Woe Is Me

In a retort to myself, I have to say that I’m seriously thinking about life as a hermit on the rocky, windswept fjords of Norway. This is, in fact, more reality than I care to engage.

Ain’t got no cigarettes, rooms to rent, fifty cents . . . no job, no money, no women, no song, no wine . . . goddamn it, I’m out of wine. But not, I’m sorry to say, out of whine.

So, I drone on, with my inside voice, or the voices inside me, rather, toting up the dismaying array of disaster scenarios that are available to those endowed with a vivid and creative imagination, as am I.

Yes, it’s true that I could be eating lobster, those creatures which I gleefully describe as Coastal Roaches, at Arthur’s St. Mortiz day after Tuesday, but could I guarantee it? No more than I could guarantee that the sun will rise a few hours hence. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, either.

Yes, I do actually have a positive attitude, for all it’s going to get me. My suits are pressed and my ties are colorful. My shoes are shined and so far, unconsumed by the resident canine. Does that mean I have a reason to live more than I have a reason to die? Ah, life is a compromise, I have been told, but I’m not sure this is what they meant.

I’m not being cryptic – hey, that has “crypt” in it: how morbid. One of my scenarios is that I simply give up, find a hooker, go to Las Vegas and drink myself to death. You know, there may be a story in that, maybe even a screenplay. I can see Ashton Kutscher or Adam Sandler in the lead with Uma Thurman or Liv Ullman (how Nordic these names are – best to remember to invite them to my hermitage) as the hooker with a heart of gold – wait: in this age of maximum bling, we’d better upgrade that to platinum, which is, by the way, a cold and very hard metal. Sounds about right.

Smile for the camera, in that inane and blissfully frightened way we all do when we sense the alpha pack members are sniffing our collective privates. We are all slaves to reality, forced back into it if we lose our way with pharmacological wonderment and the yadda-yadda of PhD’s angling for their next boat payment.

Big fish, small pond versus small fish, big pond. Heck, who wants to be a fish?