It's just me and the lizards now...

There is nothing better than to wake up at four in the morning from a dream, mind racing, thinking I am still in the cold fog of Stanyan Street and be able to go out on my patio and drink a cold beer in my underwear. I can look up and see the stars. I can think clearly because it’s dead quiet in the Skill Village at night. The only sound is the rhythmic chirps of the morning geckos that share the bungalow with me. We are the only ones up in the early hours. I’ll take a bunch of lizards croaking in heat any day over the loud mouth filth that wanders up and down the San Francisco streets at all hours of the night, fighting, copulating, defecating, smoking crack, all to the twisted soundtrack of sirens and gun shots. These days living in that kind of world is nothing but a bad dream. It’s just me and the lizards now…living in a bungalow where we belong.
Boredom is the only enemy here, but boredom is easily defeated with a steady diet of cold beer, warm rum, and SPAM. When you walk into any grocery store here there are big displays that look like religious alters with elaborately constructed towers of the “Hawaiian steak”. If I was going to stay here, I felt that I would need to fully embrace the culture of the islands. The canned meat is a staple here and residents consume more cans per capita than anywhere else on Earth. So I have embraced these little cans, and made them part of my life here. My steady intake of them, booze, produce from local farms, steady heat, and sun has made me feel better than I have in the last ten years.
The original settlers of the Skill Village were Portuguese craftsmen, artists, and fishermen. The village's name originated with them. This must be why I feel so at home here. Fate has reached it's cruel hand out and plucked me out of my filthy mansion on Stanyan Street and dropped me down into this tiny neighborhood in the middle of the Pacific. When I am in the Ranger switching into fourth gear on Baldwin Street it all makes sense in some strange way. Although my days in this village are numbered, this was the right place to start my life here on the island.
It’s been 3 months since I have actually worked for a paycheck. The impending doom of my bank account has made me very aware of my frivolous spending habits. Within three weeks here I had put my daily spending on an unprecedented budget. I was use to a much different way of life. San Francisco is a money trap and it’s lucky that I got out of there without blowing all my savings in the last month. You just walk out of your door for the night in Frisco and you can count on blowing at least two hundred dollars, but you never know until the morning when you can check the damages. When you wake up you immediately check to see if you have your phone, wallet and your card. Then you check your bank account on your phone. That moment can either drop you into a spiral of self hatred and regret or a slap happy mood of victory. If you make it out of the night with just a bill lost you are happy. If you lost your phone or wallet then, well hell….you were screwed. Those days are gone, and now I wake up and I don’t even have to check my pockets or my account. I just walk outside in my underwear, open a beer and enjoy the sun.

2/23/14