Day Twenty-One

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS***** 

On my way to the library today I noticed that the First Baptist Church has a sign stating they are "the heart of the city". Then you look at their doors right next to it and they are gated off with a red sign saying, "No loitering. Church business only. Police enforced." Some heart right?

Day Twenty-One was all about productivity. I met with the AD guy for my drug/alcohol assessment for housing. Because I'm not a junkie it took about ten minutes. Then I finished touching up my resume during lunch. After lunch I met with the counselor which went alright. I don't like her as much as my last one but she seems like she'll do for now. I just miss the bluntness of my old counselor. I don't want pity and I felt pitied yesterday.

After I was done with her I filed the paperwork to get my food stamps renewed. I almost couldn't find DHS and I didn't want to ask for directions but right as I was about to give up I heard a guy talking about food stamps so I followed him.

DHS went surprisingly fast so once that was done I trekked back to the library and finished my resume and tracked down my food handler's card. I looked up the info for liquor license (which I promised to get for the job). It's $25 so Mother Goose said she'll ask ERC to pay for it. So I have to wait for that to get done before I can go any further on that.

After dinner I grabbed Vampire Girl and went to Playdate PDX to drop off a hard copy of the resume and application. I was freaking out because I accidentally sent it from this email address which obviously I don't want employers to see. If it bothered him though I couldn't tell. He looked happy to see us. When I asked him how the day had been he said, "No unruly mothers today so that's good." I told him we scared the moms off. I asked if we could play and he was more than happy to let us go for it after scheduling an interview for Thursday at 3pm. Vampire Girl and I are not as young as we once were though (lol) we tired out pretty fast. I kept sticking to the slide because I got so sweaty.

When we left Manager Man wasn't looking too happy which made me nervous but I tried not to think it was directed at me. Still, I'm nervous about this one. I want this job pretty bad.

We met up with Kitten Lady and a couple of others and went to Fred Meyer for a cookie dough feast. I bought cookie dough and yogurt then let Kitten Lady slip her rice pudding and cookie dough into the bag. I'm not stealing but I'm definitely helping it happen. I don't know what that says about me but my food stamps are low and she needs to eat. What would you do?

We ate at the fountain which turned into drama when I called Jesus out for calling me a bitch to Vampire Girl. It turned into a screaming match in which he accused me of helping him out as a way to get my computer fixed. Needless to say I'm done with him. I did everything I could to help him and be a good friend to him. He bullied and belittled me in return. All of that seems a little much just to get a computer fixed.

My night didn't get any better when I saw Bitch Lady was working. I am still determined to get that woman fired if it kills me. They kicked Rocky out of shelter because he was walking with his shirt off because he was Nair-ing his armpits. I thought this was ridiculous and told staff so. There has to be something besides kicking people to the streets. It's always the most vulnerable too: girls or guys like Rocky who dress in girl's clothing.

Standing up for him almost got me kicked out of shelter but I was so angry I didn't care. It's not fair. We get bullied by people all day long for being homeless. Then we get to shelter and get bullied and tossed around just because people get off on power trips. It's not fair and it's not right. So Rocky wasn't wearing a shirt? So what? Why not just give him a really boring or gross chore to keep his bed rather than throwing him out to Russian Roulette outside where anything can be done to you by anyone?

Blue Eyed Staff Man kept saying how the job was shitty you get fucked up sleep blah blah blah so people wouldn't do the job if they didn't care. I was not having that bullshit.

"Yeah, except for you only have to do it for fifteen hours! When you're done you go home and go to bed. We don't. We do this everyday. All day. And we didn't chose to be here in the first place. You picked the job. So, you have no idea what fucked up sleep is. You get to go home and sleep in a real bed with pillows when you're done. We don't. We lay down for five minutes and cops wake us up and yell at us. If you're so keen on kicking people outside you should have to sleep outside.  See what it's like to be us for a day."

In the end I got sent to bed which was fine I was on my way to bed anyways. It's ridiculous though. We are  already down on our luck dealing with shit way more complicated than the average adult's. Then we get bullied outside and in shelter. There's no way to win. You get used up. You get beat up. And it doesn't matter. No one gives a fuck about us and we are left fighting for ourselves on practically no sleep. But, staff has it "hard" because they work fifteen hour shifts. If even staff in the shelter can't treat us humanely who can?

--mm