Consequences?

• I wonder if my fits of pique will somehow have consequences for me. These fits include these blog entries and my reactions to local driver habits. Will they result in me being deported or being stuck in a prison? Friday morning, after a bout of middle-fingering (that I wrote about in my previous entry), I came to the entrance of the Casa Kaulins apartment complex. I had to make a right turn to get to the entrance gate. A habit that the locals have that really annoys me is how they "prematurely lead" their left turns. That is they will impatiently turn in the way of oncoming traffic, instead of sticking to their proper lane and then actually turning when they, by all reason, should. This Friday, as I was making a right turn, a driver exiting the apartment complex made one of these premature left turns so that he was encroaching on my right turn space. This raised my ire and so I made a point of blocking him. I then slowly turned in front of him getting close enough to hopefully annoy him even more. My ire had already been raised by having been cut off three times earlier, I stared directly at his face. I saw that he was middle-aged, wore glasses and looked like a management type. He was probably a real piece of work – the kind that exists in a corrupt society. He seemed to be glaring at me. I mouthed something about why he didn't he learn how to drive. I wonder if he will remember me. (I am sure that there are numerous locals who probably have an anecdote they tell their "friends" about this foreigner who was "rude" to them. That foreigner being me.)

• Later in the day, the incident slips my mind. I watch and read and do other stuff.

• Tony is telling me he hates Trump and that he thinks that Trump wants to invade China. Who is telling you this crap? I ask him. Everybody else in China. I instruct Tony to be skeptical of everything he hears and to keep an open mind. And why would you support the guys who don't want you to have your Youtube? I ask him.

• I don't want to talk to any Chinese and I don't want to talk to most foreigners. I am so angry at the world right now.

• No prominent world leader has has looked good during this "crisis." The one I had placed my hopes on: Trump has been disappointing, but still he has been the best of the bunch, which is not saying much. Particularly bad have been the Michigan governor, the mayor of New York City, the governor of California, Boris Johnson, and every other Western leader, save the Swedes. Who have been the good guys in this? The ones that pop to my mind have been Peter Hitchens and my favorite blogger David Warren. (Trump seems to one of the few leaders who think it is time to get this lockdown nonsense done with.) These two offer some needed perspective.

• I write this blog entry on Monday, May 18^th. About a week ago, I was anticipating that this was the week that I would be going back to work. That hope was cruelly destroyed by an email I got on evening of the 11^th. Since then, I have had to be battling rage. So, I have withdrawn from the society of others as much as I can. (I still have to be brave appearing with my son Tony and quiet around my wife Jenny.) The fact that the e-mail is a week old has not diminished the rage I feel. The fact that this should have been the day we were starting work again has made the pain sharp again. And the pain is numbing as well because time seems to be dragging. Two weeks till the next potential day of return to work....

• Saturday, I took Tony to play catch and I got really annoyed at him for some errant throws which required spending too much time looking for the baseball in bushes and undergrowth. I was so annoyed that I started swearing at him and I didn't care if there were parents with young kids around as I said the f-word (which I am sure the locals understand) over and over again. A voice in my head then made me realize that I was full of rage and that Tony's bad throws and the sight of all these Chinese people around me was making me very angry. I decided immediately that I was going to have to leave the playground and find a place to play catch with Tony where there were fewer onlookers. As I walked with Tony to the car in order to drive to a park, I felt sheepish about the tantrum I just had but my a vow to not give into the dejection I was feeling. I apologized to him later.

• At the apartment complex playground, I saw something that was so astoundingly stupid to my Western mind, that I took photos of it and published it in my photo blog. The basketball court, as I have blogged before, has a broken backboard that has not been repaired for at least a year. (Maybe they don't have the money, said my wife. To which I respond, well why doesn't someone take it upon himself to fix it? (Thanks to my wife, I can't. She would think me a fool for trying to do something for the community.) Anyway, that the board is never fixed says something about the society of this so-called community.) But then someone thought it was a good idea to install these cigarette-butt receptacles beside benches on the basketball court-side. (This installation was done very recently.) And besides the broken basketball backboard, the surface of the basket ball court could do with a resurfacing.. I could only shake my head and wonder wonder what the hell?

• When my wife says she doesn't want to talk to me, it really means that she wants to scream/yell at me. Oh! If I got paid for every time, my wife says she wants a divorce, I would have enough money to make her happy (and stop her from working which part of the problem with our marriage.)