It is now late summer and another whole year has passed and I am still homeless.

It is four days until my 57th birthday and I am feeling down.

I am now (barely) earning a living as a house and pet sitter locally. I love what I am doing but since my rates are still a bit low, I am still not able to pay all my bills. Car insurance. Gas. Food -- even with food stamps.

My friend, who has allowed me to stay in a spare room he is not using for free just told me he could be making money by renting it. So....

Another friend invited me over for dinner and then told me I had to leave before the meal because he wanted to have some time with his daughters without me around.

Sure I am whining and it is pathetic. But I am also feeling very misunderstood and maligned because my 'friends' have no idea what it is like to be asked to leave when you are homeless. I truly wish anyone who doesn't understand, and even if you do, would open their mind and heart, and hear me.

Imagine for a moment YOU are homeless. Try to get your head around that idea. You have NO HOME. No place to store your stuff, NO PLACE TO GO. But today, joy of joys, it is different for a moment, a few hours. You are with someone who is sheltering you, or providing you with a means to shelter (like buying a meal, shopping, going to a movie, etc) and enjoying the momentary peace that can bring. Just as you start to relax for a second,  BANG!! Everything changes and where there was peace there is now panic. Your pleasure is torn out from under you and you are back on the bus bench again! And all you can feel is the searing hot poker of yet another rejection by someone who said they understood....Now they are telling you to leave! They do not want you in their home or in their presence! Do you get it yet?

And why do they not want me in their home?  Because in my currently economic poverty, I am homeless.

 Another friend asked me, what would it take for me to get out of poverty? Easy answer: A WELL PAYING PROFESSIONAL JOB!! I have been trying to get one since 2009. Like other states, the civil service sector in California continues to shrink. These were the best paying jobs, with the best benefits. Union jobs. It was fair, to a certain extent. But now the jobs go to younger people who will take lower pay and only work part time. They expect people to work more than one job part time, and still have health, life and happiness. This, I have found--for me-- is impossible. I have found it very difficult to work more than one job. I just do not have the stamina of my youth. At this point, I would love a customer service cubicle job or even a library technician job or a delivery job. But I cannot earn a living and be expected to survive on $9- $12 per hour. Not in this area. The rent for a room is now $1000 and up. For A ROOM! Something has to give.

If a museum, gallery, collector or critic took an interest in my art and began to champion my prophetic, visionary, and highly controversial creative attitudes and imagery, that could change everything in my life for the better.


I am dreaming of the days when the economy goes back to normal and money will be worth what it is truly worth. It will take some getting used to, but we will manage, I am sure. Cars will be less than $500. Rent will be $50 and less. Gas will roll back to 20 cents a gallon, because all the new technologies will make the combustion engine obsolete. We will ALL have less, because there will be less. And the inflation will stop.

Maybe that will be happening sooner than we expect. Maybe if we start to envision the future we most want to see it will actually become a reality. Do we have that much power? I believe so.

Power here inside, power out there. Power everywhere. So here it is -- the power of sharing pain: I started out writing this post feeling a bit down. Now I am feeling positive and empowered. No drugs, no therapy, no exercise necessary. I just wrote and shared. I could have written in my journal, but I do not think I would have had the same transformational experience. Thank for witnessing, for listening, for hearing. It is much appreciated.

I do not really know what I will be doing. Maybe I will be doing more art. The fact that I feel better and more positive means something has changed, has shifted. I want to move on. I can envision the future now, where before I could not.  That, at least, gives me hope.