| THURSDAY 2016-09-08 |
| CVS |
| Visited site using a Mac in a different part of the church office. Had to change password. Was unable to access any information about my previous applications. No current openings suitable for me in Maryland. Will need to ask someone more familiar with this terminal to help me turn on the sound. |
| The availability of this terminal to me is a game-changer, as I will be able to access numerous other sites, e.g. Target, that had only been available to me at the library. However, I will also need someone to teach me the basic Mac keyboard shortcuts; I’m only familiar with Windows. |
Category Archives: Homelessness
* Take things in stride
16:03 Thursday 2016-09-08
A case on point.
Today as I walked toward the shelter, I contemplated that I am likely to have no smokes during the day tomorrow. How will I handle this; how will I feel about it? Factors:
• How important is it, compared to other things I may attend to?
• Can I take things in stride?
• (There was a third one, that escapes me just now.)
Then I arrived at the shelter. It was 15:25, and the gate was locked. In the end, I got turned away.
For the second time in two days.
* Must I work for Rent-a-Bum?
(Originally published 08/11/12 at Trojan Horse Productions; reblogged 10/30/13 here.)
If you go into a men’s room and see that someone’s taken his backpack and perhaps suitcase with him into the stall, you can conclude two things: (1) He’s homeless. (2) In his world, squalor is so intense he can’t leave his bags anywhere, or things will be stolen.
All kinds of people steal from the homeless.
They’ll steal your socks. It may only be a pair of socks, but if it’s your only pair of socks, it really hurts.
I stood smoking outside Dunkin’ Donuts and this man came up to talk. He was looking pretty rough. Walked on crutches, and one bare foot. He told me he’d spent the night outside, and while he slept, someone stole one shoe.
One of the few shreds of dignity left to me is that I don’t have to take my bags with me into the bathroom stall. At Dunkin’ Donuts or Lenny’s or the library, I leave my bags in a certain place and they’re all still there when I return. At the shelter, I stash my bags under the bunk, and no one disturbs them. I do lock the bag that has my phone, my cash and my prescriptions (link).
———— ♦ ————
I knew I was likely to become homeless months before it actually happened. I had contacts with the City’s Office of Homeless Services and obtained a list of shelters Continue reading * Must I work for Rent-a-Bum?
* Attack of the white people
* I want a safe space at the shelter.
Sunday night, half a dozen new guys all showed up together. They’re all white, none over age 25, all covered with tattoos and piercings (including facial tattoos), all active addicts and all with significant time behind bars.
* Paying my dues, singing the blues?
Courage and despair hang in the balance for a homeless radio talk jock wannabe.
“You’ve got to pay your dues
If you want to sing the blues,
And you know, it don’t come easy.”
— Ringo Starr, “It Don’t Come Easy”
Many years ago, when I first conceived the ambition to become a radio talk show host, I quickly selected that song as virtually a theme for my show. Life is difficult. My heart’s desire was to equip people to face life’s difficulties head-on.
My life circumstances were far more comfortable at that time than they have become since. Now I’m asking myself if I’m paying my dues; if I can sing the blues; and whether I myself will face life’s difficulties head-on.
Continue reading * Paying my dues, singing the blues?
* Attributes of the mainstream
Do I want to become a mainstream person?
My visions for myself have been (1) becoming self-supporting while still staying at the shelter; (2) obtaining a small, studio apartment with a laptop, radio and cat. The second one really represents all I aspire to, in terms of material comforts, in life. But it has occurred to me that maybe I need to envision more than that for myself, if I am to find motivation to really work for these things.
Circa 2008, while I was living in Barclay and working at a dollar store that served a very Barclay-like population, a brother pulled a stunt to bring about an ad hoc family reunion, of my immediate family, at his house. It lasted two or three days. It was as if I’d been transported to heaven.
* The frog
x From my diary: Learning to pray
(Originally posted 05/12/13. Reblogged 04/18/24.)
Wednesday 04/24/13
Facing various issues as to how to spend my time. The current appearance of this blog is a far cry from what I want, but I don’t want time spent redesigning it to take away from job search. The same dilemma presents in choice of whether to use my tax refund to restore my former website on Yahoo! for $125.00/year, or instead rebuild the site as part of this blog.
My church is about to launch Saturday morning prayer services in which I will have a leadership role. I will be offering teachings on prayer; I think I have about two hours’ worth of material, and an issue rises of whether to try to organize that into 10-minute or instead 15-minute segments. And there’s an issue that what I would present to the prayer team members only, isn’t necessarily what I’d present to the general public.
This morning at McDonald’s I was reflecting on these things, and on what I might teach to an audience drawn from the general public. I began to understand why Ambrose Worrall fails to refer to Kabbalah.
Prayer team members will be principally interested in learning how to pray effectively for others. People who come from the general public will be principally interested in how to pray effectively for themselves — how to get their own prayers answered.
I presume to be pretty good at the former. That’s how I became prayer ministry coordinator to start with. I’m not so good at the latter.
Continue reading x From my diary: Learning to pray
* The best present makes the best future.
I’m posting very little new material these days, but there are hundreds of posts different folks may not have seen the first time around. So I’ve had in mind possibly to start “recycling” old posts.
I happened across this one today. Actually, its story has been on my mind given recent difficulties getting into the shelter. And when I re-read it today, I was moved, not just by the story about Leo, but the remark about dwelling in untoward feelings. I see so many people around me, and so many expressions in the media, of folk dwelling in grievance, anger, the feeling of injustice, of being disadvantaged, of harboring resentment especially against those of different skin color.
And even within Christianity, I find sometimes such negativity being encouraged, in the name of justice; wholly forgetting the Gospel mandate to forgive, forgive, forgive.
The below post first appeared 2015-12-12.
===============================================
Saturday 2015-12-05
14:40. Actually, Leo arrived first.
But he got turned away.
The Homeless Blogger 