November 18th, 2007 (Hotel Ingleterra)

You know that feeling you get on a low sorta day or night when you overhear Billie Holiday purring from some speakers gently off some place... just this sorta balm over everything inside you. And if it's clear out looking up at the sky feels like making eye contact with a friend and if it's nightime little changes happen but they don't, the moon butters the sky in some nice way and all the stars out remind you of other people letting all their stars out at different times. People over here make good use of benchs and nighttime things at night. I don't like people praying in a church but I've seen hundreds of these kids blessing the night together in shadowy bunched up shapes that always cheer me up.

I guess I was just out late the other night and got to thinking about a friend who showed me around Havana a few years ago. I met him on the plane. A traveling salesman who was trying to get in shape for Havana by only drinking a case of beer a day. He said this with no humor. His liver was shot. And his liver got him about several months ago. But I didn't know till I got here and talked it over with the people he'd introduced me to. Where the hell was I in April 06? I don't remember.

But he came here. And he came here to die. And they buried him here. This goofy salesman of books who bought cheap and sold expensive back home and drank himself to death and always had several girls over here running at the same time and could never understand why I didn't (a girl back home---which he found a hilariously asinine excuse---"at yeer age breen...i 'ad bent-eh").

I just can't shake working on that level. The jigs up. Where do you wanna be when you have to pay the bill for the whole fucking meal you've been chewing on your whole life. I guess this is as good a place as any. Nobody makes a big deal of anybody chasing dragons over here no matter how big or fast or dangerous.

But I couldn't help thinking that maybe Havana is a girl in the mold of Billie Holiday. She looks after everybody and makes tough things a little easier. And she's always talking about herself but you at the same time. I dunno how that's done. But it is.

And the food still fucking sucks.