ALL YOUR INNER ELVES

Here's a thought: maybe some of the people speaking foreign languages on the streets of San Francisco are just trying to avoid conversations with all the random batshit crazy people. Which would work. Most of the time.
All it requires is someone else who speaks Polish or Litvish as well.

That would explain why none of them are lost or need directions.

This blogger often asks people who look lost if they need help. Which is something he learned to do in Vancouver, where the natives are very nice, and often do so. Unlike here, where most of us just ignore them.
Because of the random batshit crazies.


Actually, I was never lost in Vancouver, because I had seen the map, and oriented myself accordingly. But I never looked insane.
They just assumed that I was lost and stable.

The peanut gallery can joly well hush up now. The key word is "looked". If you dress in clean clothes and you aren't having fits, no one needs to know that you came from Planet Zerton, and are planning to take over.

Okay?


Market Street, between Sixth and the Embarcadero, is where the invaders from Planet Zerton mostly congregate.


Often, when outside smoking a pipe or waiting for public transit, I will entertain myself by counting the number of adults with children (mostly Cantonese and sane), or walking sticks (mostly Cantonese and elderly), or eccentric clothing (evenly divided between Cantonese and Caucasians).
If Cantonese for the last category, it's a Hong Kong aesthetic, or mainland bad taste. If they're Caucasian, they are expressing their inner artist, street person, or fairy. Something special and individualistic, reflecting the perfect creative free spirit that they really are.

In a way, keeping an eye open for precisely such folks is defensive.

If you ever see a trim pipe smoking fellow with a well-maintained beard and moustache who is dressed unobtrusively (neat clothes, and possibly clean) frantically stating "no peeky Inglisk, no peeky Inglisk" to someone "fuzzy"; that isn't a refugee from reality or medication; it's just me trying to avoid personal interaction with artists and crazy people.


I am from the Planet Zerton, here as an observer.
Just pretend you don't see me.
No peeky Inglisk.



FYI: There are far too many individuals on Market Street who could blow my cover. I never go there.




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