Despite my reputation, especially at work (where I'm a bit fried and quite cynical about the management, despite liking the job), I'm actually a friendly sort. Thus, on Thursday, when I saw a lanky man with a guitar asking direction to the Port of Redwood City, and a dull-looking man on a bicycle saying "west" over and over again (the port is east and slightly south of the train station), I stepped in to point him in the right direction, and to say that yes, he should probably get a cab. He announced he would need a drink, so my bicycle and I led him to City Pub, where he insisted on buying me a drink, occasionally muttering about meeting his brother at the Port, or sometimes "the asshole brother". Starting out drunk, then getting more drunk, before trying to make amends with an estranged sibling, wouldn't really be my approach, but I'm long since out of the trying-to-fix-people business, so the non-driving alcoholics are free to go on their way.

I'm not an alcoholic or addict, so I never experienced the drinking/drug-buddy phenomenon, but I think I glimpsed it: this shallow veneer of friendliness and friendship, that lapses so easily. It's about as real and reliable as corporate ethics. It's a facade, an abrasive falseness so obvious and apparent to me that I can scarcely imagine the kind of state you'd have to me in to convince yourself it's genuine.

I got a decaf mocha concoction from Peet's today, and apparently I need to not do that any more: I drank a third or half of it, and felt my throat constricting a little bit as I got all mucus-laden. This is happening a lot these days, on the Ayurvedic diet: as I pay more attention to exactly what I eat, I'm also noticing the effects I feel afterward. (For whatever reason, I notice stuff that makes me feel worse, and not stuff that makes me feel good; that could just be because the overall level of goodness has gone up.) It's really sort of a geeky thing, to find such cause-and-effect, and to be tuning a complex system like this with something so innocuous as food. It's not really innocuous, though: as the doctor pointed out, eating and breathing are our two greatest interactions with our environment, so it makes sense that eating, being careful about what we put in that our bodies will use to re-create itself, would have the primary effect.

Quality-of-life improvements: I bought new Chacos, on sale, even--I bought the old ones for the sailing trip in 2001, and they've been delaminating for some time. Sadly, it's not worth the money to have them re-soled. The shooting pains that started in my calves when I started wearing the old ones? Gone immediately with the new pair. And I finally replaced the batteries in my car remotes, so the doors lock or unlock the first time I press the button. What's not to love?