WHAT DO GHOSTS SMELL LIKE?

There are times when I really feel that I need to complain about something. Especially today, which is the last day of my weekend, and I am conscious of how little time remains. Alas and alack, I return to work tomorrow! But honestly at this moment there is nothing that greatly excites my ire. Which is slightly depressing.

My apartment mate left for work before eight. I promptly shut her door, made coffee, and lit up my pipe. The place will be well ventilated before she returns, I'll take the usual steps to assure that no trace of tobacco remains in the air, and I'm safe as houses on that score.

There are a raccoon, a skunk, an octopus, a spider monkey, and a turkey vulture asleep in my bed. Safely tucked in next to the tins of pipe tobacco and reference books on the left hand side. The overcast is shining in through the window.
The neighborhood is quiet outside.
No rain.

Time for a second cup of coffee. Is this the day I reread that chapter in À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu which I misremember from years ago when I lived near Telegraph Avenue? Heck no.

I read that monumental work for much the same reason as I read Ulysses by James Joyce all the way through. So that I could I say I had done so and sneer at trailerparkers who had only gone part of the way. But, like The Lord Of The Rings, it did not thrill me.
In fact, I am a very shallow man.

Rather than exploring the great works of fiction and catching up on my reading, instead I will revisit old notes and sketches from several years ago, lazily, muttering to myself, things like "oh yes, that belief in the rolling head ghost', or "whenever you killl yourself, wear red if you're so inclined". That last reflecting a belief that a wronged spinster can come back to terrorize people. Southern Chinese. Whereas the skull racing through the forest is more Malay.

There's a place in Wanchai where a Japanese officer put a bullet through his head after a disastrous love affair during the war. The girl's family wanted nothing to do with him, his commanding officer ordered them all killed to remove this distraction from the proper conduct of affairs, and he felt that he had failed everyone. Two shadowy figures wander around at twilight. And because of that you should never play those old grammaphone records that great aunt Little Orchid left you when it rains.

Okay, I won't. She wasn't my aunt, and I don't now where the records are.
My love affairs were disastrous, but they all had happy endings.


The smells of tea, tobacco, and sandal wood always bring back ghosts.
Virginia non-filters are places in the tropics plus Berkeley.
The latter is also Gauloises and Gitanes.


That place above? Fortune (發財煙 'faat choi yin').
Kwong Sang Co. Shui Sen tea.



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