In the not so distant past, there was a schism among the left-wing blogs I read and some became Hillary supporter hangouts and others were dominated by Obama.

Since one of the biggest lefty blogs is Daily Kos, the fights there were bitter until more and more supporters of Sen. Clinton began to post that they were leaving and weren’t coming back.

The remaining “Kossaks” mocked these letters as “GBCW” posts and began to archive them (Good Bye Cruel World).

In fact, for as long as I’ve been reading blogs — at least 10 years — people have been upset by the sharp back and forth and have written posts detailing their grievances and reasons for leaving never to return. They tend to become so overwrought and hyperbolic as to become objects of ridicule to those with a certain tendency to black humor and a soupcon of snark.

Such posts are not a big deal to me and I don’t often read them any more.

However, this Au Revoir, New York, is a doozy.

Charles Krauhammer, in the Washington Post today, drivels on for about a thousand words about Obama’s “Audacity of Vanity.” Yeah. Like Bill Clinton, Ron Reagan, LBJ and JFK were just chock full of humble pie. Seems to me the embittered wheelchair pundit just used up a bunch a newspaper space to call Obama an uppity nigger.

My daughter and I have a deal. We don’t say “anal retentive” because it sounds so very ickky. We say “detail oriented.” There. Doesn’t that sound so much better?

So, I’m detail oriented. I’m a lawyer. What did you expect?

I spent part of last weekend doing a task I’ve wanted to do for more than a year. It was a detail that had really bugged me for a very long time. I alphabatized my DVD collection. Now, all 246 DVDs march from one shelf to another in regularized order. It starts with numbers — “8mm”, “1941” and “2010”– and ends with “Zodiac”.

I find myself compelled, yes compelled, to do such things at times. Fairly regularly, I pick up my shirts from the laundry and find I must, yes must, arrange my shirts by color. All the white shirts together, all the blue shirts together; stripes are so problematic for me.

Most people are happy with a single sock drawer. Not me. I have a drawer for black socks, one for blue and gray socks and a third for browns. Of course, then, there’s a fourth drawer for a hodgepodge of “casual” socks, mostly white.

How can you live with the prospect of mixing up your blue socks with your black socks when you dress in the morning?

Similarly, I have racks of ties. One for yellow, one for blue, one for black and one for greens and reds.

As I dress in the mornings, I take overweening pride in the details. Everything matches just so. Even the jewelry matches the belt buckle. The crease just so, the platen of buttons on the shirt perfectly aligns with the zipper of the pants. Even insouciance is planned out and the seemingly whimsical detail is thought out.

Need I even speak of the files within files at my office and in my computers?

Everything orderly. Everything labeled. All must fit into a category. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Timetables, schedules, agendas — everything and every day mapped out.

And then I rebel. I ignore this orderly world I’ve created. I’m messy and refuse to wash the dishes or I sling my clothes over the bedroom chair. Then, I’m remorseful and scurry around and be a good boy and put everything aright, chastising myself for my failings and foibles.

I procrastinate and destroy my careful mapping out of the day. Then, toss and turn and grind my teeth that night.

Oh, if you only knew how imperfect I can be! But, I hide that from you as best I can. Like Nixon, I cover up my crimes with conspiracies of silence.

Pennywise but pound foolish, I am plotting out the re-arrangement of my CD collection while my checkbook hasn’t been balanced in an age and I can’t quite figure out how to send out regular bills to my clients.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, don’t you know.

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As many of you know, last weekend was my birthday. My 59th birthday.

I had a wonderful time, as reported.

I just didn’t realize the import of the event until this weekend, based upon events of the past week.

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, I’ve entered upon a new stage of life.

Now, as many of you know, we often speak of the seven stages of man, based upon a soliloquy from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” by the melancholy Jacques:

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” — Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)

Apparently, the modern world has overtaken The Bard and there is a new and eighth stage of man: the pitiable “… for your age” stage.

You know what I mean. “You look so good … for your age.” “You seem in such good health … for your age.” “You have a very active social life … for your age.”

I would not much think it pitiable but for the women in my life this week.

A Courthouse friend of mine tried a little matchmaking this week. I met her and her friend at a restaurant. Her friend was not my type at all, no matter how nice she may be, and by “not my type at all” I mean, of course, she’s my age.

One of my best girl friends, the wife of one of my best men friends, told me this weekend she hoped I would find a romantic partner “before it’s too late.” OMG. “Too late”?

Clearly I’ve been dating too long “for my age.”

This week, I had drinks out at Pearl’s Lakeside (as opposed to Pearl’s Graveside) with a fellow blogger and X and we discussed with some pessimism the spectre of dating “at our age”.

I went to the anniversary party for a former girlfriend who was kind enough to research another guest for awhile until she decided she was uncomfortable being my “pimp”. A man “my age” ought to be able to introduce himself to a woman.

I saw another former girlfriend twice this week, most lately with her latest man and his children. I’m the most handsome man in the city … for my age.

I got “dumped” this week, at least in part because I don’t “act my age.”

Another former girlfriend will be feted this month by The Gary upon her triumphal return from warmer climes for a visit. When your former and younger girlfriends have already moved to Miami, you know you’ve reached “a certain age.”

I have some of my favorite music on the CD turntable right now and I realize none of it was recorded IN THIS CENTURY.

Some of the hottest nightspots in this town are off my list — the Barmuda Triangle to not name three — for the simple reason that I’m too old to show my face there. Just looking around a little, it seems whether the nightspot is hot or not, I’m still the oldest guy in the room, no matter how game I may be “for your age.”

If I try to stem the tide by putting a little dark in my hair, for example, something other friends of mine have done, there would be phones ringing throughout the Old Confederacy and from Seattle to New York. My hair is almost as (in)famous as me.

I am a grandfather, a fact I don’t avoid because I love the children so much. My own child betrays my age — his next birthday is the Big Four-OH. He’s middle aged and I no longer can make that claim. In fact, young men his age and younger now see me as no competition and unabashedly come to me for advice to the lovelorn about how to deal with the young women they covet. Like I know. I’m a “player” but only “for my age.”

However, like the decrepit John McCain, I still have my mother to bail me out. To her, I’m still her “child”.

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The guys who dress the worst are the first to criticize how I dress when I’m in a suit and tie.

The people who have no money and never had any to speak of are the first to give financial advice.

The ones with terrible relationships currently or in the past always have advice for the lovelorn.

The most vociferous and partisan political comments come from those who know absolutely nothing about policy and governing and stubbornly refuse to read the newspapers.

Those with the strongest religious views have no spiritual wisdom and never live their lives according to the theology they espouse.

I call it waxing philosophomoric.

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The Stones sang a song with a line: “What a drag it is getting older” , although you may remember the line about mother’s little helper.

But, my birthday was yesterday, and I can’t say I feel the way Jagger sang before he and Keith got ancient.

This was one of my better birthdays, really. I feel better about myself and my life and my future than I have in the past several birthdays.

I say this despite the fact that my objective position in life isn’t much different than it has been for some time. Truth depends on what you look for and where you stand when you look when it comes to things like that.

Anyway, I passed the weekend having fun and seeing friends and getting presents and phone calls and cards. I was the center of attention for three or four days and (considering my vanity and ego) what’s not to like about that?

As long as I live to be at least 118, I’m only middle aged. Sixty is the next 30, you know. Cough::bullshit::cough.

If I could just get someone to store a little of this excess crazy I’ve obtained, I wouldn’t have a problem in the world. My bills are paid, my house is nice, I drive a nice car, I have friends and a job and my mom’s healthy and … my cup runneth over.

Don’t expect that fact to mean I won’t be bitching, however. Bitching is one of my constitutionally guaranteed inalienable rights and y’all know how much the United States of America Constitution and its Bill of Rights means nowadays.

For example, my son Jack in New Orleans is cut out of my will for forgetting to call his father and his sister will get all the good stuff whether she wants it or not. I’ll be donating the crazy to the Grand Old Party, they’ll never notice it amongst their own.

Ah, well. I’m at that age where I’ve been there and done that but can’t quite remember it all exactly.

Sinatra demands my attention, I’ll catch you later, alligator.

Blogblah

Dear World,

Thanks but no thanks.

I’m all stocked up on crazy right now, thank you very much.

Oh, sure, I’ve bought lots and lots of your high quality crazy at your low, Low, LOW volume discount prices in the past, but that’s the problem. I’ve got all I need and a surplus. A lifetime supply.

It’s not that I have any complaints with the service. Ready delivery of very high quality insanity has been the hallmark of your marketing department. The prices have been steep at times, but mostly I run into crazy completely free of charge as often as I need and want.

Now, you’re just wasting time for both of us with your solicitations. My decision is firm and final.

NO MORE CRAZY.

Sure, you have a line of personal romance crazy and another of public election insanity and a boutique line of economic nuttiness, but I’m just full up. The cabinets, the closets and even the attic are all stacked to the bursting point. I’ve already outsourced family craziness to my sisters and children because I have so much and they are resisting storing my excess. I just can’t take anymore. No place to put it.

Perhaps you could send the women who think I’d be perfect if I’d only complete this punchlist of changes to a younger man. You can divert the Jesusy ones to someone who lives farther northwest or farther south than 63d and May.

I’m well aware that the deadline for purchase of Bush-Cheney wierdness is upon us, but I’ll have to decline another war, even if Iran is looking ripe. Please hold that side of gas tax holiday, I’ve had enough pandering idiocy to last a very long time. No more FISA flip-flops for dessert, I’m on a diet.

I cannot say that I now believe that running up my credit card balances seems like a good idea even if it is fat free and low cholesterol. Foreclosures and job losses and bear markets are out of the question.

It’s not just the durable goods crazy that I’m done with, World, it’s also the tech crazy. I-whatevers, VISTA operating systems, Wii games and Guitar Hero/Grand Theft Auto IV are also off the board. Please just stop.

World, we’ve had a good relationship for a very long time, but I realize now that when I took delivery of WalMart and SUV crazy, it was the beginning of the end. Don’t ruin it and all my fond memories of my college pot smoking days with more of this crack/meth/drug de jour panic.

Crying acid rain won’t help because my mind is made up. You can also stop with the plastic bags and mountaintop mining.

Breaking up with you in an email, well, this is the last of the crazy for me.

Sincerely,

Blogblah

This Fark headline made me chuckle:

Despite 90+ degree heat, thousands turn out for joint Obama-Clinton Campaign rally in Unity, NH. Through a spokesman, God apologized for the unseasonable heat, saying it was necessary to keep hell from freezing over

This morning’s NY Times contains a column about depression by Dick Cavett.

Part of me wants to write a great deal about my own struggle with depression, but I’ll spare my readers that except to say that, like Cavett, there were many times I wished I had the energy to strangle those who told me to “snap out of it.” Like it was that easy to do. Yah. Why didn’t I think of that?

My recent change of medications, brought on by my long-term success with a medication just not working for me any more, sent me through some weeks of a return of suicidal thoughts and the inability to get out of bed and go to the office. Thankfully, I went through that period with professional help.

My anecdotal experience is that depression is often a “paired” disease (my own formulation, btw), with the depressed person also suffering from alcoholism/drug addiction and/or anxiety. Sometimes the mood swings for some sufferers are so great that it’s bipolar hell. For me, I had to sober up before I could really address the depression.

Hope the column amuses you and deepens your understanding of some of your fellows.

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