Getting Humped?

 It is Wednesday, after all. Hump Day. Getting humped seems likely to happen today as any other day.

It was a so-so day at work. We ran out of stuff to unload, so we were let go around 1 PM. I went to Payless, got groceries to get me through the weekend.

When I got back to the room, there was my PO's card in the door. He may have tried calling, but I could not get to my voicemail. Then I could not dial out. Somehow, I was on airplane mode. I fixed that and got the PO, and he told me he would be around. I reminded him, I would not be getting off work until 3:30. I have no idea why he came around so early in the afternoon. Maybe he went by work.

I also talked to the polygrapher today. He said the PO told him I had plenty of time to find another way there. The PO mentioned nothing about this today. He gave me the polygrapher's phone last month. I told him why. He said nothing then about me getting another way there. He did not call me since and tell me I would need to find another way. I will see what he says tomorrow.

It has been two and half hours since I go here. I ate a little. Showered, too. My mood is not good. I am tired.

But I need to get some work done here. Probably a walk down to McClure's too.

Evening's reading:

From The Guardian: Scientists claim first discovery of mammal eaten by dinosaur and Botticelli’s Secret by Joseph Luzzi review – a great mystery in the picture.

The Downtown Farm Stand is having problems. When I got back to Muncie, it was in the same place that it was when I left. I have shopped there. They had a deli I wanted to try. Kelsey Timmerman has written a blog post on the groceries problems under Local Business. If you are from the area, please read this.

She was an ABC News producer. She also was a corporate operative - Please, ignore my eye-rolling, but what an idiot.

From The Washington Post: This bird is extinct, the government says. Not everyone is so sure. It's about the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Gave up around 6 and slept till 9. No calls woke, as I had thought they would.

I did my Christmas music post. Look for that Friday morning.

Still rather upset about not being able to change the date on the upcoming polygraph. I do not like spending money on a taxi.$100. Even more, I do not like others being free with my money. 

I read The New York Times Uncritically Repeats Discredited Antidepressant Claims with more than casual interest. The article points out the serontin imbalance of depression has been discredit. I have long thought - thanks to an example set by a person I used, to know, LAH - that medicine was not enough to deal with depression. I still take my Zoloft, for even a placebo effect is a benefit. What I will not do without is counseling, someone to talk with, a voice helping me find my way along the shore. The PO worries about sex offender counseling. After being in group therapy, I am not sure that there is a methodology for such counseling. One fellow seriously thought he could get engaged to an 11 year-old. I wanted to ask why he thought this, but kept silent, fearing I would sound too aggressive. As usual, the government has the wrong end of the elephant.

Also about depression:  Dead Novelists Society from Dirt. Screeds aside, I recognize myself in this:

No Longer Human is no beach read. The main character Oba Yozo’s stoic disdain for life reduces Holden Caulfield’s teenage angst into sniveling drivel. It’s a brutal piece of autofiction that chronicles a depressed man’s alcohol-fueled destruction. Oba is a failed painter who feels intensely isolated and detached from society. He is ashamed of these emotions, believing himself to not be fully human, and fears exposing this hidden self to others. 

He abandons his friends, resents the numerous women who fall in love with him (whom he also abandons), commiserates with prostitutes, disgraces his family to the brink of disinheritance, and makes a suicide pact with a lover — only to survive the attempt. Yet, there is no smirk of self-pity in Oba’s interior monologue, no expectation of sympathy. The book’s unrepentant tone is an outlier among the moralistic melodrama in today’s literary landscape. “I soon came to understand that drink, tobacco, and prostitutes were all excellent means of dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread of human beings,” Oba says, before launching in a screed about how he “could never think of prostitutes as human beings or even as women.”

That is depression. It sounds like the author was more successful at suicide than I was.

Another rejection of "Colonel Tom":

Thank you for letting us read and review your work. We didn't select your submission this time, but we did enjoy reading your writing, and we thank you for submitting. Ultimately, we felt this piece was not quite what we are looking for in terms of the issue’s theme and focus for this round. We wish you all the best in finding the right home for it.

We hope to see you submit in the future, and we thank you for trusting us with your voice.

All the best,
Hannah Cole Orsag
Editor-in-Chief, Heimat Review

And of "Psychotic Ape":

Thank you for submitting your work to Orca. As writers ourselves we truly appreciate the time and effort that goes into crafting creative writing. We know a lot about rejection too, and know that even the most positive rejection carries with it the sting of disappointment. So although we have chosen not to publish your story, we wish you well in placing this work in another venue.

Sincerely,

Joe, Zac, Renee, and the Orca staff

Orca, A Literary Journal

Daily Kos' Obnoxious congresswoman from Georgia in public catfight with gun-toting rep from Colorado. Nothing like putting two crazies in the same room and see what happens.

Lit Hub provided Big Names in Little Magazines: On Thomas Pynchon’s Very First Literary Journal Appearance and Joy Williams' Great, Beautiful, Terrifying on Cormac McCarthy. 

The Baffler gave me the link to Open House.

A blast from my past, the music of Central Indiana circa 1980:  Red Snerts. I do not know whether to feel old, or sad that these bands never quite caught on.

Thornfield Hall's Best Books of the Year.

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