📷 Out back about 11:30; it's cool and not-humid. Easy to breathe. I saw the first yellow maple leaves in town today. Highs about 80 and lows in the 60s for the next 10 days are forecast. I know better than to think we won't have another muggy scorcher, but the weather has turned. If not Fall, it's Pre-Fall.
📷 I parked on the narrow asphalt path, climbed out and looked west at the clouds, where the sun might peek through. I’d shoot here. Turned off the ignition, grabbed the camera and stepped onto the grass. The closest headstone came to my chest—this was on top.
I gasped and fell back. A minute later, after deciding I wasn't superstitious—at least about a penny found tails-up—I snapped one picture. I told myself if it wasn't good, too bad. I would only take one shot.
Sat with coffee in the Circle K parking lot just a few minutes this morning. The sky showed first light as I pulled onto the road about 5:45 and went a new direction. Next mile, I parked on the shoulder, parallel to a field with view of the horizon, and waited. Cars zoomed past, and I moved further off the road and turned flashers on. About 6:45, I rolled down the window and snapped a few dozen shots.
On the way home, at the red light, a cement truck was feet away, outside my window.
I'm lying on the beach at Magen's Bay in this fantasy photo, snapped a few minutes ago from my back yard.
I've lived in this redneck hellhole for 15 years. If I didn't know there were other, better places, I wouldn't be bothered at all, but I do, so I am. Ignorance in bliss-ish.
Sometimes survival here requires that I disassociate from this place. Having a fantasy photo seems a healthy way to do that. Another coping tool.
🎬 🪕 "American Hollow” (1999) is a year in the life of my people, Hillbillies. This clan are in Kentucky, but the subculture differed little in the isolated valleys all along the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Alabama. I’m two generations removed from “the holler” but don’t need subtitles to understand every word these folks say.
Under-/un-educated, superstitious, religious and suspicious—hallmarks of my cultural heritage. Have I evolved? Not entirely.
📷 Under the shade tree, under those Blue Ridge Mountain Skies at 3:45.
It's 96º/104º with a SEVERE UVI of 10, and there is no breeze.
On days like today, I think of my Nephew, a roofing contractor who works in this heat every summer. They can't when it rains, but have never stopped because of the heat. On the worst days, he told me last year, the heat reminds him of Iraq, minus shooting.
The other half of yesterday's heirloom tomato over a couple slices of new beefsteak on the sandwich. I piled it up. The season only lasts another month, and I want to be dead sick of tomatoes before then.
I uncovered a piece of tomato under the Sugar Baby watermelon pieces and eating one, then the other, I noted they're equally sweet with different flavors.
Every little town had their "Dude" who evangelized on the fine art of dropping in to see what condition your condition was in. In my lil' Cackalacky riverside town that was Jeff, the "longhair" who gave me rides to school in his gold '74 Vega hatchback. He taught me more about life in a semester of early mornings than I'd learned in 15 years.
I dreamt of Jungleland, the night in New York with David for Balm in Gilead at the Minetta Lane.
Before lights-down, panhandlers walked the aisles. A woman made a bee-line for me (it seemed) and shouted, "Gimme a dollar! I know you've got a dollar!"
I froze, embarrassed and looked to David, a New Yorker; he was red-faced and quiet.
Seconds later, the lights dimmed, the intro from "Jungleland" began, the "panhandlers" climbed onstage and the play continued.
From the "I can't be the only one" file: word associations.
This is the Crepe Myrtle in the back yard. Every time I see it—every time—I say the words "Crepe Myrtle" in my head, then remember:
Jean-Claude, my French sous chef BF who made me a banana/strawberry for breakfast the night we met. While he was cooking I said the word—long-"a"—"CRAPE." He smiled. "Non non non—'KREP!'"
Myrtle is Myrtle Beach. 1970-74. I was 13-16, an important time in my young gay life.
#SF, 1990. Looking for a flat-share. They were plentiful and most were <$400 month.
The roommates gathered for my interview at a choice flat in the Mission. Questions were many, but friendly and seemed promising after a couple weeks of not-the-right-fit misses.
"We have one last question. What's your sign, your zodiac sign?" I answered and, as a group, they winced.
The "leader" spoke up. "We all agreed before we started: we just can't handle any more Sagittarius energy right now."
📷 Out back with Jack one last time. It's humid and quiet except for AC units grinding here and there.
I sat under the shade tree while Jack walked the perimeter and remembered the 18-hour day (minus a 2-hour nap) and the sense of "family" I felt, and the kindnesses I witnessed and received.
▶️ I'm rurnt after trekking around on errands for Sister. It was good to get out, and there was nothing routine about it. New places, new roads + a thunderstorm—all in 2 hours.
My last stop was a vegetable stand near home. The tomatoes were gorgeous and less expensive than the ones I've been buying. Local. So, it's my new regular veg source, and not just because it's cheaper.
Meet "Dahlia." I may have interrupted her nap under the tomato table.
🎧 Heard James Brown drop the name of my hometown just now. First time, I jumped!
It was a small town then and very much still is. Famous for nothing (good) at all.
James is city name-dropping on one of his 13-minute jam/rap sessions with the JBs. He played here every year, every year he toured which was most years in the 60s and 70s. We were on the circuit.
4:30 AM. Awake, still shaking from a dream so vivid and horrible, I woke screaming, heart pounding and short of breath.
What went down was completely believable. No monsters or mazes I couldn't escape. No, what was visited on me in the dream is happening to others. To someone, somewhere, today.
"The charges signify an extraordinary moment in United States history: a former president, in the midst of a campaign to return to the White House, being charged over attempts to use the levers of government power to subvert democracy and remain in office against the will of voters."
🎧 On July 20th, I began pulling together a post about that day in 1969. It was a Sunday and I went to Atlanta to see the Braves play the Phillies. That night at home, I watched moon landing coverage *and #TheSupremes sing farewell as a group on The Ed Sullivan Show" with "Someday We'll Be Together."
Fact-checking, I discovered the Braves game was July 31st, the Supremes song wasn't released until October, and the Sullivan show was December 21st.