Smokingboot

The most interesting geopolitical analysis comes from Peter Turchin who sees political instability as a 50-year cycle, driven by stagnating wages, a growing wealth gap, a surplus of educated elites (without corresponding elite jobs), and accelerating fiscal deficit.

His extraordinarily prescient Nature piece was actually published 15 years ago at the height of the Obama Hope & Change hype.

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I keep reminding myself that it's nuts to fixate on the stuff that's happening in LA because there's absolutely nothing I can do about the stuff that's happening in LA.

I've never seen the slightest utility in signing petitions or petitioning elected officials. And at this point, I'm wondering about continuing to participate in those rah-rah, feel-good demonstrations too. (Although I probably will. There's a big demonstration in Kingston this weekend.)

I want to turn myself into a cypher so I can slip into the deep underground as effortlessly as possible.

Though there's always the issue of how do you identify the deep underground? Do they advertise on NYC subway ads? As an ad flash at the end of Words With Friends games? On billboards along remote highways? Do they post notices on the backs of cereal boxes? Is there some secret tic or flash hand signal I can do while I'm walking around the Galleria that will validate me as prime recruitment material? It's so very Thomas Pynchon!!

And what exactly would this deep underground do?

Smuggle Hispanic workers from Home Depot parking lots in the States to Home Depot parking lots in Canada like an underground railroad?

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Okay, I'm being facetious & obnoxious.

I think the political situation in much of Central America is appalling, and I completely sympathize with immigrants who are seeking asylum. I also sympathize with many of the folk who are up here for economic reasons: There are plenty of jobs that most Americans don't want to do; if immigrants want to do them, that's a good thing, right?

I also suspect in fewer than 15 years, American citizens will be desperately applying for asylum in various places around the world. Hello! My great-great-great-great grandfather migrated XXX years ago! Take me back!!!! PULEEEEEZE!!!!!

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Anyway...

It's raining. It's been raining. The New Paltz garden is partially flooded, so no weeding for me today.

I couldn't figure out whether or not I was sick yesterday. My nose was running & I felt utterly exhausted, but it seemed to me that that could have been completely psychosomatic. Malingering, in other words!

So, I toddled off to the gym.

And I'd like to write, And going to the gym made me feel a whole lot better! Except going to the gym did not, in fact, make me feel a whole lot better. Though it did not make me feel a whole lot worse.

While I worked out, I thought about manifesting.

Like if I had this prompt thing down, I could materialize a wish that would net me $15 million—my neeeeeeeds are modest!—without imperiling the welfare of anyone I care about, or causing the destruction of some fabulous place I love, or adding to the misery of some beaten-down population segment.

I'll keep working on it.

Mr. & Mrs. Neighbor Ed got a present they didn't want.

A birdfeeder. With a digital camera. Courtesty of a well-intended offspring.

It feeds blurry photographs to various nearby digital receivers and has some kind of AI hookup thing that gives you info about the blurry photographs.

"Well, that seems like a perfectly nice present!" I cried.

Mrs. Neighbor Ed made a face. "When the jays grab the sunflower seeds, they knock all the other seeds out of the feeder, and then the field mice grab them and begin invading the house!"

"When your cat was around, we never had any problems with field mice," she added—and I realized, with a pang, that she was talking about the Meezer, dead & gone these—what? seven years? The Meezer had been the mightiest of hunters!

I hoped the Meezer was eavesdropping from Cat Heaven, where presumably there is an endless parade of self-regenerating field mice and squirrels for her to slaughter. It's always nice to hear nice things about oneself.

And I also felt this almost palpable strand of connection. Veritably ectoplasmic! The Meezer had really been the last link to my old life in California, and when she died, that link snapped: I was no longer someone who'd once lived in California; I was only someone who lived here.

That's the reason why I liked living in Dutchess County more than I like living in Ulster County, I thought. In Dutchess County, there'd been... continuity.

And also, of course, in Dutchess County, I had friends.

###$

I prattled merrily with Mr. & Mrs. Neighbor Ed for an hour, and our prattle was lively and hilarious and entirely without awkwardness, no long-time-no-see pauses or fumbles at all.

Neighbor Ed is almost as good at banter as Ben used to be!

I felt as though I was drinking water from a cool, sweet well.

Before that, I'd hung out with Loraine & Buff Ken & Rami on their back porch for an hour, watching the birds & talking about Buff Ken's latest bear sighting on his outdoor camera.

And before that, I'd got to play in the dirt in my garden for a few hours. There was a Claude sighting!

"When eet get hot last week, I water your garden," Claude told me.

"Thank you!" I said. Adding apologetically, "I can only get over here once a week—"

"I know, I know," Claude said, holding up a hand. "Eet is fine."

Everybody was glad to see me. Everybody liked me.

###

Icky was around this weekend. One of the Spawn managed to graduate from high school.

"He just totally ignored me!" Icky declared indignantly. "I came all the way from the City, and he ignored me! The only thing he said to me was how embarrassing it was that I was taking photographs of him!"

And you think I care exactly why? I wondered.

But I am well-trained in the art of making sympathetic sounds to people in distress.

Icky mistook my sounds for encouragement & began lamenting: It's hard, it's really fuckin' hard to be around the Spawn's mother, the Spawn's mother's new husband, the Spawn's mother's relentlessly cheerful father who'd been imported all the way from Texas—

"I was there all by myself!" Icky complained.

I clucked.

I would have expected him to head straight back to the City after this debacle. He's not supposed to be here till this coming Thursday! But, no. He stuck around. When I left for Dutchess County, he was sitting in front of his ginormous living room television screen, glaring at YouTube videos on how to sharpen knives. He had doused himself with cologne. I could smell it all the way from upstairs.

When I got back six hours later, he was still in front of the screen, watching what looked like the same YouTube video.

He saw me come in, jumped up, and immediately began doing pushups on the living room floor!

Like WTF???

He watched me cook my dinner. "That smells very good," he said, staring at my Cajun chicken.

No, fuckhead. I'm not offering you any.

Then he wanted to have a long conversation about changing propane canisters. He ushered me outside and handed me the wrench.

"I'm kind of a dummy about stuff like this," I admitted.

"Oh, no. Not you. You're a genius—"

Well, I am actually very smart, I thought. So you can can the fuckin' sarcasm. I didn't grow up using tools, so there's a learning curve involved.

But, you know. No need to prolong the conversation. And up close, that cologne was overpowering.

I thanked him for the tutorial, ran upstairs, and barricaded myself in the Patrizia-torium.

And eventually, he left.

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In the past three days, three new place possibilities have popped up through my various real-life-people networks.

I don't really want to move until the fall, so I'm not sure how aggressively I should be following up the leads. But at the very least, they're a good auger, right?