GOSH, YOU LOOK SO ....

Fermented black bean sauce dragon profit fish. Rice. Soup, garlic bread, milk tea. That was the plan. But on the way there, a regular informed me that they were closed for a few days. Which is very sad. Enough to give a man an anxiety attack. Which lasted all of two or three minutes in front of the old telephone exchange on Washington. While it drizzled, and my fingers turned blue.

So I had a bowl of congee and an oil stick up on Waverly instead. Screw it. Gotta be flexible.

Thoroughly enjoyed smoking a pipe afterward.

Bus back to my neighborhood.

Tea time.


In the past I enjoyed inclement weather more, but nowadays I am out in it too often, what with not smoking in the apartment during the afternoon so it doesn't stink here when my apartment mate returns. A non-smoker. And one cannot smoke in the cafes and bakeries anymore. All over the city there are men with pipes staring out over Waverly, disconsolate in the rain.

But at least the women and children no longer whiff of nightclubs and low dives. What with the tobacco smell not being in their clothes and hair.
Go ahead, sniff them.

Clean, huh?!?!


A new meme on the internet says that 'pipesmoking is the new sexy'.
Which I find hard to believe, because it isn't working. Must be a hipster thing. Along with bushy beards and the severe Protestant preacher look. Those are probably the only people who find it sexy, and thankfully I wasn't jumped by a stray hipster desperate for random tobacco reeking nooky.
I abstain when in areas where hipsters congregate.
Just in case, you understand.

So, no pipe smoking in Starbucks, bookstores, tattoo parlours, or barber shops where straight razors are used. Aged Virginias are almost guaranteed to turn them into animals. A man wouldn't want to be responsible for a wave of hip werewolves roaming the city, unable to control their bestial instincts.
Good pipe tobacco is a gateway drug; that's why we must keep it away from children and the weak-minded.
And the hipsters.


On the bus back, I was enchanted by a little boy making sure that his mom knew that it was a racing car. Cutest little tyke. And considerate!

媽咪，那邊有位，媽咪坐那邊！
["There's a seat there, Mommy, you can sit!"]

Normally I do not particularly care for Mandarin speakers. But he truly was cute as the dickens. With his little toy car. Brrm brrrm!
No, I didn't go over to sniff him or his mother.
I'm sure neither one of them smoke.
Fairly sure, that is.

TOBACCO INDEX


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