You know, I haven’t given a Porch update in some time.

There is a crappy old Ikea couch out there that some previous tenant screwed down. It’s faded and tattered, but it’s actually pretty comfortable. That previous tenant also left a crappy old acrylic blanket on the couch. I was thinking of washing it, as it’s been outside for the two years I’ve lived in the Porch-haus. It had greasy chainring marks from my bike, crusties left from a hairball left by the elderly neighbour cat, and many other unidentified and unidentifiable stains.

The other night I came home to discover that some benighted soul had absconded with it.

While it sucks that the thing was stolen, I figure that if someone was cold enough to need that disgusting old blanket, they’re welcome to it. Gross. But come to think of it, being familiar with the general mental acuity of the local homeless folks, whoever took it was just as likely to need the blanket for its valuable and rare cat barf stains, or to keep out the alien transmissions, as for warmth.

If you’re an observant sort in my neighbourhood, you get pretty familiar with various manifestations of schizophrenia. There’s Crazy Mike, who is incredibly sharp and lucid in his conversations with...well, no one. I figure some of the world’s more serious problems will be solved when they find the guy he’s talking to...some shepherd on a hill in Tajikistan perhaps? There’s The Shuffler, who for a long time just walked up and down and up and down the main drag near my house, never bothering anyone and mumbling quietly to himself. Both these guys are young and good-looking...The Shuffler wouldn’t look out of place on a beach in Australia, holding a surfboard. Rumour has it that he was the top student in his high school, popular and athletic, until one day something just left him. That’s the eerie feeling about him...that something vital was just lifted away.

There’s a bottle depot at the top of my alley, so we get a lot of homeless guys (never women) up and down my back alley. I usually say hello to them when I’m out in my garden, and I hope that that’s the reason my vegetables don’t get stolen as they do from so many other gardens.

I put out my deposit bottles, and they’re usually gone within a half hour. But it’s not usually the homeless guys who take them. Usually it’s the old Chinese grannies who scour the back alleys for empties. I guess their grandsons need more Pokémon cards or whatever. One time I was in my underwear in my kitchen, and an old Chinese granny came right up on my back porch (yes, there is a back Porch too) to rummage through my recycle bin. She smiled and waved. That was a little much. When I put the bottles out in the alley, they’re fair game, but I thought it a bit unsporting of her to trespass. Even the sketchiest junkies don’t do that. I have to wonder what the old Chinese grannies think: “These roundeyes are crazy! They throw away money!” I guess it’s true, though.

Junkies, crazies, Chinese grannies...I have no problem with these. But the other day I saw a middle-aged Chinese woman putting my empties into her SUV. I don’t even know what to think of that, except that my landlords are Chinese too, and maybe it’s that kind of industry that makes them my landlords. But still...that seems pretty low to me.

I’ve had a very interesting week. I’ll write more later. Right now I have to finish editing my old buddy’s PhD thesis. When he asked me to do it, I didn’t think it would be 250 pages long. At least now I know a lot more about CIA involvement in Chile from 1964-74.

Because, you know...I needed more random info in my brain.