213th day sober. It's December 1st, the start of the season of dying. And indeed, on reddit on r/homeless, there are tons of posts about people getting kicked out, not sure how to stay warm in the snow, etc.
My lips keep peeling so I don't know how I feel about trumpet playing. I packed a ton of stuff last night and didn't practice trumpet, but did draw a card's worth of doodles of various pocket knives ... there used to be this huge display case with all sorts of them in the Ben Franklin store when I was a kid, and I kind of took off from that. I had a little pocket knife that looked like a fish that my older brother gave me as my first one (Mom soon took it away) and I ended up drawing knives shaped like bugs, fruit, etc. Kind of fun.
I did this while watching a weird documentary on Russian Jews, done by a guy I must assume is a Russian Jew. It had really weird "special" effects and was kind of fun. I like how he referred to Jews as "Ivri" and not "Yehudi" or "Yiddn". He stated that after 1905, Jews had armed up and there were no more pogroms in Russia - Ha!
The thing is, the world is getting weird. I am reminded of when I'd travel overseas, and suddenly I was a representative of "America" and had to answer questions. Even here in California, in a room full of learners of that craziest of languages, English, I had a lot of explaining to do. And everything's by appearance. Out of the 5 of us, the two who look "ethnic" are my older sis and myself, and my older sis is taken care of in that she went to Punahou and as a consequence married a rich guy who also went to Punahou, so she's set for life. She's a self-confessed "photophobe" too so she never gets an embarrassing tan. The other three don't look "ethnic" although, like "Kirk Douglas" they are, without showing it.
This is why I took that DNA test a while back. When the Dump got into office, I figured they'll get around to rounding up the Jews in time, and if I verified I have Jewish ancestry I'd not know anything they wouldn't know, I'd just know it sooner and could sooner plan to get out of here. Plus I'd be able to warn the other 4 of us. But it came back with nothing. We're obviously part something that's swarthy on Mom's side and they got out of Lithuania in the late 1800s and it's all I know. It's just not the #1 priority it would be if the test showed, maybe, 50% Ashkanazi DNA. We can relax for a bit.
But I think I relaxed too much! Because conversion would have been a walk in the park before the virus came along. But conversion is not cheap, and I also had booze taking all my extra money. Not having a car, and conversion requiring going to a circuit of temples around this valley, I'd have been going to X or Y place, staying in a hotel nearby, to make it to places in time. That's a thing I can do now. But now I have to lay low because of the virus.
My thinking I can become a member of the Japanese-American Buddhist community is delusional. It'll just be the same as it is in Hawaii, I'm the hated "haole" and they'd never give two shits for me. I don't have the right appearance. And besides not being an anti-intellectual fascist asshole, I'm too tan to fit into the white community here on the mainland, as has been made clear. Hell I'm too tan to fit into the white community in Hawaii, so definitely not here.
This is really important now. You have to "look the part". Maybe this is why, all my life, Jewish people are the only people who treated me more nicely than they had to. The local Jewish temple is a super friendly, nice, bunch of people but I'm really glad I don't get the kind of looks there I'd get if I were black, or tall and blonde with icy blue eyes and a pointy nose. The same way, I already know that no one would look at me twice walking down the street in Tel Aviv or Haifa.
When I wrote this title I was referring to the many homeless people who will die this winter, but I'm hearing on the radio now that the "omicron" variant of covid is in San Francisco now. When that variant was detected in S. Africa, the US banned travel from that region except for US citizens, because if we're gonna all get omicron, it's gonna be AMERICAN omicron, given to us by an AMERICAN. (An actual first world country would ban all travel, not wanting omicron at all.)
I took packages up to the post office and fedex at the usual time, looked for packing stuff, and at one point, by the place that throws out medical stuff, I had to pee so badly that, combined with the headache I had, I actually felt sick. So I ducked into the unlocked side of their trash enclosure and peed in there. What's funny about that is, just a bit further down the parking lot, were two or three new porta-potties set up for some reason. I could have used one of those.
The homeless guy wasn't by the electrical lighting place but I left some stuff for him, hanging from the tangerine tree. I didn't know it was a tangerine tree there so that's interesting.
I decided I'd not had Pho for the longest time so I rode up to Pho Bel Air and had a big bowl of it there, it was something like $18 with the tax and all though. And with the $3 and change I had left, I got a few samosas from the curry place next door because I'd talked a bit with the gal working there as she was stacking up the outdoor chairs and tables and locking them all up.
On the way back I stopped by Tom's and we talked for a while. Bad idea: He'd apparently had a few beers and was not all that lucid so it's not like we were able to hash out anything important. I think he actually constantly drinks beers but is pretty good at the sneaky nips on harder stuff. I know because that's what I used to do, and I know E&J cheap brandy is his style.
He mainly talked about being really broke (how a guy can be broke on $80k a year and a practically free place to live and not having to commute I don't know, but I know booze sure had a way of taking any extra money I had around when I drank) and the upshot is, he's suddenly really worried about the bums and wants me to watch his place while he's gone, but he doesn't want to pay me anything for doing so if he can get away with it. I said for $20 a day I can spend an hour a day looking around the place, doing some cleaning up, keeping it looking like it's looked after. But he doesn't want to pay that BUT he pays his pot-smoking homeless friend $20 an hour so ... I'm worth less than a pothead bum? This is why I'm going to duck out entirely. I told Tom if he'll clean up the outside, block all the windows and holes in the front door and so on so the bums can't peek in, leave a radio on, etc. it's really doubtful he'll have any trouble. I had zero break-in attempts when I lived there and there's been zero the last time he went on vacation. I think it's time I stop wasting time on the guy.
I got back here, had samosas with butter, cucumber slices, and the bit of picked veggies that came with the samosas. I also tried a new way to clean my little space heater. I took it outside and sprayed it inside and out with Windex, brushed around with a bristle brush, then rinsed it out really well with hot water. Then I took it back in and ran it - it ran fine - and it dried out just fine. So far this method has worked really well with grotty fans and heaters.
Speaking of bums, a bum with a motor scooter with a bike trailer went by when I was up at Tom's and I pointed it out to Tom, saying whoever it is, goes through my complex too. Well, that personage did indeed go back and forth a few times. And I think it may be Renee, one of the scumsuckers who lived in this parking lot a while back. And I think the reason Renee went back and forth was, I had the outside light next to the door on, which usually means Ken's coming by or some metal scrap is going to be thrown out or both. I realized this and turned off the light.
No comments:
Post a Comment