Journal Feb. 3, 2016

There was more light this morning as I walked the dog.  The alarm is a fixed reference.  I felt it was warmer too.  There probably are crocuses out but I’ve yet to see them. I’m thinking about the colours of the tulips I’ll see in coming weeks.  The reign of darkness has passed. The shadow has moved on.
I’ve lived another wet and gloomy season.. There has been no war. I have not killed myself.  My dog’s back heels.  My own back and hip pain me more.  My concern is more that I won’t be able  to carry a haversack far. I haven’t the strength to lug ammunition to safety. I can’t carry food and water.  I don’t know how many arrows I can pack.  These are things to concern oneself with in times of trouble.  Electioneering.  Threats and rage.
I’ve watched the never new news.  I’ve been listening to audio courses from the Texas Mideast Lecture Series about Desert Storm.  Time and again the people have risen against the tyrants and been beaten down.  One revolution after another in Teheran.  Here we think of it as ‘over there’.  “Somebody else’s problem”.  A Muslim thing. “Muslim fighting Muslims”.  Like the gangs of Surrey.  Still the revolutions have taken on three characters - anti colonial - fighting the Corporations left over from the imperial invaders of the 19th century.  The leftover of WWII where the Ottoman Empire and Persian Empire were cut up by the ruling west into pieces of nation states that really didn’t have much in common.  Shii and Sunni combinations like an experiment, in one country a minority, in another a majority.  The Sufi’s sidelined.  So there’s that.  This ‘us against them’ at the global level.  East versus west.
But then there’s nation against nation.  Saudi versus Iran.  Good old fashioned politics and war.  Some of it just ‘proxy war’.  I called it the Desert Storm Arms bazaar.  The competition between Wal Mart and Target.  Western capitalist arms manufactures competing with Communist arms manufacturers and the west won. The fall of the USSR because no one wanted to buy their weapons after the awe of Desert Storm. Tough competition from the Chinese.  Everyone selling guns and tobacco.  We’re not saints.
I had a checkoslovakian pistol.  The left loves the Scandinavian countries now. Not least because of their tall and naked women. But the ex Nazi Swedish Socialism lives off the arms trade and dirty coal.  I can not afford the finest Finnish shotgun.  The precision machinists of those countries make bigger and better weapons.  Canada made armoured cars.
But the Desert Spring uprisings had an older twist.  Fighting off the foreigner, then fighting one against another politically and also the old religious fight between fanatics. The muslem brotherhood and Hamas and Hizbollah.  Extremist radical jihadists and the rest of the population that would rather just move forward. Most people want internet with free libraries and better food. They don’t want a war. But there are those that want to overthrow. they want to return to when the Mosque was in charge.  Before even the Ottoman’s if truth be told.  The dictatorships of the land have been like the Ottoman but these rebels want the divinity of the holy warrior.  They want the jihad. They want the Divine Nero. They would watch Rome and the world burn for their ego. They are actually believing god tells them to fuck little girls and kill the other guy.
And always there are criminals taking advantage of the disorder. Selling cigarettes and sex slaves.

I woke this morning disgruntled.  I had bitter thoughts of past wars in my own life.  Resentments that came on wakening.  I prayed for family friends and enemies and wanted to crawl back into bed like a Government Worker or Union member. I have made it through Monday and Tuesday.  I threw out an anchor to the weekend to kedge my way their. We’re staying in a hotel for long showers and HBO tv.  A changes is as good as a rest. I want to be somewhere I can let the dog off leash without other bigger dogs to bully him, healing as he is. I want a trail or field where he can run and play and believe that life did not hurt him. I want to be beyond my own guilt that if I’d done more I might be a better person or more secure.
I talk to God and the atheists are ending their lives as my is just beginning. I can not believe the loving God would force an afterlife on those who don’t want it.  I might gloat or despair at this never ending whining pitifest. I am lost in the uncertainty of my activity.  The cloud of unknowing.  I ask is this really what I’m supposed to be doing. I have social suicidal tendencies, the desire to run away to the north or south. I would flee government look for wilderness , go anywhere there are no bullies.
I know that in the breakdown of societies the judges and lawyers are first to be killed.  I know that Lenin was a lawyer and they have long held sway so that jokes abound about them as much as politicians. In the French Revolution they got the politicians.  This time round they’re get the lawyers but thats sad because they’re indiscriminate. The good guys and gals I know will go like the soldiers and police who just wanted a good job and didn’t mean to kill the citizens and support sociopaths.  Every revolutions the bankers are at risk.  The clergy took it hard in the French Revolution. The teachers went down hard when the Pol Pot took control They’re always killing Christians.  One religion or ethnic group against another.
Trudeau has been spreading racism.
I think the leadership would welcome rebellion. They’re like ‘let them eat cake’ while everywhere the drug addicts and homeless and ex convicts are angrier than I’ve ever known them.  The baby boomers aren’t going ‘quiet into that still night’.  Their houses are going, their cars are being taken with licenses and eyesight. There’s an edge of despair. No one is prepared for a ‘good death’ and there’s not enough botox for the alternative.
The old bridges are falling and the work on the Lion’s Gate shows the shoddy engineering and the corruption in the City and the trades. No better evidence of graft and corruption than roads that were built for 50 years falling apart in 10.
But I’m just an observer.  Frightened, lost.  I convinced so many to live and stop drugs and now my government wants them to suicide and take drugs.  Decades we struggled against the Tobacco Lobby wasting all our free time and energy fighting to save a lung, begging the government to shut down the psychopaths that sell cigarettes and they kept taking their kick backs and protecting the mass killers, worse than nazis really, in sheer numbers.  Here among us.  And we finally felt we were going forward but then the Liberals bought in to marijuana smoke
And Nero played his violin as Rome burnt.  There’s so much lust in destruction.  Give them cake.  Smoke.  Have a smoke.  Cancer of the lungs and throat.
I gave it up. Smoking.
I’d smoke whatever.
It was the smoking.
Now I don’t smoke.
I have a CPAP machine to sleep through the night and go to face another day, fight another day for ‘public health’.  Save another life.  Get paid a pittance what the killers get. Listen to more lies.
Bow down to Justin Trudeau, the new Nero. Emperor.  Wife Sophie.  Cute kids like the Queen’s kids.  That whole layer is like a cast of gods and superhero.  I don’t even know they’re real.  Acts.
All the world’s a stage, said Shakespeare.
My problem is I’m a critic.
I should be applause.  Bravo. Hooray. Hallelujah.  Be with me today Lord Jesus.  Help me in all my actions.  Be my mouth and words and hands.  Let me do thy will because frankly my will sucks.  The winter is still on us.  The death of the winter world still lingers. I must believe in spring. The ground hog spoke. There is easter and resurrection to come.  This is lent.  Days from now.  Ashes.  A milestone in the year like a coffee break in the day.
I must go to work. The coffee is finished and there’s drugs to be sold and hope to be sown.  My government tells me to offer pot and physician assisted suicide.  That’s all they have. Their casino parliaments have taken the money for health care and turned it to death and empty words. It’s all about hot air.  Save the planet in 2500. Let th people die this week. Give them cake.
Shake it off Bill.  You must ‘sell hope’ .  You’re in the business of ‘life’.  Let the politicians deal in death but you must remain a healer.  Get on with it and stop your bloody whining.  The world doesn’t need another bitter old man of any religion or colour.  We need laughter.  So fucking laugh you wanker or I’ll …..what…..what will you do.
I don’t know.
Have a shower.  Get dressed.  Do the drill.  Routine. Discloline.  The light is out.  Winter is passing. The groundhog said spring is here.  Soon Jesus will be risen.  Come on. You can do it. It’s Wednesday. You can do another wednessday. Forget about the mountain of wednesdays you’ve already done.  I know the government people, the bosses say you’re never good enough. They’re trying to shut down the old guys and girls.  I see them turned out in the fields. Useless.  Their souls sucked and bones picked, Meanwhile the wealthy from around the world are streaming into the country after killing off their own, after their lives of wealth and slave labour fearing uprisings. They’ve stolen all the countries moneys and run off. Canada is a haven for them.  They’re criminals in their countries but here they’re rich and smug.
I couldn’t become rich like they did. I didn’t have slave labour and I couldn’t use gangster connections. I couldn’t bribe a judge or policemen. I couldn’t get away with murder.  They did.  There’s blood on their hands and they scare me. I’ve no blood on mine . the police and military here are only for the protection of the rich. I have to hope they won’t want to kill the doctors when the end comes.  It’s not going to come here. Everyone is going to be smoking dope and hanging around and no one is going to revolt especially with all the criminals from other countries coming here to avoid having the children treated like they treated others children. Tribalism is here to stay.
The glass is half full, ass hole.
Stop your belly aching. Look to the half full glass. Be optimistic.  There’s enough fear mongering and begging blaming self pitying on the CBC.  You don’t have to join the collective moan.
Get in the shower. Get out of your head.  Go now. Thank you Jesus.

Journal Jan. 31, 2016 Sunday

I’m not doing anything. Well, I’m breathing. My maintenance physiology is running in the background. My heart is beating. I’m thankful for all this.  I’m looking at this Apple computer screen and moving my fingers on the key board. Yet I don’t feel like I’m doing anything.
This sense of ennui that comes over me is associated with some idealized activity.  I’m in the now.  This is a good place. I’ve just walked Gilbert the dog in the woods and enjoyed watching the river. When I woke this morning late I sat and meditated.  I rue the busy structured week because my mornings are a hustle with dog walk, hygiene, dressing and commuting.  This morning I didn’t make it to church.  I didn’t want to drive into the DTES.  I miss church when I don’t go.  I notice the absence of church in my life in the week after I miss a service. It’s the fellowship. It’s the shared worship. It’s that feeling of doing something good.
I haven’t swum. I meant to swim today. I thought too to clean up my garage. It’s a horrible mess. I’ve never got my summer clothes from last year or the autumn clothes to the storage locker. I’ve got to prune my wardrobe too. Just last week I was telling someone how I could easily get rid of jeans, not just the two size smaller jeans but the one’s made without the expandable stretchable material.  I envy women their tights. For comfort I’d be a nudist. Part of my not going out when I’m at home is the unwillingness to put on pants.
When I was on the sailboat I spent days like this but I’d first drive the boat to some anchorage and feel like I accomplished something. Today I’m reading. I’ve been reading Fields of Blood which I erroneously called Rivers of Blood as if geographical constructions are interchangeable when it comes to blood.  I am enjoying Karen Armstrong.  I’m also reading Duncestan or Dunscefield, the WWI English colonels dispatches and journal from his time commanding a unit in the middle east.  It’s been months now, actually since being in Istanbul or Moscow before that, in which I’ve been trying to educate myself regarding that whole area I thoughts was vaguely Eastern Europe then India and China.  I really didn’t know much about Afghanistan, Iran, Bagdad, Iraq, Kurdistan, Armenia, or any of the newer stan’s and couldn’t pass a geography test on the seas. I’ve read the news and repeatedly looked at the google map to see what people are talking about but it’s not been very well established in my mind. I am like the american who asked me where I was from and when I answered Canada, said ’that’s to the north, mexico is to the south’.  Part of it too is my visual memory. I seem to have lost the capacity to remember and see things easily in 3 D.  Throughout medicine and surgery I had an uncanny mind for that sort of thing but now I’m more prosaic though do see relationships and understand things in a peculiar way that seems easy to grasp to me but to others seems befuddling. I miss the 3 d memory. I used to love seeing chemical molecules with all their bits floating in the air.  It’s probably a muscle. If I would work it more it would come back. I’m fat in my gut for lack of sit ups and other parts of me including my mind are sedentary.
I need a road trip. It’s too early to get the bike out of Trev Deeley.  I had this weekend and could have gone snowshoeing or skiing or fishing. I see these days off as precious and then so much recently all I find myself doing is laying about .  I shopped for essentials at Walmart yesterday, got myself a couple of new shirts and a pair of rubber shoes. I really should cull the old stuff.  I threw some underwear out because there was a hole in the side.  I think a moth got at one of my sweaters. I’ve had to put my kilt away since last week. It’s all hanging in the garage but I’ve just not put it in its bag.  I keep waiting for my Mother to return.  I want to hire another cleaning lady but I don’t like having people in my place. I like my privacy and go years between times when I’ll actually trust someone in my home. I think if the wives had lived elsewhere we would have lasted longer. Gilbert is the best of company. He’s a dog.
Right now he’s curled up on the comforter I got cleaned with the view to changing the one on the bed, for no reason other than it seemed timely.  In the meantime I’d moved the comforter to beside the bed and Gilbert has made it his bed. I don’t think the original plan is going to fly.
There’s just a whole bunch of ‘should’s’.  Like shaking out the rugs.  I did clean the stove and microwave this weekend.  But I’m mostly psyching myself up for another week of work. It’s a lot like war.  Frontlines.  I cringe at the yellers and the threats.  I worry I’ll lose it when I’m talking to the happy happy government people.  I have to get over my self pit and martyrdom.  It’s really a pretty good place I’m at. I’m really thankful for all that is happening in my life. I guess I have a bit of that waiting for the shoe to drop. There’s always these lulls and then the storm but mostly it’s the weather. I felt worse in November.  It’s already February and the spring is spectacular. I always feel great when the light returns but the taxes and the deluge of license fees is just overwhelming now.  I find myself worrying about how I will ever take a break because everyone wants more and more money. All the ‘takers’ have increased their fees and my income just decreases like the canadian dollar. The government is the worst.
Boohoo.  Thank you God for my health. Thank you god for this safe cozy place with warmth and heat. Thank you God for Gilbert and his healing back.  Thank you for this computer. thanks you for an income. Thank you for this day. Thank you for friends and family. Thank you for the books I get to read.  Thank you for history and spirituality. Thank you for prayer and meditation. thank you for the refrigerator.
Really I probably am just needing another coffee.  I was morose there earlier and I just needed a sandwich. Then I napped.  I was a bit off and had a bowel movement. These are things I rarely notice in my work week. I’m lucky to get to sleep.  The weekend comes and I’m on the couch.  Gilbert is snoozing.  He’s has no guilt or shame about anything.
I do the dishes.  I swept the floor a month or so ago.  Gilbert’s toys are everything .I vacuumed centrally yesterday.  I have a new bathtub. Things are getting done. I have the most unrealistic expectations. If it’s not failure to be taken by the aliens I’m pissed because I didn’t make the cut for the rapture.  Even if I was taken to  a different galaxy I’d probably still have to clean my room.  l just don’t have room for the stuff.  I think of buying another house but remember the last one with the basement and the increasing hoarding of ‘stuff’.  Stuff expands to fill the space.  That’s what I liked about the boat. Everything was there. Right now I think of playing my guitar but it’s under the clothing in the garage.  I suspect I’m not wholly alone in this experience. On Facebook the other day some one asked about who made their beds and several of my friends took pride in their OCD. I throw the comforter over the bed solely because if I don’t Gilbert will jump up when he’s wet and muddy and lie on the sheets where I do.  If the comforter is there it’s less a tragedy to have his wet dirty little body on the bed. I like to get into relatively clean sheets.
I bought a couple of shelves yesterday to add to the collection of shelves I have for the express purpose of reducing the chaos. I have this one shelf that will take care of the books I have around with the express purpose of reading immediately. there’s about a dozen. They’re ‘urgent reading. They re on the floor beside the couch.  I’ve downloaded 5 science fiction kindle books about earth being attacked and the defenders fighting off the fleets of aliens.  I read these like candy several over the last couple of weeks.  Meanwhile the ‘real books’ the ones I have to read are cluttering the floor beside the couch. There’s an addiction textbook , four voluments at the office I had intended to read by Jan.  I’ve read  few chapters. How did I read all those textbooks on brain injury in the last couple of years and  all those theological textbooks. I’m just plodding my way through this Fields of Blood. It takes me an hour to read 10 pages and I keep cross referencing bits with the encyclopedia.
I’m a whiner.
 I hate that I’m a whiner.
 I want to sail across the atlantic but fantasize about barging down the nile with fans and people feeding me grapes. There’s two sides to me at war, one industrious and the other very very lazy.  It’s amazing I’ve got this far.  I could die soon too.  I’m of the age when people do that sort of thing.  I can see the advantageous. Right now death would solve the whole cleaning issue.  I stay around though for my dog.  I also have obligations and concerns about people. I figure to I must eventually do something with my life. Mostly though I feel I’m on the bench waiting to be called by God. A part of a back up plan.  I saved a life last week. The rest of the week ws coasting but there was one person who if they’d not seen me would have likely been toast. I’ve found it quite amazing that just having age and seeing tens of thousands of people I know things that others don’t. It was that sort of thing that others would have missed. I’d have missed it a decade ago. But I’ve seen it ow several times so recognized it before it caused death. Death is that close at times. So I was useful, not just the usual waste of flesh that I feel at these times.
There really should be a place on a mars shot for a fat old white guy. The world is tired of fat old white guys.  Everywhere I look I hear anger and abuse about what my great great great grandfathers and grand mothers did by climbing down from trees faster than the neighbour and developing a better club because they got up earlier in the morning.  I’m thankful that my ancestors were quicker on the draw but I’ve been relatively slow and today I’m just really tired of all the abuse.  This divide and conquer of course is what the 86 world leaders want. They want us scrapping about crumbs and fighting over who has freckles and who doesn’t so that they can keep more to themselves.  Maybe they’re managing things better though I don’t know. I, like all the other critics, can’t manage cleaning my room but I think I should be in charge of NASA if only I want to get off this planet before the grim reaper takes me.
Really I don’t.  I want to be in Thailand or Cambodia or Ethiopia. I want to be somewhere I’ve not been walking around learning.  I know too that when I’ve done that for a bit I want to be right back here where I am. Indeed this weekend I’m really enjoying being in this place I pay rent for but rarely use. I’m thankful that I can hang out with my dog.  That’s a real treat.  I am really very fortunate.  I’ve enjoyed the mush mind netflix run I’ve been on this weekend watching a half dozen shows of Jessica Jones and Occupied. In one a superstring woman with amazing sexual energy fights a mind controller while in the other Norway is occupied by Russia.
I was glad to talk to family. That’s enjoyable always.  Good to hear they’re okay.
God thank you for this down time.  I know it’s better in the boat where I’m bouncing up and down and doing the very same thing, reading, writing, watching tv but this is pretty good. I’m very thankful for my back yard. I like that I have a back yard. I liked the balcony on the apartments but this backyard is so much better. I am thankful I had chickens and geese. I ‘d like to have chickens again.  But I’d rather travel.  Travelling is something I want to do more of as part of the research I continue but there’s Gilbert and I have to consider where he would stay when I travelled. I like to visit churches and cafes.  They don’t particularly welcome dogs in churches and cafes. A road trip he can come on. Either on the motorcycle or in the car.
We may have to go to the US for a weekend. That’s always a great break. Overnighting a cross the border.  Bellingham Seattle. I worry about the peso like value of the dollar.  But then I could go to Bellingham rather than Seattle.  That would half the cost.  Yes that’s a possible plan. I have these vague ideas that get me week to week. Something in the future that seems interesting.  Anything to break up the routine.  I admire the god kids for their ‘outings’ to the woods and streams.  I could have gone looking at sea dos and wave riders.  Maybe a second hand one but where to store it.  But if I had one maybe I’d go up the river.  I’ve got my boat and could get out in the little boat and go up[ the river.
No i think I’ll have another nap.