Sleep Comes To The Old Man

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I woke up at Three AM to go to Holy Hour at Four down at my church. Then I came home, started watching cricket, The first of the The Ashes Test Match series between England and Australia. I can honestly say I don’t have a dog in this fight. Both sides are great, with superb individual talents on both sides.

Then around 7:40 I left for First Saturday Mass at the Abbey. The football players at the affiliated Catholic high school were practicing. Football season is four weeks away, whether we like it, don’t like it, or just plain don’t care.

Mass was celebrated by a priest who seemed oddly “out of it”. I think he was OK. I had never been at one of his Masses before and I suspect this was just his style. He was old, in this case, about my age.

Back home for breakfast and more cricket. Then tiredness hit and I finally went to bed.

After sleeping a bit, I woke up, brewed some coffee and am now watching some film footage of Tokyo, in 1934 on YouTube. Japan was a police state, run by a military junta. It had seized Manchuria three years earlier. The Sino-Japanese War, the Asian precursor to the Second World War, would begin in 1937. Peaceful times, I suppose. There are scenes of Japanese military close order drill with young boys in samurai costume. In all likelihood, these children would be dead within eleven years. The vignette was creepy and simultaneously poignant. Wasted lives on display.

J is coming home from work. It is ex-wife #1’s birthday. I sent her a birthday text.

I feel like I have done enough today already.

Global Finance

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Very rich institutions loan their money and their investors’ money to businesses or governments world wide. Those loans are repaid over time, sometimes loan periods of twenty or thirty years. Now the international capitalists (I don’t use that term pejoratively, but for accuracy’s sake) are interested in a), the return on their money, and b) the return of their money. Therefore political and social stability is of paramount importance. Nothing ruins an investment banker’s day more quickly than a loan default. Societal instability has to be addressed, whether in China, Bangladesh, or the United States, Let’s be frank, drug use and abuse, whether the substance abused can be possessed lawfully or not, creates social instability. Drug trafficking, easily facilitated by porous borders, feeds the societal malignancy that is addiction.

I suspect the ongoing addiction crisis in America and it’s damaging effects on the work force and society as a whole, was a factor in American industry leaving North America. So, about thirty years ago, manufacturing industries began their exodus from the United States and Canada. The overseas relocation was financed, in whole or in part, by Wall Street investment bankers, who loaned money to build the factories and acquire the equipment.

Now there stands the real possibility that industries could relocate back to North America. The loans that financed the departure of industry probably have been repaid. And new plants need to be built and old factories need to be rehabilitated and retrofitted. That takes capital, or as we plebeians out here call it, money. 💰

What we have here is an “investment opportunity”. If trade policies are written that protect American jobs, this should be a win for both labour (People who work) and capital (People with money). Set aside your political ideology for awhile and consider those basic truths.

The global economy depends on people with money to buy the stuff that’s made, from jumbo jets to pantyhose. Americans, whose spending patterns are determined by how well their jobs pay, will buy more of the world’s stuff if they have money to make purchases. Luxury items, whether a technology rich smart phone or a jet ski, to name just two, are made with discretionary dollars. Bringing the higher paying manufacturing jobs back will accelerate that objective.

Trade policies that harm workers impede local and global stability. How much of the addiction crises are attributable to factory and mine closings? Idleness exacerbates despair. A social welfare system may meet some material needs of the economically dislocated, but nothing compares to the dignity of work in restoring and building self-esteem.

Gandhi is often depicted with a hand spinning wheel. He understood that British imperialism had robbed India of her self-reliance. Cotton spinning was about restoring that self-reliance.

Something to consider when looking at the conundrum of trade and tariff policy.

Waking Early

Waking early, I find the comfort of my chair, as the rhythm of The Ashes takes control.

Jason Roy was caught out by Steve Smith and Joe Root walked out to the pitch to replace him.

“There will always be an England”, someone said. As the cameras shift to a view of Birmingham, and this green land shows herself.

An aircraft engine’s noise fills the background. The commentators chatter own.

Why am I up? Is sleep such an unsatisfying state that I spurn it in favor of this splendid game?

Outside my house it’s raining and a thunderclap sounds off.

Cricket is a game for people who have nothing else to do on a Summer’s day, except be lost to time, where sitting and standing are as much of the routine as the bowling and batting.

But I do long to sleep now.

Sitting

Exhausted in an odd way. I’m just too tired to get up, brush my teeth, go to bed. My text messaging isn’t working. I did some satisfying meal prep, salmon grilled with tarragon and dill, fresh corn, summer squash with onion, and cucumber and tomatoes. Tomorrow I’m fixing my ever popular homemade macaroni and cheese.

The Ashes Test Series looks promising.

I got nothing else to say.

Cricket Novice Has Questions

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This morning I am watching the Ashes Test Series from Edgbaston, Birmingham. As I watch Australia is at bat. They have 129/8 with 46 overs having been bowled.

My introduction to cricket came via the World Cup One Day International. The scoring seemed to be higher in the limited overs format. After 46 overs, I recall that the runs would be well in excess of 130 runs.

So the questions: How does a Test match differ from limited overs competition? Do the bowlers bowl differently that would account for a lower run rate?

Help a befuddled Yank out.

Buena Vista Social Club Revisited

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I was reading Porngirl3’s blog post(De pressed, Deprived, Sullen) about how her playlist had become unsatisfying for her. I suggested she give the Cuban artists of Buena Vista Social Club a listen. Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, and Compay Segundo, just to name three.

I’ve been complaining about the heat, but I’ve done nothing to embrace the heat. Let it soak in. I’m thinking of Kuba Kuba, the corner restaurant in the Fan, noisy, redolent with smells of Cuban food, and a foreign land, compared to my safe, hygienic, suburb.

On the film Ruben Gonzalez plays the piano. He is a jazz pianist in the class of Thelonius Monk. But in truth he was a stand alone unique genius.

These Cuban ballads let me dream of passion and perfume. The air conditioning civilizes the days, but squeezes something out in the process.

I have daydreams of playing dominos, smoking cigars, drinking Cuban coffee, wearing a guayabera shirt, while sweet seductive women watch us as my friend and I play and drink the coffee and smoke the cigars. I know it is silly. What woman is interested in the pastimes of old men, unless they appreciate us for our serene and gentle spirits?

But who knows?

My Day 30. VII. 2019

Today is my sister’s birthday. I sent her a text. She was happy with that. I bought a schmaltzich Geburtstag Karte. She should like that when I mail it to her.

I went to BJ’s and bought lots of crap. Less than last month, but still it is all stuff I know I will use.

I have to make J iced tea. That is completed. I was low on white sugar so I used a little turbinado to augment the sweetening to her preferred level. I bought a $4.99 rotisserie chicken for dinner, that I served with squash onions and tomatoes. Yummy.

Now I am sitting in my chair, exhausted. I stayed busy when I wasn’t sleeping.

Today is the Feast Day of Blessed Solanus Casey, a modern saint of the Twentieth Century. He had the charism of healing and the gift of comforting the dying. He was a spiritual giant of his time, like St. Padre Pio. I learned this listening to the Mass on EWTN. It was one of those beautiful coincidences where I just happened upon this Mass.

Now I am watching a show about the Polish Republic in its early days around 1920.

Getting tired. Happy and satisfied.

Nite all.

Fog In Broad Daylight

That’s how it feels. The sun could not be brighter, the sky clearer. And yet….

I sit here contemplating going to the Indian grocery for Lifebuoy Soap and rosewater. Then to the used book store to see if I can get a James Bond thriller Doctor No second hand. The Epstein Affair reminds me of Dr No, who had, if you will recall, a private island.

On the other hand, I like just sitting. And I feel like another nap is in the works.

And sometimes the sheer brokenness of the World overwhelms me.

I did have a nice little lunch with J today. I had a fun get together with C yesterday.

I can only fix a very small part of the World. That will have to suffice.

Olfactory Recall

Strong Erotic Content. Adult Language and Situation. NSFW 18+

I remember the smell of her cunt. After all the years. Of tobacco, it was. As if that magnificent snatch was the Cassandra for the cancer that would kill her.

She wanted to forget me at the end. Who could blame her? And I wish, on these hot and sweaty days like there were when we first fell into fucking and then in love, that I could forget her, too.

And on such days as this, when the sweat flowed freely, I first thrust fingers, then a hardened prick, into her opened anus, the only maidenhead remaining in our satyr’s world.