This, That and the other thingamig.

[shadowkat]

1. I've decided I don't have the bandwidth to respond to people on Twitter or FB, so I'm doing it in my head.

* I was wondering who you thought was a bigger band in the 1980s: Ratt or Motely Crue?

Motely Crue (considering I've never heard of Ratt. Has anyone heard of Ratt? (Calling on rock critic nerds who are into obscure bands that I've never heard of.))

* Uncle D: "Is there an interest in two short 1 hour sessions on Family History? One on (Father's Side) ancestry, the other on (Mother's Side). This would not be a reading of names, dates, events, and relatives. It would be a general discussion of where the families originated based on research and DNA data. It would also cover the challenges of research, and the major discoveries that opened up the research.Let me know because it will take some time to put a presentation together."

Just don't do this around my mother - she hates that sort of thing. Also, dear god - this has turned into the family reunion/party from hell.
They even posted the weather report for Hilton Head. It's 84/73 and either rainy or partly cloudy all week long. (Which tells me what to wear - basically what I'm wearing now.)

Now that my father has passed, can I divorce his pesky relations? [This in a nutshell is why I'm avoiding Facebook.]

* I love how they expect us to be nice to CW and Nina, but they can be nasty to LW and Carly...

Fandom hypocritical with a huge double standard? Nah. Say it's not so.

* Weird how there is no moral panic any more over taking kids to the opera...

Wait. There was moral panic over taking kids to the opera?? Really?

* What band is way better live than in studio?

The Grateful Dead. They are definitely not a recording band. I never really saw them live - but I did listen to all the bootleg live recordings that my college boyfriend had recorded, and was obsessed with.

I'm admittedly not a fan of live music. I know. I know. I'm weird. Practically everyone else and their dog is...but not I. (I'm going to sit over here in the corner by myself and listen to my music on my earphones in peace.)

Some day, I'll find a heterosexual guy who is not obsessed with live music and/or sporting events and actually prefers live theater - plays and musicals. It's not happened as of yet, but hope springs eternal.

I have quite a few athletes and gamers in my literature course this semester. Are there any easily accessible stories/poems/essays where a sport or game (broadly defined to include e-sports too) is a central part of the piece?

I considered responding but..there were 130 comments. Ready Player Now comes to mind.



2. Crazy Workplace

It's been so insane this week - that I decided to actually pull up the remote computer on my laptop after I got home - to complete a document that I have to send out first thing tomorrow morning. Kept getting interrupted today - I did however manage to send out the addendum. The lawyer and I were celebrating when it got posted. We'd both worked our asses off on the damn thing.

Did this after I took a shower, and threw more things in the hamper. I'm going to do laundry tomorrow night. Hopefully.

At work - talked to the lunch group that meets behind my cubicle, briefly.

Chidi: So are you looking forward to next week?
Me: Trying not to think about it actually.
Co-workers: I hope it's at least somewhat relaxing...
ME (I roll my eyes).

I tell this to mother.
Me: Co-workers kept telling me to enjoy my time off next week.
Mother: They realize you are going to your father's funeral, right?
Me: Yup.

I'm beginning to despise the phrase: "How are you doing?" or "How are you?"
I don't answer any longer, or change the subject. I let silence be my response. And I stopped asking it myself. Maybe we should just retire it completely? I get asking it if you really want an answer - but in the workplace, no one ever does. Actually most people don't want one anywhere.
Let's face it - we don't have the bandwidth for the response.

3. Mother continues to regale me with her funeral plans. This is becoming mother's funeral.

Mother: So I've got an Irish Prayer, and another prayer, and the Celtic Cross on the front, and instead of the obituary which is too long, this prayer...(she recites it and it's very touching - she starts crying during it, and it is moving.)
Me: Sounds very Catholic.
Mother: Well, you're father was Catholic, also Irish.

This is true. My father saw himself as Irish Catholic - as if it were his nationality or ethnicity, a part of him. He identified as Irish Catholic.
And insisted that his kids be raised Catholic and his wife become Catholic. (Mother didn't care - she was Episcopalin and liked the rituals, the idea of a religious faith, and the community. She'd been raised without organized religion and went searching for it, and became Episcopalin in college.)

Like in all things, my brother's peer group kicked him of the religious habit - Protestant Christian Sports/Athletic Camp helped. Apparently, or according to him, they had a nasty fire and brimstone service every day at noon in the sweltering sun - where they reenacted the whole crucifixion. (The Protestants are sometimes nuttier than the Catholics in this regard.) During which, some kids fainted from heat stroke. He and his wife were describing this in gory detail to a Jewish friend of theirs - and I decided it was a performance act. (I think he was exaggerating. I repeated his story to mother, who was aghast. "What do you mean, we forced him to go to K-Life camp? He begged us to go. And he begged us for three years! Your father strongly disliked that camp and kept trying to talk him out of it. But no..." My brother, like my Gran used to say, has a selective memory just like his Grandfather. (She kept a log because my Grandfather liked to make up stuff and change what really happened too.)

I minored in cultural anthropology, which included theology, religion, mythology and folklore in college - and that kicked me of it for the most part. After a while, all religious doctrines kind of fell under the header of mythology for me - and I saw a lot of similarities. We really aren't as different as we think. We just get weirdly stubborn over details. And we not that creative - we tend to steal other people's stories and incorporate them into our own. Lots of borrowing going on. Example? The Osiris myth is strangely similar to the Jesus myth, and the Abraham and Issac myth, and the Mohammad and Allah myth, and the Buddah. I think Jesus visited every culture, and they just interpreted it differently. What separates us is religious doctrine and dogma and philosophy, what unites us is the stories. It's why I like stories better. The rest gives me a headache.

She's also putting up a poster board or some sort of board (she couldn't figure out what to call it - I'm thinking Easel? ) to put all my Dad's photos on - at the back of the church or in the entry way to it. She wants my help with it when I get there - or she'll do it over the weekend.

I've decided to put myself on auto pilot from here on out. And meditate a lot. The CBD had too much sugar in it - so wires me. Also dehydrates. Plus I got more hot flashes when I had a lot of it. So scaling back or trying something else.

I don't want to feel. I don't right now. Kind of numb and snarky.

Comments

[spiffikins]

I'm admittedly not a fan of live music.

I can empathize - I enjoy live music *far* more, if I know the band and their music - if I go in "cold" - then I generally can't quite get into it. When we were in college, and going to lots of concerts, my friend Rachel and I would always look up who the opening act was going to - and try to get ahold of some of their music (ah, the days before the internet and youtube, LOL) - because we had a much better time if we already had their CD and knew their songs.

Moral panic about opera? I mean, maybe back in the mid to late 19th century - but recently?

Maybe your coworkers are thinking of this as *also* an opportunity to see your family and friends, and not just as going to a funeral? Still weird though - I would feel awkward wishing someone a good trip, if I knew the reason they were going was for a funeral?

I think photos are wonderful at a memorial service.

For my mom's service, they offered that we could put together a slide show of photos, that they would play, along with music we picked out, on a big screen before the service while people were assembling into the auditorium-thingy - and it played (without music) behind the speaker during the memorial service. We spent a lot of time finding and digitizing photos - and it was neat when we found some with people other than family members - because a lot of those people were in the audience and you could hear murmurs when those photos came up - people liked that a lot.

Numb and snarky works. You do what you need to do to make it through, honestly.

[shadowkat]

I would agree - it helps greatly if I am a huge fan of the music, and know all the songs ahead of time. I think that's why the Peter Gabriel concert that I saw in England was my favorite. I had listened to his song incessantly all summer long and had many of them memorized.

That said, I've gone to concerts where I was a fan and knew the performer - and was bored out of my skull. Aimee Mann - boring concert. Love her music though. Pink Floyd - boring concert. Love their music though.

I just can't hear the music, and I'm not a fan of crowded events. And watching people sing or play an instrument kind of bores me after a bit.

Maybe your coworkers are thinking of this as *also* an opportunity to see your family and friends, and not just as going to a funeral?

No friends. Just family.

It's not where I grew up. My parents retired from Kansas City to Hilton Head Island in the 1990s (when I was in my late 20s). They've been there for over 20 years, and I've been in NYC for over 20 years. I don't have a home town any longer. There is no "home" where I grew up that I can go back and visit, or would really want to - no one is there.

And family is always...a mixed bag. I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. But for the most part I'm just not really thinking about it at all at the moment - too busy at work.

Yeah, the opera thing seemed odd to me. Crazy historical romance novelist.

[mtbc]

Yeah, easel sounds good to me. And, yup, I never heard of Ratt, nor of the moral panic, just as well, I got taken to the opera as a kid, though mostly we watched it on television, don't think it did me any harm.

Such heterosexual guys exist, at least, so good luck. (-: R. and I aren't perfectly matched in those regards but close enough at least to largely enjoy each other's stuff. It's so many years since I went to either live music or sports. Given money and time and no-pandemic, I might bother with live classical, but I haven't for so long.

My usual How are you doing? is to remember I don't have to solve problems and that, while I'd still like to hear about them, I can always suggest consequentially grabbing coffee later or whatever, it doesn't have to be at right that moment. Always feels a bit bizarre to me though when as an exchange which clearly isn't even awaiting a response.

[shadowkat]

Yeah, for the most part the "How are you doing" doesn't seem to go anywhere. Most people at my workplace either answer with "I've got no complaints" or "I can't complain." Because what else do you say at work? Some say, 'great', some 'okay', some 'fine". Most people ask it though without expecting an answer. I've stopped asking, and I've begun to notice others have begun to as well...

Live music is expensive. My co-workers go. There's a lot of live music in NYC. I just...have never been into it. I love music, but live music doesn't enthrall - I can't hear it for the most part. Or it's kind of boring. I need visual stimulation. And I have to be able to see it.
(It's hard to see at most concerts.)

[mtbc]

I have a few issues with live music, including that amplified is almost always too loud for me, and I'd rather participate in no way whatsoever at any point. I'm generally happier at a distance in the next room or somesuch. (-: Also, for my taste, mostly from what I see of recorded concerts on BBC, I tend to prefer studio versions anyway. Still, on a summer evening on a blanket on grass with family, quite some distance away from crowd or stage, I can be quite happy at a concert, it just doesn't tend to come up these days.

[shadowkat]

Agree - depends. I'm not a grass sitter though - back issues and all of that. But I did love the Peter Gabriel Concert that I saw in Wembley Stadium in 1987 with a surprise appearance by Kate Bush, it was for 14 pounds (which was the equivalent of about 10 dollars). And I got the tickets from someone selling them on the way there. We had lawn chairs on the grass. And we didn't stand up til the end. Also, I knew all the songs by heart. The sound was clear as a bell. It was marvelous. Nothing else has ever compared to it, since.

[mtbc]

That does sound really great. (-: