THE THINGS OUTSIDE

Because of very minor neurotic tendencies I obsessively count stuff. Robotaxis. Dogs. Tykes. Familiar faces, emergency vehicles, street people, women carrying yoga mats, corvids, and crazies. Usually in the mornings on the way to the bus stop, marginally less when returning home in the evening. When, obviously, the mind has not freshly engaged on tweaking and spinning under the influence of those first bursts of caffeine, but has been running all day, and I'm a bit tired.


This evening there were three stark-raving bonkers people at the intersection nearest my abode. I had to wonder, are the local dealers handing out drug dosages cut with something stimulating? Don't they know that these unstable people cannot handle that? That chap trying to find the answer to life and why the invisible enemy on the rooftops is accusing him in the garbage can, for instance, or the hairy individual trotting past with a large sack, looking terrified of nothing behind him. Clearly mental. Even by our San Francisco standards.

I am so glad they weren't capable of following me inside.
Besides me the only other residents are women.
They do not need that here.
Neither do I.

And the less said about the man hopping about further down the block whom I passed earlier rubbing first one foot and then the other with olive oil, the better. At least he took off his socks to do that, though he seemed to be putting either foot in or out of the shoes.

When I got home my apartment mate was in her bed with a book and a turkey vulture.
She had done volunteer work, and was tired. Normalcy. Something in rare supply.
Certainly there was precious little of that outside.


Maybe I should rub olive oil on my feet.
It might alleviate the aching.




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