Bed Rotting in Summer
Stumbling into walls, I am slightly off-centre, and my balance goes out the window. I have a vague desire to read a book, but a side effect of bed rotting is extreme lack of attention, which translates to scrolling above all else— Heads or Tails? Doom or gloom in the bedroom?
Hey, I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, still, black dogs leave no room for age limits. It’s no excuse. I keep looking for excuses, exits, ways to cancel, escape plans.
In dreams we drive faster.
Hey! don’t look back, get out of town, leave behind more awkward silences, burn memory holes in a box of old photographs.
There are whole towns you could to fall into.
I play games with myself, to stay sane, stay sharp, test my brain, yes, still on, can’t turn the damn thing off, JANE STOP THIS THING!!!! Still working, yes it is rude to remind me, I’m still working.
Are there any other options available? The future is hungry for more of my bits and bobs. I am #98 on the substack humour list. Ha-ha.
Did you notice that the sun is out? There is a summer going on in May. Mercury rising, LOOKOUT retrograde. Reprobate. Retro Repro. Is that a new music category? Right between doom surf and shoegaze.
Here come the wildfires, turn up the AC or call IT, because A.I. will figure it out …..
The bed rotting never happened. I am much too old to bed rot. The kids are all doing it —Do the Bed Rot. If a man my age starts bed rotting, they call the coroner. He may never leave home, he may never shave again, he will definitely start to resemble that guy on the street, or maybe the Trevago guy. Someone who stumbles out of their cave, saying, where’s the buffalo gone? I loved their early stuff.
I may be dressed in yesterday’s clothes, but I am up. I have driven a car already today. I have eaten at least one breakfast. I am starting to think about the next breakfast.
Question: do you have to fast first to have breakfast?
You have to brake fast when approaching small children or dogs in the road. That is the law. And also wise words to live by.
Words to live by, as we used to say. We also used to let dogs run wild in the streets. Dogs would chase cars, and some got run over. Kids too. Dogs would chase kids, and kids would chase cars. Kids would grab onto cars while riding on skateboards. I saw kids in Lisbon grab on to the street cars, holding on for dear life, although they seemed unconcerned with life being dear. It was amazing as the streetcars careened down steep, winding hills, the kids barely brushing against the buildings, mere inches from their heads. Thrill seekers, except they looked like this was so normal. The thrill was gone, leaving nothing but poverty. They were just getting somewhere in a hurry—faster than walking.
Breaking Windows
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Today’s Terrier de lapin. (Rabbit Hole) courtesy of Joe Pernice, songwriter and fellow substacker, noted his love of Tomas Tranströmer, a Swedish poet who wrote the book Night Vision, translated by Robert Bly.
In a printed interview later, he (Tomas) remarked that he had early learned to admire active syntax when composing a poem. When counseling juveniles, he urged them to do likewise. If they were liable to say, “I found myself in this apartment …” or “As it happened, I …,” he urged them to say, “I broke the window and crawled in.”
Here is a poem of his called
Below Freezing
We are at a party that doesn’t love us. Finally the party lets the mask fall and shows what it is: a shunting station for freight cars. In the fog cold giants stand on their tracks. A scribble of chalk on the car doors. One can’t say it aloud, but there is a lot of repressed violence here. That is why the furnishings seem so heavy. And why it is so difficult to see the other thing present: a spot of sun that moves over the house walls and slips over the unaware forest of flickering faces, a biblical saying never set down: “Come unto me, for I am as full of contradictions as you.”
Whatever it takes.
Hat tip for the Jetsons quote.