Tales From The Shelter – 31

Governor General Michaelle Jean has had her departing words from office.  Ya?  Well how come she never mentioned that she is solely reponsible for not obeying the Queen’s orders to deliver a letter and legal evidence from the Mohawk Clan Mothers that would start the process of first nations sovereignty???  Go back to Haiti, Michaelle…you are controvening Canada’s rights.

Prison chick has really pissed off Tele-tubby #2 because she put her laundry in the dryer and left it in over night….Tele-tubby wants to use the dryer so she was whining about it.  I told her to just take Prison Chick’s clothes out and put her own clothes in.  Prison Chick must be on warning here or something cuz the smell of marijuanna was coming from her room.  She doesn’t hang out with us much as has some prison boy boyfriend….right, good combo!  And that will help her on the road to recovery?  NOT!

New Chick said she used to speedball crack and heroine.  She comes to us from rehab and was only two weeks in the shelter (one day is enough of that place!).  She asked who else was doing recovery and Teletubby #2 said she was and allowed how her ex would bring girls home, not women, girls, and she was forced to sit and watch or join in (he’d beat the crap out of her if she didn’t cooperate).  she called it ‘sitting cock for rock’.  Seems there’s an awful lot of bizarre sex stuff that goes on if crack or meth are involved….some guys can’t get it up and some guys can’t ejaculate, so they try whatever they can to arouse themselves and the sex trade grows.  At least Ontario is becoming progressive about sex trade workers, realizing that arrest alone isn’t going to do anything to solve the problem.

Yeah, no kidding….the oldest profession in the world is just going to end by locking people up?  Nuh uh. And the drugs today are so highly addictive (three times and you’re out!) that more and more young women are turning to peddling their asses.  I’d say, ‘sucks’ but you might get the wrong idea :D.

I’m not sure what to do.  I got asked to go to a birthday party friday night for the friend of the Queen of the Caribean and it involves a live band and salsa music, and sounds oh so good.  BUT, I go to the sunshine coast on saturday and am afraid I’ll be too tired.  I’d love to go out and dance but the frickin’ party doesn’t start till 8, which means dancing probably won’t start till 10.  I know it’s not a heavy duty dilemna or anything but , good gawd, sometimes making decisions can be a bit weighty.  Oh maybe I’ll just go!

Fucking time enough for one more cigarette then off to the chiropractor.  My agoraphobia is acting up so even though it’s a beautiful day I haven’t been out yet.  Crap.

Tales From The Shelter – 30

Retarded Martha is deteriorating.  Practically no one will talk to her so she gets her boyfriend, ‘The Voice” to come over for supper in the cafeteria almost every night.  No one knows if he’s asked her to marry him yet.  Anyways, she’s been talking to herself more then usual and is now leaving her room door open all morning while she gabs away.

Tele-tubby #1 asked Martha to shut the tv room door after her and Martha asked why.  Tele-tubby said it was so she didn’t have to listen to her talk to herself as it was distracting from her t.v. show.  Martha got mad and said she wasn’t talk to herself, she was talking to god.  Tele-tubby said that saying, ‘well, maybe I’ll put these balloons over here then feed the fish” was not talking with god, that god didn’t want to hear inane conversation.  Martha was peeved and slammed her door.  We’re happy because maybe now she’ll keep her room door closed as we don’t like looking in on her ‘perfection’ and seeing her stupid fish that she never changes the water for.

I met one of the ‘Tamile Tiger boat people’  today, a friendly young woman who was studying law in Sri Lanka.  She left with her mother and brother to endure the high seas for four months as her father had been killed by the warring.  We’ll receive another woman tomorrow and I’m sure it won’t end there.  At any rate, I managed to print out a map of Sri Lanka to put on our ‘where we’re all from’ wall in the smoking pit.  I don’t know what it is about that wall but having the maps seems to bond us all and everyone loves looking at a new one when it goes up.

Meantime, Stinky Lady keeps telling the refugee women that we’re all racsist, even though she’s white, but the refugees are starting to figure it out and are talking to us now.  Stinky Lady was having a fit this morning as her bra went missing from the laundry room.  She accused Big Tele-tubby of stealing it, and even asked me if I took it.  Bad, bad, Stinky Lady, cause you did your accusations in front of our councillor and she gave you shit.

Who the fuck would want to steal one of Stinky Lady’s bras?  At five foot nothing she wears about a triple E cup and really, if she wanted to find it maybe she should look up in the sky someone might be using it for a parachute.  I’m serious, this woman has serious boobage.  Her bra probably reeks too….no doubt it got tangled up in a sheet while she was doing her laundry , but, no no no, we’re all bad , racist people so it must be us.

I have to dig deeper into some program some housing group is putting on that involves a study of while you’re housed there.  Supposedly it is pretty awesome digs around Pacific Blvd.  and one of the crack heads here scored a place there.  The guy who was telling me this is hopping mad as he says the crackhead dude is a serious user while he had his re-hab and stuck with it but didn’t get accepted on the swank digs list.  According to him there’s no particular criteria and the study is to see if secure housing helps people stabalize.  DUH!!!!   Sounds to me like some Campbell Liberal hack developer got caught in a real estate glitch so secured a grant to help him pay for his mistakes, while making it look like something good is being done.  I mean, really….can i NOT be cynical about something like this????

Good night, and please say prayers for Martha and Stinky Lady , I’d really appreciate it.

Tales From The Shelter – 29

What is freedom?  I always believed it was a state of mind, and perhaps that’s correct.  But that’s a tall fence to leap when the environment your in is not condusive to the very freedom you seek.

I’m on the island I lived on for the last 25 years.  It was pure escape getting here and  I’m savouring the semblance of freedom I do feel.  To pick up my guitar and play seems like a miracle in itself.  To pen the starts of a poem is unfettered joy and chopping wood is an exercise in utilizing all the senses.  I have opened up.  I am not surrounded by sterility and a frosted over bedroom window, blocking my view to what is attainable.  There are no video cameras on the ceilings, no books to sign in and out of that reveal our comings and goings if past the non sign-out curfew.

There is a fire blazing and the hearth is scattered with wood chips.  Smoke travels out sometimes to blast my nostrils with a soothing smell.  I hold the log poker in my hands and eye the beauty of a hand crafted iron implement and am amazed at the beauty of craftsmanship.  Confinement is, if nothing else, a lesson in appreciation.

The Queen of the Caribean has come along with me …she’s escaping from the new place she’s in, which is a home for refugee women.  She’s tired because she cannot sleep in the house as the rats make too much noise and she’s afraid of them crawling over her.  They have chewed up some of her boxes and soiled drawers.  The Queen is moving out at the end of the month to stay with one of her sons.  This means she will no longer have first hand help getting work and letting the whole immigration process take place, but better to be at arms length and the inconvenience of long bus rides then deal with vermin.

Gordie Campbell and Rich Coleman, you are so removed from reality it isn’t funny.  How much do you appreciate what you have?  My guess is you feel you deserve what you have.  Oh the ignorance of the ego.

I have been put in my place.  When will they be put in theirs?

Tales From the Shelter – 28

They may as well start World War Three…it would be over in just a few minutes.  I’m up for it.

Tales From The Shelter – 27

This is Stephen.  He is now around 40 years so probably doesn’t have too much of a hairline left.  He’s a schizophrenic living somewhere in Vancouver (probably downtown east side but ya never know).  His mother would really like to hear from him to see how he’s doing, it’s been a while.  She loves him and would like to be in his life.   He can contact the Salvation Army to leave a message for her.

FUCK!  I’m tired.  Tired of being tired, tired of being sick, sick of being tired, etc. ad nauseum.

Four days to go to payday and some of the gals on our floor are hovering like vultures.  I’ve had it, I’m not giving out one more cigarette and I can’t stand the way some suck up to ya for one.  Barf!

Tele-Tubby One HAS to be doing crack.  I mean, every few nights she’ll go out to meet her boyfriend and she comes back in pale as a ghost.  It’s the pontificating about crack that really gives her away.  Teletubby numer two has to have another nickname, she’s given up on watching the idiot box, at least for now.

It’s been a few days since I last wrote.  The confines here are really getting to me and Bossy thinks she’s my wife or something, she wants to know what I’m doing every moment of the day and the other night when I was out having a smoke and plugged into my music she stormed out muttering , “I came all the way out here especially to hear about your day!!!”.  Ya?  Well too bad, you know that when I have my ear plugs in I don’t want to talk.  Now she wants to go somewhere on Saturday together and I’m thinking, ah….no!

The house phone is right across from my doorway and some people talk really loud, especially retarded Martha.  After having asked people to keep their voices down, Martha has been the only non-compliant so I moved the table back and reversed the chair to face a wall and not my door.  Martha changed the configuration back , so I changed it again.  Martha changed it again and  put a note on the table and chair saying not to move stuff around.  I moved ‘stuff’ again and left a note saying ‘Stuff will stop moving around when inconsiderate people learn not to talk so loud’.

The tensions are mounting here and it looks like Bossy and Martha are headed towards a blow out.  Summer is over, it’s autumn, we are going into hibernation mode and the weather has had us staying in more so the proximity to neighbours has narrowed.  I cried all day and night the other day.  Something has to give.

I went for my third appointment to an organization that’s supposed to help people with disabilities re-enter the job market.  Unfortunetly the organization is disabled.  My worker asked me if I was saving any money.  Heh?  Save money on $400 a month??? She looked at my job preferences and when she saw I put down advocacy work she told me a lot of people write that down but she doesn’t know of any courses available , and that some get work doing that but she doesn’t know how they find it.  Heh?

Then she asked about housing and I said I was still not in stable living conditions.  So she printed out places to rent from Craigslist.  I told her that room shares were not an option for me and she said I may have to.  Heh?  She printed out places that were $500/month or more and I told her I can’t afford that.  She said I had to pretend I was working and look at things that way.  Double Heh????  This woman obviously has no concept of what it’s like to live on a disability income.

She told me I’d be suited for retail sales or warehouse work based on my work history and what’s available.  Ya right, as though I’d be good at or enjoy being a sales clerk at Zellers (which she mentioned).  Get a grip woman!!!  Oh ya, and that would be minimum wage so, like, I am only capable of working part time so how’s that going to add up to pay over $500 in rent plus utilities?

This organization must be a Gordon Campbell philosophy of the poor.

I’m not going  back there.

The Three little pigs should be millions of slime who make up this wretched world but for now the biggest affecting me are Stephen Harper, Rich Coleman and John Baird (because he is and looks like a pig).

Tales From The Shelter – 26

Can’t help but love how I lit my cig on the Olympic Torch.

Things are heating up, the tension’s mounting as it’s 8 days to Welfare Wednesday and everyone’s broke, out of cigarrets, rolling butts, bumming and eating peanut butter sandwhiches for dinner.

Bossy locked herself in her room the last two days as she had no smokes and wasn’t fit for human consumption.  She came to the pit after Tele-tubby two lent her a butt rollie, and was she whacked out!  Looked like a hurricane played on her face and she announced that she had to go without food as a kid so she could do the same as an adult.

I put together some odds and ends of food, a pack of smokes and a couple of coin rolls, the latter she had handed back to me last month as said she couldn’t get over her pride and pay at a store with rolled change.  Said it was a childhood thing.

There was no choice but to put a note with it all that read , “Dear idiot, when we were kids we could go hungry because we were resilient.  Now we’re middle aged and you’re going to end up in the hospital which will be a pain for us to go back and forth visiting you.  Oh, and drop the selfish pride on the coin rolls because you can take them into a bank for paper money.  In fact, just drop a ton of shit and get over it.  You owe me nothing and I don’t want to hear anything about this”.

I knocked on her door and ran away but heard her read outloud and laugh at “dear idiot’.  It was enough to snap her out of things.  Maybe someone will do the same for me one day if I’m acting all loonie and all.

We have a new prison-chick.  Don’t know what she was doing time for yet but Big Tele-Tubby confessed to having spent a few years a couple of times in the Big House for theft.  She was at the poor people’s dentist the other day and was offered a job as receptionist.  Yay, I think she’ll take it, then we don’t have to hear about her aching everything all day….just at night when she gets back.

Big Tele-Tubby is getting tired of Little Tele-Tubby hogging the t.v..  Stinky lady is clever and somehow the tv on the refugee wing has ended up in her room.  I think our councillor just didn’t want to deal with her bitching.

We FINALLY got a table, after 5 months, and it’s round and not very high but does the trick.  There’s a stainless steel bowl stuck on it so we joked that it was really an art instillation and we were going to fill it up with chips then varathane it over.  Our councillor said it was supposed to have sand in it to act as an ashtray.  5 frickin’ months to get us a beat up table!

Meantime B.C. MLA Shane Simpson has posted on Facebook that Housing and Sociopathic Developement Minister Rich Coleman has shuffled aside a report demonstrating the housing crisis , and had the gaul to talk in a cheery voice that all is well.  Right, Coleman, maybe all is well for your ass and whoever your bending over for or who’s bending over for you, but I’d love it if you had the guts to come and speak to the woman of the 6th floor at the Silly Man hotel because you’d get eaten alive.

I just hope Coleman gets a good deal on Preperation H, cuz he must be sitting about three inches taller than he is from all the ass fucking he does and receives.  Whoopee cushion anyone?

A friend phoned today.  Her husband is in mining with a smaller company and the company is not understanding how the Chilcotin Tribe does not want a mine on their land and are threatening to show up on the road with shot guns.  My friend said she could see how the natives feel but didn’t they understand that mining is a necessity?  I told her she was stuck, like the company…..that we have enough scrap to last us decades and we have lots of alternative methods and materials like cob, straw bale, cordwood, log etc. for buildings ……and as for computers, who says they have to be like we know them, and we don’t really need copper in them…..if a young man has invented a wireless mouse that runs on thermal heat from a candle we can do away with a lot of things…..but we have to be willing to come unstuck.  Ha ha, it will be forced upon us.

I mean, da fuck, eh, we’re not even using compost toilets in the burbs.  Stupidos.

Things are opening up, I feel it, I taste it, something’s going to break soon and bust me out of here.  It’s my time, I know it’s my time.

Tales From the Shelter – 25

A shot of the penthouse I got put in after being bit by bed bugs in a hotel my family put me up in for two nights…not bad, eh? 😀

There’s a reason I’ve been taken down to ground zero and while living in my van was tough, the shelters no better and now the Silly Man Hotel – which is stressful living – I’ve managed to stabilize and come to grips with many of my issues.  After having worked on myself for gawd knows how many years with various shrinks, meds, psyche day care and the psyche ward, I have been, for the first time in my life, living on my own.

After high school , which I never did graduate due to non-attendance (booze and drugs were the order of the day), I went right into a living situation with my boyfriend (and future husband) and a couple of other friends.

Have I been acting co-dependant with the moniker of independant being thrown at me?  Yes, this paradox existed.  A saving grace has been that addiction was never an issue (save for smoking like a chimney).  I now have the task of trying to budget which is difficult for most bipolars , and I have a definite numbers allergy .

My faith is tested constantly but while I’ve been assaulted in a shelter, ripped off for my lap top and others trying to petty thug me into cigarettes or spare change, I’ve never lost hope.  That hope is there particially because SOME sembalence of social services still exist in this province, eroded as they are.  After all, this is still Canada and while not in it’s semi-socialist glory with conservative governments at the helm, it is a nation that holds some heart behind it’s  glossy bullshit propaganda pamphlets.

“Don’t force things, let it flow’…a teaching from a medicine person years ago.  and sure enough, clickety clack, things are falling into place…when I’m truly ready to move out and on I know housing will come through for me.

Big Tele-Tubby had a tooth yanked today and while in the dentist’s office was offered a receptionist’s job.  Will she take it, who knows,  but it is a wonderful demonstration of flow.  Applying for jobs all over hell’s half acre (reduced to 1/4 acre in these times of inflation, recession and high real estate…even the devil got hit) is like turning the faucet on and off.  To let the stream run it’s infinite course one merely has to follow one lead to another.  Thus we must look for the clues and ask the right questions…I suppose that’s why novels like Lord of The Rings and other quests exist.

Martha is getting desperate for attention again so is gabbing at 800 decibels on the phone so everyone can hear AGAIN how she’s had five careers (her last one being a ‘personal attendant’, which means she looked after an old man…that’s a career?).  New Girl still doesn’t have a nickname other then ‘new girl’ and she was warned by us that one of us is a universally dreaded person (U.D.P.).  To date she still talks with Martha and hasn’t complained about it.

New girl has complained about her window though, as it’s right beside the smoke pit and the powers that be won’t turn the light off.  New girl made black out curtains to no avail so yesterday taped a bunch of flattened cardboard boxes to her window.  It just so happens it NOT against any rules, and she’s sleeping now for the first time in two weeks.   We’re all quite surprised the tape job passed muster.

Little Tele-Tubby bought a smoke from me today and I’m thinking, oh shit, we’re at that time of month when people are jonesing for payday and us disability cases get hit up all the time.  Nothing like class wars amongst the down and out.   If it exists on this level how are we to end it on any level?  The welfare cases really resent us and the general public can’t understand why we aren’t able to work when we ‘look’ fine.

Bossy’s out at night classes now , I phone a mutual friend of Bossy and the Queen of the Caribean and it looks like the Queen has settled down some and she doesn’t hate Bossy anymore.  Also, the rats she complained about in her new place turned out to be mice, and not as many as told.  But then, a Queen is largely about drama, is she/he not?

I haven’t been interested in the news lately so don’t even know if that bugger-eyed group in the U.S. burned the Quran or not.  Bossy pointed out that Obama should have kept his mouth shut and had someone like John McCain appeal to the frantic lunatics….she’s probably right.

The moon is still in the sky, sirens are loud.  Clouds make pretty patterns and big trucks spew diesel.  This tiny, living organism called Earth continues on as do humans, for now.  And lest I leave anyone with a picture of doom amongst bloom, the prisoners on the third floor are having a jam session tonight – oh ya, they’re singing the blues!

Tales From The Shelter – 24

Liberals-Sniberals.  There’s a few things I don’t get. One is the census long form.  While every party and the public are protesting the Harper Government to get rid of it, when the Liberals were in power  just about every civil liberties group protested a manditory census all together.  Sometimes , it seems, we protest just for the sake of protest when it comes to an evil Prime Ordial.

Ever since t.v. wars, the tele-tubbies and stinky lady have been on their best behavior.  Stinky lady’s been sticking to her room and cooked something that smelled like chocolate instead of one of her dead flesh creepy meals.  Little tele-tubby had been engaging in converstion other then , “make sure to save your butt so i can roll a cigarette’.  This chick HAS to be doing crack the way she looks sometimes, her speedy , twitchy speech and running out of money only a week after welfare wednesday.

Big tele-tubby got the fast release wheel stolen off her bike, or so she claims.  It’s my own prejudice cuz she’s a ‘recovered’  crack ho too and somehow something tells me she knew she could flog the tire for a ten piece and get a used, free one from the bike shop that rebuilds bikes for poverty people.  I wish she’d stop her whining because there’s nothing worse then a sniveller who won’t do anything about their problems.  Dial 1-800-wawawa.

The Queen of the Caribean moved out to a house that has other refugee women and two workers who act as liason and resources for the gals.  The Queen is not happy because she says the house has rats.  She’s also not happy because  she left some of her library loan dvd’s with Bossy, and Bossy didn’t return them so Queen owes $5.  A fin becomes a large sum when your living on welfare and Bossy’s hopping mad because the Queen wants Bossy to pay the bill.  Bossy was trying to tell us all how the Queen is so spoilt and evil but I shut her down early…I wasn’t in the mood to take raw anger coming full force and shattering my energy field.

Today I volunteered at the bike place again…I really like it there…it’s my tribe (dykes), with tattoos and piercings.  My councillor handed me a sheet today that calls for people to become bike mechanics.  It’s a nine week course and I’m going to apply because I like working on bikes.  Did I tell you I had a pretend game in the garage when I was little and I called it “Bill’s Bicycle Shop’?  My friend and I would put chains back on bikes, raise and lower seats, and that’s about it but it was fun and we pretended to smoke cigars.

I had taken over that house, every nook and cranny was mine and each varying roll I played in whatever corner seems to have come true as an adult…like Bill’s Bicycle shop.  I think that house was magic.

Tales From the Shelter – 23

Holy Shit!  The nails and fur were flying last night in the television lounge as Stinky Lady had it out with Tele-Tubby!  Both are tube addicts , with Stinky Lady not liking white people (even though she’s Middle Eastern which = caucasion) , and Tele-Tubby being a provoker and aggitator (yet going around telling everyone her and her boyfriend have to stop fighting because they have a baby …yet she’s picking scraps with him all the time).

I’m not sure what happened but it seems one wanted to watch one show while the other another .  All I know is suddenly there was yelling, shouting, shreiks, crying, more yelling and lord I thought it would come to fist-a-cuffs!

I was out on the smoking deck with Bossy, who went in and tried to no avail (duh!) to break things up, pointing out that everyone would lose t.v. priviledges if they didn’t  stop.  I’m not quite sure why Bossy cared because she doesn’t watch t.v., I think it was more a challenge for her to assert her bossiness.  At any rate, Stinky Lady went downstairs and contacted security, who came up and had a gander at things.

By the time security made it up things had quieted down, so everyone’s waiting for tomorrow when our councillor comes back.  My quess is she either revokes viewing priviledges or creates a sign up sheet.  Given the Silly’s track record of punitive action I’m guessing the tv may go.  Who knows, I don’t really care because I don’t watch it and Tele-Tubby watches it all day and night into the wee hours, tripping out slow on her methadone, doen’t look for apartments, work or anything.

Oh ya, Tele-Tubby told Stinky Lady in the heat of the fight that The Cook refuses to sit by Stinky Lady because she smells bad.  The Cook (so named as she used to be the Queen of free base) was all upset that Tele-Tubby divulged this, even though she’s Tele-Tubby’s t.v. partner.

Oy!  It was great excitement, fun for all who weren’t involved (a group of us stood outside the lounge listening in and laughing).  But it’s over for now and it’s anyone’s guess what will happen….oh boy, that means some anticipation for  tomorrow, and if i didn’t have a rotten cold I’d take bets on what the outcome would be.

Stay tuned 😀

Tales From The Shelter – 22

It’s a family occassion and I’m in an undisclosed city.  Everyone’s homes were filled up so the family paid for a suite for me in a 4 star hotel.  NICE!  Actually, I’m doing my best to stick to nice and punchout the thoughts of rejection…childhood esteem problems that carry on into adulthood have a way of sneaking up on you like cheap underwear.

This morning I woke up with bed bug bites.  Housekeeping came to examine my room and found the shell of a bug under the mattress and that’s enough for them to go into action.  I was moved into the Penthouse (oh boo hoo! that’s it, I now love these bugs!) and my clothes have been sent out for dry cleaning.

Funny how the Silly MAn has fewer problems with bed bugs then some of the top hotels around.  My suspicious side tells me the Silly sprays a fumagant into the air vents , which may explain why so many come down with strange allergies and sicknesses…or maybe I’m completely off the map and it has to be chalked up to close living quarters, chemicals used in cleaning, low immune systems due to stress, and further compromised by mental illness.

All I know is all the other shelters in Vancouver follow ‘bed bug protocol” and as soon as you enter they give you some donated clothes, send you to the showers, take all your clothes, suitcases, nap sacks etc., wash the clothes, put the other stuff in a huge plastic bag and spray the shit out of them.  The Silly is the only place I’m aware of that doesn’t do this.

Part of family discussion last night was the impending doom awaiting Gordy Campbell’s Liberals.  My father said, “People used to vote for competance vs. compassion, now their going to vote competance and compassion, and that’s the NDP”.  Quite the words from someone who was a conservative all his life but finally mellowed somewhat in his latter years.  Is it too early to say, “Hail, hail, Carole James?”.

Does the NDP have the capacity to create more affordable housing, pronto?  Afterall, they are just another party in my books, but the lesser of evils.  I do like Carole James but governance is governance and we still have the very system that is sick, sick, sick.  The Greens have the correct platform and policies to change the system and create sustainable governance but they’re like the NDP in their early days and need more time to come up to snuff.  But here I am talking about current affairs when 2012 awaits us….yes, I am a firm believer in the ‘end of the world as we know it’, so spending time on injustices is merely cathartic and paving the way for how we WON’T be governed in the future.  Heh, heh, people call me wacko for this belief but come the time….

I’m hungry but my agoraphobia is keeping me from going out to catch a bite.  Roomservice food is too expensive so I’ve worked my way into a corner.  Perhaps an extra tranquilizer will help?  That may quelle the notion of being rejected too.  Hell, I think I’ll order in, I’m not up to wandering streets.

Bon Appetite, Scout 😀

Tales From The Shelter – 21

It’s called ‘Learned Helplessness’ and applies to the Christian By Rote people here.  Feed them the bible with some condiments and perhaps a dab of chocolate on the Old Testament and , voila…instant  , helpless sheep.

While the Silly Man Hotel has done good for people over many years and around the world,  they are not truly helping by keeping people sucked in to their ministry.  There’s guys and gals here wandering about aimlessly between chapel and councillor time.  They can’t make their minds up, they praise the lord, and should they do anything wrong they attribute it to the devil.

It’s all too bizarre and cultish.  A couple of guys actually took the ‘brave for them’ leap and went to the next phase, transitional housing  a la Silly Man.  It was stupendous energy that got them out of here, but every day, they come back to visit. Every day.

It must be weird to be a lamb amongst the fold….perhaps they should look into permanent press to straighten those creases and actually help some to help themselves.

Stinky Lady has taken over the world!  Just outside her door are two comfy chairs, a table and an exersize bike.  She rearranged things (a big NO at the Silly) and uses the bike as a clothesline for her dryer.  She sits there waiting for her next pray, who is usually some younger person afraid to say no to someone older then themselves.

Stinky Lady has travelled the world and is a character indeed….unless you get trapped by her, then she babbles as much as Retarded Martha.

We’ve lot 3 women in as many days to Silly’s transitional house.  Damn, ‘Hola’ is gone, along with ‘Fat Lady with Glasses’ and ‘Artist woman’.  Hola is the one who will be missed as she was a regular at the smoking pit.  It’s interesting to watch the group dynamics change and see the power plays being made.

Good gawd, I’m tired of it all…think good thoughts or pray for me that appropriate housing comes along soon.  I may have to have a conference call with Mr. Nazareth.