"H.-O.-W."........or........"Truth Hurts"

Hello Again;

Yeah, I got involved again on the computer, and never left the library, the optician is open 'til 8:00 pm., after I get to the DOLLAR STORE, and drop about $20.00 more on Rachel's presents (we're going for quantity this year, rather than one or two big gifts, luckily,there are alot of related small items she really wants), maybe it won't be too late to go down to Mondawmin Mall..(..AKA.=.MURDER MALL..)....but not TOO late....LOL.

I received an e-mail from a reader the other day that asked me,.. and also asked ME to ASK, some very searching questions of my self, and I am going to re-print it here (with the gracious permission of the writer, Jessica, [and for clarification purposes, I'd like to explain, who I DO NOT know]). There are relevant issues here that I have been looking at and into, some more, some less. There are also deeper concerns that require professional counseling and advice, that I am in the process of acquiring, now that certain medical and insurance need are currently being met.

I can honestly answer yes to almost all of the questions, even though I don't want to. Being honest hurts, but it is easier from a remove, here on the 'net, than in person, to an official. In some cases there is a slight misconception. In upcoming blogs I'll examine some of this in more depth..for now.............One woman's thoughts....Thanks.
"Do you think you are ready to be not homeless? I think one of the most important steps in making a change is admitting to ourselves what the barriers are. What barriers do you see to your obtaining a job and permanent housing? Are you afraid that you won't be interesting anymore if you're not a homeless guy with a blog? Will establishing your own household make the breakup with your ex seem more real, and more upsetting? Will it raise custody issues? Are you afraid of the crushing responsibility of a full-time job (I am, and I have one). Are you worried that your mental or physical health will make such a commitment difficult? (You can't hide all day on the days you feel shitty if you have a full-time job). Are you afraid that if you try and fail to get a job/housing, that you'll feel worse than if you didn't try in the first place? Does taking the steps towards getting a job and a house force you to step out of the role of being a victim, and into a position where 1. You have to work with people in order to get what you want, including probably putting up with some annoying shit? 2. You have power/authority/control, and therefore the responsibility to make hard decisions, that could turn out badly? Does working to get off the streets mean that you have to give up the fantasy of being rescued? Does working 9-5 at a minimum wage job seem too unglamorous and uninteresting? It seems to me that there is a good and bad side to everything. There is even a good side to being depressed and withdrawing from life. It's sort of a natural response that when all your decisions seem like they turn out badly, and your best intentions go to shit, that you want to stop making any decisions. You live in neutral for a while. I know what it's like to live in neutral, and I think you do too. But, at some point, I think, you experience this healthy frustration, where you want more speed than neutral can give you-- you want a more stable, more independent life, with more choices, more CONTROL, than homelessness can give you."

Pretty insightful in places, don't you think? It is not always easy to admit that some of my problems are still of my own making, even after conquering some extremely difficult obstacles, there is still an ingrained sense of inferiority, (which is in opposition to a sometimes overbearing confidence in my ability) and a Janus headed ego, at once both fragile and inflated. Even my multiple personalities sometime forget who they are supposed to be....just imagine the 'Family Reunion From Hell'............and you are the only one there!!....welcome to the inner chambers of my mind........LOL!

But seriously......I try to be honest in my admissions at least, and hopefully, will again be able to move on the next stage, (or step, if you are counting in that manner..as in 1..2..3......or Admit..Submit..Commit). She is right on the money about one thing, the frustration, healthy or not, culminating in a desire for change. I have come to realize one of my major faults is an all or nothing attitude, that is why, sometimes I seem so overjoyed at taking what may be considered a 'baby step' by some, hell...it is a movement, and a forward motion at that. Now I have to learn how to turn motion into momentum, I am way to familiar with the 'hamster wheel', I've got to move into the 21st century and ride the 'hamster ball! Okay, enough "psicko" analysis.

Hello to all the folks just tuning in, by way of the little slips of paper I gave you on the curbside....read some of the older stuff before you give up on me, some of it IS actually funny.....LOL

This is some thing I wrote 9 years ago, a couple of incarnations and re-creations ago.......seems to be apt again.

Truth Hurts

My honesty requires pain

To grow I must sacrifice

Healing calls for suffering

As resurrection folows death

If my soul is to triumph

My mind must submit

To allow my heart it's freedom

My body may have to be confined

In surrender I find strength

In submission I find faith

In dependence

I have found independence

In captivity

I am released

In chaos

I have found peace

DBC.............Pikesville.............1/17/00

It was written 3 months after getting out of prison, and then having to face all sorts of garbage from other's for doing the right thing, and paying the consequences for standing up for my rights.

The amazing thing is, another example of the benefits of someone who believes in you followed in the wake of madness.

I'm almost out of time so the short version of "The Gary Story";

I had walked in to a man's store with the intention and 'need', due to being 'ill' from heroin withdrawal, to rob him. Before I could begin the act, he started talking to me, as a fellow human, man to man, as an equal..and actually reached out and physically touched me, in affection and recognition of my humanity. Now this was 12 years ago in 1998, at the lowest point in my life, I am a dirty junkie, and no one had touched me, except in anger or aggression for years. The day before I had robbed a store, and carjacked a cab. abandoned after a chase by police and cabbies in East Baltimore, and bailed out with a bag of money and escaped, not knowing that the bag had a hole in it and almost all the money was scattering up and down the alleys I was dodging the cops through....I ended up with $28.00...OUT OF ABOUT $600.00!..I ducked into a 'friends' basement window without anyone knowing and heard his mother tell the cops when they came to the door.."They ain't no white boy here!!"..and slam the door. Little did she know! Barry went and copped for us..2 dimes of dope, a nickel of coke, a Pepsi, and a pack of cigarettes...(for him, they were the only bad habit I did not pick up on....LOL). So I am in bad shape the next day as I walked into 'The Fisheman's Net' Aquarium Store,(Gary was 'saved' and in the truest, purest sense of the word lives life as a 'Christian'.....as in "be ye a fisher of men....etc.") and the miracle that occurred by just being treated with some humanity, and being given a little work to do and a few dollars, allowed me somehow NOT to be dopesick...(and I was sick as a dog, when I staggered in) for over 6 hours, and to be able to go and hook up and get..'well' as it is called, and from that point on I did not, (up to and including the present day) commit another crime, other than at the time using dope to keep from being ill. Everyday for the next 2 weeks, I walked all the way up to the store for way down in the city, did some legitimate, though sometimes, obviously charitable work, waked back down to the hood and used just enough to not be sick again. On the 15th day, the owner of the store I robbed was for some reason on Belair Road, nowhere NEAR the location that the crime occurred! I was arrested and locked up, not getting out again until after I had been mandatorily paroled. I had called Gary in jail, he had taken my calls but would and could not put up my bail, which was a good thing because I was not completely spiritually healed yet, I would have ran. We lost contact when I was transferred into the State prison system, from the City Jail..aka "Castle Greyskull"... but when I was released, I went to his store he took me into his home....OH YEAH, I forgot to tell you, when we first met, during those two weeks, he took me into his home to bathe and eat, and escape the heat for a few hours, and there was $2000.00 and a passport with a picture that I could pass for with minimum makeover, lying on a counter in the bedroom I changed in..............and it was physically, and mentally, morally and emotionally impossible for me to take it!!!!!!!! We are talking about someone here...ME, who would steal anything not nailed down from anybody, and had, even from family.......AND I COULD NOT DO IT...AND I DID NOT WANT TO! ...to shower and eat and spend a night. I left the next day and wound up in a 'Prisoner's Aid shelter' for a few nights, (this was my first experience with a shelter, and the rats running across the beds and the jail and ghetto atmosphere and attitude remain today, which is why I avoid shelters unless it is that or death), and then went to the streets of Fells Point, until I had a room at the House of Hope, a Jewish recovery house. Gary came to visit with his wife, and came again to a Hannukah dinner for friends and family, (as did my best and longest friend Anna Marie, her husband and her daughters), I was praised to the heavens by both friends and staff, for my progress and support network. I am not trying to brag, but to let you see how this overly effusive praise..( I was just 'doing the right thing' in a group of people who almost..that is right almost,...(you know I do NOT mean you...remember the cab ride all the way to St Thomas Lane to the meeting that night, must have been a hundred people in a room for 60) [sorry personal note there...LOL] all of whom were using the place to rest and relapse, this caused as you can imagine no small amount of bad blood between me and them. At last, to the point...I was asked to leave on a trumped up accusation..(that later brought an apology from the person involved who did not know he and his family were being played, until too late!!)...in 2 hours!!! on the coldest night of 1999, a Sunday just before X-mas...if you know anything about Baltimore, you know that the buses don't run often, if at all on Sunday, and every place that could help was closed. So as a last resort I called Gary to ask if I could stay 'til morning and then look for another place, he said come on over and met me a few hours later when I came to the door frozen and tired carrying every thing I owned in three large 'Hefty Suitcases' as we called plastic trash bags. His wife took me down to the basement, put sheets on the couch, and said " you should be okay with these until I buy some new ones" I asked how long I was welcome, and she said "Oh, You're staying until it's time for you to go, you'll know when that is"!

Three and a half months later I moved into the apt. above the coffee shop where i was working in Fells Point..........In the intervening months Gary had bought me clothes, given me some beautiful Christmas presents, the keys to his house and had me drive his car on occasion! Oh Yeah...and what brought this to mind at this time...the glasses I am wearing now, 10 years later, (the backup's backup...LOL), Gary bought me!..All this from a man I was about to rob!.....thanks again Gary, and thank you Lord for people who do such....Random Acts of Kindness....with no expectation of reward or repayment.

Well, I just killed another afternoon at the library, and evening, and most of the night.........LOL.

Thanks for reading........Dave