I have written on several occasions about how the ability to read the body language of others is a skill that improves with age. And i’ve been less than modest in describing my own ability at this. Yesterday i had an enlightening experience.
I had gone out shopping, as usual on the Segway, and had stopped first at Costco and then at Rainbow, completely filling my pack and two shopping bags suspended from the handlebars, so i was heavily laden. But on the way home i realized that i needed coffee and could treat myself to a bag of the good stuff at Four Barrel on Valencia.
As i approached the curb i briefly considered jumping it since it wasn’t particularly high and was clearly doable, but before i’d even slowed down much i realized in a spasm of prudence that i was a little too heavily burdened to try it, especially with heavy bags swinging from the handlebars and destabilizing me. So i stopped in front of the curb. And as i was levering the Segway onto the sidewalk, a young employee having a cigarette in front of the store queried, “Didn’t wanta jump it?”
He’d read me like a book, so i immediately confessed and we got a good laugh over it.
Oh, yes. To celebrate my 68th birthday i Segwayed out this noon to Raja for some curried spinach and naan, and what did i discover but a Morcky opus right here in San Francisco that had been there on Fillmore off Haight since sometime last fall. I wrote about Morcky Boy, as he then styled himself, in my 2004 Amsterdam tale Amsterdam by Foot, which was before anybody else had covered him on the Internet. By the following year, he was all over it and even had his own site. Now he’s intercontinental…and getting better.
