It’s Friday, in case you didn’t already know, and since I am not scheduled to work tomorrow, it’s actually the last day of the workweek for me. Oh frabjous day*.
I didn’t write a post yesterday, because I was out sick. I think that some dip that I used had been in the fridge longer than I had remembered and had gone bad or summat, though it tasted okay. Anyway, it certainly didn’t want to stay down after a while, so that was unpleasant. I was worried that I might have caught some upper GI virus, but it was too self-limited an illness for that.
I feel as though I get sick on Thursdays more often than on other days, and especially on ones after a week in which I worked on Saturday. I’m not sure if this is true pattern recognition on my part or some form of selection bias, but it feels as though it’s at least a slight trend. I would suspect‒if it’s something real‒that it’s related to me getting worn down mentally (and physically) and becoming vulnerable to random physical insults after having had a longer week and no real recharge time.
This didn’t happen to me in the past, but then again, I was younger then**, and my reserves were deeper. Also, I had a family to come home to, and a safe environment, and friends, and books that I wanted to read. It was also reasonably quiet both at home and at school or work, and what noise there was‒even when it was quite chaotic‒was related to what was happening, what was being done, what the work entailed.
Things now are much different, and I need to find a way to recharge myself more rapidly and reliably, at least if I want to avoid total system collapse. I’m not sure that I do want to avoid that, though. Some part of me occasionally thinks that, at least if I completely fell apart, people would have to notice, and maybe someone would help me.
I doubt it. The world is not set up well for doing very beneficial things, especially to and for people who are odd. And I certainly don’t seem to be the sort of person people like to keep around for very long at a time, not in close personal contact, anyway. They’ll happily‒or willingly, anyway‒keep themselves surrounded by shallow, lazy, manipulative users, as long as they wear at least a façade of warmth and cheerfulness. But if someone approaches things differently, and is too mentally fatigued and fed up to bother trying to pretend otherwise or to force smiles all the time, they withdraw, even if that person works hard and tries hard, and is creative and smart and would never willingly betray them.
This is all hypothetical of course, but it does highlight why I think people‒indeed, the world‒are probably not worth keeping around. Or it’s not worth keeping myself around to be among them.
Case in point: for at least two days now (and it may have happened yesterday, too, for all I know) the Tri-Rail trains going north and south from my station boarded (with last-minute announcements) on opposite sides of the track from the ones they usually arrive on. Now, it can make sense for one of the trains to board on its opposite side from usual; track maintenance needs to be done from time to time. But having the trains switch sides smacks of someone just having screwed up, and then having done so again. It’s not reassuring for passengers, that’s for certain.
Of course, my own reliability is not impressive lately. I haven’t yet started work on HELIOS, though I have the blank notebook in my backpack (and another one remaining at the office). I think, oddly enough, that if I were able to find a way to work on that during the day, I might recharge a bit just from that. Then again, maybe I’m wrong. I’ve only ever really successfully written fiction consistently early in the morning in near-silence.
Well, I haven’t given up on it yet, but I’m not optimistic. I guess I’ll let you all know if I succeed in starting.
I also feel like I want to get the tabs to the Nirvana song All Apologies and learn it, and maybe do a recording of it, but I doubt that’s going to happen. My guitars are just sitting unused. Despite this, they give me no reproach‒guitars are very nonjudgmental that way. They merely sit there, fallow, waiting and gathering dust, as is my keyboard (the musical one) and my cello. It’s a shame, I know. But, as the song’s lyrics say, “I’ll proceed from shame.”***
For now, though, I won’t proceed any further than this final paragraph. I hope you who read this all have a good day and a good Saturday and a good Sunday if you’re at all able to do so. As for everyone else, well, who cares about them? They’re not like us, right? We don’t need them. They are our enemies, and we are theirs. JK…OAI.
*Was anyone else really, really bothered when, in Tim Burton’s movie version of Alice in Wonderland, they referred to Christopher Lee’s character as if its name were “Jabberwocky” when that was just the title of the poem from which it was drawn. The creature’s name, or title, is the Jabberwock. It says so right in the second stanza of the poem: “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!” Yeah, I figured nobody else probably cared.
**Almost by definition.
***I don’t believe that the line is “aqua seafoam shame”, as so many people seem to think. That’s merely a classic mondegreen. I think this largely because the mondegreen version is a weird, abstract, bizarre bit of imagery that doesn’t resemble anything else in the words or tone of the song, whereas “I’ll proceed from shame,” follows quite logically from the preceding “I’ll take all the blame”. Cobain’s lyrics could be cryptic and quasi-nonsensical sometimes, but their tone is more consistent than the whole aqua seafoam thing would be. End rant.

Do you remember where you were when news of Kurt Cobain’s suicide was released? Can you conjure the visceral reaction? Those were heady times for Gen Xers. Rampant romanticization of pain and suffering. It was nice to have a soundtrack such as it was at the time. Think I’ll dig out my Hole CD and turn it up. Why not?
I don’t actually remember specifically–I wasn’t really that aware of Nirvana much at the time, partly because my then-wife didn’t really like such music, but also because I was just crazily busy. I only became aware of Nirvana (and Radiohead, now my 2nd favorite band of all time) in the 2000’s. I knew of Kurt, and of his suicide, of course, and had been impressed by Courtney Love’s acting in “The People Versus Larry Flynt”, and felt saddened that he had killed himself. Only after my own life began falling apart, triggered by chronic pain, did I become aware of a lot of music I had missed, and I was genuinely very impressed by every Nirvana song I heard. Cobain’s melodies, even when simple, are so unique and unexpected and often melancholic but beautiful. I remember that even my mother thought the tune to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was very interesting and nice and different than anything else she’d heard.
That WAS a great movie and Courtney Love was so believable in her role. Interesting you missed Nirvana till later. Means you didn’t fall prey to the cult of personality. Only Kurt Cobain could scream, “Rape me!” and still create a hook.
*Re. Tim Burton’s ‘Alice In Wonderland,’ I don’t think being faithful to the source material was of any real importance to them. Without production design and special effects there’s nothing much to the movie.
Still praying, my friend.
Yeah. But still…it’s a pointless change that added nothing at all.
We never knew about this. Very informative
Thank you.