I really don’t care about The Chinese Balloon. I guess I’m not as patriotic as I should be.

This weight loss journey has familiar stops, like the bus I rode downtown when we lived on Patterson Avenue fifty seven years ago.

I’ve lost weight before, then over the years gained it back. My first effort was in 2006, when I was 55. I simply changed what I ate, reducing the fat and the sugar. The weight dropped steadily. My goal weight was attained. I felt great. This whole process happened a second, maybe a third time.

And then… I felt empty inside. I wanted that empty feeling to leave and sugar and fat helped fill it. The same familiar stops on the same long trip.

Even though I’m 72, I want to feel sexy and loved. My body, scarred as it is, is responding to new foods, just as I learn to cook new dishes. Vegetables are now my “friends”. Their exotic names rutabaga, butternut and acorn squashes, kale, arugula, for starters, have a poetic sound.

Doing new things follow the new outlook. I’m reading again and watching new genres of film, particularly silent movies and film noir.

And I’m throwing out stuff, as if there’s a new life starting for me and I no longer need the books and the clothes that formed the old character I crafted as I rode that bus downtown.

Today I crushed a cardamom pod into my demitasse cup before I put in the turbinado,then poured in the hot espresso. 

It was the little touch of the exotic in this world  where the magic is mundane that we need more than we need the toys of Toyota, or the dope of Denver.

Marriage: The place where dreams go to die.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I resumed following Weight Watchers nutritional guidelines, using the Points budget for daily eating. For me, it works. I’ve lost about 10 pounds in the last three weeks. My zest for cooking and living in general has been revived.

Last night, as I walked through the aisles looking for a bottle of borscht, I observed just how much salt and fats and sugar are added to damn near everything. My shopping foray involved four (4) stores. Publix, Food Lion, BJ’s, and Kroger, as I hunted for hearts of palm and oat bran. Publix had all the canned beans, cannellini, red kidney beans, and garbanzos, plus Italian green beans that I needed for homemade minestrone, but no oat bran or hearts of palm.

At Food Lion, I found lightly salted pistachios at a better price than Publix, plus a brisket on sale. Red bananas and Bosc pears were calling to me. The pears go in a pistachio and pear salad that Caralynn over at Beauty Beyond Bones featured recently. No oat bran. No hearts of palm.

On to BJ’s, where I knew I could score a jar of hearts of palm. BJ’s had two jars, wrapped in plastic, for $9.90. While I was there, I bought a package of lavash flat bread.

Undaunted in my quest, I pushed on to Kroger, There, in the hot cereal section, among the dozens of varieties of microwaveable oatmeal, the usual cylinders of regular oatmeal, quick oatmeal, and boxes of Cream of Wheat, I found Bob’s Red Mill Oat Bran. Good Ol’ Bob came through for me.

Returning home with my treasures, I fixed a salad for dinner, then treated myself to half of a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar. Finally I made some espresso. This is one of my new indulgences.

Maybe espresso does have a lot more caffeine than regular coffee, as I write at 4:30 AM.

I awaken around 430, go to the other bedroom, and attempt to sleep in that bed. Then, after about 5 minutes, give up, get dressed, go downstairs.

I make coffee, toast a whole wheat English muffin and wait for The Northbound Silver Meteor to pass through Ashland, headed to New York.

This train is an impressive sight,pulled by three locomotives today, with coaches, sleeper cars, a dining car, and the baggage car bringing up the rear.

After the train, I watch Brasilian Samba dancers do their simultaneously sexy and wholesome shuffle, in heels, making this move look oh so easy. When we understand and appreciate samba, we can understand Brasil.

Next I move to Russian Orthodox liturgy from somewhere in Russia. One of the constants in the West is our wilful indifference to Russia, from the days of the boyars, to the Romanovs, the Communists, and now Putin. Seems as if because they’re different, they must be bad, must be feared, and must be destroyed. The Orthodox faith strikes at the heart of the fear. It isn’t Catholic or any particular shade of Protestantism. The Liturgy is a near constant chant, before the icons. There are no organs, or any other instruments, save bells. The congregation stands, sometimes for up to three hours.

I move back to trainspotting in Ashland, as dawn breaks. While it’s still dark #86 stops in Ashland to allow commuters to board, on the way to Washington.

Back to reality, the kitchen is a mess, with pots and pans needing to be stored, along with clean dishes from the dishwasher.

Now I want to, need to, go back to bed!

I am making the effort to leave the house. I went to an AA meeting, then dinner with my buddies afterwards. I had a bowl of New England clam chowder. The chowder was OK.  The fellowship was priceless.

I went shopping after dinner. They did not charge the posted sale price for a two pound brick of Velveeta, so I received $1.52 or double the difference back.

Now I’m watching a documentary titled  Berlin 1945 ,about Berlin in the final days of WW II. I can’t help but  think that war is the real obscenity and still I watch this stuff, as if a pile of rubble is somehow interesting.

The first date I went on was a “Sadie Hawkins” dance, where the girl asked the boy. The girl who asked me out has her birthday two days after mine 23 January. I wonder whatever happened to her.

I’m losing weight and I feel better. I’m doing more.

I’m stopping now.

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.