Pictures Worse Than A Thousand Words?

The external keyboard  that Alex in California sent to me about 10 years ago, now, actually works when plugged into the new laptop.

The 3 foot cord on it allows me to sit that much further away from the blue light emitted from the screen, and turns the volume down on the tinnitus that I become aware of only when I think of it; or when I'm mixing music and working the 16 kilohertz knob trying to hear the effects of what I'm doing.

Poor Alex became  "radicalized" during the pandemic; unaware that the Internet in California is not a "regulation 0" zone, but more like what one gets in Israel, regulation 1 (or higher).

Speaking of radicalization,  I imagine that us Sacred Heart Apartments residents are fodder for any kind of experiments, of the "MK Ultra" type, that we might be being subject to, in exchange for the Permanent Supportive Housing we are the beneficiaries of. Nothing is free in this world, son; my dad would say...

Alternatively, I could  believe in ghosts...

I am one  of only a few 60 something's here who can walk without the aid of a walker -one of those "tennis ball' jobs, in some cases...

The ones that  aren't just up and dying, are having their lower legs amputated. They scoff at me and my sardine only diet, as I pass them in the lobby on my way out to jog; sitting in their wheelchairs eating snacks out of the machine, washed down with high fructose corn syrup sweetened "cold drinks."

The lady who  works the front desk during week days, weighs about 300 pounds, and is probably on first name basis with every Door Dash delivery person in town. She sits there, burning as few calories as possible, when it comes to anything resembling work (I think the button that can be pressed to unlock the front door, so that the person working doesn't have to walk over and push it open when guests arrive; will eventually have a placard by it, designating it as "the Miss Cherie Memorial Button" after she passes away).

She could probably  do her job from home; looking through a camera with a button in front of her, and could gossip with the same handful of residents, through Zoom.

I'm not trying  to disparage Miss Cherie, I am just feeling somewhat frustrated these days, seeing people around me suffering for their disbelief that their diets are making them sick. That makes me a nut-job, worms in the brain lunatic like RFK Jr; because that's what their phones told them that's what that makes me.

I will tell  them that I've never once set foot in either the McDonald's, the Burger King nor the Rally's in the neighborhood in the 14 years I've lived here.

I say this  motivated by love; despite them having been conditioned from an early age to hate me. Hatred is the easy way to go, but there's so much competition it's hard to get anywhere with it..

"You don't know  what you're missing!" might be their mouth-full-of-fries retort...

"You mean, like  my lower limbs?" I stopped short of saying...

I have one  more 15 ounce tin of sardines left, and am hungry for them already, here at 3:15 on this Thursday afternoon.

Waking Up With  Deborah Harry

I have been  alcohol and weed free for 2 whole days now.

I fell asleep  to a "Meet Your Spirit Guides" guided sleep meditation last night, waking up with Deborah Harry from Blondie singing the line from the song: "11:59" that goes: "...sidewalk social scientists don't get no satisfaction from your cigarette...' looping in my head...

I suspect that  one of the subliminal suggestions in that self hypnosis video that I mostly slept through is probably something like: "Cigarettes will become unsatisfying to me..." with my subconscious mind having connected that to the Blondie song, which was one of the first things I learned to play by ear on guitar back when I was around 14...

I took the  laptop up to the Holy Ground Irish Pub to download "11:59" and put it in my "Buskables" folder, where it settled in right next to the Phish song: "Harry, Where Do You Go When The Lights Are Out?," synchronicity being just par for the course these days...

I might bring  the 15 ounce tin of sardines up to the front lobby, just so I can say to Miss Cherie: "This is all I eat..."

Though, I know  that will only make her do the finger circling the ear gesture to the other obesities, as soon as I turn my back...

They know not  what they do; they've got so many platelets stuck to the blood vessels in their brains they have lost access to the higher functions of it, I believe...

It could be  that it's 11:59 on their life clocks...

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I'm Lucifer's Baby...So, Why Don't You Kill Me

The post title is a sendup of "I'm A Loser, Baby" by Beck (I believe is the artist) btw...

Monday again; and  I'm in pretty good shape.

I'm pretty sure there was no such product as this before I manifested it; shortly after having the 'Eureka' moment when I decided I'm going to start a Youtube channel of some sort. The entire history of the product was instantiated, and people's memories over-written, so that they would swear that these things didn't just 'magically' come into existence through the agency of some astral projecting guy in New Orleans. This wouldn't be the first time; I can point to several other things that just weren't in this universe until I personally needed them..
Prove me wrong!

I've been going  to sleep nightly instead of morningly more often this past week; have been taking 7 grams of creatine a day (if you are not seeing this post, it's because the algorithm has determined that you don't need to see "in pretty good shape," and 'creatine' in the same paragraph).

I've been drifting  off listening to guided sleep meditations on Youtube, a lot of which come with the advice that one must listen 'every night for 30 days' in order to realize the magical transformation, or gain the ability to manifest anything one wants.

I'm up at  the Holy Ground Irish Pub using their public wifi connection.

I count it  a blessing that the biggest guilt I carry with me nowadays stems from my using their wifi without ever going inside and buying anything. I put my most ragged clothes on before coming here; so as to strike a truce with them: "Don't tell me I have to buy something in order to download Elton John's "Caribou" album, and I won't go inside to do so and probably smell up the place, type of thing...

If they had  a keto beer, maybe...

Other than that,  I'm having a great day except for flashes of rage that well up then subside; because of the sobriety thing, I'm sure.

Just a few  days of a water fast hasn't been enough to starve the monster inside that wants a cigarette and then a few drinks towards sundown; and then a puff off a joint before playing the first song at the Lilly Pad; and then....

When I drink,  I'm more prone to act upon those impulses, so that's worse, I guess.

Because the one  I just had was of *** a n*** in the head, who tries to grab this laptop and run off with it.

I need to  write a script to detonate plastic explosives in the device through an Android app that I could write in the "Ruby" language.

Then, once the  fleeing thief is clear of other people; punch a code into my phone.

Windows rattle a quarter mile away; brown body parts fly almost as far...

Those are the  kind of reveries I often have on about the 3rd or 4th day of sobriety.

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Move The Couch; Change Your Life...

Monday and the  only order of business is what is at hand and I'd be better off just leaving the Holy Ground Irish Pub, going home, and working on my hobbies; to include the decluttering and rearrangement of the room and furniture therein.

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What To Eat, Who To Pray For, Who To Love..?

Wednesday night, waking  up fully rested; but at 4:30 p.m...

I'm trying a  new approach to busking whereby I'll actually write out a set list of, say, 12 songs, to be done more or less 'in order.' That will allow some forethought to be put into the thing...

Am about to  go across the street to check my bank balance; and will go from there...

I woke up  with the urge to read, and will pluck one of the 57 or so books that I'm currently reading, off the shelves.

Other than that...fully  rested...

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I'm Gonna Have To Contact The Lidgley's One Of These Days

The pretty up  the text script shouldn't embolden words I'd rather it not; like "I'd," "I'm"and "I'll."

Small improvement, but  something that had been bugging me; and the solution apparently surfaced from my subconscious mind, helped by creatine monohydrate. Test sentence: I've solved the problem I'd mulled over for a few weeks. I'll see if I've fixed it. That would be Capital..

So, now I  have to write about things as an excuse to play around with the Python3 script.

Kinda like when  I was 10 or 11 and got a speedometer/odometer for my Schwinn Le Tour 10 speed. I had to get out there and ride around, to nowhere in particular; just to watch the wheels go around -at least far enough to watch the second digit turn from 0 to 1 at the ten mile point. I'm sure I came home with 10.7 miles.

And, my best  friend, Dave, also got a speedometer for his Schwinn Varsity, and, of course we began a race to 10,000 miles, the back-to-all-zeroes, Mt. Everest summit of Schwinn speedometers...

Now Dave is  retired, after a career in writing Python, and other, scripts...

His job is  now my hobby. He could take up the guitar and harmonica to follow suit..

I had a  pretty decent pair of walkie talkies, back in the 90's. Finding another person willing to 'play walkie talkies' with you is the hardest part of that particular hobby. I used to turn one of them on and put it in front of a microphone feeding a sound recording device; then leave the apartment and walk far away -up to 3 or 4 miles; while speaking into the other one, giving a run-on narration; updating my position.

It was pretty  weird; listening back later from the apartment, to myself speaking from 4 miles away

And, hearing church  bells that rang across the street come through walkie talkie speaker a second or so before coming through the window screen...

Tonight, I will  be a simple man; and live the simple life of having one good Andy Gator beer, some kind of meal, and then playing the acoustic guitar.

At this point,  my food stamp account has been 'closed' effective July 1st. That's because I'm 63, and cannot prove that I work 80 hours per month; unless I travel to the office, which is on the other side of town now, and present myself before one particular worker there who lives not far from Lilly and who, in the past has rubber stamped my 'proof of employment' sheet, affirming to have 'seen you out there,' and 'heard you all the time...'

She is an  ace in the hole that Nichole, my caseworker isn't aware of.

She has told  me that there must be 'paperwork' to go along with any claims of employment.

But, Nichole is  working on the situation, from some angle.

She might have  to dig up the assessment of myself as being 'alcohol dependent' and thus, 'disabled.'

I had to  be a disabled veteran, back in 2014, in order to be taken off the street and placed into Sacred Heart Apartments; and alcohol dependency seemed the easiest row to hoe; towards that aim.

And, I did  my best, over the following years to not make a liar out of whomever signed off on my disabled status... She slept better, knowing I was out there falling on my face each night, type of thing...

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A Prettier Way To Say Nothing

I'm sitting at  the Holy Ground Pub and I haven't felt a drop of rain yet. I've got to go into the Python script and add the words "I've," and "I'll" to the list of words to not become bold-faced in these manuscripts.

Putting them in  quotes worked above because it appears to the script that the word begins with """, and not a capitalized letter.

That will be  a fun project to work on at home (as I have now just felt the first drop). I'm thinking of making a list of all the words to be immune from becoming bold faced, then giving that list a name, so I can say: "if NOT IN (NotToBeEmboldened)" then bold-face it..

That will clean  up a really long statement being evaluated for each word in the text; although each one will still have to be checked against the list, so I'll have to see if I've made the script more efficient.

In other news,  I have replenished my kratom supply and my creatine monohydrate reserve.

It was educational  to have experienced what a week without those substances was like.

My tolerance of  sugars and other carbohydrates seemed to ebb to the point that I was waking up out of nightmares the mornings after having put too much honey in my coffee...

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Honey Nightmares

Third day in  a row of waking up from a nightmare.

In this one,  I had gone to my apartment to lock myself inside, only to find that my door frame was missing and so there was no way to do so. This, after I had ridden a bike around the Quarter seeing buskers on every corner and in every alley, all with cases full of money; in spots where I had previously never thought of playing, myself.

I was trying  to ride by my spot in the dream but kept getting trapped in places like coming to an alley with a staircase at the end of it, in the direction I needed to go, then carrying my bike up the stairs to find that there was a bar or pub at the upper level that was only accessible by the same staircase I had just scaled. Then, turning around to go back down, I encountered a group of people coming up the stairs and had to try to squeeze by them, holding a bike...

Just about every  detail of the dream, I could trace back to prior experiences, a lot of which I had dwelt upon (been tormented by the recollection of) the past few days...

Going off the  sardine diet, as I had done the week that I had been broke, coincided with the nightmares and the waking up heavily depressed each morning, but for only a few minutes; as if toxins in my bloodstream had been mobilized, maybe earmarked for elimination through my organs, but hitting my brain along the route.

I'm suspecting that  honey, or at least the brand that I have now, could be a neurotoxin to me.

I woke up,  initially, after maybe 5 hours of sleep and had the notion of trying to stay up, being only 'half' tired. I made a cup of coffee with some butter and enough honey to sweeten it and drank it while listening to the thunder of Tropical Storm Arthur outside my window, but soon tired enough, despite the java, to lay back down and have the most recent nightmare over the course of about 3 more hours..

Now, I'm waiting  for myself to become hungry again after finishing off the sourdough bread, which had seemed to contribute to brain fog, to the point where I would be looking around the place for where I'd put my coffee cup down, maybe to watch the lightning flashes out the window.

I'd bought the  bread during a drinking binge fueled trip to the store, congratulating myself after which for not having bought a box of Zebra Cakes, and rationalizing that bread, butter and honey had been a more sensible choice.

The alcohol consumption  is, I'm pretty convinced by now, the master controller over my decisions turning out to be good or bad. If I had no ambitions beyond being a useless drunk, then this wouldn't be so much of an issue.

I made a  deal with Nichole, my 'caseworker' (who embodies the 'support' in the Permanent Supportive Housing that I'd been offered by virtue of being a homeless veteran) that, if I fell off the wagon again, I would let her put me in an outpatient rehab program, covered by Medicaide..

That has woken  up in me a resolve to help myself, as I have done in the past, that had been faltering recently, particularly the times after my monthly 'retirement' funds have arrived.

And, come to  think of it; the nightmare of being pursued, then finding that the door frame was missing is relatable to that. Perhaps the sentiment that I can't lock myself inside and hide from the world with drugs and alcohol, but now, as per my agreement with Nichole, 'they' can barge in and take me away in a van for a couple weeks, if I do so. Although the hiding from the world aspect is debatable, as I am still able to roam the world, like an inebriated fool, on social media and even here, from the confines of my permanent house..

In probably about  3 or 4 hours, I'm going to feel hungry, and will respond by drinking water, until the hunger subsides, signaling that I'm burning up the glucose from my liver (or the glycogen, I'm not sure; I'm not Doctor Sten Ekberg...).

Given the mood  swings I'm having on this Tropical Storm Arthur Day, June, 18th, 2026; I'm sure I will change my mind about drinking alcohol along the walk to the store; but there is an equally good chance I'll change it back to not drinking before I get to their door.

I wish I  could take a big enough dose of LSD so that it would alter my brain chemistry and literally burn away my perception of "who I am," leaving just my higher self in its place. A self to whom it would never even occur to smoke off a vape or drink. Do I do those things? I don't think I do... I might then think.

Tinnitus Too?

The recent issues  with my laptop and hotspot (routed through a 'government' phone) and bluetooth connection to my stereo speakers cutting out randomly, along with a tinnitus that will start in one of my ears as if a switch had just been toggled, and then do things like jump to the other ear just as abruptly, before maybe going away for weeks at a time, combined with the fact that one of the wifi signals that pops up at the top of the list (being the strongest signal) of available signals after I turn on wifi is named "NSA," and began to appear a short time after I posted "I think 'delta variant' is just code for 'injured by the vaccine'" on Facebook, back in 2021; which also concurred with the readership of this blog going from 400 or so daily, to 12 to 16; has got me wondering about the 'free' government phone -shout out to Ed Snowden; and one of my biggest regrets is having drank away what I could have used on a new phone using a different carrier.

Meta AI told  me: "12 to 16 readers is good for a journal blog!"

Yeah, but what  happened to all the people who used to randomly land on it, by typing away like a million monkeys and searching for the exact phrase I entitled a blog post? I once made a post that almost 5,000 eyeballs landed on. But, I suppose 'they' fixed that little glitch, haha.

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"Decluttering" Needs To Be Added By Webster

Sunday, June 7,  2026 is in the books.

I watched about  12 hours(!) of Youtube stuff, slept about 8; and made a run to the food and water store. That just about chewed up the entire "Sun" day.

I was able  to soak up about 25 minutes of sunlight, as that orb was setting; giving me more of either the red or blue end of the spectrum -I forget which, and am not up to speed yet with jumping from here to an AI engine to ask it real quick..

3 hours of  the Youtube "watching" was taken up by the 'meditation' video that put me to sleep and then continued to beam certain frequencies into my brain; along with repeated affirmations, designed to hypnotize me, and plant the suggestion that I 'declutter' my mind, my environment and as a result, my life.

The irony of  using a 3 hour video as an aid to cutting down the time I spend watching videos is not lost on me.

And, to think  I haven't even checked out Instagram, X, Tik Tok or Substack...yet...

Not to mention  migrating to Rumble in order to ultimately find a community of people that some algorithm isn't hiding me from.

It's unfortunate to  be living in the era before the bugs have been worked out of the "humans using the Internet" continuum, at this point in time. 

Has it really been 15 years?

Back When I Wore Brown (left)

Looking back 50  years from now, how stupid will we seem for doing things like wearing masks and kneeling before statues of violent criminals who overdosed while being taken into custody; because of what we saw on the screens of our phones, all day, every day...?

Well, I haven't  been tinkering with this hobby much, lately -not so much the one of blogging, as of working on the Python script that decorates the rendered text.

I want to  see if the word "June" is going to be bold-faced in the first sentence, and how '12 hours(!)' will be interpreted.

The "end of  sentence" punctuation (!) will make the script think that the next character is the start of a new sentence. Will ')' be counted as a word, then? All proper nouns are to be in bold face. They are recognizable from their capitalization. So, all capitalized words not at the start of a sentence are bold faced. But, what if a sentence starts with a proper noun?

God help me  solve that coding problem! But, God as the second word of a sentence is bold faced; see (the conundrum)?

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Colors Find Me

Me And You Are Subject To The Jews Now And Then

https://youtu.be/WA8XH-u09Cg?si=T4hgb19LZfivyFRX

One Byte Over A Killo (Of Words)

Thursday morning and  I was up around 6 in the morning.

Harold had been  outside for about as long as I'd slept, maybe seven and a half hours...

I wanted to  go offer to let him in, but I also was intent upon completing The Morning Pages -three longhand pages of stream of consciousness, as prescribed by the "The Artist's Way" author, Julia Cameron. Harold has become rather rigid in a habit of immediately seeking my attention as soon as he's done eating. Immediately after eating, upon coming back inside, he will, while still licking his lips come over and dig his claws into the couch like he's stretching; and then jump up and lay on top of whatever I have next to me -a mirror loaded with cocaine, whatever- and he will have started meowing steadily, and then will press his butt against me, facing away, and continuing to meow, like he's not going to stop.

I know at  least two "cat people" who will say that he's "saying" "Scratch me" and that's where I would put my money, but I have a problem with him turning away from me, unless it has to do with the direction that my nails would scratch him in, perhaps it feels better to him to be scratched with the grain of his fir...

But, the whole  appeal of him as a pet is whatever intelligence he may have, which is seated in his head, which he's facing away from me.

I have previously  had to tell him to sleep, like when I'm trying to do the Wim Hof deep breathing method, and I had to pick him up and transport him to the next room, but I felt like I owed him some kind of explanation, so I said "I'm doing my breathing, Harold!, stretching the syllables of "breeeethiiiing..." out, kind of similating deep breathing, and I had gotten him to begrudgingly accept his full stomach and soft bed, without also being scratched.

I give him  credit, though, for an ability to change the tone and inflection of his meows. The "begrudging" tone is pretty distinct, but, if I persist in trying to ignore him, he'll start making his meows sound like "Harold" and I haven't been able to ignore that one, for the same intelligence that it hints might exist in him...

Not intelligent enough  to figure out that turning fully away from someone and pressing your butt against her is rude, maybe, but definitely able to change the tone of meows to convey things like "that feels good" or "that hurts" while being scratched.

I made harold  wait an extra 35 minutes to come in and did The Morning Pages.

I think Harold  is becoming more predictable in his habits is because I've been becoming more regular in my own, lately.

I feel like  I'm becoming a different person, or at least a different personality, due to perhaps the creatine monohydrate that I've been taking about 7 grams of every day for what is probably right around 6 months, now. I just saw an ad for some concoxtion of probiotics with cranberry extract and a few other ingredients, and the AI generated voice over (probably) was pretty adamant about how important it is to get a 6 month supply of the stuff. They cautioned that, as their company expands, there may be times when their warehouse has been temporarily cleaned out, by popular demand. And, it would be a shame if, just when your body is starting to respond to the stuff and real healing is on the horizon, you have to discontinue it while waiting for the supply chain to catch up, type of thing..

I think it  is because of marketing.

The amount of  people willing to venture $40 on some probiotic cranberry stuff is most likely huge, and they don't want to miss out on that "curiousness" driven demographic, even though they know that 6 months on the stuff will have a transformational impact.

I think that  is smart, especially if there is an immediately noticeable benefit by month three, that would prompt the individual to order more...

But, that made  me wonder about there being things that take six months to really kick in, and if it isn't the creatine monohydrate, more than the sardine fast, that has me feeling like a different person, or a third thing.

That would be  the "Introduction To Astral Projecting" videos that I've been watching more frequently, lately, and actually participating in them, by falling asleep while they emanated from speakers on each side of my head.

Astral projecting is  something I actually hadn't had pause to consider since I was in jail back in '92.

There was a  guy who was facing a double murder charge there, who was a fledgling practicioner of astral projection. He had a book on the subject, with fittingly cool art on the cover, and the guy was basically trying to leave his cell and walk the beaches of Guam every night. He was also on some kind of psych medications. Most likely the most intense that 1992 had to offer; suitable for the likes of a double murderer, type of thing..

My feeling on  the matter is, and was, that if you know you're trying to leave your body and travel places because you're stuck in prison for probably the rest of your life, and wouldn't have the faintest interest in that realm if free to roam and murder people two, by two...it's probably not going to work so well.

But, anyways, I'm  finally fixing my electric guitar, turning it back to a normal guitar from being a Frankenstein that had one bass guitar string slotted in with the rest. It made for some interesting inversions of chords providing unusual bass notes, but now it can become the more standard six string, like George Harrison played...

It's late afternoon.  I' about to do some kind of guided meditation, perhaps in order to meet my higher self on the astral plane. Jeez, wouldn't it be quite the coincidence if I run into that guy from jail up there, after just talking about him...?

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Here's To Your Health; Sardine Fast Resumes

This is Saturday  morning at around 9:45, and I have already run to the stores for coffee, distilled water and sardines..

3 large tins  of that storied, iconic fish.

There was a  Latino guy, about 18 years old, but maybe 15, stocking the shelves at the Ideal Market, right by the sardines, who attempted to help me select cans -probably so I would be out of his way sooner- by locating more of the kind I had picked out from the half dozen of so varieties they sell there.

Only the "La  Serena" brand in the "in chipotle sauce" and "in jalapeño" varieties don't have xanthan gum nor "thickener" listed as ingredients, so I was focusing on those. 

I have yet to research xanthan gum as a food additive, but I can already imagine Dr. Sten Ekberg -bald head and all- in a "I ate only sardines for 30 days, and here's what happened" video, which I imagine he has, if the sardine fast is worth its salt, cautioning his sardine-adventurers: "If the ingredients list mentions 'xanthan gum' or 'thickener,' you want to avoid it," type of thing.

And then going  on to say that xanthan gum is the same thing they use to boost the octane of Formula One racing fuel, or that they distill it from orangutan feces or something."

"...and does that  sound like something you want to put in your body?"

But, I was  trying to load up on the chipotle and minimize the jalepeño variety, but the kid had retrieved more of the latter from the maze of cans, and had offered to hand them to me. 

I didn't know  how to say: "If I just live off the jalepeño kind, I'll develop a burning irritation in my rectum, and I'll wind up having to shove a Q-tip up my asshole to scratch it..."

As a 2nd  year Spanish student, that was out of my league.

"Siri, how do  you say 'Q-tip' in Spanish?" type of thing...

Is Xanthan Gum Bad For You? 

Foods contain a very small amount of xanthan gum. In these small quantities, xanthan gum is not bad for you, and it’s considered safe to consume. It also doesn’t cause side effects for most people. -WebMD

I left there  with 2 cans of each, having rushed a bit to facilitate getting out of his way, lest he think I was intentionally trying to be a pain in his ass, standing there reading the fine print on 12 different cans.

Having run out  of food money a week ago, and then having lost the spotlight (again) that I use to illuminate the stage at the Lilly Pad -concurrent with Jacob being put out of commission by car troubles- put me in a position to conduct an experiment upon the box of food that comes, as if by magic, the third Thursday of every month, to each resident of Sacred Heart, who is over 60, from some charitable organization.

It is about  a one week supply of The Standard American Diet.

Having the proclivity  to be a conspiracy theorist, I have looked at the "senior food box" (as it is referred to by the residents) with a shadow under my eyes, so to speak.

First off, the  words of my late father come to me: There's nothing free in this world; you're going to pay one way or another, I paraphrase...

Second, I think  about the tacit implication that "a nigga's" food stamps have been kind of pre-calculated to have run out by the third Thursday of every month, and, isn't that interesting?

People who are  strangers to intermittent fasting might not view these last few days of every month as being divinely ordained as a time of fasting and prayer. Rather, they might have the notion that one has to eat 3 meals every day or starve to death..

"At least I  got this to eat," they might think, before going to work on the 3 pound brick of "process" cheese product. (See Dr. Sten Ekberg's video entitled something like: "This Ain't Even Cheese, Dog!" for more on the 'government cheese...').

There was a  guy who lived here named Lionell. He was known to really love the orange cheese. If you didn't want yours give it to Lionell, type of thing.

Lionell died of  some kind of cancer about 3 years ago. He was 57, I believe.

The way the  box got me was through the low-fat powdered milk. I added it to my coffee while ostensibly a couple days into a one week water-only fast. I figured I would remain in 'ketosis,' although the lactose in milk is technically a sugar, I believe Dr, Sten said..

But, after being  driven by demons to go out and get some alcohol on or about the 3rd day, with that being straight liquor (no carbs; though alcohol is technically a sugar, according to Dr. Sten) I was beset with the urge to cook one of the "spaghetti's" from the box, rationalizing that I was going to use a lot of extra virgin olive oil and/or real butter on the finished product. That would give my body a choice of fuels to burn, carbs or fats, the good kind of Omega-3 fats...

This led to  me waking up feeling depressed for the first time since before I started the sardine fast 5 weeks ago. It was just about 10 minutes of thinking that human beings were just animals, a baby step up from cockroaches in intelligence, and only through our self aggrandizement do we envision our consciousnesses as composing a dream in the Mind of an infinitely loving God, and that anything we do is eventually going to be reduced to minerals as we dissolve into irrelevance...like, how are we going to preserve the music of Gustav Mahler once the universe has collapsed upon itself and there is the next Big Bang? type of thing...

Performing the exercise  of thinking up "3 things that I'm grateful for" before stepping out of bed, was proof against this; and I felt back to my 'normal' self within 10 or 15 minutes; But I had had to induce the actual "feeling" of gratitude the way an actor might make herself shed tears by willfully thinking of sad things.

There is usually  a sense of: It's not going to work this time; but it did; and, by the time I had had a tablespoon of kratom with creatine monohydrate powder, I felt pretty good. Although squatting down to do certain chores, I noticed the stiffness in my knee joints, which had disappeared about a week into the sardine fast, threatening to encroach upon me...

A couple nights  later, it was the peanut butter, fully hydrogenated cottonseed and/or soy oil and all that I stirred into the crunchy rice cereal that comes in the box, in powdered milk, sprinkled with pure cocoa powder and cinnamon, creating chocolate cinnamon peanut butter crunch...that I pigged out on, like it was an addictive drug..

I concluded the  next morning that the peanut butter definitely gives the government cheese a run for its money, as far as bringing on inflammation and the kind of brain fog that can make one forget about a pot of water left to boil on the stove.

"My" eczema started  to come back, in the form of itchy skin on the scalp and face, after just two losing battles against the senior food box.

I'm not sure  if the CEO's of Big Food are in cahoots with Big Pharma and/or Big Medicine. I've heard it said that there is a 'you keep them sick, we'll make money treating them, you'll make money overcharging them for drugs, the insurance companies will be the money movers...just tell us what we need their life expectancy to be, so we can adjust their medications accordingly, to make it all work...keep up the good work, we're killing it this quarter!" types of conversations behind closed doors..

Not in this  country, though, I ultimately conclude.

Putin, Zelinski or  Xi (not Netanyahu, though, let me be perfectly clear on that..) might do their citizenry that way; like sending millions to their deaths -they would probably even bomb a girl's elementary school, the sociopaths!

Ukraine's population of  white Christian men may have been decimated, and are now being replaced by a diverse group of immigrants, for example...

But this is  the west, where patriots are valued like loyal beagles. There are no such evil machinations going on here.

It's ultimately the  same individuals holding the reigns of power. but they know better than to try to exploit the U.S. citizens.

This is the  land of free cheese! Come and get it, niggas!

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The General Overall Feeling of Wellbeing Meter

So, yeah...

20 years ago,  on this day, I would have been waking up to a digital alarm clock the size of a pager, and set for 5:12 a.m.

It would still  be dark and around 70 degrees, the morning of April 29th, 2006.

It would be  pretty quiet, with the morning birds still asleep, and the pond surrounded by what sounded like 250 bullfrogs, also having simmered down, by 5:12 a.m.

I would break  that silence with the 'phfkack!!' of an energy drink being opened.

That was the  closest thing to a ritual that I practiced. Taking a few gulps then getting on my bike to ride 2.7 miles to Workfoce quality temporary staffing. I would toss the empty in the same trash can at the marina. It was a 12 minute ride.

Getting there around  5:37 a.m. put me ahead of a contingent of workers who arrived by bus, from some poverty stricken part of town.

I worked all  5 weekdays, plus Saturday. The check I cashed every afternoon was for $49.62. So, I was taking "home" just shy of $300 every week, finding more than enough food in the Winn Dixie dumpster, to go on the fire, and really just spending money on alcohol and cigarettes.

It didn't take  long for me to be walking around with almost a thousand bucks in my pocket, amongst the good people of that upper middle class area, who might pity me for my homelessness.

But, all this  is to maybe put yesterday's post in some context.

I was thinking  that I might "recycle" posts, every 20 years, as in, going back 20 years and reading the post in hopes of jogging my memory. Then perhaps turning them into a "It Was 20 Years Ago, Today" type of sidebar; where the perspective gained over the past 20 years can be applied to some sort of commentary, informed by wisdom, type of thing.

I will say  that; the energy drink every morning with the high fructose corn syrup is one thing that I would tell myself of 20 years ago to eliminate. It gave me the glucose spike which got me through the 8 hours of laboring, after which I switched to the keto diet with red wine in the evening.

But I basically  cut out HFCS around 10 years ago; and it took a good 3 or 4 months before I just felt better all around. It took me from like an "83" to an "88" on the general overall feeling of wellbeing meter...

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