Awake a bit after 8, 8:30 maybe. I'd gone to bed at some time past 2AM. Finally got up around 10 maybe? Rain's not coming in until midnight but it looks like it's coming any minute. I used to actually love weather like this as a kid in Hawaii because the light was different and it was cooler.
I rode up to H Mart to get some things and it was nice and calm if grey and cloudy outside. Not a lot of traffic and I didn't have to do any zombie-dodging. Unfortunately H Mart was pretty busy, but they seemed to have more cashiers on duty to prevent lines and one or two guys acting as "concierges" guiding people to registers. That's a new job these days, the "concierge" who regulates how many people come into a store, guides them to registers, etc.
I noticed on the way over that Fry's has these outdoor "curbside pickup" spots all numbered with orange buckets, on one of the parking lot dividers. Maybe I should have hung around to watch their system in action. To think I used to go to Fry's all the time and I'm not sure I've been there at all in 2020 or the first few days of this year.
Renee, this homeless lady who used to use the parking lot here as her own living room, along with her felon son and daughter, is back. She had some other bums in their non-license-plated bum cars come by for various mysterious transactions and interactions. She might be hiding out here from people she's fighting with since she fights all the time. She lives on drama. In fact, I'd say 99% of homeless people do and the drama is so delicious to them that they prefer to remain homeless just to have it.
Their lives are just about the opposite of the Buddhist or Confucian ideal of harmony. I can't plead innocent here because I was raised as an ostensibly white American and white American culture loves its conflict and drama. Starting a conversation means finding something to complain bitterly about. If you're nice to anyone you're a "sucker".
It's taught in my temple that everything, the realm of the devas, the bodhisattvas, the humans, the animals, the hungry ghosts, "This is all right here; this is all right now" - Rinban Sakamoto. And I see it. What's an opioid addict with a traumatic brain injury but a hungry ghost? What's a guy like Carl Sagan or Noam Chomsky or Paul Robeson but something a bit like a bodhisattva? And most of us are just humans, trying to get along with our lives.
One mere human I really miss is a guy I knew as "Fred". He worked part-time at the Nichi Bei store in Jtown. I thought he was a lot older than he was; he was quite overweight and his hair was at least as grey as mine, probably more so. He was sharp and we talked about things. I brought up my resentments about Hawaii but surprised him by talking glowingly about Hawaii's vast advantages for learning Asian culture etc. He told me he'd researched and found that much of the ruling class in the US came from Scots-Irish and they were really fighty. We talked about all sorts of things.
Later, I'd go there and when he was there he didn't seem to recognize me, or much of anyone, frankly. Next I heard he'd died. "Oh, well, he was quite old" I'd said, or something like that. But I was told he was not old, but diabetic. I think he'd died younger than me. That's where I started feeling really bad, because I knew how to fix that. Maybe not completely, but the guy was probably eating tons of high-carb foods and not realizing that's what was killing him.
If I'd only known. I'd have made my 2nd job Saving Fred. He was so smart, and we could have sharpened our wits against each other. I'd have shown him it's possible to eat without tons of carbs. I'd have been able to show him how to lose weight by 1 lb a week but it stays off. Maybe for him, as it was for me, once the Orange Turd was in office medical care became unobtainable. Maybe I could have helped him with that. People with smarts with regard to society are vanishingly rare here; it's all tech-nerds with the social awareness of a 14-year-old who's just discovered Ayn Rand.
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