Happy Birthday!
I nearly missed it, but happy birthday to Ambrosia Sue, my sister-in-law-to-be! I changed her codename from The Buckeye to Ambrosia Sue because even though the verdammt Ohioans don't think "Buckeye" is an insult, we all know it is, and it was not right to use such a vicious slur as the codename of my brother's intended. Happy birthday, future sister-in-law.

Pope
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, a pontiff after my own heart: popelink. Sound the trumpets! Ring the bells! O joyous day, the Counter-Reformation is back! Time at last to bring those Protestant bastards to heel. Pope John Paul II was a good, good man, and time may even prove he was a saint, but to my way of thinking he went too far and permitted too many insults to Catholicism in the name of ecumenical reconciliation. Holy Mother Church is the one true church, and it is greatly encouraging to hear the Vatican say as much. I knew electing the the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as Bishop of Rome was a grand idea; way to go, Princes of the Church!



The Airing of Grievances
I love my brother, the Mountain of Love. You all know I love my brother; so, what is my purpose in telling you what you already know, that I love my brother? It seems customary to do so before critiquing a loved one.

I love my brother, and I reveled in the time we were able to share when this apartment was BTW South, but when he gets the idea into his head to be a miserable bastard he is implacably gloomy. The whole time we lived at BTW South, he was implacably gloomy. His life sucks, his life is going to suck for at minimum the next few years, he's sick and tired of his life sucking. On and on and on he lamented an endless cavalcade of woe. The torrent was relentless, and heedless of my efforts to remind him of the manifold blessings in his life. It's hard to face that kind of resolute unhappiness every single day, to hear the person you love most in the whole world tell you that his entire life is misery, and that living with you does nothing to lift the fog and gloom. God forgive me, I'm relieved to be prevailed upon no longer to play Sisyphus day in and day out. My sincerest hope is that living with Ambrosia Sue will prove for him a panacea. Or, magic bullet solutions being so few and far between, that she will prove far more empathetic and nurturing than me, that she will suss out the requirements of his happiness. Try as I might, I was utterly and totally incapable of doing anything to pierce the sullen veil and I tried my best, my very best. I'm sorry I was powerless to help you, David, and I'm sorry for resenting your dedication to misery and gloominess.

This is, in part, one of the conundrums alluded to in last month's post "Tease."

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Mike Park, "Supposed To Be There Too" from For the Love of Music (T.L.A.M.)