“Are you a singer?” I asked.

“No.”

“An actress?”

“Tourist.”

“Oh. Your accent is nice…”

“Dutch.”

“Nice.”

And she was gone. Her broken down red leather boots, black leather jacket, black jeans, and a bob of blonde, tickling the top of her shoulders, under the newish “working cowboy” pale straw hat. You can just picture her, can’t you? She wafted patchouli as she sashayed by. May have been the prada/sony/hp/overear woman to my immediate right. We’re all thethered in for wifi and energy, both electrical and energetic.

She walked through the whispering automatic doors, cupped her hands, and lit a cigarette. One of the few times in my life I wished I smoked. I guess I could go bum a cig and fake it. They can tell. Women. Men, we give off a hungry vibe whenever we’re unattached or thinking about becoming unattached.

Yes, I am unattached at the moment. It’s a fluctuating state. Non-binary, yet linear and predictable. Blow me, blow me out, lament, call me back, invite me to …

And so on…

The man to the left of me nearly died. DNT. His name was Shawn. (of the Dead*)

I will think of Shawn-of-the-still-living as I move throughout my day. No ride to the hospital. If I could’ve advocated for St. David’s he might have met my daughter. Now, I’m trippin of course. It was just a thought. I haven’t heard from either kid in three days. I don’t worry. I’d have dropped all priorities for a kid sighting, but I am also experienced enough as a single dad, with 30% of their time (Until they were 15ish).

My job is to continuously provide ideas and enticements to chat, gather, eat, or play. My daughter has taken up tennis again. So that’s a joy. She’s on the overnight shift, still, but that’s changing. “I want to get good at tennis,” she told me, as she moved back to Austin, her hometown and began her adulting climb.

Let me tell you about Texas Radio and the big beat
Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars

Out here we is stoned, immaculate

– the Doors

I was raised on 60’s and 70’s pop. The radio in my mom’s Toyota finally got an FM upgrade when I was in seventh grade. She was driving me to the high school tennis courts on a Friday morning. I was going to play the number one player on our team, Cisco. Since we had captured first and second place Sunday night, the tournament directors let our coach have both trophies.

I had my peak moment, aborted by success. If it had been a different player, we’d have to play it out. That is how tournaments work. Even in the early days, 1975, in middle school. It was the 23-AA district tennis championships. Was. I played Cisco and won in a well-contested match, our coach sitting beside the court. We called our own lines. She observed. She didn’t pick sides or coach us. It was very strange.

The victory celebration was stolen from me at the height of my athletic prowess to date. I’m still winning occasional tennis tournaments. I prefer the red clay of Horseshoe Bay, the resort where my dad convalesced during his losing fight with cancer and shame.

“We need to do this more often,” he said, one random Sunday morning around 10:30.

“I know dad.” I hugged him. “I’ll come out next Friday, if you’re still out here. We can golf and play cards. I’ll even go back to church with you, if you like.”

He was admitted for final approach a few days later. We now only play cards in my mind. The man, his strength and rage, standing there, in the doorway of the “fruit strip gum” condo. He was small. Frail. The bear hug had become a skeltal a-frame hug. I think he didn’t want to let me feel his old boney chest against mine. How I long for that memory.

I would’ve stayed with him all Sunday, had I known.

The church was fun. As he was sliding toward the Inferno, he had made peace with the father and the son. A prodigal boy, ready to ascend to the bosom again. His mom would be there with a drink. His father would have forgiven him. Heaven was a lot of everyone welcoming you back and wishing you well with the debriefing. That’s what they called the process of reintegration after death.

It is hard for a human soul to let go of human things, human loves and hungers. Like at this moment, I cannot stop thinking about the flawed and perfect human form of my recent obsession. Better not to obsess. How about invite and then let go of the outcome. Ask and let go.

The dancer and I have exchanged short texts this morning. We’re both in transition to a cash-plus lifestyle. I’ve been living in the void. No foreclosure proceedings or anything, but all of my digital currency is useless. And it is not because of the digital blackout, it’s because I’m over maxed, late, and at risk of reporting. Srsly? Even my bank is sending me nast-grams.

I am close. I’m doing an onboarding call of some this week with a well-paying client asking, “How many hours can you sell us.” We haven’t confirmed the rate. $50 an hour vs. $150 an hour is a big difference. The $16.32 (after my 90-day merit raise) was not going to do much but slow the burn of my reserves.

I am an enthusiast. I optimistically spend all the money I have when I have it. Mostly, I’m doing good things, supporting people I love (kids) or establishments I love. For two years I have been alone. Focused. Working my “time + space = love” equation. Putting out the smoke signals, invitation texts, and occasional inappropriate memes, and silence. They are 23 and 25. That’s just how kids are.

“The pandemic really did a number on our kids,” say some friends.

Hello, Karen. The plague and resulting death and chaos wrecked millions of life. End of life. End of grandma. End of Fountains of Wayne, and my talky therapist Jay Merlin Merwin. (I morphed that name to protect his historical digital footprint. Don’t want to muck up his data with my yarns and thread of intrigue and loss.

Public spaces for artists have changed. Musicians and comedians, dancers and hookers, all lost their ability to provide for the basics: food, water, shelter, safety. You can’t find the song of yourself when all the systems are losing power, demanding payment or power converters. What about solar? What would it take to become solar independent? I also want to help the honey bees. My mom had a beehive. Ada’s Bees said the little green and gold ribbon she had printed up. My sister’s kid, the boy, went to Cornell and joined the Beekeepers Club, a very famous org. Perhaps the inspiration of Wes Anderson’s masterpiece, Rushmore.

Shit, we haven’t talked much about movies and shows. I have dreams.

“That must be her sister, right?” – the Eels

I don’t have the fantasy of becoming a Thom Yorke-level rockstar. I’d like for people to hear my music. Go see BUZZIE on Spotify, Apple Music and all the rest of the digital robber-barons providing our music streams for 0.0003 per stream. How about 0.1? Why do they get to make all the money, and the artists make none?

And how about AI music? If Spotify unleashes its own AI music to squeeze out the music they have to pay for, we’re all going to lose. But here’s the truth: We already lost. Creative arts are now free. Hell, porn is free. Sex is free. Drugs cost very little. Ten bucks can put you in the hospital as quickly as 10,000 bucks.

The guy with the low blood pressure and heart palpitations is back. DNT. My daughter hasn’t replied to my question about that protocol. Ho hum.

What would it be like… I wonder… To be with someone as magnificent as my last partner, yet available and able to maintain “present moment” consciousness and not wipe all memories and transmissions.

[Massive Glitch in My Analog Bubble]

Grace stopped by and said hello. Grace. The woman who’s mom drunkenly ran over one of my young Arizona Cypress trees. I can’t believe she wanted to say hello. She did. It was lovely. We wished each other well. Release that ghost-devil*.

Dear Bumble, you don’t ever need to show me “conservative” women. Ever. I know, I can pay you to give me more filters, but politics seems as important as sexual orientation these days. I would consider Ryan Reynolds or Gosling, but I assume that any married woman of a certain age would think the same. Hearing a 70-something woman wax poetic about a 23-year-old dancer and her love of a certain delta 8 gummy that is “such a great value.” She’s a trip. She had no problem telling the girl about my (hidden for now) book, Soul Love. She didn’t like the way she came across.

“Why did you write something so mean?”

“Um.”

“I thought our first three weeks were magical. Maybe a bit unreal, but I look back on those days and *nights* as some of the best of my life.”

“Me too.”

“Why did you say all those mean things about me?”

“I understand that my writing hurt you. I am sorry. I have taken the book down. I apologize again when it comes up. I’m done trying to justify my writing or prove anything to you. Nothing you imagined was wrong from those days. I too was mesmerized by your beauty and body self-awareness. How do we rub together like two Palo Santo fragrant sticks. We’re either going to create fire, fuck, or break up.”

“I can’t…”

“Sorry. I know you don’t like that word. It’s one of my favs. I can add that vocabulary in the marginalia.”

Small Youthful Bodies. Of course, I do like to look. Admire. Not stalk. Not wander my eye or leer. That never happened. It happened in my teens and twenties, perhaps. The river of life flows by my table, here tappity tappity, and my mind enjoys the color and the shape of all the embodiments of god. Life is a game. There is nothing serious worth worrying about. Be. Learn to be open, be quiet, be calm.

I believe joy is the energetic lifeblood of the human body and the connective pathways of the Red Thread: sex, love, passion, mania, surrealism. That heightened state is liminal. It can prove fatal for people with attachment issues. It can feel like drug addiction to those of us who attach well and easily.

She said she felt like she was a number when she read my writing about my life as a single dad so far. “I can tell you’re a good dad. That’s very attractive.”

*Shawn of the Dead, movie recommendation
*ghost-devil

back to index: proofs of life

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