Yes, I am actually alive.
I know I haven't updated this in quite awhile and I did leave it on a bit of a hangy note, and although a few folks do know what's going on with me, I thought I should fill you lovelies in.
Okay, lots to cover, so you may want to get a comfortable chair. My first few days of homelessness weren't terribly horrible. Three days spent in a hotel room that at least had basic cable and beds. Sure we were eating bologna for those three days, and the three days after that (our foodstamps were very nearly gone), but at least we were eating. After that we spent three nights in the basement of the apartment building we'd just vacated, effectively living out of the storage space, sleeping in broken chairs, and otherwise spending time listening to the radio and playing draw poker, which worked alright until someone ratted us out and it was posted that the door would be locked and the chairs were taken out. Was very much not amused.
After that we spent our one night out in the cold, which was less than fun. Slept in a parking garage, actually. And thus I learned a very important lesson: concrete will suck every last bit of heat from your body whether it's below freezing or not. Not a great night. The only sleep I really had after that night was an hour dozing in the chair at the library. I ended up looking up the address of a motel that our now-former neighbor had told us about, as the lady (and by now I use this term very very very loosely) occasionally took in homeless people and let them stay in the church she had on premises.
Well...
Sufficed to say, this place is best described as a shanty town and is run by a squat little ex-con (and ex-drug addict) Mexican toad who fancies herself a "pastor" and a savior of mankind even though the only thing she is after is everyone's money. This place is a haven for two four (I swear I could count before I came here) kinds of people: the criminals, the crazies, the druggies, and the desperate. Everyone here has either hit a run of bad luck and is so desperate they'll go anywhere there's a roof, is so mentally ill they cannot go elsewhere, is selling/doing drugs or is an alcoholic, or has a laundry list of wants/warrants. We've been staying in the "church," which is a goddamn laundry room every other day of the week, and for the first month we were sharing with a couple guys who, despite their rather colorful backgrounds and proclivities, turned out to be really good guys. Unfortunately they finally got sick of the "pastor's" (my personal pet name for her is The Cunt, or TC for short) tactics and split. As I understand it, Zeke's parting words to her were "We're sick of being your slaves."
This is literally what we are.
We work 8 hours a day for the right to a roof over our head. We are given no recompense besides this. We are treated no better than slaves, except perhaps that we're not currently being whipped. Anything that goes wrong is our fault. She will take full credit for everything we do right (like the Christmas dinner that Rhonda and I cooked that she goes around telling everyone she cooked). She will also claim anything you have is something you stole from her...while she and her family are stealing from you.
I have never in my life wanted to hurt another human being the way I want to hurt this female for what she does to myself, my father, and other people on a daily basis. The way she treats people is deplorable. The way she acts is nauseating. To hear her preach is painful, because not only does she not have any grasp of what the bible teaches (she is not an ordained minister), but cannot hardly read at all. And then she'll come back and tell you she's got four college degrees and had a 4.0 grade point average. The level of bullshit is unbelievable.
But sadly, until we can manage to find work, we're stuck in the pitcher plant. The only saving grace is that I've met some actually decent folks around here, and due to the fact that I, unlike the good pastor, am actually capable of being genuinely nice to people instead of just putting on a fake smile and a bullshit philanthropist story, I'm able to get along with most everyone except TC herself (which is not to say I'm incapable of bullshitting her when the need arises - that was actually the only thing that kept us from being thrown out in the middle of a big snow storm about a week and a half ago, actually).
So yes. Things are shit. Things have been significantly shittier since our churchmates split at the end of November, but yeah. Wish us luck please, because although I now get it - the Universe decided I needed to learn something and unfortunately they had to cut the legs out from under me to bring me to the right place to meet the right person who could tell me what I needed to learn - I still need to get out of this before I do something rash or get stabbed by a drunk/crazy person.
FUN.
Iluall.
Okay, lots to cover, so you may want to get a comfortable chair. My first few days of homelessness weren't terribly horrible. Three days spent in a hotel room that at least had basic cable and beds. Sure we were eating bologna for those three days, and the three days after that (our foodstamps were very nearly gone), but at least we were eating. After that we spent three nights in the basement of the apartment building we'd just vacated, effectively living out of the storage space, sleeping in broken chairs, and otherwise spending time listening to the radio and playing draw poker, which worked alright until someone ratted us out and it was posted that the door would be locked and the chairs were taken out. Was very much not amused.
After that we spent our one night out in the cold, which was less than fun. Slept in a parking garage, actually. And thus I learned a very important lesson: concrete will suck every last bit of heat from your body whether it's below freezing or not. Not a great night. The only sleep I really had after that night was an hour dozing in the chair at the library. I ended up looking up the address of a motel that our now-former neighbor had told us about, as the lady (and by now I use this term very very very loosely) occasionally took in homeless people and let them stay in the church she had on premises.
Well...
Sufficed to say, this place is best described as a shanty town and is run by a squat little ex-con (and ex-drug addict) Mexican toad who fancies herself a "pastor" and a savior of mankind even though the only thing she is after is everyone's money. This place is a haven for two four (I swear I could count before I came here) kinds of people: the criminals, the crazies, the druggies, and the desperate. Everyone here has either hit a run of bad luck and is so desperate they'll go anywhere there's a roof, is so mentally ill they cannot go elsewhere, is selling/doing drugs or is an alcoholic, or has a laundry list of wants/warrants. We've been staying in the "church," which is a goddamn laundry room every other day of the week, and for the first month we were sharing with a couple guys who, despite their rather colorful backgrounds and proclivities, turned out to be really good guys. Unfortunately they finally got sick of the "pastor's" (my personal pet name for her is The Cunt, or TC for short) tactics and split. As I understand it, Zeke's parting words to her were "We're sick of being your slaves."
This is literally what we are.
We work 8 hours a day for the right to a roof over our head. We are given no recompense besides this. We are treated no better than slaves, except perhaps that we're not currently being whipped. Anything that goes wrong is our fault. She will take full credit for everything we do right (like the Christmas dinner that Rhonda and I cooked that she goes around telling everyone she cooked). She will also claim anything you have is something you stole from her...while she and her family are stealing from you.
I have never in my life wanted to hurt another human being the way I want to hurt this female for what she does to myself, my father, and other people on a daily basis. The way she treats people is deplorable. The way she acts is nauseating. To hear her preach is painful, because not only does she not have any grasp of what the bible teaches (she is not an ordained minister), but cannot hardly read at all. And then she'll come back and tell you she's got four college degrees and had a 4.0 grade point average. The level of bullshit is unbelievable.
But sadly, until we can manage to find work, we're stuck in the pitcher plant. The only saving grace is that I've met some actually decent folks around here, and due to the fact that I, unlike the good pastor, am actually capable of being genuinely nice to people instead of just putting on a fake smile and a bullshit philanthropist story, I'm able to get along with most everyone except TC herself (which is not to say I'm incapable of bullshitting her when the need arises - that was actually the only thing that kept us from being thrown out in the middle of a big snow storm about a week and a half ago, actually).
So yes. Things are shit. Things have been significantly shittier since our churchmates split at the end of November, but yeah. Wish us luck please, because although I now get it - the Universe decided I needed to learn something and unfortunately they had to cut the legs out from under me to bring me to the right place to meet the right person who could tell me what I needed to learn - I still need to get out of this before I do something rash or get stabbed by a drunk/crazy person.
FUN.
Iluall.