Helpful tips and hints by and for Melancholies

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I imagine that only a small percentage of Dopers are Melancholies (just as in the general population). Those that are most likely hang out in Great Debates or the Pit, but surely venture in here from time to time. For our benefit, I’m starting this thread, where Melancholies can share helpful tips with one another. I’ll post at least one a day.

These are hints to help us get through life, bearing, as we do, the burden of holding up the world and helping it to make sense.

Remote Controls

There are lots of ways you can arrange your remote controls: by geometric shape, by coordination with the order of devices, by length, etc. But the best way that I’ve found to arrange my remotes is alphabetical by device name. So, the amplifier remote is first, then the CD, then the DVD, then the TV, then the Universal, then the VCR.

I know, I know, you’re saying, “But what do we do when it is convenient to hold one of the remotes while the others still rest on the coffee table?” Simple. Leave a space-holder place for the remote you’re holding.

Food Changes

How do you know that the amount of salt you put in today’s sauce is exactly the same amount of salt that you put in yesterday’s? No matter how carefully you measure, there might be as much as a hundred grains difference. This sort of inconsistency, of course, is the source of our nightmares.

I’ve found that the most effective remedy for this derives from an attitudinal acknowledgement of fact. It’s simple: the Cholerics have failed to produce for us a reliable system of measure. They’ve designed measuring devices such that grains of salt and sugar, or drops of water and milk, still cling to the containers even after they’re poured. We can’t even rely on weighing the ingredients because they’ve made our scales innacurate, with, at best, tolerances of several nanograms.

So, you can squeeze a justification out of food changes by simply considering as you eat that this is your sacrifice upon the altar of humanity. Your magnanimous tolerance of Choleric incompetence is the common thread with which you can weave together some semblance of consistency.

Efficiencies

Finally, today’s efficiency tip deals with all the wasted time involved with using the bathroom. Every Melancholy knows the horrible anguish of waiting for the task of toilet business to be done. But there are actually lots of things you can do while nature takes its course!

If you’re standing, start brushing your teeth with one of your free hands. If you can release the other, maybe apply some deodorant. If you can lift a foot, it might be a good idea to orient the toilet paper roll with your toes so that a single sheet hangs from the front. Depending on your physical coordination, you can brush your teeth while applying deodorant, adjusting your TP roll, and peeing all at the same time!

If you’re sitting, you can clip your toenails, brush your teeth, and lots of other tasks. But if worse comes to worst, all is not lost. Here’s the great tip: begin preparing your TP for use! Pull out several strips of paper (each the same length, of course) and begin folding them in accordance with whatever folding obsession you favor. By the time you’ve finished your business, you’ll be ready to discharge the task of wiping up in the most efficient manner possible. While wiping, use your free hand to adjust the towels or TP roll or just place it on the flush lever so that standing and flushing can be one motion.

I hope these help. Any other tips from Melancholies today?

2

It is stuff like the OP that is likely to drive me melancholic in the first place. Lovely! Gymnastics while using the toilet! Just what I need to start my dreary, depressing day …

3

Efficiencies

My efficiency hint for Thursday is restrict the contents of your wardrobe to three colours.

If you do this, getting dressed in the mornings will be so much easier because there will be less colours to co-ordinate when selecting the ensemble in which you will face the challenges of yet another busy day.

My personal preferences are for black, blue and grey. This scheme extends to Underpants and Socks as well, in case I am ever involved in a (non-fatal) accident for which I am taken to an ER facility.

I do not want the doctors and nurses in ER to spend valuable time criticising any perceived colour clash between my Underpants and Shirt, when they could be busy saving my life etc. The adoption of a pseudo-trichromatic clothes wearing strategy will therefore increase the efficiency of your chosen Health Service as well.

Care must be taken when evaluating the possible consequences of pseudo-trichromatism. I recall that Mr. Seth Brundle in David Cronenburg’s The Fly (1986) had few variations to speak of in his wardrobe, and I remember also Mr. Brundle explaining his reasoning in the matter to Miss Geena Davis.

The positive results of Mr. Brundle’s clothing policy can be seen as 1) saving time getting dressed, 2) pulling Miss Geena Davis, 3) enhanced sexual powers and 4) an ability to walk on his ceiling.

On the downside Mr. Brundle did turn into a Giant Fly, albeit gradually, so possible repercussions of this nature need to be borne in mind before taking such a bold step in personal colour scheme diminishment.

4

<tries to remember his Galen>

First of all, eat a good deal of broth, if possible. You want to eat a good deal of hot, moist foods, which will counter your natural temprement. Hippocrates suggests enemas. You also might want to move to a warm climate.

5

Today’s tips will be on dealing with other temperaments.

Sanguines

By whatever weird twist of universal law, Melancholies often are drawn to Sanguines. Perhaps we look upon our associations with them as opportunities to study and learn of self-confidence. In the most profound sense, we resent them and wish they didn’t exist, especially in a group setting when they spread out their tail feathers and yak or show off without ceasing. But one-on-one, we often find them to be irresistably endearing.

I think perhaps the best way to deal with these people is to conform to the obvious symbiosis: show them admiration, applaud their performances, laugh heartily at their jokes. Say things like, “You are just incredible. How do you do these things so well?” They will delight in answering you. In detail. The more you feed the Sanguine ego, the more they will respond with those much sought after affirmations that we Melancholies crave. Such affirmations will not come in floods, but will be so conspicuous when they arise that you will treasure them as defining moments in your relationship.

Be forewarned that, from their perspective, you are merely their toy. Their favorite toy, to be sure, but a toy nonetheless. Thus, when you go with them to a party, expect that they will want to play with their other toys. They will neither tolerate nor forgive if you display the slightest sign of jealousy. Your best bet is to disappear by way of blending into the crowd. When the Sanguine performs at a party, lead the cheers, but not too obviously. Let them play. Let them lead. Let them bask in the ego validations from others. Make certain that you note several of their key moments. You will be rewarded handsomely when you leave the party and bring up the moments one-by-one, expressing how magnificent they were and how they made the party. The Sanguine will reward you by acknowledging your existence, and will, from time to time, tell you that there is no one more important than you.

Cholerics

Your best bet is to deal with these people by proxy as much as is possible. It is quite likely that you might have one of these as your boss. If you do, you can earn their favor by affording them as many opportunities as possible toward something tangible. Keep in mind that they do not consider praise from you, a subordinate, to be a fulfillment of opportunity, so don’t waste time flattering them as you would with Sanguines. Instead, manipulate circumstances such that they are praised by their boss, who makes it clear that you are the one who brought the praiseworthy deed to upper management’s attention. The Choleric will view such praise as advancement opportunity, and will reward you handsomely by establishing a dependence on you.

In personal relationships, don’t allow the Choleric to get too close. If you do, you will find yourself being used toward some purpose that will benefit the Choleric, while leaving you with empty hands and often an empty heart. Leave the Choleric to play with the Sanguine, who, rest assured, won’t be hurt one bit when the relationship explodes. The Sanguine will shrug it off, and move on to his next toy. You are not capable of doing this, owing to your god-like sense of balance and justice.

Phlegmatics

[…sigh…] Is there anything at all more rewarding and more exasperating than a relationship with a Phleg? What has helped me to deal with these people is to try to find a bright side. Yes, they are clueless, but you can make this into a good thing. The noninterference alone is worth its weight in gold. Think of a Phleg as being a frog on a lily pad, sitting quietly and watching as all the other lily pads go by. It doesn’t matter to him what’s coming up next. He doesn’t anticipate. He simply lives out experiences as they occur.

Please, whatever you do, do not expect anything whatsoever resembling balance, loyalty, or justice from these people. Your criticisms and your logical explanations are absolutely wasted. They will neither concede nor even comprehend why they are a source of frustration to you. Take it as a given that when they say three-o’clock in room 212, they might mean anything from one-o’clock to five-o’clock somewhere on the second floor. You will save yourself an awful lot of grief if you do not make appointments of any kind with these people. Do not ask them for promises. Do not count on their loyalty. Take their words as they intend them: general sounds that have general and wide-open meaning. Remember that they are like a tree stump, fixed in one place and oblivious to context.

So how can there possibly be anything rewarding in this? The reward is the same as the punishment. The Phleg is always there, useful toward whatever purpose, so long as that purpose can be achieved immediately. Future planning is a waste of time. The Phleg is a great sounding board, hearing (though certainly not comprehending) your most effluent rants, and offering positive feedback — empty words, to be sure, but words nonetheless, and unreserved ones at that. The Phleg will not hold a grudge, and will forget within five minutes whatever you did to anger them. So don’t waste time rehashing events in order to establish any sort of balance. They will just look at you dumbfounded.

Other Melancholies

Learn tolerance.

6

Please find below the lyrics to a popular song called My Melancholy Baby by George A. Norton and Ernie Burnett.

My Melancholy Baby

*Why do you grieve?
Try and believe
Life is always sunshine
When the heart beats true
Banish your fears
Smile through your tears
When you’re sad
It makes me feel the same as you…

Come to me my melancholy baby
Cuddle up and don’t be blue
All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe
You know, dear, that I’m in love with you;
Every cloud must have a silver lining
Wait until the sun shines through
Come on and smile, my honey dear,
While I kiss away each tear
Or else I shall be melancholy too…*

It’s difficult to know where to start criticising this song for its totally inadequate and sometimes cynical approach to the state of Melancholy being experienced by the object of the lyricist’s lyric.

The first four lines represent an attempt to jolly along the Melancholy person being so addressed, by saying cheer up, it may never happen. This sentiment is facile in the extreme, because to a Melancholic personality type it already has happened and if it hasn’t happened then it sure as hell soon will happen, you can be sure of that.

It gets worse.

Lines five to eight (inclusive) actually tell Mr. Melancholy to smile through your tears, as if I could ever do that, and then comes When you’re sad it makes me feel the same as you.

How bloody selfish is that? There I am sitting around minding my own business moping and feeling sad etc. when some woman comes along and basically says You miserable sod, pull yourself together otherwise we’ll both be in the shit.

Lines nine to twelve represent a blatant attempt by the (female) singer to have sex with me when I am not feeling too bright. The less said about that the better.

The final five lines of the song are a pack of lies. Firstly every cloud does not have a silver lining, although every silver lining does, in fact, have a cloud.

The sun does not always shine through. Sometimes it rains for days on end around here and quite frankly I’m sick of it. Then, there she is telling me to lighten up again with the smiles and everything, before once more attempting unwanted sex with me and illustrating her selfish, cavalier and sanguine attitude towards life in general.

I doubt that our relationship will survive this latest outbreak of anti-Melancholia on her part. How can I ever be happy with someone as happy as her?

Next week Leonard Cohen’s Greatest Hits: a full review of his magnificently depressing magnum opus.

7

Nostradamus,

What wonderful contributions! Thank you!

Today’s tip deals with what is perhaps the Melancholy’s greatest dread…

Irreparable Imbalances

Okay, suppose your showering ritual obsession involves turning off the water by pulling down the faucet lever with, say, your left foot. Due to some inexplicable lapse in concentration, you accidentally pull down the faucet lever with your right foot.

What to do? Panic? Run from the shower screaming for your life? Shoot yourself? Doubtless, desperate thoughts will race through your mind. You will ask yourself, as you have done countless times, “Is there any way possible to reverse time?” Within a second or two, of course, you will have exhausted all such impractical remedies, cursing fate all the while that the universe is incapable of such simple and much needed facilities.

As you stand there gazing wide-eyed at the faucet lever pondering the consequences of your ill-fated action, you’re wondering how you will now step out of a shower that has not been terminated properly.

Let’s look first at remedies that do not work. You cannot restore balance by taking the shower over, either in whole or in part, and then pulling the lever with the correct foot. You know this is true, so don’t bother. Even if you were to retake your shower a thousand times, you would still be faced with a one-thousandth imbalance. By Melancholy standards, that is a palpably significant and egregious blemish on your life’s experience. You also cannot pretend it never happened. Attempting such a frivolous decision might create an even greater imbalance as you begin your evening reality review ritual. Therefore, first and foremost, you must acknowledge your — please don’t faint here — mistake.

It’s simple. Here’s what you do. Establish an imbalance restoration ritual! Whatever you decide upon, it should, of course, be re-executable in any and all circumstances wherein it might be needed. It is better if you establish a single imbalance restoration ritual that will apply to all imbalances (after all, they are all ontologically equivalent) rather than a ritual for every kind of imbalance. It’s fairly obvious that too many rituals might lead to whole new imbalances, and you could easily find yourself doing nothing all day but restoring balance.

Let’s say that you decide this: restoring balance shall consist of blinking thrice whilst squinting and calling into mind the action that led to the imbalance. Obviously, that’s not enough to satisfy the Melancholy ritual palate, so add a couple more elements. Perhaps face ninety degrees along the X axis, ninety degrees along the Y axis, and a hundred-and-eighty degrees along the Z-axis from the imbalance event while you are restoring balance. Or perhaps you could position your fingers a certain way, or even act out a sequence of body positions, facial expressions, eye-movements, whatever. The important thing is not to make it so complicated that you run the risk of executing it improperly, but complex enough that you are satisfied that it has done its job.

So, the short of it is this. Take the time right now — what could possibly be more important — to establish a balance restoration ritual. You’ll be glad you did.

8

We obviously cannot tolerate having a perfect number of responses in this thread, therefore this post is for the purpose of raising the number of posts to seven.

9

Perhaps the most rewarding food-related activity undertaken by the Melancholic person is that of replenishing the Food Cupboard with new supplies of comestibles.

This exercise is one which I prefer to carry out on a daily basis, not least because of the annoying gaps which tend to appear in the serried ranks of Food Categories in my cupboard. Everyone must recognise that sinking feeling which assails us when we open a cupboard door, only to discover that the absence of a strategic jar of pickled onions spoils the intended aesthetic pleasure we might reasonably expect on such occasions.

The pickle jar, once satisfying full but now empty and awaiting recycling in another Cupboard, needs to be replaced immediately with a like product, preferably of the same manufacture as its predecessor but certainly of identical size and conformation.

And so, a visit to the supermarket is called for. This involves a journey, by motor car, of approximately 3.157 miles along a country lane and a main road. The lane is bound by fields on both sides. Somewhat disappointingly in my opinion, the fields on the left hand side (outward journey) contain horses, while the fields on the right hand side feature no animals whatsoever.

Despite a protracted correspondence between myself and the Local Farmer, he refuses to redistribute these horses in a more equitable manner across both sides of the lane. My response to this siege mentality is to visit the supermarket only when it’s dark so that my sense of balance is not offended by his intransigence.

Shopping at night also offers opportunities for creative parking which are sometimes unavailable during the hours of daylight. It is, for example, far easier to find a quiet corner of the carpark in which to practice driving one’s vehicle exactly into the middle of the parking space, thus leaving exact and equal clearances from car to parking space delineator at both the front and the back.

Upon entering the Hallowed Portals of the supermarket, we are immediately struck by the cathedral-like ambience which tends to pervade these Places Of Shopping late at night. If we choose our moment carefully, it is possible to arrive just at the moment when the shelves have been restocked with foodstuffs ready for the following day.

To be able to stroll admiringly down the Tinned Goods aisle, gazing with envious approval at the precisionism of the shelf stackers Art, an Art which brooks no hiatus in a display of Tinned Peas, which allows no variation in Tin Orientation vis-a-vis Label Positioning, which follows Supermarket Stacking Policy to the letter, well, this is a privilege which is not granted to the casual and trivial daylight shopper.

The Various Pickles shelf is located in the adjacent aisle to Tinned Goods, so it is but a short walk around the corner, pausing only to reposition an errant Coca Cola bottle en route, until we are face to face with the object of our desire.

The gap in our Food Cupboard has been identified as requiring an object of height 5.54 inches with a diameter of 2.92 inches. These happen to be the exact dimensions of a jar of Haywards The Original Sweet Onions In Vinegar Mild And Crisp Net Weight 454g Drained Weight 245g.

So, we require a replacement jar of Haywards Pickles which fits the above description, or a container of onions from another supplier who uses the same Jar System, in either case having a blue and yellow label for upward compatibility with the rest of our Food Cupboard content.

Sadly, this is not to be our night. In the light of what are, according to the Customer Services desk, circumstances beyond our control, there are no pickled onions in the supermarket which exactly match our specific need.

Incredible, I know.

A world in which Man can put another Man on the Moon, where people can contact each other across continents via message boards, and in which Beetroot is getting increasingly more Red as the years pass achingly by, surely cannot continue to allow Deficiencies in Pickle Supply of this nature.

We retrace our faltering steps to the Various Pickles shelf, tape measure in hand, in a desperate attempt to locate another pickle-based product which will slot easily into the gap in our domestic cupboard.

After a couple of hours measuring and recording the options in a notebook, we eventually come across a jar of Haywards The Original Tasty Piccalilli (With Mustard) Saucy And Spicy which comes in an identical jar to their Sweet Onions Mild And Crisp but which has a marginally greater net weight of 460g.

The label is red and yellow rather than the optimum blue and yellow, which will leave a Blue Shortfall in the Food Cupboard colour scheme, but dawn is beginning to break and we need to leave the supermarket before Daytime Shoppers arrive to destroy the symmetry of the shelf displays.

We arrive home in a state of high emotion, hoping that our jar measurements were accurate, and tentatively we place the Haywards Piccalilli Saucy And Spicy in the position formerly occupied by the Sweet Onions Mild And Crisp.

It fits!

Is there any more satisfactory feeling than that we experience as a result of a job well done, a job planned to the finest detail, considering all possible eventualities, and executed successfully in the face of almost insurmountable problems?

I think not.

10

There is an Email Address Deficiency on your profile.

Because of this, I am unable to tell you that threads of this type are the precise reason why I joined the august body of SDMB membership, in August, and they are the reason why I shall continue to remain a member until I am Banned for Possible Insanity.

I greatly appreciate your keenly observed comments on Melancholies and their interactions with Remote Devices and Faucets etc. The balance restoration ritual is a veritable tour de force, striking, as it does, a necessary compromise between complexity and simplicity of operation.

It is a feature which I know will prove invaluable to every member of this message board.

Well done!

11

Nostradamus,

Your kind and generous words of affirmation have greatly edified me. In return, allow me to state that your posts are a delight to read. They are masterfully composed and focused. They are exemplary of the Melancholy standard.

The Email Address Deficiency is deliberate inasmuch as my online application ritual prohibits my including or displaying an e-mail address whenever that inclusion or display is optional. With respect to the rude and uncooperative attitude of your farmer neighbor, I must say that I am not surprised despite that your request was utterly reasonable, not even demanding that his horses maintain symmetrical postures and orientations, but merely that they be balanced according to number. So very few Melancholies become farmers, except for those who can overcome their overwhelming aversions toward such things as the chaotic nature of fractal plant growth.

I envy you. You have done so well in finding a supermarket with clerks who stock shelves properly. When I shop, I have to wear my moral blinders so that I can make it from one aisle to the next without collapsing into dispair from labels that are improperly oriented. I’ve managed to shut it out simply by logging each store visit in my Moral Affrontary Register as yet another of those incalculable sacrifices that I make on behalf of mankind.

I’m so glad you’re here. Perhaps, over time, the dozen or so others of the Superior Temperament will wander in. It is only a matter of time before they have to click on MPSIMS in order to balance something or other.

Today’s tip deals with that most delicate topic:

Sex

(Note: I will be using the Neomodern Third Person Construct in the following text. I like it, not just because of its utility, but because it is easy to accomodate grammatically, given a sensibly constructed Rules Precedence Obsession. If you have not yet accepted the construct, then be forewarned.)

If you are so fortunate as to be partnered with a Sanguine, then you need no advice from me. The wonderful Sanguine will assume for you all the chores of leading, and they will perform so well that you will have absolutely no need for sex preparation rituals of any kind. Naturally, you will be used toward their purposes blatantly, and without regard to your own desires, preferences, or circumstance. However, this is acceptable, owing to the nature of Melancholy fulfillment by vicariousness and empathy. When the Sanguine has finished their deed, you will find them utterly spent. They will retreat from the circumstance almost immediately, and will invariably toss you a “thanks” or other affirmation. What could possibly be a more perfect sexual event? Quick. Painless. Fulfilling. And affirmative.

If your partner is another Melancholy, and enough years have passed in your relationship, then you might have worked out one or more sexual ritutals that are suitable to you both. If not, I can advise only patience. Be consoled by the fact that your partner is equally hard at work analyzing what might be the best way to broach the topic and steer it toward a meaningful resolution. Sometimes, role playing can help. If you can manage to approach the topic indirectly, then one or the other of you might mention the sexual prowess of the Sanguine, whereupon the other might remark nonchalantly, “Would it not be interesting if one of us were sanguinely tempered?” That, of course, opens the door for all sorts of clever approaches. But if you fail, the two of you will have come so tantalizingly close, and will have established the beginnings of a mutual preparation ritual, that it won’t be long before the same approach surfaces again. Perhaps within only weeks!

Given a Phleg partner, you must exercise the patience of Job and the tolerance of a saint. You know the scenario. You’ve followed your preparation ritual to the letter. The Phleg, oblivious but accomodating, has cooperated as best they can. Then suddenly, out of the blue, they remove an article of clothing in the wrong order! Oh, crap! And here you are, desperately clinging to what little remains of your fantasy while they continue to disrobe, unphased and utterly mindless of their transgression. What can you do? Likely, you have already endured endless depressing discussions of the matter until you cannot bear another. The Phleg has told you on each occasion that they understand and that they will be mindful from then on; else, they have denied the validity of your complaint and have fallen into the rut of displacing blame back to you. God help you. Perhaps, given sufficient time, you can establish a preparation and consumation ritual that will boil down to an exercise in autosexuality while at the same time satisfying the Phleg’s nebulous and myopic demands. Expect little if any affirmation. You must somehow provide this for and to yourself.

If your partner is Choleric, then it is simply a matter of providing opportunity. The mechanics of the sex ritual will be similar to that which you would have with the Sanguine, but tremendously less satisfying. Affirmations will be either nill or so disingenuous that they leave a sour taste, but at least the affair will be quickly over, and emotional pain will be minimal, except for a vague emptiness that will dissipate with time. Warning: do not allow yourself to be sucked into the Emptiness Vortex. Stay mindful that sex with a Choleric is supposed to be empty. It is too easy to confuse them with Sanguines and therefore make inappropriate demands. Just remember that Cholerics, like you, are a task oriented temperament. They simply are oriented toward tasks incorrectly, seeing them as opportunities for self-aggrandizement rather than as ways to express noble excellence.

12

My Get Ready For Christmas And Get Ready Now! software package (minimum requirements: Pentium II microprocessor, 16MB RAM, audio card, 100MB of hard-disk space) informs me that a mere 57 days remain between now and 25 December.

GRFCAGRN! is a real boon. Its unique Overnight Processing feature calculates, on a nightly basis, what still needs to be done in order to prepare me for the Big Day, and provides an easy-to-read printout of prioritised tasks which I must accomplish unless I wish to ‘miss out’ on the pleasures of Christmas Day and its accoutrements.

Today GRFCAGRN! reminds me that it is time for the annual Compact Disk Rack Restructuring Ritual. This involves removing all Compact Disks from their rack and replacing them, in strict alphabetical order of course, leaving gaps for those CDs which I expect to receive as part of the Yuletide festivities and for my next birthday.

This is a very necessary task. If I am fortunate enough to receive, as a gift, Pink Floyd’s excellent rendition of Atom Heart Mother for Christmas, I will not be able to play the opus unless I have created a space for it, in the rack, under the letter P (For Pink Floyd).

If there is no space (under P) the disk will have no administrative place in the house, and its fate will be akin to that of musical flotsam floating around upon a sea of uncertainty in a confused and unordered domestic environment.

Having dusted the CD racks and checked for mouse droppings under ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits, it is time to replace the CDs.

Our problems have begun.

Alphabetically, the first disk to go into the rack is Marc Almond’s Jaques. Or is it? The problem is, I also have a copy of Soft Cell’s The Singles. Do I file Marc Almond under A for Almond, or do I file him under S for Soft Cell with his synthesiser man, David Ball? Talk about being on the horns of a dilemma!

In he goes under A. Anastacia and Arrested Development follow without equivocation which leaves us looking at The Art Of Noise.

The Art Of Noise is a frustrating band, not least because their CDs have the spine title inserted upside down. You know what I mean. If we place the CD into the rack so that the title In No Sense? Nonsense! is correctly oriented, the CD itself is inverted so that when removed we find ourselves staring at the rear of the disk sleeve rather than the front.

This revisionist positioning of disk sleeves is apparently Art Of Noise policy because exactly the same problem occurs with The Best Of The Art Of Noise. Naturally, when I discovered this irritating habit, I was forced to stop buying The Art Of Noise’s CDs as a matter of principle.

After deciding to file Maire Brennan under C for Clannad, our next hurdle looms large with the prospect of what to do about Eric Clapton, Cream and Derek & The Dominoes. Deciding, as last year, to allocate Eric to Cr for Cream, our re-racking gathers pace again. Annie Lennox goes under E for Eurythmics, Brian Ferry gets subsumed under Roxy Music and you are wondering what the hell happened to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young aren’t you?

What a nightmare! Crosby, The Byrds, Stills, Buffalo Springfield, Manassas, Nash, The Hollies, Young, Crazy Horse. There are simply too many filing options to safely accommodate all these line-ups so we resolve, as last year, to stick them all under W for Woodstock.

The Peter Gabriel/Genesis dichotomy is negotiated without too much trouble and now we are flying. Lou Reed goes back with Velvet Underground, with or without Nico, after spending last year in splendid isolation under R. There is now only one major stumbling block to overcome.

This is the Yes-based band and artiste categorisation problem which has flummoxed Melancholic filers since the band was formed in 1968. I don’t want to go into the origins of Yes, which bands metamorphosed into and out of Yes, and all the various musicians, and Rick Wakeman, who made albums together, separately and in threesomes with each other and Jon Anderson.

The best thing to do with these CDs is to gather them all together, place a giant Elastic Band around them and shove them all under the bed.

And this we do, crawling under the bed to join Yes and its cohorts, shaking our heads at yet another failure by the Cholerics to provide adequate CD filing systems, and rocking ourselves slowly backwards and forwards with our fingers in our ears, trying to make sense of some crazy musical decisions.

13

Oh, Nostradamus! Oh, you poor soul! Why must language be so imprecise? Why does the world not do something eminently practical and sensible, namely, assemble a committee of Melancholies to create an abstract language based on sound principles of logic? […bewildered stare…] You would think this would be the highest priority of academicians everywhere. Pity the poor Cantonese and Mandarin Melancholies.

My heart goes out to you as you sacrifice yourself upon the alter of Choleric incompetence. Nothing is more maddening and frustrating than filing, except perhaps for:

Traffic

Today’s tip deals with managing your sanity while driving. There is no more clear demonstration of tolerance than the fact that Melancholies do not mount machine guns in our grills. I believe that nothing is more axiomatic than the fact that we alone know how to drive.

Famous for our perfect decorum in nearly every circumstance, we simply cannot abide the sheer stupidity, myopia, and carelessness of drivers with inferior temperaments. And unfortunately, compelled by all that is holy and righteous, we tend to launch into spells of violent cursing and unhealthy muscle tension when we find ourselves behind someone who has the unmitigated gall to slow us down as he prepares to make a turn. Especially a left turn.

We were not consulted when the roadways were designed, despite that one would think it obvious that nothing ought to be constructed prior to the consultation of a committee of Melancholies. The chap who designed the stop-light intersection is likely the same cretinous Choleric who designed the ketchup bottle. Unfortunately, life goes on as is, and we must play with the sorry hand we have been dealt.

I can give you no advice for curbing your righteous anger, nor would I presume to assuage your passionate appeals for justice by asking you to fool yourself into thinking that other drivers are people deserving of respect. Therefore, the best I can do is offer you some advice on what you might do proactively to avoid altogether one of life’s most tragic circumstances: a Melancholy sharing a roadway with other temperaments.

First, don’t go unless you must. Send a Phlegmatic person if you can. They don’t mind doing chores, and if you make the right approach, they won’t know for all the world that making the trek for you isn’t something they just stumbled into by accident.

Failing that, if you must go yourself, consider, while your engine is idling and you are going through your preparation ritual that, along with estimatations of best routes and so forth, you need to consider contingencies for Sanguines who blow their horns at you, for Cholerics who cut in front of you, and for Phlegs who admire the scenery while they weave all about.

On your journey, separate yourself as much as possible from the other drivers, but stay mindful of them as you watch them from a distance. You know the clues. Brake lights. Turn signals. Screeching noises. Watch out for these so that you can anticipate an early reaction. Who is more capable than you of sizing up a circumstance almost instantly based upon visual and audio clues?

When you see the shadowy dog figure way ahead of you, prancing toward the roadway, while a Phleg approaches from a distance such that they are destined to meet, you already know that there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when the Phleg slams his brakes at the last moment, rousing from his dreamy stupor, and the dog, his mental equal, stares at the oncoming car, paralyzed and bewildered. Prepare for what you know is inevitable. Decrease your speed the moment you spot the dog and the Phleg. Why wait? This way, your cursing will be merely an under-the-breath “Moron” rather than a full-rage scream of, “You stupid and vaccuous mutha-fucker!”

The key is mindful anticipation. Yes, it is stressful. But you know that your embarkation will be stressful no matter what you do. Better a stress that is managed by you than the other way around.

Go go with you when you must drive.

14

Recently my father brought me a gift of over thirty CDs burned from his considerable collection. Since he has several hundred CDs and consistently purchases new ones, he arrived at the reasoned conclusion that it is simply impossible to keep them in alphabatical order in the rack, as even the most minor adjustments to the collection result in major taxonomical catastrophes. His solution to the problem is elegant and simple. He maintains a list of all of his CDs subdivided first by genre and then ordered alphabetically. Each genre is kept in a different rack, thus minimizing the displacement of individual CDs when new acquisitions are made. Furthermore, all of his CDs are indexed on a master database on his computer, so he has no trouble locating any CD, no matter how imprecise its genre may be.

When he doesn’t recall whether he filed de Falla’s El Amor Brujo under Spanish or under 20th century, he simply looks it up. The database directs him to the appropriate section.

My situation is more problematic. I lack the volume of his collection, the storage space, and the database. Hence he should have understood my look of consternation when he brought me thirty new CDs. I was not displeased by his gift in any way. He knows my taste well, and provided me with several superior recordings of some of my favorites that very nearly match my own interpretations of appropriate tempo, accent, and propotion. My pallid look proceeded from my inability to decide how I was going to organize my new collection.

I shall spare you the details of this tempest. I just wanted to plead my case as a Brother in Balance.

I will also spare you the details of my morning bathroom routine. Suffice to say that due to a drainage problem in my building, I was summarily denied almost all of my usual ablutions and purifications, involving sharp objects, skin products, and extremely hot water. Needless to say, my day was ruined at 8 AM.

I wish to address what I perceive to be the most fundamental ritual of the Melancholic: purification and expiation.

It is axiomatic that every word, deed, and thought has a myriad of consequences. These consequences affect our environments, the people around us, and most importantly, our own minds. Thus a misspoken word, a foolish glance, or a moment of self-dispossession are like depth charges dropped into our souls. You know they are unpleasant when they are first launched, but only later, after they are submerged, do they truly blossom into explosions of pain and destruction. There is only one way to restore the damage.

Like my momma always said to me, a child, when I complained that something hurt. “Your left hand hurts? Go bang your right one. Your left will feel better.”

I thought this was facile advice at the time, but as an adult I see the wisdom of her words. For only suffering can expiate suffering and restore balance. Justice must always have her way.

I am extremely fond of productive, physical suffering. I was not happy with how I conducted my affairs this weekend. I made mistakes on Friday and Saturday, and I failed to alleviate them with hard work on Sunday. I decided that a hard run in the cold would adequately restore my equilibrium. I decided that nonstop running in the park for four lengths of “A Million Manias,” incidentally by Marc Almond (who appears to be a Melancholic favorite) would be sufficient. The eleven minute live version, of course.

The benefit of this exercise is threefold. While physically quite fit, I am not a runner. The burning in my lungs was the first benefit, as the air was quite cold and dry. Its effect was both soothing and focusing. Second, the endorphins and adrenalin released from exercise also purged me of bad humors. And third, the conditioning gained from hard running only improves my resilience and effeciency in other physical realms.

I suspect I shall have to include this ritual in my normal weekly schedule. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The days I do not attend fencing school, another massively useful purification ritual, for the relentless objectivity and sanity of the western martial arts provide a necessary safety valve for my burgeoning stress at the discomposure of the world.

Also effective rituals of purification are fasting and the observance of silence. I do these without any religious overtones whatsoever.

Today, by some freak misfortune, I forgot my fencing socks. I do not know what I am going to do in class tonight.

15

Gee, I finally realized why Libertarian posts so much worthless crap!

16

:: Why A Duck wanders outside, notices all the pretty posts flying so high above in the bright blue sky. The constant whooshing sound is annoying, but suspects that it all has a purpose. Wanders inside to reorganize the CDs.

17

Maeglin,

Welcome, Brother in Balance. What a perfectly satisfactory descriptor tag! I’m certain that Nostradamus will be equally as pleased as I. Pay no attention to the snippy Cholerics and wandering Phlegs who happen through now and again. Enduring such imbalances as are forced upon us by the administrative policy of allowing anyone to post anywhere serves merely to accentuate yet another of the many sacrifices that we make on behalf of the ungrateful masses.

I have but a tiny CD collection consisting primarily of the collected works of Wagner and those of Elton John. Mine are blessedly easy to arrange. No doubt, you and Nostradamus will together derive a most excellent general solution to the problem of ordinality.

Your Balance Restoration Rituals are breathtakingly beautiful in their conception, providing you not only with a solution to the problem of loose ends, but edifying you as well in the process. I am so sorry to hear about your fencing socks. Is there any way to procure them before your practice in such a manner that you do not disturb your Fencing Preparation Ritual?

18

Thank you for your kind words.

As on the boards, as in life. The misery inflicted by others shall only make me purer, more resilient. It’s a long, hard road, but one well worth hobbling along.

And there is no way to procure my socks in time for class. My apartment is too far away. While I do not mind the effort of traveling all the way uptown with heavy bags to make for a more perfect class, the extra effort would deprive me of nearly two hours of purification.

This is not acceptable.

I have but two alternatives. I an try to purchase a new pair on the way to class. This is not attractive. The activity requires extreme concentration and focus. There is nothing that so impedes concentration as the random acquisition of new footwear.

My other option is to wear my everyday socks.

But they are black. We dress in white. And they are altogether too short, and won’t work well with my fencing pants.

This is not an easy problem.

19

I am taking this opportunity to advise you on how to persuade your local supermarket(s) to orient labels correctly on Tins, Jars, Packets and other containers of comestible items on their shelves.

My own supermarket of choice was very lax in the matter until I personally took a hand in redirecting its lapsed policy back on to the straight and narrow path of geometric righteousness.

Then, during our daily meeting on 17 March 2001 at 5.16am approximately, the Customer Services manager agreed to my request for improved label orientation on Tins, with Jars and Packets Of Biscuits to be phased back into the System over the following seven days.

He undertook to ensure that all containers of foodstuffs, beginning with Tins Of Baked Beans that very day, would be correctly positioned on the shelves at 4am each morning. He further agreed to telephone me at 3.52am each day during his Probationary Period to inform me that the shelf displays were ready for my inspection.

With regard to the next item on the agenda, an item totally unassociated with his decision I might add, I agreed not to send to his wife, at their home address, various photographs of himself and the girl from Checkout Seventeen, taken whilst the subjects were in a ‘compromising position’ in a small hotel just north of Stratford Upon Avon.

Of course, your own Customer Services manager at your local supermarket may not succumb to the pleasures of the flesh as easily as did mine. In addition, you may not have a sister who you can wangle into a position on Checkout Seventeen in order to tempt him into a spot of extra-marital sex.

Everybody has their weakness though, and it is just a matter of discovering what it is, setting up a ‘sting’ operation and blackmailing them accordingly until you get what you want.

They are only Cholerics after all.

20

Welcome, Brother in Balance.

I have just read your distressing post concerning the Sock Shortfall you are currently experiencing, and the effect it is having on your day.

While I am not an expert on fencing, lacking white socks as I do, I urge you most strongly to keep Spares, at work, of everything you might forget to bring from home, especially Footwear.

I agree that random acquisition of new Footwear is not a good idea. Sock purchase expeditions need to be planned meticulously, and if you leave home in the morning not expecting to buy socks and then find that you are required to do so, your daily balance factor is off-kilter by a good 22%.

Your father’s CD database interests me no little, and I feel I may be on the Cusp of a system change with 177 CDs to manage on Rack-Only methodology. I find the modus operandi of leaving Gaps is just manageable at the moment, since I can retain a mind-image of where the gaps should be and compare this image with the actuality of rack frontage when I ritually check it every three hours.

Using this system, it is possible to assimilate the shock receipt of thirty CDs as long as the Artiste Names are evenly spread across the alphabet. Only if your father gave me thirty Beatles CDs, for example, would I be forced to restructure my racks.

Still on the subject of CD filing, I am wondering how music lovers categorise the recordings of Miss Diana Ross, formerly of the Supremes pop group.

Ross is one of the worst offenders in the sphere of multi-artiste nomenclature. We have The Supremes, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Diana Ross and The Supremes and The Temptations, The Supremes and The Four Tops, Diana Ross, Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie, Julio Iglesias and Diana Ross, and Diana.

The common factor here would seem to be Diana Ross, and in my opinion Melancholies should lobby their respective Governments to introduce a ban on multi-artiste recording practices until some kind of international standard is agreed on how such CDs should be filed.