Two Boys at Lover's Point

Let’s face it: My life these days is pret-ty bo-o-o-o-r-r-r-r-ing.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I get the sense that one of the things that was wrong with my life – yes, yes, I’m at that age where I get to look back at my life and make sweeping generalizations – is that it was a tad too interesting.

My poor mad, doomed friend Abe – a brilliant writer – used to tell me, “If you want to actually create art, you need a stable domestic environment.”

(Abe did not have a stable domestic environment and appears to be living out his afterlife in a remote part of Utah. So bizarre! How did he get there? Did some tornado blow him to Oz?)

My mother was a borderline personality who didn’t like me very much, and I spent much of my adult life seeking out circumstances that would reproduce the emotional environment I remembered from my childhood. That unpredictability, that danger, the various unreliable love objects, that odd sense of being utterly invisible but at the same time being hyper-visible as a kind of universal motivating force: If it weren’t for you, I could have…

But that’s all over now!

I wouldn’t say I gained any great psychological insights that compelled me to my present state.

I would say that I suffered mightily, that I was humbled, that I ate dirt, that I ate shit, and that the Universe took pity on me.

###

Anyway, because my life is so bo-o-o-o-r-r-r-r-ing and because this journal primarily exists as a warm-up writing exercise, equivalent to a musician’s scales practice, I decided to start scanning random photographs as a warm-up exercise. And scribble every association I could possible think of in the morning hour I typically allot to diary scribbling.

###

So. This photo. 1996? Max aged nine; RTT aged two. Pacific Grove, California. Lover’s Point.

Pacific Grove is the lovely little town that borders Monterey to the south. Lover’s Point is very close to the little cottage where John Steinbeck wrote Grapes of Wrath as well as to the tidepools where he and Ed Rickets used to scrimmage for sea creatures. Steinbeck is the Monterey Peninsula’s cottage industry! His writing studio is now an Airbnb rental – at a not too exorbitant rate. It's been repainted!

(I wrote an entire magical realism novel about Steinbeck that’s set during the winter when he lived right down the block from the comparative mythologist Joseph “Follow Your Bliss” Campbell, and Campbell fell in love with Steinbeck’s first wife, the plucky, redoubtable Carol. That novel is now languishing in one of my trunks, but maybe if I can sell the June Miller novel – and one good thing about #MeToo: It makes the June Miller novel very topical and thus, commercially viable – I can sell that one too!)

The photo is one of a series of photographs.

I paid someone to take them although I can no longer remember who the photographer was. (Was it Diana? It may have been Diana!)

I kind of like the brown water stain on the palm tree. It’s subtle! An homage to California’s terrible draughts!

I remember those shoes Robin is wearing very, very well. I totally loved them! And when I look at his face, I think, Wow – he has the same personality now!

But when I look at Max’s face, I think, Now, he has changed.

At nine, Max had begun to pursue the jock activities that eventually led him to winning a college scholarship as a Tri-County Scholar Athlete. I think those three counties were Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz, but honestly? I don’t remember.

During his jock years, Max was relentlessly competitive.

But now, he’s not competitive at all.

I mean, he’s assertive. But he’s not at all interested in bringing other people down.

This is an old photo of Lover’s Point:



In other news: L had a brunch party yesterday. The party was basically four hours spent bantering with Ed. Ed gives excellent banter!

L is a fine cook, did these two enormous fritattas that were more like soufflés as well as these mini-shepards’ pies in cupcake wrappers. I baked a coffeecake which was edible but eh.

L served mimosas with a liberal hand as well as Grand Marnier digestifs, so I got pretty drunk. After helping L clean the kitchen, all I was good for was to toddle off and watch multiple episodes of ER.

I must say, ER is one of my favorite TV series ever.

I haven’t been a nurse since 1992, so no doubt the series is horribly dated.

But the emergency room it depicts is exactly like my memories of Highland Hospital’s emergency room. The chaos. That sense of a basic bedrock of knowledge, sure, but c’mon: You know you’re winging it.

And they get the medical details right, which most fictional depictions of medicine do not.