Bramble

 I am laid low by something.  I thought it was allergies, but a few of my mother's neighbors have been sick for a week with symptoms similar to my own.  I've been sneezing and blowing and now it feels as if it is moving into my chest.  I woke in the middle of the night and took some NyQuil.  Slept fitfully but late.  Now, a combination of germs and drugs has dragged me down.  The big art festival is going on downtown.  It used to be something, but now it is nothing.  There is no art.  I would go like everyone else to see the crowd.  But I won't.  I can't walk that far and I am sick enough to have missed my favorite party of the year last night, a royal affair at a friend's house, a bachelor attorney who has turned his home into a wonderful palace of art.  He usually has a Django Reinhardt band playing gypsy swing and a pretty good bar.  The catering is usually barbecue.  I hadn't enough energy in me to go.  I've waited for the report from my travel/art buddy who said he and his wife were going.  I haven't gotten one yet.  

Q suggested I name my friend Pseudonym, but since everyone on the blog is that, I thought it a no. Eudonym--I think that has legs.  Sounds like a character in a Beckett play.  His partner in a play would be Anondyne.  Clever, I think, but not right.  Let's call him Travis since he is a traveller.  

Maybe. We'll see.  

The biggest problem facing us is overpopulation, right?  Too many people using up too many resources.  People cause pollution.  The planet is becoming toxic.  So. . . it seems you can't win.  Here is the top stories in CNN today.  

Yeegads!  Who knew?  I should have been making babies and saving the world after all!!!!  Apparently, an aging population is not good for business.  We need more youthful drug addicts to save us with TikTok videos and a certain ideology.  One of my friends who I must keep secret for his or her own good says that "Brave New World" has the solution.  Another says "Soylent Green."  Whatever you are planning to do today, though, take out a little time for reproduction.  Just make a baby and save the planet.  

I guess Republicans have the right idea on this.  No birth control, no abortion.  

And I guess the next president of the United States had some good ideas when he was last president, too--about the Western Allies military dependency on the U.S. and about the inefficacy of the U.N.  Even a blind pig can find truffles.  

Wow.  This is what sickness does to me, I guess.  I was going to say something about the beautiful outfit this woman wore to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, but I seem to have forgotten what.  It had something to do with contradicting ideas on beauty and/or gender identity. . . .  

I'll have to wait for another day to tackle anything pseudo-intellectual.  I just felt the need for a picture, and since I have none of my own at present, I used this.  How many arguments can this one image spark?

O.K. peeps, this was a silly ramble through the bramble of germs and chemicals.  I do have one theory to tout before I go, though.  Every time they send a rocket into space here, people get sick.  Once again I ask what chemicals are they releasing into the atmosphere?  They won't say.  But if you live anywhere near me, I'd suggest putting tin foil in your hat.