The problem with others

Are you a chosen one? Are you a Google Plus Person (GPP)?

If not, stop reading, because, most of what follows really will be too technical and too sophisticated for you to understand. Go on, run to Facebook and update your sill little status.

OK, are they gone? Is it just us Plussers?

Gather in. Come closer.

Is it just us? Good.

I am tired of communicating. Thank you for the offer, but really, my life is boring, although, have you heard, I have a blog?

Here's the deal, people need time alone. With email and Facebook and cellphones, it is almost impossible to have a creative moment for yourself anymore. I was dating a Tone Deaf Dork for a few hours once and I kept getting text messages. Now, I had warned TDD that I paint and when I paint, I don't answer phones, or email, or communicate, I play loud music and paint. Then I sleep and when I wake up the next day, I check mail and messages.

So TDD lost it one night, texting me literally every 5 minutes, where was I, what's up, was everything OK, why no answer, sup, whats going on, on and on and on.

It was soon after that night that I realized that TDD was way too crazy and in my business to be a part of my life. It's kind of funny when you are dating someone and you tell them something, like I paint and don't bother with phones and such from the start, and yet, soon after, they are bothering you when you phone is at least 100 yards away and turned off. People often times do not listen.

When I was a teenager I would be going to this or that and right as I was about to leave, my mother would be lounging in a chair, a python, coiled, ready to attack. As my hand began to turn the doorknob a voice from over my shoulder, "where are you going? Who are you going with? When will you be back?" At first, the questions were welcome, but as my life became more clandestine, so did my need for non-disclosure. Then one day I realized something, she was asking the questions, but only out of habit, there had been others before me, the older ones, already having escaped, to me, as a teenager, they no longer existed, but the old Jewish python, she knew the routine, she must ask the questions. What I realized is, she did not care what the answers were, at first I would say a name, any name, Joe and I were going to a movie, be back in a couple of hours. I did not know a Joe. We did not go to a movie, a couple hours could be anything. Then I realized even those answers did not matter, soon I could say, Hitler and I are invading England, should be a week or two, be back when I'm dead. She would say good night and that would be it.

I didn't have a cellphone. There was no expectation that I would call. We could not text every five minutes with meaningless updates. No, I was considered almost an adult, do what I must, just be responsible for what I did. One night I got shot at and the police were called. I believe the response was, you are obviously guilty of something, you are a fuck up.

I have been getting a lot of painting done this summer and it has dawned on me how that has been possible. First, there is no one here. The kids are somewhere, my fiance is in a coma, the dog got hit by a car, the cat is making lesbian cat porn, the Polish immigrant family that had been illegally living in my basement may have died, the brain surgeon that performs illegal botox operations in my bedroom is here, but she passed out a few nights ago and only wakes to use the restroom, inject more botox into her neck and pass out again near the body of my dead dog. Which means I have plenty of time to focus.

That said last night I had a text conversation with the father of my son. I know, read it again and you will understand. Anyway, at some point he called me Staten Island Matt, which brought back a slew of memories. For a short period of time many thousands of years ago, I lived at a kennel on Staten Island, which is near New York City, I think it might officially be a borough, but because of the racial makeup and the abundance of back hair, it might as well be a borough of Tuscany, if you know what I mean.

I lived with Captain Zucchini and for the most part, life was excellent, but when life is excellent at the start of your adult life, you don't realize it. You think it could be a hell of a lot better, so you pass on excellent and begin searching for something better. Captain Zucchini was a Seal Team leader, a tri-athlete, a model and a CB radio icon. He fell in love with an old smart man named Iggy, in fact, I think we both did, but Captain and Iggy would soon high tail it for Maine and I would leave for Los Angeles. The point is, it was a good moment that I was unable to realize at the time. The other point is, I get this late night text from someone who has that memory of me.

So I texted my sons father back and reminded him of a night when I rode on the back of his motorcycle through the canyons of Manhattan on into the wilds of Connecticut to see the Clash in concert. We texted back and forth like that for a moment, because when you know someone for a long time, you can recall things that seem to have been long forgotten.

Strange fact, a year or so after the motorcycle concert I would end up cooking dinner for the Clash on Long Island. I will not go into details except to say that I did ask Joe Strummer if he remembered the show in Hartford from a year earlier and he looked at me like I might be insane.

The point of this is, if you are like me, and thank the good lord sweet jesus you are not, but just in case you are, do not fear the silence. Leave the phone in a drawer. Turn off the computer. Take a walk, or a bike ride, make love to someone you enjoy, and above all else, bury the dead dog long before she starts to smell.