Up, up, and awake.

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Mostly.  Yes, days and nights are mixed, but days are sort of on the way back into the drivers seat.  Waking just now, a bit before 3:00, yesterday around midnight, and the pattern has more slowly been heading in that direction for a while.  I have learned that, in the more extreme weather periods... either too hot or too dark, I can't so easily hold days and nights to regularity, not without a woman around.  At least most of the time.  I have gotten better in several ways though.  I can more usefully use the time I am awake, more often than not.  And as I more successfully use that time, it almost invariably brings me back to a day pattern even on my own.  I am, however, still a bit in shut down mode.  Between appliances, cleaning, snow removal, minor injury, and financial stress, I am... not at prime, or even close.  Still, I am aiming the bow for better waters, praying, and hoping.  I have faith.

As to the attempt at taking my home, I simply pray for them.  I am pretty sure what is going on with it.  Typical crony corruption, possibly union hurt feelings, Zero's admin making one last strike at as many veterans as possible, directly or by his sort who are employed through government bureaucracies, and don't forget crony capital greed.  Government approved businesses are just as bad as any tyranny because they are covered by the government.  Washing each other's hands of each other's doings won't save either.  Still, I even hope people like Manson, Stalin, and Ted Kennedy repented before they died.  I don't know if Manson had ever been taught right, but the others (if you believe Jesuits can teach right, in Stalin's case) had been taught.  Pray for them.  No matter what, I have faith that God will see me to where His will requires me.  Even if they steal the 10~12 k I have stored in this home, that... is just money.  I'm not going to risk my soul with rage about dollars.

Oh, about Dante.  Okay...  I had only, if I hadn't written, read the first book before.  I didn't even realize until recently, that there were two other books.  Perhaps I had forgotten.  Perhaps that first book had been so much, in my young teens, that I buried the memory.  It is a hell of a read, even with unit intros and end of unit explanations.  However, if you want a dense piece of read, there you go!

And, while I truly do not like poetry, this is... so much more.  It is ancient history, mythology, religious understandings and beliefs of that time, writing tricks, allusions, and every sort of literary mechanic probably known to man.  Did I mention dense?  If you want to boost your language comprehension and other reading and literary thinking skills by a ton, drop this book on your lap and muscle through.  You cannot win, but in losing you will not be defeated.  Between Shakespeare, Dante, and J.R.R. Tolkien, I could be satisfied that men have done what they could, literarily.  Literarily?  I mean, that is as great as men can do in the gathering of information and wisdom, and using that as a basis for written art.  Fiction?  Is wisdom always literal?  Is fact not often fiction?  There are reasons for such forms, but not as a cloak, merely as shiny a mirror of the true Light as men may produce in written form.

I mean, I am loving the other book, and will like the last one I suspect.  It is a brutal read.  Not even I can win.  Without the extras, I would often miss some of the finer pieces, as any great gothic work.  Gothic?  Maybe.  I'm saying so, you may disagree at your leisure.  It is so different, though, that I am able to read the book of haiku masters as an aside and not lose my place.  Haiku and Dante are polar opposites, which detracts not one, at all, from the other.  Oh, and while I despise poetry, I do believe, after this... I am going to be looking for collections from other, if mostly American, poets.  Frost, Whitman(?), and a few others.  I haven't truly made a list, just... I think it is time.

One last thing, if on another topic... watch your groceries!  I have, in this last year, but realizing for longer if not so badly... they are selling really out-of-date products.  Often in sales.  I bought something a few months ago, without looking.  Several items, I try to stock up on things I like if I catch a sale.  The first item tasted funny... checked the date... like June, 2013!  And I have been running into that a LOT.  Now, if I don't see a date, and I check everything, I don't buy it.  Actually, I might start picking out things that are that far out of date and taking them up to the checkout, and asking to speak to a manager.  If I hit three like that, at a store, within six months, I'm going to have to drop them.  I really am beginning to think that is a corporate decision, though it might just be a store cutting corners.  The world has changed.  Hopefully some of it can be unchanged.  Just... watch your food and sell-by dates.  If it's a week off, and it's canned, and you don't care?  I guess that's your choice.  But a few years off is into the danger zone.

I am going to attempt to fast today and up until supper tomorrow.  Then begin daily fasting after that, again.  I have quit adding sweeteners to my tea, and am down to just plain tea.  It is taking time, but I am moving heaven and earth, in my little ways, to direct my health and eating and work in a better direction.  Life is pain, but in that pain is opportunity.  Each breath, a chance, for hope, faith, and charity.  Not to dismiss the cardinal virtues, which I intend to study (thank you Dante, thank you very much), which are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

Good morning, and day.