Being fantastically broke is not without it’s advantages. I’m inclined to watch all the really good television everyone’s always raving about. But it would promise to get me through the day, not invite me to look forward to the next.

Last night I dreamt I had the balls to stand up to my father, a nomadic chieftain of the Central Asian steppe. He disowned me with a tear, a wave of his hand and a whistle that sounded like a soaring eagle or a falling bomb.

This evening my father and I discussed groundbreaking astronomy with alarming accuracy over beef stroganoff. I left out the part where I don’t have his rent money.

He didn’t ask about it. Dinner was good.