long day's journey into pst

A case of doldrums coming on. I did have a pleasant time at the zoo yesterday. On the way to the zoo, gave a buck to an old guy playing saxophone. I pointed out my live at the village vanguard shirt to him; turned out he's a former New Yorker. Odd that people are drawn to extremes; for example, I think that the most popular zoo animals are either quite large, or small, but not medium. One of the medium small animals, a Coatimundi, was puttin' on a show, spinning its wheel: think of a hamster wheel magnified about 30 times. I'm not immune to the draw of the diminutive: I spent much time marveling at a quail from Madagascar not much larger than a weaver bird, which in turn isn't much larger than a sparrow.

the more things change

As I expected, my recent post in the alt.support.social-phobia newsgroup has received no response. In a similar vein, I've recently sent email to Roger Ebert, Pete O'Neal (the panther in Africa), and commented on an article by one Dyske Suematsu, with the same result. I have almost as little luck trying to establish electronic communications with people as I once did answering personal ads. The brush-off from Pete O'Neal is the most disappointing, since I donated $30 to his organization.

sympathy for o'reilly

Here's a note I emailed to Bill O'Reilly today.

mr. or,

i think you & michael jackson should start a support group for celebrities who get shaken down by extortionists aided and abetted by witch-hunting media & shysters.

must say i'm a trite disappointed in your newfound pacifism. or perhaps it's compassion, you couldn't bear to see this confused young woman being exposed to the whole world as a gold-digging b****. so noble of you to renounce forever the chance to proclaim your innocence and reclaim your good name.

with guys like you, limbaugh, and bill bennett, what more could a liberal ask for? keep up the good work fellas.

text

I once had an English professor, who had TEXT tattooed on her person (at least, that's what she told us in class.) One of my great pleasures in life is being absorbed in a book. The last time this happened was Stephen King's Dark Tower vol. 7. It may be the literary equivalent of retro/nostalgia on a par with classic rock, but I rely on writers I've read & loved. Alas, many of them are deceased. Perhaps it's a sign of age when your favorite musicians and writers are mainly defunct. One of my fave writers who's still alive, Lawrence Block, quoted the late comedian George Burns, as quipping, "when you're my age, most of your friends are dead." Well, I haven't reached that point, yet.

I'm going to shift focus to the future and mention that my upcoming trip to Pohnpei was largely the result of reading The Island of the Color Blind by Dr. Oliver Sacks. I strongly recommend his chapter on Pohnpei to anyone who wishes to understand my fascination with this place.

molly ivins, et al.

Following up on a topic from yesterday's *innaugural* post, I see Molly Ivins just predicted a Kerry victory. I wonder if she'll withdraw the prediction when she finds out that the 370 tons of missing explosives Kerry's been pounding Bush on might have been removed before US forces ever got to the facility where they were housed. Still, as predictions go, it's not as dubious as the landslide predicted by another columnist at workingforchange.com. I can't wait to send him an email on that one.

to begin with, a hodge-podge

I visited alt.support.social-phobia a short while back by way of google. After looking over a few recent posts, I decided to post a reply to one. Using google to post to newsgroups requires waiting for a few hours before it gets displayed in google. I assume that's how long it takes for google's archiving to catch up, but who knows. Tomorrow, I will check and see if my post gets more than the usual response, which is to say zilch.

I can expound on my social phobia if anyone who reads this is interested. You could also search in a.s.s-p for catimp or yitwail to read all my posts.

Since I mentioned travel in my intro, I'll drop some place names: Jamaica, Australia, England, California, New York, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Japan. These are some of the places I've visited or lived in the last few years. Early next year, I will be visiting Pohnpei in Micronesia. The next person I meet who knows this Pohnpei instead of the one buried by a volcano in Italy will be the first person I've met who knew about it. :)

I keep up with events, mostly through Yahoo! News. I also take a look once in a while at Workingforchange.com, for a mostly left-wing take on the news. One thing that bothers me about the leftwingers at Workingforchange.com--many of whom seem to be affiliated with an organization called creator's syndicate, sounds fundamentalist, but probably anything but--is that they're as arrogant as I imagine rightwing commentators to be. Take Molly Ivins, for one: she rips the administration, but won't bother answering me when I send email critiquing one of her columns. Now that I have a blog, perhaps she won't dare brush me off again. :)

Any one else disheartened by our choices for president? There's no stronger evidence of the weakness of the Democratic ticket than the fact that there's a close race. With all the mismanagement of the war in Iraq, the dems should be a shoo-in. I have nothing against Kerry, but I really can't tolerate John Edwards or Elizabeth Edwards. Those two are so insensitive, it's amazing they're not part of some reality show like the Apprentice or American Idol.

That's all for now, but plenty more to come, so come back soon.