Robo Hobo Homo #098

There is a game store here. I may have mentioned it before. They were playing Friday Night Magic. I wandered in and asked about Journey into Nyx. It's out. It was so weird not knowing, after being plugged into the Magic news machine while I was plugged in.

Troy from the shelter flagged me down. He spotted me from a block away. It's my curse that my taste in jackets is so distinctive. It was thirty minutes until the Purgatory Shelter curfew and he thought that I might have a ride back. He was disappointed that I didn't, but he either found a way back or didn't get caught.

While I was walking, I thought about my schedule, what I'd need money to pay for. If I could get an apartment of my own. If I even wanted to live alone. What would the appointment at the Mental Health Center be like on Wednesday? It was all a bit scary, to be honest.

I would eventually gave up wandering and sat inside of the not-a-mall building that my work is in. Then it occurred to me that I was thinking weeks in advance instead of just days. I took it as a good sign and headed into work.

Robo Hobo Homo #091

After my sandwich break, I needed to get to the business of interacting with a lot of people. I needed engage with people and ask them the favor of swapping watches with me at the last minute. It was awful, but I did my best at it.

It wasn't very effective. I finally had to get with Mike, the guy who handles the lobby watches, to take care of my shift that night and I knew I'd still be spending most of the next day taking care of my Sunday shifts.

The next issue was getting an overnight pass from a caseworker. They're pretty strict about curfew. I guess they don't want guys skulking around at night and doing drugs. Daryl was out for the weekend. The thing is that there aren't any caseworkers here on weekends, so you can't get an overnight pass on a weekend. Plus it was Memorial Day Weekend, so it'd be Tuesday before anyone came back. Down here, you gotta be nimble to take advantage of opportunities that come up and holidays are not nimble.

Fortunately, Brandi was there late. Is three pm late? Whatever the case, she wasn't sure on the overnight working paperwork, but Yesbert, the house coordinator, was familiar with it and helped us through it.

I also made some handwritten copies of my schedule to distribute to Dennis, the chore coordinator, and my case worker. It didn't occur to me that that half of that schedule would have passed by the time Dennis saw it, but I was lucky to get anything done.

It sounds really easy, but there was a lot of running around and anxiety about it. Everyone I've mentioned and at least that many people who are unnamed were performing their own duties, trying to get away for the weekend, or trying to get work of their own.

Worth it though.

Robo Hobo Homo #089

I had the job. I had my lunch. I walked home, thinking about everything I had to do. I had to get off of lobby duty for that night and Sunday night. I had to get overnight passes from my caseworker. I had to somehow get enough sleep to make it through to 0500 Saturday morning.

Worse, it felt like things were falling apart. I didn't have a way to diagram all of my responsibilities. I carry around a notebook in my back pocket. I bullet-point things to do and carry them forward, but I ripped half the pages out when I was getting ready to climb the mountain. Nowadays, I have to keep a lot of reference materials.

The trick with reference material is that you have to be able to find it. The best way is to simply collect all of the information you need to reference, organize it, and create an index. If you're constantly adding reference material--for example, discarding a list of potential employers in favor of contacts with your new coworkers—then it's hard to keep them up.

When you're combining them with a log-style book that I keep, it's even harder. I've tried to put certain pages aside for it. I've tried removing and making new pages as things change, but it's still a rough system and I'd been losing track of it for a while.

I was loosing my handle on things and my concern was that it would trip me up if I didn't suddenly know everything going on with my life in the next week immediately.

Instead of panicking, I ate my sandwich and drank my gatorade instead.