After My Personal Stop Message

By BeBop

Life after having accepted the challenge to surrender the nightmare of addiction found the stage now set for the work of what I will call the first day of a new construction worker's position in the building process of a new empire. Such began the laying of the foundation for this new life with the acceptance now of the many changes and its process to be taken through in finally seeing and relishing the joy of a new life free of "yesterday". The work involved I hope can be felt in this second book as well as the joy felt with me in achieving the rewards making up the architecture of my new empire for life after all the hard worthless and cold nightmare of addiction. I do hope such is conveyed to those wanting to endure another story of success from the hardship of addiction so many encounter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781490775210

BeBop

The road to a drug and alcohol free life was set in motion in the first book. Now it is time to provide or better yet build a foundation for life after "yesterday". There is found new and adventurous territory claimed in this uncharted kind of land. Such takes me and I believe anyone in such beginning stages of life through a unique experience that leads to finding how giving up the addiction is indeed not the hardest part. Putting that new person into perspective and opening up such a world is that real challenge expressed throughout these entries taking me through my travels of life today. Looking at and accepting me for who I am today gives way to so much reality and as well opens up the kind of excitement found in taking on that first-time challenge for true life. The process may seem redundant but each phase with sometimes each second or minute, each day, week, month and the added years finds maybe what seems the same old experiences of life with new and added meaning. The rewards today allow progress to relish.

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Copyright 2016 Nathaniel Shaw.

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ISBN: 978-1-4907-7522-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7521-0 (e)

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FORWORD

After all the trauma of the finale ending another’s life of just another addiction came the challenge for real life. Salvaging the past as best as possible and as mentioned the moving on entailed and continues to take the prior mentioned strength and courage needed to victory. If you were able to endure the finale of the addiction and the work for a new life given to me in the form of a challenge than I present to you even more and maybe seen as precise journal entries with the accomplishment of life after the addiction. Pay particular attention to the flow of life now after all the hard addiction as it gets rather mentally involved. Here in these entries finds maybe the unique building from the ground up to where life is seen and as well felt after again yesterday. It is hoped there is found the expression of the overall and specific encounters taking me through the laying of the first-time foundation and the building process specifically with all of its elements both positive and especially negative along with all the time it took to make facing up to and dealing with life a huge part of that challenge found after again all the years away from the nightmare of addiction. Pay particular attention to the kind of redundancy that finds maybe new meaning in my life as I travel through this building process – laying floor after floor. Yesterday’s history of the ignorance demeaning my sexuality will hopefully find how dealing honestly with it opened up much of the building of my new first time successful empire of love for a new me. Wondering if such progress can be recognized by all entities of life especially that arena looking for answers to questions of taking on that challenge after the high? Making that emotional connection and staying abreast of this challenge may indeed help another taking on their own challenge and especially knowing of such a challenge when presented. Such can be a difficult time many times ending in rejection and thee ole ‘stuffing of continued pain’ lived in that nightmare nobody in his or her right enough mind ever wants. Wonder if you can see the bright future unfolding so wonderfully still yet for me in my life after the work done to date? Wonder if it can be noted the acceptance of and the desire for as well as the progression toward it all now after over two decades of this journey through a challenge put before me many times during my life and given that 100% acceptance on that day of surrendering yesterday for the success taking real shape today? Wonder if there could be, for those having never been addicted, the kind of empathy allowing for a perfect world to stay the myth it is and carrying on the best we as human beings on this earth can be? Don’t believe there is a making it to the top but instead making the best of life made under the circumstances we all live together in on this earth. Yes; I am very, very proud of my success to date. It is felt such was planned for me to achieve. I express our Higher Power who I believe dwells in all of us. I speak of this entity outside of the church but I hope with great respect for the number of religions believing and knowing of our Higher Power His being everywhere…

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Time does have its effects on love. Was such indeed any part of love or a total loss? Minutes found how hours poured into days in multiples of weeks times the many years all adding up to the given decades of life lived in, out and around the game of love. Such a game felt the many nights together in pure ecstasy. Morning’s wonderful dawn seem never to leave my heart’s memory of you.

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Lust it seems was the frustrating must between us playing what was supposed to be love. So why do I not forget your days of yesterday after my own escape from what was found to be pain in your arms?

Again, time continues on today after your yesterday’s having left a daily and surely the many nights that did not add up to the love needed between the two of us in our lives of pain. Pain explains why it was we could only find insane gimmicks of what could have been a wonderful life together.

That ‘ole’ lime-light in the mix persuaded by the substitute’s underground led the way for the many wasted years of both our lives. Playing the many numbers games with my loosing through confinement without you continued such a perpetual movement of ignorance. And like the ignorance found today in a very complicated world, were seen as part of that motion never letting us be what could have been love.

To lay in my solitude and hear how others in song hurt just as well in their lives of what should have been love keeps me from the extremes of failure with just the memories of your wonderful love.

What do I do? I’m still in love with you. Do I give up; pour me a cup and find myself in the same old rut? When will you leave my heart as I have never really been in yours? Reuniting was always necessary letting me know how much it was I only lust for you. As well today memories keep me in pain in my solo life. Like the many movies to take up that ole boring time; you are the star of all the wonderful heights of ecstasy we shared so many times.

I continue to admit how much it is I miss you. I never really wanted to leave your image of love. You were into the ‘mix’ we shared too deep to see that our lives could indeed turn into the love I dreamed of for the two of us. Changes had to occur. The finding of a new relationship was not seen as a reality although respect for the changes made in my own life were of interest to you.

That interest was not enough to support your own decision for a new day due to the problems of ‘yesterday’s’ perpetual motion of addiction. Do I try to make that change and leave your ‘love’ completely? I’ve done this which has ultimately left me in the light of the blues. Will this be for the time it may indeed take to rid my heart of such broken pain? I still say it today on a regular basis how it is I will never forget you. But something positive must come about. I have faith in my life today.

Maybe I need to speed up the process today enough to reopen my life in art. I see this in my world because of my never having had a chance to put you on canvas or even cherishing a photo to grieve my lonely heart. Love songs and their melodies sung by Sade, Luther, Al or Marvin are savored to the fullest. The many ballots of love are out of an era in life suffered with you. If only the message of a broken heart could have been seen during what was only lust maybe the pain of yesterday’s breakup could have found someone else of not equal compatibility but of a new and fresh excitement called love.

Maybe the days, weeks and months that are turning into years away from you today in my sibilance have a positive outcome. Again I feel the faith of my life today away from any physical or sexual involvement. Maybe it is I will know love, not just a Porsche and good or just good enough looks. Do I regret the life lived in with you and its mix? No! For the thoughts of you continue a lustful sexual role. Regretting the life in addiction, prison and the hell of homelessness is for me an experience allowing me to do what I have done here in my solitude and shut down a life of lust after your electric shoooock!

So; what’s love got to do with it?!?!

January 12, 2006 early morning:

Where there is red dirt the grass is burnt. Not so much from the sun but maybe those never forgotten days of fun. The trees have completed another year’s cycle of leafless naked life except for those stubborn trees unwilling to give up their dead. The grounds are a blanket of the old making a ready-set-go for the new. And on a beautiful day in early January many faces lonely and coupled feel winter’s anxious blues for the first day of spring when birds can easily be heard welcoming all there is to sing - waiting for the call of life where everyone has the same appetite when there are no longer the cold and blurry nights.

January 14, 2006 in Dallas, Texas:

I’ve made it this far. The closer I get the more I seem to be unafraid. Paranoia is subsiding but still ever present. It is not hard to figure out that I must return to the confines of a life I thought I would never go back to again under any circumstances. Life! What a term for study in the minds of everyone. Feelings and mental capacity? What makes one say no or yes to another harmful element in life? Where is the help-entity needed so much at this time? When I was in the hospital in Atlanta’s Decatur facility I found how the job I had ruined no longer held an insurance policy for my health – just that fast. That was the decision to take myself back to prison where I may be safe enough to finish out whatever life is left for me. Suicide is not that answer as I tried it to no avail. Maybe it is I am slated to put this experience of mine into as best as possible a perspective for me and others to heed. At this time I ask that maybe someone contact Mrs. Jones in Stone Mountain, Georgia and retrieve my already packed luggage. There are CD files of material so important to my present situation. Abalone, Texas is very quiet. Reminds me of Yakima, Washington when I was a kid. In Yakima is where I found freedom you might say from my sexuality. When I came back to Seattle I began seeking same sex relationships all leading me through my teens and into prison where it was really on! I’ve been through all of this. Seems my sexuality is not the real or even the main issue on my list of life’s problems. Not going to try and figure out what went wrong as that would be like messin’ round in a mad scientist’s lab and creating Frankenstein. The decision to find some kind of piece in Los Angeles fluctuates between this city back again to San Francisco as well as going back to prison and suicide. Finding some kind of connection to achieve enough dope to try a much more successful attempt at death has me thinking the Tenderloin in San Francisco. This is where I believe the high hope began of putting what I thought was the highlight of my addiction to life into written form and copyrighted. The element of surprise in a city like Los Angeles might be another answer. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find that there is not a place to venture into on a homeless artist level and seek a bus to the city by the bay once again. Who wants to die? I do not believe anyone does even at this level where nothing really matters – my life I have ruined. Whatever the outcome I know for sure it has to be a significant drastic negative occurrence. At 41 when I surrendered an addiction for a life in Recovery I had no real idea the fight to put something positive in my life was going to be so difficult. Changes after the high were trying to be revealed. And maybe I put too many holds on the actual formation for a positive change again after the high. Then again I’m too old today and hold on to the belief that we are not perfect, that mistakes and setbacks are going to happen, how working one’s way through can often times be the most important key and that doing it alone will not work. I see how my giving up the program I became involved in so long ago was that time barrier the evil uses against anyone. I was told this evil known as Satan by so many is a very patient entity. That he can wait as he has got all the time in the world. And I see how it is this evil inside of me may be patient in its progress as I ride this bus silently as I possibly can in thought and in route to whatever is in store for me and its end result as I am fed up with the continued problem of regression. For the moment; only for the time at hand this is what I feel. Maybe this is all I should try to worry or concern myself with. Seems I’m pulling a lot of memory I’ve not prepared myself for out of a magical hat. These thoughts come from an anonymous entity where I spent a number of years trying to make a new life for myself after the high. The sun has set for another day but travel on greyhound continues on. Thoughts continue to lean toward my having only the clothes on my back and money I depleted from my bank account in route to again and again wherever. So I will not elaborate on my need for medication or how it is I left from the hospital in such a state of mind, frightened and sad. I’m almost assured through past experience how it is I may indeed have a seizure before making it to LA. El Paso, Texas early in the morning only means or seems to confirm how big this state is. In fact if the little history I do recall opens itself Texas is one of the two largest states area wise in this so called United States. There I go sounding like a radical again. But hey; I’m not mad at you. I’m pissed at myself for being found even deeper in debt. Paranoia continues to prevail. Don’t know and try not to contemplate the outcome although the idea, for the second time in prison seems foremost with suicide through relapse a second runner up. Other thoughts come in spurts and go just as fast. Taking myself to a warm atmosphere may be a good choice. Guess when you watch your world crumbling beneath your feet into freezing ice the only real thought is to head for cover and its hopeful warmth. Having escaped from Decatur’s hospital; knowing how I began a help rescue me attempt that began with the failure at setting fire back in San Francisco to that drug program finds the frustration of thoughts and their outcome growing in me. Will the hospital realize I am without medication completely and will soon be found hundreds of miles in route to LA having a seizure this time stuck without a paddle? I lost my wallet at the depot in Atlanta giving me more confirmation to this debt I must pay some way. Putting what I can together here in these notes will faithfully reach a concerned ear enough to help research how such unique experiences happen every day in our own individual ways. There is a guy sitting across the way looking very down as if he too is going through his own particular and unique trauma. Family breakups, loss of a job, enlistment into a confusing war and families loosing behind it, training to achieve a better life gone sour, college debts to pay back, young and old among so many other controversies and so much more can be found through the ears and eyes not only on the city subway but now here on greyhound. It also seems strange how a pen was made available to me. I got started journalizing sometime after getting underway with the help of a lady who road with me for a couple stops lending me her pen. I realized I had a pen on my key chain ring a number of stops later. Quite another kind of unique setup in my world. The burnt grass and I guess what is called tumble weed still prevail yet this is Arizona. Hopefully the ride is on the other half of completion as it has been about thirty six hours. I still recall having thoughts of this sudden change after the high – of which I still believe I am in. Taking longer for some than others is quoted in my case because of not making complete changes when they may have been needed. It’s not all about the want and desire to stay clean and sober as that part is satisfied. Now let’s see just how bad I want to stay away from the even tougher battle found yesterday during the hell of addiction to chemicals fostering or feeding the real problems in my life. As I look up the dawn is bringing up the sun. Its light hits the hills letting me know another successful day of sobriety has been achieved even in this mental/emotional state I suffer. I thank Him for another day. Another message is sent as I see and hear the problems someone else on the bus has with the nightmares spoken and lashed out by this human life. Other human lives interpret his condition as crazy and suggest putting the guy off the bus. The driver refuses to do so as he believes he is responsible for the man’s safety. I hear the bus driver talk about the Safeway stores remembered back home. They were not heard of while in the deep south over the past six years. More nervous anticipation grows as I continue to ponder my outcome. Worrying only about this day ahead is too full of a nervous, excited question to keep suppressed. How will I take myself back to prison? Will I ever go that route again? I’ve thought about just going to the police department and turning myself in as a danger or threat to society. Maybe I could find an emergency shelter outlet that would understand and help. The Phoenix station is rather quiet for its size. I believe the airport is just around the corner. What do I think about to keep from going crazy with thoughts pressing even harder than mama’s old ironing cord switch. Mid-day is upon us as I sit and wait for re-boarding. Seems there are approximately seven hours left before I try seeking an answer to this mystery. I keep the hospital wrist band and other medical works except the IV taped to my chest knowing I will eventually be found in a county hospital’s emergency room center via a seizure. That should be enough to worry about but it seems these thoughts only blend like an egg omelet and its many ingredients. And it is my immediate senses are beginning to show the heavy burden I carry. I missed boarding the bus to LA and must now wait until the next arrival sometime with faith this evening. A thought came to mind for a while. It ask a question. If I had the job at the computer store to do all over again; would I? Let me try answering that by saying how it is I have gotten myself in this deep. Obviously there is more work in store as I have not found that freedom so needed, wanted and desired. Can I find an entity who will allow me to exhibit my story and be a help factor for the many like myself who too experience their worlds of trauma? Anywhere I travel on Greyhound this truth is obvious. Am I using this as an excuse to hide my own dysfunctional character defects or do I continue to find my desires would indeed be better for not only myself but another suffering human life seeking his or her way through the kind of peer level communication I believe would make that suffering life achieve that decision as I began mine – a way of satisfying my need for social contact. Going on from this point would again take more of the building and achieving that I, as an example today, sit here and try to find. It may be that I took the slogan longer for some than others and used it again to my disadvantage as evidenced by today’s end result. But what I have not done yet is relapsed. I am only too close to such an end and with such prison would have to be the best answer – if not death. How could I look myself in the eye after over thirteen years playing ‘harder than ever to get’. Am I deviating from the mean? Maybe such deviation explains more clearly the trauma I experience. I’ve ask myself and tried to ponder this question before but have never really answered it. Am I looking for an easier way out now after fifty-four years? I must say or admit that I am. Looking at this on one hand sees how it is my physical norm has its problems but that I was able to make it to the last job for over two years on time more than 90% of the time. I felt the blessings to a certain but not full extent of health care and a bank account, food to eat, money to manage no matter how small the amount among life lived away from what it is I feel today due to my again and again own pure stupidity and blind ignorance. Could or would I feel somewhat satisfied and relieved to go back to prison and write about it all letting one know how much work there is after the high. Now; I do not want to keep that one from accepting what is a real challenge but instead it is my desire to let one in on what is indeed ahead and not accept it at all without that 100% plus it takes to shake that ‘shit’ off his or her back. Maybe too I’ve had that chance of a life time and maybe it was I did what I thought I could as evidenced by all the poetry and journalizing prior to this failure. Not going to say one way or the other as these are thoughts of my suffering what may be only round two, three, four or however many. I remember when I got to Atlanta only to find work I may not have been totally ready for having not prepared myself before this travel decision. Looking back finds how it is I sought that relief and quick way out of some work I hold stronger to believing was laid out for me to do. I can only with faith know this work will get in the right hands for further endeavors and its possible help factors. Meanwhile I will have hopefully chosen to complete whatever task it is I am slated to do for I know being in this situation has an ultimate purpose. Frightening though it may seem I have a kind of numb sense about taking this on. Sitting here at this point was indeed known by my Higher Power in helping to figure this out enough to outlast the final ultimate negative – relapse! With seven hundred dollars put before me and not done yet I know there must be a reason and I have faith in finding it. In California can be seen sidewalks and green grass. The green was just enough to remind me of home where landscape, waters and the environment altogether are true facts of life. Learning something new found how the Colorado River is the border line into California where we came from in Arizona.

And it is good you have not fell shy of a total relapse. You haven’t yet gone back out knowing you easily could. Something is keeping you from giving up, continuing to search, trying to think more and have still yet some faith. But it ain’t easy and it is known the road ahead is going to be a hard one as you are in it at this very moment. The initial stages are upon you and who knows how long this is going to last. So you again fell to the temptations of continued thievery. You’ve kept thoughts of your past alive for a number of years in your recovery from active addiction. It was only a matter of time before this end result. Putting one’s past behind is an important goal to achieve.

Mother was a hard working woman and as a result of it an even stricter single parent. This is a known fact expressed in prior thoughts about myself. Growing up must have left some scars other than physical including epilepsy. Emotionally I must admit being a very lonely and gay man who has issues with any affair or relationship in today’s even faster paced society. I pay attention to disease problems of epilepsy, heart, high blood pressure long running in my family, hepatitis and other problems of health including learning to walk a second time in life. What am I brooding or pouting over that keeps me in a radical kind of personality? At my age I do think about not having been a true success. Instead of a college campus I did achieve not only a GED but three associates plus – all but one of these achievements were earned in prison. This seems to have become more and more a setback. Or is it I am to make this life of mine work still yet? I feel rather good about the fight I wagered against the foe. Addiction was and I guess is still a main enemy in my life even though I have not used in over thirteen years. Such abstinence led me to write a lot about myself and many concerns of life in the Ghetto. I focused on this new epidemic we in America call homelessness. Again I am homeless as it seems the only alternative after yet another fall in this fast paced moving world. To continue on in a position on the bottom of any rank without progress in a business opportunity like computers mean that I have missed that boat of growth prescribed by the norm for making life a reality. I realize my God given talent for the arts. There is also all the work in spoken word and other writing I believe hold a message for other folks like myself suffering their unique lives. So how does it feel to be homeless and not having gone back out there in the darkness of addiction’s nightmare? I actually have no real feelings I can put into a solid kind of perspective. Thus I continue to express these thoughts as they come. There are these feelings of paranoia, fear and anger at myself. Thinking thoughts of getting over this fall after the many in my life is, I believe, much of the fear that dwells in me. Out of these sleepless thoughts come the paranoia I suffer creating the nightmare kind of effect. Seeking the mental health folks at the famous Dr. King county hospital was well thought out in one respect. I knew the therapist would tell me I still have a chance even at my age and all the failures suffered to date. And frankly if I believe any of this it will be held in the work I’ve put together thus far and it actually becoming that message for the human race who suffer their own unique lives letting me know I am not alone. Is this a continued message of not giving up? Am I to let another ‘sucka’ out there know he or she is not alone and that it can indeed work with something called work? Add a little more clarity and intense meaning to the term work and there is 100 percent added to it all. Yah; I learned that 100 percent had to exist in order to give it a shot during the important stages of abstaining from drugs and alcohol and its addiction. Guess what I continue to have trouble with is that same 100 percent after the high. I remember how it is that the real work begins after the addiction because the real problems are now at hand. No more covering up or stuffing the pain of reality with drugs, alcohol and such a life. Wonder how many there are who have been through rough ground as a child? How many bed wetters we got among us? Add to this ground: thumb suckas, slow learners out of those adjustment classes, abused both physically and/or sexually as well as emotionally especially in those single parent homes, those finding crime and prison a great escape or rather freedom, those getting turned out to the gay world as early as five years old and the list goes on and on indefinitely. And after finding an addiction to this negative end of life the high ceases and the violent suffering begins. If I thought it was hard for me as a kid there is quite the surprise I need to wake up to today at almost fifty-five years old. Hey; life never stopped during all the years of my own wasted suffering. This pain on this earth only increased with the invention of the computer and all the modern technology we have today. This was found to be a truth as I made my way through 28 months on a job as a merchandiser for a computer store. Even though I learned a thing or two here and there I did not know the absolute importance of security in an ever changing world here in America. I go back to Royal typewriters and did not learn how to type until they became obsolete. Computers were introduced in prison early in the 1970s after fighting to achieve a GED and from there paddling that same boat upstream knowing a career could have very well have been made for a convict out of prison. After the first sentence its parole and return that career is officially initiated. Don’t be gay cause it is only too easy to make the mad and violent monster one is turned into in order to begin making what I will call a living in what has become their chosen field – crime. Was revenge taking over any positive satisfaction from the success achieved? Wonder how many of you like me found a positive entity within that continues to fight today? Don’t think I’ll ever be an accomplished artist although I’ll never forget how the talent was discovered the first time I experienced a prison cell. Why I believe is because of my not going to the moon with this talent. I instead used it to achieve the strokes that only soothed the already building negative entity in me. There is still the strong desire in me to create a collection of my love in music with my pastels. But to get back on track with my world in art will take many more thoughts and the actual finding of a true and real enough solution to stick to and progress in. My happiness or content could not shine through while living in Atlanta. I felt out of place. In my own eyes I even looked different than my own culture. I did not want to develop a southern accent and the kind of thinking pattern known to maybe the norm in the south. Seems I may be putting the southern part of my culture down. Instead it is I was not comfortable living among the norm deep in the south. Maybe my being homesick and so far away from home had a lot to do with my not becoming a part of. Obviously they, the people of the south, are happy living their lives and culture behind what I continue to term the scorched curtain. An example of life lived in the south finds no real structural differences in building, sidewalks, parks and such in the thriving downtown part of the city. But to take a bus to any residential area found how scarce sidewalks were in the many neighborhoods. During my childhood raised in the Ghetto I always knew to walk on sidewalks and not in the streets of side roads as such were made for cars. And the longer I stayed in Atlanta the more I grew weary, lonesome and homesick for my home in Seattle. In fact I became weary and wanting of any part of the west coast. Wonder if anyone has ever paid any attention to and maybe watched their positive and negative sides at war? I never really monitored the height of this war within until all the writings began expressing life lived among an evil in us all. Except for maybe the ‘Stop Message’ I wrote early in sobriety I never pin pointed exactly why I became uneasy at work among others and uninterested in my life of art as I stopped creating anymore work for a long period of time. Why did I leave my life’s work, especially in art, in Atlanta? Let me make it clear how it is this world of ours continues to change. Homelessness can easily be seen here in Los Angeles as it is in Atlanta. Carts of many kinds, back packs and all the other homeless gear are evident in any city throughout America. People wanting change abroad can be seen today through more war. Having seen San Francisco, Atlanta and now Los Angeles having been born in a city like Seattle has to account for some of whatever that side of me is that continue to fight this war. Again no drugs, alcohol and other chemicals are involved out here in the third city experienced outside my home. Cravings and urges simple continue to be a part of ‘yesterday’. Mind you these feelings do indeed try to lurk. That evil in us, as mentioned before, is patient and can hangout. Such is part of the war waged against this evil entity where artillery may indeed be my having to give up what I thought I had achieved and began again from basics or scratch. Thoughts of my being strong enough to get through, this time, with flying colors having learned from the mistakes made are ever present in my mind, body and soul. My feet continue to feel the pain of my fifty-four years through more than the normal beating.

It’s the third day in Los Angeles and here at another mission or better termed homeless shelter. I’ve been through several seizures since the night I only experienced trying to take my life with suicide. Still have a few hundred dollars left from the trip up here. Still find a win situation in the war against the evil spirit in me seeking to get back out there. One day at a time will hopefully have me at a meeting in the anonymous society before too long. There is so much to do and not a whole of time to do it in. But to load or rather overload myself mentally, emotionally and physically could very well be my doom. Thoughts still come about concerning my ease of mind by spending the money I have on drugs. I’ve even pondered the pattern of doing such with a bottle of ‘Thunderchicken’ as the boost needed to cinch what would be my failure at life. Going down, giving up and playing possum are fought off by the thoughts of my life still yet in art. It is remembered when I lost all the work I had in San Francisco during the height of an addiction suffered in my life. Wonder if I’ll ever be able to research and find entities in this city to get back involved? Not going to ponder if I’ll have to suffer prison again. I’ve done nothing wrong except for skipping out on the debts I owe and admitting to the theft on the job putting me in this situation today.

It’s day number four in the city of Los Angeles. Again I rise before the sun or even the dawn at a well-known shelter for the homeless. Got to make it to a or something similar and find some clean clothes. Can’t keep running around smelling like this. Don’t care if my mental and other capacities are down. I got to stay fresh. Looking at the news in this city finds just another city full of the same kind of news: murder, terrorist, war, crime, drugs, economics in America and its politics mentioned in this list. All news sharing the same issues nationally and internationally. This city has or is experiencing racial problems with riot outbreaks inside their jails. This is a significant difference between Atlanta’s detention system as the dominate culture in Atlanta is Black. Add more cultures in such as jail and prison and such racial tension may erupt. I remember problems like this back home. Life growing up included the big second hand stores. The most popular one we came to know was A thrift store. Earlier expressions reveal how mother shopped for the basic necessities of life as we could not afford new bedroom sets and other furniture. From a clothes hamper in the bathroom to an ice box for the kitchen mom found it all at A thrift store. Today as an adult able to make my own decisions I have shopped at A thrift store many times. At this present time I stand in front of a A thrift store store on Figueroa Street waiting for it to open. I am in need of a pair of pants and shirt and other essentials I may purchase for under twenty dollars. Another day and instead of leaning more toward giving it all up - I continue to fight. At this time I want to express my belief in our Higher Power. So what if there are many kinds of religious beliefs. The fact is I believe many or even most of us believe in a Higher Power. I believe more and more as those messages and experiences of life continue to come my way that I am communicating with our Higher Power. Remembering my expression how God is everywhere becomes more of a reality to me as I am sent through more of life’s true experiences. There persists this notion that all this has an outcome positive or negative and I am to seek out the answer if at all possible. However this present situation turns out there is the growth of faith that will have come from it all. Let us not forget and keep reminded how there are no drugs, no alcohol and other abusive chemicals in my system. Each person must live their life as a model for others. In these writings it is my desire to show my accepting mistakes made in my life and the strong and growing desire to make amends for my wrongs – especially to myself. As I ride a city bus in LA it is found how these lands I dwell in are still without change of basics as I listen to another preach the word of our Higher Power. Such consistency lures me more away from the monetary business end of religion and lets me see how it is such a belief in God has real meaning. One day at a time as I try to do it as easy as possible may let me in on what is in store for me and being able to accomplish what must be done in order to feel good about myself even more than I have in the past with the achievements made in my life compared to the many failures taking me back down. Each of us lives a unique life under the contents of the same basics – this earth we all share. Thoughts of my having reached an unexposed end leaves me with paranoia and fear. Knowing what I almost achieved in my life leaves me wanting to know my fate. Have I exhausted any possible chances at life because of my stubbornness? Is ignorance as well taking the lead in this race? Do I hold on to these thoughts and ask our Higher Power felt within for the help needed and as well wanted in my life? I can’t help but think back to Atlanta. Lonely, sad and not at all happy, even though I could indeed laugh and make jokes, were a daily redundant menu lived each day. If I were given the chance to start over again in the city of Atlanta I would not choose to do so. That should also answer the question of doing it again at the computer store I failed in. This may come from my being able to make it in these initial stages but when I think of how frustrated my life was and it going absolutely nowhere, I thought, in what seemed alien land the choice to go back and be a part of does not set well with me at all. Seems there are thoughts remembered of one being able to make it in any realm if dedicated to success. This is why, again, I mention the term ‘exhausted’ wondering if indeed my life, when I look at it now at fifty-four years, is over? Do I give up and simply go back out there having stuffed the pain well enough to ready my life’s end? Prison comes back to mind again and again. Why don’t I seek more and constant help? Where do I go? Who do I turn to? ‘Who’ is a good question for I have known of God in the environment of religion and the different cultures there are that He exists in throughout. Looking at the future finds how it is my sinful ways of homosexuality would not allow me to believe in and live among those in the church. Thus I see maybe a life elsewhere outside the church as our Higher Power is indeed everywhere. Haven’t heard the term or phrase just one won’t hurt? Knowing I have enough money to ‘blow it all’ or ‘stuff the pain’ is reason to test my memory and my sincerity to my sobriety. Hey Satan; I ain’t biting at this moment. My main concern is getting back to the shelter after taking care of more needed business today. Let’s have faith the weekend does not let me fall if indeed I make it that far for it is one day at a time. Thus I find my way back to what has yet to be a pickup point again for the shelter. The bus is on the blink having not been available to pick us up yesterday or today. Others are at this pickup point so I’ll hang on to my bus pass for today’s outcome of transportation provided by the shelter back to I guess home sweet home. Or would it be ‘homeless sad homeless’ in my case? I’ve pondered my having been striped like this and put in this situation with the intention of my seeing this thing through. Punishment for what I again admit to is only part of it all. Will I in fact learn from all of another trauma in my life? Will I stop sending myself through these negative situations? Am I intentionally doing these things to myself? My lonely life may be seeking attention in some odd way. I cannot really say. I am aware of my having it emotionally rough. I recall how beating myself down for having ever left my home and job in Seattle many times when the going got even lonelier in Atlanta. I can say I had it pretty good down there as far as making a living was concerned. But happy? I still contend I was not or could not see being or becoming a happy man even with the work I had accomplished in art. The streets, buildings, the food we grow, all the transportation and all else we make on this earth I insist are the basics of life. The same set of essentials seen in Atlanta as are seen and experienced here in Los Angeles and the few entities of this land a couple being thousands of miles apart. The atmosphere and how the people make such an environment creates the noticeable difference from city to city–east compared to west. Though panhandling and all other elements of homelessness do not actually change in format the people making up such an example of life are different in their unique individual ways.

Time waits for no one. I believe I’ve mentioned this logo before. It’s been eight days since leaving Atlanta. As I look around in what I will call a Muncha Smacks fast food on seventh street there are others in their own unique lives of homelessness carrying bags similar to my own. Some are more obvious than others but vibes can be felt among us. On the train to downtown LA I notice the metropolitan city outline of Van Nays. Since this is a Saturday and a long weekend maybe I’ll visit out there to see if a certain organization is there. Because of its anonymity I won’t give its name but simply rewrite my Stop Message and drop it off there. To try and do this is the ultimate goal at hand. Can’t say how such will turn out. Just a plan for today in a world of… There was this look at Hollywood and Vine. Nothing really exciting. Just a lot of gold star-studded blocks on the sidewalk with folks like Steve Allen on up, down and around engraved on all this gold. Maybe I’m not taking another fall in life so hard this time. This time I chose not to use. But what about the rest of my life? Thoughts of living this trauma out one day at a time not worrying about the outcome is indeed one way to do this. Yesterday seems such would call for the fortification of chemical elements in my system to numb me up and escape reality. As mentioned this is Saturday. I could find an anonymous meeting to attend and try introducing myself and/or pouring my grieving heart out but me, myself and I can do that here on the corner of Hollywood and Vine over the next few hours or however long since it looks like I cannot find what I was looking for in Van Nays. The more I think the deeper this being a final end for me comes into focus. Why am I not running for the help needed in this kind of situation? If you’ve followed me to this point I’ve been to a number of places and expressed myself to others. Not going to hide anymore facts about me that were bottled up in Atlanta. Want to still try and get my Stop Message to those folks in Van Nays or find out if they even exist in this city. Wonder if I am experiencing a dangerous part of an I don’t give a damn attitude? When I see others in their homeless state there is also attached a mental regression making them almost if not totally unaware of who they once were. Could I be headed in that direction? I’m not stronger than the average human life on this planet. Then there are those who have chosen to numb themselves through addiction. They seem pretty busy and by all means have to stay in motion in support of even a cheap alcohol habit. There are those who live out of city and park garbage cans. Many collect cans and bottles to recycle. They too are a pretty busy culture. In any big enough city there will be found those shopping carts turned into motorless trucks that haul big enough quantities of cans, bottles, plastics and things found in the city parks, bus stations, rural and downtown areas as well as anywhere for its recycling value. Didn’t know a major recording company was located in this city. Brings to mind why I do not have all the work I’ve put together in art and writing. Being new I’ll have to achieve a better knowledge of writing in order for folks like this to look at anything in my mind, heart and soul. Got to consider myself lucky to have achieved the education in the late 1990s to at least let an emotion be heard like this. Still wonder about a message to others here beside me on the subway, in the hospital emergency room, in the cots next to mine at the shelters, walking past or simply hanging out in the streets and parks and everywhere as far as I can see. Seems the thought of death is a definite in me. Can’t really say I tried to commit suicide after losing the job in Atlanta. An attempt to see if the seizure medication I take for epilepsy would get me high enough to numb my body, mind and soul mentioned earlier may indeed have been the case. Thus I do realize I am in what is known as a state of relapse even though I did the right thing to find help in case taking a dozen plus of the seizure pills had ultimate negative effects. In reflecting back on some of the spoken word created in my sobriety thoughts revolve more around my trying to submit this work to people like Americord or Capital. I mean what do I have to loose today as I already seem to have lost it all? It’s just that I know through super strong feeling this material contains a message for so many others. And in my state of being it seems very bleak and by far unsure that I’ll ever get this out to the public or rather my fellow brothas and sistas.

From the Rosa Parks station I’m going to try a trip to an art supply store in Vermont. Wonder if I’ll make it back in time to bed down at the shelter tonight? Got this long brewing notion to start up a canvas. While money allows I better get a box of pastels and choose a canvas to begin work on in the morning when I rise and find a spot to settle in for such relieving creation. In doing or attempting this task it is thought of how New York may have been a better choice for my love in art. Two of the three addresses for art supply stores were nonexistent. Got to try the third store by calling first. Maybe I’ll reference a number of other stores before simply heading to them from the phone booth without so much as a call to see if one does indeed exist. And is there a kind of community for artist in a city like this? Holding on to my dream in art still yet after the fall down south will with faith not be discouraged. If I can get lost like I did in Atlanta here in this city maybe my world in art will work out better for me. I do admit making some great headway in art while homeless in Atlanta. A chance and its risky elements will tell that story upon my in-depth pursuit. The weather is on my side most of the time. Ocean shores are nearby and the southern slang is very secondary to the people here. In fact the Mexican culture it seems lead in population everywhere I’ve been in the city thus far. White folks are also again part of the norm in places like Metro – unlike Marta in Atlanta. Panhandling has grown to its height along with homelessness. In fact it is a major element in this new trend or era we are experiencing g today. Taking a closer look at my situation finds me now among the homeless once again. And again, for a second time, I remain clean and sober except for the relapse of having attempted to commit suicide. Such cold may still be an easy way out of the hardship of homelessness I am experiencing for a third time in my life before and after the high. When I was homeless in Atlanta I got busy with my art. Looking back on all those months on Peachtree and Pine sees reason why I left Anita all my work there in this city. The work of our Higher Power is seen even more as I look back on how I left Atlanta without my work in art and again with only the clothes on my back. This time a complete new beginning is taking place as there are none of the important achievements that have been with me for decades. This I don’t believe include school or other areas of my life from prison to just before this maybe fresh beginning here in LA. Before I go on a continued thought need more expressing. It concerns life lived in this ever changing modern world. Today the age of technology may indeed be a major reason for the escalation into this new era of homelessness. Look at the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s. A bum who collected cans and bottles was a rarity compared to the many shopping carts and plastic bags that help to busy the major city streets today. No room for pride and self-esteem when it comes to looking for and retrieving the recyclable materials from mainly garbage cans. Such is even greater in volume here in Los Angeles where the weather is more in one’s favor allowing more outdoor living or I should say surviving. Because many especially in my age group have not become computer wise enough to compete in today’s world based on technology there grows this society, this community, this new culture of those far less than anyone in any Ghetto. Go to the major libraries in any big city for this confirmation to see this part of life at least taking a look at what the hell is going on? In the 1980s all this seem to begin escalating at an even faster pace and with the turn of the 21st century there was found how lack of this new era’s education caused a new culture of people of all color, mental and physical capacities, even more lost in addiction to alcohol and today’s more advanced chemicals. Places I’ve seen in Woodruff’s park in Atlanta, in Pioneer Square and Broadway back home, the Tenderloin in San Francisco and anywhere I or anyone goes are congested with homelessness and the life it involves. Shelters, missions and the like housing as many as possible has, I can safely say, become a business. Mental incapacities have grown to even more height as seen by the brotha sharing a place in the shelter I am located at making easy, very easy and what seems meaningless conversation with himself. He has been observed holding conversations with his own shadow. Others treat him with the usual ignorance that persist in a place like this. Staff and such seem to treat this as profit seeing such statistics making the goals needed for approval of such funds for continued programs. I may indeed be wrong but looking at this same life in a fourth major city in this country now leaves me with the formation of these thoughts and evaluations. The growth of this new world of the homeless was predicted in the late 1900s said to begin erupting as a result of the changing world of technology and its continued growth with those unable to keep up the pace. Something for others to think about and elaborate on as well.

Valentines was heard early in the morning on the bus and basically everywhere I traveled. Seems another message was sent my way but before the finale of this day there was breakfast at the hospital where I had an appointment in neurology. Weight loss was good. A week ago in emergency I weighed in at 228. Today, even with a food stamp card and a constant 1.5 meals a day, including at least a quart of orange juice almost daily, there was a loss of twelve pounds. My appetite does seem to have changed quite a lot. Seems I don’t really get hungry and something small will quench it for hours at a time. I’m sure my present mental state has something to do with it. As well my physical status also has much to do with the makeup of my being or existing at this time. A few hours were spent at the famous Dr. King hospital. There is still more that need to be done in making my health available. Because of the nice weather finding that boardwalk heard about was on my mind. And it was I found Venice Boulevard where there is a stretch of ocean further than the eye can see with shops of all that one can imagine in art set up for show and tell. I was indeed impressed. In fact impressed enough to purchase the twenty-five dollar permit display card for my own work one day. Maybe I can get my work in art out more down here – who knows. One day at a time is how I will execute anything. In doing this I go back to the message sent to me after the visit and day’s end at the hospital and boardwalk. The canvas I started on and got a ways into was snatched out of my hands by the wind and sucked into a storm drain on the corner of seventh and Main. Getting off the bus and finding this mysterious occurrence did not set negative alarms off. Instead messages that continue to come are seen and endured for their faithful value. The cost of that canvas is replaceable at this time. Maybe instead of RAP stars I can get back to my worth and love in music and Black history and as well see what I can achieve