March 16, 1994

"Help us accept with patience the evil that comes to us. Help us accept with patience the burdens that come to us."                                      Prayer from today's Mass

Jose Canseco, in Sports Illustrated, talking about his recent divorce, "I still think, what could have been done? I've never figured it out, how it happened so fast."  I know the feeling, Jose, really do. In a blink of an eye it's over and it's like being hit head-on by an eighteen wheeler. POW!

The other afternoon I was in the St. George's Tavern, a real dump but cheap Bud and overheard the following conversation between two women. "How's your husband?" - "We're separated, didn't you know?" - "But I see you together all the time." - "Yeah, I know. But we don't live together anymore. We just date every night, it's more fun that way."  I wonder if Maggie would be open to such an arrangement?

When you travel alone you spend a lot of time watching other people and listening to other people's conversation. Every pretty woman I see I immediately contemplate a lifelong relationship, one full of happiness and pleasant surprises. The only people I talk to are strangers who, like myself, are looking for someone to share a beer or two and a few minutes of conversation. I talk to Ed, the bartender at Churchill's Attic and the young black girl who cleans my motel room - both remember me from DEcember.

I've noticed that a lot of young Southern men all look alike, no different than the way such men looked when I was in college. They got fat arms with trashy, tasteless tattoos, big soft beer bellies, loud moron mouths and wear untidy T-shirts with unsavory sayings. And when they look into a mirror, all they see is an arrogant asshole where their faces should be.

I am in the small chapel of the National Greek Shrine on St. George Street. I have prayed here before, I pray everywhere for I'm a nondenominational petitioner. I am extra tired today.

I do not have patience with the evil that came to me, nor do I  have patience with the burdens I carry. But I have learned to live with them. All I ask is that the good Lord deliver me from future evil and grant me peace in my day - and free me from all anxiety, free me from all anxiety.

1:15pm  -  Greek National Shrine  -   Saint Augustine, Florida

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