Use it Too much, Loose it, Don't Use it, Loose it.
AOL is causing me grief these days. Two days ago, against my wishes, AOL updated my AOL 9.0, destroying my computer. It began with an error message when I attempted to get on line yesterday, which kept me on the phone to AOL from 7:30 am until 10 something PM, and the result is that my computer just simply will not go on line, so, I have to use another to do this... big problem, not important to explain it all, except to say I don't wish to use the music computers to go on line, as I don't want to loose all my recordings ( again ) as there are recordings I would have loved to reedit, well never mind. Use AOL too much, loose it.
I don't talk enough to humans. Folks who see me once a week at meeting would laugh at this, but I try and get a weeks talking into one day. That's not a great thing, I find myself dearly hoping a few Friends will go out for a soup after meeting ... the upshot is that talking to marginalized folks in the park as I work is nice, but the conversations follow certain patterns, and not a lot of the gray matter gets used. Odessa, my only hope of a conversation once and a while, if by chance there is an agile mind alone at the next table, raised their prices to the point that I can't go there for dinner every night, lowering the chances that the one or two nights a week I eat in public, I will have a good natter.
So, this week, two dear friends where in from Jakarta, and Karin and I (Andrew's wife, a pal from my early 20s.... ) spent a few days talking. It took me three days to remember Al Gore's name ... and that only after he was mentioned on the morning news, it took me most of one day to remember Sanford White's name, and on and on. The disnomia is profoundly worse from not speaking out loud to people, about new things. I had a great time today, photographing Bob Wilbur's son, Sam, but the struggle to remember proper nouns and words, and the feeling I was grasping at concepts left me with an awful headache and a feeling that my usual old disnomia is looking worryingly like something else. Oh well... this past year took a rather hard toll on me... I suppose we all have to begin to be comfortable with the idea that one of these days soon, all our learning and lives will amount to mulch.
posted by Lorcan @ 3:04 AM
4 Comments:
Hi Lor,
Does your meeting do small group dinners? Could you call up anyone from your meeting for a cup of coffee or lunch? Or any possibility of calling someone by phone to talk?
Dave
I've been thinking about this, fussing at God over you. Are you still doing things with other musicians? Any good artsy gathering places nearby, preferably with cheap eats and too few tables?
Thanks Friends:
Well, our Meeting has laid down its social hour committee, we do have Friendly 8s, but I found I could not reciprocate the hospitality, for a number of reasons (long story ) ... I have something of a phobia about socializing on the phone (Dad would get violent if I was on the phone to long as a kid ... intellectually I am over it, but just don't enjoy phone calls) as with most people who live in New York members of my meeting are either too busy to socialize, or do so in a class of which I am not a part. When our committees chose to meet at restaurants, I suggest working class restaurants, and the committee finds unity in restaurants to which Genie and I ... well, just do go.
I do play at a session most weeks, but, it is not a great time to talk. New York just does not have music cafes, we have music in bars, often loud bars where people shout over the music. I tried to establish a music cafe, it is a rather painful story. Last week, Andrew and Karin were in town, so I took them to St. Demphna's... the music was very quite, but young folks in New York are so used to screaming over the music, there were two tables of screaming young folks, and I just could not talk to my guests. It is rather bleak here sometimes. I suppose I just no longer belong in this city.
I hate phone conversations! I can't follow what people are saying on the phone.
Our Friendly 8's project sort of fell apart, at least in our part of town (too decentralized and not enough Friends in a given area). We often go out for lunch after meeting in small groups--it's always an open invitation but there are only a few of the same people who ever go.
I think that's a common problem in large cities. Everywhere I've ever been in Houston has been too loud. Even the pub where I sometimes go for Irish session, where there are lots of interesting people, is really too dark and noisy to actually talk to anyone. I'm a very poor socializer, too, which doesn't help.
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