Thursday, July 21 2022

SPOCK: Captain. May I ask a question? You needn’t answer if it seems too personal.
KIRK: I’m sure I’ll be able to give you an answer, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: This afternoon, you wanted to kill, didn’t you?
MCCOY: But he didn’t kill, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: But he wanted to, Doctor.
KIRK: Is that the way it seemed to you, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: Yes, Captain.
KIRK: Mister Spock, you’re absolutely right. That’s exactly the way it was.
SPOCK: Mankind, ready to kill.
KIRK: That’s the way it was in 1881.
SPOCK: I wonder how humanity managed to survive.
KIRK: We overcame our instinct for violence.

From Spectre Of The Gun, from season 3 of Star Trek

Good morning. It’s 10:30 a.m. and I think this is the latest start I have made all year. I don’t feel like I need to make excuses for my tardiness. I have nobody genuinely waiting for me to do this and certainly no one who has ever complained about my being late or early. 

It’s been a bit of a morning until now. A lot has happened and a lot has gotten done. Basically, I was up very early this morning. Another mostly sleepless night. It’s really hard to find that sweet spot to head off into sleep unfortunately. I really do need to work on that.

I was awake and thinking mostly. I was thinking about a lot of things that are unsatisfying in my life. I definitely do not wish to paint any pictures saying that I live a life that others should envy. You can look at my life and lifestyle and find some things that more people should probably get into by choice. There are an infinite number of people who are there without making any choices who suffer many of the similar abuses that I am. I’m talking about what you would call poverty. It seems to be against the law to enjoy a less moneyed existence. But if you have a love for minimalism and if you are one who has already lost their taste for being shaken down endlessly, that I live as inexpensively as I do is a definite plus. Again, you’d have to want to see it this way.

What this means is that I’m really just not that worried about money right now. Why not? because I’ve done everything in my power to create a lifestyle that doesn’t require a lot of money. Of course in the winter, I will be obliged to purchase more food. We didn’t really grow enough food for complete self-sufficiency this year. It’s more of a hobby farm for my ex partner than anything. Perhaps next year I’ll do better and be more practical.

The medical deal is more than a little bothersome. I feel that they have intentionally made me suffer and caused me health problems that I would not have had if they had just simply done their job in a reasonable way. I believe this to be the truth. And of course, I have my ridiculously horrific neighbors who just never ever wish to stop screaming for my attention. Why these people require so much for me is beyond my understanding. We don’t have business together, we have absolutely nothing in common, I do not do anything for them either on a friendly basis or professionally and I require none of their professional services or interpersonal conversations. I just don’t need them and yet, they simply cannot live a day without making me the star of their show.

So I did get in touch with Lena and she did come by exactly on time today to help clean the floors. Lana and I get along pretty well. I’m usually pretty good about keeping good relationships with people I’m obliged to spend time with for one reason or another. My father taught me not to shit in my own backyard. This is a saying that has to do with keeping things light on your own territory and not to bring War to your own home. This of course is completely against the mindset of my chicken neighbor and her henpecked husband. She believes the world should be under constant stress just like herself. She’s not interested in people taking it easy. She believes the world should be insane like her all the time.

So I got the full story from Lana. She told me that she was harassed at an apothecary shop by the wife of the hunchback. I don’t believe I have ever met her actually face to face but the hunchback receives money for working for the henpecked husband so all of them feel that their life is more interesting to be in cahoots in such an interesting game.

It turns out that they called the police because Lena came to clean my floors. We can put some kind of logic on this. This call is obviously illogical but we can assume something like she wants it to appear like I am some kind of lunatic terrorist bringing pain to other people. Apparently, it’s difficult to notice someone who walks around bringing pain to other people all day or the irony that they would use that to scapegoat someone else. This is not a new Russian game. This is perhaps one of the most normal apparatuses for corruption for the region. Literally, this is the same as the Russians calling the ukrainians Nazis. There is no logic to it, they just take their own crimes and put it on a Jew’s head and that’s how we play the game.

Before you start thinking this is sour grapes, I am quite sure that there is a historical basis for what I am saying. Let’s just ask the Oracle and I bet you we get some pretty good answers.

Jews as scapegoats?

Guess what? It’s a thing. It’s a thing that has been a part of history for as long as there has been history.

You might ask me why I’m calling this anti-semitism. I’m doing so for two distinct regions. When my neighbor decided to start her program of terror, this with the help of the skinhead cop, after this, there was a moment when the henpecked husband literally started speaking to me in German. When I told him that I spoke English and not German, he literally said heil Hitler.

After this there were several specific incidents where they attempted to disturb my peace on a Saturday. Even if that might be kind of vague, there was the visit that they paid to me on pascha, this is Russian Easter. On Easter Sunday and knowing that my biggest complaint against them is there inability to curtail their miserable machines and stop throwing carbon monoxide into my house, they literally sat in their car drove out of there house, stood in front of mine honking the horn for my attention so they could smile at me and then simply drove back onto their own property. If you want to say that I’m not really seeing things correctly or I don’t know what anti-Semitism is, you’re probably not appropriate for my audience.

After this, we can take almost the entirety of the war in Ukraine and the propaganda from the Russians regarding their actions as being The identical thing. I see all of this as anti-semitism, perhaps welcome to non-jews fighting for the Russians or at least understandable to them. And I’m sure to the mind of both Russian nationalists and Christians, reasonable justification to do whatever they wanted. Again, this is a historical matter of fact. It’s not conjecture.

Russia’s relationship to Jews?

You might get a bit confused by the opening blurb, hate is something people tend to avoid on the internet these days. But scroll down through the articles and I think my point gets made pretty convincingly.

If you would like to know why the chicken lady is doing this, I have a pretty solid opinion about that. She is not white. She’s not from here. She’s from Uzbekistan and from a questionable background. She’s one of these money loving people who didn’t get along with her own people and could not wait to leave. The henpecked husband was working there and found the love of his life in a woman of lower economic standing who genuinely appreciated him. If you think this is a difficult story to understand, go back to television.

My guess is that she has been eating from the shit end of the stick since she’s been here. It is doubtful people have been open to her. She’s a miserable bitch as far as I can see so it isn’t like her Sunny personality won people over. Basically, as power and money are the only things that mean anything to her, she has been using this entire thing as an opportunity to raise her position in this miserable town. If she can create decent anti-semitic hatred towards me, this would be the wonderful cocktail of anti-American plus anti-Semitic, she herself can join the US and finally use someone else as the THEM. Finally after all these years of being laughed at, she finally has an opportunity to be white.

In addition to getting abused at the apothecary, The hunchback also turned his attention towards Lena asking why she would come to me. She was quite upset telling me about this. She logically understood that it was none of his business. Unfortunately, Lena has her own status problem here. She also hates the cop who groups her with the untouchable class of Street alcoholics who live here. The skinhead cop apparently has no problem objectifying and abusing people depending on their status. He’s had an interesting time with me because I’m American. He had his big opportunity to threaten me and apparently it just didn’t work. Now he’s confused about his own stratification. Fucking senseless people here. Probably the same as anywhere else but truly, they are fucking senseless people.

To the credit of her character and the necessity of her wallet, Lena showed up. I’ve never caused her any harm and a day’s work is a day’s work. She does a reasonable job of cleaning the floor and as I said, she’s not a bad person to talk to for a few minutes. She’s one of these people who wears her heart on her sleeve and is very open at sharing all of the problems of her life. She wants to be helpful and she really doesn’t feel that she has any protection against the world. She’s a widow, mostly blind, completely alcoholic and lives in poverty. I apologize for any stereotypes there but I find her to be quite nice.

My guess is that I am about the only person that treats her with kindness and respect in her world. Maybe she has a few neighbors who speak kindly with her. She certainly has enough friends. I’m just saying but my manner is probably unique for her. That was the story with almost all of my ex-girlfriends. I don’t know what people thought as to why I had a reasonable love life there for a while. I was just nice to them without making them feel like they were beneath me. It’s funny how much love you get back when you actually offer some.

That particular drug however is unavailable to the chicken woman. I would never in my right mind invite so much hypertension into my life. I don’t need any chickens clucking around me or pecking me. I am unobligated to the woman and I have no intention of looking for any interaction with her whatsoever. At best, I just pray for brain damage from all of that banging her head against the floor looking for chicken feed. Or maybe her car will crash. I’m sorry, I don’t have warm thoughts for someone who has now called the cops on me twice with false charges.

Can you imagine that? She called the cops because a woman came to my house to clean my floors.

Anyway, I’ve got the whole story and like I said, it’s amazing to me the hunger that they have for attention over there. I don’t know that I ever do anything to touch them. I don’t talk to them, I don’t call them, I don’t ask for favors or to borrow money. I don’t ask their opinions or even make small talk across the fence. I don’t borrow their tools or ask them for a ride to town. I never speak to them ever and yet, with some sense of complete psychosis, they simply cannot live without trying to find a way to suck my blood. It’s crazy when you get deeply into observing parasitism. Quite a cult.

Anyway, that’s the whole story. I don’t have a lot of money on me anymore. Lena has gotten most of it from the run to the store yesterday for me and the floor washing today. She’s also washing some clothes for me. I’ve made sure to give her the clothing on Thursday. Even if she gets drunk and forgets about it, she understands that she’s got a 4:00 limit either today or tomorrow to bring them back. She will. I have not a single doubt in my mind.

But now I genuinely have to get serious about bringing my neighbor to court. I’m going to have to file charges against them. There are some technical issues in the Republic of Belarus about suing people. If you try to take money from people, you have to put up a bond in order to do it. I guess they see the law as sort of a poker game and you can’t play unless you can prove that you have money to put on the table. There are nuances to this and I am no expert. But it certainly seems as though they need some official restraint. It also wouldn’t hurt the cop to be on record. 

He doesn’t really seem to want to abuse me anymore. Like I said, I think he has already overextended himself and probably the words international scandal show up whenever he has to come see me. He came up empty last year when he assaulted me at the request of the chicken woman. I think time has taught him that his bullshit doesn’t work with me. I’m also thinking he might actually wish to avoid a scandal. Not that I have any particular power here, he probably just doesn’t want anything bad on his record.

I tell you though, it’s not like there is any reason to expect any Christmas presents. But I would really like two things to make this situation good with me. I don’t really have huge requests and truthfully, though I might end up suing them for money, that would be more to infuriate them than my actually needing money from them. But there are two things that I would definitely like.

Firstly, I would like them to practice parking their cars so as to put less carbon monoxide and auto fumes onto my property. All of this started because I went to their house to ask them to do something about parking their cars because the stench from their vehicles is ridiculous. It disturbs my peace and I came out here for the fresh air. All of this anti-Semitism and alcoholic politics have nothing to do with my choice of coming here. I just found a property that butted up against the National Forest, had all of the buildings I need to function here and was well off the beaten path and therefore is a quiet and peaceful place with a lot of fresh air. That was it. I just didn’t want to live in town anymore. I didn’t want the noise or the pollution or the food. I just wanted to be in a peaceful place.

The second thing would be for that cop to deliver the message hard. I don’t really want to do this myself. They are much more Mafia than I am, especially with all of this bad-mouthing me around town. They enjoy spreading discredit about me which is odd considering they are probably the most disgraceful people in this town and that’s saying something if you consider the street alcoholic percent of the population. But I would be really happy if the cop bullied her one time. 

He is the law here. He is very much a bully and Lena has absolutely nothing good to say about him. I think I would very much like to avail myself of this service one time really well. I would love to hear him screaming in her face and threatening her with deportation. I would even love to find out that he put his hand on his gun just to let her know that he would be willing to kill her if she did not demonstrate obedience to his will.

That would be fair and that would be enough for me. It would certainly put her chicken ass into a hole. It would certainly lower her expectations as far as what power she actually has.

You know, I don’t really think anybody likes social climbers. There is a certain class of people that I have never really admired. I suppose in some of my writing I would refer to them as bureaucrats. Boot lickers. Glad-handers. Shiny suit carpetbaggers. My daughter one time gave me perhaps the best word that describes the chicken woman as well as any possibly could. Cocksuckers. It’s really, really hard to find a way to respect a cocksucker. There’s just no genuine value there.

Three things I know to be true. You can’t reason with alcoholics or conservatives. You can’t trust a politician that talks economy. And only a fool marries a cocksucker. Believe that. Take that to the bank.

***

I want to talk a little bit about food here. I have made a couple of basic changes this week to my diet and I’m doing so very much for specific medicinal value and I thought it might be worth talking about.

First of all, people need to understand what diabetes is. Yes, it’s high blood sugar but it does not necessarily come from putting too much sugar in your body. The high blood sugar is not the disease but a symptom and the eventual causation of the ruination of organs. The real problem with diabetes is too much fat in the muscles. It prevents red blood cells from using sugar as energy. Literally, it is fat that clogs the walls of your red blood cells that keeps sugar flowing through your system where it eventually becomes problematic.

Therefore, it is my belief that fighting diabetes or prediabetes is more dependent on fighting the amount of fat you take in on your diet. Decrease the amount of fat, specifically saturated fats that are common in animal products, and you receive better function as far as acquiring energy.

This is the theory and what I have been doing this week is putting this to the test. It’s easy enough to understand. If you eat food that makes you tired, if you are a diabetic, it means you’re eating food that is making sugar float around in your system. If you eat food that leaves you sharp and with the ability to walk around and function, you are getting energy from the food you eat.

I was thinking about some things that I have been doing wrong. I specifically do things wrong usually on Friday nights and Saturday. I enjoy the lethargy on my day off. It also allows me some psychological relief from a previous time of my life. Fridays are usually cheat meals or something like that. But what I did was to take a few elements out of the food I have been eating and the results have been obvious and clear.

Firstly, I simply put away the salt. Salt is a flavoring agent but it is not really a mineral. It makes you retain water and builds inflammation. I’m sure a certain amount of salt is good for you but then again, most foods have some Trace amounts of salt in them. You don’t really need to add salt to food and in fact if you don’t, you end up with more acute taste buds. If you stop demanding that the flavor wraps up because of adding saltiness, the actual flavor of the food starts to take over.

What happened when I put away the salt? Well, I stopped retaining water somewhat and started feeling a little bit leaner and a little bit sharper. It also takes away a certain amount of aggressiveness by not having it in your system and therefore it adds to a sense of peace and well-being. Was this a good idea? I’m thinking absolutely yes so far. Just put the salt in the closet and don’t use it when you cook.

The second thing I limited was the amount of nuts I was eating. I do like having a certain amount of fat in my diet and it’s another good protein source if you’re vegan, but I started to think that perhaps I was overdoing it. I was making very fatty blender shakes and sauces. I was very much enjoying blendering up field greens and making my dishes spicy and saucy. I was also very happy about my ability to make use of raw food. All of this is a plus.

My decision though was to replace the vast percentage of the nuts with oatmeal. Oatmeal also makes a “milk” and also has its creaminess to it but without a lot of the fats that come with peanuts or sunflower seeds. It is a less fatty milk that has a creaminess that is connected to its natural gluten content.

What happened here? Well, eating oatmeal is really good for your heart for exactly the reasons I just mentioned and the moment I made this dietetic switch, my energy came up almost double what it was before. I’m still eating meals that make me quite happy. I’m still putting a lot of spice in there to keep things interesting. I’m just not really adding salt and I’ve taken even more of the fat out of it. It still feels like comfort food, I’ve just made it even a little bit better.

Like I said, I seem to be healing okay as well which is the main point of this take it easy week.

It is ironic that the chicken woman starts clucking on my take it easy week. Perhaps on some strange level, she thinks she’s doing something she needs to do for me. Someone should definitely inform her hand packed husband that she is his responsibility and not mine. I was never foolish enough to make any legal promises to stay with her. I never have and I never will. It was his choice to be with this person, I don’t want to have anything to do with her. No offense, I really do not need any additional insanity thank you very much. I am quite content with my life without it.

***

Speaking of the perils of being jewish, this week’s Torah reading is called Pinchas (פִּֽינְחָ֨ס). Pinchas was Aaron’s grandson and turned out to be a good enough guy to make the Lord a bit calmer and a bit less angry. There has been too much treachery and too much discontent in the ranks. Time has gone by and it is now time for the children of Israel to get better organized. With Pinchaa around, everybody feels a little more confident that perhaps things will go smoothly for a while.

So they call for a census and start counting out all of the people from all of the families. Of course they took the trouble to get rid of those who caused discontent first and then they went ahead and found that there were a little bit less than 700,000 children of Israel. This is a pretty good size block of people if they are organized.

In the third portion, they start giving out land parcels according to the number of people in each family. Of course these sorts of deals never go well so there were some complaints and arguments as to who had what right and who should be given more or less. The Lord is working as Moses’s lawyer at this point and advising him where he seems happy to have property go and against where he thinks it is not deserved.

When they get all finished with the real estate, it is decided that they are going to need a new king and for this role they choose Joshua. He is to be elevated, he should wear really nice clothes and everybody should know that Joshua is to be the new king. After this, they all celebrated with a lot of barbecue, made up some rules about observing the shabbos and what constitutes good barbecue, they enjoyed some libations and prepared for what was to come next.

There are a few things that are perhaps interesting in this reading. The first of course is the name of this portion. Of course this relates at least somewhat to the town that I live in. I do not believe the town was named for any biblical reference and it’s not exactly the same. Also, one of my Jewish names is also mentioned in this portion. When I’m reading the words here, it’s hard for me not to get tossed off the page.

It’s also worthy of note that Pinchas is elevated to a rather serious position. Literally he is made the kahuna,כְּהֻנַּ֣ת, and is granted perpetual priesthood. Perhaps this is similar to being named to the Supreme Court of the United States. However, at the moment, it is difficult to believe in the wisdom of lifetime appointments generally. It seems that politics and especially corrupt politics will eventually corrupt everything, even lifetime appointees who no longer need popular backing to keep their job.

About the only thing that really touched me personally was that this week’s portion is about taking a census. Amazingly, the thought came into my own mind about taking a census of my own situation. This is not completely out of the blue and there is no mysticism here. I am now at the end of one fiscal year and beginning another one so doing the books is an obvious part of things.

However, I did have an idea that seems as strange as any that I never bothered to use it before. I’ve never actually made a census of everything growing here on my property. I have made the acquaintance of all of the plants and trees, but I have made no actual notes for them. It’s like I know them casually and generally understand their place, but I have never officially made note of them and for a lot of things, have not really studied what they are.

I talked about this a few days ago or maybe it was yesterday. I tried to talk about how it is strange how much responsibility for this place I have given up. I’m talking about my ex partner of course. I have made quite a few decisions based upon my own physical inabilities and how much more physical abilities she has than I do to get basic work done. But in this relinquishment, it seems that I have misplaced probably my most important and beneficial ability. I am a great planner.

Yes, it’s true that the basic building of the garden came from my own design. The boxes are where they are because of my choice and the materials, how they are constructed and the composition of the soil inside and of course the physical production necessary to fill the boxes all came from my plans. But so much of what is actually growing here has been created by whims from my ex partner. It is probably our biggest argument right now that she sees absolutely no point in consulting me before doing things. This is a bit of a problem for me because when she acts without consulting me, I never get an opportunity to argue about the validity of the idea and of course I get stuck holding the bag for taking care of things that I might not genuinely feel very nurturing about.

It’s sort of like finding yourself with a new girlfriend who doesn’t bother to tell you that she has two kids until you’re well into the relationship and talking about moving in together. It’s not exactly like that but it’s from the same point of view.

One of the projects that I started this week was exactly taking a census of what I have and where it’s located. At the beginning of this year, I pushed to have a map made of the territory that was to scale and I wanted to do this before we started planting. That idea was brushed aside because the ex partner just wanted to do what she wanted to do. She was enjoying the freedom but was not very much interested in the planning.

I’m not going to sit here complaining about her choices. Eventually there has been nothing I can say about it and at the moment, I have way, way more food here than I could ever possibly eat. However, this is a momentary thing. My field has a lot of edibles on it now. But what it doesn’t do is prepare for saving food for winter. Yeah, there are some late cabbages that have been planted but there is nothing like this sort of numbers you would need if you were truly trying to save food for yourself. We are really not going to have enough pickles to make more than a bank or two and there is not going to be more than a few kilos of cabbages. Again, it seems we did nothing but a hobby project rather than doing the job of growing some food for ourselves.

I’ve also been thinking rather deeply about next year. A basic structure is in place right now and I’m pretty happy with the way the gardens are set up and the paths that run through them. There is some possibility that I might get interested in some kind of drip irrigation system. That would take the stress off of watering and eventually, I have a big enough pump to do the entire job. This would simply be money and the desire to lay a bunch of plastic out over my growing spaces.

But beyond that, what to do about those 50 m that we dedicated to lentils is a very interesting prospect. If I can get a hold of a decent bulk amount of fertilizer, I hope the vegan gods forgive me but this would be one or two carts of cow shit, I would be able to restructure the gardens and create a very level growing place. It would have weeds again and I would need to be vigilant and active keeping the plots clean. But the eventual plan that I have in my head would not be uncomfortable to work with. And if we find a way to produce a good growing medium, those 50 m (actually 75 m) would definitely allow enough space for bulk growing. We would definitely be able to grow enough to keep us going through the winter.

Of course, it depends on who you’re talking to when you say things like this. There are people who will just roll their eyes and listen to your plans and dreams and tell you directly to your face that you will never do it. I am not extremely into pleasing other people with my actions. I am probably the very last on the list locally when it comes to preening and trying to be beautiful for other people’s approval. But I do think you could take a look at what I have done this year and if you match it up with what I said when I started, and yes, I have it in writing right here on these pages, I think it’s pretty clear that I have done my job. I have exactly created here for the most part what I wanted to create. And for the most part, my ideas are generally successful and working.

Perhaps this is the biggest problem with my ex partner really. I’m not making any concrete statements as to the status of our relationship / non-relationship. Basically, things are not going so well and a lot of it has to do with poor communications and how far apart we are in our lifestyles. You can only make so many compromises before you start feeling like you’re being stolen from. There’s a lesson there for everyone who does business with the Russians by the way.

Does it really matter to take stock of what you have? I think so. I think knowing to the penny how much money you have is of absolute importance in a world that is run by economics. Perhaps this is true for a guy like me who is not rich. But I certainly would rather not become Lena or Ghenna and before send to perpetual slavery simply because of my inability to control myself. Not saying anything terrible about Lena but let’s call a spade a spade. This has been the only thing I have never allowed myself to fall into no matter where I was, what I was doing or what situation I had. When I was just starting out, I saved my money. When I was in New York riding bicycles, I saved my money or reinvested a percentage into my business. And when I came here, I definitely learned very quickly not to party. This place will just blow you away with tsunami type economic chaos. Or wars. 

If you want to know why I’m still here, I was built for This.

So no, I’m really not interested in sponsoring the party. I am completely uninterested in whether or not my neighbors like me or don’t like me. I would not invest a penny in being charming for any single one of these maroons I am stuck here with. I happily support a day or two’s wage in Lana. I guess I’m happy to have Ghenna’s phone number. I’m glad I’m on good terms with Ria, Zhenia the bike mechanic, his wife and any number of the vendors at the market. I’m glad that I get along with the women at the bank and I don’t remember starting any fights with any member of the bureaucracy despite my particular distaste for people who enjoy their power. Of course, there is my favorite bureaucrat in Minsk at the clinic, but I did not create that situation. I was handed it and of course, sometimes there are women who just go crazy at the thought that they cannot have me.

Woe is me that God made me as handsome as I am. Some women just go crazy with the thought that they just can’t have me.

But as you can see, I make censuses all the time. I’m not into objectification and forgive me if people get grouped. But I know how much money I have and I know who my friends are and I know who are not. I am well aware of who the good people are and I am equally aware of the people to be avoided at all costs.

I mean, the Torah is kind of an old book and it’s pretty poorly written as a narrative. In fact, it’s even worse than me as far as sticking to the point or working within the confines of specific subjects. But when they say that there is constant treachery and that you need to be aware that these sorts of things are going to happen, perhaps it is a very good idea to be prepared for any possible outcome. Being ready for the worst might just save your life sometime. And if I am writing these words right here today, you must know that good planning and knowing my business is the only thing that has allowed me to be here to do the job.

***

It’s about 20 minutes to 5:00 and I am taking it easy on the couch in my office. All the windows are as open as they can be. Unfortunately, I have one broken window in the kitchen and I’m forced to restrict airflow there. One of the things I am forced to consider right now is perhaps getting some new windows. I need to take some estimates.

I know it’s early in the afternoon but I got hungry before and made myself something with potatoes. It wasn’t anything particularly special but I threw in some red lentils to add protein, seasoned it with some lemon pepper, salty I agree, and then sort of held it together with a little bit of oatmeal. I think the only vegetation I added beside the potatoes was one red onion from the garden. It was very tasty and fit the food profile I was talking about earlier. There was almost no fat in it, no oil, a lot of healthy carbs but nothing particular to inflame diabetes. In fact, it gave me quite a bit of energy that I didn’t have before I ate. I think that makes it good food.

I am debating whether I want to go out and water again. It was very, very warm today and the temperature is going to go up again tomorrow and then again on Saturday. They say that we might get some rain over the weekend but I can’t ever believe that. For sure, I will water tomorrow but I can’t help thinking that a little bit of water every day might be the best thing I can do.

The plants all look very healthy. We got quite a bit of rain and it was cool so I didn’t see very much distress. But you never know. I guess I’ll go with my gut on this.

The thing is I only have so much water saved. My system works really well but it’s imperfect. I have double barrels in two places where a single barrel would suffice and in my major water gathering places, I could very happily add one or even two more barrels to each spot. It’s just a matter of space and where I put them. Live and learn.

Then again, maybe I should just keep taking it easy. I ended up doing a bit more today than I did any other day this week. I walked around a bit more perhaps and paid a little more attention. I’m not in any kind of pain right now. Taking it easy has me feeling rather good actually. I’m talking physically and not about any of the obnoxiousness of the crazy people of this village. They have their politics to keep them excited, I don’t delve in that direction.

Well that’s not exactly true. In the United States, there is great reason to remain excited and to gnash your teeth and rattle swords. It seems they have overturned Roe versus Wade and have compromised women’s right to legal abortion. Already people are fighting and screaming and protesting.

Here is an in-depth Rachel Maddow video discussing the implications.

I only have two things to say about this. The first is that I believe women should have the right to terminate pregnancies. We have too many human beings on the planet and if the woman and or her partner or the responsible man involved with the pregnancy are in any way opposed or also in any way, feel that they do not have the possibility to be good parents, we don’t need any extra drama just like we don’t need any unwanted people. We have plenty of unwanted people already and the world doesn’t need anymore.

My other opinion is that they are doing this specifically for the drama and excitement of it. In my opinion, such conservative moves are exactly equal to the war in Ukraine. It’s a distraction, a diversion designed to keep our attention away from more important things. It creates problems for people and anxiety for them. This is true whether or not they are someone who is in need of medical services that might not be provided for them or just people who understand the situation and do not wish such government interaction in our lives.

My point of view is that they are just shitting in their backyard. They are making a scandal for the purposes of making a scandal. This is what my neighbors do or at least the chicken lady. She creates a scandal because she thinks scandal is the way life is supposed to be lived. She doesn’t want people living calm lives. And as far as I am concerned, she doesn’t give a crap about my medical situation. She doesn’t feel my pain so she doesn’t care how much pain she gives me to feel.

Maybe a good way to say this is that the world seems to be ruled by sons of bitches. I think that’s a beautiful phrase to describe people that create problems where no problems need to exist. It is also most true for people who gain power by creating problems. We are talking about parasitism. And mostly, I think what’s happening with these attacks against our personal Rights and freedoms, this is both this abortion issue and shooting missiles at ukrainians, it is all designed to keep people from making reasonable decisions about what is genuinely important in life. As long as we are hysterical, money flows, the economy works and the people who make money off of this enjoy the process.

This is who the chicken woman is. She makes her money off of women making emotional decisions to give her money. There is nothing she has to sell and nothing she does ever during the day that in any way benefits her if people are calm and relaxed and happy. Unless they are spending money looking for the narcotic effect in the release, she’s just a chicken lady banging her head against the ground looking for a few stray pieces of grain.

And if there is irony in the Torah reading, I get daily irony from Star Trek. The last episode I took the trouble to watch was called “The Day of the Dove” and literally, it is about some strange space energy that goes around creating chaos and making people fight against each other. It seems that the entity feeds off of hate and negative energy and so it plays with people’s minds until they become psychotic and angry and begin fighting. The solution to the problem of course was for everyone to agree to make friends despite any negatives between them. As soon as everyone was getting along, the alien energy simply went away. There was nothing for it to eat.

My original understanding of this concept was that they are called energy vampires. 

Energy vampires are people who — sometimes intentionally — drain your emotional energy. They feed on your willingness to listen and care for them, leaving you exhausted and overwhelmed. Energy vampires can be anywhere and anyone.

Certainly I live in a town full of them, I live next door to them and they are pretty much anywhere the government exists. But it also seems that they make up the entirety of the conservative allegiance, the oil business, the military industrial complex and the whole of the Russian federation. Parasitism. Look at me, look at me! Pay attention to me, vote for me. 

Vote for me or I will punish you. That’s what they say. That’s all they ever say. Don’t turn your back on me or I will cause you pain. I’ve heard that more than a few times. Believe me, I’ve heard that so often that it’s not even worth listening to anymore. You don’t have to worry about what kind of treachery they have planned for you. You knew they were about treachery from the moment you met them.

Yes, the less parasites you have, the more energy you get to keep. The less crap you invite into your body as food, the better you feel. The less crap you invite into your head, the clearer of thought you are. The less crappy people you invite into your world, the less crap there is to step around, the less paranoia, the less fear and the less anger you have to deal with.

I have to tell you, I don’t have the most comfortable couch in the world but when the global warming comes, if you can get the windows open, it’s remarkably a nice place to sit and chill and let the world go by.

Call me Yosarian. I’m on a medical right now so I’m not flying any bombing missions. It seems that my crazy colonel wants to raise the amount of missions we have to fly just for the Glory it brings upon his command. Or to get even with me for sleeping with his wife. I however am unwilling to die for his insanity or pompous thirst for attention. I refuse to even participate anymore.

Some people say I’m crazy. Usually when I hear this, I tend to agree with them. The truth is though that I’m not allowed to be crazy. That’s the Catch 22 of it. Technically, if you are rational enough to know that you’re being killed, you’re too rational to actually be crazy. It’s the crazy people who go along with the system or even enjoy it. It’s the crazy people preening for attention and congratulations. They are the ones working hard to kill us all everyday. The catch 22 there is that they are the ones who believe that they are sane.

***

It’s a quarter to 7:00 and I can’t think of any reason not to wrap this up today. Today has been a difficult day intellectually. I feel like I tackled some difficult subjects. Also, it’s weird when you open up the gate for one thing and suddenly all the garbage from outside floods in.

The idea is punishment. People sit around looking for opportunities to punish one another. I suppose you could look at me and say that I do the same thing but I don’t really see it that way. I don’t know if I am fully qualified to be called a pacifist but I am a vegan without requirements for meat. My lack of need for flesh, dead or alive, seems to have me leading a much more peaceful life. I’m just not really that hungry. I eat plenty of food, maybe even too much food, I just don’t eat drug food. I don’t take drugs, I don’t seek them out and I try to live a healthy lifestyle. No matter what you may think is proper for life, my choices lead to simply not being hungry. I don’t feel like I’m hungry for anything. Really, it’s okay when you can live without. In fact it’s better than involving yourself in a perpetual fight for garbage.

When Lena was here this morning I ended up talking to her a bit about diet. I talked to her about diet and addiction. I told her why I don’t really want factory foods very much and what it feels like to simply not be very hungry. I understand her point of view. Anybody can understand her point of view. It’s not so difficult to understand that she needs things and simply doesn’t have enough to ever feel comfortable. Believe it or not, though she would generally be a forgotten person by any standards, she’s still driven mad by her needs.

Looking at it from this point of view, I see almost no difference between Lena, who has a name here on these pages, and the chicken woman, which is a good enough name for her. They are both driven to madness by constant need. They are starving and frightened all the time and can’t stand seeing anyone who is neither starving nor frightened. I wish I could feel pity for the chicken lady but I don’t. Lena has tried to punish me once or twice. The chicken lady only punishes.

That’s the whole thing really. It’s the texture of her voice and her body language. I’ve seen her interacting with her henpecked husband. I don’t just use these words as minor insults. It is what he is. He is a dog under her heel. That’s the way they say it in Russian. His nervous system is finally tuned from the fear he feels from this woman and she uses this to an absolute extreme.

She doesn’t speak, she screams. She doesn’t listen, she bullies over sounds she doesn’t wish to come to her. She doesn’t think, she paints over anything that is around her. She doesn’t live, she tries to control life with every muscle in her body simply to prevent herself from being touched by it. She lives her life by never living it or allowing anyone else even a taste of it.

Again though, I have no sympathy for the devil. I have no pity for a woman who has no pity for me. I cannot think kind thoughts about a woman who openly sent the police after me on false charges only because I tried to talk to her about perhaps parking her car in such a way that I didn’t have to be poisoned. She didn’t want to hear any talk about any poison that she’s spreading around. She didn’t want to think about air pollution or cancer. She didn’t want any man telling her anything, least of all the Jew or an American. She had reason to hate. She had power to amass. She had control that needed to be set up. She was not interested in making acquaintances. She was there to kill and to make sure I stayed dead. No sympathy whatsoever.

Out here, they say that there is only one step between Love and hate. Out here, they say that we are all together and a single people. These are holdovers from the time of the Soviet Union. That was communism. That was everyone receiving a similar wage. That was a society that tried to downplay status. That was a society where they just gave out the checks, they were small but something and everyone knew that they had to take care of themselves to get by. There was a different currency to life and people did what they could to get along.

I don’t make a point of talking too much about the chicken woman but sometimes when I do, I get a knowing smile back. There’s only one step between Love and hate and obviously though I say one, it probably means the other. That’s where the smile comes from.

These days though, one step between Love and hate means one insult before you unfriend someone. You’re only one negative word from setting someone off into a hysterical spin. There’s only one mistake that people are allowed before they get crossed off a list and are no longer wanted.

From her perspective, she just didn’t like my beard. I’m not joking about this. I saw her sizing me up when I moved in. I was shaking hands with my neighbors, trying to be a nice guy. I kept that up actually for quite some time. I didn’t know who she was at the moment but I saw her hanging back, arms crossed over her chest, a look of utter disgust as she looked at me. I was not fit for her high standards. This was royalty and I would not be welcome in court.

I’ve only had two conversations with her. She screamed through both of them. She talks very loud and never stops talking. She’s not one who listens and thinks, she’s one that just basically pecks. You don’t need to know more than this to understand her husband’s nervous disorder. I’m not very good with people like this. I usually don’t even try to talk to people unless I have a darn good reason. I don’t bother anyone unless I need something and when I ask, I much prefer reasonable people who listen and try to solve problems then I do people with whatever is on their mind other than that.

There was a lion in a movie one time. The guy said I’m the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy. This is truly how I see things in life. I have energy for people who do the job and work to make the problems go away. I do not give energy or kindness to people who create problems. There are quite a few State bureaucrats who enjoy creating problems. Probably job boredom. A lot of women here, this particular type of woman, not all of them, believe with all of their heart that they are entitled to the right to create problems. It is the Wonder and beauty of being a woman. This is her power and her mystique. She is designed to create problems that men are obligated to fix for them. There are quite a few of them around here. You can’t throw a rock without hitting one of them.

I used to say that I’m not gay quite often. It was quite an interesting thing to understand. If I was single, I’m automatically gay according to some law of life. Being gay is very bad. I suppose mathematically this means that not being in pain is very bad. If not being with a woman whose company you no longer enjoy automatically makes you gay and being gay is bad, what exactly is the alternative? Are you obligated to immediately turn into a beggar like Lena or Ghenna? Is there no other way to see a human being but as a complete groveling drug addict? Is there no other acceptable way to live one’s life except in perpetual abuse, starvation and pain? Are we allowed to exist outside of our needs?

It’s a crazy way to think of things and I stopped doing it because I stopped giving a crap whether people thought of me one way or the other. I just stopped caring about what people thought of me or what my reputation was. When I was working, I enjoyed an excellent reputation for quite a long time. I like to think that I did have some natural advantages but on the other hand, I worked very, very hard and did my best to be on time and ready and enthusiastic for every single class. I went long often. I ruined myself sitting in that chair.

But what can I tell you? I saved my money. I learned my lesson the very first summer after my very first successful year. I believed that I had a cash flow. I believed that money was like a river for me and it just kept rolling in. Then June 1st happened and all the kids went on vacation. All the money just left and suddenly I had to scurry. I had spent too much. I had enjoyed the party too much. I learned my lesson very quickly.

Then there was another year where I was quite content going into June. I had saved my money this time. I had not partied hardly at all and had a nice kilogram of money under my mattress. I learned my lessons already about not overspending and I was content to enjoy a game of billiards with one of my good friends.

“Did you hear what happened with the money?”

Well we’ve had several economic crises where everyone lost all their money. All of the sanctions also have everyone beaten down. But seriously, since I first arrived here we’ve seen three currencies come and go, each one traded 1,000 to one and the last time for 10,000 for one. Try to live through that kind of crisis. Try living through this kind of financial devaluation.

The third lesson came from one of my students who just was too paranoid to be friendly to anybody. He didn’t trust the government. He didn’t trust the internet because they were stealing his personal information. He had no interest in relying on anyone other than himself. A horrible person to be friendly with but a great lesson to pick up. He just looked me in the eye one day and said that he would never rely on the state for a pension. He was going to take care of that himself. This is what he did when he had money and this is what I started doing.

That was the beginning of my budgets. That was the beginning of my knowledge of spreadsheets. That was the beginning of my practice of minimalism, dietary and otherwise. My ex-girlfriend and I used to say that we were in a monogamous relationship with a brief break. I was at that time in an economic relationship with the world and that ex-girlfriend was the brief break. That was another lesson learned. That was a lesson that was hard to take but I learned it.

So what now? I got leg problems but I’m in an interesting position in that I can just take the week off generally to take care of my legs. I have no obligations anywhere and if I run into unique problems such as my neighbor calling the police because I invited a local girl to come clean my floors for me, well, isn’t that just precious. The chicken woman can’t live without her attention. She can’t live unless she knows everybody is in pain. The world just doesn’t seem right unless everyone around her is suffering. Oh well. Anyway, the food was good today.