Capricorn 10° (January 1)

Well I felt better this morning than I truly had a right to. The LLBs met us for breakfast and I had the same greasy meat. We were meant to be back at Jo’s for brunch anytime after 11:30 or something. When we got there we were really the last to arrive. The guy that plays the detective character was there (I realized it was him later). And all the boat people were there. And Willy who was at the party last night of course and with whom I really had a lovely time (reverse foreshadowing) despite the fact the last time I saw her she sort of came for me which was unfortunate. She’s sort of done it before and I really do need to ignore it. Was lovely to see the kids of course and John and David and the whole lot. I had a bagel and some smoked salmon and then we went for a lovely long walk in the wet and green. I had a lovely chat with Aine whom I really hadn’t gotten to connect with much yet on the trip. The LLBs didn’t join on the walk as they threatened they wouldn’t due to footwear issues or just the fact they didn’t want to. Willy was overheard saying that she hates walking outside or something. So more foreshadowing. Scotland really is the most magical place on the planet I must say. We got back to the house and I texted LLBs to “come back,” and learned that Larry had invited the peeps from the hotel, Karen and Kenny to dinner with us (he is a political journalist like the other boat guys), and also J. and F. which was really great as we hadn’t really seen them much. J. was definitely one of the more in cups of the partygoers last night but she seemend perfectly fine today. I really love them and enjoy their company immensely. We were asked if we wanted hot toddies which, you know what, I never knew what went into one. Pretty much everybody had them. I couldn’t believe the Edinburgh crowd drove home last night after the party and then back again today for the brunch. The plan was to then seem them tomorrow when we ourselves get to town. I told Laurence that we had to invite Aine which of course we did, so now we were going to be nine peeps instead of eight which would be fine; but much to my delight and surprise J said she’d like to join with N of course and also Willy and her new fellow. How to explain to the hotel that we would now be thirteen for dinner.

We arrived back at the Townhouse and went straight to break the news in hopes of hearing it would be no problem. It wasn’t not a problem. It took a lot of cajoling and convincing. Finally it came down to furniture and we said we’d bring tables and chairs from our rooms. We got a reluctant yes. The LLBs had already been set up in the bar while we were out for our long country constitutional. Larry had some Guinness and champagne going—a black velvet it is apparently called. I could retch just thinking about it; but of course Jax didn’t have anything because apparently in Scotland they throw the book at you for even the slightest bit of alcohol in your system, which must come from being a very alcoholic culture to begin (and end) with. Anywig, we never even made it upstairs but instead sat in the lounge, the couples, on sofas, facing one another, whilst Karen (half of the other couple, with Kenny) sat in an armchair diagonally facing us. For nearly four hours she sat and listened to us like she was binge-watching a series. The four of us recounted our stories, sort of at, one another, filling in the gaps on stories, reminding each other of things that never made it to longterm memory. Finally Karen said we should all write a book together, which is something I can imagine easily happening. It is difficult for me to sustain a thought right now as I am writing this from about two weeks out, trying to play catch up once again. There is a pattern here: when I encounter any kind of mini trauma or setback my work tends to go out the window. I am sitting here right now in a flat we’ve rented in London and the upstairs neighbors are so loud it’s hard to concentrate. We had a lousy couple of days at the end of last week, leading into the weekend, and it has been hard to recover. I am going to spend as much of this day just sitting here writing and doing little else so that I can pick up what pieces are still available to me. So many have been lost. It is the way it goes I suppose. I am trying not to hang on but instead to move forward. I still have my health which sometimes I think is a miracle. Anyway back to what I was saying. So this went, as I said, for about four hours, and we went up to change and refreshen as best as we could. When we arrived back down Kenny had emerged and we sat down to a new bottle of wine they were now serving (Karen had the benefit of ours the whole time). Not long after J and N and guests arrived and we all settled down to a lovely dinner. The food is wonderful in this place. I was seated across from Willy who at one point said “Hillary Clinton really fucked up.” Knowing she is something of a Bernie Bros. and that she has baited me in the past over stuff (not to mention that she is a good friend to a good friend of mine) I said politely that, well, actually she won the popular vote against all odds—corruption, voter booth tampering, rolls purging, hacking, and the larger insidiousness of foreign, Russian interference. But, truly, it is misogyny that was the main weapon used against her. This was argued for awhile. Then I said that women in all cultures are really the most maligned and disenfranchised of people and made the mistake of saying (because I thought we would beyond the question of my being able to say this or not) that “woman is the n-word of the world,” a valid prospect to be discussed. Forgettaboutit. W said that we can’t talk about the oppression of women without discussing the notion of race; I said I disagreed: that we can certainly talk about the oppression of women in its own right as it is to varying degrees a problem in all cultures, including our own. It was a rabbit hole and we were both terriers digging into it, for too long, neither one of us conceding. Until finally I moved to the other end of the table where the topic was no lighter: the notion of transgenderism in the face of newest wave feminism and the shadowside of terfism. The night did not end on the cheeriest of notes I must say. And I was told in coming days that I told the same story of our (friends) meeting in the course of twenty minutes without knowing it. The multiple nights (and days) of partying had indeed caught up to me.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
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