A better day than yesterday

 I have grown to hate putting politics on my blog and in my very limited social media presence. 

 I believe in boobs, positivity and boats in my social media life. I'm not sure why I wrote yesterday's piece. It's not like I'm on a diet where politics are concerned, and avoiding the matter. I'd say it's more like not looking in the hole after using a porta-potty. 

     Today we are at a lay berth again, and I was able to get up before watch and take a 7-mile walk through Red Hook and Brooklyn to get to my favorite salad place and back. 

 Seriously, this is what middle-aged me has been reduced to.  20 years ago if we had shore leave in a likely port like Savannah, Corpus Christie, Port Everglades or the like, my shipmates and I  was all 'Fuck yeah, let's go ashore, eat hot wings 'till we fart blood, and get shitfaced drunk!' 

    20 years anan, middle-aged me these days is more like 'Let's go ashore for a long walk, just go crazy and get big salads! I just got to take my vitamin first.' 

 I don't miss being hung over at watch. Like at all. Not drinking ashore used to be like not opening presents at Christmas. It was an effort, and I hated it, but it was never something that I'd risk my job for, after it was outright banned. Social responsibility and age have done what regulations could not- eliminating not just the occasion to sin, but the temptation too. 

    My experience in walking through Brooklyn is often flavored heavily by my mood. Often I'm at my most misanthropic when I am going ashore. Today I left late in the afternoon, as I'm on the back watch (1800-0600) for the week, and so, after my walk and successful retrieval of a salad, on my walk back to the HQ, I got to walk through a pretty busy neighborhood and see it at twilight, with the lights on. It's not something I see often at all. It transformed my very-well-known route into something new, and I could look into shops that are obscured during the day, see the people inside. Overall, it made me far less misanthropic, able to see and appreciate the lives around me. 

       Not a bad day at all. Tonight on my watch, as our next cargo isn't until tomorrow after lunch, I'll be mucking about in the generator house with a clipboard, catching up on parts inventories and the like. Not exciting, but better than freezing my nugs off out on deck.