Funny, now that I have been home the past two days, instead of dictating, I sit and write. I admit getting a bit lazy; I usually dictate into my phone, since I’m not in front of the computer. I’m usually in the city or at work, which is usually the reason for being in the city.
Mike was here once again last night. We had a good talk. Bill came home safe & sound, and he joined whatever conversation or viewing that was going on. After Bill went to bed, Mike and I shot videos. I was up later than expected and had no trouble sleeping.
I woke up this Tuesday morning, the penultimate Tuesday, a few minutes before 9:00 AM. Bill and Mike were both awake and puttering around. Mike was going to leave in the afternoon, but a call from his parole officer had him heading home sooner rather than later, and Bill was taking him in a Zip Car.
They left in a blur, and I wound up slowly starting the 23rd day of December. About an hour after Bill returned, he got a phone call. He’s going to be on the road, leaving this Friday and possibly gone for two weeks. That spent my spirits crashing.
Last night, Mike told me his beloved that he might be flying in next week for New Year’s. That news was dispiriting, and my showing that made Mike start to look for the door. I explained that I needed to eat, and my feelings would likely improve. Mike explained that his beloved procrastinates, and it’s unlikely that he will actually follow through on his travel plans.
I was somewhat reassured, but in the back of my mind, as Jimmy Chile calls ‘the evil Jiminy Cricket’, chirped, but there is always a possibility… that it’s not 100% certain. The return of the superstitious atheist.
With Bill, it of course hit harder. I just folded into myself and was anxious about Bill being away for so long. Yes, I have separation anxiety, but this also concerns his health. Bill, like myself, ain’t gettin’ any younger…
I took an unneeded nap and then walked around Hoboken by myself, the weather a mirror of my emotions, gray with dampened spirits. Bill and I did talk, and his plan changed, as it will. Things are usually set by the time Bill walks out the door. This trip seems to be more complicated, and the balls are up in the air, even when the rubber hits the road.
Bill, with his superpower being travel plans, thrives in this and contacts other drivers about what the itinerary is and picks their brains for what they might know about the excursion. Bill might be here for New Year’s Eve and leave once more on New Year’s Day.
It’s all up in the air. Between now and then, things will likely be changed and or dropped. Mike is scheduled to return tomorrow, then the Garfield expedition. Things are changing. Always.
The Google Gemini rewrite as a Fran Leibowitz essay
The Indignity of the Itinerary
There is a particular kind of domestic horror that occurs when one is forced to stay home for forty-eight consecutive hours. Usually, I am in “the city”—which, for those who need a map, refers to the only one that counts—under the guise of “work.” This usually involves me standing in various rooms and expressing my displeasure. Because I am away from my desk, I have fallen into the decadent, slothful habit of dictating my thoughts into a telephone. It is a repulsive way to live. One should only speak to a machine if one is being interrogated by the police, and even then, I’d prefer a court reporter with a decent sense of syntax.
However, being trapped within four walls has forced me back to the page. It is an archaic practice, much like walking or having an original thought, but I find it suits the current gloom.
The Guests and the General Commotion
Mike was here again. We had a “talk.” In my experience, a “talk” is simply the period during which I wait for the other person to stop making noise so that I may resume being correct. Bill arrived shortly thereafter, safe and sound, though the bar for “soundness” in this century is remarkably low. He joined the fray, and once he retreated to bed, Mike and I stayed up shooting videos. Why anyone would wish to document the passage of time is beyond me. Time passes quite efficiently without our assistance; it doesn’t need a cinematographer.
I awoke this Tuesday—the penultimate Tuesday of the year, for those keeping score—at the ungodly hour of nine in the morning. I found Mike and Bill “puttering.” Puttering is the activity of people who have no destination but refuse to sit still. Mike was intended to stay until the afternoon, but a call from his parole officer accelerated his departure. I have always found that the legal system provides a certain punctuality that social grace lacks. Bill whisked him away in a “Zip Car”—one of those communal vehicles that suggests we are all living in a very poorly funded kibbutz.
The Anatomy of Anxiety
They left in a blur, leaving me to face the twenty-third of December. This is the time of year when the air feels like wet wool and everyone is burdened by the frantic necessity of being elsewhere.
An hour later, Bill received a phone call. It appears he is to be “on the road” this Friday, potentially for two weeks. This news caused my spirits to crash with the subtlety of a lead pipe. I am afflicted with separation anxiety, which is merely the clinical term for “I prefer it when my environment remains static.” Bill, much like myself, is not getting any younger. I find the aging process to be a personal insult, a bureaucratic error that no one has the decency to correct.
Then there is Mike’s “beloved,” who is apparently threatening to fly in for New Year’s. Mike suggests the man is a procrastinator and likely won’t show. I am told this should be “reassuring.” To an atheist of my particular superstitious vintage, the “possibility” of an event is just as taxing as the event itself. It is the “Evil Jiminy Cricket” of the mind—a small, nagging voice that reminds you that just because things are bad, it doesn’t mean they can’t get significantly worse.
The Hoboken Purgatory
I took a nap I didn’t need and went for a walk through Hoboken. The weather was a perfect mirror of my internal state: gray, damp, and utterly lacking in charm.
Bill’s plans, as they are wont to do, shifted. Bill treats travel plans as a superpower; he thrives on the chaos of itineraries, contacting other drivers, “picking brains”—an activity that sounds both surgical and exhausting. He may stay for New Year’s Eve. He may leave on New Year’s Day. The “balls are in the air.”
I find that when balls are in the air, they eventually have to land, usually on me. Everything is “up in the air.” Everything is “changing.” In my day, things were settled. Now, we live in a state of permanent revision. Mike returns tomorrow. Then there is an “expedition” to Garfield.
It is a exhausting way to spend a December. If the world is going to insist on changing every five minutes, the least it could do is wait until I’ve had my coffee.