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Miscellaneous 🤷‍♀️ The Soul's Midnight

ursus

ursus

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So here I am again in the middle of the night. What's up with that? The Soul's Midnight, the Insomniac's Bath House,

It seems to me that our experience of life is largely internal. I know that events shape us and are important, that human interaction is part of what makes life worth living. But in some ways, it doesn't matter till I internalize it. What is real? There's no such thing as the color green until my eye perceives it and my brain registers it as green. What's more important even than that registry internally is what "green" means to me. Green means a conversation outside of JC Penny when I was 8 that made my mother laugh. Not a sound I heard often. I relished it. Green is the color of the grass between her fingers in the dark at the park in August, 1987. Green is the inside ring of her iris as she sits at the piano with me.

Green is not the absence of other wavelengths of light. Life is internal. Even for the extrovert.

Now I can sleep. The Bath House is closed. - ursus
 
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Moderator note:

split from RTDNTOTO8

Hmmm a thoughtful thread dedicated to serve fellow insomniacs? I like it.
 
OK, but the weird stuff I might write in the middle of the night.........it's all on your head, man. :)
 
The Johnny Nolan Problem

It's early for the Soul's Midnight, but my wife gets home later from her work and I have been "forgiven" so I don't think I'll be out here in the kitchen posting.

When I got home from work my front door was covered with valentine notes my kids had left me. The comments were about me making them laugh, about me telling them stories, helping with their homework, etc. I love my kids, but I'm consumed by the fear that I am failing them in some ways.

Last summer I read "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". Wonderful book. But what stuck with me the most is how much of myself I saw in the narrator's father, Johnny Nolan. He's a loving father, but he's a flop. A drunk, inconsistent figure whom the girl adores. She herself is smart and resourceful, but loves this extremely flawed father. I"m afraid that I am Johnny Nolan. My daughters all love me. I'll go out on a limb and say that they adore me. But do you know what an adorable but unreliable man becomes? He becomes resented. Eventually that's what they'll feel. They'll love and cherish a false memory of me that ignores my many grevious flaws, but a part of them will know that I could have done better. That I failed their mother in many ways, and that I could have done better for them, given them a better foothold in life. I hope that the good I've done for them - giving them humor and music, art and a love for life and people - will outweigh how much I'll not be able to provide them. I hope, but I doubt myself. Especially here in the Soul's Midnight, I doubt myself. It's like waking up in the middle of the night thinking you heard a sound and remembering that you didn't shut the garage door: the best you can do is hope that it's just a cat. What if it's not? What if this time your mistake is all of your ruin? That will keep you up some nights.

So am I Johnny Nolan? And would I change if I could? Questions for another night.

- ursus
 
People, including moms & dads are human. Years of therapy taught me that the best you can do is accept your parents for who they are, warts and all. You don't need to be perfect and if in fact you were it would probably screw your daughters up even more. Then for the rest of their lives they'd be chasing the perfect man and comparing all their beaus to you. It can be a burden. You're going to fail your kids some how. I think you just hope you don't do it in such a way that permanently scars them too much.
 
Thinking about what you said, dandy, and how it relates to my own parents and I think you're completely right. Next Soul's Midnight posting might just be about the glorious importance of our own random imperfections as people.

Thanks, dand. I needed it this a.m. :)
 
Anytime.

2yucd1k.gif
 
night skies

When spring finally comes to my little foothills in the desert, my favorite part is the sky. The greening up is nice, but there's nothing like seeing Orion fleeing the horizons, tumbling in that cold but clear sky. Dark, dark blue in the springtime. Even the night sky starts to thaw in the spring. It's cold, but not the hard cold of a sky in December, or the worthless black of a sky in February. There's a promise of something better in the moonlight. It lets you believe in yourself again.

So keep looking at the tulips and other adventurous vanguards pushing their way into your yard if you want to, but spare a few moment for the sky. Say goodbye to Orion and hope that when he comes around again, you've sucked the marrow out of the summer time, and you're still hung over on the deep blue and red wine of a July sunset, and the gunpowder is still lingering in your nostrils, and the tan is still clinging to your shoulders.

-ursus
 
So it's 3:00 here. The Soul's Midnight again. My wife is on the way to Vegas tomorrow morning with her sisters for a trip. She's staying over tonight with one so they can leave early. I will be largely staying home for the rest of the week. I will miss her. Sometimes I think the worst thing that ever happened to us was marriage. Driving her to her sister's and talking about the Council meeting and other nothingness was so nice, so easy. We laugh and talk like there aren't these things hanging over us. There might be something to be said for a society in which all relationships stay casual. I could never disappoint someone in a casual relationship. I wish I could say I was built for the important ones.

So tonight's monologue will be short and sweet - just a thought really. How little we expect out of almost every relationship in our lives. And how much we demand from those few that we value most. I'm sure it only makes cosmic sense that we would be doomed to nit-pick the things we value most to death while we let everything and everyone else slide. Tonight, thinking about all the heartache and loss in the world I am inclined to try to let things slide a little bit with those I love most. How long I've got them isn't entirely up to me.

Goodnight, Cyburbia. - ursus
 
ursus said:
So it's 3:00 here. The Soul's Midnight again. My wife is on the way to Vegas tomorrow morning with her sisters for a trip. She's staying over tonight with one so they can leave early. I will be largely staying home for the rest of the week. I will miss her. Sometimes I think the worst thing that ever happened to us was marriage. Driving her to her sister's and talking about the Council meeting and other nothingness was so nice, so easy. We laugh and talk like there aren't these things hanging over us. There might be something to be said for a society in which all relationships stay casual. I could never disappoint someone in a casual relationship. I wish I could say I was built for the important ones.

So tonight's monologue will be short and sweet - just a thought really. How little we expect out of almost every relationship in our lives. And how much we demand from those few that we value most. I'm sure it only makes cosmic sense that we would be doomed to nit-pick the things we value most to death while we let everything and everyone else slide. Tonight, thinking about all the heartache and loss in the world I am inclined to try to let things slide a little bit with those I love most. How long I've got them isn't entirely up to me.

Goodnight, Cyburbia. - ursus
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Sometimes it's the little things that hang over us that brings two people together to form an even stronger bond. It can rip some people apart. But also strengthen a relationship in a deeper, more profound way. It's all how we choose to relate to those little things.
 
I too was up at 3 a.m., but I didn't think about going to Cyburbia to muse about it. Maybe I would have felt better if I had. I had a night meeting which always throws me off and robs me of sleep. During part of my sleeplessness and restlessness I watched a Tom Papa special on Netflix. Apropos of Ursus's discussion of marriage and how marriage changes relationships Papa was discussing the romance of their relationship has turned into his wife and he becoming partners in a marriage that he likened to a horrendous non-profit organization. I saw truth in that. Marriage begins with romance and soon enough it moves into maintaining a household - kids, mortgages, errands, financial difficulties and those countless minor irritations that come from living in close quarters. Papa lamented that the sexy lady he married has become the "Wash Your Hands Lady," constantly policing hygiene and he has been made "The Weather Guy" called upon to advise her on the current weather.

Has marriage gone full circle? Not so long ago marriage was an arrangement of convenience and necessity to survive and procreate. Marriages were often arranged and love was something that was expected to come later. Then we moved into the Victorian era of marriage for love. Now, with everyone so busy and stressed, are we returning to marriage for convenience and necessity? A marriage hybrid, begun in love, but driven by necessity.

We come home tired and stressed from our jobs, scurry about to get dinner, laundry, homework, and cleaning done, often fight over one or all of those tasks and then come bedtime may be feeling tired or resentful of how our partner, in our perception, has not lived up to our expectation. Is it any surprise that romance at the end of the day is not foremost in our minds?
 
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This Be the Verse
By Philip Larkin 1922–1985

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.


But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.


Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
 
Why does the Soul's Midnight always seem to arrive at 2 a.m. or later? Is it some kind of perverted Nightlight Savings Time?
 
Fuck! I just accidentally peeled a tick off me!!! Wtf!!!!

I just showered because I felt like bugs were all over me and the tick is double jarred and I am on my third glass of wine and I am a wreck and can't sleep
 
Sweet Baby James

Tonight, the song chosen by the boys to fall asleep to was "Sweet Baby James", which always works. I do a good James Taylor. It's warm here lately so the windows are open and my wife is at work. I love to listen to the sound of the world late at night through the open windows, and I can hear the kids stirring every so often while I glamorously pair socks. Can it be too peaceful to sleep? Yes it can, and it is. Sleep well, everybody. Out there in the dark, there is nothing but quiet and empty between us all. And the spaces we're in are peaceful I hope, and the spaces between us are a mystery. Miles of highway in the dark out there.

I know it shouldn't but typing this nonsense helps me sleep. Goodnight, you moonlight ladies. Rockabye, sweet baby James.

Well, these socks aren't going to pair themselves, are they. - ursus
 
It's 2:30 here. It's very warm and stuffy in my room. We've had rain this afternoon and evening, but the rain has stopped and the winds are calm now. It's not quite warm enough to run the air conditioning, so I opened up a window, but the air is so still, so I don't think it's really helping much. Unfortunately, the window creaks loudly and the sound echoes throughout the courtyard, bouncing off the adjacent apartment buildings. I feel like a jerk now and hope I didn't wake anyone. Lately, around the midnight hour, I've been hearing coyotes regularly barking as they search for prey up and down the old Prairie Path, only a few hundred feet west of me. Tonight, I haven't heard them though. They must be somewhere else tonight, or maybe they turned in early, or maybe they are just being quiet tonight.
 
Yawn......

Been working in the Fresno Rail Yard on the night shift lately.....resulting in my posting on Cyburbia at crazy hours like this.....:z:
 
The One said:
Been working in the Fresno Rail Yard on the night shift lately.....resulting in my posting on Cyburbia at crazy hours like this.....:z:
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The opening of that statement sounds like it came from a Johnny Cash song. :) You should tell us more about the Fresno Rail Yards. Johnny Cash is also good for the sleepless nights...(It's nice to see you back more frequently, btw :) ).

@ ip, Coyotes were the perfect addition to the insomniac's bath-house that is the Soul's Midnight. I would doff my cap to you if I wore a cap or knew what doffing was.
 
ursus said:
The opening of that statement sounds like it came from a Johnny Cash song. :) You should tell us more about the Fresno Rail Yards. Johnny Cash is also good for the sleepless nights...(It's nice to see you back more frequently, btw :) ).

@ ip, Coyotes were the perfect addition to the insomniac's bath-house that is the Soul's Midnight. I would doff my cap to you if I wore a cap or knew what doffing was.
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Please, no doffing here. Planners have little enough respect without be tagged as doffers.
 
Ha ha ha......

Richmond Jake said:
:8: I hope i get my raisins from Fresno :8:

Reference to The Music Man...
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I've been moving cars with 60+ tons of raisins or canned fruit all over the place.....one of the trains we build (The fruit block) goes to New York City nearly daily.

We have a local train that services SunMaid also. Grapes....grapes.....everywhere grapes:wow:oh:

Oh Ursus I'm also glad to be back......not a great deal of intellectual interaction on the rails.....

I did meet a locomotive engineer with a degree in planning from San Francisco State back in the late 70's. He said after he was laid off he ended up on the railroad making a lot more money. Too bad for me those big money days are long gone for the new guys....:facepalm:
 
The One said:
I've been moving cars with 60+ tons of raisins or canned fruit all over the place....

Oh Ursus I'm also glad to be back......not a great deal of intellectual interaction on the rails.....

:
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I think trains and the rail in general are mysterious and romantic (in a manly romantic sense, classic romantic not "oh kiss me I love you romantic) but sort of powerful symbolically and iconic. Maybe working with the whole system takes that away. Not for me, though. One of my favorite memories is my grandparents house on Layton Ave. in Salt Lake. The train tracks ran right behind their house. When we'd visit, we'd wait for the windows to start to rumble...you felt it more than saw it or heard it...and we knew a train was coming. Out the back door, past the apricot tree and out toward the fence where the giant cottonwoods were hemming in the back yard and beyond that the tracks. These were all freight trains back then. No passengers. Big yellow engines, UP. Always blew the horn coming through town like that, approaching a big street crossing a few blocks from my grandparents' house. It sounded like the world was ending in thunder when the trains came by and the best part was the caboose back then. Always a guy standing on the platform waving to us as it went out of sight.

Trains. When I hear one (only late at night anymore) I feel like I'm the only person in the world except for that train out there in the dark and the guy who just blew the horn and the guy on the caboose platform, waving to nobody in the middle of the night while the train thunders past Layton Avenue, maybe six short miles from where I'm sitting right now. Trains out there in the dark, like thunder and half-memories and sun and shade and power and speed and going to somewhere I'll never go...but like to think about.

Yeah, I think you could do worse than trains. But then I'm a hopeless dreamer as I'm told by persons more grounded.

Tuck yourselves in, Cyburbia. And listen for the trains. :) - ursus
 
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Long ride back with coffee so I am awake but exhausted ugh...

My Dad worked in the railroad and I cod hear his train come in or at least I thought I could when I was a kid -earned to ah poker in the caboose and I used to get to beep the horn - loved growing up in the rails for sure
 
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My first day working in California on the railroad.....

ursus said:
I think trains and the rail in general are mysterious and romantic (in a manly romantic sense, classic romantic not "oh kiss me I love you romantic) but sort of powerful symbolically and iconic. Maybe working with the whole system takes that away. Not for me, though. One of my favorite memories is my grandparents house on Layton Ave. in Salt Lake. The train tracks ran right behind their house. When we'd visit, we'd wait for the windows to start to rumble...you felt it more than saw it or heard it...and we knew a train was coming. Out the back door, past the apricot tree and out toward the fence where the giant cottonwoods were hemming in the back yard and beyond that the tracks. These were all freight trains back then. No passengers. Big yellow engines, UP. Always blew the horn coming through town like that, approaching a big street crossing a few blocks from my grandparents' house. It sounded like the world was ending in thunder when the trains came by and the best part was the caboose back then. Always a guy standing on the platform waving to us as it went out of sight.

Trains. When I hear one (only late at night anymore) I feel like I'm the only person in the world except for that train out there in the dark and the guy who just blew the horn and the guy on the caboose platform, waving to nobody in the middle of the night while the train thunders past Layton Avenue, maybe six short miles from where I'm sitting right now. Trains out there in the dark, like thunder and half-memories and sun and shade and power and speed and going to somewhere I'll never go...but like to think about.

Yeah, I think you could do worse than trains. But then I'm a hopeless dreamer as I'm told by persons more grounded.

Tuck yourselves in, Cyburbia. And listen for the trains. :) - ursus
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My old time conductor made a very big deal out of waving to kids......and the hookers walking the streets next to the tracks. Every once in a while we get a special "wave" back:lmao:
 
I was up until almost 2 AM last night/this morning. Nothing major on my mind though. Just watching the Wings dispose of the Ducks. :)
 
This juxtaposition of Soul's Midnight and trains got me thinking about Soul Train with Don Cornelius. Now I can't get that Souuuuuuuuul Train! out of my head.
 
ofos said:
This juxtaposition of Soul's Midnight and trains got me thinking about Soul Train with Don Cornelius. Now I can't get that Souuuuuuuuul Train! out of my head.
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Or you could have gone with Midnight Train (to Georgia) Wooo Wooo!
 

When Moon's at full- 'Tis Thou- I say-
My lips just hold the name-
When crescent- Thou art worn- I note-
But there- the Golden Same.

-Emily Dickinson
 
A Former Romantic Laments the Early Forties....

My wife is away and I can't sleep. Sitting in the messy kitchen. I'd like to lie and tell you it's clean but it's a wreck. The other morning I should have been cleaning up but instead I talked to my daughter for an hour and a half about weddings of all things. She asked a casual question about wedding breakfasts or something and I blathered on and on forever. Did you know that I wrote a piano piece for my wedding? I did. My daughter didn't know that. She knows the piece, but didn't realize I'd written it for her mom. She didn't have to tell me how lame it is that the same guy that would write that song for a woman now hides from that woman like a baby, lies to her to avoid conflict and assumes that her response to everything I say will be anger or disgust.

Partly, I wanted to defend myself. "IT's not like we're even the same people anymore!" I wanted to yell. But when your kid is right they're right. Yes, I'm not the same anymore. I don't spend a lot of time mooning around at the piano, thinking about my wife. But she doesn't hang on the things I'm going to say anymore either. She doesn't look at me the same way. I guess in fairness, I don't look at her the same way. So this was bothering me a little bit going into the weekend.....but then it happened that I was sitting in the church parking lot, not wanting to go in....

In the parking lot I saw a young couple talking. He was talking, and she'd laugh. It was sunny, she kept touching the sleeve of his jacket...one foot moving from toe to heel, smiling away. And he was really into whatever he was saying, very intense and apparently hilarious and convincing all at once. They seemed on the verge of a kiss for ten minutes (yes, pathetically I couldn't turn away - trust me there was nothing as transfixing as these two on TV). I sat there watching them and wondering what it was like to be them, trying to remember what THAT feels like....I guess wishing I was them or we were them somehow. But you know, I guess we've been them, and it's time to embrace and enjoy what we are now. Why can't I do that? I'm still the guy who wrote something beautiful, and whether she believes it or not she's still the girl who made me feel so much I'd write it.

Long way to say I miss her this week. My girls wouldn't believe that, but I do miss her. I'm not sure what anything in our relationship means anymore. I guess this is just life in your forties, huh? Things go right, things go wrong, you think you've learned to let go and the next thing you know you're holding on like grim death to something that feels radioactive, like you just have to keep it. Rambling helps me sleep. Now that this is off my chest.....I think I will clean this kitchen up. :) - ursus
 
Wow, ursus, some of those observations hit close to home. Don't all marriages start in a whirlwind of powerful emotion and eventually evolve over time to some degree into a domestic management endeavor? I often wonder why our emotional responses fade over time. We are consumed with grief when a loved one dies, but over time the sadness subsides and we return to our 'normal' emotional states, and only experience pain when we dwell on recollections. Isn't the same true of positive emotions?
 
Being crazy in love is great, but it wears off to everyday, business-of-being-married-and-having-a-family love. That's dull compared to the kind of love that brought you to that point. My marriage didn't survive this stage. I think that there's a payoff of you can get past the disillusioned time. I also think that most married people have these feelings at some time in the marriages.
 
ursus said:
My wife is away and I can't sleep. Sitting in the messy kitchen. I'd like to lie and tell you it's clean but it's a wreck. The other morning I should have been cleaning up but instead I talked to my daughter for an hour and a half about weddings of all things. She asked a casual question about wedding breakfasts or something and I blathered on and on forever. Did you know that I wrote a piano piece for my wedding? I did. My daughter didn't know that. She knows the piece, but didn't realize I'd written it for her mom. She didn't have to tell me how lame it is that the same guy that would write that song for a woman now hides from that woman like a baby, lies to her to avoid conflict and assumes that her response to everything I say will be anger or disgust.

Partly, I wanted to defend myself. "IT's not like we're even the same people anymore!" I wanted to yell. But when your kid is right they're right. Yes, I'm not the same anymore. I don't spend a lot of time mooning around at the piano, thinking about my wife. But she doesn't hang on the things I'm going to say anymore either. She doesn't look at me the same way. I guess in fairness, I don't look at her the same way. So this was bothering me a little bit going into the weekend.....but then it happened that I was sitting in the church parking lot, not wanting to go in....

In the parking lot I saw a young couple talking. He was talking, and she'd laugh. It was sunny, she kept touching the sleeve of his jacket...one foot moving from toe to heel, smiling away. And he was really into whatever he was saying, very intense and apparently hilarious and convincing all at once. They seemed on the verge of a kiss for ten minutes (yes, pathetically I couldn't turn away - trust me there was nothing as transfixing as these two on TV). I sat there watching them and wondering what it was like to be them, trying to remember what THAT feels like....I guess wishing I was them or we were them somehow. But you know, I guess we've been them, and it's time to embrace and enjoy what we are now. Why can't I do that? I'm still the guy who wrote something beautiful, and whether she believes it or not she's still the girl who made me feel so much I'd write it.

Long way to say I miss her this week. My girls wouldn't believe that, but I do miss her. I'm not sure what anything in our relationship means anymore. I guess this is just life in your forties, huh? Things go right, things go wrong, you think you've learned to let go and the next thing you know you're holding on like grim death to something that feels radioactive, like you just have to keep it. Rambling helps me sleep. Now that this is off my chest.....I think I will clean this kitchen up. :) - ursus
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People evolve.
Marriages evolve.
Love evolves.
We learn to love one another in different ways.
At least that's the hope.
 
Been in "The Soul's Midnight" a lot of late. Naturally a poor sleeper, as it is. Then worries about work, strife between my son and my wife and a sore shoulder are keeping me awake on top of that.

Ursus, You are like a lot of husbands. We know we are getting the better end of the marriage. We feel lucky that we have a spouse that is probably better than we deserve. You shouldn't beat yourself up about it. You are a good man. You are a great father. You are a good husband. You try your best. :trophy:
 
Fall arrived. Calendar be-damned, fall comes - to me - with the first cold storm that really feels like it broke summer's back and dusts the peaks with snow. I was driving home tonight looking up at snow and clouds on Francis Peak. Less than a month ago, on our anniversary, my wife and I opted to take Skyline drive out of Bountiful and up over into a neighboring community called Farmington.

Let me see how to describe this drive - it's not bad, just a dirt road. What makes it interesting is that the dirt road is narrow and runs basically along the west face of the peaks between Bountiful and Farmington at about 8-9000 feet. We brilliantly decided to make this drive an hour before sunset. It was beautiful to the summit....then it was only slightly less than terrifying. It got dark, we lost cell connection and basically got lost. I also brilliantly had not a lot of gas in the tank. We took a wrong turn for the second time and ended up on Francis peak: 9548 feet, I'd love to tell you the vertical drops on either side of the road I was on as it dead-ended into the radar facility but it was pitch black outside of my headlights. I think I made a 674 point turn to head back down and finally find the canyon road out and by the time we were done it was 3.5 hours on the road start to finish.

The interesting part: I laughed the entire time with this woman - my wife - and felt like I knew her again. Since then I've screwed up again and made her angry but every night I drive home and look up and see Francis Peak and I remember laughing in the dark while we tried to figure out what the hell to do next (and why we couldn't get cell service 20 yards from the radar station) and I'll be damned if I don't smile.

Goodnight Cyburbia. -ursus
 
On this early autumn morning, the sky's so clear that you can see all of the "important" things with a naked eye.

Jupiter is showing off. He's dressed like a star and is outshining 'em all.

He hovers so near the waning crescent Moon, it's almost obcene.
(How much nearer will they get, and will I see it?)

Anyway, Mr. Moon's lazily sitting on his ass, as if to say,
"Jupiter, I feel like havin' a beer with Mars next door. This is your chance for your Moment in the Sun."

Jupiter and Moon must somehow rise & set together before High Noon. Mars will follow closely and eek out the last laugh......

......at least until Venus Rises at dusk!
 
I woke up this morning at 4:00 am just thinking about the days needs. As I let those thoughts escape new thoughts of life and alternatives snuck in. Since the move we have both felt ragged and tired. We have snapped at each other, rolled our eyes, and run in different directions just to get the old house ready for the market (officially went on yesterday) and try to organize and find places for all our stuff in the new house. We've talked about getting a nice leather storage ottoman for the living room and last night I found one while The Girl & I went to get a b-day present for one of her friends. I bought it, brought it home, but it was not appreciated that I went ahead and made the purchase without her (its going back tonight). I was feeling pretty down in the dumps as I tried but failed again.

It's really nice to sit on the back deck at that time of night. Beautiful sky, trees in shadows, faint glow of street light down the block, the neighborhood is asleep (except for me). I confirmed my thoughts that I truly love that girl but we're both completely worn out.
 
I didn't know we had an insomniacs thread. That is kind of awesome.

I blame it on the job thing that it is a problem for most. That and human biology. We really are a day species.

I know people who are and have been persecuted by day people. They tend to believe that if you don't wake up until 4-6 hours after the sun is up, you are all manor of unproductive. I have always been a night person and it is becoming more pronounced.

There is little wonder the wee hours of the morning have spawned so many tales of the strange and weird. Even those of us who are night people have to give in to our biology at 4:00 am when thoughts cloud and impressions are warped.

On that note, Art Bell is returning 4 nights a week to XM Radio.
 
Duke Of Dystopia said:
There is little wonder the wee hours of the morning have spawned so many tales of the strange and weird. Even those of us who are night people have to give in to our biology at 4:00 am when thoughts cloud and impressions are warped.
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Is this not the best time to post in Cyburbia?

Also, I really recommend "Eastbound and Down" on HBO
 
hilldweller said:
Is this not the best time to post in Cyburbia? ...
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Yes, especially if I were drunk. Alas, this is not to be on this night. It is hard to find peace with a clear head. I give up drinking 5 or 6 nights a week. Life is NOT better for it. To many distractions with the brain revving in neutral. 8-!
 
I think one of my favorite movies is Serendipity, in which the novel Love in the Time of Cholera by the late Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a central plot device, It's late - I'm tired - and that's what you get in the Soul's Midnight ...
 
what doesn't kill you....

In my experience, what doesn't kill you is probably coming back later to finish you off.

No disrespect to people who have really struggled in life. I mean, truly struggled. I was a missionary in a tough part of an essentially third-world country so I know what struggling really is, and I know that I am in no way struggling. But that feels like so long ago, and my reality is so very.....what's the word....current. I'm sitting here tonight wondering about tomorrow. Do I demand that the Council stop contemplating putting my department under Management Services and give me the job or I'm leaving? Seems fool-hardy. Probably time to recognize that since the moment to give me the helm came and went and the conversation has become what department to roll us into, their confidence that I can run this tiny little department is just not there....pitiful.

I am not even going to bother typing "First World Problems..." By the way, ATTENTION every woman on Instagram and FB under 30: ALL YOUR PROBLEMS are FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS. Nobody needs the clarification and it sometimes turns my stomach.

Which brings me full circle. SO I'm passed over. My fault. If I'm not in a position to cry foul when I'm passed over (which I'm not) whose fault? Mine, right? Right. It's time I did right by my working class neighbors, my working class parents, and the people who have third-world problems, and got off my own pampered, well-fed behind to get myself in that position....so when what didn't kill me comes back later to finish the job.....I'm inexplicably stronger.

Goodnight Cyburbia. Thanks for listening.

-ursus.
 
ursus said:
In my experience, what doesn't kill you is probably coming back later to finish you off.

No disrespect to people who have really struggled in life. I mean, truly struggled. I was a missionary in a tough part of an essentially third-world country so I know what struggling really is, and I know that I am in no way struggling. But that feels like so long ago, and my reality is so very.....what's the word....current. I'm sitting here tonight wondering about tomorrow. Do I demand that the Council stop contemplating putting my department under Management Services and give me the job or I'm leaving? Seems fool-hardy. Probably time to recognize that since the moment to give me the helm came and went and the conversation has become what department to roll us into, their confidence that I can run this tiny little department is just not there....pitiful.

I am not even going to bother typing "First World Problems..." By the way, ATTENTION every woman on Instagram and FB under 30: ALL YOUR PROBLEMS are FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS. Nobody needs the clarification and it sometimes turns my stomach.

Which brings me full circle. SO I'm passed over. My fault. If I'm not in a position to cry foul when I'm passed over (which I'm not) whose fault? Mine, right? Right. It's time I did right by my working class neighbors, my working class parents, and the people who have third-world problems, and got off my own pampered, well-fed behind to get myself in that position....so when what didn't kill me comes back later to finish the job.....I'm inexplicably stronger.

Goodnight Cyburbia. Thanks for listening.

-ursus.
Click to expand...

Hey Ursus.... Third World Problems, First World Problems, any kind of Problems... they are all the same. Issues to be dealt with. So when you are staring into midnight you get glum about shit. Hey, that is what midnight is supposed to be. Problems are supposed to be "BIGGER" then. It's what night does! That is why the bulk of humanity SLEEPS through it!

Besides, it sounds like you worked your way through your own issue. MINDINGHT OF THE SOUL WINS! :cool:
 
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