A couple of days ago, I beat Craig at chess. I think this is the first time. He’s much better than I am. I used to be surprisingly good at it.

The first time I learned the game I was age 19. I had started dating a guy in one of my classes at UCLA. The class was Ancient Greek. This guy was majoring in Ancient Languages. I was satisfying a credit for a third language required for philosophy majors. I was attracted to this guy because he was mild mannered. He lived alone in an off-campus apartment and drove a motorcycle.

One night at his place he taught me how to play chess. This is how he taught me: He told me the names of the pieces and the rules for moving them across the board. Then he told me to move. What? I had no strategy at all. You can’t teach a didactic person like me by letting me learn by trial and error. I learned nothing and did not try to improve.

Later, when I was about 26 years old, I took a course in the psychology department called “The Psychology of Chess.” I think the teacher’s name was Batchelder. What a class! I don’t know how much psychology was in it, but learning strategy of the game was fantastic. I learned how to trade for advantage, how to sacrifice pieces, and techniques I had never expected.

By the end of that class I was as good as any player there. There was one guy I played with regularly. Too regular. He was developing strong feelings for me, and I had to cut it short, because for one thing, he was married.

I played fairly often for several years, but I left it alone for the past thirty or forty years and I got way weaker.

One of the reasons I wanted to hang out with H. was because I wanted someone to play with. At that time Craig beat me every time. H. said he knew how to play but he was rusty. The first time I played him, I beat him with a Fool’s Mate, which I had just learned from Craig. The next couple times we played, H. would pretend to not know the better move. So sometimes I would suggest a possible move for H. Oh, he picked up pretty quick and he started beating me two out of three times. I realized this “helping” was distracting my own performance.

The chess games petered out as we got more and more involved in our arguments about politics.

So I just recently read a short story called “The Royal Game” by Stefan Zweig. It grabbed my interest to the end. Remember I rarely read fiction any more. But this story kept my interest to the end. It’s about a man on an ocean liner probably during the 1950’s or 1960’s. He becomes aware that there is a chess master on board. A match is arranged between the master and another rich Scottish man. During the game, a man reaches over and grabs the wrist of the Scottish man. He says to him not to make that move. The man tells him it’s a trap; the next six or seven moves will lead to the Scottish man losing. The men surrounding the players watch until the chess master declared “Draw.”

The author finds out later the background of the man who grabbed the wrist of the Scot’s man. This passenger had a long story of his background in Austria. He had been quite well-off, until the Getapo arrested him. They had tortured him for about a year in solitary confinement. He stole a small book from the pocket of one of the guards with which he managed to fight off the solitary madness.

The author describes the personalities of the chess master, the Scot, and the Austrian. I thought the story pulled me in.

Bye for now…

Still reading book by Hunter Biden’s wife of over 20 years. Much more authentic than his own book. Good story about living with an addict. Also all the secrets. In A.A. I learned a saying: You’re as sick as your secrets. The first time I heard that phrase I was all-in with my own addiction. I knew I couldn’t use pure will-power or grit or any other right wing pull yourself up by your own bootstraps advice. I made a vow to stop lying as much as possible. n

I began to explore the use of lies in everyday communication. I noticed how lawyers seem as if they took a college course in lying, avoiding lies, and the nature of lies. I learner there are many forms of lies. One is lying by omission. You can lie by sarcasm or humor, and there are other categories.

But the best way to avoid lying is to shut up. I watch these cops who feel free to lie to a suspect but go crazy if the suspect lies. I wonder why people who are arrested try to talk their way out of if when their best strategy is to ask for a lawyer.

Anyway, as a methadonian I don’t have to be deceitful so much. But try to tell that to some counselors, like the cops just put you in the liar category. So now, with my current counselor I can take the moral high ground, as she is the only one lying in our dispute. That’s OK though, because I still dig my counselor. So I’m not going to hold this dispute against her. She’s still for real enough. She didn’t go all robot on me.

Also, since D.D. came on the scene I have been astounded how people don’t even hear the falsehoods. Also, his intelligence has to be in the moron or imbecile category. I used to give I.Q. tests in the 1970’s. I still have some in my filing cabinet. My friends an acquaintances at the time were generous enough to let me practice on them. You know who you are Pat, Kel, Bart, etc.

So, yeah, D.D. could not pass a standard intelligence test, SAT, or ACT. If you think he could, I would wonder about your ability to pass any test. Forget Woman, Man, Camera, TV…..

Signing off…;

Superpowers.

It just occurred to me that Double Downer might actually have a superpower. He doesn’t text. He may be completely illiterate. I doubt if he writes the Twitter feeds alone. My friends are always encouraging me to text, which I never got in the habit of, because I don’t understand something that seems more work than actually speaking.

All the flunkies around D.D. are having their texts scrutinized now by the D.O.J. Rudy, Mark Meadows, etc. But where are the texts from D.D.? I know he has been compared to a mob boss. But I’m wonder about his reading and writing skills.

I’ve been reading a good book called All the Frequent Troubles of Our Day about an American woman who was beheaded by Hitler. It provides an excellent history of Hitler’s rise to power. It’s more like reading current events when you compare it to the rise of D.D. You know the Weimar Republic allowed free speech. Then Goebbels was put in charge of media.

I was not very good in history: too many dates, too far away, but I really get off on it now. I dig journalism, history.

Saw an interesting movie: Body Brokers, with Michael K. Williams. Usually Craig can predict the plot, but there was a slight twist in the middle of the movie, involving the doctor. I would expect the cops to be the villain, but not here.

Also I was reading a book by Bill Nye the science guy. He talks about the four freedoms mentioned in FDR’s speech: freedom of speech, religion. But also freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Compare that eloquence to Republicans who shout freedom all over the place. Deep thinkers.

One of my oldest friends was surprised by how much counseling I get at the methadone clinic I’m at now, Aegis. Well, I do adore my main counselor. I also like my substitute counselors. I get once a week phone counseling, and then Kaiser throws in two or three sessions a quarter. So it seems like I get to yak about myself a lot.

Because I haven’t use heron since I moved to the L.A. area, I don’t feel the need for counseling with using hard drugs. But one of the best parts of counseling is I try to make use of feedback from my counselors.

I have gotten along with all of my counselors, except for one, the one I call the Queen of Mean. That happened at Venice Clinic, and it was very confusing and even traumatic for me. Soon I’ll write about the whole story. but it is complicated.

Bye for now…

Who is the easiest person to fool?

Here’s a riddle for you. I’ll give answer on my next post.

Every time I see a Republican on the news, I think of H. When Double Downer (Trump) first got elected, I was so shocked by the lies put out by Republicans. Of course, like many people H.’s standard response was, “Everybody lies.” I’m not sure this is true. There are many types of lies, of course. There are lies of omission. There are lies that look as if they are true, until you investigate further. And intention also has a lot to do with it. There are people who just repeat stuff whether they know it’s true or not.

But D.D. seemed to be a pathological liar. Then you would turn to FOX where people who should have known better back up his lies. I challenged H. to come up with a lie from the Democrat side. I’ll never forget his answer; the next time we met, H. said, “Nancy Pelosi said she plans to/wants to…” I cut him off. I said, That’s not a fact. That’s an opinion.” H. said, “What’s a fact?” By answering that question, I lost H.’s attention. We let the subject drop. A couple of weeks later H. came up with a similar example, something about someone being a communist. Again there was no evidence of a statement of fact.

After about a year, H. came up with Obama’s claim that you could keep your doctor under Obamacare. My answer was the same as the one I used three or four years before: you could probably keep your doctor if you were willing to pay him. There was no law against that.

I briefly heard the governor of Texas quote some statistics about how there were more shootings in Illinois, California, and New York? than compared to the school shooting recently. Comparing apples and oranges is a good way to confuse people. Was he talking about shootings per 100,000, school shootings, or what?

I’m pretty good at spotting the right-wing’s phony stats because in graduate school I took two semesters of statistics. Most college graduates only take one semester.

O.K. kids, see you next time…

A lot has happened in the last few months since I attacked Fox News cultists.

Mainly, I have changed to a different methadone clinic. I had been at the last clinic for over 20 years. In the past I have changed four times. Each little gathering place has its own atmosphere. Generally that is a Nazi atmosphere. A lot of counselors realize they have a teeny bit of power of us lowlifes.

So I was a little nervous about changing to this new clinic in Ingleweird. The first day I went in, it felt like I was being interviewed for a job. The doctor asked me how my teeth were. He seemed satisfied that I had had implants.

The head counselor and I started out by butting heads. When I walked into her office there was a desk. On one side of the desk was a chair, and on the other side were three chairs. I started to sit down in the one chair, and the counselor, C., said, “Oh, are you going to sit in my chair?” I was so confused by the desk arrangement at first. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t see very well.” There were a couple other kerfuffles, but by the time I got to know this woman I was so impressed with her credentials, I told her, “Let me just slink out of here.” She had a Ph.D. and a lot of other very impressive stuff. She showed me some pictures on her phone. One was of her snow skiing.

The last counselor I had was a fraud: the one I call the Queen of Mean. She had told me she had a Master’s from USC. But after I got to know her, I realized she hadn’t passed fifth grade arithmetic. I also realized she was out of touch with reality.

There is another office worker there who exudes confidence and efficiency. The doctor is the only scary one. He had been pushing this office worker to hurry up. I had to comment: “She’s a machine!” I don’t think he got it.

There are still hoops to jump through, but I feel more relaxed now.

The past three months I have been limping around with a walker. I broke a bone in my pelvic area. It healed on its own, because by the time I got to a doctor I had healed.

Until next time…

It’ been a while

Reading John Karl,s book on the lead-up to the big lie. I keep asking myself, Who are therse people who act like these Trumpsters? Who are these people who think they are so superior? Who think they can do whatever they want, other people be damned? Who are so ME, ME, ME. This book reads like a thriller. And I stand by my opinion that Double Downer is the dumbest individual in the world. He doesn’t speak before he thinks, he abuses and misuses the idea of loyalty which he values so much. Do his voters need a leader so bad that they are incapable of critical thinking? His glorification of fight, fight, fight, and win, win, win is not the way to be in a society of people. Win at any cost? If that is the way you are, I prefer to avoid you.

It’s so much fun to watch Fox News. Now they have their panties in a twist over the woman on Venice Beach who threw an egg (and missed) at Larry Elder. Since these people in their groupthink have agreed that she must be racist because Elder is black. Hasn’t anyone taken a class in psychology?

Attribution theory is one of the earliest studies in social psychology. To what do you attribute the motivation of another person? What causes a person’s behavior? The person who is trying to guess the motive is usually colored by their own thoughts an experience. There is a lot of research about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motives. So you can wonder about the Venice woman. Does she detest black people? Does she despise his silly policies? Does she think he is a blowhard? Is she tired of the deluge of lies from the Repubs?

So it would be nice to know the motives of a person before you judge her in your knee-jerk manner. Venice girl is in my neighborhood. I hope I know her personally.

Again, define yourselves when you say racist. I believe we are all prejudiced, can’t help it. We can fight against it by having an open mind. Getting back to H., he believes having an open mind is a bad thing. He will grip onto an idea he learned in 1960 and never let go.

One of the last times I spoke to him I asked if he wanted a free subscription to Time magazine. No. Was it too left wing? He didn’t really know. I asked him to do an informal survey of people in conversation: “Do you think Time is left wing?” He never did, because he would rather grip his own ideas to the death, and how dare anyone try to change them. Probably more likely is H.’s avoidance of the written word. He acts like he can’t read. But I asked him to read a couple sentences in front of me. So I still don’t get it.

Back to Larry Elder incident, Craig says these people need a mirror: so quick to accuse while afraid to look at their own selves. Hey, this works for both sides of the aisle, too. But the best way to avoid these human defense Freudian defense mechanisms (projection) is to be aware of them.

Off for now…

Phone call with H.

Recently called H. Hadn’t talked to him for at least 5 months. He tries to avoid me by not answering his phone. This is his way of being polite: avoidance; I call it hiding. Anyway , briefly the discussion was about how much he HATES Biden. My response was that Biden does not lie. He’s articulate, even eloquent, etc. Well, I had already gone through 8 years or H. calling Obama a communist.

So there is nothing new in the mind of H. He is still stuck in the 1950’s with his fear of communism. In addition, he asked if he could sue me. He sees me as a cash register for the many times I had previously been generous with him financially. This hurt my feelings, since I’ve been through this scenario before with Brosette, recently, until Brosette committed suicide. And previously with my ex-husband.

I don’t know where these people get the idea that I have enough money to waste their time suing me. Or even what grounds they would base a lawsuit on. But in posts to come I will go into more detail about the little scams H. has tried to run on me…