There are times when lying in bed is sheer Heaven. The mattress and my body are not fighting. Comfort reigns. Sleep happens naturally. The mind has been bested by the moment.

So it is this morning.

I was thinking how my attitude sucked. It still sucks. I don’t want to do much. I’m getting a couple of small fillings tomorrow and a crown re-cemented. My dental issues are negligible. My teeth are healthy now that we dealt with the issues of #18 and #31. I don’t know if we will do implants where the old teeth were.

I was re-reading a favorite lesbian erotic novel Behrouz Gets Lucky by Avery Cassell (Cleis 2016). Cassell is a good storyteller, with detail to setting the scene, citing the smells of sandalwood soap and foods, the colours and textures of fabrics. She wakes me up, as it were.

I’m watching Martin Zero on YouTube walk about Manchester, England. Reminds me of Richmond in the older areas, lots of brick and granite work. He loves his city. I’m inspired to walk about Richmond. I used to walk about Richmond when my mentor and Second Father Bill R was alive. He loved to go exploring, much the same way Martin and Nicola White, of Tideline Art go exploring. Nicola is a “mudlark”, pulling little treasures out of the Thames mud at low tide.

Mostly my sexual desire has been on the same simmer for what seems like twelve years. J is perpetually tired, or has one complaint or another. I feel defeated, neglected. I say all kinds of off-the-wall stuff, just to say stuff, which kind of embellishes my reputation as an eccentric.

So after the dentist tomorrow, I’m putting out Dave version 68.2. Time to get out of this funk.

Gotta do some laundry.

It is another morning, early. I tried to fall asleep, but could not. The lie I tell myself that things are not all that important, is shown for what it is. I am the person who trivializes the importance of people and institutions, because I see myself as impotent to change things. Therefore I neither challenge nor engage. Marriage, politics, sex, religion, sports are merely horses on the carousel of my consciousness. They whirl around, with me mounted on one or the other. The move up and down as they rotate on the axis. There is motion , I think I am going somewhere, but the experience is like swimming laps. I finish in the same place I started.

I did try to sleep. But J snores in between nightmares. And my brain is still focused on one thing or another. Pain in my jaw or shoulder or neck will remind me of my limitations.

So I come back down. I watch the Ashland scene, thinking a freight may pass. Perhaps I should switch to England where the sun is up. There was a town on the Devonshire coast that had a railcam set up. Maybe the Blackpool trams are running. Put I am gradually dozing off.

I will make the effort to leave the house in the morning. But wait, New Zealand and India play tomorrow morning, later this morning really, in the first semifinal match. I must go out. Reality is losing to cable TV and satellites and images on a screen.

Yes. I am sleepy now. I Love Lucy is no longer playing on the DVD. This could be my big chance.

Loneliness sucks.

I’ve been sitting around a lot when I haven’t been sleeping. I don’t really want to do much.

The palpable negativity in the country takes its toll. For example, I know the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team won the World Cup. I also know 1) they have a complaint about money (this is America, after all), 2) they don’t like Donald Trump (again, no surprise), and 3) those who are lesbian on the team don’t hide their sexual orientation (least surprising of all, given it’s 2019).

Think about this. To the casual observer, the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team is as famous for its complaints as it is its triumph.

So there is all this excitement. I feel no excitement. I have felt no excitement about a sports championship since 1996, when the Yankees won the World Series after a long dry spell. The Cricket World Cup is somewhat exciting, given I am a new fan. But I will be impressed with whomever wins.

So sports frenzy is met with lethargic indifference on my part. My level of excitement needs to escalate.

As George Costanza once (many times, actually) famously said, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

It is Monday in Ashland. I hear the sound of a train horn, next the crossing gate’s alarm , now the bell and screech of brakes as #86 Northbound pulls in to pick up passengers on its way to Washington and ultimately New York City.

There are people who commute to Washington on this train, bureaucrats, contract emloyees or contractors’ emloyees. Perhaps a tourist is making a day trip to Washington. A day trip to New York isn’t out of the question, but that is a stretch.

I miss both big cities. I miss the museums of both cities. I miss the excitement, the noise and the smells of Manhattan. The adventure, for me, starts by climbing aboard the train.

Other sounds for Monday bring me back. The hum of traffic on England Street where street crosses tracks. It is not yet 6:30. The tradesmen, electricians, plumbers and mechanics are headed to work, maybe some doctors, definitely nurses, headed in for the shift change. And there is another train horn, most likely a freight. Here it comes. Not a freight this hour, but Northbound #52 Autotrain, headed to Lorton, VA on its nonstop run from Sanford Florida. The train carries passengers and their cars, or trucks, or motorcycles.

We have reverted to quiet again. Now I hear the refrigerator in the house and not much else.

Truth be told, I’m cold this morning. I guess I should turn up the air conditioning.

I wonder what the sounds of an inefficient world were, with steam locomotives that had whistles, rather than air horns. There were horse-drawn wagons once that delivered ice in summer, coal in winter. That meant the sound of shod hooves on cobblestone pavements. And we can close our eyes and imagine the sound of the town band performing in the bandstand in the park, Perhaps Sinclair Lewis, John dos Passos, Edgar Lee Masters, or Sherwood Anderson wrote of such a moment. Maybe Samuel Barber, Charles Ives, or Aaron Copeland gave that musical moment music of his own.

We listen to America going about its business. I fight the sleep returning. I watch this day begin. I hear the throaty diesel of the refuse truck. Later a train will pass, hauling giant green containers, filled with Washingtonian refuse. Refuse, picked up compacted, hauled and dumped, only to be loaded hauled and dumped again. What strange effluvia of progress is our waste!

I wonder if I just heard the sounds of progress or simply more noise.

Those of us of a certain age will remember how the local drag strip promoted their lineup of Sunday races. Sorry to disappoint but this post has nothing to do with either automobiles or crossdressers racing. It is simply about my Sunday so far.

I decided to go to the 8:30 AM Mass, since I was awake and had no idea how I would feel later in the day.

This was the first Sunday in the parish for our new priest, Father John David. He seems like a good priest, a quiet, soft spoken man who gave a thoughtful homily about the Mass itself. His approach to The Sacred Liturgy emphasizes traditional settings, no guitars or “hootenanny” service music and hymns.

A friend told me that I looked like I was in pain. I was in pain, so I got home and lay down as soon as I could.

Now after a nap, all that “holiness” from the Mass has worn off and I feel lazy and lustful again, my usual operational state.

I’m trainspotting, reading blogs, waiting for J to get back home. She went to lunch with a friend. I need more coffee and probably a real meal.

Later.