Madness

[Dr.B. revived entry from defunct confessions blog.]
Modern life is quite mad. It isn't me. Really.

I just found out I can get Google alerts for celebrity suicides. For me this produced a rolling belly laugh. A friend told me that while I was in London a minor television personality, whose name my friend could not remember, had committed suicide, and I was trying to find out who it was. Names are the first to go. I remembered the "O" of Owen Wilson, but she was sure it wasn't he. She will call me if she remembers.

A fellow blogger has decided that Cecilia is insane. I think this is due to Cecilia's obsession with Maria Malibran and the very funny photographs of herself in the same poses as Malibran. I just laugh. Perhaps Cecilia wishes her celebrity were even bigger than it is, that people would sell souvenirs that feature her face and envies Malibran, the most wildly popular artist of her era. I recall once offering to run Cecilia's T-shirt concession. Perhaps she would like that.

Cecilia would have to do something truly insane to get her name in the papers more, and that seems unlikely. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that her obvious dislike for me is perhaps a sensible thing. She seems a sensible woman to me. She also seems to have a sense of humor. I've always thought the correct reaction to me should be laughter, but there is a cultural barrier.

I've always considered myself more sensible than is strictly desirable. I never purchased a motorcycle, and now it's definitely too late. I never learned to ski, and now that is also too late. No matter how hard I try, I never manage to spend more than I earn. I never took up smoking, though I tried it. In the Ulmer Theater the others liked to see me smoke (I preferred cigars), but it stayed in my throat the next morning, something I didn't like at all. My alcohol tolerance stops after two drinks, recently reduced to one. Mary Jane had no effect on me.

[Dr.B. I swept my spending problem completely away last month by spending a good $10,000 more than I made. Perhaps I need to consider myself no longer sensible in this area. I refrain from flying suddenly to see Clari. Is that enough?]