Stupidity and Awe

I was having lunch with the Professor yesterday (delicious leftover beef stew, which you should not pass up if offered) and trying to explain to her how I was growing noticeably stupider. She was trying to explain her birthday party. Because of my perceptible growing stupidity, I was unable to understand exactly why so many men at her party had been wondering if it would be okay for them to take off their pants in front of each other, but not so stupid that it didn't make me very sad that I'd missed it. This morning, I came downstairs and realized that I'd left the back door not only unlocked, but slightly open. Yes, train-riding mass-murderers, I make it easy for you. I'm slowly working my way through Twilight of the Idols, for no reason, really, just to have something to read in the bathroom, but this morning Fred* was actually talking about stupidity--about how our passions make us stupid and how, in the face of that, we can either attempt to cease to have passions or we can stand in awe of how powerful our passions are. I think we know which I normally choose. Ha, maybe that's why I read Fred, for the constant reminders of all the ways you have to disentangle yourself from Christianity if you really want to be done with it. Anyway, then the dog and I went out. Holy shit. There was just a hint of the sun glowing along the 440 retaining wall. Above us, was Venus, a steady brilliant blue, and to her right, Orion. I love that I live so close to work and yet can see Orion in the morning sky. And farther right, was a huge yellow moon. It made me feel a little dizzy, in a kind of giddy way, to be facing south, with the rising sun on my left and the setting moon to my right, with Orion** right above me. And for our whole walk, the full moon seemed to chase us in and out of the trees, peeking out from the train trestle, and then, just as the dark sky was giving way to the pinky dawn, I saw a fucking shooting star! Right there in the west! I didn't think to wish on it. Instead, I just did what Fred demands and stood in awe. *Probably the best way to read Nietzsche is to skim through and find where he's said something obviously ridiculous, first. Then you can kind of measure your enthusiasm for the rest of what he says against it. If you don't keep in mind that he's got some issues, you end up like... well, like Heidegger, and no one wants that. **Miss J., I still think that's a kick-ass idea for a tattoo.