Who have I missed?

Chatting (so to speak) with Nigel, I realize I missed a whole era of music, the 90’s. This is not unusual for me, I usually come back later and cherry pick what I love. I did this with the 80’s too. In the 90’s I was busy discovering what I’d missed in the 80’s and didn’t have time for the current stuff.
But in this new era I haven’t gotten around to reviewing what I missed, probably because I get more and more picky as I get old. I have a bit of “what is the music world coming to?” Old lady thing going on.

So did I miss something really swell and important? Please inform me of 3 bands/artists that are truly significant to you that probably went under my radar.

Ear worm radio: 5 ‘O’Clock World - That band, begins with V, not the Ventures not the Volebeats, shit just can’t recall.....

Polly Styrene - My eternal hero

Inner ear worm radio:
(My Mind Is Like A) Plastic Bag - X Ray Spex
This one I can directly trace to thinking about fatalism, I've determined I have a fatalistic attitude towards test taking. I have 2 today and I just don't care anymore.

Could you please pass the noise and kindly bring the funk?

Here’s what we heard:

Kodaly - Concerto for Orchestra
Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major
Shastokovich - Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70
Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op. 28

I liked the the Kodaly and the Shostakovich best, with the Shostakovich the clear, over all, winner.

To me the Strauss concerto had this feeling of, beginning of the 20th century European manifest destiny trip. I checked the dates and it could be so, the timing is right. This feeling as if before all the world wars, the new dawn was nigh. That was the most interesting part about it. I liked the Merry Pranks better.

But the Shostakovich so very clearly had this whole “I don’t take myself so seriously” thing going on that I loved. It made me wish I could have sat down with him and had a good chat about the sublime and ridiculous human race and the terrible beauty of life.

There was lots of string plucking in all the pieces and I really liked that sound. As well as the image of the bows bobbing in the air. I really liked string plucking against wistful flute.

The scene was weird, everyone checking everyone out. The appraising and measuring up and looking at shoes and jewelry. There were the super rich in the boxes and they were funny to watch.
One lady in a faded denim outfit was so bored and pissed while her husband was all head bobbin’ and chipper.
Then sitting behind them was the lady I ran into in the bathroom. A lacquered blonde helmet, bob. Crepey skin and the collagen injected lips that look like Jamie Foxx doing Wanda. The perfect beige outfit with the mohair sweater. She looked at me like I was some odd bug when I gave her the polite nod and smile.
Ah the Uber-riche, they have to pee too don’t they? I’m betting she was the one who spattered all over the floor of the stall next to me, which is what happens if you’re afraid to sit down.

I always find it ironic that the people who are terrified of the funk of life are usually the ones who end up creating a good portion of it.

Another example is the people who used to come into the store asking to have you pick up the meat for them and put it into a vegetable bag. If you are that afraid of your food, why are you eating it?

So anyway, I did find an interesting thing in terms of myself. I was subject to some real anxiety as I was sure I was going to fart, burp or blurt in some awful way at some awful moment. I also was terrified that I was going to knock my cell phone off of vibrate somehow by rummaging in my purse. I felt like I was going to leap up and shout or something. It was like when I go to NYC and get all crazy on the psychotic vibe there and want to do evil crime, only this was due to an opposite influence.

There was actually some risk of some episode happening. There was a piece that featured the french horn. They had the featured player standing up front, and he had to constantly empty the spit valves. Now you probably don’t know this about me but in the last ten years I have a spit issue. I first noticed it watching Beavis and Butthead, cartoon spit made me gag. Ever since then I can have a bad reaction to spit, even now just thinking about. So there was some question as to whether I would suddenly vomit. I solved it by checking out all the frescoes and ornamentation. But it certainly kept the human element right up front and took some of the sheeniness off the slightly pretentious overtones.

Ear worm radio this Am:
The Libby's vegetables jingle

(When it says Libby's, Libby's, Libby's
on the label, label, label
you will like it, like it , like it
on your table, table, table.
When it says Libby's, Libby's, Libby's
on the label, label, label)

Rockin' out

I’m off to the Detroit Symphony. Some kind of 20th century music program. Courtesy of Dali. Shastokovich and such. I’ve never been to the symphony before.
Should be interesting, they better not say one single thing about the Superbowl, even on the program, or I’ll never go again.

Surf real fast, and no devil math

You know I love my mac but there is a serious design flaw. The power supply with the detachable plug has been sparking since I got it and has now broken. It’s purpose was to allow you to add another length of cord but its a really poor design.

So I have maybe 45 minutes of juice left before I’m unable to use my computer. This sucks as my math homework program is on this computer and I have a thousand pounds of math to get through this weekend.

SO if anyone I know out there has an extra mac laptop power supply, please phone me immediately as I’m royally screwed. I’ll be heading to the evil Comp USA later I guess, keeping fingers crossed the whole time. I already had an overbooked day between the vet, the picking up the new glasses, the piano move, the band practice and various other errands and tasks, but this is critical, I already had gotten behind and a taste of no computer world when Oliver did a huge mastering project that took a chunk of the day and the whole evening on Weds.

Ear worm radio today: Here Comes My Man - The Pixies ( directly attributable to Nigel this time)

EDIT: I AM a stupid girl, I just realized that the lengthening part of the other cord would probably work. It seems similar to the tech support asking you is the computer plugged in? When you say it doesn't work.

It just goes to show that one can be extremely bright in one range of ways and a total dolt in others. I can't deal with technology at all, but man can I make a mean quiche and write a good song.

I guess that means I have to do homework now, sigh.

Freak of the week

On ear worm inner radio this AM:

Blue Condition - Cream

Yesterday: I Got Soul (and I’m super bad) - James Brown

Many vampire dreams last night as well as some weird love affair I was involved in, in Kenya, with a very tall Masai man. He kept jumping up in the middle of conversations to run into the bush to hang around with giraffes.


I was talking with the beloved English teacher after class yesterday, and she was saying that she found it odd that I wasn’t talking much in class. I really went out on a limb and outed myself when I told her an abbreviated version of essentially:


“I have been going through a strange head space lately. In class discussion last Tuesday, we were discussing stuff I actually know quite a lot about, songs of creation, Vedic and Buddhist texts, cultural perspectives etc. I just got really frustrated at the inability of the majority of people to extract themselves from their dominant paradigm and perceive the writings from something other than a monotheist, creator god, perspective. Or to be able to notice the interrelatedness of creation stories and grasp the idea that they are all historically interconnected and primarily derived one from the other. Also some even were reading the text incorrectly to support their preexisting structures. All of this caused me to start looking at myself and ask who the hell am I and why am I such a freak in this world?”

I told her that I felt really weird, having been a street kid, a junkie and a prostitute and having probably tripped nearly a thousand times. Having come out the other side intact and with so much information churning around in here, that I feel so out of place, not just at school but in the world. And that I was subdued in order to prevent myself jumping up on a table and shouting at them to wake the fuck up.

Her replies were so funny and characteristic of her:
(A) Hmm, jumping on tables, do you suppose that works?
(B) Well, you must have known from the beginning you weren’t mainstream.
All said in her quiet, deadpan. She’s good at her job. Really calm and objective.

I don’t know, I guess I’m just whining or something, but sometimes it’s hard to be me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully cognizant that it’s frequently just as hard to be you as well.

Radio is a sound salvation

Woke up with this playing on the inner radio this AM.
Patsy Cline - Crazy

Although I am not as crazy as I seem, while watching some show on mysterious travels, they showed Glastonbury and were tracking the the Ley Lines around the Tor. Sure enough just on the steps by the bench, where I had my seizure? Spasm? Rebirth? Visitation? The dowser went all spla. Sometimes it really helps to be affirmed. I am not completely out of my mind

Brunchable

So I’m still a tease. I took no pictures and I really should have been recording the jam session. But it was all a little confusing. My friend for whom the whole thing was arranged, The infamous Archfiend didn’t call to say he was really coming to town until he got here yesterday afternoon. once I talked to him the guest list suddenly went from 4 to 21, 16 of whom I fed. People were still being invited as late as 11 at night and 10 this morning. It was all a whirl. We missed you Lizardbreath, Bassman, Nitro, and Eva Destruction!

We ended up having a jam session and we laid the room out starting with 5 O'Clock World and going on to Whipping Post, Been Loving You Too Long, Substitute, Sloop John B, I’m So Glad, I Can’t Stand The Rain, Be My Lover and many other classics.
Archfiend did a cool version of Watching The Detectives. Woodwinds woman did many percussions and backups as well as Karl La Fong and Archfiend singing along. I love singing with male voice!.

So I cooked and cleaned all weekend and now I am jammed up needing to do homework

Menu:
Chicken soup with noodles
Sesame soy pork roast with noodles
Scalloped potatoes
Cabbage with caraway butter and salt
Portobello, broccoli and gruyere quiche
Ham, green pepper and pepper jack cheese quiche
Fruit salad with rose water dressing
Waffles with maple syrup
Link breakfast sausage
Fresh brown bread
Pistachio streusel cake
Brownies
Freaky Swiss or Dutch molasses breakfast cake
Fresh OJ
Cranberry Juice
Black currant juice
Apple cider
Coffee
Tea

Not bad for blinded

Am I becoming a blog tease? I fear it’s true. It’s mostly a function of my fingers typing checks my ass can’t cash.
I am not at the efficient use of time place. I felt yesterday as if I’d been robbed of my day. After being eye dilated I just finally went to bed for a couple hours. Then I had to deal with soup making for quite awhile. Then I tried to invoke the writing muse. She was not available at that time. So I just felt much of the day was a wash.
Leaving today to be terribly busy. I have a cake to make, the house to clean, I have to get to King’s Keyboards. Huron High should be picking up the old piano today. I have to make a quiche. I have to grocery shop, cuz you gotta have real maple syrup for the waffles you know. The soup needs to be finished. And probably plenty more I'm not processing at the moment. Hanging over all that is homework and work.
Fehh.

Supah Suckahs

When I can see again, ( I had misspoken? Miswritten? That my eye exam was yesterday, it was today and I’m all freakishly dilated), I’ll post some pictures I took while almost blind and walking home from the opthamologists. It was an insanely lovely day for a walk. I was too hot in a cardigan. I’m not complaining, but it is a little scary. Whatever happened to the days when we could have an amazing January without it feeling like the dreaded Pixie of the Apocalypse was dogging our tail? (And you know who you are.)

I woke up with an apocalyptic dream in my head and Max Frost’s “The Shape Of Things To Come” playing on the inner radio. All due likely to two factors, the old blood sugar issue and Nitro_Von_Borax pointing up the declaration by the Gaia Theory scientist that we’re all already doomed.
As I pointed out in that particular forum, we’d better hope that magic/aliens/Divine intervention and /or various heavens are real because we seem to have backed ourselves into the tightest of all known corners.

Upon awaking at 6AM I was watching the fools on MTV glorifying the stupidest, most ridiculous, superficial, lifestyles ever. This new song “GRILLZ”? Fucking the lamest, most Caligula like thing I think I’ve seen there yet.
I hope your jewel encrusted metal teeth will make your transition into death much smoother, suckers.
(edit:) And ladies, it occurs to me, that if you are foolish enough to believe this man telling you that ladies think it's sexy, do not come crying to me when he accidently bites one of your nips off.

On a lighter note I am having some lovely glasses made so I need to go pick up the frames and deliver same to the optician, so, later.

Woof

Ummm, dry. Dry mouth, dry mind, just want to read fantasy and sleep. Got the dry heat in January blahs.

Very concerned about this semesters coursework. Have little patience for other students and their projections. Too much Christianity floating around, snaking it’s way into everything.

Fresh snow today it really looks quite good, the question is whether it makes the bus stop more or less miserable than yesterdays rain.

Tomorrow I find out whether I start wearing glasses, I think I already know the answer.

I want to be light and humorous, I really do, but I am stale right now. I had thought some really funny stuff yesterday but let it slip away in the ennui.

Frequently when I feel this way I think I need to get stupid drunk and blow the steam off. But I’m on antibiotics and don’t have the time needed for the three day recovery period anyway.
I would say I need a thorough shaking up but I know better, and to be careful what you wish for.

I must get my head together though as I’m to be hostess to a bunch of musicians on Sunday and feed them all brunch. I’m sure there will be pictures. At least of the food.

Paralysis

So the almost $400.00 heat bill had struck me down like polio and I had become paralyzed by inertia. The amount of homework I got in my first week piled in on top like a scrum. The housework was getting out of control, between all of that and trying to get other work done I was just plain oppressed. You can frequently ascertain where I am at psychically by looking at my dining room table and, if you can find it, my list of phone calls that are waiting to be made. If you can’t find that, the number of un-listened to messages on my machine are another indicator.

I just get overwhelmed. Then the key is to piece by piece take apart the great rock holding me down. It really becomes a matter of just chipping away at different faces and from different angles until it starts levitating, then go at it harder as my will gains strength until it either turns into a pebble or something else piles on and turns it back into a boulder.

It feels like a constant, the chipping, the growing and the diminishing.

I do know one thing though, if EVER I have money, I am going to pay people to do the housework. There are people who like it and there are people needing work and I will be more than happy to provide them an outlet for those odd desires.

I admit to:

• Reading my hotmail account like I read the newspaper, scan the headlines and guess the rest unless something really strikes me

• Not actually cutting down on my hatred and anger, merely learning to turn it outward instead of on myself. Be glad if your not a close friend or relation.

• Having actually just attempted to justify eating a big spoonful of cookie dough right out of the tube.

• Having given up, again, on trying to get a strong handle on smoking.

• Not having vacuumed for, like, 6 weeks.

• Rereading The Earthsea Trilogy + one, instead of reading for class.

• Being incredibly impatient with people’s foibles this month.

• Holding such a grudge that I won’t go to my friends show tonight because of some of the people that I know will be there.

• Justifying same by saying that I’m nurturing myself by not exposing myself to the funk.

• Giving in to the malaise.

Pity party

So I was feeling all sorry for myself and was gonna write all about all my problems, then I switched over to Springer. I always watch Springer in between getting ready for school or whatever (today an 11 am funeral). Springer today is a recast of an 11 year old program from when he did more than just watch fights happen. He’s in Hollywood talking to street kids and street people.

So OK, I’m having difficulties but I’m not on the streets and I’m not at my own funeral.

I had a distinct advantage when I was a street kid. I had a place to go back to if I wanted to. My parents had a healthy paranoia of the system and didn’t put me in it, although it was threatened myriad times. I suspect they also felt an innate sense of personal responsibility. Unlike alot of the parents who just say I quit and never could handle parenting.
I had uncanny luck and a higher intelligence than a lot of people on the street. That was a distinct advantage. Although on the street luck is a very relative thing. Trust me when I say I know I had it, despite appearances.

The funeral I went to was interesting, sometimes you never know peoples religious background until you meet them under certain circumstance. I saw alot of musicians I know following the Episcopalian forms of ritual.

My first graveside service, with a 21 gun salute. The smell of the freshly dug grave, the gunpowder and the rain was really quite good. I thought it was beautiful. People kept putting umbrellas over me but I loved the rain.

And again with the freaky coinkidinks, just a few days ago I had driven past Webers and said “I wish I was going to Weber’s for a nice lunch” and a few days before that I was bemoaning the fact that one can’t find Manhattan style clam chowder anywhere anymore. So the luncheon after the services was at Webers with Manhattan clam chowder being served.

But none of that is what I've been thinking about lately, maybe later.

Barren but not barren

I do actually have some interesting things I’ve been thinking about to discuss.
But I haven’t time yet. Maybe this weekend. Between homework and dog sitting.
Maybe Friday.

Although I will say this, I was just sitting here thinking how at a disadvantage I am in my new math class, because I went from like 5th grade math to college math classes.
I don’t know Pi and she keeps talking about Pi and using Pi in examples. Not thirty seconds later they talked about Pi on the news. Freaky.

OK I need to make about a dozen phone calls before school.

Figures

Mmm hmm. I spent 10 minutes of precious get ready for school time sewing a silver button back onto my skirt. Went to pee, hiked up my skirt and a different button flew off. Just goes to show.

The thing about listening to my own music is this, sometimes I purely can’t bear it. I hear every single flat and lisp. (I still lisp quite a bit despite a lifetime of watching it assiduously.)

Other times I’m like “you know this is a goodly collection that I’ll be proud of having played at my funeral”. Which sometimes seems like the only place that I’ll ever have a good sized audience. And a relatively captive one at that.

Sometimes I think “I can be proud just to have written this”, sometimes that’s enough.

No really, I am PERFECTLY happy

I was too overly involved in self editing to write yesterday. Everything sounded stale. I just stopped after a couple aborted attempts. But here's a couple excerpts:

You know, the drug companies can just kiss my ass. Between buying a pack of nicotine gum (because the campus is now nonsmoking) and a damn one day monistat, 40 fricking bucks. I have got to get off the drug company tit. I hate those guys.

Math Anxiety. It’s baaack! School starts again today. The math issue is making everything tense. Oh whatever I’ll just muddle through it somehow. Grrr. Crap, it’s gobbing up everything.

I made an ever expanding pot of beef stew and sweet and sour beet greens.

We met with the guy who videotaped our show and got to see the video, not bad. I seem to video better than I foto.

Really exciting stuff huh? Aren’t ya glad I filled you in?

Oh and incidentally all the cutting back on things ambitions? Results so far:
caffeine, no real problem, I’ve settled back to one decent cup of tea per day.
Cigarettes, not so much. I guess it’s a little less, but nothing substantive.

And that my friends is the classic difference between the DOC and the not. (DOC = Drug Of Choice). Which is why I am a proponent of sometimes using habit substitution in the case of severe physical and mental addiction. As long as the replacement does not become the DOC you’re chances improve. But I have seen that happen with the nicotine gum. And methadone, and other substances, so it is a risk.

OK Nigel, I'll bite

4

4 Jobs I’ve had in the past:

Tattoo front girl, childcare worker, cabslave, Personal Care Attendant

4 Things I want to do before 2006 is over:

Get a couple more pieces published
Play a gig at which there a decent sized audience
Get LOTS of A’s
Find a chunk of money somewhere

4 things I say alot:

Ya know?
Ya think?
Ya wanna?
Shit

4 things I don’t trust:

Governments
Corporations
Bureaucracies
Blue coloured foods

4 things I do trust:

Orange coloured foods
Red Wings Boots
Macs
Knight’s Market Meats

4 people from history I’d like to meet:

Moll Flanders (if she was real)
Louisa May Alcott
Solomon
Any given Buddha

4 Best movies of 2005:

I haven’t the faintest idea, I heard the Whedon thing was good

4 best books I read in 2005:

The short stories thing about the boxer in Viet Nam, what the hell was that called?
The Education of Robert Nifkin by Daniel Pinkwater
The Longman Master’s of Short Fiction Anthology
A pretty cool Zelazny I can’t remember the title of

4 bloggers tagged:

I’m just not a tagger

Cabin Fever

What the hell is going on with Saturday TV?
It’s almost impossible to find either a decent cartoon or monster movie on Saturday anymore. I have taken a few looks at the new “The Batman”. Eh, it’s passable, I guess. As you can tell I’m fairly lukewarm about it. The current Spiderman is terrible. I’d rather watch the old one even with the cheap 60’s animation.

In fact I have a scathingly brilliant idea, TV Land, on Saturday mornings, instead of Flip Wilson and whatever, should do a 5 hour or more, block of some of the better old cartoons.
Like Fat Albert, the Marvel Superheroes shorts, maybe a little Danger Mouse eh? Maybe a monster movie in the middle. Or start off with a little Bewitched, My favourite Martian, The Addams Family and the Munsters at like 6 am, then at eight do a couple hours of toons and by ten a japanese monster movie and switch to The Avengers and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. to take it into the afternoon.

Yah, clearly, I should have control of such things. Is there like a write-in campaign that should be started or something?

Recently the net feels like TV, 8 billion channels and nothings on.

Not so psychic, just a good smeller

I was watching a heated and fairly stupid debate on Ann Arbor Is Overrated, which only got good when it came down to Larry Kestenbaum vs. Adam De Angelis and there was subsequently much less of calling people assholes.
The debate was about conspiracy theories re: 9/11. At some point someone pointed out the sheer numbers of people needing to be frightened, bought, coerced, convinced and be just willing to cooperate would be tremendous and that politicians that have difficulty covering up their sexual indiscretions would have difficulty with a coverup of that magnitude.

Which had started me thinking, why hasn’t ANYONE cracked yet about any of the other stuff? Then within a day or so I started hearing about this Abramoff guy. I was like hmmm that seems odd, but I think I just smelled it coming in the air.

People on the progressive side seem to be really busy calling him all kinds epithets, but that confuses me, I’m glad, glad, glad. Let the man talk all day says I. I hope he talks a chunk of the house of cards right down. Why waste one’s own breath calling him nasty names? The important part is, he is talking, which will likely make other people talk to try to get deals and hopefully we’re on the edge of a partial collapse of the core structures which brings more of the rotten structure down with the weight of it.

OK I said I wouldn’t politicize, but I was just struck and encouraged by the coincidence.

superfastzomboids

If I’m not mistaken I think I’ve discovered one of the issues at play with the increase in obnoxious drivers.
My idea is that this society has become so goal and destination oriented that the process is not considered to be a viable factor or anything but something to be gotten through. Which is pretty weird considering that we have turned our vehicles into these rolling, plush broughams. There is TV and every kind of music and distraction and still the drive seems to be perceived as just an ordeal to be gotten through, than a journey which has it’s own rhythms and revelations.

Oliver and I were driving to Sign Class, just tooling along, talking and listening to Professor Arwulf Arwulf’s radio show “Face The Music”. We were mostly enjoying ourselves except for the nut ball other drivers. We were talking, laughing and commenting on the crazy stuff playing, the various changes along the way and the weather. It was pleasant, the music was good and I actually didn’t want to arrive just yet.

And yet I got the distinct impression that most of the other people driving were not in that kind of space at all. So, why spend what amounts to a down payment on a house for these super fancy living rooms on wheels if you’re not actually doing any actual living in them?

We paid only 5 grand for Pauline The Saturn Express and yet we continue our lives while in it. We stay punctual so we’re not in a hurry, and we are in the moment so we're not all crazed to get to a "somewhere" so as to end the “interruption” of our living.

I feel like I’m not expressing this well, but do you see my meaning?

Seems so far away, doesn't it?

This gets gross, you've been warned

The issue is no longer whether I’m going to get these massive infections, it’s now what form will they come in, and whether they will get serious enough to go to the hospital.
Part of that problem is my generalized refusal to go. I will try almost anything not to go to the fucking ER. Yesterday it became clear that we were past the "try to dope the infection" place. If I wanted to stay out of the hospital the goal was to get the infection to drain. Without going into a ton of detail, let just say that after getting home from work I spent the next 6 hours using various home remedies to “encourage” my flesh to erupt.

Baked onion poultice is my tried and true friend for many things. Fer’instance I react badly to wolf spider bites, I put a baked onion poultice on them. I have some stupid, crazy, cystic infection that they want to hospitalize me for? Baked onion poultice baby.

Now, there is also the grated raw potato poultice, this can good too, but I tend to think it works better for stuff like punctures and venomous plant or insect stings as it has a “drawing” effect. But I was ready to switch just for the cooling effect at one point.

I was feverish, doing hot compresses and poultices, and starting to be simultaneously over warm and chilled, annoyed, frustrated and frankly scared that I was going to have to back to that fucking hell hole hospital. Finally, I just said “you know, I have every faith that if I just go to sleep it will just go in the middle of the night .”
Sure enough I woke up to the cat yakking, sat up suddenly and voosh, I’m needing to change.

But ergo: that’s why I’m sitting here today drinking tea, getting ready for work and writing this instead of being the little bitch that the Dr’s and nurses hate, over at the U.
I have a pathological fear of IV’s. So trying to get one in me tends to require MUCH hysteria and apparently, eventual sedation. Atavan is nice, it connects you to your long-term memory. So if you want to remember what that girl in second grade with the braids name was? Atavan is for you. Have a panic attack or something.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday at the Monsterdome

I talked to a couple people such as Jerseygirl on phone and got caught up. Then got to see the niece for a few minutes before she left to go back to college.
I tried to gather the time and energy to go to the sister’s annual party, but time slipped away and I had promised Karl to go to the movies with him.

I am not a movie person, I have anxiety walking into the seating area. I frequently get sick after going to a large theatre because there are too many people with too many strains of whatever walking around and touching things.
I do not enjoy the mass experience whether it’s concerts, sports, movies, whatever it is you people do in these large crowds. I suppose that sounds separatist or something, but I feel mostly ok about coming across that way, as ever since these feelings developed I have received a lot of judgment from the majority of people who don’t have those issues and dig the mass media experience. They don’t get my experience, and I don’t get theirs.

Anyway I saw “Goodnight and Good luck” in a very small theatre. I really liked that movie and the experience was mostly manageable with the rituals I’ve developed. Get a medium popcorn and a packet of Jr. Mints. By the time I’ve consumed those, I’m usually well into the movie and can stay focused on it.

Then there was an aborted attempt to meet Oliver for dinner at Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger, (they were closed, the second Sunday in a couple weeks to have had it happen that way). There was a visit from Lizardbreath and Filmkid with Chanukah gifts. Then Oliver and I opened the bottle of Laurent Perrier we had saved. I had one glass and it just hit me totally wrong. I started yawning after three sips, finished it, and said “I do not understand why you like this alcohol shit so much, I feel terrible now, I’m going to bed.” and was asleep by 9 PM.

Snappy Shoe Beards

So, the theoretical New Year.
I find the superstitions surrounding New Years in this country to be kind of destructive and possibly a worse set up than even the family centered holidays.
If you are not at the just right place, with the just right people, having the just right beverage, and smooching on just the right person at 12 midnight, you’ve planted a seed of doubt in your mind for the entire year which can only be erased one year later at that precise moment by trying to orchestrate everything all over again to be some kind of perfection.
Or suppose you were able to maneuver everything to just the place you thought it should be. You have everything set up bizactly as you planned and schemed, now you’ve locked a mess of preconceptions onto your year and have possibly blocked some connections with realms of possibilities.

My main tradition about New Years is try to get some deep cleaning done. Ream out some dark, ignored, corners and such. That and eat some good food. Start the year with some purification and nourishment and let the rest take care of itself.

I also don’t do the resolution thing. I have made a couple of decisions recently, it’s true. They have been building though and are in movement. I am not opposed to resolutions per se, but I question whether they are most often another set up.

It’s also time to sort the years paperwork. And Lord knows that is enough of a task without trying to orchestrate the idealized New Years experience.

So what did I do? I made a barrel of chicken vegetable soup, some crowder peas with kale, and a couple of special dips. We invited Karl LaFong over and watched the 50’s sci-fi festival on TCM.
We were contemplating seeing Psyche’s big show at the brew pub, but the drinking and the crowd issue was the barrier as usual. We chose to forego our midnight champagne toast out of consideration for Karl.