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| From a few weeks ago ... |
I was reminded of something by all this, now that things have semi-calmed down. Back some fifteen years (or so) ago, our system safety guy sent me an email after a particularly insane bout of corporate madness. (What is it about working at the corporate level that makes normal humans spout insane jargon and act like they have even the smallest clue about what happens in the day to day workings of a company? Don't answer, that was rhetorical.)
"What's up? I'm just sitting on the edge of my foxhole, cleaning my rifle and waiting for the next round of bullshit to commence."
He was a Marine in a past life, the right age to have seen time in Vietnam but he didn't talk about it. (Those who talk about such things tend to have amazing imaginations.) A good man and good at his job. Tag something in the system as having possible safety related issues and he was on it like a bulldog.
He knew how to put things in perspective, something I sometimes forget.
Felt particularly down on Friday and Saturday, so Saturday night I watched Saving Private Ryan. Took me back in time to when we, as Americans, did good things. We still do, even though our so-called leaders continue to let us down in damned near every way possible.
Sorry Joe, you idiot bastard, but you do indeed work for us. So do the rest of the Congresscritters and assorted knuckleheads who seem to gravitate to sucking at the government teat. Ah, but there I go, being all negative again.
Negative waves Moriarty, we don't need 'em.
Anyhoo, I'm gonna go with Chant du Départ Lite for the next few days. Not stopping work on the book, just pausing it. When the news sounds too much like what you're writing about, it gets weird.
Expect some music too. This one is a favorite, written for Taylor Hawkins, who nearly died from an overdose, by Dave Grohl. It reminds me that I've had chunks of my soul ripped away over the past year, but I'm still here, I'm on the mend.
Thank you all for being here.
I am OK with your taking some mental health time off. I will patiently wait.
ReplyDelete👍
DeleteIf you're really looking for something to get weird about, the clocks just changed. Personally, I don't mind it & with so much being computer controlled these days there is not much that actually needs to be changed so life just goes on.
ReplyDeleteBut... sitting here at 0754 things don't really feel like it's 8am...just another day for me.
Have the best day you can!
Ah yes, DST. Awakened at 0730, check that 0830. Apparently Anya had been tipped off to the time change so she ignored my protests that it was "too early."
Delete(Don McCollor)...I find it helps to reset the clocks sometime Saturday, so that I am somewhat acclimated (resigned) to the new schedule before going to bed...
DeleteI go for the cold-bucket-of-water-in-the-face-Sunday-morning method. BOOM! Like jumping into cold water.
DeleteWhat sometimes works for me in terms of music is the guys remaking Viking era music, like Danheim and Wardruna. Even more out there is Heilung, they look to create Prechristiam European music, eerie and moving at the same time. I don't know many people who get it, but it works for me.
ReplyDeleteListening to Wardruna right now, heavy. Feels very Norse!
DeleteMinus one yesterday morning here while minus 25 up on the Iron Range, this morning 23 above and by mid-week maybe 50F? It appears things can change if you're patient. Watched two tremendous high school hockey games yesterday, big schools went into two overtimes. Spring break is coming up Sarge, partake......:)
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's quite a temperature swing. Snowed here last night, an inch or two hard to tell as the gale-force winds were shifting it around wildly.
DeleteA wild night.
Understand about things seeming "too much like" the period you're writing about,Sarge. Music can indeed be soothing. I'm very partial to Mark Knopfler myself but classical really can take me elsewhere. Been playing CD's of Tchaikowski (Violin concerto #1) and Rimsky-Korsakov (Sheherazade) as well as digging into other more eclectic stuff on the shelves like the soundtrack to "How The West Was Won'".
ReplyDeleteWe ALL gotta hang in there...
Boat Guy
Movie themes from the epics are the sound track to my childhood. I hear those start up and I'm laying on the rug in the living room with the Zenith console turned up, just soaking in the sound.... While the swamp cooler is thrumming in the background....
DeleteBG - Though my son is a huge fan of classical music, at best I can listen for just a few minutes. I don't have the patience to really sit and listen to it.
DeleteWe all are faced with an uncertain future, we are led by idiots who just know that thjey are "right." Frankly, they haven't got a clue, not one.
STxAR - I really liked the soundtrack from Zulu, the Zulu war songs sent shivers down my spine.
DeleteSometimes it is necessary to "turn off" the distractions and get back to self. Each of us has a different approach. For me, in this colder weather, I retreat to my shop and just spend time introspecting; reflecting on what I truly "have".
ReplyDeletePeace, bro.
Good advice!
DeleteSarge, at least for my self, I often find that some of biggest mental and spiritual challenges come when I am alone (e.g. The Ravishing Mrs. TB is away) and thus my usual routine is disrupted. For me at least, there are something about being isolated on not my own terms that does something to my spirit and my mind.
ReplyDeleteI have a coworker that is having an ongoing bout with cancer. She was diagnosed two years ago and so has had all the pleasure of cancer treatments AND catching The Plague AND managing to do her job. Whenever you speak with her she is always cheery and ready to go for the next thing.
I wish I could have that kind of life perspective all the time.
As to the writing during events which seem to mirror real fact - I am re-reading Victor Davis Hansen's A War Like No Other about the The Peloponnesian War. In his introduction he reminds the reader that Thucydides was exiled from Athens and probably spent half his life away from his native city. Depending on when he starting his work, he may have been reliving old battles even as the War itself was winding down - or if not and writing after 404 B.C., he still would have been writing as the unsettledness of the Greek world was still leading to battles and unrest. Sadly perhaps, this is always the human condition.
War is horrid, if we ever figure out our fascination with it, then we will have truly evolved.
Delete
ReplyDeleteThe Sperg Box
in the beckoning twilight I find the darkness
lax and lazy, complacent, satisfied
loose it reigns, a careless abandon
and I laugh, I laugh and cry
how I found God in a khlysti sermon
so soft and weak, so pale like moonlight
dough between my fingers
a pampered darkness scarcely bleak
gone and away the weight from my chest
the laughing, cawing turns to me
I see myself in me
every vein a hissing snake roaring
shrieking backwards up Yggdrasil’s spine
where there the stellar serpent lies
Nidhogg, swallower of all
keeper of all that dies
sweet dragon of my brood
and there I feel between my hands
there i feel the neck that hollers
pleading, bleeding into me
but i can squeeze now
fingers writhe and palpate
tender embrace of hate
gentle as the silent dawn
killing night with kindness
no more enthralled
the darkness held underneath my knees
Veldig mørkt, veldig interessant.
DeleteWe all have our times and seasons. I've found the anniversary of particularly hard times ring again every year. Even if I don't remember them. So, I start to feel a bit blue around August, when mom passed. It's been that was for thirty years now. April is hard, too, as that was the time I was abandoned and left for dead.
ReplyDeleteI've found it helpful to "overwrite" the time with a totally different and enjoyable activity. There can be no "clean load" of memories, but this really helps me stop the cycle. Not sure if that is what you are experiencing, but if it helps... no charge.
I plan to find some scotch to lift this year.... I'm late to the remembrance.
My morale tends to fluctuate with the seasons. Just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
DeleteI'll volunteer something upon which you might be interested to noodle... When was the last time we had competent and functioning leadership and what changed since then to leave us with INcompetent and NON-functioning leadership since then? That question might have been an interesting Lex post asking us to "talk amongst ourselves"...
ReplyDeletePart of me wants to say "George Washington." An interesting topic, to be sure.
DeleteWhen life sucks, I find it relaxing to listen to "Oltremare" by Ludovico Einaudi. I particularly like the change around the 2:20 mark...
ReplyDeleteHang in there. God is great.
- Barry
He is indeed!
DeleteCorporate b.s. My part time gig involves using a tablet with their program. As a Latter Day Luddite I can barely function with anything digital. Yesterday a completely new password system was introduced. Coping with that is a hour of my life gone. I'm sure the smart folks spent hours "improving" something that already was working just fine.
ReplyDeleteI have a neighbor, a former police officer shot and severely disabled in the line of duty severely years ago. He is now coping with learning how to use a powered wheelchair. Seeing him makes me realize how fortunate I've been with my risk taking life.
Good to hear you are in a better place.
Nothing like someone at corporate identifying a "problem," then fixing it. It seems to be a never-ending game to justify their existence.
DeleteWSF - "Latter Day Luddite". If this is an actual group, I may very well be a charter member.
DeleteHahaha!
DeleteHey Old AFSarge;
ReplyDeleteit has been a strange few couple of weeks and now you having Iran lob a bunch of missiles at the U.S. Consulate in Iraq while we are in "Talks" with them to get us back with them with the nuclear program that somehow we are excluded from with the Russians involved from what I have heard.....*Saywhat? It is like the incompetents are running things in D.C. I can understand the funk, it is like we are in Bazarro land and the clowns are running the place. We will get past the funk, we will get our equilibrium back.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/multiple-rockets-fall-erbil-northern-iraq-state-media-2022-03-12/
The incompetents are definitely "running" things. More like ruining things.
DeleteThere must be a school where people are taught "change is progress"; it's just not the way the actual world works. Change ie change, progress is progress, there is no cause and effect relationship there. Happenstance can have one follow the other; that is not cause and effect. It seems to me the usually precedent of progress is hard work -- which can be noticed as change.
ReplyDeleteMusic. So much great music is available. I'm indulging myself with the YouTube "Checkers, 1-16" which is young Josh Gorgin and Idina Menzel in a concert performance of ABBA's Chess at the Royal Albert Hall.
The music keeps us going.
DeleteHey Sarge--
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I wanna join the Latter Day Luddite group too please...
Secondly, I hear ya about the total, complete, idiotic BS I see/hear spewing on the airwaves. I maintain that if it was anyone else, our dear leader would be deemed an abuse case as his obvious dementia is so completely pronounced that the folks surrounding him would be brought up on charges. And to prove my point, all anyone has to do is to pull up a you-tube or news clip from say 20 years ago and listen to him speak then and listen to him speak now. COMPLETELY different mental processes.
However, we got the government someone voted for, so we have to live with the cards we were dealt.
I do take some slight comfort in the fact that at least I am not the only one feeling completely like a continuous face-palm when I see/hear exactly what is reported on the current WH occupant.
I have learned 2 things over the past year about the political situation in this country of ours...first, it is true, anyone can become president...anyone.
And, secondly, the media has much more influence over the country then I had ever realized.
I would hope that a majority of America has learned those 2 items, and make future decisions accordingly...but maybe I am too hopeful.
Anyway, I enjoyed your musical selections, never heard either of those, or the ones from yesterday. I was into country back when those songs were recorded, but my tastes have changed a bit as I have gotten older. For instance, I now listen to Foo Fighters on occasion.
Sending a hug, and remember, we will be here when you can get here.
Ah, LDL, I'd join but I'm too tech-savvy, even if the tech is a little older than what "the kids" use these days. (I'm a terrible texter and don't go in for the short burst Instagram/Twitter thing. Too shallow for my tastes.)
DeleteI'm going to keep posting, just going light on the fiction for a while, which takes beaucoup thought and lots of time.
I'm glad you're giving the Foo Fighters a listen!
Well if you like Wardruna, try the cut Aurora and Wardruna Helvegan and Faun with EinarSelvik (from Wardruna) Odin. This way down the rabbit hole Alice.
ReplyDeleteNice!
DeleteI'm watching Guy's Grocery Games reruns. One of the contestants was an intriguing young lady, Emilie Rose Bishop. Not only a pretty decent cook, but also a jazz singer.One of her pieces
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reverbnation.com/emilierosebishop
That should open up to "Two Sleepy People"
Nice!
DeleteSeemed as if you needed something light.
Delete😊
Delete