Halloween

I am too polite to come across with much more than the obvious in first meetings shouted over the DJ's records. Or maybe it's just my ancient value system, dull to modern ears.
But the world is over-marketed, to the point of being sterile, were it not for the inherent vitality that pops out in the creature.
A book gets judged by its cover.
"You're forty-four. Oh."
(Should'a lied.)
I drank too much anyway, after having been stuck with the great strain of working a bar on a holiday, my own personal bully, the booze sometimes, keeping my creative side stultified.
The night ends. Walk up U Street, finally get a cab in the pouring rain, one of the two wild and crazy guys.

To risk sounding like later Tolstoy, I have met the eyes of forty-thousand strangers, asked of them what they might like, waited on them. Washed their feet, if you will. If the salt of the earth loses its savor, what then? But I know it's not much of a life, for you, I mean. That I understand. Fair enough, your skepticism. And yes, I thought I was tougher than I actually am, that I could handle it, that I wouldn't get so sucked into it, or that it was a writing life, when really it wasn't so much. Yes, I should have been a teacher, of some sort. That might indeed have been more useful to people.