Homeless Chronicles: A Day in the Life of the Newly Housed

Hey boys, I woke up like this. At the ass crack of 12:34pm. Yes I sleep in my glasses. Yes, I complain that they're all bent out of shape. Check out my awesome shark pillow. Nine months ago I was living on the streets of north Philly. I almost died, but my mom came and got me and took me to the hospital. They almost had to amputate both my arms and my left leg due to a bone/soft tissue infection. I had a serious heroin problem on and off, mostly on, but had been trying to get back on my feet. A little while after I lost my house, I fell off the wagon and ended up with my body parts rotting off due to living on the sidewalk and in abandoned houses in the ghetto. And the whole IV drug use and crack smoking. Now I live with my mom and her boyfriend back in New Jersey and I am starting at the local school here. Once I finish the year I'll have my associate's degree and will be heading down to Texas to go to Texas A&M for marine biology.

Afternoon breakfast of off brand rice crispies. Crispy rice. My favorite kind of rice. I had a job interview at 3:30 at the school. Normally I don't eat breakfast but I got nothing but time and my stomach has become a bottomless pit. I went from 95 pounds to 115 over the past nine months. I no longer look like a skeleton!

I live in a retirement community in the middle of the Pine Barrens of central/south jersey. We call pork roll "pork roll" and not Taylor Ham. I have never seen the Jersey Devil, but there are a lot of wasps at the community pool. I tried to save one once and it stung me twice. I learned that I am not allergic to wasp stings and that it hurts worse than an Emperor scorpion sting. The pool was cold and I only went in for a few minutes. Usually there's a lot of old people, but since it had apparently rained this morning, no one came out. I like to come here, go swimming for a few minutes and work on paintings.

This is the beginning sketch of a pumpkin patch painting I'm starting for my mom. She asked me to make one for her so I just got started. It's an 8x10" canvas with tube watercolor paints.

Here is the amount of work I got done. About 15 minutes for the sketch, and then another 15 minutes for the underpainting. I know you're not "supposed" to, but I like to sketch out the drawing before I start painting it. I'll draw it out, erase it so the lines aren't as prominent and use them for a guide for the painting.

Showered, and on my way to my job interview. Its for a lab assistant position and I saw this t-shirt months ago and wanted to get it but had no money for things like, clothes and food. I finally was able to get it with a commissioned painting I did of a T. rex for someone on Reddit. It says "Pipette Cry Repeat" cause if you've ever done a PCR...or at least if you're me...you do everything correctly and carefully and end up with shitty results cause you obviously didn't do everything correctly and carefully. PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction and it is when you take a section of DNA and replicate it millions of times over so that it's easier to analyze a specific section of DNA.

Arriving at my school so that I can go to the interview. I'm 38 years old, hanging out in the back seat because my mom's bf insisted on coming. He almost made us late cause he takes forever to do anything. He's in the very very beginning stages of dementia. *I* think. He may just be an idiot. Which is a very high possibility, but his mother has alzheimer's and it seems like he's not far behind. He likes to say disgusting sexual things to me that make me extremely uncomfortable, in front of my poor mom who does everything for him, and everything. My mom deserves better, but she is happy and I want her to be happy. Her bf can't drink anymore, because he had a seizure in his 18 wheeler at work and drove through the front of a restaurant. He's not allowed to drive for another 6 months so I've been stuck at home with him nonstop. I try to just not be in the same room cause his endless Trump rhetoric and dumb questions and then when I answer his dumb questions, he challenges me anyways and I just can't stand him and okay I'm gonna stop complaining now. That's my mom on the left. She saved my life and has sacrificed so much to KEEP me alive and help me stay sober and do fun things with me and stuff and I owe her so much. She's the best.

And TADA! I GOT THE JOB! I will be working $20 a week for $15 an hour and since it's all financial aid, they don't take taxes out so I'll get the whole $15 an hour. I'm not an independent contractor, it's a work study program, so I don't know if I'll get a smaller tax return or what but I'll be making hopefully around $300 a week so I can put money away to get a car and a phone and pay back some of the debts I owe to people who have helped me out in the past when I was homeless. I also can't wait to become a pizza angel cause they kept me from starving quite often and I appreciate it so much.

Here's my old dog Hannah Montana House for tax. She passed away from osteosarcoma right before Christmas in 2018, but I had a dream about her a few days ago. She jumped up in bed with me and spent the whole night sleeping next to me in my dream. I miss her so much, she was my best friend and gave me a reason to keep going when heroin kept trying to convince me to not stay alive. I woke up and my mom's cat Mush was in bed with me but you can't pet her cause she will eat your face and soul all in one bite, so I'm glad I didn't roll over and try to hug her in my sleep or something.

So there you go. A day in my fairly boring life. Hopefully it will get a little bit more exciting starting next week when the semester starts. I can't wait. It's hard to believe that 9 months ago I was hours away from death, 6 months ago I couldn't use my hands at all after surgery and got kicked out of my school for having to drop my classes due to being in the hospital, and now I can paint and draw again, I have a bed of my own, a bunch of cats, a 3.7 GPA, a new job and in a year I'll be heading down to Texas to finish my dream of becoming a Shark Doctor!

#adayinthelife