Crumbs, Disguised as Courses

As a Moment of Truth approaches with this Vermont position-in-awaiting (I've really done my best for this one), there is only jetsam to report, with each unit of flotsam having floated off into the night like so much flotsam in the night.

Some puzzling components, that I'll update as the day progresses:


* Desmond and Ivor have continued to listen to Christmas music, like it's just sort of always there. (This, I suppose, is what happens when you give youngsters Christmas music for Christmas.) Neither Molly nor I have any problem with this, especially because some of it is drawn from the inestimable stockpile of Motown's holiday-greetings performances (both originals and renditions). But then I got to thinking of something that's rather awful. The Jackson 5ive have a number of holiday songs on the collection--among the more irritating of the bunch, it is certain--and then I realized,Wait a second! The whole Jackson family were effing Jehovah's Witnesses!

Don't even try to tell me that that's not the most thoughtlessly sinister thing to do: to get ALL (or most, at least) of your kids, NONE of whom are permitted (by religious order of YOUR OWN imposition) to celebrate any holiday (for any occasion), and have them perform a damn song about the mystery, magic, and mythology of what is arguably the most child-centered holiday of the lot.
Damn, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson! That is cold.


* Typing (not speaking) of cruelty, I'll provide another story. But this one begins with a lengthy expository digression.

In my pre-teen days. I didn't watch much television (aside from the Weather Channel), but my still-supple memory retained everything that I encountered. I'd occasionally catch the Comedy Channel, back before Ha! network began and subsequently merged with them to form Comedy Central. I enjoyed it the most that some of their programming was not even slightly funny. A lot of it was old, too--they'd broadcast spots from something called the Laff-Off from 1979 like it was new (featuring a then-obscure Jerry Seinfeld), shows by Carol Leifer (Leifer Madness), Rachel Sweet (The Sweet Life), and Rosie O'Donnell (Stand-up Spotlight).

Anyway, they had this newsything (I forget the name) that was co-hosted by (a then-obscure) Jon Stewart. (Really, I'd look it up, but Wikipedia is so frequently incorrect that it would be appropriate to accuse them of attempting to re-define reality.) In any case, I distinctly remember a segment in which the FDA testing of an aphrodisiac was underway. I never heard of it again in this context, but its name was Wellbutrin (with the accent on the first styllable rather than the second). Even though the drug resurfaced as an antidepressant, that's neither here nor there. What's fascinating is where they tested it.

In space! With astronauts! It was only then that I realized the pinnacle of human cruelty--giving an aphrodisiac to a person in a spacesuit. Oh my god. Just imagine being that person. You wouldn't even remember why you were suffering. And that's far, far removed from anti-depressing.



* Whenever I have an MRI (Magnetic Resource Imaging) test to assess the structural (but not artistic, thank goodness) integrity of my nervous system, they shut me in a tube, and I have to hear loud, graceless machine noises at relatively unpredictable intervals. This is standard. An aspect of this that I find especially weird, aside from being ordered not to swallow for 10 minutes at a time (which SUCKS),  is that the proctor/administrator/technician offers to play music as I lie there in that tiny tube. I always ask for Billy Joel, so that I can imagine the MRI machine noises as being either an auditioning musician or somebody in the backing band losing his or her composure. It's very satisfying.

ten days later

it's silly to begin this post which is itself begun after a lengthy hiatus during which much has happened and after which I attempted to compose a sentence that is laden with as many prepositional clauses as possible, notwithstanding my lassitude at counting them in spite of myself.

so, this is what's that. i went to vermont this week, and not just because i have hearts in my eyes for it; i also had a job interview there. this is not uncommon news, but what is common news is that it felt like a serious success! i am very, very hopeful.

because i'm basically ramshackle with sneeziness and allergency at the moment, i'd better go, but there is more that will happen on here, however eventually.

please have loveliness and adventure.

testing taxing trying

Hooray?

I think that this might actually work, here with Blogger's new compatibility whateverness and such. The erstwhile lack thereof is prompting me to test. (five minutes, maybe six minutes, later) And the preliminary results appear to be satisfactory.

HOORAY!

Then there is the business of getting thoughts together. An entirely different kettle of fish, as it were. Which reminds me that my lunch (a twice-baked potato) looks completely inedible, like a still-life painting or those surreal faded-technicolor photos stationed above the backlit menu boards at take-away Asian restaurants. I've begun to eat it, and it tastes edible, but who knows? It could be power of suggestion, as I was paying for food when I purchased it.

I'm still in Vermont, having been felled yestereventide by an utterly lusterless sinus malady that precludes my tasting this twice-baked potato. It hasn't surpassed 10 degrees outside since I got here; yet, I love it. Anyway, I'm going back to Maine in the morning, brightly and earlily. Tonight, however, I'm going to learn how to leverage my once-flawless memory to my advantage by counting cards.

I've never been able to, in my words to often-unsuspecting people, "flush the toilet of my mind." For most of my life, or at least a majority of it, I've been gifted/cursed with near-total recall. Because humans are so fond of, and given to, forgetting when it serves the interest at hand, my memory has been, and become, nettlesome--by turns unruly at functions (like an unstable auntie) and unforgiving to the owner of the skull that houses the brain that stores the information. It's torture, in its way.

When I was 3 years old, I did something that my parents wouldn't have liked (e.g., speaking in a snotty tone of voice) if they'd been nearby (which they weren't). Because I did not want to be in a position of deceiving them, I decided to give myself amnesia so that I wouldn't remember having committed any infraction. I rode my tricycle down the knoll in our townhouse's backyard and pointed myself directly at a pine tree that, if memory serves, was quite imposing in stature.

Anyway, I sustained cuts on my knees, and I attempted to deploy that unsatisfying ruse ever again (as of this writing, anyway).

I'm not trying to distract anyone, though, and we were talking about counting cards, and I think that
this could be really easy:

Benb: Is that a deck of cards?
Bystander: Yes.
Benb: There are fifty-two of them, if I
Bystanders (for, by now, a crowd has gathered): How did you do that?
Benb: I'm tired of living this way.
Bystander (for, by now, the crowd has dispersed) Me too.
And
What a confusing rigmarole. I will post the results on this very blog.

I can breathe only through my mouth; doing so gives me the "slow, chic" look that automatically renders me exempt from average human expectation. It's much easier that way, but I don't know if the first half of this very sentence was or is true.

I miss Molly and Desy and Ivor waaaaaaaay bad.

[UPDATE: The card-counting mission fell through, but will doubtless commence with my next Vermont soljourn.]