I appreciate you taking time out from wreaking havoc all over Jane's place, to write me. Sounds like you've had a very busy time... you're like a tasmanian devil whirlwind of destruction. I have used electric hedge clippers before, and have also cut through the cord, multiple times. In fact, I think electric trimmers should have a label on them that clearly states "When operating this tool you will experience a loud sound, a flash of light, and a metallic burning smell. The trimmer will cease to operate. This is normal, and an indication that maintenance and repair is needed."
Yesterday sounds like a pretty bad day, with the difficulty breathing, the acid reflux, and all that. I've heard of acid reflux, but don't know anything about it. What's that like? The only thing missing from that day was if you had ended up dying, like Prof. Aschenbach, in Death in Venice. Then the story of your day would end just like the book: "Some minutes passed before anyone hastened to the aid of the elderly man sitting there collapsed in his chair. They bore him to his room. And before nightfall a shocked and respectful world received the news of his decease." To find those words, I did a search online, where I came up with the entire text of the book. I re-read the last page, and realized for the first time that the professor died happy, with a Twilight Zone-like hallucination that Tadzio is smiling at him and beckoning to him, and he's following him off into the sunset. All this is happening while he's slumping to the ground and dying near the beach where he used to go to spy on Tadzio.
Speaking of Death in Venice, I did a google search on Death in Venice, and found a bunch of images from a movie they made of the book. It looks horrible, like something that would be shown in a seedy theater with a bunch of gay men masturbating in the dark. I attached a sample photo. They took about 20 years off Aschenbach, and turned Tadzio into this sort of gay prostitute-looking guy and, well, definitely ran with the gay-man-likes-boy theme.
There were no homoerotic overtones to the men's retreat, fortunately. Also fortunately, there was no one who used the gathering as an opportunity to tout what a success he was, though in the course of the conversations I did come to realize that most men have led their lives in a much more directed, planned, goal-oriented way than I have, complete with mentors and all kinds of shit like that. I have lived a lot more like Sweetpea, the baby in Popeye cartoons, who would be crawling across the railroad tracks, and over the back of alligators, and managing to escape unharmed be sheer innocence and stupidity. Actually the retreat wasn't about reviewing people's lives, thank goodness. It was supposed to be a sort of discussion of the themes of suffering and loss, from a spiritual/religious standpoint. That's because the son of one of the guys in the group was killed in an accident about a year ago. It was a ridiculous and tragic event, where the kid and his roommate were both in college, both stoned. The roommate had a pistol which he started throwing from one hand to the other while music was playing. I'm not sure if he knew the thing was loaded, but the results were not good.
Interesting article about the meteorite hunters. It sounds like my gold rush analogy was closer to the truth than I thought.
--edward
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