Thursday, November 17th 2022

It’s 6:30 and I’m in the kitchen/cafe. I’ve just finished another excellent breakfast. Carbs on carbs on carbs. But it was ridiculously tasty and satisfying. I am bloody addicted to those new potatoes. I remember hearing a story one time from my friend Volkov. He is the actor who is now spending several years in jail for participating in a political action after the last elections. He told the story one night at a party about magic potatoes. It was definitely a patriotic story. You would have to be a bulba to understand it. Bulba is the name that people call belarusians. Bulba in Belarusian means potato by the way.

He told the story of going down a river to a particular place where someone was a potato savant. There was something about this particular batch of potatoes that was almost mind altering. The taste, texture and creaminess was unique and the effect on the body was one of elegant satisfaction. Of course, you can never know what something means specifically by words. You have to have some life experience even to have words that mean something to your mind. I suppose you can be sensitive or just read a lot and be able to capture more and more. But the actual experience of something like a perfect potato might never be known in a world of supermarkets.

I cannot say the absolute quality of the potatoes that I’m eating right now. I can only say that they are indeed magical as to the healing effect they have on my body. I didn’t do any particular sauce to them. I just added some very cheap olive oil to grease the pot and let the onions and garlic caramelize. I added in some red lentils because they are the easiest Bean you can add to food to raise the protein level and make the carbs a bit more complex and slower to digest. This is all for blood sugar of course but also for energy. After that, my usual ground spice mix and that was it.

The difference however between how I felt all through the night and how I feel right now is understandable. Yesterday, I only had the one meal and it was very similar to the one I just ate. I snacked on nuts a bit during the day and I had a bowl of oatmeal in the evening. But it was an up-and-down night nonetheless. As usual, I think Lena brought me her usual brand of covid and Hysteria and that mood sort of stayed with me through most of the evening.

It was also cold. We are currently at -3 according to the weather charts. I’ve been outside. It’s still dark but you can see that there’s no particular Frost. The ground is wet from either dew or light rain. It isn’t white at all. We are below zero but there has been no particular Frost.

I wasn’t uncomfortable in the warm room. I lit a four piece fire last night and it burned brightly and warmed up the brick Mass. I was definitely not suffering or shivering in any way. But I did have some very strange dreams, some old dreams, some dreams I used to have long ago. They are kind of nightmares in their way but they are so familiar I don’t mind revisiting them. When I would wake up, I would have to remind myself of the night Maris elements of the dream and how my reality has nothing to do with it.

But come morning, I really didn’t want to remain horizontal. I don’t really have a lot of things to do but I would still rather get up than stay down. Even if it is warmer in there, I think it’s better to be up and moving around a little. I’ll stay up until my legs decide to be too painful to do so. With any luck at least the place will be organized by the time that happens. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bored here. I’m just quietly dealing with the ups and downs of my body and the ups and downs of the seasonal changes. There is not as much physical labor in the winter and so you have to find new ways to entertain yourself.

I got a call from The courier last night. He always calls to let me know that he’s there. I don’t know if he himself has a plan or not. I usually just tell him to wait until the entire order is put together. I’m ordering bulk things in bulk and even though it’s to my convenience to have the guy run out here multiple times, I actually don’t want him to waste the gas. Let him make one trip and be done with it. I can wait a few days. The things I ordered are nice but they are not life and death. There are lots of things that I like but my basic necessities are currently not a problem.

All I really want, all I really need is to feel reasonably normal and to be able to take care of myself. I don’t mind sharing the workload with my ex partner and I am happy to have a few local people who keep track of me and are willing to kick in for a small payment. I just personally feel that I need to be physically competent to believe in my own relevance. This is not the type of relevance that other people give you when you are financially supporting them in their dreams. This is not being someone’s Daddy. This is just being physically competent enough to do a job.

In this basic physical sense, I’m no different than most men. I think all men have a need to exist physically. I’m sure all people have a need to have some physical viability in the world. It’s difficult for me right now to reach even basic competence in competition with others. I may have certain things that I do better or some knowledge that I have that others don’t but I am not good for an 8-hour work day and I don’t want one. I don’t want a daddy or a mommy. I don’t want to have one and I really don’t want to be one. I just want to help out even if the only one I’m helping is myself.

There are projects to be done. There are things to be built and there are certain things that I could make for this house to make it more livable. I’m talking about building some boxes or some structures that carry things. I’m just talking about making it more functional. There are plenty of projects that can be done. Most of the time though, no matter how much I want to move around, within a short period of time I run into ridiculous pain. The pain prevents me from continuing on, the inability to continue on restricts my physical conditioning and pretty soon it’s just a terrible cycle. This is probably one of the reasons I got up this morning. I just wanted to do something and be doing things until my legs failed. When they go, it’s an easy choice to go someplace and get warm. And if nothing else, I can always stretch and do weights in there. The place is built for it.

If this particular rhetoric this morning seems redundant, it is because there is a lot of built-in redundancy. I’m not looking to change my life or run somewhere. I don’t have the money to buy into any kind of similar situation. In fact, it’s not even important whether I can afford it or not, I’m not looking for another situation and I’m not trying to explain myself to save face. I welcome the texture. I welcome the boredom.  I welcome whatever the place has for me because it’s my home. Whatever happens to me, this is my home. And there have been many years where  I felt there was no such thing. I’ve spent many years renting or borrowing or living in other people’s homes. It’s been a very, very long time since I have had a place to call home. And for good or bad, right or wrong, stupid politics, anti-semitism and conservative slavery be damned, this is my home. I chose it, I bought it, I live here and this is my home.

This is the penultimate day of this year’s journal writing. I wish I had a bigger crescendo building for you. I wish a lot of things were different than they are. I wish the world we lived in was a different and better place. I certainly wish that my home was located in a more reasonable place and surrounded by more reasonable people. I wish I lived in a more intelligent place. The problem is that I doubt it exists. The real problem is that I’ve been to more than 30 countries in the world and I basically know it doesn’t exist. I still have an American passport and I visited 45 American states and I can tell you for certain that it doesn’t exist.

We are not down to our final words yet. Those will come sometime tomorrow. I’m sure I will try to be wise and meaningful. And really every day at the end of my writing, I tried to find the very last line of a page. I tried to curve my words so that I am not talking gibberish but still end in a specific place. I don’t know why I picked up this affectation. I always like to have a little discipline in me when I write. And tomorrow I will probably take up all the space on whatever turns out to be the final page of this endeavor.

What I’m trying to say is that I myself play the game of exit line everyday. Exit line is this dramatical game that people play when they want to leave. For whatever excuse they’ve come up with for leaving, they say something dramatic and then they go off, hopefully leaving the person who heard the exit line thinking deeply about the importance of the person who is now wandering off by themselves to their next adventure. They love to play with the connection. They love to play power games with each other. 

This is not exactly what I do. I just try to get to the bottom of the page. Why waste paper? But you could say that I tried to say something dramatic in my final words every day. I should genuinely take that into consideration going into tomorrow. The last exit line of the last day really should be something interesting.

***

This week’s torah portion is Chayei Sarah (חַיֵּ֣י שָׂרָ֔ה), which roughly translates to “the life of Sarah. But this is not what this portion is about because you only mention is that she lived 127 years and then in the second sentence, she died.

In the first portion, Abraham is tasked with taking care of his wife’s burial and he appeals to the local leadership and asks them if he can use some land for their plot. There is a misunderstanding because they offer him a field but what he wanted was the cave at the end of the field. They had to repeat themselves that the cave was a part of the deal and he paid 400 shekels for the land and the cave.

I don’t have much of a comment for this except for the tiny little element that needs to be repeated about that cave. Abraham is dealing with the sons of Heth and they seem to respect him as a holy man, nevertheless there is that little detail of whether the cave is a part of the land. At some time in the future this could get sticky and nobody wants stickiness down the line. God is in the details maybe but on the other hand, maybe Heth’s sons are operating from a point of view of pity now but sometime later, when their economic fortunes are not that high, they might come back looking for that land for the income possibilities of it. Certainly, real estate has its middlemen but things can get persnickety if you’re not careful. I personally wouldn’t deny that.

This by the way is exactly the current argument with this young student of mine. Dealing with both the student and her mother is interesting. I am trying to say that the entire deal should be taken on professionally. This is a complete necessity because even though everybody is completely happy and excited now in the honeymoon time, there will come a time when things get old and homework will not be so readily done. There will come a time when we all know each other better and things won’t be so exciting for us everyday. It is during that time when the truth of our student team comes out and we find out truly who is who. In my opinion, perhaps Jewish people can be annoying in this regard but on the other hand, if you know a storm is coming, you’d best prepare for the rainy days.

This is also probably a metaphor for climate deniers and other such idiots. You’ve got to prepare. You have no choice. You must prepare.

In the second portion, we have two main plot points. The first is a reiteration of the real estate deal which apparently included the trees as well. It reads a bit as if someone is reading a document proving the deed and title were indeed now in the possession of Abraham. Once the land deal is satisfied, Abraham turns his attention to getting a wife for his son Isaac. He asks a servant to go back to Abraham’s hometown and find an appropriate girl and bring her back. The servant doubts his ability to procure a female for his master and suggests that maybe Isaac should do this himself. Abraham assures him that God is on his side, he won’t be blamed if he fails in his task but that the way to do this is to go and find a woman for his son.

It’s an interesting thought as to whether or not families or groups of friends should be involved in our close relationships and mating rituals.The common way to go about this in our lovely and wonderful modern Paradise is to let people figure it out for themselves. The action gets done first and then the new potential mate or partner eventually gets to meet the family. The family has absolutely no say in this except to like or not like the work done by their children.

I wonder whether or not this is a good way to go about things. I have friends in the Jewish community and they have a very specific way of finding mates for their kids. The children have a choice, both the boy and the girl have rights to refuse. In fact, everybody has the right to back out of the deal if they don’t like it. Matches need to be well agreed upon in order to work. There are still divorces and problems along the way. But it is in Hasidic circles absolutely a family affair and even an affair that is done professionally by matchmakers.

I don’t ever remember being consulted by my kids about their relationships. I don’t remember ever needing to find anybody for them. When my Belarusian daughter was very young, I created English classes for young students and specifically put them on the days when my daughter would be with me. This created a bit of a party for her with a lot of people around. I didn’t mind that.

One thing that drives me crazy about my ex partner though is that she just does things without consulting me and then presents the results. This puts me in a very awkward situation when I do not approve of her choices. I can talk about status and who is who and cultural differences, but the truth is I just don’t like people making decisions for my life without consulting me.

When I was much younger and just starting out my parents came upon a real estate deal. I don’t know how much this deal would have been worth later on but there was a house involved and it would be up to me to pay the bills. The down payment and the credit would all be through a cosine with my parents. The only thing I said when finally told about this deal was that I wanted to see the house or even have the right to pick the house and I was told no. I was never invited to the original parts of the deal, I have no idea what kind of house or where it was located and there were a million other details that never came across my desk. When I said that this deal required my approval, I was shut out and told I was not necessary. This happened many times in my life. I’m just one of the main reasons I stopped relating to my parents many, many years ago.

I think the point is that we do indeed get by with a Little help from our friends and family but at the same time, it’s our life. There should never be taxation without representation and breeding passivity is death and stupidity. If people don’t have their heads screwed on correctly and or are denied their voice, we do not have people. This is only parasitism getting carried on to a larger scale.

In case you’re wondering, I turned down the deal. I turned down almost all the deals that came from my family. I actually refused their opinion of me. I found them all very nervous, hysterically even and endlessly disrespectful to one another. Briefly, they were too stupid for my tastes. I’m not sure that I can definitively say that I had a better life without them. I’m not even sure it should be measured. But the one thing I can say about this is that I’ve had my own life because of this. For good or for bad and no matter where this alternative path has led me, it has been my path and perhaps there is what makes all the difference.

In the third portion, our manservant arrives and stops before a well and has a brief conversation with god. He says that he has a plan. He will ask any girl he sees that comes to the well for a drink and if the girl says yes and then agrees to give the camels water as well, this will be the girl he chooses. He had not even really finished his speech / prayers when Rebecca appears and immediately checks all of the boxes. She is okay with helping the man, she is okay with watering the camels, she happens to be quite beautiful and a virgin and also agrees to take the stranger in and take care of both him and the camels. I guess he got it right on the very first try.

How do you know when you have found the one? This is, or at least used to be the question that bothered all young people. For all the years that I was teaching and we had a community and I was given responsibility for young people just at the beginning of their adult lives, this was almost always the thing that needed to be talked about. This was my opportunity to say my peace about how it’s important to choose a career that you truly love and also to allow some sense of love and romance into finding a mate. I would almost always advise that choosing a job because it paid money would mean a life of unhappiness and choosing a mate for the same reasons would do the same. Money is universally a compromise of the heart. The most important decisions in life should be done with the heart and only a little bit of thinking about future deals.

If this seems to be a paradox in my thinking, it is but it isn’t. Yes, just a few minutes ago, I talked about preparing for a rainy day and making sure your business was well documented and completely on the up and up to avoid problems. I still believe this is true. But in terms of how we find our businesses, our jobs and hopefully the love (or loves) of our lives need to be something we believe in as true. I am not fond of belief in the existence of the great bearded man in the sky. I am absolutely against believing in the judgment of political leaders and especially those who have no checks or balances holding them down. I also don’t believe that every child makes the best choice. Sex is pretty powerful and blinding especially to those who have never been responsible for themselves before. All I’m saying is that you find the one or the best one you can find and when you have found them, make sure everybody understands that there’s a legal contract involved. 

We do the human thing first and the business thing second. The money is the only compromise. And truly, as hot as you might be for this particular someone, I absolutely recommend that you have the ability to have good conversations together and can discuss problems well. If you have a hard time communicating, this is a bicycle that will not ride for very long. You can’t build a straight house on a crooked foundation. If you can’t talk together in such a way that is possible to decide your problems happily on both sides, you are not with your partner, you are with something else entirely.

Maybe arranged marriages are good this way. Maybe it’s better to have some clearer heads participate in the thinking. But you can’t do things without the agreement of your children. This is the number one thing that everyone should remember. We do not own our children and we do not make decisions for them regardless that this is exactly what the Torah implies. This is not an ownership issue, this is looking for a contract that will last a good long time. This is looking for the very best partnership a person can find for themselves. It is a tricky deal and one worthy of respect. 

The opposite by the way where we just chase sex and quit on the possibility of love is just addiction and therefore inevitably miserable. Trust me on this. Shopping on a whim almost never works out. We should at least teach our children about this stuff going forward. Better to have sex with friends we love and trust. It’s more sustainable that way.

In the fourth portion, the servant is at dinner with Rebecca’s family and being the honest man that he is, he repeats the entire story as it happened word for word and in the end, they agreed that he could take the girl.

Again, the only thing missing here is the girl’s agreement, at least verbally. It is very possible that she agreed to go with the man and this is why she was so happy to invite the men home. It’s quite possible that she had been looking for a mate but none were possible. Or, forgive me for saying this, but this servant was representing a very rich man and perhaps Rebecca’s family was quite poor. I mean, I just finished up talking about this. It is the correct way to go. But still, you can’t stop people from worrying about having food on the table. You can’t stop people from worrying about money when we all live as economic slaves. You really should understand that it’s coming in any case.

In the 5th portion, this business meeting turns into a big party and the next morning with either clear or less clear heads, Rebecca’s Brothers tell the servant that perhaps she will come by in a year or 10 months. They say it would be better to let her stay a little while longer. The servant tells them that it’s very important that this happened the way it’s supposed to happen and they very wisely decide to ask the girl herself. She says yes without hesitation.

Her family by the way is not so poor and the girl has a maid servant come along with her. They get on the camels and ride back to Abraham’s camp. When they get close, Rebecca gets a look at Isaac and Isaac takes a good look at her and that’s pretty much all they wrote. That very day, she went home with him to his tent and without further necessity of argument, with one simple act of humanity, he married her.

Not everybody grows up believing that putting your penis inside someone means that you’re married. Most people consider that quite crazy. I spent a lot of my younger days believing that was true. I liked the company of women and I won’t lie that I have had a few partners In My Time. But one thing that has always been true is that I don’t do anything that might make babies with anyone I don’t plan to keep. This isn’t to say that you can’t be together and enjoy pleasure. You can’t stop that. But I always had in my mind a simple philosophy to guide me through these affairs. “No babies and no disease and only with friends”. In other words, don’t get yourself into trouble before you’re sure that you’re with someone you want as a partner. If you don’t need them as a partner or you don’t like them as a person whose voice goes directly into your nervous system, you’re just begging for problems.

In the 6th portion, we learned that with Sarah gone, Abraham experienced new life and new possibilities. He married again and had a bunch of sons and then finally, at age 175, he finally gave out and was buried next to his wife Sarah in the cave next to the field with the trees. And now Isaac took over the family business.

175? Really? I mean seriously, really? And in this case, we are talking about 100 years of impotence and the guy finally catches the music with a 100 year old wife? I think we are talking about different things. I’m sure some experts somewhere on the internet have made sense of this and perhaps translated it into some kind of human terms. It does seem a little too much to believe unquestioningly.

And finally, the 7th portion talks very briefly about Ishmael, Isaac’s brother from another mother, the son of the Egyptian maid servant who Abraham slept with when Sarah wasn’t having any of it. It simply names the names, says that they were successful princes in the world and that they had all been having the best of it down in Egypt for a long time.

***

It’s a little after 4:00 and I just got finished with my English lesson. I hope it went well. I’m looking for a very specific breakthrough here in the early going. It has to do with agreeing that English is an understandable language and not an impenetrable barrier. I don’t mean to be obnoxious or hateful towards the state school system, but the way that second language acquisition is usually taught, passivity is encouraged and disability and dysfunction is the rule. Or more concisely said, nobody ever teaches you to speak. Your opinion is worthless, nobody has the ability to speak the language with any confidence whatsoever. The underlying conspiracy theory is that people are taught to only take from foreign people and then bring it back home. They only learn to understand and translate to grammatical Russian.

Recognizing this very early on in my career, I made my reputation by simply going the opposite direction. My basic class teaches to read without translation, to try and understand what you read with the first reading and most importantly, but there is a way to speak in an organized and grammatical manner that allows you to express your real feelings. Actually, it’s even more than that. Any fool can make an English language statement of how they feel. The trick is that they have the ability to logically explain what they say and why it is a sensible opinion.

I tried to make it fun. I kind of like this lesson to be honest with you. I like the situation and I really like that the girl is trying. She is who she is and I’m not going to say even one bad word about the situation. But let’s just say that at the moment, right here in the middle of the honeymoon, she’s working very hard to be perfect. If this is indeed her character even when she becomes a little bored and tired of the effort, we have a winner. And if not, well, the truth is that everybody from the best to the worst learns in percentages and small increments. There is no finish line for anybody and I do not hand out certificates. All there is is the work and my job is to just keep it going and help people improve step by step.

Amazingly, just before the beginning of our lesson, I got a call from the ministry of health and they are coming out to my house to have a look at me on Monday. Apparently, they took my complaint seriously and they want to see for themselves what’s going on. Of course, this could be the death squad coming. Or, maybe it is a medic coming to check out exactly how bad my legs are. Luckily, the evidence is rather obvious and they will figure out the problem for themselves without too much enhancement on my part. That’s the biggest bitch of being a truth teller. You tell the truth and people have to deal with it.

I made pretty good use of my morning really. I’ve spent a lot of time in the office even though it’s ridiculously cold in here. I got tired of looking at the drying table and completely dismantled it. Next year I will take this idea and instead of making a long cumbersome table, I will build a series of racks that I can stack one on top of another. When fruit or mushrooms or vegetables need to be dried, I will either have them be in the Sun or I will use this space heater and make a cabinet. I was told when I got this thing not to use it for cooking. I’m not cooking but it makes an amazing tool for drying things.

I also spent some time cleaning up and putting things where they need to be for winter. I’ve put up a window cover for one of the office windows. Immediately the place holds a little bit more heat. I still have not moved the computer. The problem is I like being in the office even if it is cold and once I move it, it won’t be here anymore. I suppose I could trade computers and bring my notebook in here. Anyway, I can’t seem to find the motivation to make the change because I like things the way they are.

We never did get any snow today. It is cold and we have been at or below zero all day. I’ve got a little bit of a problem in my throat thanks to my friend Lena. I really have to remember that visitors bring their diseases with them.

As this is my second to last day riding this journal, it came to my mind to mention that I have not missed a day except for Rosh Hashanah. I took days off for the Jewish holiday this year. It was the first time I’ve taken any days off except for my medical last year. I was 270 in a row my first year and I made all six entries for the 41 weeks I worked last year. This year, except for those two days, I have yet another perfect attendance record.

I’m not looking for a gold star, I’m just saying that I’m vegan. You can think whatever you want but I am a vegan and mostly this means that I never really get sick. I do get bothered by other people’s diseases. I feel it and I have to go through a recovery. But generally, it takes about a day to make things normal again. And even with whatever it is that I got yesterday, it hasn’t stopped me from doing anything. I think this is definitely something to think about. I’m not showing up every day as a stunt, I’m showing up every day because I can show up every day.

I might have dinner tonight. I can’t think of any reason not to have dinner tonight. I’m really not very hungry and I could probably go till tomorrow without adding any calories to myself. But most probably I won’t eat too much during the day tomorrow. I don’t think I will have a big breakfast and will instead let myself clean out a bit before I get to my Friday night meal. I may be stopping my journal writing but I’m not stopping my personal habits. I take a day off and I do this religiously. It is the best thing I do in my life and it’s probably the catalyst for whatever I have become since doing this.

I’m also not sure about tomorrow’s content. I’m not sure if it matters if I try to keep up with the war or not. It might be worthwhile to check out the news one more time. Unfortunately, I doubt we are going to have any great news anytime soon. For whatever good Europe has done in arming the ukrainians and helping them evict the Russians, they haven’t gone all in. I’m not talking about sending troops, I’m talking about cutting off Russia.

One of the easiest things that we do is decide not to give people money when we see that they are not reliable. If we see someone has a lot of money, we have been trained to believe that they are good people and reliable and to be trusted. Very often however, even the best looking people often get that way because they are ruthless thieves. Either this, or they are just ruthless business people who make sure that they get paid. There’s a big difference between a good and honest person and someone who has accumulated a lot of money. We might attribute character to work, but there are many different types of work. Money is not the only measure of a person’s character.

On the other side, if you have someone who is obviously an addict, you might not want to feed them. In fact, when you find someone who is a complete addict, you might really not want them around. You may be thinking drugs here. Perhaps, you would think alcohol addiction as being part of this. I doubt you would recognize cigarettes although you should. I wonder how many people would have sugar and caffeine come into their mind as things people are addicted to. All of these things make for unreasonable people.

But perhaps the greatest addiction in the world is money and power. People will never give up their money. Even though they may find exactly like my student that they have more capacity to live without than they thought, they will never go this direction. Their mind is too clouded by years and years of buildup. They have been explaining their failures and living for self justifying lines for too long to simply quit. When someone is a slave, very often there is no possibility to free them because they have no conception of life outside of slavery.

This absolutely is true for people addicted to wealth and power. In fact, it’s pretty easy to see how Mr Zelenski has changed. He was a different man before getting European backing and finding himself welcome and even admired by European ambassadors. If you’ve been following him all year, you have seen what happens to someone when they find they have power. He’s not immune to this. I’m not going to say that he has become the same Napoleon that Putin is. Putin is on another level. Putin has been absolutely free of human encumberments for decades. Putin is an addict in the highest echelon of addicts the world has ever known. Putin is now addicted to killing or the power to order deaths. That is some genuinely inhuman business going on. That is a very severe problem for all of us.

The answer of course was to vote no. The answer is not in the leadership to take care of business. The answer is not in the mystery of the behind doors conversation at G20. G20 in the world of face-to-face video conversation via the Internet is bullshit and pageantry. Nobody needed to leave their home. But worse, the point is that people were disallowed from voting at the G20 conference. 

Nobody asked people to click like at the prospects being faced and nobody put the idea out to Europeans that they could actually do their part to fight the war by simply refusing to buy gas for their cars. That would have been a vote against Russia and it would have been a vote for global ecology. It would have been a vote to calm global warming. No matter how big an event and no matter how much press and no matter how interesting it is to have 1500 people die in conflict every day with no other residue but to admire the weapons of mass destruction being shown off. Nobody was asked how they felt about all of these people dying for their amusement. Nobody was asked what it felt like to be as indifferent as Vladimir Putin.

But then again, maybe it was covid that drove us all crazy. Maybe sheltering us all in our houses as we worried about this creeping death has us a bit destroyed. Maybe we have been made less perfect by this pandemic. Maybe this sickness affected all of our brains and made us into different people.

But then again, when they had everybody at home, they never asked anyone to vote about what to do. Nobody ever asked people if there was an alternative way to live that might be more healthy. Nobody asked anyone to take responsibility for stopping the transport of diseases by simply stopping the massive global transportation that carried it around. Nobody asked us to vote about what to do. All of those choices were made for us whether we liked it or not.

I could probably say the same thing about my Minsk bureaucrat. I’m sure the fault was on myself for not complaining earlier. I wrote a pretty comprehensive letter. I named names and I said what they did and I talked about the effects. I guess if nothing else, all of this writing practice I’ve been doing is enough to motivate people to at least take a look. Monday I’m told they are going to take a look. They will see that what I have been saying is true. I have all the evidence I need.

So what is the truth?

The big argument as to whether to publish my story in America came down to whether I was talking about myself or talking universally. Well, people like taking it easy and are perfectly happy having other people chew their food for them. The big joke is all the comforts everybody has and how little responsibility is actually left. This was absolutely done by the capitalist corporations and the leaders who are in their pockets for the purposes of maintaining a corporate world and globalization. Everybody has cars now. All the money is up for grabs. Everybody suffers under the weight of inflation. And everybody is at the whim of the people who control the money markets and who have access to the prophets from the oil business. And the weapons business. And the war business. And the prison business. I’m talking about all the people who make their money from human misery. They are all making a fortune and they have no interest in turning off the tap.

So the girl has been doing English for several years but can’t read a children’s book because nobody told her that she could. Nobody ever simply asked her to try and understand a language by simply paying attention to it and eating out loud and trying to figure it out. We’ve only been at this for 10 days and she’s already adjusting.

For what it’s worth, I remember the day I learned that I could read Russian. I’ve told this story before. I was with somebody who was visiting the dentist and I was left in the waiting room. I picked up a magazine and just started reading it for the practice. After about 8 or 10 minutes, I realized that I could see the grammar and could understand the basic points. I couldn’t understand every word, but I understood enough of the words to get the gist of the conversation. I wasn’t getting enough of it to do a true translation, I’m just saying that I recognize that I could read it.

I have traveled a lot in this world. One time in the middle of Germany I picked up a newspaper and understood that I could understand it. When I first started studying Russian, I bought a copy of a check-off play and simply started reading it. Not perfect, to this day I do not understand every word that people say to me. But I definitely know enough to have conversations. I’m not just talking about simple friendly drivel, I’m talking about business conversations, important conversations about bureaucratic procedure, conversations of a medical nature and even romantic conversations. I am absolutely competent even without 100% understanding.

I say that girl is universal because I say that her problem is the problem of the whole world. It’s not that she couldn’t understand the language, it’s that nobody ever did anything to let her and everybody did everything to stop her.

Put that one in your pocket as a lesson from an old teacher to take with you. Fight the power. Be an ecological activist. Take responsibility for your actions and crimes that you commit against nature. Ask yourself to be slightly more different in your general habits and start learning new ones that are more to the non-carbon variety. Learn to be green in your thinking. And if you want, because God is nature and nature is God, start believing in God again. Not that he / she will make decisions for you, just believe that being good to Nature is what we are supposed to do and anything else it’s just bending to the will of tyrants and drug addicts and other people that we would be very much better off without.

Let’s call that exit line. Or maybe a mic drop.

***

Just a few minutes ago, I got two calls. One was from my ex partner asking if I had gotten a call from Minsk. As I did not send these letters through her, it seems strange that she would know about this. I need to find out what’s going on with that conspiracy. I mean, I have often guessed that she’s been working for the KGB all along. Not that it matters. I’d be shocked to meet someone who moves camp to anywhere in the former Soviet Union without expecting a dossier on them.

The second call was from Lena. She had just now come back from town and had some kvasheni for me. The issue was that the store was closed today. I don’t know why they closed. I don’t believe it’s any kind of major holiday. But it looked like she was going to miss out on a paid gig. I thought we were just going to let this go until next week but she made a point of picking me up two boxes of store-bought and even brought me one liter of her own homemade. I haven’t tried it yet but I will. I also got a bag of onions.

We said some words about getting together next week for some kind of function. Maybe some clothing needs to be washed or something. And then we said some more words of kindness to each other and smiled. The woman is my best friend in this town. And then she was off and as she passed vania’s house, he popped out and started walking with her back to town. She had used him to carry her bag until they got to his house and then he ducked inside to let her conduct her business alone. She now has 20 rubles in her hand and they are most probably off to the store or to her house for dinner.

My ex partner just wrote me back asking if I had gotten that call but I haven’t gotten an answer yet as to how they got her number. Suddenly we have a lot of dead air.

You know, I wasn’t really preparing for any major Revelations or uncoveries here at the end. I was pretty much thinking of a brief fade out in a small Blizzard of pro ecology words. But do you think I finally got the mask off that woman? Do you think I’ve been maintaining a relationship with a Red Sparrow? 

Cool. The name’s Bond. James Bond. I’ll take that Martini shaken and not stirred.

I wonder how long it will take her to think of a clever answer to my question. I guess we’ll find out sometime.

***

It’s about a quarter to 9:00 and I guess this is wrapping things up for the day. I ended up eating dinner. I decided I wanted something so I made some simple pasta. My kitchen smells so good right now. Actually, my whole house smells really wonderful. The warm room and sometimes gets smoky when I build the fire a little too close to the firebox opening. The trick to closing that down is to close the gate almost completely. This creates a little bit of a jet stream and this stops the smoke from coming out. Inevitably, the point is to heat up the bricks and not really to enjoy the blast of the fire so it doesn’t matter that much. I do like staring at a fire though.

But the kitchen is absolutely exquisite. There’s something about the flavors that have been going through the pot lately and the fact that I’ve been olive oil cooking a lot. It smells good when you water cook as well but it’s absolutely fantastic right now. I’m sure my neighbors are starting to get the clue. It’s kind of disappointing to have to change in reputation from a terrorist to a chef. You can’t really go behind a chef’s back and talk shit about him.

There really is something to vegan chefery. I have always been a foodie and I dabbled in cooking back in my meat days but there is a huge difference. At first, some of it has to do with the creativity needed to get around not having normal fat and animal based dishes. But after that it’s about having more energy and creativity. I am an intuitive cook and I don’t ever remember following recipes. Sometimes I go online and I read or watch videos about cooking but I never take any more than the general gist. And besides, I only cook with what is available right in front of my face. I never specialty shop and just go with what’s available. It’s cheaper and faster and more interesting to improvise. Freedom of thought always wins here.

That cabbage that Lena made is unbelievable. When I saw it was just big chunks of cabbage rather than shredded, I didn’t think much of it. I normally don’t really believe in Lena as a cook very much. She tells me her recipes and they always seem a bit lazy for my taste. I don’t think she could fool anybody into believing she’s any kind of an epicurean. But this cabbage was wonderful because it wasn’t salted kvasheni, it was a really delightful oil-based marinade. In fact, it had a very similar texture to marinated artichokes which were my favorite growing up. I never see it here and I don’t think artichokes are even normal for the region. But I can see why she did this kind of marinade with big chunks of cabbage softening over time. Exquisite.

I’m sure she is thinking that she has landed a big fish. But I don’t know how much of this cabbage she has left over but if she has more, I’m not going to fight too much.

I didn’t really mind dealing with the temperature today. I layered up pretty well and was pretty comfortable. Even after dinner, I hung out in the office even without any additional heat. Tomorrow it’s supposed to get down to about -6 or -7 and they say that we are definitely going to have some snow. They said there is a 100% chance. I still don’t believe in the weather service. 

I also didn’t see any particular Frost damage with any of the plants that are still growing. I think the daikon radish that remains is probably coming in with me tomorrow night as will some carrots and some sugar beets. I’ll also take one of the four or five cabbages we have left. It’ll go well with some bread and probably a hummus. I know I’m kind of boring and redundant on Friday nights but if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

As a definite negative, I don’t think the delivery service is going to make their deadline. The guy called me earlier in the week but I told him to wait till everything showed up. According to my app, not even half the stuff arrived on time. I won’t die without it. I understand that some of the things I ordered come from far away. I’m sure this makes me a hypocrite to a certain degree but I can’t help myself. It’s a new toy and it’s going to take me a while to adapt. I probably spent money I didn’t need to spend on things that I didn’t need to have. Or maybe I’ve saved my own life. In any case, I believe everything I got was important.

I’m going to take a brief pause and go build a fire.

So tomorrow is my last day. I suppose I feel a bit nostalgic. It’s not really that I have so many people to share this with. I know I have what readers I have and I also know that I’m not really making an impact with any of my great theories. I didn’t make any effort this year to advertise or be public. I wrote online and everything I wrote is available. And I know that there are people who know who I am because of this. But it’s not an epic moment in anyone’s life. Just another period of my own life coming to a conclusion, a few more ideas than I had before and fortunately or unfortunately even more clarity than anyone really needs.

It does feel different this year though. It’s probably the war. It’s really difficult to feel secure in any life when people are wandering around with guns and killing each other. I am completely disgusted by the entire affair. There is nothing beautiful about war and a war fought entirely for under the table economics is truly disgusting. It sucks all the life out of everything and it’s really hard to feel good about supporting anything here with what I know has been going on with our Southern neighbor. This was never needed and should never have happened.

I think the biggest difference between last year and this year is that last year I knew I would end up in the hospital at the end of the year. In fact, I pretty much based everything that was happening to me last year on the fact that when I finished writing, I was going in. I had to quit a month early when my foot exploded basically. There were quite a few times this year when I believed that I would be back in the hospital but right now I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I’m not completely happy with my situation. Maybe some medical help will make things right. The black male and extortion was not necessary of course. But no pun intended, I’m only a step or two away from being okay. Not wonderful. Not young and full of life. But potentially livable.

I think what I’m saying is that I feel okay. Life’s not perfect but I definitely have the life I wanted. I’m not completely secure but I’m not afraid. Basically, I’m just not worried about it.