THE UN-WARMNESS OF IT ALL

It is desirable that I do not doomscroll. For my own sanity. Because everytime I do that for over an hour I wish to go outside and commit righteous mayhem, perhaps on some innocent tourist from the red buthole part of the country. Which would not be good, because it isn't open season on them yet.

As usual I left for Chinatown to rendezvous with my pub-crawling compa, and spent a while smoking my pipe while waiting. There are occasional loonies on the street after dark, as well as far too many visiting Caucasians speaking English. Might be a convention in town.

I'm beginning to understand why Europeans complain about Americans being too loud. Sometimes you can hear them from over a block away. Shrill and brassy.
Kindly pipe down, you horrid blonde cow.

The local Chinese are, even in groups, quiet enough that they have to be passing right in front of you to tell whether they're speaking Mandarin or Cantonese. Or Toisanwaa.

At one point a cute little moppet whizzed past on a child's step-scooter. She smile sweetly at me, and I smiled back. And nodded at her father when he came past.
Sometimes I'm so human I surprise myself.

Often I might seem unfriendly. When out smoking my pipe, especially at this time of year, the chill gets to me even when I'm wearing sufficient layers, especially when there's a fierce breeze on some streets (wind patterns change by the block in this city), and I am often less socially inclined than you would think. In San Francisco, being out on the street at night will expose one to conversational attempts from very odd people.

No, I did not know that we have a government of sex-vampires, nor was I aware that the Bilderburgers are responsible for this. And organs! Apparently this is well known.

I did not expose my ignorance of this, but nodded sagely.
It didn't seem like a vocal response was needed.
He continued entirely without prompting.
But moved further down the street.


By the time the bookseller arrived there were no unbalanced people about, and the burger joint was sparsely filled. The beer place where we headed afterwards was crowded, so we went directly to the karaoke place where there were only two other customers and nobody was singing. After a few moments one of them did sing -- Cantopop, and more for himself than anyone else -- one song only, after which calm returned.

We also dropped by the bail-out bar to say 'hi' to miss Vivien and have some more whisky and tea, then head up the road toward the bus stop for the rid up the hill.

There have been colder nights in San Francisco.
During January and February.




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