DISCOMBOBULATION

Sometimes I wish women were more like men. Without the tendency to waffle on about sports, of course. As just one example, the old lady at the bakery who kept talking for forty five minutes, early on in her discourse mentioning a man with an impossible number of wives, at which point I realized that while she was there it would be best for me to act as white ghost devil as possible, because if I showed that I understood Cantonese I'd be roped into a conversation that several other men were trying to rope themselves out of.

So I just smiled idiotically, as we white people are known to do.

My apartment mate is good at staying out of off-kilter conversations. Like two days ago when she answered the door, said "no" firmly to the Indonesian Chinese downstairs neighbor, and shut it again. Today I found out what the woman was anxious about. Apparently, per the rent board, rents can be raised as much as 1.6% this year, on March first. That's ONE. POINT. SIX. PERCENT. Which spells the end of times, and our landlady is keeping our fellow tenant in unbearable suspense by so far not indicating that the rent will go up. ONE. POINT. SIX. PERCENT.

Maybe the Indonesians have absorbed more of Dutch neuroses during those three and a half centuries of colonial exploitation than they are willing to admit. A bookkeeping nation, or people with an accounting ledger always in the back of their heads, would understandably be in a tizzy over this. It realligns the applecart, and slightly shifts the balance of the universe. My heavens, man, it throws everything into question!

As a calm sober Dutch American, I think she's daft.

Sometimes I miss the bleak and blasty landscape of North Brabant, with its extensive bogs and fens, inhabited by wild animals and bipedal agents of chaos. If the sign says "don't walk here", you walk. If it says "no swimming, aligators", you promptly strip down to your skivvies and dive in. If it says "verboden toegang", and cites the 'Wetboek Van Strafrecht', including specific paragraphs verbatim, well, then you gang-toe it defiantly.

My apartment mate gave me the Readers Digest version of her interior monoologue down at the clinic waiting to see a medical professional. If there were any way of making her extorize that monologue while it was happening, I would accompany her next time. Both for my own entertainment AND to provide moral support. Yes, that's it. Moral support. Yes.

Both the old lady at the bakery and the Indonesian Chinese neighbor would be happier and calmer women if they smoked a pipe. Like I do. Instead of gibbering dementedly for forty five minutes, they would be calmly puffing away, enjoying the delicate building of flavour and attendant satisfaction so characteristic of fine Virginia flakes.

Probably by themselves. Or in private in any case. Because you cannot smoke in most public spaces anymore. Which is why the world is less peaceful than it used to be.
Greg Pease's Embarcadero. Red Virginia and Izmir leaf.
Soothes the savage beast.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================