Before Running Out Of Talent

• Surprise Is Sprung Upon Me
• Up All Night Playing Computer Tech

          Please don't try to upgrade (click "OK" not "Upgrade") or it will mess up

The above screen is what will greet residents of Sacred Heart from the only one of three computers in there that I was able to get up and running last night, using a Linux installation CD and loading that operating system alongside the existing corrupt Windows, instead of in place of it (so that if anyone ever repairs Windows; the music and photos and whatever residents might have saved onto it will still be "there." along with their viruses...)

One of them has a dead screen -I might switch the hard drive from that into the one that has a good screen but a damaged hard drive...

It was a labor of love, a few of the people who live there, "lived" in the computer room, playing "Hearts" or Solitaire or watching video after video on Youtube.
After I decided not to go out to busk when 11 PM crept up on me and I was faced with starting at the Lilly Pad at almost midnight on a chilly Thursday night, I figured I could do that

A Spring Parcel Arrives

I woke up around 4 PM, well rested, not very depressed and not thinking too hard about lighting up a cigarette.
I did a quick workout...

Then I made the bold decision to deviate from the all-black outfit I usually wear and go with brown and green.
I'm turning over a new leaf, I guess, and have even switched to a different strain of kratom.

I had to do a double take when I was on my way out to the Uxi Duxi around 5 PM, with $2.62 on my green American Express card and another $1.35 in cash.

There was a box wrapped in grey plastic sitting where items too large to fit in our mailboxes are kept, with the tell-tale Royal Mail sticker that signifies the Lidgleys of London.

I had to think for a second: It's not my birthday or Christmas...St. Patricks Day was last week; it must be a "spring parcel."

I had just checked my mailbox, hoping for anything...a belated tax return check from 1984...a letter from my mom, who might have read about the abuse I was subjected to over 30 cents, containing 30 cents in the envelope...anything.

I rode to the Uxi Duxi with renewed vigor.

It was just as hard -with things seemingly going well- if not harder, to remain in the present moment and be a silent witness to my thoughts and emotions, as it was when things were seemingly "going bad."

Just 2 days ago, I was just about flat broke and had gone out to busk on a cold night when I felt like I was coming down with a cold, and that seems, in retrospect to have been a turning point.

A Turning Point

I saw Lilly and Chantilly at the Quartermaster when I was picking up my milk crate, who asked me to text her "not tonight, but tomorrow," about whether or not I saw anyone coming or going from her neighbor's house, reiterating her warning to me to not ever let on to anyone there that I know her.

I made 13 bucks and was able to feed Harold the cat.

Then last (Thursday) night, after leaving the Uxi Duxi, I came upon a white Styrofoam container of food, sitting on a table in front of the Cafe Minh down the street.

It was very close to where I had found the one that had leaked cabbage juice into and almost destroyed this laptop.

This one was tightly wrapped in a plastic bag, though.

I then went about my usual routine, stopping for a can of cat food, and was on my way to Rouses Market out of force of habit, already trying to think of what I could get to eat for the 4 dollars or so that I had left, when I remembered that the food was in my backpack. I had no idea what it was, though...

When I got back to the apartment, I opened it to discover that it was a seafood dish, a shellfish type thing which had scallops and clams and shrimp and oyster and probably mussels and maybe even crawfish.

After eating that, I decided to stay in and work on the computers. Harold snubbed my offer of one of the clams.

Rose and Ed bought my extra bike from me, and are going to pay me the 35 bucks next week at the latest...

The extra bike (far right)

no longer clutters my room...

Then, the parcel arrived, containing vitamins, a new Starbucks gift card, two packs of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, two shirts of the kind fashionable millenials wear, a box of chocolate, and coffee -some of the best instant that comes in an air-tight can- and some cereal packets upon which everything is written in Italian, I believe is the language...plus, a crisp 20 dollar bill at the bottom of the box.

I got to the Uxi Duxi to find that Dom was working and that I had no hard feelings towards him.

I started to open the parcel, hoping I could do so before he asked me if I was going to purchase anything, in case there was money in it.

I had enough to buy a shot of kratom regardless, but would have had to drain the balance off my green card, and then throw in some cash, a complication that might have had him sighing in exasperation over what he has to go through to get a 50 cent tip. And if he misunderstood me and entered one penny too much off the card "...I thought you said 'two sixty three'..." then the business would have been hit with an "insufficient funds" charge; and then, how would they like 50 cent tipping man then?

Coffee, kratom and chocolate; heaven is a place on earth...

I told him to go ahead and grind me up a shot of Yellow Horn, a strain I have been trying lately instead of the Green Borneo that had been my regular.

I was able to open the parcel and fish out the 20 dollar bill by the time he had it ready, thus, avoiding the: "So, you want to use two sixty off your card and then pay the other 30 cents in cash, and...oh, my God, I'm getting a migraine, I need to close up for an hour so I can lay down...come back at six.." type of scenario...

I had originally thought that I would open it in the lobby of Sacred Heart, right after I got it, but then realized that that was me wanting to feed my ego, to feel like I had "more" by comparison to those around me. To give them an example of what doing something, even if it is just being a homeless busker for 8 years, can produce.

There were a few residents hanging around there, who would have probably been looking over my shoulder, ready to say: "Hey, let me get a cigarette; and a chocolate, and a vitamin, oh I need a vitamin, and some of whatever that is; give me some of that...if you don't mind..."

But it would have been something, indeed; after I had unwrapped the box (shown).

It bore the label of "The White Company," which is I guess where the Lidgleys shop in London.

I can imagine the suspicion with which the blacks at Sacred Heart would have eyed that box..."The White Company, what that is?!?"

"You all don't need to know about The White Company..." I could have left them hanging with.


Then, once I had logged on to my laptop and was sipping my kratom shot, I went to the Wal-Mart website to learn that my USB 16 gig data stick was "ready for pickup," just a 30 minute bike ride, dodging potholes the whole way, away.

I again had to calm myself down, stay the course, plan to go out to busk as usual, and not run over there to pick it up then spend the rest of the night messing around with installing Linux.

I want to get my recording studio back up and running, sure, but everything should be done in proper order. It will still be "ready for pickup" tomorrow.

It is 9:30 PM on a Friday which is still only maybe one degree warmer than it has been the past couple days. 

We are having a more normal March, here in New Orleans, which sucks because I had gotten used to the extremely unseasonable warm springs of the past couple years, even if they were going to melt the polar ice caps a bit and wash away a few houses along the coast...

I will feed Harold, throw on one of the lucky new shirts, and then see how long I can play in the key of D before running out of talent.