What is it about this town in the summer that drives me under? There's something beyond the retardation-inducing heat, the diesel-tasting air, the nose-burning smell of piss, and the ugliness of graffiti-stained terrain. Maybe it's the collective rush towards idiocy. As usual, when the stupid gets too thick I head for the hills. This time it was literal, with a weekend foray to a cabin outside Blue Ridge. (At right Mrs. Ares ponders the distant hills from the deck of our 48 hour home.) I call these Band-Aid weekends. Whatever's open in your head gets plastered over for a few days, just enough for it to coagulate. The older I get the less effective these bind-and-patch interludes are on my psyche. My relaxation genes are developing an immunity. The first instinct is to go farther away for longer, but I think that's just hitting the nail harder. Along those lines Mrs. Ares and I watched Into The Wild the other night. That poor kid read too much and worked up the ideal of getting away to the point where it drove him out where he didn't belong. (Reason #845 why I love Mrs. Ares: ½ way through the movie, when he's going on about wanting to get away from it all and go to Alaska, she says to me “He just spent too much time in Atlanta”.) No one in early adulthood should have unlimited access to Kerouac, Thoreau, and any Russian author. In my youth, upon relaying my discovery of Camus to Athena, she remarked to the effect that certain literature should have an age restriction.
I'm not sure what the answer is here. I'm mainly just spouting off at the keyboard because it's late and I can't sleep. Actually, I could sleep but I can't just yet. That's another day's post. As for this day's post, I'll give it and myself a rest.
