The Kitchen in the Daylight.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

It’s the 4th of July today and everyone is home. Off. Free. Loose. Unchained. It’s summer theater around here at this time of the year. I’m writing this at the kitchen table/ knowing full well there will be interruptions. Noise is imminent: high-pitched voices and galloping horses on the stairs: loud TV: doors slamming shut as the kids come and go as they please: short intervals of outside reality between long stretches in a dank YouTube cave.

As of right now though: at 10:19am EST, there is very little action. Charlie, 9, is on the couch watching something at a low volume. He is wearing winter pj bottoms and no shirt. His hair is moppy messy indie cool without trying. It covers his eyes but he seems to see fine.

Now Arle just walked into the kitchen. She’s wearing tie-dyed shorts and a black Dover Nascar shirt. Pink lettering. All of her red hair is up in a messy bun and she grabbed a bottle of kombucha, poured herself a small glass and went back upstairs. It’s the Walmart brand of kombucha because the locals that make it around here charge a lot. I don’t know why. I guess that if you take that dive/ that scary uncertain leap into the dark abyss that is dealing kombucha/ you are a certain kind of person. You want some good money but you don’t want to come across like that. Kombucha allows you to play those alternating angles at the same time. You can come across as very ‘wellness’ and ‘lifestyle’/ which also can lead to ‘kindness’ and even ‘inclusion’ branding possibilities/ but you also are tempted, beyond all human control, to charge large amounts of money for the actual product. Because the consumers are typically honkeys with loot. Or honkeys who want to experience what it’s like to be a honkey with loot even if they don’t have much money themselves.

So, anyways, Arle came in silent and went back upstairs with her kombucha for the masses. I don’t know where she falls in all of this. Definitely not a local well-off person. More like a local poor-ass motherfucker who wants to live the ‘happy gut/happy butt’ life or whatever they call it.

I think she’s also upset with me because I was in a shit mood yesterday. I hollered at the kids for dirty dishes and un-rinsed tuna cans in the recycling. I yelled at a kid to towel off outside after they were flopping around back in the crick. I got short with kids about leaving the goddamn AC on in their room with the door wide open.

Maybe it was one thing and maybe it was a combo.

Full moon.

Hungover.

Tired of working, tired of the game.

Same old shit, hoss.

I’ll never understand most of what I live through.

I’m still slinging the same old horse shit as before.

_____