I weigh 465 now

 Some weight seems to be coming off. Gluten free may have changed some things. I do get scared, one little thing can make it go back up. The kidneys are still doing better to point I don't have to take as many kidney tests anymore. What did Celiac DO to me all these years? If I can get to the lower 400s, it would help functionality quite a bit. I have noticed hunger is not as bad as an issue, I can still get hunger pain at times I don't want it. I haven't been in the 460s since 2013 and the main reason for that loss was throwing up from kidney problems. I was around 450lbs when I had my 250lb weight loss in 2002 down from 700lbs. This metabolism has never been normal. I don't expect to ever be thin, impossible in this body, but smaller at all will make things easier, and that weight loss from medical treatment saved my life back then and gave me 25 plus more years. 

Books I Read in 2025

 

                                             Mr. Wise Owl likes to read! [art by me]

I wrote a list of books, I want to read, of multiple classics and others, this also includes great book recommendations from a friend of mine. This list isn't all conclusive, I read books laying around in my apartment, there's graphic novels and comics, I read here and there beyond this list. I am reading Cannery Row and a few old Steinbeck books now and checked out a couple novels by Tom Wolfe. Reading and going to the library is one of my hobbies. What books have you read or would you recommend? Feel free to add some. 

Some of my selections are what I call "easy reads" like the McFadden books, but there's more dense stuff. My focus did switch from more non-fiction to decent fiction. I learned I liked Sinclair Lewis a lot reading Babbit. I never had read Tolkien in completion, that took some time, I read them in order though they may not show in order here. I saw the movies, maybe I would get more out of the movies having read the books. I haven't had money to purchase new or used graphic novels this year. Some books were ordered from interlibrary loan. Lionel Shriver is a favorite new author, the Mandibles seems to predict the future, She does question some of the authoritarianism which I like.

 I still read some Stephen King, can't stand the guy or his politics but some books are interesting, sometimes I think they are ghost written or his son Joe Hill has huge influence on the new books. Some books were kind of dark like Revolutionary Road and Joyce Carol Oates. I have read almost every novel by Joyce Carol Oates back to her earliest ones, but I do question some of her latest themes. My writing group compared me once to the style of Joyce Carol Oates on poems. Demon Copperfield was one of my favorites, since Kingsolver wrote about a poor person, rare in today's literature. Some of the stuff with the drugs got a bit much, maybe stereotypical but I liked the book overall. The Valentine books will give you a new view of Vietnam and how politics and war work. They were intense but I recommend them highly. Merton I mentioned in articles here.  I want to get some more of his books. My local library doesn't have many spiritual books just the basics. 

The Art of Cartooning

Babbit by Sinclair Lewis
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Holly by Stephen King
History of the great American fortunes, by Gustavus Myers.
The CIA as organized crime : how illegal operations corrupt America and the world / by Douglas Valentine.
TDY by Douglas Valentine
Pieces Moon: The Dark Arts of Empire by Doug Valentine

The Return of the King by Tolkien

The Two Towers by Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien
The Hobbit by Tolkien
Revolutionary Road
You Like It Darker by Stephen King
We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Dirtbag Massachusetts
Ask Not: The Kennedy's and the Women They Destroyed
People Pleaser by Jinger Duggar Vuolo
House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen

Lies I Taught in Medical School by Richard Lufki
The Boyfriend by Frieda McFadden

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Idaho Four by James Patterson
Maniac by Lionel Shriver
The Mandibles: A Family 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver
150 Masterpieces of Drawing and several other art technique books
Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi 

The diary of Frida Kahlo
Ward D by Freida McFadden
Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden
Fox: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates
The End of the World as We Know It [collections of stories based on The Stand by Stephen King]
Snafu: History's Greatest Screw-ups
Vinland Saga 12 [graphic novel]
The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire by Henry Gee
Gluten Free Gal
Orthodoxy by Chesterton
There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America
Kent State [graphic novel--reread]
Country schoolma'am
Jack of Spades Joyce Carol Oates
The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton
Book of Jonas by Thomas Merton
Chinese Girl in the Ghetto by Ying Ma

Say No to Data Centers!

Say no to Data Centers, they are bad news. They want to build these things all over my state even in remote towns no one has ever heard of. I may be joining a local group against these. I don't support AI. As I have written before, I will not knowingly use any AI, no one online is "AI pure" of course. This means refusing to use ChatGPT and using AI products. I try to use alternative search engines that are not hooked to AI.

Today someone told me about a new product, you can send a photograph in, and the AI will produce a paint by numbers painting kit for you. You get the board, the AI drawing with the assigned colors and everything! She had been given one as a gift. I said to her, "That's not real art!". She agreed and said her daughter meant well giving her the gift.  It's scary how they are having AI interfere with the arts. I belong to artist boards against all generative AI on social media. If humanity loses art, do you realize the deeper meaning of this? There seems to be a descending laziness and where intellect, experimentation and creativity would all be shut down. 

With the AI centers, realize they are part of a possible tech-control grid related to Digital ID and money. As the people in the video describe they are hell on the environment, the water shed, people's electric bills and land. I don't want any built near me. I am noticing some organizations doing AI promotion which worries me. None of this is improving our lives. As one guy says, we have a lot of other problems to spend this much money on. The electric grid is too rickety for this crap too. Look for your local groups against these data centers. Some states, they are building them ALL over, and when I mean all over, I mean dozens of the things in the most boondock area you could imagine! We don't want them. And as they show in one chart, who asked for all this AI garbage?

"Perfect House, Psychotic Inside"

This video nails it. Everything especially for those of us who were children of narcissistic parents was about appearances. I've written on this here before. 

Narcissists Keep Secrets

Trophy Children