Restless Night

I was worried about that eleven o’clock coke last night. For the first half of the night, I had to get up to piss about every 45 minutes. It’s probably not a coincidence, although I could swear that I have been able to enjoy a late-night coke and still pass a reasonably good night’s sleep, and in recent years, not just when I was young.

In truth, in recent weeks, the first half of the nights have not been easy as a general rule. Last night was worse, but usually the first half of the night means a lot of tossing and turning, with maybe some momentary dozing. Indeed, I try to force myself to read longer and hold off on going to bed, knowing, no matter how tired and sleepy I am feeling, true sleep is not going to come to me for a while anyway.

Cats on a Thursday Morning

Taking care of the dishes after breakfast, I see Coco and Ash wrestling in the back yard. Neither of them is screaming out, and it looks wonderfully playful.

It is a nice morning, temperature-wise. There is no sunlight and so it’s a little nippy, but I am still in shorts, so it is not bad, but I am keeping the T-shirt on.

The Natural World

Random Pictures

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Cooking

This is the second time in almost as many days that I have come close to dropping my hand on a hot stove burner. The first time I was trying to get a handle on a rickety pot that was sliding away from me, and today I was trying to get a jump on cleaning the mess from my chili while the burner was still on high. It’s like I am oblivious to the danger. It really does scare me, as though Fate wants to hurt me and is trying badly, but I just keep lucking out, and I know that my luck has never been very good and doesn’t run very long.

Maybe I need to make a conscious effort to focus on my cooking, instead of doing it absentmindedly, as I am usually thinking about other things and taking care of some e-business online, focusing more on cyberspace than on hot stoves. New rule: when cooking, no Internet! I think I should follow that. Playing with fire is serious business.

"A Woman in Berlin"

Finished streaming “A Woman in Berlin”, starring Nina Hoss. The rapey theme drew me in. It is about what it was like to be a German woman under Russian occupation, when rape was a way of life. When women met and talked, one would ask, “How Often?” “Four times. You?” But it’s not a sexploitation film made for wanking. The rapes are not eroticised and you don’t even see nudity in the rape scenes. But the movie really is good for taking you to that world of a city occupied and in rubble.

Judging by the postscript, the movie is based on a real woman’s diary. When it was first published, it was so thoroughly condemned by her own people for the shame and humiliation it uncovered and brought to the surface, that she asked that no future prints should be made until after she dies, and even then, her name was not to be revealed.

Sweatpants

My sweatpants have come back to me. Unfixed. The woman called this morning and told Pop that they will shrink a lot, so that I should wash them first and then see what needs to be done. Maybe I asked for too much to be taken off: five inches. It is a lot. If I had said three inches, maybe she would have just done the work. Now, I imagine that it isn’t going to be done at all. I will just walk on the bottoms of the legs, fuck it! Maybe I’ll get lucky and they really will shrink a couple of inches.

This strikes me as such an odd and stunning turn of events. Like Fate is just fucking with me some more. Do they have so much money that they can just risk throwing away business like this?

It’s not a biggie. Just another little annoyance. Death by a thousand annoyances.

Part of this is due to my aversion to deal with responsibility and talk with people. Pop did offer for me to take the phone and handle the conversation, and I might have been able to nip this fire in the bud. I didn't want to, though. And so I get what others determine to give me. I was asking for it. I really am something of a natural victim. It's too bad I could not have been a cute girl; at least that might have been a little more fun all the way around.

Lawn Work

That sound! It finally occurs to me what it is: somebody is doing lawn work. Another sign of approaching spring. I need to make time to take care of that mound of grass surrounding the elephant ears. But it feels like throwing away precious time, and the thought of such waste kills me.

“Because this time spent in reading, blogging, and masturbating is time so marvelously spent!”

I know, I know. It’s mostly laziness, I guess.

“I guess.”

I wish I had made myself a better person. I really do. But it is very late in the game, and this is what we got. We can only make the best of it.

Wind Chimes

The wind chimes are ringing so constantly and loudly today; I have to close the door of the big room on them. The wind is not even blowing that strongly. These aren’t whipping winds certainly. But it is enough to jangle the chimes and to jangle my nerves.

"Chained"

I don’t know if they really needed that twisty ending. “Chained” (2012) starring Vincent D’Onofrio. The serial-killer and rapey themes were saucy enough, even though they did refrain from taking full advantage of the sexploitational value of their material. It was enough of a twist that the main storyline entails the killer taking over a young boy’s life, as a sort of perverted father figure, after having killed the boy’s mother. I don’t know if I liked it enough that it merits repeated viewing, but it is a funhouse that you definitely want to go through at least once.

Russia

As the protests and the crackdown continue in Ukraine, there is naturally a lot of frustration and anger in America. In all the commentary, we have this whippy snippet from George Will.

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Russia is ruled by a little, strutting Mussolini — the Duce, like Putin, enjoyed being photographed with his chest bare and his biceps flexed. Putin is unreconciled to the “tragedy,” as he calls it, of the Soviet Union’s demise. It was within the Soviet apparatus of oppression that he honed the skills by which he governs — censorship, corruption, brutality, oppression, assassination.

-- George F. Will at The Washington Post

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[More: Talk Politics]