This morning a local group donated bags and bags of personal care items.
Some of these will go to the homeless folks who pass through our house. The rest will go to other poor people in Worcester.
Patrick, sorting: “Check it out! Electric toothbrush!”
Mike: “You know that scene in movies where they get into the vault, and find the ancient treasure? This is just like that!”
Justin: “But with toiletries.”
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
Update: And Roto hits Boing Boing with DNA goodness. An even happier St. Pat’s.
Mr. Ellis does not agree with our festive attitudes. Well, duh. He’s Mr. Ellis.
Roto’s DNA goodness. Fave quote:
(Kurt Revis tipped me off this morning, but the BoingBoing mention is the cherry on the sundae.)
I don’t know Paul Rothemund in person, but have read his (single-author!) DNA-origami article in Nature which is mighty impressive.
I was in Worcester in the late 80’s. camped out at Sturbridge and worked all around the area one summer with a coiuple friends of mine. THey was a nice park there and I thought it was a pretty poor place in the city but I did remember a nice Indian restaurant by the University there, Holy Cross maybe? This fall I was in Boston visiting the Haley House people. I admired a lot about their operation.
I never figure out the right place to write here so I’ll just tack something on here. Words tossed out in the wind cause I’m lonely and don’t really have anyone to talk to about it. I’m about to be homeless again. I’m not sure what to do about that or where to go.
I was homeless for more than a year in 2003 and 2004. I stayed with my sister for part of that time and one of my daughters in Texas and then some old friends in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
I ended up that way because I stopped caring about whether I lived or not. I couldn’t find a reason to continue on. I relocated from Florida to ARkansas and never even looked for a job really. A couple times but it never worked out. I guess carpenter/truckdriver guys have trouble making the transition to MBA/CPA types. So I went to see my sister in California. And after a long time of her and going to see where my mom was buried and then my daughters and granddaughters. I found a reason again I thought. Oh I loved feeling their arms around me and mine holding them. Even though they sent me away from them in Texas I had an opportunity for a job with the state in a little while and I took it, moving to Little Rock.
It was very hard. I only about $200 left and nowhere to stay. And lots of old bills from before and no credit anywhere or with anyone. I had sold my car. All my things were in storage and I owed a lotta money on it. But I had this dream that if I could just get set up my daughters would start coming to visit me again and I could be part of their lives. It’s so hard when no one hugs you anymore after a lifetime of children and family around you.
But the train comes from where they are in Texas and it’s only about a 5 hour ride. I was sure I could do it and I did. I recovered everthing and paid off my utility and those type debts so I could get a carriage house after a few months and it was only a short walk to my work then. I wrote them all and sent cards and gifts and money for their birthdays and so on. At the summer I talked to the two younger ones at home still and arranged for them to come stay with me with a couple weeks. Then their mother intervened and said it would be better to wait until she came back from Maine with her newest husband. And then the older sisters needed them as babysitters and it all came apart.
I tried again at Christmas and it was the same thing. Initial enthusiasm followed by unraveling for this reason or other. I lost my job at the fall. It was just too political and I failed to appear at a hearing. The adversaries were protesting my positions and with my background as from the Vietnam war and I started freaking out. I hid from it and just didn’t go back. I had saved most of my money and I’ve been hiding since.
I rarely leave the building since the police harassed me for walking. It scared me I guess. Now my lease is up and I am low on funds and I am losing my reasons for being alive again. I think about doing different things. Sometimes I think about Oregon. I like the coop there in Portland, the Alberta storefront. I think about wandering up and down the pacific coast. Or finaing some buddhists to work with or maybe even a CW farm
I’ve thought going to my birthhome in Indiana. don’t have any people left there but I love the rivers that come together in that place, the Elkhart and the St. Joseph’s. I consider doing this and that. I have CW friends in Virginia. I’m drawn the effort in NY. I went to the farm there once in 85 I guess and we almost moved there then. I’ve lived a full life. Done so many things, anything I ever dreamed I carried it out usually.
I believe in cooperative living and hate the corporation and the modern business world but people don’t seem to like me much either. So it’s a mixed bag there. I’m a Vietnam veteran and I’ve never been right since but I hate them and never asked for a single thing. And too I was discharged as a CO after deserting and it would be a surrender to go to them now and say I can’t make it by myself any more.
I think about Buddha and Jesus. They went out and walked the land and they survived and were taken care of and told people there was a better way. I think about that. Just abandoning everything and shedding who I am and walking off. It would not be hard. I just don’t have much good news to share. I used to think god was love like St. John said but I doubt it anymore. I’m pretty sure god hates me. If there is a god at all. Anmd I’m not like Job at all I was not the best of all men so I can’t really complain.
Or I think everthing is god and it’s dispassionate and we just live and then we die. If I did go to heaven, who would be my family there anywways? those people don’t like me around them any more.
well, I wish I knew what to do but I haven’t seen it yet. I have trouble getting in motion unless I can visualize the path. My health is mostly okay except my teeth are bothering me. I don’t care too much about that. All I wanted was to hold my children and be an old man with them around me but that dream is done. I don’t why I wrote this or troubled you with it. I guess cause I don’t have many people to talk to. I don’t really talk to anyone. I wish I could find something to believe in that wasn’t so lonely. I’m about to give up believing in myself. In a day or two I’ll probably just walk out the door and catch the bus to the end of the line and keep going. Or take the train somewhere where I think I could find it again. I wish I knew. I wish I cared.
I hate this war and everything we becoming. I don’t want to see my children and their children’s lives destroyed in a cataclysm. So many things I remember that I can’t hold on to anymore. Thanks for listening to me.
Steven