http://new.vindy.com/news/2007/nov/28/man-70-rescued-from-squalor/

squalor:
n. A filthy and wretched condition or quality.

i’ve been meaning to post on this for a little while now.. but i saw this story a while ago and the first line struck me. i couldn’t help but wonder a little.. do people come to the rescue for those in a state of mental squalor? and when? if it takes three months like the man in the story, sounds like i’m due for some heroics.

and i couldn’t pass the chance to mention a salinger story i love, for esmé – with love and squalor. there was a girl in college who loved tea and walks on brisk nights.. ashley (her name was almost lost in the cobwebs). she gave me her copy of nine stories with the red ink under the parts she loved.. parts like:

i stood in the rain and read all the names

..i remember wanting to do something about that enormous-faced wristwatch she was wearing – perhaps suggest that she try wearing it around her waist.

and, most importantly and applicably to my current state of being..

you take a really sleepy man, esmé, and he al-ways stands a chance of again becoming a man with all his fac– with all his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact.

and her pointed emails that i could never return.. “i can tell you’re interested but you hesitate”.

perhaps she’d be the one to burst in with a fireman’s helmet on, ax in hand, and smash these doubts to pieces while having me watch dead poet’s society or listening to the details she loved in coldplay’s god put a smile on your face (honey honey).

perhaps another night and it’d be different.. and i’d get something other than “boring” earl grey..