I got up this morning feeling down. My bedroll faces the rising sun and the thin nylon walls of my relatively new home do little to soften the first lights assault on my whiskey pounding eyeballs. Charlie had left with everything he owned in the middle of the night after I spoke maybe a little to harshly, but he is a surly son of a bitch when he consumes large amounts of cheap Vodka and I already had a headache building from the T.W. that I had drank that day. Babs was gone , he leaves every day at about five A.M. to go and catch out at the day labor place. It was still pretty chilly but I decided not to wear long sleeves I had left a sweater on some church steps yesterday when I got warm so I figured today wouldn't be much different and I just don't have the clothes to keep that up long. I dug around and found some of those little doughnuts that have the waxy chocolate on the outside, but their was no water left so I didn't eat them. Stepping out of the tent into the day, I listened to the sounds of squirrels and birds and dry leaves blowing across the ground and started towards the River Market area. I passed through the train station parking lot with only a brief dirty look from the security guy so I figure things are looking up. After a couple of blocks I pass by the Sally where the last of the gang that comes to eat breakfast most days are standing around involved each of them in their own thoughts and conversations, save one, who shouts out to me asking if I would like a boiled egg. The Salvation Army serves them most days, so I say sure and think of the goodness that still surprises me sometimes in my fellow man. I see a couple of guys that I know on the opposite corner I will let them remain anonymous since one of them works in the Sally and the other sells crack cocaine out front and it would be at the least social faux pas I believe if I named them. Maybe even life threatening. They were smoking a joint and shared it with me. So by now I had no doubt about it, things were looking up. I walked a couple of more blocks and found a coffee cup from a joint at the Market that features free refills, in this case totally free. Enjoyed a cup of joe, walked into the library and kicked it with The Rolling Stones, had a couple of bowls of soup for lunch, grabbed some clean clothes at the clothes closet for my Poets Roundtable meeting on Saturday, then I hear that Charlie caught out today at the day labor place so there will be twice the money for dope and booze tonight. That is if he is not still mad at me. I don't imagine he will be though- things are looking up.