July 21, 2024:

Mister Bald With Beard, folding chair in tree shade, bicycle laid on grass. In the same corner every day.

Not a great corner. Inside an elbow of street and parking lot. I wouldn't have chosen that spot. Too much asphalt. He likes it. He's there every afternoon as I take my walk.

Lately I've waved and said hey. He looks up from his phone, where he watches videos. This time I said, "You're here every day!" He smiled and laughed.

Old. Older than me, if you can believe that. Bald with long beard, a graybeard, with his high-handled bicycle and folding chair, watching videos on his phone in the shade.

July 20, 2024:

I always loved the fall.

I responded joyfully to the drop in air pressure. Grey clouds, Pacific rain squalls, or heavy overcast. Rain was the best. Especially if I had a new jacket. Out into the drizzle, immediately: let's see how good a job this jacket does.

Rain sheltered in tree limbs was the best of the best. I'd climb one or another favorite, to feel myself protected by the hug of the leaves. Atavistic memory of ape DNA, perhaps. Sixty years later I'd still love to live in a tree.

Street View shows my earliest childhood tree is no more. The apartment is still there, the tree is gone. Shame, that.

July 19, 2024:

"I have seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the bank. In three years I'll retire, move to the Philippines, find a much younger girl, train her, surf every day, and live like a king for essentially pennies. Because I am not happy with the way things are going in this country."

Discreet charm of the enraged petty bourgeoisie.