Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

I didn’t write today but as I can’t write tomorrow I should try and write something now. Let’s see how this goes. It will be short and personal.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m not in a good place mentally right now. I am depressed. I’m don’t want to get out of bed in the morning and face the world. I am having trouble doing some very important things. But it’s not all doom and gloom so I’m going to write about some good things and a memory.

What’s good? No matter what else is going on I seem to have the ability to appreciate some kinds of excellence, friends, food, and music. I haven’t seen anyone in person this week but I’ve talked to Carolann, Dan, Genevieve, Bri, and Erika. I’ve gone months without talking to so many friends on the phone. I went to the Elizabeth Warren rally then training the next day. I recruited two new volunteers, so I accomplished something in the volunteer pyramid scheme. Then there was today’s food, simply bacon and eggs for brunch and barbecued ribs and baked potato for dinner. No matter how many times I have bacon and eggs, I love it, at least when I cook it. The ribs I have less frequently so that’s a treat. I made them perfectly.

I recorded four editions of Gord’s Gold for Folk Music Notebook the last two days. Two were re-recordings of one I did that had sound problems; Bobtown and The Sea the Sea. Those are easy, I don’t have to figure out what to say. One was totally original, on Sam Baker. I’m getting better, and it wrote itself. The last was Emerald Rae. She was the very first person I recorded a piece on. I was just learning what I was doing, didn’t have a real mic, and it was not good. I listened to it today and found it painful. I started again from scratch and I’m so much happier with the result. It’s something I can be proud of.

The first take of Emerald Rae was done from notes not a script. I’ve always been not a good, but excellent off the cuff speaker. When I was on the air with Brian, I was very happy with out how it came out. When I was in middle and high school and we had public speaking assignments I always aced them. The memory is from my senior year. We had to give a five-minute talk, and were penalized if we went over. Mine was on trivia. I’m a three-time Jeopardy champ, I know a lot of trivia. The one thing I made sure to mention was that the state insect of California is the California Dog-Faced Butterfly. At the time It was the only state with an official insect. The talked was very much in the tone that I blog in, lots of humorous asides. When I was done the teacher gave me a score of 95. She announced the grades of the speakers when as they finished. Looking back that is just wrong, announcing your grades to the class. What happened to me is why it’s wrong. I spoke for over seven minutes. My classmates actually complained that I was penalized for going over. To my gratification at the time she said, “I did take points off.” That boosted my ego but not my social standing. I was already someone that the class wanted to do poorly. I was not quite as popular in high school as I am now. I was in fact the opposite. I was the kid nobody liked. What changed? Me? The people around me? I have no idea, but I’m glad it did. Pretty sure not many people are rooting against me now.

The reason I can’t blog tomorrow, or much the next week is that the WFUV member drive starts tomorrow which means me getting up at 5 AM and heading over to the station. Tomorrow is a particularly busy day. I’m walking to the Fordham, then taking the train up to Harrison for therapy. Then the train back to Fordham. I’ll either stay at the station or come home for a while. Then I get picked up by Kevin as we are going back to up Port Chester in Westchester, to see Lucinda Williams. I won tickets from the station.

Then on Saturday I inherited a ticket to see Hamilton!. These things happen to me far more often than to others. I get to go with Emily and her three oldest daughters. So I get to see the top of my theater bucket list with four of my favorite people.

You’re probably wondering, “how can this guy be depressed?” Those who suffer from depression know it’s not that simple. I’m also not telling you about the external factors. Therapy will be interesting tomorrow. I’ve done some important things but not others. I need to do them all. Discussing that is giving me anxiety so I’m going to post this, maybe read a little, then go to sleep.