Monk

Whoa, speaking of TV entertainment, guess what I discovered on Amazon Prime: the third season of "Animal Kingdom" starring Ellen Barkin. I turned onto the show last year and watched its first two seasons straight through, and it left me hungry for the third season. It seemed like a long wait, and I just about gave up on in. Then, looking for something to watch with dinner, I came across it.

I wish I had this last week. As matters stand, I doubt that I will be able to finish it, even if I watch three episodes per day. But I guess, considering everything, this has to rank among the least of my problems. I should just be delighted that I have something to watch now. The Comfort-TV tapes are fun, but it does not beat losing oneself in an ongoing story, as you wonder what's going to happen next, and then next.

Combing through all my gray hair this morning, I think about how I don't have a lot to complain about in the way of a shortened life. I got away with my act for a long, long time. Another couple of years would be grand, but I would probably always feel this way. I want to read, write, and think forever.

Those older (and smaller) hardcover journals actually do a good job of catching the spirit of the home life of Teri's last year and a half. I never made that connection before. I had gotten into the habit of using those hardcover journals - and rough-drafting entries - in late 1998, and it was her suicide that broke me of the habit, as I suppose I just largely staggered around in a stunned condition - a condition that I only came out of when Arthudo got our first computer and I became a blogger and started having e-friends.

Reading those entries, I was also struck by how heavily I was under the 'To Be Or Not To Be' drama. It seems that it was an almost constant concern. And, as I read over the material today, it occurs to me that it was perhaps Teri who really drove this sense of threat to me. With my blogging life, along with the close to twenty years since her suicide, I think I was pretty free of that sort of stress. That is, until the last few weeks, but this time the threat is much more real.

I suppose one can argue that she was, effectively, trying to goad me out of my chosen life of child-like dependency. That would seem to be a worthy goal, and you could say that it is only a shame that she did not succeed, as there seemed to be no bottom to my shamelessness. But she really did make me pay a heavy price with the emotional toll she exacted from me.

The 'wrong', if it must be assigned, probably still rests with me. I think that would practically be a universal consensus. What sort of spineless, spiritual monster must I be, to just take and take from my parents and not be a fellow adult partner in our upkeep? But, again, she did not let me get away scot-free. I paid. I was not allowed to feel like a man.

With her death, and with my e-life, though, I enjoyed a new birth of freedom. There was so much less negative-pressure on me. I still couldn't feel like a man, of course, but neither was I constantly made to feel like a submissive bitch. As for my questionable life-choices, it seems that I am being presented with the bill now. Well, every story has to come to an end sometime, doesn't it?

Realizing that it is already Sunday evening, and that the business week begins tomorrow, I started preparing to leave the house, the world, whatever. If Arthudo is staying at Blue Skies nursing home for the rest of his crippled and meager life, then Jack will probably be working quick to shut this house up. Shutting off the electricity would be a good start. Such is his hatred for me, he will do that as quick as he can - one final, grand 'fuck you' to me.

I washed the pants that I wear when I mow the lawn, which look like army camouflage pants. They are the only pants that fit me easily and comfortably - and just barely. They also have big pockets that are better for carrying heavy, awkward objects. I have my duffel bag ready, and I even know what reading material to pack, even though I'm not exactly going to have a lot of reading time, as I don't expect to make it to the next day.

Though, I still don't know if I will even be able to do it. Yet, starving to death or being arrested for vagrancy are the only real alternatives. That should help show me the way. Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I better make sure to pack my balls. I will never have needed them more ... hmm, where did I leave them last?

I did not expect to be mowing again this morning. But I saw that the grass was not dewy, and the sky was overcast, and there were such delightful breezes. And I did need to finish off the job from yesterday. So, I just did it. I probably won't have to worry about it again.

I tried a pork chop. Remember, I tried pork chops once before, a little over fifteen years ago, not too long after Teri died, when I was missing her pork chops and mashed potatoes. I fried them in a pan then, like she used to do. This time I googled how to cook pork chops, and from Wiki-how I used the instructions for baking them in the oven. They came out better this time for me, but they are still not the treat they once were, and even if life returned to normal, I don't think I'd make the addition to my menu. Nevertheless, under these pressing circumstances, I am only happy to have them on my menu now. I got two more meals worth of chops in the freezer.

Cripes, I am kicking myself. Very hard. Only this morning was I inspired to dig out my old hardcover journals, the smaller ones that I wrote in during the late nineties. You see, I was having a hard time working my way through the little memo pads, as well as the loose-leaf pages that I kept in binders, that I was using for my journal from the early to middle nineties. And my time is almost up. This really is looking like my last weekend. And I knew that my writing was a bit more elevated in those hardcover journals. I though I might enjoy those more.

God, I forgot that I was writing at my best in those journals, as good as I ever have, as good as what is in my more recent full-size journals. I didn't have a word-processor, but I did rough-draft the entries. The little extra efforts makes a big difference. I'm not claiming to have reached Proustian heights, but it is at least worth reading, which is more than can be said for the rest of the Old Journal from the nineties. What makes these journal entries even sweeter is that they do contain the home-life with both Teri and Arthudo. It still wasn't a happy home, but I can see that, with elevated writing, it can be made to be more readable with a little more humor and some stylistic distancing. To think, I could have been reading these for the past few precious weeks!

I also regret that I was not inspired to keep my journal in this way from the beginning, instead of just dumping my thoughts directly onto paper. I called it my 'spill journal' for a reason. I just sort of threw up on paper. Beyond simple laziness, I can only think that I fancied there was always a tomorrow beyond tomorrow, so that I effectively figured that I would always have time to do something better 'later'. In my twenties I was unable to appreciate that there would be this time when there was no more 'later' and my tomorrows are about finished.

Among my first thoughts on this clear-eyed morning was how generously fate played with me anent the end. I have been given almost an entire month with the house to myself, living a little as though I were my own man, even though I am really only flying on Arthudo's leftovers - and, yes, under his name (which was always very important to him). I was given a goodly amount of time to accept my fate in some comfort and leisure and to make my peace with it. Things could have been worse.

"Jokes that nearly everyone understands as jokes require shared assumptions, even a broad reservoir of lightheartedness and goodwill, and we no longer share those in our fractured republic. Humor has been privatized."

-- Andrew Ferguson

Yes, much of that antebellum dissension has been revitalized, except that it is not a North-South thing, though it is still a universal democracy vs. white supremacy thing.

I picked wrong on the Campbell's Chunky Soup when I placed my order for Amazon Pantry. Arthudo had a can of Vegetable Beef, which I liked. However, when browsing on Amazon Pantry, I thought the Steak and Potato Soup would be even better - more beef! But I was wrong about that. I don't think there was more than a half-dozen little pieces of beef. It was practically all potatoes, and it wasn't very flavorful. It's alright, though. I have enough food to take me through the weekend, and that is probably all I'm going to need.