This is an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy, and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy and strengthening alliances.  ~ Kamala Harris

Happy Birthday, Mary…I miss you always.

Dream #783

As usual, the sun doesn’t shine in my dreams, even though it is daytime.  I’m waiting for The Bus, which pulls up.  William S. Burroughs is driving.  We don’t speak as I board…he nods slowly at me, I nod back at him.
I make my usual way to the back of The Bus.  This time, I find myself sitting next to Charles Bukowski, who is writing.
“Whatcha writing?” I ask, looking nosily at his notebook.  Without stopping writing or looking up, he replies, “I’m writing a letter of apology to my penis for last night.”
“What happened to your penis last night?”
“I stuck it…pretty much against its will…into this ugly Mexican whore.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Just awful.  And I gave her way too much money.”
“How much is too much?”
“For that nasty trick?  I gave her 60.  Maybe worth 20.”
“It’s important to not overpay in those situations,” I say, having no idea what I’m talking about.
We drive on in mostly silence…Burroughs is up front mumbling darkly about orgones or something.
“The whole scene was just derelict,” Bukowski finally says.  “It was this awful cinderblock building, I think it used to be a smog-check place, and now it’s a whorehouse.  The whole vibe was off.”
“Proper ambiance is absolutely critical in those situations.”
Bukowski looks up for the first time, and starts laughing raucously.  “See…you get it.”
He punches me lightly in the arm and then returns to his notebook.
“I hope your penis forgives you,” I say.
“Always does,” he says.  “Little fucker always does.”
Burroughs slams on the brakes and shouts, “Motherfucker!  They moved it again!”
“What did they move, Bill?”
“The End.”
“The end of what, Bill?”
“The End of the Woooooorld…they moved it.  It’s supposed to be 10 miles up, but it’s here already.”
I bend down next to Bill to look out of the windshield: the road suddenly ends, drops off into infinity…then there is just nothing.
“Then this is probably my stop,” I say, far too jauntily for the occasion.
The dream ends when my puppy wakes me up by sticking her tongue in my ear.

This is it.  This has to be it, dear reader.  Ten days of meat and water.  I’m ready for it to be over.  I’ve proved whatever it was I set out to prove…I guess mainly that I can, in fact, survive and even thrive without caffeine or sugar.  Actual noticeable benefits: most significant is probably this feeling of steadiness or constantness (that’s not a word, so I guess “consistency
would be the closest available option) with each day, as opposed to constant ups and downs, highs and lows, of energy and focus.  I just wake up at a certain energy level, and that pretty much maintains throughout the entire day and evening.

I don’t know if I’ve adapted to this and just gotten used to it already, but I think I might be having a hard time stopping the carnivore diet.  I fully intended to have a huge sugary coffee drink this morning, but I didn’t.  It just didn’t happen.  I guess I didn’t really want it.  Which is kind of weird.

UPDATE: Okay, officially off the diet.  Had a sugary drink with lunch, and then I had an ice cream cone and good Christ now I feel like I did an entire Scarface-mound of coke.  I don’t even want to sit down.  Feels kinda gross.  No more sugar today.

N.P.: “California Sober (feat. Chris Stapleton)” – Post Malone

Today is today.  And yesterday was today yesterday.  Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.  So live today.  So the future today will be as the past today as it is tomorrow.  ~ Kamala Harris

One week, dear reader!  Seven entire days consuming nothing but meat and fish and water.  It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’d usually be well into my second Jack & Coke by now, but now…just water.

The sugar- and caffeine-withdrawals are finally over, thank God.  I was unbearably grouchy for a couple of days there.  Now that I’m on the other side of it, I can’t say there have been any tectonic shifts in anything.  Probably a bit more clearheaded, which is great, but nothing life-changing.

I think I’m going to give it another week and then revisit.  There will be a couple of social challenges this week…we’ll see how those go.

Got a scheduling meeting this week about two books.  Gotta get out the calendar and figure out when these things are going to be finished.

N.P.: “Burn” – Stabbing Westward

So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country.  ~ Kamala Harris

Day 5 of this all-meat-and-water nonsense, dear reader, and I’m afraid things have taken a turn for the tolerable.  Certainly better than yesterday.  Yesterday was preposterous.  I felt like I was turning feral.  This morning I woke in a far more decent mood, and didn’t even start lusting hungrily for flesh until almost 9:00 am.
I was secretly hoping today would be another bad day, because I was about ready to call it quits.  But now I might as well go at least a full week.
I do feel good overall.  And I’m saving a fortune on food.
And I’m writing a bunch, which is good.  Friends say that this is when things should start to get interesting.  We’ll see….
In other news, I’m increasingly convinced we’re going to be hit with at least one black swan event before the new year.  And I think this winter is going to be dark and rather violent.  Again, we shall see.

N.P.: “Drop It Like It’s Hot (Metal Version)” – Leo

We will work together, and continue to work together, to address these issues, to tackle these challenges, and to work together as we continue to work operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements that we will convene to work together on.   ~ Kamala Harris

Hot damn, dear reader…Day 4 of eating nothing but steak and water.  My mood is a bit dark.  Which is not bad for full-blown sugar withdrawal.  There have been a couple of minor physical changes that may or may not be attributable to the carnivore diet.  Last night I did my full training, but I sweated less than I ever have.  Like, noticeably, dramatically less.  Less than I do in the middle of December.

Then, last night, I dreamed I was running with the wolves.  We were chasing a rabbit.  I caught the rabbit and ate what I wanted, then threw the rest to the pack.  When I woke up, I noticed I had some pain in my gums around the canines.  I looked in the mirror…I think they’ve gotten longer since Sunday.  Seemed like even the puppy was giving me an unusually wide berth this morning.  Weird.  But other than that, no real changes to note yet.

We kid.  Thought a few times about quitting today.  But I’ll give it a few more days…see how it goes.

N.P.: “Heavy” – The Glorious Sons

I love Venn diagrams. Those three circles, right? I love Venn diagrams. Always ask, ‘Is there a Venn diagram for this?’ I’m telling you, it’s fascinating when you do.  ~ Kamala Harris

Alright, dear reader…Day 3 of the carnivore diet and I am cranky!  Badass that I am, I’m able to conceal my crankiness from all but the most familiar and astute observer.  But I am pretty cranky.  This is the longest I’ve gone without either sugar or caffeine as an adult, and I’ve gotta say: I thought it would be a lot worse than a little bit of crankiness.  I’ve heard of people getting “sicker than they’ve ever gotten” from cold-turkey sugar withdrawals.  Nightmarish headaches and chills/light seizures.  But so far, not bad.

The sugar cravings are the most noticeable.  After each meal (of which there are only now two: lunch and dinner, with lunch usually being the bigger of the two), I am completely full, but I still have strong cravings for anything sugary.   If I wasn’t paying attention, it would register as simple hunger, like “I ate my dinner, but I’m still hungry.”  But it’s not hunger…it’s my sugar addiction dying a death of privation.

N.P.: “Free – Black Noise Remix” – Vast, Chris Vrenna

The significance of the passage of time, right? The significance of the passage of time. So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time.  ~ Kamala Harris

I decided to start the Carnivore Diet yesterday.   I’ve always had a pretty meat-centric diet, but I’ve tried to Go All The Way with it until now.  It is basically this: eat as much grass-fed steak as you want, seasoned only with butter and salt, and only drink water.  Also allowable are shrimp, salmon, chicken, and bacon.  If I ate eggs, those would be fine too, but eggs give me the fantods.  According to some of the black belts I train with (who talked me into this in the first place), you’re supposed to eat a liver a month to get all the vitamins that other cuts of meat may be low in (especially vitamin C), but liver is right next to eggs on my fantods-induction meter, so hard pass.

Even with all those options of meats, it’s a pretty spartan plan.  Most noticeable for this lifelong hardcore sugar addict is the complete dearth of sugar and carbohydrates.   I’ve heard some pretty nightmarish stories about quitting sugar cold turkey, so this is the only part that concerns me.  Also no booze.  Should be interesting.  Right now the plan is to try it for a week or two, and see what happens.

Yesterday was two center-cut filets for lunch and dinner, respectively.  Today I’m cooking a massive tri-tip.  Pretty sure this is the longest I’ve been without sugar.  Ever.

N.P.: “I Have No Name” – Andrew Duck MacDonald, Bryan New

I think it’s very important for us at every moment in time and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.  ~ Kamala Harris

The puppy has this simultaneously annoying yet endearing habit of bringing weird shit into the house.  Unfortunately, sometimes that weird shit is alive.  Such was the case the other night, I believe, when, as I was just about to shut off the lights in the kitchen, I saw this ghastly fucking bug sort of undulating unpleasantly in the middle of the floor.  This malignant-looking mutation has the face of a nightmare, a weird yellow thorax (I don’t know what the parts of insects are called…I’m not an ickyologist) with horrible yellow legs, all lugging along this weird, swollen, bulbous ass.  [It just occurred to be that the previous sentence could be used to accurately describe any of the Kardashian girls, but this thing is even more monstrous and grotesque than they are.] It is wretched, foul, and ghastly and I hate that it exists.

I’m told by people who know, that when I see any kind of insect in the house, but especially spiders and anything I can’t easily identify, and also anything big enough that it looks like it might fight back (fortunately there aren’t too many of those in Northern California),  this is what they hear: “Oh hell no!  Fuck off!” which is then followed by a loud bang when whatever I am using to smash the creature hits whatever hard surface the creature is standing on, absolutely flattening the bastard, or a series of bangs interspersed with me yelling “motherfucker,” indicating that I’m dealing with a bug that moves quickly and/or knows how to hide.

Which is exactly what happened with this atrocity I found writhing on the kitchen floor.  Except normally, the time between me seeing an insect and the time that insect ceases to be is a second or two.  But this thing was so weird that I took a couple of seconds before murdering it to try to figure out exactly what the hell it was.  I only allowed myself to get so close out of fear of the thing jumping onto my face and doing horrible and perverse things.  But I couldn’t identify the thing, so I annihilated it where it writhed.  The insect was large enough that there was some light clean up involved, but the real problem had been solved: this mutant menace had been eliminated.

But things got really weird the next day, when I saw not one but two separate posts of the same meme by some local friends that featured this picture:

Yep, it was that same big bitch bug I had killed the night before.  But the caption on the meme was imploring those who see this bug in their gardens to not only not kill it, but to leave it completely alone.  “Benefits to your garden…” and such.  Everything under the picture was written in the anthropomorphized first person: “Please don’t kill me!  Even though I look scary, I am just a potato bug, or Jerusalem Cricket.”  Et cetera.  I shuddered to think of the limp-wristed, Disneyesque mind that came up with this garbage.

Despite all the counter-intuitive advice to not kill these things on site, it did give me a name to work with. Jerusalem Cricket.  You are my new enemy.  Your kind now join all spiders targeted by my Arachnojihad, which I’ve been waging for at least 40 years now.

It’s this sort of thing that kept me from being a Buddhist: the karma I must be racking up for all these bugs I unrepentantly kill is, I’m sure, staggering.  They would always try to lay that nonsense about one’s mother being reincarnated as any living thing, therefore you must never kill any living thing because it could be your reincarnated mother.  But, from my perspective, I’d be doing anyone I cared about a massive existential favor by ending their incarnation as some miserable insect as quickly as possible.

N.P.: “Ready or Not” – Manbreak