Day: May 8, 2019

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Too, Too Tired

Bow Tie o’ the Day sits in the TMS reception area with me and my droopy eyelids. You know all those naps you wouldn’t take when you were a kid? I now regret not napping every chance I was told to. I think I wouldn’t have to take naps all the time now, if I had just closed my eyes as a kid. I do like my naps, but I have things to do. I don’t want to “have to” nap– as an adult.

I also wish I had eaten ALL the food off ALL the dinner plates that were put on ALL the kitchen tables in front of me when I was a kid. I gotta watch what I eat at this point in my life. As a child, I could have eaten anything and burned it off immediately, and my arteries were clear as could be. But no! Kids have to be stubborn. “Hey, parent! You want me to eat this yummy cheeseburger? Even though I want to eat it, I refuse to do so. For no good reason, except to get on your nerves, I refuse to eat.” I know I’m not the only one who did this. What were we thinking?

The TMS treatment most certainly jolts me awake. The woman behind me in the second photo is my TMS technician, Tenzin. She gets my electromagnetic coil started at the right intensity and for the correct amount of time, then she drinks her coffee and watches me go through my session. She’s like my own personal lifeguard. She makes sure I do not go into seizures during treatment. Zapping awake the brain’s mood area– good. Having seizures– bad. I don’t worry about it. Tenzin knows what she’s doing.

Tenzin is as chapped as I am that somebody rearranged the furniture in the TMS room without our approval. There used to be a chair just a few feet away from my feet, where I could put The Purse and keep my eye on it during my treatment. But early one morning, Tenzin and I walked into the room and the chair was gone! Also, these two recliners were moved to the far side of the room. The Purse now has to sit in a recliner so far away from me I can hardly see its saddle on the horizon. I need binoculars. Tenzin can no longer see it at all from her desk. I have to squint so hard to make The Purse come into focus from so far away that I think I might yet have a seizure from which Tenzin, my personal lifeguard, must rescue me.

22 TMS treatments down, 14 to go.

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I Mustache Myself Where Things Are

Monocled mustache Tie o’ the Day completes our series of mustache neckwear. I actually have a real-life monocle, but I can’t find it. It is hiding somewhere in The Tie Room. I need to tidy up that place. I mean– if you can’t find your monocle, you better get serious and do some heavy duty room-keeping. It is never a chore to spend time arranging and rearranging the occupants of The Tie Room. If I would simply put things back in their proper places after I use them, I’d never have to sort out the room’s contents. On the other hand, if the place were always in order, I wouldn’t have to spend time in there– and I want to spend time in there, surrounded by my extensive collection of neckwear, hats, Sloggers, lapel pins, and cufflinks.

Some readers don’t believe The Tie Room exists. Well, it certainly does. And it is absolutely necessary for me to have an entire room dedicated to my fashion whims. I am often asked how many ties and bow ties I own. I never do an exact count– for three reasons. First, the population is constantly rising, so a neckwear count would never be accurate. Second, I can’t count that high. And third, if I actually did count my neck pieces, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from telling Suzanne how many I’ve adopted– and that could be bigly bad for me.

It’s true Suzanne has a room full of her crafting and sewing supplies and doo-dads. And when I say it’s full, I mean you can’t walk around in it. Sewing and crafting stuff is different though. You can use things you sew and craft. They can serve practical needs. My bow ties are quite useless, beyond making me happy. I guess a lot of hobbies are “worthless,” but we love them. Maybe we love them precisely because they don’t do anything but make us happy. Our hobbies get us through bad days. Our hobbies are grown-up play.

If I had to give you a rough estimate as to the neckwear count, my best guess is that I have around probably 1,000 neckties and 2,000 bow ties. I have collected them for thirty years, but I have to admit I’ve wrangled most of them in the last six or seven.

I have made a promise to myself to cease collecting them when/if The Tie Room gets full. Let’s just say I’m slowing down my collecting. If I purchase a new piece now, it’s because it really, really, really, really, really catches my eye. I figure I’ve got maybe 20-25 years left on the face of the earth, and I don’t want to completely quit perusing and collecting neckwear. Therefore, I must be discriminating in my tie tastes if I want to keep actively expanding my collection until the second I die.