Day 86 - Underwear

7 March 2022

I have one job today, underwear.

I carry a plastic bag for my dirty clothes. There is a simplicity to the undiversified wardrobe. All my shirts are black. All my socks are black. All my underwear is dark blue. No thinking is required. But you need to separate your smells from your cleans. With everything the same colour, systems need to be in place.

“I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me.” - Johnny Cash

I left my dirty clothes bag in Siena. Fortunately, it only contained two pairs of underwear. I get five to six days of my wool shirts. Not the case for underwear. I am running short.

Sleep in. Another cloudless day. Breakfast lay about, and head off to the new regular for coffee. Sit in the sun and discuss underwear strategy while we look at each other's Australian International COVID Certificates which now have our third dose.

Walk to a nearby mall and grab the underwear. Walk back in the shadow of the wall that surrounds the Vatican. I wonder who they are keeping in or keeping out? Whatever the Cardinals are doing in there, it is not meant for anyone to see.

Lunch at our cheap local pasta place. Head to the grocery store and grab some things for dinner. Head home.

We listen to a podcast on the Ukraine invasion. Honestly by Bari Weiss. Along with Sam Harris - Making Sense, about the only two sources of media you can rely on. If you read the newspaper, Russia invaded a week ago. Ukraine has been at war with Russia for eight years. It was 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, not to mention Donbas. I listen and realise just how little I understand about the state of affairs.

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." - Ernest Hemmingway

I finish The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thích Nhất Hạnh’s. Buddhism is entirely over complicated. It does make sense, but it has so many layers that it is too much effort. It can be summarised with the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. Good advice for anyone trying to be a decent person.

1. Suffering

2. The cause of suffering

3. The end of suffering

4. The Eightfold Path

Enough of that.

I am back on Under The Tuscan Sun.

Dinner. Read Bed.

​​What if somebody gave a war and

Nobody came?

Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and

Forever be Itself again.

- Allen Ginsberg