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 26, 2013 - 12:44 p.m.

But What of Toto?

What view do you use when you write in Word? I never like anything but Draft, I hate the black spaces around the "paper" in the other views. It usually opens in Draft but I was looking at something in print layout last so that's how this opened. It took me aback.

A little insight into being me. looking at my calendar just now to make plans with someone took overcoming anxiety. If we hadn't been talking in real time I'm not sure if I could have done it.

Last night I planned something like four entries for today, let's see what I can remember:

  1. Complaints about school, students, colleagues, and working conditions.
  2. The Wizard of Oz
  3. Kat Quinn and the Bangs Collective (that name really works)
  4. Workings of my brain, my love of others, myself, and possible narcissism.

Hey that's four. I am going to try and tackle all of them aided by the fact that you already know I love Kat, Caitlin, and Jo, so I don't have to devote as much space to singing the praises of their singing as I otherwise would.

You know things aren't going well when a student starts the day with his computer open. This is math, you can't really take notes on the computer. If it is open you are doing things that are not class related. Without mentioning him by name I said, "Please close the computer, Facebook is not going to teach you this." That's me, polite but sarcastic. It is for his own good. In general there was too much attention paid by students today to things that were not the material. People worried about mechanics of grading not the content.

After class I had some things to do in my office. I had to prepare a homework sheet and send it to the class. When I walked in someone complained that the copier/printer was broken. The Admin hasn't been in the last few days and nobody knows where he is or why. So I take it on myself to handle technical problems like that in his absence. I am good with machines. I diagnosed the problem but couldn't fix it. There was a paper jam in a place there isn't supposed to be a paper jam. The repair instructions it gives didn't work because it couldn't sense it. There is no number posted anywhere of who to call if there's a problem when the admin is away. I have to remember to ask him to put a sign up with the number on the machine so next time it happens when he's away we can call.

Then I was told the other printer wasn't working. One of my friends couldn't get what she sent to it. She had to get back to class and couldn't wait but I tried to fix that one. I did! I told you I'm good with machines. I saw that the problem was software, not mechanical so I just did a hard reboot and it worked.

Later another colleague came in who is sometimes a bit difficult and always distant. He came in to print something and I told him. "There's a paper jam I can't get access to and it won't work." He didn't say a word to me in response but thought that doing a hard reboot would somehow make the paper disappear. He then asked the friend who told me about the problem to watch the machine and tell him when it was done rebooting while he did other stuff. My friend did it. I wouldn't have. Oh and guess what, Rebooting a printer/copier does not make paper that's jammed in the works disappear. That is obviously is not obvious to some people so I felt the need to tell you.

I get out of class at 2:15 and my next plans for the day were at 9:00 at Rockwood I hate spending almost an hour each way going home and I didn't want to spend that much time in my office. I decided to see the 3-D IMAX release of The Wizard of Oz I really wanted to see that with somebody but it is only playing this week and I didn't want to miss it. I decided it was better to see it on my own so that's what I did. I bought my ticket online. I didn't have to, it wasn't close to sold out, The theater was pretty empty.

Don�t feel bad if you missed it, the 3-D was feeble and added nothing. Most of the time I hardly noticed it. I'd have preferred to just see it on the big screen in 2-D. But it's still one of the greatest films ever made and it's still THE movie of my childhood. I have no memory of seeing it for the first time. I had two older sisters so I watched it on TV every year from the time I was born. By the time I have memories, when I was three or so it was already a movie that I knew I had seen before. Like so many kids I was terrified of the witch, my biggest childhood fear. I remember one year I couldn't watch the scenes she was in. Margaret Hamilton was justifiably proud of her performance and was delighted that people would come up to her and tell her that she terrified them as a kid. I would have told her if I met her.

I'm 56, I watched it every year as a kid growing up and many times as an adult. How come I never noticed this huge hole in the script and how come nobody else I know has ever mentioned it. Dorothy runs away because she knows that Miss Gulch is going to come back and take Toto away to probably be killed. She comes back because Professor Marvel get her to think of how her running away will hurt Auntie Em. But Toto is still looking to be killed and that is NEVER resolved. Toto is going to be unjustly executed and everyone, including Dorothy forgets about that. Now I'm all worried about him.

Something I realized before I saw the movie yesterday. I have been telling a story wrong for years. What I've said that my childhood theory of human fertilization was that the sperm would march from the father to the mother across the bed to the Wicked Witch of the West's leitmotif. Carey and I have cracked each other up by just singing "Do dah do dah do do" at inappropriate times. But that was not my theory. They marched while singing the Wicked Witch's guards song, "Yo hee ho � Yo ho." I even imagined the sperm wearing the hats. But I knew that part wasn't true. Don�t' mock me. My theory is a lot more believable than the truth. The definition of a geek is someone that knows about sperm and ova and meiosis and mitosis before he knows about sex.

Oh there is a fifth thing to write about, Shoe shopping,. My loafer's heel's are worn through so I need a new pair. I went to the store on 34th street that I always buy my shoes at. The theater was a block away and when I walked I realized this was the time to buy them. I couldn't find one pair that fit! I am a B width. At some point stores stopped selling narrow shoes. Most shoes don't even have the letter widths any more. There were plenty of wide shoes marked with a W but no narrow ones. I asked a sales clerk, "I see plenty of wide shoes but no narrows. Do you have any that come in a narrow?" She said, "Yes all of them!" I was excited, they don't display them but they have the in stock. then I told her the model and I wanted and my size, 10. She came back with a 10 M, a medium, what most of the shoes are. I said, "that's a medium, I saw those, I need a narrow. She said "they aren't wides" Ugh. They had no narrows. I went to the Sketcher's store, they didn�t have any. I checked online when I got home and found a Clarks that looks good but it's expensive and I hate buying shoes online. I need to try them on. I might have to get the laced casual Clarks that were mediums but worked.

The shopping meant that I didn't have time to walk to Rockwood, 2.3 miles away. I was looking forward to that. I took the subway and ate at Links the sausage place next door then went to Rockwood to see Kat Quinn backed by Jo Kroger and Caitlin Mahoney aka the Bangs Gollective. This was not a Bangs Collective show, this was a Kat show. They all back each other up. A Bangs Collective show is them as a band not one lead.


I love Kat, I love Jo and Caitlin, Take that as a given. I've already written 1528 words. Favorite people and musicians et cetera. What was knew was that I had had a brain! "Kind of Brave" is about a guy telling a woman how he feels by throwing a paper plane with a love letter on it to her. Every show I bring a paper plane and throw it at Kat at the end of the song. I am still waiting for others to pick up on it and do the same thing. From the start my plan was to go online and get a plan for a fancy plane, make it before the show, and throw that. I never remember and I end up teaching a page out of my spiral notebook, which is smaller than letter sized and is jagged on one side because I tore it out. Yesterday I remembered! Good thing I fixed that printer. I knew there had to be websites with plane designs you can print out and just fold along the dotted lines and there are. This plane was AWESOME! it flew beautifully and hit Kat square in the chest. Instead of my usual one line love letter I just drew hearts. What I really want is a paper airplane that looks like a valentine. that should work but I can't find plans for one.

OK I want to finish and I am not going to get to my last point but I have to say something about myself. While I am totally the kind of person that will throw paper airplanes at the performer at a show, Hell I made a bigger spectacle of myself at Da Vinci's notebook shows, I would never never send a love letter via paper plane even though it's exactly the kind of thing that I'd love to do. It is so me, romantic and silly and sweet at the same time. I'm not that kind of brave. I'm more the Cowardly Lion than the Tin Woodman.

After the show we hung out in Rockwood 0. Can I get other people to call the bar that? We being the Bangs Collective, me and their friends Andrea, Jake, and Dan. Did I get all the names right? I had some really good conversations. They are fun people.OK what makes them fun people is really what point 4 is about though that wasn't the inspiration but I have written enough for today. I'll save the rest for tomorrow. Remind me. Now to make breakfast, a Taylor ham and pepper jack cheese omelet is on the menu.


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 26, 2013
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