Howdy (not Captain Howdy, just howdy)

Hey everybody, what's up? Sorry, I have been out of the loop while many things are happening here. I am (still) visiting family, and they have all my time pre-scheduled for me. I'm just getting driven around between people's houses all the time, without enough downtime to do anything online. Sorry.

One of the things my family did was to volunteer together with an organization bringing meals, clothing, shoes, etc to homeless camps. Holy fuck you guys, those people have it rough. I was sort of expecting something like the camp of semi-homeless laborers at the beginning of They Live, but Jesus Christ it was sooo much worse than that. At least in They Live they had a certain dirty, gritty dignity. But in real life... holy SHIT life sucks for those people. (When I say "those people," I realize that I myself, and most of us here, could EASILY be included in their ranks at any moment, because the world economy could go down in flames... um... NOW. No NOW. Noooo... NOW. OK, not yet, but it really could).

Anyway... there is just no dignity at all in living in those camps. We visited three, near highway overpasses in the middle of a city. There was trash EVERYWHERE, just all over the place. I could hardly even breathe, partly because of the fumes from the cars on the highway, and partly from the stench of the garbage, and from urine. It was even difficult to think clearly, somehow the combination of the fumes and the constant roar of the traffic zooming by made it hard to hold a thought in my mind. PLENTY of people could not possibly EVER get out of a situation like that. Once they are there, they will STAY there until they die. We spoke with a few people, and they were all so confused and frightened, and humble. This is going to take me a long time to sort out in my brain, and/or my soul.

So, I will get back in the swing of things here as soon as I can. but in the short term it looks like I will have LESS time than I have had in the last week, not more, so I just wanted to say hi. Hang in there, and thank God, your lucky stars, your rabbit's foot, or whatever does it for you, that you don't live in a homeless camp under a highway.