Wednesday, January 13, 2021

 Wednesday, January 13, 2021

            I slept well up to a point. Like everyone else, I wonder what kind of a world I'll be waking up to tomorrow. I spent time yesterday listening to what's going on in Congress. After getting thoroughly upset, I switched the radio to the classical music channel. There's nothing I can do about the situation. 

            I'm not for preceding with impeachment at this time. While I am concerned about what Trump might do, I hope the military can refuse to do anything rash Trump might propose. I understand top military figures have made a statement to that point. Would I trust Trump otherwise? No, way. I recall someone saying he follows Roy Cohen's lesson, "If someone hurts you, hurt them back ten times more." I think Trump has proved he adheres to that prescription. He fires anyone who doesn't give him 100% support. He always had to be a winner and never took responsibility for anything that went wrong. Given his current behavior is what I anticipated from the day he was elected, there's not much room for doubt about his unsuitability as a leader of this nation or of a boy scout troupe. His focus is all on himself, what's good for Donald. I think he could throw his family, even Ivanka, under a bus if they contradicted him. 

            Some want him impeached now because they want to block any possibility of his being reelected in 2024. He may not even be alive then. He is vastly overweight and doesn't take care of himself. Also, the Republican party may be glad to be shod of him.  

            Given the comparison between his ability to speak cogently now and when he was in his thirties, there is a good possibility he's slipping into senility, as Reagan did. His lack of mental clarity should be more apparent in four more years. Does that mean no one will support him? I don't think so. 

            It seems that someone close to Trump convinced him to be examined by a doctor for dementia. How do I know? He told us so. He announced he passed an IQ test with flying colors and revealed the nature of those questions, while he didn't quote them accurately. He described a basic set of questions to determine if they have dementia, not if they belong in Mensa. It must have been someone close to him who he trusted who arranged for that test. Otherwise, he would never have taken it. 

            There are organizations at work here that have been preparing for that moment of attack on the Capitol since the South lost the civil war with cries, "The South will rise again." For years, there are forces on the right that have been angling for a race war, if not a civil war. They will be happy to have someone who champions their cause regardless of his condition. 

            I'm also opposed to the impeachment because we shouldn't spend this much oxygen on this man. We have other problems.

            As a side note, I would not favor Antifa or BLM assaulting the government as this group did. Do I think it is possible Antifa members were in the group egging people on? Indeed, it's possible. No, I don't think that's a good idea. Do I believe there are right-wing followers in BLMs protests egging on that crowd to violent action? Yes, to the same degree. However, I have seen no reports of people attending BLM protests as fully armed as this group. The group that attacked the Capitol did not come to protest peacefully. But Donald feels their pain and loves them, so all is good.

            Dorothy and I didn't talk much about the political situation as we walked. We needed a calming interaction. She is doing virtual tours online. She participated in one of the Netherlands yesterday. She said it was great. We can do this together. We can't chat online, but we can be on our phones simultaneously. 

            She also talked about how she loved to make hats. She made a knitted one. The fun is in the decoration. The word milliner came up. Why are hat makers called milliners? She looked it up. Apparently, the idea of the decorative hat came out of Milan. People who made hats were called milaners which became milliners.  

            Yesterday, I did some more work trying to get on Google Meet to work with my Hawaiian students. Hawaii DOE has set up a system that blocks unauthorized persons from contacting their students through Zoom or Google Meet. I had to get some authorization from the school principal. They issued me a DOE username and password. However, I have no idea how to use it. I spent several hours figuring out what Google Classroom was, only to realize that I didn't want that option. I want Google Meet, where I can talk to my students. However, I can't figure out how to use the school's access.

            I called the school techs this morning. They didn't know how to help me. I called the state tech service. They didn't know how to help me. They wrote a ticket to have a Google tech contact me and figure out how to connect with my student.

            I spent some time in the library looking for books requested by one of the seminaries. I found ONE. I've gone through the list, combing the shelves for books, twice so far.   I have about 100 books left on the list. I am going mad trying to find the remaining ones. When I found one today, I almost screamed with relief. I suspect Sandor took more books than are checked off the list.  

            I spoke to him yesterday. He was in the process of unpacking books in his new house. After his ordination as a deacon in the Catholic church is over on the 30th, he will take my book list from St. Patrick's home and see if he can cross off more books. If not, I have no idea how they ever got on the list in the first place. Can a list like this be hacked? Whatever. It's stressful. 

            Having found this one book, I now have a full box. I have to take all the books out and put them in the garbage bag to prevent water damage. Then I'll repack the box, tape it securely, address it and get it to the post office. I want to do that today.

            I had a session with D. We continued working on his negative feelings about using the left side of his brain. This is something like the third half-hour session we have spent on this. Today we got to a point where he was a little more comfortable with the left side of his brain. He started decorating that space, moving in. I am hopeful.

            I attacked my overgrown bougainvillea in the yard off the bedroom. This is a monster of a plant. It grows like mad, and it produces thorns big enough to puncture a truck tire. We selected it for that purpose. At the time, we had two forty-pound Portuguese Water Dogs we were planning to bring with us. Peaches, the phenomenal female, would have been okay. But Horatio, also known as Horrorshow, would have leaped the fence at the edge of this plot of land, killing himself as he fell a good ten feet over that wall.  Ergo the bougainvillea. We figured the thorns would discourage him from his reckless behavior. I'm sure it would have, but both the dogs died before we moved. Sorry to say, I don't miss Horatio. Peaches, I miss every day.

            While I was out there, my phone rang. It was Shelly for my weekly therapy appointment. I've been doing it once a week, figuring I would soon be out of money, so get in as much as I can.    It was hard to figure out what to work on; fear dominated. It was hard to see what lay beneath it. I dialogued with fear. I told it that while I knew it wanted the best for me, it wasn't serving me well at this time. There was no immediate danger. I asked fear to back off. Then it asked me why I didn't love it. Wow! That never occurred to me. How do I love something that makes me feel bad? I know that fear serves me well in an emergency. Fear has other advantages. I think it was my fuel for most of my young life. I had an endless supply of energy. I was rarely tired. I recently had days where I was stimulated by fear and felt energized.  

            Then something else came to mind. Many years ago, I had a therapist that still haunts my thoughts. She was a quiet version of my mother. She saw nothing of me the way I saw myself. It's definitely my problem, but in my experience over the years, I have found that if people come to mind, particularly obsessively, they are also thinking of me. She frequently said she couldn't figure me out. However, she never asked any questions.          

            She would make statements about me, which revealed she didn't have a clue. She assumed that I would have no knowledge or understanding of myself. It all had to come from her. Then she'd be shocked when she learned that I wasn't small-breasted and that I had held regular jobs. From what she said and didn't say, I was left to believe that she thought my marriage worked only because Mike adored me. She thought I made no worthwhile contribution. I actually suspected that she thought I wasn't particularly bright while admiring Mike's intelligence. 

            Shelly told me about a theory from a psychology program she had studied. When people think of us, or we think of them, we are working with holograms instead of an accurate image. It didn't occur to me at the time, but this is an extension of the projection theory. Projection says we see people inaccurately because our image is colored by our own life experiences, both good and bad. But the hologram image added something new. It provided a clear separate image.   This means that both the therapist and I can separate the hologram from the person. When I let go of the image of the hologram she held for me, I could see it float away and with it her focus. Likewise, I have to see my hologram for her as other than her.  

            None of us see anything with absolute clarity. This doesn't mean that nothing is real, just that we have to know that our perception is always slightly off. Absolute clarity is not available. Plato was the first to put forth this idea. 

            I had a session with M. at 2 pm. We continued working on inferencing. She can do it but tends to cling to the information provided in a literal way. This is good work for her. Sometimes we have to anticipate the response the question maker wanted  even when we can see another answer that might make sense. 

             Darby still is not joining me for my evening walk. While Josh's results on the Covid test came out negative. He is still staying homesick. Patrick is very protective of Darby. I love it. It reminds me of the way Mike was with me. It was a little crazy. He certainly wouldn't tolerate my being similarly overprotective of him. When I challenged him, he argued that I was more precious than he was. Right! It didn't show up that often that I found it very annoying. It was mild enough that I could still smile about it and enjoy it. Similarly, I am enjoying Patrick's protective feelings for Darby.

            Watched a documentary on Queen Elizabeth. God, she is reassuring. She is committed to duty. She doesn't take the adoration of the people personally. She knows it is not for her but for her office. Ahh! She is a calm, committed person who has a sense of responsibility to the people she affects.