 smith, 1975 – foto by smith i’m an incipient curmudgeon, a natural-hewn hermit. i have NEVER felt at ease with other people, never found small talk easy. over the years i’ve learned that people and me aren’t meant to be. so i solved my problem – i got a door mat that said GO AWAY in large letters, and i stopped dating for 20 years, and quit socializing. the sum of my interpersonal interactions consisted of a couple poetry readings each month – when the poets went out after to socialize, i went home alone. i never visited folk. if folk visited me, i started wondering after about an hour when they would leave. the sole exception was my mother Mother Dwarf whom i had move in with me the last 16 years of her life because i couldn’t afford to keep two households going after my brother Cat blew his brains out all over the back of his pickup truck and my father Pappy died from missing him 18 months later. i turned mom into an assemblage artist, got her her first solo art exhibition when she was 68 years old, and we became each other’s best friend, collaborator, and audience. after mom died, i gratefully embraced living totally alone. two 1/2 months later, lady moves into my life and it’s been nothing but people, adventure, socializing, excitement, more people, and way more socializing since. lady’s unhappy that i occasionally bite folk around me. i tell her if they weren’t around me, they wouldn’t be bitten. the only way i can get along with people is if there are no people to get along with. but the only life i desire now is life with lady, and life with lady means way way too many people within biting range. too many people equals offended people. offended people equals an upset lady. the funny thing is i’m good at socializing – i can fake it well. but it’s work, unpleasant work. and there’s no solution to this problem – unbitten people requires no people near enough to bite, while being with lady means too many biteables within reach. think i’ll get a tee-shirt that warns BEWARE, WEARER BITES. then if they’re bit, it’s their own frigging fault. I like walks in the rain  smith, 1954 – foto/collage by smith |
Strange things are happening with viewing Walking Thin Ice today: the site itself was white – startling after a couple years black – but then, when leaving a comment, it turned back to black. Hmmmm.
But I meant to ask: what about folks like me, Steves W and R?
Do we not get bitten cause you know we’ll bite back?
Steve, this piece was the best! Well said, and yeah, get the tee shirt. The victims ought to be warned.
C.