for company. I have numerous things I like to do, but sometimes want company too. The phone doesn’t do it for me. I want the visceral experience of seeing another human across from me, talking, drinking, engaged.
Thursday I will have dinner with my old-friend-by-proxy, Debbie Garafolo-Bucci-Berry. I know her through Donna, and she knows me through Donna. We have never been alone together; this will be the first time in the 35 years I have known her that there won’t be anyone else with us. I’m curious and nervous to see how well (or not) we actually know each other, if my mental image of her is what this essentially first impression will be.
At least I’ll go to Portland and have a good meal.
Now I am starting to recognize the patterns repeating themselves. I am letting my hair grow (where it still grows, that is). I bought an expensive pair of boots because I needed a decent pair of shoes. I paid about the same as I did for my first Frye boots, 35 years ago, actually about $30 less. If I spent the equivalent for a pair of boots today it would be about $800; I spent $114, but expect I will not buy shoes for at least five years, so it’s worth it, justifiable, rationalized.
I am trying hard to think of myself as an artist. I draw a lot, and have completed frameable works in the last six weeks, and destroyed one ambitious landscape in black and white. I tried to fix it, but when a drawing needs fixing that also means it can’t be fixed. It either turns out good, or not. If not, it can’t be fixed, is better off gone, destroyed, which it is, no regrets. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes and not grieve over them if you expect to move forward.
For the last several nights I have gone to sleep about 10 p.m. and awakened between midnight and 2:30 a.m. When I wake up I put on the TV, usually some old movie or the Food Network, set the timer for 45 minutes or an hour and wait while the TV empties my brain, stops my thoughts, and I fall asleep again. I wake up between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. and start my day. Last night I dreamed about the post office, a ridiculous dream of delivering mail on an unfamiliar route, fucking it up totally. When I woke at 2:30 I watched Alton Brown making fried wontons until I went back to sleep. I woke at 7:30 this morning.
Yesterday I bought two books: “Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion, a novel, and “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. As a teenager I had read some of Upton’s work in the summer before I started high school. I was totally alone that summer. I have no memories of doing anything else except reading, often late at night into the dawn, alone in my room. I had a list of about 25 books from the high school, of which I was tasked to read 10 and show up on the first day of school with 10 book reports.
I don’t know what the rest of my family did that summer; I don’t recall that we went anywhere on vacation. I don’t remember seeing my brother, mother, or father. My only memories are of reading, being completely absorbed in books, and only at night, when everyone else was asleep. I would go to the kitchen in the middle of the night, make a sandwich and bring it back to my room with a large glass of milk, and read until the sun came up. I didn’t see anyone, had no friends. Anyone I had been friendly with during the school year was off doing something, had plans, vacations. I did not make friends easily; I was different: a loner.
Not much different than now: recycled, not reinvented, probably regressing but maybe not. You have to have moved forward in order to regress, and I’m not sure I ever did, especially now that I am recognizing all these old familiar patterns repeating.
Joan Didion was a celebrated new author in the 60s that I heard of at the time, but did not read until now, more than 40 years later. “Play It As It Lays” is an astoundingly good book, and I am going through it quickly. I started it last night, continued this morning, I’m about halfway through it. Now I know why she was so celebrated. Her style reminds me somewhat of Cormack McCarthy with punctuation. Terse, smart, engaging. I remember her from the 60s because of a title, “Slouching Toward Bethlehem”, a collection of essays. The title is from a poem by Yeats:
The Second Coming
W.B Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Now I get the ominous meaning, full of dread, so fitting in the 60s when she chose it for a title, but I have always just loved the words, and prefer to leave it at that. At any rate this is why I remember Joan Didion, and why I picked up her novel (not her essays) yesterday. After I finish the novel I will probably go back and get the essays.
I memorize snatches of Shakespeare to impress myself and those who listen in extremely rare conversations in which the opportunity presents itself to either recite or identify those few pieces I have committed to memory.
This is from memory:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
Until the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the road to dusty death.
Out, out brief candle; life is but a shadow,
A poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Macbeth
This too:
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.
But when the blast of war rings in our ears,
Then imitate the actions of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinew, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard favoured rage.”
Henry V
I memorized those two passages in high school. A few years later I met a friend who had committed to memory Lewis Carrol’s “Jabberwocky” and would recite it with dramatic flair. I was so impressed that I, too, memorized it, and to this day I can recite it, also with dramatic flair. I did just the other day, on request, after saying I had memorized it. It’s another ploy to look clever and smart. I have no memory of the story of Henry V , only one brief passage.
Now I’m working on Richard III: “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York…”
Life is challenging when you have only yourself for company. I have numerous things I like to do, but sometimes want company too. The phone doesn’t do it for me. I want the visceral experience of seeing another human across from me, talking, drinking, engaged.
Thursday I will have dinner with my old-friend-by-proxy, Debbie Garafolo-Bucci-Berry. I know her through Donna, and she knows me through Donna. We have never been alone together; this will be the first time in the 35 years I have known her that there won’t be anyone else with us. I’m curious and nervous to see how well (or not) we actually know each other, if my mental image of her is what this essentially first impression will be.
At least I’ll go to Portland and have a good meal.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Rough Transcript of a Dream
I was with someone, Alison, I think. We had a choice of two movies to see, both seemed good. We chose a fantasy adventure. It wasn't really a movie, but an environment which we entered, walking up a trail into some woods. Flying animals zoomed by, firing arrows or something like arrows, lightning bolts maybe. It was all great fun, and stunningly beautiful, because even though we were not watching it on a screen but actually walking through it, we were not in it either, we were not elements in the movie if that makes any sense. We were spectators.
Other vague events lead to our meeting up with Jerry Seinfeld, who took us on the Seinfeld Tour, a series of rooms which were sets/scenes from various episodes of "Seinfeld."
The details were rich: a bureau with Jerry's watch and wallet on it, and a silver bracelet he wore (I don't recall ever seeing him wear one on the show, but it was there); a table and chairs in a dining room, all well appointed and detailed; other rooms, hallways, shops, etc.
Here's the best part: Jerry told us that everything we saw: walls, carpet, furniture, plates, Jerry's watch, kitchen gadgets, even his silver bracelet, EVERYTHING was made of chocolate and we could help ourselves to any of it. I took a bite of his Palm Pilot and it was a delicious chocolate cake with cream filling. I broke off a corner of the table, a piece of thick rich dark chocolate. Sure enough everything was good quality chocolate and we ate what we pleased. Other "Seinfeld" characters drifted in and out as we walked through the rooms.
Disturbing and startling was that it all seemed very vivid and real.
That, and wondering where the hell this stuff came from.
How did all this shit get into my head?
That's it.
Oh, and a few exploding mailboxes, but I have a pretty good idea where that came from.
Other vague events lead to our meeting up with Jerry Seinfeld, who took us on the Seinfeld Tour, a series of rooms which were sets/scenes from various episodes of "Seinfeld."
The details were rich: a bureau with Jerry's watch and wallet on it, and a silver bracelet he wore (I don't recall ever seeing him wear one on the show, but it was there); a table and chairs in a dining room, all well appointed and detailed; other rooms, hallways, shops, etc.
Here's the best part: Jerry told us that everything we saw: walls, carpet, furniture, plates, Jerry's watch, kitchen gadgets, even his silver bracelet, EVERYTHING was made of chocolate and we could help ourselves to any of it. I took a bite of his Palm Pilot and it was a delicious chocolate cake with cream filling. I broke off a corner of the table, a piece of thick rich dark chocolate. Sure enough everything was good quality chocolate and we ate what we pleased. Other "Seinfeld" characters drifted in and out as we walked through the rooms.
Disturbing and startling was that it all seemed very vivid and real.
That, and wondering where the hell this stuff came from.
How did all this shit get into my head?
That's it.
Oh, and a few exploding mailboxes, but I have a pretty good idea where that came from.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Life, and so on...
Does lightning ever strike twice in the same place? Of all the things I've ever felt and done, I'm beginning to believe there's only one that can never happen again.
And that is incredibly sad.
And that is incredibly sad.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Into the Ether
Today I picked up my first paycheck since leaving Lowe's in July. Momentous.
I would only go back to New York City if I could be sure of catching a ride in Ben Bailey's Cash Cab, and only if I could have Jesse, Nick, and Alison with me. I don't think there's any question Ben could ask that we couldn't answer among the four of us, including the Video Bonus.
The snows of December are just about gone, thanks to copious amounts of rain and temperatures above 40 F. Mount Hood glowed in the golden setting sun as I drove home this afternoon. Tomorrow is the full moon, already hanging high in the sky over the mountain.
Oh, would that Godzilla were real; then we'd have something to talk about. "The Simpsons" isn't enough, no.
Urban legends told in training classes about horrific traffic accidents put me to sleep. Fast food lunches take years off my life.
I ran over a fallen branch one dark and rainy morning. It flew up and cracked my driver's side mirror. Heavy rains cause coastal flooding and highway closures. Many truckers are stranded, waiting for the waters to recede and the roads to reopen.
Dunkin Donuts advertises on TV here although there is no Dunkin Donuts here. Joe's Donuts in Sandy are supposed to be excellent; their building is painted in red and white checks. I ate two donuts from Joe's at the Sandy Post Office January 2nd. I was not impressed.
Read any good books lately? Seen any movies? Can yodeling cure cancer? That's some mighty fine spelunkin', Lew; mighty fine spelunkin'.
Opera and Professional Wrestling are very much alike except for the music, singing, and plots.
4 of a kind beats a flush. A fresh cupcake can make a delicious snack. I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights. Shut up.
I would only go back to New York City if I could be sure of catching a ride in Ben Bailey's Cash Cab, and only if I could have Jesse, Nick, and Alison with me. I don't think there's any question Ben could ask that we couldn't answer among the four of us, including the Video Bonus.
The snows of December are just about gone, thanks to copious amounts of rain and temperatures above 40 F. Mount Hood glowed in the golden setting sun as I drove home this afternoon. Tomorrow is the full moon, already hanging high in the sky over the mountain.
Oh, would that Godzilla were real; then we'd have something to talk about. "The Simpsons" isn't enough, no.
Urban legends told in training classes about horrific traffic accidents put me to sleep. Fast food lunches take years off my life.
I ran over a fallen branch one dark and rainy morning. It flew up and cracked my driver's side mirror. Heavy rains cause coastal flooding and highway closures. Many truckers are stranded, waiting for the waters to recede and the roads to reopen.
Dunkin Donuts advertises on TV here although there is no Dunkin Donuts here. Joe's Donuts in Sandy are supposed to be excellent; their building is painted in red and white checks. I ate two donuts from Joe's at the Sandy Post Office January 2nd. I was not impressed.
Read any good books lately? Seen any movies? Can yodeling cure cancer? That's some mighty fine spelunkin', Lew; mighty fine spelunkin'.
Opera and Professional Wrestling are very much alike except for the music, singing, and plots.
4 of a kind beats a flush. A fresh cupcake can make a delicious snack. I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights. Shut up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
