Wednesday, April 27th 2022

Kind of good morning. It’s already 10:00 and I’ve just eaten one of the tastiest breakfasts I’ve had in a long time. The center was the potatoes that I found while path digging yesterday. I don’t know if their situation being hard packed into the dirt all winter had something to do with why they tasted so good. Maybe it was that I used some of this oil and added in just a little bit of whole wheat flour at the end to make a coating. Kind of a semi hush puppy finish or a pseudo Jojo. I don’t know what you call this. It’s a trick I learned by paying attention to Asian restaurant cooking. For them, it’s that cornstarch in the end that makes the magic. They are talking about sauces but even in a basically dried dish, it is magic.

Also the coffee is again otherworldly. One scoop of coffee and one scoop of cocoa powder. I let it boil over the top of my Turkish pot which gives me yet another job to do. But it’s delicious and goes beautifully with a slightly greasy breakfast.

I still have at least one day of heavy labor. I still need to transport some Forest humus to enrich and put some potential life into the lower gardens. My estimate at a maximum would be 20 trips. 20 trips would be a lot. I don’t have to have all of this done by Sunday. I haven’t spoken to my ex partner so I do not know exactly what is coming up. But we can spill over a little and nobody is going to die.

But it is madness how much there is to do. There are so many nuances that I physically need to take care of that I’m becoming uncertain to keep them all in my head. I truly need a secretary. I need someone working with me. I’m not complaining really about my relationship with my ex partner. She is a great friend and I’m happy for her enthusiasm to help with the gardening. She’s kind of my buying agent these days. But I really need help.

I know who I want for this job. I know the person I absolutely want but I doubt I will get her. I also doubt that she would actually do the job with enthusiasm if she did get it. She has got one of these Belarusian mindsets and believes herself to be higher than me or my situation or probably anything on the planet. Yes, I have the alcoholic thoughts to bring her down but I’m not going to do anything of the sort. I’m going to let her have her days and I just basically say quiet prayers that a moment of wisdom pops into her head. It won’t but, you know, I say the prayers anyway.

I’m also not particularly thinking of my ex-girlfriend. That would be a fiasco. The divergence of our lives is almost mathematical symmetry. It is possible that I threw myself into rethinking and recreating my life because of our breakup. It is possible that I gained energy for the direction I was going because it was the polar opposite of her thinking. I don’t want to say that it was 100% of the fuel because that would demean and insult everything I have learned and all the changes I have made. I know I made the right choices and I know I am doing the right thing. But what I’m saying is that she has become a model for the part of society I am working against. She literally is the enemy.

Again, let’s take a good strong look at this because I understand it might seem at a glance to be personal and not about empirical scientific evidence about quality of life on Earth. She is a massive consumer. She is a consumer of everything that can be consumed. She is a unidirectional consumer which means that there is nothing being offered back. I don’t blame her for the unrepentant hedonism. That’s how we got together in the first place. In fact I don’t blame her at all. And no, I do not hate her.

But if by some lunatic chance of thinking, she herself decided that she wanted to pitch in and jump on my side, this would be difficult. In conversations over the last few years, it was very obvious that she has been waiting for me to gather my armies and make a great offensive about getting her with me. I did that once before and she probably thinks that has to be part of our relationship. But over the last few years, I cannot do it. I cannot fight the battle because I’m not quite sure I want the victory. In fact, there are quite a few wars that I am not fighting because the people asking me to kiss their asses with great effort from Good Old Adam are people that I do not believe will bring any positiveness to my life whatsoever with their presence.

“But she’s hot, right?”

Well, let me put it this way. Maybe you think of the greatest vacation destination you can possibly imagine. I don’t need to make any suggestions but let’s just say it’s a wonderful Beach Paradise or an exciting City. I like marijuana so let’s say it’s an opportunity to go to Amsterdam or someplace where it’s legal. Gosh oh gee, an all expenses paid vacation to Amsterdam. Such excitement.

But let’s say you live there. Let’s say you live with the tourism and the consumerism and the noise and the pollution and the crime. Let’s say you live there and actually have to work for a living. Let’s say you live there and none of the things that are exciting from the perspective of a tourist has even the slightest pull for you anymore. You’ve been there, you’ve done that and you are sick of it because you see the underbelly of it and live with the consequences.

I’m just saying that I’ve been there and I’ve seen the underbelly up close. I know what runs the engine and how the engine runs. Or if you just want to leave it at pure drama, I’ve already read this author cover to cover. We are not going to have any surprises and the plots are imminently predictable.

Or I can say this another way and say that the last thing I want in the entire world is drama. This would be from the ex-girlfriend or the ex daughter. Believe me, my ex partner is a very self-sufficient lady. She has no need on a daily basis to be parasitic to me in any way. She does occasionally pull the pin on a drama grenade. She does require this as I suppose all women do. But for the most part, we live independently by choice and both of us have already read the book cover to cover on the other.

Plus she’s actually here. Kind of. Over the phone or potentially once a week if I can keep her from killing everything she touches.

This desire for some help is nothing new. I have been dreaming of decent help ever since I’ve been in business out here. I have never managed to find a legitimate partner for anything I have done. I’ve never managed to hire, partner with or accept help from anyone who actually threw themselves into the job with enough alacrity to actually cause any positive results. People here just don’t understand about creating opportunities. People here do not understand that it is the work ethic that gets things done. People here by Nature just wait for their paycheck. It’s a disease and it’s sure as hell not getting any better with all of this brand new modern consumerism.

Like I said, people will find a way to kill themselves. And if we consider the addition of factory food to a community that only one generation ago was eating whole foods, we are looking at the 40% cancer rate and the 30% diabetes rate hitting this place like yet another pandemic. It’s possible that the doctors know about this. But you are not going to find any evidence of genuine thinking in the public safety department. Like in all things and everywhere you look, they just want the money and they don’t care who dies to get it.

There are some local possibilities that I might explore. I don’t want to be shitty to my ex partner but she has made it clear that she is going to run her contract to the end of time and she’s looking at more than half a decade before she stops sitting at her desk and staring at her computer. She has told me that she would reconsider if I became rich and could give her a guaranteed salary. Again, she is not the opportunity maker here.

I’m also a bit ambivalent about it because I empirically do not believe I’m going to find any diamonds in the rough. My ex-girlfriend was a diamond in the rough. She was a keeper or would have been a keeper but she was in love with the Russians. Now, she raises her fist in Instagram politics and makes memes in favor of the ukrainians. You go girl. But when it was a matter of push and shove and she was in the position to put her money where her mouth is, no pun intended, she went with the Russians and smiled in my face about it very much like the chicken lady next door. Cut from the same cloth? Same culture. Same people.

But this is all to the negative. We’ve actually acquired one particular type of ivy and we know that it’s going to go as a living barrier in front of the fence that separates me from the road. It is, or it will be when it fully develops, a wonderful living barrier to keep the auto fumes from coming on my property. Also, if I extend the top of my fence to accommodate the ivy, it will also be a visual barrier to my property.

It’s a funny thing about creativity though. When you look as I am looking right now through my kitchen window at said fence, and you envision this thing covered by ivy, the thought of doing more of this or working with this type of plant brings up new ideas.

The fence that we’re covering of course is on either side of the entrance gate. And if we are growing ivy, there’s absolutely no reason not to make a trellis over the entrance way. This is not my property this is just a picture of someone else who has done this but this is rather pretty isn’t it? I doubt very much I would do this kind of precision cutting but the idea of having a living archway around the entrance is rather nice. I could go for something like this.

But once I started thinking in this direction, I started thinking about trellises and Vines in general. The fence we are talking about is somewhat north to south but I have lovely Southern exposure on all of my growing property. If I were to add a second trellis tunnel, we would have a remarkable place for three or even four grapevines leading from the entrance to the entrance of my house.

Doing this of course would remove a little bit of the view that I have right now. I like to sit in my kitchen with the door open and I have a particular landscape before my eyes. It’s a view of the road which means I can see people going by occasionally. It is not a very busy road. But it is also the place where I get to get gassed from my chicken neighbors who cannot get the hint that abusing their next door neighbor is not profitable or brings any happiness to the world. Would I give up my view for something like this? Yes. Yes, I think I would. If it would make them go away and allow me to grab a handful of grapes on my way to the front door, yeah, I could go for that.

No, I’m not planning any massive renovations to the house itself. I don’t really have the money to play with construction. I’m also not unhappy with the house that is here. It is not dilapidated. It may be out of date if you are a modernist commercial thinker. But it has managed to stand here for 50 years and it is watertight and comfortable enough for all four seasons. Well, you have to work on it in the winter time but I got through this winter without too much problem. It’s an interesting lifestyle but it didn’t kill me.

I mean, yeah there are things that I could do to improve the house. I could improve the basic insulation. I probably could replace the windows to add some more protection against weather changes. And if I really wanted to, I could rebuild the stove situation in the war room and in the kitchen. I would keep it as it is with fireplaces in wood stoves but I would use a more efficient configuration that does a better job of keeping the place warm. And if I really felt rich, I would put one more wood stove in the corner of the office to make that room more usable and palatable in the winter months.

But this is a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of materials, none of which are essential. None of this is needed for happiness or safety. No major changes are needed whatsoever. I’ve not only adapted to living out here, I’ve gotten used to it and I’ve come to like it just the way it is.

Gardening though, this is a different thing. Gardening is beauty. Gardening is nature. Gardening is edible art. Gardening is life. Working with the property I have and adding in some bits of potential beauty, this is very exciting to me. And the best thing about it, there is really not much cost to any of these things that we were thinking of. There are no massive materials needed. It’s just a matter of planning the planting well, looking after what we’ve planted and allowing these things to grow and enjoying them as they do.

This is all dreaming though. It’s not really dreaming, it’s kind of planning. But right now, there is a ton of work to do. There are a ton of things to do all together and many things that I have to do that require a lot of physical labor on my part to get them done.

Today is Wednesday and I have to go to town at least once this week. I’m not sure I need to sleep in town. It’s not really that much of a difference except if I want to spend an evening with my ex partner. But there is a lot of digging and hauling to be done in the two days other than my trip to town and unfortunately, I am really tired.

But, the potatoes have been eaten. The energy is starting to course through my veins. The coffee has been drunk and the cocoa and the caffeine are stimulating my nervous system into action. I’ve got a pencil and a clipboard to make a list of things that need to get done. My legs are in surprisingly good shape and as far as injuries are concerned, vodka is an excellent sterilizing and cleaning agent. I couldn’t bring myself to drink anymore of it yesterday. This shit is not my drug of choice. But it was great about cleaning up some skin problems from earlier on. It also helps the cotton gauze burn brighter as fire starters.

Also, that junk wood that failed to burn when I was shit faced two nights ago does in fact burn very well. I had a nice warm room to sleep in last night and after I woke up at about 2:00 a.m., too warm to sleep, and turned off all electrical heaters completely. The big one is in the closet already and the other one is going to find its way in there very soon.

And what else?

I am thinking of going to visit the police office that concerns my neighborhood when I’m in town and having a conversation either with the police officer or his boss. I could file a formal protest or open a court case against my neighbors. But it might be more accomplishable to just simply have an open conversation with the officials. They are partly responsible for this bullshit I have to live with with these chicken people. Maybe a discussion more than a formal paper might work better. And besides, nobody wants drama. Really, nobody wants drama.

***

Got an interesting note from a female friend speaking to me about my references to three women earlier today. This would be the chicken woman, my ex-girlfriend and my ex partner. What my female friend said was that I was fighting them. The implication is that I should go with it and be kind and let the women do what they want to do and be happy or even ecstatic about the possibility of the emotions that come as a result of this normal Belarusian behavior.

I hope that makes sense. To say that another way, my job as a man is to placate women or women’s insanity because I am a man and they are women and this is the way life is.

I am first of all not exactly sure that I can agree with this analysis because I’m not exactly sure that I am fighting anybody. I’m not sure a reticence to placate means fighting. A Renaissance to do anything might be better seen as common sense or pain avoidance. Perhaps it should be better understood that I am not fighting these people as much as dealing with them.

There is a game that is played here called “pay attention to me”. It is generally a female game but it is also played by males who were raised by low rent women. Basically it means that if you are foolish enough to have paid attention to them, they now do something which is very much akin to nothing and within their understanding of how the game is played you are now obligated to do something. Does this make sense? Truly, I’m sorry because trying to make sense of women is not an exact science.

So the point being is that all three of these women are playing the game of “pay attention to me”. It doesn’t really matter if I have any needs in this, the women themselves believe that because they have been paid attention to in some way, this puts them in the driver’s seat of the game. It’s a very strange thing, kind of like a non-move in chess. Imagine if you will that you are playing chess, you move your Bishop to a square and the opposition simply passes and allows you to move again. Why do they do this? Because they are happy with their current position and they are very interested in what you will do now that you are uncomfortable because of having accidentally or non accidentally paid attention to them.

Maybe fishing is a better way to explain this. We used to have a word called hooking and women who practice this game were called hookers, especially those who practice this game for money. At least two of the three women I am referring to are or have been professional hookers within the boundaries of their lifetimes.

Am I getting a little bit more clear yet?

Okay, so basically because of geographic proximity, the movement of the seasons or arbitrary arrangement of birth dates, all three of these women and potentially for if I include the one I mentioned before that I might actually be interested in working with, all of them are just simply doing nothing and smiling because they have been paid attention to and now all that they have to do is be annoying and they win their game.

So when I make this speech about having these loose Cannon women in my life who serve no realistic purpose of helping me go from A to B, what I’m talking about is the fact that in my lifetime, for good or for bad, I have actually paid attention to these people. Some for a significant amount of time because I wanted to be with them, some for a significant amount of time because I don’t want to be with them and others just because they do this for money and they have no other vocabulary anymore.

Or in other words, I’m not trying to win or even play this game. I apologize for having all of my senses and my ability to see or notice or smell or hear about these people I’m speaking about simply means that they have a small room in my head. There is nothing I can do about it. I’ve never figured out how to evict them and unfortunately, none of them ever pay the rent.

By the way, as an aside, I figured out this hotel in my head analogy when I was in Oregon and in the very first moments of figuring out what to do with myself as an independent. There were a god-awful amount of people passing through my consciousness for one reason or another. I heard an unnecessary amount of stories and got involved for one reason or another with many, many people.

On the positive side, there were a lot of women. There were a lot of women who wanted physical attention and this I found to be a great bonus. I really didn’t mind having some number of women enjoying my attention. That was a definite plus.

There were a bunch of men in this group, none of them were paying rent and a lot of them ended up getting punched in the face. This was not a very positive part of having a bunch of people walk through my head.

But all in all, it was a pretty interesting and extremely social place to be. The only bad thing about it was I wasn’t doing a damn thing business-wise at that time. I was just dealing with the fact that I wasn’t employed or heading anywhere or obligated to do anything. I wasn’t in the situation by choice. Frankly, I thought I was in that town for a job. But what happened happened and the experience is with me for good or for bad and I have a lot of memories.

You know, I’ve never actually understood why I am so lucky or unlucky to get all this attention. I’ve never actually gotten what the attraction is most of the time. I mean, you can figure that a lot of it here is about money because people are paralyzed with fear because of the most egregious economic system in the world. Seriously, we are more fucked than Central Africa here and it disturbs people to be like this even while White. I’m not overstating it, I’m just commenting on the mindset.

But still, it’s been 20 years. You think there would have been a new idea or a second thought somewhere along the way. When thinking of my ex-girlfriend, you would think she would have given me some credit for understanding the situation already. And as far as the chicken woman is concerned, for the life of me I cannot see where the enjoyment is in any of this. My ex partner and I are absolutely the same and both of us are interested in doing some gardening. And as far as that wild card that I mentioned but did not name very well, well, I have the same exact complaint. There is and has not been an original thought for a very, very long time.

This is the saddest part of this stupid game of “pay attention to me”. I mean, I understand why my female friend would think that it should be exciting for me to get some female attention. I get that part. It’s just that I’ve had quite a bit of female attention in my life and I’ve seen and dealt with this game many many many times. Maybe someone could forgive me for just being bored to death. There’s just nothing interesting in this cute little puzzle anymore. There’s no prize to win and it’s all just more work for me.

And believe me, I have way come away, way more work to do than my body is happy with. I am really tired right now and I have more to do without any extra bullshit than I can keep in my head.

What I need is some help, not additional problems from bullshit fishermen.

***

Thank you. I love it when people actually follow me while I’m writing. He said that they are annoying me with their betrayals. Thank you. Hit the nail on the head.

***

Okay, I finally made it outside and I want to explain exactly what’s going on right now. I have three garden areas. One is generally populated by the beans we planted. They are starting to appear and grow and there is a tiny bit of weeding and adjusting that needs to be done but those gardens are in play. In addition to those there are maybe three and a half or four small garden spots that need to be fertilized a little bit. This is where I’m now dumping Forest humus.

There is a problem in this though and it came from perhaps poor planning or perhaps because this rethinking of the layout is now presenting a problem.

Last year, I really wasn’t thinking about keeping so much area for planting. My ex-partner is a fascist and unfortunately, some of the things she said resonated well with me. Also this year I am capable of being a bit more physical. Anyway, I’ve done a bit more architecture than I thought I was going to do last year and right now I am stuck with an oak tree that I planted somewhat nostalgically right in the middle of what is now supposed to be a pretty cool horseshoe shaped Garden.

I really wasn’t planning on doing anything to this area and I was just going to give it to Nature except for digging holes and planting trees. But we are planting crops this year. Probably this year and at least the next 2 to 5 until the canopy of the fruit trees drowns out the light.

So now we have this oak tree. Normally I would respect the thought and just let her grow and do what she wants to do but it’s difficult to know whether she lived through the transplanting or not. Certain trees bloom later than others. The birch trees and the willows are already carrying small leaves and the place has erupted in the last week or so in spring greens. Even the horseradish which grows in abundance is starting to show its shoots. That by the way is not really a salad green but it is an excellent spicy stir fry vegetable if you like wild food.

So right now I’m staring at this oak tree which is either dead or very slow. If I leave it where it is, I lose some meters of what would otherwise be or rather an elegant little horseshoe shaped Garden.

Again, the eventual plan is to plant fruit trees down the middle of all of these growing spaces and use the area around them for berry bushes. This is the five or seven year plan. But right now this oak tree is in the way but I cannot for the life of me make the decision of whether to pull it up and move it or pull it up and say thank you for trying but you didn’t make it.

I hate to sound like the chicken woman, and if it means anything to you her henpecked husband has just arrived in his miserable vehicle in a cloud of poisonous smoke, but all of the rest of the trees that I planted last year are indeed alive and showing signs of life. There are little micro leaves and micro branches growing. They are all new trees so I’m not expecting so much from them this year. But they are alive and doing what living plants do.

Okay, let’s say snowflakes win. This oak tree is an individual. He’s a thinker. He likes to get high and ponder the world and its nuances. He’s not interested in growing leaves to gather sunlight. He just wants to sit there and think deep thoughts and he doesn’t care what everyone thinks of him or even what he looks like.

I can respect that.

By the way, the chicken woman has just arrived as well. The smell of her is much more pronounced. There is poison in the air right now. She brings a cloud of poison with her wherever she goes. It’s etched on my consciousness every time I think of her or see her or hear her scratchy screaming voice. She is poison. She is poison through and through. Poison has returned to the garden.

And if you’d like to talk about popularity contests, nobody who actually lives here likes these people. They don’t live here. They’re just money people. They don’t live here. They don’t experience this place. They just suck resources and stink and poison everything they touch.

Anyway, I just brought a wheelbarrow of forest hummus and dropped it in Garden number one. I know I just have to go back in and find some more useful places to pick up some of this ancient soil. I’m not going to do anything to hurt the forest. I’m just digging swales and bringing the extra material into my gardens for some extra fertility. But I would love to either take that oak tree out or admire her life. I really wish you would do something already because I’m getting tired of this waiting.

If you are wondering why I’m taking the trouble to talk about this, it is probably because this is yet another woman seemingly playing the game of “pay attention to me” by not doing anything or saying anything or showing any signs of anything except her femininity and her right to stand there right in the middle of my life.

And I remember how she got here. I made the decision to bring her here. I was feeling nostalgic and I thought it was a cool idea to plant an oak tree right exactly where I did. I didn’t anticipate that there would be a lot of activity around her. I really thought she could just sit there and grow and be elegant. Now she’s bloody well in the way and not doing anything to prove that she should even be here. Damn. Seriously, damn.

***

You know, one of the coolest things about internet blogging is that you ask a question and you get an answer. Sometimes instantly.

Just consider it a mistake. If the tree means something to you, dig a hole somewhere and throw it in it. If it wants to live, it will live and if it’s dead, it’s dead. If you want to use this Garden for something more important, just move the tree and screw the nostalgia. Oak trees by the way are not known to be helpful to vegetable gardens. You are probably better off without it.

You know, it sounds like wisdom to me. I mean, it wasn’t just empty nostalgia. I genuinely thought I was making a statement with that oak tree. But looking back on the entire situation, I myself didn’t even plant that damn thing. It was planted by a local alcoholic who used up an entire bucket of fireplace ash unnecessarily in the hole. That’s the thing about alcoholics. They are just too brutal for words. And what is more, the fucker decided to say a Christian prayer when he planted it. No wonder the thing’s not growing.

Sorry Miss Oak tree. We have made a small bureaucratic blender and you will not be staying with us very much longer. I’m going to find you a place very near the forest where you can be with your friends if you choose to show up for the conversation. You have been a meaningful icon to us. An inspiration even. But progress is progress and frankly my dear, you’re just not doing your job. We have standards around here and if you can’t show up for work, you can’t expect to get paid.

Ironically, I could make that very same speech to that one girl who I am waiting for to come help me. Fits like a glove.

Damn, I love this garden. There are as many metaphors flying around as there are butterflies. And as I said those words, a beautiful yellow butterfly came by, said “good day, Mr Goodman. Are we going to have wild flowers this year?”

I said that indeed we will. Nobody’s cutting grass on this land. There will be no weed wackers this year. True, I have taken a little space for myself to grow some human food. But I am pretty sure it’s going to fit in with the rest of the garden especially if I don’t do anything to stop nature whatsoever.

***

It’s 3:30 on Wednesday. This is the time when the garbage truck comes. I have not contributed in 3 weeks and possibly a month. I have no garbage except for the packaging for the food that I buy sometimes from the supermarkets. I collected it in one small waste basket and when I heard the truck, I was happy to get rid of it. Both the henpecked husband and the hunchback were there. We did not exchange pleasantries. Hate is our official currency. But let it be said, that both of their families contributed much, much more to the landfill then I did. Their bags were bigger, the amount of garbage that they throw away every single week is much, much more than I took the trouble to get rid of this week. But like, fuck them, right? Fuck them because there is no better way to explain our relationship to these mercilessly stupid people. Fuck them.

I don’t say this out loud too much but I am a teacher. It is my profession and has been my profession for two decades to be a teacher. And the only thing a teacher hates more than the bureaucracy of the state saying what should and should not be taught is stupid motherfuckers who never learn a God damn thing.

Fuck me? No assholes, fuck you. And yes, I have complete control and command over my language and your language. I understand my culture and I understand your culture. And what is more, I absolutely recognize trash when I see it.

Fuck you all very much and y’all can wait about a month before the next time I accumulate enough garbage to bother going out on Wednesdays to put it on the truck. Remember I said that. When you are dying, remember that I said that. When you come to the conclusion that the world is dying, you remember that I said that.

***

This may not mean anything to anybody but I finally bought back green2021.org. My old web hosting program was really shitty to me about paying for it. It probably cost me some views. I don’t really care anymore. I did a remarkable amount of work on that website. Whether it was good or bad, I did a lot of writing there and tried really hard to talk about ecology as being the most important thing in the world.

Last night at 2:00 in the morning I checked and found out that it was finally unlocked and available for anybody and I bought it for $8. $8 and this was all it cost for all of that work that I did.

The blog came in at 1.6 million words. Like I said the other day, there were several reasonable short stories and some children’s books and quite a few essays. Maybe it should exist as a standalone book. I don’t really know. I haven’t given it that much time or thought. But I did give somebody $8 last night and now I own the domain name again. Isn’t that wonderful? Don’t you feel really good about that $8?

***

Okay, I am in the warm room at about 7:30 p.m. and I am attempting to light a fire with junk wood. Excuse me, I think it requires my attention.

This is pretty cool. Movie I need to do something or maybe I don’t. I’m pretty good at building fires these days and I think I have enough hand cut kindling to make this thing go. Most of the real fuel here is residual garbage from the load of wood I got from the state. But if you put four pieces of decent kindling in there, started by half a sheet of newspaper, it’s enough to get this damn thing going. For a moment it was touch and go but now a genuine fire is starting. It will be warm in here tonight and I will not need any electrical help.

The question I am asking myself right now is what the truth is. How much truth am I actually putting here on these pages of this blog. Am I just ridiculously stating everything that comes to mind or am I being political and reserving what I say because of some idealistic thought. Most probably it’s the second. I am saying what I think but I am not telling 100% of the truth. That is to say, I am not explaining every single detail of my life. That would be ridiculous and for the most part impossible. I’m trying to tell the truth about what I’m thinking and about the basics of my day to day. But of course, there are things I don’t talk about here.

Fires are beautiful things. I can’t tell you what it’s like having a fireplace in the room I sleep in. It’s more than interesting having a fire to keep my head warm at night. I’ve had locals tell me that I’m sleeping wrong and my head is supposed to be on the other side of the bed and my feet are supposed to be near the fire. But I have gotten used to that feeling of warmth under my neck and head when I flipped the pillow over that has been sitting next to the firebox. I like the argument of a cold room against this stove with a fire that I built before I went to bed. It has become a part of my life.

I do think it’s important to talk a little bit about brutality and alcohol. I am drinking right now though I am coming to the end of the alcohol I bought from the local store the last time I went there. Dinner of potatoes and what vegetables I have available and a tiny bit of salty pickles was ridiculously tasty. Potatoes are the greatest food in the world. Well, you can argue with me but if you grew the potatoes yourself, you might agree with me.

This is not what I wanted from my life. I took the trouble to message a couple of people tonight and tell them that and I was not happy that they were not with me in this way of thinking. In a perfect world, they already knew what I was thinking and we’re working with these thoughts because they knew that it was correct. But this is bullshit. Of course when I called them, I was talking shit and I needed to be argued with or ignored. Of course, nothing I was talking about was already in their mind or part of their thinking.

But this is not a fall into depression for me. This is normal. This was part of the game before I even started to play and it was all the reason for all of the things that I’m doing these days without even bothering to identify each individual piece. I knew this already before any of this bullshit even started.

But I wish to be an optimist. I wish to think of good things. I have been an optimist since I was 15 years old and recognize the difference in how I saw the world between when I was smoking cigarettes and when I was not. Cigarette smoking led me to understand the ugliness of the world and not smoking therefore had to mean optimism. I can’t prove that scientifically but hopefully you can see my point of view.

The war in Ukraine continues on. The war for the hearts and minds of the people of Belarus continues on. The propaganda War continues. The war against me continues. Everybody’s fight against something or other continues because nobody knows of a world of peace. I can’t even speak of such a thing without being thought of as dismissible. I am dismissable because I think peace is a reasonable cause to not fight for.

All I wanted was a small place of my own where I might grow some vegetables and enjoy a moment or two in nature. All I wanted was to hear the birds sing without interruption. All I wanted was to observe nature in all of its nuances without so much bullshit in my ears. All I wanted was some fresh air to breathe.

I will not lie to you. I’m pretty fucking drunk right now. I’m drinking because. I’m drinking because life is empty. I’m drinking because I’m extremely tired. I’m drinking because my relationships are all compromised. I’m drinking because the only people I know who are reading me are government agencies. I’m drinking because what I believe to be true is ignored by the vast percentage of the population. And I’m drinking because I don’t want to drink. Period.