Got up at 4:45 a.m. with a bursting bladder. Sky already turning gray from black. Back to bed, obviously, dragging dream baggage. Then that thing where you can’t breathe. Panic attack. Long slow breaths, brain racing for distraction so things settle down. Nope. Shit. Back out of bed, put on bathrobe, out to living room and computer desk. Laptop only (silent), wake from sleep, turn on network. No coffee. Atrocity stream on Twitter takes focus off breathing. Good, but Jesus! Drunk brain-damaged apes in Ukraine looting corpses, etc. Wife wakes up, makes coffee (!), feeds cat, goes off to exercise. How does she do that? Impossible for me. Will also come home cheerful. She lives in moment, I live in dread.
Check book sales at Amazon and iBooks. Huh. Two more since last checked at 2:00 a.m. Could be worse, but motorcycle on hold. Also house. Don’t click on Realtor.com, you fucker. Too late. What’s this? “Only” $170K and right down the road? Oh no, that address! Someone built a spec house there? Frame construction, fake adobe, new but shitty. Anyone could tell. Reeling at thought of newbies buying in deserted area where I used to hike. Why “used to”? Evil vibes. Wife and I walked into violent plein-air butt-fucking where house now sits. (Get a room, right? Now they can.) Realtor copy says “priced below market value to sell quickly.” Usual Taos bullshit. Refrain from gratuitous spamming of listing agent. Back to bed wearing robe.
Time passes. Late morning better, psycho-defensive measures taken. Do. Not. Hurt. Your. Self. Light under bushel still lit. No panic or answers. Moment is everything. Goons not my problem, wherever they are. Roof over head. Food in fridge. Money in bank. Fuck real estate, withdraw projections, get creative. Oddly calm. Take shower, wash hair. Look better in mirror. Don’t think about hearing or teeth.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
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