With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
September 06, 2009 - 12:48 p.m.
Let's see how well you know me. I haven't posted since Wednesday and I didn't mention anything about going away. What does that mean? It's always the same hands up. Yes I had another Crohn's attack. This one was sneaky. It seemed to have passed on Thursday night but then it came back. Something else got stuck in the sore spot.
When I woke up yesterday I felt awful. It was a struggle moving from my bed to my easy chair. I had plans with Carolyn for the evening and I called her and said I couldn't make it. Shortly afterwards the obstruction in my ileum cleared and I felt so much better. I was able to eat last night and I'm making breakfast now. Raise your hand if you know what I always have for breakfast after a bout of Crohn's disease. I'll give the answer later. After I eat it. I don't feel great. My abdomen is still sore. It's been cramping for four days and that leaves the same sort of damage as exercising too much. My abdomen feels like your legs would after you ran far further than you're used to.
Normally I would just stay home all day but the plans I had were special so I even ventured out. I don't think I have mentioned my special plans here before so let me do some backtracking. About a month ago Pat Wictor was Abbie Gardner's guest at the Slide Sessions. After the show they told me that they were looking to do a house concert so that they could record some tracks for Pat's upcoming live album. That's all I had to hear. I said, I'd see what I could do about organizing it. My place is still not concert ready but I thought of Carolyn & Peter. Their house is perfect and they've hosted house concerts before. We had less than a month to arrange things so I couldn't waste time. I emailed Carolyn that night and she quickly said yes. I then started inviting people. Pat told me to save ten spots for special fans of his. That led to a problem as he invited ten people who wanted to bring their spouses or friends. We were overbooked. I had to write at the last minute and ask if anyone was willing to bow out. Some were so things worked out fine.
The pot luck dinner started at 7 but I got there at 5 when Pat and Abbie were due so they could set up. The show was not a regular house concert. It was more like we were sitting in a recording session. That meant there was more equipment than I've ever seen in a house concert. There were mics for the vocals and the two mics for the crowds. The instruments had DIs. There was a Jungle Jim of mic, guitar, and music stands along with tangle of cords. For a mixing board Pat used his Mac laptop which was right in the middle. I thought that would make a great ad for Apple. You can have the Mac and PC guys. The PC guy shows how he can record live music and the band is Lawrence Welk. Then Mac comes out with Pat & Abbie.
As always one of the best parts of the house concert was the pre-concert pot luck dinner. I made my usual French toast bread pudding. The food was great and could actually eat some, though not a lot at one time. That wasn't what matters of course. It was socializing with the people. I had lots of friends there and met Pat's friends. There were WFUV friends, Red Molly friends, and general music friends. I even remembered to be a good host and introduce people.
The concert worked out great. We loved them repeating the songs and each take was better because the crowd learned the songs and could sing along better. They needed the repeated takes because sometimes they didn't play the way Pat wanted and sometimes there was noise from the street. Once I hit the lamp next to me and it was rattling around. I thought I did a great job playing the lamp, they needed some percussion.
After the show I hung around till the musicians left. I'm sure that doesn't surprise you. I had more time socializing with friends.
This is the best way of having a house concert. I get all the fun and Carolyn and Peter have the part I hate, cleaning up.
Here's the question, does the fact that I wanted to go to the concert so much have anything to do with my recovering? I don't think so as I missed two other concerts I really wanted to go to. This one did have the added incentive of my feeling a responsibility to be there as the organizer.
The music and the people did make it much easier to endure the physical discomfort and fatigue. I had hardly slept the last few nights. Music is great for healing those sorts of ills.
I'd love to write more but I have to get going. I'm invited to another party today. Larry and Diana are having a "House Cooling" party. It's supposed to be a pool party but it's 69°. I'll be an optimist and bring my suit. It's gorgeous outside. This has been the best week for weather. Too bad I've been stuck inside for most of it.
There is no Deni-ing Pinataland - September 12, 2009
Idiot Story LXXXVIII - September 11, 2009
Gotta be the Shoes - September 10, 2009
Anatomy of a Murder Crohn's Disease - September 08, 2009
Party of the Second Part - September 07, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 06, 2009
