And on it goes.  Wednesday, September 9, 2020, the news from Capitol Hill.

"Behold  the fowls of the air:  for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather in barns;  yet your heavenly Father feedeth them."  Matthew 6:26


I talk with my therapist, Dr. Heather, who has moved to Rochester, over the screen of my iPhone, every other Wednesday, from 1:00 to 1:55.  The last session I was calling from my brother's house.  Today is the day.  I really don't feel like it.  I feel stupid.  Irresponsible, any number of things, but there are things to talk about, as if showing up on cue.  Action.  Ragweed.  I feel like shit.

Another round, but a slightly different one, of frustration dealing with mom last night over the phone, wanting more of my attention.  The times have called out a variation in her usual litanies.  They are getting more pointed, it seems.   As they say in the restaurant business, and with the losing enterprises, one has not managed customer expeditions very well.  (See, you bust your absolute ass for that business, when you have to, I suppose, but... what does it leave you with, but a lot of grist for the mill.)

I heat the oven up to 425.  I put a tomato and a thawed piece of the frozen cod fillet from Safeway.

No good, surprise surprise, and I've grown tired of the Merguez, and the cauliflower crust pepperoni pizza tastes good at least, but the next day it is hard to pass, that vague unrest in the belly.

Therapy talk:

Why are you attached to your objects so much, like you were at the old house with G....

Well, it's family stuff, personal memories.  My father's books.  His chair.

Guitars.  Bikes.  Clothes I'm not ashamed of.

Therapy is tiring, tiresome.  I don't look forward to the sessions.  I'd rather be writing, I suppose.

So here I am now trying to make decisions...

Maybe you like the life of Joe Palooka-ville, she says, with an interesting twinkle, a dolphin boop or octopus throw of a quick chuckle, and a meaningful one.  She was one of the ones who let me feel I wasn't a creep, or a second class citizen, or something like that.


The groceries are dropped off by a person from Instacart.  It's a humid unproductive day, but I get some bills paid, submit my paperwork for a reduction on the ER bill from Oswego Hospital, and I also apply, after going across the street to the little market, for food stamps, which is called SNAP here in Washington, D.C.  I make a turkey meatloaf, and it turns out I've been starved for the last few days, not getting enough to eat.  As it bakes I ride the old steel frame Bianchi on the trainer stand, keeping myself occupied, though I wish I had television.

Then I'm up at 5 in the morning, so I pour some beer from the open tall boy Budweiser can out on the rocks and go for a little walk down to the bluff.  There's a deer, alone, down on Eliot Place by the old white Chevy Nova, and I sing a little Moon River to show my peaceful intentions.


Finally, after pleasuring to see if the old rusty pipes still work, I get in some meditation and perhaps some rest.  Mom calls around noon, and she wants to be doing something and is feeling lonesome again, but lets me go, so then I get up, pour a little tea and call her up.  "Go find something fun to do," she tells me.  Wow.  Okay.



But I wake up in angst and dread, these days, proverbially looking over my back, and thinking of money and what a completely lousy professional set up I've stuck myself with, an impossible situation, unless one wanted to be a holy man.

Oh, believe me, I am valiant adventurer, and perhaps the chastest bartender there ever way, being a hard-working fool...  But, as we all know, fucking, there's nothing like it, is there.  Though the muscles can be practiced, from brain to bone.



When I wake up, it's oh this, and oh that.  Why didn't I get a job at the whaling museum or something like that, rather than throwing it all away... everything.  How sad.  At least I should have stayed in Clinton, with my father, gotten a job at the college...  but...  due to my shame even back then, and the things inflicted upon me by tough cookies and a mean princess, leaving me such that I don't necessarily disagree with the little bits of so-called misogyny in Hamlet where he's in a bit of a mood...  birds...  ending with "get thee to a nunnery," though that is quite cruel, and nasty, so maybe.  To write so, does not necessarily make Shakespeare anything other than what he is.



Well, so after I've written a little bit I venture giving Mom a call, and she sounds fairly happy immediately, as her friend Sharon, a sacred friend, Mom's teaching colleague was just by for a visit, and very kindly bringing Mom a piece of fried fish from Rudy's on the Lake.  The cat is crying to be let out, shrill, high in pitch, and mom says, "wait a minute, I've got uouck (uck/ook) on my hand," perhaps grease from the paper bag of fried fish on a paper plate, or tartar sauce or something like that, and I tell her, when she comes back to the phone that there should be wine there, but then it starts to south after she asks if I can come by and have some with her, but "oh, you're in DC," right, I'm not just around the block.  Mom, I have to get a rental car and pack a suitcase and drive for eight hours...

And once it starts going downhill, after I nudge her about taking her pills, she's getting sharp with me, and she's talked herself into it, yet again, and soon she's yelling at me, and telling me she has awful cramps and she has to go.

I go for a walk.  The rain was pouring today, in waves, flash flood warnings coming over the phone, etc.  I walk down to the bluff past the yard where the deer was last night, under my little grove of pines, then to the river overlook.  There's a strange clacking buzz coming from one of the old Sugar Maple trees, a wet cicada trying to dry himself off, not quite able to.   I make him embarrassed.  But I'm embarrassed too, bug.  I remember seventeen years ago, and I haven't accomplished much since.