Apartment A110

I was up before noon on this Tuesday morning, still in a cleaning mood...
I cleaned a bit around the place, and then set off for the Octapharma place, thinking that I would go and get the 15 dollars for a donation, and then would parlay the all day bus pass that I would then buy, into a trip to the Lilly Pad and back at night.

My biggest concern would be that I would feel sufficiently recovered from having donated plasma to go out and play.

The weather has been an early Christmas gift; it is probably about 68 degrees right outside the Uxi Duxi, where I sit with a goofy grin on my face(below).

I was leaving through the lobby of our building, when the security lady asked me what my last name was.

She then handed me the envelope with the above card from my mother in it, after I had answered her.

"Why didn't she just put it in my mailbox back there?" I asked.

What had happened was, the mail lady dropped all the mail that had only the street address of 3222 Canal Street (but no apartment number) at the front desk.


The lady at the front desk was apparently supposed to look up the names and then write the corresponding apartment numbers on the envelopes. She would then return them to the mail lady, who would make an additional trip to the mailboxes on each floor to deliver them.

I guess she had been too lazy to do that.

It was a good thing that I had emerged into the lobby right when it was fresh in the memory of the front desk lady that I had gotten mail.

There was money in the card; and I immediately began to weigh the prospect of selling plasma for 15 dollars and burning 4 hours in the process, against not doing so.

It seemed like my mom had given me a reprieve from that.

I had just noted the soreness in my arms right around the sites of the needle holes from the plasma place, as I pinched my flesh last night. I guess the body has a way of kind of scabbing up, even at the venous level, after having been punctured. Both of my arms were still sore at those spots.

I splurge a bit on Harold the cat...

My diet continues to be a conundrum, as I have been a baking fool, lately.

But, I am using spelt flour and rice flour and flax seed; all healthier alternatives to "bleached white flour," I am assuming. And the baking fad has had the side effect of having made me vegetarian over the past couple weeks, with the egg that I break and mix into the dough being the only animal product that I've been consuming.

I have felt a general sense of well being and my legs feel lighter when I run around, lately. I feel like I could begin a regimen of running a mile or so every day.

Quitting smoking has been a process of waking up in the mornings without cigarettes and then trying to go as long as I can into the day before having one. I made it until about 2 PM today.

"...I hope you have someone to celebrate the holiday with..."

The money that mom put in the card is apropos of the Christmas "wish" inscribed within, about spending the holiday with loved ones.

My biggest motivator in getting over the bridge to sell my plasma was making sure I had enough money, come Christmas, to make the voyage over to Gretna to spend the holiday with Howard Westra, and his housemates. I woke up with about 6 dollars on the coffee table this morning.

I can still vaguely picture myself living in Gretna, at some point in the future.

It is the "dream" of a lot of Sacred Heart Apartment residents to, as they put it, "get the hell out of this place before it really goes downhill," with the few of them that I talked to, extolling the beauty of a house with a yard, as a place to live.

It almost seems like looking a gift horse in the mouth, to be criticizing Sacred Heart Apartments, but, I guess a lot of these people have been institutionalized to the point of feeling entitled to certain free things in life, and a place with a shower but no tub, or with a window that opens upon a brick wall and not a scenic vista, is too much for them to abide.

Apparently some of them, who are living on "disability," have only to bide their time and wait for opportunities to come along whereby they can move out of Sacred Heart Apartments and "out into the country," into a real house.

If I ever were to start receiving "disability" payments from the government, something which doesn't sound as far-fetched an idea as it might have before some recent talks that I've had with Tim, my caseworker, then I might very well have it arranged so that Howard's housemate and house owner, Berta, might become the recipient of the money earmarked as being my rent payments, each month, and I might be able to move to Gretna and live in a house with a yard that has all kinds of plants, a few geese, 4 dogs, a cat and a huge turkey in its own house in the back.

Tim, my caseworker

Getting to the Lilly Pad and back would be just a matter of rearranging bus schedules. Having a bike would open up a lot of possibilities that way, like being able to ride the Algiers "Owl," bus at any hour of the night, and have only a 2 mile bus ride home from where it drops me...

Plus, once I start playing through the amplifier that Bobby is getting me for Christmas, then I might be making enough money to buy myself a moped or a scooter or something...

Tim, my caseworker has talked to me about applying for disability through Social Security. I have already been judged to be a disabled veteran through the process of trying to get me into Sacred Heart 3 years ago, with "alcohol dependency" being (what had kept me homeless the previous 10 years as) my disability, and Tim kind of suggested that, for a person in my situation, applying for a disability check of at least $743 per month would be something that I would almost have no other choice in pursuing. Like the money is going to go to waste if I don't avail myself to it.

It is 6 PM on this Tuesday night, and it would be kind of a shame to stay in tonight, with the weather being so nice for December 19th. I would have to record something as good as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in order to justify my having taken the night off from busking.