THE MATURE LIFE

Coffee, pipe, sunlight. And belatedly realizing that quite a large number of the people I have to associate with are blistering dillwads, by reason of their deliberate ignorance, inherent cruelty, and self-centered sense of middle class entitlement. But they are fairly typical of their kind and their class, which is why on my days off I shall not come anywhere near them.
Even casual contact can be toxic.

They are of course fine upstanding people, as they will be the first to admit.

[Yes, there are some very likable people too, individuals with keen insight and intelligence, who are not social blights. More complex than the first group. I'll admit that; their sporadic presence makes it all quite bearable. And a number of them have great warmth and humanity.]


Why "R the subcontinental" willingly associates with those blistering dicks is somewhat of a mystery, but there aren't that many public smoking areas left nowadays, and he shares their interest in sports. I, on the other hand, find all televised sport to be monumentally boring, and have adapted rather well to outdoor life. Even though I am inside at the moment; the other resident of this apartment will not be home until this evening, and after one or two in the afternoon there will be NO burning of tobacco here. Instead, a saucepan of boiling herbal muck (two hours, while I shave and shower) will drive out the smell, and create a covering odour; orange peel (陳皮), ginger, dried red date, and a thick slice of lemon. Oddly, the apartment smells faintly of grilled Middle Eastern chicken when I return from my jaunts for late lunch or early dinner in Chinatown, milk tea, smoke, and people watching.

Street people are rare in Chinatown, and the only dillwads are tourists.


I never mention the odious cretins above to my apartment mate. There are several things which, for domestic harmony in a living space sharing arrangement, should be left outside.

Instead, we often use the stuffed animals to communicate.
Which leads me to believe that she also has cretins.


Remarkably, none of the stuffed animals are in the room where I am now. There are Indonesian shadow puppets here, a ceramic statuette of a fat smiling merchant, two bird-motif betel containers.
And a two inch tall Eric Cartman.

I am an unwell middle-aged man.

Eric Cartman is my spirit animal.




AFTER WORD

Today's tobacco is approximately fifty percent Samuel Gawith Saint James Flake, and fifty percent Danish matured Virginia to cut down on the Perique and increase combustibility. The Gawith flake, even rubbed out, can be a bit hard to keep lit. Which makes it remarkably similar to products from McClelland of Kansas City, who are, sadly, defunct.

Tea last night, shortly before twelve a clock, was boiled Pu-Erh. After which I took a walk on Polk Street. At that hour the only other people about were straight out of Central Casting for a zombie flick, with occasional evidence of Big Foot in the distance, and sounds indicating pavement insanity.

The bar tender at the Bell last night remarked that I come around far less often. As a non-drinker, the only reason to go there is the social contact; on work days I am exhausted when I get home, and in rotten weather far less inclined to wander out with a pipe of an evening.

Stuffed animals, hot beverage.
Warm down comforter.
Monkeys.

TOBACCO INDEX


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