MY FRIEND THE LITTLE WHITE PILL

One of the medications I take is amlodipine besylate. Which is a calcium channel blocker praescribed for high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and some types of angina. Side effects may include swelling, tiredness, nausea and a stomach ache. If it's safe for people who are pregnant or breastfeeding is not at all certain, and no doubt you will be overjoyed that I am neither. Slightly over an hour after taking the pill my feet ache and hurt. Which may be the medication dealing with certain issues. It's at its worst and hour and a half afterwards, fades gradually, and is no longer noticeable three to four hours later. By which time once a week I'm enjoying my pipe in Chinatown. Which is also strongly disrecommended for people who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
Such as I'm not.


Actually, pregancy and lactation were never on the horizon.
Also, unlike many men my age, I don't have man-boobs.


Imagine all your favourite actors and musical stars of the male persuasion. When they were in their twenties and thirties, they were hot studmuffins oh golly yes. Once they crossed the forties, they started to sag and bloat (unless they were Keith Richards) and their sex appeal dried up, their faces become puffy, wrinkly, and jowly (unless they were Keith Richards) and liver spots and man-boobs were suddenly apparent.

Not so hot now, huh?


Just after I finished my smoke, the bookseller arrived. Once the required burger had been taken care of we went to the first dive bar for beer and hot tea, and headed over to karaoke bar following that for further refreshements; Irish whiskey and tea. Where one of the melodic stylings of our musically untalented fellow patrons was "Hotel California". Unsurprising. It's a nightmare of a song. Which should be banned. Aficionados of which should be whipped, castigated, excoriated, and put in stocks so that we may throw rotten fruit at them.

One of my routines upon lighting up the pipe that precedes the weekly pubcrawl is to check on the rats in the alleyway who feast on the greasy food scraps from the mahjong parlours, none of which have paid for garbage services and therefore dump their refuse at either end of the alley willy-nilly. Where it smells and stains the cement.

There were no rats there today. The only rats I saw were at the park, where they come out at twilight to forage in the grass safely away from the unstable individuals lying there.
They have more charm than the humans.
Boob men.


After the obligatory rendition of "Hotel California" by drunken yuppies, it cleared out a bit at the karaoke joint. Except for the singing, it was a very civilized evening.



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