I've just spent three days in a row not going outside except to check my little library and see if somebody's been fucking around in there again so far not so bad. I blame it on the heat which typically is not really that bad on this side of the tunnel. I play a little game with my Weather Channel checking Pleasant Hill which is where I went to high school and Livermore where my son's in laws live and it's a good 10° hotter there in those locations. Sacramento where my old man's daughter lives that's really hot. We're talking 107°. So me dealing with 85-90° is no biggie, it's just that it takes it out of me. I hear people talking about oh they love Mexico and Cabo is their favorite place to go oh my God not even. The last trip was to India and of course I've been to South Africa that was in 2018 but we timed it so that it wasn't bad and the areas that we're in were aside from drought actually pretty Pleasant. So somehow I've dodged a bullet which is good. Cuz otherwise I'm completely out of it I take naps and I keep my legs elevated and I look at my feet and I think is that life-threatening?. It isn't but even so the old existential dread you know. So what am I going on about I think this has been a period of time when the ups and downs are a little steeper. Somebody I was reading about somebody who said their oh I know it was a performance artist not a performance artist I a comedian theatrical sort who has taken some absolutely Fantastical risks in his professional endeavors so yeah that's where I read about it. He, sorry they, apparently experience low lows and high highs in order to get through the creative process and it's it's pretty chilling to read it. Having more or less sacrificed having a truly professional as in equity style dues paying life, I sympathize. And they're not the only one. A couple of guys that I follow on YouTube confess that they in the midst of all of their hilarity and references to being on the road with their stand-up comedy, experience depression as sidekick. Side sidekick and almost intrinsic part of their personalities. It ain't funny. I got this little booklet sometime last year and I stuck it on my shelf next to the bed it's called the depression book. I was chatting with my sister-in-law and happened to mention it I'm not sure I remember quite why maybe because I had just looked at it it's not a very big it's a more of a booklet and it's also makes reference to Zen. But as soon as the word depression came out of my mouth my sister-in-law just shut me down oh my God. She has a tendency to do that with certain subject matter like surgeries or I don't know I can't think of anything else right now but, you know when you get into certain areas in a person's life they're so tender it's just no point you shouldn't even bring it up. Depression is like that with her she's been on some kind of medication since she was a kid. And being a person who's never experienced that I can't even imagine what it must be like. Your parents put you on something I don't even know what it is ritalin? Whatever it is she's still on it for crying out loud she's in her sixties and she cannot exist without some kind of Insaids. I look at that little I want to say streamlined version of an approach to dealing with depression and from her perspective it's insulting. So why did I bring that up because it appears to me that I think I've mentioned this before I have low grade depression. There's no reason for me to be rejecting things out of hand. Like the energy that I would have had to even go shopping and make some kind of gigantic stew or something I can't make that come to life. I'm reduced to short spurts of inspiration. For example downstairs there's a piece of plywood stretched across the hallway sitting on picture rail, my house is full of picture rail. Craftsman architecture picture rail up the wazoo. So some point in our craziness the old man and I found every available spot in hallways all around the house and put pieces of wood cut to size and stash books up there so you literally are walking down the hallway and you look up and freaking libraries and they have a piece of masking tape labeling them politics short stories historical novels and so on and so on. So sadly one of those inspirations ended up really kind of not terribly well thought out it's very deep unfortunately so that makes it one of those situations where you stash stuff up there and then you promptly can't get to it unless you're on a ladder and so it just sits there for years and gets all dusty and so that's not good. So one fine day I just said by God that's got to go. Got up there on a ladder and started taking things down in this case not books but the old man's phonograph albums and old LPs. By the time I'm done getting most of that stuff down and just stashing it somewhere else temporarily while I figure out what to do with them. My thought of course is to swap out that ugly plywood and put something else that's a little more aesthetic, and then after I've sorted through the LPS I'll put them back up there or maybe I'll store my boxes of coffee pods. I don't know. Tbd. Anyway what do I discover way in the back there the last thing turns out to be a set of six cardboard albums from the '60s Each of which contains six LPS and they're called living Shakespeare? Something like that. Anyway I couldn't help it I'm exhausted but I dusted them off and then sat down and looked through all of them. That was fun! You've got John Gielgud in Othello and Sean Connery playing Hotspur in Henry IV and Richard Burton in Henry V and Vanessa Redgrave as Portia. Problem is long story I got no accessible working record player. My Magnavox stereo suitcase player is out of commission. But that shouldn't really be a problem I mean I could get it fixed not a biggie. In fact as soon as I dusted off those LPS I went on a little search and ran across a pretty cute old combination 4 speed phonograph shortwave radio but the lady that I texted back and forth with on it had this I have to say somewhat naive idea that "one of the tubes was loose" and that's why it didn't work. I'm sorry I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, that sounds like that could be a real problem, getting parts and so forth. So no. I talked to a guy and he agreed with me he'd rather take on the Magnavox than work on something like that that's not only expensive but I would have to pay for it and she was asking too much anyway so. I told her nah I can't really do that and she did what's kind of typical when somebody calls them on you ask too much for that, she said oh I have somebody who says he can fix it to which I respond well good luck. Anyway what's that got to do with depression I think because I can busy myself I mean for crying out loud I'm absolutely guilty of binge watching. And I make food as absolutely simple as I can and just sprinkle it throughout the day.

I think I need to sing.

[done entirely on my ass on my couch on my phone]