New Hobby: Russian Literature and Films

 I watched this film the other week, a friend suggested it to me. I loved it, it's a Russian film with English Subtitles. I never have read War and Peace, somehow I missed that one in school but I'm planning to find a certain translation and read it soon. I have read Dead Souls, Oblomov, and several other Russian books and authors. Tolstoy is one of my favorite. Next on my list is Crime and Punishment. Check out this film, some of the cinematography looks like paintings. There's a lot of war scenes. Wish some of our crazy leaders could see this film regarding the futility of war. 

Wrapped Around Their Finger

 

It took me years later to realize how the narcissists were manipulating the others. Like when the wife of Uncle Narcissist, cried to my cousins to make me look bad, feigning sadness. I even showed the cousin a copy of our text discussion but it didn't wake him up. There is a real focus to turn everyone against you too. I remember how my family gleefully talked about my brother's ex-wife, and bonded over put-downs, it was crazy to watch. That's how it worked. She was another scapegoat as I mentioned years ago. I had a weird dream the other night where I was visiting the family at my old grandmother's house, and I didn't want to go in. I was there with suitcases, in the dream I was homeless and a lot younger. Ive never been homeless but was in this dream. I said, "I don't want to go in there, you have to walk away". In the dream, I was trying to choose a new place to live. Guess I can see the obvious meaning of that dream. 

Don't Expect Them to Wake Up....

 

I'm planning to write an article soon on how scapegoats reject other scapegoats in a family system that will be coming later. When I used to talk to mine, I could hear the disassociation, and the shutting down. Emotions were to be denied, there was no reality allowed and everything was run according to status and who had it. They are fully invested in the toxic system. 

Dystopia is Here Now

 

Some of oldsters remember when society seemed to function a lot better.  I think the USA is declining and going into a full blown depression. We are in a dying empire. I know some don't like me saying this but it's true. Other countries look out for their own people while this one is led by politicians who are emptying the till as they dismantle the place. I watched a video the other day, with the economist Michael Hudson, so gives out some interesting facts about America, that 50 percent of Americans can't come up with 400 dollars in an emergency, and that home ownership here is falling. Our middle class is disappearing. He has different views about Russia, their middle class is growing while ours is in freefall. I've never been middle class as an adult, his definition of it fits too. When people have to constantly beg and borrow for necessities your society is not a functioning one. This place is a dystopia now. Just wait until they get the bio-tech garbage at full-throttle. I plan to post more on that too. 

The Best Men

 

Sometimes I wonder why good jobs are so hard to get and why some people were given places in society and others weren't. It's something I mull over. I'm worn out helping husband with the job-hunt. it all seems a dead-end. I get the feeling they see the gig employment/his age and just chuck the computer files of his resume into the computer trash-can or the algorithm does. I'm not sure what direction there is to go. I feel like there's something in the formula we missed. By the way it seems almost every job he has gotten we had to know someone, even for gig stuff. I'm not kidding.

He's working all the time, not resting on his laurels. He will even do survey stuff to get immediate money like if we need groceries. I asked around for jobs for him, everything seems entry level and all related to STEM, cell phones or computers. You can see the ruination of our society via job hunting for someone. They really did toss out so many areas. 

Everything is specialized to the extreme, almost like they made humans into robots, and there's a 19th century edge of court rules of mandated language, looks and more. They got all these jobs writing for AI, do these people realize they are writing themselves and others OUT of jobs? A lot of jobs seemed centered around evil, surveillance, AI, and digital biotech dystopian crap. My husband's background isn't related to any of that, but I see that stuff scrolling through Indeed. Remote work seems to be compressing that's what I'm focused on for husband. 

 Journalism is dead. I can go on one journalism jobs website for our state for husband and count 6 newspaper jobs for the entire state. They will want young energetic desperate people to pay a lousy 25,000 dollars a year to.

I was in shock to read about this young woman majoring in journalism and thought unless she's a trust fund kid, who has connections to get into a high tier newspaper or magazine or foundation via relatives or friends, welcome to poverty! He's in that realm of disability now, where it's not enough for the check, but too much problems to stand at a retail store, or be cashier. I found group home jobs for him but he discussed that and said, that would be too physically demanding. It really was for me. 

 Sometimes I see these people that don't seem especially talented or hard driving, who were okay in life, who got good jobs, stability and were okay, but we weren't. I can understand with me, disabled people don't get rich. I have ADHD off the charts, and multiple physical disabilities. Even today I can barely get through a day doing what needs done, it seems my life is overwhelmed with physical and other tasks I'm not that good at. I just spent two hours sorting pills, taking a shower, nebulizing my lungs, and I'm in my leg machine now.  I have to make some soup for lunch, and then wrap my leg and try to clean up a few things. I have to deal with some internet addiction but then body is so much in pain, I end up in bed too much which is where the computer and videos are. My body swelled up huge this week. Time is always vaporizing for me like a fart in the wind. Maybe I'm not responsible enough and want to do things like read War and Peace and paint or go online too much. I did get my printer to work at least recently. I also got a painting done for an art show, that is to be delivered soon. 

 My husband though deserved a lot better. There's reasons I don't believe in the system, isn't there? At least with him getting some stringer work writing articles for a local paper and continuing with transcription we have been able to survive, but it's right on the edge of the cliff.  That gets tiring. I read an article years ago that talked about how older men were just being cast aside. I think they are lying about the unemployment numbers. They are just blatant lies. If you know of a remote job related to transcription, journalism, writing, proof-reading and editing tell me about it here. If you hire for those jobs and read this blog, save Peep from descending into worse poverty and write her and tell her of a job for her husband. The scary thing is he is working all the time, but as expensive as everything is, we need something more stable. 

Update on this one:

I went out to make soup, it had cabbage and tomatoes in it, I'm out of onions, but had some garlic left, and heated up some bread I got from a food pantry with frozen lunch meat ham to go on the side. I usually don't eat ham that often but beggars can't be choosers. Dinner has to be homemade mac and cheese--I got cheese from a food pantry and some chicken patties, it's what I have. 

 Anyhow husband tells me he got downgraded twice by the algorithims on his transcription. You can be going swimmingly along for months and get dinged, and the punishment? Less work. He hasn't been cut down yet--thats a few points away, but they keep the screws on them. Imagine a job where there's no benefits, no vacation, and constant testing, and if you make one mistake, you're punished. The computer determines your fate. 

Now the mistakes are dubious, I've looked what the machine considers a mistake and most often they are NOT. People think gig stuff is easy but its not. Even ebay slowed down this week, but I have to help get more stuff up. I'm kind of depressed from digging through my stamp collection, selling parts of it off. We were digging up autographs to sell, they are real ones, but probably everyone is too broke to care. 

Decades of Decline

 

Maybe next it will be cardboard boxes on the sidewalk for Generation Alpha. Things definitely been in a decline for a long time.

Booming Economy? Not for all of us

 

A lot of rich liberal usually Biden supporters on my Facebook are telling me the economy is doing great! Are they high? Some probably live in a bubble while others are so rewarded by the corrupt system, they certainly are going to sing it's praises.

 I think for people who do own stocks, and have wealth maybe things look a lot brighter, the divide between the haves and have-nots has grown harsh. I have well-off friends who admit the economy is bad for some of us, so it's not everyone, but how do I describe my reality to other people? I can't be hard on those better off than me, some have helped us survive. Who buys my art and our ebay too? People with money. I have a lot of richer friends I care about. I don't want them to face what I have suffered.  However, there's something really wrong with people who decide to ignore half the population and consider us all liars about our economic situations. 

Here's a meme one of the wealthy liberals I know posted on Facebook. I wish I lived in their world. They are boomer age, and completely not impacted by the dying economy. This kind of made me angry, how can people be so clueless? 

At least some of my more well-off friends admit the economy is crap. A friend of mine from college that makes 100,000 a year at a high level education job, told me her rent was near what we live on for an entire month. It was 2800 dollars. Her bills seemed as crushing as my own. When you get more money too, all the health deductibles go up.

Biden's going to lose by the way, he's doing the same thing Hillary did complaining about poor people and calling them "Deplorables". Biden just ignores their existence. I had that issue in circles here especially among the woke, where there was no such thing as poor white people. A lot of America is rural, and poor, working class, lower and middle. You think the people struggling for groceries are going to vote for Biden now? Most of us are pissed off. I am. Even if some can make an argument that a sitting president doesn't control every economy lever, we all have watched this guy send off billions to other countries while Americans suffer. Many people on both the right and left suspect that our politicians just don't care about us anymore. 

I think of the things I could have done with more money. I always have ideas for projects. My Fat Pat book has been delayed, I know. My tank printer is giving me fits. I was bound and determined to get 10 copies done, that is 2,300 pages by the way, but the printer was fuzzing up the print by the 200th page. I wanted to sell it electronically but ebay doesn't allow that. I still plan to get it out, though I know it is taking me forever.

I sat down one day and thought of all the crap I need from a new couch even used to replace a breaking down one, to compression supplies, to new supplements, better food, underwear, replacing a cracked windshield on our van,  a seat for my wheelchair, a scooter--yeah I'm dreaming, new shoes, and it was THOUSANDS of DOLLARS. Will I ever see it?, probably not. I was told by my new ear doctor, my other one retired, I'm too deaf now for the $2,000 hearing aids I never could afford to be of any use. 

Politics seems like a dead end to me. I don't have any hope in them anymore. "Get out the vote!" Who cares, voting barely matters anymore. I still vote but everyone I vote for always loses even for city council. Most politicians are snakes, and puppets for the psychopaths in the shadows. My husband is still a Democrat but I hate both parties as everyone here knows. I lean towards Kennedy but can tell he's being closed out when he's only gotten on 6 state ballots so far. They don't let outsiders in. Maybe he's just supposed to suck up numbers like Jill Stein. Remember when she had dinner with Putin and Trump's campaign manager?

We have something like 6 dollars in the bank right now. I have a 20 on me. That's in the entire world. I sold off silver that was in the house, coin, some earrings for 26 dollars a few weeks ago to the silver and gold shop. This guy gives me weird looks as I bring in old thrift store jewelry hoping something is real.  I'm scared all the time. He made some money this week transcribing but we have to pay car/renter's insurance and for my transcribe phone that I use to communicate with. I think there's going to be zero left. 

We got decrepit Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee as our choice in presidents or what South Park called "giant douche and shit sandwich" years ago. Maybe all of us should just invest in our local communities, but that's hard when I'm being forced to leave one I live in now due to money. Maybe if someone is more established go that way if you can. I hope where I move next I will do better. I had some stuff even going in this town when I participated in various churches, and other activities. The USA is a dying empire, plan accordingly. We will all be citizens of our respective states. 

Trump will screw me over for my being disabled, needing Medicare, promoting war with Iran most likely, more tax cuts for the very rich, kowtow to Dominionists and possibly deport all "birthright" citizens-my husband is one. He's upset but I tried to tell him it's just for undocumented immigrants and his parents were documented. I agree with Trump/Republicans on the second amendment, stopping illegal immigration, stopping Covid mandates, and DEI. 

Biden will screw me over pushing Covid mandates [or other future pandemic nonsense], globalism, economically, DEI, extreme "woke" nonsense, pushing more war, and possibly WW3. I agree with liberals on unions, protecting Social Security/Medicare, and supporting welfare. 

It's lose/lose with both. 

I was helping my husband sell ebay, I have more of that to do. We are selling jewelry--I find it at thrift when I can, stamps from my stamp collection, comics and books. He sold some old rock music items too. I'm also doing some paintings for an art show. There's another smaller art show I'm holding next spring, with around 6 works, to do too. My art supplies are running low, so have to figure out getting some more. I buy used art supplies from ebay to make my art happen.

 Sometimes the universe or God gives me stuff, I'm one of those people who sometimes does get help from unexpected places. Like yesterday we were out of money for groceries and someone nice offered me dinner. They don't know my fridge is completely empty and I was contemplating, what foods at the Dollar Tree I could scoop up. I had some old frozen bread, some left over eggs for breakfast with strawberries from a food truck.  We got some Chinese food, the first time I had any in more than a year. Another friend had bought us that dinner. 

I thought later, I should have had them buy me a salad, but wasn't thinking, I think the salad place was closed. Even then I didn't want to take advantage. The salad place can cost 40-50 dollars for the 2 of us. One large salad is 20 dollars with toppings on it. The Chinese food tasted good though. It was a treat. I don't have much I want to eat now. I had Dollar tree eggs and english muffin with a little bit of ham and cheese added this morning.  I'm glad I got the good Chinese food. The cheap turkey hotdogs look blech to me now.  I have some cheap Aldis veggie patties, I could eat for lunch but they have the consistency of lima beans. 

The functional doctor gave me dietary changes to do, but most of the food I need, I can't afford. At least when the veggie stands are back up, my diet will hopefully improve more. My eyebrows grew back from L-lysine and mythelated vit B, C, zinc and drinking cider vinegar.  I noticed looking at a Zoom I was on, that my face looked different, it occurred to me I had real eyebrows for the first time in 25 years. He has more he wants me on but money is an issue. I did replace the B vitamins last week at least. 

I told my husband I am going to help you more with your job search. He has a writing resume and a transcription resume, and has done both. You can see the price of the demise of newspapers on his career. He worked for a total of 5 newspapers during his life. Even his latest job lay-offs was related to a newspaper. He did go get some more stringer work, but it's only a little bit a month. Not earth-shaking money though it can pay a couple bills. His transcription resume is lengthy too, I'm not sure why work is hard to get. Fill me in on the mysterious secrets.

 He said he has been approved to do some legal transcription on one of his main gig websites. He's aging and well that causes problems. I see too many people who if they hit their 50s or even late 40s and are not established, things can get really bad. Before I was just getting listings for him but now I have a copy of his resume and sample cover letters to be able to help him more. Indeed does seem like a dead end. 

I'm at the point where I'm asking people can you get him a job? He can't stand more than 10 minutes so being a cashier around here doesn't even work, most places make them stand, and the factories all want people who can lift 50lbs.  Health after decades of financial and other stress is not the same. His wardrobe is bad, we live in the county of skinny men, and he's big, I can't even find thrift store clothing for him.  Sometimes I can go nuts just thinking of how one turn of the screw could have changed things. If you are someone reading this, and are of means or are in a company or have a tie to some job that can be done remote. [We can't afford to move out of state] maybe offer someone a break. He works hard and does his work. He was working last night. 

I wrote this on reddit:

 I had husband apply for govt jobs often in other states, etc. There was one time we got close to the middle class, if he had gotten this state job, my life would have gone very different. [this was in the era when he was an assistant newspaper editor] Things are very competitive out there. I sometimes ask WTF happened he had so many good things going at one time. Many have tried for the good jobs. Just want to put that out there. We moved 17 years ago for him to be a copy ad writer, they laid him off, and I think it was due to me going on the insurance. He had a good review even before hand. The work was run by committee though and the place had major problems. So those are gambles that don't always pay off. Sometimes know economic security was in close reach like this is more depressing. I gave up a loved small town to move into the town that job was in. It threw everything off All because we were reaching for the middle class.

I went to school and did everything I was "supposed to". I even moved to Chicago to get a job, as a residential counselor, hoping to move into another field. It was better than being homeless. I didn't know a soul there, and the place scared me it was so huge, but I did it not to be homeless.

We moved our whole life to avoid worse poverty. Even have to make a move soon for security/money reasons, senior disabled housing.

It gets harder the older you get.

Husband did get more work, so now it's not as desperate poverty but we are still poor. [stringer work, more transcription online]

Everyday have to wake up and think how do we pay this bill, how do we survive?

I do think schools are letting down young people. Do Vo-ed and get best skills you can and most practical.

The bills are so damn crushing. I've decided to stream line some of my medical care to cut down on medical bills. Just necessary at this point.

You can see AI taking over jobs by the way as you do job searches. One company wants to pay people 25 dollars an hour to write AI. Obviously some people like me have ethical concerns about AI. If anyone has job ideas for my husband tell me. Trying to find work for someone who has visible health problems and can't stand for more than 10 minutes due to vein problems is NOT easy. I am going to concentrate on remote. I have to help him and look up companies by name, maybe Indeed applications aren't getting through.

. I never got credit cards again after a long ago bankruptcy and never want one again. So whatever we got, we are stuck with. Hopefully life can be made more frugal after we get into the senior and disabled apt. That will provide more of a safety net. 

Our personal circumstances suck, but the evidence is out there that the USA is in big trouble. 

Watch this channel too, to see decaying cities, rural extreme poverty, homelessness and more. The politicians won't admit what America is really like now. 

Joe and Nic's Road Trip.

I noticed Nick Johnson went to another town where the divide in wealth was extreme. He went to visit this town, Traverse City in Michigan, there were mansions all over the place and fancy bars for yuppies and then he showed this giant homeless enclosure. All the people were gone, some commenters wrote they are all at work, and they can't afford the rent anywhere in that town, so have to live there. 

I live in a place that is richer, more immediately but it's just a few miles for me to see shacks, ruins, a dead mall, and places that have seen better days. One thing I am noticing in my town, is one can't find simple items at stores. It took several stores even to find tracing paper for an art project and I only found some buried away at an old 5 and dime store. The pad itself was probably from 20 years ago, but still functional and not browned yet. This place drives me crazy because I never can find what I need. The stores are always out of stuff. Everything is always the most dumbed down, most narrowed version of products. 

Some of us just have to look around to see that America is dying. I hang out in this one rural county about 20 miles away and you can see shacks, burnt out houses, dead businesses and a real heavy air of poverty in the air. I like it there, and love the people, at least they are folks who relate to me and very friendly, but the place is poor.

I can go a few miles from my apartment and see houses falling in and a ghetto that looks worse and worse. When I was thinking of moving into a cheaper apt, I had flash backs to Chicago, there was such lousy housing stock, they still had clawfoot tubs and crap like that. Some looked like they hadn't been updated since the 1930s! In my state, most homeless enclaves are hidden away in the woods, but the homeless are there too. There's a portion of my town where the beggars go, they are outlawed in the fancier area, and hold up their cardboard signs.

On my Facebook, I joined two boards, one was for poor seniors to look for room rentals and another was living on low income and social security. I noticed there extreme divides with the room rentals, some better off folks were renting rooms to people, a bedroom in their house basically, for 700 dollars plus a month. I don't know why some didn't try for a senior apartment instead, but it's scary to watch this stuff. Get old and poor in America, you can't even find a boarding house anymore, you have to go live in someone's house and hope they aren't abusive, or a neat-freak. Live with someone else's Mom in your old age. Someone on that board asked of having roommates, what if they get sick and or have cancer? It was an interesting question. This more than anything shows the desperation out there and the burgeoning poverty. It's probably Gen X scrapping along though there's some poor Boomers now too. 

You know something happened to the left where they abandoned the poor, working class and disabled. Covid only made this worse as the movers and shakers went to go bootlick Big Pharma. I wonder about all these people who deny our reality on the left and tell us how great the economy is. I guess this is the full take over of the Bobos in Paradise or one could say "elite left"/neoliberals etc. Remember when I wrote this article about the left betraying us all?  Now they are doing it with the economy. 

That said, are the Republicans going to help us with the economy? Well one named Rick Scott wants to "sunset" Social Security. They want to remove all the social safety nets! Is there anyone out there for us? Poor people know the Republican party doesn't care either. Remember Trump was president already, he brought us Covid, he had chances to give tax breaks to ordinary folks but they went to the ultra rich instead!

Some in their pride don't even care, that this definitely will lead to a Trump presidency. I can't stand Trump either but I do think some of liberals have TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. There are other bad politicians now destroying our lives too. Just because one snake says "nicer" things while screwing you over means nothing. I'm tired of the worse like Biden getting elevated just because they are all busy pointing fingers at Trump. Trump points to Biden on the other side as the cause of all our problems. Forgotten is all the tyranny they team up on. BOTH brought us Covid. Both support the Covid vaxxes. Trump praised the Covid vaccine just the other day to the disappointment of many of his followers!

Few realize both parties are stutter-stepping us to hell, playing the Hegelian Dialectic game. Notice the outcomes for the elite are always the same? Less money for you, and more for them? I don't even trust these right wingers claiming to be against mRNA, especially as you know companies for it are being built all over. 

Middle America is sick of the stupidity related to Covid, many have lost loved ones or are disabled from vaccine injury, and know no justice is coming and they are pissed. I'll never forgive what was done and I remained relatively unscathed not catching it myself and remaining unvaxxed. Middle America knows their kids aren't going to achieve the same level of income as them. They see their towns literally decaying in front of their faces. Us older people remember the leisure, fun and hobbies of earlier decades when we spent money on meals out, concerts, boomboxes and shopped for fashion. They are noticing real life problems are ignored for extreme identity politics for the rich, like extreme sex changes. Even my more well-off town is filling with empty buildings, and closing restaurants. You can only gaslight people so much.  Are you noticing neither main party is talking about what is happening to America economically? Are you noticing most of these politicians don't care? Are you noticing the lies about the economy are just as bad as the lies about Covid were?