saturday

[monk222]

Up before six, because of the forecasted rains expected this morning, getting the cats in the house. They had two full nights outside and a day and a half. I hope they feel refreshed, because this is going to be another few days. Not a bad year for rain. Personally, I could have gone for a couple of dry weeks before getting this rain, but one doesn't want to be appear ungrateful to the gods. I am just glad that I finished the mowing yesterday ... ... That was my second mid-morning nap, and I am still feeling queered after the early-morning wake-up ... ... It's 77 degrees outside, almost one in the afternoon, still raining and overcast, but it is not a springtime 77, and it is 85 degrees in the house. I don't think we will be using the air-conditioner. All of which makes for a somewhat uncomfortable day as a practical personal matter. If I were alone, the a-c would be humming, albeit perhaps only half-an-hour now and another half-an-hour in the afternoon to keep the in-house temperature down ... ... From Russia with love. Apparently Putin is still working with poisons and assassinations: "Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has made no secret of his ambition to restore his country to what he sees as its rightful place among the world’s leading nations. He has invested considerable money and energy into building an image of a strong and morally superior Russia, in sharp contrast with what he portrays as weak, decadent and disorderly Western democracies. Muckraking journalists, rights advocates, opposition politicians, government whistle-blowers and other Russians who threaten that image are treated harshly — imprisoned on trumped-up charges, smeared in the news media and, with increasing frequency, killed." [NYT] The Times article also drops a line of the chess grandmaster Kasparov: "Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and current opposition figure, in 2012. For a decade or more, he has had his bodyguards carry bottled water and prepared meals for him." ... ... The Wall Street Journal has a piece on Scott Adams's role in this presidential cycle. Recall, that he has been big on Trump: '“The moment I realized there was something special was during the first debate,” he tells me over coffee in the kitchen of his spacious suburban home. “It was the Rosie O’Donnell moment.” Moderator Megyn Kelly had confronted Mr. Trump with the key premise of what Mr. Adams calls “a gotcha question of the highest order”: “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ ” “I asked myself: How would anybody else have answered?” Mr. Adams recalls. “If you denied it, it would look weak. If you embraced it—you really couldn’t. There was nothing you could say. He was completely painted into a corner by his past comments. No one could get out of that. And then he did what no one could do—he got out of it. He said: ‘Only Rosie O’Donnell.’ ”' [WSJ] The funny this is, he has formally endorsed Hillary. Funnier yet, perversely speaking, he did it only on ground of personal safety. People were calling him Joseph Goebbels, with that hint of a death threat: 'Even so, his empty gesture had its desired effect. “The weird thing is, people don’t care why,” Mr. Adams says. “They only care if you’re on their side. So it actually made most of the problems go away. Almost instantly, people stopped calling me Joseph Goebbels. In terms of my safety, it absolutely worked, exactly as I imagined it would work. . . . I’m actually safer because I’ve endorsed Hillary Clinton.”' ... ... I really should do a better job of restraining myself from googling Dr. G. and Horace. It is always depressing: the professor's happy smiling and the dorm-mate's conning ... ... Daimon says, "I see you haven't been reading Hobbes for your nap wake-time reading lately. You just don't care for it, eh?" That's not it. I actually liked getting his account of the civil wars, but it was too strained an effort to read for only two or three minutes at a time, once a day, and not always everyday. It was just easier to go back to my little gold books and savor those more personal gems. But I don't know how I fit that Hobbes material back into my reading life. It's the old issue of too many books and too little time, and the necessity of being ruthless with one's interests ... ... Pi says, "Oooh, thunder!" Daimon says, "Just in case anyone thought that this weather was going away soon." ... ... Pi says, "It's been a while since we have done a survey question: Have you ever been offered drugs but declined?" LOL Never, anytime anybody cares to offer me some free drugs, I gladly hold my hand out and say 'thank you!' Daimon says, "And, of course, this happens often." Nah, we'd have to go back to college days. Well, I guess high school days were friendlier in that regard, too. But, jokes aside, I am not really interested in any drugs. Like Elvis said, music is my drug, or in my case, literature. Daimon says, "And, by literature, you mean pornography." Well, I guess there is that, too ... ... Pop got a lot of mail today from the various charities he contributes to. It really irritates me: giving money to policemen rather than to his son. Daimon says, "Look at it this way: even if a light clicked in his head and he decided to stop giving, it is not like he would turn the money over to you." Yeah, he would probably just take Lorie out to eat more often. I just don't have enough zen in me. I stress easy. Daimon says, "And just to be clear: you don't really feel like you are owed more, do you?" Nooo, I understand that I have taken far more than any decent son would. There is no way I could defend my course if I were put to trial for it. But, still, the pointless posturing of this petty philanthropy, his fanciful self-image of being one of the big men of the world ... it still irks me. But it is only a momentary irk and I go on with life. Maybe it is the want of the air-conditioner than has me a little wound up today. I am going to have to shower tonight to regain my comfort after the day's faint perspiration. Pi says, "Oh, poor baby! That nasty soap!" Well, it just didn't have to be, that's the thing ... ... When mother killed herself, I wonder if she thought about how much she hated her fat body. When I am feeling utter despair these days, I think about how nice it would be not to have to go living in this body and with this fucked up face ... ... That after dinner funk. I want to go on reading the "Euthyphro", but my brain feels like its sloshing around in alcohol or something. Maybe this is a good time to take that quick cool-off shower. It's 9:30. Pi says, "How about a survey question first: Have you ever met someone who has completely altered your way of thinking?" Naturally, I'd like to say 'no', that I am not that impressionable, but how can I forget that fundamentalist Christian church at Yokota, Japan and that blond guy, Randy Waller, or something like that. I went from being totally and completely irreligious to becoming a school yard preacher of the Good News and the coming Kingdom. It's kind of embarrassing, but it is a rather big chapter in my life. I don't think I've had any other mind-altering experiences that are even close to that. When he knocked on our door at American village, with a church van full of kids, with me going into the 8th grade, he really rocked my world. I am probably richer for it. It's not like I have other better social engagements to look back on. It just makes me wish that I had a real life. Something fuller than this.