Diary

As in most years, I don't feel much like reading in the spring. My little tomato bed is ready for planting, and my three tomato plants are getting large inside. I am not a compulsive gardener, and I limit myself to tomatoes because they are my favorite vegetable, and you can rarely buy good ones at a grocery store. I currently have extra space in the bed but can't be bothered to grow something else. My food expenditures are fairly low, so I don't care about saving money. I do enjoy the yard though, and, fortunately, it is fairly low-maintenance. In some ways, it is the life work of the previous owner. She is a small lady of Italian ancestry who grew up on Long Island near the Atlantic Ocean. She had moved here with her husband in 1983. When they got divorced in about 2000, the seventeen-acre property was broken up into three lots. The house had been located in the back yard and was moved to this location through the woods and placed on a new foundation. An addition was made and was followed by a new front porch. After the concrete foundation was poured, she scraped her initials and the year 2000 in the floor. So the whole thing was sort of an art project to her from the beginning. She did a good job with the layout of the perennials and the trees, so the yard is easy to maintain. Her choices of plant species weren't bad either. Prior to 2000, this was solid new-growth woods. Of the twenty-three years that she lived here, she may have had a boyfriend or two but spent most of her time alone at the house. She is now eighty-three and lives in a senior living facility in Peabody, Massachusetts, near her daughter.

Although I'm not currently reading a book, I still have my flow of magazines, which includes Scientific American, Sky and Telescope, London Review of Books and Times Literary Supplement. I don't usually read them thoroughly but look for articles that may interest me. Scientific American has made editorial improvements recently and is now more interesting than it has been in many years. Sky and Telescope includes news for stargazers plus new research findings in astronomy. London Review of Books, I think, has the highest quality book reviews in English. The problem is that I'm not that interested in literary matters. However, I occasionally find astoundingly well-written reviews that are a pleasure to read in themselves. Times Literary Supplement has many short articles on a variety of topics, but leans toward literary subjects. As you can see from my selections, I prefer the U.S. for science and the U.K. for arts. If I were more proficient in French, I might also like some French publications in the arts. Needless to say, for me, the arts in the U.S. are hardly worth considering. This is more apparent than ever now, with people like Donald Trump setting the standards. Trump is even more impaired aesthetically than he is as an executive. The U.S. had tried for centuries to catch up with Europe in the arts, and now it seems to have given up, and aesthetic mediocrity is trending. Unfortunately, this has filtered deeply into the American arts ecosystems. In the U.S., presidents have a disproportionate effect on social norms while they are in office. I think that Obama popularized the word "folks" as a replacement for "people." Trump has popularized "deal" as a replacement for "agreement" or "treaty." Generally, Trump represents stunningly low moral, intellectual and aesthetic standards.

Because I was forced on short notice to move in 2023, the distribution of my assets has changed considerably. Fortunately, the house has increased in value since then, and my stock investments have also risen in value. If the U.S. economy and the political system here stay the same, I should be able to remain at my current location as long as I like and gradually increase my wealth. However, with climate change, AI and political instability potentially looming, I don't think that I can confidently predict what the situation will be beyond ten years from now. Certainly, the current functionality of the U.S. government and the continuing use of obsolete economic models do not inspire much confidence. But I'm not a doomsday prepper, and that may not be necessary. In any case, I will be better-positioned than most people regardless of what happens.