Headache problem resolved?

 274th day sober. I got Ebay stuff listed last night, and then got some practice in. It went pretty well, although that top octave still needs a ton of work of course. 

I'd tried everything for my headache yesterday, and finally had a little "No Salt" which is potassium chloride, and that *seemed* to help. So maybe I'll try taking a little of that each day. 

I packed a few FedEx thing because I didn't wake up until almost 4, and FedEx is open until 8, an hour later than the post office is. 

The drop-off went fine, and I picked up some shipping materials and boxes and also got out a pulse generator plugin from the storage unit since I'd sold a plugin that size so I had room for another plugin. 

I stopped by Tom's place because I had to anyway to pick up packing stuff from the place next door. Tom and I ended up talking about everything under the sun, as usual. Among the things, I said Tom would love the Big Island in Hawaii because you can still buy land for a few thousand dollars an acre, and it's kind of the "wild west" out there and a handyman kind of guy like him would be right at home. I also mentioned that I've passed a threshold where I have 10 grand in savings. It's enough, I feel, that I could go back home to Hawaii any time from now until whenever I'm good and sick of working for Ken and ready to leave, which I'd planned for when I'm 62 years old and thus would have Social Security to back me up. 

I mentioned also how I know how to make money back there, as I'd be 1000s of miles away from Ken and out from under the "non-compete" situation I'm under with  Ken according to Ebay, and I could go right back to what I grew up with, shell collecting, as some of the shells I know how to find lots of are now going for something like a dollar each. That's for ones with holes ready for stringing, naturally, which means picking out the piece of sand that's so often in the mouth of the shell, and putting a clean hole in. Even just using a sewing needle I didn't lose too many, and I'd use a tiny drill these days. 

The thing is, I feel I could go back there now and get going on Ebay on my own and actually support myself. My 10 grand could float me long enough to get going. Of course I'm fairly serious about doing exactly what I told Ken I'd do, and wait until 2024. By then, I should have somewhere between 20 and 30 grand saved. 

Anyone reading this thing - and thank goodness no one does - would know I've been going back and forth whether to convert to Judaism and move to Israel, or go home to Hawaii. I've suddenly got a gut feeling that Israel is not going to work. On Reddit, on the pertinent sub-Reddits, I see tons of people who want to get out of Israel, and haven't seen one who wants to go in. Of course there are tons of people who want to move to Hawaii, and every one who isn't "local" is starry-eyed and unrealistic and would be tons better off moving to Florida. But while Hawaii is losing people, there's always been a trickle of people moving back to retire, help family, etc. 

Israel is just. plain. out. I'm done even thinking about it. At least back in Hawaii I have family, and tons and tons of memories. I really miss my older sister too. We wrote letters back and forth really often, I want to say at least once a week, and then emailed back and forth I think even more often. When the economy crashed in 08 and I lost everything and was sure I was going to be living in the street, I had the idea that I should go back to Hawaii with the hope that maybe she could co-sign on a cheap room for me. Meanwhile she acted like I wanted to be homeless, and things got ugly. I'm pretty sure I'd had a beer or two when I insulted her school, meaning here snobbishness about it, in return for her insulting me by saying I "wanted" to be homeless. 

The whole thing was really stupid, and I don't even feel that way about her school. The truth is, I actually did need to "drop off of the grid" for at least 7 years to get out of the trouble I was in, and that was best done here on the mainland. I've tried writing to her, emailing, emailing her husband, etc and nothing's worked. I've even lied and said I got a high-paying job at Applied Materials since money impresses her, and that didn't work. Maybe she checked somehow and could not verify that I worked for them although I used Applied Materials because they're a large company with lots of branches. 

In any case, if I'm back there we *will* run into each other, because Honolulu's a small town. And I'd sure like to be at least back on speaking terms. I don't think any of our other siblings had the closeness with our father that we did. So each of us only has the other to talk with about him, and the longer I live, the more unique I realize he was. I ought to write some stories about him someday. 

But another thing is pretty big in this final realization that back to Hawaii is the only place for me to go. The trumpet may be a great instrument, but it's not a good fit for Hawaii. None of the places I really love, that I want to go back to, have any need for trumpet music. It would be an awful intrusion into such calm, quiet places.

So I have ordered another shakuhachi made by "Jim Johnson" music, in Hong Kong (or was it Taiwan?) that seems to be a perfectly fine student flute, and not Godawful ugly like the "Shakuhachi Yuu" that's the student go-to. My last shakuhachi, same brand, had been nibbled by a mouse, or a roach, or something, that decided the buffalo-horn mouthpiece was tasty. It still played at least kinda OK but I was so annoyed by this I put it on Ebay for $50 and it sold overnight. 

I'll have it in a few days, and if I practice on it like I've been practicing on trumpet I might start getting places. I like very simple things, and when I worked as a bench tech I always used very few tools and got tons of different uses out of them, and I've gravitated to the trumpet because of how simple it is, not needing pads or strings etc. 

But a shakuhachi is even simpler. In fact I can learn to make them and I doubt I'd ever be in a position to make or even repair trumpets. And a shakuhachi is really easy to carry, too, as a soprano sax case works fine. And it won't stink like death like brass instruments seem to in Hawaii's tropical climate. 

Going home can work if I have lots of different things that can work there. When I tried moving back in 2003, I was going to do scrimshaw on actual ivory. I had a legal source of it, and I'd done it as a kid, and as far as I knew it was still popular in Hawaii. It was not, and regulations on ivory quickly shut down the whole idea. I didn't have anything to fall back on. 

But right now I can think of (a) selling general things like books and odds and ends I find on Ebay (2) picking shells and selling those on Ebay or Etsy (3) Busking (4) Art and (5) Just receiving social security and being the cheapest bastard around. Plus I won't have a few thousand dollars in debt payments breathing down my neck each month. 

That last thing is something my older sister probably didn't understand. I had to keep paying on all that debt to keep my credit card working to keep Ebay paid so I could keep selling on Ebay. I actually thought I could find some scrimshaw jewelry seller to work for, they'd pay me, I'd pay my rent and food and I'd just ignore the credit card bills until they went away. 

This is actually what happened, except instead of doing scrimshaw I left Hawaii again after about 4 months, and moved to the Bay Area here and went back to selling electronics surplus. Things went OK-ish here and I was even starting to make some headway against my debt and then it was 2008. That's when I really dropped off the grid. I'm glad I did it here because it's enabled me to really get "the mainland" out of my system and also Honolulu being a small town, if I skipped on my bills everyone would know it. 

Now I can return without money worries at least in the sense of "no money, no worries" not someone haunted by debt.

I found the Porthole House

 273rd day sober. I practiced last night just to see if my headache would get worse, but it stayed the same. Practice actually went pretty well. I'm working in the 3rd etude in the Getchell book now.

I woke up at a bit after 1, and left at around 2. I took 10th all the way down to Story/Keyes and on the way, as it goes right behind the university, I found the Porthole House. 

When I was pretty new to this area and riding around, I saw this house that had a round window like a porthole, and then an oval one too. I mean, one porthole, OK. Two portholes, that's fine, but a porthole and an oval? In my memory I had it pegged as one of those crazy-looking Victorians but it wasn't, actually, it just had Victorians next to it. It looked more like it dates to when this area switched over from cattle and logging to agriculture, particularly fruit. Those houses are a lot plainer.

So now I know where to find the silly thing again. I believe there are artists who make their whole living from drawing or painting interesting houses and buildings, and there are times I wonder if I should explore doing that. I should figure out how to use my phone's camera to take pictures of some of the funny little buildings around here. 

I went on down 10th to Story/Keyes then turned left, and went to the Century Something-Or-Other Mall where the Vietnamese folks were celebrating Chinese New Year. It was pretty cool, with corny music and firecrackers, and the kids all had those little popping things you throw on the ground, and I got a little piroshki sort of thing for $1 at a little stand, and walked around in the mall a bit. 

I went to a Vietnamese market on the way back and got a few things like some German Maggi seasoning I'd been wanting to try for years but the stuff made in Europe is a lot more expensive and comes in larger bottles. This was a small bottle for $4 or $5 which was just right. 

I rode back downtown through a sort of twisty route and ended up on some weird little streets I'd never been on before, and this was just south of downtown. I passed by the Poor House Bistro or ... what's left of it. The actual house has been moved to Little Italy which should actually be called nano-Italy. The part that had been built onto the side was still standing and there was a band playing and tons of people which looked strange but they seemed to be having a good time. 

I went to Whole Foods and used the loo and got a can of coffee because I had a headache and thought it might be because I only had green tea when I got up. Then I got some chicken wings and went upstairs and got a near-beer and had wings and beer and watched some of a football game. 

When I was done eating I did some shopping. When I'd come in, there was a bum with a sign sitting by the bike racks and his sign wasn't too bad as bum signs go. So I gave him a dollar and complimented him on it. I then said he ought to make some extra ones because people will buy signs with clever sayings on them and with cardboard he only needs a black pen and something light and he can get some pretty neat effects. When I was getting my near-beer upstairs the bartender asked about my playing and I told him about my taking the winter off and about the bum with the sign whom I'd given a dollar to, and he said that was really nice. I then said I might as well be, because if I were down there with my trumpet, he'd not have a chance! 

When I went back out with my groceries, the bum had moved away from the bike racks (dunno why, it made him harder to see) and he had some kind of doo-wop music playing and was singing along, quietly. At least he was trying to be musical. 

By this time, about 6, it did not look good for busking although it might have been, earlier. I'd almost taken the trumpet with me and done some busking, because Ken was going to move things around and I wanted to dodge most of that work if I could and if I went busking I'd have a credible excuse. But then I'd decided hang it, I'll just go out and do stuff and save the busking for when it's warm again. 

I stopped at Nijiya for some tea, and then got back here. Sure enough, Ken was here. He'd moved a bunch of things not-to-be-sold off of the shelves and put some things that were sold, onto the shelves. He didn't even seem disappointed that I hadn't been around. We work together so well, anyway. We sat and talked a bit and he had tea, and then he had to go get more stuff so he did and while he was gone I put things away and then he came back with more stuff so I have things to organize and list.

People fast, computers slow

 272nd day sober. I slept in late, so I guess that was the closest thing to a day off I get around here. 

I practiced last night and it went OK. I'm trying to work on long tones on the high notes and also working on some repertoire for when I'm ready to get out busking in a couple of months. My work year won't start until April 1.

The internet has become so slow ... I can do my Ebay work and that's what matters, but it's nowhere near what you'd expect for "silicon valley". If I wanted to upload videos etc I suppose I could use the internet at my bank which might be faster. They have a little conference room they let people use. But then I'd have to lug my laptop down there and it would be a big hassle. 

It's just not gonna happen. 

And here I've spent hours pondering and moping over things, and not accomplished much of anything other than reading "Decline And Fall" by Waugh, which is a pretty good story and to think it was his first book. 

A huge thing for me to mope over right now is, Do I try to get out of this hellhole by studying and doing a ton of stuff to convert to Judaism and skedaddle to Israel, assuming this is possible in a couple-few years and assuming it isn't actually shittier there. Or do I simply run back home to Hawaii, Oahu to be exact because while by everyone's account the other islands are nicer, I only care about Oahu. 

If I'm going back to Oahu, I only need to get my driver's license upgraded to Real ID and decide when I'm going to go. Ideally I'd wait until I'm 62 and so would be able to get Social Security so I'd have that source of money as a backup. But arriving with some savings, I might be able to support myself fine by picking shells, busking, maybe keeping an Etsy account going with odds and ends I find. The longer I hold out, the slightly larger the social security payments get, and once I hit 70, they don't care how much I earn besides, I get the full payment plus whatever I'm making. 

When I tried to move back in 2003 it was too soon and I was trying to make too drastic a transition. I'd planned to get a room to rent for $300 a month or so, as they cost then, yet somehow I was still faced with having to sell on Ebay. But I had to drop off of Ebay and off of the grid in general for some years to get out of the financial fix I was in. Or get back to doing what I knew how to do which was trade in electronic surplus. That's how I ended up coming up here to the Bay Area and the surplus trade was good, until 2008. 

I've been through a ton of things since then and I can honestly say I could go back there with just about nothing and make it fine. I know a ton of hustles for making money. I've long grown out of missing having a car. I can walk for miles and if I've got any kind of a bike I can really get around. 

I also may have to give up trumpet because I keep getting these headaches and headaches are not normal for me. I'm going to quit coffee and give it a week with nothing but good old green tea. It might be that I'm just drinking too much coffee. 

But there are some other factors. Playing trumpet is pretty physical. It's not like playing guitar where it takes very little muscle power to pick or strum and the chords take a little hand strength and that's it. Trumpet takes a ton of things from below one's belly button on up. It's like working carrying baggage at the airport or something where as one ages, one will *not* progress at it but regress. 

That plus the Hawaii ethos not really being about "noise" and the fact that the tropical atmosphere wants to corrode everything and makes all brass instruments stink, are things that if I'm to return to Hawaii, make me have some serious second thoughts. 

In any case I can't return to Hawaii just doing nothing.  It's like someone who works hard to escape their small town to go somewhere big like NYC. Then they're ready to go back to Smallville to retire, and no one wants to say about their decades in NYC, "Well, I was a parking lot attendant".

More thoughts on zombie "thought" processes

 271st day sober. I practiced last night but didn't practice that much as I didn't really feel like it. I did long tones on high notes which is good though. 

I'd packed that pesky power supply yesterday, and packed some more things today and took them to the post office and FedEx. I'd had raw walnuts, my vitamins, coffee, and a couple packets of "Sky Flakes" for breakfast and I had a stomach ache for some reason. So after the deliveries were done and I'd checked the usual places I went over to Pho Bel Air for some Pho. It seemed to help a bit. 

I thought more, while out riding, about a key feature of schizophrenia being that the "social" circuits in the brain aren't working. If what differentiates a human from an animal is a human's social sense, then this goes some distance in why people treat the homeless like some kind of feral animals. The truth may be that they are. 

A raccoon, given a piece of bacon by someone, is going to hang around and demand more bacon until they can't physically eat any more or are driven off. The family dog is not going to go hungry so you can eat. Normal humans will appreciate the gift of a bacon sandwich and be happy if they get what they need, and express thanks. They'll probably try to do some favor in return. This is how normal human societies are built. Normal parents or friends will go hungry so their child or a friend who's injured etc can eat. It's only among humans on the "schizophrenia spectrum" that you find parents eating well while their children starve. This is what you find in homeless "parenting" which is why there are not very many children, at least not so far, in the camps. They get taken away. 

An important thing is, these days we have functional MRI so we can actually observe what parts of the brain are operating when the patient does certain tasks. We can actually test if the social parts of the brain are disabled. We can finally say, This person is not going to "just snap out of it", they are socially disabled in the same way we have diagnoses for those who are intellectually disabled. 

Behaviorally, it's always been pretty easy to tell - it's just a lack of any idea of empathy or social contract. But now we can test for it and we can also stop wasting time and resources on those who are not fixable. Just set up safe, humane, camps for them to go to, have their McDonald's and Jerry Springer Show, so they don't have to live under bridges and we don't have to look at them or worry about getting mugged by them.

A real snow job

 270th day sober. I practiced last night and it went pretty well. I'm getting more comfortable in that above the staff octave, worked on my higher and probably better sounding What A Wonderful World, played some songs I want to have down really pat like the Israel national anthem and tried Amazing Grace an octave up and I'm not quite ready yet for that but will be in time. 

As I write, there's snow in Israel and I don't mean the sorta-faux snow we get here in San Jose, I mean real snow that's beautiful. And I was worried Israel might be uncomfortably hot! 

There was just a neat thing on the radio about harmonica player Lee Oskar, actually Lee Oskar Levitin. His "Lee Oskar" harmonicas are actually made by Tombow in Japan, no wonder they're so good. I tried getting into the harmonica and found that pursuing it seriously means tons of learning how to work on harmonicas yourself, always scraping reeds and taking apart and cleaning and so on. And you have to have them in tons of different keys and tunings. 

Between that and the fact that to be heard on the street you need a small amp and a mic, the whole setup isn't any less bulky than a trumpet case and it's more hassle. I even had "Red" the flute player (probably RIP) ask me about the harmonica and I gave him a run-down of my findings, that they're "maintenance nightmares" and all the keys you need etc. Red was getting by fine buying a new cheapie flute for $100 or so a year and flute has tons more "credibility" than a harmonica anyway. Sad to say, harmonica = hobo to most people. Red concluded that he'd just stick with the flute. 

I got going at the usual time, and stopped at the corner bodega for rubbing alcohol. Next I dropped off a couple of packages at the downtown post office. St. James park was FULL of zombies, staggering around and yelling and fighting and doing the usual zombie things. I just toodled on by pretending to ignore them while of course keeping wary, as you have to be around zombies. They really need to take the old Fort Ord "campus" and set it up as a big camp where zombies can just be zombies, and live how they want, with free drugs and junk food, and let us non-zombies not have to put up with 'em. 

Next was the bank, and I've now passed a threshold, where I have over $10,000 in the bank. By about $50, but it really is 10 grand in the bank. 

I still assume about half of it is the property of the IRS ... they're really backed up and that's why I haven't heard from them yet but I'm pretty certain I didn't do my latest taxes right and owe them more although I could not figure out how I'd come up with the lower amount I paid. So I've really been expecting a bill from them. And this next time I'm going to be extra careful and give myself more time and they ought to get a few thou although in all fairness a lot of it isn't tax, it's other things like paying into Social Security and Medicare and so on. 

After the bank I went around to Dai Thanh, honestly hoping to get one of those long chewy "Chinese donuts" but they were out. I got a few other things, then stopped at the Amazon place for bubble mailers, and then rode over to Nijiya where I got ... other things but mainly a "3 kinds of fish" (my name not theirs) bento plus a little sashimi to make it 4 kinds of fish. Those noodles, the ones where the noodles are fresh and there's a sort of "kit" with sauce and so on, generally two servings per package, were all wiped out there too. Oh, well. 

So I had a cold bento and sashimi and one near-beer left, but that's the kind of meal to eat slowly and savor, so when I passed Foster's Freeze and noticed it was not busy - as in, no customers at all - I stopped in and got a burger and fries. 

I got back here and put things away and ate the burger and some of the fries with the last near-beer and got out these laboratory glass manifold things I had to ship. I'd been really worried about those, but they were smaller than I remembered and a box that originally held three bottles of wine worked perfectly with the molded cardboard supports that held the wine bottles working fine for the manifolds with only a little extra padding. 

I took that up to FedEx and picked up some boxes and stuff, and since I really didn't want to miss out on any packing material I checked Sanmina also, and took the stuff I'd gathered back here, then went back out and to the storage place where I checked out one of the other storage units we have. I needed to get a power supply that had sold, and picked out some other things to list. That all went well, and I took the things back here. 

Thursday is trash day around here so I went through the welding place's trash to get out a lot of little padded envelopes they toss out, and put stuff I wanted to get rid of into the dumpster on the other side.  It's my "neaten up" night around here. 

I like to keep things nice and clean because life is actually easier that way. This is what I don't get about the homeless around here. If they kept their areas clean people would appreciate it and consider them an asset. It's pretty obvious if you think a bit about how people would see you if you were the kind of trash-scattering slob there are so many of, as opposed to someone who keeps the park etc. clean. 

I saw an interesting lecture on YouTube recently. A professor was pointing out that (a) schizophrenia isn't an "on" or "off" condition but a spectrum, and (b) that his research found, surprisingly, that the brains of schizophrenics operate normally except for huge deficits in the parts of the brain that make a person "social". This fits well with my observations that even somewhat normal-seeming homeless people seem a bit "off" like there's something missing, and my own impression is they lack an idea of the "social contract". 

The "social contract" is such things as, if someone gives you something, you're thankful and you really *feel* thankful. You try to do little favors for others because you know how they'd feel. Things like that. But as counter-examples, examples of how the homeless tend to do things, you give a panhandler a dollar and they follow you asking for more, even when they'd actually be ahead if they didn't pursue you and went on to the next possible donor. Or one of the bums around here, when I got some new gloves, assumed I'd give her my old ones like I owed them to her. 

I'm trying to think through how some people become homeless and that's it, they're never climbing out. And how some others may dip into homelessness and are back "on the grid" in no time. I think it comes down to the presence or absence of this social sense. If I offer to wash someone's car for a few bucks, I'm going to do a good job, not leave soap to dry on it, etc. I'm able to put myself into their mind and think how they'd feel if their car now had soap streaks, maybe one part not clean, etc. I want them to be happy, not unhappy. But one of these homeless people wandering around will probably half-ass the job and then *demand* the money, and upon getting it, try to hustle for a bit more. To them, another person is a sort of money-vending machine. You might get more if you bang on it a bit ... 

When I lived in Gilroy I was starting to think I might try out doing odd jobs for the strip of businesses in the downtown area, start out with things no one else wants to do like clean bathrooms and mop floors, and gradually build up steady customers and steady tasks, $5 and $10 at a time. You have to build up a reputation for being a good worker and honest and that takes a good social sense. 

Maybe that's what's wrong with these homeless people who seems physically fit enough, and mentally "there" enough, to build up a clientele washing windows or detailing cars or things like that. The central core social sense, that makes one want to not only earn money but be wanted or needed, isn't there. They could be just schizophrenic enough that it's missing.

January 26th busy day

 After listing Ebay stuff last night I got some practice in and I guess it went OK. It seems like in real terms the average progress is slow but steady, while on a day-to-day basis I have good days and less good ones. 

I had Ebay things packed but I packed another thing or two and got out of here the usual time. I got to the post office just in time in that, when I put my things in the chute it almost jammed but didn't. Which means if I were 10 minutest later it may have been jammed. Whew! I shopped at H Mart but all I ended up getting was some overpriced near-beer. I wanted to get some noodles but the kind I like that come with fresh noodles were gone as in all gone. All the flavors even less-popular ones like "shio" (just salty) and so on.

I got fish and chips on the way back and checked for packing stuff, finding, as usual, some. 

After eating I finally finished the load of laundry I'd had soaking for a couple of days(!). That was really bugging me but I always had stuff I had to get out, stuff I had to list, didn't feel like messing with cold wet clothes and water at 4AM, etc. I thought about how, when I did laundry at Ken's, I really only had a time window of 2-4AM Thursdays so it's always been down to a narrow time window when it must be done or miss out for the week. So, I'll start laundry Saturday night by which I mean put it in to soak, and then sometime on Sunday do the plunging and rinsing etc. and hang it up. And it will have to be done every week. 

Ken came by and wrote out my check but had forgotten to get the power supply I need to mail, so he left me the key to the upstairs storage unit and told me how to get to it; it turns out I have to enter a different gate code for each storage unit. It's weirder if you've got three of the things; apparently you have to enter all three codes if you're going to visit all three. But in this case I'm just going to one and it's one I haven't been to so it should be interesting. I have to do this tomorrow night after doing the bank and my usual errands. 

I had about 8 packages of Datrex left and asked Ken if he wanted them and he did. I talked him out of a $20 spot for 'em too. I told him about my idea that the stuff probably makes a great breakfast cereal. That $20 will repay me for paying $8 for two overpriced little bottles of rubbing alcohol at the hardware store and also the $12 I can hopefully fork over for two large bottles at the bodega. 

I was actually having thoughts of doing a bit of busking tomorrow after the bank. But since I'll have to hurry back to go get the power supply that takes care of that. And Ken's supposed to come by on Sunday to move things around so I'll sort of want to be around for that. When I was going to Santa Cruz all the time from Gilroy it seemed my work year was from April 1 to November 1 and the object of winter was just to get through winter. Maybe that's the schedule I'm just destined to have.

Dancing around with Russia

 268th day sober. After listing stuff last night I felt so tired the last thing I wanted to do was wrestle with my still-soaking laundry and I really felt like going right to bed, but I practiced first. The high notes were less elusive and I noticed I was falling into a lazy habit of going to a high note but not being able to hold it as a long tone so I worked on that a lot and will hopefully continue to do so. I also worked on "What A Wonderful World" in a higher key than I'd played it in the past, and those first two etudes in the Getchell book. 

I need to prepare to get out busking again, but since I started to feel burned out on it before, I need to learn to pace my playing, and need to learn tons of new repertoire. I also need to find more places to play.

On the radio there's lots of talk about the Ukraine situation. The trouble is, the current regime there is one installed by the US in 2014, that's Fascist, even neo-Nazi. Plus the US is breaking promises to Russia that ex-USSR regions or countries would not join NATO. So, the US-installed neo-Nazis are asking for more, more, and more again, US weapons. If I were Putin I'd see it was a continuance of WWII with the US on the Nazis' side. 

So there's talk of "sanctions" and so on, and the US does not realize that the Russians will happily go on half-rations to fight Fascism. There's a reason WWII is called there, the Great Patriotic War. The US is entirely tone-deaf to this. 

I packed large things to go to FedEx and those made up a nice large load in of themselves. I took them up with no problems and got some packing stuff on the way back. I also got some chicken from the "Krispy" place so when I got back here I ate that. 

Then it was the usual night, futzing around and finding things to list and listing them. I took apart a high voltage power supply or what was left of one, that I noticed was on the shelf "as-is" and thought "No one's gonna buy thus gutted thing".

A funny meet-up.

 267th day sober.  Besides listing Ebay stuff, I got some practice in and for some reason the high notes were elusive. Maybe I was tired, I'm not sure. I put a fair amount of work into the first two etudes in the Getchell book too. 

I woke up at 2:30 and after breakfast and vitamins I got busy packing things. I got 12 packed, and headed out the usual time. The post office was no problem, and neither was FedEx. On the way out, I was looking for boxes and found two large bags of three large loaves of French bread each, behind Togo's. I took one bag with the thought I'd give it to Ken, who was supposed to come by tonight and drop off something that had sold, that he needed to bring over. 

I decided to get a burger at 5 Guys and ate there, because I figured it would save time over cooking at home and at worst the shop would smell like burger breath, which Ken would not mind. 

After that I needed to go to the storage unit to pick up some things to list, and decided the bread's in the way so I'd give it to Tom instead. He was there at his place, and we hung out and talked for a while. He's cleaned his place up quite a bit and wants to turn it into some kind of a workshop. He appreciated the stuff I'd brought by last week and showed me his fridge full of stuff. He had lots of potatoes and I said, "Potato salad!" and that struck him as a great idea.

As I was getting ready to leave, Ken came by. He said he'd seen my bike, so he came right over but it still didn't make sense. It made more sense when he said he was leaving the storage place and had turned in to "make a dog-leg" and turn around somehow. He and Tom hadn't ever actually met, so I introduced them and Ken got a tour of Tom's place which of course is our old place, and we talked about electronics surplus and stuff, and then Ken and I really did have to go, so Ken took off and I talked a little more with Tom and then took off - across the street. 

I went into the one storage unit (Ken's got two or three) that I always carry a key to and picked out things to list, and was really glad I'd gone ahead and eaten at 5 Guys, and also that I'd turned down the offer of coffee at Tom's because their bathroom was locked. 

I took off out of there and checked for packing stuff, finding some of those long boxes fluorescent light tubes come in and that I use to ship those long tubes of IC's in. They looked funny sticking way out of the back of the bike trailer. 

Meanwhile on the radio they're saying that good old Biden is sending US troops to a part of Russia called the Ukraine, that's in danger of being invaded by ... Russia. If it were me, I'd start studying the Russian language like crazy because hopefully it would involve more hanging out and less shooting at each other. 

While out riding today I thought, How funny that I started this blog just before the covid craziness started. I'd named it and themed it about how much of a disappointment life in the US has come to be, compared to how we were told it would be. Now, well, the process is greatly accelerated.

The smallest place possible

 266th day sober. I got some practice in last night, well over an hour. I've noticed something which is that when I first start practicing I can play crazy high notes, and if I practice those first I can get in some real time playing up to the E above high C and good strong notes too. But if I start out with low stuff, I really struggle to get "up there". So I'm going to practice high notes first because the more time I get in playing high notes, the more familiar they will be. Besides it's fun playing stuff an octave up from where I usually play it. The lip-buzzing is helpful too while it's no substitute for playing on the horn. 

Ken listed some things himself with his usual bad photography and semi-literate text so I cleaned up the ones that Ebay alerted me to (for some reason when he lists them they end up with a link in the description and Ebay doesn't like that) and when I got up today I thought I might check to see if he'd listed more than the three Ebay flagged and he had, so I went and cleaned those up too. I also had to raise the item weights so the shipping losses wouldn't eat up too much money. 

I had a funny dream last night. I'd moved into a place that was big and roomy, sort of a living-room sized room so I had room for "stuff". Some friend came by and needed a place to stay so they parked this trailer or RV or something that was barely movable in front. Then there were two kittens, which needed to be "fixed" at the vet's and of course I was the only one who had money handy to do this so I was going to pay $100 each for them to be "fixed" and then I'd take care of them while they healed in my nice, big room. I realized I was essentially "buying" two cats now, since the transient person with their RV, if they left, would leave them with me as the RV was full of shit so there was no room and in fact they'd probably just bug off and leave the thing... 

I semi-woke up and thought about the kind of place I lived in when I was back in Hawaii as a young adult. It was a room that was nice and simple with a desk, a dresser, a chair, a bed of course, and a closet. I guess there was a lamp on the dresser too. Lights-out was 10PM, no overnight guests, and once a week it was my turn to mop the hallway and kitchen and clean up in general. The Spartan-ness of this place made sure there would be no hoarding or hoarder friends showing up, and needless to say no cats. 

I'm not sure if this dream had any great message, except that right now I have more stuff than could comfortably fit in a single room, and that my desired state of living is very, very basic. I could happily go back to that basic room with the possible addition of a music stand. 

The idea would be to live somewhere around the university which is near Waikiki for busking, near the university and its libraries, near neat local non-touristy stuff in the surrounding area from Kaimuki on into "Town" which is of course Honolulu, and all of this reachable by bus or even walking. I'd do my practicing in one of the practice rooms at the university or if I join the local musicians' union, they probably have practice areas too. Or do what a guy who plays bagpipes of all things (he appears to be of 100% Japanese ancestry) and practice in one of the many parks. And those things... well, they're bagpipes.

So maybe the dream was telling me to be prepared to shed excess stuff and be ready to jump. One thing for sure is, if I'm going to busk for 2-hour sessions, I need to get used to practicing for at least that amount of time. I *do* need to get back to busking especially once the weather warms up again, and I also need to be ready to change over to busking as an occupation if something happens to my situation here. 

I used to follow a blog called the "500 lb peep" blog, since she was a poster on r/lostgeneration on Reddit. But she's gone full-on Trumper and is busily doing all the Trumper things like paying attention to John Howard Kunstler who I learned years and years ago is a very angry person (I sort of picked it up from his blog but I made the mistake of corresponding with him) and reading that awful book by "the stupidest Kennedy" about how Anthony Fauci is the Devil himself or some such thing.

I'm fairly certain Hitler's book was successful in the turning-Fascist Germany of the early 1930s, and before that, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's dismaying to find that Morris Berman's blog is a thinly-disguised Trumper blog, that 'Peeps' is going full Trumper and will probably be calling for the burning of witches soon, and someone from long ago, John Michael Greer AKA "The Archdruid Greer" has been full-on Trumper from before the election. 

About this last, Greer, I kind of saw it coming. He put up an essay about how our form of government in the US is actually National Socialist because we have, I dunno, an Army and a Navy yet we have Social Security or some shallow reasoning like that. And how delightful it would be if we went full-on, how the youth would wear green shirts and black pants and clean up the parks and help old people out and so on (the part about eliminating non-whites and putting in their time manning the extermination camps would be a given) and Greer took it down so as far as he's concerned it served its purpose and now he hides behind thickets of dense verbiage and woo-woo mysticism, just like some of the Nazis did in fact. 

I've really been meaning to read Victor Klemperer's diaries of the Nazi rise to power. I've read that he found it dismaying how many otherwise normal-seeming people went full-on Hitlerite. The same thing is going on now. Normal-seeming people, people with hearts and minds and sympathies and who'd help the poor, the downtrodden, the unjustly served, at least if you ask *them* if they would, have decided the modern-day Hitler and his policies are really the way to go.

It goes the other way around

 265th day sober. I practiced for what was probably close to 2 hours before going to bed, found 4 of those nasty hairy little seeds in here before going to bed so that pretty much answers why I coughed so bad that night. 

I woke up at noon then just "rested my eyes" and woke up again at around 2:30. I decided I was going to get that trip to the music store out of my system once and for all. So I was out the door by 2:45. My first stop was Nijiya for a can of cold coffee and some cash back, then by the time I got to Whole Foods I had to pit stop for the bathroom and got a can of cold coffee and one of those elderberry shots and drank those while hanging around the petition guy - he mentioned to a sucker he was working on that he's "based" in Santa Cruz. 

I headed up to Sunol then to Park then to Lincoln down to Curtner and all the way over to Union, and went right over to the music store. It was a bit of a ride, about an hour just from Whole Foods to there. The music store had four trumpets on the wall, all silver plated (which no one but high school kids want any more) and that was it. A few saxes. 

Mainly they had tons of books so I figured I'd buy a book while I was there, and picked out either the Charlier or the Concone, I forget as I always get those mixed up. The guy checked the price for me and it was almost $70 so I said "Maybe next week". The guy said he was a "wind" player and according to him, it's easier to go from sax to clarinet instead of what everyone says, which is the other way around. The reason, he said, is clarinet requires a very tight embouchure and apparently it's difficult to train out of that. This is good to know if I want to play sax, if so I won't bother with the clarinet first but will just play sax. I doubt I will, though.

I was glad to get visiting there out of my system, at least. I went to the International Food Bazaar and was going to get a kebab plate but it was super busy so I just got olives and stuff and the line was long enough just to check out with that. The ride home was easy, as it was a slight downhill all the way. I had to use the loo again and homed right in on Whole Foods again. 

I did stop, however, at the hardware store where I got what might have been their last two bottles of rubbing alcohol, the small ones, for about $4 each. CVS was out of it, as there's a run on it right now. Maybe the antivaxxers are drinking it, who knows. 

I went back to Whole Foods and used the loo and picked out a basic dinner of meat balls, mashed potatoes, and broccoli, with a can of fizzy water. A cop was dealing with a crazy guy outside who supposedly had stolen a bag of stuff and was arguing, very stridently, with the cop about it. If the guy was smart he'd just run. Instead the guy acted so crazy the cop got his night stick out then he retreated and took off. 

I just ate my food, then went out to my bike and got to talk a little with the petition guy but mostly listen in - it turns out he's an anti-masker and thoroughly, even vehemently endorses that awful book about Dr. Fauci. That makes him an enemy although I won't let him know. He was telling a lady all kinds of stupid things like to eat 8 eggs a day and that wearing a mask "causes brain damage". 

I took off, and got as far as the SAP Center when I remembered, my plan had been to eat and then shop! I turned around and went back - Petition Guy was working on the same mark - and did my shopping, and came back out and loaded up the bike. I got to talk to Petition Guy a bit, and it came out that he lives in his truck and spends half his income on storage units which contain his "life's work" as he's a film maker. Of course he is. I asked if he needs page protectors as I have tons of 'em, but he has no use for them. 

But I guess the guy has me filed as at least somewhat friendly, and I even got his business card. I rode off, this time for good, and took a little loop around San Pedro Square and the "SoFa" area and there were no street musicians, and even the usual beggars were gone. It was now a bit past 7, so the equivalent of a bit past 10 in the Before Times, when there would be plenty of performers and beggars around. I am honestly the last street musician in San Jose, a city of well over a million and it doesn't feel as good as I thought it would. It does not feel good at all, actually.

Toasty circuit boards.

 264th day sober. I got some Ebay things listed last night and did some practice, which went well. The song "Leaving On A Jet Plane" turned out to be a good one for practicing high notes, playing an octave up from where I used to play it. I also started in on the first etude in the first Getchell-Hovey book.

I'd desoldered a bunch of capacitors off of circuit boards last night and since I didn't care about the boards, was not shy about burning the boards as long as I got the components out. I probably should have opened the door when I did this, because I was awakened by an irritation in my throat and had to cough, and even today I can smell the burnt epoxy smell. 

The delivery came here at 3 and I signed for it. It's a small pallet of stuff which surprised me since the way Ken was talking it up I expected something big.  Ken came by an hour and a half later while I was busy packing things, so I didn't interfere with Ken much as he unpacked the stuff and decided what to keep here and what to keep elsewhere. I noticed the wind was kicking up and those nasty fuzzy little seeds were around and now I think that's what got in my throat. Those things really get to me. 

Once Ken was done I kept packing, and got the two large things I wanted to get done, done, plus did a bunch of smaller ones and took off for the post office at the usual time. It all went without a hitch and I stopped by the fish place for fish and chips, and even though it took about half an hour for me to cover all my places I look for packing materials and to get back here, the fish and chips were really good.

Russia invades Russia, Israel invades Israel

 263rd day sober. Ken came by last night and I got my check, and we did the usual tea and talk. It's amazing but he seems really aware of how shitty things have become for anyone not in the top 10%. 

I got a bunch of things ready to list and took apart a large instrument that I did a search on and no one's even heard of one plus it had tons of loose parts rattling around inside so that made it fair game. 

By that time, it was about 5AM so I did some practice and went to bed around 7. The practice went kinda "meh" and so I can't just do lip buzzing and expect miracles. It's just another tool.

 I woke up today around 2. On the radio they're going on about the latest horrors. Not only is Russia threatening to invade ... Russia, a district called the Ukraine, in which the US has installed a neo-Nazi regime which naturally it would want to keep there. But also Israel is being called out for doing awful things like housing Jews in ... Israel. Why, they're trying to "Turn 'Palestine' into Israel" - Hello, 1948 anyone? Then they had a nice interview with a "Palestinian" terrorist without any accompanying interview with anyone from the Israeli side. 

I got out of here at the usual time, stopped at the three usual little libraries and found some books including some music books, and dropped off packages of Datrex at each one. Then over to the bank and deposited my check, and since I'd decided I didn't want to deal with weekday traffic going to Music Village, merely went up the street to Recycle Book Store. There I found the two Getchell-Hovey etude books I was hoping to find, and the $10 I had in credit covered them. 

Then I just circled around to the Amazon place for bubble mailers, and on the way home hit Nijiya for food including a nice sushi plate, and Tak Market for near-beer and just ate and drank near-beer and pretended the weekend is starting which it's really not.

27 happy customers

 262nd day sober. I finally got that big package I was so worried about done, but I first had to pull things out and sort of "tunnel" in to where it was, on a shelf behind a shelf behind some stuff. I also found something that was "lost" a few years ago so there's that. I put back in, in the things' place, things that are not listed yet on Ebay and not likely to soon. 

I packed that, in the box I'd picked up from the circuit board place that night, and then packed 20 or so other things, and finally called it a night and went to sleep about 7AM maybe closer to 8 I think. 

I woke up at about 2:30 and besides other dithering around, realized I could not only take it all in one load, but I could fit a few more small/flat things, so I brought the package count up to 27. I got out of here and it took some careful riding (the worst part is going over the railroad tracks on Brokaw, it's a real test of one's packing loading ability) and the post office chute didn't jam so that went great. 

A lady with edematous legs who was going in, made the mistake of complimenting the "neatness" of my bike trailer. I gave her a whole little lecture - which she enjoyed actually - about the trailer and how I got it and then she asked about the bags, and finally the seat, and I said it's just the seat the bike came with, but this time of year is the best for getting a bike set up just how she likes because it's the off-season. And it's actually the best time for riding because it's not so hot. So she was all jazzed up about bike riding and could probably use more exercise than hefting a gin-and-tonic or whatever non-exercise she does. 

I dropped off the big box and a small one at FedEx, and got a kal bi plate at the "Hawaiian" place. On the way back I picked up lots of interesting packing supplies and some "Datrex" emergency food to donate (the stuff would make an outstanding breakfast cereal with some milk) and came back with the bike just as loaded up as when I left. 

That kal bi plate was a lot of food but I went right through it. Yum! There are people who follow a regime called OMAD or One Meal A Day, and aside from 2 oz. of raw walnuts and my vitamins and black coffee all through the day, that's about what I'm doing today. 

If I can get up in time, I'm going to check out Music Village tomorrow. I've even got the route memorized - West on Park and turn left at Tony P's, pronounced "Toneeps" as far as I'm concerned. Then I'll be on Lincoln, and take that to Curtner, and follow that down to the International Food Bazaar. Music Village is on the next corner down.

Lama Tova

 261st day sober. I got a lot of things put away that were piling up in the office and really bugging me, got out 20+ things (closer to 30) to pack and ship, and got these pulse generators Ken wants listed all cleaned up and put nice tags on them. 

I also did a bit more of the lip buzzing and note my endurance at that is increasing. Many wonder how Louis Armstrong got his distinct sound, and I wonder if, besides desire to do well and just plain genius, it was also that he was very fit from loading/unloading coal from a coal cart when he was young he have had a much greater level of fitness than the average trumpet player and in the short film "Rhapsody in Black And Blue" you can see the guy had some "abs". But also I wonder if he knew about the lip buzzing thing too because while tons of work would still need doing on the horn, this seems really good for building up strength and endurance. 

I'm nosing around on the internet and I found an organization called "Lama Tova" which means "Why a hat?" that's a street musician organization in Israel. They get musicians into public service things like playing in hospitals, and also probably stand up for musicians' rights. Needless to say there is nothing like this in the US. Their logo is pretty neat in that it's got a trumpet in it - take that all you guitarists!

A real breakthrough

 260th day sober. I was up late/early enough that while I got Ebay things listed which is good, sleeping in until 2 or 3 in the afternoon would have been proper. I woke up at 2, as it turned out, and could have jumped right on my bike and gone over to Music Village, assuming they were open, or could have jumped right up and dug out that big thing I have to pack and gotten that done and gotten it out of here. Instead I had coffee and aspirin and went back to bed and read "A Handful Of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh. It's a pretty good story except that everyone in it is evil in some way except the protagonist, Tony, who ends up by far the worst circumstances in the end. So it's not just Hemingway who wrote stories that were like real life. 

But also, I practiced. The last few days due to various factors like zombie parties in the parking lot I didn't want to make aware of my presence and other things, I'd done lip buzzing "zooming" up very high and very low and holding it for a time and all sorts of things like that. I can really feel it in my lower gut now that I'm doing this more correctly, being made aware of the wedge breathing method. It's one of those things that, once you realize it's the way to go, you can't un-learn. 

So last night I practiced on the actual horn, and am I ever on the right track. I might be just about 60 but now I feel I can keep up with any of those showoff high school kids who like to do their impressions of whistling tea kettles  to show what trumpet aces they are. As long as I keep up with the program, range is not going to be a problem for me. 

I still have very far to go, but the very basic problem of getting a wide range, with decent tone, is one I have a handle on now and one that so many struggle with. If I can get a *real* handle on things, I can write a book or books about this, as I've tried, it seems, every method under the sun and this is the first thing that has worked so well and is definable, not just dumb luck.

A nice grey day.

 259th day sober. What with all the zombie activity (really, who but drug-addled zombies can find milling around a couple of cars scattering trash all over, entertaining?) last night, I did a lot of lip-buzzing again because I did not want to reveal myself to the zombies, in case the security guy or some random cop came through, causing the zombies to think I'd called them. 

I slept until 2, to find it a grey day.  I packed 5 things to take to FedEx which is open today. I have one big thing to ship and it's good and buried - it will be fairly major just getting it out. When I do, I might as well move other things that are listed off of that shelf and move things that are not-to-list onto there. So it will be a lot of work. 

I made the run to FedEx just fine, and on the way back took my usual look at what's being thrown out behind H Mart. I decided I'd take a box of these delicious Korean melons, a box of tomatoes, and a box of purple potatoes plus a couple of "fresh" coconuts by Tom's place. I only kept a little tub of fresh mushrooms and a couple of tomatoes for myself. 

Tom's place has been puzzling lately as his truck hasn't been there, and there have often been 1-2 white minivans there. Has Tom traded his truck in on a minivan? Or is his truck in the shop? When I came by there were no minivans there, and as I loaded the veggies onto the table he has outdoors, I realized he'd talked about going on another vacation and had wanted me to watch his place but it sounded like too much drama for me. So I think he's got some of his homeless buddies watching the place. Well, they can use veggies too, and have a kitchen to cook them there so it's all good. 

I got back here after picking up some Styrofoam pieces to pack the large thing in - I usually don't like to deal with the stuff but packing materials are not abundant right now so I'll make an exception. 

My plan for tomorrow is to call Music Village and if they're open, I'll go there. If not, FedEx is open their usual hours and I'll use the day to dig out and ship the big thing.

A Pacific treat.

 258th day sober.  I tried to get to bed a bit earlier to "walk" my wake-up time back earlier, but instead I slept in until 3:30. Maybe I needed the rest, I don't know. 

I didn't practice last night but I did a lot of "lip buzzing" which seemed to be harder, actually. I could really feel it in my midsection. I've done lip buzzing tons in the past but as I'm finding, it's *how* you do it - being aware of the wedge breathing concept made a ton of difference. Now I can "zoom" the buzz from very low to very high. 

I got the idea to work on this remembering a video by the teacher Laurie Frink long ago, where she was teaching some French horn players, and they were doing the lip buzzing zoomy thing and I tried it and could not cover as wide a range at all. Now I can. 

Waking up as late as I did nixed the idea of going to Music Village today. And they're closed tomorrow. They might be open on Monday and it being MLK day so I can't go to the post office, it might be a good time to go there. I want to see if they have any interesting books, talk to them about selling the cornet and the clarinet I have or maybe trading them for store credit, and see if, their being a Yamaha dealer, they have the "Bobby Shew" trumpet in stock. 

A good part of me wants to hold off on buying one until I've gotten further in my skill, or until I've busked up enough money to be able to say busking money paid for the thing, but there's also a large part of me seeing how things have been going to shit, and that cautions that I should buy one now while it's possible. 

In other news a volcano's gone off near Fiji or somewhere and it's sending waves around the Pacific. I've traced it to a time in the 70s when an earthquake happened around Australia, but I remember one time when I was a teen the waves changed. Utterly huge waves could be seen going past the island, heaving up mountain-high on the horizon with huge flares of spray like small clouds over each one, and the local beach got remodeled. Even a little wave would knock me on my ass, and the whole beach flattened out right up to the grass and the coconut trees. I could get the longest rides bodysurfing these waves, and it was so much fun it was like getting a really great present. A Pacific treat. 

Thinking now, I wonder if that change in waves also washed out from under the sandy soil by the church, the silver coins I found around that time? I was looking for lead fishing weights in the holes, carved out by rolling rocks and coral heads, and perfect traps for anything heavy. I promptly spent the coins that were still recognizable and I'm not sure what I did with the rest, mostly silver. That was about 45 years ago now and I wonder if anyone else has discovered the "metal mine" as I named it? Keeping in mind people explore around in the ocean less now - why do that when you have video games? 

Looking back I'm amazed at the neat stuff I got to do as a kid. Sure we were poor as shit, but the time I got to spend beach combing and finding shells and glass floats, fishing, surfing, seems now to to be a worthy price for how underfed I was. In fact I remember sitting in my first rooming house room in town and marveling that I could buy a whole package of hot dogs and eat them all myself, if I wanted. But I'd actually had enough after 3. Hunger had only been life-threatening when we lived up in the hills but once we got down close to the ocean again, the fishing and foraging available there meant I'd never starve. 

Looking back I can't believe I traded off beach time for idiotic things like college classes. 

For entertainment today, some apparently drugged-up zombies camped out in the parking lot - some distance away from me but I could hear them talking loudly and yelling as they fought amongst themselves and other zombies who came driving by. The main zombies actually had nice cars so I figure these were cars they'd just stolen/carjacked, while the other zombies had the usual hunk'O'crap zombiemobiles. This all went on for hours and hours and I was actually pretty amazed when they finally left.

America's Dachau

 257th day sober. I felt too tired and headache-y to practice last night. When I woke up my resting heart rate was way too fast so I don't know what's going on but I'd better cut back on the usual culprits like salt and caffeine. 

On the radio they're talking about Guantanamo and plans for it. The Trump regime, they said, wanted to build barracks for 100 guards - that means at least 1000 prisoners, I thought. I was able to find this online: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/06/08/us-military-plans-as-if-guantanamo-wont-close-for-decades/

 Who would go in there? I assume it would be Democrats and leftists in general they wanted to torture, in other words the left-overs from their planned mass killing of Democrats, leftists, and non-whites. And Guantanamo, like Dachau, would be a "boutique" camp, while mass-killing camps with the usual array of ovens and mass graves and all that would be in places like Nevada and New Mexico and Texas, central locations easy to ship people to and where land is cheap, as well as the local populace very much "for" such things. 

In any case, the process is on hold until, many assume, 2024 when things get "spicy". 

Monday's a federal holiday, so I packed all the small things, leaving three large things that can go by FedEx on Saturday or Sunday. I got out of here at the usual time, and noticed the bums had left a big pile of high-tech stuff by the side of the building. I checked the stuff out and everything had been dropped, probably stomped on, dropped again, run over, etc. Nothing was usable at all. 

As I rode out along Shoreline, I had to pass some zombie RVs and of course there were zombies fighting in there, "motherfucker" this and that. 

At the post office the chute was jammed and the guy who normally takes care of it was not there so after waiting with some other people for a while and being told to just put things at the middle "teller" window, I did that and got out of there. Now I know why I've been avoiding the post office on Fridays. Maybe if I came by earlier, or if I had the stuff packed in time I could have gone to the one downtown and done downtown stuff. 

At least once that fiasco was done with, I was able to do a little shopping at H Mart. All I got was a sleeve of garlic, some beef flanken ribs, a can of Mr. Brown and some "pepero" chocolate filled crackers for a treat. 

On the way back I noticed one really good large box and a bunch of flat boxes at the Sanmina place, and a stack of large sheets of "illustration board" so I took those. I got back here, unloaded stuff, hitched up the bike trailer, and rode up to BurgerIM to try their burger. It's ... OK. Then I went over to Sanmina again and got the large box and looked for what I thought might be a bunch of packing foam but there was only one large sheet of it and a strip and that was it. Oh, well. I don't remember businesses slowing down this much last winter, but then I was a drinker then so maybe they did and I just don't remember. 

I rode back with the box, having to pass the zombie RVs again and thought I heard a sound like a zombie moving around, accelerated a bit and zoom! - a zombie on a bike went past me coming the other way. I am *not* fond of the undead, and doubly so when they're lurking and sneaking around at night. 

I got back here, put things away, and cut up and measured out the beef for freezing - it worked out to 4 servings at $6 a serving. I used to get beef that worked out to $3 a serving.

A little taste of the coming collapse.

 256th day sober. I cooked myself some beef which I ate with raw onion, mayo, and mustard after coming back in from the post office etc. I'd also picked up a ton of pills in little packets and other goodies from the emergency training place. 

The idea was to replicate buying a hamburger at 5 Guys, a nice heavy dinner that would last me through Ken being here etc. until late in the night when I'd have a chance to eat again if desired. 

In the end, though, the prep time and clean-up factor in, plus eating here means "recovering" from eating here, whereas if I get a burger at 5 Guys I eat it there and "recover" by riding my bike around, gathering packing stuff, etc so I'm fresh and ready to go when I'm back here. Conclusion: I'll keep reserving Wednesday night for a burger or a shawarma or chicken, cooked by someone else. 

Ken came by late because he was testing some pulse generators - he came by with a bunch of stuff in his truck but only offloaded the stuff he wanted me to sell. While he buzzed around doing stuff, I sorted the pills and stuff. I kept the aspirin and band-aids, put the expensive little "123" lithium batteries, lens wipes, saline for eyes, little squeezy things of eye drops, and some pills called Loramed for Ken. The rest gets donated - a mix of various pills, some cough drops, packets of various creams, etc. 

Once Ken was done and I was done with the pills, it was time for "tea and bullshit" and we settled down to talk. He'd brought by a gadget with 48 little counter knobs on 48 10-turn 10k pots, and 48 little panel voltmeters. We weren't sure if the knobs needed a "spline" key to take off or just a very small Allen - I got my secret stash of Allen wrenches from upstairs and it turned out one of those fit. So while we talked, I took off all the knobs, because I was amazed how well it was all going. 

Finally Ken was done, as it was well after midnight, and I figured maybe I'll take this gadget apart and list the parts tonight, and maybe I'll listen to a video while I take it apart. And my browser, itself, was down. It wasn't the internet connection, and I actually even called up Microsoft Chrome or something by mistake, if I wanted to use that, which I really didn't. Besides all the stuff we do on Ebay isn't on there. 

So I just listened to the radio - some quack doctor on the Art Bell show - and finished taking the gadget apart. After a couple of hours I was done, and the browser was working again. And my good old headache was back, too. So I didn't feel like practicing or listing anything, just going to bed. 

It was interesting having a 1985 level of internet access again, though. This is why I insist on having real radios around not some internet radio thing. And I collect books. Music-wise, I insist on having actual physical books to study from, even though it's all online. I thought, what if the internet's down for a few days? I'm set, and I was really glad I'd packed every possible package and gotten them sent out. People will have to get used to these outages. 

I woke up at 2:30, and as usual was outta here at 4, rode downtown. I stopped at the little free libraries and dropped off bags of pills that I'd sorted out last night, and got a couple of books to read. I went over to the bank and did my deposit and that all worked out right. I didn't feel like going much of anywhere out of my usual way so I just got a few things at Whole Foods, stopped at the Amazon place for bubble mailers, and did some shopping at Nijiya on my way back - except they didn't have anything I wanted (was hoping to pick up a bento) so I didn't get anything there and instead got the tempura "appetizer" from Minato, which is really a meal. I stopped by TAK Market for some O'Doul's and got back here. 

It's a nice boring night too. Except where a truck with tons of crap filling up the back, as zombies like to do, came screaming through the parking lot too fast and in trying to get around the corner, lost some things. The funniest was a wheel, with a tire on it, that came off and rolled, comically, around in the parking lot before coming to rest in front of the hot-rod place. I actually went out and had a look, and started to pick up a few things like some interesting software (these zombies must be looting tech companies' dumpsters) and then dropped my haul when I saw that just around the corner the truck had dropped a ton more stuff and there were zombies about. I don't want them thinking I was "taking their stuff" but I actually did pick up an interesting little LCD display I'll stick on Ebay. 

Pres. is woke

 255th day sober. I listed some big things like oscilloscopes and a spectrum analyzer last night, and was tired enough by the goings-on that I didn't practice, just went to bed. I'd made a lamb curry and yep, got a headache from the salt, or the spices, or something. I woke up at about 2:30 and by 3:30 was washed, shaved, and eating a couple of tacos from the taco wagon out on Bayshore. 

On the radio: Bitch McConnell is all bent out of shape, maybe even wet his Depends, because Biden is coming out and saying what everyone knows is true, that the Republicans are toying with a 2nd civil war and we are in dangerous times. Of course "Bitch" and his Republicans want people to not think about civil war, while they bring it about.

Plus there was discussion of "cyber" warfare between the US and Russia. That doesn't sound good because in the US it seems the passwords for critical infrastructure are always "1234" or "password".

But then, the US has Israeli hackers to draw on, so it might not bode well for Russia either. I just wish the US would stop pitching a fit because Russia wants to invade the Ukraine state of ... Russia. 

I've got books to read and an instrument that doesn't depend on electricity or a steady supply of strings, to practice so if the grid goes down for a bit I guess I'll be OK. Should probably "up" my water stores though and look into whether water from the "observation" wells in the floor of the building might be usable on an emergency basis. I'm guessing not, without multiple stages of distillation.

Best practice ever

 254th day sober. After getting back last night and really over-stuffing myself eating dinner, I had to rest a bit and then it was almost midnight so I opted to practice and actually had the best practice ever. 

My facility at high notes to high C and above was unprecedented. And it's the same old student trumpet and the same old 3C mouthpiece, no changes there. The one change has been becoming aware of "wedge" breathing and using it at least some of the time. 

Now, as "miracle methods" go, probably the best known is the Claude Gordon method and there is a whole series of Claude Gordon books and a Claude Gordon course of training for which you need a lot of other books but you *can* work through a cycle over a year or two then repeat it... 

I once paid for a month or two of lessons by a Claude Gordon teacher and did things his way, went out busking, and realized I was where I'd be if I'd just practiced on my own anyway. 

Then there's the Caruso Method, aimed at helping players who have tensed themselves into a knot. There are several who are all about intervals; play lots of 4th and 5ths and octaves, they say, and your problems will be gone. 

There are the "Cichowitz Flow Studies" which I might get into because they sound nice and paying attention to flowing air is starting to get somewhere. 

But it seems like all of this is just farting in the wind if you don't understand wedge breathing. It's not that special, but it seems like not knowing about it is like trying to ride a bike and there are these pedals that go around, and sometimes you push on them and sometimes not, because the bike goes fairly fast however you flail around.

I want to make some real progress not only for busking when the weather warms up again but because I want to be able to go over to Music Village around the corner from the International Food Bazaar and check out the "pro" trumpets there. Also a guy I took lessons from long ago, Eric Bolvin, teaches out of there and there's a chance he'll be around and I don't want to sound like shit and have him hear. 

Biden just gave a good speech on the radio. If we're sliding into civil war, at least there are some great speeches on the way.

The last hurrah of aviation

 253rd day sober. Up at about 11:30 which is not bad considering that after listing 10 Ebay things and doing some practice, I didn't go to bed until something like 6. 

It's clear and cold, getting down to the upper 30s overnight. In past winters I just drank the cold away and it works for whole countries like Russia but it requires accepting all the horrible effects of alcohol and dying in your 50s. 

I got out the two aviation "magazines" (on newsprint) I'd picked up at the airport and read them. I think I'm seeing the last hurrah of the airplane hobby. Once the old Boomers and last of the Silents are gone so will be the money for hobby airplanes.

A sand painting

 252nd day sober.  I was up last night but decided I'm going to try to shift my practice from something I do just before bed, when I'm tired and really only thinking about how soon I can hit the sack, to during the day so I'm more alert and purposeful and let the Ebay bullshit own the time I'm marginally alert. 

I was up around noon, having stayed up watching an "American Experience" documentary from the late 90s about the 1918 flu. It was pretty good but had some glaring flaws like saying that masks "are like trying to stop sand with chicken wire" when in reality they're to stop droplets, which is how a virus travels. And they depicted the flu as a 10-month ordeal, when it was over three years, the 2nd year being the worst. An analysis I saw somewhere showed that a repeat of that flu now, in proportion to the present much higher population, would lead to 2 million deaths in the US and we seem to be right on track for that. 

As things get worse, I realize this blog itself is like one of those sand paintings that so much work is put into and then they're destroyed. The internet *will* wink out one day, and it just remains to be seen whether it's in a year or 30. 

I'd talked with a guy at one place at the Reid-Hillview airport and he said the city has decided to let the airport exist until 2035, and we'd had a laugh as I said their biggest problem by then will probably be radioactive zombies. "A lot can happen by then," he said, and I agreed, "It sure can!". 

There were certainly zombies staggering around yesterday. One street I had to go down had one staggering around out in the street and ranting something about "the white man" (it's a black zombie who "lives" in a van that often has such staying painted on it) and I had to head right for to avoid a car, then veered away from. On my way back, at one of the light rail stations downtown, the some firemen were trying to figure out how to deal with another zombie, also black as it turned out, that seemed to be having a full-on mental breakdown. There were tons of the regular types of zombies staggering around all over the place especially as the weather warmed up - the speed of chemical reactions approximately doubles for every 10C increase in temperature after all and this applies to the undead as well. 

I was up around 11 or so, and took it easy today. Ken came by around 5, and he futzed around with one of the manual lift handtruck things, and I put things away and moved things around to clear more room to put said things. Ken also brought by some stuff to sell so there was that, too. 

We also talked about stuff, and I talked about friends of mine, and we talked about airplanes, and of course some economics. I said - and I'd only thought about it right then - that not only had I been taught to never save money by my childhood, where if you got any money you had to spend it immediately before it was taken from you, but as a student, I could not make too much money or save any, or I'd not be allowed to continue as a student. Saving was not "cool" in the 1980s anyway - there was this sort of foolish exuberance, where it was believed that times were good and the money would just come. 

As I say these days, "You have to save, save, save your money!" and that would have made a huge difference, staying the hell away from college and working any old job, just saving all possible. Inventing the side-hustle ahead of time would have been a good idea, too, but I think I am not taking into account how things were back then.

As a member of a hated minority, I had to really keep my head down. Becoming a college student was as much protective camouflage as anything else - there were slightly more of the hated "haoles" on campus, and who knows, maybe I was actually visiting from the mainland and thus could not be beaten up etc., without repercussions. College was also, I felt, my quickest ticket out of Hawaii and to the mainland. My pay, almost doubling from $5 to $9.50 an hour, enabled me to live OK and make the payments on my student loans. If I'd only known I needed to save money like I was still poor. Frankly I was too busy enjoying being able to go anywhere, into any store, hang out at the beach, etc. without the fear I'd lived under - the same fear I was disconcerted to find my oldest sister still lives under back in good old "Hawaya".

Reid-Hillview Airport

 251st day sober. I was up at 11, and got out of here at a bit past 12, to check out a chicken place called "Jollibee" I kept hearing about. It's on Tully, 'way down past where I got my covid booster, but at least I knew how to get there.

It was a long ride, so I'm not doing that again, but it went OK. It was cold and cloudy and I started out with my jacket zipped up and gloves on, and pretty soon took the gloves off and had my jacket open once the clouds burned off and it warmed up a bit. 

The chicken place was OK. I got two pieces of chicken and some noodles for about $12 which is about the same as any fast food. A meal at McDonald's, which is more expensive than Denny's, would cost more. The place was busy and I think the main draw is that it's a popular place in the Philippines so it's a taste of home for a lot of people. 

After eating I rode around Reid-Hillview airport, which is a small, private-plane only, place. And by private planes, small ones like Cessnas, there weren't any Learjets etc. around. Just tons of Cessnas, Mooneys, at least one Piper Cub, etc. And I saw a Rutan, which is a weird looking plane all right. 

I got a cup of coffee and a neat calendar with planes on it at one place, and basically rode around looking at all the sleepy little businesses that are around, and then decided to ride back downtown by going North from there. 

I ended up, eventually, on Capitol which is an expressway so kind of boring on a bike, turned West on Story, and rode that to the notorious King & Story area which is supposed to be "really super bad". In truth, I'd say it's more like "really super Hispanic" and the worst thing I saw was a bum leaning against a telephone pole like he was tired, but he was actually pissing. 

I turned North again on King and rode along until I got to Mabury then realized Mabury is actually Hedding or something and I'd overshot downtown. So I circled back, finding some really peaceful streets like 22nd and 17th and so on, eventually getting onto Santa Clara. 

I stopped at Medex to buy a shoe polish applicator brush as I remembered them having a lot of shoe-shining stuff. That store is still amazing, as they have so many things crammed in there including what looks like a knock-off of a Bialetti coffee maker for $10 I might consider getting, but no more shoe shining stuff. 

I got to the actual downtown area and got a few things at Dai Thanh, then headed home getting a couple things at Nijiya, then really was headed home. As always, I passed by the "Liquid Chicken" truck and decided to, finally, try their food. 

So I got their #3, which was $14. When I got home I discovered this to be a bowl of pickle slices. Under the pickle slices, there was a sliced-up chicken tender, bits of cole slaw sprinkled around, and a bed of french fries. It was decent, nothing special. So now I've tried their food, too. 

RIP Sidney

 250th day sober. On the radio (the only source of news you can trust) they're saying Sidney Poitier died today. I didn't know he was still alive. He was in his 90s or so. 

The guy came up from nothing - he didn't even learn how to read until his teens, taught by a Jewish (naturally) waiter at a restaurant where he was a dishwasher. 

He got into acting and that was a hell of a smart move. Because just like singing, like Sinatra chose to do, you don't need any equipment or up-front money or anything more than a pup tent to sleep in. 

That's the trouble with starting out middle-class and falling to the bottom. I was expected to become an artist, and that takes art supplies, often expensive ones. But acting, like Poitier did, you can do Shakespeare stuff on the sidewalk and people will toss tips. You can survive, even make a good living doing that. Singing's good, and playing an instrument can be with a lot of caveats. If you're a member of the underclass it can't be an instrument that's expensive or needs a lot of maintenance. Trumpets can be expensive, but there are always cheap student models out there. 

When you lived your early years in a 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom place with a family room and a living room and huge yards on all sides it's quite a shift to get used to only doing what you can do while living in a pup tent. I probably would have stuck with art if I'd had the now-unusual good fortune to grow up in the same house all along, nice and safe and stable. But every time we moved, every year or so, I pared away more stuff. 

A new bash the fash day?

 249th day sober. Ken came by last night, I got my check, the usual thing. As he left around midnight, I got ready for bed and got some practice in. 

I woke up today at 11 which is right considering I went to bed at almost 3. 

Today's January 6th, the day we almost lost our country. This should be a day the fascists are running scared, one when fascists are beaten up and a few strung up. 

Here's why a whole section of Bayshore by Queen's Lane was shut down last night: https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/05/san-jose-bicyclist-killed-in-hit-and-run/amp/ The problem is that all sorts of cyclists pass by there including myself. There are tons of zombies on their zombikes, Joe Blow Commuter passes through, etc. Chances are about 98% it was a scumsucker, addled on drugs, no lights on his bike, wearing all black. I'm a lot more visible and I always tuck in behind vehicles making that left turn out of Queen's because  I assume they're too busy watching for an opening to see me. So I do this little hook around behind 'em. 

I headed for downtown at 2, and stopped first at Lee's where I got a little rice dish for $3.50 and ate that at the college. The place was nearly abandoned. Next I went to the bank and deposited my pay check, and that worked out OK. 

I went to the used book store and got trade credit for some books - $10 which is more than I thought I'd get. There are a lot of trumpet books there right now but not any I'm interested in. There was a guy in the back of the shop where the music books used to be, who'd fallen out of his wheelchair and I finally convinced to let me help him, he'd apparently fallen afoul of one of the various booby traps set up back there. I told him how I'd had a cart of books fall on me and mess up my knee, and in this case he'd had stacks of books make him tip over somehow. 

Eventually, once I'd taken the books piled all around away, he said if I could set his chair upright he could take care of the rest. I think he felt really embarrassed and may have been in some pain also, as he had to rest quite a bit. 

I stocked up on some things at Whole Foods, stopped at the Amazon place for bubble mailers and something I'd ordered, stopped at Nijiya for a plate lunch, and got back here. It was cold and I felt like I was riding into a rain cloud coming back. That's a reason right there why I'm not out busking. It's just too cold even in the middle of the day.

You can't test your way in.

 248th day sober. I got stuff ready to list last night but before I knew it it was 11:30 or so, time to get ready for bed. I brushed teeth etc. and practiced, and it went just a little bit better .... I don't get it; I was sick or tired or whatever that was, for about a week and it's knocked me wayyy back in playing ability. 

I really wonder at times if I've chosen the best "retirement career" but then I remember that the standard of performance for busking is incredibly low, and that the average tip-giver doesn't care about high note screaming, they care if you can make it through some basic tunes without fucking up. I really don't need to worry about it, as long as I get my practice in every day and once the weather warms up again, take up my position as the only busker in my city. 

I was listening to the radio yesterday and on some show by the BBC, a lady was recounting something or other and mentioned a guy telling her how he'd been to Oxford, and then observed that "People who've been to Oxford will tell you so, without any reason to". 

My older sister is that way about Punahou, the elite prep school she went to - you never have to ask if a Punahou snob has been there, they'll make sure you know. A lot of really nice people have gone there also, of course. 

The funny thing is, there's no need to be a snob about Punahou. It's a perfectly nice place and these days they even let poor kids in via scholarships. You don't have to be a certain percentage Hawaiian to get in, so it's had every kind of kid go there, from one who became President to "Sonny Beethoven", a guy who used to play sax on the sidewalk in Waikiki. Unlike the "Money's the only way to get in" old days, you *can* test your way in.

But snobs will snob and in retaliation (I'm pretty sure alcohol was involved) years ago I told her something like "Fuck Punahou" and to her it means all the buildings and towers will fall down because I insulted Punahou, and the truth is, world wars would operate very differently if things worked that way. And I don't even feel that way about Punahou, as I have too many fond memories of the carnival, and the beauty of the place.

Early to bed and early to rise.

 247th day sober. I felt tired by 11PM and settled down and did some practice. It went ... better... I was able to play the exercises in the book pretty much OK, and while I was not able to play a high C I was able to play the G below it a bit. 

The only thing I can think of right now is to make sure I practice every day. 

Possibly rainy Monday

 246th day sober.  I got back from all my shopping and had some cheese and olives, relaxed and watched stuff on YouTube, and pretty soon it was 11PM and I was tired so I got ready for bed and got some practice in. It was awful. I struggled to even make E in the top space of the staff. I know I felt tired and crappy for a few days or maybe closer to a week, but I must have been more run-down than I thought. 

At least my new pillow was really nice to sleep on. I put the ratty old pillow and a few other things in the dumpster, and sure enough a bit past midnight a scumsucker was in there rooting around and then got on his comical little BMX bike and rode aimless circles in the parking lot and finally rode off. Proof these guys are brain-addled or high as kites because it was really cold out there. 

Breakfast today (I was actually up a bit past 9) was some Israeli coffee with cardamom in it, which is pretty much Meh but at least I'm trying it. Coffee with chicory in it is still #1 with me. And some Sadaf brand halva that's $5/lb at the International Food Bazaar and $18 at Wal-Mart but then Wal-Mart is ritzier than most people can afford these days. 

In the same way, the Cost Plus import place near Target has gone nuts with prices. $10 a can for the same chicory coffee I pay $5 a can for. Extremely over-marked prices on just about everything. Take an "exotic" large cup noodles thing that might be $1 in an Asian store, it's $3-$5 there.  

I was up at 9AM and since I'm still not used to this, spent a lot of time dawdling around on YouTube etc., but I got 9 things packed and took them up to the post office and FedEx and didn't even get rained on. 

I really felt like getting fish and chips so I checked with the chicken place, which also has fish. And chips (fries). But the concept of serving them together was inconceivable to the people working there and I just got a flat "We can't do that" as if I'd asked for a Coke with 2 tablespoons of mayo stirred in, or maybe a raw chicken leg doused in chocolate sauce. 

But the "fish grill" place understood the concept, and for $11 I got a nice large fish and chips, which was really good. 

I didn't find any packing stuff on the way back and just got back in here, glad I didn't get rained on.

The day after

 245th day sober. I still felt "off" so I alternated between watching stuff on YouTube, answering a few Ebay questions, and going to bed where at least I was warm, and reading the Nabokov book. 

The book, "The Portable Nabokov" is a good selection of  his stories and even some poems, as well as an interesting introduction. I could not get much out of the stories this time around, though, which are densely written. The exception was the last one, "Pnin" which was quite good. The protagonist is a Russian exile from the revolution who's been bouncing around the world ever since, and has ended up teaching at what was probably a typical American college of the 1950s. I noticed that what he paid for his rented room is the equivalent of $600 a month now. 

I headed out of here about 11:30, stopped at Whole Foods to use their bathroom and bought some elderberry syrup which is good if I feel like I'm dragging or like I might be catching a bug, and got cash back too. 

I rode over to International Food Bazaar; wow that's a bit of a long ride. First thing I got a plate lunch and ate it at one of the tables outside. They gave me enough rice to feed an army, so when I was done eating I put it over at the bus stop for one of the many bums - even in this "nice" neighborhood in Campbell - to find. 

I then did some serious shopping. Halvah and dry-cured olives and string cheese and all kinds of things. I also went down the block to check out Music Village which was of course closed but at least I know it's nearby. 

I took a different route coming back, and after riding quite a bit, maybe what felt like halfway back, I thought a certain strip mall looked familiar ... there was Bullseye Bishop, the gun shop I'd been to. So I'd been going quite a bit further than what I already felt was a long ride. It was nice being out in the sun though. 

I came back to Whole Foods and locked the bike up, got a can of coffee for the walk, and walked over to Target. By the SAP center there was a guy just standing there with this rolling locker thing. We had a fun time talking. It was lockers for sports fans to put purses, backpacks etc into and there was a minor-league hockey game going on, with maybe 400 spectators. We had a laugh about how odd it looked, with a guy, a locker, and no one else visible up and down the block. 

I got some Biscoff cookies at the World Imports place and then did the serious "quest" at Target. I got a pillow, a big wall calendar, a package of paper towels, rubbing alcohol, etc. Spray foot powder is no longer available there or online, it's just a non-thing now and I already have a couple jars of the old-fashioned non-spray kind that I'd bought online. Rubbing alcohol was back down to the pre-covid price though. 

Carrying all the stuff back was "fun" but I managed. When I got back to Whole Foods I dumped everything into a cart and went in for some cucumbers, then went out and arranged everything on the bike and actually was able to ride home pretty easily. 

Two funny things seen outside today: On Zombie/Commercial street, saw a speedboat, on a trailer, with a camper, the type usually seen on a truck bed, on top of the boat. That zombie is ready for whatever comes. And on Autumn Street, a block down from the SAP Center, someone had left 15 bottles of beer on the sidewalk. It was a box of 12 bottles of Modelo I think, plus a few bottles on top of a few other brands. I passed this on my way to Target and on my way back, and no one had touched it. Of course the area is thick with zombies so once night fell, I'm sure it disappeared. Nothing like a few cold brews to go with human brains!

New Years' Day

 244th day sober.  Yesterday I packed up a bunch of things, 6 large boxes for FedEx and a few small packages for the post office, and got them on their way. I'm on an earlier schedule lately which is good, but I actually felt pretty "blah". 

I didn't feel that hungry but decided to get a burger from 5 Guys on the way back and ate that, then checked for shipping stuff on the way back but didn't see anything, and just rode back here. 

There was one crazy zombie staggering around on the road on Old Bayshore/Zanker that, frankly, I might not have noticed if it weren't for the thing's gibbering to itself. I have to be more careful! I sped up and made sure I was out of range of the zombie being perhaps an especially speedy one, then commented over my shoulder some remarks about "da zombie man" just for fun. The thing seemed headed for a side street that always has zombie vehicles there so let them all have fun fighting each other all night. I was outta there. 

I got back here and really didn't feel too great. I had some raw cucumbers because a burger doesn't have that much in the way of healthy fiber, and had some coffee and tea, and I had to face it, I felt bad enough that the right thing to do would be to go to bed, so I did. 

I read some of this book of Nabokov stories and I guess went to sleep. I remember just a few fireworks around midnight. Then I woke up at 3AM, had some crackers and tea I think, and eventually went back to bed until noon. 

I've tried to feel motivated to go somewhere, maybe eat somewhere new but I can't. And if I don't believe I ought to work on New Year's Day, then why should I demand that someone else work, serving me, on this day?