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It's freezing outside and just now warming up inside, now that I
turned the heater all the way up. In a little bit, I'll drink a Forty
of Budweiser. I just walked over to Subway and got a footlong Veggie
sandwich with spinach instead of iceberg lettuce. The corporation
discontinued the free water cups but the guy gave me a coffee cup. At
the gas station, there's a red-headed woman I've always liked. Today, I
learned that she has been struggling with a life-threatening bacterial
infection and, furthermore, was having difficulty getting anti-biotics.
Now that she had the anti-biotics, scabs had appeared all around her
nose and ears. And yet this woman works out in the freezing cold and
mantains her cheerfulness and her morality. In a way, she's a modern
hero.

After note: Earlier, I picked a thorn branch out of my shoe without
even ruffling one of my fingers. I just went up to 7-11 to get a
Heineken and some guy started to talking to me about beers and read me
the back of an Arrogant Bastard Ale bottle that he thought was cool.
Coming outside, he asked me for some change. He already had almost as
much money as I did. He was trying to get a six-pack of Mirror Pond,
one of my favorite beers. I gave him about a dollar. For some reason,
it struck me that he was thinly dressed for the cold. So I went home
and got a fleece to give him. But when I saw him again, he had a very
quality fleece already. He said that he was "homeless by choice." Now
this is a young guy; he has the gregarious, boisterous air of someone
who hustles his living. Apparently, he is at the moment staying with
someone in the neighborhood.