I just earned a free cup of the coffee I do not like. In times past I would have given the card away, the card which gets stamped every time I buy coffee here. When it gets stamped 10 times I can get a freebie. I don’t know how it’s really free when I spent about $38 to get here, at this point of freeness. 

In times past I would have given this card to someone as a random act of kindness. Seems a little clumsy now. It’s just coffee. Back when I ate at Bloomingdale’s and they had a free sandwich program similar to this one I would give the stamped-up cards to homeless dudes. I’m sure the Bloomingdale’s peeps loved that, when the homeless showed up looking for free grub. But I felt good doing it anyway, in my gawky 20s. 

Talked with a truly disturbed kid today. Unsettling to find there is no bottom, but no middle, nor top. A continuous hum of shallow nowhereness. There is an energy, a determination, even a spark. But is it all with a nudge and a wink? The impossible requests, the absurd pronouncements. Is any of it keeled in laughter, or knowing nod of affirmation? Or is it just sliding words around? Words of obvious source, concepts of deadest wit And to think he lived right in my neighborhood.