What Fresh Hell Is This?

We never watched television.

Thank you Ms. Parker. Yes. What fresh hell for sure. Today is early.  Too dang early. Not as early as when I got up at 4 am to drive to Oxnard and teach. Not as early as when I baked at Roma and got up at 3 or 4 to mix batter and fire up the oven.  Not as early as my sweet son back East who is already up and riding on some train no doubt. But still too early for someone keeping vampire hours. And it is 78 degrees. Really? Cause I am shaking a bit in my kind of jammies. And a 10% chance of rain. Clouds promised. What woke me up and this next bit is dreamy, poetic maybe I hope. I know these way too early waking hours so well.  Like the misty fog of yesterday, regrets and disappointments fade in and out of my thoughts accompanied by misunderstandings and missed opportunities. There was a flea as well. What woke me was the sound of a cat being tortured, loudly, by a wolverine (thanks Ron Burgundy), or an errant biker speeding past, or one of any of the somewhat wild creatures who roam through my patch of turf. There was nothing for it but to walk down my stairs in the streetlight pea soup darkness and peer at what? Impending doom? Dreading what I might or might not find, I stood there, leaves sticking to my socks, and found NOTHING. Which reminds me of what people used to do before TV and the good bad shows that keep me up past midnight. They drank. And smoked. And made art and music. Wrote books. And gathered in public places. And starved. But starving is a topic for tomorrow. Today is death and darkness. When I read the NY times on Sunday, I immediately feel 1) educated 2) brilliant 3) completely hopeless. The articles are so well written, insightful, engaging, and littered with words I have to look up just to be sure. Many of the articles contain these words: "studies show" especially in regards to why we are 1) overweight 2) depressed 3) medicated 4) feeling hopeless.  Damn these are perplexing times!  and continuing my newspaper reading career, yes for lack of a better one, I find myself ecstatic over a deli bundle of holiday papers. Sidewalked. Liberating just one, I have my crossword and yet another poignant article on "Denial of Death". Good gawd already. As I remain in my research mode, reading about the marvelous people of the Paris Montparnasse, I recall words spoken to me by my beloved muse of a daughter from a song she knew well. The lyrics speak of the endless chain of souls that make our life, make my moments, fleas and all, screeching cats and all, sleepless nights and all, possible. And as I search the faces of those artists and writers, drinkers and lovers, in Paris oh so long ago, I look for shared features and common expression--knowing, just knowing that I will find myself among them. 10% chance of rain. I'll take that chance and raise you 10. We might not get out alive as the Doors remind us always, but until we do thank gawd for coffee.