I went for my usual walk last night. The streets were wet and empty and seemed to suggest that under no circumstances were they to be pitied. I exchanged glances with the occasional fellow pedestrian. Our looks wondered what the other was doing out here in the rain on this night, whether there was a story behind the other's presence alone on the street on this worn-out evening after such an emotionally overburdened day. Had we simply had it? Were there words, things said in anger before storming off, perhaps nog-fueled recriminations and accusations of smothering routine and stolen lives? I noted with sympathy the clerk in the empty convenience store, smoking a cigarette outside the entrance. For some reason tonight I found his blue smock thoroughly depressing. He didn't look too happy about it either. I've never liked the remainders of days like Christmas, after they're squeezed dry. What's left isn't pretty. Like as a kid when you got home from a theme park, that kind of used-up feeling, like you never wanted to be suckered into believing in fun ever again. You wanted to sleep and wake up when the world is new. When you're a kid you think the meter can be reset that way, like nothing costs anything.

I reached Division Street and thought about that Elliott Smith song that mentions driving up and down Division Street. After he died there appeared a shrine to him on the wall with the banana on it, on Division and 12th. It has this big banana, like the Warhol banana on the Velvet Underground album, and the legend reads "Art fills the void!" Well, obviously it doesn't always.

Driving up and down Division Street
I used to like it here
It just burns me out to remember...

For a short time I walked a block behind two young women walking hand in hand, and tried to put together a story about them that made sense. Lesbians? One drunk and supported by her friend? No, the hand-holding had a carefree aspect, not a staggering quality, their arms were swinging. None of my theories seemed quite right. Maybe just two friends acting silly. On a street of almost no traffic, a 1970's tan two-door Ford LTD pulled alongside me and the driver asked where Burnside was. Some instinct made me doubt he needed to know but I told him anyway. He thanked me and sped off, pulling in with a screech a couple of blocks later at the obviously closed gas station. When the girls reached him, he spoke to them. As I got closer they got into his car and all three of them drove off together. Drunk lesbian hookers? Future murder victims?

A block later an old woman came toward me the other direction, she must have emerged from one of the houses when I was thinking about the girls and the LTD guy, and when she passed she said Merry Christmas. I accidently said "thanks, same to you" way too loudly and she recoiled.