Friday, August 19th 2022

It’s 7:30 a.m. and I am already up and out. I am all set up to do some watering. I might have overstated things a little bit. Because there are certain sections of the garden that are not getting watered anymore, I might have as much as two more after today. After that, I will definitely be at the end of my water generally. As far as washing those or having enough drinking water, I’m not completely screwed but it’s getting close. Because of all of the things I’m saying, I am leaning towards putting in a second well. Actually, I don’t know how I can possibly keep this place going without a second well.

As far as having things to do, I’m pretty much ready for the weekend already. I don’t have too much prep work to do. I plan on doing some gardening today after I finish watering. And I guess I have some cooking to do though I’m not sure how deeply interesting any of that is going to be. I haven’t been very inspired to do anything new or artistic in a while. I am really happy with my homemade steamer pot. The food is delicious, it seems somewhat healthier than my huge Skillet as far as the end product is concerned. I’m also pretty convinced that the food tastes better steamed. I guess this is something people need to learn for themselves.

I remember there was a movie with Gerard Depardieu in which he confronts an oil-free vegan at a restaurant. He is working as a waiter I think and the guy orders something pretty much like I eat these days and he just looked at him and asked why with great incredulity. Why would anyone ever even dream about going in this direction?

The answer to the question comes from almost any direction you can imagine. I feel really good when I eat like this. My blood sugar is extremely easy to control and by not adding fats to my diet, it seems my diabetes gets naturally controlled. The actual functioning disease of diabetes is lessened because you are not adding any fats to stop the sugars from being absorbed into the muscles. You just get stronger.

As for any eating habits caused by boredom or the desire to escape, this would be food as drugs, you get out of that habit pretty quickly. Taking the fat out of your diet sort of takes away the main thing that is actually drugs for us. It’s not that your body doesn’t need fat, it’s just that you get to use your own for a while. I have plenty left on me, I promise. I am not going to starve to death from this diet anytime soon.

So I’m sure I’m going to have a tasty dinner. My ex partner cannot even imagine me living without supermarket food. I’ve asked her not to feed me anymore about five times but she doesn’t stop. Sometimes it’s helpful. Right now, I’m very happy to load up on fresh chili peppers from the market. I love eating these things and I also plan on saving and drying a good amount of them for their seeds. Peppers take a long time to grow and you have to start very early in the season but I plan to devote an entire box to them next year.

I had a really stupid food mistake yesterday. Lena gave me a yellow zucchini with mature seeds. I have been both eating it and saving the seeds. Next year, we can have some of this yellow squash and I wouldn’t complain. So I pulled out a bunch of seeds, left them in the sun to dry out and last night I felt I was ready to bottle them up and mark them for next year. In my kitchen, there were many half liter glass jars and for some reason, I picked one without looking and dumped the seeds right into a jar but still had water in it.

Luckily there is still enough of that zucchini to get both more food and more seeds. Last night’s dinner had a little bit more prep work to it. The meat and the skin got sliced up and put in the steamer and then I removed all the seats from the placenta before throwing that in the pot as well. We will have seeds next year but I also learned a lesson about paying attention. Measure twice cut once?

Agriculture is a tenuous business. It’s amazing how perfect you need to be over a very long time to get anything. Sometimes it is forgiving but sometimes you just get killed by being lazy and not paying attention. I’m surprised how much people belittle village people and agricultural people. I think it’s one of the great mistakes in the world to have money people ruling the food people. It really should be the other way around. Agricultural work is hard. I can see where this system came from. Nobody talks longer and louder than truly lazy people. I am an example for sure. But I’m telling you, trying to get this right takes a lot more than you think. Respect.

I never did hear from Tanya yesterday. Let’s hope she didn’t get into a vicious alcoholic fight. I’d rather not get my pants back burned up or ripped into rags because of a bout of degenerate hysterics. I just asked for some help with the selling. I can do basic sewing myself. If it’s just a matter of straight stitching, I can thread a needle and do a couple of basic stitches. But sewing a patch into a pair of jeans takes a little bit of technical effort to get it right. In town, there are a few businesses where people do this professionally. Sorry, this is just one job that I would prefer to farm out.

Speaking of farming out work, I am actually pretty pleased how things are starting to shape up around here. Because I don’t cut my grass, by the end of the year I have an enormous amount of organic material that can be composted. That’s another Plus on my side by the way that you can argue with the fascist and aesthetic freaks. Ghenna wants to rebuild the bench in front of my house. It leans to one side but it still holds weight. I don’t particularly care about this job right now but his rationale for doing it was so it wouldn’t be an embarrassment. And embarrassment to whom? I don’t give a damn what my neighbors think of me. I guess you got the point.

I have learned though that you do get better production if you keep the weeds beaten back around plants you wish something from. Some things grow without regard but generally speaking, if you allow your chosen ones their sense of entitlement and selfishness, they do grow a little taller. This is especially true if we’re fighting for every drop of water. Next year, I’m going to spend some time and resources on the fruit trees that I have, mulching them well and making sure that they are not too burdened by grass. I am not going to cut down my field or make my property into a lawn. I like it exactly the way it is. But I do think dividing the garden from the meadow includes allowing the trees a little room to breathe.

I mean, if they bear fruit, you end up knocking down the weeds anyway simply because you walk in there. Anywhere you walk, there is your path. You really don’t need machines to cut down weeds. Just go where you are going and nature will agree that you’re going there. Plants are pretty good about that. The place underneath the plum tree already looks like a comfortable sofa and another place that I laid down in the grass often last year still bears my mark even though quite a bit of garden has been built up around it. That’s just the way things are.

Then there is spending money. Next week when I get a chance to talk to Ghenna again, I will do my best to get some things built through him. He seems to have access to materials one way or another. I have some ideas that I’ve gotten from the internet that I know would work and be very satisfying for a long time. However, another lesson that I have learned here is that there is a solution that probably doesn’t cost very much money at all that works just as well and possibly even gets the job done better. I’ve been a part of this so many times that sometimes I feel myself at a loss for thinking differently.

My ex partner by the way is getting sick of me for exactly this reason. I keep giving ideas to her for things we should talk to people about purchasing. Long ago she stopped taking my requests seriously. I’ve got to quit dreaming through her. There is usually another solution to the problem that I haven’t thought of yet that is cheaper, more effective, longer lasting and easier to maintain. That’s just the way that things are and at least out here, this is the way things have always been and genuinely should be. I mean, recycling is more sustainable than buying everything new every time, right?

These are some thoughts for the morning. I am going to go turn on my pump right now and start throwing some water around. The windows are already open and the house is already pretty clean. Like I said, there’s not a lot to do except some light gardening. This is exactly how I’m supposed to be living right now. I’m supposed to be taking care of myself and giving my leg a chance to heal and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m also trying to get by the best I can and at least as far as how I feel right now and how this week has gone so far, I seem to be doing a darn good job at it. I don’t think I have anything to be embarrassed about.

***

It’s 2:22 in the afternoon and I am sitting in my office listening to my neighbor rev up some kind of gasoline-powered torture device. He’s either cutting wood with a chainsaw or butchering his grass. I’m going to bet on the chainsaw. It’s been too dry for grass to grow and winter is coming. Last winter however, I remember that he was partial to burning charcoal briquettes. He doesn’t enjoy anything that has any positive effect on the environment and he has nothing growing that requires him to recycle materials. He just does what’s cheapest and doesn’t give a damn who he hurts.

I’m saying he here but don’t be offended by the pronoun. It’s probably her idea. In fact, just the fact that he is out there playing with a chainsaw is probably one of her commands. Actually, if I’m thinking about this really hard, it’s probably not even the henpecked husband. It’s probably the hunchback doing the physical labor from across the street. About the only time I ever see him do anything other than smoke cigarettes and cough is when he uses a gasoline power device to make a few pennies.

I am pretty much out of things to do. I haven’t done any particular cooking yet. It’s really hot today. Too hot to get involved with anything unfortunately. Eventually I’ll head over to the kitchen and put something nice together but other than a very small breakfast, I’ve just been hanging out in the office.

The beans have been gathered. They are sitting amongst the apples on a blanket drying in the Sun. A few of them will probably make it into tonight’s dinner but mostly, they will sit in a glass jar waiting to be rehydrated sometime in the future. Once again, we didn’t really grow enough to fill up the coffers for winter. I am going to be obligated to buy food once the season is over. I’m still buying food now but the vast majority of the bulk is from here. I’m not complaining one bit and again, next year I will be better.

In fact, I got a message last night from my ex partner. She was shopping at the supermarket and asked me if I wanted some quinoa and red lentils. They were both a reasonable price at the supermarket. I agreed on several bags of each. I also made a comment that maybe I would be better off without it. It wasn’t the money particularly but to whom the money would go and whether or not I actually needed this. It’s becoming irritating to eat supermarket food. I don’t really need it and I am completely doubtful whether it’s any good for me at all. I seem to be doing quite well by doing the best I can from my own field and my neighbors. I’m beginning to think I need to boycott all imported goods period.

Which brings up a question as to why I don’t. I don’t want to point fingers or lay blame on other people but if my ex partner had not called from the supermarket, I would not have gone to the supermarket for these goods. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked my ex partner not to bring me food from town but she does not seem to hear that request nor does she share my feelings apparently about the causes of global warming and that we should not be supporting the oil business. I don’t know exactly who the supplier of these red lentils and quinoa are but for sure they do not come from this country. This would make them both either Russian or European imports.

But I was agreeable. We are in this together in our own way this year. I don’t know why she did what she did and I don’t know why I agreed to it. This is not to say that I do not like red lentils and quinoa. They are both amazing foods, very healthy and easy to make. I’m just saying that perhaps I’m more interested in doing my part than I am in pleasing myself. As you can see, I am still a bit irritated about being asked to make this choice.

Speaking of being irritated, exactly what I said would happen is exactly what happened with my jeans. No, they were not ripped up or said on fire and I was assured that I was not to blame for the fight but those pants did not get some because of a fight between Tanya and her husband. I called her on the phone to ask the story. I wasn’t sure if she understood my idiosyncrasies about not working on Saturdays and not being bothered on Friday evenings either. I don’t think we’ve spent enough time together for her to be sure of that. This is when I got the whole story. She is now with another friend here in the village dealing with her mood.

I feel like saying something about never being able to be reasonable with alcoholics but I’m afraid of being redundant. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that or how many times I have seen this wisdom played out on life’s stage but for sure, they are words to live by. You can’t reason with alcoholics and you can’t reason with an alcoholic culture. Me personally? I am an advocate of marijuana. In my history and interactions with human beings, I can quite easily apply the word kindness to regular users of this medicinal herb. People who use alcohol are not reasonable people. They are easily excitable and tend to go to extremes. Let’s just use the Russians as an example of this in general. People who make use of cannabis tend to take things easy. Why get upset?

I’ll be honest with you, we have a class structure here in this village. The alcoholic assholes with the chainsaw sit on one side of the economic spectrum. They drive cars and use gasoline and look down their noses at the locals who are down on their luck. Universally, those downtrodden few are usually only one step away from the snobs on top. It is either a lack of a job because of a physical disability or the lack of a partner because of bad luck. When alcoholics end up alone and or without a job, they go down the hill like they are participating in Olympic snowboarding.

Sometimes a nice relationship can bring them up out of their mess. I’m not interested in playing the role of the local Jesus Christ or Mother teresa. I am not here participating in gorillas in the mist. I am not here for anyone salvation financially or spiritually. I am not here to raise people out of the depths.

I don’t mind being a peaceful good example though. I don’t have any problem telling people that my preference is for marijuana rather than alcohol. The subject comes up quite often especially in groups and most especially in groups with men and women. It’s been decades since the women decided to hate the men and the men the women and so finger pointing as to who is the worst alcoholic comes up in pretty much every other topic at least. People beat each other down here and using alcoholism as a point of reference is usually a pretty easy grab.

My sentences always seem to be the same. I’m not gay but I don’t drink and I don’t smoke cigarettes. I don’t know why you have to say these things in tandem but you do. If you step out of the normal mold, even if it’s simply for the benefit of your own health, the first thing they’re going to ask you is why you don’t become a raging brutal Savage without your bottle or your pack of incredibly horrible cheap cigarettes. It’s just the way people know things.

This is not to say everyone’s in complete agreement. When the finger gets pointed, a local will smile a mostly toothless smile and say that they don’t drink or that they haven’t been drinking or at the least, that they can drink if they want to but that it is in no way a problem. One glance and a nod of the head is all they need.

Have you ever read Steinbeck? Have you ever read Tortilla Flat or Sweet Thursday? I have. I was a huge Steinbeck fan back in the day. My ex-wife’s family was from Monterey and you couldn’t go there without being reminded that Steinbeck wrote about the region. Sometimes I feel that I am carrying Steinbeck’s mantle here by raising to the level of royalty the local Paisano’s, as it were. The ethnicity is different as is the language but the issues are exactly the same. In literature, one can make the alcoholism amusing and cultural. From a medical point of view, it’s just a miserably depressive addiction.

I do not really have much choice in the matter. I live here now, other than this mother fucking chainsaw, I’m pretty happy with what I have. Let’s not forget the continuous and ongoing drought caused by global warming. I’m not that happy. But I live here and this is where I am probably going to spend the rest of my days. Under this light, perhaps a little Steinbeck in my view of things is worthy to do. Being accepted as a non-alcoholic makes me a bit like Doc, the owner operator of the Western Biological Laboratory.. I am with them but not quite one of them. I am a bit too educated and seen as someone from a different mold. But they don’t hate me and they tend to look after me. Thank you Mr Steinbeck for reminding me that sometimes life can be interesting enough exactly as it is.

You know, I wonder what would happen if that man made a mistake with that chainsaw. I wonder how quickly the medical establishment would come up here to see about him. I wonder what kind of damage that thing would do to a limb or a hand. I wonder what would happen to the fabric of my life if one of the chicken people took themselves out of the game with a foolish mistake that would have been avoided if they had just been more present of mind.

Forgive me for this black thought. I’m just thinking of Ghenna climbing one of my short ladders to spray insecticide under my eaves. It only took one sprain to get those wasps out from under my roof. But at the same time, I could hear him coughing all the way down the road after poisoning himself. No mask, no gloves and no eye protection. I’m just saying, if he could bring himself this close to death for a simple job like that, my neighbor cutting his own foot off by mistake he’s not completely out of the question.

No, I cannot go down this road. My peace has been shattered but I cannot really complain about things. The day is too hot and people get hot as well when the fall comes. I don’t really travel the roads much anymore but I remember how much violence came from the car drivers in the fall. You could look it up how road rage increases in the fall. You could look at all indicators across all spectrums, gun violence, spousal abuse, Street altercations and traffic accidents all go up in the fall. People become insane when the weather starts to change. And with the aggressiveness that is fueled by alcohol, tobacco and firearms, you can see that the corporations do A1 business at this time of year.

So what does this all mean? Well, it means no clean jeans until perhaps Sunday. Maybe on Sunday Tanya will decide she can be around her husband who is sitting around the house making fights with his wife on Friday afternoon. This is not to say I’m an advocate of slavery, I’m just saying that the household situation has a guy at home on Friday who allows himself enough of a mood to get into a fight with his wife. I think you understand why I got a good price on sewing the jeans and the forest berries. As the market will allow, I guess.

Unfortunately, I do not have any marijuana. I haven’t had any in a long time and I am doubtful I will see any in the near future. This is not an enlightened country. It has not adapted the ancient herb as of yet. I have often thought but if they could somehow shed their dependency on conservative oil money to keep the 3% in riches, legalizing marijuana here would be the greatest single step this country could ever take. I could make a bullet list on the positives. Simply bringing comfort to people suffering from medical ailments would be first on the list. Giving a healthy or at least much more healthy alternative to alcoholism would be a definite plus. Simply having something lying around that people could grow themselves would change the entire local economy of pretty much everybody who lives in the country. And then there would be the tourism. I’m not talking about what they call echo-tourism here. These are Europeans with weapons who come here to shoot our animals in the forest. And this is not even speaking about the bloody Russians who come here to make use of our legal gambling and the women who hang around money changing hands. I’m talking about raising the entire country out of this rather ugly situation it has put itself in.

No, such a thing is cannabis is illegal because it is unwanted in this colony of Russia. Russia doesn’t want people feeling good. Russia wants people in fear and in panic. Russia wants people under their thumb and under the heel. Russia wants people under pressure and fighting for pennies. Russia wants to make use of a difference in economics. Russia wants to exploit. Our entire economic World depends on making Russians happy. I don’t want to tell you what that thought does to my stomach.

Yeah, that is the dream. The legalized cannabis and people come to their senses until the oil business to go fuck themselves. We go agricultural, we go regional, we rely on ourselves and we work as teams to feed ourselves and take care of our people. We start bringing comfort instead of misery to each other. We become better people. We become quieter and better ecologists. And, completely as an ancillary benefit, we get bloody rich from people who want to come here for the kindness and the clean Air.

Yeah, my neighbor is in love with the power he feels when he revs the throttle. It sounds like a motorbike race right now. I wonder if the Revelation that these gasoline devices do not add any length to your penis. It also doesn’t bring back life to something that’s been impotent for quite some time. You do not become a man again by demonstrating your power according to the oil business. You just help global warming along and hence the end of humanity. Just cut a few toes off for me.

Well, this is enough dreaming and writing for now. I’ll get back in here and figure out how to get to the end of the page. I don’t really have any more links to share and I think the story has been well told as far as this week is concerned. I don’t really see anything changing next week. Well maybe there are some things that could go right. I got two phone calls from prospective students today. That might mean something. And maybe I’ll come to some permanent understanding with my ex partner about what is needed and not needed. Who knows, I might even get my chance to get some medical attention.

Monterey sits on the slope of a hill, with a blue bay below it and with a forest of tall dark pine trees at its back. The lower parts of the town are inhabited by Americans, Italians, catchers and canners of fish. But on the hill where the forest and the town intermingle, where the streets are innocent of asphalt and the corners free of street lights, the old inhabitants of Monterey are erabattled as the Ancient Britons are
embattled in Wales. These are the paisanos.

They live in old wooden houses set in weedy yards, and the pine trees from the forest are about the houses. The paisanos are clean of commercialism, free of the complicated systems of American business, and, having nothing that can be stolen, exploited or mortgaged, that system has not attacked them very vigorously.

– From John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat

***

Maybe just one more link…

***

It’s a little bit before 5:00 but I am about ready to call this a week. Technically, these things are best executed around sundown. I empathize with sundown on friday. Is something I feel. Something physically happens to me. It’s the same with Saturday at sundown. The entirety of the shabbos is deep in my DNA. I don’t mind it and it’s something that I’m very glad I take the trouble to do. My week revolves around it. It’s part of my life cycle.

I feel like I may have said some things this week that I don’t normally say. Perhaps I was a bit more direct than usual. Perhaps I have brought a little more into this mix that I would normally be comfortable with. It was a fine week and a lot of good things happened. But now when I am standing next to the exit, I’m just hoping that I haven’t gone too far.

I’m not apologizing or taking anything back. If I said something here, I meant it. Perhaps I meant it more in the moment and in other moments I would not have said it. But I told the truth and for that, I really can’t apologize.

I’m going to eat a big meal here. It’s all healthy food but I’m going to eat a big meal. I’m going to get stupid from the food I eat. I’m going to push my digestion to the point that it requires all of my attention. I’m not going to do this with junk food, I’m going to do this with healthy food but I am going to overeat. Food is drugs as well as sustenance.

I just talked to my friend in the states. This is my conservative friend. I told him that I’m not really spending any money these days. The words I used or that I don’t carry money very often. He misunderstood me and answered that he works mostly from credit cards. What I meant was that I do not spend money. I live without spending money most of the time and what money I do spend, is very, very small.

I am not embarrassed by this. I don’t care what the popular culture says. I’m not trying to impress anybody and I’m not trying to be anybody I’m not. I am exactly who I am, I am exactly the age that I am and I am exactly the physical state that I am. I do not pretend to be anything that I’m not. I don’t pretend for you and I do not pretend for me.

I’m also not a hero for doing this nor am I trying to be a role model or an influencer. I don’t have a lot of money but that’s not why I live like I do. I live like this because this is what I wanted. I just wanted some quiet. I wanted peace and I wanted fresh Air. I wanted to be closer to Nature and I wanted to participate in feeding myself. I also wanted to practice living as ecologically as possible. I wanted to practice being what I consider to be a good person. I’m not perfect but I think I did the best job that I could. Perhaps I could do better. We can all do better. But for the love of God, I did the best I could.