05 Friday Apr 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
I am in The Villages, Florida for the funeral of J’s brother. He died 29 March of complications of ALS. We spent the week driving down here. I am desperate to go home. I’ve been having an internal debate about the virtues and shortcomings of The Villages. I will say more later. Right now I am exhausted. I want to be home.
But we have the funeral and the drive home. I have been told we will spend two days driving back, through Atlanta, then Charlotte.
Let this end.
04 Thursday Apr 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
I don’t travel well. After Savannah, we drove down to St Augustine, Florida. It is a nice town, as tourist towns go. We ate at a seafood place last night called O. C. White Seafood. We had a nice meal at a fair price. I had Wahoo, J had shrimp in a cream sauce over linguini. The weather is still cool, a real blessing. The leaves are out down South, a couple of weeks ahead of Richmond
Sixty or so years ago, before Disney dominated Florida tourism, there were places like Cypress Gardens with water ski-ing shows and the glass bottom boat tours. There were alligator themed attractions and the Bok Bell Tower. We never went. But kitsch reigned. Now it is a different kitsch; consider Machine Gun World or Indoor Skydiving.
Tourists are different, I suppose. Last night at dinner a lesbian couple with their two children sat near us. They didn’t seem that much different from any other family, quite frankly. The tourists wear their tee-shirts and cargo shorts. Some wear hijabs. Most are obese.
Tourism is about convincing people to stay a while and spend some money. It started on a large scale at the turn of the Twentieth Century when large numbers of people began to have money to travel and experience something new, if only a Ferris Wheel at Coney Island.
When I began, I said I didn’t travel well. My life has structure built into it, swimming pools, grocery stores, a kitchen. When I am away from that structure, I am at loose ends. Even when I write this blog, I feel I am under different conditions, but the smartphone I use is the same. The stories I write are on hold. My imagination needs a space to, well, imagine.
Today involves driving to The Villages. Tomorrow is the funeral. Saturday and Sunday are for the drive home.
But right now, at 8:00 AM, I need more sleep.
03 Wednesday Apr 2019
Posted in Catholic Life, food, Travel
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We drove from Lumberton, North Carolina to Savannah, Georgia, stopping for gas, a shopping trip to the Sabatier Knife Outlet (I am a fan of Sabatier K Thiers knives) in Yemassee, South Carolina and the Georgia Welcome Center, where Forrest Gump sits on his
park bench. What else can I say?
We decided to stay in downtown Savannah at the DeSoto Hotel, influenced, in part, by the fact that my grandfather, whom we called Pop, drove a DeSoto automobile.
It’s a nice hotel, except that the shower curtain is inadequate to block the water from running out the bottom of their really nice walk in shower, with two shower heads. There were no instructions on how to turn off the smaller handheld head. It was a mess waiting to happen.
The room has a kingsize bed, very comfortable. There are also the usual mechanical noises, compressor motors run incessantly.
After we checked in, we walked around a bit, but it was cold and windy. We thiught we could find a nice restaurant. I suppose there are nice ones besides the 1540 Restaurant inside the hotel, but the chilly weather discouraged us. We did eat at 1540. We had two entrées at the low end of their price points. J had a nice chicken pot pie, I had the braised oxtails on dirty rice. Both were excellent. I had never had oxtails before. I couldn’t see much difference between them and a chuck pot roast, but what do I know?
Our trip continues. We got a voicemail from Father Tony, our parish priest, checking up on us. We were touched by his concern. He is a real pastor, so despite the fact he doesn’t celebrate the Mass ad orientam, I am glad we stayed at St Benedict after Father Kauffmann was transferred.
We are enjoying each other’s company. We both found the Lion’s Den Adult Superstore kind of creepy. I saw it as more laughable than offensive. J found it offensive, although the sign said the store was for men, women, and couples. Yuck. It seems that the billboard signage on I-95 has a large Jesus Saves sign near the billboards for The Lion’s Den and its competitor Fantasy Land, as if to dissuade us from visuting these dens of iniquity. And dildoes.
Noteworthy for its staggering banality is South Of The Border, a motel complex on I-95, just south of the North Carolina / South Carolina line. The enticement of its Reptile Lagoon was not enough to lure J into checking it out.
So like Simon and Garfunkel, a half century earlier, We’ve All Gone To Look For America.
02 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
I’m sitting in a motel room in Lumberton, North Carolina at 1:15 AM. (Eastern Time North America). We drove four hours from Richmond to arrive here last night around 7:00 PM.
It isn’t a bad room. The last time I stayed in a hotel/.motel was six months ago when we visited Dan, in what would turn out to be the last time we saw him.
There were times when I traveled for business a lot. When I sold insurance, I traveled. When I was doing store sets, I traveled. I had one gig when I would drive to places like Pawley’s Island, North Carolina to set out a new line of paint in Ace Hardware stores. It wasn’t a bad deal. Of course, it wasn’t the kind of job someone with spinal stenosis needed to be doing.
J still considers travel an “adventure”. She likes it. I think driving or riding in a car or flying in an airplane is kind of boring.
I miss my home, my YMCA. my friends, and my routine.
I do like being with J. This is the good part of the trip.
01 Monday Apr 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
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We are leaving tomorrow for my brother-in-law’s funeral. We plan to drive and take our time because the funeral is Friday in The Villages, Florida. I am ambivalent about going because I lost a lot of time in the pool in March when I was sick. So I won’t have a chance to restart a regular routine until I return. J likes to go places, me less so. This will be her time, I figure.
In April, I am going to recommit myself on several endeavours I said I would do, but have yet to start. I want to use my film 35mm. SLR camera again. The camera shop says they will help. The guy there has a soft spot for them.
I want to write more, maybe move beyond erotica. I want to be published. And famous. And have the World idolize me for being The Swell Guy that I am.
I want to square away the room I sometimes use for sleeping. I keep my clothes in there. The mattress on the bed is over fifty years old. I want a new one.
There was too much mortality touching my life this month, from Dan (J’s brother) to two AA friends, one from Creutzfeld Jacob Disease, another from a heart attack while running. That friend was only 63, and a regular runner. CJD, as it’s called, is an acute debilitating neuromuscular disease that kills swiftly, unlike ALS, which takes its time.
So my alma mater The University of Virginia made the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four. I am not a big basketball fan but I do recognize that as a tremendous accomplishment.
I’m getting back to the weight loss/ weight management routine, I am at 183 lbs (83,4 kg) today. I need to be around 175 lbs (79.4kg), I think.
That’s about it. Later Loves 💘
31 Sunday Mar 2019
Posted in Existential Despair
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I have a deep agonising loneliness. My Catholic faith helps. It connects me to transcendent reality and larger truths.
But that it isn’t particularly good for hugs, kisses, slow fucks, or BJ’s. So I’m going crazy. I’m a master of channeling sexual energy elsewhere. But sometimes the channels get blocked.
After her brother’s funeral, I will open to J again and see what happens.
31 Sunday Mar 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
We think we understand the Russians. They have ICBMs and thermonuclear weapons. What else do we need to know?
An entire generation of Russians has come of age since the collapse of the Communist state. Russia has a consumer driven economy. Their tastes in fashions and style mirror our own. Blue jeans, athletic shoes, tee shirts, tattoos, body piercings are commonplace. Were it not for the signage in the Cyrillic alphabet of the Russian language, one would think we are looking at an American, Australian or Western European street scene.
The Russian Orthodox Church is experiencing a revival after decades of oppression by the atheists of the Soviet era. Liturgical chant, icons, and faith itself resonate within the Russian soul. When the Nazis sought to destroy Russia during The Great Patriotic War (WW II), the Communists, stopped the oppression temporarily. The Russian Orthodox Church is Russia.
We have a very superficial understanding of Russia. Let’s not be naïve. They have nukes and territorial ambitions. They are desirous of expanding Western Europe’s dependence on their natural gas. But perpetual suspicion is as bad a perspective as sentimental naïveté. It leads us to be manipulated by politicians with self-serving motives. Who I mean by this are the current and recent past leaders of the Democratic Party and their media allies. The Republicans have their own version of suspicion; don’t think I’m letting them off the hook.
It is very tempting to revive the Cold War for domestic political purposes. We can’t allow ourselves to be manipulated by the politicians.
30 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
Dan, my brother-in-law, died last night 29 March, 2019 around 2200 hrs Eastern Time North America.
He was 72.
May the souls of the faithful departed, by the Mercy of God, rest in peace.
29 Friday Mar 2019
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Hey Hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?
My brother-in-law is dying from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Slowly, inexorably, he is losing muscular function. He is in a hospice in Florida, near Mount Dora. His illness is the result of chemical exposure in Vietnam, during his combat service in 1969, most likely Agent Orange. The VA recognizes the disease as service-related, but won’t definitively attribute it to Agent Orange exposure. There isn’t much difference and he’s dying no matter what caused the disease.
I haven’t felt very motivated lately, bronchitis and allergies. Just discouraged. I don’t feel like exercising or watching what I eat.
We are leaving for Florida in the morning. J wants to see her brother one more time. The drive will be excruciating, both going down and coming back.
Damn Lyndon Johnson, Ho Chi Minh, John McCone, Gen. Giap. The whole fuckin’ bunch.
28 Thursday Mar 2019
Posted in Family
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C, my younger son, J, and I had lunch today. He tries to cram a wealth of activities into his days off, so he schedules with a precision reminiscent of a satellite launch to the moon.
So the tense drama of today’s lunch began. We did rendezvous at the correct location. He talked about his advanced medical directive, that he wanted his executor to be a Republican. Somehow he thought he could get an absentee ballot cast after he was dead. I informed him that it didn’t work that way, at least in Virginia.
Next we moved on to his pending trip to Costa Rica for his cousin’s destination wedding in November. He thought as long as he was in the neighborhood, he could swing by Chile and Brazil. J and I informed him that South America is pretty big, unlike, say, dropping by Rhode Island and Connecticut while going to Massachusetts. He knows about maps. He knows about distance scales. Somehow applying the concepts to real life had yet to occur to him.
We enjoyed our time together. But I think defending a doctoral dissertation might be easier that lunch with C.
Dispatches From Dystopia 