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 24, 2013 - 10:47 a.m.

I'm So Bright My Mother Calls Me Son or is that Barnaby

I've been a blogging machine lately. That's because My Gentle Readers have been reading machines. I already have had more readers this month than any of the previous 12 other than last month. And we're talking 200 more readers than all but one of them. Talk about affirmation.

So what did I do yesterday. Do I remember? Yes! Mainly I was paralyzed but I went out to avoid thinking about being paralyzed.

Kind Katherine (I wish Carthartic was appropriate for the sake of euphony) gave me a stadium seat for my birthday. I already have one though it's still lingering at Bag End. I need to retrieve that. But that's not my point, My point is the calculator. No it's that she said "If you have one you can exchange it." Yesterday I went to exchange it and as the store isn't far from where she lived I called and asked her to join me. I mean that's the entire reason I want to live in Brooklyn, I can see a friend without it being a big production.

I had to take the . I never take that as the is express and I can always switch to the if I need to later. Unless I'm going someplace local in Brooklyn. So this was a first. I went to the platform where I catch the into the City and the is on the local track. I got on it and was busy reading the Times on my phone,. The train went above ground. The train never goes above ground on the way west. I was on an Eastbound train. I had to get off the first stop and turn around. As it was above ground I went to call Katherine to tell her I'd be late. As I took the phone out it rang, it was Katherine, She called me to tell me she's be late; Sychronicity.

I got to Grand Army Plaza and went to find where the place was on my phone. Google Maps got wonky and wouldn't work. I remember she said it was at Garfield and 7th. I don't know that walk well but I knew the general direction. I called her to tell her I was almost there and she said she was almost there too. I love it when a plan comes together. I got to the corner and had to guess which direction to go. I looked and didn't see her. She was hiding behind a tree. Not that I think that was her plan. Katherine was hiding but not Bella, her dog. I'm just showing off that I remember Bella's name. I keep forgetting it. I said that I'd have to remember that she's beautiful but I've tried that before and I couldn�t remember. So I had to picture her in a big hat. New Yorkers of a certain age know why, Bella Abzug. She'd have made a great mayor She had had all of Koch's genuine New Yorker charm without his political flaws. Maybe I'll vote for Katherine's dog.

So we went in the store, I looked around and guess what I did. I kept the chair. Sure I have one but now I have one for a friend too. It's enhances my social life. Now I can go to a show with someone who doesn't have a chair, like Katherine, and not feel guilty that I have back support and she or he doesn't. It would have been nice if I had both chairs when I went with Fred to the Huntington Festival, You sit at ground level so you can sit in front of the no chairs line with it.

After that we went for coffee. We found a place with an outdoor seating area. Bella was on one side of the fence and we were on the other. We were on the inside in case you were wondering. I know you were. Guess what I had, right iced coffee. That reminds me I had another dream about drinking bad iced coffee last night. This one was worse, the coffee was instant. Yuck. Can you even make instant iced coffee?

By the time we were finished I didn't have time to go home. I had to head into the City to see Barnaby Bright at The Living Room. Katherine walked me to the 9th street stop on the . I went from worrying to what to do with my time to not having time to have dinner first,. I'm not sure how that happened. I did grab a slice of $1 pizza.

I got there at 6:30 for the 7:00 show and found Fred already there. He said, "You're late." He was grading on a curve. He was standing by a woman that waved at me. It was Krista the woman whose apartment I looked at with Katherine. It is a very small world. The person who I was looking to replace in the apartment was Fred's friend Michael who Fred knew was coming. We all sat together in my usual table.

I was surprised at how few people I knew there. The only other ones were Coco and Bruce. We were sitting in exactly the same seats as Sunday night for the No Fuss or Feathers Roadshow. I told her that we have to stop meeting like this. She said we don't. Coco is right.

Barnaby Bright put on their usual great show. It was a full band and there were some new arrangements and a new song. The only disappointment was that they didn't do 1952 Vincent Black Lighting like they did last year for my birthday.

They are one of my core musical acts, the ones that I love as both musicians and people. People that I can feel comfortable heckling. You only heckle the one you love.

I realized the futility of ranking musicians. I used to say they formed a partially ordered set. that means you can't compare everyone but those you can compare are transitive; If A>B and B>C then A>C. The reality is that sometimes you can't compare A and C. The > represents a different ordering in the two inequalities. Sorry sometimes the math geek needs to be let out.

So guess who sold the merch? I'm not going to tell you.

The place was packed but sales weren't brisk. I think everyone had everything already. I didn't know the audience but they did. I don't know where these people have been hiding as I have been to virtually every show of theirs in the area the last three years. I sold a CD to one person that remembered me from the last time. I only remember his last name as it's a common Vietnamese one that was shared by two of my students this year. His first name was one of the common ones and I have trouble with those.

I hung around for a bit but didn't have too much time to talk to Becky and Nathan Like I said they seemed to know everyone. So I headed out and got dinner. Now I had this really great day. I seemed fine. But remember how I said I was paralyzed. I was still anxious and needed therapy food. There are lots of options in the area but I went for the one I bet Katherine will guess as she associates the food with me. The Creperie NYC. down the block. I used the heavy artillery, the Horvendile Special, dark chocolate, peanut butter, and halvah. It's the halvah that makes it special. I don't know anyplace else that has it on cr�pes. It isn't on the menu but it should be. It was amazing. When I left there I felt naked, I was missing something. What was it? The bag with my birthday present in it. I left it by the merch table at the Living Room. I went back and it was right where I left it.

I then headed to Trader Joe's. I needed a few things. Too bad I didn't remember to bring my grocery sacks with me. Too bad I forgot to take the headlamp and flashlight I got from Woot that was still in my backpack from the day before. Too bad I don't have a brain.

So I had to carry plastic bags along with the shopping bag with my chair on the subway ride home. I got in and stopped in the kitchen to empty the bags. This morning as I started writing this and wrote about the chair I looked around and realized the chair wasn't here. I had left it in the communal kitchen.. Good thing it was still there.

There was something someone serious, a nice insight that I was going to write about earlier but figured it would fit better at the end. That was a mistake. I have no idea what it is now. I probably figured out the secret of life, or a cure for cancer, or a simple proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Now it's gone. It is not easy not having a brain. I actually remember enough to know it was none of those things. Got it! I just forgot how it was a natural follow up to what I wrote, We'll just make believe there's a brilliant segue here. Wait I even remember that! And forgetting it actually helps the segue.

When I kept leaving my chair behind I could hear my mother saying, "You'd forget where you head was if it wasn't attached to your shoulders." She knew me well, including my faults. The title character of my favorite book Jurgen said that many women have loved and trusted him but he only valued his mother's love. His mother loved him but never trusted him because she knew the real him. He was not to be trusted. The other women didn't love him but an illusion.

I have often said here that when you love someone you don't love them despite their faults but because of them. That's what real love is. I'm effusive with my praise. My Gentle Readers know that. My friends know it from personal experience. I sometimes get afraid that they'll think that I love an illusion not the reality. And there have been cases where that's true but never people I know well. Often it was people I knew primarily online. I was disabused of my notions the first time I spent serious time with them. But for the people I do know and have spent time with and praise to the skies; that doesn't mean I don't see your flaws and foibles. We all have them. I often ask why anyone is my friend. I have flaws the size of sauropods. But you know something, I see my own flaws and still like the person I see in the mirror. And I see your flaws and love you because of them, I just don't bring them up. As no one is perfect even the best person in the world has flaws. There's still a best, well at least a maximal element as people are partially ordered and we can't compare everyone. The math geek is back. I told you I was flawed. And guess what it's something I like about myself.

Another flaw is writing almost 2,000 words, I won't compound that one by writing more.


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



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Horvendile July 24, 2013
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