Very

It is clear that I am at my best alone. Caring way too much about what others are thinking, how they are judging me is my broken bone. It's a bone in my brain. A basic mechanism of my conscious life that I have wished away, fought, tried to squash, with absolutely no success though out my life. At some point I looked to drugs, meditation, therapy. Nothing works. It doesn't seem to matter. A random driver, some guy in the pool or the shower, a girl friend or child, a co-worker, a boss, a waiter. They get my attention. I shake my head. It's so stupid. Such a waste. I have labeled it a weakness. I have given it a name - Libran Disease. When it strikes I shake my head. Who gives a shit about the guy across the street. Why to care so, even for that instance it strikes. It hits my spine, my gut, my tongue. How silly and stupid. The only solution is solitude. There I can do and be whatever. I can't write whatever because the real stuff going through my mind, if written and then read would hurt - not me but someone close to me. The shit that flows through the mind reflects little. My mind is an open channel like a scanner on a radio receiving messages without value. Here's this, then that. Random fantasies of sex, of power, of achievement, of whimsy. My choices are perhaps more important. But not so much when driven by fear, the fear of the reactions of others. I've written this kind of crap before but now things are different. I am older. My parents are gone. How much more time there is to wait, to hope or pray when I know in my heart there is no cataclysmic occurrence around the corner that will make it stop, that will unleash me from these foolish concerns.

I go for a walk. I cut vegetables. I clean a chicken. I open a bottle. I suck in the aroma. It's three in the afternoon - cooking time, three to five. It high time, peaceful time. Jane will arrive in the next hour. The couscous waits. I'll slice the tomato and the avocado. I'll boil the water. She will walk in, smiling, relieved, happy to be home, happy to see me, ready to eat. These 3-6pm slices of life are done. These hours in an office will soon be a struggle to stay awake, to stay with it, to answer some random emails or sit through another meeting. I'll be drifting back to cooking time. To the late afternoon hours with a glass of wine, an olive, a slice of gruyere.