The boistrous seas of capitalism

 My headache was bad all through yesterday. Usually after some time on the bike at least, it faded into the background. So much for the beer cure, I decided. It was not helping and may have been making things worse. I'm sitting on a good $50 worth of beer and will drink one at dinner and leave it at that. Or I might end up just giving the stuff away. 

I got 15 things packed last night, or was it 17? In any case, I packed a couple more including one big thing which is fine because if I'm not buying any more beer, I don't have to go into any stores and taking the bike trailer will be fine. Makes it easier to pick up packing materials too. 

I only practiced a little last night. Worked on Hinomaru some. I need to work on that some more tonight. 

I went to bed *without* drinking a few beers, and slept pretty well. 

I got up around 3 and listening to the daily horrible things on the radio, I thought, "A very good analogy to how the US economic system works is, you've got a pool with some very good swimmers, and a lot of swimmers who can just barely stay afloat. The good swimmers are keeping the water stirred up and very rough, because it's great for them, they like it that way!" 

Sure enough, the term "The boistrous seas of capitalism" came up. I thought of the infamous boat parade for Trump where the bigger boats "waked" the smaller ones badly enough that a few even sunk. It was all OK though, because it was for Dear Leader. 

Not only is it a *good* analogy, but it's a *useful* one. If you know the pool's going to be kept barely swim-able for the average swimmer, and God help you if you're a poor one, and you know the good swimmers, the capitalists, are going to send some heavy waves through occasionally, then you can plan, at least to some extent. 

(The good swimmers, the capitalists, rough up the pool periodically, say, because then the poor swimmers drown and the capitalists can loot their pockets. This is a damned good analogy. I wish I had the money to commission R. Crumb to draw this.)

But enough about splashy pools, as the Republicans, the armed wing of the capitalists, are doing good old textbook terrorism. Shooting up the homes of political enemies, in New Mexico so far but may be coming to a neighborhood near you. 

I took off at about 4:30 with my 19 packages. That's actually a bit late, as it's fully dark by 5:30. Traffic was amazing - backed up lines of cars everywhere. It didn't matter in which direction, everywhere there was the typical long lines of traffic. I guess it must be worth it to own a car, what bliss! Oh, and this is a new 20s thing, everyone uses their horn now. It's like people have realized when they bought the car, they paid for a horn and they'd better get their money's worth. 

After delivering everything, I stopped at the "Hawaiian" place and  tried to get a kid's meal. I figured that's a nice size, considering how huge kids are these days. The guy at the counter could barely wrap his mind around the concept of a money-for-goods transaction, much less than an adult might be ordering a kid's meal, and was doing his best to fuck things up, so I just walked out, and next door, where I got chicken. 

The "Krispy Krunchy" chicken was as good as ever, maybe a bit less "krispy" but I always thought they overdid it a bit. But, the biscuit the guy put in with my two thighs was tiny compared to the ones they originally gave out - this didn't matter since I tossed it into the plants for the birds. And the nice big napkins they used to give out, where one was enough to clean up with and two could be saved for later, have been replaced with some of those tiny ones you get at only the cheapest places. They're still really nice people, though, and two thighs for $6 is a good feed. 

Since it's the one dry day this week, I followed my usual route looking for packing stuff and didn't find much, just some of those air pillows. 

I got back here and offloaded things, then loaded up the step stool and my "getter stick" and went to the medical place where I got a few good things. 

I did some mental math and have calculated that at the rate I've been drinking "watery", 5% beer, I've still been putting away the equivalent of about half a bottle of vodka per 24 hours. It may be watered down, and because of this I never reached the blood alcohol levels to get really drunk, but that's a lot of alcohol. And right on cue, my right ear's all hot and swollen again. 

Ken called and said he's coming by tonight so I had an hour to put things away that I'd listed, clean the bathroom and vacuum the office floor, and in general "neaten up". He came by at the usual time, just the day being different, with some mail for me, a Burger King dinner he gave me the chicken nuggets out of, and a couple of really heavy transformers to list on Ebay. 

He also wrote my check, $1050 whoohoo! I'm not to actually deposit it until Thursday though. Fair enough. We sat around and talked about atom bombs and things like that, always a popular subject with him. He took off at midnight, as is his norm. 

This makes things actually a bit simpler for me. All I have to worry about tomorrow is the shakuhachi club meeting. And some rain. I don't have to deal with all that and then deal with him; I can just come back here, get dried out and warm up, and then work on listing things.