Feel like shit. Got about 15 things that are overdue like library books on Ebay.
I took some things that I could carry w/o the trailer and dropped 'em off at the post office and FedEx. I felt surprisingly strong on the bike considering how lousy I feel.
I stopped at H Mart for sake and a fish cake and found some bubble wrap on the way back. I got back here and lay on the floor for a while then started in on packing the things that are overdue. About halfway through Ken came by, and I talked to him while packing packages.
And I actually got them all done; the overdue ones (except for a pair circuit boards going to Germany) and the ones about to be overdue. Ken will take the packages to the post office and FedEx tomorrow.
Ken gave me my pay check and I reminded him about the 1099 form again. As long as I have a figure and it's the same figure he's giving the IRS I'm happy.
Ken and I talked about all sorts of things. We talked about how, classically, in the military the way we were taught to interrogate people was to be nice to them. Ken said that goes back to WWII. I told him that's what I was taught and I was in an MI company. Some of my best friends were interrogators. I never heard anything different and I'd have picked it up if there was any different doctrine. All this waterboarding bullshit came in with the Bushes, it seems. We talked about ex-Nazi's we'd known and old war vets and for some stupid reason I got all teary about my old friend Dr. Sprague, who'd served on subs in the war. I suppose he's gone, along with Mr. Von Kessel, Robert Rauer, Roy McInness, Jack Wheat, a whole lot of those old guys I looked up to.
The older generation was just plain what idiots now would call "liberal". I told Ken how my mom taught us to never cross a picket line and if they're boycotting grapes you boycott grapes, and you never say bad things about black people and so on, and Ken said his father who served on a destroyer in the war, was the same way.
Since we were really letting our hair down I told him about the nigger club. I was 8 or so, and a bunch of us were sitting around, cross-legged as a kids in Hawaii do, and there was some sort of discussion as to who was a nigger. It sounded really cool. It had to do with how dark you are. I asked if I could be a nigger and was told that well ... I wasn't very dark but they supposed they could sneak me in. "I'm a nig-ger, I'm a nig-ger" I sang as I trotted to the bus at the end of the day. But when I got home I thought I'd better check with my mom about it, and asked her what a nigger is. She immediately stormed up and said it's a very bad word for a black person and she never wanted to hear me say it again.
That's what a good mother does. There was just a basic decency and reasonableness that was expected. Of course a bunch of 'em voted for Nixon and Ken can't believe I voted for Reagan (young and very, very stupid). I also took Revolutionary Communist Party newspapers to Army Reserve duty and hung out at the communist book store by the university and bought my share of Novosti publications.
So my commie ratbastard creds actually go back fairly far and back when the Olympics had any political relevancy I even got to compete with Eastern Bloc athletes. They were good; damn good. But once in a great while they'd have an especially bad day and I'd have an uncharacteristically good one...
I actually ate a bit around midnight or 1AM. Half the fish cake, Japanese pickles, Korean bean sprouts (cooked). I can smell the domoic acid making its way out of my system and forget about practice, I haven't even been practicing what I call Full Range Breathing these last couple of days.
Once I've got some kind of a figure from Ken, how much he paid me in 2020 and is the same one he'll tell the IRS, I'm going to get my 2020 taxes done which should leave about a grand in my bank account. Then it's a small splurge or a big one. Mejiro in Japan has a deal where you buy a Shakuhachi Yuu and a book, and even with DHL airmail it's under $200. Or, I might drop $500-$700 a Monty Levinson flute. I'm also on the list for a Jon Kypros "Bell" which is a tad over $200 but I've seen a side to side comparison with the Yuu and the Yuu is actually louder. Kypros is a jinashi purist and .... nah man that ain't my game. I want that jiari pure tone. Of course the real aficionado could just fork over the money for an AirReed X, at a mere 6 thou, a far, far better investment than my old Yamaha SRX-6.
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