NO UNPLEASANT AFTERTASTE

Well, the office holiday party is done with, I can revert to being an ogre for the rest of the year. No need to be social. Which is good, because I don't really excel at being a butterfly. Mercifully there were no embarassing incidents, no dancing was required, and no one hugged anyone else saying "I love you man, I love you!"

There was food. It was good. There were cigars. Excellent.
There was also wine, decent stuff, which I avoided.
Drank strong tea all evening.

People like myself do not thrive during the holiday season. I'm blaming Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Mariah Carey. Back in the good old days, before I was born, it was so easy. Just follow the example of Ronald Reagan in the advertisements and give everyone a carton of Chesterfields.


"I'm sending Chesterfields to all my friends. That's the merriest Christmas any smoker can have - Chesterfield mildness plus no unpleasant aftertaste".

----- Ronald Reagan, 1952.
[Buy the beautiful "Christmas-card" carton.]


Because NOTHING says Christmas better than Ma, Pa, and Junior all sitting around the tree puffing. Yessir, choose Chesterfields for the holidays! If those are unavailabe, settle for Camels. More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!
There's a ton of combustibles under that tree.

Still. Chesterfields. Always milder. Better tasting. Cooler smoking. The righ combination of the worlds best tobaccos properly aged. Always Buy Chesterfield. ABC.


Sometimes, especially around this time of year, I think that I am quite lucky not to have a large family and numerous relatives. Other people have to stand outside in the pouring rain freezing their balls off holding onto their roast duck breast sandwiches and ciggies because otherwise their gluten-phobic cousin Gertrude, and the Vegan twins, and the anti-smokers, will all be triggered, while oldest brother Bill goes off on one of his political rants about the commies and uncle Walter talks about Jayzus, all comfy inside. And there they'll be under the streetlights disconsolately puffing away while snarfing down the animal protein all soggy.

No massed relatives to chase me out, so I'm good. Trust me.

If I'm out there with my pipe it's because I'm a rugged outdoorsman!
I like risking pneumonia and hypothermia while smoking!
It's healthy! Toughens you up!
Individualism!

Oh, and my apartment mate doesn't like the smell.

The only problem is all the other people outside indulging in their unhealthy lifestyles.
It's getting crowded out there.



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IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE

Yesterday someone insisted that ALL cigars from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Honduras were deeply connected to the Illuminati. And started asking hard questions about Mexican leaf. Before suggesting that Canada was far too Arab for comfort. I couldn't wait to have them put some distance between me and them. Because, truth be told, I pride myself on my illumined Arab Canadianity.

Salaam aleikum, eh. Keif halak? Bikhair, eh?
Now please imagine a burst of light.
It's so illuminative!

As we get closer to Christmas, more neurotic behaviour will become manifest. By Christmas eve there will have been several live-action replays of scenes from Marat-Sade.

[The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Auf Deutsch: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade).]

One wishes the bars to the cage were still up.
Keep some of you people inside.

There are discordant noises in the distance. Probably someone's internal karaoke.

More of the crazies are singing than ever before. Their instability is more evident, and their hair dye is running. I have realized that one of the things I like about Chinatown is the greater predictability of people there. They aren't such screaming and insistent unique individuals with personalities that must be expressed no matter how disturbing that might be to their fellow humans. Fewer meaningful tattoos, idiosyncratic piercings, studs, and scarification. Less unwarranted tribal markings, artsy frip-fraps worn as personal adornment or bohemian headgear, and no non-sequiturial imparting of pride in their German or Swedish ancestry, no tartans, nor bottoms spiritually painted blue. Normal people. Who act normally. As a matter of course. And expect the same from other people speaking Cantonese. As is logical.



All the rest of you are exotic and precious and I do wish you'd shut up.



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OVERPOPULATION

We've added to the mob of small furry insurrectionist and anarchists which have takeng over the apartment. My apartment mate's birthday resulted in a new infiltrant -- adopted by yours truly -- from one of the local holding pens for illegal immigrants. A most personable chap.
Or chappette. Gender identity as yet unknown.
Personally, I think he's a girl.

At the time of this photo she or he had not yet been introduced to most of the others, except for the turkey vulture who had some traumatizing suggestions, and the crab person (the orange creature with large eyes), plus the little rooster.


The crab and the rooster are comforting her, as she was saddened by a cold reception.

My apartment mate's initial reaction was that we have too many small creatures.

She's not a very social woman (understatement like you wouldn't believe), and probably fears that she will be required to make "small" talk. Which she hates.


The crab is also a newbie. Who is absolutely terrified that one of the others will eat him or her. He or she need not worry, as all creatures here are under the protection of Ms. Bruin, who makes sure that we (!) do not devour our friends.

The words "melted butter" will not be uttered.
Nor "black bean sauce".
蒜豉椒醬。



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FLUFFY AND ... LOVEABLE?

Several years ago a fellow blogger, Sara, imagined me as a short grumpy furball with a pipe. Which is surprisingly accurate, if you keep in mind that I am not excessively hairy (so not a furball; I do not shed), I'm not small and globular but lean and wiry, albeit not as tall as a cornfed Iowa monstrosity or inner city honky trying out for the basketball team, and my disposition is quite sunny, why, I am the very paradigm of sweetness and light.

Repeat: Sunny. Sweetness. Light.

Jonathan in Israel, you can stop laughing now. Cynic.


So, if you see a jolly, cheerful, angular man in a resplendent Santa costume which has been freshly dry-cleaned beaming at you while wandering around the orphanage with hugs and candy for all the little kiddiewinkies, even the misbehaving trolls, it might be me.
The problem with most Santas is that they smell funny.
Crimson jammies haven't been cleaned.
In years. Decades even.

Plus those beards. Betcha they look like right degenerates under that growth. My beard is neatly trimmed, spare, and upstanding. I'm not some scruffy unkempt slovenly wino in greasy red coloured overalls, so desperate for human contact that I offer lap rides to short people and horned animals, or resort to bribery so that the little buggers will write me letters.


Come to think of it, nix on the freshly cleaned crimson togs. Maybe I'll go naked for the holidays. It will be a refreshing change of pace. You people deserve it.



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GREEN WRECKAGE

For a whole number of reasons having to do with colours and hue gradations, the first rains of the season remind me of the Netherlands in early summer, a warehouse and a temporary airfield in a warmer climate, that early spring when I lived in Piedmont (when my portfolio of illustrations stored in the basement there got waterlogged, and turned slimy), and the slope leading to a freeway underpass in early morning. Greens and greys, medium light. My first Autumn back in the Bay Area after several years overseas was much like that.

Mostly these are memory glows from years ago.
We don't get so much rain anymore.
Or my eyes are tired.

Gravel. Hot coffee. The first pipe of the day. Fecund earthy odours.

Very minor motion at the edge of vision.


Rectangular areas with thick lines, kept free of debris and scattered branches, the smell of solvents, and machine oil, tannins, and salt.

Stewed noodles for breakfast with a squeeze of citrus juice.
More weak cheap tea in thermos jugs for hydration.
A constant buzzing in the distance.



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LITTLE INEDIBLE BITS

The back airwell stairs which lead to to the garbage bins are enclosed, but there are open windows to let in breezes and light. Like many men who have access to such an architectural feature who are smokers, I have placed a little tin on the upper steps to function as an ashtray, when my non-smoking Cantonese American female apartment mate is, exceptionally, at home during my days off.

[Clarification: She's a very nice person, but there is nothing going on between us. We get along culinarily, and we have a bunch of small creatures. Because she is on the spectrum, she speaks, often, by voicing for them. They disapprove of many of my habits. Such as smoking. Bad stinky white man!]

Yesterday -- one of my off days -- she stayed at home. Normally when she leaves for her work in the morning I firmly shut her bedroom door, open a few windows, and head into the teevee room to read and light up. Which of course was out of the question, even though she spent a lot of time in her quarters dozing with several of the small creatures.

So at one point I headed into the back stairwell. And discovered little bits of moth near my empty tin. Wings and antennae. Plus a leg. I think what must have happened is that a nocturnal insect was sleeping there, and a bird happily discovered breakfast.

Not my chosen snack. I don't want anyone to get the wrong ideas.
Yes, ripping apart helpless animal protein is very masculine.
But that wasn't me. Too much fuzz and crunchy.


My apartment mate does not share my affection for certain foods, but she does occasionally use some of the bawang goreng (crispy fried shallot bits) and bottled fish sauce I've stocked. Sometimes a little sambal -- a typical Dutch American male will have a sufficiency of that, you can be sure -- and, very rarely, preserved streaky pork (臘肉 'lap yiuk').
Seldom if ever salt fish (鹹魚 'haahm yü').

I am sure, quite sure, that she wasn't snarfing down moths in the stairwell.
Despite her voracious ("bird like") appetite.



NOTE: the proper larder should have several or all of the following: salt fish (鹹魚 'haahm yü'), dried shrimp (蝦米 'haai mai'), dried scallops (乾貝、江瑤柱 'gon pui', 'gong yiu chyu'), dried oysters (蠔豉 'hou si'). Plus chilipaste or sambal ulek (辣椒醬 'laat chiu jeung'), oyster sauce (蠔油 'hou yau'), soy sauce (醬油 'jeung yau'; 豉油 'si yau'), shrimp paste (鹹蝦醬 'haam haa jeung'), sesame oil (麻油 'maa yau'), and Chinese sausage (臘腸 'laap cheung').

Plus pickled mustard root (榨菜 'jaa choi'), dried pine mushrooms (冬菇 'dong gu'), and salted plum vegetable (梅菜 'mui choi'). And a block of trassi (belatjan kering).

Tins of sardines, anchovies, and fried dace with dausi for a rainy day would not be amiss.


All of this in addition to the marmalade, jam, and Balkan mixtures or fine Virginia flakes.
Plus a bottle of siu hing (紹興) rice wine or decent cooking sherry.
As well as a sufficiency of coffee and tea.




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SEEKING COVER

One image I did not particularly relish this morning was a chin's eye manga view of the cleavage and then downwards of a busty person wearing panties. The perspective was disturbing, and I'm not an aficionado of udders. It was, of course, on Facebook. Aside from the perverse salaciousness of the image, two other things ired me. One (1): It's rather frigid today, dammit, where, WHERE is this person wearing tight scanty undies?! Is she poncing around a well-insulated apartment? A living room with cats and a heater going? The warm kitchen with coffee perkling away and almost ready to pour? Two (2): No face is shown.
So how can I possibly judge her character and personality?

Details are important. So is comfort.
And, as I said, it's cold today.

While outside earlier I did see a young lady wearing short shorts striding up the street, but she was well-insulated despite her glowing bare thighs, and blonde too, so presumably descended from short curvaceous Viking stock disporting themselves in the arctic snow with nary a care. Normal people are not like that. At this time of year, especially in the Midwest, normal people seek to burrow under the covers with a pipe, and cup of coffee or tea on the side table, and one presumes that folks who work in Amazon warehouses, UPS distribution centers, or Piggly Wiggly Supermarkets, have installed beds at their work stations.
If not, why not? Is management being sticky again?
Time for the guillotine!

At present, I am on my second hot beverage. I cannot smoke inside, because my apartment mate has taken a mental health day, so there is minor frustration. She's a nonsmoker, and abjures the smell of burning leaves, so I must head out at some point with a pipe in search of another hot beverage, lunch, and groceries, and either an awning or the warm apartment of a young woman as yet totally imaginary who does not mind the gentle aromas of fine pipe tobacco while, fully and warmly dressed, she's at her desk working on her thesis.

Maybe her cat is fascinated by the middle-aged fossil and his pipe lying under a throw-rug on the couch with a book. Or dozing happily in the crook between his thigh and lower leg.

The glass ashtray on the side table reflects the light from the desklamp.
It remains cold outside. Feels like Norway.



NOTE: The imaginary studious young woman should have interesting books in her living quarters. Possibly clinical psychology or organic chemistry, but definitely also something light and sprightly like crime dramas or murder mysteries. As well as a capacious tea pot. A glass ashtray is not essential, and those are hard to find, spur of the moment. A cat would be nice, but isn't quite necessary either, though nice. What's important is that she have tolerance, a warm spot so to speak, for middle-aged fossils and their pipe smoking.

If anything develops, I can find an ashtray.
One that fits in with the decor.



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OH PARANOID BABY!

Words of comfort uttered at the turkey vulture, who is convinced that the others are being mean to him, and perhaps they want to 'get him'. An innocent little fellow, despite being berserk. Also, he's convinced that there are snipers out there beyond the perimeter.
Dawn, when it comes, brings a welcome return to reality.

Anti-aircraft guns are visible in the far distance.


We've also told him that the reason his feet itch is not because of jungle rot brought about by woolen socks and heavy combat boots. He doesn't have socks or combat boots. No, we will not rub his feetsies, we've heard what turkey vultures do on them.

This isn't 'Nam, little buddy, and you are too young to have been there.
Nor is it Eastern Java, with Dutchmen and Malays in the bush.
Hiding in the shrubbery with sharpened bamboo.
What have you been dreaming?

Dawn in the Bay Area is now at seven A.M. more or less. It is colder than usual outside and there are indications that it rained a bit during the night. We're heading into the colder part of the year. Soon I'll have to wear two sweaters and two pairs of socks when I step outside to smoke my pipe. I didn't used to be such a koukleum. My cardiologist says it's because I'm getting older, but instead I would prefer to blame Republicans and MAGA trolls.
They are truly what's wrong with this world. In a nutshell.

Expect a strongly-worded letter to the editor!
Once my fingers warm up enough.



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THE WELL-CONDUCTED MEETING

There was a little tub of duck liver pâté which was absolutely delicious! Thank you, Neil, for a splendid lunch. And I must say that I was surprised at the turn-out, considering that it was so cold, football is a passion among many people including the mostly sane, and it was so near to the holidays that fevered consumerist passions society-wide are at a high-water mark.

As was to be expected, I ate most of the pâté.
Unlike the other fellows I had already been there a for while.
And I had finished smoking my pipe. Whereas they had all just driven in and had filled their briars upon arrival. Yes, I did give them a fair shot at the pâté -- a half hour head start -- but many of them were, for some reason, hesitant about purplish bird goo, so shortly after three when I descended upon the snacks like the rapacious Assyrian conqueror upon a helpless Mesopotomian outlying city state, I had free reign.
Going ape I may have slightly went.

I very much like pâté.

I am a great fan of many versions of deceased duck.
That oily rich flesh and scrumptious liver.
It's a life-style choice.

From my point of view, the gathering of the pipe club was a splendid success. Nick had a lovely Virginia flake from Peretti (Ampersand), of which I sampled a bowlful after the purple goo. Earlier, before lunch, I had sliced up enough G. L. Pease Géométrie for two smokes, and another tobacco I've "sampled" the heck out of in the past several weeks is C & D's smallbatch Steamworks. The tin is nearly empty. Both of these would be excellent replacements for Stonehenge, which has been discontinued.


Joel and Bernard discussed the Boer Wars off to the side, on which due to his own family involvement the latter is an expert. I listened in, bowing to his superior knowledge, while as a fellow Dutchman I naturally take immense pleasure in the valiant resistance of my distant kin to braggadocious imperial over-reach. To be honest, other than their language and tea-time, there is not very much about Great Britain in the age of conquest that appeals to me. And let's face it, cricket is the most boring sport on the planet. The most exciting thing about the game are the cucumber sandwiches in the pavilion while the other side is at bat.

By the way: Blaming the Brits for the messed-up state of so much of the world is ridiculous. They were plenty messed to begin with, since independence they've simply continued where they left off, and it was their complete cock-ups before the Brits took over that gave the English an opening to impose a semblance of order on many of those places.

Although I do agree that internecine warfare and regular massacres are "cultural traditions", and we Western Nations have no business interfering when the howling savages kill each other. As long as we don't start doing it ourselves, because that would be "cultural appropriation", which is bad! So go ahead, fellas, express yourselves.

We need to put an electrified razor-wire fence straight through the Mediterranean, the Dardanelles, and the Straight of Hormuz. Maybe the English had the right idea.

That said, Dublin, London, Glasgow, and Manchester, are all diseased hell-holes filled with soccer hooligans and politically obtuse savages, and there's nothing to be done about that. Sad. Maybe mustard gas. Literacy didn't work.



Final note: I have suggested that, seeing as they resisted the proposal I made a year ago to do a run as a naked pipe-smoking contingent at Bay To Breakers (a zany annual SF event), an "uncostumed" effort, as it were, they all participate in either Saint Paddy's Day OR Santa Con as a team. A pipe smoking intoxicantry! But they may have had too much Bourbon, Scotch, and Port, to hear me. I was the only one drinking tea.
It being the right time of day for that.



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THE GAYEST OF TIMES

While drinking the last cup of coffee of the day it suddenly struck me that none of my friends has ever been grateful for the gift of apple cider vinegar over the holidays, or claimed that when they were stuck in that snow-drift on the way to Tahoe it saved their life. And sadly, we have none in the house that I can offer to guests. Obviously, this has to change. We live in California, and some people here swill that stuff like there is no tomorrow. While avoiding gluten (for religious reasons?), and saving the wales.
I don't know those people, but they exist.

I don't have any pot-smokering friends either.
Clearly, I am not social enough.

The food and drink at this time of year are clear evidence, however, that marijuana is one of the building blocks of our civilization, and the musical choices of the festive season point directly at alcohol and illegal substances. Little Drummer Boy? Ten Lords A Leaping?
These are either the musings of drunks and stoners.
Or the stuff of nightmares.

The holidays are not kind to people who prefer sobriety.


One of the regulars among the syphilitic old bastards infesting the back room at work was absent today because his wife, a Christian (he's Jewish, so he's already suffering) dragged him off to see the Nut Cracker. Normally he'd be cheering on the team, and losing his sh*t in front of the teevee with the rest of the diseased fossils, so I can only imagine his agony.
Holiday entertainments, for the most part, are torture.
It's like re-enacting The Donner Party.
Seasonally appropriate.

The next time I see him I'll have ask if he had a pocket flask, and does his wife know? And does she also know he's Jewish? Was he drunk when he proposed? Or just desperate? And horny? It was a cold winter night, perhaps, she was warm, he was lacquered, and the gay young people rutting on Lombard Street during Santa Con that year gave him ideas?

Did you two actually know each other already?
The Nut Cracker, Jeff. The Nut Cracker!
You poor suffering bastard.



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STUPID DRUNKEN SANTA

Today was Santa Con in San Francisco. An event during which yuppie maga scum dress like elves and get riotously stinko drunk in public. I assume that they're magaites, because real San Franciscans are all sober sensible people, who, if they drink, do so with restraint, and only after nightfall. In between singing hymns a cappella at meetings of the glee club.

As a civilized and godly man, like so many san Franciscans, I have never celebrated Santa Con, New Years Eve, Saint Patrick's Day, or Cinco De Mayo and any of the other events during which Berkeley Frat Boys drink themselves into pukesome oblivion.


Years ago, when I had gone to a local bar to hear the singing of Old Lang Syne when it was time to sing that, Dildo Bob demanded that I wade through the riotous crowd of intoxicated swine to fetch him some of the free champagne, even though I myself abjured it.
He was quite unpleasant when I refused.

He's dead now, I believe, and it was probably the cheap champagne.
Sometimes there's a reason why stuff is free.
It's crap, is what.

When I left this morning I alerted my apartment mate to the looming likelyhood of drunken misbehaviour by random Oaklanders flocking to the city to trash it. Berkeleyites! Drunken Berkelyites! Intemperance and dissipation! Exhibitionism and slutty elves!
She's a woman I've known for years, who does not imbibe.
A nice sober Cantonese American.
Quiet. Calm.


Now, if there was a mass celebration of superlatively fresh seafoods, lobster for instance, she'd be so there. Use those sharp elbows to get to the front of the line, leaving a pile of squirming corpses in her wake. Mine, bitches, I'm now first in line!
While muttering about stupid greedy kwailo.


The best thing about Santa Con is that it's always during the time of year when people are most likely to end up with pneumonia from silly behaviour outdoors. Years from now I shall happily tell the little kiddiewinkies about the time over a thousand shallow consumerite twenty-somethings croaked after misbehaving. Oh the happy time!


I disapprove of all of this.
You people are vile.



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ARMED WITH... A HERRING!

Last night I went down to Union Square to see the lighting. It was peaceful, cold, and rather boring. The Whatsits didn't show up while I was there, I did not ask if there had been any by earlier. Enjoyed a quiet pipeful on the periphery. There were over a dozen police cars parked in various spots nearby, at least three bomb-sniffing canines, and several men and women in uniform spread out wandering throug the crowd.

Sad that it's come to this.


No one asked me if I wanted to strap some tefillin.
Which is considerably less zesty than it sounds.

When I got home, I hid the stuffed creature acquired for my apartment mate's birthday in my closet. Every year I give her an animal, every year she tells me that I should stop, there are too many, her room is overpopulated, and every year I deliberately forget that she ever said that. This year, she's getting someone with character.
And a winning smile.

You'll note that the shamash is placed a little higher than the others, slightly shorter too, because it's used to light them all. There is no rule that it has to be in the centre.
It's kind of like Monty Python's shrubbery.
A two layer effect.



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MIDWESTERNERS, SOUTHERNERS, TEXANS

Kindly note to all those allegedly real people who always comment underneath mentions of precious restaurants shutting their doors for ever in San Francisco with sneering remarks about liberals getting what they voted for, please keep in mind that those are restaurants that I cannot afford to patronize, with high fallutin' food I wouldn't touch, and I frankly don't give a damn, and neither do any of the other working class stiffs in this city. So piss off and keep your damned red state comments in Alabama or Florida, where I'm sure you have an appreciative audience for your stupid remarks.

Also, I'm tired of flash-in-the-pan "restaurateurs" blaming bike lanes, parklets and no parking, and tenderloin conditions for why their precious boutique diner with artistic interpretations of classics failed and had to close.

Have you considered that most people don't like you or your food?

Or paying fifty dollars for the privilege?

Good riddance.


Furthermore, most tourists and downtown office workers are a pain in the sphincter.
All you pantiewads, go back to Denver, Poughkeepsie, or Alabama.
Oaklanders and Berkeleyites too. Especially.



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IT INVOLVED SOMETHING FATTY

Okay, another weird dream fuelled by high blood pressure pills, coffee in the evening, and unwise snack decisions. This time involving architecture, with plenty of nooks for "artistically" placed lighting, yielding a sharp triangular light and shade effect. I woke up later than usual, with my cold-weather bathrobe missing, which I found in the teevee room with a turkey vulture enfolded, happily gloating over my wallet. Which he had stolen.
Along with the robe.

Opportunistic little dude.

It would appear that to get back at me for not bringing him freshly harvested old geezer body parts from my last walk smoking a pipe the night before, he's going to order them on-line. Except that he needs better leverage for the computer and my credit card.
And thumbs. He also needs thumbs.


It strikes me that much of modern architecture leads to bugs.
Just look at New York. It's filled with insects.
As well as sharp triangles.

Q.E.D.

What also leads to infestations is automatic calls from Alice, a recorded voice, at the Accident Claims Department, who does not listen to me swearing (it was in Dutch, so it was quite odd that it was so ineffective), and helpfully connects me with a specialist, Brian, who does not have a clue. No, I was not involved in an accident -- unless you mean that Burrito from the place for white people staffed by white people, which was uninspired (mediocre carnitas, dammit) several months ago -- and kindly take me off your call list.

Brian is from India. That burrito was over in Marin.
And that was sometime this summer.
No claim filed.

It strikes me that being able to demand insurance compensation for a white people burrito would be immensely useful. As well as a blessing that would put a popular chain responsible for food poisoning scandals every year since they went nation-wide out of business. The place in Marin is not part of that chain, but the good place was closed on Sunday.
And I was quite desperate.

Sometimes a man just needs a burrito. Precisely like a cityfied turkey vulture needs freshly dripping fatty bits from elderly men who have lived beyond their useful years, and might be drunkenly sleeping off their cocktails enjoyed while trying to chat up some nice young thing in a Polk Street dive (it took too long and went nowhere, hence more than a dozen margaritas) in a random doorway halfway up a steep hill. They were tired, the lights were spinning, and good heavens that cold concrete looks comfy!

See, this is why I don't drink. Delusions of studliness.
I've seen what it does to older men. Which is horrible.


I despair over white people burritos as well as senescent roués.
Good heavens, what is wrong with you people?
You are all sinners.



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LET'S DO THAT AGAIN!

Shortly after leaving the drugstore I was looking at some pale blue glazed antique ceramics of restrained and tasteful design. Quite lovely, and I yearn to acquire them, except, you know, my budget. When I left the shop I said farewell to the shopkeeper and told him I would be back. He probably realizes that I merely wish to admire them again.

It was sprinkling lightly at that point.

At Broadway and Stockton it was raining a bit more seriously. Less than a block.
By Pacific and Stockton, the rain was making a definite statement.
By the time I got to Jackson, a downpour.

This was at teatime. The weather reports today had blithely written that there would be light sprinkling till about one a clock, and naught thereafter.

I feel lied to, and disapprove of this deceit.
A cloudburst. Tropical downpour.
Buckets.

You know people are shopping for their dinner fixings at that time, right?
Please do not do that again. It's very inconsiderate!
Expect a strongly worded letter!

Hot milk tea and a pastry at a bakery in the company of two out of four. Russ and 'Arizona' are travelling in South East Asia. Hong Kong and Singapore.
We shan't see them till next year.


Very surprisingly, the pipe I smoked afterwards was absolutely divine. I shall have to remember that this blend (my own concoction) performs best in a group 3.
Not so much in a group 4.

The streets were quiet, the other bakery where I never go because the person who works there was too brusque for my liking had no customers at all, and the boba tea places were empty too. Hardly any tourists down on Grant. At Sacramento Street, three buses passed by without stopping, full of people. There was only one other person besides myself waiting, and he wasn't upset. During commute hours filled buses are frequent, they might not pick up any more passengers at some stops. When the fourth bus opened its doors, we did not get on. Remarkably there were half a dozen more folks at the stop when it left, and I believe they may have gotten off because of vituperation and discord on the vehicle.

So I got home later than I should. And I was soggy.
But I was happy as a clam.



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IT'S ALWAYS TIME FOR TEA, SOMETIMES

For dinner I went to a restaurant to have dumplings. While eating I observed two attractive women who work there. One of whom is quite petite, one of whom looked very huggable. Both were shorter than myself, which in that type of environment is not at all uncommon. No, I shan't ask either out, that would be quite forward and rather ungentlemanly, as they should expect safety and security at work. And I go there for dumplings. Breaking that wall would mean that they would be uncomfortable around me, and I would not be able to go there again. Besides, middle aged men should not presume to be hot stuff.

They're very nice dumplings. I like dumplings.
Plus HK milk tea. And hot sauce.
My meal was splendid.


It was as good a preparation for a very restrained pub-crawl later on as any. Every week the bookseller and myself visit a few places for drinkies, during which there will be no excessive behaviour, as we're there for conversation. And since I started taking medications, I do not consume alcohol in any case. Might combine badly with the other chemicals.

Hot tea instead.

At the karaoke place, conversation had to briefly pause for appreciation of Freddie Mercury praising fat-bottomed girls; a splendid song expressing a philosophy that I do not share.
Not, mind you that there's anything remotely wrong with fat-bottomed girls. Some very perfect people are fat-bottomed girls. Indeed. Let's hear it for fat-bottomed girls.


Thank you, Mr. Mercury. That was lovely.


As you can probably guess, I was wide awake by the time I got home, and stone-cold sober. The day had started with strong coffee, twice, then successive cups of tea, continuing through the dumplings. A shot of coffee before leaving again for crawling pubs.

Wired to the tits. So to speak.
Wonderful.



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THE HILLSTATION

It was surprisingly foggy when I stepped out this morning. My cup of coffee sat uneasy in my stomach; finishing the evening last night with a double bagger of tea and chocolates may not have been the brilliant idea I had then thought it was. But I needed something to rectify my mouth, as I had smoked a bowl of Brown No. 4 from the light-filled age before new management took over Samuel Gawith.

It had been surprisingly good. And of course all of that, combined with Amlodipine Besylate, pulled a number on my subconscious while I slept. One moves to the higher elevations during the rainy season to avoid the malaria, typhoid, cholera, tourists, and general pestilence down in the low lands.

Yes, you'll have to put up with the wives and children of officials, all speaking bad Malay and swilling fruity alcoholic drinks, but that is a small price to pay; those Besuki cheroots taste delightful in the cool mornings, and the dipterocarps look lovely at this hour.

It's time for another cup of coffee and a bath.

Of course, now that my apartment mate has left for the day, her bedroom door is firmly closed, there are open windows, I'm freezing my spongy parts, and I have lit up another pipe. Something from a colourful tin, described as an archtype. Virginias and Oriental leaf, in a pressed brick. Very gratifying. Tea later, then people watching, perhaps curry for lunch.


Resolve to stay mostly away from social media. I need to get things done, and I do not need the irritation of goodwill organizations using the recent photos of starving limbless orphans in a nasty part of the world to blackmail money out of me. I'm sure they will do well, like bandits. It's the giving season, and the yuppies and graduates of anti-Semitic higher education will be overly generous, though most of their donations will go to overhead, office rent, lawsuits, and funding the propaganda war. And cocktails: fruity alcoholic drinks

That's probably close to ninety percent.

My my, this pipe tastes good.

Hobbit-like.



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CLEANSING WITH INCENSE

Yesterday I did not interact with many people because I am not social. The most I did was argue with the turkey vulture who wants me to go out there and harvest fatty inner thighs off old geezers, and dreams of feasting on little girl hamsters who look just like delicious meatballs. Or bon bons. Oh, and whenever my apartment mate was vocalizing over stuff she was watching (extractions, black heads, sebaceous cysts, and ear wax) on youtube, I'd tell her "thank you for NOT sharing". Youtube has been a godsend to her. And she gets odd obsessions.

For over two hours yesterday evening, gentle Vietnamese murmerings issued forth from her computer. Most of the pimple popping professionals are Viet ladies. I do not know how that field ended up being dominated by those people. And I do not want to know. Their dinner table conversation is probably bizarre beyond measure.


Mụn nhọt, mụn trứng cá, mụn đầu đen, u nang bã nhờn, mụn đùn...


Today I really must be more human.

Honestly, I prefer non-reactively listening to people chatter while not actually paying attention to their statements far more than engaging in conversation with them, something which at work is virtually impossible.

Lo, tis the harvest season in our region, all the fields have had their allotments of water, there is ripeness, we shall co-operatively sickle and scythe our way down the hillsides, avoiding pythons and rat snakes. Once it is done, we will feast, and burn effigies of evil spirits.
We have reason to believe that this is pleasing to the ancestors.

Just beyond the civilized zone and human settlements, in the swamps and ravines where diseases and evil thrives (Oakland), there are headhunters and devil worshippers preparing to shoplift at Walgreens while we are in the paddies. We'll return at eventide and find the local Bevmo gutted and burnt, all the precious rice wine taken. Alack. Woe, indeed.


I can't complain. That's what the internet is for. Invade a comment string under an assumed name and make some total stranger's life more surreal. I like to at random blame Trump for my maiden aunt's gout there. Offending sincere Christians and their fellow travellers.
Or spout new age crap. Chakras, auras, healing energy.
Apple cider vinegar, sage, and turmeric.
Fake moon landing.


Om, shanti shanti om.



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