The Weekend Eudemon
Well, it's nice to bring one of our traditional posts back to the stage after a short lay-off. We haven't had prolonged access to our computer on the weekend for almost a month.
Eric woke up at 3:55 this morning, which isn't surprising, since he did the coma-on-the-couch nap last night starting at 7:00 p.m. and transferred to his bed at 8:30. It was a rough week at the office, and a Friday afternoon beer conference pretty much knocked him out like an anesthetic.
The blog plugs along well. Visitors spiked sharply in mid-June, then dropped slightly during Eric's vacation at the end of the month. They're now back to mid-June figures. As always, we greatly appreciate your efforts to spread news about TDE. We average well over 200 visitors a day, but based on the kind words we receive about the blog, we'd hope that the figure would rise significantly. As we've mentioned previously, we don't accept PayPay tips, but referrals are always appreciated.
The Punchy Journal: The Rambling Narratives of Nate Brewer
I woke up thinking about a guy I knew in law school, "Jim."
Jim was alright. Kind of a nerd, kind of cool. Kind of ugly, but not John-Merrick-ish. I got the impression that his parents were wealthy.
The thing about Jim was, he was a very negative person, but in one helluva funny way. He wasn't one of those guys who uses negativity to be funny. Those kind of guys are humorous for about fifteen minutes, then you feel uncomfortable being around them. He was a genuinely negative guy, Schopenhauerish, but a guy who liked to laugh and found humor in a lot of things.
And most charming about Jim: I think he was totally ignorant of both. I don't think he thought himself negative or funny.
While eating lunch in the law school lounge one day, a group of us were talking about music. Jim told us he was in a band during high school. We asked the typical questions: What was the name of the band? How many guys? What instrument did you play? Where did you play?
I forget his answers, except his answer to the last one: "Well," he said, "we didn't actually play."
"Oh, you guys just jammed in your basement?"
"No, we didn't actually have instruments."
At this point, we started laughing. "Wha'dya mean you didn't have instruments. Did you rent them?"
"No, we didn't know how to play."
We were laughing pretty hard now.
Jim was annoyed and tried to explain, like it was all common sense, "We didn't actually get the band started. We talked about it and got together, but we never actually played any music."
"But you were in a band, right," someone said and we were all laughing. I had tears in my eyes.
"F*** all you guys," Jim said, snickering a little (he was good sport), but a little mad.
Why'd Jim even say he was in a band? He believed he was, I have no doubt about that. He wasn't trying to con anyone or, if he was, he wasn't aware of it.
I've never held it against good ol' Jim, though. My college years and law school years were filled with shameful acts and words, far worse than Jim's band fraud.
It's one reason I'm largely a hermit now: I don't trust myself in public. I often limit my socializing to a handful of guys who don't want anything except someone to drink beer and cuss with.
