I need to remember this ...

So, baby, give me just one kiss
Let me take a long last look
Before we say goodbye.

Just lay your head back on the ground
Let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
This is the end of the innocence.

(From “The End of the Innocence” by Don Henley)

Got that song in my head today, just as I had it in there on the way back from Chicago. Never really listened to it, closely, until a few years ago when a friend of mine was going through a particularly harsh, nasty DIvorce ... which made “since Daddy had to fly/lie” especially apropos. Great tune, and combined with “The Boys of Summer,” means that Dandy Don is directly responsible for two of my all-time favorite songs, ever.

Just got Wal-Marted, a little. Went out there seeking Angels in America DVD, in no small part because of such high recommendations from my film sensei (though I keep wanting to call the film Angels in the Outfield, which apparently is an altogether different movie!) regarding the performance of Mary-Louise Parker. Whom I adore. And I managed to pick up the Star Wars Trilogy, also, just because. Widescreen edition, of COURSE. And I even glanced at flat-screen TVs whilst I was in Electronics, and a greatest hits album by Dean Martin (yes, I loved him) and “Live in San Quentin/Folsum Prison” CDs by Johnny Cash, but passed. For now.

I did manage to buy the snazzy new toilet-brush thingie (opted for the Clorox model over the Scrubbing Bubbles one ... which I might end up regretting) and various other domestic items. And spaghetti fixin’s, and various other food items. I also realized I have developed a fondness for soda pop (I never actually call it “soda pop,” but since I have spent the first 20 years of my live calling it “pop” and the second 20 calling it “soda,” I decided to cover all bases) in those 8-ounce cans.

I also admitted to myself, finally, that my favorite feature of the relatively new Wal-Mart SuperCenter in my town (it is not actually MY town, but a suburb of the town I live in ... if a place can be considered a town or a suburb if it does not even have its own zip code and goes by a generic name like “East Village” or something like that) is the Self Checkout Lane. Not because I save any time, really, but because I have never actually worked retail, and I think I enjoy getting to ring up my own groceries (and various other items) once every couple of weeks or so.

And possibly because I enjoy the lack of interpersonal communication. Though I invariably end up having to call over one of the assistants to help me out with some kind of scanner issue (today it was desensitizing the security strips in the DVDs).

I do not feel all that well. Perhaps because it is fucking freezing here. Well, OK, 51 degrees, but it was in the 30s overnight. Not in here, of course, but outside, which meant it got a bit chilly inside. And me, unwilling to light the pilot and crank up the furnace, and not quite smart enough to remember that I have a portable electric heater (2 of them, actually, but I think one of them is broken) tucked neatly away, in storage, in the closet of my studio. Which is actually the spare bedroom.

(I have too much STUFF. Time for another MAJOR cleaning binge.)