It’s a Friday, and I have an appointment that was at 5 pm that will be at 2:30 pm, so I gave myself a break from the novel – also known as procrastination – and headed out to get more ground beef, because as you know, hamburger buns cannot sit idle and I have 4 left.

I hate throwing food away, and the most sensible thing to use hamburger buns for is hamburgers. This is where that article on bias came from, as I was making patties yesterday.

Of course, this requires a stop at the coffee shop. I don’t use my name in public places for a variety of reasons, first and most importantly because hearing my name mispronounced even in a eager laborious way is painful. In certain circles, I am ‘Steve’ mainly because it’s really hard to screw that up and it happens to come out as one syllable.

The young women at the coffee shop, as you can see, enjoy writing things on my cups. I treat them like human beings, something known in Trinidad and Tobago as ‘living good with people‘. I’ve stood up for them against some haughty and nasty customers, saying what they could not, and discussing things when idle time presents itself – most lately which type of cassava makes the best pone.

It’s nice to be liked somewhere. From the cup, I present evidence that I am liked, and without pretense.

There are many in the Northwest of Trinidad who seem to be above common courtesy and ‘living good with people’. Other parts of Trinidad are better, but increasingly imperfect in this regard. I have found it enriching, despite the fact that in general I don’t like people. They’re peopley, and I’m an introvert that appreciates silences.

It’s pretty clear if you read about what I wrote regarding Trinidad and Tobago and AI that I have a low opinion of the government, but to be fair I have a low opinion of every government. Government in a democracy is at best a measure of a nation’s mediocrity, and in Trinidad and Tobago the aspiration toward mediocrity is estranged from reality in ways that could fill volumes. The people are generally good people, particularly if you live good with them.

I played with the WordPress app for Android while sipping my lovingly made coffee, and I was quickly annoyed with the inability to align my images, as well as the annoying thing about JetPack splitting off for statistics and notifications. My experimentation had me wrestling an octopus when all I wanted to do was write. Technology can help us, but it takes business to really muck things up. Muck rhymes with something, which is why I use it.

Since I’m experimenting with the desktop app at home now, I figured I would just do it when I got home, as I am doing now, and finding the annoyances with it – for example, not being able to run the WordPress reader in one tab as I write, since there are other blogs I want to refer to. The promise of, “One App To Rule It All”, has become a flurry of angry octopuses all demanding attention. This will not do.

I got to the grocery and snagged the hamburger meat and a few other items and headed to the line. I was in luck, it seemed, as one line had only on elderly woman, a pensioner, ahead of me with two cupcakes and 2 other pastries. She was laughing and smiling as she fought with her coin purse for that last 30 cents, and the cashier and bagger both assisted and laughed with her. Living good with people. Behind me, though, catastrophe almost struck as another pensioner almost lost a cake to gravity.

She caught it, and I pushed my stuff forward to give her space to put it down. She studied me, “I already paid for this at the bakery, don’t worry”. The bag revealed ‘..day’ at the end of the writing on her cake. It was someone’s birthday.

I told her that her cake was important and she would not drop it if it were there. She smiled, placed her cake down carefully, and looked to her other things in preparation even while the 30 cents was being counted.

Next up, the young ladies got to me, we cashed out and they remarked on the ground beef. I explained that I had too many buns left, and they laughed and nodded. I left with a nod to the smiling lady behind me as she began her time at the checkout. So often these lines are filled with people in a rush, intent on their own lives and not observing those around them. Today is a good day.

Upon getting home, I saw one of my favorite people on the property, the guy who cuts the grass with the help of his autistic son. I stopped, and he handed me a calabash bowl.

It’s rare to get one of these things, and it was a rare gift that comes from living good with people. I have no idea what I will use it for, but I’m sure there’s something I will put in it.

His son, a high functioning autistic, is winning swimming events – not surprising, since he has a tall frame and is always working outdoors with his father. We talked about that a bit, and came home to ponder what I could use this bowl for. No ideas yet. If you have ideas, let me know in the comments.

I passed the office, stuck my head in and urgently stated I had nothing to complain about and that I wanted to complain about that. Our administrator laughed, I wished her a pleasant weekend, and came back to the writing cave.

As Renard wrote, our blog posts are little pieces of us. They’re also little parts of our world and the people around us. We’re more than the medium or the message in that regard.

For me, I think it’s time to get back to the fictional universes in my head before my appointment.

Remember, everyone – Live Good With People. It’s its own reward.