Yesterday was disappointing. I hadn’t made any plans with a friend. I stayed home to watch the Met game and the lost. Last night I went to watch the first Knick playoff game since the Adams (John Quincy) administration, and they lost in a nail biter. I went to console myself with The Nevers and discovered that Part 1 of the first season ended the week before and part 2 won’t start for a year. I’m sorry, with a year in between, that is not season one part 2, that’s season 2. In what sense is it a single season?
I had some culinary consolation, I stopped at Baskin-Robbins on the way home from my Donut Walk™. Don’t give me that look. I can indulge myself if I want to and I wanted to. It was hot. I didn’t turn on the AC, but I used the fan for the first time this year and wore one of my wicking fabric shirts. I only go out in the late afternoon when the UV level drops to moderate but I’m still getting a Teva tan on my feet. I presume the rest of me is tanning too but that it’s so subtle I can’t see it without the contrast. I just realized too things; I’m going to miss tonight’s Met game on the radio because I’m attending Jean Rohe’s Show and Tell via Zoom. That’s a great series she does where she discusses the process of writing one of her songs. Tonight’s my favorite, Sisterly. You still have time to register.
I also consoled myself by having a long phone conversation with a friend. I spend the vast majority of my time alone; I appreciate when I spend time with a person I care about. Care is such an inadequate word; it carries too much weight. The spectrum of feelings I have to people I care about is vast. Even love is adequate. Greek and Latin have many words with formalized meanings for the different types of love, but that is inadequate too Here’s a list of the Greek classifications of love.
- Eros is passion, lust, and pleasure.
- Philia (affectionate love)
- Agape (selfless, universal love)
- Storge (familiar love)
- Mania (obsessive love)
- Ludus (playful love)
- Pragma (enduring love)
- Philautia (self-love) [8 Ancient Greek Words for Love]
That doesn’t capture everything either. We can combine all those in different quantities. If we accept those as he independent axes, not at all self-evident, we’d need to characterize our feeling towards any individual as a point in 8-dimensional space. Instead of saying, “I love you,” I could say I (5, 10, 8, 2, 0, 9, 7, 4) you. Try putting that into a poem. It looks like we are stuck not having the appropriate language for all of our emotions. James Branch Cabell got this idea. One of his protagonists, Dom Manuel said of his wife, “I’d rather lose my right are than lose Niafer, but nobody ever said that I loved my right arm.”
When I go off like that I wonder why anyone is my friend, but I finally figured it out. I’m a muse, or perhaps a rabbit’s foot. My friends are amazingly accomplished. This explanation hit me when I found out that my friend, an author far outside the mainstream, is having their book reviewed in the New York Times. I am not claiming that I was in any way an inspiration, or I helped. Like a rabbit’s food I’m simply good luck, except not for the rabbit. My powers are growing, I’ve had friends win Grammys, Tonys, Emmys, Hugo & Nebula Awards, write books, record albums, develop new technologies, and get elected to public office. Me? I forget what I’m doing in the middle of a sentence. I started writing this in the afternoon, now it’s 10:32. I better publish this before I forget what I’m doing. As this entire entry is an idiot story, I’ll tell of another idiot story tomorrow.
Wise Madness 