Rain overnight

 I got back here and managed to accomplish a haircut, which doesn't take all that long really. 

By then it was about a half-hour until Ken was due and he showed up right on time. He wrote me a check for last week and this week also. We talked about stuff while we unloaded a file cabinet he's gotten "But it was free", he said. "It's the free stuff that's the most expensive!" I replied. I came up with a place in the office to put it, by moving some other stuff. 

Among other things, Ken pointed out that the new file cabinet and the other things along that wall could be arranged more efficiently (there are gaps inbetween) and I thought a bit and said I'd actually like to really re-arrange things, putting the file cabinet next to the fridge and what's next to the fridge, where the file cabinet is. 

We settled down and talked about the usual bunch of things. Ken was kind of hopped up and I had to remind him, "Well, I gotta get to work on those tax papers". So he finally left around midnight. 

I relaxed a bit and cooked some dinner - soup with "MaMa Creamy Shrimp" seasoning, veggies, and the third and final portion of the surf clams. This time I cut them into strips and as I did the 2nd time, just put them in the bowl for the hot broth to warm up when I poured it in. And of course a hard fried egg on top. 

I didn't even finish all the clams, but went out into the rain - yes it rained overnight - to put about a third of them left in the bottom of my bowl out for the birds. 

Then I looked at the situation in the office - the things displaced by the file cabinet had to go somewhere. I put a big transformer we'll never sell (it turned out to not even be listed) went out for the bums, then I decided to take apart this big fluorescence thing which turned out to have a ton of parts including some neat optical stuff. It was big enough to be a huge pain in the ass to ship, but the parts will be easy to ship. 

I also took a stereo with some cheesy speakers that's been here since I moved in that Ken had gotten because "I might want a radio". "I've got radios" was my retort. At least that was a lot easier to take apart and Ken will come out a bit ahead of the $25 he spent for it at Goodwill and I don't have to look at the ugly thing any more. 

Time to relax, have some green tea, practice, and go to bed. 

I woke up at 4 after having a weird dream. I was with a friend at a sort of seashore-themed gift shop that in the dream world was familiar with me as I went by it at least once a day on the main road of the beachy little town I lived in, in the dream world. I went in with my friend because it was high time I checked it out, I figured, after seeing the front of the place so often. 

Right inside at the nearest table, they had a huge "horse conch" and not only that but a left-handed one. The spire was broken, the broken piece kind of sitting on top but loose. I was so eager to show how the shell can be used as a trumpet that I blew on it, minus the loose piece, getting a dolorous tone. 

But this was the trap. Because the shell was broken, anyone handling it could be blamed for the break and so we were. Plus the proprietor of the store was aided by some retired Marine type guy with dementia. So the game became one of humoring Dementia Marine while hoping he'd forget why he'd been put in charge of us and we could sneak off. 

I woke up and put my bedding away and had some coffee, aspirin, and taurine. Yes, I have a big bottle of taurine powder I got a few years ago with the idea it would help me in my detoxing from alcohol. I'm not sure it did, but last night I'd been thinking that Red Bull is basically caffeine and taurine, so if I have my strong chicory coffee and a dost of taurine each time, it will be like having a Red Bull without the expense and extra shit like weird sweeteners. And what I'd noticed about Red Bull is it would make me more alert without the "jitters", which I thing the taurine helps with. 

So, getting ready to do my taxes .... 

One thing I notice is, essentially, the internet is shutting down. It can't do this all at once because that would raise a great hue and cry. So it's doing it gradually. Reddit, for instance, may have a discussion of say 180 comments, and you'll get to see 10 or 15 of them. If you click on the "more" button at the bottom that might get you another 5. 

YouTube is becoming very inane, lots of glittery ADHD stuff and while serious documentaries are still on there for now, like early BBC Panoramas and the excellent 1960s documentary about Alan Turing that's better than anything newer, you have to know they're there in the first place and explicitly search for them. Good luck discovering them unless you already have... 

URLS must. be. typed. in. in. full. or you don't get to go to a page, even though it used to pop up first on Google Search. We used to memorize phone numbers, now I guess we're memorizing URLs. Or keeping them written on an index card. 

I've not gotten a single email showing interest in my Craig's List offerings which is really strange. Selling things on Craig's List may just not be a thing any more. Since I refuse to sign up for the cesspool that is Facebook, I may have to try to meet my savings goals simply on my weekly paycheck and what I bring in by busking. 

At least all the things I have on Craig's List now are things I got for free. I sold Ken the two things I actually had money "in" and I can probably sell him on other stuff I'd planned to stick on "CL". 

Busking ... I need to get out the little can of stain I bought and the black hemp cord and "doll up" the cheaper Shakuhachi Yuu and get out busking with that, or I need to get back into the habit of taking the trumpet out busking. Frankly if I can use the trumpet to make what I'd sell the trumpet for, then I really don't give a shit if, just before leaving for home, I take the thing to a pawn shop and get whatever I'm going to get for it. 

Some cheerful news: The crackers are starting to cancel each other. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/us/woman-shot-wrong-driveway-upstate-new-york/index.html As was observed in the original covid-19 hysteria, Fascists, deprived of the ability to travel where "the other" is to oppress them, and "the other" not coming into the fascists' territory, will prey on their own because they have to prey on *someone*. Although, while the old cracker was absolutely in the wrong, bands of roaming crackers in rural areas are a real danger. They're a violent bunch, as I observed living in an area that's 95% white, 95% Republican, and 95% on Welfare.