EVEN IN THE COLD

As I usually do, I headed over to Chinatown to have a smoke before my friend the bookseller got off work and we could do our regular pub crawl, which starts his weekend. And by pubcrawl is meant bite to eat plus wine for him soda for me, followed by a beer for him and tea for me at a different place, then a shot of whiskey for him and more tea for me somewhere else.

Years ago it involved lots more whiskey. Then I decided that, having discovered that a certain medication I had recently been praescribed for daily use might interact badly with alcohol and destroy my liver (infinitesimal chance but still), I cut out the alcohol entirely.
Tea is a wonderful beverage at any hour.

One can be quite insane on tea, but in a completely sober way.
Though I still appreciate Scotch and Irish.
As intellectual conceits.

I also avoid fugu fish. Which isn't hard. Surprisingly.

Chinatown this evening was quiet, except for the wandering loonies loudly emoting (white and black), the chattering drunken partiers (white and black), the employees of two or three local establishments having drinks and smokes after a feast celebrating the end of the year (Chinese New Year is coming up), and the group of people trying to kill each other (entirely white) at one intersection. Without all the non-Chinese, it would have been quieter.

Every year there are plaintive posts from people elsewhere about having to smoke their pipes out in the cold, and do our wives or kinfolk allow us to do so inside? How do we do it? Well, I live in California, and am familiar with warm clothing. People today in Florida were quite horribly surprised. Falling iguanas are a thing there, whereas warm underwear is entirely unknown. It also snowed in Louisiana. Same situation, but with alcohol.

No snow here. There will be no frozen pipesmokers or torpid large lizards to discover tomorrow morning. No blankets of white, or igloos.

I would have drawn that iguana with a sweater, but they have spines along their back, and it got ripped. So he's indecent. Sorry.


We didn't go to the karaoke place. It was filled with singing white people.
And honestly, no one deserves that.



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