Homeless - 35

Hiya, troopers,

Welcome to day 19531. Well, my day of life anyway.

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Forecast for tomorrow: the grass will continue to grow and it will be light. Forecast for tomorrow night: dark again. The repetition of the rhythm of life on this planet can be absolutely toe curling at times, can it not?

Did you know that in the Far North Dallas area there are virtually no comfortable places to sit outdoors in the shade? For free, that is. If you have money to spend, there are plenty of options. There are a couple of parks within my range but the seating surfaces are not conducive to a pleasant resting experience for a bony butt like mine. And another thing; there are not enough trees in the Far North Dallas area available to the general homeless population to park their vehicles under! What are the city planners thinking? Another factor to consider is the introduction of an undesirable social element that frequent those places, especially at night. I am somewhat fortunate that I possess a half-chair that makes sitting in the shade of a tree enjoyable at a few choice locations. I suppose when the weather turns hostile to non-fur bearing bipeds, I could return the chair to the pool area.

I filled out a couple of more job applications in the convenience store industry. At one of the locations, I talked briefly with a co-owner who mentioned that I was a bit over-qualified for the part-time position. I replied that it would appear so but there is the thing about needing food. She did encourage me to fill out the application and attach my resume to it. I'll tun it in tomorrow morning.

There are some other want ad items that you might not be aware of that are listed in the local papers. "Girls, 18+, cash paid daily, we will train!" Gee, wonder what that is about. "Men, 18-65, sperm donation, compensation available." Oooook, here's the thing. I'm supposed to produce...the essence of life...in a room, alone, in a public place with people just outside the door?!? Even in the best of times, that particular anatomical apparatus is somewhat temperamental and if you add the fact that a bunch of strangers are less that a few meters away, there is a low probability factor (approaching zero) that I would be unable to ...deliver. I don't care if Loretta Young, Sophia Loren or Katherine Hepburn (of long ago) was in the room with me to assist, it ain't happening even if they were talking with me real nice. And the 'compensation available' issue: is there a direct correlation between the amount of cash paid out and the volume and/or quality of the genetic sample? And last, but certainly not least, there are the ads that want humans to test the effects of experimental drugs on. Isn't that what animals are for?! Oh, yeah, right - the animal rights groups have a problem with that so now the medical community use humans these days for those evaluations. Well, there are a lot of us and maybe the heard does need some thinning a bit, which isn't that bad of an idea based on my experience. Wait a minute...I think I'll check into that to see if the experiments involve ingesting psychoactive alkaloids either by chemical or viral vectors to determine the effects. They would have to provide a place to crash as well as provide for the inevitable munchies attack. I'll let you know.

I further refined the clothes cleaning technique that I shared with you earlier; happened by accident. After the 'hot tub cycle', I put the clothing items through the 'hand soap cycle' and then through the 'sink rinse cycle'. The hand soap found in bathrooms, both men and women's, significantly reduce the pool chlorine afterglow. However, I discovered that there is always hand soap in the men's bathroom while there have been numerous times that the hand soap dispenser in the women's bathroom was empty. The implication of those facts are somewhat distressing and leads me to the need to re-evaluate the social custom of handshaking among men in our culture. Perhaps if this information was brought to the august journalistic talent of Stephen Colbert, he could initiate a change of that social custom and replace it with, say, a Klingon military salute. I know what you're thinking, what the hell is that guy doing in the women's bathroom? There are times that the sanitary conditions of the men's bathroom is significantly below the minimal threshold of usability, at least by my criteria, and I'm forced to pursue other options. Also, at around 4:45 to 5:15 AM, my 'window of availability', the normal human is not even functioning thus reducing the possibility of other users significantly.

The State Fair of Texas is here again. Every couple of years I would spend a day there visiting the car/truck shows (where are the flying cars?), the butterfly garden, arts and crafts, the jungle friends, ride 2 or 3 of the extreme rides and, of course, consume some of the food; those artery clogging entrees that promise to assist in an early 'contract termination' event. Oh, how the gods tempt us with those culinary demons. But you don't have to worry about that if you work out the majority of the year, right? RIGHT?!? And there is the 'people watching' pastime while nursing a cold beer or two...or three. Each year I would always shop for a small item that would depict a dolphin, a statue or some such. I still have those packed away somewhere that I bought in previous visits. Oh well, maybe I'll catch next year's.

Take care,

David