February 13: Liked Him for Company, Alone for Most of the Day, Human Interaction

The fish injures Santiago . . . 

Just then the fish gave a sudden lurch that pulled the old man down onto the bow and would have pulled him overboard if he had not braced himself and given some line.

The bird had flown up when the line jerked and the old man had not even seen him go. He felt the line carefully with his right hand and noticed his hand was bleeding.

"Something hurt him then," he said aloud and pulled back on the line to see if he could turn the fish. But when he was touching the breaking point he held steady and settled back against the strain of the line.

"You're feeling it now, fish," he said. "And so, God knows, am I."

He looked around for the bird now because he would have liked him for company. The bird was gone.

Santiago loses his feathered companion.

I have been working all afternoon and evening.  School stuff.  Writing stuff.  Stuff stuff.  I'm reaching the point of exhaustion.  

And I have been alone for most of the day, watching movies, listening to music, as I tapped away on my laptop.  My wife is at work.  My daughter is at her boyfriend's house.  And my son is playing computer games in his room.  Since about one o'clock this afternoon, I may have said about nine words total.  To my son:  "Are you hungry?"  To my puppy:  "Gotta go out?"  To myself:  "Get it together."

It is Super Bowl Sunday, which doesn't really mean a whole lot to me.  I don't care about football, and I don't really want to sit through six hours of a game for the commercials or half-time show.  Instead, once I'm done typing this blog post, I'm either going to read a book or take a nap.  (I'm leaning toward taking a nap.)

I'm alright with being alone.  I crave solitude sometimes.  It comes with the territory of being a poet.  So, I don't need a little bird to keep me company.  This little post is about enough human interaction for me today.  Because tomorrow is going to be a human interaction day for me.  And it will leave me cranky and withdrawn by tomorrow night.

Saint Marty thinks he was a desert monk in a former life.