RE-DIRECTING THE APPLECART OF HABIT

Some of the best times smoking my pipe are in Chinatown after dark, when there are few people about and the streets are soft or silent. Except for the elderly biker whose boom boxes blare vulgar rap lyrics riding slowly by. Or frat boys walking down the street looking for drinks and zany entertainments. Or crazies from every ethnic group under the sun wandering past talking to themselves. But on the whole, it remains fairly quiet, and the actual residents of the neighborhood who are out are undisturbing. Red lights in the distance, flapping banners over the thoroughfare, one or two "eccentrics" sleeping in doorways.

Also, at one point, around sixty visitors from somewhere in Mediterranean Europe walking toward North Beach, in an orderly fashion without making significant noise.
Probably a tour of the sinful city at night.

It's been a custom for several years now that the bookseller and I meet up for socializing at the end of his workweek. In my case that involves teabags and hot water, for him it's a pint of beer followed by a shot of whiskey. And it's a good thing we're flexible, as the two first places in our amble after the burger joint were jampacked. European tourists and intellectuals at the first stop, and screaming white yutzes at the second. So we went to the back-up bar, where like last week the only other pipe smoker in Chinatown was getting midly squiffy.

Along with a gentleman whose arms looked very soft and velvety.
I didn't ask him about that, but they were ... curvy.
Probably genetics and baby fat.

The teabags, in case you were wondering, came from my coat pocket. Given that I do not consume alcohol, and do need stimulation, hydration, and a beverage in front of me. The zippitiness which begins when I wake up with coffee will be maintained throughout the day. For instance by swilling coffee or tea at home, then heading out for lunch and Hong Kong milk tea in mid-afternoon. Extra teabags just in case.

Today's lunch was 蝦醬牛肉炒米粉 ('haa jeung ngau yiuk chaau mai fan'; stirfried beef with shrimp sauce and rice vermicelli) washed down with both milk tea and regular tea. Which, really, should be the breakfast - lunch - dinner of champions. It was topnotch.
Smoked the black pipe at the top of the picture afterwards.
Very late in the afternoon.

The red billard was the evening pipe. It's replaced the Comoy Sunrise which I used to puff while waiting for the bookseller, which is now in one of the boxes in a bookshelf.
I just needed a change. A jolt to the paradigm, as it were.
A redirection of sorts.



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