So he arrives after a couple of days of hard work, to a place where he can simply be even if the place is not where he would rather be, if he had any choice at the moment. But then he doesn't know where he would rather be either. But to somehow graft himself into this moment occuring in this certain locale, he puts on Sultan Khan's slow and lovely rendition of Raga Bageshree. Outside his high window, the tail end of a blizzard and the sidewalks buried under a couple of feet of snow. He places his face against the window, and his skin on contact slowly becomes cold.

He stands there with that another dichotomy, half a face cold, half a face warm, reflecting on a question that was posed, perhaps in jest, at lunch: "what would you rather be if you had a choice not to be where you currently are?" For questions like this one, these days, he doesn't have the time. And even when they do arise, such as when he reads in a scatter shot fashion before bed, he simply turns off the light, and dives off into the dark of sleep.

He pours himself a drink. He picks up an anthology of poems he has packed on this trip, and opens it random; it opens to John Berryman's "Dream Song 40". He can't help smile at certain quirky turns in Henry's speech

"I'm scared a only one thing, which is me, from othering I don't take nothin, see, for any hound dog's sake. But this is where I livin, where I rake my leaves and cop my promise, this' where we cry oursel's awake.

even as he slowly sips from his glass, whiskey mixed with this certain kind of alienation from "being in, and of the world". Outside the wind, and Valentine's Day blow unabated.