Valentine's Day Massacre

I imagine that's the lurid, yet apt, headline that will make it onto various sites and stations.

There have been 18 school shootings in 2018. That's 18 separate incidents in 46 days. I believe there have been 26 or 27 mass shootings total in the USA this year alone.

What is happening? It's like a seal was broken, and now this terrible, unthinkable catastrophe is a mainstream idea. It's totally Thinkable: you can look at examples, compare incidents, and plan strategies on both sides.

The Unthinkable has become the Possible. It is quickly becoming the Probable. What does this shift in thinking, in conceptualizing, mean about the fabric of American culture and society? What are we becoming, what are we enabling, what are we fomenting?

I don't have answers, and I'm not dismissing sober and well thought arguments for changes to gun laws, ammo laws, or outreach for those suffering from mental imbalance.

But I can't help but conclude that this growing public safety concern is about more than the individual parts being discussed. I feel like the US is sick at it's core, ill in some way that affects all of us, and we haven't made inroads into dealing with that.

If the US were a person, I would be screaming: THERAPY. For whom? Everyone.

i don't have any good words to say. its all just so sad.

Birth, Death, and Children

Today is my mother's birthday, which makes it a great day in history.

Today I started a part time job caretaking and chauffeuring for a family, their kids. The irony of this is beyond comment. I'm terribly conflicted. But also broke. Money is stupid.

Today Gene Wilder passed away. Beyond the awfulness of losing such a beautiful person, as any regular readers of Blahg will know, Wilder means a lot to people round these parts.

A few weeks or months ago, someone I cared about told me they were mad at me and didn't want to talk to me, via text. I haven't heard from them since, nor do I expect to at this point.

The last text they sent ended with "Good day sir!"

It was actually pretty funny.

But I'm a little overloaded on morbid and ironic humor at the moment. I'm still so adrift. I don't even have access to my music. It's locked away on a hard drive.

That seems like a silly thing. But when you have very little of your own, when you live in and around other people's landscapes and lives, those small things may be all you've got. Or don't have, as the case may be.

At any rate, pretty sure we've mentioned Wilder's autobiography before: Kiss Me Like A Stranger. It was an amazingly honest and forthright book. I think a person could read it and like Wilder less. But it only made me love Gene even more. Which probably explains something about me. Whatever.

The point is:

witty title here

So--back in SoCal. Two job leads went up in smoke, I flubbed another interview, my haircut is no bueno, and I've been bedridden with pain the last four days.

It has not been a triumphant return.

But hopefully it will get better.

Why'd Ya Go And Do That?

Did you know that Mandy Patinkin and Madonna recorded a Sondheim duet together? These things do happen.

Headed West

It's been a bit since I've posted.

Life As We Know It took a pause and I took a trip. It was the kind of trip that turns out to be a Life As You Knew It--because things change so much in such a short time.

After 8.5 months back with my family, tending to immediate and extended family business, I'm headed home.

At mile 312 my sadness got the best of me, and I was beset by a terrible longing and great deal of regret.

I was alright again until someone texted me a picture of one of the cats, saying goodnight. That provoked a rather sudden and emotional response.

My heart hurts.

You'd think, after all this time, I'd be used to sadness. But I hate it so. No matter how often I feel it, it never gets easier.

So I'll do what I always do: run fast and far. And maybe one day I'll learn to move fast enough to leave my sorrows behind.

At least that's what I'll tell myself tonight.

Damn! We're In A Tight Spot

After moving across country and getting laid off, I've had several years now of difficulty trying to get work. I can count on one hand the number of interviews I've landed. Even when I've aimed low, just can't seem to work it out.

Naturally, not having a regular income combined with significant medical costs has left me quite destitute. I've burned through my sad little 401k, etc.

So, you would think accidentally getting a semi-decent job would be a boon, a benefit, a balm.

Instead it has been a misery.

I've been struggling mightily with this. As you can see, even on a day off my brain has me up at 5:30 a.m., my thoughts skittering after each other in an unpleasant and endless loop.

Why has it been so hard? I'm not sure I can accurately say at this point. I've spent a sickening amount of time trying to figure out why I'm so constantly offended, frustrated, and stymied by the people and the environment. It's so pervasive and so overwhelming that I've spent a great deal of time wondering if perhaps the problem lies with me. Maybe I've just gotten too old and grumpy. Or maybe, after all the shit life has thrown at me, I've finally just lost my ability to maintain. Shit, I've even wondered if maybe I never had my shit together in the first place and now it's just showing.


I'd like to point out that prior to this I've had a lot of success in the work place. It's been noted by multiple people over the years that I seem to have a knack for getting along with "difficult" people and making hard situations work. I compartmentalize pretty well, don't take things personally, and focus on end goals.

So what's going on? Have I just lost all my skills? Is this job so different and stressful that it's a uniquely terrible experience? Is this just another byproduct of having no thyroid and the constant life changes that accompany that?

Honestly, I can only get so far in my estimations before it all becomes too depressing to contemplate.

The people I'm working for offend me. From my perspective, they are not terrible people, but they aren't very good managers. There's an appalling dearth of basic social skills and awareness coupled with an embarassing level of self involvement. There is constant intense demand for efficiency and perfection, but no consistency in what is requested and no tools provided to achieve those requests. In fact, a sure way to get something wrong is do exactly as you've been instructed. And instructed is a strong word there, it's less instruction and more "the thing I told you about briefly but can't be arsed to actually define what I want so I'll just toss it out at you before I disappear behind closed doors and you are Not Allowed to ask me questions about it so get it done so I can reject it later on with no feedback other than: it's wrong."

All of which might be tolerable, if the office itself wasn't designed for failure. Or if not failure, then the sure maintenance of a sub standard environment in which no improvements are possible and nothing can really get better. Do your job correctly and use these tools and procedures, just ignore all the bits that don't make sense or are blatantly incorrect. Use these systems, but we get grumpy if you "waste time" by actually attempting the meager training.

Perhaps it's just my weird personal hang up, but when my ability to actually do my job correctly is compromised or impeded, I get really cranky and distressed. I'm not familiar with the work, don't know what I'm doing, don't have a model or guide, and often can't even use basic logic because these people are illogical.

So, of course, all of that is just my perspective. And I've spent a great deal of time trying to think, strategize, and rationalize myself out of the feelings my perception has created. I'm very disappointed in myself. Why can't I rise above the petty problems of a workplace? Why can't I employ some zen acceptance? Why am I letting this situation bother me? Why can't I make this work?

I haven't had a steady job in years. I should be glad to be making any money. I should be hanging in there to try and get health insurance. I should be grateful that I can take these paychecks and devote them all to debt payment. Right? I should be doing everything in my power to make sure I keep this job, right? I should suck it up and get over whatever this thing is. I should be practical.

I consistently try to understand the workings of things, to get to the core of feelings, actions, motivations. But I am beginning to wonder: at what point should one cease searching for explanations and simply react to the situation? Is there a point where the healthy response becomes "I don't have to know why it makes me miserable, I just need to know that it makes me miserable."

Even thinking that way feels like a cop out, a shirking of intellectual and emotional duty. But I am forced to consider this perspective when the misery of a situation has started to color everything. Perhaps I will never be smart or strong enough to figure out how to deal with this situation. Maybe that means I should just admit defeat.

Dear Mom: Don't Read This One

There i am, on the phone back home,  just whining away about my sorry life when I hear someone on the other end coughing in the background.

It's a horrible, wet, squelching sound. It rolls on and on and I can hear the cougher struggling for breath, almost sobbing at one point.

It sounds like it hurts.

How can I have the gall to be mad at the world when I have done nothing of substance to help the people that have helped me? How come I haven't been out using this supposedly great brain to figure out some cure, some way to make it better? Why haven't I made a boatload of money so I can pay for the best treatments?

It was such a terrible sound.

Unexpected Phone Interview

There is nothing like being loopy and totally unprepared for a phone interview. Cheese and rice, that was stressful.

And he was a lawyer. Normally, I'd be ready to go. But I am not myself today and having some congestion medication loopiness. Took stuff this morning because, I foolishly thought, "I got nothing going on today. Don't even have to drive anywhere."

Ha ha. Handy J needs a ride to work after all. Lawyer calls to grill me. Yikes.

Also unexpected: landing an interview from this phone call. I have to go buy some kinda suit for my fat ass. Yuck.

While this is good news, in a sense, it's mostly filling me with an unspecified dread. This is a real job, not something I can just screw off and do. I will have to learn stuff.

I obvs need to do this, because financial reasons. Furthermore, I should probably give up the ghost on any of my dreams and start getting real about my future.

I've had all this time to make something happen and I haven't. Doesn't that mean it will never happen? Maybe I'm not hungry enough. Maybe I didn't try hard enough? I am not sure what to do even now, so I think that's probably a given. Maybe I just didn't have what it takes to really go for it.

WTF SoCal: Atomic Mosquitoes?

So, the last three nights of house sitting, I have been plagues by super itchy bites.

I'm talking about shit so itchy it wakes me up.

Washed sheets, blah blah blah, fearing the worst--bedbugs. But I think it's actually mosquitoes.

Evil, vile, venomous mosquitoes with genetically altered saliva that WON'T STOP ITCHING. This is insane.

I actually didn't sleep at all last night and have only managed to clock a few hours tonight.

No bueno.

What the crap, SoCal? You are supposed to be better than that.

Robin Williams Dead

At age 63, Robin Williams has been found dead in his home, apparently due to self-asphyxiation.

:(

:(

:(


A sweet link from Omey-pie:

Climatologist Says, "We're F****D," Time To Worry?

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/if-we-release-a-small-fraction-of-arctic-carbon-were-fucked-climatologist

So, I find this disturbing. It's weird that there's so much debate about whether climate change is real or not. When I was growing up, the Greenhouse Effect and our responsibility to pollute less was a given. It wasn't up for discussion as to "if," people were just negotiating "when."

Is greed so powerful that it can trump everything, even self preservation? I don't have kids, I don't have a legacy, and I worry about this planet. How do these CEO fucks sleep at night? How do the legislators? How can I worry more when I have no vested interest in any of this?

It would be one thing if we were just destroying ourselves. But we are taking the whole interconnected ecosystem with us.

This is so depressing. I need some ice cream.

Is It Something In The Air?

I think I'm in a really weird mood right now.

This is one of those "I've heard this song a million times but today it struck a nerve" moments. It may seem trite, but I know this person and I know this feeling and it hurts in a horrible way. Aches. Twinges. Grieving for something you have yet to lose.

Music is so powerful. You have to be careful how much you let it influence you.

Step one, you say, We need to talk
He walks, you say, Sit down, it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through

Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all, you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence

Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed

He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

I know better than to be so melancholy. Fortunately, "Sledgehammer" just came on. So I'm sure I'll be bouncing about it a bit. I'm such a twit. Peter Gabriel is so wonderfully direct about his dirtiness. :)

This is the new stuff. . . We go dancing in

I Don't Know What To Do

ETA: Shrink called back and saw glorious reason. Thank god for East Coast Jewish Doctor transplants. 

tl;dr Medical shit. I really don't enjoy being this person. But I need to express this anger somehow, lest it eat me up. This seems the least toxic for the humans around me. I'm sorry to be a broken record.

I have 3 medical conditions(A, B, C) that require Rx drugs/treatment. I probably need surgery (again) for one of the conditions, and I'll probably still have to take meds after that.

I picked up an independent contracting job in Florida. So I've been in FL for several months and have a few more to go.

I signed up for coverage in CA. I'm so poor I only potentially qualify for state sponsored Medicaid. When I last spoke with a representative, they advised me that everything was processing and that they were categorically refusing to give estimation dates on when to expect application processing. I'm supposed to wait and eventually get something in the mail.

Would that coverage do anything in another state? I don't know. I have no idea what it encompasses and am waiting on some mail notification to be forwarded from CA to my temporary digs. Nothing so far.

I bring this up because, despite the fact that I am willing and do pay out of pocket, suddenly every doctor in 2014 wants to know not if, but when I will be getting insurance. They have no idea what it will cover or if it's even applicable in the cases we are discussing. But they ask. Over and over. It seems to be a sticking point---almost like they can't really treat people with no coverage anymore? I'm not sure. But I have been interrogated in person and over the phone extensively just trying to get Rx refills in FL for meds prescribed IN FL.

Now, for medical condition B, my docs think I need nerve pills. Because, after three years of pursuing multiple therapies, according to them I obviously have psychological conditions that require treatment. (It couldn't possibly be that I had an organ removed and the compensatory meds are not adequate blah blah ignorancecakes). And let me tell you what, no matter what your state by the time you spend a few years getting the runaround from these yahas you NEED psych meds, just to deal with the bullshit. And, quite frankly, because when you can't get relief where you need it (condition A), then you gotta take what helps.

Just submitted a refill for my two shrink meds. I have no phone, and won't until mid month, but I just figured out how to check my voice messages. My shrink called and said "I haven't seen you, this med is being filled in one state and shipped to another, I'm not comfortable. You need to find somebody where you are to get this Rx."

I left him a msg asking if this was going to apply to BOTH meds he prescribed, or just that one that everybody seems so touchy about. I explained that the Rxs had always shipped from another state b/c I'm on a mail order system. Back in CA, they will still show as shipping from another state. Because that's where they ship them from.

And this is an issue because? Because I am obviously running a bi-coastal drug scam with my monthly prescription? I drive 36 hours a couple times a month to....what? I'm not even sure what I could be doing, but apparently it's scandalous.

Running out of money meant I could no longer pursue the pain treatment course for condition C--a wondrous chronic item that sometimes takes 4 days out of my life, sometimes 3 weeks. I had to cease the $300/pop doctor visits, but retained the substandard meds he provided. Until he refused to refill them again. I tried contacting his office but never heard back from them. I'm assuming he suspended refills because I wasn't seeing  him on a regular basis. I've heard that reasoning before.

Let me reiterate so that you can appreciate what I'm saying: Since I can't afford to go to the doctor on a regular basis, he refuses to continue to prescribe me medication. I have a diagnosis and a treatment plan, he is refusing to continue it. I could, theoretically, make an appt and go every month or week or whatever. Except then I don't have enough money to buy the meds. Hell, I don't have enough money to buy the meds now. That's why Satan invented credit cards.

So my pain doc cold turkey-ed my meds. My shrink just announced that is going to cold turkey at least one, maybe both of my psych meds. This is responsible doctoring.

I went to a doc here in FL and explained my situation for condition C--chronic pain. It's been getting worse. I explained all about the pain mgmt, the fact that I probably need surgery, blah blah. He was very nice and gave me two Rx. One was fine. The other provided a different kind of relief that was nauseating, but effective. It was also in a patch form, and 4 of the five patches malfunctioned and fell off. Two of them instantly. Call pharmacy and doc about it, conclusion: nobody else in the world has ever had this problem. I am a freak. Deal with it. And suck up the $100 you spent to get 2/5 of a medication.

Well, okay. Can I get a refill on those items then? I called in a moment of extreme pain and duress. That was 3 weeks ago. I've called multiple times. Been given the runaround, been called by the clinic, etc. I even had to go back in for some ass kicking sinusitis. While there I followed up again just trying to find out if I could get anything refilled.

They keep asking me: "When are you going to see a specialist for your condition?"

Well, I don't have the money. I mean, it's like $5K to $15K to get this stuff taken care of. And that's before the post op treatment. Which I will likely have to be on for life.

Again, clarification point: I probably have to take pain meds for the rest of my life to get relief, no matter what surgeries and treatments I get. This is a medical fact. My only hope is menopause. No shit.

Called clinic today and they said, "Oh, the doc wants to know when you are going to get insurance and see a specialist." That's his answer to "Can a brother get a refill?" That is also the 4th or 5th time I will have answered the question for that clinic, in great detail. It's all in my chart. I watched them write it down. I told him to his face.

I don't have money to see new doctors here, to get new prescriptions. Especially not if those Rx will cease to be fillable when I go back to CA. Each visit is a minimum of $100, for any of the three conditions. Some are up to $300. And on top of all that, there is no guarantee that any doctor will re-prescribe what I'm on. Some of them like to run you through the whole circus again, no matter what your history says, your charts.

And obviously, as a patient and sufferer of these conditions, I am in no place to have an opinion or deduction about any of it.

So, I'm working out of state because it's the only job I have been able to get. Money good. Help pay bills. Help pay for medicine.

Because I'm out of state, my doctors don't want to refill my prescriptions. Also because I haven't had an appt in a while. (Which I totally would have been able to do with all the money I wouldn't be making had i stayed unemployed in state, oh, wait, sorry to introduce logic there. No place in medicine for logic.)

What the hell is going on? What am I supposed to do? Is this happening because I'm poor and broke? Is something else going on? Am I being discriminated against because of my conditions? Am I on some "chronic pain" blacklist? If I need to be on psych meds, should they just take them away? What can I do when faced with a government that refuses to respond? Why can't I just pay for the things that work?

Why can't I just pay for the things that work? Why don't I deserve access to treatment?

I Had A Harrowing Dream Last Night

We put down the cat. But it didn't take. I found her alive. I was trying to protect here when a gunfight broke out and she was shot.

She still didn't die.

I was clutching her to my chest, screaming for help, screaming for people to stop trying to kill her. She obviously wasn't as sick as we thought: she kept surviving. I needed to get her help.

I kept wishing for a papoose to carry her in. I lost my clothes, there were strangers everywhere, I couldn't get to a car. No one would listen.

As I crept down a hall to try and make my escape, she didn't feel warm anymore. I felt like I kept dropping her without realizing it. I think she died.

what the fuck, douchebag brain?

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Tonight we met at the emergency animal hospital. Then we put Chloe to sleep.

Chloe was a slinky, graceful, acrobatic cat. A little princess who didn't seem to fear very much, though she was very particular. I once saw her train a human to give her a treat everytime she laid her paw on their nose.

My tender hearted Moo is crying. "I'll never get used to this."

Though it causes her such pain, maybe that's what makes her such a good person. She keenly feels the loss of her loved ones with no diminishing through time and recurrence. I don't know how she does it: I would go mad.

My sister is feeling great sadness. Chloe was her cat, in most of the ways that count.

My little brother is the unsung hero of the night, contacting everyone, driving the hour to the emergency vet, and burying Chloe tonight.

Perhaps Death exists because it's the only way we can really ever appreciate Beauty, it's the only way we can really know Love.

You are loved Chloe and you will be missed.

You Know That Feeling?

When you wish somebody liked you enough that they just wanted to call you up and spend an evening hanging out, grabbing dinner, and talking to you? And they were keen about it and sought you out?

You know, the feeling that you are such a neat and interesting person that somebody just really wants to spend time with you, to hear what you think?

*sigh*

Yeah, that feeling.

Things That Flutter, Sink, Slither, and Blink

Somedays the bar gets you. Maybe not even in a demonstrable or recognizable way. But you feel it nonetheless.

The times you are your own worst enemy, your worst handicap.

You can legitimately ask, "Why do anything? What is the point?" It's not self-pity, it's a real question. If your life is weighted towards the negative, you've chosen pessimism, you've realized your own ridiculousness; what's the point?

No one is reliant on you. You have debts no honest man can pay. You're too old to start anew and still too deafened by your fading youth to notice that actually You Are So Much Older Than You Think.

Savannah tulips.

You don't contribute anything to the world, and you won't. You haven't learned any valuable, enriching, or even entertaining skills.

This body is not the body you signed up for. It has never worked to your satisfaction and now even the most drastic measures make no difference. This brain doesn't even work as well as it used to, and it never worked that well to begin with.

There is not a single thought in your head that someone else hasn't expressed or applied in some much better way. There isn't a single thing that you've done that couldn't have been done better by many others.

You have been judged by yourself and found wanting.

Life outlooks are choices. So if you find yourself adrift in pessimism (which is the secret cancer of all idealists), what is the point? Why are you still here?

No matter the presence or absence of religious/spiritual beliefs, all humans create a coping mechanism which gives them something to build on in day to day life. Your life can be beautiful, if that's the way you choose to see it.

I had a wonderful few days of Not Giving A Fuck. Or maybe I had a few wonderful days because i Did Not Give A Fuck. Whichever, that is a train in need to board soon.

In other news, hipster douchebag twats have appropriated the monocle. Jesus wept.

Am I Just Getting Dumber? Or Is Trying To Get Healthcare Info That Hard?

I'm having this Groundhog Day-esque experience. I keep on clicking links that lead to other links that lead me back to the same link.

I have a fair bit of experience in translating from insurance-ese to normal layperson. But these forms and explanations have me lost.

This is so ridiculous. I can't even afford healthcare, but I have to go through insurance companies anyways. People who think that universal healthcare is a socialist nightmare are blind, greedy, stupid, or all three. That's right, I said it.

I would like to state, again, that despite the reforms contained in the Affordable Healthcare Act, it fails at the most crucial point: insurance companies are still an integral part of the healthcare system in the US. As long as insurance companies are negotiating deals with hospitals and providers, then health costs will continue to be artificially inflated and increased to the point of ridiculousness.

Any system in which point of sale cash payment is greater than bureacratic billing, you have a serious problem. It's called racketeering. The disparity between what an insurance company pays for a procedure and what an individual pays for the same procedure is outrageous.

The fact that insurance is required to get any feasible pricing on medicine, routine doctor's visits is at the root of the imbalance. Insurance should be for catastrophic, out of the norm events, not for getting your birth control or insulin or diagnostic labs. Sure, Obamacare prevents the criminally greedy practice of deny insurance based on pre existing conditions. But guess what?---people with preexisting conditions are still penalized. Their premiums are a lot more. You can go broke just trying to maintain coverage to help you stay alive.

The ACHA has just further empowered insurance companies: companies who are focused on profit margins, not on the welfare of patients. Companies who have already banded together to insure maintenance of artificially inflated health costs. Companies who have shown they will throw any customer under the bus if they can get away with it, regardless of the health detriments to the patient.

Obamacare, from what I've seen, is just like giving Viagra to a rapist, then telling him to play nice. The problem is not affordable insurance. The problem is insurance, period. People shouldn't have to negotiate through a middleman to get medical treatment (since they already have to do that with doctors, which is a whole other bilious rant).

I'm not even mad typing this. I'm exhausted. I've been trying to look up healthcare plans for the last two hours. And I keep falling asleep. My brain has gone past tired and into depressed defeat. And even if I get something resolved soon, the way the system is set up I will have to fly back to CA to see a physician.

This system is nauseating. Our greed is disgusting. Our empowerment of the already powerful and castration of the less fortunate is sickening.

Should the world end, we have certainly earned it. Humanity is appalling.

I Have Loved The Stars Too Fondly To Be Fearful Of The Night

Sometimes a person's life is just full of shite. But that doesn't mean you have to spread it around.


The Old Astronomer
Sarah Williams

Reach me down my Tycho Brahé, -- I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.

But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and wiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles.

You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight;
You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night.
I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known.
You "have none but me," you murmur, and I "leave you quite alone"?

Well then, kiss me, -- since my mother left her blessing on my brow,
There has been a something wanting in my nature until now;
I can dimly comprehend it, -- that I might have been more kind,
Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind.

I "have never failed in kindness"? No, we lived too high for strife,--
Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life;
But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still
To the service of our science: you will further it? you will!

There are certain calculations I should like to make with you,
To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true;
And remember, "Patience, Patience," is the watchword of a sage,
Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age.

I have sown, like Tycho Brahé, that a greater man may reap;
But if none should do my reaping, 'twill disturb me in my sleep
So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name;
See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame.

I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak;
Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak:
It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,--
God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars.

What Can't Stay Goes Away

In his eyes I see the fear that only time can disappear, if only time would reappear--now's the time.
XO Mom, it's okay, it's alright, nothing's wrong.
The only thing that's real are the kids that kid themselves and the demise of the beautiful.
You're losing all your highs and lows, ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?
When I get what I want, well, I never want it again.
Troubles I got on my mind; they don't fit no other person.
 Smoked too many cigarettes today, I'm not happy when I act this way.
So it is: the shorter story, no love, no glory, no hero in her skies.
There are promises broken and promises kept; angry words that were spoken when I should have wept.
And the battles were lost and the bitter defeat; there's a page where we fail to meet.
For the moment we're alone: she's alone and I'm alone, and now I know it.
Every day, every hour, I wish that I was bulletproof.
But you got away, didn't you baby--just turned your back on the crowd.
A man like me is dead in places that other men feel liberated.
What if what you do to survive kills the thing you love?
Wearing her face that she keeps in a jar by the door, who is it for?
It wears her out, it wears her out.
When you love someone and it goes to waste, could it be worse?
Inside the doors are sealed to love, inside my heart is sleeping.
One day I am gonna grow wings, a chemical reaction, hysterical and useless.
Just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl.