I was just thinking of how, when we convinced Mike to get a laptop, it would help him write down his poetry, to help him write his plays, and perhaps learn some skills on a computer that would give him a leg up on the people who are also looking for jobs. But that’s not what he’s doing I’m pretty sure of it, it’s more about looking at porn.
I am doing computer things now, and considering that I’m mostly self-taught and not that bad at it. Mike would have the advantage of Bill and me on his shoulder, helping him proceed, but that’s not it.
Mike’s boyfriend is thinking about moving back east so he and Mike can be close together, and so Mike’s boyfriend is looking for work. I made a few suggestions of each or so ago, and that’s about as far as I would go.
I don’t think it’s a good idea since they’ve met twice and FaceTime, I’m not sure if that’s the way to determine the relationship. But it’s a new generation, it’s a new age, and perhaps that’s how things are done nowadays. I am a dinosaur after all.
Having met Bill 25 years ago via a Yahoo groups party that seemed to be out of the ordinary, but nowadays it seems to be quite tame. In any event, it’s not my life, it’s not my decision.
Yesterday, the whole day went by without contacting Mike on the phone. A few texts here and there, but that was about it.
Perhaps that’s how it should be. There are a few realizations that came across in my head over the weekend due to the lack of contact, and they seem to make sense at least to me.
He asked me to purchase a box of cigars for him, but my funds are a bit tight at the moment, so I begged off.
The bloom is probably off the rose, but sometimes it reblooms again. Right now it is off.
He can always ask his boyfriend for whatever it is that he needs. I am not the one.
The well can run dry, believe it or not.
The boyfriend and Mike have a plan to go on a cruise in April or May. And that is considering that Mike will not be employed at that time. I do not know how Mike’s job search is proceeding. I feel that it is not, and he is content with his 1200 social security check that he receives once a month, which he spends on cigars.
I am not one to talk because when I was unemployed, I was still buying cigars. But I was also actively looking for work from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed.
But that is just me.
But what I am doing is basically copying and pasting every day, and if I can do it, I can definitely do it, but Mike is not making any effort to learn such tasks, and I was hoping he would to improve his station in life, but he seems content even though the station in life does not exist at this moment for him. I mean, if I can do it, anyone can do it, and if anyone can do it, Mike can definitely do it.
Like many of my school teachers told me on my report cards and to my parents, if only he could apply himself
Google Gemini rewrite as a David Sedaris essay
## The Station to Nowhere
When Bill and I finally wore Mike down and convinced him to buy a laptop, we did so with the kind of misguided, breathless optimism usually reserved for people selling juice cleanses. We envisioned a literary renaissance. This machine, we told him, was the key to unlocking his hidden dramas and the poetry that surely rattled around in his skull like loose change. More importantly, it was a lifeline—a way to acquire those “computer skills” that would supposedly launch him ahead of the teeming masses also vying for a paycheck.
At least, that was the script. In reality, I suspect the only thing Mike is unlocking is a series of increasingly specific browser tabs that have absolutely nothing to do with iambic pentameter.
I’m largely self-taught in the digital arts, which is to say I’ve spent twenty years clicking things until they stop screaming at me. I’m not half bad. With Bill and me hovering over his shoulders like a pair of middle-aged, tech-support gargoyles, Mike should have been a power-user within weeks. But he remains uninterested. He views the keyboard with the same suspicion a cat might reserve for a vacuum cleaner.
Currently, Mike’s life is centered around a long-distance boyfriend who is contemplating a move back East so they can be closer. I made a few helpful suggestions regarding the local job market a week or so ago, but that’s where I’ve parked the car. I’m done.
Personally, I find the logistics of their romance baffling. They’ve met in person exactly twice. The rest of the time is spent staring at each other through the hazy, blue-lit purgatory of FaceTime. Perhaps this is simply how the “New Age” functions—a digital courtship where intimacy is measured in bars of Wi-Fi. I am, after all, a dinosaur. I met Bill twenty-five years ago at a Yahoo Groups party, which felt wildly avant-garde at the time but now sounds as quaint as a barn raising or a syphilis outbreak in the 19th century.
I suppose it’s not my life. It’s certainly not my decision. And yet, the silence is what sticks.
Yesterday passed without a single phone call. There were a few texts, brief and vibrating with unspoken needs, but that was it. Over the weekend, in the quiet spaces where Mike’s voice usually grates against my patience, I had a few realizations. They made sense to me, which is usually a sign that I’m becoming a hermit.
He asked me to buy him a box of cigars recently. My funds are currently in a state of “tightness” that borders on the Victorian, so I begged off. It’s a strange feeling when the bloom comes off the rose. You realize the flower isn’t just wilting; it’s actually a plastic centerpiece you’ve been watering for years. Maybe it will rebloom, or maybe I’ll just stop buying the fertilizer. He has a boyfriend now; let *him* provide the tobacco. I am no longer “The One.” The well has run dry, and I’m tired of hearing the bucket hit the mud at the bottom.
The two of them are planning a cruise for April or May, a feat of financial gymnastics that would baffle a CPA. Mike is currently unemployed and shows no sign of changing that status. He seems perfectly content to survive on a $1,200 Social Security check, which he treats less like a safety net and more like a cigar allowance.
I realize I’m a hypocrite. When I was out of work, I still bought cigars. But I also spent every waking hour hunting for a job with the frantic energy of a man trying to escape a sinking ship. My current professional life consists mostly of copying and pasting—a task so profoundly simple that even a well-trained pigeon could likely master it. I thought Mike might learn to do the same, to improve his “station in life.” But Mike doesn’t have a station. He’s standing on a patch of weeds where a station was once promised, waiting for a train that hasn’t run since the Eisenhower administration.
It’s the same refrain I used to see on my own report cards, written in the cramped, disappointed cursive of my teachers: *“If only he would apply himself.”* I finally understand what they meant. It wasn’t that I lacked the talent; it was that they were exhausted from watching me sit on it.
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