Roger Johnson Weblog

The person who promoted the idea of eating an orange for breakfast got it just right; a couple of days ago I tried cantaloupe, good but not quite the same; an apple is a great thing to eat, but more of a mid-day edible; grapes are definitely for late afternoon before a nap; a banana is good in the morning, with cereal, a banana requires something, it makes a great partner, when I was a kid peanut-butter and banana sandwiches were my all time favorite. An orange offers that necessary jolt of sugar, a ton of flavor, and the juice satisfies a mouth that is parched in this mid-winter absence of humidity; an orange has all the elements for life in the morning.

This morning I ate a good orange while waiting for the kettle to boil, it was a big fruit, the size of a small grapefruit, could have made two snacks if I hadn’t forgotten to light fire under the kettle. One can eat a lot of almost anything while waiting for the kettle to boil on a cold burner. I did, finally, light the fire under the kettle, after that things went along pretty much as one would expect; and I got the opportunity to eat a large orange, a really good orange.

That first paragraph went on for longer than usual because I don’t have in mind what I want to say this morning; ordinarily I lay in bed, letting my mind sort and choose an idea, one that is ready to come out of incubation. Not this morning, the brain ain’t running quite right, popping and farting, not getting out of first gear; so here’ are the elements I have so far, and I’ll see if writing them down will help me make sense:

-I read a review of the recent book out on G. W. B., it resonated in me as it described how George had to make himself what he is in order to stand against his dad. Obviously that isn’t exactly what the reviewer or the book says, that is what I remember sitting here the day after, this is what the review meant to me. What George figured out he had to do to survive and become a man.

-At 2 a. m. I woke, I had fallen asleep after dinner, now I was in that part of the day that has nothing at all going for it, the doldrums, the television was on, an infomercial was pushing something or other that would make my fantasy life a reality, another channel promised similar exaltation with their product, finally I found an old, very old movie, one made just after the development of the talkie; so I fired up the computer, if nothing else I could play a couple of games of solitaire, in hope of stupefy myself. Naturally I first looked to see who had been reading my stuff, what searches had resulted in readers coming here. I saw a post by a woman who is troubled, someone who is fixed on the idea of killing herself, going through those familiar old arguments about why suicide is the only action open. I wanted to respond, know that nothing I can say will change her situation, yet I can’t turn away without something; I did write a few lines about how I had found my way out of that hole. Then I went back bed.

-None of my family talks to me since I broke with my father, and then he died without my being there. I didn’t know that he was about to die, don’t know what I would have done if I had been told earlier; as it was I received a cold call after he was dead, and just prior to the funeral, so there was no way I could have gone there either.

These three items are on my plate this morning, I see the connection, I just don’t see how to make something more from them; but the guys-in-the-backroom of my mind know, they sent out these three items with instructions to make a good thing from them, something that I will be happy to share with all of you.

Maybe it has to do with the two posts I wrote recently, the ones having to do with admitting that I felt down-in-the-dumps, the ones that received more first-day responses than anything previous. It is as if I had offered permission for others to feel bad occasionally. All of that would have been forbidden in the house was raised; my mother would suffer migraine after migraine with her attempts to contain herself, the marriage was a model of control and restraint; I won’t comment on the effects on my siblings because they are still alive.

Those of you who have read the “Lydia” thing know how close I came to shutting it down forever, about ten minutes from throwing the switch. It is neat to be able to point with accuracy to the point where the logos turned upward after its long trip down. It is the place where I had the revelation that was to lead me to the religious and theological stuff that is so relevant now and the future.

That’s about it; I could have wrote that I have nuthin’, but that isn’t the case here, I have everything–maybe that’s it, I have everything now, so make something of it.

If this all appears solipcistic I apologize, or maybe I don’t. After all it is my choice to push the “Publish” button at the bottom of the screen, and it is my choice to have my name at the top. Maybe what I am trying to say is that we all have opportunity to make what we would be; Bush had his, I had mine, you have yours.

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There isn’t much going on outside the window right now, on a whim the flock of brown commas disappeared to the east, they’ll be back. They have been feeding heavily after the storm, I can’t remember so much being eaten in one day. I was enjoying watching one sparrow who would sit on a branch beside the feeder, he would chase away any bird that came his way, he wasn’t feeding,he was resenting; there are a number of ports from which to get access to the food, he couldn’t chase off all of the birds, and he was certainly not the biggest one out there–he just had to chase others away. Perhaps he is a neo-conservative?

As I am about to edit this piece I put Elgar’s Enigma Variations on the stereo, enigma is how I started writing this thing, and how I end it.