I always thought it would be super cool to have snow-white bedding. But I never got a set because I had this vague feeling that white bedding was too good for me or I was not good enough for it. It wasn’t a fully verbalized feeling, it was simply there, irreflectively and powerfully.

Yesterday I finally noticed what was going on and bought myself a set. On the negative side, I was so excited about my white bedding that I couldn’t sleep all night. But on the positive side, I conquered back one more bit of reality from received conditioning.

The set misses a blanket case (called “duvet cover” in this country). Bedding sets around here always pretend that people don’t cover themselves with anything for some reason. But I had a blanket case that is white with big pink flowers, so it worked.

The Russian Orthodox Church is a very funny institution. The Church, for instance, allows people to marry even if they are married to somebody else legally. Also, the Church allows people to get divorced up to 3 times (or an infinite number of times if you are willing to pay a fee.) While you are getting married and divorced in the Church, you can absolutely keep getting married and divorced with other people legally.

As a result, it is possible to have two sets of rotating spouses that change every couple of years and exist independently of each other. The system exists to accommodate the Russian nouveau riches who can’t marry their endlessly swapped mistresses legally and pacify them with the “more spiritual” Church weddings.

Obviously, the Russian Orthodox Church is horrified with how the evil Westerners degraded the sacred institution of marriage by granting gay people the right to marry. Obviously.

In case you think I can only grow tiny little sunflowers, here is one that’s almost as tall as me. This one grows next to the front porch.

And here are the ones that grow in the backyard:

This is a little patch of Ukrainian identity in Metro St Louis.

Just saw part of a very disappointing Dr. Phil Show. A woman with “the bipolar disorder” is abusing her teenage sons. She beats them, chokes them, screams at them, and forces the poor kids to live in a horrible, chaotic environment.

“What if she acts this way because of a chemical imbalance in her brain? What if she can’t help it?” says Dr. Phil to the sons to shame them for feeling fed up with the abuse.

This is a very convenient, comfortable imbalance, of course. It never forces the poor sufferer to try to choke or cuss out a police officer or anybody who could make her suffer the consequences. It never makes her hurt herself in any way. She is very rational, polite and quiet with Dr. Phil himself. The “chemical imbalance” only awakens when she needs to abuse the children who have no way of defending themselves.

People are so brain-washed by pharmaceutical ads that whenever they hear about “chemical imbalances” they feel guilty and unable to resist. This is why I need to tell them here, at least: whenever you hear that somebody has a “chemical imbalance” that obligates them to act in ways that are not comfortable to you, you are perfectly justified in leaving and never being in this person’s company ever again.

And if we all did that, the incidence of “chemical imbalances” would plummet immediately.

Putin’s press secretary casually wears a watch that costs $720,000. (Yes, seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars.) And this is just a press secretary, not an actual oligarch. (Yes, of course, there are more expensive watches.)

This is the kind of riches that Bernie Sanders wants to persuade Putin’s clique to give up for the sake of the environment. And this is why I’m saying that, as nice as Bernie is, his understanding of foreign affairs equals Sarah Palin’s.

It’s very hot here this time of year, so I stay cooped up inside all day and then go for long walks around town in the evenings.

In a residential area across the road from ours, I just saw a white middle-aged cop chatting with 3 black teenagers. The cop showed them how his computer works and what the dash cam does. And then the kids asked the cop to play basketball with them. He dropped his vehicle, with the computer still on, and started shooting hoops with them.

I made a circle around the neighborhood, and they are still playing, laughing, having fun.

Ideally, of course, there’d be no reason for me to notice this scene.

John McCain has a crush on Hillary and hates Fox News. I guess he’d do my brain exercise, no sweat.

Russians are destroying enormous quantities of food. . . to spite the West.

Mike Huckabee wants to deploy troops against. . . women who seek abortions.

Yet another disturbing story of an academic being hounded for posting something on Facebook.

Rape has become so. . . (I hate to say it but the only word that can describe it is) prestigious in some circles that people are now coming up with completely insane stories of how they too were victimized by rape in spite of never being raped. I’m shocked and horrified that people can get so pampered and spoiled that they’d feel the need to attract pity to themselves in such a way.

The doctor told me to eat small, bland meals every 2,5 hours.

I managed the meals part and the “every 2,5 hours” part extremely well.

The “small, bland” part, however, is not happening.

For the first time in years, Spanish newspapers and magazines started publishing articles titled,

– “How to Spend That Extra Bit of Money You’ve Saved?”

– “Men Prefer to Spend Their Savings on Cars, While Women Choose Travel”

– “What Is the Best Place to Go on a Beach Vacation?”

– “Why Vacations Matter”

– “Buying Luxury Products: How to Make the Right Choice”

This is a very good sign. A couple of years ago, a journalist who published this kind of an article risked having his house set on fire by enraged readers. And now people actually want to read this stuff.

Spain ‘ s economy is growing at the fastest rate since 2007 right now, consumer spending is starting to boom, and the tourism industry is doing very well.

I always knew Spain would kick the crisis ‘ s ass. Which doesnt, of course, cancel the need to face a much greater crisis of the nation-state that we all are anticipating.

Yesterday we went to see Trainwreck. If the last 20 minutes were to be cut off, it would be quite a good movie.

In spite of the genre, I found the film to be quite realistic. The actors didn’t look like plastic cyborgs. To the contrary, they looked even uglier than real people. Nobody in the movie is a good actor but nobody is ever familiar with acting in Hollywood movies.

On the positive side, the way the characters comported themselves actually made sense. It’s very rare that I watch a movie and recognize the characters’ actions as those of actual people.

The jokes were funny, for the most part. The last 20 minutes were boring as hell but that’s to be expected given the genre. Altogether, I’m very surprised at how much I didn’t hate it.