I went out on a coffee house crawl with Heather this evening. Saint Charles has changed a lot. It's got a much more vibrant artistic community than it had when I lived in the area. I was impressed by the variety and quality of the local artists.

One of the coffee houses was in the New Town at Saint Charles development. It is a planned sustainable community with mixed income levels and a focus on pedestrianism and environment. Narrow streets laid out on a grid and shops and residences within easy walking distance from each other, it's a great alternative to suburban sprawl. Even though it is still very much being built, it already has a warmth and a personality. If I were planning to move back to this area, New Town would be at the top of my list.

Today marks purpleglitter's and my 12^th anniversary! Twelve years ago she made faces at me through the windows of the Haymarket Café in Northampton. Twelve years ago I made faces back. Twelve years ago she took a crazy homeless person she had just met back to her place and the rest is history.

Berv Love Lake
∞

I saw my therapist yesterday. I still don't know the point of going, but I still keep going. I have an appointment next Monday. I'm quite ambivalent about it, but I'll probably go anyway. My therapist wants me to keep going, but also wants me to find my own reason to keep going. I am not motivated to search a reason to continue therapy, as I don't really believe that I would find one. Perhaps, if she thinks I should keep going then she should find a reason for me to do so. I feel the whole endeavour is a waste of resources.

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Today, zarthon is taking me to see my primary care nurse. Hopefully she'll give me the referral I want. At the very least, I'll get a flu shot.

After that, purpleglitter and I will be meeting riga_mortia at the Diesel Café. bathofblood may or may not be there.

riga_mortia wants me to go with her and possibly panda_cookie and/or bathofblood to mute_halo's grave tomorrow. I don't think I am physically up to it right now, considering the frequency and severity of the vertigo episodes I've had lately. Even if I was physically able, I think seeing Rob might be something I want to do on my own.

I left Missouri in February, 1994. I had been living in my car in Columbia, and suddenly I realized "I'm living in my car, why the fuck am I still in Missouri?". My first stop was Terra Haute, Indiana. I had almost gone to college there and wanted to see what my life would have been like if I had.

The only night I spent there, I met Andrea at a coffee house. Andrea was 29 years old and on SSI. Her mother had power of attorney and controlled her finances. The night I met her in that nameless coffee shop, she asked me "Do you want to go to Boston?". I had been planning to make my way down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but I figured what the hell and replied, "Yes".

The biggest problem with our trip was financing. I had little in the way of funds and Andrea couldn't access hers without her mother's permission. Her mom would never consent to a haphazardly planned trip across the country, so we came up with a plan. I met her mom, and Andrea told her that I was a nice Jewish girl that wanted to go tour the Jewish History museums on the east coast. I did as little talking as possible, worrying that my voice could give me away. To my amazement, her mother bought the story and gave her $650. We left.

At this point the plan was to go to Boston, then head up through Canada and then down the west coast. It was an ambitious plan in a 12 year old 1982 Buick LeSaber. But, I had nothing to lose, so what the hell?

Our first stop was Indianapolis. Nothing very interesting happened there. In fact, we were pretty much bored to tears. Neither of us knowing anyone or even a good place to start looking for interesting people lead to us pretty much not doing much.

Next stop was Cincinnati. Apart from almost getting killed a couple of times, it was about as interesting as Indianapolis. We decided to make the rest of the trip to Boston in one go.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it all the way to Boston as easily as we had hoped. My car broke down in Pennsylvania crossing the Appalachians. We were near the top of a nameless mountain, and pushed the car down to some nameless town. There was a mechanic in that town who was very kind and noted the low-cash situation we were in. He offered to replace the coolant system thermostat for just the cost of parts, which was $40.

We spent the night in the town, then headed on our way. By the time we got to Boston, the car was having problems again. It would only go so far before it overheated, but we completed the trip.

One of the first things I saw upon arriving to Boston was a homeless man being chased out of a Dunkin' Donuts with a broom. I took that as a bad omen.

To save money on parking, we decided to park the car in the outskirts of town where it would be easier to find a spot. Instead, we ended up spending the first night in Roxbury as the car refused to travel only a mile or so at a go. The second night, we stayed on the floor of a ratty apartment of some slight creepy guys Andrea had just met. The third night, we stayed in one of the back alleys of Central Square.

By this time, I was ready to leave Boston. Andrea had just wasted around $60 on new boots while I was struggling to deal with the parking situation. I was very worried that I might lose my car. I told her that I was leaving Boston and she had two choices: come with me or get her stuff out of my car. She refused to do either, so I ended up leaving Boston with a good deal of her stuff.

My car was doing quite badly at this point, and could not go over 40mph. I got pulled over on the Mass Pike around Framingham for going too slow and was told to take another route. I took Route 9 from that point to Northampton. The cooling system was acting up during the trip as well, and I had to make frequent stops. I ended up spending the night on the side of the road somewhere along Route 9 in Central Massachusetts.

After waking up, I noted I needed gas. I had a black cloth skirt on with a black button down shirt with a high collar. I hadn't had access to bathroom facilities, so my face was quite stubbly. I pulled up to the gas station and pumped the gas. When I attempted to pay, the attend said "It's free for the church, Father." Figuring at that point that I could use free gas more than the church, I went with along it.

After limping the rest of the way to Northampton, my car finally died in the parking lot behind the Haymarket my second day in town. A blizzard hit that night, a snow emergency was declared, and my car was towed.

The following morning Liz, who I had just met the night of the blizzard, used her AAA membership to have my car towed from the tow lot to E lot at UMass in Amherst. A semester parking pass for E lot cost only $10 at that point and wasn't restricted to students, so I was able to have my car parked legally until the end of the semester. My car was my home until June, by which time it had decayed significantly and was quickly towed.

For breakfast I had faux duck ramen, for lunch I had mac and cheese with black beans, for dinner I had tomatoe soup with mozzarella cheese, and for my healthy snack I had wasabi peas.

I got in more than enough exercise in a long walk that took me down Mass Ave to a tree-lined trail along the sludge river, then over Clarendon Hill, through Teele Square, and finally to Davis where I got a french soda at the Diesel Café.

Success again. Perhaps this is lucky 13.

I went to meet scattermew at the Diesel yesterday. I got there on time, sitting along the wall towards the back. I waited for about an hour occasionally looking for her. I never saw her. Once I arrived home, I called her and asked her what happened. Apparently she was only a couple seats down from me, arriving just shortly after I did, but I never saw her. That's understandable, because while I was fine when i arrived at the diesel, I became progressively more out of it as I sat there. My looking around for her was not done efficiently because I didn't have the focus (visually or mentally) to do an efficient scan.

On my way home my cane broke in two. I knew it was going to happen soon, but it still made me much sad. I am now using the cane I'm making from the windfall branch I found by Spy Pond. I am far from done working on it, but it is all I have for now, so even in it's transitional state it will have to do. I will continue to work on it and hopefully finish the job in the near future.

These things happen, but it disheartens me because I only have a limited amount of funds and physical stamina to go out and meet people, and while I like being social I'm beginning to think that at this point it may be more trouble than it's worth.

Over the last several days, I've been going out more than I have in quite a while.

Wednesday night, zarthon took purpleglitter and I out to Uno's to celebrate purpleglitter's fabulous new job. zarthon accidentally spilt my entire Second City Whisky Sour on me as soon as it arrived, and I smelt completely like a brewery. I used the foamy handsoap in the Uno's bathroom to wash the aromatic drink off my clothing. The rest of the dinner went wonderfully and their new olde fashion tomatoe soup was quite lovely.

Thursday night, purpleglitter and I went over to iamacliche's and recoiling's apartment for a small holiday gathering. I always love hanging out with them and it is convenient that they live so close. They gave me, among other things, a turtle coprolite and a polished fiber optic piece of ulexite. I went through a phase in the early nineties that I was very into geology and rocks and minerals. I lost my entire rock and mineral collection when I was homeless, and am glad to add some nice new specimens to my very small current collection.

Friday night, I met dicotomygrrl at the Diesel Café. We shared a chocolate mint square and played a game of chess. I still remember dicotomygrrl's speech about chess at my birthday party last year, which was the last big party that has happened at the house_of_clocks. She gave me a rose, which I was hoping to put in some water when I got home, but unfortunately left in the back of Glen's van.

Last night, I went to sophiaserpentia's birthday gathering. Early on in the evening I committed a minor faux pas. I'm not sure if anyone noticed and if they did I don't know if they cared. However, I felt really bad about it. It took me a little bit to get past my embarrassment and guilt to get back into the feeling of the gathering, but once I did I had a swell time. I got to hang out with friends as well as meet a handful of new and interesting people (all on LiveJournal), including galaxygrrl, who has been on my friends list for some time but never have met in real life.

That's a whole lot of social activities in a short number of days for me. I'm used to sitting at home the majority of my evenings. I like getting out and if I can get my neurological problems taken care of and find a way to bring in a small amount of extra cash, I would like to make a regular habit of it.

Sara and I met in Porter Square yesterday at noon ready for our trip to Cauldron Farms. We were both hungry, so Sara treated me to an Indian food buffet lunch before we left. I enjoyed it very much and felt ready for the trip.

When we got to Fitchburg there was no one waiting at the station. We waited for about 20 minutes, then Sara went to a nearby internet café to look up Raven's number while I waited at the station in case someone from the Farm arrived. Shortly after she left to get online I started having trouble walking. At first it felt like I was trying to get up a very steep hill even though I was on level ground. Soon I couldn't maintain my balance, so I sat on the ground. Luckily I was at a transit station and sitting there didn't look particularly out of place.

The spell didn't last too long and I was up to walking again by the time Sara got back with the bad news: Raven had canceled via e-mail shortly after we had started our journey. So no reading. A waste of money and a day.

It was two hours before the next train to Boston, so we decided to tool around town. We really wanted to find a coffee house, but were unable to. We did run into a cool queer kid who explained to us just how little there was actually to do in Fitchburg. I though with a small state university that they might have at least an okay coffee house, but I guess not. We did have fun talking to him and before we knew it, it was time to head back.

On the train back I had another "spell". More intense and twichy than the one in Fitchburg. This time I lost consciousness for what Sara tells me was five or ten minutes. Nobody usually pays notice to this things as long as one stays off the ground and doesn't make a good deal of noise. As I remained relatively quite in my seat throughout the episode, I was not hassled.

I did end up going to the ground shortly after we arrived at Porter Square, but again I was on a transit platform, so it didn't look particularly out of place.

Sara insisted on seeing me home, but didn't end up staying for very long.

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Once home I tried to get my computer patched to avoid the worm that I heard was going around yesterday. Unfortunately I still don't know if it is properly patched. It has intractable adware on and I need to reinstall the operating system. I'm very very tempted to install Linux instead of XP, because I'm so pissed off with Microsoft's policy of leaving gaping security holes in their products and then charging for products that attempt to fix those holes. I've already given up on Internet Explorer, maybe it's time to ditch them completely. I would miss Photoshop. That is the only thing stopping me.

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Today I woke up quite disorientated. My behind-elbow and behind-knee were really bothering me. I was a bit stumbly. But I'm not going to let my "spells" dictate my life, so I left the house anyway. I headed over to Walgreens, and almost made it to the door before I went to the ground in the parking lot. Again, as with these things, it was not a catastrophic fall as I knew I was about to go down. I ended up on all fours twitching because I wasn't able to properly orchestrate my decent. Quickly several people came by asking if I was "okay". I told them that I was, that this happens all the time, but they were insistent on "helping" me. They even called the emergency services. Oh joy!

The police arrived first. I told the officer that I was fine, that this happens all the time. He said that I should get checked out at the hospital anyway. I replied that they checked me out last week for the same thing and said it was nothing. That going again would be a waste of time. He seemed stunned by that statement, but I didn't really care. The firefighters and the paramedics arrived in quick secession, each again trying to convince me to go to the emergency room. I refused and signed their little thing saying I was refusing treatment.

Soon after they left, I went into Walgreens. I ended up on the floor in the back isle. Apparently "customers were worried", so management called the emergency services. I left before they could arrive.

I'm at purpleglitter's now. Still a bit dizzy but feeling better. Ready for more adventures.

I have been contemplating moving to Portland, OR. Portland is a liberal city with a nice public transit system. It has milder winters and summers than New England. With all that, the rents are about half that of the Boston area. Unlike SSI, the amount I get from SSDI doesn't vary with my housing costs, which means saving $200 on rent puts $200 extra in my pocket. I've long said that an extra $200 a month would be all I really need to be reasonably happy. Right now, I feel crippled socially, because I can't really go out to coffee houses and other various gathering places with friends on any sort of regular basis. $200 a month would allow me to do that and also get some new used clothing at the thrift stores. I don't know how I can make that extra money in Boston without jeopardizing my benefits. There are various illegal options available to me, and while they are tempting, I'm far too afraid of jail and prison to explore those routes. Any move to Portland won't happen until at least next fall, and even then would be contingent on a number of factors. If the housing bubble in Boston actually bursts, the move might not even be pointful, as rents here would be driven down. I'd wager even money on that happening.

i dealt with rob's (mutehalo) death mostly by dissociation. it never seemed real. It still doesn't. It feels like part of a dream and he's going to meet me at the diesel and we're going to walk to my house. on the way he'll give me a cigarette, the only time i really smoked tobacco. we'd get stoned and make out. it was an almost weekly ritual. i miss him. fuck.

i'm going to the diesel in a hour or so to meet someone i don't know if is going to be there due to a communications mix-up. if she does show up, i don't want to stand her up. but it's my fault for miscommunication if she doesn't show up, so i'll have nothing to complain about, but will have wasted my time and bus fare. i'd walk, but it's too cold outside. i know i need to get in some walking today, so maybe i'll do it anyway. brrrr. i made it to alewife the other day, surely i can make it to davis. i'll decide when i get outside.

Today is purpleglitter and my 10^th anniversary. Ten years ago today I was walking down the steps of the Haymarket in Northampton when a stranger started making faces at me. I made faces back. We went to her dorm room, and the rest is history.