It’s 3:45. Today the country pays homage to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I remember the March on Washington in August, 1963 and I remember the night he was assassinated, April, 1968. He was the greatest American orator of all time, greater than Lincoln or Patrick Henry.

Today is also the birthday of my Grandma Eva, born 16 January, 1894. She had hearing loss, my inheritance from her. My cousin told me she also suffered from depression, just as I do, too. She went to college in Ypsilanti, Michigan, pretty extraordinary for a young woman in 1912. The motto of her high school graduating class was, “Failure is UnAmerican.”

More later

We went out for brunch at an “artsy” restaurant Sunday (today). I’ve been tracking my food with the Weight Watchers (WW) points system. I found a delicious salad with beets, butternut squash, chèvre, pepitas on a bed of spring greens. Highly yummy. And I used very few points.

Then J and I walked around an antiques mall with lots of cool stuff. Saw things I would like to own. As we get the house refurbished, I’m seeing things I’d like to own that suit my taste.I saw a nice tobacco jar, then remembered I already owned one. I don’t smoke anymore, the jar would thus be decorative and not functional for its original purpose

Returning home I got back to fixing dinner. We had yet to have black eye peas, and cornbread for good luck(it’s an American South custom). So I’m thinking we’re close to the Lunar New Year, so there’s a New Year in there some where. I made the cornbread with Mexican blue corn masa harina. J liked it. Victory.

While I was cooking, I had the Russian Orthodox Liturgy on YouTube. That was the closest I came to a Church today. It was worth it. Between the choir and the icons, the Sacred Liturgy definitely had me grateful and properly reverent.

I found a slow cooker London Broil recipe that was anything but broiled. Good to eat and low WW Points.

So I’m tired and happy and satisfied, which a lot of people with more money than I have can’t say.

Put a ✅ in the Win Column!

My sense of grandiosity has me fantasising about being suddenly rich and famous, because the World has finally “discovered” me.

Yes it is childish, but, if you know me, that’s consistent with my character.

I suspect others hold this dream.

I awoke at 4:30. It is now 7:41. I am watching trains pass through Ashland. One approaches now. It is an AMTRAK Northeast Regional Train headed to New York. New York is still The Destination, even now.

In the last three hours, I have read part of a disturbing book on Allen Dulles and the American intelligence community. Sometimes it’s best not to think too deeply or too long about the CIA. Consequently I want to sleep some more.

Spooks. It is a slang term for spies. Historically, spook has been a pejorative term for African Americans. I state that merely as a fact, not as approval of the term. Our language, or any language, can become as twisted as a pretzel in its contortions of meaning.

When you figure out America, please let me know what you found out.

The terrain is flat here. The sky is gray. The landscape has grays and greens, the wispy branches of trees There is the sandy brown of the AMTRAK station, with white-framed windows. Plain Folk, Mennonites, I think, are waiting for a train. #4, the Eastbound Southwest Chief will take them to Fort Madison or Galesburg.On this drab platform, in this drab land , a yellow stripe in the concrete separates the safe area from the danger zone.The slip stream of a speeding train will suck the hapless in. And the only other bright colour is the red of a Coke machine.

The black clad passengers, the whole scene, could be in Czarist Ukraine, or the Ruthenian province of the Habsburgs. Imagine the scene in 1905. These Mennonites would morph into Jews, beards, felt hats, and overcoats. The smart ones would be on the way to North America and they would escape pogroms, famines, genocide and bet on the sketchy promises of New York or Winnipeg or Chicago.

The trains modernize and change from steam to diesel/electric. The horns are louder than steam whistles, but the waiting remains the same, for a train to take a passenger to the unknown.

Spend a little time naked every day. After showering, just be naked, both boys and girls.

I just had my shower. I’m enjoying the feeling of air on my skin. It’s a little cool, but that’s OK.

OK, back to clothing.

You know the ones. We awaken too early. Alertness fades. YouTube provided attractions that morph into distraction. Right now, I’m watching home movies filmed in Peru, ca. 1940, by a German amateur cinematographer. Always interesting to see the past. Interesting, but why am I not sleeping?

This morning, I decided to resume tracking my points on Weight Watchers, now known as WW. I’m feeling better after my COVID-19 episode. Exercise will resume soon, maybe today.

The only way to attack my paranoia is to focus on positive things, doing things that are worthwhile. I’m turning the second bedroom into a space for me, by clearing out the pile of books, perhaps consolidating books placed around the house in this room and then reading them. I might even take notes. Book Reports, perhaps?

This is about tackling my loneliness and my sexual frustration. If I can just clear a couple of spaces in this house, maybe J will get with the program,too.

OK, I’m really tired now.

Thanks for stopping by.

I feel so tired my eyeballs ache. I’m watching trains right now, the rail cam in Ashland, VA on theVirtual Railfan YouTube channel.

It is raining and little drops of water on the camera lens impart a certain kaleidoscopic quality. I’m waiting for the South Bound Silver Meteor #97 to pass through on the way to Miami.

Our winters are filled with rain and temperatures around 35-45 degrees Fahrenheit, not bad if one dislikes snow, but just as bone chilling without the beauty of snowfall. As a last vestige of Christmas the lights have yet to be taken down.

The COVID fatigue lingers in my body. I may feel OK, but raising my activity level isn’t particularly smart.

That’s enough. No more profound insights tonight.

Maybe we’re all just pretending we’re in love. That we couldn’t possibly love another human being as much as we love ourselves? That is narcissism, at the very core. Maybe we never outgrow it.

We all want the dramas of our lives to mean something. We want to emerge from our failed marriages, wiser for the experience, only to find another partner, just as crazy or crazier, than the one we left. Chalk that one up to experience, too.

I’m tired, dehydrated, too. There is a wash going plus clothes in the dryer. I could go upstairs and prepare for the next loads.

I could watch news, rather than porn. But why? Neither genre deals with reality. It’s as if Goebbels is looking over the shoulder of the camera man and the editor in both, giving us dreams to believe in.

I think about that flu shot I got today and the ice cream bars I bought afterwards. I made at least one wise decision between the two. Choose for yourself the wiser of them