I went out of my way to not take money from people last night.  When I politely refused their donations, one boy apologised.  Later, a man in his 30’s congratulated me and walked back to his truck.  A girl in her 20s pondered for a second before deciding this was A Good Thing and went on her way.

But the streets, as always, have their own plans for such endeavours.  An older man in his 60s approached and danced, smelling slightly of vodka and seeming too drunk to understand anything more than the occasional noun.  After a few minutes, he stuffed a five dollar note in the neck of the guitar, and danced further while I jammed.  After a while, he retired to the bottle shop, and returned to dance further.  He reached inside his light blue backpack (which looked very out-of-place) to retrieve a 375ml bottle of Smirnoff, and offered me some.  I declined, and he drank some and continued to dance.  After looking in his wallet for more money, and finding it empty, he went into the convenience store, withdrew $20 from the ATM and came back, folding it up and poking it into the headstock between the strings.  He rocked out as I improvised and solo’d, transitioning slowly from folk to metal, and eventually was distracted by shiny things, wandering off into the night, stopping only to abuse strangers at the top of his lungs.

I abandoned my laundry shortly after to take Heather to her Christmas present, returning to find it dried and ready for collection.