When Homeopathic Don't Cut It!

I rarely get sick, and so I don't usually have a doctor handy, even when my employer offers health-care. Today, in 2021, I've had an odd ear-ache for the past month---the first couple of weeks of this past month, I ignored it, but after the 3rd and 4th week, I finally figured out that it was serious, and that taking decongestants and using store-bought ear-drops did not work. 

(Reminds me of when I had an eternal yeast infection lasting for 5 years or so, from 1996 to 2001----during that time, I ate lots of yogurt, took lots of vitamins, did lots of things that were supposed to get rid of yeast infections... Nothing worked until I finally went to a doctor and I got antibiotics! Haven't had a yeast infection since.)

I finally made a doctor's appointment for the ear. The first doctor's appointment I've made for anything in the past 15 years! Looking forward to getting my ear fixed with real medicine and to finding out what all else is wrong with me! :)

Embarrassed!

On my birthday a couple of weeks ago, my mom came over and brought a small cake and a small bottle of champagne. And I had nothing appropriate on/in which to serve either the cake or the champagne! Just big ol' plates and big ol' forks and big ol' water/beer glasses. It's clear that I never have company!

It was no big deal to my mother; she didn't say anything. But I was completely embarrassed! And so the next day ordered some smaller plates, smaller forks, and a couple of champagne glasses in case such an occasion ever arises again! (Oh, plus some matching bowls and plates. And then a coffee mug---I never drink coffee, but, as with the champagne and cake utensils, it's good to now be prepared.)

George Jones: He Stopped Loving Her Today (outdoors in Nashville, circa 1980)

The Rolling Stones: Hang Fire (1981)

Start Me Up (1981): RIP Charlie Watts

I'm shallow, I suppose, when it comes to listening to rock music: Aside from the tune and lyrics, I've always paid attention mainly to the singer and the lead guitarist. I couldn't tell you if Charlie Watts or John Densmore or John Bonham or Ringo Starr was good or not.

A reader on the UK Daily Mail website today prefaced his so-long-Charlie remarks with: "I'm 52, so the Rolling Stones weren't of my era..." Are you kidding? The Stones are of EVERY era...

(A p.s.: Interesting to me only: Charlie Watts has the exact same birthdate as my mother...)

Old-School Netflix!

Back before I moved to NYC in 2007, I'd been a Netflix subscriber for a couple of years via their DVD mail system: You create a queue, they mail your two DVDs to you, you mail them back, etc.

Today, I thought I'd join the Netflix streaming system. Before I joined, I did a couple of rudimentary searches from their streaming list: "Joan Crawford" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." They didn't have anything from either! Was I doing something wrong? I tried again, still no results. I then did an Internet search about Netflix---turns out, they still have a physical mailing system for DVDs. Their physical DVD library has over 90,000 titles, while their streaming library has only 4600 titles! (Why the dearth for their streaming library? It costs them a lot to get permissions for new stuff and to create their original programming---thus the lack of classic and independent films, et al.)

I don't give a whit for the Netflix TV shows, nor do I care about the "hottest" releases. I just want to watch interesting things. So I re-signed up for the 90,000-title option. First things in my queue:

Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
When You're Strange
The Filth and the Fury
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
Triumph of the Will
Judy
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week
KISSology Volume 1
Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins

The Office: "Dinner Party" excerpts (2008)

Serenity by Steph!

I love candles, but post the closing of Pier 1 and their white lavender candles, and the super-expensiveness of Etsy if I want red and/or black candles (and Etsy's candles NOT smelling like anything despite claims of scent), I decided to take matters into my own hands and ordered a whole bunch of candle-making stuff! (In the past, the one thing I couldn't comprehend was the centering of the wick---Oh...There's a hanging thing...)

We'll just see how my first venture into "crafts" works out! :)

Although I'm a bit excited about attempting to create my first candles by myself, I'm still reminded of "The Office" and "Serenity by Jan"!

Excerpts from Leonard Cohen interview with Mikal Gilmore

After the release of his late-1967 album, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," Cohen found recognition but also found himself feeling increasingly isolated, both personally and by the times he was living in. I've been reading Mikal Gilmore's "Stories Done" (2008) book of interviews, and I related to both Cohen's personal isolation and his feelings of discomfort with the "social rhetoric" of the radicals of his time:

People talk about loneliness, but I really passed days without speaking to anybody. Sometimes weeks where the only contact I would have was with the woman I bought cigarettes from, and a day would be redeemed by her smile. It was a difficult period, and it didn't stop being difficult for a long time... I had, theoretically, access to interesting groups of people. But I still found myself walking the streets, trying to find someone to have a cup of coffee with. I don't know how it happened like that. It just seemed to be the way things were set up. So that was the material of my life---and I understood that a lot of other people must be in this predicament. I began to develop this idea that a catastrophe had or was taking place, because I couldn't see why I couldn't make contact....

There was a political stance that I wasn't that comfortable with. It seemed to be too real and too unreal at the same time. Those were not really the issues that we legislators of mankind were meant to concern ourselves with. I recognized the fraternal quality in this expression, but I didn't really feel part of it for a number of reasons. It just went against my grain to burn an American flag. The position on Vietnam was one thing---it was completely legitimate and even necessary to resist the war. But much of the rhetoric I found ugly: calling police "pigs," "Amerika" with a "k." I mean, America is not Nazi Germany: It may be terrible, but that sense of perspective, the distortion of that perspective, offended me, and I could never really buy the violent rhetoric. To me, America was the greatest experiment in human history. As bad as it is, it's where things have been the best, so to see Americans in this convulsion...

My feeling was, this is not appropriate behavior for Americans. You don't pull down your own country. Those things I couldn't accept. That's why I wrote very early on, in Parasites of Heaven (poetry collection from 1966), "Shouldn't we study etiquette before we study magic?" We were being told magic was going to save everything, but I was offended by a lot of what I considered misunderstanding of personal responsibility. Just because a guy was a landlord didn't mean you smeared shit on the walls and left without paying the rent. I always had a sense that there's a certain fundamental respect that has to be paid to the organization of society, and that it could collapse under a certain kind of attack.

Leonard Cohen: Stories of the Street (1967)

The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh.
The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas,
and I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose,
yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.

 
I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come,
the cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone.
But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk,
All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us?

And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?
Why are the armies marching still that were coming home to me?
O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel,
You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.

The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask
the nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass.
And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite,
and one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night.

O come with me my little one, we will find that farm
and grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm.
And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am,
O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb.

With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world.
We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky,
and lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

The Doors: "Indian Summer" (1970)

Throughout The Doors' six albums, Morrison is constantly singing about wanting to love and be loved. The woman he chose, Pam Courson, was a drug addict, as he was an alcoholic. The two were constantly fighting and leaving each other, supposedly under the guise of a '60s "open relationship." There was no "loving and being loved," just the Devil's own "Do what thou wilt."

Their own hard-headed personalities were timeless. But had they not lived in an era that told them that doing drugs and sleeping around and "doing what thou wilt" were just fine... perhaps their difficulties would not have been so hard to overcome.

The Doors: L.A. Woman (1971)

The Steve McQueen additions to this Doors video are extremely stupid. Please ignore them! (The actual video clips with Jim Morrison are what make this worth viewing.)

The Doors: Love Her Madly (1971)

The Doors: Break On Through (1967)

You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side, yeah

We chased our pleasures here
Dug our treasures there
But can you still recall
The time we cried
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

Everybody loves my baby
Everybody loves my baby
She get(s high)
She get(s high)
She get(s high)
She get(s high)

I found an island in your arms
Country in your eyes
Arms that chained us
Eyes that lied
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through, oww!
Oh, yeah!

Made the scene
Week to week
Day to day
Hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through
Break on through
Break on through

The Doors: People Are Strange (1967)

People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
Streets are uneven when you're down

When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange

Deutschland Uber Alles

When West and East Germany were first reunited in 1990, all legislators spontaneously joined in singing the former national song. (I was, at the time, kind of nervous, lest the rest of the world get nervous about the "uber alles" part! I think at the time the German legislators were feeling their oats!)

During both the Weimar Republic and upon official reunification only the third stanza was approved.

Can't keep a mighty people down. (Well, during Merkel, you can...)

Germany, Germany above all,
Above all in the world,
When, for protection and defense,
It always stands brotherly together.
From the Meuse to the Memel,
From the Adige to the Belt,
Germany, Germany above all,
Above all in the world!

German women, German loyalty,
German wine and German song,
Shall retain in the world
Their old beautiful chime
And inspire us to noble deeds
During all of our life.
German women, German loyalty,
German wine and German song!

Unity and justice and freedom
For the German fatherland!
Towards these let us all strive
Brotherly with heart and hand!
Unity and justice and freedom
Are the safeguards of fortune;
Flourish in the radiance of this fortune,
Flourish, German fatherland!

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From Wikipedia:

The music is the hymn "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser", written in 1797 by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn as an anthem for the birthday of Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and later of Austria. In 1841, the German linguist and poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the lyrics of "Das Lied der Deutschen" as a new text for that music, counterposing the national unification of Germany to the eulogy of a monarch, lyrics that were considered revolutionary at the time. Along with the flag of Germany, which first appeared in its essentially "modern" form in 1778, it was one of the symbols of the March Revolution of 1848.

In order to endorse its republican and liberal tradition, the song was chosen as the national anthem of Germany in 1922, during the Weimar Republic. West Germany adopted the "Deutschlandlied" as its official national anthem in 1952 for similar reasons, with only the third stanza sung on official occasions. Upon German reunification in 1990, only the third stanza was confirmed as the national anthem.

George Jones: Baby, There's Nothing Like You (1976)

Tubthumping: Chumbawamba (1997)

I was sick for a week. Capable of working from home, but feeling like crap the whole time. Trapped with TV news and its godawful Biden racial-politics and border invasion and inflation and poor schools (ranked 25th in the world in reading/math/science---Social/Emotional Learning anyone?) and Cancel Culture BS.

Today, finally felt good enough to go out and do some crappy errands, like return Amazon stuff at the UPS store and send off some eBay sales. Low-grade BLAH.
Until I heard this song on the radio! Goosebumps! Made me feel happy to be alive for the first time in ages!

I get knocked down

But I get up again

You're never gonna keep me down...

(Get THAT straight, you stupid Marxists! Name ONE country taken over by Marxists that ever turned out well.)

Two Hoots and a Holler: Love Me (2005)

Two Hoots and a Holler: Blues in the Night

George Jones & Johnny Cash: "White Lightning" (1970, "Johnny Cash Show")

George Jones on "The Johnny Cash Show" (1970)

Signs of New Neighbor

Facing front: To the left of my apartment is the apartment maintenance room. And to the right is an apartment that's been empty since end of December 2020. (I'm on a one-story floor. And there's no one above or below.)

Last week, a couple of packages started showing up at the next-door apartment. Because it had been empty for so long, I went to check to make sure they weren't for me. No: Stuff from the cable company addressed to either "Michael" or "Myche." When I got home yesterday, there was a plastic canoe and small iron chairs in the backyard, and a "welcome wreath" on the front door ("You had me at 'Meow.'").

The previous neighbors who moved out last December were two 20-something guys who sometimes played their music loud. I think I reported their noise to apartment management at least 7 times in the 2 or so years that they lived next to me. So, yeah, I was on the alert for who the next person or group might be!

So far, so good! One day in, I haven't heard anything. Plus: Who the hell hangs a "You had me at 'Meow'" wreath on their front door! :)  That's a good sign of a quiet middle-aged woman! (Though, the canoe in the back yard could indicate some sort of "radicalism"!) :)

Whew! The party's over...

I did it! I made the trek on the scary-to-me I-35, put in my appearance, ate some good BBQ, chatted nicely...and then departed after a mere 2 hours because I was sweating like the proverbial pig (heat index 105 degrees) and wasn't really talking with most people beyond some chit-chat for a couple of minutes here and there. (Plus: At my boss's last party in October 2020, I stayed until 2am---I vowed THAT would not happen again!)

I'm glad I was able to psyche myself up for the drive and go and pay respects to my now-former boss and chat with him and other co-workers. But, damn, the heat! Within minutes of arrival, my hair was sopping wet, and it only partially dried over the next 2 hours! (I might as well have just taken my swim-suit and jumped in the pool and had THAT kind of terrible hair the rest of the time---pool hair would've been better than sweat hair!) AND we had a team picture taken! I already told a graphics guy that he was going to have to heavily PhotoShop my hair!

Conversation-wise... Though I'm bi (mostly attracted to women), I look like a typical educated professional middle-aged straight woman---i.e., no shaved head, no crew-cut, only one small tat, within my weight range, wearing lipstick, and with color-coordinated clothing and shoes and purse. Yet...At this work gathering, and the one last October, the people I ended up talking most animatedly and at length with were a 14-year-old baby dyke (daughter of a male co-worker) and a tranny (girlfriend of a male co-worker), respectively.

IS there such a thing as a "gay vibe"?! Maybe so! :) 

At this party, I got my plate of BBQ, then went to sit on the covered porch to eat, where no one else was (the other 30-or-so people were gathered around the bar/food area). A few minutes later, the "baby dyke" 14-year-old (200-plus lbs, shaved head), joined me with her plate. We talked about the heat and her recent days of band-camp (so this heat was nothing!), about her parents' work-travel vs mine, about the February freeze in the Austin area and its effects, about our smart phones ("Oh, you're an Android user!"), about who in our families we were and were not speaking with... At around 45 mins, this was by far the longest conversation I had with anyone! She was very mature and well-spoken, and at the end, asked if she could take my plate to the trash for me! What a young gent! :)

Gay-vibe similarly, at the October work party last year, I was milling about for hours chatting briefly with various people until later in the evening when I sat down by the fire-pit and started chatting with the trans partner of the app designer. What set off THAT conversation was that we'd both just seen the Freddie Mercury/Queen movie on cable, and I mentioned that I didn't think gay people should be portrayed as saints. And then she said that she knew someone who'd been at a party with Mercury back in the day, where there were hired dwarves (sorry: "little people") walking around balancing coke trays on their heads! When we both cracked up at that, she then told me she was trans, and I told her I was gay, and after that, she and I bonded and we spent the rest of the party drinking and dancing around the fire-pit together (!) until I went inside to the bathroom and the sister of the host then made some sort of "who ARE you" comment that was misinterpreted by my new trans friend and she started crying and made her boyfriend take her home...

So, yeah, I DO think there's such a thing as a "gay vibe"! I've been extremely isolated for the past year-and-a-half, but when I DO get around gay people, we apparently tend to be drawn to each other! :)