Ah,yes, back to my time with Kyle and the hours that followed. I met Kyle at a job interview on Tuesday, gave him his first guitar lesson on Wednesday; and this is the account of today, Thursday. By now (8:17 PM) I'm pretty tired, and the only thing keeping me alert is the task at hand, writing.
By the time Kyle dropped me off at today's (Thursday's, as opposed to Tuesday's) job interview I was pretty uncomfortable, dirty and grimy from the dust at Goodwill. I washed my face in the lavatory. The interview was nothing to write home about. (Let me take this opportunity to remind myself to start the followup email to this interview with, "Thank you for your time this afternoon.") When I left I felt deflated and anxious. This company, a placement agency, wasn't offering all that I had thought. Bad news about the economy (including the content of this morning's radio program) saddened and frightened me. I decided not to go directly home. An ice cream cone at the dock might cheer me up.
As I approached the dock, I met a man with a guitar and asked if he could give me good advice for fifty cents. He seemed amenable but I didn't have change after all so I gave him a dollar. For this he told me all about busking in the dock area -- good, valuable information -- so I gave him another dollar. Homeless, Ken was a self-confessed alcoholic and toker. And what of it? He still needed to make a living, and this was valuable information, so I felt justified in the matter of the two bucks. He himself made $50 - $100 per night busking the dock; and he indicated that I could expect to do much better. I played him a song and offered to buy him ice cream. He asked for fries instead, which I fetched back to him from a restaurant across the street. While waiting at said restaurant I chatted briefly with a stranger and gave him my card. (Yes, I chatted with friendly strangers today. Take *that,* Mindy's Mom! -- see "In a Little Cafe," a recent post.)
After delivering the fries and taking my leave of Ken, I found myself chatting with a stranger who was about to embark on a kyaking adventure, a prelude to a much headier trip to ... uh... was it St. John's Bay? I can't remember exactly, but maybe he will write in and remind me, as I did give him my card. His backpack looked to be heavier than the man himself. I told him about two guys who failed to return to their rendez-vous after setting off in a tiny plane with two heavy backpacks like that. (They should have seen that coming. I sure could!)
People on the bus were affable and chatty, and I was feeling much better. Between bus rides I practiced the vocal aspect of my music under cover of the din of traffic. Upon finding the ice cream parlor open, I decided to end practice and indulge in the ice cream. One can hardly sing after eating ice cream. Six ounces (a modest scoop) of coffe ice cream is a diet-friendly portion of very effective comfort food. Then it was back on the bus and on to the library, where I wrote the previous post.
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