Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1401019
m ot ion p ictu re s o u n d e d i to r s I 55 At first, I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt unnatural. Is that the right word? A mule without a plow? No, it wasn't labor I was missing. An artist without a brush and canvas? Nope, too pretentious. A wolf without a foot? Wait, that's from a movie. Snap out of it! She came home from work one day, caught me listening to Dan Fogelberg and said, "I'm worried about you." I told myself, "Get a grip Assells, you've earned this." I spent literally a half a century working at one job or another. No college boy here. Right into the workforce kiddo. It is true that I spent my fair share of time bumming around. It was the times. Selling waterbeds maybe wasn't that hard but I also delivered furniture, worked in a gas station, unloaded semi-trucks, was a cook, a janitor, worked an assembly line, and I apprenticed in film when delivering a reel to the dub stage involved a pickup truck and dolly. I have earned this. In the time of COVID, my typical day starts off with me getting up whenever I damn well please. I make my coffee and scan my to-do list calculating how late I can start on it and finish before "she" gets home. If it's a nice day, I'll sit by the pool sipping my coffee, maybe reading and waiting for the coffee to work its magic. I'll hit the bathroom where get this, there is only one toilet and a door with a lock. I can relax and not have to worry about my digestive activity being too, um, active. No moment where "Oh oh, somebody's in the stall next to me" and I selflessly and self-consciously stop things moving because as a civilized, well-trained, uptight American adult, I don't want them to think that I have noisy human bodily functions. Relaxing in the bathroom is no small thing, at least for me. Then the day is mine. If Bringing Up Baby or The Magnificent Seven is on TMC, forget it, a couple of hours are just plain gone. But now gone without guilt. During this pandemic, most activities are homebound. If Connee (Yikes! I said her name!) has the day off and it's nice out, we'll hop in the car, put the top down, pop in "Kind of Blue" or if we are feeling young and feisty, maybe crank up "Machine Head" and hit the road. The beach which was a huge part of my life growing up in Southern California is just over the hill. My lord, let's go. Driving north on PCH with the top down and music blasting is one of life's great pleasures and it's right there for us whenever we want it. I was warned that I'd get bored and be looking for ways to fill the day. Not true. My days are full. There's always some home repair to do. Years of neglected household projects have backed up like traffic on Highland on a Hollywood Bowl night. Just in case I can't find something on my own to take care of, my wife leaves me to-do lists. Very thoughtful. On the plus side, I can now indulge my hobbies without guilt and I have a few. I love to read. I mean REALLY love to read. I'm catching up on Connelly, James Lee Burke, the avalanche of 2016 political books, that Ulysses S. Grant memoir I'd been putting off, and those classics I should have read years ago. Sometimes I'm Henry Bemis in Lon Bender, Chris Assells, and Per Hallberg at the Golden Reel Awards, mid-'90s