Today's post will be not as depressing as yesterday's. The story will continue, but it is a beautiful day and I am feeling good, almost chipper, under the circumstances I have created for myself. But it is good to get the depressing stuff out, and I have plenty in store. It is good to post your worst moments in a public forum, so all you friends, family members, and complete strangers can know just what a sick individual they are dealing with. I hope.
This site has a handy page with statistical graphs that monitor your audience. A whopping 65% of my page views come from iPhones. So, in order to make myself more Mac friendly, I will grow a beard and cover my arms with colorful tattoos of lotus flowers, the Buddha, Hindu gods, and other ancient symbols I neither understand nor stand for. I will wear Western style shirts two sizes too small and black jeans that are too short and tight. I will purchase a pair of black "working man's" shoes that are comfortable and durable, and, of course, unaffordable for a real working man who can either feed his children or ruin a pair of $170 shoes. I will be anti-corporation, while vehemently defending and supporting the single largest corporation ever known to man. Bigger than the Catholic Church.
This post has been interrupted by one of my oldest, dearest friends giving me some devastating news. I hate this. I wish I could do more for her than the old, "I'm here for you when you need to talk" standby. She doesn't need to listen to my bullshit. She needs her mother to get better and her life to get back to normalcy. But I can't accomplish that. And I feel useless.
Back to the program.
Kids, this is what happens when you do drugs. Forget the egg in the frying pan, or even the modernized, updated version, where the pretty, healthy looking, obviously not a dope-fiend young lady aggressively destroys her expensive looking kitchen (probably paid for by her parents, anyways) with our old pal, "your brain", the frying pan. What really happens is you end up living in densely packed quarters with people you have no desire what so ever to have even the most minute interactions with.
I am on parole. I was released after serving five years and three months of a sentence of twelve and a half years. I was released early because I am a good boy now. I am reformed. To aid me in my new life as a Fine Upstanding Citizen is the Department of Parole and the threat that the slightest infraction committed before my discharge date of 10/22/2015 will give me the pleasure of finishing those twelve and a half years. If you are one who is taken to prayer, now would be a good time to put a word in for me with your god of choice.
Where do you go on parole? If you're like me and your nearest suitable residence is three states away, you go to whatever shelter they tell you to go to. It makes no difference that you have a loving family member who is waiting to welcome you. You will sit where they tell you to sit until they tell you otherwise. One of the best pieces of advice I can give to the budding, young criminal is to not commit your crimes in a foreign state. They will have you by the balls.
The shelter is one of the oddest, at times humorous, environments a human being can find himself residing in. The best thing I can say about it is that it is not prison. It is the second rung on your ladder to Fine Upstanding Citizen. There are showers, laundry facilities, a kitchen, an eating area, and a warm, usually infestation-free bed to sleep in.
The shelter also holds some of the finest examples of perfectly twisted minds observable outside of a mental institution. A few notables. No names.
Probably the weirdest in an arena full of weirdness. This man is crazy and has Tourette's. I know some otherwise sane people who have this disease, so that alone does not explain this man's bizarre behaviors. He walks around screaming profanities and talking to himself. He has a habit of accosting women. There is something called the B-Line Trail that runs through downtown Bloomington. Every city has something similar. A walking path with sculptures and historical facts next to benches no one ever sits on. The type of place would be rapists and purse snatchers hang out (though, after the first few assaults, the presence of bicycle riding police was stepped up. They even have a few of those Back to the Future looking Segway machines), waiting for unsuspecting soccer moms and college students. This man hangs out there, screaming at women. The shelter is in a residential neighborhood, and he also does this to the women living in the area. The police are often called. I don't know if this man already has a prestigious spot on the Sexual and Violent Offender website, but I'm sure it won't be long if he doesn't. He also likes to torment the dog that lives at the shelter. A sweetheart of a chubby pit bull named Patches. He barks in her face and scares the shit out of her. This dog could rip his arm off if she chose to, and I am silently wishing for the day when she does.
One of my roommates. This man takes every drug known to man. One day he is running around at warp speed, the next he is nodding out and drooling on himself. When he gets ahold of some spice, he walks around staring at everyday household items with a look of complete confusion on his face. He likes to brag about being better than most of the other people in the shelter because he has a job. He is on such thin ice at his job for oversleeping and being late that it is just a matter of when, and not if, he will get fired. He never has any money. He spends it all on drugs. He bums cigarettes from me while bragging about his job. The shelter gives you four months to get your life together, before they send you back out into the real world. This guy has a few weeks left, and has exactly zero dollars saved up for an apartment.
There are other examples, like my bunk mate who is strung out on Suboxone, and I call Han Sobo, but we will save some for later.
I will admit, I have it easier that most of these people. I don't have to live their lives. I have a little money in my pocket and I am not currently addicted to any form of intoxicant. Which is probably why I have a little money. I hate when I hear people say, "I'm not going to give that bum any money, he'll just spend it to get drunk or high." Of course he will. Being homeless sucks. It is a miserable experience to have to fill your day when you have nothing to fill it with. Until you can find a more creative solution you will numb the pain. Take it easy on these poor folks. Some of them have had
a much worse time of things than you can even imagine. Get all republican on me if you want, and tell me how they should get a job, but the fact remains that this is a wealthy nation, poorly distributed wealth, but wealthy. Kim Kardashian makes millions of dollars a year for contributing absolutely nothing worthwhile to society. (Her porn wasn't even that good. Note to celebrities: leave the porn to the pros. No more of your "accidentally leaked" videos.) Meanwhile, some poor girl who has been abused all her life, can't even get a job as a stripper because of the scars on her face, lives under a bridge when not involved in some terrible relationship with some terrible man, gets told to "just get a job". I don't know if you have ever had to plug an alarm clock in under a bridge, but there are no outlets.
And then you find yourself in the shelter, eating your ice cream with a fork because the junkies stole all the spoons.
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