Bulgakov

I never thought about this before, and maybe that's good. I wipe when seated. I don't remember learning to do it, and am surprised to hear anyone does otherwise. I think the choice should be politicized. Bulgakov

Just heard another leader warning that "the worst is yet to come." If I don't hear that again soon, that would be nice. "The worst is yet to come" is the new normal, the only model that seems reliable. Bracing for impact here boss, again. Bulgakov

Speak Easy Restaurants

Prism blues, greens, yellows. I have three prisms I ordered for about ten bucks I think. The only one I'm using now is the globe one, cut like disco ball but more facets, about golf ball size. I put a few decorating-with-a-prism photos in my gallery. I'm working with a minimal glint of direct sun, which is what you need. These pics are from a east facing window, and it only gets a brief angle of sun in the winter. If you had a south facing window no telling what you might see. Roy G. Biv

In my RV ramblings I noticed that RV and trailer parks often simply had colored lights--Xmas lights--all the time. Not everyone would have lights, but lots did. People would trim their vehicles and trailer, around the awnings. It was always cool to see. I stayed in places in several states, enough to know it was an RV culture thing. Bulgakov

I'm thinking lucid dreaming is some level of waking awareness in the dream--especially knowing you are in one--to influence the story. I'm reminded of a dream I had last week. The specifics have escaped me, but the dream had me going into different rooms with people, maybe three rooms. And in each room I had to excuse myself because I had to p. I woke up then, had to go bad. I don't know if the dream made me want to, or if the urgency made its way into my dream. I remember wondering during the dream why I needed to use the bathroom so often, but it never occurred to me I was dreaming. Some part of me knew I was in bed though, not at a urinal. I hope I never dream I'm peeing the bed. Lucid dream peeing. Bulgakov

"Wasteland Of The Free"---Iris Dement

Amazing. I thought you were kidding maybe. The possibilities are endless here. "Are you often called out for having something stuck between your teeth? Now you can date others who also also get bits of food stuck between their teeth!" Stuff like that. Where is the angry, depressed, and anxious dating site? Bulgakov

"Buying American" poses more of a problem now. I ordered a half-dozen cloth masks off Amazon or Walmart a few months back, once I understood that they'd be around a while. The maker was Perry Ellis. Seemed to me I recognized the name. They are fine, but say, "Made in China" on them. But I use them of course. Today on Fox news website is a story about how the Chinese are still using the Uighur people as forced labor, making products the article said. My Covid masks are made in China, and very possibly by enslaved Uighurs. I hope I don't get any karmic demerits for this sort of thing. Bulgakov

Good one wata. Seems to apply to everything. Aristotle would agree with you. The nature of happiness was one of the earliest discussions in Western philosophy. Aristotle thought happiness was achieved by a collection, an aggregate of many conditions in a life, but his teacher, Plato thought that happiness was a state of being, a state which approached an "ideal", perfect, happiness that existed in perfect form somewhere or other. The more you approached that ideal form, the happier you got. Plato sounds like a Hindu. Aristotle sounds familiar. Western philosophy has always observed, then broken things into component parts to understand them. It's what the politicians--and all of us too--and the media do day after day until the solutions get mired in complexity. Heaven and earth have been explained by interactions of sub atomic particles. Just rambling. Bulgakov

I just got an air fryer/oven for Christmas. Like most small trailer or RV owners, I never use the regular oven built in except for storage. The one I got is the smallest with oven I could find. I just have to readjust my thinking to the times on the new one. The presets seem unrelated to the dishes they represent. The fries come out just like on TV ads, easy and crisp. They say it's better to give than receive, but I say why make that choice, do both! In fact I do feel better after giving this to myself, so I'm glad I reached out . . . and I appreciate everything I did for me. Bulgakov

Lol, maybe a little of both, and even scarier, they walk among us. I see them. Bulgakov

The most gorgeous Christmas song most people have never heard, by a band everyone knows: "2,000 Miles" Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders. Bulgakov

The song was on an excellent album, lots of good songs. Bulgakov

"I Like You Better When You Walk Away" Alejandro Escovedo

Hi Louis, I took an anger management course maybe 13 years ago. I don't know what your therapist practices, but the guy I listened to discussed a combination of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Buddhism. What I took away was the mechanism he described of what physically happens when you react with auto anger, and suggested how and when you might intervene consciously and derail the gut punch anger before it hits your brain. I use the same technique for persisting negative thoughts with greater and lesser success. Best, Bulgakov

Now if you could just lay a golden egg! Bulgakov

I was just thinking of an old country western tune, and playing it in my head. It's called "May The Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose." They don't make a lot of "comic" or novelty songs now. For several decades songs like "Please Mr. Custer" "One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater" "Guitarzan" and "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" had a fleeting shot at the top ten. Things are much touchier now. If a deejay plays "Grandma Got Run Over . . ." he'll get calls from grandmothers, and the benevolent protectors of the reindeer; and maybe grandmothers feel they can watch out for themselves, and the reindeer do need protecting. People are just too snake bit from cultural identity crises to feel wacky. Bulgakov

Thanks Alan for saying. You're asking a very large question. If your feelings make you want to try and think differently about how you perceive people, then I think you've already done most of the work. Just keeping that in mind will help solve your dilemma. Once a teacher told me, "You can make all the value judgements you want; as long as you're aware you're making them." Best, Bulgakov

"Every human has the capacity to see and hear things which aren't there in my opinion." Reminds me of "ultra" runners, you know, the people who run solo or in teams, night and day. Many of them report hallucinations, and reports of cartoon, or animated friends showing up during the run are not infrequent. Bulgakov

70 today, and 78 tomorrow. 10 degrees above normal. We rarely get weather as severe as your "mild winter" here, not a winter freeze in three years. We pay for the gentle weather now with summers that bake you into mud. We're in the good days now.

Hi DialA, What is a racist intrusive thought? Hoping you lose them, Bulgakov

Whoa, scary, glad you're o.k. I accidentally threw a small charred log from the previous night's campfire into some tall grass, and started to head out, and glanced where I'd thrown the wood and the grass beneath it was turning black and it was just barely starting to smoke, and grass and would have flamed on if I'd left. That was in Sierra national forest. I was so glad I didn't burn down the forest. The grass will grow back. You've tackled lots of skill and trade fixes and repairs and won to make the house work. I wouldn't know how to safely burn a brush pile. I bet one will never get out of hand on you again. Bulgakov

R.I.P., the Squigman, "Squiggy", David Lander, passed away at 73 yesterday. I always enjoyed the joking intros that Laverne or Shirley would say just before Lenny and Squig entered the scene. One would say something unrelated like , " . . . two of the ugliest bugs on the block . . . " and you would hear Squiggy or Lenny, "Helllooo," as the two breezed into the room. It got to the point I could tell they were coming by the setup line. Good sitcom. Bulgakov

"Sapiens--A Brief History of Humankind", Yuval Harari