Category: Poverty

Efficient Learning: Diary, 2/3 to 2/6/21

Even a schedule isn’t necessary; just a bookshelf. Each morning—mornings are best for this kind of work—take the book at the left, sit down with it, and go through it, either page-by-page or marker-by-marker (tape flags for target pages).

Diary, 1/24 to 1/28/2021

[Maslow's Motivation and Personality] provoked a lot of thought, though not necessarily anything earthshaking; I’ll have more to say when I type the quotes. It seemed to take a very long time. On 1/1/21 above I mention plodding through it, including having finished the first two chapters, so it took somewhat longer than three weeks.

Diary, 1/15 to 1/23/21

Listened to a vital hour-long discussion with Chris Hedges, How Republicans, Democrats, and the Media Have Weakened US Democracy. We are doomed; the only thing Hedges could suggest is impossible to me: basically, shut it all down, take to the streets and create chaos. “Mass sustained civil disobedience” is how he expressed it.

Diary, 12/25/2020 to 1/1/2021

Christmas day. I had thought about going out and hanging around on Union in the hope of seeing Mr. D and giving him a twenty. Now it occurs to me to invite him over, perhaps to watch a movie or ...

Diary, 2/28 to 12/25/20, My Return to Civilization

Sometimes when I ponder events of my childhood or youth, I feel a twinge of rage against that stupid boy, wanting, sorta, to choke or punch him. Is this guilt, or shame, or what? Shopped at Barnes & Noble yesterday and spent about $120.00, coming home with three books...

Diary 12/29 to 1/4/2020

There is no perfect solution that involves no pain.  Having five full bookcases is a pain only when I contemplate moving; but I am no longer content to remain where I am.  Alas, alas, I cannot expect to find “the perfect apartment for me.”  No bugs, no noisy neighbors, suitable furniture, good location…

Diary, 5/30 to 6/3/19

Because Chris Hayes tonight is all about yet another mass shooting, I’m listening to a CD of selections from Liadov, Tcherepnin, and Rimsky-Korsakov (“Le Coq d’or” suite). Liadov is quite low-key, which I knew going in, from an LP many decades ago, but I still had hopes…. I passed on a Delius disk because “Dull, duller, Delius.” Actually, I like at least one of his, don’t recall which.

My New Diary, 12/15 to 12/18/18

So, up to age ten or twelve, life seemed to me entirely trouble-free and a complete pleasure of outwardly-directed activities. Yet as a teenager I was mindlessly destructive, a petty thief, and very troubled and unhappy—but also, while I thought it the best of times, I dreaded having to become an adult. Puberty was not kind to me, and I cannot begin to fathom what went wrong, if anything did. I guess that I mean physically, because everything was wrong mentally and behaviorally.

My New Diary, 12/8 to 12/11/2018

The weight increase looks like a wakeup call. Maybe I need to pay more attention to how I’m living my life. Yesterday I ate half of a chocolate cream pie instead of dinner, and I concluded my day with “another day shot to hell,” suggesting that I felt that I had wasted my day.

How I am Losing Weight: My “Low-Calorie, Low-Sodium, Low-Sugar” Diet

I began drastically reducing my intake of sugar. First to go was sugared sodas. While I usually had diet sodas at home, the fast-food fountain sodas use saccharine or some other sweetener that I can’t stand, so I had sugared sodas (Dr. Pepper, if you must know) whenever I ate out, and was glad to get it; now I drink strictly water when eating out.