Where do all my great blogging ideas go when I start to write? I suspect they are all stuck in cushions of my comfy chair. One day I’ll take a look and will have enough for a book.
I took most of yesterday off from watching streaming concerts. Of course, that means I saw all or part of three. I had planned on watching Christine Lavin at 2 but there were technical difficulties, so I watched The Kennedys till they were cleared 45 minutes later. I watch the Kennedys every week. Then I watched Chris who played my song, The Jeopardy Theme Song with original lyrics. That’s a fixture when I’m at a show. I wasn’t the only Jeopardy champ watching, Tom Toce (rhymes with close), is too. When I first heard Tom say his name I thought he said, toast. We were in a crowded room watching Christine.
I deliberately skipped Susan Werner who I watch every week just to give myself a streaming break. Later I got a FB alert that River was watching Carolann Solebello. I forgot all about that one. I tuned in for the last song. Watching streaming shows is best when friends are watching with you. It provides much needed socializing.
I hadn’t called anyone and when the show ended I decided it was time to call. I had been considering calling Carolann which would have been awkward as she was streaming. I’m sure she turned her phone off but if she didn’t then I’d be the guy interrupting the show and demonstrating to the world that I forgot about the show. Instead I’m announcing it to the world.
Instead I called Marc. He is on the “We really need to talk more” list. We used to talk every week and that was back when he lived in Albuquerque and we had to pay long distance charges. Marc’s friendship is not fungible. I have different conversations with him than I do with anyone else. Last night we talked about him being a collector, not at the level of Sharon Goldman’s Father. Mark does not collect fruit stickers, at least not that I know of.
He does collect tube amps. He said, “You don’t want to hear me go on and on about tube amps.” He’s wrong. I do. I love people discussing their passions. It doesn’t matter if I share the passion. I love the excitement in their voices. I love the love. People with passions are my people. My most common topics here are my passions. I’ve been told that others enjoy my gusto for music, food, and people, and nature, and science, and books, and everything else I have passions for. I’ve always considered getting people to feel things they otherwise wouldn’t is one of the prime purposes of art. You can also get it out of conversation with the right people. I hope some of you are getting enjoyment out of my passion for passions.
Enjoying people go on and on makes it seem like I’m a good listener. Perhaps I am but it’s not a social skill. I just have a broad range of interests. There are times I am just waiting for it to be my turn to speak or waiting to stop talking. The only reason it doesn’t happen more often is that I minimize my time talking to people that make me feel that way. I’m just skilled at curating the people I spend time with. Just as I’m good at curating my music. Put curating in my skill set.
Marc discussed curating his collection but what he really meant is archiving it. Curating is deciding what goes into the collection, what he was doing was organizing. I love organizing but it can be daunting. Using the kinds of sorts people use in real life the time needed to sort n objects is proportional to n². If the number of objects is 10 times as many as another it will take 100 times as long. The job does get progressively easier as you organize as you are left with fewer things to sort. Once it’s all organized it’s easy to maintain. Every time you take a book or a CD out all you have to do is put it back in the same place. If you have a thousand CDs and take 10 out it’s relatively easy to put the 10 back. It would take 100² = 10,000 times as long to sort them all starting from scratch. Have I mentioned that I’m passionate about math?
It was announced today that NERFA is canceled. The four once a year events that I look forward to the most every year are Falcon Ridge, NERFA, The Seder, and Thanksgiving with the Van Mercs and Friends. The only one that might still happen is Thanksgiving. On a more spread out basis there are Met Games, John Platt’s On Your Radar, and the springtime Friday Sunset Singing Circles at Wagner Park. Those are canceled for now too. I’m optimistic we’ll get the Christmas Caroling in Washington Square Park in. If it’s cold enough we can just cover our mouths with our winter scarves.
I often say that I need these things to stay sane. It’s not true. I’m at least not getting any more insane than usual. We are more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for, even those of us with anxiety and depression. I need to go to Stop & Shop to get beef gravy so I can make poutine. It’s already late so I suspect I won’t. I should at least go to the local supermarket to get milk. I won’t get any of that done till I post this. I’m declaring Mission Accomplished and posting.
Wise Madness 