In absolute rejection of the point of view of a nanky Scots git with whom I had an argument, I propose that the liquid gold which is the blasted boggy homeland of smelly bandy-legged skirt-wearing men's only claim to fame be henceforth written 'viski'.
If doggerel-meister Robert Burns can bugger-up the English language to prove a point, so can we.
Is it 'whisk-y' or whisk-ey'? On this side of the Atlantic we usually write the word with 'ey', which the British (and Canadians) regard as an eccentricity betraying primitivism and illiteracy.
As well as our regrettable Irish tendencies.
It's just wrong.
Stupid Yanks.
VISKI
Kindly imagine my surprise when accosted at a bar recently by someone whose speech was well-nigh unintelligible, over our "American English".
It was the bastardized language of ignorant peasants and sodomites, he averred, fit only for corruption, disease, and drunkenness.
Proper English adhered to British spelling.
A draughtsman, not a draftsman.
Centre, instead of center.
Colour, never color.
Neighbours.
And 'whisky'.
Bourbon wasn't whisky.
Merely a pale imitation, with an 'e'.
Americans didn't know beans about booze.
Judging by his state of inebriation, he might be right.
But at least we speak intelligible English.
And write better than Bobby Burns.
A constant state of intoxication might explain Scottish spellings and speech. Which is understandable. The place is filled with ugly men in skirts who tend toward spontaneous violence and acts of wanton destruction, particularly when bagpipes sound or the sheep stampede. Being Scottish is a curse for which there is no cure. They are infamously bad-tempered, and very likely that can be blamed on their food & drink. Copious draughts of whiskεy are needed to deaden the pain of living there.
Skotz viski is in many ways a very fine product, and boruch Hashem one doesn't have to vizit Skotland to zample the product. That would be absolewt torture, as the place is filled with beer-sodden heathens who haven't had a dezent bath far longer than even the French or Spanish, pozzibli even in centuries. Their manners are foul, their morals are low, and their kvizeen is a blight upon the planet.
Black pudding and neeps, good lord.
Anybody who feasts on haggis and deep-fried snickers bars should in all fairness hesitate to speak of food and drink at all, though
I am lead to believe that "Scottish Cuisine" is experiencing a renaissance.
That's a horrid concept; it's worse than English food.
Boiling fat and burning starch.
But I digress.
There are two places in San Francisco where one can explore the vast world of Skotz Viski: the Edinburgh Castle, which is a famous old-time Scottish expat bar on Geary Street, and The Occidental Cigar Club, a public house with an extraordinary selection of Caledonian potations on Pine Street near Belden Alley and several fine dining establishments.
I recommend the latter; English is spoken there.
And the clientele washes regularly.
For the dangerously and incorrigibly curious, here's a short video clip from a nature documentary about the Scots.
BIG SKIRTY MEN!
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvEdcQROeTc.]
Don't watch this too often; it's bad for the nerves.
Causes uncontrollable muscle spasms.
Have a calming drink.
Viski.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, May 20, 2013
THIS IS THE PLACE
Once a week, for the past twenty years, I have been at the intersection of Pacific and Hyde Streets after two-thirty in the morning. It is the perfect place to have that last cigarillo of the night before going home to sleep.
To my mind it is one of the most beautiful spots in the city.
Especially after dark.
Hyde Street for one block south presents a lovely bistro-lined cave-tunnel between leafy trees, with a number of little eateries worth visiting -- Hyde Street Seafood House & Raw Bar, for instance: fresh oysters, clams, mussels, and fish en papillote -- ending at Jackson Street, where on one corner Sun Kwong (新光) Chinese Restaurant and Food To-go holds sway, diagonally opposite the bend in the cablecar line where U-Lee (有利飯店) has been serving contented customers for decades. Both eateries are good. Small, nothing fancy, but offering decent food well made, in an environment that will make you happy. Nice places, nice people.
I recommend both restaurants and hope that they endure.
They've been there a very long time already.
In this city, that means something.
In the evening, Hyde from Washington to Broadway, then up to Union, is shady, leafy, intimate. A beautiful place to wander around and make plans for fine dining. Zarzuela (tapas y paellas) at the corner of Union marks the end of the dinner-dream walk. The tourists riding the cablecar seldom get off here, as they are intent on 'going somewhere'. That being either the wharf or the turnaround at Powell and Market.
Hyde Street is not 'somewhere'.
It just is.
The locals know it, and if they do not live right nearby will take the effort to come. Food is a draw, strong coffee or a glass of wine too, but the magnet is mostly the pleasant calm leafiness of the neighborhood. Nob and Russian Hill are less pretentious here, slightly more out of the way despite being crossed by many transit lines, and the rest of San Francisco seems far distant. It isn't North Beach, where the loud Eurotrashers party all night, nor Polk or Union Street, filled with throngs of hormonally challenged twenty-somethings preening and rutting till closing time.
Merely a quiet tree-lined passageway among the dwellings.
Hyde and Pacific enrobed in drifting fog in Autumn, or drenched by late-night downpours during the rainy season, is otherworldly and peaceful.
You cannot be impatient at three o'clock in the morning, you took your own sweet time to get here, there is nothing else to do but drink it in.
And light up another cigarillo.
Golden light.
Silver air.
Smoke.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
To my mind it is one of the most beautiful spots in the city.
Especially after dark.
Hyde Street for one block south presents a lovely bistro-lined cave-tunnel between leafy trees, with a number of little eateries worth visiting -- Hyde Street Seafood House & Raw Bar, for instance: fresh oysters, clams, mussels, and fish en papillote -- ending at Jackson Street, where on one corner Sun Kwong (新光) Chinese Restaurant and Food To-go holds sway, diagonally opposite the bend in the cablecar line where U-Lee (有利飯店) has been serving contented customers for decades. Both eateries are good. Small, nothing fancy, but offering decent food well made, in an environment that will make you happy. Nice places, nice people.
I recommend both restaurants and hope that they endure.
They've been there a very long time already.
In this city, that means something.
In the evening, Hyde from Washington to Broadway, then up to Union, is shady, leafy, intimate. A beautiful place to wander around and make plans for fine dining. Zarzuela (tapas y paellas) at the corner of Union marks the end of the dinner-dream walk. The tourists riding the cablecar seldom get off here, as they are intent on 'going somewhere'. That being either the wharf or the turnaround at Powell and Market.
Hyde Street is not 'somewhere'.
It just is.
The locals know it, and if they do not live right nearby will take the effort to come. Food is a draw, strong coffee or a glass of wine too, but the magnet is mostly the pleasant calm leafiness of the neighborhood. Nob and Russian Hill are less pretentious here, slightly more out of the way despite being crossed by many transit lines, and the rest of San Francisco seems far distant. It isn't North Beach, where the loud Eurotrashers party all night, nor Polk or Union Street, filled with throngs of hormonally challenged twenty-somethings preening and rutting till closing time.
Merely a quiet tree-lined passageway among the dwellings.
Hyde and Pacific enrobed in drifting fog in Autumn, or drenched by late-night downpours during the rainy season, is otherworldly and peaceful.
You cannot be impatient at three o'clock in the morning, you took your own sweet time to get here, there is nothing else to do but drink it in.
And light up another cigarillo.
Golden light.
Silver air.
Smoke.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, May 19, 2013
THE HUNGRY DREAMS
What do you feel like? And what do you want to do?
She wanted it all to herself. The cake, the pie, the ice-cream. Hot buttery crust, golden puff paste, and an enticing smell. Bakery aromas, sensuous fragrances. And she knew now where it could be found.
She was determined to explore it in private, behind closed doors, on a day when she would not be disturbed. A secret thrill and delicious depravity.
And no one should ever know. She'd hide it from them.
This wasn't something to admit in public.
Why do you hesitate?
It was what she had wanted to do for a long time. Experience it, finally. She hadn't mentioned this to anyone, not her best friend, not even the pussycat that slept on the couch whenever she lay there reading in the evening. The cat just dozed, ignoring the occasional crunch of cookies as she sampled sweetness in between chapters. She would have gotten up to get some milk, but she did not want to wake the beast. Still, it would be quite understandable if she did.
The feline lay there, contently dreaming of cream.
A throbbing presence near her knees
Calmly, quietly, feasting on a surfeit of fresh egg tarts.
An enormous box of heavenly hot pastries.
All hers. No one else's!
In her imagination crumbs and custard sloppily went everywhere, rimming her mouth and dribbling down her front. Wickedly she licked her lips, the pink tip of her tongue flicking in and out. She herself would fall asleep after being sated. That's what Saturdays were all about. Yielding to a private pleasure, with a furry beast between your thighs. Purring. Sleeping.
The faint frisson of claws curling, or the thumping flick of a tail.
Tails are immense fun.
Yowling pussy.
Then an early dinner. An entire afternoon of indolence and drowsing might naturally make one ravenous, and vigorous appetites lend alertness. It's fun to discover something new and delicious, perhaps a restaurant with candles near a park.
Appropriately for a city by the water, there will be fish. Fresh live fish. It's not the only thing that wriggles, sometimes pleasure makes one squirm. Fleshy food: warm, wet, and velvety on the tongue.
Or maybe even more pastries, eaten hurriedly on a bench in a quiet alley, near the sound of crows. Faintly, distant, the sound of running water.
A fountain underneath redwood trees. The city is silent, so silent.
It's deceptive; there is tension in pockets and around corners.
Exciting things to uncover, glowing candy.
And zephyrs of eddying warmth.
Black birds, beaks, eyes.
New sweetness.
She was enchanted by the prospect of many such afternoons as Spring became an indolent Summer. More Saturdays. Long evenings.
She would really want it to last forever.
Something never felt before.
Lazy anticipation.
Delight.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
She wanted it all to herself. The cake, the pie, the ice-cream. Hot buttery crust, golden puff paste, and an enticing smell. Bakery aromas, sensuous fragrances. And she knew now where it could be found.
She was determined to explore it in private, behind closed doors, on a day when she would not be disturbed. A secret thrill and delicious depravity.
And no one should ever know. She'd hide it from them.
This wasn't something to admit in public.
Why do you hesitate?
It was what she had wanted to do for a long time. Experience it, finally. She hadn't mentioned this to anyone, not her best friend, not even the pussycat that slept on the couch whenever she lay there reading in the evening. The cat just dozed, ignoring the occasional crunch of cookies as she sampled sweetness in between chapters. She would have gotten up to get some milk, but she did not want to wake the beast. Still, it would be quite understandable if she did.
The feline lay there, contently dreaming of cream.
A throbbing presence near her knees
Calmly, quietly, feasting on a surfeit of fresh egg tarts.
An enormous box of heavenly hot pastries.
All hers. No one else's!
In her imagination crumbs and custard sloppily went everywhere, rimming her mouth and dribbling down her front. Wickedly she licked her lips, the pink tip of her tongue flicking in and out. She herself would fall asleep after being sated. That's what Saturdays were all about. Yielding to a private pleasure, with a furry beast between your thighs. Purring. Sleeping.
The faint frisson of claws curling, or the thumping flick of a tail.
Tails are immense fun.
Yowling pussy.
Then an early dinner. An entire afternoon of indolence and drowsing might naturally make one ravenous, and vigorous appetites lend alertness. It's fun to discover something new and delicious, perhaps a restaurant with candles near a park.
Appropriately for a city by the water, there will be fish. Fresh live fish. It's not the only thing that wriggles, sometimes pleasure makes one squirm. Fleshy food: warm, wet, and velvety on the tongue.
Or maybe even more pastries, eaten hurriedly on a bench in a quiet alley, near the sound of crows. Faintly, distant, the sound of running water.
A fountain underneath redwood trees. The city is silent, so silent.
It's deceptive; there is tension in pockets and around corners.
Exciting things to uncover, glowing candy.
And zephyrs of eddying warmth.
Black birds, beaks, eyes.
New sweetness.
She was enchanted by the prospect of many such afternoons as Spring became an indolent Summer. More Saturdays. Long evenings.
She would really want it to last forever.
Something never felt before.
Lazy anticipation.
Delight.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
COLLEGIATE FANTASY
The spambot assault on the comments field continues, the war is unending. Despite the siege, however, this blogger is winning. Constant, recurring, and repetitive victory.
It's rather like a video game. But without the sheer sense of achievement the player gets when shooting down alien rockets or blasting cartoon ducks.
Every time I consign a batch of spam comments to the void, there's a very mild feeling of regret; alas, none of these were actual readers.
One recent comment that was not published did, however, arouse a zesty set of images in my imagination: COLLEGE PANTIE PORN.
A lesser man would've clicked on the link. But that would be giving the evil spambots a victory.
Never-the-less, the gestalt represented by 'college pantie porn' is in its own way utterly charming. What could be more delightful than co-eds engaging in studious and scholarly depravity? There it is, seven a clock on a Sunday morning, and several gay young ladies are having an underwear party with the boys from the classics department. Salacious comments in Latin are being uttered, Greek texts are quoted entire, then Caesar's death is re-enacted with scanty silken French-cuts or bikini briefs instead of togas, and naughty rubber devices in lieu of Roman stilletos. The emperor, played by a petite blonde wearing a purple bra and pantie set trimmed in Belgian lace, succumbs under a barrage of ticklish touching.
Joy and merry giggling all around.
College Pantie Porn: a concept that brings a smile to the face of any right thinking man.
Unfortunately, I have no doubt that the reality would be quite uninteresting, and rather depressing even. Instead of bright-eyed demoiselles and witty boys with glasses, more than likely it is dull-eyed bottle-blonde has-been cheerleader heffalumps and tattooed slags getting 'entertained' by brutish football players and zombie high-school dropouts in a filthy motel room in Orange County. About the only things remarkable would be the beer bong in one corner of the set for verisimilitude, and the worn athletic jersey on the badly sagging couch as another prop suggesting an academic environment.
Bad lighting, and close-ups of ugly bits.
This sleazy amateurish film brought to you by flunkees from UCLA.
Beer-sodden failures from the film department.
Exceedingly suburbanite.
So-Cal.
Probably so much infectious malware on the college pantie porn site that your motherboard would explode. All your files are now in Ouagadougou, and once you finally have access to your e-mail again you will discover that you have won the European Lottery several dozen times. An ex-con in Nebraska has charged a pallet of viagra to your Visa account. Several people have made long trans-Atlantic phone calls in your name.
You are now the proud owner of a time-share in Florida.
And there's a blow-up sex-doll on your lawn.
Still, college panties. I wonder what college panties are like.
They sound so bright and care-free.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It's rather like a video game. But without the sheer sense of achievement the player gets when shooting down alien rockets or blasting cartoon ducks.
Every time I consign a batch of spam comments to the void, there's a very mild feeling of regret; alas, none of these were actual readers.
One recent comment that was not published did, however, arouse a zesty set of images in my imagination: COLLEGE PANTIE PORN.
A lesser man would've clicked on the link. But that would be giving the evil spambots a victory.
Never-the-less, the gestalt represented by 'college pantie porn' is in its own way utterly charming. What could be more delightful than co-eds engaging in studious and scholarly depravity? There it is, seven a clock on a Sunday morning, and several gay young ladies are having an underwear party with the boys from the classics department. Salacious comments in Latin are being uttered, Greek texts are quoted entire, then Caesar's death is re-enacted with scanty silken French-cuts or bikini briefs instead of togas, and naughty rubber devices in lieu of Roman stilletos. The emperor, played by a petite blonde wearing a purple bra and pantie set trimmed in Belgian lace, succumbs under a barrage of ticklish touching.
Joy and merry giggling all around.
College Pantie Porn: a concept that brings a smile to the face of any right thinking man.
Unfortunately, I have no doubt that the reality would be quite uninteresting, and rather depressing even. Instead of bright-eyed demoiselles and witty boys with glasses, more than likely it is dull-eyed bottle-blonde has-been cheerleader heffalumps and tattooed slags getting 'entertained' by brutish football players and zombie high-school dropouts in a filthy motel room in Orange County. About the only things remarkable would be the beer bong in one corner of the set for verisimilitude, and the worn athletic jersey on the badly sagging couch as another prop suggesting an academic environment.
Bad lighting, and close-ups of ugly bits.
This sleazy amateurish film brought to you by flunkees from UCLA.
Beer-sodden failures from the film department.
Exceedingly suburbanite.
So-Cal.
Probably so much infectious malware on the college pantie porn site that your motherboard would explode. All your files are now in Ouagadougou, and once you finally have access to your e-mail again you will discover that you have won the European Lottery several dozen times. An ex-con in Nebraska has charged a pallet of viagra to your Visa account. Several people have made long trans-Atlantic phone calls in your name.
You are now the proud owner of a time-share in Florida.
And there's a blow-up sex-doll on your lawn.
Still, college panties. I wonder what college panties are like.
They sound so bright and care-free.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, May 18, 2013
THERE IS NONE OF THAT!
The other day I advised someone that tobacco mixtures containing Latakia and Turkish are "guaranteed wife repellent". This in regards to a product he intended to sample. He mentioned that his wife already makes him stand at the end of the yard any time he lights his briar, and then speculated that I had just made crystal clear why at my age I wasn't married yet.
I let the remark stand; no point going into the details.
Or the analysis.
I would've liked to have been blessed with a somewhat more normal domestic life. And malleable offspring, whose young flexible minds could be molded into brilliant personalities. But the most interesting and attractive women tend towards strong independent streaks and consequently avoid commitment and even contact, and one is averse to experimentation with standard issue other numbers.
We've all seen those couplings go wrong after a few years.
When both parties are more mature, and have become even more familiar with each other -- often within the first decade after tying the knot -- they realize that the person they thought they knew was not the person they thought they married.
'Good lord', she will think one day, 'he really doesn't have ANYTHING on his mind other than baseball and pizza'. And sex. Far too much sex.
And he, for his part, will grudgingly admit that shopping for footwear and handbags seriously makes him barf. Although she's still a darn fine thing in his more animalistic eye. Though far too sexually hungry.
[As a side-track, television broadcasters thoroughly understand this situation. That explains the ever-expanding selection of sports channels and athletic events, as well as the fact that there are now hundreds of shop-by-television options and any number of mind-numbing reality shows featuring tacky blondes acting badly (behaving normally, in other words).
This is why I don't watch television.]
Physically men and women are attracted to each other. Intellectually they've been conditioned to be moronic in entirely different ways. Sometimes the only thing that forms the basis for their relationship is happy groping.
Baseball, Vuitton, and sex are not a sufficient foundation.
At least I don't think they are.
I might be wrong.
However, having reached mature middle-age, I do not have any unrealistic optimism about the chances anymore. I've spent too much time sneering at handbags and strenuously avoiding baseball and other sweaty testosteronic spectacles to fit in with anybody's ideal of mate-material. And given that so many women object to pipe-smoking and evenings spent quietly reading, the chances of running into someone who actually thinks those are both pretty darn cool are fairly slim.
Increasingly so now that I'm significantly past my twenties.
Happy groping would be nice. But it's quite unlikely.
And I'll pass on the baseball or Louis Vuitton.
However, I am not likely to become one of those embittered old grumps who bellyache about everybody else in the room, or wait for public transit with a viciously sour expression on their faces. Nor will I assume that having reached this age (whatever age I am at that point), I am entitled to be an unpleasant demanding grey-haired prune.
I am far more likely to organize wheelchair obstacle races at the old-folks home, lead the conspiracy to start a moonshine operation in the basement, and smuggle in cartons of ciggies without nurse Ratchet finding out.
At fifty-three I am still young and vibrant -- albeit probably not by your standards -- and already becoming the rowdy disreputable relation you invite to events at which your maiden-aunt will NOT be present. "That's uncle Atboth; forcrapssakes keep him away from the born-again cousins, he's likely to teach them vulgar songs about Mary Magdalene or go off about the Levite, his concubine, and the men from the Tribe of of Benjamin". The piss and vinegar is leavened with wickedness, and likely to get more eloquent and fluent as I age. I'm brimming.
I'll dress nicely and act quiet at your wedding.
Just don't ask me to make any speeches.
Your maiden-aunt will blanch.
There will be gasps.
Even outrage.
And if your born-again cousins piss me off, I'll spike the punch bowl.
I'm looking forward to four decades hence, when I'm in my nineties.
Nurse Ratchet will be miserable, and life will be sheer loads of fun.
I think I'll smoke another bowl of "guaranteed wife repellent" now.
There shall not be any groping, happy or otherwise, this evening.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I let the remark stand; no point going into the details.
Or the analysis.
I would've liked to have been blessed with a somewhat more normal domestic life. And malleable offspring, whose young flexible minds could be molded into brilliant personalities. But the most interesting and attractive women tend towards strong independent streaks and consequently avoid commitment and even contact, and one is averse to experimentation with standard issue other numbers.
We've all seen those couplings go wrong after a few years.
When both parties are more mature, and have become even more familiar with each other -- often within the first decade after tying the knot -- they realize that the person they thought they knew was not the person they thought they married.
'Good lord', she will think one day, 'he really doesn't have ANYTHING on his mind other than baseball and pizza'. And sex. Far too much sex.
And he, for his part, will grudgingly admit that shopping for footwear and handbags seriously makes him barf. Although she's still a darn fine thing in his more animalistic eye. Though far too sexually hungry.
[As a side-track, television broadcasters thoroughly understand this situation. That explains the ever-expanding selection of sports channels and athletic events, as well as the fact that there are now hundreds of shop-by-television options and any number of mind-numbing reality shows featuring tacky blondes acting badly (behaving normally, in other words).
This is why I don't watch television.]
Physically men and women are attracted to each other. Intellectually they've been conditioned to be moronic in entirely different ways. Sometimes the only thing that forms the basis for their relationship is happy groping.
Baseball, Vuitton, and sex are not a sufficient foundation.
At least I don't think they are.
I might be wrong.
However, having reached mature middle-age, I do not have any unrealistic optimism about the chances anymore. I've spent too much time sneering at handbags and strenuously avoiding baseball and other sweaty testosteronic spectacles to fit in with anybody's ideal of mate-material. And given that so many women object to pipe-smoking and evenings spent quietly reading, the chances of running into someone who actually thinks those are both pretty darn cool are fairly slim.
Increasingly so now that I'm significantly past my twenties.
Happy groping would be nice. But it's quite unlikely.
And I'll pass on the baseball or Louis Vuitton.
However, I am not likely to become one of those embittered old grumps who bellyache about everybody else in the room, or wait for public transit with a viciously sour expression on their faces. Nor will I assume that having reached this age (whatever age I am at that point), I am entitled to be an unpleasant demanding grey-haired prune.
I am far more likely to organize wheelchair obstacle races at the old-folks home, lead the conspiracy to start a moonshine operation in the basement, and smuggle in cartons of ciggies without nurse Ratchet finding out.
At fifty-three I am still young and vibrant -- albeit probably not by your standards -- and already becoming the rowdy disreputable relation you invite to events at which your maiden-aunt will NOT be present. "That's uncle Atboth; forcrapssakes keep him away from the born-again cousins, he's likely to teach them vulgar songs about Mary Magdalene or go off about the Levite, his concubine, and the men from the Tribe of of Benjamin". The piss and vinegar is leavened with wickedness, and likely to get more eloquent and fluent as I age. I'm brimming.
I'll dress nicely and act quiet at your wedding.
Just don't ask me to make any speeches.
Your maiden-aunt will blanch.
There will be gasps.
Even outrage.
And if your born-again cousins piss me off, I'll spike the punch bowl.
I'm looking forward to four decades hence, when I'm in my nineties.
Nurse Ratchet will be miserable, and life will be sheer loads of fun.
I think I'll smoke another bowl of "guaranteed wife repellent" now.
There shall not be any groping, happy or otherwise, this evening.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, May 17, 2013
ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF CLOTHING
Often, when I head over to Marin County, there is a woman in her twenties or early thirties waiting at the same bus-stop for the city bus to go to work. She wears scrubs -- medical profession workwear -- and usually a coat because mornings in San Francisco are cold.
I do not know whether she is a nurse or a dental assistant. She might even be a laboratory technician.
Scrubs are a neat common sense ensemble suitable for anyone working in the healthcare field. Even if in pretty soft colours like primrose, lavender, or pink, scrubs say that the person in question is engaged upon something serious and worth doing, something that requires attention to detail, knowledge, and intelligence. Simple, practical, no frills.
Scrubs are utterly HOT, in an intellectual way.
If, at a soiree, I had the opportunity to have a chat with a vivacious blonde wearing bling and a short cocktail dress, or a quiet young lady wearing scrubs, you know which direction I would head.
Even if the cocktail dress showed cleavage, as I'm sure it would.
Thanks to the medical terminology bandied about so freely in our house when I was still a youngster, I am conditioned to think of women in the hospital and oral medicine fields as bright, conscientious, and altogether fascinating. Capable people, with attractive brains and vocabularies. Infinitely more appealing than any amount of downtown office-ese.
The woman at the bus stop looks very nice. Serious, calm, and abstracted. She's probably thinking of urine samples or thoracic ex-rays. And perhaps she has an aptitude for multisyllabic latin and greek locutions.
A person straightforwardly familiar with body parts.
I've never spoken to her. I do not want to interrupt her dreams of petri dishes or complicated paperwork.
But I would like to.
Scrubs: a simple elegant clothing option. One that speaks volumes.
The uniform that says "don't bother me, I'm otherwise occupied".
Admit it: if you were at an important event and a woman wearing scrubs walked by, heads would discretely swivel, conversation would fade slightly, and everyone would endeavor to act more adult and mature than a moment ago. Because someone with a brain and a purpose went past. It would totally change the ambience from flighty and flibberty to serious and meaningful.
I wonder if she's married.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Scrubs are a neat common sense ensemble suitable for anyone working in the healthcare field. Even if in pretty soft colours like primrose, lavender, or pink, scrubs say that the person in question is engaged upon something serious and worth doing, something that requires attention to detail, knowledge, and intelligence. Simple, practical, no frills.
Scrubs are utterly HOT, in an intellectual way.
If, at a soiree, I had the opportunity to have a chat with a vivacious blonde wearing bling and a short cocktail dress, or a quiet young lady wearing scrubs, you know which direction I would head.
Even if the cocktail dress showed cleavage, as I'm sure it would.
Thanks to the medical terminology bandied about so freely in our house when I was still a youngster, I am conditioned to think of women in the hospital and oral medicine fields as bright, conscientious, and altogether fascinating. Capable people, with attractive brains and vocabularies. Infinitely more appealing than any amount of downtown office-ese.
The woman at the bus stop looks very nice. Serious, calm, and abstracted. She's probably thinking of urine samples or thoracic ex-rays. And perhaps she has an aptitude for multisyllabic latin and greek locutions.
A person straightforwardly familiar with body parts.
I've never spoken to her. I do not want to interrupt her dreams of petri dishes or complicated paperwork.
But I would like to.
Scrubs: a simple elegant clothing option. One that speaks volumes.
The uniform that says "don't bother me, I'm otherwise occupied".
Admit it: if you were at an important event and a woman wearing scrubs walked by, heads would discretely swivel, conversation would fade slightly, and everyone would endeavor to act more adult and mature than a moment ago. Because someone with a brain and a purpose went past. It would totally change the ambience from flighty and flibberty to serious and meaningful.
I wonder if she's married.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, May 16, 2013
BEST MILK TEA IN SAN FRANCISCO
Over the past two years you have seen a term here fairly often that might have quirked your interest: Milk Tea (奶茶 'naai cha'). And perhaps you have understood that in the context of this blog and my own preferences it refers fairly strictly to the Hong Kong cha-chanteng (茶餐廳 tea restaurant) standard, that being strong black tea made silky with sweetened evaporated milk (淡奶 'daam naai'), served hot in a cup, and preferably that cup comes with a spoon and saucer. There must be a hint of bitterness and depth to the beverage, so that the taam naai will find a foil.
It may be new to some people, but to others it is almost shockingly old-fashioned. Old hat in any case. Trends have moved on, and though true aficionados will not deviate, others have developed a fascination with 'milk tea' made with fruity flavours and large gummy tapioca balls. Personally I like small pale tapioca pearls, because they are more fun on the tongue and far easier to process in the mouth and stomach, but the hardened digestive systems of teenagers crave the big brown things.
Sweet tea with balls.
But where to get?
波霸奶茶 BO BA NAAI CHA
Try Irving Street, reachable by taking the N-Judah streetcar.
Teaway Express
2142 Irving Street
San Francisco, CA 94122.
Wonderful Dessert & Cafe
2035 Irving Street
San Francisco, CA 94122.
Milk green tea, honeydew, lychee, taro, almond milk, or mixed coffee-tea-cream. With big brown gloopy balls.
If you don't feel like cruising out to the Sunset, there's Quicklies, with at least four locations in the North-East quadrant of the city - Kearny and Jackson, Powell Street near the Chinatown Library, Polk between Clay and Washington, and somewhere in the Tenderloin where the 19 goes.
There's also a place in the Financial District: Morning Brew Coffee & Tea, located at the intersection of Clay and Sansome Street, opposite the Mechanics Bank, next door to Self-Help for the Elderly (安老自助處 'On-lou Ji-Jo Chyu').
There are of course many other places. You will likely not find me there either.
I'm more likely to hang out in a bakery or chachanteng in Chinatown, where there are good things to eat in addition to the standard milk-tea, and noisy old people.
Old farts creating a racket make me feel young.
And milk tea cheers me up.
新檀島咖啡餅店 NEW HONOLULU
['san taan tou ka fei bing dim']
888 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
文仔記燒臘茶餐廳 YEE'S RESTAURANT
['man chai kee siu lahp cha chan teng']
1131 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.
文記茶餐廳 WASHINGTON CAFÉ
['man kee cha chan teng']
826 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
The New Honolulu has bakery items plus a full menu of cha-chanteng classics, Yee's Restaurant specializes in barbecue meats and soy chicken and they also have scrumptious roast goose, and the Washington Café is a lively bustling place with good food at good prices, but you might not recognize everything.
Go to any of them for lunch or dinner. They're not really suitable for dates, unless the person you are with isn't looking to be impressed by high prices and a wine list bigger than the real-estate pages. Dress casual, not up. Heck, go to these restaurants with someone you like who also likes you. Don't bother taking a "date" there.
Both of you should order milk-tea.
And share your food.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It may be new to some people, but to others it is almost shockingly old-fashioned. Old hat in any case. Trends have moved on, and though true aficionados will not deviate, others have developed a fascination with 'milk tea' made with fruity flavours and large gummy tapioca balls. Personally I like small pale tapioca pearls, because they are more fun on the tongue and far easier to process in the mouth and stomach, but the hardened digestive systems of teenagers crave the big brown things.
Sweet tea with balls.
But where to get?
波霸奶茶 BO BA NAAI CHA
Try Irving Street, reachable by taking the N-Judah streetcar.
Teaway Express
2142 Irving Street
San Francisco, CA 94122.
Wonderful Dessert & Cafe
2035 Irving Street
San Francisco, CA 94122.
Milk green tea, honeydew, lychee, taro, almond milk, or mixed coffee-tea-cream. With big brown gloopy balls.
If you don't feel like cruising out to the Sunset, there's Quicklies, with at least four locations in the North-East quadrant of the city - Kearny and Jackson, Powell Street near the Chinatown Library, Polk between Clay and Washington, and somewhere in the Tenderloin where the 19 goes.
There's also a place in the Financial District: Morning Brew Coffee & Tea, located at the intersection of Clay and Sansome Street, opposite the Mechanics Bank, next door to Self-Help for the Elderly (安老自助處 'On-lou Ji-Jo Chyu').
There are of course many other places. You will likely not find me there either.
I'm more likely to hang out in a bakery or chachanteng in Chinatown, where there are good things to eat in addition to the standard milk-tea, and noisy old people.
Old farts creating a racket make me feel young.
And milk tea cheers me up.
新檀島咖啡餅店 NEW HONOLULU
['san taan tou ka fei bing dim']
888 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
文仔記燒臘茶餐廳 YEE'S RESTAURANT
['man chai kee siu lahp cha chan teng']
1131 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.
文記茶餐廳 WASHINGTON CAFÉ
['man kee cha chan teng']
826 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
The New Honolulu has bakery items plus a full menu of cha-chanteng classics, Yee's Restaurant specializes in barbecue meats and soy chicken and they also have scrumptious roast goose, and the Washington Café is a lively bustling place with good food at good prices, but you might not recognize everything.
Go to any of them for lunch or dinner. They're not really suitable for dates, unless the person you are with isn't looking to be impressed by high prices and a wine list bigger than the real-estate pages. Dress casual, not up. Heck, go to these restaurants with someone you like who also likes you. Don't bother taking a "date" there.
Both of you should order milk-tea.
And share your food.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
EXCITEMENT ELSEWHERE
Carefully and thoughtfully you apply your lipstick. What a pity that you will never wear it outside the house! It is, perhaps, too shocking, too blatant. And you know of no one who is worthy.
I think I am, quite probably so. As well as just the right amount depraved.
But you will never meet me. This blogger shall willy-nilly remain a person of mystery. Besides, you are far too hesitant. The fact that I am a mature man frightens you, and that I smoke -- a pipe and strong English tobacco too, nota bene -- is something you instinctively shy away from.
You will not go against conditioning. You cannot.
Middle-aged pipe-smoker. Unheard of.
And far too risky anyway.
I am unsuitable.
It's brilliant red lipstick. You purse your mouth in front of the mirror. Mmm, pouty! Quite the sexiness! Halfway between scarlet and a luscious cherry, and a very attractive hue that brings out the warmth of your complexion. You blush. Well, at least one person knows how fresh you look. But only one. She's staring right back at you from the mirror, with an angry frustrated face that plainly says she doesn't understand what's wrong with you.
You could be doing so much, moving forward with your life.
You could be working toward your graduate degree.
You could be travelling through Europe.
You could be kissing someone.
Carefully and thoughtfully you wipe the crimson smear from your hungry lips, wiping away the last trace with infinite sadness. Then you get up and head downstairs to dinner, and a dreary rehash of last night's discussion, and the one before, and other even earlier ones.
Meanwhile, I am loading up a pipe with something dark and mysterious by Samuel Gawith, a fine old firm in Cumbria. As soon as I'm outside I'm firing it up, and heading down to the corner of Washington and Walter Lum to get a cup of milk-tea. Who knows where I'll go after that, the evening has barely begun, it's warm out, and several hours till darkness. The downtown becomes so empty after work lets out. There are crows in the redwood trees near the pyramid, and screechy parrots overhead.
I shall have a lovely walk, and see new things.
While dragon-breath lingers about me.
Smoke trailing, incense wisps.
With a wicked smile.
I am full of it.
The evening is still young and filled with possibilities.
Tell me what that lipstick means to you.
Please, I am all ears.
I dare you.
Heh.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I think I am, quite probably so. As well as just the right amount depraved.
But you will never meet me. This blogger shall willy-nilly remain a person of mystery. Besides, you are far too hesitant. The fact that I am a mature man frightens you, and that I smoke -- a pipe and strong English tobacco too, nota bene -- is something you instinctively shy away from.
You will not go against conditioning. You cannot.
Middle-aged pipe-smoker. Unheard of.
And far too risky anyway.
I am unsuitable.
It's brilliant red lipstick. You purse your mouth in front of the mirror. Mmm, pouty! Quite the sexiness! Halfway between scarlet and a luscious cherry, and a very attractive hue that brings out the warmth of your complexion. You blush. Well, at least one person knows how fresh you look. But only one. She's staring right back at you from the mirror, with an angry frustrated face that plainly says she doesn't understand what's wrong with you.
You could be doing so much, moving forward with your life.
You could be working toward your graduate degree.
You could be travelling through Europe.
You could be kissing someone.
Carefully and thoughtfully you wipe the crimson smear from your hungry lips, wiping away the last trace with infinite sadness. Then you get up and head downstairs to dinner, and a dreary rehash of last night's discussion, and the one before, and other even earlier ones.
Meanwhile, I am loading up a pipe with something dark and mysterious by Samuel Gawith, a fine old firm in Cumbria. As soon as I'm outside I'm firing it up, and heading down to the corner of Washington and Walter Lum to get a cup of milk-tea. Who knows where I'll go after that, the evening has barely begun, it's warm out, and several hours till darkness. The downtown becomes so empty after work lets out. There are crows in the redwood trees near the pyramid, and screechy parrots overhead.
I shall have a lovely walk, and see new things.
While dragon-breath lingers about me.
Smoke trailing, incense wisps.
With a wicked smile.
I am full of it.
The evening is still young and filled with possibilities.
Tell me what that lipstick means to you.
Please, I am all ears.
I dare you.
Heh.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
ELDERLY GENTLEMEN ENJOYING THEIR AFTERNOON TEA
This blogger spent too much time in the company of the far-older-than-himself yesterday. Semi-anonymously, of course, as one presumes that a white person doesn't understand a lick of Cantonese.
I'll admit that my conversational abilities are limited; the right word does not necessarily come to tongue, and my tones are often staggeringly wrong.
But I surreptitiously listen in pretty well, and elderly gentlemen who are socializing are not high-concept.
And if they're digging into a daantaat or chasiusou, they won't be grumpy. Silver-haired patrons of the typical Chinatown coffee shop or bakery are usually full of beans.
There's zest for life there that must out.
One particularly ancient fossil endeared himself to me by his distraction. That was probably a darn fine pastry he was eating, but when the two Taiwanese girls with the tiny tiny shorts came in, the yumminess in his hand lost out to the shapely golden thighs less than four feet away.
He thoughtfully put his snack down, and contemplated the gams.
He must have been ninety if he was a day.
But, from the male perspective, his priorities were in order.
There was a subdued but infinitely sunny smile on his face that stayed there even after they left. 'Oh my', it seemed to say, 'candy!'
I have to applaud that. My own reaction was a bit different. And while I also keenly appreciate shapely golden thighs, I was somewhat startled at the sheer scantiness of their garb. I felt certain that they weren't Chinatown girls and was sure that when they spoke it would be shrilly, in the harshest whiny Mandarin. There's just something about those Northern types that almost forces them into clothing that women probably should not wear.
Rougher personalities, and a streak of boldness.
Often staggeringly vulgar, too.
Still, nice legs.
Egg tarts taste more eggy after the Taiwanese legs have passed.
I had two more, plus another cup of milk tea.
Sheer golden goodness.
The old gentleman was still smiling when I left.
I am glad that they made the old fellow happy.
His cake probably tasted far better after that.
蛋撻 DAAN TAAT
The typical Hong Kong and Chinatown egg tart (蛋撻 or 蛋塔) is a small round open-faced sweet pastry containing a custard that is intensely yolky. Often the shell is marvelously flaky and crumbly, and by itself quite utterly delicious. Some Chinatown bakeries are famous for their egg tarts, and customers will line up outside the door waiting for the next batch to come out of the oven, whereupon there will be a frenzy not unlike beef tartare time at the piranha pool. Many people like them warm; I prefer them at room temperature, and I will not queue for anything if I can help it.
Small children will usually suck the custard out and ignore the pastry.
But an appreciation for the total balance marks maturity.
They're best with a cup of Hong Kong milk-tea.
It's the little things in life that count.
Plus sometimes, legs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I'll admit that my conversational abilities are limited; the right word does not necessarily come to tongue, and my tones are often staggeringly wrong.
But I surreptitiously listen in pretty well, and elderly gentlemen who are socializing are not high-concept.
And if they're digging into a daantaat or chasiusou, they won't be grumpy. Silver-haired patrons of the typical Chinatown coffee shop or bakery are usually full of beans.
There's zest for life there that must out.
One particularly ancient fossil endeared himself to me by his distraction. That was probably a darn fine pastry he was eating, but when the two Taiwanese girls with the tiny tiny shorts came in, the yumminess in his hand lost out to the shapely golden thighs less than four feet away.
He thoughtfully put his snack down, and contemplated the gams.
He must have been ninety if he was a day.
But, from the male perspective, his priorities were in order.
There was a subdued but infinitely sunny smile on his face that stayed there even after they left. 'Oh my', it seemed to say, 'candy!'
I have to applaud that. My own reaction was a bit different. And while I also keenly appreciate shapely golden thighs, I was somewhat startled at the sheer scantiness of their garb. I felt certain that they weren't Chinatown girls and was sure that when they spoke it would be shrilly, in the harshest whiny Mandarin. There's just something about those Northern types that almost forces them into clothing that women probably should not wear.
Rougher personalities, and a streak of boldness.
Often staggeringly vulgar, too.
Still, nice legs.
Egg tarts taste more eggy after the Taiwanese legs have passed.
I had two more, plus another cup of milk tea.
Sheer golden goodness.
The old gentleman was still smiling when I left.
I am glad that they made the old fellow happy.
His cake probably tasted far better after that.
蛋撻 DAAN TAAT
The typical Hong Kong and Chinatown egg tart (蛋撻 or 蛋塔) is a small round open-faced sweet pastry containing a custard that is intensely yolky. Often the shell is marvelously flaky and crumbly, and by itself quite utterly delicious. Some Chinatown bakeries are famous for their egg tarts, and customers will line up outside the door waiting for the next batch to come out of the oven, whereupon there will be a frenzy not unlike beef tartare time at the piranha pool. Many people like them warm; I prefer them at room temperature, and I will not queue for anything if I can help it.
Small children will usually suck the custard out and ignore the pastry.
But an appreciation for the total balance marks maturity.
They're best with a cup of Hong Kong milk-tea.
It's the little things in life that count.
Plus sometimes, legs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
ALL ABOUT MILK TEA HONG KONG STYLE
While I type this I am at home enjoying a delicious cup of 港式奶茶 (gongsik naaicha - Hong Kong style milk-tea). No, I didn't find the one single Chinatown bakery of myth and legend that has Wifi. I made it at home, using strong tea and sweetened condensed milk. And instead of pouring it through a silk-stocking, as per tradition, I just poured it through a very fine mesh strainer.
So it isn't 正宗絲襪奶茶 (jengjung simat naaicha - old school silk-stocking milk-tea), just 家庭奶茶 (gaating naaicha - family style milk-tea).
It is never the less 十分之十香香滑滑。
Sapfan ji sap heung heung gwat gwat.
As it should be.
Pouring it through a "silk-stocking" gives it that velvety mouthfeel, because of the dust-like particles that pass through the material. And it isn't really a silk-stocking, but actually a tight wove sackcloth bag, which eventually becomes pickled by the huge amount of tea it sees before it gives up the ghost. The droopy draggy appearance makes it resemble silk-stockings that have seen better days, and now bag and sag around the knees and ankles of the auntie who insists that they are still good, they can still be worn, and WHY are you looking at her calves, you dirty old man!
Really, men are just TOO interested in legs!
Yes. Yes we are. We've never understood WHY you want skinny anorexic model legs, we can't stand sticks. We like pins with a bit of curve to them. Legs of heft, that beg to be clutched. Stroked. Petted. Legs that glow nicely in the angled directional light that brings out their enchanting definition, especially when they are sheathed in stockings.
That's why we drink the tea.
To remind us.
It is delicious. Absolutely yummy. Despite using 煉奶 (lin naai - condensed milk) instead of 淡奶 (daam naai - leche evaporada), as is customary.
If it were earlier in the day, I'd load up a pipe to smoke while enjoying my cup of tea. But, even though my apartment mate isn't home yet -- she is probably off seeing the love of her life -- it is not certain how much longer she'll be out this evening. Probably no later than ten, so there isn't enough time for the apartment to air out before she returns. Normally I allow four hours for that process before I re-open the door to her room.
At some point we may have to move into a bigger place. One with at least one extra room that I can convert into a man-cave. In expectation of that eventually happening, I've already named said space "badger's belvedere". And I conceive of it as overlooking an overgrown garden area, or perhaps a courtyard with too many potted plants. Bamboo slat blinds, and tall bookcases right up to the ceiling. A desk with a lamp near the window, and a long chair where one might fall asleep during warm nights.
It's a fantasy -- there is no warmth in San Francisco -- but the thought of a library with plenty of ventilation where one could spend a while quietly smoking and reading is exceedingly pleasant.
There might also have to be another extra chamber, in case I ever end up in a relationship again. Everybody needs a space of their own. At present my room is what must have been intended as the living room of this apartment, and passage from Savage Kitten's quarters to the kitchen is through the hall and then briefly into my room. She usually steals past ever so quietly at breakfast time -- not realizing that the noise she makes in the bathroom, kitchen, and television room is loud enough to wake the dead.
Purely in a manner of speaking, that is.
The light-sleeping dead.
See, that's another reason for the belvedere. Savage Kitten (the apartment mate) could be making all kinds of racket in the rest of the dwelling, but the person who inexplicably will have decided that I am not a bad sort of chap of whom to be enamoured and I will be in our belvedere, peaceably having a smoke while reading our respective books. I'll be at the desk, she'll be in the long chair, and the ashtray and pot of oolong tea will be on the small table in between us.
我都係香香滑滑！
A necessary part of this is the discovery of someone deciding that I am not a bad sort of chap of whom to be enamoured. And honestly, I have no idea how that might happen. Pipe-smoking, books, and strong tea made sweet with thick dairy goop, these all tend to scare off the female of the species.
[Truth be told, I am also quite scared of them. What does one say? And how does one even start a conversation? What books do they read? ]
In this day and age, nice young women do not fall for middle-aged badgers who putter around with a piece of briar in their mouth, avidly pursuing little red-bean pastries, with their snout twitching.
It's a very nice snout. And it twitches endearingly.
Still, no. Bad bait, no buttercup.
Maybe they're shy?
Perhaps they do not know what to say if they come across such a person? And that's understandable, because starting a conversation with a complete stranger you see wandering on Waverly, Spofford, Walter Lum Place, or sitting on the bench in Hotaling Alley, can be a wee bit daunting.
So, for their convenience, here are ten (10) sure fire openings.
Any one of these could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
1) That's a lovely Peterson pipe you're smoking!
2) Gracious, is that Latakia I smell?
3) I need to sit downwind, my doctor said so.
4) You remind me of Emilio Estevez, but a bit better-looking.
5) Please recommend a few good books by dead white men.
6) What kind of pipe do you think I should smoke?
7) What are you doing during the ball game?
8) You look like you're good at nuzzling.
9) Hold me, I'm totally freezing!
10) Let's get some milk-tea!
In actual fact, it might not be a Peterson pipe. Perhaps it's a Charatan, or a Comoy. It might even be one of three Dunhills, or the pre-transition Barling billiard I acquired a while back. And it would only be Latakia if there was a romantic campfire and leather armchair undertone to the aroma. Late in the afternoon it's often a Virginia flake, sometimes with a touch of Perique. Feel free to sit downwind if you choose, I know several dead white authors, you should smoke a Peterson or a GBD, I shall not watch any part of the ballgame (and I'm open to suggestions - perhaps a nice quiet walk?), and here let me also put my coat around you you poor thing, milk-tea sounds like a splendid idea!
There's nothing quite like a nice hot cup of milk-tea!
And yes, we can go have it together.
I'd be delighted.
PS. Today it was indeed a Peterson pipe.
There are several in the rotation.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It is never the less 十分之十香香滑滑。
Sapfan ji sap heung heung gwat gwat.
As it should be.
Pouring it through a "silk-stocking" gives it that velvety mouthfeel, because of the dust-like particles that pass through the material. And it isn't really a silk-stocking, but actually a tight wove sackcloth bag, which eventually becomes pickled by the huge amount of tea it sees before it gives up the ghost. The droopy draggy appearance makes it resemble silk-stockings that have seen better days, and now bag and sag around the knees and ankles of the auntie who insists that they are still good, they can still be worn, and WHY are you looking at her calves, you dirty old man!
Really, men are just TOO interested in legs!
Yes. Yes we are. We've never understood WHY you want skinny anorexic model legs, we can't stand sticks. We like pins with a bit of curve to them. Legs of heft, that beg to be clutched. Stroked. Petted. Legs that glow nicely in the angled directional light that brings out their enchanting definition, especially when they are sheathed in stockings.
That's why we drink the tea.
To remind us.
It is delicious. Absolutely yummy. Despite using 煉奶 (lin naai - condensed milk) instead of 淡奶 (daam naai - leche evaporada), as is customary.
If it were earlier in the day, I'd load up a pipe to smoke while enjoying my cup of tea. But, even though my apartment mate isn't home yet -- she is probably off seeing the love of her life -- it is not certain how much longer she'll be out this evening. Probably no later than ten, so there isn't enough time for the apartment to air out before she returns. Normally I allow four hours for that process before I re-open the door to her room.
At some point we may have to move into a bigger place. One with at least one extra room that I can convert into a man-cave. In expectation of that eventually happening, I've already named said space "badger's belvedere". And I conceive of it as overlooking an overgrown garden area, or perhaps a courtyard with too many potted plants. Bamboo slat blinds, and tall bookcases right up to the ceiling. A desk with a lamp near the window, and a long chair where one might fall asleep during warm nights.
It's a fantasy -- there is no warmth in San Francisco -- but the thought of a library with plenty of ventilation where one could spend a while quietly smoking and reading is exceedingly pleasant.
There might also have to be another extra chamber, in case I ever end up in a relationship again. Everybody needs a space of their own. At present my room is what must have been intended as the living room of this apartment, and passage from Savage Kitten's quarters to the kitchen is through the hall and then briefly into my room. She usually steals past ever so quietly at breakfast time -- not realizing that the noise she makes in the bathroom, kitchen, and television room is loud enough to wake the dead.
Purely in a manner of speaking, that is.
The light-sleeping dead.
See, that's another reason for the belvedere. Savage Kitten (the apartment mate) could be making all kinds of racket in the rest of the dwelling, but the person who inexplicably will have decided that I am not a bad sort of chap of whom to be enamoured and I will be in our belvedere, peaceably having a smoke while reading our respective books. I'll be at the desk, she'll be in the long chair, and the ashtray and pot of oolong tea will be on the small table in between us.
我都係香香滑滑！
A necessary part of this is the discovery of someone deciding that I am not a bad sort of chap of whom to be enamoured. And honestly, I have no idea how that might happen. Pipe-smoking, books, and strong tea made sweet with thick dairy goop, these all tend to scare off the female of the species.
[Truth be told, I am also quite scared of them. What does one say? And how does one even start a conversation? What books do they read? ]
In this day and age, nice young women do not fall for middle-aged badgers who putter around with a piece of briar in their mouth, avidly pursuing little red-bean pastries, with their snout twitching.
It's a very nice snout. And it twitches endearingly.
Still, no. Bad bait, no buttercup.
Maybe they're shy?
Perhaps they do not know what to say if they come across such a person? And that's understandable, because starting a conversation with a complete stranger you see wandering on Waverly, Spofford, Walter Lum Place, or sitting on the bench in Hotaling Alley, can be a wee bit daunting.
So, for their convenience, here are ten (10) sure fire openings.
Any one of these could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
1) That's a lovely Peterson pipe you're smoking!
2) Gracious, is that Latakia I smell?
3) I need to sit downwind, my doctor said so.
4) You remind me of Emilio Estevez, but a bit better-looking.
5) Please recommend a few good books by dead white men.
6) What kind of pipe do you think I should smoke?
7) What are you doing during the ball game?
8) You look like you're good at nuzzling.
9) Hold me, I'm totally freezing!
10) Let's get some milk-tea!
In actual fact, it might not be a Peterson pipe. Perhaps it's a Charatan, or a Comoy. It might even be one of three Dunhills, or the pre-transition Barling billiard I acquired a while back. And it would only be Latakia if there was a romantic campfire and leather armchair undertone to the aroma. Late in the afternoon it's often a Virginia flake, sometimes with a touch of Perique. Feel free to sit downwind if you choose, I know several dead white authors, you should smoke a Peterson or a GBD, I shall not watch any part of the ballgame (and I'm open to suggestions - perhaps a nice quiet walk?), and here let me also put my coat around you you poor thing, milk-tea sounds like a splendid idea!
There's nothing quite like a nice hot cup of milk-tea!
And yes, we can go have it together.
I'd be delighted.
PS. Today it was indeed a Peterson pipe.
There are several in the rotation.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
HAAM SAP: A MASCULINE POINT OF VIEW
It's a very well-kept secret. It shouldn't be. I'll blow the lid.
All men are haam sap.
What baffles me is how many women do not realize this little fact.
Perhaps it is because of a fundamental physiological difference between the genders. Women are on a twenty eight day bio-chemical cycle, men aren't.
The male cycle is about six hours. More or less.
Sometimes as short as one or two, if they are teenagers or have been swilling Starbucks coffee. Possibly twenty four or forty eight, when they've become crotchety old geezers.
But mostly six.
Or four.
HAAM SAP: 鹹濕 SALTY & MOIST
On average then, men will have a veritable fit of haam sap three times per waking day. Often before or after we blog. At all other times, haam sap is on the back burner at a low boil, always there, and ready to flare up if unattended.
[Haam sap is explained here: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2011/04/ham-sap-lo-cantonese-pervert.html, along with the term haam sap lo (鹹濕佬), and words like 'grease', 'rancid', and 'pizza'. Haahm sap is 鹹濕; it's essence is 鹹濕精 (haahm sap ching). These are useful concepts.]
Haam sap informs all our basic social patterns.
It's often fundamental to our behaviour.
That is to say, especially while we are on the computer. Men prove the ancient adage that the internet exists for only three things: recipes, kitten pictures, and pornography. And men use the internet far more often than women.
Women maybe do a bit of shopping while on line, read a self-help article, and occasionally post a pretty picture on their social network page.
Whereas men cruise first for food, then spend several hours at I Can Haz Cheezburger, and finally start searching for steaming Japanese Shiksas doing kinky stuff. It's a continuum.
Men also blog.
This is a blog.
You know, I don't really think that normal women blog. The two well-known female bloggers that many people have heard of are both clearly stark-raving batshit: Pamela Geller and Debbie Schlussel. And judging by the paranoias and psychoses evident in their gibberingly vicious rants, they've got problems. That pair are poisonous neurotics, punkt.
Sure, there are other women bloggers who are far more sane and balanced (for instance: Midianite Manna, The Blogess, BBJ, Dusty, and The Curious Jew), but they are a minority. And I don't think they've EVER posted Hello Kitty pictures, OR called for mass-murder. Unlike the other two.
That's very eccentric of them.
Most male blogs on the other hand are quite normal. Stuff about cigars and pipe tobacco, food, panties, antiquities, pizza, socket-wrenches, ribbons, programming, fantasy baseball, beautiful brassieres, hamsters, Talmud-Torah, existential crises, back yard barbecuing, oysters, beer, lace edging on minuscule garments, car mechanics..............
Except for a few lonely computer engineers, most men do not blog when they are haam sap. That's probably because the haam sap quotient is normally high enough that no further work is required.
A blog is communication, but haam sap is a way of life.
When we leave our comfortable homes and offices, after blogging, pretty much everything we see stimulates our haamsappity. If we're blogging on our laptop at a WiFi coffee shop, the mere presence of the other gender, should we actually pay attention to them and their lovely purses, might send our haamsapness through the roof; we blog to distract ourselves, while we blog we subdue the haamsap.
The rest of the time it's a crapshoot.
Men are naturally 100% haam sap.
Almost anything about a woman can set us off.
We're primed to be intrigued.
It's not just breasts, posteriors, legs, and handbags.
Really, almost anything, of any type.
All dimensions, too.
Everything.
She's got lovely hands? Heavens! That earlobe looks soft? Heavens! Oh I say, that's a hella cute nose! Heavens! Is that a lazy eye or is she winking? Heavens! Overbite? Heavens! Are those real? Heavens! I think that stack of textbooks is far too heavy for her to carry without help..... Heavens! Is that a freckle? Heavens! Elbow! Heavens! I'm so gonna open the door for her if she walks this way. Heavens! Her skin looks like velvet in this light. Heavens! She sounds whiny and Jerseyite. Heavens! Last weeks issue of Vogue. Heavens! Are those Manolo Blahniks? Heavens!
Well, that last one is far-fetched. We're not really into designer shoes.
But naked feet are a different matter. Cute toes can wiggle all over us.
Provided she has an intelligent face, of course.
But that may just be me.
I'm special.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
All men are haam sap.
What baffles me is how many women do not realize this little fact.
Perhaps it is because of a fundamental physiological difference between the genders. Women are on a twenty eight day bio-chemical cycle, men aren't.
The male cycle is about six hours. More or less.
Sometimes as short as one or two, if they are teenagers or have been swilling Starbucks coffee. Possibly twenty four or forty eight, when they've become crotchety old geezers.
But mostly six.
Or four.
HAAM SAP: 鹹濕 SALTY & MOIST
On average then, men will have a veritable fit of haam sap three times per waking day. Often before or after we blog. At all other times, haam sap is on the back burner at a low boil, always there, and ready to flare up if unattended.
[Haam sap is explained here: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2011/04/ham-sap-lo-cantonese-pervert.html, along with the term haam sap lo (鹹濕佬), and words like 'grease', 'rancid', and 'pizza'. Haahm sap is 鹹濕; it's essence is 鹹濕精 (haahm sap ching). These are useful concepts.]
Haam sap informs all our basic social patterns.
It's often fundamental to our behaviour.
That is to say, especially while we are on the computer. Men prove the ancient adage that the internet exists for only three things: recipes, kitten pictures, and pornography. And men use the internet far more often than women.
Women maybe do a bit of shopping while on line, read a self-help article, and occasionally post a pretty picture on their social network page.
Whereas men cruise first for food, then spend several hours at I Can Haz Cheezburger, and finally start searching for steaming Japanese Shiksas doing kinky stuff. It's a continuum.
Men also blog.
This is a blog.
You know, I don't really think that normal women blog. The two well-known female bloggers that many people have heard of are both clearly stark-raving batshit: Pamela Geller and Debbie Schlussel. And judging by the paranoias and psychoses evident in their gibberingly vicious rants, they've got problems. That pair are poisonous neurotics, punkt.
Sure, there are other women bloggers who are far more sane and balanced (for instance: Midianite Manna, The Blogess, BBJ, Dusty, and The Curious Jew), but they are a minority. And I don't think they've EVER posted Hello Kitty pictures, OR called for mass-murder. Unlike the other two.
That's very eccentric of them.
Most male blogs on the other hand are quite normal. Stuff about cigars and pipe tobacco, food, panties, antiquities, pizza, socket-wrenches, ribbons, programming, fantasy baseball, beautiful brassieres, hamsters, Talmud-Torah, existential crises, back yard barbecuing, oysters, beer, lace edging on minuscule garments, car mechanics..............
Except for a few lonely computer engineers, most men do not blog when they are haam sap. That's probably because the haam sap quotient is normally high enough that no further work is required.
A blog is communication, but haam sap is a way of life.
When we leave our comfortable homes and offices, after blogging, pretty much everything we see stimulates our haamsappity. If we're blogging on our laptop at a WiFi coffee shop, the mere presence of the other gender, should we actually pay attention to them and their lovely purses, might send our haamsapness through the roof; we blog to distract ourselves, while we blog we subdue the haamsap.
The rest of the time it's a crapshoot.
Men are naturally 100% haam sap.
Almost anything about a woman can set us off.
We're primed to be intrigued.
It's not just breasts, posteriors, legs, and handbags.
Really, almost anything, of any type.
All dimensions, too.
Everything.
She's got lovely hands? Heavens! That earlobe looks soft? Heavens! Oh I say, that's a hella cute nose! Heavens! Is that a lazy eye or is she winking? Heavens! Overbite? Heavens! Are those real? Heavens! I think that stack of textbooks is far too heavy for her to carry without help..... Heavens! Is that a freckle? Heavens! Elbow! Heavens! I'm so gonna open the door for her if she walks this way. Heavens! Her skin looks like velvet in this light. Heavens! She sounds whiny and Jerseyite. Heavens! Last weeks issue of Vogue. Heavens! Are those Manolo Blahniks? Heavens!
Well, that last one is far-fetched. We're not really into designer shoes.
But naked feet are a different matter. Cute toes can wiggle all over us.
Provided she has an intelligent face, of course.
But that may just be me.
I'm special.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, May 13, 2013
AWAKE AND FULLY DREAMING
It just didn't seem quite right. She looked at herself in the mirror again, then concluded that like a fun-house speculus there was distortion. Those thighs. Chubby. Yet when she felt them with her hands, they were firm. Yes, she knew that as a woman she had been conditioned to overestimate fatness, to think of herself as too hefty by far. Especially when compared to blonde reptiles, supermodels, fashion-plates, Barbie, and Tinkerbell. Good lord, Tinkerbell had such a narrow waist! And there was something distinctly obscene about a preteen fairy with Marlene Dietrich gams and enormous cups. Was Disney aware of how twisted the image was? How much damage they were doing to young women?
Still. One hundred and three pounds. She couldn't possibly be overweight.
And nothing wobbled when she walked, instead the flesh looked firm, tense, and taut.
She pulled sheer black stockings over her legs, admired the sexy effect in the mirror, then thoughtlessly sabotaged it entirely with a calf-length skirt.
That, and the fluffy sweater to emphasize the bosom made her look impossibly nineteen-fifties and unintentionally quite innocent.
About the only thing missing were bobby-sox.
Her mother did not say a thing when she left the building. In the past, mom had insisted that she put on more colourful clothes, be more femmy. And had bought her items that nobody in their right mind should wear. Her mother, she had realized years ago, had no taste whatsoever. And crucially mistook 'normal' for 'streetperson'. The trauma of being dressed by that woman for so many years still took its toll, not in shuddering screaming nightmares, as you would expect, but in casual rebellion against a too girlie image. Comfortable jeans and slacks that could be put on without a struggle, loafers, buttoned shirts, and dull hair ribbons.
She always looked neat, but usually far too sane.
Nothing frilly at all. No Hello Kitty tat.
The merest smear of lipstick.
Wire-rimmed specs.
Underneath the clothing it was an entirely different world. Many of her undies were over-the-top sexy, riotously edged in lace, dark silk contrasting with ivory, high leg openings, accents, tucks, and the perfect maidenly fit. Scandalous, beautiful, and expensive.
Yeah, the image she showed the world was restrained.
But her unmentionables were just divine.
And gave her confidence.
A secret spice.
THE LILACS ARE BLOOMING
On an entirely different note, this blogger is wearing cotton boxers with lilac stripes. These, likewise, give confidence and a secret spice. Even if the pants and shirt make me look like a sensible middle-aged man, albeit one who is vulpine and fairly trim -- in keeping with my restrained collegiate image -- underneath it all I am swanning about in clean and comfortable masculine underwear. Cotton feels so nice against the skin.
There is no reason you would know that.
But in the same way that you can now imagine what I might look like while loafing around the house, I am imagining someone neat and far too sane, with absolutely no Hello Kitty tat anywhere.
Still not fully dressed. But in good though riotous taste.
Also, perhaps, the merest smear of lipstick.
Silky, satin, and moisturizing.
Gypsy Scarlet.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Still. One hundred and three pounds. She couldn't possibly be overweight.
And nothing wobbled when she walked, instead the flesh looked firm, tense, and taut.
She pulled sheer black stockings over her legs, admired the sexy effect in the mirror, then thoughtlessly sabotaged it entirely with a calf-length skirt.
That, and the fluffy sweater to emphasize the bosom made her look impossibly nineteen-fifties and unintentionally quite innocent.
About the only thing missing were bobby-sox.
Her mother did not say a thing when she left the building. In the past, mom had insisted that she put on more colourful clothes, be more femmy. And had bought her items that nobody in their right mind should wear. Her mother, she had realized years ago, had no taste whatsoever. And crucially mistook 'normal' for 'streetperson'. The trauma of being dressed by that woman for so many years still took its toll, not in shuddering screaming nightmares, as you would expect, but in casual rebellion against a too girlie image. Comfortable jeans and slacks that could be put on without a struggle, loafers, buttoned shirts, and dull hair ribbons.
She always looked neat, but usually far too sane.
Nothing frilly at all. No Hello Kitty tat.
The merest smear of lipstick.
Wire-rimmed specs.
Underneath the clothing it was an entirely different world. Many of her undies were over-the-top sexy, riotously edged in lace, dark silk contrasting with ivory, high leg openings, accents, tucks, and the perfect maidenly fit. Scandalous, beautiful, and expensive.
Yeah, the image she showed the world was restrained.
But her unmentionables were just divine.
And gave her confidence.
A secret spice.
THE LILACS ARE BLOOMING
On an entirely different note, this blogger is wearing cotton boxers with lilac stripes. These, likewise, give confidence and a secret spice. Even if the pants and shirt make me look like a sensible middle-aged man, albeit one who is vulpine and fairly trim -- in keeping with my restrained collegiate image -- underneath it all I am swanning about in clean and comfortable masculine underwear. Cotton feels so nice against the skin.
There is no reason you would know that.
But in the same way that you can now imagine what I might look like while loafing around the house, I am imagining someone neat and far too sane, with absolutely no Hello Kitty tat anywhere.
Still not fully dressed. But in good though riotous taste.
Also, perhaps, the merest smear of lipstick.
Silky, satin, and moisturizing.
Gypsy Scarlet.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, May 12, 2013
THE MEERSCHAUM PIPE
For several years I sneered at meerschaum pipes as wussy and over-the-top pretentious git smoking equipment. Surely, I reasoned, no sane man would be seen with a froo-froo carved object radiating mediocre aesthetic sense sticking out of his mouth? Even if his lips are full and sensuous, and give an impression of secret perversions?
The issue is the carving. Meershaum is easily turned into a prop for tasteless oafs. And given the nature of most decorative attempts, meerschaum must be considered the Michelob or Coors of pipe-material.
Except when it isn't.
I got rid of my last meerschaum in the early eighties. It just wasn't me, and I preferred the taste of briar pipes in any case. Or alternatively a corncob for Burley mixtures. And the attempt to colour one's meerschaum till at last a deep golden variegated honey hue had been achieved seemed far too neurotic. Such an obsessive pursuit appalled me.
I now own a meerschaum again.
And I also like how it colours.
It smokes pretty good too.
CRAP FLOATING ON THE WAVES
Meerschaum is so named because it was apocryphally seen drifting on the face of the ocean, like sea foam. A stone substance, but so light-weight and porous that it doesn't sink in water. To be precise, it is a hydrous mineral silicate of magnesium, mined in Turkey and a few other places. And it is an excellent pipe material because of the properties just mentioned.
In the past many famous pipe-carvers were located in Vienna, Prague, Pest, and elsewhere in the former Austro-Hungarian world. A generation ago the Turks banned the export of meerschaum in un-finished state, and despite having absolutely no artistic sense whatsoever tried to make the manufacture of meerschaum pipes a Turkish monopoly.
By-and-large, the results were pretty god-awful.
For nearly four decades hideous heads, and women with bulbous breasts flooded the market, along with biologically impossible dogs, horses, and insane-looking birds of prey.
Nobody with taste and common sense dared smoke the darn things.
But pimps, sub-literates, and politicians avidly bought them.
And showed them off, with aromatic tobaccos.
Feh, gadzooks, and gottenyu.
海泡石煙斗
The meerschaum I acquired has a simple and elegant design. No carving whatsoever, just uniformity, symmetry, and a polished surface. The shape might be described as halfway between a tulip or trumpeta and a Dublin, with a half-bend to the shank and stem.
A discrete pipe, and very lady-like, but with sufficient capacity to please.
I dasn't take it out of the house because of its fragility and poofiness, but I've happily puffed it of a morning as a pre-lunch indulgence.
Professional Mixture, and Accountant's Mixture.
Both by Rattray's of Perth.
Yeah, it's effete, for a man. But I think I'll keep it.
It rather suits me, and matches some tobaccos.
Strong hot tea is a splendid accompaniment.
A woman-person would be far nicer.
I'm somewhat perverse.
Also strong, or hot.
Either, or both.
The woman.
Dreamy.
I now have disgusting smoke-filled fantasies. Not at all sure how that happened. It's a fairly recent development. Very strange.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The issue is the carving. Meershaum is easily turned into a prop for tasteless oafs. And given the nature of most decorative attempts, meerschaum must be considered the Michelob or Coors of pipe-material.
Except when it isn't.
I got rid of my last meerschaum in the early eighties. It just wasn't me, and I preferred the taste of briar pipes in any case. Or alternatively a corncob for Burley mixtures. And the attempt to colour one's meerschaum till at last a deep golden variegated honey hue had been achieved seemed far too neurotic. Such an obsessive pursuit appalled me.
I now own a meerschaum again.
And I also like how it colours.
It smokes pretty good too.
CRAP FLOATING ON THE WAVES
Meerschaum is so named because it was apocryphally seen drifting on the face of the ocean, like sea foam. A stone substance, but so light-weight and porous that it doesn't sink in water. To be precise, it is a hydrous mineral silicate of magnesium, mined in Turkey and a few other places. And it is an excellent pipe material because of the properties just mentioned.
In the past many famous pipe-carvers were located in Vienna, Prague, Pest, and elsewhere in the former Austro-Hungarian world. A generation ago the Turks banned the export of meerschaum in un-finished state, and despite having absolutely no artistic sense whatsoever tried to make the manufacture of meerschaum pipes a Turkish monopoly.
By-and-large, the results were pretty god-awful.
For nearly four decades hideous heads, and women with bulbous breasts flooded the market, along with biologically impossible dogs, horses, and insane-looking birds of prey.
Nobody with taste and common sense dared smoke the darn things.
But pimps, sub-literates, and politicians avidly bought them.
And showed them off, with aromatic tobaccos.
Feh, gadzooks, and gottenyu.
海泡石煙斗
The meerschaum I acquired has a simple and elegant design. No carving whatsoever, just uniformity, symmetry, and a polished surface. The shape might be described as halfway between a tulip or trumpeta and a Dublin, with a half-bend to the shank and stem.
A discrete pipe, and very lady-like, but with sufficient capacity to please.
I dasn't take it out of the house because of its fragility and poofiness, but I've happily puffed it of a morning as a pre-lunch indulgence.
Professional Mixture, and Accountant's Mixture.
Both by Rattray's of Perth.
Yeah, it's effete, for a man. But I think I'll keep it.
It rather suits me, and matches some tobaccos.
Strong hot tea is a splendid accompaniment.
A woman-person would be far nicer.
I'm somewhat perverse.
Also strong, or hot.
Either, or both.
The woman.
Dreamy.
I now have disgusting smoke-filled fantasies. Not at all sure how that happened. It's a fairly recent development. Very strange.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
GOATS ARE THE NEW EVIL
This shouldn't surprise you. You always knew something like this was going to happen.
First the Doritos Goat Commercial. Then the racist sexist criminal goat fronting for a mediocre carbonated beverage.
Eventually, a Batman enemy goat.
Terrifying!
But in the meantime, goats that sound like the drunkard at the bus stop. You know the one I mean, that fellow with the can of malt liquor at eight in the morning, happily saying "howdy" to all the offended commuters.
Yeah, that one.
Channeling for a goat.
GOAT!
[Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfwu_TG3K7M.]
The goats are taking over. Pretty soon they'll be driving the bus. Then you'll have to pay them ten dollars in roughage just to ride. And their little paws can't grasp the steering wheel (no thumbs), so they'll take out several parked cars when they rocket downhill on the other side of Nob. That's what you get for not walking, you lazy human. Walking is healthy!
Let's see some more goats, shall we?
GOAT REDUX!!
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7FjqL_6FJc.]
Isn't that special? It's like a whole passel of bus shelter crazies! Without ever needing to leave your own home. Go on, hit replay. You know you want to. Everyone is wondering what kind of strange porn you are watching behind your locked door, but it's entirely clean. Just you and your new friends, vocalizing.
It's emotional wellness. For you, and the goats.
Admit it. Go on, admit it, dammit!
You NEEEED the goats.
You are NOTHING, nothing do you hear me, without goats!
FREAK GOAT!!!
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItEA3Tno3bs.]
Why am I typing code at this hour? Oh yeah, waking up the person asleep in the other room. She sicked the small roomies on me last night.... the one-legged monkey (a thief), the piggy with a pickup truck (a pink neck), the froad (small green sexist pig), the orange beaver (all the conversational gifts of the typical engineer), and the head-sheep (a goat).
He claims he's a sheep. But he's merely in denial. He's a goat.
I listened to the goat all night. He wants grass-suckies.
And Stolichnaya - "it's good for young sheep!"
This morning he was near my wallet.
Claims he "found" it.
Everybody should beware of goats.
Including my apartment mate.
I keep hitting replay.
Goats rule.
Loudly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
First the Doritos Goat Commercial. Then the racist sexist criminal goat fronting for a mediocre carbonated beverage.
Eventually, a Batman enemy goat.
Terrifying!
But in the meantime, goats that sound like the drunkard at the bus stop. You know the one I mean, that fellow with the can of malt liquor at eight in the morning, happily saying "howdy" to all the offended commuters.
Yeah, that one.
Channeling for a goat.
GOAT!
[Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfwu_TG3K7M.]
The goats are taking over. Pretty soon they'll be driving the bus. Then you'll have to pay them ten dollars in roughage just to ride. And their little paws can't grasp the steering wheel (no thumbs), so they'll take out several parked cars when they rocket downhill on the other side of Nob. That's what you get for not walking, you lazy human. Walking is healthy!
Let's see some more goats, shall we?
GOAT REDUX!!
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7FjqL_6FJc.]
Isn't that special? It's like a whole passel of bus shelter crazies! Without ever needing to leave your own home. Go on, hit replay. You know you want to. Everyone is wondering what kind of strange porn you are watching behind your locked door, but it's entirely clean. Just you and your new friends, vocalizing.
It's emotional wellness. For you, and the goats.
Admit it. Go on, admit it, dammit!
You NEEEED the goats.
You are NOTHING, nothing do you hear me, without goats!
FREAK GOAT!!!
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItEA3Tno3bs.]
Why am I typing code at this hour? Oh yeah, waking up the person asleep in the other room. She sicked the small roomies on me last night.... the one-legged monkey (a thief), the piggy with a pickup truck (a pink neck), the froad (small green sexist pig), the orange beaver (all the conversational gifts of the typical engineer), and the head-sheep (a goat).
He claims he's a sheep. But he's merely in denial. He's a goat.
I listened to the goat all night. He wants grass-suckies.
And Stolichnaya - "it's good for young sheep!"
This morning he was near my wallet.
Claims he "found" it.
Everybody should beware of goats.
Including my apartment mate.
I keep hitting replay.
Goats rule.
Loudly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, May 11, 2013
VIGGO HANSEN AND HIS MICTURATION THING
Sometimes the news is eye-brow raising. At other times, news sources are a toilet. What is one to make of a proposal that men should be forbidden to pee while standing?
At a county council meeting in Sörmland on April 29, Vänsterpartiet representative Viggo Hansen proposed outlawing non-seated urination, in order to eliminate the inherent sexism associated with that process, as well as yield cleaner seats. Apparently it's also better for your prostate, and leads to a longer and healthier sex life.
Peeing while standing is a meanspirited male-chauvenist act.
In Sweden, where they worry about such things.
It's so VERY nice that a Swedish politician worries about my prostate and my sex life. Perhaps I should send Viggo Hansen a note informing him that he needn't bother? There is no sex life. I honestly wouldn't mind a sex life, it sounds like a lovely thing from all accounts, as well as buckets of fun, but the problem is that in SF such a thing usually involves other people.
Normally and elsewhere that isn't an issue, but here it is.
I'm rather picky, you see. Despite my frequently rather sexist approach to voiding my bladder. As far as I'm concerned, neither my bladder nor acts committed behind the bathroom door are involved in sex. At the very least, taking a leak is NOT a sexual act. Except in Sweden and San Francisco.
Sex, normally, is a healthy and charming way to pass the time with a person who has a sense of humour, as well as the idiosyncratic taste to wish to see one in the nude. Well, mostly nude. But in Viggo Hansen's life, and one has to assume that of many other Swedes, as well as huge numbers of folks in San Francisco, it also involves a toilet seat.
And that, you see, is where I must furiously draw the line.
It strikes me as mildly perverse.
Not my thing.
If Viggo Hansen, instead of being a tall bearded Viking with cow-horns growing out of his ridged cranium, was a petite young lady with sparkling eyes (and the aforementioned sense of humour), I might sit up and take notice. And if she had a lovely belly button (an "inny") and golden skin, and the toilet seat were instead a large pillow or a sofa with a comfy throw-rug, it would definitely put an interested smile on my face. I could very well see the point of preserving as much 'cleanth' and prostate health as possible, and would also advocate the presence of a towel and an ashtray.
As well as a copious supply of hot tea or cool lemonade, because the importance of proper hydration cannot be stressed enough.
But I will not permit a Swede in my toilet.
That's just nasty.
Kindly piss off, mr. Viggo Hansen, and let me whiz whichever way I wish. Possibly I am contemplative while doing so, maybe gay and haphazard.
I might even be singing a cheerful song at the time. Perhaps, like little boys are wont to do, I am seeing how much noise I can make while behind my closed door. I stress that the door is closed; it must be so.
In any case, I am not thinking about my prostate or a healthier sex life while thus engaged. Neither is any one else.
It's entirely my own affair.
Stupid Swede.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
At a county council meeting in Sörmland on April 29, Vänsterpartiet representative Viggo Hansen proposed outlawing non-seated urination, in order to eliminate the inherent sexism associated with that process, as well as yield cleaner seats. Apparently it's also better for your prostate, and leads to a longer and healthier sex life.
Peeing while standing is a meanspirited male-chauvenist act.
In Sweden, where they worry about such things.
It's so VERY nice that a Swedish politician worries about my prostate and my sex life. Perhaps I should send Viggo Hansen a note informing him that he needn't bother? There is no sex life. I honestly wouldn't mind a sex life, it sounds like a lovely thing from all accounts, as well as buckets of fun, but the problem is that in SF such a thing usually involves other people.
Normally and elsewhere that isn't an issue, but here it is.
I'm rather picky, you see. Despite my frequently rather sexist approach to voiding my bladder. As far as I'm concerned, neither my bladder nor acts committed behind the bathroom door are involved in sex. At the very least, taking a leak is NOT a sexual act. Except in Sweden and San Francisco.
Sex, normally, is a healthy and charming way to pass the time with a person who has a sense of humour, as well as the idiosyncratic taste to wish to see one in the nude. Well, mostly nude. But in Viggo Hansen's life, and one has to assume that of many other Swedes, as well as huge numbers of folks in San Francisco, it also involves a toilet seat.
And that, you see, is where I must furiously draw the line.
It strikes me as mildly perverse.
Not my thing.
If Viggo Hansen, instead of being a tall bearded Viking with cow-horns growing out of his ridged cranium, was a petite young lady with sparkling eyes (and the aforementioned sense of humour), I might sit up and take notice. And if she had a lovely belly button (an "inny") and golden skin, and the toilet seat were instead a large pillow or a sofa with a comfy throw-rug, it would definitely put an interested smile on my face. I could very well see the point of preserving as much 'cleanth' and prostate health as possible, and would also advocate the presence of a towel and an ashtray.
As well as a copious supply of hot tea or cool lemonade, because the importance of proper hydration cannot be stressed enough.
But I will not permit a Swede in my toilet.
That's just nasty.
Kindly piss off, mr. Viggo Hansen, and let me whiz whichever way I wish. Possibly I am contemplative while doing so, maybe gay and haphazard.
I might even be singing a cheerful song at the time. Perhaps, like little boys are wont to do, I am seeing how much noise I can make while behind my closed door. I stress that the door is closed; it must be so.
In any case, I am not thinking about my prostate or a healthier sex life while thus engaged. Neither is any one else.
It's entirely my own affair.
Stupid Swede.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, May 10, 2013
MY TWITCHING NOSE
Perfume, without the actual alchemy of a woman's skin, is too empty. Not all fragrances are thus, but the smells associated with females really require the impact of a wearer. Each person affects the scent in a different way, and by the combination their nasal presence is given form.
One of the most enjoyable shops in downtown is owned and operated by a courteous gentleman with a keen nose. But I have not been to see André for years now, as purchasing his products would be pointless without a face to associate with the distillate.
PARFUMERIE JACQUELINE
103 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.
Just up from Grant Avenue, less than a block from Union Square.
One day I watched a nearly-blind gentleman carefully select fragrances for over a dozen people of his ken. He and the owner discussed skin types, ages, and personalities, and the customer attentively sniffed the strips of paper freshly impregnated, then painted a picture in his mind's eye of how it would smell on the recipient.
You'll have to agree; colouring your friends with a distinctive odour when you cannot really see them is far more sensible than gifting them with silks. When they are present, your mind cannot but recall shared events and experiences far more acutely than if these were illustrated in every hue.
NARD AND VETIVER, STYRAX AND ITTAR
I've bought several perfumes there over the years. The person for whom they were intended no longer wears them. Her style has changed, and her boy friend doesn't appreciate subtle nose-echoes, the fool.
They would smell quite different on someone else. It's how body-chemistry affects the substance. Each person is unique, and only strong candy scents stay constant.
That faint faint shimmering in the subconscious of your nostril-mind creates impressions more complete than any amount of make-up can; a marvelous person will be more beautiful for the waft-impression that you did not even notice.
As I said, it's pointless to purchase perfume without a person to wear them, someone who would be the perfect recipient of that accent.
Nowadays I sharply note the smells of tobaccos, of coffee, of tea. Jasmine, eucalyptus, and lemons. The crisp snappy hue of certain vegetables, resinous herbal exudates along particular roadways, tar......
A sandalwood incense on Stockton Street, which suddenly reminds me of the Philippines, and a clean scent in a certain restaurant, coming from tables thoroughly wiped. I associate it with a waitress who is attentive and hard-working, whose hospitable attitude vastly improves the taste of dinner.
Glass cleaner, old newspaper, and a weird hint of fake honey dew melon. That last from a girl who passed by; it must have been her large bucket of bubble tea.
Can't recall her face in any way at all.
The drink was more memorable.
There's a faint spiciness to my own skin.
I just noticed it right now.
Rather pleasant.
Nice.
I must smell someone else, though.
AFTER THOUGHT
Since posting that, a spambot tried to seed this blog with the following somewhat relevant comment: "You are correct Greg about the lemon pH, but baking soda is a neutralizer against all acids, so the pH combo of lemon and baking soda will be much more of base, or neutral pH. The lemon oil will require to be washed off with bar soap, because only soap will wash the lemon oil off in the tooth. Tooth paste will not; info for all your lemon eaters as well. "
I am utterly enchanted by the idea that there are people whose teeth smell of lemons. Someday I will have to meet one of them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
One of the most enjoyable shops in downtown is owned and operated by a courteous gentleman with a keen nose. But I have not been to see André for years now, as purchasing his products would be pointless without a face to associate with the distillate.
PARFUMERIE JACQUELINE
103 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.
Just up from Grant Avenue, less than a block from Union Square.
One day I watched a nearly-blind gentleman carefully select fragrances for over a dozen people of his ken. He and the owner discussed skin types, ages, and personalities, and the customer attentively sniffed the strips of paper freshly impregnated, then painted a picture in his mind's eye of how it would smell on the recipient.
You'll have to agree; colouring your friends with a distinctive odour when you cannot really see them is far more sensible than gifting them with silks. When they are present, your mind cannot but recall shared events and experiences far more acutely than if these were illustrated in every hue.
NARD AND VETIVER, STYRAX AND ITTAR
I've bought several perfumes there over the years. The person for whom they were intended no longer wears them. Her style has changed, and her boy friend doesn't appreciate subtle nose-echoes, the fool.
They would smell quite different on someone else. It's how body-chemistry affects the substance. Each person is unique, and only strong candy scents stay constant.
That faint faint shimmering in the subconscious of your nostril-mind creates impressions more complete than any amount of make-up can; a marvelous person will be more beautiful for the waft-impression that you did not even notice.
As I said, it's pointless to purchase perfume without a person to wear them, someone who would be the perfect recipient of that accent.
Nowadays I sharply note the smells of tobaccos, of coffee, of tea. Jasmine, eucalyptus, and lemons. The crisp snappy hue of certain vegetables, resinous herbal exudates along particular roadways, tar......
A sandalwood incense on Stockton Street, which suddenly reminds me of the Philippines, and a clean scent in a certain restaurant, coming from tables thoroughly wiped. I associate it with a waitress who is attentive and hard-working, whose hospitable attitude vastly improves the taste of dinner.
Glass cleaner, old newspaper, and a weird hint of fake honey dew melon. That last from a girl who passed by; it must have been her large bucket of bubble tea.
Can't recall her face in any way at all.
The drink was more memorable.
There's a faint spiciness to my own skin.
I just noticed it right now.
Rather pleasant.
Nice.
I must smell someone else, though.
AFTER THOUGHT
Since posting that, a spambot tried to seed this blog with the following somewhat relevant comment: "You are correct Greg about the lemon pH, but baking soda is a neutralizer against all acids, so the pH combo of lemon and baking soda will be much more of base, or neutral pH. The lemon oil will require to be washed off with bar soap, because only soap will wash the lemon oil off in the tooth. Tooth paste will not; info for all your lemon eaters as well. "
I am utterly enchanted by the idea that there are people whose teeth smell of lemons. Someday I will have to meet one of them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, May 09, 2013
WELL-DRESSED WOMEN
Everyone should have a pleated skirt of decent length and a strand of pearls. As well as an opaque blouse. That's just the way it is.
The proper young lady must own clothes that are suitable for any occasion that involves people of other generations, who might be easily shocked.
This blogger attended an event recently that achieved precisely that.
I am surprised at how easily shocked I am.
One of the rail-thin models that paraded around wore a floor-length see-through gown, with her crotchety portion covered by a black lace pantie clearly visible underneath. The brassiere that would have matched it was missing in action, though possibly the same one that the bright little miss helping out at the addictive substances counter which was the reason for my presence there was wearing underneath her thin white blouse.
Between the two of them, the breast paradigm was fully delimited. They weren't the only two young female personages whose attributes could be described in full detail by even the terminally obtuse -- of whom there were many in attendance -- but they marked the extremes.
Remarkably, I can describe neither set of breasts at all. In the case of the gauzy stick-insect, I deliberately looked away out of a sense of modesty, and as regards the young lady with the black bra and white blouse, I do remember her intelligent facial features but not her figure. All the other mammaries freely floating about remain equally formless, alas.
This is the end-result of a lifetime of auto-conditioning.
I automatically look somewhere else at times.
Instead of confronting things head-on.
Despite a fondness for... umm.
My aesthetic greed takes a back-seat to maintaining equilibrium. It is uncouth to stare, and the proper conditioned reflex to exhibitionism, whether intended or accidental, should always be to turn the head.
This may be to my own dis-advantage, as many women will take it as apathy, lack of interest, or even a complete absence of all the right sensibilities.
Yet the people who would demand public mammary focus are by definition not the types of person with whom I wish to associate.
A woman who chooses the right moment to privately reveal herself will find in me a much more attractive audience than she has imagined. I can indeed react appropriately. With delight and happy surprise, even. "Wah, for me? That's so nice!"
Or should that be "they're so nice"? I'm not sure how it should be phrased, as it's an intellectual concept; I haven't looked at actual breasts in a long time, due to the previously mentioned habit of gazing fixedly elsewhere.
But I'm certain I still know how.
It's probably like riding a bicycle; you never forget.
If something is casually shared with the world, it cannot be as intriguing as that which is sensibly covered; the mental idea is far more taunting than the haphazardly brazen display. And this is precisely why every proper young lady should have a skirt that extends past the knees, plus an opaque blouse -- possibly oxford cloth -- as well as a strand of pearls.
Presentation, deportment, and good taste.
Admirable and fascinating qualities.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The proper young lady must own clothes that are suitable for any occasion that involves people of other generations, who might be easily shocked.
This blogger attended an event recently that achieved precisely that.
I am surprised at how easily shocked I am.
One of the rail-thin models that paraded around wore a floor-length see-through gown, with her crotchety portion covered by a black lace pantie clearly visible underneath. The brassiere that would have matched it was missing in action, though possibly the same one that the bright little miss helping out at the addictive substances counter which was the reason for my presence there was wearing underneath her thin white blouse.
Between the two of them, the breast paradigm was fully delimited. They weren't the only two young female personages whose attributes could be described in full detail by even the terminally obtuse -- of whom there were many in attendance -- but they marked the extremes.
Remarkably, I can describe neither set of breasts at all. In the case of the gauzy stick-insect, I deliberately looked away out of a sense of modesty, and as regards the young lady with the black bra and white blouse, I do remember her intelligent facial features but not her figure. All the other mammaries freely floating about remain equally formless, alas.
This is the end-result of a lifetime of auto-conditioning.
I automatically look somewhere else at times.
Instead of confronting things head-on.
Despite a fondness for... umm.
My aesthetic greed takes a back-seat to maintaining equilibrium. It is uncouth to stare, and the proper conditioned reflex to exhibitionism, whether intended or accidental, should always be to turn the head.
This may be to my own dis-advantage, as many women will take it as apathy, lack of interest, or even a complete absence of all the right sensibilities.
Yet the people who would demand public mammary focus are by definition not the types of person with whom I wish to associate.
A woman who chooses the right moment to privately reveal herself will find in me a much more attractive audience than she has imagined. I can indeed react appropriately. With delight and happy surprise, even. "Wah, for me? That's so nice!"
Or should that be "they're so nice"? I'm not sure how it should be phrased, as it's an intellectual concept; I haven't looked at actual breasts in a long time, due to the previously mentioned habit of gazing fixedly elsewhere.
But I'm certain I still know how.
It's probably like riding a bicycle; you never forget.
If something is casually shared with the world, it cannot be as intriguing as that which is sensibly covered; the mental idea is far more taunting than the haphazardly brazen display. And this is precisely why every proper young lady should have a skirt that extends past the knees, plus an opaque blouse -- possibly oxford cloth -- as well as a strand of pearls.
Presentation, deportment, and good taste.
Admirable and fascinating qualities.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
STUPID WHITE PERSON IN CHINATOWN
You might think that an ability to speak Cantonese and read Chinese would open doors. But in actual fact, it doesn't. Like the rest of the Chinese, the Cantonese usually cannot overlook the differences between white people (me, for instance), and themselves. A white person with any command of their language is still white. Always white, eternally white, objectionably white. Permanently and debilitatingly white. Albeit "white plus".
The 'plus', naturally, is the entertaining and theatrical oddness. Not infrequently it is assumed that whatever linguistic facility this Caucasian possesses is little more than a well-trained monkey trick.
How very clever and fascinating!
For a white person.
Freaky.
No matter how likable, a white person is someone you may not wish to be seen with. There were times while Savage Kitten and I were together that that precise thought crossed my mind. For two decades we never were in Chinatown together, and I never met her relatives.
Because of that I did not always feel like a human being.
If I were Cantonese things might have been different in that regard, but then she probably would not have had anything to do with me in the first place.
There were issues there. Her own and her family's Chineseness remained an obstacle for the dear girl. I cannot and will not hold that against her, but likely there will always be a lingering bitterness. It's just the way it is.
I could not change her, she could not change me; but we have both changed because of our long association.
We're no longer "together", BTW.
COMPLEX SUPERIORITY
Several years ago someone requested that I translate a communication which he had received from the Lee Family Association. Even after I patiently detailed the history of the Virginias and Carolinas, Anglo surnames and the Tidewater settlement, and mentioned the American Civil war and General Robert E. Lee, he firmly believed that I did not know what I was talking about and that I was determined to keep him from connecting with the great American branch of his clan. Because, of course, I was a white person. Which means less intelligent, less literate, and less trustworthy.
As a near-illiterate Toishanese bumpkin whose literacy in Chinese was far worse than mine, possessed of typical peasant paranoia and distrust, and sheerly incapable of speaking English besides, he was convinced that he was withall a superior human being. More knowledgable, too.
He subsequently sent them several hundred dollars he could ill afford.
Most Cantonese who are not able to speak English are not like that. They realize that anybody who has learned some of their language has at least expended effort. Perhaps not as much as they have while fruitlessly trying to learn our impossibly ridiculous and difficult gibberish -- Chinese is so much more logical and natural -- but they've grasped that switching tongues is by no means the easiest thing to do.
On the other hand, their Americanized cousins, who grew up more or less bi-lingual, can at times be real bastards to deal with. Scarcely able to read one word of every two if even that much, and totally ignorant of Chinese history or literature (and, like their white classmates just as blank when it comes to the history and literature of the Western World), they evince a truly superior air when someone who is not Chinese speaks to them in "their language". And, having been exposed ONLY to their parents dialect, they cringe at the atrocious, ATROCIOUS! kwailo pronunciation.
佢識廣東話好過你!
At least I can read the specials written in Chinese characters posted on the wall. Yeah, my pronunciation may be excruciatingly opaque at times. And even the restaurant staff may prefer to use English when possible for better communication. But I don't ask stupid questions, I can order in Chinese if it proves necessary, and I have no reason to be embarrassed by my flawed speech. No reason whatsoever. I'm white, remember? White. We stupid kwailos aren't supposed to understand anything, not even one word.
Evenso, I can get what I want.
If need be I'll write it down. The written words will make everything clear.
That may be all literacy in Chinese will get me. But that's a lot more than most American-born Cantonese will ever get.
Here or in Hong Kong.
I made the stupid mistake quite recently of reading the characters aloud for someone whose use of an English word for a bubble-tea flavour baffled the counterwoman. I forgot how offensively thin-skinned Cantonese can be.
收聲!
BTW, did I already mention that I can get what I want? It's a miracle of monumental proportion that that American-born twit didn't get a fat lip. Instead of the yummy bubble-tea flavour that she desired.
Fortunately I do not know the young adult in question. Nor would I ever want to. My effort was on behalf of the counterwoman, who until that instant had no clue what was required.
The young adult showed all the worst reactions of her class and kind. Over the years I have met several people like that, of all ages and backgrounds. Some sneer at white people whenever possible, some lecture inanely about the superiority of their kin and their culture, and some hate it, totally effing hate it, when white people know anything at all. The more whitey knows, the more insecure it makes them feel.
There are restaurants I never patronize anymore because they act irritated when I ask for something in Chinese that isn't on the English menu (but IS on the wall), and there are a number of people to whom I refuse to speak even one single word of Cantonese because they will make fun of me, in strongly accented English nota bene. Some folks I consciously no longer associate with at all.
My tolerance spans, at times, a very narrow spectrum.
In the same way that a number of Irish-Americans by their reaction to my accent in English prove themselves complete and utter pig bottoms, there are Chinese Americans who need to learn a modicum of politesse.
Or at least get over themselves and their thin skin.
When I lived in the Netherlands, natives would patronizingly remark that as far as they were concerned I was really Dutch. What that highlighted was that they made an exception; despite my being a Yankee and therefore odious, my speech and my manners were good enough that they would overlook those other things.
After I came back to the United States, nearly every day someone has asked me where I hail from, or made some comment about my accent.
And truly, they are not surprised that I speak English so fluently, because the Dutch make it a point to learn languages, and English is the Lingua Franca of the world!
The two-word phrase above (收聲) means "shut up". It is very impolite.
I have often wished to employ it against both Dutchmen and Americans. Unfortunately they would not grasp the layers of meaning or the flavour.
The eight word phrase before that (佢識廣東話好過你) means "he knows Cantonese better than you". It was what the counterwoman told the young lady after I left; I only overheard it because I had paused to light-up my pipe immediately afterwards. I heard it several months before also, upon exiting a shop where I had purchased a yi-hsing teapot. And there have been other times.
It is not patronizing, as it is never said when they think I can hear it.
Nor is it correct; I am not fluent, and I never will be.
But it's an acknowledgement of effort.
In both the Netherlands and the United States I can pass as long as I keep my mouth shut. My appearance is unobjectionable, and I look the part.
Among Chinese people that will never happen. I am always white.
And keeping quiet isn't something I can easily do.
This blog is proof of that.
AFTER-THOUGHT
If I say something in Chinese, and you then pull that rude attitude of "good lord what is this stupid white person saying I don't understand a thing talk English dammit" on me, I shall not repeat myself. Life is too short to drink bad coffee at Starbucks or deal with Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, or Amy Tan. When I use Chinese, it's always to establish communication, usually with people who would not understand me otherwise, but do comprehend quite well when I make the effort.
Did I already mention that I can get what I want?
If need be, I'll even write it down.
AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
When I left, I headed straight toward my favourite alleyway at Washington Street facing the pyramid to have some very much needed quiet-time. That was probably one of the best smokes I've had, the tobacco absolutely sang. It was utterly and totally delicious. So I can say that I had a very good day.
That repulsive female, on the other hand, should understand that the big tapioca balls in her chilled fruity milk-tea beverage are fattening.
Incredibly fattening. Very bad for her.
IRRELEVANT AFTER AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
A couple of days ago R-the-Anglo and R-the-Subcontinental had an argument. This isn't one hundred percent Germane to this post, and there is no need to go into any detail, other than to mention that R-the-Anglo told R-the-Subcontinental to return from whence he came.
"Go back where you came from."
That particular phrase is also one I've heard before. It is a sentence and a sentiment that utterly infuriates me. I have had it flung at me many times, in several languages, on three continents.
I shall insist that where ever you are at the moment is where you belong. Always!
So everyone can kindly shut the hell up. The Chinese can shut up. The Irish can shut up.
The Dutch can shut up. The "Americans" can shut up.
And R-the-Anglo can also shut up.
Kindly.
I love you all.
收聲。
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The 'plus', naturally, is the entertaining and theatrical oddness. Not infrequently it is assumed that whatever linguistic facility this Caucasian possesses is little more than a well-trained monkey trick.
How very clever and fascinating!
For a white person.
Freaky.
No matter how likable, a white person is someone you may not wish to be seen with. There were times while Savage Kitten and I were together that that precise thought crossed my mind. For two decades we never were in Chinatown together, and I never met her relatives.
Because of that I did not always feel like a human being.
If I were Cantonese things might have been different in that regard, but then she probably would not have had anything to do with me in the first place.
There were issues there. Her own and her family's Chineseness remained an obstacle for the dear girl. I cannot and will not hold that against her, but likely there will always be a lingering bitterness. It's just the way it is.
I could not change her, she could not change me; but we have both changed because of our long association.
We're no longer "together", BTW.
COMPLEX SUPERIORITY
Several years ago someone requested that I translate a communication which he had received from the Lee Family Association. Even after I patiently detailed the history of the Virginias and Carolinas, Anglo surnames and the Tidewater settlement, and mentioned the American Civil war and General Robert E. Lee, he firmly believed that I did not know what I was talking about and that I was determined to keep him from connecting with the great American branch of his clan. Because, of course, I was a white person. Which means less intelligent, less literate, and less trustworthy.
As a near-illiterate Toishanese bumpkin whose literacy in Chinese was far worse than mine, possessed of typical peasant paranoia and distrust, and sheerly incapable of speaking English besides, he was convinced that he was withall a superior human being. More knowledgable, too.
He subsequently sent them several hundred dollars he could ill afford.
Most Cantonese who are not able to speak English are not like that. They realize that anybody who has learned some of their language has at least expended effort. Perhaps not as much as they have while fruitlessly trying to learn our impossibly ridiculous and difficult gibberish -- Chinese is so much more logical and natural -- but they've grasped that switching tongues is by no means the easiest thing to do.
On the other hand, their Americanized cousins, who grew up more or less bi-lingual, can at times be real bastards to deal with. Scarcely able to read one word of every two if even that much, and totally ignorant of Chinese history or literature (and, like their white classmates just as blank when it comes to the history and literature of the Western World), they evince a truly superior air when someone who is not Chinese speaks to them in "their language". And, having been exposed ONLY to their parents dialect, they cringe at the atrocious, ATROCIOUS! kwailo pronunciation.
佢識廣東話好過你!
At least I can read the specials written in Chinese characters posted on the wall. Yeah, my pronunciation may be excruciatingly opaque at times. And even the restaurant staff may prefer to use English when possible for better communication. But I don't ask stupid questions, I can order in Chinese if it proves necessary, and I have no reason to be embarrassed by my flawed speech. No reason whatsoever. I'm white, remember? White. We stupid kwailos aren't supposed to understand anything, not even one word.
Evenso, I can get what I want.
If need be I'll write it down. The written words will make everything clear.
That may be all literacy in Chinese will get me. But that's a lot more than most American-born Cantonese will ever get.
Here or in Hong Kong.
I made the stupid mistake quite recently of reading the characters aloud for someone whose use of an English word for a bubble-tea flavour baffled the counterwoman. I forgot how offensively thin-skinned Cantonese can be.
收聲!
BTW, did I already mention that I can get what I want? It's a miracle of monumental proportion that that American-born twit didn't get a fat lip. Instead of the yummy bubble-tea flavour that she desired.
Fortunately I do not know the young adult in question. Nor would I ever want to. My effort was on behalf of the counterwoman, who until that instant had no clue what was required.
The young adult showed all the worst reactions of her class and kind. Over the years I have met several people like that, of all ages and backgrounds. Some sneer at white people whenever possible, some lecture inanely about the superiority of their kin and their culture, and some hate it, totally effing hate it, when white people know anything at all. The more whitey knows, the more insecure it makes them feel.
There are restaurants I never patronize anymore because they act irritated when I ask for something in Chinese that isn't on the English menu (but IS on the wall), and there are a number of people to whom I refuse to speak even one single word of Cantonese because they will make fun of me, in strongly accented English nota bene. Some folks I consciously no longer associate with at all.
My tolerance spans, at times, a very narrow spectrum.
In the same way that a number of Irish-Americans by their reaction to my accent in English prove themselves complete and utter pig bottoms, there are Chinese Americans who need to learn a modicum of politesse.
Or at least get over themselves and their thin skin.
When I lived in the Netherlands, natives would patronizingly remark that as far as they were concerned I was really Dutch. What that highlighted was that they made an exception; despite my being a Yankee and therefore odious, my speech and my manners were good enough that they would overlook those other things.
After I came back to the United States, nearly every day someone has asked me where I hail from, or made some comment about my accent.
And truly, they are not surprised that I speak English so fluently, because the Dutch make it a point to learn languages, and English is the Lingua Franca of the world!
The two-word phrase above (收聲) means "shut up". It is very impolite.
I have often wished to employ it against both Dutchmen and Americans. Unfortunately they would not grasp the layers of meaning or the flavour.
The eight word phrase before that (佢識廣東話好過你) means "he knows Cantonese better than you". It was what the counterwoman told the young lady after I left; I only overheard it because I had paused to light-up my pipe immediately afterwards. I heard it several months before also, upon exiting a shop where I had purchased a yi-hsing teapot. And there have been other times.
It is not patronizing, as it is never said when they think I can hear it.
Nor is it correct; I am not fluent, and I never will be.
But it's an acknowledgement of effort.
In both the Netherlands and the United States I can pass as long as I keep my mouth shut. My appearance is unobjectionable, and I look the part.
Among Chinese people that will never happen. I am always white.
And keeping quiet isn't something I can easily do.
This blog is proof of that.
AFTER-THOUGHT
If I say something in Chinese, and you then pull that rude attitude of "good lord what is this stupid white person saying I don't understand a thing talk English dammit" on me, I shall not repeat myself. Life is too short to drink bad coffee at Starbucks or deal with Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, or Amy Tan. When I use Chinese, it's always to establish communication, usually with people who would not understand me otherwise, but do comprehend quite well when I make the effort.
Did I already mention that I can get what I want?
If need be, I'll even write it down.
AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
When I left, I headed straight toward my favourite alleyway at Washington Street facing the pyramid to have some very much needed quiet-time. That was probably one of the best smokes I've had, the tobacco absolutely sang. It was utterly and totally delicious. So I can say that I had a very good day.
That repulsive female, on the other hand, should understand that the big tapioca balls in her chilled fruity milk-tea beverage are fattening.
Incredibly fattening. Very bad for her.
IRRELEVANT AFTER AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
A couple of days ago R-the-Anglo and R-the-Subcontinental had an argument. This isn't one hundred percent Germane to this post, and there is no need to go into any detail, other than to mention that R-the-Anglo told R-the-Subcontinental to return from whence he came.
"Go back where you came from."
That particular phrase is also one I've heard before. It is a sentence and a sentiment that utterly infuriates me. I have had it flung at me many times, in several languages, on three continents.
I shall insist that where ever you are at the moment is where you belong. Always!
So everyone can kindly shut the hell up. The Chinese can shut up. The Irish can shut up.
The Dutch can shut up. The "Americans" can shut up.
And R-the-Anglo can also shut up.
Kindly.
I love you all.
收聲。
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
