A 6th Step Meeting of Narcotics Anonymous - Reflection.

 As a former 

attendee of 12-step self-help meetings, I recalled, upon passing by The Lodge, in West Hollywood

(out on a jaunt, hauling my shelf back home, from Century City),

the eponymous “reflection meeting,” apparently characterized as a facet of a 6th step meeting.

It’s nesting time, for the pigeons.

 It’s the end of a balmy summer, out here in South Los Angeles, and the Harbor Freeway (Highway 110) underpasses are a favorite nesting spot for the flocks of pigeons. 

The Manchester underpass of the Harbor Freeway features a stoop for pigeons. I’ve been visiting this brood since 2018. 

Nearby, as I got out of a medical appointment earlier today, I came across a darling pigeon parent moment: the nest-making ritual. Here, the babies had already been born, and they’re growing up, fully feathered, and soon, they’ll be ready to fly. The parents make the nest, over and over, to teach the young some pertinent bird mannerisms, such as the use of the bill, for feeding, and for general use in procuring things that they need. Around town, the birds have the habit of asking for food by pecking around on the sidewalk, and the street. It’s what they know how to do, as a sociable gesture towards their caretakers - us, as humans. 

This busy pigeon parent was witnessed remaking the nest for baby pigeon. It’s exciting to see the pigeons pairing up and having success in breeding. The pigeons had been seen through a faithful series of seasons of regular feedings, and they’d been well supplemented this year, on top of that, so they’re taking care of themselves, and their young, particularly well. 

Essential Urban Survival Technique - Thwarting an Ether Faucet Attempt.

 Any well-traveled trekker | overnighter of the urban landscape knows the feeling well: 

Having happened upon life, as such, as that sleep becomes unfortunately inevitable, at an inopportune time, in an inappropriate locale; that is, might seem as though it’s somewhat the sufferer’s own fault, for grazing in unfamiliar territory. 

 Even so, don’t be afraid, and don’t be discriminatory in where you set foot, about town; simply go about life as a well-prepared individual, well-resourced, well-packed, and you’ll do just fine. 

I’d not done so well, in previous years, but I’m nearing upon age 40, and I’d say that I’d experienced the vast majority of life experiences that I’d possibly come across, in my time, and there’s not much that could be done to me that I hadn’t experienced, previously, as a well-heeled trekker of the Los Angeles urban landscape. Just this past week, in fact, I thwarted a so-called (nicknamed via my own predilections) ether faucet, which is a classic simple petty theft’s criminal’s doing, or perhaps they’d do worse, to a lady, or something like that. 

It happens as misfortunately as described, just prior: a sudden need to fall asleep at an inopportune time, in an inappropriate place; perhaps a poor part of town, infested with tents, cockroaches, trash, rioting going on - that sort of thing. The police are on top of it, or something like that. People have to rest, sometimes, and letting loose an ether faucet will put the freeze on things, so to speak. 

What is ether?

I don’t really know what, or which - (ether) is the particular ether in question, and I’m not going to look it up, either. For my purposes, ether could potentially be a fragrance chemistry industry solvent, (… eh, I won’t elaborate on it - I don’t own any, myself), and ethers are a particular class of chemical compound, aside from that. It’s the sort of thing that could get somebody some unfortunate attention, perhaps, from the authorities, that is. My purpose here isn’t to educate the reader about ether, the drug: the primitive anesthetic that it is, as a basis. I had first learned about it from the drug-lore film, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” in which one of the guys was playing around with it, and look how Johnny Depp ended up - handsome heartthrob, early on, and well in to his later career, yet he’d been beset with tabloid scandal, in his later years, for living out his acting career roles (ostensibly) to a real-life pitch, in the behind-the-scenes sort of lifestyle that inevitably becomes the duty of the actor, playing the part. The other guy, Guillermo Del Toro, (or something like that; this is all off the top of my head, here), ate more food, throughout life. A bit more innocent, as far as analysis goes. I hadn’t caught wind of any poor press about him. Johnny Depp, on the other hand, had recently hit the scandal headlines, with his breakup from Amber Heard, a model, etc. etc.

Anyways…

An ether faucet. A scum bag tweaker’s crude weapon in assailing a targeted victim who stays out too late, or who ventures off in to an unseemly part of town, without imbibing in drug use (breaking bread) with the locals, who’d like to rob or rape the person being targeted, or perhaps it’s some measure of riot and crowd control, implemented by the authorities, following an outbreak of acute societal unrest, in the civic center area, about town. This was somewhat my experience of things, as I woke myself up, out of the narcoleptic, deadening slumber, which happens to accompany an uncharacteristic chill, to the limbs and body; a noticeably chill wind about the air, and an incapable self, as for getting up, waking up, and getting out of the area, for that criminals could easily thwart the individuals defenses, and gain access to their valuables, or possibly kidnap the person, and commit foul things, for a ransom; for example. 

Fortunately, I was well-equipped with an orange flower absolute spray bottle, 

just large enough to hold several dozen sprays, and yet, orange flower absolute: complex enough, to thwart an aerosol-based attack as crude as an ether faucet. I sprayed one spray, after coming to realize that I ought not sleep it off, and be content, and the tiredness was immediately swept away. 

There were intimations of a mockery of me, coming about, in my misfortune, of “some girl” sitting down, in front of me, where I lay, on the sidewalk, saying stuff like “hey, how’s it going?” 😘

That was my opportunity to get up, and get about, on my way, to my standard haunt, which I won’t disclose. The tiredness came and went, intermittently, throughout various parts of town, but my orange flower absolute reconstitution did the job quite well. I used Poucher’s formulation (Poucher was a noted armed forces scholar, in literature and in photography). Here’s his recipe for orange flower absolute, which can also be further researched through Google Books online. 

  An ether faucet is a horrible thing to burden, but hey, maybe it averted a worser societal outcome, all in all. Being properly prepared, with a complex aromatic aerosol compound is simply part of the technique in appropriately surviving the threat, coming through, with all valuables and reputation intact. It smells great, for that matter, and it’s a unisex sort of fragrance. Take heed, though, certain formulations of an orange flower absolute could be overly simplistic, or detrimental, in the sort of chemistry involved in what ether is, which I don’t quite know, myself, and I don’t really care to investigate it, online, for that matter. Just order some ingredients, and make the stuff yourself. It’ll assist you in embodying a more outgoing and adventurous self, as the cold months to come, ahead, accommodate the sort of robbery tactic that succumbing to an ether faucet would entail. 

Fitting in, as the paranoid schizophrenic narcissism movement’s poster boy mascot.

People who are adequately properly acquainted with me 

know that I have a hard time getting out of my head, when it comes to sitting down and socializing. I have to admit, I’ve been off, for a good stretch of time, given right now, and the months leading up to this point in time (Summer 2021), and there’d been little hope of seeing a clearing through the Los Angeles, CA “fog.” 

Here, in the militarized zone (TMZ) of Los Angeles, which is tech worker knowledge 101 (or, to be precise, “A+” certification priory of knowledge base, we, for one thing, don’t wake up, per se, in the morning. It just happens, eventually, as the sorry trudge through remaking ourselves, in professionalism, in a world where our Apple devices can’t capably we’ll be self-serviced, for one thing, and nobody much… well, everyone else, let’s say, would care to do the service on their devices for themselves. 

Okay. Actually, it’s not fog. At least, not that I could put my finger on it. Maybe the photo doesn’t capture it all that well, and it seems like a clear photo, above; from here to there, with my plain eyes, in viewing, the half-block, or so, distance from my vantage point, to the buildings nearby, I’ll say, are a bit “not quite” the standard “clear,” as could be said about “seeing things” and what might be expected, based on reasonably good vision. 

It’s easier to see the disparities in clarity, in the short-distance atmosphere of the place (DTLA) at night, through the early morning, lately, and I just happen to receive punishing intimations and suggestions, in my remote sensing assignment, laid upon myself (this started happening in 2012, right around this time of year, in fact) of all sorts of “me, myself (Jay)” types of storylines in my head, and it makes me really neurotic and somewhat casually dismissive of others, if they happen to break form with attending to the present moment, and with a purpose-driven mind about conversation, if anything’s to be said at all, about anything, for that matter, and as for myself, I’m readily one to admit that I’ve problems, and it’s “complicated,” let’s say. 

For example, I met a young lady last night, and she was a fawning courtesan to me, upon passing my way. I was digging through the garbage, trying to find some food, and there was a tasty soft drink in there, which I enjoyed, and she took to me, quite effectively, and I was drawn in to the prospect of making her acquaintanceship. We ended up speaking on friendly terms, well enough, as she acted as though she were enamored by me, but there was something just, perhaps, simply “in the way” of things. For one thing, she wanted to fix my recyclables collecting trait about myself, and she kept telling me that she would hold my bag for me, as we eventually left our initial place of meeting, and we went out for a walk (I wanted to go to the grocery store, for food; perhaps a bit extravagant, given that there was good food in the trash for me, that I hadn’t gotten to investigating and clearing for eats, by the time she met me). I do a standard gentleman, no problem, well enough, when I meet a new acquaintanceship, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have “not really” been an on-site, ITF, misfortunate stalking target, per se, lately; I don’t know what it is. Had they gotten been “talked to” about that sort of thing, or do I just look better? Is it my fragrance that I’m wearing, or is it because I put on some weight and muscle? Maybe it’s a bit of all of those things, although I am commonly troubled by how I look, facially, in the mirror, lately, on account of that I don’t get to sleep as much as I readily aught would sleep, give, how bothered and troubled I am, in my head. 

These developments,

I would say, would trouble anyone. Anyone who’s validly a peer to me, and many-to-most of them had abandoned me, and taken on a purpose about me, of disregarding that I have any decency about me, and all sorts of complaints and claims attesting to some sort of beliefs about me arise, in the dialectical, and I wind up being the center of people’s attention. Granted, it’s nice to be paid attention to, sometimes, and it’s even more delightful to win out, in intelligence, when somebody shows up to insult me, but the public is the greater determiner, I’ll say, of what’s truthfully valid and appropriate up-to-the-minute debriefing and slight course for facing judgment, from others, whereas I simply “hear,” or… 🤔 <_< “perceive,” I’ll put it, to be more appropriate, to the point, these various points of contention from former peers, who show up, in my “privacy” of my attending mind, at issue, and they simply never reach out on Facebook, or whatever, or respond, when I look them up and query them about how they’d been acting, in my head, which I happen to believe that they do, since I took on this schizophrenia sort of burden, back around this time of year, to be precise, tracing back to 2012. 

All sorts of wild stories and painful memories. 

Why not just admit to that you feel that way about me? I can fix it, if it’s a problem.

But the social ladder equivalent of being the gorilla’s silverback male, “given me,” endlessly (since back in 2012), shows back up, and I’m significantly troubled by what’s come of things, of my school days peers, and what they claim about me, or claim is significant topic of issue about me, and sometimes, I make them look truthfully, woefully, foolish (or worse), and I must say, I’ve got quite the penchant for the spoken or written word, and I’ve got a ton of great experiences to talk about, (if only) people would “actually” speak to me, which this girl, (getting back to the thread I had initiated, just a moment ago) was doing, with me. I had to eventually ditch her, though. Once, and then I came across her, again, and I’ve got it awrr rawr rough and tough, sometimes, with how I truly make a practice and discipline about life, to do life as I was brought up to be - a good baptist Christian man, since my boyhood, and stuff; I’ve got to make amends on what I’d been led astray for, in life, and presented of myself; my superficial self, amongst people, although I’d never quite all that much, to be honest, really betrayed my Christian upbringing. 

So I try to tame these wild ones - awrr rawr, rough and tough, with some patience, common sense, British intellect and know-how, of the cultural attainments made, on their part, given my Cantonese mother’s upbringing, and such: 

It’s just… how it is. Look it up. The British managed and ruled over Hong Kong, until 1997, I believe, imparting the early modern period and western traditions upon the Chinese, in Hong Kong - for 150 years (or so), until they returned Hong Kong to the Chinese government, at which time, it became… I dunno, “Chinese,” more so, (again; perhaps), and we happen to live in a Los Angeles, CA, where racial slights and slurs, and awrr rawr - rough and tough insults and “most casual” beliefs and practices of superiority and dominance features significantly, in the common mores and cares of society at large, and I’m one of them - the Cantonese; at least, a half of me. The other half is Lithuanian descent (my father, quite reliably - resembles the recent United States of America’s Vice President, Mike Pence, to be sure). 

Anyways, we all know how slight the Chinese get treated as, out here, and perhaps it’s largely a globalized perceptual basis that’s become familiar to many - the detriment to progress and the establishment of vast achievements and efforts put in to eliminating civil rights abuses, of others, and we’d “supposedly” (at least, in the courts, and in the minds of good Christian types of people, in America) gotten the slights, slurs, and casual insulting beliefs of our people straightened out, about many sorts and types of people that come to exist, in America, and that’s the primary basis of this country, to a large degree, on one hand. 

It just sucks, and I broke my hand, last month, punching the wall, exercising great lengths in patience and non-aggression, whereas I’m bound by the law, and - I’m on probation, on top of things, so if I mess up, again, in allowing physical violence to come of me, as for how others are treated, in life, I’m duly and highly susceptible to becoming remanded, if it gets around to that the police get called to attend to the issue, and I don’t much care to take a chance with that sort of thing. It’s a two year sentence that I was released, on conditional terms, and then, I didn’t follow through with anything, because I’d been bothered, in my mind, (schizophrenia), from back then (2017, or so), till now - fairly constantly, as a chronic and debilitating issue. 

Try it (not really, though <_<…) - breaking your hand against the wall, as an undisciplined fighter; as the angry person. I’ve got  a plate and pin, in my strong hand, and it was a one-two punch, that it was, this time around, but my weaker hand didn’t have all that I thought of myself - turns out. It’s healing up nicely, well enough, now, though. I’m a bit ambivalent about it. On one hand, I like the tough guy, scars, and such, sort of facets and traits about me, although I’m not quite… let’s say, “not disturbed,” of the mind, to attend to my higher purpose, and due diligence, to, like, the gym, or proper exercise, and stuff. I just go out, and I binge on drugs, and that’s obviously not allowed. I just feel that I need it. Not every drug, yet I’m woefully a habitually methamphetamines abuser, although I’m set on the self-maker statement, of my formative self esteem, and aspirations, of that I’m constantly trying to quit, and maybe - this time around, as for today - I’m going to do it properly, since I hear about such horrible things going on, and I don’t really care to elaborate on things, because of the degree of disgust that would be involved, about stuff, if I made it real, by talking about it. 

I feel like, maybe… some people care, and some people… just care “otherwise,” and significantly obsessively and abusively so, and I broke my hand against the wall, because I’ve entrained myself as a significantly astute Christian man, against doing life, of aggression, that. I could, …

but that would just spoil my self-affirming beliefs of that I could really do something in life, and I meet such great people, in my mind, and if only, at that, and violence, as a basis, isn’t all that much an appropriate, or date-worthy sort of topic to even touch upon - I can speak on so many other good and appropriate contexts, such as my feeding the birds thing, and the art associated with it; that’s all good and appropriate, enough - sort of topic that could, perhaps, … hmm. How to say it… I dunno. I’ll let others decide for themselves, and I’ll have things my way, and see how things go. 

I don’t really know what to say… if you don’t talk to me, about anything but abusive sorts of stuff to say about someone, and I know I look bad, lately (facially), sometimes, … and if these people take drugs all the time, … like they “do…” - let’s be real here. This type of behavior must, and could only be explained by drug abuse, and for keeping up with me, and I look so poorly, of the face, and stuff, … but that’s me. I try to do stuff to make up for things. 

I guess that’s all, for now. I’ve got stuff to do today. It’s Monday. Work schedule, and work week, sorts of stuff. 

But the blasting, going on, and the disturbances, and stuff… I dunno. I can’t fix everything - especially if people keep messing with me, and then, if I just couldn’t possibly like you, right now, … like, for reals, then just go away. “I’m gonna leave, now:” sorts of stuff. And that’s okay. 

The life of baby striped-wing pigeon: photo blog.

 This baby pigeon is developing a notable curious personality around his human caretakers. See some of the developments of him and the flock, after they settle in, for a bit, after a meal, when they mingle about and show off their virtues, as birds, in preening themselves. It is both social hour and development time, in the nurturing environment setting, and with how intelligent birds can be, attaining a publicly-accessible wild-to-domesticated flock characteristic seems to be within reach, given some dedication over the coming years. 

Just today, I rescued this baby pigeon from having string tied around his feet. He was trusting enough to allow me to nab him and hold him close to me, as I carefully removed the string around his feet. Fortunately, the string wasn’t that tight. It symbolizes a significant milestone in the flock’s collective tameness and trust, which is, essentially, a call for mercy and grace for the pigeons, outside of the times in which I am present and feeding them. Desiring to own the birds, as they become more near to what would considerably be a pet, is an obvious lure, for some, in having little experience in handling birds, yet it takes efforts of some and various sorts, in public relations, I would imagine, in establishing appropriate boundaries and rational considerations for what’s best for ourselves, as well as the birds of DTLA; here, the location is Pershing Square, where I’m giving a relatively large and common flock of birds food, water, and socialization care, several times a week, or every day that I can do this task. 

The older birds will never attain domesticity amongst humans. This is the important thing to keep in mind. The foundling period, post-nestling phase, of the ecology of the flocks and breeding pairs of birds, is a most vulnerable time in the pro-sociable health and development of the flocks of pigeons. In this stage, in a pigeon’s life, the babies come out to eat and explore, with feeding the birds, and watering them, being the traditional and formal greeting of the flock for humans. In this small locality (Pershing Square), an afternoon feeding is common, and on occasions where I had stuck around, for a while, a venturesome squirrel appears, and he enjoys a slice of bread, as well. 

Curious baby pigeon stands out, amongst the crowd.

Update: 

For those of you who don’t follow along on my Twitter so much, I’ll update you on my latest developments of the day. I started working on the curious baby pigeon stands out amongst the crowd vectorized, posterized, film noir stylized ink brush illustration [and subsequent print out, for display], and it’s looking fabulous, after about 6 1/2 hours work put in to it. 

 

Alternatives to Gig Work, Now that the Federal Extension Unemployment Benefits are Ending.

 Although it may seem like a bleak outlook on the newsfeed, lately, I'm not going to freak out. There are plenty of ways in which I can assert my enterprising self and my entrepreneurial spirit, even as of yet;

Hopefully you'd also managed to procure and safeguard some capital investments, using unemployment benefits from the Employment Development Department, etc. - for me, it was perfume and fragrance | aroma ingredients that stuck things out, beyond the stock market and the cryptocurrency craze that hit many newcomers, from the wayside, with attractive and compelling distractions from what few opportunities many of us were afforded, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequent social strata fallout that was the Black Lives Matter movement and associated civic center occupations and unrest. 

In any case, you might be wondering what else there is to do, now that much of the attention is on the presidential administration, the weather, etc., while here, in Southern California, the weather is relatively balmy and cool - at least for a few days, now; we',ve got raindrops notifications coming through on Dark Sky, and it's only the height of mid-day that's unbearably hot and overly bright. Things could be worse; they « had been » worse, previously... 

Then, from out of what seems like nowhere, Google manages to pull through in some new releases; there's the Pixel 6 coming out soon, and with it (preceding it's release), there's plenty of self-starter enterprising frontier, development and production space that's rich as all of the major topics of Big Tech, as of late: AI, ML, Call Center stuff, IoT, online retail, ad marketing, domaining... that sort of thing. 

For me, Google Workspace reignited the development aspirations fire within me, and I was drawn in by Gmail's chat space, which, for me, is constantly dead space, or non-existent, as I work primarily on mobile; finger-flipping up and down, checking on this and that, waiting for my benefits to come in, ... although that was bound to come to an end, at some point in time. Now that those things had come to fruition, during their time, it's obvious that we'd expect to have something to show, as for ourselves, and for our adult life and professional careers, to come. That's how I see it, in any case. 

There's Dialogflow, which is the linguistic version of what was, and is - the visual foray of Machine Learning platform, which is TensorFlow; we've all been familiarized with the notion of what TensorFlow does for us, in having to go through Captchas, as the intelligence barrier, between us, and some fated necessary task of scripting, that comes about, as a result of browsing the web, sometimes. 

There's the Tovusound Organ Pipe Music Boxes, which I'm a huge fan of, as a DTLA pigeon carnival enthusiast and proponent (lately, I've been getting shipped around, various parts of town, for the sake of tending to the other pigeon flocks and small establishments of them, in numbers, whether they were known gatherings of birds, or unbeknownst to me), given that the birds are likely to flourish, here and there, regardless of whether or not it's the civic center, or not. In these many various locales that I traverse, I encounter signs of that the pigeons and the people are getting along well, and that the birds are treated well in various parts of town.