Make it stand out.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Prosperity and happiness are just around the corner, said the cheerful coroner.

If taking away your health insurance 

Threatening to cut your social security 

Taking away the profitability of your family farm by way of “easy to win trade wars”

while bailing out the biggest farms and denying that climate change contributes to flash freezing, flash droughts and flash flooding crops and increased tornadoes, hurricanes, mud slides, 🔥 fires destroying your home, bailouts for cruise ships and airlines but a drop in the bucket to replace your job, letting the post office go bust so the rich cronies can privatize your deliveries- great in this time of great need to get your meds, a flash Great Recession might be worse than the 1930’s Great Depression then going back to work too soon to prevent a second wave of Coronavirus so he can claim he fixed the economy...

If all that doesn’t make you blue and you’d still rather be a red who soon might be dead

its not much of a problem if older folks happily sacrifice their lives- and maybe younger folks too. 

It’s all ok. 

Because 

The S& P went up today 

Friday, April 10, 2020

Between insight and action

In hindsight 

A light 💡 turns on 

Tween insight and action

There are reactions. 

Some of those reactions

Are internal actions. 

Between insight and action

There must be many internal reactions. 

Between insight and

Positive action

There must be internal chemical reactions. 

My guess is that

-even-

Between a single insight 

and 

a 

single positive action

There must be 

a 

ton

of 

internal interactions

all sorts of stuff interacting in synapses 

chemical 

reactions

Seen from 

Synoptical

micro-cosmical views. 

So 

Today’s news

This morning 

Having had a few... 

Happy 😊 

Reactions and interactions 

My synapses all freshly snappy like new 

It becomes apparent that one of the reasons I can’t 🛑 stop ✋ interrupting

When in a hurting, vulnerable, compulsive, semi-conscious, regressed state

Is that on those dates I am P/A. 

Too soon to say hooray 

Let’s see how it plays 

Out this coming Tuesday. 

Let’s first review what lead to my self-harm. 

As Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan might have said about what goes on in my head 

Ira is a very good therapist

you see. 

For he 

has increased my confidence in my self-efficacy. 

But why oh why is he so kind and caring in my individual sessions and so harsh with me in the group?

Could he be frustrated about my just not being able to control my compulsive talking whilst in the loop?

A good talking point

For Monday and Tuesday if I can keep my nose from getting out of joint. 

I want to pick a fight 

To deepen the rift between Michael and me 

To flee the group as a 🐥 chicken 🐔

Sickeningly frightened runs from a coop on fire 

Leaving would have consequences if not dire

at least would set me back more vulnerable to life’s daily challenges and occasional attacks. 

In fact my paranoia would increase exponentially as 

you see. 

Ira’s text got me 

into a vulnerable, angry, regressed state. 

What primed me was coming into the session and pre-session text 

I had been working for many hours...

an internal state of flow. 

Close to primary process, you know. 

After a full day of intense work

a very intense week of work preceding 

I was needing 

downtime 

I am aware 

but sometimes 

Can’t get myself to care. 

Compulsively can’t stop ✋ working

Ergo sum 

or...

so there!

Even so 

That mini-depression

resolved in minutes as insight rescued me before our group session. 

Too late to prevent cutting myself whilst shaving. 

Nice teeth

Nice smile. 

You look twenty years younger. 

Twenty years. 

🤔 Hmmm🤔 

Went to my head. 

Instead of realizing that just as criticism is not condemnation 

So too 

Compliments are candy 

Quicker by far than 

Nashes liquor 🥃. 

So primed with lack of rest 

All set to be belligerent at best 

Brutally blind to see much less find what would be at my better half’s behest

Pacing endlessly in 

unrest 

I professed too much 

Got ego involved more and more 

A 🚢 ship load of Paranoia imported from Panama piled in the paltry poetry  room store. 

I’m sure I needed a time out. 

Should I have left group for an out and out self-re-regulating pout?

No, that’s not what it’s about. 

Stay in place. 

Resolve to notice my discomfort 

Silently fix my mute button 

Emerge only when something urgently needs to be said... 

I could write a... TED.

So doing, sped 

To help me face 

the PTSD inflaming music. 

The key 🔑 is 

noticing going off track 

Taking control of internal gears and wheels

Getting well-enough in the moment to heal. 

My weal is at stake. 

For those I love 💕 and care about this is a really big deal. 

I feel if and when my awareness is up to the minutest minuscule micro minute 

Minuets, tangos, Nae Nae-ing the Nae Nae, hitting the whoa 😳 

Mau-mauing flak catchers 

Snatching soothing 

Cashews, peanuts 🥜, hazel nuts, chocolate and all 

No longer willsocial interactions hit the wall. 

I am

 as Michael said

having a temper tantrum. 

His observation 

After his comments 

You look twenty years younger 

Felt like another whiplash. 

I felt attacked. 

Smacked down again dashed. 

With the same arrow 

The same Achilles heel 

And every other weak part

together and a la carte 

Like an easy mark 

A fish shot in a barrel 

Back in that school 

Putting myself down 

Inviting even admin 👨‍💼 

Parents and kids to pile on. 

Glad I’m gone. Till now. 

Somewhere, somehow 

I revisit the old messed-up state. 

Felling I can’t relate. 

I’m back in that place as last night’s dream showed 

Being envious of the 🎵 Musical Theater Folks 

The royalty of that school 

The Brahmins shine 

While to Brahms I pine 🌲 trees 

Ever green 

Anger at my oft repeated compulsive repetition compulsion 

Requires an emulsion to regulate chemical imbalances 

Though all these years of therapy have reduced my check balances. 

Not to mention obsessing over the removal of checks and balances by the Republican whores 

known as Senators

Funny 😄 in a way that given the evil 👿 apparent in the world that I fixate on my negatives feeling in the dream evermore 

Incompetent 

semi- competent in

Typing a list in the back hallway of my parents’ apartment. 

At one point I go into my sister’s room to get the font size which magically appears on a page I seemed to randomly open. That happily surprised me in the dream. 

In Amy’s bedroom, Music Man’s file was automatically generating something while I 

Was diluting the 🥛 milk to the point of murky 

Useless 

Un-potable water 💦 

Bad for all sins 

And lovely daughters 

Leaving too late for the airport 

Increasingly anxious 😟 

Confused, obsessing over where to find a store where I could get milk to restore what I had done. 

Imploring for advice on which store to try as most were sold out. I knew the best decision was to go in the direction of the airport; see what I could find en-route. Yet kept asking for advice from the nice 👍 young person in jeans 

Not realizing this part of me was in cahoots 

With a snarky internal family member 

I’ll call Sour Puss in Cahoots. 

Figuring out this simple situation was beyond my means. 

My anxiety increasingly hot

My confidence took a hit. 

It- and I were defeated 😕 

My confidence shot. 

Back to the session. 

I came into it in an unprepared

But unfortunately not unprecedented state of mind. 

Though mostly kind 

Ira had to remind 

me to listen rather than talk. 

He praises my insight. 

The whiplash could be reduced by a long solitary walk 

It is not very slight. 

It is not every Tuesday or Friday night but I am on guard 

Guarded, defensive 

Paranoia returns 

I feel he critiques me more than the others 

Even with critique not necessarily being condemnation 

If it is true 

And I’m not sure 🤔 it is 

It could be because I’ve had more therapy and therefore need a bigger dose- a bigger kick 🦵 in the rear to get me fully into gear. 

And/or

He could be acting out of revulsion for how I make a living. 

Perhaps I can show him that I have taken control of my finances rather than let the sea 🌊 

of misfortune give me 

unnecessary misery. 

On the positive side

Beth and I are closer

Probably because of group. 

It is true, I have pushed and broken the therapeutic frame. 

It’s a game I manipulatively play. 

Ira plays his part too. 

Once again 

I’ve become too dependent on therapy. 

I said I can’t keep my mouth shut. 

That is true when I am unconscious 

Nervous-

to reason impervious. 

Ira could have saved these two most recent comments and his text for our session. 

Obviously there is something funny going on with him as well. 

Do I want to take a break?

Hard to tell. 

Is it a cop out?

Again I paced the floor throughout group. 

I felt lost, hopeless, worthless, a failure at human relations

Again caught up in cognitive distortion

While lusting after Lisa’s portion of pancakes out of all proportion 

I want maple 🍁 syrup on buckwheat flapjacks 🥞 

Not interpersonal attacks 

setting me back. 

I’m desperate for a friend. 

Maybe I don’t know how to be one. 

One

two, three, a quarter past four 

A quarter of a quartet 

Yet...

Enter through the back service door 

For Jews, Chinese, Black, Brown and Tan and Arabian Moors 

As I write these plaintext plaints 

With a penchant for plainchant 

Seeing it ain’t necessarily so

So I get into self-hatred 

Burning 🌉 bridges. 

Envious of Bo Bridges raiding the fridge is small consolation 

Better than obsessing over X-Box PlayStation 

Self-rejecting

Doing preemptive rejection

Of the foxy and those froM the school of hard knocks. 

Without the beard 

I feel naked 

Naked, almost as helpless and angry 😠 as pre-Zoloft and Zoom 

Once again

People 

are 

to 

be 

feared. 

That was yesterday. 

Today’s 

Insight 

Gained overnight 

Less fright 

Less fear 

One third less beer 

No whining or dining on 

despair torn about having an affair 

At least two women found me a neat-o-guy 

Why can’t I succeed with wife no matter how I try?

For the moment it is clear 

Here there is 

Less disparity 

Tween insight and action 

Accepting reality 

Equanimity in action 

Disparate delusional realities consolidate 

Dissipate 

The fog of fear lifts 

With the gifts 🎁 

Of...

Compassion and clarity. 

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Deb is not my mom

Most certainly maybe my wife 

Maybe my dad. 

When I think of her 

I get angry 😠 and mad. 

Compassion turns this to sad. 

Sad and slowly reflecting 

Instead of self hating for habitually genuflecting resurrecting 

Earliest many an adaptive defense 

Now to let go 

In this if not blissful 

But helpful flow 

I am shown 

That to openly own 

Where I’ve been 

Where I’m at 

Is where’s its at in current at bats. 

Let’s talk about Deb. 

Let’s not. 

Let’s talk about my fear 

of Deb

The near 

And far current problem and celeb

Of my group experience. 

Oh the dents she doth leave

I want a reprieve 

If she leaves

I’ll miss the way she plays with her hair 

The way she takes off her glasses 🤓 in that devil may care 

Not to shower her with praise 

nor 

Bury her in other ways. 

My giving her so much power. 

I do. It need to be a wilting 🥀 flower 🌺 

She may or may not be a secure tower 

Of strength but I let her 

Twist me into whiplash. 

Surely it’s not her eyelashes 

Her splashy 

Mishmash 

her low opinion of guys 

She tries and gets away with this mix of clear-minded mothering, elating then suddenly castrating me 

men in general 

from that general whiplash to and back from something sexual. 

Is her never wanting kids or to be married a defense against something in her early childhood rooted in her mother’s distaste 

for men 

and her father’s weakness then 

on which her defenses are based?

That distaste 

And thus far still a ruling star below the conscious 

That semi-conscious distaste on which it may be based 

Not seeing the full light of day can not be erased 

Limiting her life in some unknown way?

She seems to have had a full rage- no not rage- range of experience so perhaps I’m projecting or hiding my hurt at when she blurts out critique even though I say I welcome it

Being both receptive and weak.. 

Out of two sides of my mouth do I speak. 

She reminds me of my wife 

My father too 

As so much in life used to daily do.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

So what is it we want?

Deliverance from fear. Fear of sickness Fear of starvation Fear of poverty Fear of the elements Fear of social isolation Fear of loss of electricity Fear of loss of powerThe fear of powerlessness is a🥊 powerful punch to the gut. It doesn’t make you a nut to Fear societal collapse Yes there have been lapses and enough blame to go around. So rather than harp and rage any longer about   The chaos that doth abound and more to come Let’s turn our sights to some Better day. Ok?👍 ****Writing whimsical, witty, breezysatirical dittiesAbout negative 👎 realitiesHas been really relatively really easy. Pleases meNow to  write about hopeful possibilities. Saturday, April 4, 2020🥔🥔 potatoes did I buy. I can not deny It was a waste of my money as my honey 🍯Doth remind asking “Why oh why did you buyThose potatoes 🥔 When everyone knows Even potatoes and each and every potato knows....potatoes!!!!You can’t cook worth beans.”Seems to me there are two better cooks living close by. Who might try to make a delicious 😋 dish Out of those potatoes 🥔 Such is my wish. Saturday, April 4, 2020Duke Ducorsky An American in Moscow Outside the Kremlin🇷🇺 Russian 🇷🇺 BearOh great- we made great againRussian Bear 🐻 Barely bearable over thereWhen NATO and the Euro were strongIt’s a different song With the duffer we’ve got you know where. Oh Great Russian Bear You know all the answers, my master dear do Russians drink 🍸 vodka more than Russian beer?All roads lead to Russia Rousing our Right Gun sales are upWho says our economy is running down?!Russia loves trade wars with oil As much as I love ❤️ a good trade war To make everyone’s blood 🩸 boil. America once made beer, brandybarley, suits, 🚙 autos and candy. As GM goes So goes American pie 🥧 We make hardly anything now thanks 😊 to the empire of the emperor with no clothes You know the foppish flop with the orange mop. Alas, so goes American pie while From a virus 🦠 and lack of leadership we die. Oh the things we used to make. It’s a different story now that he’s on the take. Russia makes...... trouble. Russian cars were a joke. We spoke of our 🚘 autos From the time of autocrat dumpf in cahoots No 👎 poo-pooing PutinEnabling his looting Uncontrollable his shooting Down our phony ConstitutionKing 🤴 Don, The First Burst our budget Lets criminals sail out of jail Lauds war criminals Emulates dismal dictatorial dictators Lies with Larry Larry Kudlow- “a die-hard, supply-side, trickle-down tax cutter” says his friend Jared Bernstein Is Kudloe a show off like his boss who’s mean Spirited and keen to Showing off on many things, everything goes. Oh the things he doesn’t care to understand or know. Yes, showing off,Off to the ⛳️ golf course Making America greatly teed off Shooting par or far below For the average fellow. Yes, shooting Off his mouth Sending our country south. My favorite 🎈 partyThe party 🎉 I write about a la carte-e-eveAnd morn With a bit of paina tad touch of scorn on those morns Were I Mormon I might be torn A born again torn Muslim cum Mormon Longing for President Romney A reasonable Republican The only one?Can’t beTaking turns being in mourning in the morn, a forlorn despairing 😩 Of the absence of caring Coming down From Agent Orange 🍊 the clown The POTUS &Co. Who show Even in crisesthey care more About their pocketbooks and bragging about irrelevant topics like isis. No, not 👎 nice 👍 with their millions and billions of rolls of toilet paper Their roll of the rigged dice Definitely not conservative, not even a trice nice Suffice to say their lack of regard For the health and safety of our people Cheating, lying, stealingmanipulationsOf our people- all colors, faiths, orientations, political affiliationsDay to day practical persuasions To see and feel that They play their cards well is not hard. It’s swell that POTUS has such a good lawyer (More of an attack dog 🐕)The Bard would have found a way to bar Barr from battling truth in daylight broad. It’s batty Best to ask beautiful Beatrice both her and bicentennial great aunt Barb. Wear protective garb. The virus Affects all- not just Judge Judy 👩‍⚖️ But all of us British Boris who like you Could use A mouth 👄 or two washed out with soap 🧼 Or lye For your constant stream of manipulative lies If not lye then Lavoris Porous brained Boris and Putin’s puppy pet puppet POTUSPlease stop 🛑 igniting in-fighting Please stop ✋ ignoring safety and health For the petty sake of increasing your wealth which you made great againWanting to keep America’s men, women And all others from being loving 🥰 Sisters and brothers. So while your minds are to truth Like a sieve which is porous Please deer-hunting, NRA-beholden and ratings-loving Dear porous 🧽 brained POTUS Dear, dearest porous POTUS stop 🛑 ignoring us. There is more in heaven and earth 🌍  🌎 than expanding your girth.  For he’s a jolly popular if not good guy That you can’t deny The question is whyHe can fool so many so often As he sends more and more of us to our cremations more and more often Only the lucky 🍀 ones get coffins. So maybe you are doing a great job For The Great Russian 🐻 Bears 🐻 Russians drinking 🍸 more vodka  than Russian 🍺 beer. All roads lead to Russia Rousing our Right Gun sales are upDeaths are up. Unemployment is up. Fear is up. Panic is up The NRA has pride of place. So what if NY and a few other blue places Can’t breath getting blue in the face?!You see we’re doing a terrific job. Yes, my base. Many things are up. Don’t believe the media hoax that Our economy is running down. Russia loves trade wars with oil. Are they embedded on our soil asWell as the soul of the POTUS?Please stop 🛑 fighting truth The truth getting more painful Please stop ✋ ignoring safety and healthYour  wealth which you made great again Please deer-hunting, NRA-beholden ratings-loving Dear POTUS Dear porous 🧽 brained POTUS You said to Modi“It’s not like you’ve got China 🇨🇳 on your border.”A few little errors are in order. You make the calls The perfect pitch calls Looking the other way your enablers all. Our perfect leader for life in seasons all Dear, perfect dearest porous POTUS stop 🛑 ignoring us. **Research and sketch Is backed by rich, Christian white guysWhen it comes to propaganda their real smarties. Our great nation smartsFrom their deceptive, deleterious dastardly deeds doth dolefully smart. I’m just getting started. Yes evangelicals white and blackLack the clarity To see how that grand old party 🎈 increases the disparity between poor Mortgage firms which spent years lobbying against tougher regulation and stricter capital requirements, arguing their lending didn’t pose a risk to the financial system. Now, many of those companies say they are in desperate need of a bailout to stave off bankruptcy and (yet another) collapse of the U.S. housing market.Greed, greed and more greed As they laid the reckless seeds of Ruin to the tune Of milking the system dry. Welfare for corporations is Ok but social safety nets for the little guy Are reprehensible entitlements Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican already the subject of a pandemic-related stock trading scandal, is in the hot-seat again. She sold a total of $46,027 worth of stock in an online travel company in the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s announcement of a European travel ban. Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, are worth an estimated $500 million.“I want them to be appreciative... We've done a great job.” a schmaltzy new ad — entitled, of all things, “Hope” — that cast his response to the pandemic in heroic terms, and featured video of both governors praising him.Brilliant: extort Democrat governors into praising him in exchange for desperately needed medical supplies then use those extorted praise as the basis for an ad campaign showing you as the 🦸‍♀️ hero. Never mind your not taking any responsibility for this crisis getting so bad so fast. April 2, 2020April 2x2 is a gift 🎁 for you know whoApril 2, 2002A gift 💝 of compassion for the whiplashed fool I am and was teaching at that school. I drool profusely over profits missedWhile I do nothing to help those truly suffering. Enough of my buffoonery buffering. April 1, 2020Does the outrage at the evil 👿 of the POTUS Inspire such creativity because he reminds me Of those who bullied, teaching me to chain myself to misery?Dad was 🥰 loving, generous, funny, playfulExcept when he wasn’tWhich certainly wasn’t very helpful. It was this on-again, off-again loving, tight over control with a touch of disinterest in the feelings of my mother or my sister or me or others that poisoned what was otherwise a very good man. In the case of our great, stable genius it is another way As there is little if anything good. But the bullying, belittling, surfaceShining with confidence that is addictingSickening, revolting, unnecessary Yet tragically funny. ***I’m back to my Self. It was touch and go. Giving power away somade me anxious, weak psychosomatically pretty physically sick. That I recognized and took control pretty darn quick was a wonderful new, useful, helpful, mature, adult, competent, brave, courageous, self-confident, calm, appropriate, productive, remunerative, not a trace truculent trick. Pretty slick Slick. ****More bad decisionsThe worst of it is Getting my ego tied up with its Ups and dimes Nicked nickels rotting pickles in front of the steam roller. My horoscope was right Something was about to happen. But by the time it predicted My rent passed due, evicted. Well not exactly As a matter of fact lee Way I need For I’ve done better than most Do don’t give up the ghost. Skill at catching knives Leave to big Burly Burl Ives Cage or Stockhausen Or Ocean’s DozenMustn’t compete with knife catching Batch processing algorithms Which I do best fairly often in down marketsWith a risk profile a mile away From the profits of good times. Slow and steady wins the race Just in case I forget and forget Knife-edge, knife catching hardened mid-wifing Treacherous terrain profit snatching Can be played at the one dollar table If I am able to control by enthusiasm Recognizing when my mania holds my Self in spasm. What did I learn today?Two things. One: my recent strategy of buying one share at a time is good-it minimizes risk and it slows me down. A+Two: limit orders on the way down-especially in down markets need be spaced much farther apart-especially if I doubling down. Three: I now see more examples of my feeling irrational exuberance and each time I ignited it. An easier metric Is when everything is going upIt’s avoid time to get out EVEN if it means selling some positions at a loss Always better to take a small loss than a big one the next day or week. Four: it didn’t help to sell pre-market. At least for some positions. For a fair answer, much time would need to be devoted-going over each position- but even so, there’s no telling where during this volatile day I would have sold. So if you want out, get out. Whole this rings true It’s not the cause. I suspect it was anxiety About the planned reduction of my anti-anxiety meds. My best guess as I go to bed. It was fear of a powerful throwback To giving away power. Similar to wearing glasses, a sleep machine, a continuous blood monitoring device, an insulin pump-a ventilator...I’ll take my chances as my own best educator. ****

I slept less well I can tell 

I am nervous 😟 

Here in the city Would it be different in Port Jervis?

Nerves like this I 💭 thought 💭 I had kissed 

Goodbye I’ll try to find out what’s different today 

In a thorough way and why. For the first time in since Zoloft 

It used to be daily or more oft 

I meditated to soften the panic 

It is mild so far

It could be my BG. 

Nope: 107

Blood sugar heaven.