Hello. And I mean that sincerely.

[fflo]

It's Sunday night.

I should comb out my hair so it'll be more or less dry when I'm ready to lay my head on the ol' pillow (which is about now, to tell you the truth). Thought I'd post something first, though. So hi.

I found out that my silver pattern is called Stradivari. I also found a small card/tag attached to the flyer describing the storage file thingie it's in--- a drawing of a woman with an actual piece of pink feather for a feather in the cap (or is it a boa?), and my mother's name, written by her mother, thereon. Then I found a small card of Xmas bells addressed to my mother and father from "Mother." Pretty sure that's also Bertha, v. Merl. Fountain pen. Used "Nick" for my dad.

All this to say it may not be such an easy thing to do after all.

Started out in the shower singing the spy-and-me lyrics to John Denver's "Annie's Song":

You fill up my senses
Like a mouthful of horseshit
Like the smell of some horseshit
Like the feel of horseshit
Like the sound of some horseshit
As it's hitting the pavement...

Etc. But then next thing I know I'm singing the real words, such as I can remember them. And then, t'boot, as if to say "if I can be THAT sincere, ... ," I find myself conditioning to a straight-faced rendition of "The Rose."

Jonathan Richman likes "The Rose." Once when I saw him he started to sing it and, when the (inevitable) groans started up, he stopped, said something like "Then you don't deserve to hear it," and moved on. Not laughing a bit, or even twinkley-eyeing us. I hadn't been a groaner on that particular occasion, but I could easily have been. There have been times in my life at which it'd have been compulsive.

So I'm all dead-panning, in the shower, and thinking on sincerity, and how it's a reward of age. The ability to let go of multiple levels of ironic awareness and critical thought of critical thought. At least for a few minutes, now and then. And for longer if the circumstances are right.

Then I was thinking about some people I know in their 20s, and one in particular, who is not stupid, and how you can't say "When you act that way, you advertise the very internal agony you're terrified to let out." At least it's advertised it to us old farts.

If any of you have thoughts on sincerity, on taking things seriously, that you'd like to type back at me, that'd be cool.

Comments

Re: hello world

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

Interesting. The Yugo card v. the Serbian, I presume? I have a h.s. friend whose father is of Serbian descent. A few years ago she was registering dismay at some portrayals of the whole situation, but I never spoke with her about it in-depth. (I'm in a slow process of getting in touch with her again after a long time, so it wouldn't be the first thing I'd bring up. Oddly enough, or not so, the main reason I lost touch with her is because she has always been so 1000 % heterosexual that I was "sure" she's reject me and we'd have nothing to talk about, but now I think I was wrong.) Anyway, interesting to hear that you can / could play the Yugo card in academia, whereas elsewhere people probably wouldn't even know what it was.

Re: hello world

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

it's one of those 'crises' that americans like to think various foreigners can handle because they are mysterious and mystifying heirs to eons of 'senseless violence' and 'inscrutable identity politics' and such. all shit, of course, but i guess it makes money these days if you claim to undestand what's otherwise incomprehensible.

so far, it's been productive of a pile of shit that wants to call itself intellectual work. various idiots with 'personal experience' from the region go about telling people 'stories' they've heard and how it's all 'strange.' usually they have no undestanding of the difference between 'this' war and 'that' war and what happened in between, usually because they have no interest in divulging their own implicated position in one of the criminal parties. the 'outsiders' want to show how they've mastered a foreign 'culture' and gathered tons of information on it, most of which helped noone yet.

Re: hello world

[fflo.livejournal.com]

being less particular about how one makes money, carves a niche, etc., must surely be tempting sometimes. it's tempting to me, and i have a sense of personal security in some major areas of my near future that feels pretty strong compared to what i imagine yours feels like.