REDRESS

Stumbling around Nob Hill in the first grey cracks of dawn makes me think that today will not be as frigid as Monday and Tuesday were. I may need to rethink my clothing. No, there will not be shorts and a netting a-shirt to show off my broad manly pecs or the suntan I've been working on while lazing at the Costa Del Sol. Mostly because I've never been surrounded by well-oiled Northern Europeans on a Spanish Beach, nor have I visited the gym assiduously during lockdown. Or ever. A lighter long sleeve shirt, a thinner sweater.

At this hour of the day I'm usually popeling with impatience for my appartment mate to head off to work, so that the serious business of being alone in the silence with my computer, dictionaries, other books, and a pipe can begin.

The concerns of a mature man: Finally paid off both hospitals. Medical insurance paid through the next three months. PGE paid. Internet paid. Cell phone paid. If I had a car payment due, it too would be paid. Enough coffee, tea, and dried noodles to last a while. Plenty of hot sauce and chili paste. Enough tobacco to last me till the next century. See, I'm a responsible man.

Mature.

Which I was not expecting. And it probably explains why I prefer the company of fewer people, casual non confrontational chit-chat, and the absence of rock and roll, elevator music, or punk. And don't hang out at gyms among the muscle flexing vagrants or yoga practitioners.
As well as not working on my sun tan.
I'm fine being pallid.


My working hours are less than a few years ago, because my employer believed that I wasn't recovering fast enough from the operations (second one of which was an emergency exactly two years ago which had me in the ICU for a week) and cut me one shift last summer. Seeing as my expenses also went down, while not entirely happy living on the cusp of poverty, I am reasonably satisfied with the current situation. We have survived the pandemic. Only a few people I know died in the past year -- non-covid related illnesses -- and most of the businesses I cherish because of their people have also come out at the other end. San Francisco has weathered events pretty well.

Time to go on the internet to circulate silly memes and overload on youtube.

As well as, once this place is quiet, load up another pipe.
Grab another cup of strong coffee.
Read a bit.

And change out of the thick sweater and heavy plaid lumberjack shirt.
The fog has already lifted.



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