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

September 18, 2016 - 12:30 p.m.

Meta, Mets, and Music Not By Mehta

I'm not a wake up and eat breakfast person; I have never been one. Without time pressure my natural rhythm has always been to take care of anything else I want to do in the morning then eat. Since I got online that has meant going online and then eating closer to when most people would be eating lunch. But since I've been on Hydroxyzine I get sleepy an hour after waking up. It's 11:30 now and I already took a nap and I'm still not fully awake. I do feel better once I'm up and about so perhaps I should wake up, make breakfast, drink that all-important coffee, and then go online. That would be tough for me to adjust to but I'm thinking of trying it. It might improve my writing. See the sacrifices I make for My Gentle Readers. Every time I write "Hydroxyzine" I think, "the generic form of Oreoyzine." That's the only way I can remember the name. I could think of the actual root, hydroxyl, the OH group, but somehow that's not the way my mind has been working. This blog is not about Alice or the restaurant. I'm here to tell you about the way my mind works.

Yesterday I went with Jane, Bernie to the Common Ground Coffeehouse in Hastings. Here's what's so frustrating. Jane drove so it was 21 minutes away without traffic. We are in the northern Bronx; Hastings is in southern Westchester. It's 13.5 miles away. But if I want to go by public transit It would take an hour and 34 minutes and someone would have to pick me up from the train station. That's about the same as it took me from Brooklyn which is so much further away and it's more difficult. It's two buses to the MetroNorth not one express subway.

Hey I've talked about food and commuting the first two paragraphs, that's efficient. And you thought I was wasting time. Nope, I got right to the important things

We went to the Common Ground to see Eef "no, that is not a typo" Barzelay and Bay "I am not making this up" Uno. I had not heard of either but we had nothing planned and I trust Carter's judgement. We might not always agree we share a love for music that is on the marches of the NERFAverse. I knew it was unlikely to be a nice person singing songs nicely. We hit some traffic and miss the last turnoff but still arrived on time. The only other people I knew in the audience were Peter and Paula. I also know the volunteers. The Common Ground is one of my homes away from home.

Bay Uno is very much not a nice person playing nice songs nicely. He's a character. You could tell that before he said a word as he was wearing an orange onesie. His voice reminds me someone of Martin Sexton, his style and stage manner reminded me of no one. He was not my cup of tea but clearly an original. Spacey is an apt description.

Eef Barzelay is a thoughtful lyric-centric songwriter. He had one song we all loved, some riff on a Jew for Jesus. It's about someone finding Jesus and wishing he hadn't and was still damned. Eef like me was brought up an atheist Jew. I was curious about his last name, the first I'm guessing is short for something. My guess is that Barzelay is Hungarian. Does anyone know if that's right? I was going to ask him but he disappeared after his set. Bay on the other hand was out there introducing himself to everyone. Their temperaments were polar opposites.

On the ride home we listened to the Met game. It was 1 – 1 in the top of the ninth when we turned it on. The Mets threatened but did not score in the bottom of the ninth as we arrived home. I told you it was close. When we got home we tried the wrong channel on the TV first. When we got the game on we missed the first Twins batter in the top of the tenth. Things looked bad for the home team. The Grandy hit a home run in the bottom of the inning to tie it up. We watched as the Mets got men on base but once again didn't score in the rest of the inning. At the start of the 11th I said this is my last inning watching. The Mets quickly got two outs. Granderson was up again. He got two strikes on him. The pulled a ball over the right field wall! Put it in the books! The Mets won. That is why baseball is the greatest game every invented.

After a great week I've had some hints of depression of late. My brain fell into one of the sense of loss grooves. I felt sorry for myself. I'm doing a better job of dealing with it. Some of that might be the Zoloft but some in is the therapy. I find what has worked the best is mindfulness. When I find myself sliding down the familiar groove I change my attention to the here and now. When I was in the shower I felt the water on my body. I heard the three distinct sounds the water makes, hitting the tile floor, hitting my body, and exiting the showerhead. I tried to decide if it makes a sound as it goes through the air. I think not, I put my ear right against but not in the stream. I'll investigate some more when I shower later. I was feeling the depression as I started writing that last paragraph and writing about dealing with the depression helped. Things can get pretty meta in my brain. OOO that gives me a title for this entry even though it ignores the main thing I did yesterday. Maybe I can find a way to work the concert into it. got it! It's forced but I don't care.

I do care about breakfast. Today it's sausageeggandcheese on a bagel. That's great for depression. Know what else I like? that spellcheck accepts "sausageeggandcheese" as a word.


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 September 18, 2016
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