One of my favourite subtle and minor features of the film The Mission shows the Papal Nuncio in the story stroking a pet three-toed sloth, as he dictates correspondence to The Vatican.

Now you Seven Deadly Sins aficionados know that “sloth” refers to a specific type of laziness, acedia, or spiritual laziness. I’m not particularly lazy spiritually, more of a spiritual workaholic. But I’m getting slothful about working out, following healthy eating guidelines. I’ve grown indifferent towards self-care. This is short-lived, I hope. I didn’t go swimming much in April, only two times. There’s some latent sadness, always there, around the sexual desert of our marriage. It tells me “Why bother?”

Eventually the joy of being alive wins out. This afternoon, I’m sitting on my front porch, drinking hibiscus tea with lime, diluted with seltzer. Delicious and as decadent as this Spartan gets. There is the scent of cedar wood incense. My mind and body are enjoying the breeze, and even the sound emanating from the pipes of a Japanese (or Italian) motorbike of the “crotch rocket” variety. Just the perfect noise, a harbinger of Summer.

This porch time is too nice to walk away from. Tomorrow I begin anew.

I’m in this half alert , half dreaming state, where I want to stay awake to re-establish some sort of “normal” schedule, in conformity with the habits of most other folk. On the other hand, I could go right back to sleep, enjoying those sleeping hours. By now the morning is shot, if that means doing anything productive. I’ve ordered stuff from Amazon and other online merchants, had some yoghurt and fruit with my coffee, watched some Amtrak trains and a CSX freight pass through Ashland.

I think about the bed. And J. I will sleep with her. Sleep. Younger people, when they “sleep” are planning their futures. A half-century or so in the past, sleeping was about the dream of grandchildren in what is now the present day. This was in the dawn of the Contraceptive Age, where sex was divorced from biology, relegated to pleasure and emotional “wellbeing”. Little did we know we were sowing the seed of loneliness. We were becoming the worker bees in the hive of the governments, the capitalists, and the central planners.

So maybe I won’t go back to bed. I’ll ride out this lethargic limbo, watching empty refuse railcars move through Ashland, to be refilled in NOVA, then sent back to the giant landfill in Charles City County. Some cultures build monuments. We destroy them. We fill giant holes. These trash pits are our archeological legacy. The archeologists of the thirty-first century will speculate over the meaning of our trash pits, in contrast to the monuments destroyed by the barbarians in our midst.

The circle of our time.

I had a weird dream, involving the government, assassinations, movement, as in escape. It seemed to take up an enormous amount of time, but it did not.

I was sleeping in the same bed with J. She was off last night. Nice to have her with me.

What she does is sleep. I’ve taken to sitting on the porch. We even bought new furniture, a wicker rocker and table so I can sit and rock in style. Sitting on the porch enables me to meet my neighbours, like Toby the rescue dog and his owner, Rebecca.

Today is a good day, cool enough still to wear my flannel shirt and wool socks. Summer will be here soon enough. I’m burning a stick of cedarwood incense. J is allergic to incense so I enjoy it outside.

I have fantasies about having conversations with people and making new friends. Friendships that last, where we share the beauty and joy of living. This is no small feat. We are hard wired for isolation. I have to tell myself to sit outside.

My wife still sleeps.

It isn’t that cocktail, champagne in orange juice but these, a sapling grown from a mimosa seed that blew into my front garden and germinated. I ignored the little buggers for a year, resisting the urge to do yard work. Then, call it pandemic fatigue, I said to myself, ”Get out of the comfy chair and watching YouTube videos. Go outside and do something!”

And so I have. We bought a hanging plant on Sunday. Then, on Wednesday, I bought the “J” hook needed to actually hang the plant on the front porch. Upon viewing,with pleasure and pride, my efforts at beautification, I knew these hideous saplings had to go. They were nothing but unwanted vegetation, weeds. Digging these tree wannabes out after they have put a root system down is a b-i-itch, but I dug four of them out. They look like they escaped from a Doctor Seuss story, when the leaves are out, but I got them gone.

And I think of my late ex-wife, Ayer, when I do the gardening. She has been on my mind lately. C, #2 son, is our child, now an adult. He inherited her Volvo station (estate) wagon and it’s been giving him trouble. He just finished working on the front suspension and now the engine is giving him problems. Getting another car means losing this surviving link to her. He was in tears over his dilemma.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant on Thursday. I ordered goat curry, he got lamb curry. We had a good time. It was the kind of meal the three of us might have shared when the times were good.

Ayer is gone now, has been gone nearly five and a half years. The rancour and bitterness of divorce has passed. And I think of her now as friend, lover, gardening mentor, and yes, wife.

“But you’re married to someone else now”, you say. True. But I’m not ashamed of those years any longer. And I’m being the man, the husband, I think she would want me to be.

I was riding around with J this afternoon and I said to her, “I want my hair cut and beard trimmed now. I need a new beard trimmer and I’m calling the barber shop as soon as we get home.”

And we did just that. We bought a new trimmer. I scheduled a haircut just prior to the shop closing. Beard trimmers come in several varieties. I bought a Norelco/Phillips. Looks like it will last a while.

I got The Cut. I came home, started trimming the beard using scissors first, then the power trimmer. I then showered, washed my hair and beard. I shaved my neck, defined where the beard was growing, then trimmed it down to one or two steps above stubble.

I remember the Bible story of Samson. He was a Nazirite who did not shave his beard or cut his hair as acts of piety. The movie Samson & Delilah with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr was a great influence on my developing sexual tastes. I can remember having the hots for Hedy LaMarr before I fully understood what “having the hots” meant.

She still does it for me.

I awoke about thirty minutes ago. J is at work. I am alone.

Yesterday was a day painful to recall, even now. There was no argument, no shouting, just the omnipresence of her illness, her depression, in all its multiple aspects. She was obsessive in her attention to detail , to begin with.

We went to #1 son’s nursery, to buy plants, before we had lunch. She was concerned that a live plant would wilt and die if we left it in the car too long during lunch, but we needed to go the nursery first before it closed. As it turned out service at the restaurant was unbearably slow, approaching indifference . I did make sure to find out if the plant we did purchase could survive a wait in the back of the SUV whilst we dined.

She believes I am unaware of my surroundings, that a car will hit me . I am, in her estimation, a doddering old man. So she worries about me while I’m simply walking around.

Have I mentioned that she sleeps nearly all of the time she is at home? Since she was once observed by a Peeping Tom the blinds must always be closed. That makes for a dark and dreary house.

Intimacy, what’s that?

So I’m exhausted from dealing with her disease, lonely, because our marriage is consumed by her illness.

And so it goes.

I had a dream, about what, I cannot recall. But I had another dream that it would be a good idea to write down the subject and details of that particular dream that is now forgotten. Needless to say I did not record any details about any dream whatsoever.

I think that that sequence of thought qualifies as “Being In A Fog”. It really isn’t so bad actually.

But now that I’m awake, grateful my wife is lighter by a few of the most pernicious milligrams a body can create, I’m looking forward to hot coffee, a good book, and a comfy chair.

Sometimes the dreams don’t really matter all that much.

Here’s the truth about being married:

The Church isn’t kidding about the “sickness and in health” vow.

J was miserable because she had four (4) kidney stones ready to be passed. And there they were this morning in the bottom of the toilet bowl.

I was lucky. I had no physical pain, but I had to take care and support her. When she couldn’t get through on the phone to call in sick, I went over to her store to let the manager on duty know why she wouldn’t be in last night. He was, naturally, most understanding.

Being supportive of one’s spouse or partner isn’t fun. But it is why we get married. After a crisis is passed, the vow starts to make sense, a lot of sense.

That pretty much sums it up. Can’t say too much more.

I don’t have to watch very long to have seen too much.

“Lot Lizards” is the name given to prostitutes who work the parking lots at truck stops. The social observers and commentators dropped the “lot” but kept the “lizard” to dehumanise the prostitutes who work the streets like Figueroa in LA or 27th Avenue in Phoenix, as if it is possible to further dehumanise these women.

I suppose it’s all a matter of packaging that compels the women to negotiate uneven sidewalks in stiletto heels. I watch as a woman walks, one foot in front of the other, as if she were walking an invisible tight rope instead of pavement.

The determination that a woman is a lizard is up to Lizard Hunter’s trained eye. I hope he edits out slack periods in his trolling. Lizard Hunter claims to have fifty thousand followers. 50,000.

This is a scene I could see Diane Arbus photographing. It has the garish quality. The whores in their red sateen shorts or yoga pants contrast with painted cinder block, the facades of 7-Elevens, the signs blinking Checks Cashed or Vapes. The coin laundries, motels, churches offer the back drop. The scenery becomes very familiar I’m sure the lizards must get used to this lizard hunter recording them, cruising in his vehicle, stopping, operating his camera, then driving around the block again. I’m sure if I made the effort and watched long enough I would recognise the women working 27th Ave. I know the businesses already, Quick Corner, Mamoun’s Auto Sales.

The streets carry the vehicular traffic, pick-up (fitting) trucks, sedans, the occasional SUV. One woman is ignoring a man in a blue sedan who said something to her. The self-described “Lizard Hunter” offers a running commentary on the women he features in his videos. What if he just kept quiet?

Say you get tired of watching women in Phoenix. You can watch women in Medellin or Bogotá or Rio de Janeiro hanging out on street corners. The Johns just don’t come by in cars.

If I’m getting bored, I’m wondering how the women are bearing up.