I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

July 15, 2012 - 11:26 a.m.

End This Depression Now! ~ Not by Paul Krugman

Yesterday was not a good day. I pretty much did nothing but watch the Mets lose. I didn't even have the usual saving grace of making dinner. I had pizza. There was one good thing, I played on Turntable.fm with Carey. Make that two good things. After putting it off far too long I invited people to celebrate my birthday with me. Part of the reason I put it off was a quandary I had. As soon as I heard that Barnaby Bright was playing a couple of days before my birthday I decided that was where I wanted to celebrate. The problem was I didn't know what time the show was. It wasn't given on their site or the Living Rooms. Then I found out, it was 10 PM which I know is too late for most people. I'm going to go and I hope some friends can join me but I don't have high hopes. Last night I called an audible and made a second celebration on my actual birthday at 8 PM. It's a place called The Chocolate Room so you know it's the perfect venue for me.

Then I had to decide who to invite and how many. This created all sorts of anxiety issues for me. Why? In recent years I've had trouble getting anyone to do anything for my birthday. It's too close to Falcon Ridge. I've been spending my birthday alone most years. That is not how it's been most of my life. I got spoiled. I find spending it alone depressing. And now I'm depressed. Yesterday I was more depressed. It isn't just the birthday. It is a feeling of isolation that's been building up. Yes I know very well that I have many friends, more than most people. I'm aware that they are great people. I'll put the quality of my friends up against anybody's. Yes I know that my friends treat me well and that I can depend on them when I need them. It's all that got me through my crisis this year.

So how am I feeling isolated? Part of it is just from living alone. I spend the majority of my time by myself But it isn't just that. It's how I've been feeling when I'm with people. Feeling is the key word. When I've been with people recently they just seem more emotionally distant. My interactions have all been on the surface. I enjoy socializing. But there needs to be more and that more is what's missing. I've been in the same place as people but it's all been cases that my being there and my friends being there are not related. It's "We're going to be in the same place so we'll talk." It hasn't been, "I want to see you, let's get together."

Like Charles Foster Kane all I want is to be loved. Unlike Kane I don't need the world to love me; just a few special people.

I know that this is more about what's going on in my head than the outside world. And realizing that is why I'm feeling a bit better this morning. But I'm still not right. I'm still a bit afraid to open the responses to my email inviting people to join me for my birthday.

This is all making more of a curmudgeon that usual. I think I was a bit hard on WFUV in my last entry. The fact that I was the only person that felt that actually hearing Woody Guthrie's recordings on his Centennial made me feel more alienated. I was clearly seeing the universe very differently than all those people.

There is a nonlinear effect too. I like to think of myself as positive and upbeat and I usually am. I'm someone that fights problems not someone that dwells on them. So when I do I feel that I'm not being the real me � and that depresses me.

Today is national ice cream day. Maybe I can find someone that wants to have ice cream with me. That would snap me out of it, both the ice cream and the finding someone would help.

I was about to say that John Platt is making me feel better. He's dedicated his entire show to Woody Guthrie and he's doing it right. Of course I knew he would.

So is anything else making me feel good? Well I solved a computer problem on my own. Since I set this computer up with the router I've been intermittently losing the use of the internet. I've been connected to the IP but not able to surf the web. Rebooting the modem fixed it but I didn't want to have to keep doing that. If I fiddled with the connection software and firewall it sometimes fixed it but I never knew what I did actually made any difference. After running through some troubleshooting I figured out what was wrong, the Domain Name Server. I switched to Google and now it works fine. I don't know why adding a router made the DNS stop working at times. I do like solving the problem on my own.

Now I'm going to read all those scary birthday emails. I can look at the bright side. I know at least two friends that will be at the Barnaby Bright show, Nathan and Becky. Yes they are Barnaby Bright but they still count.

If nobody can make it on Thursday there's chocolate and more chocolate, and even more chocolate.

Today there's ice cream.

Oh and you know what I forgot to mention? Every year on my birthday and Festivus I want the same thing; an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing to tell the time. Yes, that is a metaphor. I never get it. Maybe this year I will. Dum spiro spero. Look it up or ask Buford what it means. He speaks Latin. No I'm not explaining that.

I always feel weird writing "it's so hard being me" editions of Wise Madness. I justify it because I figure even when the thing making me feel bad is alienation that I'm not really that alien and that most people go through the same thing at times but if nobody talks about it nobody knows for sure they aren't the only ones. As this is supposed to be a record of what I think and feel it's part of the blog's core mission to write about it.

Now on to breakfast, buying a monkey wrench, and whatever else the day has in store for me. If the weather holds up I'll even see the Guthrie Family tonight in Central Park. I'm not optimistic about that.


I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



creative commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile July 15, 2012
site search by freefind advanced


Follow on Feedly



about me - read my profile! read other DiaryLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!