Consider this More Summary in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

Nala has entered a weird and bullshit stage in her development. I suppose I could blame Martha but it seems far more appropriate to blame Nala herself. So… when I’m at work… Nala is bored to tears, poor dear. This usually means she sleeps. When I come home… it is all YAY DADDY! and jumping and desperation to play. I usually acquiesce for about an hour but then… there are things in my life I have to do as well besides entertain the dog. So as I make food, she’ll be under foot. As I eat food, she’ll be under foot. And then she’ll go back to sleep.

This has resulted in her wanting to be wide awake at 3 and 4 a.m. and being really confused and unhappy that Daddy is home, she’s awake, and nobody is playing with her. To the point where, at those times in the morning, she’ll sit on the floor next to my place on the bed. And whine/shout until I wake up. Thinking that she needs to go outside, I’ll get out of bed (causing Nala to wag her tail vigorously) and I’ll walk to the door to let her out. Halfway to the door, however, she’ll take a sharp left to her toy basket and get a chew toy out. I’ll sit by the Out Door for a while, accept that she doesn’t actually want to go out, then go back to bed. At this point, Nala returns to the bedroom and elevates her activity. Instead of sitting, she’ll get on her back legs and put her front legs on me while I’m in bed, and she’ll start pushing (like a parent trying to wake a sleeping teen) while whine/shouting. So I will once again get out of bed, walk her to the out door, open the outdoor until she leaves, and then hang out on the couch for ten to twenty minutes until she comes back inside. After she comes back inside, we both go to bed. Nala jumps back on the bed, curls up, and falls asleep. I check to see if I have 1 or 2 hours left to sleep and hope I can fall back to sleep quickly.

This… is becoming a recurring thing. :( I suppose if I was a wiser man, I’d simply not return to bed. I’d stay awake, exercise, eat breakfast, shower, and with whatever time left: play video games or read. But then… I’m not exactly hoping to become that adult male that lives on less than 4 hours of sleep per night. So there’s that to consider.

Hoping to get additional sleep, I bumped my alarms back. Another morning of “fuck exercise, I need sleep.” Which… sucks. But I’m eating around 1,000 calories per day so… at least I’m staying right around 215 so far. Of course, whereas some would say “Good, you’re not gaining” I am too quick to think “Dude, we want to be losing!“

Drove to work. Yeah, it’s fucking cold. It is damned cold. Work today should be… work. Boss has a Jury Trial involving a gang-banger from Chicago. So of course he hired the Defense counsel currently representing Cristhian Bahena Rivera… and she’s certainly pulling every bullshit nonsensical crazy fucking strategy she can. Including things like challenging by motion the very identity of the man we’ve arrested. Lady? Fingerprints match and he even STATED that yes, he is who we say he is. But FINE. Make us drag his probation officer from Chicago to sit on the stand and say under oath, “That man is who you say he is. That man is who we say he is. That man is who HE says he is.” Because sure. Since you’re loving all this national attention, keep the “underhanded, shyster, dirtiest lawyer reputation” you apparently so badly wish to cultivate. So… honestly hope Boss kicks her ass. I’m passionately for a world where TRUTH is what determines outcome. If we can’t establish the facts and convince a jury… fine! But if we’re being forced to argue over every small minor detailed element even when the Defendant themselves don’t want the argument to happen?! Than not only are you being a shitty attorney, you’re being a shitty advocate. ANYWAY… not my case. MY cases for today… there are like 4 and it will take maybe fifteen minutes tops. Then I’ll eat my lunch. And sit at my desk until 4:30. When I can leave to go home. Play with my dog. Cook an improvised stir fry that I’m trying for the first time. Watch the new episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine at 7:30. And then maybe play some video games. Wooo crazy life (sarcasm).

One thing I do think that I’ll be doing today and/or tomorrow?

So… Martha has her Valentine’s Day Date. AND… my plan for Valentine’s Day (no matter what she was planning) was to buy a bunch of chocolates, a bunch of wine, and cook dinner. I’m still going to do that. But I will be making a special meat-treat for Nala because (apparently) she’s my valentine this year. And then I’m going to go to the basement to play Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat 11, and grind through the new Seasonal Event for Borderlands 3. All while drinking massive amounts of Sherry, Merlot, and… either a Shiraz or a Pinot. As I drink that wine, I will likely be eating the chocolates. And likely becoming intoxicated. PRIOR to recent events, In Vino Veritas wasn’t much of an issue for me. Alcohol would mostly just make me sleepy if I went overboard. Since the separation began, however, that is no longer the case. As Martha has moved from “Closest Confidant” to a lesser level of sharing… I find In Vino Veritas striking far more frequently. THUS in an effort to combat that while simultaneously making sure that what I would likely say while intoxicated is not only said, but understood to be my TRUE feelings and not simply the meandering mutterings of a drunk… I plan to write a letter detailing those feelings. Essentially, as she seems to be entirely incapable of understanding why her having a Valentine’s Day Date while living in my house… particularly when she’s done nothing but give excuses for why she can’t find a place to live… I will detail WHY for her. Because while, apparently, she is an absolute imbecile in these matters… if she is living in my house, I would at least like to be understood. So I will likely be working on that bit of writing today and/or tomorrow. And that’s… pretty much my day. I mean… obviously if I see a particularly interesting survey or have a particularly upsetting interaction with a Defendant or Victim… I’ll be back and write that shit out. Because if I simply sit on my emotions regarding that stuff… it’ll come out in far less healthy and less discreet ways.

I wouldn’t mind someone thinking this of me

And just for fun let us look at a Conservative who hasn’t lost his mind because he was a soldier and actually knew Trump in person: John Kelly

Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, said that Vindman is blameless and was simply following the training he’d received as a soldier; migrants are “overwhelmingly good people” and “not all rapists”; and Trump’s decision to condition military aid to Ukraine on an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden upended long-standing U.S. policy.

Vindman was rightly disturbed by Trump’s phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July, Kelly suggested: Having seen something “questionable,” Vindman properly notified his superiors, Kelly said. Vindman, who specialized in Ukraine policy at the National Security Council at the time, was among multiple U.S. officials who listened in on the call. When subpoenaed by Congress in the House impeachment hearings, Vindman complied and told the truth, Kelly said.

“He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly told the audience at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. “He went and told his boss what he just heard.”

Although Trump has long insisted that his call to Zelensky was “perfect,” Kelly made clear that Trump indeed conditioned military aid on Zelensky’s help digging up dirt on the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

That amounted to a momentous change in U.S. policy toward Ukraine—one that Vindman was right to flag, because other federal agencies needed to know about the shift, Kelly said.

“Through the Obama administration up until that phone call, the policy of the U.S. was militarily to support Ukraine in their defensive fight against … the Russians,” Kelly said. “And so, when the president said that continued support would be based on X, that essentially changed. And that’s what that guy [Vindman] was most interested in.”

When Vindman heard the president tell Zelensky he wanted to see the Biden family investigated, that was tantamount to hearing “an illegal order,” Kelly said. “We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss.’”

Throughout the appearance, Kelly laid out his doubts about Trump’s policies. Trump has held two formal summits with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, hoping to scuttle the country’s nuclear program through personal diplomacy. Kelly said the effort was futile.

“He will never give his nuclear weapons up,” Kelly said. “Again, President Trump tried—that’s one way to put it. But it didn’t work. I’m an optimist most of the time, but I’m also a realist, and I never did think Kim would do anything other than play us for a while, and he did that fairly effectively.”

At times Wednesday, Kelly sounded like the anti-Trump. He said he did not believe the press is “the enemy of the people,” for example. And he sharply criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has steadfastly courted. Kelly described Putin as someone who is “not necessarily a rational actor.” Putin sits atop “a society in collapse,” yet is intent on restoring “the glory days of the Soviet Union,” he said.

Responding to questions from the audience, Kelly faulted Trump for intervening in the case of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was convicted last year of posing with the corpse of an Islamic State fighter. Trump reversed a Navy decision to oust Gallagher, in a chain of events that led to the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.

“The idea that the commander in chief intervened there, in my opinion, was exactly the wrong thing to do,” Kelly said. “Had I been there, I think I could have prevented it.”

The audience applauded.

When a woman in the crowd said that Trump had “elevated” Gallagher, Kelly looked out at the crowd.

“Yep,” he said.

But you know what is most disheartening and most painful? The common voter isn’t going to hear shit on this. They’re pro-Trump and quite literally NOTHING will change that. Which, to my rational mind… sounds like a mental illness or an unhealthy obsession. To them? It is patriotism. That is why I honestly don’t call the American Ideal of “Patriotism” patriotism. American Patriotism, especially from many current Conservative Voters, is jingoism. And it is upsetting.