Fuck Everything

Been spending a lot of my free time these days getting stratospheric and staring out the window at the scenery. The birch tree in the front yard is transcendent. Beyond, rows of slanting houses tilt into the earth like absurd phantoms. The mountain that crowds the horizon is another reality entire to itself. The wine in my fist is sustaining on a level I don't believe possible. Birds arrive on evening missions to the feeders, mostly solitary, and spend their time gathering seeds from the spillage on the melting ground. The sky changes; sometimes there is a breeze, sometimes clouds. I watch the evening pinken, then dim, then pour myself the final abuse of that day's mini-bender. I'm going to be dead soon enough.

Last week there was a food truck/vintage shop festival at the fairgrounds. A and I visited with her parents who were in town for the week. I strengthened my morning coffee with vodka and we advanced to the grounds and perused the displays. I found a truck that hailed from my birth neck of the woods and ate a shrimp and catfish po-boy with fried okra as a side. It was delicious - fried perfectly and seasoned with just enough spice that the addition of Tabasco only heightened the flavors of the seafood and balanced the mayo-tomato-lettuce combo. The bread was the right consistency of toothy and fresh. As I ate, relishing, the meal made me think about my dead parents and what they might make of me being in Palmer, AK eating such fare. What might they have thought about having Uly as a member of their number? What about G and K who they likewise did not meet? 

I dyed eggs with Ulybear and fam this past Friday when I'd taken a personal day from work. It was A's parents' last day with us and they were soon to be flying back to MN. We did the usual stuff: put names on the shells, drew designs, dunked the eggs. While the grandparents had a time with Uly and his cuteness, I was drawn into my own interiority of previous, egg dyeing memory-scapes where G was younger and wearing one of my old, white t-shirts stained with dye, hands to match, holding up his creation in a photo I keep somewhere. There was G and K with friends in a similarly messy outing where they'd spent the day gorging on kid-friendly snacks and playing before the egg coloring finale. The scene congealed of a time they went to a secret proselytizing "egg hunt" where they sat through a non-denominational, feel good-ey, Christianity-lite service before being set loose to gather eggs "hidden" on a patch of astroturf at the Menard Sports Center. Of these things I said nothing.

Here's K at a soccer game I didn't attend. He's in the black kit, positioning himself, edging out that other kid and anticipating the drop of the shadowed ball that hangs just out of frame. Judging from the motion of the photo, he's going to get the first touch and ensuing advantage in maneuvering up the field. I received the photo - along with others of report card info and goalie work - on a Thursday morning while I was busy with a field trip with my students to the local recycling center. I scrolled through the photos as the pupils labored through a presentation on waste reduction. It would be four more hours before I was safely drinking secret beers at my local bar then on to home where I'd continue until it was time for window staring and the hoped for/anticipated nightly fade out. 

Fuck everything.