"Jiminy Cricket -- Still Alive And Kickin'................ AND ................The 6 Million Dollar Man---- Less $5,999,999.75 Depreciation........"

Good Afternoon;

Well it's true, crickets do bring good luck! On Wednesday night, actually it was more like Thursday morning, I was awakened by a 'thump-boing' sound and then some frantic popping and snicking right around my head. Thinking it was a mouse caught in one of the plastic bags or in the insulation of the wall I jumped up, (or my slow motion joint popping version of same.....which I'm still paying for....lol....ow!), and turned the light on and searched for the culprit.

It turned out to be a HUGE cricket hopping around like a one legged paper hanger with the crabs, (....or should I say...'crotch crickets....lol), trapped in between a loosely rolled piece of bubble wrap and a plastic Target bag and the paper facing of the wall insulation. I almost smashed it thinking it was another big-ass waterbug/cockroach before I got a good look at it. I took a plastic Starbucks cup and a piece of stiff paper and trapped it without harm, then released it through one of the, (many), large holes in the wall to the great outdoors, and went back to sleep. I tossed and turned until 7:30 am. when I got up and found the mouse HAD been visiting too, leaving an offering of berries on the shelf where I usually leave a hunk of bread or pastry for him and the missus and the kids. (Which has led to an increase of mouse poop on the high shelves that I never use anyway, and a major decrease in the sightings of 'La Cucarachas').

I was up and out early for a visit to the radiologist and new films of the back.....what appeared to be bone chips in the previous views were revealed to be bone spurs in a more detailed and varied set of films. Next up, a round robin of consultations with my P.C.P., and, Neuro., Ortho., Radio., and Osteo. docs.,(not to mention Professor Xavier, Tony Stark, Dr Frankenstein, Dr. Rudy Wells, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, Dr. Bruce Banner, and Dr. Frank-N-Furter), to determine the risk:benefit ratio for various treatment options when the already known issues, (spinal stenosis, scoliosis, disc deterioration, nerve damage, & sciatic tumor), are factored in.

More news as it develops........

"We have the technology.........................."

So, back to Jiminy Cricket and his gift of good fortune.

I was in the coffee shop Thursday afternoon following the 'radiation derby' and

I get handed a Toffee Nut Frappacino as I am on my way to sit down, and was told it was an 'oops', it should of been sugar free.

Thank you very much!

Then my friend Visa walks in and out of the blue hands me $10.00!

Thank you very, very much!

When I got back to the shed the Giant had closed and ,I ended up at the gas station to use the restroom, and decided to put a dollar on the Keno when I came out. Well when I looked at the screen my numbers, (Rachel's birthday), had come up and I kicked myself for not making the bet before I went into the can like I usually do. I figured 'what the hell' and bet it anyway on the upcoming game, and won $2.00, pocketed a buck and let the other one ride.....to a $25.00 win! I gave Daniel $4.00 I owed him, bought a scratch-off and another Keno, lost on both and rolled out still $27.00 ahead.

Thank you very, very, very much!

And I forgot to mention that I had an e-mail confirming that I had gotten 2 tickets for "The Gazillion Bubbles Show" on Thursday October 20th at 4:00 pm at the Hippodrome Theatre, which I had e-mailed a request for as part of October's 'Free Fall Baltimore' festival and celebration of arts and culture.

(I've got other's in too that are still pending)

All sorts of museums, shows, exhibits, the Zoo, Aquarium, Science Center, tours, etc. are free admission during October. Some require advance registration due to space limitations.

http://www.freefallbaltimore.com/

There is a link to their site above.

Now I have food for the next few days, coffee money, bus fare and cash for a load of laundry, (not sure where yet, Jenn says it a bad weekend because they are so crazy busy......gotta figure out where to shower too, though it is cool enough so I'm not extremely foul, so I'm able to do the 'whore's bath' thing in a bathroom sink if I have to...).

It's dinner time............back in a while.

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

The Model | 100,000 Homes

Good Afternoon;

Below is a link to the "100,00 Homes Campaign":

A national grassroots organization dedicated to

finding homes for 100,000 of the most vulnerable

people on the streets across America:

The Model | 100,000 Homes

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

"Caucasian Sandwiches..............The 'Other', 'Other White Meat'........................"

Good Evening;

Nothing exciting to write about today, partly because nothing happened, and partly because even if it did, I'm not feeling much like writing.

I still feel the combined effects of the recent back, neck, and shoulder injuries and overexertion, and it is affecting how I am walking too. And forget about any sense of regular or normal sleep patterns, one hour down and two hours up is a good night.

Plus I did not get any coffee inside of me until nearly 4:30 pm. today. I had a choice at the food store of a loaf of white bread and 2 pkgs. of the Buddig $0.50 deli meat and a bag of chips, or a package of instant coffee for my $3.25 cash balance. The loaf of bread will last me until Sunday if I'm frugal and the chips and deli is dinner today and one meal tomorrow. Push comes to shove, at worst it will be mayonnaise sandwiches and the 'Dunkin' Dumpster' Fri. and Sat. I miss my 'Popeye's' fried chix, maybe I'll slide by there at closing time and see if the fools who purposely trashed the extra chicken have left yet, employee rotation is pretty fluid through there. (I almost had a job there when I first hit the streets, they were going to overlook certain, um....blemishes and blank spots on the application, but I couldn't and can't do a good bit of the required lifting and carrying.)

I can probably squeeze one meal out of Jenn, but they are extremely strapped for cash/food themselves until next week. I'm not THAT worried about missing a few meals at this point, I could really use to lose some weight, and if it got to the point that hunger was a serious health issue, there are soup kitchens if need be.

I'm about to pack up here now.

Well okay, that was nice.....

a friend just offered to buy me a coffee and when I showed her I had one she gave me $4.00, and said it was for tomorrow.

Thanks

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

"Pint Sized Prima Donna...................And......................Cat Scratch Fever(?).................."

Good Afternoon;

So last night I spent the night at Jenn's on the recliner after watching Devin, who was the Energizer Bunny until she finally got bored with me and decided she wanted to watch 'Dora The Explorer' in her crib before going to sleep....At 11:15 pm.!

It was fun playing with my grand daughter, but every time I thought we were done playing 'tea party', (NOT the umbrella group of neo-conservative wackos, but with an assortment of Disney Princesses, Dora dolls, Barbies & sentient stuffed animals, though it was just as much of a fantasy land as the teabagger's seem to live in...............lol!), another "friend" would pop up and we had to find more room on the couch for them. Between that and looking at her 'American Girl' high end doll catalogue and creating scenarios which I would then have to draw in pencil so we could 'colorize' the picture, (and she has gotten pretty good at keeping the crayon within the general confines of the crude lines I drew, though sometimes the we meant the 'Royal We', and she was the color consultant and where I, lowly peon, did the actual work........can you say 'imperious' boys and girls?....lol!) I never got to eat dinner (though she was a constant source of inspiration and suggestion and we 'grazed' each time we passed the kitchen), until she fell asleep....15 minutes after her head hit the pillow, which happened to be exactly when Jenn got home, so I think that had something to do with her staying awake. Of course the fact that she slept until 11:00 am. on Monday morning may have been a factor!...lol.

For me it was an evening, night, morning, and early afternoon of still being calculated, balance of good and not so good. On the plus side; was being out of the freakin' humidity, a long hot shower and an unhurried shave, food and one cup of coffee, the A/C, playing with Devin, seeing the second half of the new "2 & 1/2 Men" premiere....(..meh....it had it's funny moments and some potential as a comedy....but it's NOT '2 & 1/2 Men' without Charlie 'Harper' Sheen, call it something else)....

On the not so plus side; falling asleep while trying to watch TV and having the pillow slip down the back of the recliner and placing my already twisted body in a weird position and wrenching or cramping my neck, (and now the only way it is comfortable, even with a logarithmic increase in Flexeril and the horse pill Ibuprofens, and an extra 1/4 tablet of the buprenorphine, is to keep my head tilted to the left and my left shoulder raised and my arm held across my chest......which reduces the pain to feeling like a dull ache stabbing down into my shoulder and neck, and back from a point behind my left ear to the middle of the shoulder blade....as if I was a vampire and Van Helsing was just a weeeee bit off when he drove in the wooden stake......lol......ow, ow, ow, it hurts to laugh!)

Mama Cat all of a sudden flip out and flip over and bite my hand, breaking the top layer of skin and hanging on by a tooth that is snagged in the skin.

(I did not do anything different than the last 20 times, she was in the middle of a purr, then WHAM! I've got a cat hanging off of trying to get her claws into play!)

And of course this is while I'm sitting in the bathroom, on the throne, because that is where the feline maternity/isolation ward is. Alcohol wipes and hydrogen peroxide rinses hopefully killed any nasty bacteria.....between the litter box and what mama cats have to do to their kittens because they can't pee or poop on their own until about 2 &1/2 weeks.....yuch!

Then coming back from the bathroom in the dark around 4:00 am. I caught the edge of my broken toe on the wooden wagon that the wooden blocks go in.....that was in the living room and filled with blocks, for the first time in 3 years it had been unearthed from a pile of assorted junk and stuff in the kitchen as part of Jenn's packing process, and promptly moved and relocated and abandoned in the walking space around the toy box......ow, ow, ow.

So now I'm up and awake for the next 3 hours when I wanted to sleep, and of course after taking my morning meds, fell asleep just after 8:00 am.

I heard Tom come in about 9:00 am. and Jenn get up, and then I turned to news off and fell back asleep, with everyone else in the apartment snoring away at the same time....lol, until nearly 11:00 am.

This weather IS conducive for sleeping...if you're inside and cooled off. And now the sky has a weird greenish gray tint to the clouds that looks like it may be about to unleash a downpour soon, and I think I hear the rumble of thunder above the Starbucks Muzak. As long as it's over by 9:00 pm., I don't care, and, if it's extremely isolated and 'local' as predicted....like Not in beautiful downtown Pikesville, I'd be thrilled, as would the roof and walls and floor of the shed!

Well, I'm going to see if the ham sandwich markout from Sunday night is still good, it's either that or a plain bagel for dinner tonight.

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

"False Alarums...............And......................A Timely Invitation............."

Good Afternoon;

(Sorry about the spacing...it won't reduce!!!!)

So...that was an unwanted adrenaline rush!

Right after I signed off from the shed this morning I heard someone under the carport talking on a cell phone. It was the voice of a white guy with a professional sounding tone describing the office building and carport to someone and giving the GPS coordinates to the location. A loud, strong, and confident voice unlike most of the people who come under the carport for nefarious purposes. I waited until he was off the phone and was going to wait for him to leave but I heard him sit down and decided to try to quietly slip out, not bothering with the chain and lock because of the noise and the fact that I have to thread the chain though the side wall of the shed, which would put me in his line of sight.

After I got to the Giant and took a much needed bathroom break and washed off all the not just humidity induced perspiration, and made my coffee, I took a LRRP across the parking lot and through the gas station, peeking through the fence to see who it was under the carport. There was a paint and interior contracting company truck in the lot, (which turned out not to be involved in any way), and I saw the guy sitting next to the outlet with something plugged in. I also saw one of Pikesville's local 'characters', and his dog; Bruce the cigar smoking drunk and Joey, standing there talking to him.

As I circled and crossed Reisterstown Rd., vectoring in to connect with Bruce as he crossed, (in a slightly more meandering way, weaving a bit to miss imaginary obstacles....lol), I asked him who it was he had been talking to. It turns out that it was Mark the semi-homeless drunk/crackhead/golf caddie, also a fixture on the streets and benches here, and he had been talking to Bruce on the phone about meeting him in regards to money or drinks owed one way or the other. The area golf courses he caddie at are closed on Mondays, so it's his 'party morning', as opposed to every afternoon and night.

I headed back around to the shed and walked up and saw him with his head phones on and a selection of beer and booze bottles within easy reach as he sat on the nasty, disgusting, asphalt that exudes the aroma of stale urine, no matter how often I rinse and pour bleach over it. I said hello and waved and threaded the chain through the door and wall and put on the lock and headed for here, the A/C cooled library. I am still drying out, it is nasty humid outside again, and a good bit warmer than last night.

I just got an e-mail from Jenn, and I am going to head over there just before

7:00 pm. to babysit Devin while Jenn goes to her HG. So I'll get to shower and change in to my 3rd set of clothing in 24 hours tonight.

It's just after 1:00 and I'm going to head to the coffee shop and eat my breakfast. I split some of the marked out sandwiches with Will last night, so I'm good for today, and I still have a couple "egg, sausage and cheese sauce biscuit stuffers" in Jenn's freezer....and they are microwaveable so I won't burn myself....hopefully....lol.

Times up now, gotta run,

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

"No, I'm Not Playing With Bubble Wrap!!!!!!!!................................"

Good Morning;

Well I don't hurt as badly as I thought I would......it's worse!

It's over to the Giant to wash my face and make my last tube of instant coffee, then I have to stop at the RiteAid to drop off a script for a refill. After that I'm heading to the library.

I think I'm going to look for somewhere to take a loonngg hot shower, or see if my hotel friend is in town and get her to clear me with the front desk and security people and take a long hot soak in the hot tub and the pool. She times an inspection tour of the property with a visit home for Rosh HaShana to see her family each year, but she may not be in until tomorrow evening.

Okay I've got to start getting moving now, and pack up my bag. Damn, everytime I bend and/or twist my back, shoulder, elbows, and knees start popping and it sounds just like a bag of Orville Reddenbocker's microwave popcorn being nuked!.................lol!

Depending on the (s)laptop's mood and behavior, and wifi access, I may be back this afternoon.

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

"A Fungus Among Us!.........................."

Good Morning;

It's 2:30 am. and I've just spent the better part of the last 4 hours finally emptying out the almost totally dissolved cardboard 'flooring' I've been layering over the previous layer each time it got too soaked to be of use. With a pair of yellow Playtex rubber gloves and 2 contractor size black poly trash bags I cleared out close to 300 pounds of accumulated 'mush'....about 4-5 pounds at a time. Between bending and scooping and lifting, it was all I could do to grab a couple handfuls then rest, which is why it took almost 4 hours to do an hour job. ....and why I am so sore. Right now I hurt so bad I can't even lie down, I'm waiting for the meds to kick in to see if the normal dosage needs to be increased. The only reason I went at it this way was because the mold was becoming a health hazard. I had knocked over the fan and when it hit the edge of the cardboard and I saw spores from a fungus underneath start to fly around in the breeze.....time to do something!

I had no idea how I was going to move the bags from the front of the shed until I came back from washing up at the gas station and found 2 of the night stock clerks from a store nearby rolling and smoking a blunt under the carport on company time....... Well in exchange for me not mentioning that little item to their boss, they were happy to drag the bags to a dumpster and toss them in. They even offered me a hit, which I declined, not because of any moral objections to weed, it's just that, 2 hits and I'm "sit in a corner with a dopey smile" stupid for a couple hours.....not what I need at the moment...lol!

Well, anyway this is either going to help with the 'waking up with a sinus headache' problem, or I going to end up with truffles growing in my lungs.

I'm going to try to find a position that hurts the least now, if the "(s)laptop" wasn't so damn sensitive I'd take it down off the shelf and bring it with me, but right now, once it's up and running, I can't even "fart in it's general direction" without it getting it's feelings hurt and shutting off. There is actually something that has become very shock sensitive, even to the point of bumping the screen, I just try to emulate Elmer Fudd when he's hunting 'wabbits', "and be wery wery qwiet!"

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

"Holding On By Letting Go............................"

Good Afternoon;

Well I'm sitting here in Starbucks trying to head off a sinus headache with caffeine and Ibuprofen before it morphs to a migraine. The Sun just came out and although the temperature is in the mid 70s, it raised the already high humidity higher yet. Even though I don't suffer from allergies, the damp humid air causes similar effects and symptoms in the sinuses.

I never did get any real sleep last night, waking and falling back to sleep in a 30 -40 minute repeating cycle. Waking with the feeling of a hangover without the (dubious) benefits of the binge beforehand is neither fun nor fair......lol.

After hitting the Giant and spending 4 of the 5 dollars I lucked into last night when I got up to go to the bathroom at the gas station...(I was passing by the payphone and just reached out and slapped it in the side of the casing for no reason and when I walking away heard a ding-ding-ding sound and coin started falling out of the return chute!....$5.25 in nickels and dimes!.....lol.)...annoying the people behind me in line as I fed the coins in one by one....lol, I walked over to the bus stop and saw 2 really cool books just sitting on the curb at the intersection, 'Rand McNally Atlas Of The Solar System' and 'Colours Of The Stars', large coffee table type astronomy buff books. Some really neat photos and it traces the dual history of of astronomy and photography since the first combined use in 1884......pretty neat.

I finished reading the book "Grandmothers Whisper", by my friend Inette Miller Imalkalani last night. I started it in January when they gave me a copy when they were in town but stopped reading about 3/4 of the way through a few months ago, unable to focus and concentrate on it. This week, only days before Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, a time of introspection and self examination, of one's self and one's place in the community and world, and one's relationship with a higher power, I opened the book to a page, and a sentence that leaped off the page in illuminated letters, that I had seen before, but never really read. As if it was meant to be seen in this time and situation.

Connection, reconnection, remembrance of things forgotten, remembrance of things embedded in the soul, yet unrevealed to the cluttered, hurried mind.

Time, Faith, People, Hope, Memories of things yet unexperienced.

Links to the past and the future, race memory, genetic memory, history, and prophecy. Opening of the dark spaces in the soul to light and enlightenment.

Acceptance and humility, and a course correction on a journey of discovery.

Like crawling out from under the rubble of an avalanche, waking from a coma, or the first moments of clarity when a fever breaks, before the cold hard reality, pain, and weakness kicks in, there has been a flash, a glimmer revealed....as yet undecoded or translated into what it means or points toward.

As I sit here looking at theses 3 books, I see how huge is the universe and how tiny and insignificant each of us really are, and yet each of us are connected by a thin gossamer thread that links us to each and every other, from those who went before, to those yet to come, and to the vastness that is ALL.

And.....I'm back and the moment passes, and I'm cold and hot and shaking and soaking wet.

No matter how I try to escape, it keeps coming back and biting me in the ass, forget gratitude and you'll lose yourself.

Forget yourself and you'll lose some of the resistance to moving forward.

Gotta run,

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

"Nibbled To Death By Ducks.....................OR...........................I Shoulda Stayed In Bed!.................."

Good Evening;

Well I'm back here in the shed about to lie down and hopefully go to sleep. It has not been the best of days and the Serenity Prayer has been getting a workout. The day started out with me losing my footing when my back spasmed with no warning as I had one foot in the air and the other on the edge of a stair and both hands full with breakables in one and liquid in another, (that I REALLY did not want to get on me), and in the process of trying to regain my balance and not spill, drop, or fall.....ended up slamming my right pinky toe into/against a support pillar. Which is when I heard/felt the snap/crunch of the bone breaking. I was able to fall back against the wall and slide down to the ground without dropping or spilling anything, in sort of a controlled collapse......and the 3 inch splinter in my back helped take my mind off the pain in my foot.....lol....(owie!). I took off my shoe and sock and pulled the toe straight until it 'clicked' back into alignment and taped it to the next toe.

I eventually made it to Jenn's where after a nice hot shower and shave I felt better,(removing the tent peg from my back with pliers while looking in 2 mirrors was a trip, as was pouring a bottle of alcohol over the entry site to decontaminate the gaping hole it left!).

So before I ate I put a cup of coffee in the microwave to heat up (and some how punched in 3 minutes instead of 30 seconds) while I went to throw the laundry in the washer. Wellllll.....have you ever had a nearly full bottle of a fairly thick viscous liquid slip out of your grip and hit the floor.....perfectly flat on it's bottom? Just when you are thinking to yourself....'awesome it did not tip and spill!'....good old Newtonian physics kicks in, sending a geyser of heavy blue detergent right up into your face! Of course the eyes as well as the mouth are wide open, to say nothing of the nostrils. After rushing over to the utility sinks which I found out have been pulled away from the wall so that they are slightly lower in the front than in the rear....where the drain hole is....and where the not quite completely evaporated urine from the dumb ghetto f*cks in the neighborhood who have been peeing in them has congealed, which the wildly spraying water from the faucet I turned on to rinse out my burning eyes proceeded to liquefy and splash up into my face....nullifying this mornings 'save'!

YEAH!....I finally got cleaned off enough to get the laundry in and went and took shower number 2. But not before grabbing the coffee cup from the microwave and chugging down a mouthful of still hot coffee, when I was expecting warm at the most....my mouth and throat STILL hurt.

After the shower I scavenged the freezer for the assortment of nearly empty bags I had left there from previous visits and put a tray of chicken nuggets, popcorn shrimp, and french fries in the 450 preheated oven, singeing my knuckles in the process as Ed came caroming off the wall into me. Not a big deal, just some red marks and the smell of burning hair. When I went to take the tray out of the oven to turn everything over for the second half of the cook time I used a kitchen towel as a potholder as always....what was not 'as always' was the unseen rip on this particular towel that allowed the lower edge of the sheet pan to protrude for about an inch.....right where my left index fingertip was. I can now empathize with all those steers, in all those westerns, on all those cattle drives, trying desperately to stampede everytime they see John Wayne sticking a branding iron in the fire! I'd rather be cut than burnt anyday!

And of course, 'third times the charm', as I reached into the oven to remove a couple slices of potato bread from the bare oven rack, the moist bread stuck to the wire rack, and after I carefully worked it loose, being sure not to touch hot metal...AGAIN!, the pieces of hot, moist, sticky bread, similar in texture at this point to molten candle wax, fell all the way off the slices and straight down onto my bare leg, just inside the cuff of the loose floppy, 'round the house' socks I had on, sticking to the hair of my leg and my skin....removing small but tender portions of both as I pulled the doughy blob away.

At last I got my food plated and ready to eat, losing half my french fries to the grandmonsters was a given, but dropping half my food on the way to my mouth and half of that ending up on the floor wasn't! I was like an epileptic with St. Vitus' dance......I'm just lucky I wasn't using a fork!.....lol!

By this point....hearing one of the cat's start heaving and then walking into the other room and seeing him puking all over my shoe.....was a good thing!

I left Jenn's to catch the bus up here and when I got on the bus labeled the #59, and he made the turn down Clarks Lane, and everyone started shouting "whoa!!"...and the driver goes "oops, forgot to change my sign to the #58", I just started laughing until I cried!

It really has been....

"One of THOSE! kind of days"

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

"Candy Bar In A Cup..............Bright Spot In A Gray Day................"

Good Evening;

So my day has been like the weather to day, 50% dreary, 40% nasty, 10% sunny.

It poured most of the day, and between the weather induced and exacerbated aches in my joints and vertebrae, and the lingering residual pain from the bone chips hitting the nerve the other day, I hurt like hell and nowhere urgent to be, so I didn't leave the shed until just before 2:00 pm. when it slackened off. I went to RiteAid to get my BP meds and when I came out there was a bus heading to Owings Mills at the red light so I jumped on it and went to the St. Thomas Starbucks by default. I stopped in the Giant and used my last $1.50 to get lunch and ran into my friend Janis who I have not talked with for a while. After we parted company I used the 'free drink survey receipt' I had to get a "Salted Caramel Mocha Espresso" and tried not to finish it in one swallow, damn they're good!.......lol!

Those were the high points of my day today, I never even turned on the laptop until 11:00 pm. to send Jenn an e-mail. I have not really been in the mood to write today, and I'm in enough pain that concentrating is becoming a real problem, so I am going to go ahead and take the maximum prescribed dosages of the 3 meds I can take together without complications or contra-indications, and hope to get some sleep. It's been almost 2 days without any, and I drank de-caf all day, so it should be time now.

Tomorrow afternoon I am going over to Jenn's for a shower and a meal, and I think I will be able to wash clothes too. Right now I'd kill......or at least maim......to be under the hot, pulsating jets of an upscale multi-head shower!

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

"http://youtu.be/AHcjjxYbgNM"

Good Evening;

So I get off the #53 bus at Old Ct. Metro station yesterday afternoon and there is a Chinese woman looking stranded and totally perplexed asking in slightly broken English where the end of the #53 bus is at and where is the Target. People outside at the bus loop are either ignoring her, telling her this IS the end of the route and that she has to get on another bus to reach the Target, not listening to her fully as she tries to explain that someone is supposed to meet her at the Target AT the end of the #53 line. There IS a Target at the Mondawmin Station and Bus Loop/Depot so when I was passing by and she looked at me with pleading and growing alarm because one man, who seemed and looked a little sketchy was trying to pull her towards the #53 which was about to pull off and asking her if she had any money for a cab, while 2 others were trying to get her to get in their car and they would 'hack' her where she wanted to go. She was starting to look very scared and to me all three of the 'brothers' who were trying to "help" her were obviously working some kind of hustle, I'm not saying they intended any physical harm, but their insistence and 'hard sell' tactics presaged some sort of monetary scam at the least. As I walked past I held up my #53 schedule and she latched onto my arm and tried again to ask for help way to fast and kept tripping herself up over her words. I got her to slow down and showed her where she messed up and got on the bus going the wrong way, and that there WAS a Target where the #53 terminated at Mondawmin, and that she did not have to get back on the bus as the Metro Subway also had a stop there, and would be a 15 minute ride with only 5 stops, rather than a 45 minute or more ride with dozens of stops. When she found out I was also getting on the train in the same direction she tightened her hold on my arm until I thought the circulation was cutting off. When I smiled told her and showed her the red and white marks her fingers left, she laughed in an embarrassed way and started to apologize, but I just laughed with her and she linked her arm in mine and kept thanking me. When we were through the turnstiles and down on the platform waiting for the train we had a chance to talk and she said she had just gotten to Baltimore recently and was attending Johns Hopkins grad. school on a scholarship grant from China at the medical campus. When I put my foot up on the bench to tighten my bootlaces she saw the tattoo on my right calf and reached down and traced it with her finger and asked me if I knew what it meant. After the quiver that ran up my leg and through my spine, and the chill that went through me subsided,

I told her it was Japanese for "HOPE", and she told me it was Chinese for "HOPE" also..."xi wang", (technically 'to hope', the verb form).

She looked me in the eyes and traced it again, smiling as the quiver and chill went through me again like an electric current.

The train pulled up then and as we sat down she told me it was karma that had me getting off the bus right at that time when she needed someone to trust, and proceeded to curl both legs up under her the way that women do and closed her eyes saying wake her when we got to her stop,...........and fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

Well, when we were nearing Mondawmin I gently stroked her cheek and woke her up. She sat up with a smile, stretched and gathered her bags and stood up. She then leaned over and kissed my cheek, smiled and said "Karma....it is a circle", and then said some thing in Chinese, which sounded like some sort of blessing from the formal delivery she gave it, and then the only words I understood, which was/were 'xie xie' or 'shi shi', which I am 99 44/100 % sure is 'Thank You'.

Then she walked through the open door, waved as the train pulled off back into the tunnel, and the last I saw of her was her back as she walked on the escalator.

I never even got around to asking her name! ;-)

Well even with my back spasming like Steve O. jabbing himself with a Taser, this encounter put a very mellow spin on my day.

Time to pack up, it's closing time.

Today's update from the shed when I get there.

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

"Chips.............Bone, Potato, Silicon, Chocolate, and Chicken............."

Good Afternoon;

Well I'm here in the library after a trip to the radiolgist this morning. I fell asleep as soon as I was flat on my back last night but I woke up about 4:00 am. with a scream when I rolled over on my right side. It felt as if I had been stabbed with an icepick in my right lower back, (and I do have a reference point for comparison to that sensation).

After talking to the doctor on call at the after hours phone number I had an early appointment scheduled for X-rays this morning. According to what the tech. and I saw on the films, (the Radiologist was not in yet for an official reading), it looks like some of the bone chips from my vertebrae have migrated, specifically 2 in the region between the T-12 and L-1 & L-5 and S-1. This would coincide with the pain sites yesterday and this morning as the related nerves affect that area of the back.

I am waiting for a call from the doctor's office scheduling an appointment for an exam and consultation.

Until then, slow and easy, no sudden movements or actions to cause the bone to contact the spinal nerve again, or be compressed between the bone and discs.

Times up here, (I have not even tried the laptop yet), and I am still deciding on whether to chance the bus or not. The way some of the springs and shocks are worn out on some of them, even people with no spinal issues sometimes moan in pain as their backbones are telescoped up into their skulls when the bus slams through a pothole, (usually at excessive speed, exacerbating the feeling of being a can of Pringles between a rock and a hard place).

I'm heading to the Giant to grab something to drink and some rolls to go with the Buddig chopped, pressed, flaked, and formed, "lunchmeat" I already have and the cookies a woman in the waiting room shared.

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

"Jumping Back Smash........................"

Good Evening;

So I'm sitting in Starbucks in Mt. Washington trying not to fall asleep as I wait for the broad spectrum anti-biotic to kick in and make the cold sweats and hot flashes stop. It's been a rough couple of days healthwise, in addition to the ment humidityal confusion and gall stone pinball on Sunday, last night at Jenn's and today the above mentioned internal temperature fluctuations had me camping out in the shower sluicing off the moisture accumulation. The 75 - 90 % has not helped either. I had and was instructed to take and finish a full course of the anti-biotics and see if that helps with the symptoms and the low grade fever that seems to hang on in my system.

Then today as I was walking along Smith Avenue at Falls Road from the bus stop to the coffee shop, just walking, on a smooth surface, not slipping or stumbling in any way, nor turning or twisting my body in odd positions or directions, something felt as if it tore or ripped in my right rear lower back area. First a short sharp intense pain that literally brought me to my knees. When I reached up for the bridge railing I thought someone had stabbed me. As I hauled myself upright I knew something was not right when I took the first step. It is exactly to the rear of the gallbladder pain in the abdomen, but I don't not think it's related. It has lessened to the point that it is a dull underlying, pulsating ache thanks to pain meds and muscle relaxers I am already prescribed by the doctor increased per her phone instructions. Tomorrow, (Wednesday), or Thursday I am to go in, depending on the pain in the morning.

It is a good thing I dropped off my re-determination paperwork at DSS yesterday, (which was a frustrating experience, 100 minute wait to transact less than a minute's worth of business because the full time employees there refused to "lower themselves", (actual overheard quote of 2 'civil servants' hiding out in unused conference room next to bathroom with common A/C duct work), to help the poor overworked intern doing the work of 3 people, who was a trooper and kept her sense of calm, rational reaction to the abuses of some of the people waiting, many of whom had not completed or brought with them the proper paperwork, and yelled bitched and screamed at the intern when she pointed these lapses out. I saw & knew it was not her fault, and my only fear was I'd fall asleep and not hear my name called, when in a momentary lull I asked her what page of the sign up sheet she was on and explained my fear of losing my spot, she smiled and said no worry, she'd have no problem remembering who I was, since I "stuck out like a marshmallow in a room full of licorice drops today"!.............lol. It was moot because I did not fall asleep anyway.

Then it was up to Owings Mills and the coffee shop there where the cold/hot crap started. I did run into a friend, Nathan, who I had not seen for a year or more.

Then to Jenn's to watch Devin and the 3 tiny new kitties, (insert Awwww here), and to the multiple showers to rinse off the damn cold sweats. After the new "2 & 1/2 Men" with Ashton Kutcher....'meh!', and the Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen, 'very funny', I tried to sleep, but kept sliding off the leather of the recliner and waking up.....it was a long night.

After feeding Devin breakfast, and getting a medical opinion over the phone to finish the anti-biotics and wait, and packing up a few on the loose things that accumulated on 'my' shelf on the bookcase, I grabbed the 1:00 pm. bus here, and had that lovely knee-drop-smash to the sidewalk.

It took about 40 tries before the laptop booted and stayed booted, but it's running fine now....(knock silicon).

It's back to the bus stop and up to the shed shortly, and hopefully 8 solid hours of sleep, flat on my back.

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

"Blinks, Blanks, Blackouts & Bladders..(Gall)............................"

Good Afternoon;

Well I'm sitting here at the St. Thomas Starbucks with the first coffee in over 24 hours!

Yesterday (Sunday) started off with a whimper that rapidly scaled into a scream when I woke up to a pain between my shoulder blades, that was soon overtaken by a pain in my abdomen that curled me up in a fetal position in tears. When it subsided in intensity for a bit, I recognized it as a gall stone 'attack'. I found that the pain seemed to come in waves varying from severe and continuous to short, sharp, and mind and eye blurring & one step short of passing out. If I stood up and stayed crouched over I found that I could move around with slow deliberate steps.

Getting my clothes and shoes on was a real fun time and took one hell of alot longer than usual. I took the $20.00 I had won the night before on a 'hunch' that told me to play Keno once for a buck then quit, (Which I did and a good thing too because I watched the next 10 games and my numbers came up exactly "ZERO" times!), and took a cab to the hospital ER.

The triage/admin. wait was only 10 minutes.....then I lay on a gurney for 3 hours, after spending 30 minutes trying to explain to an intern that I CAN NOT! receive the damn shot of opioid pain killer he insisted I needed, nor could I have morphine, an opiate. After the third hour of being moved and jostled and lying on my side the stones eventually fell out of the bile duct and back into the gall bladder. When I was told the doctor would see me in 2 hours, IF the radiology dept could get to me for a sonogram........ well, I removed the IV that was giving me fluids and the non-opiate/opioid painkiller/tranquilizer cocktail I eventually got the intern to administer instead, got dressed and left AMA and took the bus to the coffee shop for an hour or so.

I'm sore from the muscular spasming and my side aches, but not like earlier.

And just when I thought that the crap was done for the day...I had a blackout/grayout on the subway. I was on the way to Old Ct. station from State Center/Cultural Center. I KNOW I got on the westbound train, I KNOW this! I checked the sign on the train, the track it was on and the electronic signs on the wall of the station, listing the time and destination AND having flashing arrows that point in the right direction.

Alright....so how did I end up in Johns Hopkins Station in a half daze with no memory of switching trains? It was not a start and wakeup out of a blackout feeling, but a sort of semi-conscious vaguely aware sensation.

And this was a good 12 hours or more since I had left the hospital, long enough for the drugs I was given to have dissipated?

I have to run now, Jenn needs me to babysit Devin this evening, and I'm crashing there and watching TV. I don't think the Mifi is there so I may not finish this until Tomorrow.

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

Today, (Monday)

"Brother Can You Spare A Job?................."

Good Evening;

Here's a link to a story in the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle that, minus a few tongue in cheek comments, offers a possible practical partial solution to lessening panhandling;

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/18/BAIF1L4FV3.DTL

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

"Gray............Skies And Mood......................"

Good Evening;

Well it's quarter after 8:00 pm. and I'm in the Starbucks babying the laptop so it will stay up and running long enough to get in a short post. It's a crapshoot everytime I hit the start button whether it's going to start right up and load and run for hours or if it will play games, partially loading and restarting, or gray or blue screening with a manual reboot, of nada...which means that if I treat it like a 'red headed stephild' it regains the will to live. After I have spent 10 to 12 minutes slapping the harddrive around and punching the on button and letting off juuuusssstttt at the right second to see the trio of green indicator lights begin to flash and the VAIO logo fade in on the screen.....hopefully not freezing halfway through the process.

Then once it's up and running and Chrome is engaged and the wifi is connected.....the question is.....will it black out as I type? Or bump or adjust the screen? Or view or attempt to post something that the spirit inhabiting the CPU is offended by..........thereby shutting the system down and beginning the whole mishegos all over again.

But.....when it works it works great, and just like a hole in your roof, when it's not raining so it doesn't leak, sooooo, you tell yourself you'll deal with it later..........lol!

It's been a day of moods that suit the weather, a kind of cool, gray, damp, undefined and undifferentiated general sense of discontent. Halfway between the blues and the blahs, an unfulfilled emptiness overlain with a melancholy lonesomeness.

The 'ex' was being a jerk when I called to see if she could drop off Rachel at the Light Rail, less than a mile from her house, when the car got back to her apartment....lame excuses just a contrary laziness in a weak disguise. So that was not a big help.

I went to sleep late, woke up 2 or 3 times to pee and fell back to sleep. I woke up again at 8:30 am and took my meds, which are finally back on track and a complimentary shedule, and fell back asleep for a few minutes......yeah, about 240 of them.....waking up at 12:30 pm.!

After wandering through the Giant with my coffee for an hour or so completely undecided on what to get to eat, picking up and putting back the same things half a dozen times, I got out of there close to 2:30 pm. and took the bus and the train and the train to Mt. Washington.

Getting the opportunity to overhear snippets of some of the conversations of some of Baltimore's 'hope of the future' generation, and see a broad selection of the styles and colors of men's boxers and boxer briefs, I am amazed that some of these geniuses are allowed out without a keeper. And on a much sadder and serious note, listening to this group of 12, 13, & 14 year old girls discussing who among their peers were pregnant, in middle and high school, and some of the attempts to 'get rid of' the baby's through beating themselves in the stomach, getting violently drunk every day, street drugs, and more, I was both horrified and angered. One says she know's she's not going to get pregnant, not by practicing birth control in any way, her or her many partners, but by "jes knowin', and thinkin' ah ain't".

Okay gotta run, closing time.

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

"Land Of The Midnight Moron..........................."

Good Evening;

Alaska, where the idea of being homeless is scary enough as it is.

Another link showing man's inhumanity to man is not confined to the Lower 48 and Hawaii;

http://www.youralaskalink.com/news/local/Homeless-Man-Beaten-by-Young-Men-130005313.html?corder=reverse

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

"Cats In The Cradle..................................Wasting Time......................."

Good Morning;

Well the shed is no longer too hot nor leaking, it is actually comfortable sitting here in sweat pants and a tee shirt, compared to last night when I was inside the sleeping bag for the first time since May.

Yesterday I headed down to Monkee's around 1:00 pm. dodging the rain all the way. I got lucky because everytime it began to rain harder a bus showed up, and it slackened or stopped each time I got off the bus or train and had to walk.

This continued until I got to the coffee shop where this cold front poured in after I arrived, getting very windy but slowing as I rolled out to get the bus.

I got a chance to visit with my friend Visa who has returned after about a 5 week hiatus, her daughter having taken a short summer break from swimming competition.

It was cold enough that I did not sit out and read or use the library wifi last night, opting to stop in the gas station and see where my 4 quarters would take me on a KENO ride. It was a typical win one, lose one, up and down, for 30 minutes and I walked out even, (with my entire $4.00 net worth safely in my pocket!..............lol!).

I slept strange again last night, waking up from dreams that were on the bizarre side, so I've been a step behind all day, and keep falling asleep here with my finger on a key and starting awake to a screen full of ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

ggggggggggggggggggg,. The backspace key is getting a work out!....................lol!

I got up about 9:30 am. and ended up killing 90 minutes in the Giant, talking to various people. Jenn texted me about 11:30 am. that she was on the way home from the doctor's and I could head over to the apt. to meet them. I got there just after Noon and they all left shortly afterwards on a roundabout journey out to Perry Hall, to Monkton, to Sparks, to Port Deposit.........and who knows where else shuttling Tom to DJ gigs, before and after picking Ed up from school, before dropping off the car for Tom and getting picked up be her friend to come back to Baltimore with the kids. All of which meant that I had the place to my self for 7 hours....well me and "Front Porch Cat" and the feline slut's cute little 3 day old kittens....which she gave birth to in "Back Porch Cat's" Hurricane Irene shelter box. Who were all transferred to under the bathroom sink with Mama.....giving it a nice funk to dry off in after my shower.

I also took the clippers to my head and used the #1 guard to give my self a buzz cut, both for convenience and cleanliness........and because thin and receding from MPB is much, much preferable to gray and scruffy!

I cooked one of the last steaks I'll be able to cook in the foreseeable future with them leaving in 14 days.

(Speaking of which...............I am still looking for a place or even a few places if I split things up, to stash/store/stow some of the things I want to keep but do not need daily or frequent access to.)

I took the 7:20 bus to Mt. Washington to the coffee shop and killed an hour and 20 minutes there until close, so I could use the wifi, with the laptop on a hard level surface, instead of my knees or in one hand.

Caught the bus back to Plaza Station and ended up with 40 minutes to kill waiting for the bus up here.....so I started reading and was so engrossed in the book, I almost missed the bus.

After I got up here to Pikesville I stopped in the Giant to use the restroom...(speaking of which the dumb bastard trashing the men's room was there 3 times yesterday, choosing to add black beans and kosher salad dressing to his palette)...and came back to the library to finish off the piece of meat from lunch for dinner and read until 12:30 am.

Then in the shed and.....here I be.

2:36.....time to see what sleep brings....

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

Local News | 'Stand Down' offers homeless vets access to services, benefits, clothes | Seattle Times Newspaper

Good Evening;

Another relevant link;

Local News | 'Stand Down' offers homeless vets access to services, benefits, clothes | Seattle Times Newspaper

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

"The Maine Attraction......................"

Good Evening;

http://bangordailynews.com/2011/04/01/health/myths-about-homelessness/

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

"Clarification, Explanation, & Justification........................"

Good Afternoon;

So I'm signing off about to leave the library and head to East Baltimore and Monkee's to get med for the rest of the month, then JAI to chance a walk-in to see the S.A. coordinator/facilitator for a referral, (since I have never received a return phone call in 7 different, separate attempts at phone contact), when an e-mail pops up just before I hit the enter key.

It was from someone excoriating me for disclosing the race of the man in the previous post, saying it was a racist thing to do. Well I do have my prejudices and the like, at times petty, at times..(I feel)..justified, but not based on skin color alone. Cultural, attitudinal, based on observed and experienced words and actions yes, and in some cases the majority of the individuals performing or espousing such ideas may be of one race. But I do not hate or condemn all or every person of any race or ethnic group or religion. Wait...I'll qualify the religious category with the statement that there are some so called minor religions or radical sects that spout hate, death and destruction.....I feel no guilt about my feelings toward them or their destruction.

But in the case of this individual, many of my readers are in the Pikesville area and may encounter him. I see no problem with giving them a heads up for their safety and well being.

Gotta run..........

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

"Madness Or Badness......Or Both?................."

Good Morning;

Well I'm at the library waiting on return calls from Monkee and the doctor's office, both connected with my meds., tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock....hurry up and wait.

For every story of positive value about a homeless person, there seems to be a negative one supporting the typical stereotype.

I was in the Giant last night and walked into the bathroom and found the walls, mirrors, sinks etc. covered in what first appeared to be feces but turned out to be chocolate cake ice in mass quantities.

(How did I determine this?

Remember the old joke whose punchline went...."looks like dogsh*t...smells like dogsh*t...tastes like dogsh*t"...."Da...good thing we didn't step in it!"

NOT...........LOL!!!)

This was cleaned up by the late night cleaning crew after the store closed.

When I went back there this morning about 9:00 am. the daytime porter/cleaner was hosing down the whole room,...walls ceiling, floor, plumbing fixtures, et. al., and looking in the drop ceiling for raw meat or cheese or fish, etc. that would spoil and leave a stink. The whole restroom had been coated in refried beans, and dog food, and beef stew from pop-top cans on the reduced scratch and dent rack in the same hallway. When I spoke to John, the porter, about it he told me that they were 99 & 44/100% sure who did it. A homeless man who had been asked to leave the store recently for reasons I am not precisely sure of, other than his actions were unacceptable. He had come back in and told the manager that he did not like him anymore and that he should check out the bathroom. Which had been trashed and the urinal clogged and the huge roll of TP dropped in the toilet causing overflow and flooding.

Since then he has been slipping in unnoticed and decorating the restroom and rushing out before being caught at it.

He is someone who I have seen around Pikesville, most recently 2 nights ago when he came around the corner of the libray at 1:30 am. in the morning and startled me into 'flight or fight mode' as he approached and started cursing at me, and then changed his mind and veered off across the parking lot towards Reisterstown Rd. as I came to my feet while pulling my hammer out of my bag.

He was a fairly tall, beefy black man wearing shower shoes/flip flops with no socks...(on that cool almost cold rainy night), a torn and stretched out dirty tee shirt under a light windbreaker type jacket, and 'ghetto length' shorts below the knees. I have seen him before and am pretty sure he's not taking whatever psych meds he is supposed to. Once he was laying in a door way in the Pikesville Shopping Center next to the RiteAid talking to the glass doors. He's big enough to be intimidating so people tend to walk the long way around and avoid him rather than confront him and ask him to move.

Anyway.......Times up here.

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

"Purple Rain...............Silver Lining"

Good Morning;

So another dawn, another day, another sleep deficit.

But on the brighter side of the 'streets'...

Here is a link from CBS News via invisible people.tv that showcases

how just one person,..stopping, turning around and going back and

engaging a homeless person in conversation can open doors to change a life.

Granted, this is a exceptional meeting of a man with talent and a man in an unique position to assist him....but then some of the most talented, musically gifted, artistic, and intelligent people I've met have been on the streets, in prison, or in a 'shooting gallery'.

Each with their own demons, disabilities, and dramas that derailed their dreams.

Anyway...here is the link;

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/14/earlyshow/main20105974.shtml

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

"Silicon Dioxide Sanity Check ........ All Systems Negative ....... Commence Strafing Run ........... Dive Dive Dive!..........................."

Good Morning;

Well it's 3:27 am. and the throbbing headache has stabilized to a sussurating hiss and roar alternating phases with every other cycle, back and forth...over and over again. I'm outside the Giant trying to concentrate on any one thing for longer than 3 minutes. Flipping back between Hotmail, Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, and my good old reliable composition book and pen.

The Sandman has been flitting around my head, first shaking, then shoveling, and finally dive bombing me with 50 lb. sacks, of "sleepy sand"....and it's now beginning to take effect. My face feels as if it has been sand blasted, and my eyes are hooked directly to the beach replenishment dredge outflow pipe.

Time to go check out the damage today's thunderstorms wreaked on my morning patches. I would be emptying all the cardboard into the contractor's heavy duty site clean up bags, but between the fresh soaking and my now active pains in my back, et. al., F*ck it!

I'm so damned tired I think I might just be able to pass the hell out at last!

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

"I lit out from Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds
Didn't get to sleep last night 'till the morning came around."

"Set out runnin' but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight,

I just might get some sleep tonight."

RIP

Jerry G.

"Remember When............."

Good Evening;

Remember When

Remember when:

Love and pain weren't synonymous

Youth and innocence were

Horror was just at the movies

Villains always wore black hats

And terror came from a rollercoaster ride

Remember when:

Loss was only a ball score

Heroine ended with an e

Coke came in green glass bottles

Needles were for embroidery

And nobody carried guns in school

Remember when:

Lonelyness meant your best friend was on vacation

Emptiness could be filled with a cookie

Happiness was a normal state of mind

Depression was a hole in the ground

And insanity happened to other people

Remember when:

Dads were heroes

Moms were goddesses

Only goldfish ever died

Each day lasted a lifetime

And the night was our friend

Remember when:

Evil was only fiction

Goodness was unambiguous

Fantasies were harmless escape

Dreams were untapped potential

And hope shaped our futures

Remember when?

Good Night and God Bless

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

"Darkness On The Edge Of Town.................."

Good Evening;

Well....I'm at the coffee shop and it's just turning the corner from afternoon to evening. I am loving the cooler nights and warm to hot but not excruciatingly so days, though I still hate the humidity. BUT!...this thing with the Sun, the whole slowly but inexorably getting just a little darker a little earlier with each and every passing day! This has to be stopped!....LOL!

I'm okay with taking a little daylight off the front end, 'cause there's no real reason to be awake before 7:00 am. anyway. I'll even settle for a 2 hour twilight, but the approaching gloom of darkness encroaching upon my already unstable psyche at 4:30 pm. is just unacceptable! Between NASA, The Pentagon, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg-George Lucas-Disney/Pixar, Walmart, The Pope, & Carlos Slim Helu....(never heard of him have you, from Mexico, he's the richest man in the world....74 Billion, give or take a few zillion...Google him, you'll see.....lol!)....something should be able to be done!

So I woke up every hour or so last night with back pains and spasms, and not enough 'bupe' left to take an extra, or early, dose because I won't be getting more until tomorrow, and though it not addictive in the sense of chasing it for a high, it does build up a dependency that precludes stopping one from taking it completely all at once, so I had to save my last quarter of a tablet until later tonight or early tomorrow. The Ibuprofen acts as an analgesic in part and anti-inflammatory, but does not work fully enough. The cyclobenzaprine helps with the spasms some but again not fully, and I don't want to increase the amount or the frequency, or step up to the next level of m.r./tranq. for alot of reasons. At this point I'm just hanging on until the combination of individual pain nodes in back, neck, shoulder, foot, and abdomen goes from really annoying to 'F*ck This' to take the last 'bupe'. I have to call Monkee back in the morning when the pharmacy is supposed to have a new delivery, and be filling scripts. And unless it is really pouring, (forecast says scattered/isolated T-storms), I'm going to force my self to stop at JAI in East Baltimore, near Hopkins, to see about meeting with the person there who my doctor says can get me into a maintenance program for 'bupe' there without all the unneeded withdrawal/detox bullshit....how hard can it be for someone to comprehend that I'm not doing dope, that I have not been doing dope for years, that I have done the whole 'kicking it' rigamarole myself and weened down to minimal levels already, and with my doctor's blessing, want to stay on a long term maintenance program....AND ENTER AT THIS POINT!

Well, we'll see..........

I splurged on foods I really, really like at the Giant today, regardless of fat/carb/calorie content. I am at a point where if I don't stop eating and lose some noticeable weight, quick as possible, I'm going right over the edge of the abyss that I'm perched on right now. There is so much extra exterior and interior bullsh*t, stress, pressure, depressive and addictive triggers, above and beyond those I have mentioned, analyzed, bitched, moaned, and whined about that suicidal ideations have taken a back seat to a variety individual and combinations of self destructive, instantly gratifying, consequence ignoring, (because, WTF!, I'm going down one way or another so why not 'crash and burn' and 'go down in flames anyway), thoughts, ideas, actions and activities.....to the point that the next clueless bastard whose biggest worry is which new smart phone to buy,... who tells me to 'snap out of it, things could be worse'...may eat his teeth.

Yes, intellectually, I am aware the knowledge that there are those who are worse off, and as shitty as things get there are things and people that I am so grateful for it chokes me up and brings me to tears. But when deep inside you KNOW it will never get any better, and 50 years worth of voices inside your head, (both yours AND others), start repeating 50 years of commentary on your failings and failures......one's self worth tends to take a beating. And the facade of the ego that tries to project the confidence and ability that other people, (less familiar with the hidden intimate details of the dark places in one's soul and mind),..people, who are always telling you that you have what you know you don't.....but just have become real good at faking......that facade doesn't just start to crumble, but like a volcano holding back years of hidden pressure beneath the peaceful, supposedly dormant crust of it's caldera.....that facade begins to explode, shattered into millions of jagged burning edges that not only cannot be reassembled, but in their short violent lifetime erode and destroy everything that existed before....leaving a dead, desolate, smoking crater.

And I'm here swinging in the wind, vacillating between fear and anticipation, relief and anxiety, desire and defeat, reluctance and release.....

And honestly don't know whether I want to be like a Phoenix;

resurrected, reborn, and renewed......

Or Ourobos;

forced to destroy the world and consume myself,

only to repeat the cycle endlessy....

Yeah, you could say my head's in a bad place today.......

.......if only all the voice's would shut the F*CK UP! and the dead would stay dead,

I might be able to get a little rest, a little peace,

and even though I don't deserve it, a little grace......

Later...........................?..............................Dave