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

April 24, 2017 - 12:23 p.m.

St. Horvendile

It's one of those days where I woke up, played the WFUV Question of the Day, read my morning online routine, and fell asleep. I don't like when that happens. I did stay up too late last night for no reason. I don't like when that happens either. That's more under my control, I should attack it from that end.

After I die you guys are going to bragging that you knew me as I'm going to canonized as St. Horvendile. Why? Because I did not kill, maim, or even assault anyone yesterday. Sure, you didn't either, at least I hope you didn't, but you didn't have the frustrating day that I had. Only a saint would not lash out after undergoing what I did.

It starts with something bad that happened to Bernie. He hurt his hand. It was swollen up to twice it's normal size so Jane had to take him to Urgent Care. I found that there was a City MD close by at Co-op City and gave her the address.

I was still making my breakfast when they left. It was ham & cheese matzoh brei. I put shredded cheese on top as if it were a pizza and top it with a slice of ham. It's pretty damn good. I decided I needed dessert with my breakfast and made a chocolate pop-tart while pouring my second cup of coffee. That takes a minute. When I finished that and started walking back to the couch where I always have my coffee I see one of the cats sniffing right by the snack table I put the coffee on. He had just done his business there. He has a perfectly good litter box. I don't know why he felt it necessary to do that. I was torn on the order to do things in. I ended up eating the pop-tarts and drinking the coffee first before I got nauseated cleaning up after the cat. I did get nauseated but did not throw up.

I also acted as Jane's IT guy. She had a professional program she paid for that would not run. When you tried to do anything, it said, " _____ has stopped running. Windows will inform you if it finds a solution." I did the things a geek-in-law with no special training knows how to do. I turned off and restarted the computer. I uninstalled and reinstalled the program. I went through the help section. None of that was helpful. The online help was useless, it wasn't with a person. But then I found a phone number. I called. I went through menu after menu. It kept not understanding what the problem actually was. I finally asked to talk to a person and it recognized that! I got a person pretty quickly. She was nice. She talked me through some steps. I once again uninstalled the program but this time I also deleted some folders the program had left on the computer. That was actually not as easy as it sounds as the computer has windows 7 which I'm already forgetting and it didn't have the menus the help desk person told me to use. Then she emailed me a link to where I could download the program in case the problem was on the disk. She sent the link via my email. I had to log into Gmail. It kept saying I gave the wrong password. Ugh. I checked on my phone. It was the right password. I knew I remembered the password. She tried reading the URL to me. I discovered that the slash key, "/" didn't work on that computer. ARRRGGGGHHH. I told her that I'd work on the email and try again and she said to call back if there were problems. I tried again but this time used my phone number not my email address to log in. it worked. I bet I mistyped my email address and because I'm blind couldn't see it. I did check that. So now I opened my email and went to the site. And had trouble downloading it. It looked like nothing happened. I thought it was from the ad blocker which I saw had a red marker on the address bar. I turned it off for that site. Still nothing. Eventually I saw that there were boxes on the bottom of the browser with the file name. I'm not used to downloading with Chrome, I use Firefox. OK so I had it, four times. I opened the file it started installing. But by then it was almost 4:00. I wanted to watch Tracy Grammer on Concert Window. I had already missed most of Karyn Oliver. I started watching when I was asked to be the geek-in-law.

I ran up upstairs and came in during the middle of Gentle Arms of Eden. I missed half of my favorite song but I heard half and I heard the rest of Tracy's great concert and that good. I needed it. But, there's always a but yesterday. I needed to go to Stop & Shop. I always check the bus timing with Google Maps when I go. This time I discovered a different Stop & Shop that I can get to with one bus and no walking! It's in Co-Op City, you know where the City MD that Jane drove Bernie to. She had work to do, dropped him off, and came back here. That's when all the IT stuff started. But as she had to go back to pick Bernie up I asked if she could give me a ride. She said yes. When did Bernie call to be picked up? Right after Tracy started. I had already missed Karyn and didn't want to miss Tracy. It's only one bus to get there so I figured no big deal.

After Tracy's show, I went back to reinstalling the program. I went through all the steps. The program installed. I tried to use it and … got the same error message. Arrgghh. Now it was time to watch Carolann Solebello on Concert Window. I was able to watch from the beginning. That was great other than the audio being out of sync. The same thing happened on Tracy's concert.

I gave up on IT for the day but wasted almost an hour before I left for Stop & Shop. We are getting closer to the parts that made me homicidal. You ain't seen nothing yet. The other day I couldn't find my WFUV baseball cap. As I had lost every other baseball cap I owned this was bad. I figured I looked around my room and didn't see it. I figured I had left it downstairs the other day, I had left my hoodie there then and I would have taken them both off together. It wasn't there. I took a minute to tell Jane to let me know if she sees the hat. That was a minute I couldn't afford to wait. There was now just two minutes till the bus came. I didn't do my usual sprint. I was just too mentally fatigued to do it after all the IT frustration. Then I saw the bus so I sprinted. The bus pulled out as I got there. I'm sure the driver didn't see me. I was too far behind. The buses don't run frequently. But it's the weekend and the weather is nice so they are running more buses. I saw on my phone that there was one not that far behind. I got on it.

I was so relieved. I started reading the Times on my phone. We heard the driver announce Pelham Bay next stop. There is only one bus on City Island and that's where I always get off but it's actually a shuttle between City Island and Co-Op City so I stayed on it and continued to read the paper. I looked up and saw trees. I should not be seeing trees. Then I saw I was on a bridge crossing water. Arrgghh. The bus had turned around and gone back to City Island. I asked the driver what happened. He said sometimes in the summer the bus only goes to Pelham Bay. I told him that he should have announced that. He said he did. He certainly didn't say everyone get off the bus. I heard him say Pelham Bay. I did not hear last stop. He seemed to find the whole thing amusing. He told me to stay on the bus and it would turn around. I asked if there was another bus coming before that he said he didn't know but if we passed one he'd stop and I could get on it. We didn't.

To make things more fun at Pelham bay when people came on I smelled dog poop. I figured somebody had stepped in it. I thought they were behind me so I moved to the front of the bus. Then I realized it was a homeless guy that had sat down right in front of me. When we got to the turnaround the homeless guy started to get off and the bus driver was nice to him and told him to stay on. That was unpleasant for me as there was still the smell but I don't begrudge the homeless guy some comfort.

When driving through Pelham Bay Park the bus stopped, and stayed stopped. The draw bridge was up. That's something like a 15-minute delay. The entire bus trip takes less than that. I didn't time it but this time it felt closer to 20. I don't trust myself as I was already so late. I should have been on my way home or already home already.

When we got to Pelham Bay I heard the driver announce, this time I was paying close attention, "Pelham Bay grporph stop. I had no idea what the world was before "stop." Was it next stop or last stop. It was the last stop. He again didn't tell everyone to get off the bus. Most people do get off there anyway, sometimes everyone gets off there. This time one other person wanted to go to Co-Op City like me. I had to explain to him what was going on. Now the driver knew where I was going. He couldn't tell me that I'd have to wait for the next bus in any even as he wasn't going where I wanted to go?

I checked on my phone when the next bus was coming. It said no bus was coming. Arggghhh! That means it's far away. Finally, a bus showed up on the radar. It was leaving in almost half an hour. I gave up and decided to go back home and not have eggs for breakfast the next day. I have to go to Trader Joe's for coffee so I could get that and the eggs which are so much cheaper there. The next bus home was also in half an hour. Arrgghh!

I drowned my sorrows in a peanut butter snickers bar I bought at the candy story I waited for my bus. Unless the bus to Co-Op City came when I was at the Candy Store it never showed up. I had spent two and a half hours riding and waiting for buses and never got to my destination that's 25 minutes away.As I was walking home I was considering that I deserved sainthood for not killing anyone on the bus and not killing that first bus driver. A lesser man would have walked in the house and killed Bernie and Jane and the cats, especially the cat that took a dump. But not me. I'm a saint. I took deep breaths and looked forward to watching Daredevil where I could watch Daredevil beat people up and Elektra and Stick kill people just like I felt like doing. See I'm a good person and deserve to be a saint. When I'm canonized remember that you knew me when. They do canonize Jewish atheists, don't they? If they don't the pope is damn lucky that I'm a saint even if he won't acknowledge it.


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 April 24, 2017
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