I fount at the Goethe Institut bookstore in the used book section baroness Spitzemberg's Am Hof der Hohenzollern, a small selection from her journal, which she kept from 1865 right up to her death in 1914. It should be properly called am Hof Bismarcks as it contains many long passages about her relative intimacy with the great man and seems so much to be about him, as it is about events which in this period are more or less closely connected with him. The baronin flatters, coaxes, and prods the old man often to the point of vexation, positively keeps alive recent resentment (bismarck's dismissal in 1890) in order, it seems to have something to write about, to draw directly from the warm springs of history as she often says and very much concerned that she may be distorting of falsely interpreting his words as she rereads her account of them sometimes minutes of hearing them. Still, for all the author's scrupules, the small selection of entries contains for my taste too much highlighted or proped up reference to political events, like a hostess rearanging the cushions following a lively chat between ministers after these have taken their leave (her consciousness of delivering insider information is sometimes insufferable) and not enough court anectdotes. They may be somewhat more in the integral version. She is alltogether too much the political frau and not woman enough.

That was Friday. All afternoon and much of the early evening of monday spent in the first chapters of the Phaenomenologie. What shall I say about that?

Wednesday, a rainish day, tough much of it spent out of doors, wandering about: the precicely controled narrative of Die totale Familie from Heimito von Doderer read all morning had for chief effect that of needing to be set loose in a kind of desultory vagrancy. During the course of which I came back, as I do often enough, on the impossibility for me of any real life outside philosophy. I mean of any existence in which the subject does not assume the proportions of the world reflected back into him, a life free from the static false projections which strangle thought and lead to resignation, cynicism, skepticism, despair really. Literature and art do set apart, put aside indefinately the claims of the more allluring or uncomfortable (the world of feelings, the difficult past, death) aspects of our life, relegates them to a shadow existence where they cease to bother us effectively. So really all literature affords us is just that: the "living" out of a seductive but shadow existence. The philosophical text should engage the whole self and possibly that means much of the subconscious self as well. It is all precence and a bit dangerous. Anything that hightens the awareness of reality, the perception of a hyperreality must come out of something greater than the conscious intention of reflecting the world within the old logic of an existing conceptual horizon. This is a process that creates a lot of room in the self somehow, expands, releases energy held in old deep rooted mental structures.

Yesterday my energy levels seemed to have returned to what I have been used these last few weeks since increasing carbs, as I said mostly in the form of non starchy fruit. No sign of hypoglycemia. One late afternoon 2 weeks ago I had felt the effects of low blood sugar, but never since despite high carbs. Increased coconut oil just a bit. No signs of anything like temporary diabetes: no frequent urination, quite the contrary, no hunger really, and often a lasting feeling of satiety. I can conclude that the pasteur effect or the inhibition of glycolysis is taking place.

Not much reading apart from Anne Topham's memories of tutoring the Kaiser's only daughter Victoria Luise. Neues Palais, Sanssouci, the Wildpark, Potsdam winters. I can picture it easily from my frequent visits there. Sitting on one of the benches on the garden side, trying to make out where the schoolroom must have been, in relation to the emperors appartments, letting my gaze run along the long cheerful red brick façade, the innumerable statues, the woods, taking in the feeling of peace and almost perfect seclusion, I can with no trouble at all imagine horses, skating parties in the early snowless winter, the light carousing among the royal cousinage. Life at the New Palace must have been remembered by its last royal inhabitants chiefly as an exterior one, as one of approaches and relations to a whole that comprises several palaces and minor baulichkeiten cloaked in thick expanses of pleasant schrubbery. The mystery of the place is made by the unlikelyhood of it all: coming along the broad path from the Sanssouci palace one begins to make out far away the central part of something large and looming directly ahead topped by what seems to be an oxidised stahlhelm like cuppola, really the only incongruous note of the approaching ensemble. Yet it is only at the very end of the path that our view of it suddendly broadens and that were are able to take it in as a whole, the whole being a very large (fake) brick palace carelessly though most royally plopped in the middle of a clearing. The vastness of it is totally unannounced from the quaintness of the way there. One, as they used to say, chances upon it.

Such effects only 20 miles from Berlin are not to be neglected.

Recovering quite nicely from a cold. Yesterday afternoon some fatigue was evident as a made my way across the park. Lying down in the not quite dry grass atop a small hill, I tried to read (Prager Tagblatt) but my eyes were sore and the effort seemed not to be worth it. I recall having slept a little while under the low cloud covered sky. I came back around three to a darkening house. Tried to read again (Austen's Emma) without much success or feeling any strong desire to go on reading. I had a small supper and went to bed early. Slightly feverish.

Feeling fatigue while consuming a high carbohydrate diet, with the carb portion consisting of mostly non starchy dried or fresh fruit, is an indication not such much of insulin resistance, as dietary intake of fat is way down and I have little body fat, but rather of glycolysis. Being sick might account for the fatigue but the recent diminution in palmitate among other things (lack of light, etc) might inhibit oxidation of glucose, the preferred kind of energy production. So a bit more coconut oil would seem indicated. However, prior to being sick I had good energy level on this diet. Protein migh be somewhat low as I only eat some duck's eggs and my regular farm cheese of which I eat only a little at a time owing to its high fat content(32%) Coffee intake is on the rise, a fact which might lower iron, a good thing to be sure.

My calorie intake is still within upper CR limits for my height and weight, roughly 1900-2000. As I said before this is by force of habit. I am attempting to increase calorie intake in the form of carbs in the hopes of capitalizing on four years of efforts to lower disruptive dietary substances (iron, dietary lactate but especially PUFA despite a short period of fish oil) and by promoting fuel production in the form of glucose oxidation. Since phospholipids must after 4 years be tending to greater saturation the chances of free radical injury must be lower.