If It Was You..................

Peacefully reading this morning when I heard a loud crash.

From the spare room. Or whatever the hell it is. This is a weird house; don't know what name to give to rooms.

We used to call the room I'm in the computer room, now we call it my office.

It's not my fucking office. It's just a place I escape to. And hide.

If you want to shorten your life, interrupt me when I am reading. Although I realized this morning our precious cats are exempt from that dictum.

Reading is the only peace I ever get. Ever. And I revere it.

I am always up 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours before Carol. When I hear her begin to move around in the morning, I know my day is over.

I don't mean that in the harsh way that it sounds. If it's a work day I know the day will be a spiralling pit of torture and I will be miserable. Soon I will leave the house with my head down and eventually crawl home on my hands and knees.

If it's a day off I know I will spend the majority of it cloistered in this room. Because Carol and I have diametrically opposed addictions.

She's addicted to TV, I am addicted to silence. I flee here to find some peace. But I fail.

Because the fucking room is not soundproof. Carol is considerate and keeps the TV volume down, but I can still hear it. Annoyingly. During the 5 month New England winter I keep the space heater going and that drowns out the TV. Almost. It's running right now. No idea what I will do when summer comes around.

We are in a diffferent place now that Carol is retired. She is never not here. So I never get peace.

I am out of the house 25 to 30 hours a week or more. Pursuing the american dream. 30 hours when Carol can do anything she wants to, listen to anything she wants, watch anything she wants, think about anything she wants, move about freely and pursue her happiness.

I get none of that. I have to fight for whatever personal enjoyment I require. Like a junkie jonesing for the next fix.

Back to the cats. They have been here 7 months and they are still finding shit to explore. Amazing.

I knew both cats were in the spare room. After the crash, Emmy Lou came flying out of there. Patsy did not. I'm thinking "Oh Shit, Patsy is buried under something."

Nothing on the floor was disturbed. I was confused. I looked towards the closet, one of the sliding doors is open 6 inches and I see Patsy sitting on a little corner shelf in there innocently watching me. I slide the door back and a whole bunch of shit falls out. I slide the other door open and a whole bunch of shit falls out.

Somehow they had gotten up on the shelf that sits like a cliff way up high and knocked everything off of it. I kicked a lot of shit out of the way, affectionately asked Patsy "What did you do?" and sat down to continue reading.

If it was you, I would have killed you.

Those Days Are Gone, Bubba

I was young, slim and healthy once.

Now I am old, fat and diseased.

Trust me, the former is infinitely better than the latter.

Where's The Beef?

 "The weak in courage are strong in cunning"

James Agee from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Better beef up my cunning skill-set.

A Million Dollar Tooth

While I was away..................................

I got me a million dollar tooth.

Between the time the appointment was made to install a new crown, and the actual appointment - my fucking tooth went nuts.

PAIN. Hot, cold, chewing - if I hit it right it was pain through the roof. Popped in to see Dr. Dentist and he told me no way can the crown be done - gotta get a root canal first. I suggested pulling the tooth and he gave me all the reasons I shouldn't. And honestly, there is a slight chance I could live 25 more years - I already have a missing tooth or two - I don't want to wind up looking like a toothless hobo.

He poked around a bit and eventually pushed up on the tooth to make sure he had the right one - my head exploded. His office wrote up the referral for the endodontist and zapped it over to her. Miraculously, I got an appointment for the next morning. At fucking 7:45.

When I got there she did her own testing and caused my head to explode 2 or 3 more times. Then she gave me 3 options.

Options? Fucking options? I thought this was a black and white deal.

One of the options was to pull the tooth, which she promptly advised against when I showed some interest.

Go ahead and do the fucking root canal.

I was super pissed off. In a situation like this, where I have a tooth screaming at me, fucking tell me what to do. Don't lay out confusing options and lame disclaimers and expect me to make a decision.

You are the fucking expert.

About half an hour into the process - after removing the gigantic filling from the tooth and opening up canals to do the root canal - she stops and tells me the tooth has a couple of cracks that run midway down the shaft.

If they were tiny cracks she would advise going ahead with the root canal. If they were deep cracks she would advise pulling the tooth.

Of course these were mid-sized cracks. She could not guarantee a good outcome. Could be good for 6 months, could be good for 5 years. What do I want to do?

I still had a mouthful of fucking stuff. Big rubber thing to keep my mouth open, that cutesy rubber thing they shove in there to isolate the tooth - I just looked at her, projected incredulousness as best I could, and help up my hands as if to say "How the fuck do you expect me to answer you?"

We went back and forth a bit and, finally, I told her to just finish the root canal.

$1,590. Payable immediately. The crown, which will be installed next week, and the original visit with Dr. Dentist, will cost me $2,000. A $3,600 tooth.

Did I do the right thing? I doubt it. But it kind of seemed like it at the time. But the next time things go south with my fucking teeth.....................

I get down on my knees every day and thank Covid for putting money in our bank account. 

However, it's not like we are worry-free. It's not a lot of money and I fear it will get pissed away on stupid shit like this. Drip, drip, drip, chip, chip, chip.

We are old. We are vulnerable. When that money is gone, and if the house doesn't sell, I will become a toothless hobo. Living in my car with a wife, two cats and a kitty litter box.

Made it, Ma. Top of the world.

A James Agee Jag

Andre Agassi turns me on to James Agee.

I buy A Death In The Family. I read it. I love it.

I buy Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I started reading that this morning.

I buy a biography on James Agee - James Agee - A Life, by Laurence Bergreen. Diseased, creative lives fascinate me. The book arrived yesterday.

I am considering buying a book of his poetry.

I am on a James Agee jag.

I hope it makes me a better man.

For The Health of Your Soul

Carol and I watch Chronicle.

They highlight a lot of great NH restaurants and places to go.

During the height of Covid, Carol kept a notebook at hand and wrote down the names and locations of about 966 places that interested us. Mostly restaurants. They fall into two general categories - places we want to visit with Keith and Craig, places we want to visit to pamper ourselves.

We crossed one off the list yesterday. One of the "pamper ourselves" ones.

Parker's Maple Barn in Mason, NH. It's a breakfast joint.

Mason is 3,000 miles from Henniker but we were up for an adventure. Turned out to be more of an adventure than we bargained for.

It was one of those deals when you wonder what the fuck GPS is thinking. When we got close to Mason we ended up bouncing down dirt roads. Miles and miles of dirt roads. 25 mph. Of course we had no idea where we were, so we didn't know what alternatives we had. So we motored on. Passed people along the way, out on their lawns, who looked at us as if to say "What the fuck are you doing on this road?"

Trip took 1 hour and 10 minutes. 

This restaurant is in the middle of nowhere. Literally. There is nothing else around it. No other restaurants, no businesses, no houses - nothing but trees. We get out of the car and see lots of people all around, and lots of cars in the parking lot.

Walk into the restaurant and are told there is a 1 hour and 15 minute wait.

Normally in a situation like that I turn around and walk out. But we had just crossed the Sahara desert and had nowhere else to go. So I decided to go with the flow.

Of course they have a gift shop, so we killed some time in there buying shit we don't really need. Although I did get a set of coasters with colorful skull designs on them, so it wasn't a total loss.

Finally got seated in the restaurant and had an exceptional breakfast, around 1:00 in the afternoon. Sitting at a table by a window, enjoying the view, enjoying each other's company. On the ride back we were wiser, so we set GPS but ignored it when it wanted to torture us with a return trip on the dirt roads. It self-corrected and kept us on pavement, making for a much easier ride.

The ride back was beautiful. Real deep country, wide open spaces, peaceful, serene, the kind of place you want to retire to for the health of your soul. We admired it and engaged in easy conversation.

My point is that years ago a situation like that would have sent me into a murderous rage. An hour and 10 minute drive down the back roads of Morocco? An hour and 15 minute wait to be seated? Are you fucking kidding me?

Instead, I decided to go with the flow and we had a very nice day. And an exceptional breakfast.

Left the house at 10:30, got home at 3:00.

It was a very nice way to kick off a very nice day.

I'm All About Solutions

Had a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast and a tumbler of V8 juice.

Pretty much took care of all my problems right there.