New Clothes During Wuhan

I haven't had to go into an office since March of this year. Which is good as far as saving money on buying office clothes. But... I get bored with putting on the same T-shirts every day, the only difference being the color. Today I splurged on Joan/George/Plath at an online T-shirt place, just to have a "change of mood" when I put on my work-at-home T-shirt for the day. (Though, good lord, what kind of "mood" might each of these put me in?)

George Jones: Where Grass Won't Grow

George Jones: I Just Don't Give a Damn

George Jones: Stand on My Own Two Knees

The Hideous Cardi B: September cover of "Elle"

I dunno---up until 2016 or so, the covers of "Elle" weren't drag-queen/Barbie-doll inspired. There's nothing interesting about this woman's face, except to the gay man working for "Elle" who was simultaneously "woke" and interested in the carving up of an actual female's face.
THIS cut-up, botoxed face is the representative of a stylish American woman?

Ronald Reagan on Anarchists, et al.

"You who are adults have a responsibility..."

My review banned from Yelp: And here's why.

 Just received this e-mail from Yelp:

We're reaching out to let you know that our moderators removed your review of [name of Austin hair salon].

We typically remove reviews that describe individuals or situations with objectionable terms that go beyond simply reviewing a customer experience with a business. We ask that reviewers avoid commentary that reinforces negative cultural stereotypes, makes light of physical or sexual violence, or otherwise includes unnecessarily graphic or offensive descriptions.

In this case, we felt that your content crossed that line, even if you didn't intend it to. Please be aware that any further content you post that violates our guidelines in this manner may be subject to removal without notification.

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

Here's the full text of my review of the hair salon last month:

Flagged Content:

Thanks to [name of stylist] for both a very good haircut and a good overall experience.

Post-Wuhan, my old salon closed, and I had to find a new place---in this case, [name of salon], a salon I'd gone to regularly a few years ago, with a different stylist.

Because of Wuhan, I had to call from the parking lot, keep my mask on, etc. But that wasn't really a problem. I still got a nice shampoo with a relaxing scalp massage.

My stylist, [name of stylist], whom I'd never been to before, was great. She fixed an old bob that had gone stale, and very much improved it. She listened to my hair problems and fixed them very nicely! I appreciate her attentiveness and skills and pleasant personality. I'll definitely be back.

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

Let's see. What exactly about my above review "described individuals or situations with objectionable terms," what "reinforced negative cultural stereotypes," what "made light of sexual or physical violence," and what was "unnecessarily graphic or offensive"?

Ohhhh... The use of the word "Wuhan" to describe the Wuhan virus.

Silly Love Songs - Paul McCartney & Wings (1976)

Paul's as punk as the idiot Darby Crash.

The Germs: Lexicon Devil

Taking a break from the sane Thomas Hardy to read "Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and The Germs"

Quote from Spengler from "The Decline of Western Civilization":
Fate is who one is, where one is born, in which year, in which nation, in which class, with which body and soul, with which character traits. The tragedy of the individual lies in the conflict between these internal and external circumstances. His manner of dealing with them marks his rank, whether proud, craven, common, great, law unto himself, lawless.

I agree.

Longhorns Sing "The Eyes of Texas"

Texas Longhorns Fight Song (F-you BLM and Marxists)

Blacks and white Marxists have been trying to ban the Texas Fight Song from UT games.
The song was played Saturday night before the game. F-you, BLM and Marxists.
And don't be surprised if this is being played in Texas years from now, a la "La Marseillaise" in "Casablanca."

From "The Life of Thomas Hardy"

1888 (January 24):

I find that my politics really are neither Tory nor Radical. I may be called an Intrinsicalist. I am against privilege derived from accident of any kind, and am therefore equally opposed to aristocratic privilege and democratic privilege. (By the latter I mean the arrogant assumption that the only labour is hand-labour---a worse arrogance than that of the aristocrat,---the taxing of the worthy to help those masses of the population who will not help themselves when they might, etc.) Opportunity should be equal for all, but those who will not avail themselves of it should be cared for merely --- not be a burden to, nor the rulers over, those who do avail themselves thereof.


1888 (September 10):

Destitution sometimes reaches the point of grandeur in its pathetic grimness: e.g., as shown in the statement of the lodging-house keeper in the Whitechapel [Jack the Ripper] murder:

"He had seen her in the lodging-house as late as half-past one o'clock or two that morning. He knew her as an unfortunate, and that she generally frequented Stratford for a living. He asked her for her lodging-money, when she said, 'I have not got it. I am weak and ill, and have been in the infirmary.' He told her that she knew the rules, whereupon she went out to get some money." (Times report)

O richest City in the world! "She knew the rules."


1889 (January 9):

To the City. Omnibus horses, Ludgate Hill. The greasy state of the streets caused constant slipping. The poor creatures struggled and struggled but could not start the omnibus. A man next to me said: "It must take all heart and hope out of them! I shall get out." He did; but the whole remaining selfish twenty-five of us sat on. The horses despairingly got us up the hill at last. I ought to have taken off my hat to him and said: "Sir, though I was not stirred by your humane impulse I will profit by your good example"; and have followed him. I should like to know that man; but we shall never meet again!


1889 (April 7):

A woeful fact---that the human race is too extremely developed for its corporal conditions, the nerves being evolved to an activity abnormal in such an environment. Even the higher animals are in excess in this respect. It may be questioned if Nature, or what we call Nature, so far back as when she crossed the line from invertebrates to vertebrates, did not exceed her mission. This planet does not supply the materials for happiness to higher existences. Other planets may, though one can hardly see how.


1891 (April 28):

Next day -- wet -- at the British Museum: Crowds parading and gaily traipsing round the mummies, thinking today is for ever, and the girls casting sly glances at young men across the swathed dust of Mycerinus. They pass with flippant comments the illuminated MSS---the labor of years---and stand under Rameses the Great, joking. Democratic government may be justice to man, but it will probably merge in proletarian, and when these people are our masters it will lead to more of this contempt, and possibly be the utter ruin of art and literature...

BLACK SABBATH - "Paranoid" (1970)

The 50 years between 1970 and 2020 are kinda the same. (Ozzy doesn't seem that outrageous.)
Now...Think about how society changed in the 50 years between 1920 and 1970.

I voted for Trump in 2016, and will vote for him again in 2020...

 ...and so have been called a "racist," a "deplorable," etc.

All of the CNN/Twitter name-calling made me think back to my history of voting since I came of age:

1984: Dem Primary: Gary Hart. General: Walter Mondale.

1988: Mike Dukakis.

1992: Bill Clinton.

1996: Ross Perot.

2000: Repub Primary: John McCain. General: Al Gore.

2004: John Kerry.

2008: Dem Primary: Hillary Clinton. General: John McCain

2012: Barack Obama.

2016: Donald Trump. [I got "woke" this year.]

Elvis Presley - Suspicious Minds Live in Las Vegas (1970)

Elvis: That's the Way It Is (1970 excerpt)

"If you're not happy, what have you got." -- Elvis Presley

The Beatles - Paperback Writer (1966)

Thomas Hardy: The Dead Man Walking (1909)

Before you read the poem itself: I can't find the quote from a particular bio, but Hardy once told an acquaintance that he found it somehow soothing to walk around in the world as if he had already died and left it. That way, he didn't mourn anything---because he was already, in his mind, gone. I never tried THAT mental trick! Anyway, here's his poem on the subject, though not as subtle a concept as what he initially told his friend.

The Dead Man Walking

They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death…

A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;

And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.

And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,

Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.

An example of a "quadrille"

Thomas Hardy Bemoans the New Waltzing Fad

From "The Life of Thomas Hardy" (ostensibly by his second wife---but agreed-upon by scholars that the text was probably written by Hardy himself; published immediately after his death in 1928).

 RE life in 1860s London, where Hardy was working as a young architectural intern:

Balls were constant at Willis's Rooms, earlier Almack's, and in 1862 Hardy danced at these rooms, or at Almack's as he preferred to call the place, realizing its historic character. He used to recount that in those old days, the pretty Lancers and Caledonians were still footed there to the original charming tunes, which brought out the beauty of the figures as no later tunes did, and every movement was a correct quadrille step and gesture. For those dances had not at that date degenerated to a waltzing step, to be followed by galloping romps to uproarious pieces.

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

Imagine a time when "newfangled" waltzes were considered "degenerate." 

Reading the above reminded me of how far we, as a society, have fallen. Absolutely NO form whatsoever remains. Acting exactly how you want---while insanely, ignorantly claiming that what you're doing is somehow the best that humanity has ever had to offer. (Note to Millennials and post-Millennials: You happen to be the worst that I've seen in my lifetime. You begin all sentences with "So..." You have Valley Girl speech patterns without a Frank Zappa to correct you. You don't have a single thought that hasn't been vetted by Twitter "likes." You claim to be "anti-fascist" yet engage in mob violence and mob group-think/speak---the ultimate in hypocrisy. You're a collective mess. And, worse, a SELF-RIGHTEOUS collective mess.)

Intellectually, I have no problem with your concept of "act exactly how you want" if that's what you choose to do in private---However, you've got to acknowledge that there are, or should be, repercussions for your decadent and/or violent or irrational life choices. No one else, especially the rest of society/the government should EVER have to participate in your own demise. Or, in more aggressive cases, allow your own disgust with yourself to spew out in various violent forms into the rest of the world you live in.

The government should NEVER participate in enabling you (that's up to your mommy/daddy and/or spouse) as it has been for the past 50 years. Examples: Cities giving drug addicts clean needles. Cities allowing drug addicts to camp out on their streets. Left-wing mayors allowing violent protests on their streets (for 96 days in a row, in Portland's case) and (insanely) not allowing police to arrest the perpetrators. The government paying for abortions. The government giving welfare payments to support able-bodied people. People allowed to enter the country illegally. Universities asking students to use ridiculous gender pronouns like "xe" and "xem." The media and Democrat legislators claiming that violent black criminals are "oppressed" by police.

And that is EXACTLY what the left-wing Democrat party is currently engaged in supporting, and what the current US media is supporting. I protest against this descent into a psychotic, irrational hell that Orwell predicted over 70 years ago. The northeastern Left once decried said Hell but is now fully engaged in supporting it. And the degeneracy has now somehow become the public norm. WHAT HAPPENED TO US?

RNC speech: Nicholas Sandmann

This is the kid from Covington HS who was attacked by, first, left-wing protesters, and then the national media.

"I Am Free": Alice Johnson Thanks President Trump

George Jones: She's Mine

Tammy Wynette and Sting (1994)

George Jones: The Grand Tour (1974)

The Kinks: Come Dancing (1983)

They put a parking lot on a piece of land
Where the supermarket used to stand
Before that, they put up a bowling alley
On the site that used to be the local palais
That's where the big bands used to come and play
My sister went there on a Saturday

Come dancing
All her boyfriends used to come and call
Why not come dancing?
It's only natural

Another Saturday, another date
She would be ready, but she'd always make him wait
In the hallway, in anticipation
He didn't know the night would end up in frustration
He'd end up blowing all his wages for the week
All for a cuddle and a peck on the cheek

Come dancing 

That's how they did it when I was just a kid

And when they said come dancing

My sister always did

My sister should have come in at midnight
And my mom would always sit up and wait
It always ended up in a big row
When my sister used to get home late

Out of my window I could see them in the moonlight
Two silhouettes saying good nights by the garden gate

What are you doing out there?
Come on! Are you gonna be out there all night?

The day they knocked down the palais
My sister stood and cried
The day they knocked down the palais
Part of my childhood died, just died

Now I'm grown up and playing in a band
And there's a car park where the palais used to stand
My sister's married, and she lives on an estate
Her daughters go out, now it's her turn to wait
She knows they get away with things she never could
But if I asked her, I wonder if she would

Come dancing
Come on, sister, have yourself a ball
Don't be afraid to come dancing
It's only natural

Come dancing
Just like the palais on a Saturday
And all her friends would come dancing
While the big bands used to play

The Kinks - Autumn Almanac (1967)

PBS says "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" (1968) is "great."

I say: "A day late and a dollar short."

The album title itself is so blatantly "Sgt Pepper"-ish. Except released a year later. As are the songs that I've heard tonight. Like "Lucy in the Sky" and "Penny Lane" except much more mediocre. Like the Stones "Their Satanic Majesties Request"---everyone suddenly trying to be all "psychedelic" after "Sgt. Pepper." And failing miserably (well, except for the Stones' "She's a Rainbow").

Letter to My Mother

I was saddened/touched by the image of Daddy as a boy picking cotton on a small, hard-scrabble lot in East Texas. Throughout my life, I've always identified more with being German than with being "East Texan." The European side always seemed more interesting and intellectual. Since 2016, though, my distrust of the media and academia has grown 100-fold. (Although I was first given a hint of this creepy left-wing judgment during my time getting my Master's degree in the '90s in San Francisco, when I was belittled for both being German and being from the South. My intellect and skill at writing poems didn't matter---I was mocked by professors for being from the South and for my German heritage. A left-wing sickness/prejudice I thought I'd never see again once I left the town---but that's exactly what is going on today nationally---white shaming. I refuse to be either German- or Southern-shamed.)

Also interesting: In the past, I've often related to certain things only from the viewpoint of celebrities I've admired. For instance, Tammy Wynette, born in 1942 in Mississippi, also, like Daddy, grew up in a home without indoor plumbing, and she also had to pick cotton as a child (once she got rich and famous, she always kept a bowl of cotton in her home---as a reminder of how far she'd come and how miserable she'd been picking cotton!). And also for instance: I knew that Sylvia Plath had attended the "Ban the Bomb" march in 1960 in London (and I knew, from reading, personal details like: Plath was pissed off that husband Ted Hughes had gone off to the march with male friends, without her---and she then stubbornly went to the march by herself with her newborn baby in its carriage.) But you only recently told me that YOU were at that same march!

History is becoming real, via my own parents.

Something to Be

Just learned tonight from my uncle that my dad and his 3 brothers picked cotton on their itinerant father's 50-acre East Texas farm to support the family in the 1940s.

I have roots. I'm truly a poor-white southerner, which is something to be. (Seriously---previously: "My mom's German." That was my main identity.)

from "Far from the Madding Crowd" (Thomas Hardy, 1874)

"George" is Farmer Oak's primary sheep-herding dog. "George's son" is the young nameless sheep-herding trainee who, in his excitement at chasing sheep, runs most of the sheep over a cliff and thus destroys Oak's livelihood.

George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day --- another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.

Reel America Preview: LBJ's 1964 Acceptance Speech

I love C-Span, which has recently been showing convention speeches from both parties since 1952. Here's LBJ from 1964. His ideas sound so helpful and nice! But in reality, this was the ideological turning point from America as a country of independent citizens to welfare-state citizens.

Landmark Laws of the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration (lbjlibrary.org)

-----1963-----

College Facilities

Clean Air

Vocational Education

Indian Vocational Training

Manpower Training

-----1964-----

Inter-American Development Bank

Kennedy Cultural Center

Tax Reduction

Presidential Transition

Federal Airport Aid

Farm Program

Chamizal Convention

Pesticide Controls

International Development

Association

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Campobello International Park

Urban Mass Transit

Water Resources Research

Federal Highway

Civil Service Pay Raise

War on Poverty

Criminal Justice

Truth-in-Securities

Medicine Bow National Forest

Ozark Scenic Riverway

Administrative Conference

Fort Bowie Historic Site

Food Stamp

Housing Act

Interest Equalization

Wilderness Areas

Nurse Training

Revenues for Recreation

Fire Island National Seashore

Library Services

Federal Employee Health Benefits

-----1965-----

Medicare

Aid to Education

Higher Education

Four Year Farm Program

Department of Housing and Urban

Development

Housing Act

Social Security Increase

Deaf-Blind Center

College Work Study

Rail Strike Settlement

Voting Rights

Fair Immigration Law

Older Americans

Heart, Cancer, Stroke Program

Law Enforcement Assistance

National Crime Commission

Drug Controls

Mental Health Facilities

Health Professions

Medical Libraries

Vocational Rehabilitation

Anti-Poverty Program

Arts and Humanities Foundation

Aid to Appalachia

Highway Beauty

Clean Air

Water Pollution Control

High Speed Transit

Manpower Training

Presidential Disability

Child Health

Regional Development

Aid to Small Businesses

Weather-Predicting Services

Military Pay Increase

GI Life Insurance

Community Health Services

Water Resources Council

Water Desalting

Assateague National Seashore

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area

Juvenile Delinquency Control

Arms Control

Strengthening U.N. Charter

International Coffee Agreement

Retirement for Public Servants

-----1966-----

Food for India

Child Nutrition

Department of Transportation

Truth in Packaging

Model Cities

Rent Supplements

Teachers Corps

Asian Development Bank

Clean Rivers

Aid-to-Handicapped Children

Redwoods Park

Flaming Gorge Recreation Area

Food for Freedom

Child Safety

Narcotics Rehabilitation

Traffic Safety

Highway Safety

Mine Safety

International Education

Bail Reform

Tire Safety

New GI Bill

Minimum Wage Increase

Urban Mass Transit

Civil Procedure Reform

Federal Highway Aid

Military Medicare

Public Health Reorganization

Cape Lookout Seashore

Water Research

Guadalupe National Park

Revolutionary War Bicentennial

Fish-Wildlife Preservation

Water for Peace

Anti-Inflation Program

Scientific Knowledge Exchange

Cultural Materials Exchange

Foreign Investors Tax

Parcel Post Reform

Civil Service Pay Raise

Stockpile Sales

Participation Certificates

Protection for Savings

Flexible Interest Rates

Freedom of Information

-----1967-----

Education Professions

Education Act

Air Pollution Control

Partnership for Health

Social Security Increases

Age Discrimination

Wholesome Meat

Flammable Fabrics

Urban Research

Public Broadcasting

Outer Space Treaty

Modern D.C. Government

Vietnam Veterans Benefits

Federal Judicial Center

Civilian-Postal Workers Pay

Summer Youth Programs

-----1968-----

Fair Housing

Indian Bill of Rights

Safe Streets

Wholesome Poultry

Food for Peace

Commodity Exchange Rules

U.S. Grain Standards

School Breakfasts

Bank Protection

Defense Production

Corporate Takeovers

Export Program

Gold Cover Removal

Truth-in-Lending

Aircraft Noise Abatement

Auto Insurance Study

New Narcotics Bureau

Gas Pipeline Safety

Fire Safety

Sea Grant Colleges

D.C. School Board

Tax Surcharge

Better Housing

International Monetary Reform

International Grains Treaty

Oil Revenues for Recreation

Virgin Islands Elections

San Rafael Wilderness

San Gabriel Wilderness

Fair Federal Juries

Candidate Protection

Juvenile Delinquency Prevention

Guaranteed Student Loans

D.C. Visitors Center

FHA-VA Interest Rate Program

Health Manpower

Eisenhower College

Gun Controls

Aid-to-Handicapped Children

Redwoods Park

Flaming Gorge Recreation Area

Biscayne Park

Heart, Cancer, and Stroke Programs

Hazardous Radiation Protection

Colorado River Reclamation

Scenic Rivers

Scenic Trails

National Water Commission

Federal Magistrates

Vocational Education

Veterans Pension Increases

North Cascades Park

International Coffee Agreement

Intergovernmental Manpower

Dangerous Drugs Control

Military Justice Code

Personally, I love my books and my cats...

...but I'm a personal blogger, not a newscaster. It's irritating as hell to see nearly every single presenter on TV during Wuhan in front of their home bookshelf. Rather than listening to what they have to say, I'm of course checking out their books and decorations. Can't wait for the virus to pass and the old-fashioned studio backdrops to come back. I'm also bored to death with hearing the dogs bark in the background and hearing newscasters' constant comments on their dogs. If I've turned on your station, I'm there for news or weather: I don't particularly care about dogs, and I absolutely do not care about YOUR dogs! (Same with your kids, although, thankfully, most TV people have yet to parade their noises before the cameras.)

 

So far, I'm most surprised, and annoyed, by seeing that PBS's "resident intellectual" David Brooks has "decorative books" rather than real books on his background shelves at home----I couldn't find a photo to share, but I just saw him on PBS at home with his shelves, and he spoke in front of series of books that had no writing on their spines but were, rather, blank and color-coordinated: white and blue and red, etc. I thought only stereotypical middle-class bourgeois did that (i.e., buying books by the yard or color)! Oh wait: PBS...

 

Billie Eilish - bad guy

Billie Eilish endorsed Joe Biden last night. Linking of the mediocre and decrepit.

"The Voice" (Thomas Hardy)

Written December 1912, in honor of his newly dead first wife whom he'd ignored for decades. Prior to this, I'd thought Ted Hughes's "Birthday Letters" was the ultimate in dead-wife tributes... 

 

Hardy and Hughes are the only two poets who have ever made me cry.

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

Saying that now you are not as you were

When you had changed from the one who was all to me,

But as at first, when our day was fair. 

Can it be you I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to the town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?

 

Thus I; faltering forward

Leaves around me falling,

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,

And the woman calling.

Dancing around fallen Christopher Columbus statue

Here's what black radicals want. Me, I don't want this. In the whole history of the world, no ideas by anarchists (especially from third-world countries, or from immigrants to first-world countries) have ever turned out right. Always a violent, chaotic mess. NO THANK YOU. Leave it to the professionals.

Portland, Oregon: August 16, 2020

Debt-Free!!!

As of today: No student loan debt, no car loan, no credit card payments. I NOW OWE NOTHING!

(Well, I DO owe a HUGE thanks to my mother for paying off my student loan and thus changing the rest of my life! Thanks, Mom!)

The Godfather: I and II

AMC's been showing Godfather I/II/III all weekend. Watched I and II for the twentieth-or-so times. (III I feel strongly is godawful and should actually be deleted from cinema records forever.)

Something so powerful about a great movie---gives you strength as a viewer; if you happen to be an artist, strength as an artist. (Similarly: Something so shitty about a shitty movie. Leaves you with nothing.)

Al Pacino has also been so godawful in recent years with his embarrassing hair plugs and over-acting that I was relieved to re-visit him in his nascent "still" acting glory.

 

Wow! A Meet-Up with Co-Workers!

Friday, my boss at my new job (since April) invited all of us to an outdoor Happy Hour at a local bar. 

#1: It was very nice to meet people that I'd only been editing for (and never seeing) for the past 4 months. I'd met my boss and one tech-guy back in April, but that was all.

#2: In the 5-and-a-half years that I worked at my old job (2014 to 2019), we had a yearly catered Christmas dinner at work, but other than that, none of us ever met outside of work to socialize. There was one lunch that one scientist invited a few of us to after we'd finished working on his report. Which was really nice of him. Other than that: I edited a damn 400-page book during my time there---at the end of a VERY long slog: nothing. 

I'm not extremely social, but I do very much appreciate a send-off for work well done. My last job: The boss always tried to present herself as "laid back." She was indeed "laid back"---in the sense that she never oversaw the work. And if someone like me mentioned that work wasn't getting done, she'd blow me off as a "trouble-maker." But still... You'd think someone like that would at least be more attuned to celebrating the final result of a major project... Nope. Nothing.

Also: In my 5 years from 2014 to 2019 at the old job, I had multiple personal conversations during the day with various co-workers. But never a lunch with anyone. That was extremely weird to me. My previous long-term job was at a publishing company, from 1998 to 2006 (before I moved to NYC): At that place, I constantly had lunches with co-workers, and our bosses took us to multiple group lunches (and special events like bowling and movies during the day).

So after over 5 years of NOTHING, plus the few months after Wuhan started in mid-March: I'm VERY grateful for my current boss's efforts to help socialize the work-team. I had a good time Friday. It was nice to get out of the house and meet people, and drink and talk with them. It turned out well. It made me feel like I was SANE again: Yes, people at work go out after work and talk! (Just not at the 2014 to 2019 sick place that I was at.)

Saturday Night - Bay City Rollers

Bay City Rollers: It's a Game & Rock'n Roll Love Letter

Bay City Rollers - Summerlove Sensation • TopPop

Bay City Rollers - Bye Bye Baby 1975

I'd have kicked some of those sums-bitches who had their backs to me in their too-cool heads. THAT would have made for some great TV.

NYC, 2008 (age 43)

 

The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever

While my cat's dying and I'm not drinking...

 ...it's amazing how much you can get done when not drinking and not waking up with a hangover. For example, my mother had, years ago, offered to pay off my student loans. At the time, I was mad at her and thinking "I don't need your help." But since then, we've reconciled, and I realized that I would be paying $500 per month for student loans until the very end of my life. $500 per month! During my week-long sobriety, I did the research and contacted the Student Loan people and made the arrangements for my mother to pay the loan off, as she'd offered.

In more minor news: Friday I packaged/mailed a couple of purchased eBay items off, returned a couple of items, returned a Chico's shirt...

Solomon's dying

Solomon (Mini) has been vomiting up bile and not eating for a week now, since a week ago Friday, when I heard the most gut-wrenching yowls come out of her mouth before she threw up for the first time. Since then: more throwing up (foamy bile), secreting herself next to porcelain toilets and tubs with her face turned to the wall (where she never, ever used to sit and where I've seen other dying cats sit). Although in the last couple of days, she's come out to the living room area and again jumped up on the couch with me, and hung out with the other cats, though just sitting there and not playing. And I still haven't seen her eat anything for the past week.

When my cat Gracie died on April 15, 2009, she had been sick since January of that year. Didn't know what was wrong with her, but I didn't have any money to fix it, and she just deteriorated. On the night that she died, I was drunk and arguing with Sandra on the phone. Gracie was at my feet asking for attention, but I was too busy drinking and arguing. I went to bed drunk. When I woke up the next morning, Gracie was stiff and dead, stretched out on the kitchen rug.

After last Friday, seeing Solomon throw up so horribly, I drank on Saturday, as usual. Woke up Sunday feeling godawful, as usual. I expected to see Solomon dead, but she was still living. I made a calm decision to not drink at all until I either saw her eat something or she died. I didn't want to repeat the night of Gracie's death, when I was too wrapped up in my own BS to pay any attention to her in her last moments.

I haven't had a drink for 6 days. Which is my longest streak ever since... the 1990s? I usually drink every OTHER day, but have never gone 6 days sans any drink for a couple of decades.

Today, Saturday, Solomon is still not eating properly. For the past couple of days, I've placed numerous types of food before her: people-chicken, people-tuna, special cat food-packets, etc. She licks at some of these, but still doesn't eat. She's skin-and-bones when I stroke her. I don't know how she's surviving.

George Jones: I've Always Been Lucky with You

George Jones - The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)

Just finished "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" by Hardy

In the past couple of months have read "Jude the Obscure" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge" and now "Tess." Hardy is a beautiful, sincere, interestingly didactic, and rather cinematic writer, although, in the case of "Tess," not always the most emotionally realistic. (I liked "Tess" the least of the three novels of his that I've read so far.)

Here's an excerpt that I noted from "Tess" (1892):

She was expressing in her own native phrases --- assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training --- feelings which might almost have been called those of her age --- the ache of modernism. The perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition --- a more accurate expression, by words in 'logy' and 'ism,' of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries.

Nostalgic: But...Might the "old times" have actually been better?

I grew up NOT around ANY movie theaters or cafes. But I had read about such things. And when I got to Austin in 1983 to go to college (UT-Austin), I was thrilled to see them all around me.

Thinking back, there were FOUR movie theaters within a half-mile radius of the University of Texas campus that showed alternative or classic films: At Jester Center (where I first saw "The Graduate"), at Dobie Mall (where I saw "Frances" for the second time), at the Union, and at The Varsity on the Drag. Not one of these theaters exists any more.

As for cafes: In the '80s, you could drink and smoke and write at the Union (or at the Cactus Cafe, situated within the Union), or at Les Amis, a couple of blocks away from the campus. Les Amis is long gone, and you can no longer smoke at the Union or Cactus Cafe (you also can't drink at the former, although the latter does still serve alcohol).

Part of what attracted me to UT-Austin as a teen was things like movie theaters and cafes. I wanted to be a part of that "cafe lifestyle," which to me meant sitting at a table for hours pouring over poetry and writing my own and getting tipsy and having intense conversations with fellow students and strangers.

And the bands: At the Union, at the Cactus, at Liberty Lunch, at Black Cat. That lasted from the '80s through the early '90s. Nothing like this exists any more in Austin. My teen fantasy once existed, but now it's gone. I've got nowhere to drink or write or stroll to a movie or see a band.

Am I depressed because I'm in my 50s or because the city has become generically shitty?

Just got a letter from the IRS...

...I now owe them a grand total of... $49.67!!!!!!!

My NYC years from 2007 to 2010 were in-house freelance, and I racked up a huge total of IRS tax debt. Which continued when I got back to Austin in 2010 and I still didn't have a regular job and was working freelance for the next 4 years. Luckily, from 2015 through 2019, I had regular income and was paying too many taxes, so at the end of each year, the refund I would have gotten was applied by the IRS to the "lost years."

And now it's all paid off! (I think I can come up with the $49.67.)

And I now have no car debt (I bought my car myself in 2016 and made all payments until this April---when my mom offered to make the last two payments). And my generous mother has offered to pay off my outstanding student loans...

I'm about to be debt-free! Am I about to enter my "Golden Years"?? (As in: You don't look so good any more, but you can afford much better haircuts and clothing and furniture, and perhaps a condo. Oh, and more-expensive cable.)

Paul McCartney: Live and Let Die (1973)

Shirley Bassey: Goldfinger (1964)

Grocery-Store Eye-Hate

I go to buy my groceries, and a carton of cigs (Marlboro Gold), every 2 weeks.

Today (Saturday), I was in line and asked for the carton, and the checkout girl asked me to go with her to the cigarette wall to show her exactly what I wanted. They didn't have a carton of Marlboro Gold, but they did have 10 individual packs, so I asked if I could get 10 packs for the carton price, which is always slightly lower. She said that yes, I could.

When the checkout girl and I got back to the checkout line, she started to ring up each pack individually. I then said that I thought I could get the carton price, even if cartons weren't available.

At this point, a tall, thin gray-haired man behind me in line made a loud comment about why I was arguing about the individual pack prices since I could see I wasn't getting a carton...

ME: "We just went and looked for a carton. There wasn't a carton. I asked if I could get 10 packs for a carton-price. THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" And then I had to throw in something that I'd heard on TV: "You need to CHECK YOURSELF!" He did then shut up.

But why would he think that he could confront me in any way? I myself get irritated with people in check-out lines, but I certainly never say anything to them. What about me made this guy think it was OK to say anything at all? I'm glad that I yelled at him in return.

By his uber-impatience, I guessed that he was not from Austin---citizens known for being too laid back. I wish I had thrown out: "Go back to Silicon Valley," but I wasn't sure of his origins.

I did, though, note that his eyes above his Wuhan-mask were full of hate. As were mine, I'm sure.

The Second Elegy (Rilke, 1923)

Translated by Stephen Mitchell


Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas,
I invoke you, almost deadly birds of the soul,
knowing about you. Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of you, veiling his radiance, stood at the front door,
slightly disguised for the journey, no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars
took even one step down toward us: our own heart, beating
higher and higher, would beat us to death. Who are you?

Early successes, Creation's pampered favorites,
mountain-ranges, peaks growing red in the dawn
of all Beginning, -- pollen of the flowering godhead,
joints of pure light, corridors, stairways, thrones,
space formed from essence, shields made of ecstasy, storms
of emotion whirled into rapture, and suddenly, alone,
mirrors: which scoop up the beauty that has streamed from their face
and gather it back, into themselves, entire.

But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate; we
breathe ourselves out and away; from moment to moment
our emotion grows fainter, like a perfume. Though someone may tell us:
"Yes, you've entered my bloodstream, the room, the whole springtime
is filled with you..." -- what does it matter? he can't contain us,
we vanish inside him and around him. And those who are beautiful,
oh who can retain them? Appearance ceaselessly rises
in their face, and is gone. Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours floats into the air, like steam from a dish
of hot food. O smile, where are you going? O upturned glance:
new warm receding wave on the sea of the heart...
alas, but that is what we are. Does the infinite space
we dissolve into, taste of us then? Do the angels really
reabsorb only the radiance that streamed out from themselves, or
sometimes, as if by an oversight, is there a trace
of our essence in it as well? Are we mixed in with their
features even as slightly as that vague look
in the faces of pregnant women? They do not notice it
(how could they notice) in their swirling return to themselves.

Lovers, if they knew how, might utter strange, marvelous
words in the night air. For it seems that everything
hides us. Look: trees do exist; the houses
that we live in still stand. We alone
fly past all things, as fugitive as the wind.
And all things conspires to keep silent about us, half
out of shame perhaps, half as unutterable hope.

Lovers, gratified in each other, I am asking you
about us. You hold each other. Where is your proof?
Look, sometimes I find that my hands have come aware
of each other, or that my time-worn face
shelters itself inside them. That gives me a slight
sensation. But who would dare to exist, just for that?
You, though, who in the other's passion
grow until, overwhelmed, he begs you:
"No more..."; you who beneath his hands
swell with abundance, like autumn grapes;
you who may disappear because the other has wholly
emerged: I am asking you about us. I know,
you touch so blissfully because the caress preserves,
because the place you so tenderly cover
does not vanish; because underneath it
you feel pure duration. So you promise eternity, almost,
from the embrace. And yet, when you have survived
the terror of the first glances, the longing at the window,
and the first walk together, once only, through the garden:
lovers, are you the same? When you lift yourselves up
to each other's mouth and your lips join, drink against drink:
oh how strangely each drinker seeps away from his action.

Weren't you astonished by the caution of human gestures
on Attic gravestones? wasn't love and departure
placed so gently on shoulders that it seemed to be made
of a different substance than in our world? Remember the hands,
how weightlessly they rest, though there is power in the torsos.
These self-mastered figures know: "We can go this far,
this is ours, to touch one another this lightly; the gods
can press down harder upon us. But this is the gods' affair."

If only we too could discover a pure, contained,
human place, our own strip of fruit-bearing soil
between river and rock. For our own heart always exceeds us,
as theirs did. And we can no longer follow it, gazing
into images that soothe it or into the godlike bodies
where, measured more greatly, it achieves a greater repose.

I Am Too Alone in the World (Rilke, 1897)

(Translated by Anne-Marie Kidder)

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
    enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
    enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

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

(Translated by Robert Bly)

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.

I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your old and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother,
like a ship that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

Sailing to Byzantium (Yeats, 1926)

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

The Second Coming (Yeats, 1919)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Special Needs

Earlier this week, a "loud family" moved in 2 doors down from me. A mom, and at least 3 young girls that I saw, from ages 6 to 8 or 9: blonde buster-brown hair-cut, brunette buster-brown, long red hair.

On our row of apartments, we each have a small backyard, and the mom had set up some kind of bouncing ride for the kids in hers. I first noticed the new move-ins on Monday when shrieks started coming from their backyard. At that time only exaggerated "shrieks of delight" from the kids playing on the "ride." Mildly annoying but, hey, at least they weren't RIGHT next door to me.

The day after that, Tuesday, I heard an ear-piercing, prolonged scream like someone was being murdered---I ran out back to see what the hell was going on. One of the girls had apparently fallen off the ride and wouldn't let it go. I first shouted: "WHAT IS WRONG??!!" And then once I saw just a couple of kids and no one murdering them, I shouted: "WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING??!!" Then the mother rushed out of the apartment and started comforting the screaming kid.

Wednesday, around 4 in the afternoon, my cats that were lying by the back sliding-glass door, looking out, suddenly started to growl and then ran away. I looked up from my computer to see what they were freaked out about, and saw somebody moving right outside the door. I initially thought it was an apartment landscaper or something (they come into the yard to cut the grass and trim bushes), but when I got closer to the door, I saw that it was an 8-year-old-or-so girl---trying to OPEN my sliding-glass door!

I ran over and unlocked the door and opened it to confront her: "What are you doing in my backyard?" She looked at me and then RAN TOWARD ME and the open door! I slammed it shut, and she backed off and stood there staring at me. Then I opened the door again, and she again ran toward me, trying to get inside my apartment! I had to slam the door shut again, and again we stared at each other through the glass. And then finally I opened the door and ran at her, shouting, "Get out of my yard!" This time she jumped over the fence and ran off.

While I was staring after her in amazement, my next-door neighbor was out in his yard and told me that she had just walked into HIS apartment and started playing his organ! And when he chased her out, she immediately jumped HIS fence and then jumped into MY yard... He said that his roommate had just gone over to knock on the front door of the mother's apartment to tell her what had just happened, but there was no answer. (Yes, it was one of the girls who had just moved in next-door to them and who had been screaming out in their backyard.)

I immediately called the apartment manager and told him about the weird kid who had just tried to walk into my apartment. He confirmed that, yes, a new family had just moved in. And that one of the children was "special needs." I said that I was definitely aware that the kid had a problem, but that "special needs" didn't mean trying to enter my apartment---even if it was just an 8-year-old kid, it was aggressive and creepy and weird-as-shit! The apartment manager said he'd talk to her mom.

Today, Thursday, nothing else happened. But I'm definitely creeped out. No more opening the back screen door early-mornings or evenings to get some fresh air in, that's for sure.

I'd always thought that "special needs" meant "slow" or "retarded." Mild-mannered people that we were, of course, supposed to be nice to. But I have never in my life had a child trying to force her way into my apartment, even when I was standing there telling her to get lost! Really freaking disturbing.

Usually some obnoxious kid running around is just that---obnoxious. Riding his bike past my window too many times, etc. But then there's the Sandy Hook autistic kid, et al. Who the hell knows what "special needs" means today. Just keep your "special needs" kid the hell away from my back door.

Working from Home

Me and Saint Kanye.

 

George Jones: Cup of Loneliness ("Mad Men" soundtrack)

Paul McCartney: London Town (1978)

Paul McCartney: My Brave Face (1989)

Paul McCartney: No More Lonely Nights (1984)

Paul McCartney: Beautiful Night (1997)

Bye-bye, Selfie Girl!

I live in a nice apartment with a small backyard. Unfortunately, a two-story row of other apartments looks over my backyard, so I rarely go out there (except to feed stray cats and water the four plants I have), primarily because of one particular person.

For the past year or so, a 20-something woman has lived in one of the apartments overlooking my yard. Before Wuhan, she would have friends over and they'd hang out by her front door, smoking, and she herself came out front whenever she'd want to smoke. (I once saw her mother and grandmother come over for a visit, which is why I assume she never smoked inside.)

Post-Wuhan (mid-March), this girl started sitting outside of her front door ALL THE TIME. I could not  even open the blinds of my back sliding-glass door because THERE SHE WAS, looking down into my apartment.

She never sat outside with a book. Nah. She always had her smart-phone in her hand, and she was always posing for selfies. No, not looking down at the phone as if she were looking for information, but... holding up the phone to POSE FOR SELFIES, constantly. Day after day after day. (Didn't her Internet friends get bored with same "front-door selfie shot"??)

A couple of months ago, I went outside and saw her yet again sitting there. I finally said -- fake jovially: "You're STILL out here!" Her: "Yeah, Covid."  Me: "Yeah, it gets boring being at home all the time." (When in reality, I wanted to say: "GO AWAY! STOP STARING DOWN AT ME!")

Anyway... Today I woke up to movers taking the Selfie-Girl's stuff away! Thank god! Yes, I know that any new neighbors could be worse. But, for the time being, I can now open my back-door blinds and go into my yard without seeing a slacker Millennial sitting on her ass and posing for pictures and staring down into my apartment 12 hours a day.

What a relief this is! Seriously, I have not been able to open my back-door blinds, and now I can! I feel very happy!

Journey - Faithfully (1982)

Officially, I hate Journey after Jonathan Cain joined in 1980.
However, I'll make an exception for this great 1982 Cain song! : ) 
"I get the joy of rediscovering you..."

George Jones: Come Home To Me (1991)

Lyin' here thinkin' and a half-empty bed
Blamin' myself for the things that I said
Hoping that you can forget and forgive
My life without you ain't no way to live.

Come home to me, come home to me
It just won't be right till you do
Come home to me, come home to me
I can't take one more night all alone
Come on home.

Baby, you left a hurtin' only your love can heal
And I understand now how I made you feel
Well, my life without you would just fall apart
Right from the body of my lonely heart.

Come home to me, come home to me
It just won't be right till you do
Come home to me, come home to me
I can't take one more night all alone
Baby, come on home.

The moon through the window
Is my shade of blue
As I'm holding your pillow
Longin' for you, baby.

Come home to me, come home to me
It just won't be right till you do
Come home to me, come home to me
I can't take one more night all alone
Come on home.

Come on home

Tavern Choir: George Jones and Jim Lauderdale (1988)

Sting - Russians (1985)

In 1985, artists were more intelligent and thoughtful.
Post-2016, I have not heard any artist but Kanye West express an original political opinion.

A house without a black cat named Moonie...

...is just a house full of gray cats running around. Seriously. I have 5 cats, 4 of them gray of some sort, and having one black cat in the family anchors them all, especially since she was the runt of the litter, and is the most affectionate while not being "heavy" (Pete!), and the most weird and subtly interesting (though when she was a kitten, she was the last to be litter-trained and thus the first that I was planning on giving away to a shelter).

Tuesday,  the best sound in the world to me was the sound of kibble crunching...and the sight of Solomon Grundy munching on it. And the sight of Newly eating part of a leaf off a palmish plant (and then finding poop with that big strand of leaf in it). And hearing a growling sound, to find Nolomon protecting one of her favorite rainbow-colored balls from brother Pete, then seeing that all 4 of the collected rainbow balls had been scattered around the living room.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday... All I saw was clear vomit across the floor, with a few chunks in it. I thought my baby was dying, and that I'd have to contact a vet to get her cremated, just like I had to do with Gracie back in New Jersey in 2009 (though it took Gracie 3 months to die).

And I also thought of something I'd thought so cavalierly back when I finally decided to keep all 3 kittens in May 2019 (and then #5 Cinco in December 2019): "Well, with so many cats, one or two might die, and it really won't affect me." Well, the thought of Solomon dying really did affect me. And also made me think of people living 100 years ago who had numerous kids and were mentally prepared to see one or more go at a young age...but sometimes the one that went was a favorite, and it messed them up psychologically (for instance, George Jones told of a favorite sister who died young---driving his previously hard-working father to drink and violence).

Not that Solomon's death would have affected me as deeply as the death of a child, but... I know that her death would have at least cast a pall over my everyday doings. (As did Gracie's death in 2009: I felt cursed for a long time. And did not have another cat until Mama Hennessy found me in 2019 and had her kittens in my neighbor's backyard.)

And, this is terrible, but I also thought about which of my five cats I would miss the most:

(1) Solomon (adore)
(2) Mama Hennessy (love; a feral cat I'd been feeding outside since July 2018; she'd sit on my fence with the wind blowing her hair, and jump up on my leg sans claws whenever I'd come out to feed her; her three kittens born in neighbor's yard in April 2019)
(3) Peter-Pat (love; Pete is so affectionate and sweet and downright BIG and hearty and handsome and fun to play with---he and Solomon/Moonie, and sometimes Mama, are my primary playmates)
(4) Sasha-Susie (like; I pet her every day, and she loves to roll over to have her belly petted, but she's usually stand-offish. I respect her lady-like behavior and give her her space)
(5) Cinco (like; she still won't let me pet her, after 6 months in my house!)

I survived another 4th o' July!

I can't claim to speak for all singletons living in apartment complexes during the 4th of July and New Year's Eve, but for me, these two days of the year have been both sad and angst-ridden for the past 20 or so years.

I had a couple of good July 4s during this time: when I lived in NYC and/or Weehawken, especially in the year that the city moved the fireworks display from the East River over to the Hudson River---a one-minute walk from my apartment to the Hudson to watch the magnificent display!

But usually it's been me just hunkering down at home, not invited anywhere, just bracing myself for whatever fireworks my loud, young neighbors would be exploding in the streets or parking lots adjacent to where I lived.

One of the worst times was 2017 in my current apartment complex, when a group of constantly loud and ill-behaving neighbors set off fireworks by the pool, right in the middle of where we all lived. (Luckily, other people complained and this group was kicked out soon after.) Another particularly bad year was in the early 2000s, when I was renting a house in East Austin: After hours of explosions from a neighbor's yard, I finally had to go over around 3am and outright lie: "My baby is sleeping. Can you please finish up soon?" (No, I've never had a baby!)

This year: Heard a few ongoing muffled explosions from 9:30pm to 2:30am, but nothing aggressively close/within the complex itself.

Happy about this year's low-key fireworks. But also sad, as usual. I wish that "4th of July" for me meant cookouts with family and/or friends. And that "New Year's Eve" meant, also, time with family and/or friends. Nah. Just hunkering down and bracing for the worst. Then being grateful when "the worst" doesn't happen.

I fear my Moonie is dying

Thursday I woke up with my black Solomon Grundy cat (aka "Mini," "Moonie," "Nolomon Newly") sitting sluggish and catatonic by the water bowls. She moved around to various spots during the day, but never acknowledged me, though I stroked her. She had something white hanging around her mouth; and she threw up at least 3 times that I saw, a couple of times with small clumps of gray matter in mainly clear liquid. I couldn't tell what the "gray matter" was.

Friday, same thing.

Saturday, she finally jumped up on me while I was lying on the couch, and went to sleep on me and let me stroke her and sing her song ("Solomon Grundy / Met you on a Saturday / It was a rainy day..."). During the day, I tried putting food dishes right in front of her, and tried adding some tuna treats to her dish (while keeping the others away). She still didn't eat.

Today, Sunday, I saw her drink water. But not eat. And she's skin-and-bones. But she is affectionate with me, and she is now, finally, again acting interested in what the other cats are doing. A good sign. (And she just now jumped up in my lap as I'm typing.)

But you've got to eat, my Moons. Don't be that lamb in the Ted Hughes poem that just didn't want to live!

Top Hat (1935)

A couple of nights ago, I turned on one of my favorite cable stations, TCM. 1935's "Top Hat" (with Astaire/Rogers) was about to show. Host Ben Mankiewicz had to add his smarmy, irrelevant, Social-Justice-Warrior 2020 two cents: "How could they be so frivolous in the middle of the Great Depression?" Shut up, already. We're not Soviet Russia, creating only grim, strait-laced propaganda films. Gawd, I hate left-wing fascists trying to tell us how to think and trying to tell artists what is or is not "appropriate" to create.

King Of The Road (Julie London: 1965)