2026

● Friday, 1-2-2026:   Trump called his controversial 2024 budget bill, which further cut taxes for the wealthy, the “one big, beautiful bill.” I call it the one big beautiful-for-the-rich (ugly-for-everyone-else) bill.

● Saturday, 1-3-2026:   Desert ride. It was pleasurable. I had a renewed sense of accomplishment in my Journal. I ate my usual patty melt at Tom’s #25 in West Palmdale. It was good. Traffic was lighter than usual, probably because of the rain. I had intended to work straight through on my Journal, to finish this read-through by Sunday (tomorrow); it would have been convenient to begin the next two-week break from it on Monday, since I have four depositions next week. But my energy-level crashed; I was fatigued and unable to keep working on the Journal, and so I was forced to take a day off. One of the more substantial diversions on my meager menu of entertainments is the desert ride . . ..

● Sunday, 1-11-2026:   I just had a dream in which I was an attempted murderer. I was in a gun store high in the mountains in a European country; I bought 40 high-powered rifle cartridges, and was firing them with my rifle at a long row of outdoor yellow seats in some business establishment far below, trying to kill people. I hadn’t hit anyone yet. After firing 16 rounds (I had 24 left), I got scared that I’d be caught, and so I stopped shooting and left the gun store. I was driving down the mountain road, trying to find a place to discard the remaining ammunition, to evade incrimination. I thought that, by now, police would be trying to find the shooter, and I worried that, if the police found the rest of my ammunition, they’d have caught me because my fingerprints would be on them. Then I woke up.

● I just finished this last read-through of my Journal. Like the one just before it, it seemed especially fruitful. And I feel good about the 2025 material. This one took 36 days (a time with few depositions), and I added eight pages of new Diary material.

● Monday, 1-12-2026:   In a dream just now, I worked for a trash hauling company, driving a trash truck. I was driving a truck, and a supervisor, or the owner, in another truck, yelled out to me that we should have a race back to headquarters. He bragged that he’d win because he was driving the world’s most advanced trash truck. I raced him, and I got there first, at least five minutes ahead of him. Then he said he’d won because the winner was, not the one who arrived first, but the one to sign a certain paper first—and he signed the paper first. I understood that I was losing my job because I lost the race. I was vociferously complaining that he’d cheated, and the result was unfair, since I had had no knowledge of that rule.

In a later part of the dream (or a later dream), I was a gangster, having a dinner meeting with other gangsters at a fancy restaurant. We were ordering food and wine, and trying to make others think we were legitimate businessmen. I thought it would be good to buy a bottle of wine in advance of the next such meeting, and I was going to a reputable wine store to get it. When I arrived, the wine store owner said he had no wine left, but he suggested some good wines to order at a business meeting. I was straining to get a pen and paper, to record his recommendations. Then I woke up. Perhaps the later dream reflects my worry that I may be a fraud as a writer.

● I’m going to go through my Journal again to check for missing entries. I did that very recently, but I feel the need to do it again, because of a possible anomaly or glitch in one of my computer programs: I made some changes to the document on my laptop computer that may not have been saved to my desktop computer. The timing of this task is convenient—it’s the start of my next two-week break from working on the Journal, and I have no depositions this week.

● Last week, I bought a new space heater to replace the one I use at my desk, because the old heater stopped working on the lower setting. I still preferred the old heater to the new one, even working just on the higher power setting. I was going to give the new one away, but then I found a use for it: in the bathroom, where I haven’t used a heater. Yesterday, I used it there for the first time. I’ll keep it; it’s a good addition to the bathroom. I bought another heater today at Walmart to use at my desk, to replace the broken one. It’s the same kind of heater as that one, but the latest generation of it. Tomorrow I’ll take it out of the box and see how it works.

● I got the distance eyeglasses made, and today I picked them up. Apparently, it takes about two weeks for my eyes to adjust to them, so I was told. This is the first time I’ve ever had any prescription eyeglasses.

● Tuesday, 1-13-2026:   Donald Trump is, among other things, a product of democracy: When people exercise their right to choose, they sometimes make bad choices.

[Later note (3-20-2026): Or, we might say, he’s a product of a broken democracy.]

● Trump calls his political opponents, and even people who just oppose him “terrorists” (among other names). Well, Trump is a terrorist. He arbitrarily and capriciously fires massive numbers of government employees; sues people to bully them; bombs boats with people on board—for who-knows-what reason; sends Immigration and Border Patrol thugs to brutalize people in the streets; and, by destroying many government programs that help the poor, devastates the lives of countless people in this country and around the world.

● The (other) new heater works beautifully.

● Wednesday, 1-14-2026:   I had planned to take my desert ride today. But when I got up this morning, I didn’t feel like it (and I didn’t go).

● Thursday, 1-15-2026:   I dreamed that I was employed as a writer and writing tutor. Just before I woke up (a few minutes ago), I said to my student that a good title for a piece about ants would be “The Silence of the Ants,” because ants are silent—to us.

● Yesterday I shopped for a little hand-held dictation or voice-recording device, to use to check for possible accidental omissions in my Journal. I found one at Staples office supply store. I asked them if they had such an item. One of the employees then went into the storage area and a few moments later emerged and handed me a box, saying: “This is the only one we have.” I thanked him, and commented that this was much more helpful than the last store I went to, where they just told me: “If we have it, it would be over there. . . .” I bought it (the one at Staples), but today I’ll return it: even with the operating instructions, I couldn’t figure out how to use it.

● Today I bought a gym membership and eight sessions with a trainer. My first session is tomorrow. My specific purpose is to start to do weight (or resistance) training, to reduce muscle loss and thus to protect my general health as I age.

● Saturday, 1-17-2026:   Usually when I take my exercise-walks, I take the first one between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. At that time it’s still dark out, except for the electric lights. But many of those are bright and glaring, and I put my hand up to shield my eyes from them. Lately it seems there have been many more of those excessively bright lights. Today, for the first time, I wore my baseball cap on my first walk, to shield my eyes, to avoid having to constantly raise my arm. It worked well.

● I went to a restaurant for lunch today. They didn’t have chilled gricken. So I settled for grilled chicken.

● Sunday, 1-18-2026:   Philosophy Club meeting, in-person. I won’t attend, but I’ll read the readings. The topic is: “The Perception of Time: What’s the relationship between experienced time and objective time? What makes the present moment special if past and future events might be equally real? Is the flow of time an objective feature of reality or is it an illusion of the mind? What influences how we experience the flow of time (e.g., the effects of age, emotion, memory)? Why does time feel like it moves faster or slower, depending on when you evaluate it (e.g., the point of view of hindsight compared to the point of view while going through an event)?”

Philosophical arguments about the nature of time strike me as a quibbles. Perhaps I just don’t understand them.

Time must be real in some way, because my existence is at once a product of it, and limited by it. I exist for a continuous, finite span; before which, I never existed; and after which, I’ll never exist again.

Time seems to pass more quickly when we’re older than it does when we’re younger, simply, perhaps, because, when we’re older, we tend to be happier, or more content, or less unhappy.

In Five Books, psychologist Marc Wittmann theorizes that a young person senses time passing more slowly than an older person does because, for the young person, a higher proportion or his experiences are novel, notable; whereas, for an older person, events become routine. So the younger person’s memory is more crowded with experiences that stand out. But that appears to conflict with the observation that time seems to go more slowly when we’re bored, when experience is devoid of notable events . . .. On the other hand, it’s supported by studies’ finding that “Time intervals associated with more changes may be perceived as longer than intervals with fewer changes.”

● Donald Trump is a thug.

● I bought a box of tea bags. The brand is Lipton, and they call the tea bags “Yellow Label Black Tea.” You couldn’t call them “Black Label Yellow Tea,” because, though you could make the labels whatever color you wish, there’s no such thing as yellow tea.

● Friday, 1-23-2026:   Recently, President Trump said, “Sometimes you need a dictator.” By which, of course, he meant himself. If a dictator is ever needed, the need would be for a wise, benevolent dictator. Trump is neither wise nor benevolent. He’s foolish and malevolent. We don’t need Trump. We need to get rid of Trump.

● Sunday, 1-25-2026:   Very few people, if any, reach the ideal. We take those who come closest to it and construe them as ideal.

● I just recovered from the latest backache. I suspended exercising for six days; this is the first day I resumed the full walking and stretching exercises.

● I just watched Alex Honnold free-solo climb a skyscraper in Tailand called Taipei 101 (a building with 101 floors). Free-climbing means he used no ropes or other safety equipment. My initial impression was that he was foolish and crazy to do something so dangerous—for an accomplishment that I find meaningless. But, on further thought, I understand it: If I had no noteworthy ability other than climbing; if I valued and prided myself on that ability; and if I were the world’s greatest climber, I’d risk my life to enhance my achievements and my fame in the sport. His climb was a stunning performance, an amazing feat of skill and athleticism.

● Monday, 1-26-2026:   The great majority of (legal) laws prohibit action rather than compel action. (“The law is loathe to impose affirmative duties.”) This may in part have to do with the fact that most people can do more harm than good.

● I again needed new walking shoes, because the velcro closures on my current ones have worn out. I went to Walmart first, but the same (or similar) shoes were expensive, and it felt as if the soles were too hard (no cushioning). I didn’t buy them. I then went to the Big-5 Sporting Goods store very near my home. I found shoes that seemed satisfactory; they were less expensive than the ones at Walmart (they were on sale); and a friendly sales person helped me (at Walmart, I had to help myself). So I bought the ones at Big-5.

● Wednesday, 1-28-2026:   I’m the gitta-getta-gotta-goosta, baby!

● Thursday, 1-29-2026:   The backache has returned. I have to suspend my exercising: walking, stretching, and the new gym training.

● I’m watching a television program called Monsters Inside: the 24 Faces of Billy Milligan, about the strange psychiatric case of Billy Milligan, aka the college rapist, who raped three college students in the same month during the 1970s. His defense lawyers claimed that he was not-guilty by reason of insanity, because he suffered from multiple personality disorder. Psychiatrists found that he had 24 distinct personalities, neither of which was aware of the others, or remembered the actions done by the others. But I’m skeptical. I think he put on an elaborate act to evade responsibility for his crimes. I would have liked to ask which personality committed the rapes. And it’s interesting that, whatever personality it was . . . it appeared frequently during that month . . ..

Let’s clarify, though. He did commit crimes, and he deserves punishment for them. What makes punishing him problematic (if we accept his insanity defense) is that he doesn’t remember committing the crimes.

But even if it’s determined that he’s not-guilty by reason of insanity, and so he should not be punished, he must be confined, to protect the public from his harmful behavior. The only question is whether his confinement should be in prison, or in a mental hospital. For the inmate, being in a mental hospital is probably better than being in prison. But confinement in a mental hospital is potentially longer than confinement in prison. For a sane person could theoretically learn the lesson and reform himself, and so be suitable for release. But a legally insane person, arguably, is not responsible for (has no control of) his offensive conduct, and so always remains dangerous to society, and hence must remain confined. And yet, if he’s ever deemed to have recovered from the insanity, but he still doesn’t remembers committing the crimes, he might be released. Or if he recovers and he remembers them, he might then be sentenced to prison . . . though the judge might give him credit for the “time served” in the mental hospital . . ..

● Monday, 2-2-2026:   I’m having a miserable, sleepless night; I have the slight stench of cigarette smoke in my bedroom. I don’t know where it’s coming from, since my front door is closed.

● One test of material well-being might be your amount of meaningful leisure—the ability (meaningfully) to pursue your primary interest. It’s not merely free time. Say that your interest is to write. If you’re unemployed and homeless, you have plenty of free time. But you may lack sufficient comfort, with the cold (or heat) and noise, and perhaps hunger, to concentrate on writing. You need a comfortable, quiet place to sit at a desk or table; a computer, or at least pen and paper; freedom from anxiety about imminently becoming homeless; a place to safely store your manuscripts; a way to get in touch with publishers; cultural knowledge, training in writing (which, for most people, requires formal education); and so on.

Maximal meaningful leisure is the point at which no additional money would enable a person to pursue his primary interest to any greater extent. He then has as much money as he needs, and should not be allowed to amass more of it.

Not all interests are legitimate. For example, the desire merely to amass wealth is a spurious interest, whose fulfillment should be severely limited. Or if your interest is to fly, but you want to fly—and own—a huge, billion-dollar jetliner, we may rightly tell you to choose a smaller, less expensive aircraft.

● Tuesday, 2-3-2026:   A few weeks ago, my gym coach recommended that I eat more. So, since then, I’ve added these food items: one egg at breakfast and one at dinner (I buy ready-to-eat hard-boiled eggs); a can of sardines at dinner; I’ve added chicken burritos to my mix of burritos at breakfast (before, it was just vegetarian burritos); and I now eat the chicken that comes in the salad that I eat at dinner (I was discarding it because I thought it was mostly fat; but I discovered that what I thought was fat was actually the chicken white meat).

● Wednesday, 2-4-2026:   I just finished going through my Journal to check for missing entries. According to my notes, the last time I did that, fairly recently, it took eight days. This time it took 21 days. I don’t know why it took so much longer this time. I found not a single missing entry. Which is reassuring. I didn’t want to start the next Journal read-through until I finished this procedure. So this break between read-throughs has been much longer than usual (21 days).

● I call Massachusetts “What’s-that-you-say.”

● Friday, 2-6-2026:   In the last few months, the deposition work from Lance has drastically declined. I get perhaps one a week, if I’m lucky. It’s not enough money to sustain me. I’ll have to start looking for work from other lawyers.

● Today, Trump posted online an image of former U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle (who are Black) as apes (probably chimpanzees or gorillas). The same presentation depicted Trump as a lion. That’s obviously offensive to the Obamas (and surely that was Trump’s intent). But wait . . . aren’t great apes are more intelligent than lions?? . . . It shows that Trump has a balanced mind: his nastiness is balanced by stupidity.

● Friday, 2-13-2026:   In deciding on a candidate to vote for in a political election, the question is not, which one you like, but which one you like more (or dislike less).

● Sunday, 2-15-2026:   Is the past real? . . . the future? Well, the past was real; the present is real; and the future will be real.

● Monday, 2-16-2026:   I watch a lot of “true crime” television programs, most of them involving murder trials. A common defense move is to have a friend or relative of the defendant (or even the defendant himself) testify that murder would have been out of character for him (the defendant), that he was not the kind of person who would have committed murder or harmed the deceased person—or anyone—in any way, or that he “loved his wife [the murder victim].” Such defensive protestations are almost irrelevant. You can get very angry with someone you love—angry enough to be tempted to kill her, angry enough that it requires self-restraint not to kill her. And in the great majority of cases, murder is an aberrant act; most persons convicted of murder have not murdered before, or even been accused of it before.

● Thursday, 2-19-2026 (1:30 a.m.):   I’m at my desk, writing on the computer. I got out of bed, because I couldn’t sleep. For the first time in almost twelve years (since April 2014), I’m having anxiety. And it’s caused by what my anxiety was always caused by: worrying about money. In the last few months, my income has fallen like a rock. I used to get at least three depositions a week. For the last few months, it’s fallen to one or two every two weeks. Which is not enough to sustain me. On Tuesday, I sent a work-solicitation letter to another lawyer’s office, but I haven’t heard from them, and they don’t answer their telephone (I get a recording, and I don’t want to leave a message). I’m loathe to invade my stock market account, but I may have to, to pay my income tax this year. I may also need to buy a new (used) car, because my car is failing the required smog test, and my mechanic seems unable to repair it.

● Friday, 2-20-2026:   If a passage in your writing doesn’t make sense to you, it probably won’t make sense to readers. . . . Sometimes when I reread an entry in my Journal, and it, or part of it, seems not to make sense, I hesitate to rewrite it because I think I may be just forgetting the sense it made, and that, the next time I read it, it will again seem to make sense. That’s of course possible. But it’s more likely simply that I’m now seeing it more clearly—seeing the bad logic or the clumsy articulation. Yet there may be another reason for leaving it alone: it may be so unclear that I can’t figure out what I meant; thus I can’t rewrite it. But I don’t delete it. Leaving it in, enables me to take another stab at it the next time I read it. Whereas, if I simply delete it, it’s gone forever: I’ll forget that anything was there that needed revision.

● Sunday, 2-22-2026:   A good society is one in which everyone is able to the greatest possible extent to pursue his interests. This would generally involve relative equality of wealth, and everyone’s having housing; healthcare; education; and leisure. . . . I heard a politician say that, ideally, everyone should have full-time work. No. A rich man doesn’t need work, and doesn’t want work. Ideally, everyone should have full-time leisure. Working (having a job, being employed) is, for most of us, a necessary evil. It’s desirable only as an alternative to poverty and homelessness.

● Monday, 2-23-2026:   In the previous entry, I talk about people’s pursuit of their interests. I say nothing about their pursuit of happiness. And yet, I’ve defined well-being as consisting in both of those elements: one’s interests and happiness. For convenience (and elegance), I say the one as a short-hand for both. That short-hand is defensible because our happiness is among our interests. And we directly pursue our (other) interests, but not happiness, which is a byproduct of other activities. Happiness cannot be attained by direct pursuit.

● Wednesday, 2-25-2026:   Haircut (Brenda). She’ll be away starting 6-21-2026.

● Thursday, 2-26-2026:   My car failed the legally-required smog test, and I’m having to drive it, using different gasoline, to try to get the engine to clear the problem. It’s an excuse to take frequent pleasure drives.

● Friday, 2-27-2026:   I repeated the smog-test on my car today, and again it failed. I then went to my mechanic, Miguel Morales, to discuss my options, in the course of which I mentioned that perhaps I should just buy another car. The timing was good, because Miguel’s son just bought a new car and was selling his old one: a 2006 Mercedes-Benz C 280, with 145,150 miles on it. Miguel says it’s very reliable, and needs no mechanical work. I drove it and it seemed to run well. So I bought it, for $3,500.00. I think it’s a good deal; I trust Miguel. I was prepared to pay—and feared that I’d have to pay—considerably more money for a decent car. My old Toyota Camry has 349,487 miles on it.

● Saturday, 2-28-2026:   Today I suspended exercising (walking and stretching) because of a backache.

● Monday, 3-2-2026:   If you commit suicide, you won’t regret it . . . unless you attempt it but fail, and instead grievously injure yourself, which you would regret . . . if you were still intact enough to understand it.

● Wednesday, 3-4-2026:   I donated my old Toyota Camry to the local left-wing radio station, KPFK. It was picked up this morning. Though I owned the car for seven and a half years, I didn’t cry or feel sad to be getting rid of it, as I did when I got rid of my previous car, the Cressida. Perhaps my lack of emotion this time was due to the fact that I was reminded of why I was replacing it: As the tow truck driver drove it a few hundred yards to the tow truck, it was badly smoking from the tailpipe. That problem was apparently unrepairable, and the car wouldn’t pass the legally required smog test.

● Thursday, 3-5-2026:   When I bought my new (used) Mercedes-Benz, Miguel (my mechanic, who sold it to me) said I’d need to replace the rear tires. It turns out all four tires needed to be replaced, and a related part was needed. That cost me about $1,900.00. On Tuesday, on my way to the tire shop, one of the rear tires ruptured and I had to put on the spare tire. Someone did it for me.

● Friday, 3-6-2026:   I have a theory about why I’ve been having so many more backaches in the last few months: When I have a deposition in the morning, I take no exercise-walk that day. I originally started doing two walks a day to compensate for being unable to do them every day. In the last few months, the depositions have practically stopped. So I was walking almost every day, but I still did two a day. Which became excessive. I’m going to return to doing just one a day, when I do it nearly every day.

● My new (used) Mercedes-Benz is probably the best car I’ve ever owned. That’s saying something because I thought my last two cars, the Toyota Cressida and the Toyota Camry, especially the Cressida, were good cars.

● Monday, 3-9-2026:   I have a backache. So much for the excessive-exercise theory (see the 3-6-2026 entry, above). By the way, when I say I have a backache, I don’t mean that the rest of the time I’m pain-free. I mean just that the usual, chronic discomfort has gotten bad enough to prevent my exercising.

● I just took my first pleasure drive in my new (used) Mercedes, the truncated Camarillo drive. The car performed beautifully.

● Friday, 3-13-2026:   I just awoke from this dream: I was at a sort of camp, whose members had an apparatus on the front of their cars that could measure air pollution, or a certain aspect of air pollution. Later in the dream, I was skeptical about the efficacy of this apparatus because it seemed that the chemical agents in it were wrapped in plastic and not exposed to the air. Anyway, at the end of the dream I had performed a test, and wanted to let the world know the results. But leaving the camp was somehow difficult, or impossible. The testing apparatus had a recently added means to communicate test results: something like having a drone aircraft fly them to another city. I was unsure how to operate the drone, but I pressed the button to start the flight, thinking that it might work, and that even a small chance was better than none. I came to regret doing it, because it probably didn’t work, and now the test results would be lost. I thought I should have learned how to operate the drone before making the attempt. The following morning I saw a poster with a record of the drone’s flight. It gave an initial airline flight, and a transfer to a second one. I was showing the poster to someone else at the camp, and thinking that, to retrieve my test results, I’d have to search on the ground all along the path of those airline flights. I interpret the dream, again, as an expression of my concern about my writing. Skepticism about the test’s efficacy may reflect my doubts about my writing’s quality, given my lack of experience in living. The worry about the operation of the drone perhaps expresses my worry about how to leave my writing to the world so that it won’t be lost when I die.

● I’ve been watching a new television program called Blue Therapy, which is relationship therapy for romantic couples. Watching it gave me an insight into myself and my life. One reason why I’ve had bad experiences with the few interpersonal relationships I’ve had is that I seem unable to achieve a proper balance between my individual life and self versus the relationship. I tend to get excessively merged in, consumed by, the relationship, to the point where I lose my self. For that reason, and because I feel no need now for a relationship (whether friendship or romantic), and because I have a satisfying life alone (I’m absorbed in my writing), I no longer seek relationships. In fact, I wonder whether my unhealthy relationship with friend-foe Art B wasn’t an element in causing my depersonalization / derealization, which condition could be described as losing my self.

● Sunday, 3-15-2026:   This morning when I got gas, I paid the attendant $22.00: a twenty-dollar bill and a two-dollar bill. I used the two-dollar bill because it was a little worn, not one of my many pristine ones. So I got rid of it by spending it other than giving it to the manicurist as a tip. When I went back into the store to get my change, the customer in front of me, apparently having just gotten his change, delightedly exclaimed, smiling: “Hey: a two-dollar bill! Lucky!” I was tickled, knowing I was responsible for making someone happy, if just momentarily (obviously, the bill was the one I introduced). . . . It made me happy, too. . . . Such a small gesture could have such a big effect.

● Tuesday, 3-17-2026:   I’ve just finished the latest read-through of my Journal. My reaction to the approximate last half of the piece is that there are scattered oases of brilliance within a wasteland. Being in an oasis is delightful. But leaving it and traveling again in the wasteland, replaces the delight with disappointment. I must finally accept the realization I so long tried to avoid: that the pedestrian material ruins the good effect of the exceptional material. I felt good about having so much content—the Journal is nearly 800 pages long. But just the exceptional entries can reasonably be counted. Otherwise, it’s like telling yourself that you have a million dollars when most of it is play money. Several times I’ve said, half jokingly, that I couldn’t delete the weaker parts, because, if I did, the Journal would be much shorter! Well, so be it: better short and brilliant than long and tedious. In The Elements of Editing, Arthur Plotnik writes that editors edit “to let the fire show through the smoke.” That’s a good description. As hard as it will be, I must delete much of the commonplace material. If I don’t delete it, publishers will—and rightfully so. I’d rather do it than have them do it.

● Thursday, 3-19-2026:   Having finally decided that I must do major surgery on my Journal, to remove as many less interesting, less important entries as I can bring myself to remove, I’ve decided on this method of editing: Instead of deleting entries, I’ll leave them in, and just make a mark (perhaps an extra dot at the beginning) by ones tentatively to be removed. That way, I can see them all, and their status, and continually adjust it, including bringing back rejected ones about which I change my mind. Later, I’ll make a separate document in which those marked entries are actually deleted. I can then reread that new document to try to gauge the Journal’s effectiveness after the “surgery.” Any changes I make to material that’s retained, I’ll make both to the earlier, more inclusive document and to the new one. To reinstate a deleted entry, I’ll unmark it in the first document, and copy it back into the second. (I can occasionally reread the full version.) To delete yet a further entry, I’ll mark it in the first and actually delete it in the second.

● Saturday, 3-21-2026:   We were in a heat wave last week; for the first time since the Summer, I had to keep my front door open at night, to cool the apartment. Last night, I opened the door earlier than usual, at about 7:00 p.m., when I went to bed. For an hour’s time, the cigarette smoke smell in my bedroom was more intense, continuously, than I’d ever before experienced it. When I got up again at 8:00 p.m., to use the restroom, there was no smoke odor near my front door. I’d always thought that, because I smelled the smoke in my bedroom just when my front door was left open, the source of the smoke was the common area of the apartment complex, with which my front door communicates. Last night’s experience, I think, shows that I was wrong. I think the source is people smoking on the sidewalk just outside my bedroom window. The smoke may be getting in through cracks in or around the air conditioner, which is set in my bedroom wall—part of it is in my bedroom; the other part protrudes outside, toward the sidewalk. The reason why I usually get the smoke smell in my bedroom just when the front door is left open is, not that it’s coming in through the front door, but rather that the front door being open allows the air in the house to move out through the front door, so that air from the opposite side of the house, by the sidewalk, is drawn in. It was worse on this occasion because it was earlier: the later it gets, past 8:00 p.m., when it starts to get dark out, the fewer people are awake, and outside, smoking.

● Sunday, 3-22-2026:   Philosophy Club meeting, by Zoom. Topic: “When should ideas and other intangibles be eligible for ownership?” There are three traditional arguments for intellectual property rights: One, utilitarian: by giving creators certain rights to the fruits of their creations, we encourage creative productivity, which benefits the community. Two, personality-based: we own ourselves, including our talents, and the fruits of our talents: the works we create and the profit they yield. Three, Lockean (I don’t quite grasp how this differs from the second justification, the personality-based one). I see some truth in both arguments; and for me they lead to an intuition in favor of intellectual property rights, at least in the context of our present society.

Discussions of the concept of intellectual property rights assume a free enterprise societal framework or context. Whether we would have those rights in a socialistic society, and if so what form they would take, I don’t know. Under present social conditions (free enterprise), however, intellectual property rights are messy and problematic; but they may be the best we can do, and are better than nothing.

In the meeting, someone said she opposed copyright protection because an artist is motivated to do art by fame, rather than profit. I replied that I agreed that, for most artists, fame is a stronger motivation than profit, but that copyright protection might nonetheless stimulate artistic productivity, not by enhancing an artist’s motivation to do art, but by enabling him to do it. He may have done art just in his spare time, but with the money from his first popular work, protected by copyright, he could pursue art full time.

● Thursday, 3-26-2026:   When Trump says “America first,” he means Trump and his rich associates first (and the rest of the country be damned).

● Wednesday, 4-1-2026:   It’s 2:00 a.m. I can’t sleep (insomnia), because of worry and anxiety. Troubles have piled up. My Internet and email service are essential to do the work I need to do, like sending letters to attorneys who might hire me to handle their depositions. My Internet and email have been down for six days in a row. The month before, they were down for three days. I’m finally fed up. My Internet provider, Earthlink, is too unreliable; I’ll have to shop around for a new provider. I’m constantly pummeled in my war with neighbors. My car is in the repair shop; apparently, Miguel can’t fix a certain problem, which will be a significant handicap. In the larger scheme of things, these difficulties are minor, fleeting. And the remedy is the same as always: work, fight!

● Human inhabitants of Liverpool, England, are called Liverpudlians. Canine inhabitants of Liverpool are called Liverpoodles.

● My Internet and email are back up. Hallelujah! Being without them for a week was hard, painful. Coincidentally, my landline telephone is also connected again. Like many things, you more fully appreciate them when they’re gone.

● Friday, 4-3-2026:   I’m going to start another Journal read-through today. I’ll do it slowly, interspersing it with my search for (paid) work.

● Tuesday, 4-7-2026:   “Reducing governmental regulation” tends to benefit the rich and to hurt the rest, because the regulations restrict how the rich make money, in order to protect everyone else, like restrictions on environmental pollution, or on dangerous working conditions for factory workers.

● I’m watching a program about chess. One player, the world chess champion, Magnus Carlson, was described as the Mozart of chess. I think not: A computer can beat any man at chess; but a computer cannot compose music as good as Mozart’s—let alone better.

● Wednesday, 4-8-2026:   The deposition work has stopped. And I’ve discovered why: Lance and Susan Garrett are retiring, and they’ve sold their law practice. In the last few weeks, I’ve been sending out my work-solicitation letters (for depositions) to lawyers. I found one who’s going to try my services; I have one deposition next week, and another one the week after. They’re by Zoom, which I hate. I’ll keep sending out letters.

● I’ve maintained that morality, our choice of moral precepts, is subjective, nonrational. I may have discovered a problem with that idea. Consider a choice between these two precepts: One, utilitarianism, which advocates maximizing happiness; and, two, a fanciful doctrine we’ll call “anti-utilitarianism,” which advocates maximizing unhappiness. I’ve also maintained that happiness is the one and only thing that’s necessarily good for us, and unhappiness the one and only thing that’s necessarily bad for us. Given that, how could it be that utilitarianism is not necessarily—objectively, rationally—preferable to “anti-utilitarianism”?

● Truncated Camarillo drive. Refreshing.

● Now, let’s see. How to resolve that moral objectivity/subjectivity problem. . . . Morality addresses how we should live, in relation to one another. Since no one wants unhappiness, and everyone wants to avoid it, a doctrine advocating attaining it is not a real moral doctrine. The choice among real moral doctrines is subjective.

● Thursday, 4-16-2026:   Nostalgia is remembering good feelings you had at an earlier time and forgetting the bad. Or perhaps you’re not remembering feelings, but remembering certain events, with a new feeling, the feeling of bittersweet longing.

● Sunday, 4-19-2026:   The aromatic bush has bloomed.

● Philosophy Club meeting. Topic: “Is reliance on faith a detriment or a benefit?” My first impression: Faith is good for a person to the extent that it brings him comfort. But that comfort may be a double-edged sword. The comforting thought that they’ll have eternal bliss in Heaven after they die may lull people into not acting to end oppressive and miserable conditions, into not improving their lives. Likewise negative, in politics, religion is a superfluous element that doesn’t indicate any certain outcomes, but enables the ill-intentioned to confuse and manipulate the people, blunting their common sense and clear thought. Religion has been good for me, because it’s given me the raw material for some of my best writing, in arguing against religion. Whether the net effect on the world is good or bad, I don’t know.

● Tuesday, 4-21-2026:   I sent this email message to Bruno Tabbi, Jr.:

I’ve always believed that my most advantageous form of payment for 1-800-SUE-THEM would be percentages of attorney fees on cases obtained by the number. If the number is used by a big law firm with a big advertising budget, even a small percentage of the attorney fees could amount to a lot of money. As an attorney, I can legally share fees with other lawyers (as could you if your law license is active). . . . The number would also be perfect for a plaintiff lawyer-referral service . . . Just some thoughts for your consideration . . ..

Bruno replied, saying that he agreed with me about fee-sharing, and confirming that his law license is active.

● Wednesday, 4-22-2026:   COVID-19 booster vaccination.

● Thursday, 4-23-2026:   I feel as if I’ve dodged a bullet, in having only minimal side-effects from yesterday’s COVID-19 vaccination.

● Friday, 4-24-2026:   Full Camarillo drive.

● Saturday, 4-25-2026:   I’ve reached a milestone in editing my Journal: For the first time, I’m deleting a significant number of entries. Yesterday, my review of the piece got to what I’ve called the wasteland section (roughly 2014 to 2020). In the morning I reviewed about a year’s worth of material, starting at 2-2-2014. I deleted nothing, though I sensed that much of it should have been deleted. I took a break by going on my Camarillo drive. I determined to go through that material again and to eliminate some of it. When I returned home a few hours later, I went through it again and, for the first time, made many deletions. It’s easier to do, the way I’m doing it: not to actually delete items, but merely to mark them for deletion. The entries are still there, and I can change my mind about them.

● Monday, 4-27-2026:   I just had a nightmare in which I was drafted to fight for Russia in its war against Ukraine. I hoped they’d pass me over, because I had, or at least I told them I had, COVID-19. The military recruiter asked me what house chores I did today. I told him I let the dog out, to suggest that I was truly handicapped, in being restricted to light duties. But he replied: “ . . . because the dog needed to be let out, right?” I expected his further retort: “Well, we have some military activities in Ukraine that need to get done.” He didn’t speak further, but I thought I would imminently be sent to the front. I was in a panic to think of how to evade it, when I woke up. . . . Well, I see my subconscious mind is up to date on world affairs.

● Tuesday, 4-28-2026:   I read an article that said the use of AI at work is causing workers increased mental fatigue. This is because AI automates routine tasks, which forces workers to spend more of their time on higher-level tasks. In other words, they have to do more thinking, which is harder work. The article noted, too, that creativity and innovation are greatest when the brain is rested, and free to wander. My own experience bears that out. I did less creative writing when I worked for Scott Warmuth as his workers’ compensation attorney (the part of my Journal I’ve called the wasteland, roughly 2014 – 2020, corresponds to my time in that job). An important reason for it is that, in addition to depositions, I was handling trials, which demand far more prolonged, hard thinking than depositions. With a trial, you’re constantly thinking of how to argue the case, including how to express it on paper (writing the trial brief). It’s why handling depositions, which I’ve done since leaving Scott Warmuth’s employ, has been perfect for me. The work is not only part-time, but it’s fairly routine; I don’t have to think much. What thinking there is consists in a few short bursts; then it’s over. For a creative writer, even worse than a menial job, is a thinking job. Not only is the person working full-time, but, worse, his brain is working full-time—on job tasks, leaving few mental resources available for his writing. If a menial job is worse than a thinking job, it’s because it’s low-paying, and so a person must spend more time working, to get enough money to survive. A problem for me is that, even if I did trials part-time, conscientiousness and pride would impel me to spend all my otherwise free time working out the trial arguments. Mentally, it would still be a full-time job.

● Wednesday, 4-29-2026:   I just awoke from a dream. In it, the King of England and many important political people were gathered to make two momentous agreements on world affairs. I was the writer; I’d reduced the agreements to writing for the group. They’d signed the first agreement, and were waiting to sign the second. I was very proud of my role as the writer. It was near the end of this magnificent day, when my attention was drawn to the aftermath of a criminal trial in which I was the defendant. I had been accused of psychologically mistreating students as their teacher. The jury was deliberating. I demanded to know in detail what I’d been accused of, and what the evidence was. It was being explained to me. I ridiculed the information, exclaiming, in effect: “That proves nothing! I may have been untactful, or unpleasant. But it’s not a crime!” It struck me as ironic and unfair how I could do such great work (writing the treaties) and yet be accused of crimes over such trivial misdeeds. Like the dream yesterday, this one took an element from the actual news; for this one, it was yesterday’s visit to the United States by the King of England.

● Sunday, 5-3-2026:   I just had a dream in which I was trying to collect a debt from my old teenage friend-foe Art B. It was the present time, and we were, of course, much older. He was a lawyer, perhaps a disbarred lawyer. I was meeting with the lawyer who took over his practice, or at least his office space. But he knew about Art’s history. I asked him whether Art had made any money as a lawyer. He told me he’d made a lot of money, that he’s sold thousands of insurance policies. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to come up with a legal theory for my case against him. At the end of the dream, I was walking around outside of that office, in and around various nearby office buildings. I was trying to find a place to urinate. But I was frustrated in my attempt, because whenever I’d get to a place where I thought I might be able to do it, one or more persons appeared. I was in that part of the dream when I woke up.

● Monday, 5-4-2026:   Last night the neighbor in no. 1 attempted to wake me from sleep. He makes the attempt infrequently, and it won’t happen again soon; I successfully discourage it by convincingly pretending to remain asleep. His resorting to the hostile neighbor’s last resort is good news to me: it means that my defense against his other attacks on me and my sub silentio attacks on him, are effective.

● Thursday, 5-7-2026:   There’s a thin line between opportunity and coercion. If someone is given an opportunity in a certain field of activity, he has an opportunity but he’s also constrained to act in that field.

● Saturday, 5-9-2026:   I dreamed that I was immersed in an author’s narration of his life, an ongoing saga. But then it suddenly stopped, and I felt bereft. I was thinking that what caused the author to stop his narration was not good reason for stopping, and I was trying to think how someone else might continue it for him, or even how I might do so myself. Another scene I remember was going to a sort of fortune teller who analyzed my creativity. She gave me two sets of three numbers, some of which matched each other. I was interested in her interpretation, and was somewhat gratified when she said she liked those numbers. I’m coming to the end of my latest read-through of my Journal. I’ve had a sense that I’ve lately made fewer than usual new entries in my Diary. The dream perhaps reflects my concern about my continuing creative productivity.

I had a sequel to the dream when I returned to bed. I was in a group of painters. The dream was set at a restaurant; painters were sitting at tables; it looked like customers eating meals, but it was painters painting. I felt bad that I didn’t know how to paint, and was determined to fight my emotional resistance to practicing painting; I hoped to learn how, simply by doing it. At the end of the dream, I was searching for a little prescription container in which the painters mixed their paint.

● I just awoke from a dream. I was in late college or graduate school, and soon to graduate and start a professional career. I was in a quandary over what to study and to choose as my career. I had been studying law, but turned it down as a career because I found it tedious. Instead, I chose the kind of work involved in the last class I happened to take: studying bird biology. In the last scene in the dream, I was meeting with the professor—alone (it was so late in the school year that she was meeting with me specially, not as part of a regularly scheduled class)—and I was explaining to her my decision about this. At one point in my explanation, I was showing her a scene of a hypothetical legal case, a traffic collision. I said something like, “I find it so boring that I couldn’t even remember the color of the sky, and we both, unsuccessfully, tried to remember the color of the sky. Then the scene zoomed in on the cars involved in the massive gridlock/collision. There were many newish luxury cars; one was a new, white Rolls Royce. I think it was somehow a reference to the potential lucrativeness of a legal career, wealth that I somehow missed. But my point was that law was out of the question because I hated the work. This dream came just a few hours after I added a note in this Journal to an entry of 1-26-2001, wherein I express an insight about the difference between humans and lower animals (and which note I thought was especially good). I interpret the study of bird biology as symbolizing my desire to write: when I write, I fly. . . .