Not Easily Forgotten

I have come to the conclusion that my first wife never really loved me. I suspect that she lacked the capacity to love a man completely. That her concept of love lacks any sense of permanence, except for the Love she feels for her children.

All of those memories of first love stay with me. But now comes the suspicion that that was all felt by me alone. That there never was an “us”. We somehow believe the stories we tell ourselves about the world and love and how it’s all supposed to work out. We buy the stuff to outfit our lives: cars, clothes, food, houses. But none of this can fill or satisfy this fundamental emptiness. Those of use who are really lost try to fill the emptiness with alcohol or drugs, gambling. promiscuous sex. Those don’t work either.

I had been going through life thinking I somehow was responsible for the failure of my first marriage. Now I am not so sure. That leads me to my second marriage and its failure, and my current and final (hopefully) marriage. J and I, despite our frustrations and shortcomings, really love each other.

Another 4:00 AM Start

J had work starting at 4:30 AM. She wakes up. I wake up. I got to bed before 11:00 last night. Still four hours sleep isn’t enough.

Right now I would like to go back to sleep, but I am also stimulated by all that is happening in my world Right now Train #86 is stopping in Ashland on Virtual Railfan LLC. I’ve read blog posts from my blogosphere buddies. I wouldn’t mind having a cup of coffee. I miss my wife.

I sit here. I’m thinking about sleeping again. I brushed my teeth, took my medicines and vitamins. I ate some food. I can barely stay awake. I think of couples in love with each other and have sex.

Metropolis-Fritz Lang

I have decided to watch Fritz Lang’s silent classic Metropolis. I have the 2008 restored version. It seems more timely than ever, an early dystopian classic. The themes are humans dehumanized and brutalized by technology, and a vicious system of class stratification and oppression.

This predates the work of Huxley and Orwell. It is a stunning declaration for human freedom and dignity. Its challenges to the merits of science and technology remain to this day.

Mass+Brunch=A Good Day

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This was a Sunday that began with my feeling tired and wishing I could sleep some more. I went upstairs, looking to sleep some more and planning to skip Mass.( I had an excuse, as if Jesus cares about excuses). J and I decide to go. We get there in plenty of time. We extend comfort and condolences to friends who lost their 35 year old daughter very suddenly. We hear a good homily from our Deacon. We meet the seminarian, Armando, who will be something of parochial “intern”for the next year. He strikes me as a young man who will become a good priest. As always, there are plenty of cute babies and young children to boost the spirits of a man without grandchildren.

After Mass, we go to Maggiano’s to have brunch and people watch the mall customers passing in front of our window. The brunch at Maggiano’s is their best value and we had a coupon in our email. J had the crème brûlée French toast, which, for all intents and purposes, is a donut without the hole. I had the braised beef hash with poached eggs.

We get home. Now I take that nap. I fix a quick dinner, sit and rekax

I’m taking a Jeffrey Epstein /Ilhan Omar/ Donald Trump respite, watching Popeye cartoons. I always think, watching these cartoons, that we were perfecting animation in America, while the Germans were perfecting the tank, dive bombers and mechanized warfare.

Amazon

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I have an Amazon Prime membership. I’m trying to take full advantage of it. I also have a Kindle, which I find difficult to read from. Truth be told, I wonder how useful any of this stuff is. And how much Amazon has stored about me, my life, values, tastes, and preferences. I have a paranoid fear that Jeff Bezos wants to rule the World. And if i don’t fit in, Bezos will have me killed, if I’m not dead after a suitable time interval. All because I buy stuff from Amazon, but not everything I want or need.

Call me crazy. But I’m like an addict at this point. Anybody else want out of the digital world? I realize now it is an “all or none” proposition. The name is control. Where can we “dropouts” go to survive, even thrive, without making these diabolical bargains?

Awake After Two Sleep Intervals

I fell asleep the first time while J started a video on an Indian restaurant in France. I couldn’t watch it because I had to contort my body into an uncomfortable position in order to do so. I listened and fell asleep. After a couple of hours I was awake, went downstairs, then came back up, put in a Seinfeld DVD from Season 6 that starts with The Jimmy. I remember that episode and the one that followed, The Doodle. I was up again around 0200 Hrs. I couldn’t get back to sleep, mind just working away on stuff, so I dressed, went downstairs to brew some decaf and watch YouTube videos.There is an interesting sound film of Kyoto Japan from 1929 playing. Girls are singing before a statue of The Buddha.

At this point I have yet to drink any coffee. I am fraught with guilt for “wasting food”. You are never too old to let parental messages of guidance from your childhood, kill off a good time, as if wasting maybe fifty cents worth of ground coffee will disrupt the economic equilibrium of the household.

OK time for the coffee. Had the coffee and a quesadilla. Now I am getting really sleepy. I think I am close to going back to bed.

Evening Ramble

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Today, J and I did stuff together when her work day was over. We did mundane stuff like go to the gas station, then a late lunch, then to Target to pick up drugs for me, (my regular maintenance drugs, nothing cool), and then to my semiannual psychiatric visit.

Lunch was at Red Lobster. We both had wood-grilled shrimp on a skewer. They were pretty good. The server was a nice guy. His amiable personality was worth the price of the meal. Target was a quick trip. I like this particular Target, because it’s where The Tattooed People shop and I wanted to check out the ink. One woman had a nice half sleeve but I couldn’t get but a half way glance.

Then to the psychiatrist. We drove through parts of the City/County area that were undergoing new construction in both political subdivisions. There was this ginormous thing with very tall nets that were part of a golf thing. I don’t play golf, so I didn’t know such a structure was being built.

In Virginia, hard liquor sales are a state monopoly. We drove by the liquor warehouses, that will be relocated and a fancy new ball park will be put up on the old site. Ramshackle abandoned buildings have been razed to make way for Wa-Wa convenience stores.

We arrived at the offices, part of VCU’s new pediatric mental health facility. The old one was built in the 1960’s and looked like it used blueprints for a facility built somewhere in the old Soviet bloc. It had a certain gulag quality about it. If the kid wasn’t crazy when he got there, he would have been shortly thereafter.

The new facility is modern, spacious, clean and cheerful. It was money well-spent. The building, even in its lobby and waiting area reflect hope. My pediatric psychiatrist has mostly pediatric patients, but I have seen him since my younger son was his patient. It’s an accommodation that works. He’s a good guy. I’m honest with him And it’s a good relationship. He is about my age.I told him I had some despair that seemed to be related to inactivity and sleep deprivation. I will track my physical activity and my sleep patterns to see if the issue resolves itself. If not, we will reassess the meds.

J and I drove home. She is exhausted from her work schedule. She is resting. I’m writing.

Funny how attitudes can shift quickly if one is committed to one’s partner.

I had a mango/ Greek yogurt smoothie with a little coconut milk, wheat germ and maple syrup. It is all I wanted for dinner.

A train pulled in on the YouTube channel. It discharged passengers in Ashland on its way to Richmond.

Tired.Bedtime.

St Edith Stein

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Today is the Feast Day of St Theresa Benedicta Of The Cross, born Edith Stein. She was born in Prussia in 1891, one of eleven children in an observant Jewish family.

Possessing a keen intellect, she studied philosophy under Heidegger and Husserl. She had become atheist, but she admired the way her Catholic friends practiced their faith. Reading the autobiography of St Theresa of Avila brought about her conversion to the Catholic Faith. Later she would become a Carmelite nun and took the name Theresa Benedicta of The Cross. She became a cloistered contemplative nun, devoted to a life of prayer.

Her life paralleled the rise to power of the Nazis. Nazi anti-Semitism was based on their specious “racial theory”. So having Jewish “blood” was tantamount to a death sentence. The Carmelite order transferred her to The Netherlands, but she was ultimately taken by the Nazis from the convent, sent to Auschwitz, and murdered in the gas chamber, along with her sister Rose, also a convert and a Carmelite nun. Today is the seventy-seventh anniversary of their martyrdom.

Fittingly St Edith Stein is the Patroness of Europe. Europe today, like America, suffers a profound crisis of Faith, buffeted by Islamic immigration on the one hand and secular agnosticism on the other. The challenge for European Catholics is to witness the Faith, always with Love, for the Salvation of souls. What better Patroness to ask for intercessory prayer.

St Theresa Benedicta, pray for us.

Up Before Noon

I got up around 0300 hrs. I was awake while J got ready for work. I stayed awake for awhile then went back to bed around 0800 hrs, slept soundly. Then I got up, showered, and put on clean clothes, my 501 jeans and my Cienfuegos Elefantes tee shirt from Ebbetts Field Flannels. It’s a Cuban League baseball team.

I have a psychiatric appointment this afternoon. Maybe it’s time to look at my depression meds to see if they’re doing the job.

All in all, life is good.

Barf

I started a puff piece in Finance about Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, who according to the title could “save or break Western Democracy”. Really? You mean like Lincoln or Churchill saved their countries at their darkest hours? By doing what, shadow banning? Hiring more Marxist slugs to monitor people they don’t like? Jack Dorsey is forty-fucking-two. He lives a life of absolute privilege and he’s gonna save Western Democracy? Oh please.

“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American People.”- H.L. Mencken