IT'S BENT

For someone who spent most of his childhood and subsequent adolescent years in the Netherlands, a dish that resonates is nasi goreng; rice fried with a little onion etcetera, some meaty or fishy bits, a little curry spice, plus a fried egg. With sambal (chili paste) on the side.
And, if their environment was strongly slanted toward Indonesian Dutch (which a large number of my father's colleagues and many of my classmates were), bittermelon is also one of those cherished food memories. Dinner recently covered all of that ground.
Yes, I prepared it myself. It may surprise some of my readers that a man can cook, especially of he is Caucasian. My gender and my type are not particularly known for that skill.
It's much worse if we're English women, which I'm not.
Still, uncle Roger would have kvetched.
Just for forms sake.

While I ate, my apartment mate was reading the news on the internet. She's not as murderous anent our traitorous Republican fellow Americans (damn them all may they rot) as I am, but her work does not bring her into daily contact with them. Familiarity does indeed breed contempt.


After dinner, I went for a little walk with a trusted friend.

Into the mouth of that friend I had stuffed some Virginia tobacco with just a hint of Perique. Naturally I avoided Polk Street, where outside dining and cocktails are once again thriving, which means we're only two weeks or so away from another lockdown.
Unlike normal people, I do not need frequent social contact.
And cocktails are not a part of my life.
A nice pipefull of tobacco is.
Solitarily.

[Enjoying a pipe has to be a solitary thing, of course, because most San Franciscans tolerate marijuana infinitely more than tobacco, which reminds them of their zombie great grand dad whom they didn't bury for several years because they wished to spend the money on stressed jeans and a brand new playstation instead. Naturally. He eventually wandered away and was found half-eaten by someone's pet dog or chihuahua.]


The combination of spiced food, that last cup of coffee before going to bed, the smoke, and my bloodpressure medication inevitably causes vivid dreams, something that has been fairly common for two years now. Which are interesting, as they tell me what the heck is going on the sewer of my subconscious. I dreamed that while I was out at Walgreens picking up a bag of cayenne cheesy poofs, my apartment mate came home, and discovered a fully clothed woman dozing in my bed, with one of the Totoro who also inhabit that space. Both of them proceeded to talk to each other by voicing for stuffed animals. My apartment mate often does so, as it is safer and easier to speak with the voice and character of another creature.
Two such people in the same room would be a monumental rarity.

A contributing factor may have been the new tee-shirt which I wore to bed. Which features one of the latest Sanrio ideas. Aggretsuko. A red panda office worker with anger issues who finds release by doing death metal karaoke in the evening after drinking too many beers.
Yeah, I can see myself doing that. If I were female.
I'd still smoke a pipe, however.

I do not normally have fully clothed women in my bed. Any women. Not that I don't know any women who might need a nap, but my bed is a frightful mess. Stuffed animals, a box of pipes, and an embankment of books. I've been using it as an annex library or office for years.
Jimmy Hoffa might be underneath all that stuff.
Nobody will look for him there.


There are also several tins of pipe tobacco in it.
That would scare away many women.

TOBACCO INDEX


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