Friday, September 23rd 2022
News from the front. This guy always sounds like he’s telling the truth. It’s pro Ukrainian but it’s pragmatic enough to be believable.
Basically, this is a massive narcissistic ego game run by a regime without any conscious understanding that their job is to keep the infrastructure of Russia going. Instead, it’s a practice of global isolation, the ruin of all the land that they touch and an exercise of sending their garbage to the South. It’s an exercise in futility.
Really, wouldn’t the world be a better place if all of this mobilization and energy was for ecological renewal? Wouldn’t it really be the greatest time in history of the region and possibly mankind if this whole argument was for who could commit the most resources towards cleaning up and going green?
***
It’s not even 3:00 a.m. but I’m not complaining in the slightest. I feel amazing. I feel physically about as good as I have felt in a long time. This is the first time in a long time that I’m not even considering an early wake up as having anything to do with being miserable. I went to bed at a little after 8:00 and went right to sleep without argument. Technically, this is a good solid restful 6 hours without disturbance. If this is one of these moments similar to people freezing in a Jack London novel where they feel absolutely lovely before passing off into Oblivion, I don’t mind it one bit. Well that’s not true. If I’m going to feel this good, I think I’d rather stick around a little while longer.
But if I have to analyze it, I would have to say that it’s a combination of things. Actually having the garden in the ground, well planted and with plenty of fertilizer lying around is a relief I’ve been waiting for for almost 2 years. Simply having the garden resources to give my soil something good to eat and to know that we are on a good road to having a rather beautiful place to hang out in moving forward is extremely satisfying. Perennials. We’ve put in quite a few perennials. Perennials are the way to go.
Next, there is a feeling of absolute relief from whatever sickness took the trouble to explode from my leg the other day. Sure, the moment of eruption was pretty shocking and it’s possible that this euphoric feeling and physical stability is simply a result of coming down from that. I mean, pretty stressful moment, right? But equally as likely I feel this good because of all the work my body has been putting into fighting that thing now no longer has this thing to fight. I can’t say anything much about the healing process or how long it’s going to take or even if I’m going to get regeneration but frankly, in the moment there is a sense of freedom.
Let’s not say that this is finished. Just like the garden, it’s going to take some maintenance, years of attention before the trees achieve any kind of self-sufficiency. I’m not talking about fruit production, I’m just talking about growing into their lives. And I would say the likelihood of the necessity of further surgery somewhere this year exists. The recovery from that might even go on for another year. But there is a possibility that that will be the one that gets it. You never know. Things change, people change.
Or maybe it was that absolutely wicked meal I had right after my ex partner showed up. I tossed a little sesame oil into the big pot and toasted some peanuts, a few thin slices of potato, a ton of onion, the three broken tomatoes from the trip up and two Big blocks of the new inexpensive corn/pea noodles. Water got added in at the end to get the fonde from the bottom and to make an outrageously delicious sauce and I ate it with lust and greed. It was the single tastiest thing I’ve had in a long time.
Or maybe it was just running Ghenna off. Whatever shock I put in there and however I offended him, it seems to have withdrawn his sucker tentacles from my life. I’ve broken his sense of trust and self belief that he has found himself a host to parasite from. If you want to argue about losing some labor and availability of cheap materials, let’s go directly to Mr Zelinsky in Ukraine and ask him if he would rather have Russian occupation or a little more difficulty with oil and gas. I think he would be much happier, much, much, much, much, much happier with the difficulties of Independence.
You know, sitting and thinking about things is what I do. Perhaps it’s a waste of time to deeply think about things. But then again, this seems to be what I’m supposed to do. It doesn’t really bother me one bit. It doesn’t get in the way of doing whatever I’m supposed to do. I’m not in the business of shooting myself in the foot. That’s a pretty weird metaphor, all things considered and probably inappropriate. But it’s true. I don’t specifically cause myself to lose. I just prefer to live a clean life and keeping the amount of things that cause unhappiness and dishealth to an absolute minimum is sometimes worth the extra effort.
There are still problems to solve. I’m not completely satisfied with this grape situation. I personally I’m not ambulatory nor do I have a satisfactory replacement for that. Don’t think for a moment that having a disciplined brigade taking care of things is any replacement whatsoever for freedom of movement without pain and my own ability to take care of what I need. Even at a limited capacity, just being able to enjoy walking around freely is still a dream I aspire to. How about a bike ride for that matter?
Let’s also not forget that there’s a war on which is being played out very close to my home and has the Russian empire on some kind of escalation/suicide mission. All of this and all of the dreams, both mine and everybody else’s could be wiped out and made horrifically worse by the decision of one psychotic narcissist a thousand miles away. And even if that doesn’t get us, the slow miserable descent into Oblivion caused by the greed and narcissism of everybody who doesn’t care how many resources they burn and how much ecological damage they cause just trying to chase their dragons. Let’s not forget that this was the 13th year in a row of global warming, drought and ridiculous weather occurrences instead of quiet natural ecosystems doing their thing. Let’s not forget about the mass extinction and the actual likelihood that the damage is irrevocable. Let’s not even think of this entire Forest I am so happily adding to in my way going off like one big pack of matches because it’s become too dry. Or even worse, the regime just simply starts selling off chunks of it to anybody who wants to cut it down for lumber, they are filled with the perpetual line of gasoline-powered chainsaws wiping out the entire ecosystem and removing a giant percentage of the fresh air that we will never, ever, ever see again.
I was talking about this last night sitting on the bench facing the sunset and the last minutes of my ex partner planting and babying our new berry bushes. She looked absolutely angelic with the sun blazing from behind her and that look of complete satisfaction on her face. For her, she absolutely nailed it. She physically did the shopping, the purchasing and the planting of these beautiful things that will, within a short period of time offer a rather delicious moment as we stroll down the path towards the orchard.
By the way, on Sunday we get to put together our strawberry field. It will be more of a strawberry box. But we are planting strawberries on Sunday.
I guess I shouldn’t forget about this as being part of what it feels like. She actually broke her schedule to come up and look after me in the garden. The woman is in all of her glory right now. I would be completely remiss as an analyst were I to somehow forget that I probably feel this good because of this explosion of heart.
I think the sadomasochistic Russian philosophy of sugar ups and downs is an imperfect model. I feel really good but this is not a dragon to Chase. This thing that I feel right now, the sense of genuine satisfaction is not a chaseable feeling. It’s just a moment in the middle of a perfect storm, a perfect combination of things where the world gets broken like a billiard strike and the balls amazingly all end up in the proper holes. All problems are not solved but a couple of giant ones, a couple of truly debilitating and miserable ones got popped like pus filled blisters and cleaned away. There’s a possibility of healing. There is the relief of pain.
I guess there is the question of whether Ghenna as a drug is worth taking. The problem seems to be that I can’t get him to just drop off the materials needed and leave. I can’t seem to get him to stop attaching himself to me personally. I can’t get him to just do some work without me standing there and frankly, 90% of the work he actually does that goes beyond digging holes or throwing shit is reprehensible. He is an absolutely miserable Carpenter and a waste of resources and a degenerate human being. Let his girlfriend take care of his needs. I think I will be happier pulling his absurd posts out of the ground and dropping his junk materials in the barn for future reference.
You know, even that’s a real question. I live here. This is not some project I have no genuine interest in. I live here and so some form of civil relationships with the people around me is required. One must have some level of diplomacy even if it’s just respectfully ignoring each other. What I’m trying to say is that if he shows up with a straw bale, I’ll definitely open up the gate and to be perfectly honest and fair, unless my bookkeeping is a complete failure, we are currently even Steven on any kind of Labor exchange. But I would pay him his money for the delivery and say thank you and remind him that I have his number.
I guess I would also ask him to take his charcoal briquettes if he wants them and the materials he’s left behind as well.
Man, even as I write these words I feel a sense of sickness in my stomach. Seriously, I am telling you that even putting the man in a plan of ending this fucking situation was enough to bring sickness back into my body. He genuinely is physically repulsive.
I might be drifting around here but if the basic theme is that I feel pretty amazing, or at least I felt pretty amazing before getting to the last subject, the truth is that being with people who engage freely with drugs that are legal in the Russian empire is a revolting and disgusting thing. People who consume cheap sausages, smoke cigarettes and drink copious amounts of alcohol are absolutely physically repulsive to be around. It may be the single simplest thing to understand. When you stop polluting your own system, your senses become rather alive. This consciousness that I spoke of working for through writing gets enhanced even by the cleanliness of the blood flow and the freedom of synaptic response. You can hear, see and feel things and your mind can logically react when not addled and broken by self medication using the most disgusting drugs in the world. Absolute abominations to the human animal. And to make a lifestyle based on masochistic physical effort followed by self delusionment does not leave a residue of health.
Anyway, I just want my fucking straw. If I can’t get it from him, let’s just close the gate and I’ll see what I can do about figuring out the mulch problem as we go.
I guess I’m at the end of this thought. Rudely said, I just feel pretty good. I actually feel a tad worse than I did before I got to talk about the potential of having to run into what’s his face again. You know, I can’t get his name down here without special effort. Google doesn’t understand it and I’m tired of saying the name. I’m not saying this is some kind of Harry Potter Voldemort thing, I’m just saying that I’m getting tired of that fucking name. It does not represent anything good nor does it represent a good feeling.
About that though, we can’t really let a feeling in our gut dictate all policy. All things need to be considered. Specifically, I have asked him to limit his smoking on my property and to refrain from throwing cigarette butts on my land. He can’t seem to remember this. He also seemed yesterday to feel very comfortable taking telephone calls on my land and sitting and smoking on the bench in front of my house even though the stench of the cigarettes was coming right into the kitchen where I had no other choice but be planted. The very essence of my complaint about my neighbors is the pollution of my kitchen and I had to tell him four times and it never stuck in his head.
But on the other side of the coin, my daughter one time got sick after having a vegan pizza with me at a restaurant. I don’t remember this as even being my food. But she was with me, she already had some kind of stomach problem, then vegan pizza and then vomited. After this, she, with the help of her mother of course, immediately equated that with me and it meant something to her. Sad really for me. Not surprising but sad.
I would say that it is possible that I represent a sick stomach to people. I’m sure my appearance and my beard visually cause disturbances. I know like knowledge that my objectification number can twist people’s brains just from the idea of my presence. I’m like porn in this regard. But this is a different type of sensory attachment. I am actually quite sure that these artificial stimulants are true but I think actual empathetic feelings, the actual sense of my physiology being around probably feels quite clean. I might be wrong and I might be sicker than I think but I think the energy I generate and the cleanliness of my system is still probably approachable.
What a weird world we live in. Like amoeba in a petri dish. We are all just blindly feeling around for something.
As for me, what can I say? Today is Friday and this week is done. I am in no particular medical danger and I am mobile enough to get around my house enough to feed myself, get to the toilet and even keep things a little clean. It’s pathetic and time-consuming mobility on crutches but doable. The creation or melding with this little piece of land now looks an awful lot like what I had in mind when I saw it. The garden boxes are a little different from what I thought but I still think the decision was practical. And if we can maintain soil health and grow some nice things out of them, we will have our summer moments.
There was a nuance about that by the way. When we were thinking of planting more berry bushes in one particular spot just in front of the bench I was sitting on last night that called for the removal of all of the wild grass in there. My ex partner is still a murderer by Nature and she walked by and waved her hand and said we should clean out this Garden. I took a look at it. We have a cherry tree in there that is really healthy but that requires that we limit the Ivy’s ability to climb and choke it. We could not plant any more berry bushes there because they would not really grow well with each other. But there is no reason to knock down the things that grow naturally there. As the tree grows and the bushes mature, the landscape will change. I agree we need to maintain the growing spaces for the bushes and the tree but I’m inclined not to massacre the tall grass. It really is quite beautiful just exactly the way it is.
***
Listen, I am not saying that you should maniacally analyze and overthink every nuance of life to death. I’m not saying that you should create a system of discipline and demand of yourself to sit and do these things. There is no necessity to obsess about any new thing or way of life. I am saying however that allowing yourself moments of meditation on genuine subjects of interest is probably healthy. The meditation is healthy, the contemplation of the elements is probably healthy and even allowing yourself to dwell on things whether they are negative or positive is probably healthy. You are not obligated to fight a war over your decisions and observations, we don’t need any more wars but it’s probably also healthy to just give yourself a reasonable push towards following up on healthier decisions. Give yourself a chance to think about things but try to act accordingly in line with your very best thoughts. I mean, you’re going to screw up sometimes. But you can just try to keep your heart in the right place and make a general push in the best of directions. And please, we don’t need any artificial drama. You don’t have to screw up just to have things to dwell on or talk about it. That’s not very efficient at all and a complete waste of time and energy (and usually money). Just try to keep things clean and not waste resources unnecessarily. Share the planet. It’ll be okay.
***
Carnivore society.
I’m just not really convinced this is us. I think we’re herbivores. Truthfully, we’d be a hell of a lot better off if we actually remembered this.
And for you smart asses out there, if you really think we’re omnivores, this makes us scavengers. Think about it.
***
I’m just not convinced the war is so popular in Russia. My thinking is people just want some peace.
I found this guy a few days ago interviewing a couple of girls who want to get out of Russia generally. I’m not sure whether he is directly amongst the people who are getting drafted or not but you can see where he is becoming worried. He’s also providing a firsthand glimpse of the Russian side of things in terms of national propaganda and information dissemination. I think it’s definitely worth the watch.
***
It is just a touch after 2:00 here on a very mild and pleasant Friday afternoon. I am more than a bit stunned right now. Sometimes it seems that good things come in waves. Sometimes fate makes fools of us. Sometimes it just can’t explain how things work out even if you factually can.
I’m going to give it a try to give some basic descriptive writing about this morning. I’d like to put it here and remember it. I think I can do it but as of the moment I’m going to start, there’s a lot to remember and I’m not going to be working from notes. I do too much descriptive writing and I don’t often make mistakes.
So I woke up nice and early this morning but there was no particular purpose for it. I really didn’t plan on doing anything but sitting in the kitchen. Of course there were some things that needed to be done. I have to do some cooking and though I absolutely didn’t have to, it would be in my best interest to get some water into the jugs. I know this is contrary to my current situation of doing absolutely nothing but one way or another, a person’s got to live and this is Friday. Even if I minimize everything, it’s still Friday and I’ve still got to eat.
I basically just stayed in bed and played with my phone. Then I went back to sleep and then I woke up and then I went back to sleep and then I woke up again. There just wasn’t much point in getting out of bed.
I checked the wound to see the situation and it really wasn’t so bad. It’s a little leaky which I was expecting but generally it wasn’t a disaster and I didn’t ruin the bed or anything like that. But then I did something I wasn’t planning on doing and I grabbed a hold of my foot and gave it a good hard pull. I did this because I was not in pain. I noticed that I was not in pain for the first time in such a long time I can’t even remember, maybe even since surgery. I gave it another good hard pull and it felt solid. Crazy.
So I gently rolled out of bed and took stock of all of my health. I felt absolutely strong, stronger than I felt in a long time. My heart felt good, my leg had no swelling in it whatsoever and I wasn’t in pain.
My best guess is that whatever that giant thing was that was living inside me must have been pressing against the nerve. I don’t know what started it off. Maybe I did break my legs sometime and this healing process just never stopped. I don’t know what it was but when that damn thing burst the other night, it drained whatever was in there that was causing pain and the bone itself seems to be exactly fine. I couldn’t believe it but I stood up. I didn’t feel like walking. But I wasn’t in pain or had any problems standing. Nice.
This situation kind of changed my perspective on the day and I went ahead and slowly did my business. I hooked up the hose for water and went out and checked my field without any problems. It felt great to be walking around. I’m not saying that my leg is healed or that I should be doing anything but resting this. But what I am saying is that the general feeling of the situation is excellent. The actual problem is gone.
It had been a late start and by the time I finally got back I noticed that my phone was blowing up. My ex partner had tried to call me six times. I guess she was worried about me.
She wasn’t. She was trying to get a hold of me to tell me that this walking crutch was coming. They had managed to get their business together fast enough and it was showing up at the fastest possible delivery moment. Well, you just can’t complain about that can you.
I’m not exactly sure what to do about setting this up so it suits my personal physiology. I guess it’s a learning curve and it works kind of wonky so far. You have to adjust everything carefully so it fits you but it takes time. The concept itself is not bad at all and the way they’ve engineered it, building it takes seconds as does putting it on and taking it off. Like I said, it’s a weird walk and it takes getting used to but I think this is a good thing to have.
It’s a bit odd to actually get this and have spent the money when I suddenly realize I don’t need it. But again, I think it’s a good thing to have. I can see having problems in the future or something like this will definitely help. I’m not sorry. My ex partner says we can always sell it.
I was still playing with this thing and trying to get it right when out of my kitchen window I noticed a giant ball of straw heading through the pathway next to my neighbor’s house. That’s right. No phone call or warning, but Ghenna actually showed up with a 500 kg roll of straw.
Excellent.
Getting to the gate to open it up on that bloody walking crutch was not easy. It was the most difficult thing I did all morning but I managed to get there and open up and give him the key to the back gate. He did find a way to make himself a pest by not paying attention to the new berry bushes on the back side of the house we put in and I think he crushed all of them. They were pretty much done for the year but still, it would have been nice if he didn’t roll over them.
I took a look around for where we should stage the thing and I picked what I thought was a good spot right and back of the garden. He drove around to the back of the property and out again pretty easily only managing to further crush down the manure. I guess it becomes easier to shovel when it is smashed flat like that.
He came by to talk to me. I knew what he wanted. I had pulled out a couple of rubles and put them in my pocket to pay him. Technically, I’ve already paid for the straw and he knows this but all things considered, even if I’m tired of the fist bumps, you can’t send him away empty-handed on a Friday.
But payday doesn’t come just yet. This thing was supposed to be tarped to protect it from the rain. I don’t know how much of it we are going to use to cover the field but we’re probably not going to use all of it and we don’t want it breaking down before we get to use it. He scrunched up his face into that deep thinking mode and said he’d be back by 4:00. I made the same face back to him. Four is too late. Four is my limit. Everything gets locked by 4:00. I showed him my best poker face. There was no way I was going to budge.
When I said hello to him heading out to the gate the first word she said to me were that he had fucked up. I don’t need the pragmatic Russian translation. I didn’t say anything. The world had righted itself again and respect had been reestablished. The only thing left for me to do was to keep things cold in business like and make sure he leaves reasonably and without too many Goddamn fist bumps.
We agreed on 3:30 about seven times. He swore it to God. I’m not going to be specific about his oaths but he used his entire body to tell me that he’ll be here at 3:30 to put a tarp on that straw. I mentioned that I don’t owe him any money but that there is a gratuity and he said it was understood. I hope he truly understands that that is a gratuity for showing up at 3:30 and then going away by 4:00. I’m going to throw the fist bump in there too. The lack of a fist bump, it’s not part of the tip.
So that’s it. I’ve got a kitchen full of veggies right now. I got more food than I can possibly eat and I’ve got a ton of my favorite food waiting for me when I get hungry. I made a very peanutty hummus, more peanut sauce than hummus but with some hummus in there and that’s going to add the cream and the fat. I’m not going to make any bread. Too much work and I don’t really need it. Just something really nice and tasty to start my day off and that’s enough.
But basically what I’m saying is, sometimes things just work out okay. Sometimes the world hands you shit sandwich after shit sandwich and sometimes they upgrade you to first class and you end up sitting next to a Hemingway.
That by the way is not a strange metaphor but a true story. I got stuck in Iceland flying back to the United States but didn’t feel like going into Reykjavik. I ended up sitting in the terminal for 6 hours and when it came time to finally board the flight, one of the ladies selling tickets decided she liked me and bumped me up to Champagne cocktail class. The guy I ended up sitting next to was a nice enough man. He asked me what I did and I told him that I tried to write a bit. I was into the craft. He told me that he wrote too and that he had just come back from writing about salmon fishing in Iceland. He told me that it was difficult making your way as an author. It was hard to get work but it was especially hard for him because of his name. His father had been somewhat famous as an author.
It’s been awhile since this happened but I find as the world has become what it has become I now much more completely understand what he’s talking about. Sometimes it’s just way too hard getting out of a mold you get stuck into by other people’s opinions.
***
It’s a little bit before 4:00 on an absolutely stunning Early Autumn day. If the weather was like this all the time, I would be perfectly happy. The air is crisp and clean, the temperature is absolutely perfect for a sweater and jeans. No effort brings a sweat and the world even feels gentle for the moment.
I’m not going to beleaguer the point. As per his word, Ghenna showed up with a tarp on time. He was having a bit of a hard time because the tarp was not really the correct size to cover the hay bale and he had to cut it in order to make it fit. However, there was enough wind and his balance was not quite with him and he was there for several minutes before I finally had to go and have a look. I reminded him that we had tarp pins about 5 m away from him and their exact job was to do what he needed done. He waved me off when I first said this to him but then I said it again and the light of reason came into his head. The job was done in about 2 minutes
I tried not to make too much eye contact or to let him get physically too close to me. When he approached me with his fist in front of him, I looked him in the eye and I said that I had already paid for this hey. He didn’t like hearing this and wanted to make some dramatic gesture so I said it again. I told him that I had already paid for this and he had to understand that. He said something like “for God’s sake” and that it didn’t matter and then I handed him a 10 and wished him a very good weekend. It wasn’t needed because he was already well in the bag. But let him go deeper or have seconds tomorrow. For God’s sake.
He mumbled a few words about more work and I just shuffled him out through the fence and said we have each other’s number and thank you and good weekend and things like this. He kept trying to find that mutual contact point and I tried to get him on his bicycle. With him gone and the gate locked I got a call from Lena. She had not gone to the store but she wanted to tell me that she loved me. I told her that I loved me too. She thought about that joke deeply and I wished her also a wonderful weekend. She is not on the wagon right now.
So it’s Friday afternoon and the town is drunk. All materials contracted for are in place and now we can take our time and quietly button things up for the winter. It’s not even really very much work nor are there very many cabbages to take in. We are almost at the finish line and there is nothing but light work remaining.
I feel amazing. I should not have been up and around as much as I have but perhaps I needed it. I was able to fill the water barrels and put everything in order. I was able to play with the new leg and I was even able to go in cut myself something nice for dinner.
I am not a traditionally religious man. But for God’s sake, I always say prayers on Friday nights. I say prayers of thanks for the day off, for my kids, for the food and then finally for peace. Some good things happened to me this week. So for the sake of God, I say thanks.
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