Tosh's Journal: August 5, 2023

I’m on my back, and I’m staring at the ceiling, and I’m noticing cracks for the first time. The earth, the stars, and the sun move, but I’m perfectly still. I put a pillow up behind my head and picked up the book by my side, George Bataille’s Critical Essays 1, a perfect volume to dip into when the inspiration escaped through one of my two opened windows. I didn’t see the inspiration go, it must have been when I meditated on the crack, deciding which one is bigger than the other, and is this something of importance or expense to take care of, or do I ignore this observation?

It’s days like this when I miss drinking. It is not an addiction to alcohol but being in the service of one’s schedule. Luckily I don’t wake up and have to be at someone’s power over me. I control my schedule, but that is my responsibility at work, and because it is an occupation, it is something of concern on my part. I don’t even have to wear pants here, but I put on my trousers out of professionalism.

I put on Primal Scream’s Screamadelica as I do my version of The Swim or The Watsusi, and it is not happiness that I’m going through, but desperation. I’m worried that when the music on side one is over, I turn it to side two or fret over wasted time because, at 68, I have at least a decade of more work to do. In truth, I wished I was a young man with today’s head, but I’m a yesterday man with an hourglass about to run out.

I have tasted the most delicious items that took me here to there, but never have I regretted the sense of time all of this had taken me. The rush of the music takes me to a memory of a love that’s easy to define, that seems fictional to me these days. I want to be kind in a refined nature, but the ocean’s currents that rock me against the coastline make me seasick. Still, with unsteady legs, I head toward my turntable, hoping the needle doesn’t drag itself onto the record label.