EARLY COFFEE AND POSITIVE THOUGHTS

At six twenty in the morning one is cognizant of one's limitations. Having woken up an hour earlier, because one needed to pee -- strictly a problem of mature people, because the youthful don't need to do that, one has heard -- and one could not fall asleep again afterwards. It is not the same for the young. They can sleep anywhere, any time. They do some of their best sleeping on the job or in classrooms. Anywhere there are comfortable chair and desks. Plastic body form seating, such as public transit. Hard wooden benches. Literally, anywhere.
One is profoundly jealous.

When one pees, one is usually wide awake. It requires awareness, and one's full conscious attention. Something of which the young may sometimes be incapable.

A meme current on the internet, especially relevant for Miss Mary in Carolina, advises: "Stop buying plastic skeletons for Halloween; they're terrible for the environment. Locally sourced natural skeletons are much better."

And one expects stores to take heed. Trader Joe's? Small enterprises, maybe! 

Take the unvaccinated; they're "clean".

It's barely light out. There are no people. From a block away in either direction one can hear the thump of car doors, folks  going off to work.
As I light my pipe, I see the old lady who lives in the downstairs apartment across the street come out and head down to the corner. 

Perhaps she needed to pee.

Or maybe she's getting her Halloween shopping done early.



Several doors up, there is a vagrant with luggage sleeping in a portico. One thinks briefly of alerting early Halloween shoppers "here's one, fresh!" but one's better instincts kick in. Let him lie.

Over on the next block, another sleeping street person.
This one has fewer belongings. Older.

After several blocks, one has made a full circle and returns to one's own front steps. Five motorized meter maids are honking, then writing tickets for vehicles that do not leave. On Monday mornings, there is no parking between seven and nine.


Final puffs. DeBrus Construction is already on site. There will be noise next door, earthquake retro-fitting, an ongoing process all over the city since Loma Prieta two decades ago. Our building didn't need much done and was finished a year ago.
My apartment mate is already up and about.
She too needed to pee.

TOBACCO INDEX


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