I was as happy as a lark, early Monday morning, after having left the Uxi Duxi at their 8 PM closing time, bought eggs and flour and brown sugar at the big Rouses Market on Carollton St, which I dropped off at the apartment, at which time I noticed that it was 9:45 PM, and decided, why not go out and busk, since I had only 5 bucks, but had food for myself and Harold.
I played the old, beat up harmonica in the key of A, pushing myself to transpose some songs that I knew into that key ala Tanya and Dorise (Dorise claimed that they played in all 12 keys on any given day) taking advantage of the fact that I am not smoking pot now, and so can think better as far as keeping a 6 chord progression in my head, and things like that.
The rain stayed away.
I think I made just 8 bucks, but it was a promising outing which made me think that if it were a busy night, I could have made a hundred.
Monday
Monday came, and I was up first thing in the morning about 3 o' clock in the afternoon, and went over to the food stamp place, where I was handed a piece of paper and a pen and allowed to write a note to my caseworker, explaining that I work 30 hours per month and not per week, and they will hopefully increase my amount back to the 194 which typically ran out with about 10 to 12 days left on the month.
Then, I blew off a trip to the plasma donation place, even though I had spent my last 3 bucks on a shot of kratom.
I would go home and put the new strings on the guitar and start to break in the Susuki Harpmaster harmonica.
When putting the new strings on, one of the tuning machines which had begun to be difficult to turn, snapped a cog inside of it, rendering my guitar useless; as I sat there with new strings and a new harmonica (and potentially no way to earn the money to fix the guitar). This is why we set aside money and why we tell skeezers that, even though they just witnessed us pulling out a wad of money, we can't spare any...
Tuesday
This set Tuesday up to be a farce.
My all day bus pass expired at 3:39 PM.
I had a hard time waking up after less than 8 hours of sleep because, in preparation for donating plasma, I had eaten a lot of pancakes that I made with the flour and water and eggs and brown sugar and coconut oil. This made me lethargic upon waking up with plenty of time to make it to the plasma place, and I wound up sleeping until a bit after 2 PM.
I didn't feel quite myself until after a cup of coffee and a lot of shaking off of cobwebs.
They weigh you at the Octapharma place, and I had been almost ashamed of my weight being 130 pounds the first couple times I went there. This equated to 128 pounds, minus the heavy combat boots that I wear every time I go near black neighborhoods; this was the weight at which I graduated from high school at, as a skinny kid who was waiting to "fill out," or "come around," or have some kind of growth spurt, and hadn't yet learned that I wasn't gaining any weight because my body was rejecting the allergens that I was living off of, as part of the American diet ("If you don't drink at least an 8 ounce glass of milk three times a day; you'll be walking down the street one day and the bones in your legs will just snap in half").
10 years after that, I was 143 pounds of mostly muscle and living off of high protein; high carbohydrate, high nitrogen concoctions that came out of GNC, and never set foot inside any kind of "food place," at all.
This (Tuesday) afternoon, I weighed in at (133 pounds, minus the boots) up, 3 pounds over the last 5 days.
The pancakes would never have made my list of approved foods back in the 143 pound days, but the kratom that I do, besides inhibiting signals to the pleasure center (taking the joy out of heroin for those that use it that way) seems to kick down any allergic reactions that might have plagued me in the past -eggs used to make my scalp itch and give me dandruff; and eventually the skin that I scratched would break and I'd have scars that my hair-dresser would mention to me in the nicest way possible, as part of her duty as a hair-dresser.
Being brainwashed the American way she, of course, might recommend some kind of Selsun Blue shampoo or soaking my head in tar oil. But, if I stopped eating eggs (maybe just the yolks, I never delineated between them and the whites as being the cause) the problem would clear up in a couple weeks.
But, the kratom seems to allow me to be more tolerant of foods.
Before I left the apartment, I kept finding little things to do, so that it was almost 3 PM. before I walked out the door; went all the way to the trolley stop and then(D'oh!) had to go all the way back to get my umbrella . The hurricane had kind of slipped my mind, as it had been clear when I walked out, though it was raining earlier in the day; encouraging me to stay in bed and get a full "night's"rest -it was running down my window in sheets so it was like looking at Canal Street through a waterfall in the morning.
Then, I got to the bus stop, where I was informed by a (smiling annoyingly also) black lady that the 115 had just left.
Then, she added: "It's gonna be a while."
It wasn't going to be a while, it was going to be 20 minutes, and my all day pass would still be good. But, her words led me to believe that the 115 was running at 45 minute intervals, like it does sometimes (Sundays) maybe because of the hurricane, who knows.
I decided that, by the time it came, my pass would have just expired, and I would be informed by another smiling annoyingly black lady or man behind the wheel that I would have to buy another one, or I couldn't ride.
I decided that I would try to skeeze the 75 cents that I was lacking, rather than put myself in a position to be refused entry onto a bus full of black people who would be smiling annoyingly over the spectacle.
But, I refused to skeeze a perfect stranger, as there was someone asking for something on every single block.
I walked about a quarter mile to the Unique Grocery, where I stop after every night of busking and have not asked for any credit in a couple years, since I drank.
The one particular Ethiopian cashier that I am most friendly with wasn't working, and there were 3 long lines in front of all 3 cashiers. I decided not to put them in the position of wanting to lend me 75 cents but fearing the backlash from a gaggle of skeezers who might protest: "When I'm 10 cents short you tell me to get on down the road, I thought you didn't lend no money!"
I walked another 3 blocks to the Gallery of French art where Bilal works. He lent me 5 bucks for strings about 2 years ago, when I drank, and I had paid him back $7.50, the next evening, telling him that I had invested the 5 bucks in raw materials (strings) and added value to them (by playing music on them) and that I was paying him back with interest.
Bilal doesn't work until Thursday night, I was informed.
Then, I walked another 3 blocks to the Rouses Market, past beggar, after heroin addict, after dog skeezer, after child skeezer (a child instead of a dog beside them) telling them all, truthfully at least, that, no I didn't have a dollar...
I had 75 cents to my name. I would not ask a stranger.
None of the night cashiers that I see every night had come on yet.
I walked to the coffee shop where my Isriali friend, Ester works, whom I used to see all the time at the trolley stop at 2 AM. Ester didn't work until Thursday.
I continued on, reaching a distance of 12 blocks from the bus stop where I needed to catch a ride to the plasma place before it closed at 7 PM. It was almost 4 PM when one of the delivery drivers for the Quartermaster, whom I see a lot there when I get coffee and cat food after knocking off every night, lent me the 75 cents.
He asked me what I needed it for, more because he couldn't imagine anything costing only 75 cents. I told him about my bus pass that was probably expiring as I stood there talking to him, and how I would rather walk 2 miles for 75 cents than allow a black driver the opportunity to publicly turn me away from the bus that everyone knows goes to the plasma donation place, and that would be the only place a white boy would be going on it; there's a perfectly good Wal-Mart on "this" side of the river that you don't have to travel 7 miles to...
I walked the mile and a half back to the bus stop where I was informed by another black lady, who smiled when she said it, that I had "just missed it," again.
"Of course, I just missed it." These are just coincidences. If I had grabbed a copy of the schedule, I wouldn't be having this problem, I thought to myself.
I made it to the plasma place. If I hadn't gone back for my umbrella, I probably would have been too wet to donate: "You can't be dripping on all the equipment like that!, and my laptop in my backpack might have been destroyed. It's a hurricane, after all. I was worried that the power was going to go out before I got to donate and make my 30 dollars. Then I really would have been up the creek without a paddle -in Gretna, 7 miles from home, flat broke in a hurricane with a bridge that it is illegal to walk across separating me from it. But 3 pounds heavier, to look at the bright side...
Then, I was having a glitch with the laptop as I was being drained of my blood proteins. I thought that it might be that their wireless signal was compromised by the storm. I rebooted the thing.
A message came up telling me that needed to "load the kernel."
I think this means that I had deleted the single most important file on a Linux system the last time I upgraded. I deleted the wrong "old kernel" and hadn't noticed it for 2 weeks because I had never shut the laptop off in 2 weeks, only "suspend"ed it.
Rebooting it left it useless. Like my guitar with the broken machine.
I can go Thursday to donate more plasma for another 30 bucks, and Rose and Ed are going to pay me 40 bucks on Friday, and I can rig my guitar by winding the broken tuner in the opposite of its intended direction and be able to tune it to the right pitch.
I have done this before and it is a fix that only lasts for a couple sets of strings. By then, I should have made enough money with the brand new harmonica to pay for a new machine; I might be able to order on online right now, if they sell them singly...
I had better go and look into these things...
I played the old, beat up harmonica in the key of A, pushing myself to transpose some songs that I knew into that key ala Tanya and Dorise (Dorise claimed that they played in all 12 keys on any given day) taking advantage of the fact that I am not smoking pot now, and so can think better as far as keeping a 6 chord progression in my head, and things like that.
The rain stayed away.
I think I made just 8 bucks, but it was a promising outing which made me think that if it were a busy night, I could have made a hundred.
Monday
Monday came, and I was up first thing in the morning about 3 o' clock in the afternoon, and went over to the food stamp place, where I was handed a piece of paper and a pen and allowed to write a note to my caseworker, explaining that I work 30 hours per month and not per week, and they will hopefully increase my amount back to the 194 which typically ran out with about 10 to 12 days left on the month.
Then, I blew off a trip to the plasma donation place, even though I had spent my last 3 bucks on a shot of kratom.
I would go home and put the new strings on the guitar and start to break in the Susuki Harpmaster harmonica.
When putting the new strings on, one of the tuning machines which had begun to be difficult to turn, snapped a cog inside of it, rendering my guitar useless; as I sat there with new strings and a new harmonica (and potentially no way to earn the money to fix the guitar). This is why we set aside money and why we tell skeezers that, even though they just witnessed us pulling out a wad of money, we can't spare any...
Tuesday
This set Tuesday up to be a farce.
My all day bus pass expired at 3:39 PM.
I had a hard time waking up after less than 8 hours of sleep because, in preparation for donating plasma, I had eaten a lot of pancakes that I made with the flour and water and eggs and brown sugar and coconut oil. This made me lethargic upon waking up with plenty of time to make it to the plasma place, and I wound up sleeping until a bit after 2 PM.
I didn't feel quite myself until after a cup of coffee and a lot of shaking off of cobwebs.
They weigh you at the Octapharma place, and I had been almost ashamed of my weight being 130 pounds the first couple times I went there. This equated to 128 pounds, minus the heavy combat boots that I wear every time I go near black neighborhoods; this was the weight at which I graduated from high school at, as a skinny kid who was waiting to "fill out," or "come around," or have some kind of growth spurt, and hadn't yet learned that I wasn't gaining any weight because my body was rejecting the allergens that I was living off of, as part of the American diet ("If you don't drink at least an 8 ounce glass of milk three times a day; you'll be walking down the street one day and the bones in your legs will just snap in half").
10 years after that, I was 143 pounds of mostly muscle and living off of high protein; high carbohydrate, high nitrogen concoctions that came out of GNC, and never set foot inside any kind of "food place," at all.
This (Tuesday) afternoon, I weighed in at (133 pounds, minus the boots) up, 3 pounds over the last 5 days.
The pancakes would never have made my list of approved foods back in the 143 pound days, but the kratom that I do, besides inhibiting signals to the pleasure center (taking the joy out of heroin for those that use it that way) seems to kick down any allergic reactions that might have plagued me in the past -eggs used to make my scalp itch and give me dandruff; and eventually the skin that I scratched would break and I'd have scars that my hair-dresser would mention to me in the nicest way possible, as part of her duty as a hair-dresser.
Being brainwashed the American way she, of course, might recommend some kind of Selsun Blue shampoo or soaking my head in tar oil. But, if I stopped eating eggs (maybe just the yolks, I never delineated between them and the whites as being the cause) the problem would clear up in a couple weeks.
But, the kratom seems to allow me to be more tolerant of foods.
Before I left the apartment, I kept finding little things to do, so that it was almost 3 PM. before I walked out the door; went all the way to the trolley stop and then(D'oh!) had to go all the way back to get my umbrella . The hurricane had kind of slipped my mind, as it had been clear when I walked out, though it was raining earlier in the day; encouraging me to stay in bed and get a full "night's"rest -it was running down my window in sheets so it was like looking at Canal Street through a waterfall in the morning.
Then, I got to the bus stop, where I was informed by a (smiling annoyingly also) black lady that the 115 had just left.
Then, she added: "It's gonna be a while."
It wasn't going to be a while, it was going to be 20 minutes, and my all day pass would still be good. But, her words led me to believe that the 115 was running at 45 minute intervals, like it does sometimes (Sundays) maybe because of the hurricane, who knows.
I decided that, by the time it came, my pass would have just expired, and I would be informed by another smiling annoyingly black lady or man behind the wheel that I would have to buy another one, or I couldn't ride.
I decided that I would try to skeeze the 75 cents that I was lacking, rather than put myself in a position to be refused entry onto a bus full of black people who would be smiling annoyingly over the spectacle.
But, I refused to skeeze a perfect stranger, as there was someone asking for something on every single block.
I walked about a quarter mile to the Unique Grocery, where I stop after every night of busking and have not asked for any credit in a couple years, since I drank.
The one particular Ethiopian cashier that I am most friendly with wasn't working, and there were 3 long lines in front of all 3 cashiers. I decided not to put them in the position of wanting to lend me 75 cents but fearing the backlash from a gaggle of skeezers who might protest: "When I'm 10 cents short you tell me to get on down the road, I thought you didn't lend no money!"
I walked another 3 blocks to the Gallery of French art where Bilal works. He lent me 5 bucks for strings about 2 years ago, when I drank, and I had paid him back $7.50, the next evening, telling him that I had invested the 5 bucks in raw materials (strings) and added value to them (by playing music on them) and that I was paying him back with interest.
Bilal doesn't work until Thursday night, I was informed.
Then, I walked another 3 blocks to the Rouses Market, past beggar, after heroin addict, after dog skeezer, after child skeezer (a child instead of a dog beside them) telling them all, truthfully at least, that, no I didn't have a dollar...
I had 75 cents to my name. I would not ask a stranger.
None of the night cashiers that I see every night had come on yet.
I walked to the coffee shop where my Isriali friend, Ester works, whom I used to see all the time at the trolley stop at 2 AM. Ester didn't work until Thursday.
I continued on, reaching a distance of 12 blocks from the bus stop where I needed to catch a ride to the plasma place before it closed at 7 PM. It was almost 4 PM when one of the delivery drivers for the Quartermaster, whom I see a lot there when I get coffee and cat food after knocking off every night, lent me the 75 cents.
He asked me what I needed it for, more because he couldn't imagine anything costing only 75 cents. I told him about my bus pass that was probably expiring as I stood there talking to him, and how I would rather walk 2 miles for 75 cents than allow a black driver the opportunity to publicly turn me away from the bus that everyone knows goes to the plasma donation place, and that would be the only place a white boy would be going on it; there's a perfectly good Wal-Mart on "this" side of the river that you don't have to travel 7 miles to...
I walked the mile and a half back to the bus stop where I was informed by another black lady, who smiled when she said it, that I had "just missed it," again.
"Of course, I just missed it." These are just coincidences. If I had grabbed a copy of the schedule, I wouldn't be having this problem, I thought to myself.
I made it to the plasma place. If I hadn't gone back for my umbrella, I probably would have been too wet to donate: "You can't be dripping on all the equipment like that!, and my laptop in my backpack might have been destroyed. It's a hurricane, after all. I was worried that the power was going to go out before I got to donate and make my 30 dollars. Then I really would have been up the creek without a paddle -in Gretna, 7 miles from home, flat broke in a hurricane with a bridge that it is illegal to walk across separating me from it. But 3 pounds heavier, to look at the bright side...
Then, I was having a glitch with the laptop as I was being drained of my blood proteins. I thought that it might be that their wireless signal was compromised by the storm. I rebooted the thing.
A message came up telling me that needed to "load the kernel."
I think this means that I had deleted the single most important file on a Linux system the last time I upgraded. I deleted the wrong "old kernel" and hadn't noticed it for 2 weeks because I had never shut the laptop off in 2 weeks, only "suspend"ed it.
Rebooting it left it useless. Like my guitar with the broken machine.
I can go Thursday to donate more plasma for another 30 bucks, and Rose and Ed are going to pay me 40 bucks on Friday, and I can rig my guitar by winding the broken tuner in the opposite of its intended direction and be able to tune it to the right pitch.
I have done this before and it is a fix that only lasts for a couple sets of strings. By then, I should have made enough money with the brand new harmonica to pay for a new machine; I might be able to order on online right now, if they sell them singly...
I had better go and look into these things...
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