Overnight during what was at times a restless and disturbed sleep marked by ephemeral interruptions of seemingly astonishing insight and creative flair, I forecast in my then inventive mind a production of indescribable consequence. One must always move forward; or, as my erstwhile physician is wont cryptically to observe, “Keep moving!” Period! There is simply no other way to calculate life’s productive motives whether physically, intellectually, psychologically or emotionally. Thus I too find the succinct denomination not entirely beyond relevance. It is a perfunctory mandate of the simplest instruction.

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I have just returned from my ritual afternoon automotive drive and purge. The car performed smoothly and reinvigorated my plaudits for General Motors. I’m now in our apartment blankly staring out the drawing room window. The black metal balcony railing is conspicuously covered in shimmering blobs of rain water. The railing is directly ahead of me as I sit at my desk, intermittently writing, glancing at the flourishing fields and the sallow river. It is a misty damp summer day. The railing is parallel the edge of the grey flooring of the balcony (the outer lip of which I can barely see); and, likewise parallel the upper edge of my mahogany desk. It affords a uniformity to the spectacle, framed by the triple perpendicularly configured balcony posts which are also black metal.  The balcony armchairs as well are black and covered in shiny blobs of rain water. Between the two chairs is a small grey foldable table smeared with pools of rain water and upon which we set whatever we wish when inhabiting the marvellous view.  I customarily frequent the balcony in the morning or early afternoon for a discrete moment of sunbathing; and, in the evening we foregather for dental flossing and cultivated private after-dinner conversation.

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The disparate congregation this morning on the dry concrete floor of the subterranean garage was as you might expect not unlike the collection of old fogeys who live here in the apartment building. Over the course of an hour, as I mechanically pedalled on my tricycle from one end of the garage to the other, people drifted in and out. Some were of course removing or parking their automobile; some were attending to conspicuously noisy matters in their caged locker; all of them said hello and some paused to chat.

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A lonely cow is mooing plaintively in the wet grey distance, somewhere beyond the burgeoning crop of verdant soy beans, somewhere on this side of the drizzly foggy river, somewhere perhaps beyond the distant trees that separate the feudal swaths of land from the Quarter Sessions road that tumbles down to the river’s edge.

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Lucan’s daily routine consisted of breakfast at 9:00 am, coffee, dealing with the morning’s letters, reading the newspapers, and playing the piano. He sometimes jogged in the park and took his Dobermann for walks. Lunch at the Clermont Club was followed by afternoon games of backgammon. Returning home to change into black tie, the earl typically spent the remainder of the day at the Clermont, gambling into the early hours, watched sometimes by Veronica. In 1956, while still working at Brandt’s, he had written of his desire to have “£2m in the bank”, claiming that “motor-cars, yachts, expensive holidays, and security for the future would give myself and a lot of other people a lot of pleasure”.

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The words detached and detachment are not the same.

Detached: showing no emotional involvement

Detachment: (philosophy) the state of lacking material desire

Neither word in my opinion captures a comfortable state of being, either empirically (demonstrably)  or logically (intellectually). It isn’t merely a balance of participation and neutrality or emotional and physical. In fact in both instances it is more a matter of caring or not caring, whether viscerally or logically removed.

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Although it takes me longer every morning to engage my mind and anatomy (I’ve intentionally taken to doing so with moderate acceleration to overcome the lack of intellectual and physical exuberance), I nonetheless hold fast to my lifetime ambition of having a fresh start. It reflects the product of a night’s rest and the sense of reinvigoration prompted by any new day really but for whatever reason I always feel the necessity to start afresh. It is a native invitation to paint a new image on the canvass of life. One must dress accordingly. Which means wearing clean clothes and cleansing one’s spectacles, to see and to be seen.

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The way people are talking these days you’d think we were doomed. The current blather among pundits is that right wing conservatives are overtaking the communist leftist pansies. The objective is cleansing the masses and restoring the 17th century monarchical supremacy. Maybe finally we’ll get rid of those damn people! And then get the world back to where it should be!

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I’ve occasionally heard unfavourable things said of me.  I mean, who hasn’t?  Nobody escapes condemnation.  Nonetheless I wasn’t ready for today’s assault. This was a big one, the first of its kind, and pointedly for me the last I shall willingly or failingly expose myself to. I now have it on “reliable authority” that I am a repetitive, tedious bore, not only for himself (which frankly is an isolated characterization I might have tolerated) but also for everyone else (that is, based upon his theory).  And you know what, there is an element of truth to the criticism.  I do repeat myself. A lot.  I have run out of jokes primarily because I haven’t had any new material lately (in the last twenty years or so) and I proudly (or should I say arrogantly) repeat the identical daily habits of cycling, washing the car and writing the same BORING REPETITIVE stuff. I no longer have a frequency of employment or activity which animates me with regularity.  In every respect life is now a pattern of silence, privacy and isolation. Let’s face it, my life isn’t exactly a stage show. I am just an old fogey with a tedious life.  It is a life which, unfortunately for others, I happen to enjoy.  So I am now inclined to keep it to myself.

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Dealing with bureaucracy is never fun. Once you’ve found what you believe is the correct telephone number to call, you first must ensure the office is open.  This excludes weekends and holidays; and never attempt a call within 5 minutes after the recorded opening time. If you connect to a government office for example it is assured that “All of our agents are currently busy; your expected wait time is between 10 and 20 minutes “. Even if you are requested (by a recorded message) to enter banking or social security detail, you’ll be asked to repeat it later (assuming you’re not first told “You’ve entered an invalid number”).