Tuesday, March 8th 2022

I’m in the kitchen sort of glowing after a cabbage and toast breakfast. There is still a bit of coffee left and I’m sipping it and trying to get my thoughts together. I have a complex series of ideas in my head and I’m not quite so sure I can make sense of it.

It’s cold. It’s very cold and we had some harmless hail last night and the little hailstones are lying all over the field. I didn’t mind working yesterday with the little bit of snow flurry. Working or at least moving around is one of the ways to stay warm. The other two are eating, which is burning resources, and making a fire or turning on the electric heaters which also burn resources. I suppose working Burns resources but they are our resources so this is slightly less dependent. I mean, we can’t live in the cold without fire, or clothing for that matter, and we certainly can’t live without food. I’m just saying that if it’s a matter of being warm, you have to put the work in there. You can’t just shit and absorb resources as if they are a gift from God because they’re not.

What I’m thinking about is the concept of codependency.

Codependency is a circular relationship in which one person needs the other person, who in turn, needs to be needed. The codependent person, known as ‘the giver,’ feels worthless unless they are needed by — and making sacrifices for — the enabler, otherwise known as ‘the taker.

What I was thinking is how this concept relates to our modern concept of politics. It seems as though we no longer have people who believe in particular types of ideas as being very important. There is in the United States a green party, libertarians of course and we even have an American Communist party. There are actually all kinds of political parties but we only hear about the Republicans and the Democrats. And what I was thinking is that the difference has to do with codependency. The Democrats are generally in line with individual people trying to live their lives and are willing or obligated to work for their wages. The Republican party seems to be about those who wish to steal or just receive money without working. Literally, the giving party and the taking party.

In the blurb about codependency, they point out a perfect codependent relationship in which each side is particularly happy to have the other. A person who likes very much to give love to have someone to take care of and a person who likes to be taken care of gets a mommy or a daddy or however you wish to identify the giving relationship. Maybe an Eastern European dictator.

But, and I knew you could smell that but coming, the odds of a perfectly secular codependent relationship are minimal. The world turns and the seasons come and go and moods and living situations change with them. Also, because we are human, sometimes The giver gets a little sick of giving and the taker gets a little annoyed at not being pleased exactly the way they want to be. And here is where the misery comes. To be stuck in a cold dependent relationship that is imperfect is pretty much as horrible as any other relationship that no longer produces magic.

I’m thinking of this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we have a war going on near my neighborhood in which we have a codependent relationship. Moscow is firmly rooted in conservatism, they are extremely fond of believing in their national ethnic identity and that this entitles them to certain rights. Specific among these rights is a leadership role. Literally, it’s Nazism. And Ukrainians with that warmer weather and two bread cuttings a year have been rather forced into the giving rule for centuries. I mean, you can talk about reforming the glory that was the Soviet Union but really all you’re doing is making sure that you have access to your former spouse’s assets.

A second codependent relationship is the one I have with one specific family member who loves making claims left and right of what’s good and what’s bad and what’s right and wrong while simply trying with all of his heart to make sure that he has access to my father’s assets. Little things like the law, my father’s will, or any sort of morality go out the window. The dude is in a war for resources and he doesn’t care who dies in the process. 

What I can see from this must have been a truly disgusting situation for my father’s last years. To have this greasy little gerbil coercing away his dignity in his final years must have been the greatest insult he has ever received in his life.

My dad was an interesting case actually. To himself, he was a cowboy. He worked for his money and physically showed up for his appointments his entire working life. On the other side of the coin, he was a drug dealer for the car business and made his money by selling automobile drugs to corporations. Literally, it turns out that he was my worst enemy and that I live in some kind of a Star wars type scenario. Darth Vader was my father and this revelation goes way beyond my trying to explain communist philosophy at the dinner table over Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was arguing with a drug addict about putting away the drugs and no one ever made a living doing that. Certainly not me right now.

I’m being really brief here but the last example is my ex partner. Our current plan is that she is going to come up for a visit in a couple of hours and then we are going back to town together. She of course will go back to work tomorrow morning and I have one or two things to do in town. 

Today is March 8th, the greatest day in the history of humanity according to Russian women. Today is International Women’s Day.

International Women’s Day is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women.

Significance: Civil awareness day; Women and girls day; Anti-sexism day; Anti-Discrimination Day

I have absolutely nothing against the concept whatsoever but I am down on the holiday locally because it just doesn’t seem fair. I understand that exploitation of anyone is wrong and I am a vote in favor of unilateral collective equanimity and equality. We are all in this together and no one should be placed above us or forced below us. But really, here it ends up being quite exploitative.

On February 23rd we have a day called the day of the defender in which theoretically, we give thanks to the men Who fight and die for our freedoms or whatever slogan you wish to put on it. Basically, Men’s Day. Here though it works out to be the only day of the year that the men are free to get drunk on vodka without getting bitched at and maybe they get oral sex if they’re lucky. One year I got a card from my daughter who was forced to do it by her teacher. Basically, it’s a nickel in the coin cup. Gosh, thanks. ‘Preciate it.

But oh my god! The day of the woman!?! Get out! The entire planet stops revolving on its access on March 8th. Everybody stop and look and listen because today is the day of the woman! Down on your knees and thank God and the stars above for the women and God help you if you forgot this holiday.

My ex partner said absolutely nothing to me on the 23rd. I am donating my entire day.

I don’t want to say it like that. I’m being funny. But last night we talked and I left it up to her to make her plan what she wanted to do and what she needed from me. Her first answer was to forget the whole thing and for me not to worry about it. Perhaps in a perfect world and not being as old and wise as I am, I would have taken the opening and run away screaming. But no, I am a masochistic gentleman in my soul and I went ahead and threw a few more sentences in there until she warmed to the idea of being together. She was originally going to bring up some bread for me but I offered the alternative that we would go back to town together and she thought this was a pretty good idea. She will be out in a couple of hours.

Getting back to the idea of codependency, but she and I are a lot the same really. We are both dead solid singles. This was a thought I had for one of my plays, actually my first play, a long time ago. It is the concept of knowing that you’re not married and accepting that this was not entirely horrible. Both she and I have had our relationships and Friends but inevitably, we end up taking care of ourselves. We both end up there by pretty much the same way of thinking and neither one of us is particularly burdened when we are not together. She’s not going to quit her job and join me and I am not going to quit my job and join her. Or whatever guys are supposed to do in the equal argument.

Quite possibly, we have evolved into the perfect relationship between the two of us. She is most entirely comfortable in her apartment in town and with the exception of my merciless codependent fascist neighbors, I am entirely happy and comfortable out in the country. She could not imagine herself living in my house and I am not particularly comfortable living in hers. So this is where we have evolved to and this is how she has come to have the name of ex partner.

She is helping quite a bit this year but I don’t think she wants to change that title. It would limit her freedom. And don’t call her a girlfriend. She gets very angry at being called a girlfriend.

But perhaps the most serious argument in all of this is how to convince codependent takers to put their head down and take care of themselves. How do you convince people who believe that theft is their god-given right that they should not steal?

How do you get Moscow to stop being Moscow? I mean, you can’t reason with alcoholics and if I ask myself what the similarities are between codependent takers and alcoholics, you have the basis that lies in narcomania.

The pathological desire for narcotic drugs to relieve pain or discomfort.

The important word in this is pathological

You describe a person or their behavior as pathological when they behave in an extreme and unacceptable way, and have very powerful feelings that they cannot control. He experiences chronic, almost pathological jealousy. He’s a pathological liar. adjective. Pathological means relating to pathology or illness.

Chronic sickness. An inability to control their behavior. Driven by demons. Dragon chasing. Almost any addiction can be found in people who are pathologically driven to whatever direction they are driven to.

Growing up in America, we are taught to follow our passion when choosing our job. They don’t really do that here. Here they have this thought that all jobs are the same, people need to pick one and go with it and not worry about it too much. It’s just the formal thing we do to help keep our society going. Neither of these two ideas are perfect in and of themselves. Both directions are the truth and probably the best is the thing found in the middle of them. In other words, don’t look for the thing that makes you pathologically driven and don’t pick something because it doesn’t matter. Some happy middle is probably a better place.

And maybe this is the thing that I’m trying to get at. My favorite word was equanimity.

calmness and composure, especially in a difficult situation.

Perhaps this has always been a goal of mine. I come from pretty hysterical people. I come from people who will torture you until you break. In fact, I am completely surrounded by people who torture you in the hope that you will break and then they can point their finger and call me pathologically psychotic or something like that. This in fact was exactly how I got started here in Poland. I got accused of going crazy on the road and beating up a man’s car. That’s another book that’s going to be published very shortly.

And it’s true, you can make me angry. I get angry. I do not sit masochistically and absorb abuse unless I have no possible way to fight it. For example, if you drop an entire country on my head, I’m not going to start swinging wildly at the breeze. When you know you’re fighting the mafia, you never know what shadows they’re going to crawl out of.

Mostly I prefer just to leave. I don’t like people putting their fingers in my life. I don’t like people looking for my emotional center. I don’t like people playing with my emotions at all and I really don’t like people who manipulate me for money. I usually try to handle such situations with equanimity as I’m looking for an exit to leave the situation. I can placate people.

Actually, I guess this is another nuance. When you have pathologically codependent people, like my neighbor for instance as a particular type of female animal to speak about, you can’t placate them because they create discomfort in order to receive attention. My daughter’s mother was a pathological practitioner of this and taught this to my daughter unfortunately. Perhaps this has been passed down from generation to generation for time immemorial as the thing that brings power to women who are otherwise politically and economically shortchanged by living in a male-dominated society. I can dig that. I just don’t like being on the receiving end of this stick. And I don’t like being obligated to placate pathological codependency. I am not your baby bottle.

I don’t really think I was supposed to say that on March 8th. I think I was supposed to say thank you to all of the women in my life. And maybe I should.

I’d like to say thank you to my ex-wife for being with me for 10 years and for giving me two children and my first home away from my parents.

I also want to thank the women who I met along the way for the brief intense romances.

I would very much like to say thank you to my daughter’s mother for giving me a daughter and allowing me to share her home when I first came here. I would also like to give thanks to her mother for teaching me a lot about Russian culture and how to get by on minimalism and self-reliance in a cold weather country.

I would sincerely like to thank both of my ex-girlfriends for giving me beauty and life at a time when I truly felt I didn’t have any anymore. 

And I would most especially like to thank my ex partner for being there for me when nobody else was. She brought me food so I didn’t have to eat this shit they feed people in the hospital and let me live with her and her apartment until I was able to get back on my feet. That’s literally about back on my feet.

For sure, I would like to thank my maternal grandmother for being probably my best friend. She was also my secretary and home address after my marriage broke up. I really miss her despite being the matriarch of some incredibly hysterical people.

And I guess I should say thanks to my mom for… 

Well, for being here. She participated in that and did the brunt of the work. And, if you want to put a particular spin on it, my friend Steve summed it up for me when I complained about the insanity that I grew up in. He told me that I gained my equanimity from my family. He didn’t use the word equanimity, he said that growing up in my family gave me the ability to handle a charging rhino without blinking. I’m not exactly sure this is the kind of skill you should be grateful for but if you’re wondering why I’m not leaving because of the stupid war by a bunch of incompetent codependent fascists, I don’t mean to burst your ego but this ain’t the first time I’ve been in a dance like this.

Happy 8th of March. 

***

And by the way, I have a video that I want to share concerning the war in Ukraine. It’s by a YouTuber by the name of Adam Something. What I like about this guy is that he is from here, an extremely pragmatic critical thinker and generally I agree with his criticisms. I think he’s a pretty effective filmmaker and this particular video actually gives a little bit of Hope. This is to say, Russian incompetence and greed might be there undoing.

***

Well, that didn’t end well. I guess I’m not going to town this week. I do have some things to do but they can wait until next week. Most probably this is too personal to talk about and whether you believe me or not, I’m not using this blog for an emotional crutch. Probably I’m being too personal most of the time anyway.

But sometimes you just have to face the truth. We don’t think alike. There’s a reason why the lady is known as my ex partner and not my partner. Today didn’t turn out so good. Today was a bad plan and it just didn’t end well. Well, that’s 8th of March for you.

I told you it was a shitty holiday. Not that we shouldn’t respect the women or remember the triangle fire for the ridiculous and unfair economic system that caused those poor ladies to burn in those terrible working conditions. That’s one of the main reasons for international women’s day. We should all be respectful of each other. We should all be honest and upfront with each other. But I hate the 8th of March. 

And though these things are not really related, beware the Ides of March usually refers to a betrayal that’s going to happen. It’s from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. And The Ides of March just happens to be exactly one week after March 8th.

***

Bad day? World got you down? It’s cold and it doesn’t look like the sun is ever going to shine again? We need comfort food, am I right? It’s time for some serious comfort food.

Say it! Say it! You know what it is. You know what you want. You need the mac and cheese.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Pop a handful of dried chickpeas into the blender. Half a handful of raw peanuts. You have roasted peanuts? Good for you. Use those. We need the salt anyway because we are making cheese. A few glugs of some flavorful vinegar and a couple of fresh peppercorns and whatever else you think is tasty for spices. Let them grind a little bit dry and then add in about a liter and a half of clean water. Don’t worry, it’s going to thicken. Into the pot goes some cabbage and onions because that’s what I have for veggies, let them fry a little bit to catch some color and then kabluey, you pour in whatever spaghetti you’re going to use. Quickly, grab your blender and lay in your cheese sauce, sprinkle happily with some salt and let it all come to a boil. Amazingly, when the Mac is done, the cheese is done. Garnish how you like, eat with a spoon, try not to spill on your clothes and weep away.