Living in ragtime.

[rogerashton]

Got my head examined today. (I fell down and busted it Dec. 10). EEG. I'll get the results on Monday.

What's really puzzling is how positive and cheerful I have been most of the time. People who know my problem, or know me, would not expect that. I know me and I didn't. Is it possible the part of my brain I damaged is the part that used to generate those mean, dark, depressive moods?

I was groping for how to express it, and what popped into my mind was "Sure, I've had my blue moments, when I was pretty miserable or angry at being a burden or things didn't seem to be getting better -- but even in the blue riffs the backbeat was always ragtime."

OK, I'm not musical, and maybe that metaphor doesn't work so well for a person who knows from music. And ragtime is a specialist interest. I love it -- got two versions of Scott Joplin's complete works. It's not that ragtime is happy music, exactly -- it's not often sad, though -- but it's relentless, keeps going, keeps moving on into the future, keeps promising an up resolution -- even if you need to wait a little longer. At least that's what I hear in it.

There's worse things than living in ragtime.