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
February 04, 2016 - 12:18 p.m. I had a bad day yesterday, so bad that my anxiety stopped me from doing something that it never stopped me from doing before, hearing music. I met Kate Copeland. I saw her perform with Dougmore and talked to her enough to know I wanted to see her on your own. Last night she was at Rockwood Music Hall. Not only that but Annika Bennett was playing with her. I was looking forward to the show for some time but then didn't go because of anxiety. Music would have made me feel better. I would have gotten hugs which would make me feel better. I bet I had friends in the audience which would make me feel better. But I couldn't do it. I finally got myself out of the house in time to get to Trader Joe's before they closed at 10:00 but it was so late when I got home that I didn't make the soup I was looking forward to all day and had peanut butter for dinner Wow I jumped right into the serious stuff. I never do that. But this was so severe and unusual it forced its way onto the page as soon as it had the opportunity. OK now let's go back to being my usual self. They had a new product at Trader Joe's, peanut butter you don't have to mix. It was cheaper too, only $2.00 so I bought it. Of course it’s not as good, it has sugar in it, but for processed peanut butter it was excellent, right up there with Skippy but less expensive. Why do I watch Stargate Atlantis? The writing is dreadful. In a story where I big part of the plot involved the Wraith being telepathic the characters and writers forgot that the Wraith were telepathic when it was convenient to forget it. "How could he get a message back to the fleet?" Um maybe with telepathy that they had just been talking about? By the way the reason I watch it is that it keeps my mind off my anxiety. It's not because I'm an idiot even though that's what I said yesterday. My Crohn's disease has been particularly quiescent. My digestive health is the best it's been since my second Crohn's attack in high school. This despite the fact that 45 cm of my small intestine has been removed and there's scar tissue on much of the rest of it. I must have just about no inflammation now. So what accounts for this change for the better? I'm off all meds. It must be diet! What do I eat now that I didn't eat most of my life? Not much. I can think of one thing, Taylor ham! That's it Taylor ham cures Crohn's disease! No I don't really believe that. I'm sure I could find some rationale for it if I looked hard enough but that's not it. There have always been random variations in my condition. They might not be truly random but they are based on things I have no information on. Maybe I haven't been exposed to some allergen since living where I am now. Maybe I some small event, too small to ever notice led to a series of other small events that led to a difference in my gut bacteria. Maybe they led to my immune system reacting differently. It can be so many things. It's foolish to ascribe it to Taylor ham. And that's my reaction when someone tells me about their friend who started or stopped eating something and their Crohn's got better. There's a reason these things don't work in well-done studies. And don't 10% of studies will show something with 90% significance by pure chance. One study proves nothing. When things really work it quickly becomes apparent. My landlady now has her new miracle cure, light therapy. "In ten years everyone will be cured of cancer using light." She showed me her new glasses which will protect her. They are very slightly tinted blue blockers. She told me that they were very expensive. I wish it would do some good to tell her that she's been cheated but It won't. She wants to believe it. And of course it only works if it's expensive. She can't just go to the drug store and buy a $20 pair of blue blockers which actually block a lot more of the supposedly dangerous blue wavelengths. By the way I love blue blockers as sunglasses. I like the way they make the world look and I think I can see better in them in bright sunlight. People so often believe what they want to believe. The polls showed that the Democratic race in the Iowa Caucuses was going to be close. They ended up in a virtual tie. But one of my Facebook friends "knew" that his candidate would get 60% of the vote. If he that's what he wanted it would be true. If he said it were possible that would be true though unlikely. When I say something like that I point out that it's a "bold prediction." I should stop making them. They are hunches. I don't believe in hunches. I should try and be consistent. We are of course rewarded for making predictions like that. What people remember is when you were right. OK let's see if I can do some things that I need to do today but have been too anxious to accomplish. Maybe I should start with getting non-driver's license ID. My license expired and I don't see well enough to get it renewed. My anxiety shot up just writing that sentence. Wish me luck. To bring this back to comfort I'll tell you that I'm going to make an omelet for breakfast and for the first time add MSG to it. I bet it's great. I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge: please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
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