Priorities

Unsettling call from Dad and I'd better get my ass to Florida. Rent a car with AC. D got a good deal, museum employee, all that, but on my personal credit card, maybe leave Saturday, get back in time to deal with the next round of receptions and openings. In a certain way I'm the brilliantly black sheep in my family, I've always been at a remove, distance wise; they respect my inclinations, but wonder why I'm not physically closer. I get out the atlas and chart a slightly different route. Impending death is another set of logistics. I'll cut through the Marshes Of Glenn, go back in time, perhaps rend the veil, mea culpa. The final expression of love is a wail in the night. I can't go back to sleep, the dreams were haunting me, I read poems, Sidney Lanier, Keats, Skip Fox, dear sweet Emily, they make more sense than anything else. It strikes me that the real sin is omission. I've tried to merely get on with my life, nothing more, I make no claims, and now I feel terrible that I couldn't have been more of something else: the good son, a better father. My excuse was that I couldn't be anything for anyone else if I wasn't honest with myself. Now I wonder. God preserve me from driving into a bridge stanchion. The existential me is vulnerable to every little thing, the slightest missed step, a spot of ice, something misunderstood. I can do this, go to Florida, sort through the shit, take loads to Good Will, address my case to family, but I am essentially a monad, a unit alone, we all are. However connected, we are always alone. Everything is fabrication. The world as we know it, the universe, reality. I hate to leave my house because I'll probably get robbed again, but we do what we have to, as a matter of course. I need a check list, things that need doing by the end of the day Friday, if I were to leave on Saturday. Arrange the rental car, get some decent books on tape for the trip, take 1500 manuscript pages and some valuable books to the vault at the museum, doesn't sound impossible, I can take dirty laundry and wash it there, bring back booze and food for when I arrive home, I think I can. God is in the details, everything is logistics. Glenn said I was writing well, but I don't know, I just write. Reportage. Most things I don't mention, the mom I find attractive, the young girl's ass that is distractive, I think I'm writing poorly, actually, not clear enough, but several of you argue otherwise. Maybe I'm more transparent than I imagine. What I think I mean. The past is subject to reconstruction, a down beat, then a riff on some reed instrument.