sad thing about not having dogs

when i get drunk and make too much popcorn and throw the excess all over the living room floor nothing happens

Eviscerate Your Memory

I am thinking of change again. It is spring, sure, or it feels like it. I am cautiously ready to go for it, like the robins I have seen flitting about, though I think we are all thinking that maybe there is another winter storm or two hiding out in the recesses of the sky. I am not sure if that is a metaphor, but it surely fits snugly on so many hands. There is calm, and there is madness, and the only way you really know which is which is through the absence of the other. Madness is lack of calm, and calm lack of madness. Dry is lack of wet. Warm is lack of cold. Cold is lack of warm. Drunk is lack of sober. Loud is the quiet, hiding. Lonely is the lack of you.

Is laughter the absence of tears? That is probably a stretch. I have been taking lots of solitary walks, occasionally jerking myself violently at squirrels for old times sake. Walking suddenly is pleasurable again, thanks to the absence of cold. My snot isn't freezing to my mustache. My mustache isn't turning into a beard.

You don't know what I'm doing anymore, the way you did two years ago. It feels like you are out of my life, but I know that you are still there, wondering if things are ok. Don't worry, I am wondering the same thing. It is not easy. It is never easy.

Freedom is lack of constraint. Lack is absence of stuff. Absence is lack of presence.

I wish I could still climb trees. I wish I could wake up and not feel 50something. 31 would be nice. Or 26. I don't suppose those days are coming back. My acid reflux has backed down a bit, but most of the other aches are still there, verily.

If you see me walking around, please say "hi". I have not felt so lonely in a long time, and I am not sure what to do about it. If I was 20 years older, I might be in an assisted living facility, and there would be card games and singalongs, and I don't suppose I would feel judged the way I do now. Maybe I would though.

This is not the change I am wanting for. Mm.

Hans, my Father's Neighbor. Evening. March 1.

The man said, "Schwul."
The man said, "Schwül."
The man said, "There is a difference."