Born to Shop
I am a sparrow
skeptical
in the grocery
eyeing pale fowl
and chowder
with lyric
abandon
attempting
getaway
hopeless
aisle and aisle
confounded
nowhere
to go.
*********************
You know, I'm really glad I decided to go to college after all.
The whole thing was made possible because I fell off a roof on Nov. 19, 2001.
It was on the job.
There were a lot of cool things about that job, but the pay wasn't one of them.
I was discouraged, broke, uninspired, hadn't had sex in two and a half years at the time.
In case you don't know, and I hope you don't, that's really stretching it. The whole idea of celibacy is vastly overrated.
My job was fixing everything that could go wrong in a 200 unit apartment complex. After working there a month, I could see that I would never have enjoyed living there.
They were shoddy apartments, furnished with crappy Army surplus desks and chairs.
A lot of the time I had to fix doors broken by enraged or drunken residents.
It was the cheapest place to live in Arcata, a place which apparently beckons young wanderers from around America. There were kids there from just about every state in the Union, excepting probably Alaska.
Why where they there? To smoke weed.
Even the mamagers were there to smoke weed.
They would send me off every week to buy them an ounce.
I could usually get it for 250-280. Sometimes I would pocket the change. I always pocketed a nice fatty for myself.
The day I fell off the roof, I was smoking Train Wreck under the shrubbery. I was good and stoned.
I couldn't actually get through a day at work there without smoking with several of the residents. They were all pretty generous with the weed. I would tell them funny stories in exhange.
Most mornings, one or more people would psst! at me as I was making the rounds with the rolling garbage can and the butt-snatcher. We called it Vespers. The morning toke.
I can't emphasize enough how completely weed permeated the atmosphere in that place.
A storm was coming. It had already been raining, and one of the rain gutters was plugged with leaves, despite the time I had already put into keeping them clean.
So I grabbed the ladder, extended it to its farthest point, and went up.
Two stories.
The wind came along when I was about one rung off the roof.
It was a long way down. The ladder started to slide and there was nothing I could do except try to hang on. I did until the ladder bounced off tthe wall.
My left foot was jarred loose and got pinned under the ladder. When I hit the ground I felt the ankle bend out, then my ass landed on it.
The fracture and the sprain were nothing compared to the injury sustained by flattening the entire ankle and foot under my ass.
I had to wait 5 days for the surgery because of the swelling.
At home in my little cabin with candlelight and books. Two kinds of pain pills. the rest of the bag of Train Wreck.
Then the doc put the plate and screws on the bone and sent me home.
What followed was an ordeal mostly of pain and extreme poverty, which lasted over a year, until I was awarded some cash.
I actually got most of the money in two lump sums last fall and this january.
I spent a lot of it on things like an expensive laptop and a digital camera.
They paid for me to go to school, also.
I have tried to make the best of the opportunity.
Now I'm making money as a journalist, something I did part time all along but never really extended myself on.
Now, also, my ankle is not really what it was. I can't go back to that kind of labor, but I don't want to try and survive on disability, which I am probably eligible for.
My goal now is to keep some of that money in the bank while I continue to pursue my career in journalism. It's fun but you have to keep working at it.
I do enjoy the sense of contentment that comes from knowing I won't go hungry this week.
That year of poverty and pain was a real bummer.
Accomplishing things and making friends at school has done a lot to alleviate the depression and sense of emptiness which used to pervade my every moment.
Growing a little weed every summer was one of my few consolations. There is nothing better than homegrown sinsemiilan.
Curiously, getting involved with this website has been almost as positive a force in my life as going to school and working for the local rag are.
Oh yeah, I have been laid since then. Not lately, but very, very, well. And not that long ago.
I am a sparrow
skeptical
in the grocery
eyeing pale fowl
and chowder
with lyric
abandon
attempting
getaway
hopeless
aisle and aisle
confounded
nowhere
to go.
*********************
You know, I'm really glad I decided to go to college after all.
The whole thing was made possible because I fell off a roof on Nov. 19, 2001.
It was on the job.
There were a lot of cool things about that job, but the pay wasn't one of them.
I was discouraged, broke, uninspired, hadn't had sex in two and a half years at the time.
In case you don't know, and I hope you don't, that's really stretching it. The whole idea of celibacy is vastly overrated.
My job was fixing everything that could go wrong in a 200 unit apartment complex. After working there a month, I could see that I would never have enjoyed living there.
They were shoddy apartments, furnished with crappy Army surplus desks and chairs.
A lot of the time I had to fix doors broken by enraged or drunken residents.
It was the cheapest place to live in Arcata, a place which apparently beckons young wanderers from around America. There were kids there from just about every state in the Union, excepting probably Alaska.
Why where they there? To smoke weed.
Even the mamagers were there to smoke weed.
They would send me off every week to buy them an ounce.
I could usually get it for 250-280. Sometimes I would pocket the change. I always pocketed a nice fatty for myself.
The day I fell off the roof, I was smoking Train Wreck under the shrubbery. I was good and stoned.
I couldn't actually get through a day at work there without smoking with several of the residents. They were all pretty generous with the weed. I would tell them funny stories in exhange.
Most mornings, one or more people would psst! at me as I was making the rounds with the rolling garbage can and the butt-snatcher. We called it Vespers. The morning toke.
I can't emphasize enough how completely weed permeated the atmosphere in that place.
A storm was coming. It had already been raining, and one of the rain gutters was plugged with leaves, despite the time I had already put into keeping them clean.
So I grabbed the ladder, extended it to its farthest point, and went up.
Two stories.
The wind came along when I was about one rung off the roof.
It was a long way down. The ladder started to slide and there was nothing I could do except try to hang on. I did until the ladder bounced off tthe wall.
My left foot was jarred loose and got pinned under the ladder. When I hit the ground I felt the ankle bend out, then my ass landed on it.
The fracture and the sprain were nothing compared to the injury sustained by flattening the entire ankle and foot under my ass.
I had to wait 5 days for the surgery because of the swelling.
At home in my little cabin with candlelight and books. Two kinds of pain pills. the rest of the bag of Train Wreck.
Then the doc put the plate and screws on the bone and sent me home.
What followed was an ordeal mostly of pain and extreme poverty, which lasted over a year, until I was awarded some cash.
I actually got most of the money in two lump sums last fall and this january.
I spent a lot of it on things like an expensive laptop and a digital camera.
They paid for me to go to school, also.
I have tried to make the best of the opportunity.
Now I'm making money as a journalist, something I did part time all along but never really extended myself on.
Now, also, my ankle is not really what it was. I can't go back to that kind of labor, but I don't want to try and survive on disability, which I am probably eligible for.
My goal now is to keep some of that money in the bank while I continue to pursue my career in journalism. It's fun but you have to keep working at it.
I do enjoy the sense of contentment that comes from knowing I won't go hungry this week.
That year of poverty and pain was a real bummer.
Accomplishing things and making friends at school has done a lot to alleviate the depression and sense of emptiness which used to pervade my every moment.
Growing a little weed every summer was one of my few consolations. There is nothing better than homegrown sinsemiilan.
Curiously, getting involved with this website has been almost as positive a force in my life as going to school and working for the local rag are.
Oh yeah, I have been laid since then. Not lately, but very, very, well. And not that long ago.
xip
Getting involved with this website has done a lot for me too. It's surprising. I wasn't expecting it.