Dollars Holding Up Pennies

• Serial Novel Delay
• Life, In The Meantime

The Louisiana State ID

So, the assault upon getting a State ID boils down to this:
Tomorrow morning, I must get on my bike and ride about 3.5 miles to the Office of Motor Vehicles. About halfway there, I will pass the Uxi Duxi (bottom right).

Then, I must produce anywhere between $16 and $40 in order to obtain a Louisiana State ID.

I lost my ID almost a year ago.

I had a certain pair of jeans which had its back pockets sewn in such a position and at such and angle that, when I rode my Trek Calypso bike, the wallet would work its way out of the back pocket as I rode, and fall onto the street behind me about a mile along my journey.

It's funny because, The Trek had been given to me after the bike I had before it was stolen. I guess the lost wallet was the hidden cost of it. I had no idea that the big, wide, flat and comfortable seat on that particular "cruiser," combined with that cheap pair of jeans, would do that



But, the ID was expired, anyway.

Plus, it had the address of the homeless shelter on Gravier Street on it, instead of Sacred Heart, where I have been procrastinating for almost 5 years over getting a change of address.

Part of the reason it has been taking me so long, recently, to get the thing has to do with the ambiguity over how much it will cost.
I have been ready to go to the place a few times, when I had lesser amounts of money,  but then hesitated after hearing different things from different people.

Changing the address is a a good idea.

Many people in New Orleans know that my previous address was "the address of the homeless" that would make it harder for me to do things like cash checks, open bank accounts, and stay out of jail.

A homeless person who needs a mailing address, ostensibly so he can get an ID and then a job; and then back on his feet; can use the address of The Rebuild Center to help fill in that blank.
But it is just as likely that the some person needs a mailing address, so he can apply for government benefits, and free phones, etc.

This is a red flag for a lot of people, despite their best efforts at being politically correct, and all that, and there is definitely a stigma around 8304 Gravier Street in New Orleans.

A cop, seeing that address on an ID would immediately wonder: "Yeah, but where do you really stay?"

That would be a waste of that particular aspect of the resource that an apartment is.

Anyone knows, from listening to The Who song: "Who Are You?" that people -even those passed out drunk- are often offered the opportunity to go and sleep at home, that night, if they can get up and walk away.

Having the right address on my ID could potentially explain to the authorities what I am doing in the crack neighborhoods that are around Sacred Heart ...I live right over there, I'm just cutting through; going home; paying into the system, even if indirectly...type of thing.

So the change of address is a must.
And so am going to go there, armed with enough money to cover whatever exorbitant amount they can dream up. ...You, um, let more than a year go by before renewing, and so it's gonna be... type of thing

The ID is necessary because I must go to the IRS and get a "non filing" letter of some sort, so that I can re-certify my lease application at Sacred Heart. And, they won't even let me into the IRS building without a photo ID.

The Sacred Heart office staff have been sending me increasingly ominous reminders that I needed to get them that particular letter.

I am taking their warnings with a grain of salt, considering the residents here that they have to deal with.

My least doesn't technically end until the end of the year, and I'm sure that the office people begin their efforts at hounding people in order to get their paperwork in order, well in advance of that. Like in late September, when they first notified me.

But, the last letter that I got made mention of my making arrangements to remove my property from the place, because everything left behind after a certain date will be thrown away, type of thing.

I noticed that it hadn't been signed at the bottom where there was a blank intended for the signature of the property manager, and figured that was just a scare tactic, as was other language in the letter like the: "We wish you well wherever you wind up," at the bottom.

It was enough to get me to go down and talk to them and promise them that I would have the IRS letter by the end of this coming week, and so, I shouldn't be evicted.

Why is there a voice in my head that keeps whispering: "Get evicted, become homeless, travel the country busking, find adventure; make this blog more interesting, dammit!!"?

Now off I go to polish up the second chapter of the serial novel. It was supposed to be just a bridge to the third chapter, which I thought was where the most interesting stuff was, but, I have dredged up enough memories of that interim period so that the second chapter is expanding.


70 Dollar Sunday

Jacob and I went out and made around 70 bucks Sunday night.

It was a Sunday night before the holiday of Veteran's Day, and so, not a typical Sunday, but it was interesting, and I'm going to make an effort to post some audio here.

Part of the problem is that we have almost 3 hours of music from which I want to distill maybe 10 minutes of a sample of.

Then, I can worry about adding horn or string sections later...