Tuesday, April 26, 2011

"A Return To Social Contact......... & .........Donuts To Dollars..........."

Good Evening;
Well I'm sitting here at the Starbucks for the first time since Friday, and only the second time in about ten days. Other than Jenn's the only place I was.....was isolating in the shed. Which I know was not healthy and only exacerbated the depression and everything else, but felt so depressed I did not care, which caused me to just stay in the shed, which increased the depression......seems to be a self replicating cycle does it not? And as I pointed out the other day, I seemed to be in multiple pieces/places, and the only me that was nominally functional was the one chronicling the whole mess.

Last night at Jenn's I could not get comfortable on either the couch or the recliner and was up until dawn, then fell sleep for 2 hours and woke up when Jenn was getting ready for her doctor's appt. and Tom was coming in the door. After they left I crashed again into a half sleep listening to/for the kids until 11:00 am. when I got up and fixed breakfast for us all. After folding the laundry from last night and downing half a dozen cups of coffee, I showered and dressed and headed out to catch the 3:00 pm. bus, feeling much better and less likely to step in front of a bus rather than onto one.

Being broke for the next week and out of food and stamps I grabbed a can of tuna from Jenn's kitchen and a couple of packs of cheese and peanut butter crackers and a package of Poptarts and made a raid on the grandkids Easter Basket overflow for chocolate, (they'll never miss it they're still wired....lol), figuring with the foil package of pink salmon and the rolls I still have and the many packets of mayo I'd be good for 2-3 days, augmented by the 'Dunkin Dumpster' if need be. When I got to the coffee shop Will was clearing the sandwich case of markouts, and being a vegetarian, gave me a couple sandwiches with meat on them, and when Katie was clearing the pastry case she gave me a bag with some bagels and donuts, and a 4 pack box of the 'cake lollipops' in rocky road flavor that was going in the trash. Many thanks my friends!

(Okay, I'm in the shed now. I had to break off because Erik of Pikesville PC, my laptop 'Patrone' stopped by on his motorcycle and we talked for a good 45 minutes to an hour about bikes and travel and related stuff.)

I shared these out at the gas station with a couple of younger homeless guys(mid 20s ?) who happened to be passing through the area; and a woman and her kids who was getting about 2 gallons of gas with small denomination coins from the kids piggy banks and hoping to get up to Delaware to her mother's house. She was forced out of the place they were living after she had her husband locked up for knocking the sh*t out of her. I gave her the $2.00 in coin I had scraped up from the bottom of my bag, and on the shelf at Jenn's where I empty my pockets when I get undressed, and end up forgetting when I leave, that I was going to use for Keno tonight. When I told the regulars playing the lottery inside what was going on, everyone kicked in a little bit and she ended up with half a tank of gas, more than enough, plus a couple of pints of milk for the children.

I am familiar with the overwhelming mix of emotions that occurs when someone helps you out with no strings attached and no hesitation, right out of the blue with no requests or solicitation on the part of the donee, and when a group gets together to help out spontaneously....the positive energy is contagious. She was almost in tears and kept trying to get addresses so as to mail everyones contribution back to them. We kept making up ridiculous or obviously fake ones, (c/o S. Klaus North Pole......or 2600 Pennsylvania Ave.....H. Potter @ Hogwarts School......etc........lol), until she was cracking up and gave it up. It was just the right thing to do.

I'm going to try to sleep now, it's 2:02 am. and I am hearing rumbles of thunder to the northeast.....and it smells like rain too... so I want to unplug the power cord as a precaution.
My plans are again to try to head down to JAI tomorrow to see about refills, but I'm not making any promises...based on past experience.

Later............................Dave

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