MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE ANTARCTICANS

Sometimes an individual wishes to be pampered. Yesterday evening while walking back from Walgreen's a loony offered me a banana. World, listen up: if that's your idea of pampering me, you are failing. Big time.

Yeah, I know, those poor little orphans in Antarctica are crying themselves to sleep every night for want of a banana. "Oh", they will exclaim, "if I only had a banana, I would be so happy!"
Then they weep piteously.
I am not them.

Bananas give me the itchies.
Sort of a latex allergy.
Nix on bananas.


I am still not over my cold, and I've got a major sore throat. The other day my apartment mate roasted a chicken, the carcass of which would have made a splendid soup, but it was for her boyfriend and she took all of the pieces over to his place. Because I am the stubborn stoic and phlegmatic sort, I did not let her know that I was sick and needed a soft touch. And she, being more Asperger than I, didn't notice a damned thing thank g-d, and still has no clue that a bit of pamperish behaviour might not be taken entirely amiss.

None of the other women with whom I came in contact over my Tuesday-Wednesday weekend have wigged onto my state either, with the possible exception of the owner of the shop in Chinatown where I regularly get noodles and "breakfast fixings". But her face always looks winsome and slightly sad anyway, all kinds of poetic, so I can't read her at all.


But it wouldn't matter, because I am a gwailo, and therefore must be presumed to have relationships and health issues that are quite incomprehensible, and it is best not to get too close.


Besides, it is so hard to read a gwailo's face. Altogether baffling. We all have similarly incomprehensible thought patterns and emotions, and, though disturbingly we all look different, we grok identically queer, and one is likely to get flummoxed if too closely involved. It might be acid indigestion, or it might be existenzangst. Who can really know?

Gwailos are naturally grumpy.
Temperamental.

可能佢患有流感，上呼吸道感染，發燒，感冒，喉嚨痛，或只食過啦啲奇怪嘅嘢。

What is particularly frustrating is that what I wanted to do was huffle around the apartment smoking my pipes and reading interesting things, snacking, alertly wagging my tail, and, possibly, interacting with other humans.
Instead I had just two pipes all weekend long.
And I didn't eat much.
I slept a lot.

It feels like I've wasted my days off.




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