Or some other loser band but something keeps going through my head and I can't go to sleep. It's insomnia. Or something.
Are you ever afraid to go to sleep because you don't think you will wake up?
I just am sitting here and I can't stack any z's.
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Read a few posts at TOP. You'll be asleep in minutes.
Weird dreams involving bag ladies in clothing made from curtains are a possible side effect.
Ignore them , as they are mere window dressing.
Are you ever...
Yes. It's part of finding the way out of predicament, when the loss of old normal has not yet been replaced with a new normal and a renewed sense of trust.
If you're able to write, then let yourself sit and write whatever comes to mind.
This is all normal, my friend. You were hit w/ A SHITLOAD of reality. You brain is just trying to process it all. You're going through a big change in your life. Life is a series of adjustments. Those who make them successfully have good lives. You'll make this one, but it will take time. You're just getting your head around it all. You have a bunch of folks here who love you and will help. What it will take is more of Jim, like this, and less Trooper. Once you make the adjustment, you can ease back into Trooper. Now, we know there is a lot of Jim in Trooper. But, when you're going through these dark days and nights, I suggest all Jim.
Although we are willing and want to help you through this sojourn, the Giants are saying "FUCK YOU" to you.
Spinelli is right. It took me a couple of weeks after heart surgery to find a new "normal". If your rehab includes walking, take walks. That combined with your body being fatigued from having been ill will help you sleep better.
Get up, shower, dress, walk. It'll seem normal in a day or two.
You had a lucky catch. Every day after that is a gift, even the days that aren't especially good.
Every day you wake up is a great day.
How do you know, Nick, that the afterlife isn't actually gonna be better than this life?
I mean...isn't that what Christianity is based on?
But speaking of heart...long time ago, back when they were still hot, friend of mine went to a show. The guitar playing one, she was rockin' out like crazy. Her boobs came sailing out of whatever top she was wearing and she didn't care, kept on playing. Finally her fat sister had to come over and drape something over her.
And yes, I've actually been afraid to go to sleep. Several times. It's not pleasant.
It's one of the reasons I make such fun of everything.
Well, that and I'm a dink.
Sailing Boobs are such a feature here, they were used again by deborah for the TY birthday post at TOOP.
As for Christianity being based on the afterlife, the Main Man seemed more focused on something called "The Kingdom of Heaven", declaring it to be near, at hand, and within.
Which leads me to believe part of that kingdom is already present in the openness, truth, encouragement and love revealed in the post and responses given.
Light in darkness.
@ ndspinelli, Well said! My own heart responds with a resounding "Yes and Amen!" to everything conveyed in your 9:31!
Cody, I believe the most important thing God wants us to do, and even if that's all we do, he will be happy. The Good Lord wants us to appreciate his gift of life, and to help those struggling on our collective journey to a wonderful and peaceful afterlife. so, I appreciate every day given to me. It is a struggle, and sometimes I fail. And, I try and do something every day to help someone struggling on their journey.
Regarding the afterlife. As I've said here and elsewhere, I NEVER pray for the dead, believing they are well taken care of by the Good Lord. I pray for the living, struggling w/ their loss. I keep it all simple, like a good Italian meal.
MamaM, So, I was preachin' to the choir.
MamaM, So, I was preachin' to the choir.
Like one of God's Trombones!
Resulting in resonance!
On a side note regarding regarding writing as a means of expression, it's been my experience that pencil and pen writing lets my mind wander and release differently than finger typing, but that may be a feature unique to me.
However it's done, TY, in cursive or computer, here or in a private journal, writing as a means of expression is one of your strong gifts, there to accompany and serve you at many levels, as the whole Jim/Trooper York package moves through change and out of predicament.
years ago, in an advanced poetry class during my college years we had this discussion. Almost everyone composed poems longhand with the feeling that they were more free with ink and paper than with keys.
That flipped with prose however.
I can't write anything by hand. My handwriting was never good, but now it's become unreadable even by me.
And I'm friends with my computer now, so find I feel more free with it than with pen and paper.
I tried Dragon talk to type, but that was such a pain in the ass, I just couldn't do it.
Like one of God's Trombones!
Oh, I thought you were going here instead.
I like that story, MamaM, but keep in mind this is not a safe place, as much as we like to think it is. I think this site is prone to leakage, just sayin'.
Sixty, you've said that a few times lately. Any particular reason?
I'm not disputing the issue with you, I tend to agree--but I think it's more a personnel issue. In other words, there are people who come here who then report (or just mention) things they read about to other parties.
I know of two people right off the top that I think do it.
One of them is owned by the Meadses, one of them wishes he was.
I may or not mean owned in the biblical sense.
It is as much as a caution for me as it is a concern for others that I care about. There are plenty of people who would love to do whatever they could with any information they gain here, and not in a positive way. Troop runs a tight ship but there are rats onboard.
Thanks for the warning, Sixty G. I forget. I'll take that comment out.
That's part of why I don't comment much at Lem's. I'm still not convinced all the friendly interest that goes on over there isn't part of a set up.
As I wrote, I meant that comment as much for me as for anyone else - it is easy to get comfortable here and think we are among friends when in fact there are those who are just lurking, waiting for a slip.
I have been guilty of putting things out here that I probably shouldn't have, but then again, if someone is coming after me, they better, as Uncle Jun said, come heavy.
Black rats. The worst kind. Well, black ones and those bastards from South America. I hate the ones from South America.
Or, Sixty, as I heard a friend of mine say to someone once "best pack a lunch. You'll be at it a while."
We need safe words now?
Okay. My safe word is 'Luftwaffe'.
This place isn't secure. Someone can get in via a blog list one someone else's blog.
Remember, MamaM, when you venture to Lemp's place Ingeburg Mengele, Meade and fiona are all waiting over there - they can appear magically, without warning or provocation and just run rampant until they wear themselves out or their meds kick in, whichever occurs first. It is a fever swamp and the worst kind of trap.
This place isn't secure. Someone can get in via a blog list one someone else's blog.
I've read that before, and even written it myself, but is it really true? Because before Troopski officially allowed me in, I tried clicking on links at other places and never could get in that way.
I think it's much more likely that certain members here are allowing their links to be used by others or just reporting what they see if anything good pops up.
Reminds me of of those giant flies we have around here. The ones that can find dog poop within a minute or two of it being dropped.
The boys used to take the dog with them on our afternoon paper routes, and I'd follow in the van, rolling papers and depositing a street's worth of papers on the corners for them to distribute. Whenever the dog would happen to dump it was my job to follow up with the bagging. From hand wave to pick up would usually be less than a minute or two and in the summer the big flies would already be buzzing. I used to wonder where they hung out waiting for something pungent to happen.
Folks, it's the internets, nothing is secure. I always operate under that premise.
I think Spinelli has the goods on all of us.
I mean, how you doin', Nick? Good to hear from you this fine evening.
Speaking of God's Trombones, I couldn't leave you all without a little musicology to bore you to death.
**WARNING! WARNING! CRAPOLA CLASSICAL MUSIC AHEAD**
Don't say you weren't told.
An interesting thing in music history is that the trombone, aside from drums, the guitar, and a very basic keyboard, is the oldest surviving musical instrument. A trombonist from 500 years ago could pick up a modern instrument and play it, and a modern player should have no trouble with an old "sackbut," as it used to be called, after the old French, "saquebutte," "pull-push." (There were *PLENTY* of jokes about that, dating from well before the discovery of America, so don't bother with new ones.)
The trombone was invented some time in the 15th century, as an improvement on the older slide trumpet. That was a different thing than the ass trumpet from the Monty Python clip, stolen directly from numerous Medieval manuscripts, where it was a favorite decorative motif, along with a lot of other astonishing stuff you wouldn't believe from the Middle Ages. Those copyist monks had dirty minds.
Anyway, in the 15th century, instruments were beginning to be made in sets--soprano, alto, tenor, and bass--to match the human voice. Choirs, such as we know them, singing harmonized music, and not just chant, were getting started around this time. There was a huge musical revolution in Europe within a few years of the discovery, in Italy, of perspective in art and the invention of oil painting in Flanders. The new music, inspired by the English in Burgundy a few years before the time of Joan of Arc, was much simpler and had, to our ears, much prettier harmonies. And, for the first time, choirs could accurately perform harmonized (polyphonic) music. (There was very elaborate polyphonic music in the 1300's, but it was so complex, it was for soloists only.) Instrument makers quickly adapted, and started making instruments in sets to match the new concept of voices. So, there were soprano, alto, tenor and bass trombones. Today, we exclusively use the tenor and bass sizes. Other instruments made in sets that everyone's familiar with are saxophones. But those were invented in the 19th century, and that's another story.
Back to the Renaissance: There was an entire menagerie of wind instruments, all abandoned long ago, made along similar lines as sets, and, as I say, the trombones were some of them. With a trombone ensemble, the top voice was usually played by a "cornett," another obsolete instrument, made out of leather-covered wood, fitted with finger holes, but played with a small brass-instrument mouthpiece. A weird combination of brass and woodwind, but it made a nice effect with trombones.
This ensemble was heavily used in church to play along with the choir. Sometimes they were used alone as filler or contemplative music. This pattern continued well into the 17th century and beyond. In Mozart's day, for example, trombones were a very odd addition to an orchestra, because they were considered church instruments. Beethoven using trombones in the orchestra was a huge pain in the ass, and still something of a novelty.
Anyway, to give you a taste of that music, very, very common in Cathedrals and better churches in Renaissance Europe, below is a linked performance of a six-part Office for the Dead, "Adesto dolori meo," by one Alexander Utendal, written around 1575. Utendal was at the tail end of the line of Franco-Flemish composers who adopted and established this new style of music throughout Europe in the preceding 150 years or so.
Everything, I mean *everything*, we have of music and its concept in the Western world owes itself to developments in Burgundy and the Low Countries, starting in the early 1400's. You can pretty much say the same about art in Italy at the same time. Welcome to the Renaissance.
God's Hot 'Bones for the Dead
That's cool, Tim, thanks. In 5th grade when the music teacher came around to sign us up for lessons trombone was something I really wanted to do.
My father disagreed.
If I'd only known then that I could refer to it as a sack-butt, he might've gone for it. Since he's retired and chasing butts and sacks.
Btw, why do people talk about the human voice as being in certain instruments as though it were a compliment? I've never understood that.
Well, the musical culture in the Medieval and Renaissance worlds was mostly vocal. Particularly in the Renaissance, with Man being the measure of all things, the human voice was the ideal. It's said over and over again in treatises and books of the period that instruments ought to imitate the voice, and a singing style is what a good instrumentalist should always airm for.
In fact, that is what instrumental teachers have been pretty consistently saying for as long as there have been instrumental teachers. Of course, singing styles change. Think of Coleman Hawkins on tenor. But the basic idea is that instruments have been built to imitate the voice, and that's a good place to start if you're a player. That approach was obvious in the clip and very appropriate to that music.
I teach recorder in a choir school for something of the opposite reason: It gives the choristers a chance to control an external object that isn't the voice, but that they have to learn to play in tune, together, etc. Also, when the boys are old enough to play tenor and bass recorder, it gives them experience with ALL the voices in a piece, and that can seriously improve their concept of intonation. We do a lot of Elizabethan part-songs that were originally published to be sung OR played on instruments ("Apt for voyces or violls"), and as long as we don't talk too much about the words, the kids enjoy them.
The boys might enjoy them more if they knew what all those Elizabethan euphuisms meant. It's my job to keep them ignorant.
Are you ever afraid to go to sleep because you don't think you will wake up?
Yep.
And sometimes because I think I will.
And one last musical thing I'll leave you with is this exploration of Renaissance Franco-Flemish music—basically the sort of thing I was going on about in the trombone post. You can see the mix of instruments and voices in the first piece. Rather kinky-looking 15th century viols, of which none survive, so they're modeled on instruments in paintings. The things people do with their spare time.
Otherwise, the singing is quite good and the atmospherics impressive, if you don't mind a lot of busy camera work, swooping in and out.
http://youtu.be/UyFHdaCHPgo
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