YOU SHOULD BE IN BED RIGHT NOW!

We could go to the end of Telegraph Hill where it overlooks the wharf, carrying a bottle of Amontillado and small cigars. Or we could go back to my place, to sink in each others' arms, sniffing deeply of exotic perfume: your refined fragrance -- wildflowers and vetiver; my spicy wickedness -- pipe tobacco and a hint of musk.
A handsomely evil middle-aged cooz is just what the doctor ordered.
So much calmer and more considerate than college boys.
More knowing, and more creatively athletic.
But gentled by experience.

Saturday night would be perfect, except that everyone is out and about, and people might suspect something if they saw the two of us together. Certainly the people you live with, and the neighbors. A talkative and too curious bunch, whose intemperate speculation, though malicious, might be right on target. Far better to spend your weekday afternoons instead engaged in cups of tea, cookies, and innocent depravity. Followed by that Amontillado previously mentioned. Or some Oloroso - a more fragrant and mature potation.
Sherry, remarkably, goes as well with cookies and a pipe-full of fine Virginia tobacco as a hot cup of tea. Perfect for persons of developed tastes and keen interests, not at all suitable for brash youths with bestial passions.

This blogger likes a spot of sherry now and then. That should not surprise you. Tea drunk too late in the evening leads to disturbing thoughts in the darkness late at night. Whereas sherry yields to a pleasant lethargitude after a day of tobacco and wickedness.
For the past three years there has only been tobacco.
With greater maturity comes discretion.
Necessarily it means self-control.
Life is too short to drink Starbucks, smoke cheap aromatics, or eat McGreaseburgers. Coors, Michelob, Malt Liquor, and wine coolers were never part of the programme, even in my weirder days.

Pizza, once in a while, is a truly splendid thing.
But it doesn't ever lead to wild sex.
If it did, we'd all be fat.



If there's a thunderstorm later tonight I shall be out on the front steps, or wandering up to Hyde Street where the trees are. I like storms, and rain pouring down on summer nights is beautiful. It would be perfect weather for a bowl of aged Virginia flake, smoked in a pipe with a tactile surface. When I still lived in Valkenswaard I would leave the café at such times and sit under the awning on the terrace, away from the chattering people inside, and fill up my pipe. The square in front of the St. Nicolas Church would glisten darkly gorgeous, lights reflecting off cobblestones, water pooling under the trees. Sometimes there would be others outside, also quietly enjoying the weather.
One need not talk during rain, but company is nice.
At such times the sense of privacy is intense.
There is no one else about; just us.
In silence, by ourselves.



Summer in San Francisco is colder than many other places. Whether it rains (very rarely), or there is fog (often), it is throw-rug and sherry weather; grim, grey, and for some people profoundly alcoholism inducing. Judging by the ruckus on Polk Street, that is.

How odd that there are no places open at night where one might have a cup of tea, or a lovely pastry. Even sherry is hard to find, and smoking is not allowed.



I dreamed the other day of returning home long after closing time. As I headed up Larkin Street, a small group of people passed by, that being a man and his three sons, with his little daughter riding piggy-back.
Her head was on his shoulder, her eyes were closed. It had been a long day and she had been up far too late. But she had had such a wonderful time; there had been cake, and ice-cream, and her cousins and aunties and uncles had been there.....
Now she drowsed on her father's back, soon she would be home.
Thank goodness there was no rain! It would have been so cold!
Only fog, and the smell of someone's tobacco.
As I said, it was just a dream.





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