Psyching Up for New Year's Eve

It's sad, I suppose: I have nowhere to go to celebrate New Year's Eve with anyone else, but I DO have to sit here alone and listen to the fireworks from dusk until 3 or 4am (often within my own apartment complex).

I don't mind so much being alone---that's fine, and I'm used to it. I can read or watch movies or work on my website or watch coverage on TV. 

And on New Year's Eve and July 4th, I fully expect to listen to fireworks for several hours. It's just: Why can't the fireworks on New Year's be from maybe midnight until 2 am? Why do they have to start at dusk and end at 4am? It's stressful to have to listen to this for 6 hours. Not just for me, but for my pets--I know what's going on and can brace myself somewhat, but the babes have no concept of why the loud noises.

Why Pictures of My Fridge?

I remember back when I lived in a 400-sq-ft apartment (2010-2014), sharing pictures here of my fridge contents. Why? I'd been very poor, but not "starving" or anything. I guess it felt good when I was able to buy the food I wanted to buy, and to present that to the public as part of a small personal triumph.

Today (12/30/23), I made sure I cleaned out my fridge from saggy leftovers and then went to the grocery store before the New Year. Wanted to start 2024 fresh, with everything I liked to eat. The bill was over $300. The most I've ever spent on one grocery trip EVER in my entire life. Which is INSANE. I didn't buy more than usual, but the price had suddenly shot up much more than usual.

The most expensive thing I bought was 1 lb of salmon---$11, to be split into 4 different meals. Those 5 cats of mine got 2 bins of $15 Temptations treats. And then there was a $20 bottle of champagne for New Year's Eve. Other than that, I don't see where $300 came from!

At any rate: It's nice to be able to start the New Year with a fresh fridge full of food!

Save Me the Waltz (Zelda Fitzgerald, 1932)

What was it like, being Scott and Zelda in their heyday---or rather, what was it like being an adjunct to the uber-famous "F. Scott Fitzgerald"? Scott's "Tender is the Night" (1934) was his 4th and final complete novel before his death in 1940. Zelda's "Save Me the Waltz," published in 1932, originally covered some of the same material---the breakdown of both a marriage and a woman. Scott forbade Zelda from including any mental-institution material in her book (despite this being Zelda's personal experience), since he was planning on including the same in "Tender"---so large chunks of the original "Waltz" were deleted.

What's left is... A LOT! The first 40 or so pages alone would make a great movie, with the salty but also warm and funny emotional goings-on of the Beggs family in Alabama. (Zelda Sayre's nom de plume in "Waltz" is "Alabama Beggs.") That last conversation of her parents on their porch after Alabama has departed for NYC is great and funny, as are the teenaged Alabama's relations/conversations with her sisters and their beaus.

Once the scenes cut to Alabama's married life with David (aka "Scott Fitzgerald"), things take a turn for the worse. After a few short happy interludes of warmth and intimate conversations, the couple are quickly subsumed into the decadent Paris lifestyle (entree gained because of David's fame as a painter), with its random outre personalities and constant attempts at wit and glamour. There's no "there" there, as Zelda reveals with her multiple pages of supposed bon mots by her companions that actually make no sense at all. I'm grateful to Zelda for being able to capture the constant meaningless atmosphere and chatter of this time period, because nothing else I've ever read has been able to---certainly not Scott Fitzgerald, who never managed to encapsulate what it actually felt like to be there among this crowd, as Zelda does in "Waltz." (Fitzgerald glamorizes it, barely touching on the utter decadence and creepiness, as Zelda does.)

After Zelda's Alabama rejects the party scene, she then concentrates on trying to learn something serious---the Russian ballet. A good portion of the novel concentrates on the relations among the aspiring dancers in the Paris dance studio run by a post-War Russian emigre, a former star of Diaghilev's ballet.  In the studio, things are utterly profound and structured, unlike the life Alabama has been living with David; but there are also the individual, troubled lives of her fellow dancers away from the studio, which Zelda explores in scenes like paying for a fellow dancer's sea-food soup at lunch, and the poor colleague excitedly thinking she's found pearls and is about to be rich (when the lumps in the soup were only lobster's eyeballs).

Zelda's writing is, yes, a bit lush. Lots of metaphors and similes (though none commonplace or boring---some must just be interpreted). But the story she tells in "Save Me the Waltz" is one of traveling from a place of unity and sense to a place of profound discord, and her attempts to find a unifying principle amid all of the chaos. It's a hard, bizarre journey to describe---only a handful of humans ever had this post-WWI experience. And only this writer was able to tell it just like it was---from an utterly unmoored American woman's viewpoint, as an adjunct to her famous husband (who was more interested in making himself look important and attractive rather than exploring the actual dynamics of the actual interactions).

Hopes for the New Year

My work is going OK. And I think that "love" is just a matter of hormones when you're young. Therefore, I have no personal wishes for the New Year. But what I do truly wish:

(1) That Trump is elected in November (and deports every single illegal who came in under Biden).

(2) That the Israelis absolutely crush Hamas in Gaza and everywhere else.

(3) That the blacks I see in ads on US TV are reduced to approximately 13%---per their actual percent of the population---rather than the current 60% or 70%, making me think that I live in Nigeria or some other African country. (Imagine if you lived in Nigeria and all you saw was white people in every ad.)

Dean Martin: Baby, It's Cold Outside (1959)

At a Christmas party over 15 years ago when this song was playing, a radical Irish guy informed me for the first time that this was a "date rape" song.
At the time, I chuckled. Little did I know at the time that his insane Marxist view would later come to be the standard among mainstream media and the #MeToo movement.

There's quite the difference between "rape" and "seduction."

Dean Martin: I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm (1959)

Kay Starr: The Man With The Bag (1950)

F. Scott Fitzgerald

I've spent the past 3 months reading and re-reading all of Fitzgerald's novels and stories and all of the Scott/Zelda bios. Conclusion: He is absolutely OVER-rated.

Four Novels:
This Side of Paradise (1920) --- Very interesting young man's first novel. Well-worth the publicity at the time.
The Beautiful and Damned (1922) --- Awful, basically boring.
The Great Gatsby (1925) --- Beautifully tight and well written. A classic.
Tender Is the Night (1934) --- Good premise (neophyte observes a couple and lifestyle only to discover the actual truth behind the fiction) but overall horribly organized and sloppily written.
The Last Tycoon (unfinished at 1940 death) --- Good premise re Hollywood and one man's battle with both old-school tycoons and upcoming Communist labor struggles, but all available text is mostly sloppy writing (who cares about "Kathleen" and their awkward sex in the supposed grand scheme of things).

Of the over 100 stories I've read, most didn't particularly move me either emotionally or psychologically, though I found many basically clever. ("Crazy Sunday"---often cited as one of his best---is not very good at all. "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is great.)

Biographically and psychologically: An uninsightful snob, incapable of actual insight into individuals (though with an overall grasp of brief historical movements---such as the ONE he was a part of: World War I and its aftermath). Allegedly more attuned to women (but not actually---no insight into his mother, his wife Zelda, or his daughter; nor of Sheilah Graham, his last lover). Perhaps much more atuned to his early gay mentor, Father Sigourney Fay, and to his Princeton buddies.

What I think happened: He was caught in an important moment in time, when mores were shifting. And he was initially bold about writing about such societal shifts, and then acted them out. As an Ivy Leaguer (Princeton), many of his similar early collegians (Edmund Wilson and Harold Ober) went on to important jobs in publishing and continued to support him as a representative of both their times and themselves.

Fitzgerald basically had nothing to say after "Gatsby" in 1925. "Tender Is the Night" and "The Last Tycoon" DID have something to say thematically, but he was in no intellectual and/or physical shape to say it.

Christmas Eve Doings

This year I had absolutely nothing going on. Sorry to say, I'm estranged from just about everyone (except for one friend that I've been sending Christmas videos to/from). This whole "Christmas season" wasn't that "festive." Though, I always do enjoy the fall and the holiday season, even if just for the stores' festive-ness and Christmas music, and the fact that there are interesting and fun football games to watch during this time.

So today on Christmas Eve, my only plan was to watch the Cowboys at 3:25pm. Before then, I'd planned to either go grocery shopping or get a sandwich. The strenuousness of the former was too much for me, so I just attempted the sandwich. Alas, the shop was closed for the day. I mildly cursed, then drove to another, fancier (more-expensive) sandwich shop that I'd never been to before. Almost completely empty inside except for a table of four old people and a grandson. And two different sets of old/middle-aged mother/daughters.

Stood outside while waiting for the fancy sandwich to be made. Air very mild, beautiful clouds; reminded myself that I was absolutely free of any Christmas plans (and yet mentally pretended that I was a middle-aged woman just stopping for an afternoon sandwich before the night's festivities began), and that I needed to spend more time outdoors.

Getting this damn sandwich from a different place actually made me feel relatively good for the rest of the afternoon. Around 9pm, though, some idiot started setting off fireworks within my apartment complex. On Christmas Eve. Reminding me of the horror to come on December 31, when both me and my cats will be terrorized for hours from sunset to 3 or 4am. (And for those of you with plans for New Year's Eve and who will be away from your home: It's a nightmare having to listen to people set off fireworks outside your home. Tonight on Christmas Eve, for instance: After the 9pm explosions, there was nothing else, but I've been on edge ever since, just waiting for the next thing.)

A post-script: After the 9pm fireworks, there was another big burst of activity after midnight. Having had several beers (liquid courage), I walked to hunt down where the hell this was coming from: The next building over in my apartment complex. A group of about 10 Hispanic partiers. I asked them politely if they could stop---it was Christmas Eve, not yet New Year's Eve. One guy speaking Spanish led me to believe that fireworks on Christmas Eve were a tradition "in his culture." Like hell. I stood there like a Righteous Karen until they all dissolved into a nearby apartment---then I went and blatantly got the apartment number. And staggered on home and e-mailed the manager about the fireworks on Christmas Eve.

Was I wrong? Or is it incredibly obnoxious to set off fireworks within an apartment complex on Christmas Eve? As it will be on New Year's Eve---I KNOW that I'm not the only person disturbed by the fireworks, nor the only pets disturbed. I've steeled myself to putting up with this shit on two occasions during the year: July 4th and New Year's. But I'll be damned if I'll not complain on Christmas Eve, of all eves---when people should be peaceful!

KARENS OF THE WORLD UNITE. And if they don't, your world is going to be a lot shittier.

John Travolta 2023 Santa Fever Ad

How clever and cool! And how Manero still struts his stuff!
And Donna Pescow shows up, which is super-clever!

Only critique: Ditch both the disco-ball shop-girl and the obligatory DEI black kids---or else, in funny anti-DEI protest, have one of them reach for his Santa mane, and then: "Watch the hair!" 

(Though the new "Frosty as evah" is almost as good.)

The Snow Miser Song: The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974)

The Heat Miser Song: The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974)

Andy Gibb: "Shadow Dancing" (1978)

God, how I disliked Andy Gibb and his brothers in 1978! 

BeeGees and Andy Gibb were all that were on the local radio when I was an early teen, shoved down my throat, and none of it meant anything to me. Absolutely ZERO mind-engagement with this fluff. In 1978, the Bay City Rollers (actual song-writers and good performers) were still important to me, and I liked KISS, and I was about to discover New Wave (though not punk).

 

Today though... "Shadow Dancing" is actually a good song and pleasant to listen to (despite Andy's robotic gyrations in the video)!

Andy Gibb died of a drug overdose in 1988 at age 30. A few good pop songs to his name. (Not because "the media" told me so.)
 

Merry Christmas from Jill Biden!

The "Hunger Games aesthetic" was at least kind of cool in its early days. This, though, is only stupid and clunky---by a bunch of dancers who can't really dance, but were selected for this Marxist troupe (see its political website) based purely on DEI criteria. It's trying sooooo hard to be edgy, but it's primarily embarrassing---for Jill and Joe Biden, and for anyone thinking this might actually represent America.

p.s. Is that Gavin Newsom in the purple-flower hat?

F. Scott Fitzgerald Letter to His Daughter (Sept. 1939)

In September of '39, F. Scott Fitzgerald's daughter was a student at Vassar. He wrote her of the dangers of Communism and of her left-wing classmates [Communism was then in vogue in the '30s, as it is today]:

The important thing is this: they had best be treated, not as people holding a certain set of liberal or conservative opinions, but rather as you might treat a set of intensely fanatical Roman Catholics among whom you might find yourself. It is not that you should not disagree with them --- the important thing is that you should not argue with them. The point is that Communism has become an intensely dogmatic and almost mystical religion, and whatever you say, they have ways of twisting it into shapes which put you in some lower category of mankind ("Fascist," "Liberal," Trotskyist"), and disparage you both intellectually and personally in the process. They are amazingly well organized...

You can neither cut through, nor challenge nor beat the fact that there is an organized movement over the world before which you and I as individuals are less than the dust...

Although Fitzgerald is exactly right in naming the intellectual threat of Communism and the tactics of Communism, I also disagree with him, a weak man constantly seeking popularity, in his passive advice to his daughter. ALWAYS FIGHT against the insanity.

George Jones: "The Race Is On" (1965)

A post-er on YouTube thought that George looked rather demented here. 

(Huh? I've rarely seen him any calmer.)

I had to point out that a few decades ago, being intense was a good thing. I've always been of the opinion that "mellow" sucks, except in very small doses. 

(Oh, whoops, unless you want to stay married to someone for a very long time---in that case, please be very mellow at all times! Although, in reality, neither of you can help it: You either ARE calm or you're not.)

George Jones: When the Grass Grows Over Me (1968)

Both Tammy Wynette and her husband right before George, Don Chapel, claim to have written this song.

Clown Show at Harvard and MIT

I hadn't been paying attention recently. When exactly did the supposed intellectual leaders of the supposedly best universities in America get replaced with sub-par Marxist female mouthpieces with funny clown glasses who don't understand what "genocide" means? For shame. If women can't be intellectually serious, then they shouldn't be presidents of anything. Thanks to the Jewish students and commentators post-October 7 for finally calling these Marxist clowns out.

Sadly interesting that Marxists in America have been claiming for years that local yokels in small-town America are the dangerous anti-Semites. When, in fact, it was/is the left-wing leaders among Academia and its media cohorts who whole-heartedly are against Israel's right to exist and who, as exhibited recently, present the greatest threat to Jews in America. As I said earlier: FIGHT BACK! Don't let the present-day Marxists attempt to stamp you out.

Americans: Do you really want party-line-spouting people like this running your institutions? Given the recent evidence, I'd much prefer an old white male who, based on scholarship, prefers democracy and doesn't feel guilty about so-called "colonialism" (in Judea? you Marxists are saying Jews did not originally have this land?)---and who has enough self-respect to not wear stupid-looking glasses.

What's Happened to Libraries?

I grew up frequently visiting small-town libraries with my mother. I guess it was the poor intellectual kid's equivalent to the home having adult friends over for conversation, or for visiting museums or traveling.

My family wasn't at all "intellectual" (no friends over, no conversation, no museums, no traveling except to Germany---where my mother was from---to get away from my abusive father) but we were all relatively smart. We read the daily paper and got our weekly "Time" magazine (I read them both as a kid, after age 10 or so, which made me smarter than my local cohorts; once I got to college, though, I was told by snobs that these sources of info were utterly bourgeois and inadequate), and we had books in the house, though they were mainly best-sellers and not any classics. 

I loved going to any library as a kid. Though all I can remember now is a series of "Alfred Hitchcock" mystery books checked out every week. Often I would end up reading my mother's checked-out books, like "Roots" or "Rosemary's Baby." Or once, a Time-Life "History of the Old West" book whose picture of a dead female outlaw freaked both me and my mother out to the point that she put the book in the garage rather than keeping it in the house! (That was an exception---Usually, we did not have such untoward reactions!)

Whatever the actual books checked out, I remember the pleasant quietness of each library. The atmosphere was hushed, and I'd enter with my mother, but then we'd break apart to explore quietly on our own. This experience was duplicated years later when I first went off to college in 1983, and my first job was as a shelver in a major University library, where I was again free to quietly explore anything that happened to strike my fancy.

So I've always held libraries as being special places of knowledge, maybe "church like" in atmosphere in the absence of any actual church in my life.

I haven't been to any library very often recently. Just went to one today for the first time in years. I walked in to a screaming kid (mother not making any attempt to quiet him). And to a loudly yakking "yarn group" (middle-aged/old women knitting) who had taken over a table. And one young patron had a dog with her that was running around. It was all fucking CHAOS. In a library.

Where do you go if you want to be in an atmosphere of peace and learning?

A Girl Named Elijah

I got hired at my current job during Covid, and since that time, my co-workers and I have continued to work remotely, only getting together in person maybe four times since 2020, and only sharing a few brief personal comments during our daily Teams meetings.

At one of the in-person meet-ups, in the summer of 2021, at the home of a boss since departed, it was a very hot July day, and I was sweating profusely, to the point where my hair was almost completely sopping wet. (Despite the heat, I was of course NOT going to participate in his swimming pool in front of co-workers with my 50-year-old body!) I retreated under the patio awning, which was still very hot but at least shaded, to eat my BBQ alone. I was still new then and didn't really know any of my co-workers and fellow party-goers very well, and no one joined me for a while. Until a heavy-set teenaged girl came and sat down next to me. She was sweating just as much as I was (though she was maybe 75 lbs heavier), and we commiserated for a minute about the heat, then started talking about various types of smart-phones and how I'd just gotten mine, and about how her parents both suffered from sleep apnea and had had a hard time during Covid and during power outages earlier that year. I remember that at one point, I'd scarfed down all of my brisket and she voluntarily got up and went to fetch me some more---completely unasked! At which I remember thinking, "What a gent!" I appreciated both her politeness and her company, since none of the adults made any effort to come over and sit with me!

I can't remember the name of this girl, then about 16. I knew that she was the daughter of our group's trainer, a very patient and kind and knowledgeable man. During our Teams meetings, he would often mention her high-school accomplishments in Band, which he was a chaperone of during weekly football-game trips or to UIL competitions in the fall.

In the beginning, her father would mention his "daughter" and "she." Then a few months ago, he started saying "they" in reference to his daughter. Then last week, he bragged with fatherly pride about "Elijah" gaining two Associates Degrees from a junior college before even graduating from high school. At first, I was puzzled: I'd only heard him mentioning his daughter before; I didn't know he had a son... Then it hit me: His girl was no longer a girl. She'd apparently recently declared herself a boy named "Elijah."

The insane Marxist propaganda of "no genders" had gotten to both her and her father. Both intelligent but apparently too-trusting people. "Gender" is a distinct biological thing. You really ARE born as a distinct gender. You may later grow up to be attracted to the same gender---which makes you gay or bisexual. But it does not change the biological gender that you were born as. It makes me sick (in a melancholy way) that today's young people are being encouraged by media-supported propaganda to falsely deny their very genetics. And even sicker (in an angrier way) that their liberal parents are going along with this rather than inserting some sense of reality into their children's "feelings."

As a bisexual person, it's disturbing. Is the idea of being "gay" so traumatic to young people today that they would rather claim falsely to be of a different sex than to admit that they're attracted to someone of the same sex?

I have a theory that the Internet and all of its various avatars and identities that young people (and all of us) have been encouraged to create has somehow led to young people now thinking that if they SAY they're one thing online, then that must somehow also translate to being true in real life. Which is, of course, not at all the case. Except that left-wing academics and the left-wing media and their too-easily-led liberal parents are then encouraging them in their fantasies. More dangerously, doctors and pharmaceutical companies are jumping on the Marxist bandwagon and encouraging drugs and surgeries. Doctors, especially, should know much better.

Texas Longhorns Fight Song

Corn Plant Breaks Out!

I purchased this plant from Walmart over a year ago. Used to be about 3 ft high, now about 5 ft high. When I woke up this morning, it had this sassy bloom for the first time!

 

Cat Trouble Resolved (I Guess)

After a week-and-a-half of real cat drama (which sounds silly, but was actually mildly traumatic having to live with this aggressive shit within my apartment), Pete and Mama Hennessy have finally apparently resolved their antipathy.

About 3 days ago, Pete stopped hiding. He still didn't come out to the group feeding area, but he hovered outside of it---which was better than him not showing up at all. He and Mama Hennessy stared at each other, but didn't make any aggressive moves toward each other.

As of December 2, he started hanging out and eating with and sleeping with the group again. He and Mama have come very close to each other without any violent reactions. PHEW!

What the hell happened last week?!

One thing I noticed: When Pete was banished by Mama and hiding away---when I could only pet him in a back room a couple of times a day---I really missed seeing him in the living room and missed waking up with him. His pretty, expressive eyes, and his fun, aggressive spirit (chasing, but not being mean, like Mama just was to him). As the only boy in the group, he really added something and was missed when he was gone.

Cat Trouble

In April 2019, a stray, feral cat that I'd been feeding since July of the year before ended up having her three kittens in the small yard of my apartment neighbor, then the next day moved them over closer to my own backyard. A mama and three kittens. Then, 8 months later, in December of 2019, a half-grown cat with the exact same markings as Mama had been hanging around the front and back of my apartment windows so long that I took her in, too. So I had five cats: Mama Hennessy; her kittens Pete (the only boy), Sasha Susie, and Mini (Solomon Grundy); and then Cinco Beasley. (All are fixed, except for Cinco.)

Things have been perfectly fine among all cats for the past 4 years. The addition of Cinco 8 months after the birth of the 3 kittens didn't cause any problems: She was/is very sweet, and I've seen her grooming with all of them. She likes to kiss Pete the most, but she's also affectionate with all others, especially Mama.

But a few days ago, Mama Hennessy started attacking Pete viciously. I mean with blood-curdling yowls and Pete's running for his life and hiding out in the spare bedroom, not daring to come out even during feedings. I took food and water into the spare room, and tried to apologize to him...

After two or so days of this aggression on Mama's part, she seemed to calm down. She "let" Pete have dinner with all of them at their usual feeding time without attacking him. But then later on tonight: I was in the spare room (my library) culling and rearranging books on the shelves. Usually, whenever I go in this room, all of the cats come in to check it out, because it's different and interesting to them that I'm in there. This time, everyone stayed put in other rooms, except Mama. She expressed her usual interest, and then, all of a sudden, she yowled and scratched my leg, all the way through my jeans. When I yelped in pain, she ran out of the room and then attacked Pete (who was in a different room) again.

In the 4 years that I've lived with her inside this apartment, she's never, ever attacked me like this. When her uber-aggression first started a couple of days ago with Pete, I first yelled loudly and chased/stomped after her and Pete, thinking that my loud actions would break up whatever their momentary problem was. It did not. I then started using my plant-sprayer with water to spritz Mama whenever she kept chasing and attacking Pete. This seemed to subdue the whole situation a bit. Today (Tuesday), after a loud morning attack incident, was a lot calmer. The calm cats (Sasha, Mini, Cinco) came out of hiding after freaking out earlier. All 5 cats came to me at various times for stroking, etc., though I initially had to go to the spare room to see Pete and bring him food. All 5 cats met in the usual spot for their afternoon feeding without incident.

I thought things had finally calmed down, but then Mama attacked again --- ME --- later in the evening...

All sorts of thoughts running through my head:

First, what in the HELL started all of this? There's been nothing like this for the past 4 years.
Pete is the only boy, and he does sometimes like to chase Sasha Susie, for instance---Sasha will hiss at him, and then sometimes Mama has chased him away from Sasha. (But just "chased"---not the horrible yowling physical attacks of the past couple of days.)

Other much milder cat interactions:
When waiting to be fed, sometimes Sasha bops Cinco on the head (paw with no claws) and Cinco bops her back.
Sometimes Mini and Sasha will wrestle (sans any hissing from Sasha).
Sometimes Mini and Mama will wrestle (Mini always subservient on her back and playful).
Sometimes Pete and Cinco will bop each other on the head. (But Cinco likes Pete the best, and grooms him; the others don't usually groom him.)
Sometimes Mama briefly hisses at Sasha (they're the closest physically, but sometimes Sasha gets too incessantly needy so Mama swats at her)
And Mama IS protective of Sasha whenever Pete chases her. (But he has not been extra-aggressive toward Sasha in the last 2 days.)

At any rate: I feel that my apartment has been a battle zone for the past couple of days. It's tense and depressing! The cats have all been hiding out separately, and not spreading themselves out on my couch cushions to sleep when I go to sleep. They know something's wrong. But I don't know how to fix it. I know that Pete is sometimes a big rough-house, but he's not malicious, and he's done nothing to make Mama so aggressive with him. (Even Sasha, whom Pete usually chases, usually sleeps right next to him---she knows he's not mean like that.) And then this evening, when Mama crossed over from being irritated with Pete to outright attacking and scratching ME for the first time ever...

What is it with Mama Hennessy? There's absolutely no new dynamic in my apartment, for instance. Same me, no new guests, no new anything. Over the past 2 days during all of this, I've had thoughts about "If this doesn't stop, which cat would I get rid of?" My initial thought was Pete... but then, I discovered that he really wasn't causing any of this. Mama Hennessy was always the instigator---don't know why exactly, since she's always been very calm before...

Right now, all five cats are sitting in the same living room within 10 feet of each other. (Not the case for the past 2 days.) Pete is out and about for the first time in 2 days and no longer scared for the moment, though he's looking warily at Mama...

---------------------------------------------------------------

As of 11/24: Things have deteriorated. Pete now no longer can come into the main room with the others because Mama H. attacks him. I've put a food dish and water dish in the spare bedroom so Pete can at least eat and drink. I try to spend time with him and stroke him during what used to be the usual times per day for all cats: Morning feeding / 2pm feeding / 9pm treats.

Life Without Lights

Life Without Lights

I hadn’t seen her for two weeks, and when she finally called me, I came right over. She said she had some coke and, I suppose, none of her teenaged friends to do it with this evening, so she called me. I was embarrassingly grateful, and embarrassingly lonely, so I went over.

The evening started out as evenings usually did with her, even as they had back in the three months when we’d lived together the year before. We settled down on her slippery turquoise-and-black fake-leather couch to watch a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

This sexy-looking couch had been one thing that initially attracted me to her---I’d never seen such a thing in anyone’s living room (being used to beige and brown and gray cloth while growing up), and it was certainly cool and exotic to me. The action-movie preference, though, was something I had to put up with. I was a young 23-year-old kid, still in college, an English major, and, knowing that she was into S/M, had tried to interest her in, say, “Marat/Sade” --- an intellectual exercise that bored her to death. She liked action movies. Just as in the porn I’d found under her bed featuring buff gay males in gym settings: Naked guys looking like Matt Damon posing in front of lockers wearing nothing but socks.

Yet she was also a lesbian who overtly preferred goth and vampire domination themes (far from her simple, closeted magazine male locker-room scenarios).

On this night that I was invited over: There was nothing particularly erotic. We knew each other too well. She and I both knew that I wouldn’t particularly like the Van Damme movie, but that I’d sit there and watch and then make out with her, and then have sex with her. I was still interested in being/feeling close to her as a human being, despite our utter lack of any actual mental or psychological or spiritual closeness at this point. It was a kind of “watching movie” companionship out of loneliness.

But still! At this point in time, I still was madly in love with her! I was very happy to be invited over! Even with Van Damme on the VCR. I couldn’t make any cogent comments about the very dumb film, of course, but I could cuddle up to her. Oh, but, whoops! At some point two things happened. One: She decided that the coke wasn’t making her feel great. Was it me, her companion, or was it the coke? She kept complaining that she didn’t feel anything. And then: She couldn’t find her lighter. Where was it? I must have taken it…

Because I was so young, and because she had been my very first lover, I held on for much longer than necessary. We met in 1989, lived together for 3 months, had sex on occasion up until 2000. Make a great story some day!

The Smithereens: "Strangers When We Meet"

The Smithereens: Behind the Wall Of Sleep (1986)

This whole album is great (although the lead singer's hair is not)!

Arctic Monkeys: I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor (2006)

Arctic Monkeys: Arabella (2013)

Reading Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and Damned (1922)

I've spent the past couple of months reading the majority of Fitzgerald's early short stories, as published in the Library of America editions. They're fine, they're witty and sometimes slightly moving ("The Lees of Happiness").

RE the novels: The debut (This Side) is a smart young man showing off, with nothing at all to say except spouting text in reaction to his current circumstances and beliefs. I'm only about a third of the way thru "Beautiful and Damned," and so far it's kind of the same: A young man very similar to the protagonist of "This Side" is now in love and attempting to define his beloved via his stilted societal opinions of what's "clean" or not. Perhaps "Damned" will improve before its end, but right now, it's a tedious trek through what's supposed to be "cool" with the 1920 hipsters (or whatever they or "cool" were called then). Fitzgerald is, of course, an astute observer of social scenes. Yeah, and so am I. At this point, during his second novel, I'm beginning to see why Zelda (the subject of this second novel) is so annoyed by his constant analyzing of her. The character based on her at one point actually says that she despises intellectual boys who try to analyze her. Which is exactly what Fitzgerald was---an intellectual boy trying to analyze. Aside from Zelda's protests, there are other protests on record from friends objecting to Fitzgerald's trying to analyze them in the middle of a good time...

Another feature of both novels: Fitzgerald is disgusted whenever his rich-boy character has to take the subway or otherwise be among the "common working people." He goes on about it: They smell disgusting, they look disgusting, their inner lives must be disgusting; the women are particularly disgusting---once married, they must all be fat and harridans, keeping their men from achieving anything. You kind of forget this nastiness while reading Fitzgerald, because he writes so well in between. But, in truth: Note the sense of "Evil" that his protagonist experiences in "This Side." A weird episode that goes on for several pages after Amory Blaine has merely gone with a friend to a girl's apartment and had some drinks. He suddenly starts hallucinating that The Devil Himself is among them, then that The Devil is chasing him through alleys. And when The Devil reveals himself, it's the face of a recently dead friend... It's a goose-bump-raising episode in the book, and one that impressed me upon reading...Amory is clearly having a psychotic break, and I was impressed with this honesty of the first-time author and curious to see what would happen... But when, by the second book, the same "sense of evil" (sex) keeps being named, it becomes a bit stupid and ridiculous.

Reincarnation

There's no guarantee.
I always have this picture in my mind: The horse in a train-car being transported to the slaughter-house. But, whoops, because he was loaded incorrectly, he now accidentally has a leg sticking out of the slats of the car. As if his fate weren't bad enough... What do the slaughter-house humans do since they don't feel like unloading and re-loading all of the horses? They saw off his leg. THEY SAW OFF HIS LEG. To me, this is the ultimate example of Evil and of just how bad things can be.

Don't trust in reincarnation. Because this is exactly what you might end up with.

George Washington University Pro-Terrorist Campus Light Show

BlogSpot now won't allow me to add any photos to my posts. I've been posting here for 15 years; guess this might be my last post.

RE the title: On October 24, George Washington University allowed radical Marxists to beam pro-Hamas terrorist messages against the wall of their campus library. There was no reaction from the campus leadership. (Why is such overt anti-Semitism OK? Especially after the radical Muslim group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and murdered thousands of Israelis. I'm shocked that anyone on any campus or in any country is sticking up for the terrorists. Do you not know the history of this piece of land? It's been disputed for over 2000 years.)

Bay City Rollers: Inside a Broken Dream (1977)

The first album I ever bought was "Dedication" in 1976, my third was "It's a Game" (1977).
I was 12 and 13 then. (OK, in between first and third came Shaun Cassidy's debut album.)
In an 8th-grade class that asked for our favorite poetry, I wrote out the words to "Inside a Broken Dream" from the "It's a Game" album, written by BCR's Eric Faulkner:

Turn the pages of a broken dream
Smiling faces, have they ever seen
Empty hallways, will they ever end?
The fool again
Masquerading in a hyper dream
Fading shadows talk of their machine
Through the haze another cigarette
So much to say and to forget

CHORUS
Inside a broken dream I cry
Is love the reason why?
Inside an empty room I stare
At love that is not there

Life begins with your head in the dark
The chord of life reveals the final spark
Takes you nowhere then nowhere takes you back again...

Today, over 45 years later, I still think this song is good, am still moved by it. And I still listen to the Bay City Rollers at least once a month or so. (Shaun... maybe once a year!)

Bay City Rollers: Saturday Night (Midnight Special)

Bay City Rollers: Bye, Bye, Baby (Top of the Pops)

Bay City Rollers: It's a Game

Bay City Rollers: Dance, Dance, Dance (1977)

From the "It's a Game" album.

Read up on the 2000-year history. Give 'em hell, Netanyahu.

So sorry you have to get permission from Biden to act.

George Jones: You Gotta Be My Baby (1957)

Who's the dummy announcer? GJ isn't "5 feet" tall.

George Jones: Choices (1999)

Pro-Hamas Demonstrators Hold Rally In NYC's Times Square

The protesters aren't "pro-Palestinian," they're "pro-Hamas"---the terrorist organization that just murdered over 1000 Israeli babies and grandmothers and teens for no reason. And now, academics and students worldwide, including in the US, are marching because the Israelis are, justly, striking back.

 

Seeing all of the massive pro-Hamas rallies on US college campuses and in Times Square today made me wonder:  Where are all of the Jewish people in the US? Why aren't you out there countering the explicit Hamas call for the utter obliteration of the Jewish state? Jewish people in the US are normally quite liberal and expressive of their opinions---that is, in the context of calm times and opinion pieces in left-wing media. But when the chips are down, and your socialist kids are at socialist colleges that are now agreeing with the radical Hamas/Marxist claim for the destruction of Israel---why the fuck aren't you all out there on the streets countering the Muslim Marxists? Is it that you formerly agreed with them---until they came for you? And now you're not quite sure what to do re your previous abstract beliefs in the face of nasty reality? Talk to some Jews circa WWII; or some Jews who lived through the Yom Kippur war. Let 'em school you on the reality of actual anti-Semitism. 

 

The danger isn't the random yokel in small-town Alabama. The danger lies in the very heart of the urban centers and academia that you thought you were so safe in. Little did you know that, post-WWII, with its liberal immigration policy that let you in, the US would also, a few years later, also be letting in radical Muslim immigrants that hated you. What are you going to do about the overt Muslim hate today? What did you do about the similar hate from Germans when you lived in that country in the middle of the last century? When the overt discrimination started there, most middle-class Jews assumed they were "assimilated enough" and didn't do anything. Similarly, I didn't see many Jewish people countering the overtly anti-Israel pro-terrorist street rallies in cities and college campuses all over the world---too assimilated into academia to protest when academia has gone awry?

 

For god's sake: Stand up for yourselves! History is repeating itself right in front of your eyes---don't let it happen again! You are absolutely NOT "safe" just because you've cloaked yourself in the popular Marxism of the left-wing state that you're currently living in. Not when the US has allowed as many radical Muslims as Jews into the country.

 

Learn from the actual Israelis, who have made a country and lives for themselves based on hard-core principles and history: The land was Judea long before any Muslim conquered it in the 1400s. Stop being self-hating Jews; stop being post-2016 Marxist apologists; start standing up again for rationality and sanity. And when you see those radical Marxists in the streets calling for the annihilation of Israel... FIGHT THEM.

Scary?

At my last job (4 years ago), I had a 3 x 2 ft small poster of this face on my office wall. A female co-worker registered a complaint with HR against me/it because she didn't like the poster and could see it whenever she walked past my office---he looked like a "mean drunk" and that bothered her whenever she passed.

 

I'm sure that George Jones was, indeed, a mean drunk. But my picture of him in my office was certainly not a tribute to "mean drunks" but rather to the man and his music. (Plus I just liked how his face looked. And I can have whatever pictures I want up in my own office. Oh, and I'm not responsible for your own specific childhood traumas.)

Her utterly idiotic complaint came to nothing, thankfully. But those were the kind of ludicrous office ladies I used to work around. On the positive side: I worked around geologists, and when I told one of them about the stupid complaint, he joked: "His face is a monument to geologic striations..."

 

George Jones: Still Doin' Time (1981)

Shaun Cassidy: "That's Rock N Roll" Live Grammy Awards (1977)

Aw, who cares if the world is burning. My 12-year-old heart was burning for Shaun in 1977, even before ever seeing his ass-shaking or knowing that "ass-shaking" was a thing that my kid-self was supposed to think was sexual instead of just plain cute.

Iranians Demonstrate In Support Of Hamas Attack On Israel

Palestine: Country or not?

The territory has been disputed and fought over for centuries. It started out as a Jewish territory. It was conquered by Muslims. Then re-conquered by Jews. Then re-conquered by Muslims. Then taken over by Brits and divided between Jews and Arabs. Then re-conquered by Israel.

So it seems that it belongs to whoever conquered it last. As per the history of the whole world.

There's not some sort of "moral" right to the land by Muslims, because the territory was first Jewish.

Basic history from Wikipedia:

As the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region of Palestine has a tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the Bronze Age, it was inhabited by the Canaanites; the Iron Age saw the emergence of Israel and Judah, two related kingdoms inhabited by the Israelites. It has since come under the sway of various empires, including the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Revolts by the region's Jews against Hellenistic rule brought a brief period of regional independence under the Hasmonean dynasty, which ended with its gradual incorporation into the Roman Empire (later the Byzantine Empire). In the 7th century, Palestine was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate, ending Byzantine rule in the region; Rashidun rule was succeeded by the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Fatimid Caliphate. Following the collapse of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been established through the Crusades, the population of Palestine became predominantly Muslim. In the 13th century, it became part of the Mamluk Sultanate, and after 1516, part of the Ottoman Empire. During World War I, it was captured by the United Kingdom as part of the Sinai and Palestine campaign. Between 1919 and 1922, the League of Nations created the Mandate for Palestine, which directed the region to be under British administration as Mandatory Palestine. Tensions between Jews and Arabs escalated into the 1947–1949 Palestine war, which ended with the territory of the former British Mandate divided between Israel vis-à-vis Jordan (in the West Bank) and Egypt (in the Gaza Strip); later developments in the Arab–Israeli conflict culminated in Israel's seizure of both territories, which has been among the core issues of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.^[3][4][5]

BBC's biased left-wing coverage of Hamas attack on Israel

Nothing on YouTube showed the extremely biased BBC commentary, which I've been watching this afternoon and evening and which featured primarily pro-Palestinian academics and reporters who basically blamed Israel and "the far-right-wing" (BBC's words) Netanyahu for the attack on Israel generating from the Gaza Strip by the terrorist group Hamas. Israel vows immediate retaliation, rightly so. In fact, I very much look forward to it.

Of course, this stirs up all sorts of dilemmas for the US Democrats. Ha! They're torn between old-school Israel supporters like Biden and Chuck Schumer, and Marxists like AOC, et al., who support Palestine wholeheartedly. US Jews have always been long-time Dem supporters---Will they be so now, given the radical wing of the party's support for Hamas?

Whatever your view on the whole situation: The BBC, when I was growing up in the '70s and '80s, used to be known as an unbiased source. Today, it's completely left-wing, completely biased. When I first heard about the Hamas attack today, I turned to both the BBC and CNN out of habit---in years past, I'd known them to give the facts about foreign news (ONLY about foreign news---both are blatantly left-wing biased about domestic news)... CNN this time was balanced. The BBC was utterly NOT; at least 75% of their coverage and reporters said that Israel and Netanyahu must have done something to deserve the attack. Disgusting.

Basic info from the Wikipedia entry for "Gaza Strip":

Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire before it was occupied by the United Kingdom (1918–1948), Egypt (1948–1967), and then Israel, which in 1993 granted the Palestinian Authority in Gaza limited self-governance through the Oslo Accords. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been de facto governed by Hamas, which claims to represent the State of Palestine and the Palestinian people.

George Jones: You've Still Got a Place In My Heart (1984)

George Jones: "One Woman Man"

George Jones: No Show Jones (Live)

2024 Calendar

For about a decade after I left NYC in 2010, I continued to buy "Historic New York City" calendars each year, in admiration of a beautiful/bold city and, I suppose, in hopes that I'd one day be back there... Last year was the first year post-2010 that I didn't get a NYC calendar. Primarily because the city's been run to dirt by incompetent Marxists de Blasio (2014 - 2021) and Adams (2022 to present). I'm sure NYC will make a comeback, but not with the current sloppy, left-wing, DEI leadership.

Prior to 2007, I'd usually had Van Gogh or Klimt or "vintage advertising" calendars. Because I was so cool (ahem).

In 2023, post-NYC infatuation, I bought two (stupidly, because of a calendars.com sale only if you spent over $30): "Art Nouveau" and "Celestial." The Art Nouveau was boring, and the Celestial I never even opened.

In the past week, I've been trying to figure out what to get that mirrored my current mind-set. In recent years, it was usually dumbly clear: "OMG, I love New York!" Prior to that, I was trying to reveal my "oh-so-artsy soul" with Van Gogh and Klimt. (They remain my favorite artists, but... at some point, everyone, including myself, has seen the same 20 prints over and over again---didn't need to see them in my kitchen for the next year.)

Days of searching on Amazon: Black Cat 1, Black Cat 2, Artsy Black Cats, Cats and Books, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Victorian Art, Waterhouse, Vintage Advertising, etc. etc. etc.

After looking at various cat calendars, I kind of got sick of cats! I have 5 of my own who are constantly in my face---and I didn't really need to see a cutesy "Cats Yelling" for the next 12 months! And, as beautiful as my own black cat Mini is, I also did not want to look at black cats all year. Similarly, "Waterhouse Girls" get old after two or three months, Deco/Nouveau get similarly old, as do all of the absinthe and kitchen ads.

An attempted search for "Byzantine icons" garnered only Russian-language calendars. My "Catholic saints" search was a bit too Catholic for this non-Catholic interested primarily in the beauty of the Saints and not exactly when you could or could not eat fish (seriously, there are guidances back to age 7).

In my subsequent search for "metaphysical," found only a Celtic calendar and Rumi calendar, both with modern artwork that was close to, but not quite, really spiritual.

I finally went with the Rumi (1207 - 1273). This is how I hope my upcoming year will go. Not looking at shallow city scenes or shallow 100-year-old advertising, but rather thinking about things (despite the not-so-great artwork). Says Rumi:

I died to the mineral state and became a plant,
I died to the vegetal state and reached animality,
I died to the animal state and became a man,
Then what should I fear? I have never become less from dying.
At the next charge (forward) I will die to human nature,
So that I may lift up my head and wings and soar among the angels,
And I must also jump from the river of The Angel,
Everything perishes except His Face...
I will become that which cannot come into the imagination,
Then I will become non-existent; non-existence says to me like an organ,
Truly, to Him is our return.