Wednesday, September 7th 2022
This is Vladimir Zelinsky pitching economic opportunities in Ukraine. There are many ways to look at this but seriously, it might be one of the most ballsy sales pitches ever made. I mean, selling a place that is being bombed has a great place for investment definitely takes nerves of steel. I mean, we know he is Ukraine’s number one cheerleader and has no problem shaking hands and being the face of his brand. But still…
Looking at this through my own Green tinted hippie shades, all of this wondrous selling of economic possibilities is not really going to make for any kind of a healthy society. Just to be as deeply cynical as possible, economics has not made the world a beautiful place, a beautiful place socially and the necessity of working with the oil business in order to do all of this rebuilding and investment would seem to point directly back to Moscow. For the most part, it’s not like falling out of the frying pan and into the fire, it’s more like getting raped and then inviting more and more of the same.
Outside investment is not sustainable. If we never move away from the economic system, the system that fuels global warming and ecological catastrophe around the globe, you’re never going to have anything inside of Ukraine other than people nervously scurrying around trying to make enough money to get by. And they will be doing so well any European investments siphons profits away from the country.
As far as Ukraine is concerned, they have always been like this. I remember the first time I visited Kiev, this was more than 10 years ago really. The first thing I noticed however was that despite the glossy Instagram friendly image of a bustling City, the people were generally miserable. Nobody was making any kind of money. The profits were heading back out of the country, they were basically under the same economics as Belarus but they appeared to be more prosperous. They also had more pollution.
At the time, Belarus was a very slow place. There was not very much investment because our leadership was anti-west. Our president did not trust Western investment and held a very strong line against carpetbaggers coming in and taking advantage of the economic system here. Exactly what Ukraine is selling now is exactly what Belarus fought against.
During this time and basically forever since then, the always impotent opposition held the view that we should have exactly the same European ties that Ukraine is at least outwardly all in favor of. People here believed in the image of a bustling Europe with this amazing high standard of living.
Really though, what is this high standard of living? Cleaner clothes? An apartment that looks like it was put together by a corporate architect? Newer things with slicker lines? More convenience? More time sitting on your ass in front of a computer perhaps?
I mean, these things are all well and good and nobody really wants to be forced into hard labor in brutal conditions. Everybody likes a shower now and again, right? But at what cost do we need all of this beautiful modern and new things? And if everything always has to be new and modern, doesn’t that mean that everything that is old and used has to end up as garbage. Maybe all of this image chasing is exactly the problem.
Let’s make no mistake, Europe is an image. If we take European history and we ask the simple question of how they accumulated their wealth, we do not get such a friendly or inviting picture. Global colonization, slavery, torture and of course the removal of resources from around the world. Exactly what is being courted by Ukraine.
It’s hard for me to genuinely understand the sales pitch. I mean, we’re taking an Instagram photo of a beautiful well-maintained city. Artful, well constructed, and I for the finest detail. How much did the builders make for all of this wonderful artwork? What happened to them after their skills were used? And what is the lifestyle of all of the people needed to do all of this cleaning? Not only that, but all of this constant cleaning probably means ton after ton after ton of garbage needing to go somewhere. Who exactly is paying for all of this? And more, where does all of the garbage eventually go?
I’ve been saying since this started but the Ukrainian war is an economic package. The Russians have a chance to throw away their old military garbage and use it for some gentrification in the south. They throw away some biological garbage in the form of soldiers and get back not only easier access to poison the Black Sea by bringing the oil business to full scale there, they also get the contract for all of the building material needed to put the place back together. Also, the need for the oil business to handle all of the transportation necessary is a given.
No one can say that the Ukrainian soldiers are not brave. Nobody’s saying that war is the most remarkable horror in the world and to be able to go into that with a hard face and do an incredibly difficult job under such life and death pressures is a remarkable thing.
But war is the most tragic waste of resources. It is an ecological catastrophe no matter how you look at it. It is a purely destructive and murderous act which changes, ends or ruins almost every single life connected to it. It’s also probably the single biggest tool of enslavement used on the planet. From the soldiers who win to the soldiers who lose and everybody who is touched directly or indirectly by the war, nobody can escape. Literally it is a robbery of life. You have a gun pointed at your head, you have no choice but to comply.
It’s hard to imagine how such a situation is good for sales. It’s a bit more than bravado to be willing to put on the suit and go to work as Willy Lowman. It’s not just a hard sell, it’s a brutal sell. It’s a brutal sell of brutality and exploitation.
Listen, you can paint any picture of my words that you want. You can say these are overly cynical or just empty opinions that are out of the popular range of understanding. All I’m saying is that in order to sustain life on this planet for everybody, not just the Ukrainian people or the Russian people or Europeans or Americans or Asians or Africans, not for one specific group over another but for all people, we have to stop the thing that is causing the ecological problems first.
No matter how optimistic one might wish to be about the end of the war and a brief moment of peace, nobody is going to get rich from any of these deals except the folks who run the corporations. No people, no common people, no workers or laborers or folks just trying to get by are going to have any kind of a better life. Perhaps there will be some picture you could take and put on the internet to show others about how beautiful the corporate reconstruction is. But nobody is going to get out of slavery, nobody is going to gain any freedom and therefore nobody is going to have any kind of a beautiful life because of any of this.
The answer to the question is to stop looking for economic answers. We cannot right the world or fix any of our social or ecological problems through economics. The system isn’t broken, the system doesn’t work. It might create some pretty pictures, but I think we need to stop making these image pictures.
I mean really, when I look at all of this amazing European artwork, especially the bloody churches and palaces, I see pure slavery and exploitation. I see the blood, sweat and tears of a lot of humans who never saw a moment of Peace in their lives. The pyramids were built by slaves and so were the churches of Europe. Let’s perhaps consider less amazing architecture and a higher quality of life. Perhaps what we need is not amazing engineering but a really clean environment, with friendly people who do not need to spend every minute of their lives in fear of bloodshed, poverty and violence.
***
I guess 6:00 a.m. is a good time to get up and get moving.
I had some nuts and fruit for dinner last night and it was just fine. A couple of those cinnamon apples started getting some brown spots to them so I made use of what was still good and a couple of others. I also had some plums which were not so horrible. Walnuts added the fat and protein and really, what else do we need as a species? How is this not our food?
I have a big walnut tree. I wouldn’t say that I have a ridiculous amount of nuts up there but they are there. If I am going to get some measure of mobility back, part of the Fall is hunting for fallen walnuts. I have a bunch of sunflower seeds now as well. We are also going to have some pumpkin seeds. I can’t argue with any of these things as food.
I have not been to a restaurant in a long time. I don’t remember the last time I bought prepared food at a supermarket unless you consider bread prepared food. The last time I went to a restaurant was at the beginning of this year. I was just getting into this writing project and was thinking about what it would become. I knew the theme of the project was to be food. I knew I was going to write about vegan food but some of my original ideas were more about being social. I had some weird pictures in my head of riding trains around the Republic and making friends with vegans. Trying out their recipes and seeing what kind of local vegan cuisine was going on. It’s a pretty picture.
But then they started a war you know and everything had to be put on hold again. They always find some way to stop you from enjoying yourself. Killing is definitely a party pooper. Mass murder has a way of taking the smile from people’s faces.
But one day I found myself in town with some time to kill. I don’t remember what business I had but I had some free time and I thought I would go to a cafe that I used to frequent often because they were okay about serving vegan food. They don’t actually have any vegan food on the menu but if you were willing to sit through the blockheadedness of the kitchen staff, you could repeat yourself often enough to get a pizza without any cheese or meat or a falafel without their mayonnaise sauce. You could probably have what they called The garlic sauce because maybe it didn’t really have any eggs in it. It’s not that important.
But this time I ran into a new cook, a very dishy drama type of a fellow who was acting very much like my chicken neighbor. Very queenly. I’m not saying that it means anything to me but flagrant homosexuality could not possibly be popular here in the Republic of Belarus.
Anyway, as far as my Russian communication abilities go, if someone wants to understand what I’m saying, they get every nuance. And if they don’t, they just get even more obnoxious. For some reason my little feigele decided that he needed a scapegoat to relieve himself of all of the scapegoating he gets during his life and no matter how many times I explained to him that I wanted to falafel sandwich with a little olive oil and no other sauce, the fucker ended up giving me a chicken sandwich.
I want to explain something to you. Being vegan is not a joke. It’s a lifestyle and it’s a choice but as a dietary habit, once you get your mind straight that you don’t want me in your diet, this isn’t self deprivation, you really don’t want it in your life, you sure as hell don’t want it in your mouth.
That bite into the sandwich had a strange taste to it. A very strange taste to it. A very greasy and fatty and disgusting taste to it. I spit it out and looked closely at what this son of a bitch had done and then I stood up, said a few motherfuckers that could be heard around the cafe and return this garbage to the kitchen and told the fucker to do his job.
After this there was the usual drama. The cocksucker decided to talk and say who was who and what had happened and how everything was perfect from him and the world was terrible. We had a Jewish guy in the store and therefore everyone should know that he was the bad guy. The Jewish guy was also in America and of course we have to take sides and everybody needs to…
That was the last time I went to a restaurant. I have a hard enough time getting harassed in this country as it is. I don’t really need to pay for the privilege. And when I talk about growing tired of Cafe society 4 years ago and starting my new life from scratch as a student and a writer, you can understand why I might not think this sort of thing is an enjoyable avocation. It’s garbage food made in a garbage fashion that costs more money than it’s worth. There is no pleasure in it and if I can’t see the artistry, enjoy the atmosphere or even be able to sit in there without being assaulted, go fuck yourself. Explain to me why I need this in my life.
There was a line in the film Gandhi when the British authorities ask the Mahatma why he seems so happy to be hauled off again to prison. He answers that prison is quite suitable to his temperament. He enjoys that he has a chance to be meditative and simple. I’m certainly not asking for prison time. It’s the last thing I want. But the point of this makes perfect sense to me. I also like things simple and meditative. I prefer quiet and clean to noisy and sleazy.
I know this is a lot of words about food. This would be this morning and of course the whole year and maybe it’s a lot more words than what needs to describe a dinner of a couple of apples, some plums and some walnuts. I’m just saying it was a fine, fine dinner. I did not go to sleep hungry. I did not have a difficult night of indigestion. I woke up feeling pretty well refreshed. I can’t see any problem with it. And theoretically, I can’t see where it wasn’t the very best human food it is possible to have. I can’t see where this is not what we are supposed to be eating.
Yeah, we live in a really fucked up world. We live in a world with a lot of crazy people. It’s hard to say what came first, the crazy people or the crazy world but I don’t understand why we have to admire the insanity so much. I don’t understand why we need to make heroes out of murderers and thieves. I don’t understand why we have to be congratulatory to greedy and selfish people who cause harm to the environment. I don’t understand why we do any of the things we do.
Maybe we simply are the stupidest generation in the history of History but how we got here is an interesting question. That question however is not as interesting as how we get out of this mess.
I know it’s a little early, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got my answer. We simply have to become a little simpler, a little quieter, a little less burdened by image and a little more gentle with our fellow animals on the planet. We have to stop fighting for status and separating each other into levels. And we have to agree to stop being exciting with our food. We have to stop believing that food has to be exciting. We just need simple food to feed our bodies and keep us healthy. Everything else is bullshit.
***
Anyway, I’m getting a gas tank today. I think these guys usually show up about midday. Ghenna says he is bringing over some steel and hopefully some wire to help trestle the grape Vines. I have yet another local woman holding on to my clothes for fun and profit, we’ll see if Lana shows up again. I think I need to do a little bit of watering today and hopefully my leg will continue its road to recovery. Yesterday was an excellent leg day. Let’s hope today follows. And I think today is garbage day so I might have a bag of unwanted supermarket plastic to get rid of. I haven’t actually thrown out garbage in a month. I don’t really make garbage here.
You know, if I was moneyed and had the possibility to do so, I would redo the local store. I would start buying healthier products, make it so that people could buy their Staples from bins to carry home in their own packages just like the old days. And of course I would invite local growers to sell their goods. I don’t know what kind of laws the pro supermarket people have against this, but that would make this town just that much more beautiful, wouldn’t it?
***
I almost don’t even want to talk about this. I’m sure some writers are grateful for any and all additions but I’m already getting a headache from this. I suppose I should have seen this coming. It’s not even funny. It’s really too sad.
To start off with, I’m walking! I woke up this morning and checked and whatever pain was in there must have been either from infection or a very small break. I don’t know what it was. It’s still tender for sure and my foot is very weak from lack of use but I can put weight on it and walk a bit. It’s not pretty, it’s not normal or strong but it’s somewhat usable. Definitely a step up, pun intended.
This was some great news to start today. I immediately started getting ready for whatever this day has to offer and started with the kitchen because there’s food in it. I looked around at what was available. There is too much in the pantry to even mention everything right now. The first thing I grabbed were some green beans that are still in fact Green from the field and decided that this would be a pretty good protein ingredient. Right underneath that basket was an entire bucket of freshly harvested potatoes. No cuts, no damages and straight from where we planted them. Excellent! To this, I could add some garlic, a couple of tomatoes, some Chili’s and with this sort of a haul, I decided steaming was better than boiling. Soup is wonderful but steamed vegetables, especially quality vegetables, are the tastiest.
I made all the cuts and put everything in there and then poured a little oatmeal into the bowl just to make everything a little bit more yummy and looked up and saw Lena standing at my gate. She was not holding my clothes. And, she did not look in the least bit happy.
The story itself is too complicated to repeat. The woman about whom the story exists, it’s not really that complicated. She came with the bag from the store where she bought the telephone to ask me to call her phone to help her find it. That’s right. It was day one and she lost the phone.
She told me I should call the phone because perhaps she left it here. I reminded her that most of our dialogue about the bloody phone had to do with her not having it. We could not exchange numbers or call each other because she didn’t have her phone. She tried telling me the phone number but would not allow me 2 minutes to get my telephone and type in the number. It was all just a matter of conversation that we would figure out when she brought my clothes back.
She also had her labrador. I have no idea why I was so anxious to meet this guy. I understand that she feeds him factory spaghetti and that she talks about him humorously for his Insanity of breaking loose and throttling chickens. This is not a chicken story but I don’t know who made who crazy here. Maybe Lena made the dog crazy or the dog made Lena crazy. I’m going to vote with Lena actually but this dog was even more nervous than Lena is.
I have had dogs with me and I have always taken pride in my ability to keep a calm, understanding and empathetic relationship between myself and dogs. I grew up with a dog. I speak dog.
This dog had me almost psychotic within minutes snuffling and whining. He’s a nice enough guy. He has some Labrador in him. Labradors are supposed to be calm dogs. But somebody has screwed this guy’s head. He is an absolute lunatic.
I’m not sure if I added insult to injury. I am from a family who’s well known for this. I couldn’t help myself but adding my opinion that she didn’t need a smartphone. Aside from paying for the phone, she would have to pay for the internet for it to be worth anything. She immediately said that she wasn’t buying the internet. Perhaps that’s okay. She has a camera and a place to keep the pictures. All of that’s nice. I suppose she has a Dictaphone where she can keep a journal or put ideas that come to her head on how to make her life better. Actually, if she can Master the basic technique of it all, she might even be able to send pictures along with text messages but I think she would have to pay for the internet to be able to do that. Basically, she bought a camera that has a phone in it and then lost it on the first day.
I was tasked with going through the box and all of the contracts and advertisements that come along with the phone. It’s not a terrible phone. I bet it was pretty. While I was going through the papers and the dog was whining and sniffling and bothering everybody, she asked me if I wanted potatoes from my neighbor. I really thought this was quite a few too many things to keep in mind at the same time. Exactly how many conversations that I have to have?
I finally broke free and went into the house to get my phone. I was pretty irritated because my breakfast was busy percolating on the hot plate. All I really wanted was to have this nice breakfast to start my day. This was an awful lot of lunatic nervousness to add to the plate.
I found my phone and came back to the door and she started asking me about the potatoes again. A sack of potatoes would cost about 40 rules. That seemed like a lot of money but she said the cost was about a ruble per kilogram. If the potatoes are not so bad, this gives me this many kilos of food security to put in The Root cellar. I decided to go with this.
Then she told me to call her so she could find her phone. I don’t know why she did this. She did not have her phone with her when she came here yesterday. We know that because that was part of the conversation. We could not change numbers, etc. She told me to call her anyway because she heard that calling on a different number helped you find your phone. I asked her if the phone was in her pocket, she said no. The headache was getting bigger so I decided just to go with it and dial the number. There was no ring, just an electronic answering service saying to leave a message at the sound of the beep.
Thinking it was better to do something practical then to worry about incredibly stupid mistakes, Lena titled off to my neighbor to see about potatoes. As of the moment, she’s been gone quite some time. I have no idea what goes on with her or how much time is required to have potato conversations like this. But everything is Lena is taking a lot longer than it should. I made sure to remind her to take her dog with her.
I am sure there are people who would want this story to be played for a laugh. Human foolishness is always something we are taught to laugh deeply at. The mismanagement, the folly and even the inability to concentrate on one subject long enough to come to any kind of a decision would also be played for sport. It’s just what we do. It’s what allows us to get outside of ourselves.
I see this all as one giant act of cruelty. If I have any part in this, it is only that I complained that the woman should have a telephone. She seems to have several clients or people who agree to pay our money for services. It makes her in a way an independent business person and people really should respect that. Okay, she is at the grassroots level and this is not really a for-profit Enterprise but more of a for survival Enterprise but still, you can’t say anything bad about a person who is trying to be helpful.
But then there is the alcohol. After several months of sobriety, suddenly Lena was off the wagon, throwing money away and then throwing away the things she spent money on. She really was doing quite well holding herself together. There’s just not enough pay in it, is there? There is not enough respect or family or kindness or community to make one feel that they have contributed something worthwhile. The only thing we value is money and she is not very valuable from that perspective. The answer to that problem is alcoholism.
So, hahaha, we have another literary adventure, thanks to local Lena. She has gotten herself into another pickle. Or, we have yet another sad story of a lost person grasping at straws hoping for some sense of salvation only to get whacked by stupidity and forgetting that she didn’t want to drink anymore. The girl let herself go crazy for a moment because she simply had to have something coming to her for being so good. And then when the party died down and she got up to look around at the mess she had made, it looks like she gets to pay 60 rubles a month for the idea that owning a telephone might make her life better.
***
Okay, it’s 10:30 and I am finally in the office. Just after the last break, Lana arrived with some fellow named Misha who I was immediately informed had had a stroke. Lena is excellent at speaking. She can talk and talk and talk as if nobody else has the right to their own thoughts. They had brought for me a bag of potatoes. Upon small inspection, they looked healthy enough from what I could see except they were pestered by the sort of cut marks you get by doing standard potato growing. We grew hours with a no dig method so there is no particular reason to do surgery to clean the shit out from the cut marks when you want potatoes. In case it’s important, and there is a three-pronged cultivator that people use here to dig potatoes, it has three very sharp points and these sharp points sometimes work very well as a fork to grab the potatoes. I vote no dig.
I made the mistake of trying to ask the fellow if the cost of 40 rubles for the bag was correct. I could certainly see that this was easily 40 kg. Instead of letting him answer, Lane I immediately started talking about whatever shit came into her mind and this had the effect of chasing even the most feeble of thoughts out of the man’s head. He didn’t know what to do. I could see from his face that his mouth wanted to answer the question but his eyes kept going over to Lena. Perhaps with a little bit of fear in them if I saw that correctly. Belarusian women tend to have this effect on men.
I decided conversation was worthless, the same decision probably 99% of all the male population came to years and years ago, and the two of them agreed to transport the potatoes to my fruit seller for me. The door was open.
Well the two of them went off in another cloud of Lena verbiage, Ghenna showed up on his bicycle with two long steel water pipes, both of them obviously having been in previous use up until a short time ago. They were two different sizes, I guess you get what you pay for and he seemed to have quite a bit of attitude selling me that this was indeed a good and proper thing. We still had no wire and we did not have enough tubes for the job but something had happened.
He told me the other one was coming later and then paused obviously waiting for some money. I told him that the number we needed was at least four. We were going to trestle as many as eight grapevines in two sections. We definitely needed four supports. He made a face as if deep in thought and said that only three was guaranteed in the original price. There is something about conversation around here that never quite hit home. I seem to remember telling him that we were getting steel for exactly this job and it was pretty obvious that he understood what this job was going to look like when we were done. His decision was not to talk too much about it, agree with me and fix it when the time came. This is the best advice for all physical labor I suppose.
I asked him about the price for four and he raised the entire thing to five rubles. I don’t know how this sort of thing happened. The price he quoted me was 40 rubles for three posts but today it was 45 rubles for four posts. Really, this must be amazing work for him to do. I have no idea how this is going to resolve.
He again paused with that look on his face telling me it was time for me to give him some money. I asked him if this was the case and he asked me for 25 rules in advance of the other two. I gave him 20. I understand this is the end of the day for this sort of thing and that I won’t see him again until tomorrow. If he has 20 rubles in his hand, he has enough for two bottles of vodka for him and his steel post friend. Pretty much that makes him done for the day.
With the post on hand, I thought it might be time to act and I called Ria. I asked her if she had two or three grapevines that she might let me have for whatever they cost. She was very happy to get my call. Again, I’m a little dim on having only one person that I know of addicted to community service. I know I prefer to work this way but it’s a little confounding to someone who actually does this as well. Maybe she’s just Rich already from all of her industry and just doesn’t need the money. This, I could understand.
She said that she would bring them by sometime today when she was free or send them along with Ghenna if he wasn’t too drunk.
After this, I plugged in the pump and went around and gave the field a good solid watering. It was not that easy. Yes, my leg feels better but I am leaning towards it being broken and mending. I can’t really walk on it and I did all this on crutches.
If it means anything, I certainly felt stronger. Whatever this illness was over the last few days, I do seem to have my strength back. There were things I just could not do before that now I seem quite capable of. At the moment, I’m happy to be on the couch. It’s a beautiful day, everything has gotten a nice drink, I’ve had a wonderful breakfast, the basic needs of the grapevine trestle are at least on the property and I’ve got maybe 3 months worth of potatoes in The Root cellar. Those are in addition to my own 2 months worth which are just sitting in the kitchen.
Not bad? Not bad.
Oh, and this was another recommendation from my ex partner. She advised me to pick up some straw that we could use as mulch and protection against the winter. Straw was what we used to do the potatoes this year and the thinking is that a decent amount of straw would go a long way to solve a lot of our land problems here in the time of drought. A strong is a fine mulch but it’s also the type of mulch that breaks down very easily and becomes kind of a compost. This is what happened by the way in the potato box. We put a good amount of straw on top of them and by the end, you could see that at least half of the straw that we had laid down had already turned to compost and had been feeding that potatoes all year.
Ghenna said that he could bring me an entire cart load, an amount he said was close to 400 kg and he said that this would be definitely enough. He said this with a gesture of running his thumb across his neck. In some cultures, this would mean cutting someone’s throat. Maybe this is the analogy too. It’s a rough country.
I still have a lot more to do before this day or this season is done. But on days like today when so many things happen, I’m starting to feel like things are actually possible. I like how everything is coming together well. I like the thought of doing good things for my garden. I like the fact that a lot of it’s getting done as it is. For some reason it seems more real when things happen like this than when you go through normal stores and businesses.
I understand that you probably can’t combine the two. I mean, it would be interesting if we had a world that produced genuinely necessary materials of sufficient quality to do the job but yet still made them available in proper quantities to keep people happy. I understand they used to do this or at least try to do this. This was until the for-profit corporations decided that they needed to make money off of us and that they didn’t care how many people died to get it. Yeah, life has certainly become so much better and so much more glorious since we let everyone get their dream to become legitimate Europeans. The world is so much better now that we’re not so square anymore.
***
Wow, this day never ends and we’re not even at noon yet.
So I thought of giving a call to Lana to find out if she had found her phone. I got the answering machine again so I guess the answer is no. Next, I tried her landline and her mother picked up the phone. As far as being talky like this, Lena comes by this naturally. I got the entire story before I had a chance to say 10 words myself.
Yes, Lena decided to get drunk and this decision came to her on Saturday of all days. That was the day she decided to jump off the wagon. She took whatever money she had made at the end of last week and had bought two liter-and-a-half bottles of wine. She had come in in the evening, taking her phone and the wine and left. By the time she came back, the phone was gone. The next day she was out at the bench with her drinking friends again. I guess she missed the party very much.
Lena is quite a talker and she loved telling me about her new sobriety and about all the work she had done taking care of her mother. Her mother had been gone to the hospital for a while leaving Lena alone in the house. During this time, I guess two things happened. The first was Lena realized that she really didn’t like living alone but the second thing was that with this additional quiet came some contemplativeness. She gave herself a good solid think and came up with the idea that she probably did not need to drink.
For the last 2 months, she has been diligently a good daughter to her mother and completely dismissive of the local drunks who had been her drinking friends. Her mother told me that Lena has not even cooked her breakfast over the last few days. She’s just been drunk and hasn’t really given a thought to things like spending money on a telephone, keeping her hands tightly around said telephone or taking care of her mom.
Let me tell you something, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You live for the gossip and it’s the gossip that bites you right back in the ass.
***
And yet even more. Ria just popped in. I don’t know why she didn’t explain it to me over the phone but she doesn’t have any spare grapevines ready to send over. She agreed that it is a vine and we could have probably made two more from cuttings. As it is, if I want more grape Vines, I should go to the marketplace.
However, I guess she thought I was hungry but she brought over a mess of her own grapes, some giant apples from a neighbor who isn’t there anymore and a small bucket of red cherry plums. She says she also has a variety that is black to go along with the regular yellow ones that we get in abundance here.
Ria is an excellent agronom and she is the first one to tell you about it. She believes that sharing is what it’s about and that human conversation is worth more than all the television in the world. She will tell you about this and what to do with the seeds with these plums when I’m done. Either she understands that this is our common love or she just really likes talking and condescends to this subject when we are together. Very nice. I have not taken the trouble to come and be friendly with her. I should definitely put this on my list of things to do in the near future.
She also gave me two pretty good ideas for the future of watering in the garden, especially the trees. She told me that she has a water cube setup with a thousand liters in it and the pump that keeps it at some particular capacity. What she does is open the cock on the water cube and let gravity feed a drip irrigation system throughout her lower Garden. That’s a pretty good idea that’s not very dependent on labor. This is definitely something worth thinking about. Either that or just invest in a little bit more hose so that I’m not dragging so much around from place to place. As it is right now, I have a long enough hose to get right out to the center of the garden and at that point I have enough to go to the left or to the right. If I added one more hose, this would allow me to leave everything unwound and would cause me less problems with crimping. Doing the same thing but in the back would allow me to water everything on that side without having to drag hoses all around.
The grapes are phenomenal.
Anyway, going back to my situation. I’ve been on my legs all morning but they are not on fire. This is a definite improvement over how things have been and a good step in the right direction, again pardon the pun. I have to assume that Lena is gone for the day because she is back to her old work of being drunk. Whatever the trigger was to that, and God help me for whatever part I played in it, I am sure this phone business is enough fuel to help keep this fire going for a while. Let’s hope she comes out of it before her mother starves to death. Ghenna has 20 rubles in his pocket from me. This probably means I won’t see him either for the rest of the day. Rio works with him too but told me that she wouldn’t pay him more than 10 or 15 rubles for anything less than exhaustion. Her market price with him was never more than 10 rubles a pop. I am probably ruining her business by being generous. This is something I need to think about. It’s not exploitation or simple business. If the man’s going to drink himself to death if given the chance, I should limit those chances however I can.
What else? Almost nothing else. I’m still waiting for the gas people to show up and then the garbage but other than that, I’m going back to taking it easy. All this participation in local life is exhausting.
***
Blyad, alcohol is the gift that keeps on giving.
Tanya came to my house just a few minutes ago, still carrying the plastic bag that holds her phone. The story now is that she has found the phone and it was Tanya, my neighbor who took it. Why Tanya took the phone is an interesting question but Lena swears she has it even though it is currently not in her possession. I guess somewhere in their alcoholic minds, this gave someone the idea that coming to Adam with the story that the telephone now exists again might mean some open doors. She asked me if I wanted to have my house cleaned.
But before I could answer, mean-spirited little Tanya followed and came into my house as well. She no longer has any happiness when being around me and asked me to tell her straight up and without any extra words if I wanted her to clean up the house. She was here on Lena’s invitation. You want to guess who’s drinking with who these days?
If you think this was a pleasurable situation, you are wrong. This was the sort of situation that exactly has me putting a lock on my front gate. But yet, it got worse.
Suddenly Tanya’s husband came into my house screaming at her to go home immediately. There must be some jealousy about me. Ask me how much I like this situation. Tanya’s face immediately went into drama mode, luckily he decided to leave quickly leaving me again with the two drunken women.
I made a very long speech to Tanya about how I like her as a person and do not mind her as a neighbor but that she has too much drama floating around her. I explained to her the entire situation about how this bloody episode of our relationship started. The day she had been coming down the road with berries from the forest, my ex partner thought she was a nice person for me to be dealing with during the week. After that, Lena told me that I ought to be nice to her if I wanted sex. I don’t but that’s what Lena said. This was the biggest shock of indignation to appear on her face for the duration of her stay. Nevertheless, nobody was arguing and Lena was laughing her ass off. You can’t argue with the truth.
No, I didn’t want my house cleaned today. No, I didn’t like Lena better as a sophisticated and socially adept alcoholic. Yes, she really should go home and make something to eat for her mother. No, I was not listening for any more explanations of failure or any such junkie talk as this. I have enough drug addicts in my life to keep me warm everyday and the last thing I need on this planet is a bunch of alcoholics bursting into my office to talk shit directly into my brain.
Everybody got thrown out. Tanya of course left in drama because, well, there is no other way for her to leave. Lana left with a smile because that’s all she does. Life only gives her lemons so she’s grateful for the lemonade, I guess. Thank God that fucking dog didn’t come in here too.
You know, I’ve had enough of this alcoholic talk myself. It’s really no difference. Whether you’re talking as an alcoholic or talking about alcoholics, it’s really all the same empty drama. I really wish these people would find better drugs for themselves. I really wish they would legalize marijuana. I know they don’t because it would cost them all the money that they get from the alcoholics working as hard as they possibly can to buy more of that shit. God forbid that people should have access to something they could grow in their backyard for nothing and having such abundance they would never need to buy alcohol from the store again. God forbid we think of public health and not money. God forbid we should think of anything but money. Money makes you a good person. Alcohol makes you sophisticated, did you know that? It’s not true but it is the lie that all alcoholics tell themselves.
I don’t even want to tell you what my fucking office smells like right now. And all of this started with fresh fruit.
Blyad.
And I can’t even close the gate until after the gas people in the garbage truck are finished.
***
It’s 5:30 and I am enjoying perhaps my best decision of the day. Yesterday’s dinner of apples and walnuts deserved a second take. I have with me some fresh raw sunflower seeds for the fat in the protein and I’m eating a combination of black plums and red cherry plums. I also have some new style of Apple here with me. It’s a little big and a little soft for my taste. I’m not as fond of them as I am for those crispy hard cinnamon apples. But no matter what, I have enough to eat.
I have a gas stove again but of course my mind is telling me that I’m getting along really well with a simple electric hot plate. There is something about how you cook things that changes your attitudes. There was no reason not to use my big path there. There are no laws of physics that says I can’t. But I went with two simple pots, one that’s still good for cooking and the other that has been relegated towards steaming. The bottom is too messed up to put any food in there that might stick.
But then when I started breaking things down, no cooking also works well too when you have an abundance of fresh fruit lying around.
I didn’t think of it earlier but I think I’m going to cut up a lot of this fruit that I have and put it on my drying rack. If I don’t have enough space, and I don’t think I will, I can make at least one more. I might be able to make two really. I have quite a bit of material that would work very well. After that it’s just a frame and a simple table.
The idea came to me in what they call a moment of logic. This is that flash of inspiration that none of my neighbors ever seem to have. The idea to create something or try something new that might lead to something beautiful in the future never occurs to them. They only think of money and they don’t even think this is bad because it’s an obvious need and also because they believe that everybody thinks the same. This is a holdover from the time of communism. Everybody was the same and nobody was better than anybody and they felt that this was a good way to get along. Actually, within certain tolerances, they did and it was a fair enough idea. This doesn’t mean 0 or 100 or 50/50 parity, it just means that that healthy 80% in the middle really did get along with each other just fine.
There was some obstinacy in Tanya today. She is a drama queen of course and wanted something from me that she never got. In order to show me how upset she is, she beats me emotionally. It’s up to me to satisfy her lunacy. It’s all my fault.
I understand the math of this. I’ve understood this since I first came here. This little black male game, either emotional blackmail or money blackmail like for example my minced bureaucrat, has been used for centuries. Hemingway said you needed to be in love with a woman for her to really be your friend. Tanya tried to tell me that I didn’t respect her. She said that with a slightly raised chin to let me know that I am a low-born mail from her point of view for whatever my transgressions were.
The problem with all of this delightful local drama is that as much as they would love to believe that they are together, they are not. They are all clinging to this Russian Orthodox church thing. They believe this will keep them together. They love putting me as the object of their attention because this gives them an appropriate them to create a worthy us from. Everybody loves to be a teacher with this. Everybody feels secure to have a really excellent us to finally exist for them because of an appearance of a worthy them.
But it doesn’t work. It will never work. It’s a building with an improper build. Physically, the argument doesn’t have legs to stand on. Any idiot could see this.
They can’t be together without economic parity.
Yeah, you might love to feel the nostalgic warmth in love of a shared community. I noticed this in talking to my ex partner. I can’t bring up the slightest new idea for the garden without her countering with something that is known and comfortable for herself. She can’t say it because our relationship doesn’t allow her this sort of flippant angry exploitation that Tanya does but it’s there. I don’t understand her people.
But there are no her people. The glue that would actually bind people into such a universal community of brotherhood and sisterhood and peoplehood – let’s go with neighborhood – could and could only exist without status. The moment one person, even a theoretical single person like Stalin over everyone exists, there is no parity. People cannot take care of each other because there is always the guy sitting on the horse exploiting its muscles, bones, strength and energy. The moment any striation exists, the brotherhood collapses. The moment one person is allowed to do the thinking, there are no individuals to bond with each other. Personal choice disappears and therefore, it’s still more slavery.
Of course they take pride in the slavery but even this turns out to be pure exploitation. Most of my students went through this a few years ago. Every last one of them got blasted one way or another trying to be chic and money as a young woman. They were all fed the line that they had no worth except for their ass and their face. They were all told they were meat on the market and had to compete for the big man’s dollars. They all turned ugly with this process. They all got sick, they all got ruined on drugs. But yet they all had that saving grace. They were doing what they were supposed to do. It wasn’t really them or their souls, they were just playing their roles just like everyone else.
Perhaps my saving Grace is simply that I don’t need their agreement. Pretty much every skanky want to be huckster comes at me with the same game. I’m disappointed in you, you must do better and then maybe I will give you my approval. This is the women’s game. I think I’d rather call it the bitches game because the men play a variant called the son of a bitches game. All con artists are the same. Con artists and junkies and all inhabitants of the lower classes looking to feed on whatever falls down to the bottom of the sea.
This was how my neighbor started literally at moment One. It was how she looked at me. I would have to work for her and I would have to work a lot harder. She didn’t like my clothes and she didn’t like my beard and she didn’t like that I was Jewish and she didn’t need any Americans and she didn’t…
Living here in isolation as they do, I wonder what told her that I would be interested in such a game. I mean, it works with the useless alcoholic men who no longer have a job or a wife. Women can grind them under their heels and use them and throw them away as garbage. The fact that this class of man exists pretty much colors all men and this has been the case since they gave up on economic parity as the normative. The moment they closed up the Communist shop and threw everybody into the lion’s den of economics, well, you know what happened? You picked up a gun and started murdering people or you licked the boot of the person higher than you on the corporate ladder.
Ironically, they expected sympathy from the West. Meanwhile, everybody in the west was already been economic slave. That was another thing that told them it was okay to go and be whores. That was another reason that said you had to walk away from your family and go send back money. A woman expected nothing else from a man. Show me your money or you’re just not good enough for me. This would be two of my neighbors to a t. This would also be Tanya’s argument today and every moment since I thought of offering her a few rubles to help clean up. She seemed shocked that there was nothing here for her anymore and that I didn’t blink or hesitate to Make her say something tart and walk away. Would you like to know how many games of exit line I have seen played?
On TV dramas, they call this “magic words”. This is when someone says something to someone else to truly tingle their spine with drama and then they walk away with great audacity. Whole TV shows are made up of saying something truly biting and then toddle off into Infinity to leave the other person thinking deeply about what you have said to them.
You may not believe me that I don’t feel any particular emotion about this. You also might not believe that I also know how to play these games effectively already. It’s come with years of practice. When you’re with someone who is working you for money, all you need to do is get their blood pressure up just a little and the only thing they are ever going to do is look for a way to play exit line and leave you thinking. The best thing about this to me is that they are leaving and taking their drama with them.
What is the answer to all of this? I really don’t know. All I know is I had a picture in my head of having lots of nuts and dried fruit lying around in winter. It’s the greatest snack food in the world but it’s also what you might want to put in pumpkin porridge or oatmeal. And if you’re hungry, and I mean really hungry as in bonking hypoglycemic can’t walk or think straight type hungry, go for some dried fruit and nuts and see what happens to you. I have been in the hospital and suffering from hypoglycemia and I’ve had them all for me tubes of shit and I’ve stuffed food in my face. Just some fruit and nuts and a glass of water and you come back so quickly and you stay back for a long time.
So I’m sitting in my kitchen. I have my entire arsenal of cooking devices around me. My big pot needs to be cleaned a little bit and then I think it needs to be seasoned with a little bit of oil before being put back into service. My best idea was to clean it and oil it and make an oil meal out of this process. Maybe I’ll wait for Friday for that. Friday is not that far away. I’ve got all kinds of specialty foods lying around for Friday. It’s enough.
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