These days it takes the train a longer time to leave the station.  There are the hindrances, torpor, depressing thoughts to overcome.  I got up and it was cool out.  I put a tee shirt on, socks, my newer Brooks running shoes and made it out in the morning light for a walk around the block.   The river is high, and deep milk chocolate smooth up the green branches on the other side, up to the tops of its banks.  I haven't felt very chipper as we all wait for Congress to negotiate with the hard-line Republican senate over the supplemental unemployment benefits.

I get back, turn the air conditioner back on, half some slices of pastrami.  And it takes a big effort just to get the old stick-free teflon pan to crack open three eggs and cook them sunny side up.  I take in cups of yesterday's second run green tea, but none of it leaves me with anything but a wish to meditate.

I could feel bitter, where I have left myself, my own choices, my acts, all things like that.

Many great books start with Jonah's situation.  Moby Dick's preacher sets the tone early, in New Bedford.


A part of my brain threatens to flash time-machine memories, the perceived significant moments, that encroach upon the work of writing, as writing can strike the brain as idle time, a time of not being fully engaged with any sort of work.  The default mode takes us into rumination.  But the other part of the brain fights back.  It is in a fight for its health.  A fresh pot of tea helps.  It's difficult work, much like fighting against a current.

You were a good person to be in the restaurant business.  But it had its misguidedness, its excesses, even without intending any.  A mistake in life.  A bad choice, given that there are much more useful ways to serve your fellow human beings than show your sad old pretty face in wry humor before those you serve, as if to claim being a good sport in life, when we all are trying to survive.

Meditating takes me back into groggy rest, than sleep, and these are hindrances too, but the body needs rest.  The attempt to get back onto a nine to five schedule has failed me once again.  I don't know how to be a part of that world, I'm afraid.  It frightens me with its traffic and daylight.  Though this is not a great attitude to have.


But how can all this happen to us?  I wasn't greedy.  I worked hard enough.  I was steady and loyal, and brought in a customer following, as best as one can.  I charged people for drinks.  I suggested them for what to get off the menu or the daily specials.  I pushed the sweetbreads.  I pushed the fish specials, with sincerity and belief.  I told many stories about how things were done, the beauty of duck confit's slow long processes down there in the kitchen.  A ship, a bastion of old school French cooking, stocks that bubble away all night with all sort of trimming and end of herb or vegetable or bone or onion skin.  I'd make hearty wine recommendations, and tell them my stories of serving this particular wine.  Great with the kidneys in the mustard sauce.  Perfect with crusty boneless pigs feet, and the cassoulet.  "Try the veal," we like to say here, I'd joke, like a mobster place, recommending the braised veal cheeks osso bucco style.  Or the liver.

We took care of people.  It was truly a respite from the office for many, a doorway to home, or an alternative.  A pleasant break.  An adult playground where learning still happened, where dialog presented itself, slowly or quickly, boringly routine, or not, who knows what you'll find.  One can only take so much news these days.

If I don't keep writing, there is hardly any way I can deal with it.   The failures to contain all this, which could have been done, had they followed the Obama playbook.  No one I know wanted this new guy, the Trumper.  Now look what he's done.