It’s Sunday, early afternoon, and it’s damp and grey, chilly and misty. I’ve been too lazy to pick up last week’s Sunday New York Times from the den floor and today’s is here waiting to be sectioned out, glanced at, maybe even read.

My digital Internet window, YouTube, is opened to Ashland and her railroad tracks. One train has passed, #79, The Carolinian, Southbound to Richmond, ultimately Charlotte.

In the overcast chill, I see one couple, dressed in black jackets, dungarees , walking towards The Henry Clay Inn, searching for breakfast or lunch or brunch. They’re probably a couple, but now they don’t walk side by side. The man is walking several paces ahead, as. the woman lags behind. No hand holding. They walk like a couple that used to fuck, but haven’t in a while. Now they desire nothing more than a plate of eggs or a chicken salad sandwich.

When it’s sunny, a “nonbinary” chap rides around town on their bicycle, wearing a hot pink miniskirt, pantyhose, and cowboy hat, grooving to tunes on their radio, occasionally raising their arms in glee. Ashland Nonbinary Person is one of the harmless eccentrics of this little town.

They are who they are. And nobody really cares.

Meanwhile, a “rail fan” shows his homemade sign to the camera, then walks away. Where are the trains? A passenger train, headed to New York fromTampa, should be coming along, as well as a freight hauling garbage, southbound from DC, should also be passing through, headed to a giant landfill in Charles City County.

I’m wondering if that couple will find a restaurant, eat their eggs and will they make love later, his paunchy belly and her callipygous bum slapping together, in their conjugal bliss? After all, it is Sunday and the kids aren’t around.

I made it around our benevolent star, completing another orbit. 72 is the current count. I’m feeling rather sad, from lack of sleep, sexual frustration, despair over the continuing state of the USA and the world in general

But I had a YASSO Frozen yogurt bar after Midnight to celebrate. I didn’t sleep worth a crap. I’m engrossed in a book, The Devil’s Chessboard, a history of the CIA under Allen Dulles. More of a general overview than a scholarly work, it provides a narrative of the tumultuous events of the early Cold War. The book is engaging and depressing at the same time.

We Americans are very naïve idealists. As such we become malleable to the efforts of politicians, their media allies, businesses from technology giants to big pharmaceutical companies to Big War, I mean Defence.

At age 72, I’ve noticed there has been a shooting war going on most of my life, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention proxy wars, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Lebanon. Yemen, Syria. And now Ukraine. We’re too busy “getting by”, so the politicians, soldiers, contractors, bureaucrats and spooks get away with it. The players move from one faction to the other. It’s about keeping the War Economy going.

But it’s all about to collapse. We keep borrowing money to keep the scheme going and with each month, that becomes harder and harder to sustain. This is why this raising the debt limit debate is critical.

Maybe it’s time we challenge who wields power and controls this country. I can tell you right now they won’t like the scrutiny or the challenge.

And people will end up dead.

Population control sounds better than genocide.

The orgasm is the Participation Award for sex, just like the medal a child receives for participating in youth sports.

There is more to human existence than winning and losing, and discerning who won and who lost. We all need to read the Book of Ecclesiastes a little more than once.

The AMTRAK trains are late this morning. That’s not a surprise. In Ashland, a “rail fan”,camera mounted on a tripod,waits for #89, the South bound Palmetto to pass through town,on the way to Richmond and, ultimately, to Savannah. Out inLa Plata, the East bound Southwest Chief is two hours late.

This is my second go-round at being “up”. I’m yawning, enduring a sinus headache, and uncomfortable sitting up. Truth be told, I could sleep a little longer.

Last night, when J returned from work, she was watching a PBS documentary on Zorah Neale Hurston. The story addressed sex and class and race, somehow making the life of a fascinating person, a drama of victimhood, rather than achievement. But, hey, it’s television. At one in the morning, I just want sleep.

I’m obsessing a little less about food. Food has always been more an intrusion than a pleasure. The questions, “What am I gonna eat?And when?” seem to be omnipresent

After several hours’ hiatus, I’m back at this post. I’ve felt generally tired all day. Today was spring-like. I regret lacking the energy to do much of anything outdoors.

J is resting now also. She sleeps with the TV on. Maddening.

Old Men Just Wanna Have Fun.

(But you knew that already.)

My posting yesterday was interrupted by an irresistible urge to sleep. I did get a nap, but my creative urge remained somnolent until just now.

I have dinner to prepare after I finish watching a rather entertaining escapist film, Deadlier Than The Male, a crime/thriller from The Rank Organisation, from the era of James Bond. It is a very ably acted and produced film with Richard Johnson, Elke Sommer, and Nigel Green as the villain.

Speaking of dinner, I’ve been following the WEIGHT WATCHERS (WW) program and am losing weight. Along with the weight loss has come the realisation that I have enough books, CDs, and DVDs to keep me entertained for several years. And educated.

It’s crazy how this culture works. The culture is based around the notion that we always want and need more. Now we may need more, a car that operates without mechanical issues, and we may want more, a vacation, another sex partner, but simply consider the possibility that there is enough in your life right now.

Of course, your mind began refuting that premise as soon as I presented it. That’s the culture speaking.

I told you it was crazy.

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.