Soggy

I’ve lost the spark. Which spark? All of them. Not being fatal or dramatic, I lost them as in misplaced, not as in Dead. Of all the euphemism for death, lost is the one that confuses me most. Its’s the only reason I’ve phrased divorce as “I lost my wife”. It also opens up the tired punchline, ‘I didn’t really lose her, I know where she is.’ But that’s past and gone. Right at this moment I could use a spark more than a wife. Although it’s a joke — marriage is the leading cause of divorce — I’ve come to doubt the wisdom of marriage in the first place. See how insidious it is? I’m talking about sparks, The Spark and its peers. If I had a spark marriage would not darken this paragraph.

There have been pictures of children held prisoner in a Wal-Mart. It seems a little too terrible to be true. Forget the Wal-Mart part, though, that’s not without terror. I’m not convinced of the entirety of the story in part because of my own and that of my peer’s willingness to believe it. For some reason the pictures of the Wall that hadn’t been built, that was, in fact, another wall in another place (I want to say along one of Nicaragua’s borders) come to mind. I have witnessed insane cruelty to children and am quick to assume the worst. Another piece of my reticence to believe I have the entire story is that I’m not down there causing trouble. I mentioned to my mom, who, bless her heart, is gullible and always willing to believe the worst of Trump (I confess to the same predilection) how expensive it would be to run that operation. She said she read an article to that effect. The story, as I’ve pieced it together, makes little sense. Cruelty and bigotry and violation of human rights are usually strongly defended by the perpetrators to the point where, if nothing else, their state of mind makes sense.

Again, sans spark. I can’t seem to articulate the simplest of my thoughts, even those that are tourists, passing through, taking snapshots and squashing out cigarette butts on my amygdala. It’s possible I am hyper-sensitive to my current inability to recall the wackiest notions of mine, let alone create new complicated mandalas of thought. It’s possible that I am concerned, on some sub-conscious level, of dementia. I don’t think so, but, I wouldn’t would eye?

Much of my life these past few, um, units of time, has been like my journal(s), I shout into the void and listen for the echo. I’m a non-participant, though I might find you more reliable a witness than myself.

I had an MRI on Father’s Day, I had texted my children that I might not be available on fathers and did the well wishing and such the day before. My son suggested ‘happy lens’, a product from spy optics that blocks blue light. Spy Optics claim is that not only do they block blue light but also make you happier. From what I’ve read that happy claim is backwards. Simply put; blue light from the sun increases serotonin and regulates sleep cycles. Blocking serotonin would make you the opposite of happy. Those ugly ass yellow goggle things from the last millennium were blue blockers. The surge in new ones, I believe, is because the no longer have to be ugly yellow. Ugly is subjective, looking through them, however, gave me a headache and, inherently, color blindness. Yesterday I picked up two new pairs of glasses, both with blue blockers built into the high index lens and anti-glare.

I have the pictures of my brain. My eyes aren’t causing me trouble, I mean the source of the trouble isn’t in the eye itself. I did need glasses. According to modern ophthalmologist thought, one should get new glasses yearly. Since the early 90’s, when I started needing glasses, I have gone anywhere from five years to one year without changing glasses. They always say the prescription has changed just a little bit. Emphasizing the word little. Why’d I get two pair? Yeah, I don’t really know. I have a feeling the industry has a planned obsolescence to it, that glasses aren’t designed, wait, no, lens aren’t designed to last longer than a year or two. I think I still have every pair I’ve purchased since coming back here. The older ones have a sort of have unremovable clouds to them. I always ask whether a feature is in the lens or applied afterwards. I’d understand clouds in a solution applied afterwards, like after-market privacy glass on a car.

I sure do miss the Spark(s). It’s like I’m thinking through oatmeal.