Shejidan / Star's expositions?

**Posted by Felicitous Sk8er** 1/03/2026 12:26 pm

Some years ago Star posted two stunningly hilarious expositions detailing:
1) an obnoxious dinner guest / picking up a calf, and
2) therapeutic tea containing a large locust "you could say was robust, princely, even".

Does anyone have a copy of these (Star??)

**Posted by starexplorer** 1/04/2026 2:53 pm

Thank you kindly for remembering, Sk8er! And for reminding me!
I don’t know whether these are on this site somewhere. I’ll check to see whether I have them -

**Posted by Felicitous Sk8er** 1/04/2026 4:24 pm

I searched this site for them, as well as the previous site (Tapatalk). No luck, so I hope you have copies somewhere!

**Posted by starexplorer** 1/04/2026 5:11 pm

It took me a while. Thankfully I had one old thumb drive, and there they were! I also found a copy of the locust piece on Tapatalk.

**Posted by starexplorer** 1/04/2026 5:11 pm

I may be a curmudgeon, but I am going to tell what happened anyway. I'm having a relaxing vacation, bicycling, throwing a baseball with my son, pretending to be my 4 year old daughter's nice friend Monsty from the monster world, eating fresh fish and local produce -- all mitigated ever-so-slightly by the fact that this is occurring at my in-laws' beautiful beach home and they are indeed present. But that's another story.

I catch wind of the fact that my father-in-law (let's call him "Don", which incidentally would be funny if you understood the humor as it relates to the power he wields) has just learned that there is a man living nearby -- odd by reputation -- who turns out to be the father of Don's niece's husband.

Perhaps a distant connection? Not so much so that an obligation is not established to invite the man for drinks at five. Relax, I am told; we will entertain Jones, and with luck he'll be out of here by 6:15 and we'll have dinner.

So I begin a leisurely catch with starkid. I plan to ignore the whole event, to no avail. I am far enough away that I am not part of the conversation, but not so far that I can't hear most of it.

Jones is a portait of self-sabotage, masquerading as the Last Honest Man wrapped in a hard-luck story. Poor guy, his grown children won't come to visit him with the grandchildren. Why won't they? Because he has no plumbing or electricity. Why hasn't he? He is against the admittedly convenient technologies that serve to separate us from what it is like to live as we were meant. OK, but the no-visiting thing truly has nothing to do with relations with the kids? Yes, it is a reflection of what is wrong with the world today. His kids are on the computer all day, and locked in to their cellphones. He cannot get their attention -- though he doesn't blame them, as they are the creation of the new millenium. Human communication is over, permanently. We have addicted ourselves to technologies that have closed the door forever on authentic relationships. It is very sad. The kids live two hours away in NYC. He has even made a crucial decision: at 66 he is selling his home, and buying a new one four hours north of the city -- with plumbing and electricity so the kids can visit. Isn't it exciting! Have they agreed they will visit in the new place? Well... er... no.

With each pronouncement and half-baked idea, I am more and more pleased not to be a part of this little cocktail party. It is 5:30 and the third bottle of wine is being opened, just as Jones is rueing the alcoholism he just has to live with -- "like that annoying relative you just can't get rid of". Did I really hear him say that? Just how soused is he?

Oh no! Starkid has had enough, and is making a beeline for the massively multiplayer online game from which he has gone into withdrawal. I know the symptoms: anxiety, craving, and if I get in his way diaphoresis, agitation, and ultimately lacrimation. You pick and choose your battles. This is our fourth catch today. He is free to go.

There is no avoiding the introduction: Jones, I'd like you to meet my son-in-law starexplorer; starexplorer, Jones. I am so pleased to meet him, and he to meet me. I promise myself I will keep my mouth shut. It is 5:45. The fourth bottle is uncorked.

I have walked into a conversation on the cheery subject of the conditions under which one would prefer suicide to continuing to live. Jones has his bottom line: If he can't wipe his own ass. Pardon the pun. His words. Kicking myself under the table for abandoning my vow of silence, I offer that I want to live as long as I can read. Oh geez -- am I really offering to get into a discussion with this guy? I better start catching up on the wine, or this will be unbearable. I refill my glass.

With his next words, I involuntarily expell a mouthful of red wine onto the tablecloth and the patio floor: "I never thought I had a philosophy of life, but at age 66, I guess I do." Offering apologies to all, I start to wipe up the mess, praying that this doesn't deteriorate further into something truly ugly. I can tell that my wife understands my discomfiture, but is silently encouraging forbearance.

"At noon, a calf is born. You go out to the barn and pick it up. The next day at noon, you go out and pick him up again. How much heavier is he the next day? Each day of your life, even as he becomes a big cow, you go out and you pick him up at noon. You will always be able to lift him, because if you were able to lift him the day before, how much harder could it be one day later?"

The substance of his philosophy is not the issue here. It is 6:15, when he was going to be gone and we would be eating dinner. Instead, I am losing it as an amateur Kierkegaard fires his inebriated opinions at my face like the buckshot Dick Cheney launched at his friend. And Jones is not even my friend.

I know I shouldn't, when I begin to speak. Every tattered and weakened shread of my remaining judgment cries out for self control. It is not to be.

"You know, you've gotten me to thinking Mr. Jones. If you can wipe your ass one day, how hard can it be to wipe it the next? And if you can wipe it the next, how hard can it be to wipe it the day after that? All of which has me wondering. What is the difference between your ass and a big cow?"

I am not looking for sympathy for having had to endure this unwelcome meeting. I was WAY out of line. Maybe he wasn't really as bad as I perceived him to be. A sad and troubled figure, deserving of compassion, even. In any case, I am firmly in the doghouse around here. But the expressions on the faces of Jones, my father-in-law, and his wife made an unforgettable impression!

**Posted by starexplorer** 1/04/2026 5:19 pm

I've had eczema since I was 11 months old. Most of the time it has been manageable and largely out of mind, but on a few extended occasions, it has gotten very bad. Very bad has meant full body rashes, extremely uncomfortable preventing my indulging in my usual sanity-maintaining activities, tennis and cycling, and, in the past, Ultimate Frisbee. Leaving me with reading and posting on this board. Well, that would have been true had Shejidan existed at the time. Leaving me only with reading.

In the mid-Nineties I was afflicted with a bad flare up, and I tried all the treatments available through dermatology, including topical steroids, ultraviolet phototherapy, chronic antibiotic use, even oral steroids. An allergist tested me, and came up with possibility that food allergies might be contributing. I stopped eating wheat, corn, milk, soy, tomatoes and eggplant. Don't know that this helped, but it did make eating a more tactical venture. There are better treatments today, but fortunately I don't need them.

In desperation, I went to a acupuncturist and herbal medicine practitioner trained in China. She embarked upon a course of acupuncture that included rapid hammering of the afflicted areas (which were all over my body, but what I remember most about this particular approach was my forehead) with an instrument that looked like a physician's reflex hammer except with a moderately sharp metal point at the end. The restraint of the practitioner was insufficient to prevent bleeding, and I would be left with hundreds of tiny bleeding wounds in all the hammered areas. Strangely, the bleeding and injured patches were at least painful instead of itchy, which was some temporary relief. I do recall that the forehead hammering resulted in severe headaches, as if someone were hammering on my forehead.

Not to belabor this, she advised that the acupuncture and the hammering were insufficient alone, and that I should begin a course of three times per day herbal tea, which she would provide. I understood this to mean a tea made from special Chinese herbs. I was to boil the contents of a brown paper bag she provided with six cups of water, and then drink two cups, saving the rest for the subsequent two doses. I admit I was surprised the first time I dumped the stuff in the bag into the water and observed dead locusts floating on top.

My family expressed some hesitancy at bags and bags of dead locusts sitting in the pantry beside the food, so I moved the stuff to a separate cabinet. Im remembering only as I write this the olfactory offense that permeated the house each time I prepared my beverage. How fortunate to have a loving and tolerant wife. And remembering too that I had to filter the liquid from the dross in a sieve, leaving a residue of brown twigs and tortured locust bodies.

Yes, I was repelled. I am unaccustomed to eating insects in general -- understand, no offense intended to anyone else's culinary practices-- and I had no experience whatever with locusts. I found them unattractive, surprisingly robust in size, with a sickly orange-brown coloring. They were rigid and inflexible, owing to their state of having been alive only formerly. Their number was generous, and an afficionado might have described them as grand, even princely. I recall an impulse not to consume anything made with these locusts.

The tea itself was brown, and had a rustic sylvan odor. The first taste was a shock. I used the term pond scum earlier, and that is accurate. It hit me hard, and only with great effort did I manage to retain the contents in my stomach. Each sip required a similar effort, and it quickly became clear that it would not be possible to empty the two cups in this manner. I loaded up the potion with honey, held my nose, and chugged the whole thing in one long focused series of swallows. I fought off powerful abdominal cramping and the urge to retch. Slowly the crisis passed, but to this day I can induce a nauseated feeling if I recall the taste too vividly.

So that became my routine, three times per day, for some four months. Friends and family would smell the tea, taste a wet finger full, observe the locusts floating atop the scum, and shake their heads in disbelief.

Did it help? I couldnt say. What is for sure is that it caused an intestinal syndrome that resulted in a twenty-five pound weight loss with no modification of my diet. I was at the lowest weight of my adult life by the end. Which was kind of nice, but I couldnt help but wonder what was really in this tea. The list of ingredients was unintelligible. Pond scum, dead locusts, a vile brew made of unknown materials from a brown paper bag eventually I couldnt abide the unknown risks to my health, the taste and the time spent contending with the intestinal syndrome.

So I ex-terminated the treatment and drank no tea of any kind for over a year. Avoided it like the plague.

**Posted by starexplorer** 1/04/2026 5:20 pm

There were some others in a collection called "Star Words", but the above were the two in question. Not sure whether they are now dated!

**Posted by Felicitous Sk8er** 1/04/2026 10:55 pm

Star, your essays are as hilarious now as they were when originally posted. Timeless! Tears have been pouring from my eyes and running down my cheeks (not to mention the near convulsions) from laughing so hard. Thank you!

**Posted by starexplorer** 1/04/2026 11:05 pm

Felicitous Sk8er wrote:
Star, your essays are as hilarious now as they were when originally posted. Timeless! Tears have been pouring from my eyes and running down my cheeks (not to mention the near convulsions) from laughing so hard. Thank you!

There is no greater reward for any writer 😍 As I am retiring from paid work in May, you are adding to my inclination to put some of my time into writing….

**Posted by Felicitous Sk8er** 1/05/2026 12:42 am

Please do! Don't let your talents go to waste!