THE FASTIDIOUSNESS

While half-dozing, the turkey vulture (Sydney Fylbert) asked "hey, if I buy you a cake of soap for your birthday, will you promise to use it?" For some bizarre reason the bird seems to think I smell bad. This may have just been rhetorical, but on the other hand (wing) he does have the sensibilities of a small Cantonese woman approaching menopause. Which is most peculiar. There is only one such here. Surely he cannot have been talking with her?

While I was thinking about this, he informed me that soap was meant to be used and not hoarded like stinky pipe tobacco. Of which there is a large supply here, in sealed tins with dates written on the bottom. Many pipesmokers hoard a bit these days, because we know that whatever we like will soon be either outlawed or hard to get, or so thoroughly regulated that it will take a doctors praescription to lay our hands on it. Especially in the EU, where we're not, Canada (ditto), and California. Where we are.
And heavily taxed as well. Very expensive.
It's only going to get worse.

For the record, I do indeed use soap. It is difficult to shave without it. As both he and the small Cantonese woman who lives in the other room would know if they ever shaved.

If they did, they'd probably use my soap.

It would be unseemly to speculate on what they would shave, or when. Some women do. Birds mostly don't. That may be why the fine details escape him. Every morning, after my second cup of coffee and first pipe of the day I head into the bathroom to brush my teeth, shave, and shower. I relish all those activities, because I am a clean man, and they complete the waking up for the day. The order in which I dry my feet and between my toes is not fixed, neither is which side of the torso I firtst hit with the towel. The progression is set, however. Face, ears, and collar area first, front of torso, back of torso, legs. Feet lastly.

Some parts need a modicum of lotion because skin of my age tends to dry out and become itchy otherwise. And scratching is frowned upon in public.

If we had a cat, she'd be trying to trip me at this point, by rubbing up against my shins.

Fortunately turkey vultures are not so inclined. They're more concerned with stealing my wallet while I'm the bathroom, or poncing about with one of my fine briar pipes ("hey hey hey look at me, I'm a famous author and the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Fellow of Pembroke College, at the University of Oxford!"). Quite often I have tell him firmly that the famous author and the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Fellow of Pembroke College, at the University of Oxford would not be caught dead in my digs, OR steal my wallet. Largely because he's been dead for over half a century. And my weird language interests are Malayo-Polynesian and ancient Chinese, so the Dutch and Anglo Saxon reference material here is somewhat on the slim side.
He died before I started smoking.
I never even knew him.


Fine details are important.


Second cup soon.
Then shower.



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