"Nuke 'Em All!..................."

Good Evening;

 Well, last night was spent tossing and turning in a restless, oft interrupted sleep. Don't know why, was just waking up and looking at the time every 25 minutes it or so it seemed.
Went past Monkee's and grabbed a couple 'bupe' to hold me until Wednesday, then came here to the coffee shop to be able to use the microwave at Whole Foods to cook off the couple Brown 'N Serve sausages, Chicken tenders, and breaded veal patties so they could be eaten safely and not wasted or give me salmonella, et. al. ....lol. One veal pattie for tomorrow, and some coffee cake that was donated instead of being trashed/wasted.....then it's the Dunkin' Dumpster tomorrow night.

It's been raining off and on and my joints are killing me, I'm so stiff and sore I make the Tinman from 'The Wizard Of Oz' look like Mary Lou Retton......LOL!

Closing Time Again.......

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

"Apologia...................................."

Good Evening

Well, loyal reader, I apologize for the recent lack of frequency of posts.
Between the mental stresses of Jenn's recent illness and dealing with the grandkids and the worry at her slow recovery and the frequent last minute calls of "can you come up....now", and the emotional bungie jumps of dealing with a batsh*t crazy in-law, NOT my own.....

And a steady decline in my own physical health, probably partly linked to the above, and the uncertainty of not knowing when the shed will be demolished and having nowhere yet to go....
And the Twitter project I signed on for.....

Writing has been a chore not a pleasure.

The coffee shop is closing, see you tomorrow with more details;

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

"Rain, Rain, & More Rain, Then Back On The Train......................."

Good Evening;

Well after getting back from Jenn's Saturday, I dropped Rachel off to her Mom at Mt. Washington and wandered over to the Starbucks, just in time for about 36 hours of heavy rain which kept me in the shed, (by choice & circumstance both), Saturday night and all day Sunday.
I only left the shed twice to go over to the Giant to use the commode, and get some hot water for coffee, to wash up a bit, & grab some food.
Having bout 90 minutes charge on the portable digital TV, I waited until 8:30 pm. Sunday night & watched my latest syndicated addiction, "The Big Bang Theory" reruns until 10:00 pm. Prior and subsequently I either slept or, having a large supply of AAA batteries
for my tiny but amazingly bright LED flashlight, read and finished my latest non-fiction favorite author's biographical/historical memoir "Mile Marker Zero" about Key West and it's literary residency, from Hemingway  to Tennessee Williams, and in particular the group of writers/artists/musicians who lived and played there in the decade of the '70s, from Thomas McGuane to Jimmy Buffett.
And ate and slept some more

I got up and out about Noon, hit the Giant and shaved and made coffee, and went to RiteAid to drop off prescriptions, and then stopped at the library.

I was just leaving the library on Monday afternoon when I got a text asking "where are you and how soon can you get to the Hunt Valley Light Rail terminus. 

She is in pain and feeling miserable and the latest antibiotic does not seem to be working,.....so, here I am again watching the grandmonsters in Monkton.

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

"Who'll Stop The Rain....................&..................Snort, Cough, Slobber...Huh? What? Snore........................."

Good Evening

Well I'm back in Baltimore and at the coffee shop packing up to head back to the shed after 3 nights at Jenn's in Monkton, 2 of which Rachel was with us. The grandmonster's had a great time with her and the feeling was reciprocated, and I was able to spend a little time with her....when I could pry 4 year old Devin away....lol!
 Jenn is feeling like sh*t still and the new antibiotic she's on has been adding to the misery, some of the side effects are hell on the stomach...etc.

It just stopped pouring, after I predicted we would miss the T-storms tonight when I looked at The Weather Channel interactive radar map.....WRONG!.....LOL.

I'm looking forward to the next 24-36 hours....NOT! A day or so of steady, hard at times, rain may be good for the reservoirs and plants, etc., but not the poor old shed....or all of us who have to rely on the MTA.

I got some sleep last night in 3 strangely timed periods, (not counting waking when the oxygen loss from my sleep apnea woke me), first falling asleep over the keyboard in the recliner about Midnight to 1:30 am., then from 2:00 am. to 4:00 am. when I woke up and zombied up the stairs to get the laundry out of the dryer and rearrange Rachel and Devin so their toes were not in each other's nostrils, and again from 4:30 to 11:00 am, (with a brief surge into consciousness when Tom passed by on his way out at 8:30 am.), when Jenn woke me and told me she wanted to leave to drop Rachel & I off at the L.R. in an hour.
So why am I so tired that I started to drool and fall asleep on the paper while doing the crossword puzzle a short while ago?.......lol!

Anyway............gotta run,

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

"Catching Up & Passing Out......................."

Good Evening;

So......as you've probably noticed the posting of late has slacked off a good bit. Between just not feeling it and the damn keyboard making it feel like a chore due to some of the keys sticking half the time, and the rut I seem to have fallen into, plus the amount of time I have been spending at Jenn's due to circumstances beyond my control once I get here.....well,......meh is about it for enthusiasm.

Same goes for the Twitter gig too,and even more so. While our little blog here has morphed into a general, rambling, at times random,all encompassing conversation of my life, the tweets are supposed to be more focused on living on the streets and homeless issues. Some days I have nothing relevant to say.

And I've lost some of the pure pleasure of writing for it's own sake.
And with all that out of the way, a little catching up:

I'm back at Jenn's, arriving Wed. night for  Thursday morning monstersitting duties, and again it has been extended, first through Thursday night, then through Friday night into Saturday afternoon. Jenn picked Rachel up yesterday, (Thur.) afternoon and she is spending the night. She was able to play with Devin and Ed and we got to spend some time together too.

Jenn is still in pain from the surgery and is on another antibiotic because of either a new infection or the previous one mutating an becoming resistant. Add in a yeast infection and she is one unhappy camper.
I can relate because the lower back pain is getting to a point where it is at times overriding all other thoughts and actions.
Sleep is nothing but a mythical creation that doesn't really exist. The closest I come is when the body shuts own every few days from exhaustion.

And it is about to do that now, so....

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

Life on the streets: What to do when most of your choices are bad? | Speak for We

Good Evening;

A link to an article on the "Speak For We" website;

Life on the streets: What to do when most of your choices are bad? | Speak for We

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

"Back In Black(Berry)................"

Good Evening;

Well............It's been almost a week since my last post here on the blog. Part of that has been because of my cycles/rhythms/routine/sleep patterns are shot to hell from spending 11 of the past 16 nights at Jenn's, ( & the craziness up there which I'll hit on later), which has the depressive cycles out of whack too, partly because I now have a Blackberry knock off from AT&T as part of my participation in the HEaR ME Tweet & Tumblr Project of the Johns Hopkins School Of Public Health.

Damn.....got a ride...gotta run......more soon,

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

P.S. Twitter ...=...Dave@HomeLessCide

"Sleeping & Peeping ..............................Gift From A Goddess .......................A Little Bird Told Me.....(Or....Rockin' Robin....[All The Little Birdies Go Tweet Tweet Tweet]..)........."

Good Afternoon;
Well weatherwise it has been a great couple of days, if slightly more March than April. Sleeping in the shed has been pretty comfortable, even in the erratic periods I have been sleeping and waking.

Today I was up at 5:30 am. to run over to the gas station to use the bathroom, (on Sunday it was 3:30 am.), and fell back asleep until 8:30 am. I had no pressing reason to get up so I dozed on and off until nearly Noon catching up on the sleep deficit I have been running recently. When I was about to leave the shed I looked out some of the cracks and crevices, doing my usual surveillance before leaving. Just to avoid any possible confrontation or misunderstanding if anyone was out there. Good thing I did because there was a police car sitting in the lot 15 feet from the door. There must have been a shift rotation or influx of cops from another district because in the past 2 weeks there have been more incidences of patrol cars sitting in various places in both parking lots, one hidden from traffic, the other hidden from sight in general, than in the past 3+ years I have been there. Even though I was told I may stay in the shed, I still get paranoid around the cops......old habits die hard I guess.

I forgot to mention something that happened here at the Starbucks on Saturday afternoon/evening when I got back from Jenn's. A young woman whose name I cannot remember for the life of me, and have not seen for a while, came in and said Hi an we chatted for a while. She is either an intern, med student, or may be a doctor by now an I mentioned her in previous posts, (though I can't remember which ones, other than that it has been quite a while back), and I remember introducing Rachel to her. 
After she went to the counter she stopped by my table and handed me a $20.00 Starbuck's gift card, out of the blue, just saying, "this is for you". Well I was surprised an caught off guard and tongue tied and could barely get out a thank you. I'm going to have to take the time to search the archived posts....(Now I really wish I had a battery that held a charge!)
Many, MANY thanks.....and I WILL find your name..... ;-)
Today I got an e-mail from  doctoral student at JHU with an invitation to participate in the HEaR ME Tweet & Tumblr project. In exchange for basically doing what I have been doing here at my little "Exercise In Exorcism", only tweeting it also, I get the use of a GoPhone smart phone and unlimited talk/text/internet for a year. I am in the process of setting up a face to face to find out more.......stay tuned.....
Same Bat Time....Same Bat Channel

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

"Passed Over Or Passed Out......................"

Good Evening;

Happy Easter & Chag Sameach Pesach
to everyone, choose as appropriate.
And for the Pagans - A Joyous Eostre
And not to leave out the Atheists - Bah, Humbug!

Well I'm sitting here in the coffee shop trying to claw my way up out of the pit of depression I've fallen into. Like the sand pit trap of an ant lion, every time I try to climb up the walls, the sand, which is at it's angle of repose, begins to fall back in towards the center, knocking loose my grip and tumbling me down to the bottom.

I have an invitation to a second Passover seder tonight that I really want to go to, but the anxiety and paranoia are outweighing the desire and motivation at this point. I just don't know anymore.....

I was back at Jenn's on Thursday night so I could watch Edward on Friday when Tom and Jenn took Devin to the E,N,&T doctors at Johns Hopkins on Friday, then back in town that evening. My sleep patterns and schedules are way out of whack as are my meds schedules, and this as much as anything else is contributing to the emotional and mental instability I feel right now. Add in the trip to the E.R. this morning when I fell in a certain store (which asked not to be named, and whose mgr. insisted on calling the EMTs, even though I told her it was due to no fault of the property, or employees...etc., just to cover herself with corporate HQ, so I went as a favor to a friend) when my right knee locked up then gave out, and I'm just a bundle of raw nerves.
After the radiology dept. finished turning me into a glow worm the consensus was that there were no breaks etc. and (as I predicted to the techs) it was the result of cumulative Degenerative Joint Disease, and a combination of the way I had my weight placed, and the angle of my knee, and my balance...etc., etc. causing bones and nerve endings that should not occupy the same points in space and time to meet. This had the predictable result of introducing Mr. Face to Mr. Floor, via a bounce of Mr. (left) Shoulder, which was weighed own with my duffel bag. (And when the doctor, a native of Guatemala, examined and rotated my shoulder, she said the sound and feel of the bones grinding in their sockets made her homesick because it was just like when her grandmother used to grind maize for their tortillas on the  centuries old milling stones in her village......lol.....ouch.) Again, it was D.J.D. and not a new injury, but cumulative, 'progressive', (ha! not the kind of 'progress' I really want...lol), damage.

Anyway, as you've noticed I have not been posting as often or as much in recent weeks. Between the ennui, the lack of creative spark, the stress of not knowing when the shed is going to be leveled and the lack of success at finding alternate living space, being caught in the middle of Jenn's family drama half the time when I go up there, 

(make up a 5 element Venn diagram, Jenn, Tom, Grandmonsters, His Mother, & Me, [and sprinkle with randomly moving spots representing 5 cats and a dog] and while it makes a beautiful star or flower like pattern.....the convoluted social interaction intersections will make your head explode trying to sort them out.....imagine being part of them!...lol....and again,.....ouch!),

and "the usual suspects" conglomeration of physical and mental issues, guilt, worry, fear, etc....well some days I don't want to write at all, some days I can't write but want to, some days I feel guilty about not being entertaining enough.....and on and on.

Anyway, that last paragraph-run on sentence got away from me and it's near closing time.....
And where did this bottle of vodka come from?

Really, someone must have stuck it in my bag while I was in the bathroom!

Well..

Waste Not-Want Not!

Later...................Dave
 

"The Pit And The Pendulum........................."

Good Evening;

Well after 2 nights back at the shed I'm at Jenn's again for the second night.

Got to sleep Saturday night about 1:30 am. and woke up about 8:30 am to run over to the Giant and use the bathroom. I went back to the shed and lay back down and slept until 5:30 pm. Sunday. I got up and scraped and scrounged around for dinner, went over to the back of the library, charged the TV and ate. When the TV was charged I crawled back into the shed and the sleeping bag and watched TV for 90 minutes until the battery lost it's charge, then went bck to sleep about 11:00 pm.
I was up at 7:30 am. Monday and out by 8:30 am. and puttered around the Giant for an hour or so then went over to the library and hung out until I ha to leave to go to Hunt Valley to meet Tom at the Light Rail, at 4:30 pm.

We went back to their house and I watched the grandkids last night and today while Jenn was at the doctors and while she tried to get some rest.

They may or may not be going out tonight, but I'm staying here either way as I have clothes being washed and it will be too late to leave when they finish drying.

With Jenn being on a pendulum swinging between pain and loopiness, and different meds bringing out different moods, Edward home all day for Spring Break, Tom on his own lesser, but louder and more explosive pendulum swings, Devin being a 4 year old, the tinge of insanity and senility that is beginning to emanate from "upstairs", and my own ongoing slide into a depressive phase plus being caught up in the middle of a 3 way tug of war between Jenn, Tom, and his mother........the tension here at times gets so brittle it seems like a crystal goblet ready to shatter at the very next sound.

Today had it's peaceful periods though, Jenn and Tom were at her doctor's appt., Tom's mom was out for a doctor's appt. and then again later also, so once I was able to get Edward to pull his head out of his ass and stop acting up and out, there were a few hours of peace.

Gotta run...................poopy diaper to change

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