Who Shot The ALBATROSS? in My New Life

An Essay On American Culture

I was having a spaz morning. I woke up after a day and a half of sleep. I both felt refreshed yet too weak to go into work tonight. I believe I am suffering from long-Covid. About a year ago I built a gigantic staircase to my apartments by myself in 3-4 days.

Right as I was finishing these: wham bam! I was hit with the hardest dose of Covid: The Omicron Variant. I had had Covid before, but this time was different. It hit hard, and I saw Death’s Door. The times I had had it previously I had just Flu like symptoms, and hadn’t really felt the severity it could muster. It felt like some force kicked-in my eye socket to the back of my skull, and my muscles were dead and useless. I was gasping for each breath, and using my Yoga breath-work, and Zen philosophy to stay calm one breath after another.

I started my new job at the Mental Institution, and really went into a trance. I can’t really say it was altogether a bad thing. I was in the zone. I guess one can always say: it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. I felt like I was in heaven, but it was a heaven I really liked. Not the type they preach about. It was living in a surrealist Southern past, drinking unsweetened iced tea, and eating potatoes out of my garden, expecting Stephen Crane’s company: Stephen Crane’s South. And Buddy Holly was there, and I was being invited to teach in the Hall’s of a University Castle in Appalachia that doesn’t exist anymore and very few knew it existed. Everything was a green and ghostly hue; almost the colour of money. I think what sticks with me the most is the feeling of earthen floors, and moist, due laden stones for walls. And nothing but emptiness and sleep save my collection of Virginia Woolf, WWI Poetry, and other Modernists. Herald and Crick were there too with Robert Pursig teaching classes on Quality.

As I slowly crept back to the Current, I became increasingly depressed. I really had lost a lot of stamina, and drive, which wasn’t like the person who built those stairwells. Upon my research of long-Covid I found I had some of those symptoms. That was comforting in many ways. A lack of sex-drive has never been a problem for me, but, I was finding myself just uninterested in woman, and I really just wanted to go back into my trance; forgetting everything accept earthen floors, under hardwood boards with French, antique tael gables, English Ivey, unsweetened iced tea, and books waiting to for Stephen Crane to visit.

I called out of work for a few days. I’m at the point I may just get another job. The woman there are missing the point. They are stressing over petty issues, and triggering my long-Covid. I looked an article up yesterday on NPR, and other aspects of long-Covid are fatigue and a lack of Cortisol (the stress hormone). Every time they stress me out over something petty it knocks me out for a day or two. Cortisol is addictive for some people. Generally, in my experience: folks who are overweight. Performing your daily duties is stressful if you carry that extra weight around, or don’t have the muscles to perform them with ease. And so cortisol becomes a normal part of your day. And even on days when their is nothing to be done one must conjure cortisol in order to feel normal. Much Ado About Nothing.

And this morning I felt good, but weak. I went to the park to eat, and read Sue Black’s Written In Bone. I’ll be taking Anatomy next semester so I’m prepping myself. I was enjoying a culture filled day. I had no reason to not be happy regardless of what is going on at work. I may not be there forever. The future is looking bright. And then this young adult walked through the park seeming angry with his girlfriend. He was obviously not having a great day like I am. He sort of cut through all the beauty I was soaking in, and all life’s inadequacies came into view. All the parts of the park that needed touch-ups became vivid. He was unhappy, and that’s what he saw. He cut straight through the walk-way instead of walking the nicely paved decorous walk way.

I figured that was my time to leave. His disposition seemed to infect mine. So, I write my friend in Dallas when someone irritates me. It’s my therapy. I take something I see that bothers me, and turn it into an Essay. He knows me as an Essayist. This is what I texted my friend from high school who works high-up in Toyota in Dallas. He is German-American from Appalachia (Ky), and married a German. We have similar upbringings and both were educated at Liberal Art’s colleges (his was much more expensive than mine.)

“Culture. Culture is what Appalachians miss out on the most. American Culture outside of their own contributions. Culture like Savannah, Georgia or Lockport, New York. Both locations are dripping in culture, yet it isn’t Appalachian Culture.

My English Advisor, Dr. E_, and my greatest mentor was from Savannah, and studying under her was like finding a long-lost relative. It was like connecting with an Aunt, and discovering a culture my family had been apart of. The French side of my family came to America in the mid-17th c. Where my immediate family all married Appalachians, I resonate with my French great-Grandfather. A wealthy French Naval Officer under President Roosevelt. Reading Kate Chopin with my English Adviser from Savannah was like reading family where I had only ever known about The Deep South over television dinners and movies; I was then cast through the television screen, and landed-in with long lost relatives.”

Later that day I walked to the popular River Walk at Manderson Landing to study my classwork. I was still irritated with the world the man who walked passed me earlier projected. I felt dry. I felt taught. I began studying my flashcards on Cnidarians: Jellyfish, Hydra, Anemones, and Coral. Some dry looking middle-aged man paraded by with his family. I felt very stepped upon. Like, something was being taken from me. Like, someone was taking a big bite of my pie. And then this came sailing down the river, and I sent it to him:

“Bobby Joe James. ‘Mercan: doesn’t give a shit about who Kate Chopin is. (Studying for class at The River Walk In Tuscaloosa). The same river the City has been dumping pollutions in for years. There was a lawsuit filed recently over the condition of drinking water. I’ve been filtering, boiling, and re-filtering my water.

But, Bobby Joe James sure got his.

I think what comes to mind when I think about the generic, Toby Keith “American” or Bobby Joe James’ “‘Mercan” are the lyrics from a band from Sacramento California, Cake:

And the muscular, cyborg, German dudes dance with Sexy French-Canadians
And the overweight Americans wear their Patriotic jumpsuits.
Wheels keep on spinning ‘round…spinning ‘round…spinning ‘round…”

Anyway. This is the song I wake up listening too.

Last updated October 30, 2023