Reading

Maybe solved the puppy problem

I went over to the dog center and talked to the person who did the orientation. I told her that if they need someone who would reliably come starting one day a week but likely expanding to two days a week who would walk the dogs I'm their guy. She was happy with that and we worked out the deal. I'm to come at 9AM. I think the staff gets there at 8 and doesn't want volunteers for the first hour which makes perfect sense to me.

So tomorrow I'll find out if it works as well as I'd like.

It is a bit of relief to have that work out the way I think it will. It will be entirely different as the door on this place is revolving where the Ranch was a one way ticket into the facility for life. This will take some adjustment of my brain and systems but it has a lot of potential and is about 8 minutes from our house. WAY easier to geth there and back. I really have been concerned about the wear on my Smart car so this is nice.

We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile today was pickleball day. Fitbit says I got my 10K steps in and I feel like it. The day was hot and my sleep the past couple of nights has been not so good. Maybe my subconcious concerned about the dog volunteer problem. That really has been concerning me more than it should. Guilt over having quit the Ranch gig I suspect. But I'll have a good nap today.

I've got a new pair of bicycle shoes coming. The ones I've had for 20 years or so finally disintegrated. The last time I rode with them pieces startef falling off. I'd tried to replace them before but what I got was too narrow. The ones coming tomorrow are supposed to be very wide. Fingers crossed. Riding again has been good. I've felt something I've not felt in a while. My body kind of wanting to ride. It feels kind of like a desire to have food intake but it is for ridingk for the exercise. I used to get it a lot. My metabolism would start to go up in the morning even before getting on the bike. It is a weird thing but really good for me and a positive feeling I want to foster.

But for now, I really need an omlet.

Entry tags:

Heavy Mental Lifting

Went over the bridge to poke around in the Hyde Park garden yesterday.

Grass clippings seem to be doing their job of keeping the weeds down, plus my lettuce is harvestable. I took home enough of it to keep me in salads for the rest of the week:

Also, most mysteriously, a California Golden Poppy had popped up out of nowhere, and this made me very happy because it made me think I might figure out a way to get back to California one of these days. The augers just keep coming!

Afterwards, I toddled off to visit with Belinda.

We talked about the Israel/Iran situation.

"But Hamas!" she said. "It's a terrorist organization!"

I shrugged. "How do you define 'terrorist'? A political organization that uses violence & fear to achieve political ends?"

She nodded vigerously. "Yeah! That!"

"Well, by that definition, Israel is a terrorist organization."

She stared at me, shocked.

"Here's the thing. For hundreds of years, the people who eventually coalesced to form the nation state of Israel were under Ottoman Turk rule. And then for 30 years, it was a British protectorate. And during that entire time, any organization that lobbied for sovereignty or self-rule for the area was outlawed and so naturally turned to violence to achieve its ends.

"It gets complicated, of course, because the majority of Israelis today are descendants of Ashkenazis who migrated after World War II.

"Still. If you look at the history of the area—the future Israelis were once in exactly the same position as the people of Gaza. That should give them—well. Not sympathy for Hamas. But at least an understanding of why Hamas might seem attractive. And that understanding is key to defusing Hamas's attractiveness.

"Instead, they are acting exactly like the Ottomans & the Brits who opppressed them—"

I could see the rusty wheels start turning in Belinda's head.

Whether or not she ends up agreeing with me is irrelevant.

But I think people need to get into the habit of doing heavy mental lifting on their own.

###

Then we toddled off to the movies!

We saw Materialists. I was curious about Celine Song's follow-up to Past Lives.

Materialists is pretty awful.

But you know, the Hyde Park Roosevelt Theater has stale Raisinettes! And heated recliners. So, I had a good time.

Entry tags:

rl_25

(no subject)

If I didn't know that going to restaurants on Father's Day was a bad idea, the amount of woodsmoke would have discouraged me anyway. Either the whole neighbourhood was barbecuing or something somewhere was burning. Whatever, it's been cough sneeze all day, except briefly to pick up the vines and such I cut down in the back yard yesterday. Must still bag them, a task I hate, but pickup is this week. In the rain, as ever.

Have also a bin of ivy that I got from the front walk last night. The ivy is an unmitigated pain because it isn't just encroaching on the walk, it's actually growing over the concrete edging. And the stems are beyond my shears' and elbows' ability to cut through.

Stooping and straightening of course tightens everything up, and stretching doesn't undo the worst of it. Is one reason I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning.

Cleaning my phone

A week or so ago I heard an unusual banging in the washing machine. I'd just put clothes in it so I quickly took a look. There was my phone all turned on and bright and sitting on top of the clothes in the shallow water. I pulled it out and dried it off and it was working fine. Then the USB charge port failed. So I ordered another Pixel, a 9a. During the order I said I'd trade in my Pixel 7 and answered the questions truthfully. And they sent me an email that comes before the trade in packaging.

Then I read some Reddit and fiddled with the USB port using a needle. NOW it works fine, actually better than before. I don't think it was getting a full connection before but it is happening now.

SO, now what do I do? It is Sunday so nothing has happened. I can cancel right now and it will all be as if nothing happened.

The new phone would end up costing $486 after trade-in spread out over a couple of years at no interest. So, really, not much. The phone I currently have works fine but does not hold a charge. I'm ABC, always be charging. The 9a is getting a lot of raves so maybe it is time to upgrade anyway and my subconscious that left the phone in the washing maching was trying to tell me.

Sigh.

Meanwhile I've thought about the Humane center and decided to go there tomorrow and talk to them in person. I really want to walk dogs at least at first. There is a ton of other things that they want and I might change but right now I miss walking dogs, spending time with them, getting advice and pictures. So I'm going to ask if I can just do that one day a week and see how it goes. I've had some good advice on doing it this way and am going to take it.

Still thinking about the phone.

Entry tags:

Accept Loss Forever

So, maybe 400 people turned out for the Gardiner demonstration?

More impressive than it sounds! The entire population of the village is only aound 4,000.

I went alone, but I did not stay alone. A sizeable contingent of Shwanagunk Dems showed up & as it turned out, I knew all the parade monitors from canvassing or campaigning:

Plus bonus celebrity sighting! Fourteen second mark on yr screen! Still got my People Magazine chops!

This is quite possibly the worst photo of me EVER TAKEN.

When you are fighting fascism, I remind myself, you must be fearless and eschew vanity.

On my way back to the casa, I stopped at the transfer station to drop off two weeks' worth of garbage & recyclables. (Icky, you may recall, does not believe in paying for garbage disposal). I passed Ellen walking her daughter's dog, so I stopped to chat.

Now, I haven't seen Ellen in two months or so.

And that was kind of strange because I'd been seeing Ellen regularly for months before that. In fact, Ellen is one of only two real friends I have in this area.

Was she mad at me? Had I done something to offend her? Something absolutely unforgivable? Though I couldn't remember doing something absolutely unforgivable, and generally, I'm quite good at identifying examples of my own obnoxious behavior (even when I don't agree they're obnoxious.)

I'd called her a couple of times: No traction. I'd left her a goofy little gift in her mailbox: campfire sparkles! (She likes doing bonfires.) A pro forma thank you text.

Well, I thought, it's too bad, but apparently Ellen doesn't like you anymore, and what was the one useful thing that Jack Kerouak ever said? Number 19 on his list of "Belief & Technique for Modern Prose"?

Accept loss forever

(Works great for missing earrings, too!)

###

One look at Ellen's face, and I could see: It wasn't me, it was her. She looked like one of the walking dead. Deeply, terminally depressed. Heavy bags under her eyes.

Ellen is one of those people who likes to pretend she doesn't have emotions, doesn't have an inner life. When I tried to hug her that time after she dug my car out of the ice, she waved me off, embarrassed.

Now, as it happens, the one & only time I have ever been inside Ellen's house was around the time she stopped talking to me. We'd been selling Duck Derby tickets together at the post office. (Small town boosterism! Never Enuff Weird!) I was about to go off & investigate the Sherpa Festival that had magically appeared in an abandoned meadow, except that it was a hot day, I'd been drinking lots & lots of water, & I really had to pee!

"Well, you can pee at my house," Ellen said. Ellen's house was about a mile away from the magical Sherpa festival.

When I went inside Ellen's house, I was shocked to see it was kind of a hoarder house. Rooms & rooms crammed with furniture that nobody used & this general sense of profound neglect. I imagined it had been that way since Ellen's husband died five years ago.

I didn't say anything. I hid my shock.

But when Ellen stopped talking to me, I did wonder whether it was connected to the fact that I'd been inside her house. Whether she was ashamed I'd seen too much.

Anyway, it was good to reconnect. Even in such a small way.

I was on my best banter! I made her laugh!

And after 10 minutes, I said, "Well, darlin', you have my number. Call if you feel like it. I always have your back."

'Cause really. What else could I say?

###

In the evening, I went to a D&D meetup.

My regular D&D group hasn't met in several weeks—ostensibly because the DM is getting married in a couple of months & his weekends are now occupied with wedding-related events, but really—according to the DM of last night's game—because he is a Trump supporter & disliked all the fringe types in the original group.

I didn't pick that up from the original DM at all, and I mean, really: If he is a Trump supporter, so what? It didn't affect the game—which was a kind of Viking wayfarer adventure.

And I didn't like last night's game. I went because I'm still learning how to tell the various dice apart, & when to throw them, & why—if I have 18 charisma points—I'm supposed to keep subtracting four.

Last night's DM was very big on underground crypts strewn with vomit, crusty scabs, & mummifying guts. Imagery that does not appeal to moi!

The other players were gay males. They were all very nice to me, tolerant of my blunders. One of them—pink Galadriel hair and fabulously manicured hands, each nail painted a different color—was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America party, so in between dice rolls, we talked politics, utterly boring the other players. Apparently, No Kings Day conflicted with many prescheduled local Pride Day events, and that's why so many No Kings events had been shunted to out-of-the-way locations. The primo locales had been booked in advance! There was some bad blood twixt the No King-ers and the Pridies!

Last night's DM is a very bitter guy. And dark—without knowing he is dark, somehow. Growing up gay in a Hudson Valley backwater 40 years ago was a very different experience than growing up gay, say, in Berkeley, California. More akin to growing up gay next door to Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wisconsin. The Taliban itself would approve of Wallkill's heteronormative standards!!!

Still, I found myself not liking the guy, which meant it was difficult to sympathize with him.

Entry tags:

saturday

Boot. This was the subject of the Paint and Sip picture Chloe had us doing on Friday.

Finished today: Eggs. I didn't set out in the beginning to make frog eggs. I just wanted some green circles to doodle on.

It rained hard last night and this morning. The creek is up near the top of it's bank. This is where we put the bench that Chloe gave us. Last year this lawn did not exist - it was just high weeds and brambles. Between my weed wacker and Dave's mower we have created a lawn with a nice view of the creek. I feel like we birthed something! We're hoping that this is as high as the creek will get since it did stop raining a few hours before I took this pic. It would be a big bother to have to move all the lawn furniture, the picnic table and this bench to higher ground. We frequently have one flood each spring (where the water comes up over the bank) - we were hoping we escaped it this year.

Normally you can see big rocks sticking up out of the water here. The rocks are high enough that you can sit on them and enjoy the view up the creek. Most of the time the spruce boughs would be high enough over your head that they wouldn't touch you if you were sitting. We might get more rain in the next few days but at least it won't be a heavy rain - at least that's the prediction.

Tomorrow's going to be my house cleaning day. Sunday dinner, and it'll be Father's Day. I'll have a "sushi party" (everyone can fill and roll their own). That's an easy dinner to put together.

Very different set up

The Texas Humane Heros center is a refuge for the dogs and cats that are due to be uthanized at other shelters. It is a no kill center that receives almost entirely from them. They don't take animals directly from the public and do work to home all of the animals. Very different environment from the Ranch. And, btw, not religious camp which was an irritant to me with the Ranch. This is a professionally run center that has been in place for decades.

I went to orientation today and got the usual info for walking and such. They have a lot of employees (maybe 20 or so on a Saturday in evidence) and a lot of volunteers. Much bigger and more complex than the Ranch. And five minutes away from our house. Much less wear and tear on my car.

BUT the dog side, unlike the cat house, is more Sarah Mclachlan in appearance. We were looking for a dog maybe 15 years ago and went there. Not much has changed on the canine side:

They have plans for a new building but it will not start until next fall. It will really be a huge help. There are dogs in the intake section still in their small carriers and all the kennels are full. It is a much more difficult place to go but obviously they also are way more in need of help. Unlike the Ranch they use volunteers to muck out the kennel and do the laundry. Pretty much everything. I think if I push I can just be a walker but we'll see how it goes.

I'll likely volunteer for one day a week as a walker to start. There was a huge group for this volunteer orientation nearly all of which were students getting their volunteer hours in or, in one case, a court ordered guy. I didn't ask.

As if

Volunteer orientation. Taking us through the cat rooms.

Entry tags:

politics

Never Enuff Dying Frogs!!!!

Of course, the real reason Israel bombed Iran was not to curb the Iranian threat to Israel's continuing survival but to curb the parliamentary threat to Netanyahu's continuing survival: In the days leading up to Israel's attack, Netanyahu was widely reported to be on the ropes after his opposition submitted a bill to dissolve parliament, with his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners threatening to support the measure and force early elections.

This is just so fucking craven, I want to scream.

The boys throw stones at the frogs for sport
But the frogs die in earnest...

###

Meanwhile, I'm gonna go to the demonstration in Gardiner today.

It'll probably be the smallest of the Hudson Valley No Kings events, and, of course, Gardener is a liberal enclave so any marching around and "Fuck Trump!" screaming I do will be virtue signaling.

But I actually looked at the maps of the various demonstrations throughout the Hudson Valley, and it looks as though the only parade permits they could get were in out-of-the-way parks or half-empty strip malls far from Hustle & Bustle Central.

If I'm gonna demonstrate where nobody can see me, I might as well demonstrate where nobody can see me close to my house where the parking is manageable.

###

Apart from that...

I Remunerated & went to the gym yesterday in a kind of fugue state.

This living through a momentous time in history shit is very exhausting.

Entry tags:

reading_25

(no subject)

The cool temps aren't as cool as I'd hoped, but will take them over the high 20s forecast next week. Am seriously considering returning Amina for the next person because what I want is easy care, tried and true Brit stuff, Miss Silver and Inspector Littlejohn, not complicated fantasy. However, Damned finally appears in the middle of postal shenanigans, so shall read that as a compromise: Brit (alright, European) fantasy. And thanks very much, G.

Entry tags:

Silver Linings

Damn.

Well, yesterday started out well enough.

I pulled out the last six wheelbarrels of thistles, brambles, bee balm, & other assorted weeds from my New Paltz community garden plot.

Before:

After:

I deserved a treat!

So, I trotted over to Hudson Valley Chocolates, and found Stephanie hard at work:

Stephanie is the French-born choclatier who supplies bonbons for the Mohonk Mountain House and various other upscale venues around the Hudson Valley. She has a small shop here in town that keeps whimsical hours: It's open when she feels like being open.

Wallkill is a place where the men walk around in teeshirts that say, Unvacinated, Unmasked, Republican, Straight. In the spring, summer, & fall, Wallkill is an intensely beautiful place, but it is filled with the most horrible people, so there's no reason to go anywhere near it.

But if there was a reason to go near Wallkill, that reason would be to visit Stephanie's shop, Hudson Valley Chocolates:

Got home. Nibbled chocolate. Began Remunerating. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Remunerating is dry stuff. I have to keep wiping my brain clean of excess jargon in between those weighty bouts of regression analysis. To do that, I surf the web—journal entries (and y'all do not write enough!), blogs, celebrity scandals, and when I'm really hard up, news.

Yesterday, the news was unrelentingly horrible.

From Ice Barbie's press conference at which a United States Senator—a Senator!—was handcuffed and brutalized to Israel's massive bombing of Iran.

This is all so fuckin' NUTS.

###

I can't remember the name of the podcast I sometimes listen to that once did a show about superpowers. Specifically: What superpower do people most wish they had?

I do remember that time travel was the most popular superpower—though not by a huge margin.

And if you drilled down into the sample of people who wanted to be able to time travel, they all wanted to be able to time travel for the same reason—so they could kill Hitler!

Well, now we all have the chance to kill Hitler.

That must be the silver lining in the current cloud, right?

Entry tags:

thursday

Rainbow Waves. This was a picture I started a long time ago - with gouache paint. I added the pen to it today and it seems to be done. I think I have an idea now of a new project I want to work on since the "LIVE" project is over. I want to work a little bit every day, every single day, even if I only put a line down, but it has to be SOMEthing. I have 2 different kinds of 5.5" by 8.5" books with heavy watercolor paper in them - hot pressed and cold pressed. I'm going to work my way through them, not with the rule that I will have a page done each day and move on to a new page the next day like I had been doing, but that I will spend time every day adding something to them no matter how small. I can't give up art-a-day. It makes me feel too good.

Women's group today. We played Shut the Box for a while before we left for lunch at Pub 76 in Stoneboro. I had a really good meal of grilled shrimp over cilantro rice with a spicy pineapple sauce. Tomorrow Jan and I are going to Chloe's Paint and Sip in Oil City and have lunch with Chloe beforehand at Baked Goods from Heaven. I'm spoiled.

Entry tags:

garden,
politics

Open Book Tests

Did my four wheelbarrows of thistles, brambles, bee balm, & loose ground cover at the New Paltz garden early-ish yesterday morning.

Then one of the garden elders came down the path, pushing a rototiller that does everything but make coffee. Nodded at the approximately one-third of the garden that still needs to be cleared. Asked, Would you like me to use this to...?

And I said, No, because beneath the thistles, brambles, & bee balm, I keep uncovering delicate plants that were once part of some previous occupant's ornamental garden, and I wanted to give those delicate plants a chance to thrive once more.

And the garden elder nodded as if I had passed some sort of test!

"You're doing it the right way!" he proclaimed. "Give a holler when you've finished clearing the big stuff & I'll come back with this & help you with the low weeds."

Which would indeed be a God send. I really hate digging with a shovel.

Shortly, I will be scampering out to log today's wheelbarrow quota before it gets hot.

###

Other than that, I have been feeling super-anxious about the political situation.

It has occurred to me—and to 50 million other armchair analysts—that Trump's vanity birthday parade this Saturday with all those tanks is really just a pretext to turn the White House into some kind of armored fortress for when Trump declares martial law. Which will also be on Saturday. I mean, Saturday is fuckin' Flag Day! Could the symbolism be any more flagrant?

And I am anxious, and I am scared, but I am also disgusted: All of this was outlined in exhaustive detail in Project 2025. It's like American voters failed an open book test.

Hoping I'm wrong.

But the dots seem to connect, and the picture is one we've seen before.

Humans are ridiculous and territorial, and they never, ever fuckin' learn.

Entry tags:

wednesday

I haven't written anything here since last Friday. We went to an art show on Friday evening at Clarion Uni. They invited 3 alumni artists to be part of a summer show. Chloe was one of them. I am so impressed by Chloe. She is succeeding as an artist and I am very happy for her. It rained most of the weekend. On Sunday we drove over to Chloe's old house and helped her move her studio stuff to her new house and clear out a bunch of old trash and burnables. We had a huge blaze going in the backyard. I stood in the rain tending the fire - throwing stuff on it. I wasn't cold even though I was soaked but later that day I was feeling very stiff and my back was really sore. I was glad to just stay home on Monday and recover.

Saturday's and Sunday's: Shadows and Not Fit For Human Consumption. I'm enjoying using the Uni-ball pens with watercolor. The pen marks repel watercolor if you paint over it.

Monday's and Tuesday's: Self Portrait - Reflection in Black Glass (I was using my phone as a mirror - just a black screen) and Leaves.

Today's: Sprig.

Entry tags:

(no subject)

I sometimes zone out into semi-sleep and have fragmentary dreams that confuse me when I come to. Haven't done it in years and don't even know if I did it this morning, but all through physio I was tormented by the idea that I'd been googling something or saw something on Facebook that involved scheduling for something and I couldn't remember what it was. Which might have been doom-scrolling with half my attention or could actually be a mental glitch. Not helped by air quality, mug, TO definitions of too hot, or whatever else that was futzing with my breathing. We'll be back to the mid-teens briefly by week's end, which will help. I am part Pratchett troll and my brain doesn't operate at anything over 20C.

Finished The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, and Sethra Lavode, also a couple of Miss Silvers. Must start The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi.

SND texts me about is it OK to get an arborist in to cut the branches of the cherry that overhang her yard, on account of cherries not being good for dogs. Never bothered Sadie but Ollie is a very young pup and a different breed. I of course said yes and offered to split the cost. Knew there'd be a major expense this year to offset my virtuous thrift, but oh well.

Protein

We were watching TV last night and there was a commercial for a protein drink that promoted it as having 30 Grams of protein. Dana said 'that's too much' meaning that it was kind of a gimmick that was not really good for you.

The protein craze is clearly a thing now. I'm still waiting for the carb craze and/or the french fry (I'll even take freedom fries) craze. But for now it is protein.

I didn't really think 30 grams was a lot but did an AI investigation. 30 grams is not only NOT too much it is only a quarter of what I'm supposed to have at my age and weight every day.

Somewhere I had come across and have been focused on getting 30ish grams of protein for breakfast. It is not too hard. Milk and orange juice and a pea protein power is my favorite. With or without extra fruit.

But from what I've been able to read I'm supposed to have that much four times a day. Starting at 70 I'm fighting muscle mass loss harder than I have been and I've already lost a lot. The way to do that is pump up the protein.

I can feel the loss of muscle when I ride my bike. It is a little disturbing. I'm working on it. The fix is to ride more and increase the hills. I'm doing that. The other fix is to increase protein intake.

I've been so fortunate to be able, for the most part, to ignore nutrition. I ate Charles Chips like they were going out of business most of my childhood and exited that phase with a 28" waist. And that was without much exercise. It did catch up with me and I got better at it and took care of the intake and the exercise but still never really did much tracking or really paid much attention.

So, now I am counting protein grams. Fortunately I love cottage cheese, yogurt, nuts and the protein mix I have. So it is just a matter of paying attention and executing.

Entry tags:

Smackdown!!!! Larry McMurtry v Joan Didion!!!!!

Cool car I saw in the parking lot at the gym:

Shortly, I must toddle off to the New Paltz garden for more weeding as it's supposed to get hot this afternoon.

Yesterday, I did very little of anything except tromp (Winding Hills, steep) and start rereading Tracy Daugherty's biography of Joan Didion—which is not as good as Tracy Daugherty's bio of Larry McMurtry.

I suspect Didion simply did not engage Daugherty as much: She is an excellent prose writer, but comes across as an unsympathetic human being, unspontaneous, unlikeable, studied to an extreme. One gets the impression that Didion hovered over her words like a vulture hovering over a skull, wondering, Did I miss anything the first time I picked this clean? It probably took her half an hour to write a single sentence.

McMurtry, in contrast, was a kind of mad, slapdash writer. Every morning of his life, he was up and at that typewriter by 7:30 a.m., typing away like a maniac. By 9 a.m., he'd have produced 10 pages. And then he'd stop.

Ten pages in an hour and a half! That's crazy fast!

And probably accounts for his uneven output: Easily half of what McMurtry wrote is really baaaaad.

But McMurtry draws the reader in in a way that Didion is simply not capable of doing. One must parse Didion's sentences. And that is exhausting when one is reading for pleasure. Hence, one never reads Didion for pleasure.

Interestingly, both Didion and McMurtry are ultimately what you might call regional writers. Didion's region was California; McMurtry's region was Texas. And each writer's finest output amounts to kind of a harvest of regional tropes: Didion's basket is "the pioneer," while McMurtry's is "the American West."

Entry tags:

new job,
questions

Question

Monday I’m going to start a new job with a totally new group of people I don’t know.
I was tempted to print up little index cards with information about me.
But, then I couldn’t think of what to tell folks.

Any recommendations?

Entry tags:

Working On the Perfect Prompt

The most interesting geopolitical analysis comes from Peter Turchin who sees political instability as a 50-year cycle, driven by stagnating wages, a growing wealth gap, a surplus of educated elites (without corresponding elite jobs), and accelerating fiscal deficit.

His extraordinarily prescient Nature piece was actually published 15 years ago at the height of the Obama Hope & Change hype.

###

I keep reminding myself that it's nuts to fixate on the stuff that's happening in LA because there's absolutely nothing I can do about the stuff that's happening in LA.

I've never seen the slightest utility in signing petitions or petitioning elected officials. And at this point, I'm wondering about continuing to participate in those rah-rah, feel-good demonstrations too. (Although I probably will. There's a big demonstration in Kingston this weekend.)

I want to turn myself into a cypher so I can slip into the deep underground as effortlessly as possible.

Though there's always the issue of how do you identify the deep underground? Do they advertise on NYC subway ads? As an ad flash at the end of Words With Friends games? On billboards along remote highways? Do they post notices on the backs of cereal boxes? Is there some secret tic or flash hand signal I can do while I'm walking around the Galleria that will validate me as prime recruitment material? It's so very Thomas Pynchon!!

And what exactly would this deep underground do?

Smuggle Hispanic workers from Home Depot parking lots in the States to Home Depot parking lots in Canada like an underground railroad?

###

Okay, I'm being facetious & obnoxious.

I think the political situation in much of Central America is appalling, and I completely sympathize with immigrants who are seeking asylum. I also sympathize with many of the folk who are up here for economic reasons: There are plenty of jobs that most Americans don't want to do; if immigrants want to do them, that's a good thing, right?

I also suspect in fewer than 15 years, American citizens will be desperately applying for asylum in various places around the world. Hello! My great-great-great-great grandfather migrated XXX years ago! Take me back!!!! PULEEEEEZE!!!!!

###

Anyway...

It's raining. It's been raining. The New Paltz garden is partially flooded, so no weeding for me today.

I couldn't figure out whether or not I was sick yesterday. My nose was running & I felt utterly exhausted, but it seemed to me that that could have been completely psychosomatic. Malingering, in other words!

So, I toddled off to the gym.

And I'd like to write, And going to the gym made me feel a whole lot better! Except going to the gym did not, in fact, make me feel a whole lot better. Though it did not make me feel a whole lot worse.

While I worked out, I thought about manifesting.

Like if I had this prompt thing down, I could materialize a wish that would net me $15 million—my neeeeeeeds are modest!—without imperiling the welfare of anyone I care about, or causing the destruction of some fabulous place I love, or adding to the misery of some beaten-down population segment.

I'll keep working on it.

Entry tags:

health,
rl_25

(no subject)

I've been feeling bloated and puffy these last weeks, which my ankles tell me is what I am, and anyway, mug and heat and all = summer life as normal. But I woke this morning oddly limber and decided I'd better see what the damage is, so went downstairs and weighed myself. To find I'm ten pounds/ 4.5 kilos less than I'd thought and fifteen pounds less than I'd feared. What I was last February, basically. This is what not drinking will do to you. So I need only lose 20 pounds/ 9 kilos to get to my pre-op weight, not 30.

The problem basically is that my body image hasn't really changed since my mid-30s while my body certainly has. So seeing my reflection in store fronts is a shock. Who's that short thick woman? Why, it's me.

It stopped raining mid-afternoon so I set out for the laundromat and ran into my garbage bin painters coming down the street with their newly purchased 3. So I was able to pay them then, and stop worrying about them coming some morning to roust me out of bed during one of my indulgent lie-ins. Not that I lay in this morning. My exhausted lungs took me to bed at 11 last night, meaning I was wide awake at 8:30.

Today was still not easy on the lungs but miles better than yesterday. Sinuses still fill, throat is still scratchy, eyes still itch. But laundry has been achieved, I have clean towels and hand towels and sleep pants, so count myself content.