I began my life in the South and for five years lived as a closeted teacher, but am now making a new life for myself as an oral historian in New England. I think my life will work out the way it was always meant to be. That doesn't mean there won't be ups and downs; that's all part of life. It means I just have to be patient. I feel like October 7, 2015 is my new birthday. It's a beginning filled with great hope. It's a second chance to live my life…not anyone else's.
My profile picture is "David and Me," 2001 painting by artist Steve Walker. It happens to be one of my favorite modern gay art pieces.
It’s been a long week. I was mostly busy all week except for yesterday when I was just bored. Having very little to do can be just as tiring as being busy nearly every minute of the day. Thank goodness this is a work from home day. I can just take it easy and mostly just monitor my email.
Have a great weekend everyone! Here’s you Isabella pic of the week:
Isabella and this little Robin used to love staring at each other. She’ll ignore all other birds and wildlife, but she has a fascination with robins.
I really did not want to get out of bed this morning. I would love to just crawl back into bed and shut out the rest of the world today. It’s not because I’m depressed or anything. I’m just sleepy.
I have a bit of a headache which has seemed to get worse since I’ve been awake. Hopefully, it will improve. I have an appointment next week for another Botox treatment. I can tell it’s time. I’ve basically had a migraine since last Thursday. I got some relief yesterday because my migraine was minimal, but that has not been the norm for the past week.
“First of all, it’s important to remind the former president: You’re not running against Joe Biden. You’re running against me.”
Vice President Kamala Harris went into the debate with a clear plan: let Donald Trump defeat himself. Harris baited Donald Trump for nearly all of the 1 hour and 45 minutes of their first and potentially only debate on Tuesday night – and Trump took every bit of it. While Trump spouted lies, used his usual juvenile name-calling, and and had temper tantrums worthy of a two-year old, Harris sat back and laughed, quite literally at times. She used every trick to bait him into getting defensive, cause him to lose his temper, and calling Trump out on his lies.
Harris was occasionally mocking, but she didn’t resort to the name-calling and stuck to the truth. I thought her nerves got the better of her in the beginning. I could hear the nervousness in her voice. She needed to take a deep breath and not try to get her whole answer out in one breath. It didn’t take her long to do so, and she stayed calm but authoritative. She looked like a leader. She looked healthy, young, and sane. As much as I like Joe Biden, he looked sickly in the last debate, for good reason because he was sick. Trump looked like an old raving lunatic. If you’ve ever encountered one of those street preachers who rant about “the end is near,” then you’ve seen how Trump performed, but with much more juvenile behavior.
Harris got under former Trump’s skin with a mocking comment about the attendance at his campaign rallies during Tuesday night’s ABC News presidential debate in Philadelphia. “I’m going to invite you to attend one of Trump’s rallies because it’s a really interesting thing to watch,” Harris said, looking straight into the camera. “You’ll hear about Hannibal Lecter, how windmills cause cancer, and what you’ll also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. The only thing you won’t hear him talk about is your needs, your dreams and your desires.”
The vice president had prepared extensively for their debate and peppered nearly every answer with a comment designed to enrage the former president. She told Trump that world leaders were laughing at him, and military leaders called him a “disgrace.” She called Trump “weak” and “wrong.” She said Trump was fired by 81 million voters – the number that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. Trump was often out of control. He loudly and repeatedly insisted that a whole host of falsehoods were true. The former president repeated lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election. He parroted a conspiracy theory about immigrants eating pets, and lied about Democrats supporting abortions after babies are born – which is murder, and illegal everywhere.
And if my heart be scarred and burned, The safer, I, for all I learned; The calmer, I, to see it true That ways of love are never new— The love that sets you daft and dazed Is every love that ever blazed; The happier, I, to fathom this: A kiss is every other kiss. The reckless vow, the lovely name, When Helen walked, were spoke the same; The weighted breast, the grinding woe, When Phaon fled, were ever so. Oh, it is sure as it is sad That any lad is every lad, And what’s a girl, to dare implore Her dear be hers forevermore? Though he be tried and he be bold, And swearing death should he be cold, He’ll run the path the others went.… But you, my sweet, are different.
About the Poem
“Incurable” is part of Dorothy Parker’s poetry collection Sunset Gun (Boni & Liveright, 1928). In 1934, The English Journal published Mark Van Doren’s essay “Dorothy Parker.” Van Doren criticized Parker’s poetics, stating, “[Her] poetry is of a consistent and unvarying sort, differing little from volume to volume. Enough Rope (1926) contains eerie measure and every theme employed either in Sunset Gun (1928) or in Death and Taxes (1931), the only novelty being that each volume has been shorter than its predecessor, and, perhaps, in view of its refusal to cut any new paths, less interesting. Mrs. Parker’s poetry, then, may be seen at once to have its unity and its wholeness. What should be said of it? It is neat and clear, and it is mordant; it is also—and this may be the reason for its popularity—sentimental.” Unable to gauge Parker’s contribution to American poetry and her longstanding impact on literature, Van Doren went on to say, “She may please many people at the moment, but considering what English poetry can be and has been there is not the slightest chance, unless she sets out deliberately to improve her product, that she will be numbered among the good.”
About the Poet
Dorothy Parker, born on August 22, 1893, in West End, New Jersey, was an editor, writer, and early Modernist poet. She authored several literary works, including the poetry collection, Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926). Parker, best known as a key member of the famed Algonquin Round Table, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1959. She died on June 6, 1967.
I woke up around 4 am this morning from an unusual dream. I was dreaming that I was at a restaurant having a sandwich. It wasn’t just any sandwich or restaurant. This particular restaurant had large round sandwiches, about 6-7” in diameter with a rounded top that was about 4-5” high. The bread had been hollowed out in the middle. The sandwich was then filled with a variety of meats and toppings. In the dream, it was unclear what the contents of the sandwich were. It was similar to a muffaletta you can get in New Orleans. Usually a muffaletta is cut into quarters, but this sandwich was served whole. The restaurant had a policy: if you could eat the whole sandwich in a certain amount of time, your meal was free. Otherwise, you paid for a pretty expensive sandwich.
I know these types of restaurants exist. There was a show on the Food Network about these types of food challenges. I have never had a desire to take part in this, though I know people who have. However, in this dream, I was a willing participants, and in the dream I was heartily eating away at the sandwich. Then, in the dream, I realize that the sandwich tasted like foam was difficult to eat. That’s when I woke up and sadly realized I had bitten off a piece of the foam on my CPAP mask, which is what prevents air from leaking out of the mask. If the foam is compromised then air escapes and causes a whistling noise that can make it difficult to sleep.
After this happened, I tried to go back to sleep, but after laying there for about 20 minutes and realizing I had a headache that was worsening, I decided to get up, feed Isabella, and make breakfast. By the way, I often wake with a headache which is something I’ve learned to live with from wearing the CPAP, but it usually goes away shortly after I get up and take off the headgear. Before anyone suggests an Inspire implant that eliminates the need for a CPAP, I did all the testing for Inspire and was told it would not work for me. So, my choices are to wake with a headache each morning but get a good night’s sleep or wake up with a raw throat and the feeling that I barely slept at all (not to mention the waking up several times throughout the night).
Anyway, it was a strange dream, and now, I have to buy a new CPAP mask. CVS now sells them, but according to the CVS website my local store is out of stock. So, I’ll have to order one from Amazon; however, it will take 1-2 weeks to arrive. Amazon is less expensive(l ($30 versus $60 anywhere else). There is one place in Ohio that said they can get it to me by Thursday, but again, it’s quite expensive. Ugh! Why do scrap supplies have to be so expensive? All this because of a really strange dream about a sandwich of all things.
Joe
The Closet Professor 