Memo from the Land of Doom

The sun barely has the energy to rise. The earth didn't cool in the night, it was 80 degrees at dawn. It feels not so much tropical as tragic. There is nothing worse than realizing early in the day, normally the period when hope is as close to hand as a cup of coffee, that every aspect of life can be characterized by decline and dissipation. That we are playing out the string. That if a professor were to assign us to describe a hypothetical civilization, trapped on a contaminated world, seized by madness and hate, doomed to watch the final throes of its corrupt existence, we would need write nothing at all, but merely turn in the morning paper.

Or is that too heavy.

Yesterday I had luncheon at a swank restaurant. Everyone wore suits except for one man in a Hawaiian shirt who very well may have been Hawaiian. A suit is an outfit in which the jacket and pants match. Males wore ties knotted carefully and pulled tight to the collar. No one had stray hair or needed emergency barbering. I remembered to put my napkin in my lap.

The secret to this kind of luncheoning is that you must never pay for the meal yourself. No one in the room was paying for his or her luncheon. At the top and bottom rungs of society the meals are free.

My meal and that of my luncheon guest will be expensed, though that is dependent upon my continued employment, which is no longer a given. The internal workings of my company are of no interest to readers and I would never try to fill this space with the petty details of office politics, but suffice it to say that unless I start acting like a real journalist either I or the blog will be shot at dawn. When my editor is displeased the joy drains from the world as surely as if someone had pulled a plug. I have to get back in her good graces. Let me type, with trembling fingers, the four most frightening words in the English language: I have to work.

And that means I need to start wearing "work clothes." I need to look like those people having luncheon in the swank place with the free meals. There was a time when my tendency to be unkempt and frayed could be assigned to the eccentricities of youth, or even the requirements of creativity, but that was many miles back, many dreams and aspirations and delusions ago. Thus today I will buckle down and do my work, like a grown-up, like a professional, without delay or procrastination or distraction. As soon as I'm finished shopping.

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