i'm reposting this stuff with a purpose in mind, but cannot promise that i'll ever end up getting to the point. . .. ... .... ..... .... ... .. . By sarah on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 12:57 pm: top ten reasons why sorabji is better than facebook: 1. no ads. 2. no need for privacy settings or terms of use agreements. 3. i didn't go to high school with any of you fuckers. 4. i can say fuckers. 5. no vain or snarky profile photos. 6. no friend count. 7. no interface changes. ever. 8. nobody ever says "sorabji me!" 9. Satan's Severed Head. 10. fuck you, you ass. By Antigone on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 06:24 pm: 11. I'm shitting really well today. By Daniel on Sunday, June 19, 2011 - 03:44 pm: 12. nonconfrontational setting 13. spiritually challenging --when sober-- participants 14. great recipes -- drunk or sober 15. can spend my days at work this way and accomplish a great deal of world saving adventure 16. pushes me to find that picture of Fire Pond and the poem by same same, the first from Sarah, and the second from the New Yorker 1975 or a little later, about my family barns and home burning in upstate New York ... 17. sorabjiing makes me tingle all over 18. can say whatever the fuck I want without regard to anyone paying attention and no one knocks on my front door that evening 19. off limits to politicians named weiner or bush, palin or mcpain 20. value of sorabjistock not tied to IMF fluctuations

so after i posted my top ten list to the boards, i asked Mark to be my friend on FB over the weekend, and he granted permission. our father, who art in FB, has like 3,300 +/- friends. which means obviously he grants permission to anybody@anywhere.com to be his friend. it's not exclusive. anyway, that's not my point, that was just an observation. my point is that he posted a link to an article in the ny times about how "being in the know" about certain underground things is nearly impossible in the internet age, where information on every possible topic is available within seconds. and the article goes on to explain some of the effects of access to instantaneous information on any and every subject. but what it made me think about it is how, say, like today i need to figure out how to consign some shoes i have. on friday i cleaned out my closet for the first time in like 4 years. and i pulled out over half of the shoes i owned and really, i was just disgusted by how ugly and mostly unworn most of them were. it turns out i have really terrible taste in shoes. the ones i kept are the ones i'm currently wearing that aren't ugly, and those that haven't been worn in a long time but are not ugly but only because in each instance i had a friend help me pick them out. so i'm down to about 8 pair of regularly worn shoes plus: ruby red high heeled strap back sandals. black knee high suede high heeled boots. black knee high punk rock buckle boots. the shoes i wore on my wedding day. red zipper loafers. typically i'd donate them to goodwill, but because i don't have a steady income, i thought it would be better to consign them. now there are a shit ton of consignment shops on the main drag where i live - from clothes to furniture to books to baby stuff - you name it. but i have no idea how consignment works anymore. so, you know. google. howto.com. answers.com. and whatever. i could even just look up the closest clothing consignment shop, call them, and ask. and i would have no need whatsoever to come here and tell you all (and i know you don't care about me consigning my shoes or cleaning out my closet or my lists of stuff, so it's not that) that i need help figuring out how to consign things. but then again, it would give any of you a chance to respond with any particularly interesting consignment stories. or hear about how platypus got the most bitchin pair of prada shoes from eBay or whatnot. but it seems like everyone else here is getting their internet information needs and internet relationship needs met from FB and google. so, i shall continue the top ten list organically. and join me if you like, or ignore me, like you usually do. either way.

Sorabji = home base. I may not post as much, but I check in four days out of the week at least.

Facebook is a dearth of info. This is a community. I've never told *anyone* about Sorabji.

21. You can't just "like" something on Sorabji.

Oddly enough, I *do* have entertaining shoe-relate consignment stories. Like sem, I view sorabji as a home base. I'm very secretive about it (after being burned once) and think of it as my hideyhole, a place with a community. I feel more like a lurker these days...too tired, too stressed, too something to stick some words in a white box. But I do read (listen).

me too. i don't know how to cosign things, I just sell them on trademe.co.nz in fact i wonder if they even do that in nz. the only person who knows about sorabji in my life is the pandyr aka mr grumpy - and he only knows because he promised that if something horrible happened to me or i died he would come and tell you all. i got my passport photo on the weekend. you're not allowed to smile anymore and i had to take off my glasses and put my hair behind my ears so i look really grumpy in it.

nobody in my life knows about sorabji, except senor. and my stalker, who has stopped sending the ridiculous emails for a while now. senor's never been here. he only knows about it (and scrabble) in a vague, intangible way. in the same way he knows anything about my life before we met. he is not at all interested in this place or my participation in it, except when there's a candy exchange. and then to him sorabji is equal to pineapple lumps and exotic chocolate. he LOVED agatha's candy exchange booklet. i think he reviewed that thing daily for several months while sampling candy. i'd bet he's secretly grateful for scrabble though, since he'll only play board games or cards with me under extreme duress.

the few friends I've told about sorabji came and went and none of them understood why I was here, old, gray haired long haired hippy that i am, not a geek and not a computer whiz, and most days not even creative. But I do keep up with Tiggy's bowel habits and SaRAH's kettle balls. It is -- this place -- a closely guarded part of my psychological defenses against the outside world, whether you listern to me/ read me/ or comment. We have become more civilized, with fewer fuck you you ass days.

Trying to shit now, btw.

Got t boned at traffic light today. Not hurt but shook out pretty good. Car's a real tank but greatly damaged. Thank you subaru.

I think I may like this new site. I always enjoyed the old site. I am now working a rotating shift where I work one week of 7 am to 3 pm, then the next week I work 11 pm until 7 am...then the next week from 3 pm until 11 pm. It racks your body, yet you get to do some things you would normaly miss. Note to Daniel...hope you are not hurt....been there done that. Take care John

Yeah, definitely, hope you're ok Daniel! I haven't told anybody about this place either.

Daniel, I am glad that you are doing alright. :-) Just becareful, ok? :-)

I am now driving a new Dodge 3/4 ton fwd gun metal grey 4dr pickup in which I feel not quite as safe as my subaru, and very silly. Waiting for a plane on way to Boston this morning.

I want a new---old car. Carmen Ghia. I had a shot. I have a date. Srsly. I miss, Boston? I miss G, my best friend from grad school. I was on the train during pride. What fucking adorable kids. I miss D, my best friend from college. <3 Sarah.

on facebook, it's ever so easy to be tracked down. not so much here. i got a message today from someone who bought something with one of my old poems in it.... written up to 15 years ago. not sure how i feel about that, but carmen ghias are hot.

ooooh i CAN'T WAIT to hear how the date goes! or more importantly, the days immediately following. the only problem with carmen ghias is that they're VWs. you will go deaf driving one, but yeah, you'll look super hot. today i saw a shiny, leaf-green 1962 Mercedes Benz W112 Coupe in crazy awesome condition. speedy too, musta had the engine totally rebuilt. i can't imagine you could find replacement glass for the rear piece if you needed to for some reason. well, maybe you could on eBay. i can't find shit on eBay. i would do anything to get back my Toyota Paseo. not any. just mine. best gear shift *ever*. however, any future car purchases will be american made.

22. I would feel like a total ass posting something more than 3 sentences long about any topic on facebook.

I won't give fb the satisfaction. Plus, my sister is there and sadly she can't be trusted with the smallest bit of my heart. Yesterday I triggered her evilside. And I had to make a phone call... no I don't want to see you again. And then I had a really great chat--and then someone was WAY TOO aggressive, it's a difficult combination. Dear all and anyone, indications that you want to eat me alive are not flattering, they are terrifying. I've wanted the Carmen Ghia since I was 14. I'll put it on the list after the money to pay for it. That and a home with no cat boxes. Wanna hear about what I triggered in my sister?

well, duh. yes we do. Carmen Ghias are definitely neat cars.

most definitely, do tell. one minute you're throwing mugs on a wheel, the next minute you're throwing mugs at each other?

tease!

I had to divorce my siblings a few years back to end a particularly virulent strain of co-dependency. Now were all civil, but wary. No regrets, tho. I haven't told anyone about this place either, mainly because I don't know how to pronounce it.

Anyone else tried google+ yet?

It's ok. I don't know enough people actually on it for me to judge how it stacks up to facebook, or to see how it's features are better/worse than facebook.

It is a million times awesomer. Just because.

I'm trying it. And remembering why I deleted all my social networking accounts.

I am healthy. I can afford to eat and live indoors. I have a very comfortable bed. I have a lot of amazing friends I can talk to about anything. I am not experiencing a divorce or a breakup or a traumatic event regarding children. Today was a beautiful day.

Hi Heather

Heather is a beautiful human.

Who. The duck is John W?

Cooking Italian sausage fresh from the pig and yellow squash fresh from the dirt. Hot here today but none care. My ARM hairs are becoming white, pool, sun or age?

Who is John Galt?

Draniell, He's a newbie to Sorabji

Evansville Indiana for sausage n bicuibiscuits.

i have not yet tried google+. i have not yet been invited. it's weird how google does that. cramming in a few hours of brutally boring freelance work during nap time. i am trying to write a short story. i only have the first few paragraphs done. it starts like this: "I was never a gin drinker until I went sailing for five days with a man I barely knew." nobody steal that.

sarah you want an invite? i am looking forward to trying biscuits which I think are more like our scones sort of and not at all like our biscuits which are cookies.

Right

biscuits are like baking powder some flaky and great, some overdone hard like old tumors dredged in floour and fried. Decided google+ has no security... Moonie, don't bother coming to Kansas City on your trip. Stuck here another two days. Only good thing is the federal government (your tax dollars at work) is paying me to be here.

Moonit, here is the info on butterflies: good for one wedding. http://www.butterflyreleases.com/service.htm

I am planning on coming down to Nashville on Sept, the weather been on us for the last three days. Today, I quenched down twelve bottle of water .

ugh butterflies fucking freak me out. I just feel like I would crush them with my giant hamhock hands - also I hate fluttery things - moths, birds UGH. The sister of a girl i used to work with got married (ages ago now) and their mother organised a surprise butterfly release. I WOULD OF DIED. I would of been screaming. ugh. ugh. ugh.

Ooppps. Sorry. I thought you were butterfly friendly. We have butterfly bushes and houses all over our property

I like them, but just not near me ;) hahah

23. i don't have to scroll through a thousand photos or images with dumb or sappy sayings on them.

Ew. Yeah. Though I like the one I saw this morning. "Optimists say the glass is half full, "Pessimists say it's half empty, "I say, 'fill the rest with vodka.'" 24. None of my exes are on Sorabji and most of you are too far away to stalk me easily.

Well, at least there aren't a bunch of dumb images with sappy sayings or judgmental bullshit on them.

Did something fairly stupid today. I'm moving into my new place, and it has three floors: basement, ground, upper. (Aside: basements are rare in the Dallas area. There's granite a few feet below the surface.) So, the stupid bit. I moved the washer to the basement all by myself, down a narrow staircase barely wide enough to fit the 400lb beast. On top of that there's a wet bar right at the base of the stairs, positioned perfectly to bisect me if I let go and lost control. Did that all alone in the house, too. I'm having a hard time giving a fuck about anything these days. I want to give a fuck which is good all things considered, but I'm tired. I'm emotionally worn out. And now that most of the struggle is over I'm oddly less happy. Relieved yes, but now that there's nothing I'm forced to do I feel like doing nothing at all. Hence the stupid adrenaline rush of having 400lb of washer perched precipitously above me, one slip away from having all or part of me crushed.

Hi, depression buddy. Nothing holds my attention anymore. Nothing feels good anymore. I get home from work so tired from a daytime of doing nothing that I have to take a nap before dinner. Almost every night I dream about my mother being alive but still dying, or maybe I'm the one dying who has to say goodbye to everyone, or maybe someone else is. I don't sleep well. I don't give much of a shit about my friends. My brother can go hang. I waste my waking hours at night on the internet because I feel when i try to read a book or watch a movie or play videogames or play the piano or do any kind of creative activity, I get bored after 10 minutes and have to stop. Yet I can spend two hours playing Spider Solitaire and listening to music. Losing game after game. What a waste of time.

cuando me siento abatido, escucho musica y bebo mucho. viva sorabji. pobrecitos todos.

To sleep better, get more magnesium. Which reminds me: I need to head to the store and buy soda water and milk of magnesia so I can make magnesium bicarbonate. Water of the gods, I tell you. But first I have to drill a hole in the floor.

add in theanine and tons of gaba, and you'll get some sleep. spider, please know that what you are feeling likely is a natural part of grief. try to keep that in mind, and be gentle, kind, and forgiving with yourself.

"I think that’s what’s happened to me. I don’t think I have that ailment. I know I don’t, but I have its reverse maybe. Whatever it is I have wrong with me has enabled me to make a film career. It started with the death of my father when I was 21 and I refused to grieve. I so feared his death. He hadn’t been well, so when it finally happened I was prepared for the most horrible grief and unbearable grief, and then nothing happened. I think I blew a breaker switch somewhere and then what happened was I started grieving on the installment plan. Tiny installments every night in dreams for many years where my father would come back—like Ulysses, as it turns out, although I wasn’t aware of The Odyssey. Like Ulysses, he would come back, but he would come back just for a few minutes, because it turns out he hadn’t died. I’d always forget the funeral in my dreams. Turns out he hadn’t died at all. He had just gone to live with a better family. He abandoned us, and he was just coming back to pick up his shaving lotion or his glass eye that he’d forgotten or a tie or just something long enough for him to stay a minute, and during that minute every night in the dream I had a chance to tell him I loved him or just to impress him and hope he would stay and then every night he went away again. I spent every morning for over a decade sort of feeling kind of happy that I just had an encounter with my dad. They were so realistic. I can remember his voice only in my dreams and his every gesture. Your memories store practically everything, but you can’t access it, but my dreams for some reason, these visits, liberated my memories. " -- Guy Madden http://www.avclub.com/articles/guy-maddin-talks-about-keyhole-and-the-haunted-hou,72033/

I'm sorry I haven't been around for a while. And, I haven't found the beginning of this thread. Could you please tell me what's happening with Spider? I know a lot about depression. I've been diagnost since 2007.

No fucking kidding.

Spider I've tried that link a couple of times and all I get is page not found.

I've tried finding our fearless leader on facebook. There are to many Mark Thomases to find him!!!

This is the URL of the interview: www.avclub.com/articles/guy-maddin-talks-about-keyhole-and-the-haunted-hou,72033/ The only movie of his that I've seen in The Saddest Music in the World, which I think I wrote about here many years ago. This article inspired me to put all of his movies on my Netflix queue. As a director, he's in a class of his own. I'm having the same reaction. Grief on the installment plan. It made me feel better to know that this insane visionary man and banal I are having the same experience. I had a dream the other night that my mother died in this beautiful farm house in the middle of fields covered in snow. We had taken her there so that she could die peacefully. When I went walking in the fields, I came upon a big pile of dogs and cats huddled together or warmth in the snow. Maybe 30 of them, in a big fluffy pile.

Spider, Are you really having problems with Depression? If you are I think I can help you. If your just sounding off that's Ok. I'm just a little concerned. To many people try to handle Depression by themselves with disasterous results.

Thanks for the concern. It's grief, though (my mother died in November). Before all this, I'd get angry when I read things or saw news stories about people treating grief like they do depression -- with medication. Grief is not a disease, it's a natural part of the global human experience. Now, though.... it sure feels like regular old depression. Except for the dreams. I still dream about her on most nights. I think I went through a period where they had stopped (I think I may have written about that here), but at any rate, they're back now and take all the fun out of sleeping. I've thought about going to counseling -- I have good health insurance and could find a counselor through my Employees' Assistance Program, but... I think I'm afraid to go. I feel like I have a lot of problems in many areas of my life, and once I go and talk about one of them, all of them will come spilling out and I won't be able to contain them again. Right now they're contained. Okay, I don't really feel joy anymore, but I'm still a functional member of society and can compartmentalize the problem. I'm afraid that on the route from Joyless-but-Functional to Fully-Functional, therapy will take me into Complete-Mess territory for a while.

But on a different note, I really really really want to make this cake. Oh my God, just look at it. Think of the sense of accomplishment you would feel after putting all those layers together.

Here is the recipe. It is insane.

wow, that cake is really gorgeous. would that take a whole day or even several days to make? spider, you are very insightful about what's going on in your life and in your head right now. you're right that grief is natural. if you don't let yourself grief it will definitely turn into depression. you are right about therapy, too. eventually, it makes everything come spilling out. it is ugly and messy and scary. it also can be quite a relief because you learn to let go of the illusion that you've got it all under control, when really all that crap you keep bottled up and compartmentalized is controlling you. that's been my experience. it's definitely easier to just keep it all compartmentalized and dissociated. it makes you feel like you've got it all under control. if that's where you need to be right now, so be it. you'll know when the time is right. you'll likely have no other choice.

That cake looks like it would take days to make, or multiple people in multiple kitchens working simultaneously. My birthday is coming up in June and my uncle the amateur baker has offered to make me the cake of my choosing. I might suggest doing this one together -- maybe I can make the cake and apple layers, and he can make the cheesecake and crust layers and assemble it all. Thanks, Sarah. You grok me. :)

on my bucket list: have some apple pie layer cake. i don't bake, but i have emailed the recipe to people who do. maybe it can be my next birthday cake. i'd curious to know what the watcher has for depression. i've been trough lately. i just found something i had copied from a newspaper (the guardian)called "the happiness workout." i hate the name. the article said it was statistically as effective as a pill. 1. make a note of three things that went well today and why. 2. identify your strengths and every week aim to use them in new, creative ways. 3. imagine and write about your best possible self in 10 years time. 4. write someone a thank-you letter. 5. commit five acts of kindness a week. dear spider, thanks for the cake recipe. i can't claim to grok you (i read that book), but i do wish you the best. -droopy

Grief has a way of eating you like that and I totally know what you mean about wanting to keep all that stuff compressed where it can't get you. It has a way of eventually imploding, but you know that too. I think going to therapy when you're not ready gets counterproductive--you have to be ready and willing to just freefall for a while and it's pretty scary. If you keep jerking back at the last minute, you won't progress.

One of the fears I have with freefalling is, like, how do you keep being normal at work when you're dealing with all this shit? When people try to talk to me about my mom at work, I'm on Cheery Polite Mode the whole time. I don't cry, I don't get upset in the least bit. They may all think I'm totally nonchalant about the whole thing, for the way I come off. That's the only way I know how to be with people I barely know. If going to therapy is going to awaken all these dragons and make me cry all the time, how can I still be professional at work? I wish I could take a month off and go to Grief Rehab or something. 24-hour therapy, get it all out of my system, and then come back and get back to work. Droopy -- :) Those are actually very good suggestions. Thank you. If I recall correctly, your birthday is near mine (June 12)? Put your family to the thumbscrews and demand that cake. I'm afraid I'm going to chicken out of making it and goddammit, *somebody* needs to eat it this summer.

I think Spider that you just do. I admit freely to my boss and my workmates that some days I am gonna be shitty and moody and pissed off. And some days I joke about it - whatever gets me through it but gets it out of my head. And they know, they know that sometimes when I'm nastily sarcastic that it wasn't them I was really directing it at but our environment and I know that I've gone that step too far and I apologise, and they don't take it personally because they know its the grief talking. When I didn't talk about it, it festered, and dragged the other aspects - the good parts, it made it go backwards - and it wasn't until I realised I wasn't alone, that what I felt was normal, that I wasn't weird, that it was OK to feel how I felt, that life started moving forward again. Maybe slowly - and maybe I might step sideways sometimes but its better than standing still or going back or holding in emotions.. I admit that its not my mum that died and that its my city/lifestyle that I am grieving for, so maybe its a little different on that angle, but so often we're told to be brave and be strong, but who the fuck can live that 24/7 - become a robot? no thanks.

after emailing that cake recipe, it took on a life of its own. it officially caused an "uproar." not all of it positive: "i'd have to drag every damn pan in the kitchen out...!" my birthday is in january. i think that will give me enough time for someone to actually get around to making it.

Oh yeah! I got the J-month right, anyway. :) It's on or around Jan. 20, am I right? I'm feeling like we're probably not going to make it either. It *is* rather extreme. I do want some sort of unusual and amazing cake, though, since I don't regularly eat sugar anymore and my birthday is an excuse to break that rule. Thinking about meltdowns at work, I realized that I have cried at work since my mom died, so if I do it again, it won't be anything I don't have experience handling. Last night, I had dinner with an old friend of mine, and one of the highlights of our conversation was having her put her linguistics degree to use and discuss the intricacies of Russian grammar with me. I finished my second semester of intensive Russian on Friday. I'm certain I did well on the written final, and after my oral exam my professor told me I spoke perfectly and sounded like a Russian. :) I know she was exaggerating but that was a nice thing to hear, especially since I have finally, finally learned how to pronounce the letter ы. Russians don't sing a traditional birthday song, but one song that has become popular in the past couple of decades is this song from a children's tv show. It's quite melancholy for a happy birthday song, but that's to be expected. "The art of the Russians is in sadness." --Kahlil Gibran

Spider, you really should friend my sister on FB. She travels regularly to Russia to report for the NPR show "The World."

I burst into tears several times on the reference desk when my dad died. It's all normal. Love to you, Spider. And yeah, I'd eat the shit out of that cake.

I made a neopolitan cake on the weekend. five layers, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, strawberry and chocolate. Sandwiched together with strawberry jam and covered in pink strawberry icing. We're having a bakeoff comp next week at work so I needed a practice run. Layer cakes stress me out. When you start putting them together they seem so uneven and like it's not going to fit together, but I guess once you ad the icing and let it all sit for a bit they just adjust into position ? I dunno.

Spider if you ever think you need help I will be glad to give you all that I have. With any luck you won't have to deal with all those issues you've bottled up. And, the grief will pass. Hopefully soon. Where are you living now? I seem to recall you relocating. But, I don't remember where.

Well, thanks. I'm in PA now. And I'm going to see Mark Lanegan in concert this Saturday. My favorite musician. I think if anything can make me feel happiness, this is going to be it.

i'm going to see Marc-André Hamelin play the Busoni Piano Concerto tomorrow night. Hamelin is no favorite of mine but the Busoni Piano Concerto is a high school/college-age thing. I used to know every last note of that score, and I probably still know most of those notes. I finally picked up a copy of the score, which I think cost about $300? Maybe not that much, but it was a lot of coin for a stack of spinéd papers. i had these crazy dreams the last few months. i went into a Walgreen's to get special vitamin supplements which were made mostly of animal and plant hair. the hairs were alleged to travel through my system and cure what ailed me, though i had no knowledge of the latter. i got to the back of the Walgreen's and found a wall-length mirror. i saw myself in that mirror and looked into my eyes. big blood-red blobs of heart-attack on the temple-sides of each eyeball. the blood blasts grew bigger and bigger and my eyelids slammed shut so hard i couldn't keep them open. my eyeballs exploded and the blood blew up on the mirror, and i fell down dead on my back. i've never full-out died in a dream before. i bolted awake dead, thinking "ok, i guess i better get some of my affairs straightened out pronto". before and since that nightmare i had the wildest days and nights walking. this is in reality, not in the dreamland. I could barely make a straight line from here to the subway. one memorable late afternoon i walked directly into walls on 6th Avenue, stumbling like a fucking wino for no reason i could surmise. i drink, and i make no apologies or excuses for that, but i don't get hangovers and i don't black out and don't get fucked up for 6 to 8 weeks at a time as happened from mid-February to late April. so i went to the doctor and i said dude, someone in my family was diagnosed with MS. it's been in the back of my mind for years. maybe i have it, too? i'm showing the classic symptoms. i can't walk straight, i get double- and blurry-vision, i get priapic nocturnal erections that last for endless painful hours, i feel tingly in my extremities... he sends me to a neurologist, a very busy guy who asks a lot of questions about my double-vision, exits our session several times to get some Snapple and indulge in full conversations with people in the other rooms. i tell him the name of the one prescription drug i take these days. he Googles it on his phone. he mentions that he used to know someone named Mark Thomas who worked at Sports Illustrated. we bond over this. I knew that guy, too. this neuro had no idea i used to work at SI but he soon learns better. that was a little weird, a too-familiar connection between this medical professional and my human-bodily anonymous self. he brags about how "I was Mark Thomas' caddie!" but that they had a falling out when he (the neuro today) handed the great Mark Thomas the wrong golf club. in return i described how that other Mark Thomas travelled a lot, and i travelled once in a while, and on a trip to Las Vegas (for a bogus corporate junket) i inexplicably got upgraded to first class. it took me a few years to realize that the airline must have thought i was the other Mark Thomas from Sports Illustrated. the neuro laughed, and started to take me seriously. he spanked my knees with hammers, punched me in the back, waggled his fingers toward those nightmared-blood-assploded ends of my eyeballs and seemed to conclude that i had double-vision in ways you don't want to have it. he sent me off for my first-ever brain MRI (can't wait to see if i have a brain!). i went across the street for some blood tests. the dude at the lab looked at the referral and said "You're gonna need a lotta tubes. I don't know if I have enough tubes for you." as comical as that was it made me nervous, and after the blood was drawn i completely passed out, dead to the fucking world. that's never happened to me before. i get light-headed when getting blood taken but it never fucking killed me dead for 3 minutes. i don't know if it was the method to his seemingly asshole madness but toward the end of the affair the neuro surreptiously slipped me a referral to a psychiatrist. he had gotten me talking about my so-called family life, and to his credit he got me to say out loud and for the first time i can remember that i never made peace with my father's suicide or the misery of my mother's last years. depression and suicide litter both sides of my immediate genealogy and i have never had the guts to step out of line as the next in my family tree of self-inflicted deaths. the neuro's assistant also got me talking, and i saw in her eyes and in her feet-on-the-floor sympathies that she didn't think my problems are neurological. i saw a therapist in 2006, after daddy blew his face off, but unfortunately i mentioned that i drink. on account of that the insurance screeners followed the keywords and sent me to this therapist who specialized in 70s-style substance abusers and junkies. i drink beer, and i make no excuses or apologies for that, but i don't get hung over and i don't black out and i don't shoot up or snort coke as did the rest of this therapist's patients. i was not ready for nor did i appreciate or benefit from the heaping scorn that she seemed to regularly dump on me as she did her regular customers. on the paper of the therapists i guess it's all the same: a beer is a needle and a vodka is a line. this seems to be true of suicides, too. a suicide in the family is a suicide in the family and you must be fucked up on account of it. so the neuro slips me a clearing-his-liabilities referral to a psychiatrist after getting me to say out loud (and in the presence of his assistant) that i have no "suicidal intendencies" at this time. and i (possibly unwisely) said something like "dude, there's just some things you can't control" though i don't think he heard me as he was already busy slurping a Snapple and yabbing with someone in the next room.

In the Jack and Jill bathroom at the old house I cried, "No! I won't do it!"

so did the MRI results indicate you have a brain? if so, do you have MS or any other neurological abnormalities? you should get a second opinion from a different neurologist that doesn't know Mark Thomas who used to work at SI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umua_0yYvTE&feature=youtu.be&t=5m34s

storm the studio. storm the block. storm the world. demand humanity. demand to be human. be human.

my dad fought for this. even writing about it makes me want to tear the walls off the walls, the ground from the earth, the sky from space. there might not be justice in the world, but there's us. let's make it happen. goddammn.

yes.

Mark, I hope you do not have MS. I've learned a lot about it since my wife was diagnost in 1990. The good and bad part about it is that every person that has it is effected differently. Some people can have it for years with little if any problems. My wife is no longer that lucky. I have met a few that were. Good luck.

Spider what part of Pennsylvania are you in. One of my ancesters actually has a town in PA named after them Orwigsburg.

Welp, just learned that my childhood parish priest whom I loved has confessed to sexually abusing a minor. I never would have suspected he was capable of this. Loved filially and non-sexually, I guess I should add. When I was 19, I went to him for confession and he said things to me that helped me be a much less neurotic, more forgiving, more patient person. That confession experience was a life-changing moment for me, and whenever I thought back on that conversation, I felt a chime of satisfaction knowing that God would surely bless that priest for saving me. Just as it is said that it would be better for a man to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck than that he should cause one of the little ones to stumble. Well. Let's think about that again. The verse is the same in three of the four gospels. Seems Jesus really meant it. Luke 17:2 Matthew 18:6 Mark 9:42

Spider, It is better to read a bible than being a catholic. Trust me.

burning it all down and starting from zero is not a bad idea.

If a temple is to be erected a temple must be destroyed.

my brain had a couple of weird cysts, but otherwise it was pronounced "unremarkable". the neuro said i am majorly, monstrously, fantastically depressed. i didn't disbelieve him. i was tagged depressed a long time ago and it's never bothered me to know it. i took lithium and zoloft for a while before choosing beer instead. i just didn't know that depression can cause such dramatic physical symptoms. i read up on it though and, yeah, people's mental recoil causes them to lose balance, get dizzy, fall down, and otherwise flame out with no MRI-able physical evidence. i have felt physical pain from depression. it's a gnawing numbness, something that eats you alive from inside. but these days are all new to me. everything is new even if it feels old. the neuro (who was far less obnoxious on the 2nd appointment) said he was unimpressed by the cysts, saying that if it was MS or something more serious then there would be dozens and hundreds of them. but he scheduled me for another MRI in 5 or 6 months. so wtf? i may or may not bother. i had no idea how cacophonous an MRI sounds. it's like sticking your head in a noise blender. i had a nightmare about it last night. he also called my PCP doctor just to tell him I was not terminally ill. to me that seemed surprisingly folksy for a New York doctor. i got some great pictures, though: http://bbs.sorabji.com/pictures/Brain_MRI a friend suggested i tag memories in the pictures.

holy shit - Margret??!?! Don't sign off on pharmaceuticals, Mark. They can do wonders for people. Indirectly, I credit them with how happy I am right now.

D00d, I love your corpus callosum. I'm experiencing cognitive effects of mild, maybe moderate, depression. (self diagnosed) I can't concentrate, and its impacting my work. St John's Wort is keeping me level, but that's about it. (and when I've tried to stop it I got into a serious funk) Going to try a nootropic like Piracetam to see if a bit of brain stimulation will pull me up.

Look at this email I received this morning: ************* Hi [Spider], Wow, what a cake. I'm working on it, it's tricky with elaborate steps and parts. Whew, but I'm bound to complete it. Cheers, [Uncle] ************* Oh my.

He made it. Behold It was everything I had dreamed it to be. It took him 13 hours to make. He wasn't able to find a cake ring, so he used a sheet of aluminum from his basement and taped it into a cylinder. I filmed him talking about the process of baking it, but every time I try to upload the video from my camera, the process freezes. I'll put it on Youtube and link to it here if it ever works.

SPIDER you're Rabbit Hill!

You've found me. :) Who are you on there?

Scudworth I'd recognize that glorious cake anywhere

I added you to my buddy list :3 That cake is one of the greatest cakes I've ever tasted in my life. My uncle said he loved making it, would make it again despite it taking 13 hours (now that he knows what he's doing, it would go faster), and wishes he could take the time to make the cake once a week so he could have a ready supply of it in his refrigerator at all times. It's so good that as I was taking the first bite, my immediate thought was, "I need to have seconds." Fortunately for my pancreas, it's so rich that I was stuffed after that first piece, which was legitimately small. The recipe says it makes 6-8 servings and we got about 12 servings out of it. BTW, at 8 servings per cake, each serving would have 859 calories. I really want to bake this cake but can't find coconut porter beer anywhere.

you can order coconut porter online, should you become ambitious. i discovered recently that a satellite operation of the local farmer's market is operating once a week in downtown fort worth--every tuesday, from 8am to 2pm at the federal plaza. that means every tuesday i'll be able to roll up there early and stock up on farm fresh vegetables, herbs, and other esculents for the week. as sad and pathetic as this may be, it excites me.

That's not pathetic. That's tasty.

I went to one of our local produce farms yesterday and got a watermelon, sweet corn, a quart of tiny apricots, and a quart of sugar plums. I'd never had these before -- some of them are about the size of a large cherry, and they're sweet and blood red inside.

Like me!

The comparison gets better: their skin is bitter. I've started seeing a dietician, so I can lose these extra 15+ pounds and do what I can to prevent cancer via my diet. Lentil and Tomato stew 6 servings olive oil 2 med chopped onions 2 cups of chopped baby carrots 3 cloves of minced garlic 2 chopped portobello mushroom caps 7 oz. pardina lentils (pre-soaked) 2 cups of chicken stock or broth 1 28-oz can of plum tomatoes (I used San Marzano tomatoes) fresh thyme salt and pepper to taste 1 TBS red wine vinegar Cancer-fighting ingredients: lentils, onions, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms. You could add spinach or kale, and/or ground flaxseed, for even more benefit. Sautee the chopped onions and carrots in the oil over med heat for about 10 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the chicken stock, lentils, mushrooms, and thyme. If the thyme is loose, put about 2 tsps in. If it's still on the stem, take a bunch in your hand, find one stem that's really long and tie it around the bunch so that your little thyme bundle stays together in the pot. When you put the tomatoes in, you can either first stick them in a food processor or do what I did and just pull apart each tomato into bits before you add it to the pot. This is really messy and if you live with a neat freak, you will be scolded. Bring to a boil, cover, and then reduce heat to low and simmer covered for 45 minutes or the lentils are soft. Remove from heat and let rest for 10 minutes. Add the vinegar and season to taste. Optional: At the same time you start the lentils, take six boneless, skinless chicken thighs and put them in a pot with half a bottle of white wine and thyme. Cook for about 45 minutes or until soft. Serve one thigh with a serving of lentils.

oh my god that cake! your uncle is a magician.

i'm making jambalaya from a box which i bought at an estate sale (glorified garage sale). i will be serving it with freezer-burned chicken breast. i have some lentils in the cupboard. if i make it to the farmer's market tomorrow, i'll try to pick up some ingredients. not necessarily for the above recipe, but something. maybe some sorrel; it's like really bitter spinach.

Spider, toss some sunflower or pumpkin seeds on top of that stew for the magnesium content. (And use sea salt instead of table salt.)

it was slim pickings at the farmer's market. i got: a white onion, a red onion, a cucumber, a couple of small potatoes, a sweet pepper, and the woman i bought them from threw in a couple small peaches all for $3. sampled a spicy pork tamal, but didn't buy any. the cucumber was a disappointment, dry and fibrous inside. haven't had the taters. the peach was tasty. this evening i made lentil soup with a half each of the red and white onions, the (entire) sweet pepper, and some chili spices. pureed all of it and stored it in a big-ass jar in the fridge.

That cake is incredible. I've been raiding the local community garden. Tomatoes aren't quite in yet much to my sadness but I've been eating a fuckton of dark leafy greens. And onions. And zucchini. Oh god, the zucchini. Made pakora the other day and they were well- received.

I've gotten in the habit of buying a poound of orgnic spinach from Sam's each week and eating a huge spinach and broccoli salad each day for breakfast. Good times.

spent the weekend down in the hill country. saw 4 red-eyed devils. mean and nasty.

Spider - During my biannual swing by to look in the sorabji cave, I saw your posting regarding the apple pie cake. I went on Amazon, read the relevant page to see what else I'd need, and ordered the book along with a cake ring ($12) and some acetate strips ($5 - get the 4" ones and you'll only need one per cake). It took me 3.5 hours to make, not counting freezing the final assembled product overnight for it to set enough to pop out of the ring. The key is to be making the six sub recipes in order while the previous ones are baking, etc. It would go a little faster next time, but unless you have multiple ovens the constraint is the baking times. Also, it's exactly as easy to make double the ingredients and keep the extra in the freezer, either in ingredient form or better yet assembled. But I'm the kind of baker who typically only makes things once, because there's so much else out there I want to try. I'm already planning on using the ring/acetate method to make a dark chocolate and raspberry layer cake with ganache dribbled down the sides.