My 2001 Toyota Echo died at Lebanon Hills County Park on June 17th ("Father's Day"). We knew it was going to die, the night before, we had spent 8 hours at Walmart deciding on the best throw-away phones (presumably to communicate with potential sellers of our new used car/home). After that, the Echo took the longest, most tries it had ever taken to start up; and on the drive over to the campground, there was a loud, metallic "KAH-THUNK!"and then the grinding of worn out breaks that had been that way for several weeks got dramatically worse.
Steering was difficult and by the time we got to the driveway to the campground, I pressed the brakes....it stuck and stayed depressed and there was no response from the brakes....the car didn't slow down....
I checked in at the office. I left the car running and had asked Aiyana to remind me every few seconds (or every time I was about to do anything like park, get out of the car, take off my seatbelt, etc) not to turn off the car. I got our campsite, paid for 4 nights, and was able to play it cool with the friendly manager and his wife about my death-rattling car sitting right outside. When we got to our campsite, I backed into the parking space but left it right at the edge of the road, anticipating that we might need to push it out.
We made camp leisurely and joyfully. We'd finally made it. After so many weeks of living in public and constantly being questioned by police, we had a camp site and got to be left alone among trees to set up our tent and just be for a little while. By evening it had begun raining off and on, by sunset it was pouring heavily with little interruption....it would stay like that for the next 3 days.
We had planned on getting the camp site and then going to get food. All I had picked up at the Walmart before we left was a jar of olives, potato salad, almond and cranberry chicken salad, and 6 mangos.
The plan (cuz I still needed to go to work the next morning) was to set up the phones and then I'd take a taxi or an uber and then talk to my coworkers to see if anyone could give me a ride to and from work until Thursday, when we get paid.... and then me and Aiyana would have enough saved up to get a new vehicle.
But we needed a landline to set up the phones, which we didn't find out until 11PM or so. The camp office had a landline, but they were closed and wouldn't open until 9AM.
It continued to rain. We continued to sleep....
We were so sleep deprived, I was working 9.5 hour days, 6 days a week (Mandatory. Which can be brutal, but the steady money was helping, so I just hung in there) and we had been sleeping in the car at night for months, which was cramped, uncomfortable, and we always had to be preoccupied with stealth, appearances, and the stress that comes with getting stopped and questioned by the police on an almost daily basis and everyone seeming to have such inhumane apprehensions about people sleeping in a car, it seems to really upset them. Being on the receiving end of such odd attitudes and behaviors is enough to drive a person insane. I was genuinely concerned I was developing symptoms of narcolepsy. It got really scary....the inopportune times where my eyes felt hot and were deciding they could no longer stay open and my body would begin to go limp without my conscious mind having any say in what's happening....I had to fight it and bargain with myself and combat it with all my strength at the worst times ....like driving in rush hour traffic on 494.... or operating the roller at work (a several ton industrial, ride-on roller machine that flattens the metal plates onto roof and floor tresses).The hell of externally imposed sleep deprivation that Aiyana went through was just as bad, if not worse (in my opinion), but I'll let her describe that herself when and if she wants to....
Some time in the early afternoon on monday, we got up. I went to the camp ground office. I bought ice cream bars, chips, sodas, candy bars....basically the best variety I could bring back to camp within the narrow range of what little food items they had. I also tried to set up the phones and I failed. Aiyana was able to get the phones set up by late Tuesday night; at which time I sent a quick email to my boss to let him know what was going on:
[Subject: Car Died, Haven't been able to get to work.]
Chris,
I wasn't able to get to work the past two days. My car died at the Lebanon hills
campground on Sunday. The starter had been having trouble and the brakes were going, but I
had been thinking it could make it until my next paycheck.
I just now got my new phone set up and working. the number is ### - ### - ####
I'm not really sure what I'm going to do at the moment to solve the problem. But I wanted to
send you a message as soon as I could to let you know what's up. I'd really like to keep my job.
I'm going to try to div something out as soon as humanly possible so I don't need to miss any
more work…
-Patrick
Wednesday, I walked 1.5 miles to the Walgreens for my Anti-Depressants and to the Cub Foods for some groceries.
Thursday, I took a cab to my work to pick up my paycheck....and with any luck (Aiyana had gotten in touch with a lady selling a van we liked on craigslist, seemed legit, and everything was good to go if I could get over to that part of St. Paul by cab) go buy a van. My paycheck wasn't there and the night crew didn't know where they day crew kept their paychecks....
Friday, I was waiting on a cab to do the same thing I'd done the previous day, but assuming I'd have better luck if I showed up during the day shift. I called my boss' cell phone....and he let me know he had mailed it out....The address I had given was the opportunity center in Minneapolis, a catholic charities homeless outreach place that I was in theory able to receive mail.
(I'll write the rest in a little while.... I really don't like thinking about it)
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Sunday, July 1, 2018 - 6:37AM
He said "Ah, Long Lost Patrick.... We had kinda written you off, so we mailed your paycheck
out."
I freaked out while on the phone with him, saying "Fuck.Fuck.Fuck" an awful lot. He told me as we were getting off the phone either to stay in touch, or keep him posted, or something like that....
I walked back to the side of the road in the campground, and the dead car, pushed off to the side, and a patch of grass we could hang out on until 10pm, but we no longer had a campsite, and they were all booked for the night .... so our presence and the vibe of the whole thing was now a different thing entirely. I explained the situation to Aiyana and we did our best to begin thinking of alternate plans....It felt really fucking bleak. We waited, we called the shop that had worked on the starter back in November....they gave us the same tips everyone gives for a starter that isn't working....try tapping on the solenoid, maybe get a jump start--you might have worn down the battery from trying so many times....
I tried starting it in vain, cycling the key (which had worked all the previous times until it didn't....), tapping on the starter and the solenoid, different variations of totally unrelated things I had remembered I had done at different times that may or may not have had anything to do with the thing starting. I tried all afternoon. I kept telling myself and telling Aiyana "It's going to start eventually," and "I'm going to get it started." Camp staff came by to give us a jump start but nothing happened.
Aiyana eventually had to insist I stop trying. it wasn't going to start, and even if it does, the brakes are gone, it's no longer safe to drive, and even if we can get it to some place, what do we do then? It was dead.
I cried my fucking eyes out. Not because I was sad my car died and I'd loved that car, I'd had so many adventures and trips in it....and then managed to modify it and put a bed in the back and live in it for over a year, surviving a Minnesota Winter with my girlfriend and our cat ....I cried because it was the loss of a home, transportation .... the minimal security and stability that me and Aiyana and our cat Toby really, really needed and were depending upon .... and to push through this next chunk of time before some similar stability and security could be recovered .... was more than I could comprehend.
I cried and the two things I kept repeating were "Where do they expect us to go?" and "What are we supposed to do now?" When I was all cried out, I didn't feel much better, it was just time to proceed.
Having each other was still everything, I knew that.... but it was still very hard. She hugged me and talked me through it, in the way only she can, which is comforting, but real....not ignoring that shit was hard, but that we are strong, and there was reason to be optimistic and not lose hope.
We packed our backpacks with the bare essentials, a delicate balance of what we couldn't afford to lose (like notebooks, journals, etc.---most important among the other things we couldn't afford to lose if this was the last chance we had to get our stuff from the car), what we would need to stay warm, dry, healthy....and what we could carry....which was very little. I carried Toby in a sling, like someone might carry a baby in a sling in front of them, Aiyana carried his folded up carrier.
We took off on foot, then took a cab to the 24 hour Walmart in Apple Valley. That was the first night we spent sleeping on the park benches in front of the Denny's, somewhat hidden from traffic on 42 by some bushes. That night, the sprinklers came on for awhile and then would go off for awhile, harassing us in varying ways throughout the night....sometime around 4AM, one would come around every minute or so and spray both of us right in the mouth....we'd put the blanket up over our faces, but would doze off again, the blanket would shift and eventually we'd get sprayed in the face again and get woken up. Toby whined, cried, clawed at his carrier all night. I would sit on the ground beside him and slip my hand in through the zipper to pet him and calm him down with some success....he'd be okay for awhile and I'd begin to relax or drift off, but he'd need me to comfort him again.
It was a hard night. Being homeless, it's always easier to sleep during the day. We got some sleep when the sun had come up. It had been freezing all night, but by 7 or 8, it had warmed up and was quite comfortable. We no longer had to be huddled together for warmth and Toby had relaxed and I moved over to the other bench that was about 20 feet away and lay down and actually get a decent nap in.
I was woken up by a Police Officer standing over Aiyana talking to her, as soon as I noticed what was going on, I got up and walked over.
He said someone had called and thought we might "need some help." Aiyana explained something about car trouble, I don't actually know what she told him about our situation. He kept calling her "dear," in an unnatural, robotic way....placed at the ends of his assorted statements....
I went into the store after that to get some snack cakes. We ate some and talked for a bit before I took off to walk to the Uhaul on 42 and Galaxie to see about renting a van so we could go retrieve our stuff from the Echo before it got towed. I was nervous I wouldn't be able to rent any van or truck because I don't have a credit card. I was nervous during the interaction with the U
Haul Store Manager who was assisting me, that if she got some idea that I was homeless, or if it accidentally slipped out of my mouth, the reason why I needed to rent a truck or van....there would be no way....BUT, much to my surprise, with a $100 cash deposit I was able to rent a 15 foot moving truck and I would be able to pick it up at 4PM.
I started getting really sad and felt like I was going to cry again as I was walking back. Aiyana messaged me while I was walking to let me know that the lady who we were going to buy the van from the other day still had it, we might still be able to buy it once I get my paycheck....I started wondering if putting energy and money into retrieving our stuff from the Echo would be energy
and money that we would not be able to put towards the next goal....transportation to get my check, and then getting another vehicle....which looked like such an impossible task at that moment....
We slept on a blanket on the dirty grass by the walmart and denny's parking lot, not giving a fuck how homeless we obviously looked. At 3, I went to pick up the truck. It felt good to pick up Aiyana and Toby in it. We got chinese food for dinner and proceeded to the campground and the task at hand.
We got to the Echo and parked in front of it on the minimal shoulder of the narrow dirt road and began taking our stuff out and loading it into the back of the moving truck. The Echo had been our home for over a year. It was filthy in a way that up until this moment we were unable to fully grasp, we were never able to just take everything out and take a good, honest look at it.
There was mold on all the carpeting, which seemed to have never fully dried after the winter.
Toby's kitty box had been placed in front of the passenger seat (which we hadn't used since the fall and had made two serious attempts to remove entirely), There had been a sheet of Coroplast that covered the kitty box "area" that rested between the glove compartment and the seat. At this point in time, the passenger seat was home to 2 stacked milk crates and one shallow cardboard box of our growing book collection, which took a great deal of ongoing considerations to make sure remained dry and clean, free of debris, dirt, and cat hair. Usually there was a blanket on the top box of books, that served as Toby's "perch." We did our very best to keep the kitty litter box area as clean as we were able under all of the different circumstances but after a year....you can imagine it was in quite a state....
I won't go into greater detail about the level of dirty the interior was. Me and Aiyana are both uniquely tidy and organized people. By nature, we organize the spaces we occupy for optimum utility, ergonomics, workflow, etc. within the limitations we are presented with.
The necessity to turn a Toyota Echo into an improvised 4 Season Motorhome (or what we sometimes called a "Car-Vee") was a unique project for us to undertake. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they have to, I don't think it can be done well. Problems with stealth, humidity, space, health, and safety are unavoidable with no good way to adequately address or ever really solve. In my opinion, it's sacrificing a functional car for survival....the success of the undertaking should only be measured in terms of the survival of the people and animals who have to use it, nothing more.... we were able to make it work for a little over a year, but that was a surprise. And although multiple mechanical failures that we were unable to fix were the reason we had to abandon it, health and well being would have been just as legitimate a reason. My point is, no one should ever have to live like this, the state we had to abandon the vehicle in speaks to that, but I'm sure anyone who observed the interior.... maybe while towing, maybe at the impound lot would assume a depravity, mental instability, or more generally that there was something wrong
with the individuals involved....
[...that's the thing that always blows my mind about people's attitudes towards homeless people, homeless people's attitudes towards themselves, and their attitudes towards one another....it seems we've been programmed to focus on the individual instead of the (almost always) much more relevant circumstances in which they found themselves, and the failure of a society to recognize it's role in actively doing this to people with mostly counter-intuitive, deceptive, and cruel methods and organizations dedicated to making sure there are always people thrown under the bus, about to be thrown under the bus, afraid of and trying not to be thrown under the bus, and of course .... those doing the throwing, some getting paid to do it, some because they don't know any better, and some because they want to. ....I'm generalizing, of course.... but I do not think the above analogy, assessment of the situation is inaccurate or hyperbolic. The reality is by far much worse and far too complex to get into here....]
I was reminded that most of the money I'd made at GCN had gone into modifying the car to survive the winter. We had done so much research and work to make that tiny car do what we needed it to do, by the end it had given us everything it had to give and kept going until it was dead. All we were leaving behind was it's filthy shell.
There was a warning left on the windshield by the Sheriff. It had Susan's name and address on it. She didn't want to sign over the title to me....her reasons never added up, it was about control. In the year since I'd gone no contact, it'd been a major vulnerability and source of stress and concern.The car was going to be towed to the impound lot if it was not moved within a narrow window of time. It seemed like an appropriate end.
One of the guys working at the park came by on his All-Terrain Golf Cart to talk to us....I let Aiyana do most of the talking, I was a little too raw right then to know how open and transparent it was appropriate to be. She did a great job. The guy was a warm, good soul and his presence was very comforting in the moment. He offered us a campsite for the night, someone had gotten it but decided to go by 8-9 PM....which seems odd, but he said it happens frequently on weekends....since the sites are already paid for, if they're able to offer them to someone, it's always free of charge. We gratefully accepted. It was so amazing and unexpected.
When we were done taking our belongings and all reusable materials out of the Echo, we went to our campsite, set up the tent and watched the fireflies outside before falling asleep.
We woke up the next morning around 9AM. Aiyana was in pain, so she sat in the truck while I took down the tent and packed up. We left the camp ground and went to get some food.
The plan up to this point was to call U Haul and say that we needed the truck for another day, then we'd also use it to get my paycheck in Minneapolis and have a place to stay at night for Sunday and Monday Night. I didn't reserve it for more than a single 24 hour block initially was because I didn't have that much money on me, but if I had it long enough to get my check, I'd more than be able to cover the cost when we returned it.
I called after we ate, the dude told me that it was a "No Can Do..." because he had already promised it to a family who was coming to pick it up at 4PM. There really wasn't much room for arguing with him....Once again, shit felt kinda hopeless....but what choice did we have except to just keep trudging forward.
We stopped by the Pawn Shop, I sold a Shure SM-58 Microphone that I'd managed to find at a thrift store for $15. They gave me $30....under better circumstances, I could have sold it on craigslist for $75-$80....but I was satisfied that I had at least doubled my money and had 30 more dollars than I would have otherwise, whatever lay in store for us in the next few days wasn't going to be easy, but any money we had was going to be needed to make the difference between a positive outcome and being stuck and destitute for an unknowable period of time....
We showed up at the U haul 2 hours early so we could set up a storage unit and have enough time to unload the truck. We turned over the keys a little after 4PM and then hung out at the unit for awhile organizing and determining what went with us that we'd carry in our backpacks and what would have to stay in the unit. It was hard. We left some time in the evening, it was threatening to rain, otherwise we probably would have just relaxed and hung out in the grass for awhile longer. We walked to the 24 hour Apple Valley Walmart. Aiyana had a tough time walking because of the pain, I did my best to be encouraging and tell her she was doing a great job, and it had been the reason why I'd implored her to pack as light as possible and had overpacked my own backpack to include equal space for Aiyana's stuff....what I would have ideally preferred under the circumstances would have been just the one backpack, but that was truthfully unrealistic.
I carried Toby, holding him in my arms with the sling helping with his weight. He's a big, muscular cat. A person feels it if they have to carry him any distance. He had his claws dug deep into my arms the whole way. The traffic on 42 frightened him, at least one loud-ass muscle car roared by and one ambulance displaced traffic and wedged it's way through with sirens blaring.
Toby squirmed and was trying to see everything in every direction and seemed compelled to move in every different direction....I managed to keep him calm enough, he trusts me and I was definitely grateful for that. It was a walk I would have never chosen to make with a cat in my arms if I didn't have to. I had to focus on my breath and my surroundings, stay in the moment, and anticipate Toby's impulses and reactions in order to keep him safe and I was determined to keep pace with Aiyana and not rush her. It wasn't easy, but we made it to the Walmart. My arms burned by the end and we were all relieved to have arrived without incident.
We ate and then went to the lawn furniture to relax. We were both doing our best to pretend we were not dozing off for minutes at a time, then we'd wake up just long enough to pretend we were having a conversation. This went on for a little over an hour before the store manager "Mr. 10 and 2" came over to tell us he couldn't have us sleeping in the store. We said we weren't, ”we hadn't been planning on it....” but he still was gonna be a dick about it so he pointed to our cart, overflowing with 2 backpacks, oversized pop up cat carrier with sleeping cat inside and kitty box in black garbage bag down below....and said "Cuz it looks like you're sorta....camped out..."
After 10 and 2 left, we decided to leave. We headed over to a hiding spot that I'd scouted out a couple nights before. It was a fenced off gravel area in front of Grace Lutheran Church. It was where the HVAC and stuff for the electric and gas was. It was a good hiding spot with relative privacy and there was very little reason for anyone to go back there....It was however located close to a busy intersection, and being across 42 from a Walmart, it was a hub for chaos and anxious activity, at least once or twice a night as a result of too many police patrolling the area, eager for action....even if they had to make something out of absolutely nothing....and then there would be the occasional loud-drama or otherwise boisterous, bizzare, and sometimes frightening behaviors of wandering meth-heads....oh, also suburban people and a "see something, say something" attitude that I really can't get my head around, I always seem to forget those people are out there until I encounter one and then I'm reminded.
At some point in the night there was a traffic stop, the lights reflecting on the wall, the sound of police talking to one another and loudly questioning the person they pulled over woke me up and freaked me out....before I understood what was happening, I thought they were coming to get us in our hiding spot and "oh, shit. shit. " had already come out of my mouth. Aiyana got me
to quiet down .... I eventually fell back asleep into a very light, still on alert, type of sleep.
We awoke to some light rain around 6am, we decided it was a good time to leave our spot before it got later and busier. A little less than an hour after that we hopped the express bus to Minneapolis in hopes of picking up my paycheck and going to buy a van.
My focus was mainly on carrying Toby. Aiyana basically had to guide me. Toby's pop-up carrier was so damn clumsy and isn't really designed to be a "Cat Carrier." Toby's a big, heavy cat but he only takes up a tiny portion of the carrier, it's more like carrying a cat in a big awkward pop-up laundry basket.
Walking through downtown was difficult. We took a moment to rest on a patch of grass by St. Olaf. I thought it was funny how quickly a security guard came out to tell us "Hey, I really can't have you sitting on the grass here....it's for the church...."
Fine. We got up to go, just as pleasant and cooperative as we always are with people being so weird, particular, and freaked out by homeless people resting. He was able to tell us where we could catch the 5, which was cool. Everything in Minneapolis is under construction, it's difficult to tell where to catch buses.
Then we took the 5 to the Opportunity Center. We checked in. I asked about mail, it hadn't come yet. So we sat in the big main room, it's a bit like a cafeteria, which is one of it's functions. It didn't feel weird being there....which it has in the past. We were surrounded by people in a similar situation, the most noticeable thing that we all had in common was that when you're homeless, people make it fucking impossible to sleep, like they fucking hate letting a person get some rest. So the most common activity at the Opportunity Center that morning was sleeping-- in the chairs, arms folded on the table in front of them as a pillow.
There was a notably gorgeous, very tall Transgender Woman there....which I count as a positive of the experience, the rest of which being neutral. There was a lady working there who was a staff member at Matrix, it was nice seeing her too.
We napped and I periodically went to the front desk to check to see if the mail had come. We woke up at lunch time....so groggy. We got in line at the point 75 and older people were called to get in line. Then they called for everyone. A woman said to me "I'm 55, can I get ahead of you?" and I said "Yeah, absolutely."
Lunch was chicken, cauliflower, bean soup, and some kind of desert, all served on well used and scuffed up retired school lunch trays. I gave my soup to Aiyana. The Cauliflower was green, kinda freaky, not sure it was Cauliflower, but there was one tasty bite that was the taste of Cauliflower. The Chicken was fine, but due to the context, and it's tray-mate other food items....I couldn't help but be wary of every bite. The desert was some nondescript chocolate with green frosting chunk, blob thing.
Then they began shuffling us out onto the sidewalk in order to get the next group in for lunch. On the way out, the security guard stopped me
"Hey Buddy...Buddy...."
I turned around, "Yeah?"
"Next time don't bring the cat."
"Okay." I said and I resumed the group shuffle out onto the sidewalk. Then we had to walk back around and re-enter. We hung out in the court yard where we continued to nap. We had to explain to the security guard as he came back around that I was just waiting for the mail and he said he would leave me alone about the cat until then.
The mail finally came around 1:30. My paycheck hadn't come.
Fuck.
We left. Hopped the 5 too early to the spot on Marquette we needed to catch our bus back to Apple Valley. I went to the Jimmy Johns around the corner to get a couple of sodas and break one of our bigger bills for $1 bills.
On the way, I passed an abandoned hobo cart someone had put a lot of time, resources and energy into. There was a Trunk, a Big unfurled umbrella, a lot of padding stuff, like egg crate foam mattress toppers and camping sleeping pads for sleeping comfortably on the ground.
We hopped a bus that took us to Palomino. There was a park across the street. We napped in the grass on the hillside. It was a couple of hours before our next bus came. When we got back to the walmart, we took a shopping cart, loaded our stuff into it and walked to the park down the
street. We put our tarp on the ground and put our blanket over us. We slept until 10PM.
When the park closed, we spent the night on a park bench in front of the walmart. It was brutal. With our minimal supplies, we kept each other warm enough. It rained. We got wet.
After the sun came up, we relocated to a different bench. A woman came by around 7 and gave us Mcdonald's Hot Cakes and Coffee. Then like 2 hours later, a woman came by and gave us 2 full bags of groceries and even food for Toby. When she was talking, it seemed she had to cut herself off, she was talking to her memories of what she'd been through that made her relate to
us....it was incredibly touching and amazing....then like 20 minutes later, another lady came by and said she saw us and saw our cat and wanted to help and gave us 2 more bags of groceries! After that we felt compelled to get up and begin our day. I tried to get my meds filled at the Walmart, but they couldn't access my insurance info so I walked to the Walgreens up the street.
The pharmacy tech was like a girl I would have been friends with when I was 18 or 19 at community college or something. She made me laugh, we talked about tattoos. She had some amazing chicago themed tattoos that were starting to form a sleeve.
Then I walked back. Aiyana went to hang out in the Subway and I went to hop my bus to Minneapolis to check the mail again at the opportunity center.
When I got there, it had come! It was $680! Enough to get the van we wanted + eighty dollars! I texted Aiyana and she texted the lady we'd been talking to about the van. I left the opportunity center and hopped the 5 to the Wells Fargo in Downtown to cash my paycheck. When I was leaving Wells Fargo, Aiyana told me that the lady had sold the van....so I shouldn't head to St. Paul, and not to be sad. I wasn't.
I hopped the bus back to Apple Valley. I genuinely felt pretty good. I met Aiyana at the Subway. I suppose to some extent I pushed my optimism on her--we went through 6 overpriced starbucks mocha energy coffee drinks and scrolled through the cars for sale on craigslist. The idea was to just keep looking and keep messaging people until we had a car---cuz that was way better than
continuing to sleep outside.
One we sent a message about was a ford explorer, we got the guy to lower the price. But after I tried to get him to drive from Chaska to Apple Valley that night, conversation dropped off.
The other one was a Dodge Caravan. The guy was available to meet the following day. There were lapses in the time between messages that made us nervous, but it worked out, and that's the car we got.
We hung out at Denny’s all night, then began hopping busses around 7AM. We met the guy over in NorthEast Minneapolis. The van was not without its flaws and anomalous behaviors, but for $500, it was our ideal, and the guy was the ideal guy to be buying a used car from.
Then we moved in.
Shortly thereafter, I messaged my boss, told him I fixed my transportation situation and would like to resume work.
He told me to come see him, we agreed to meet at 9AM the following day to fill out forms.
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Monday, July 9, 2018 2:28PM
In fifteen days, I'll turn 32 years old. For the first 29 years of my life, everything was one way, then the last 2, I knew that it had always been something very very different.
Aside from the nerve damage in my hands, I don't mind my job. There is something about manual labor that agrees with me. I've gotten physically stronger and lost a lot of weight. The switch to the night shift has been good. It's more relaxed. The foreman is a decent guy. The only thing that was relaxed about the day shift was working with Chino, it was relaxed because we worked so hard and once I learned what to expect and could keep up, I had his respect and he liked me.
Other people I'd work with, we'd have a good day working together, we'd get along, and then Chris would let me know they had been complaining about how I don't shower or wear deoderant. Seemed I had to keep an eye on the white guys, lazy, but competitive, and mad shit talkers.
So I like the night shift, I've mostly been working with this black guy from chicago. He's hard working and relieved I am too. And he's a friendly, nice guy. I opened up to him the other day more than I would have liked, but it seems fine. It was reciprocal, he opened up to me Saturday when he told me his little cousin got shot....
Yeah, so I'll be 32 in fifteen days. I've passed the one year mark being estranged from my family.
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