The Blank Slate...

this love...

2009-12-09T01:58:39Z

The left hand of Chopin's Prelude plays in my head
the right hand is playing something completely new
you arrange sesame seads on my knee in a picture
that stops with two eyes and a nose.
My eyes turn away to look at the street
but my mind has turned toward you and watches

Prelude in E flat major? C and E-flat, D and F... E-flat and... C? B-flat?

The video idea is simplicity.
You stand nude on the rock in the River James looking out.
About 30 seconds of shooting from behind where you are motionless.
About 30 where you've turned to the left and I photograph your face.
My hands playing the piano
My face with the black eye
A drive around Monroe Park with the camera out the window.
Shots of Monroe Park and the homeless faces
Me playing chess with Bob.
Hands playing piano
Hands playing chess
A photograph of you video-taping me and the still is panned with the video.
Hands playing piano.

Over coffee...

2009-12-08T19:17:21Z

I remember when we were forming the first student government at SFCC that I was fascinated by the process by which fundamental rules were created in a governmental system, but was completely lost when it came to interacting with people on a social rather than intellectual level. That's not to say that I felt myself intellectual, but rather that a conversation about ideas without worrying about people's feelings and their 'emotional investment' in an idea was more comfortable to me.

It was a psych course recommended by my professor and mentor, Doris LeBron, that introduced me to the idea of personality types and Isabelle Myers and Briggs. I was, no matter how often I took the test and wished differently, a perfect split between the INTJ and INTP types: Great for understanding and developing 'systems' but not so great dealing with the people that have to vote on the systems.

The experience led to my degree in philosophy, which was a independent study studying how a government or country, after a revolution or civil war, tended to develop the fundamental rules by which the country would operate and... I made the attempt the incorporate the issue of personality types into the equation: The personality type make-up of a 'constitutional convention' was as equal an index of a new government's success as the socio-economic, political and military make-up of a country (with a serious nod toward cultural family make-ups with the idea that an authoritarian family (German, Japanese, etc) was likely to result in a different permutation of 'Democracy' than an authoritative one).

The degree was a blast to achieve and I had a lot of fun with it before switching to Design, but the lessons learned stayed with me and have evolved.

As much as I, as Hayak had been accused of doing, complicated the clean models of economists and sociologists with subject material outside the fields of study for which any one thing can be looked at -- Economy, Sociology, Philosophy, etc -- there was an element that I had only understood as textbook model abberations too far outside the mainstream of society to be worth while to consider: Psychology and psychological profiles.

To what extent do the normal psychological hangups of people -- normal, everyday people -- interfere with and affect the outcome of deliberative and operative group projects? To what extent does psychological issues affect normal interactions in a negative way?

edit.

2009-12-04T14:28:15Z

Yeah, I edited. :(

The Freedom of Chains and the Irony of Desperation

2009-11-29T18:33:44Z

There was a man I met at the 3rd Street Diner, last night. He was a a writer, my age of 41, and held his day job at The Jefferson Hotel up the road as a cook. I was a cook from the time that I was a kid until I graduated college. I had worked my way up from dishwasher to prep-cook, to cook, sous chef, chef, kitchen manager, manager... and, when I discovered the SAME boss down in Florida owning The Pasta Market and other high-end Italian restaurants, I became district-, regional- and even warehouse manager, truck driver, etc.

I KNEW what it was to aspire to one thing that was creative, yet excel at the 'real' job that wasn't.

He was drunk.

He obviously hated life and I, being who I was, started asking him the tough questions about who he was, what he was doing and where he was going. He was a writer, but he completely shied away from the 'story' which was all around him and that made me.... curious!! It made me want to slap him in the back of the head, grab him by the scruff of the neck and bring his drunken ass down to his knees and scream: "This is you!! This is the story! These are the words you've been trying to write on the blank piece of paper, but you're too scared to face the mirror of your own life."

I, instead, took a sip of coffee and considered what such a man as me would bring me down to my knees to say.

My life was filled with 'fathers' that were tough and Italian and had adopted me as some sort of mascot. An Irish Mascot. They taught me to 'make it' and not to take shit and they brought me to the Polish Farmer that refused to pay me with baseball bats stuffed in the trunk of a caddy.

My own father taught me to punch the bully in the nose because, as light as I was, that was the only way I would survive a fight. He also spanked me for killing a bug and taught me the value of life. He took me hunting and taught me to kill only to eat, but also how to pet the deer as it walked by and feel the rough fur and smell the steam and.... let that one go.

He taught me that men did NOT talk about such things as what we had both seen: Him in Viet Nam, Me in Beirut. There would be ONE time that he would tell the story and ONE time that I would finally be able to tell HIM a story of Safi. Tears would stream down my face as I told the story over the phone and... he was silent for every word.

"Don't tell your mother."

LOL! "I already tried."

"Yeah. Me, too."

Boys should fall in love with girls. Young men fall in love with young women. Old men start life over with old women who have survived. That is the way of things. That is life. It is a cycle.

Then, there are those that step out of the cycle. They are born outside of it.

I met Kelsey when she was 19 and she was such a person that had taken me 20 years to want and another 20 years to find. She was the person that would NEVER be able to fit in the world... in exactly the way I had never fit. When... she finally realized she could tell me about the visions and talk about HOW she thought and everything else, I realized the irony of it all. The big joke that God had planned to play on the both of us.

Elzbeta died when Kelsey was in the womb. I hate that Kelsey noted that and realized that it wasn't true, what she was thinking. No. Kelsey is, in every way, different even than Elzbeta. Elzbeta was... a desire. She formed the image of what a man -- this man -- would never be satisfied without. That is how men learn to love.

Kelsey... there is no way to describe the timeline of my life enough to say, "Of course! It WOULD have to be Kelsey in the end!"

There is no way that people outside of this could get it what Kelsey and I both have accepted and noted and recognized almost from the beginning: There's no way that Kelsey and I could have found and accepted each other UNLESS Kelsey had gone through her things and I had gone through mine. Homelessness, PTSD, Kelsey's Depression, The visions, the precognitions, everything.

My father said it like this: If I had to do it all over again... I'd do it all over again. He did not need to explain how every bad thing made the good things possible. Would he go through the shit, again, if he had the chance to do it differently? No. He'd go through the shit so that he could have those things that had made his life beautiful.

The things that made Kelsey and I closest were the things that hurt the most. Even, they were the things we did to each other that hurt the most: My meltdown when she had gone to Philly and Orlando. The party in which she was attracted to Noel and walked home with Jamie under the umbrella with his arm around her... and her desire for THAT rather than me. TELLING me about that. The night when I was not 'invited' and that I was saving a girl from alcohol poisoning on the side of a road and she had walked right by me doing that ... Jail. Finally reclaiming my memories, the nightmares -- hers and mine. The vividness of every aspect of life -- beautiful and ugly -- at every moment so that both of us are trying to figure out how to filter the stimuli... and knowing that the other person gets it what we are feeling.... that ocean of emotion and thought and sense and everything and trying to contain it so that we can be "normal people" for once.

Da.

The things that made us fall in love when EVERYBODY thinks that we should not have? That this is WRONG.... and all the problems PROVE it and every condemnation seems to prove... that we were right, after all, even though we were kinda suspecting that THEY were right...

There is a freedom in chains. One KNOWS the limits of one's worlds and can explore the one they are in. Chains take many forms. Metal. Ideas. Beliefs. Culture. Parents. Expectations. Self-expectations.

There is the conflict that's caused by those chains, but there is also a freedom that's gained by completely identifying and recognizing the chains. Sometimes, the slave will understand the reality of the chains FAR more than the master.

The slave will slip out at night and allow the master to think they are still enslaved until, one day, ... the master realizes the mistake too late.

There is an aspect of the master BEING the slave to the slave. The master DEPENDS on compliance. The master's existence and sense of control depends on the slave understanding the master's "rules" and complying. When the slave does not comply, the quick remedy is to make the slave comply. Food. Economic pressure. Taking things away. Logic and Reason and pretending that motives are something other than what it is when all actions and further logic prove that there's a subterfuge.

Ray of Sunshine was sort of a joke between us. He not only put his foot into his own mouth, but could not allow his ego to allow him the opportunity to accidentally put the foot into other people's mouths and reveal the 'ulterior' schemes and conversations and opinions of people around him. I admit to feeling a little bad at the clumsy attempts and him feeling the need to reveal plots and schemes and decisions that "weren't going to work out because he had consulted, but couldn't talk about the particulars of..." lol! He had no idea that he was being watched and known and judged and that the people he was insinuating into he ability to come in and save a day he couldn't even know and see.... they were being revealed with every word.

Da.

Kelsey sees.

Kelsey, as I watch and don't interfere, starts to judge people's words against their actions -- even MINE -- and, as I told her mother, I do NOT tell Kelsey what to do and do not control her and cannot make her think any particular way. She thinks on her own. She always has. That's what I fell in love with.

I'm often in the same dog house that others are starting to find themselves in.

The freedom of chains is this: You finally know the nature of your chains. When you are honest and truthful and explore inward, the people that will not -- who pretend that things are other than what they say -- become known.

The Irony of Desperation is only this: Your life becomes made simple. Suddenly, there is not 'assumption' that the white picket fence is important and you no longer add that to the argument. When people still use the hidden assumptions in their argument, figuring that you'll just UNDERSTAND, it screams at you. You cannot accept the 'truth of it' without asking.... and then you find yourself shut down. People don't WANT you to ask. They do NOT want to answer the simple question: Why?

Why is THIS important and not those other things you ALWAYS taught was important?

Why is THIS important when we're talking about THAT?

Why are you lying to me?

Why am I suddenly able to see your words for what I can see in your eyes and why cannot I talk to you anymore? Why are your eyes and 'truths' suddenly a wall I cannot get through?

Da.

The Kelsey that cried at my table who I did NOT want to fall in love with.... the Kelsey that looked at me as a "cool guy" but had no intentions of falling in love with: He's old!!!

Эмилия Аллзсси

2009-11-27T19:09:43Z

Эмилия Аллзсси
By Sean Rice

Caught in the strands of the web that you wove
Grand machinations and the ones that you drove
to the sidelines of life as a pure distration
You thought that the victory sweet on your tongue
would come with adulation for which you'd be sung
But the pain that you caused was no mere abstraction
It wasn't a game
It wasn't some fun
It wasn't mere words
to mere air that you flung

I smile as I turn away to go about my life
Your words were clumsy, your knowledge rife
with ignorance of the weapons you chose
words and law and other fine toys
may have worked in a world where you tackled with boys
and drama you began with is where it will close
Ten moves deep I see checkmate
In the ring they always swung late
The posts on LJ they think they can use
unravel to read of their own fate.

The best revenge is silence.
The best destruction always leaves them alone
And never interrupt an enemy when they're making a mistake.
The best destruction is an empty future
And the rope handed over to hang themselves
for it is their reactions their own end makes
I don't have to do a thing
I don't have to cry no more
It's not my fight anymore
I quit the field to watch
"Outrageous" some start to say
and I laugh as I turn to walk away.
An outrage, they say with the words I once used
The very words I was told I said only to abuse

Hang her! are the echos on the distant hills
Some wine, my love? as we lounge to watch the cotton candy sunset.

Revisiting Old Pictures

2009-11-27T17:59:34Z

The Stephanie Grant shots covered 2 years and three separate phases of shoots. The earliest series of shoots were part of the essay, "When I Grow Up: A Portrait of Anorexia" and it chronicled a several year battle with the deadly disease. When I met her, Stephanie Grant was 95 - 97 pounds at 5' 10" and, through the photography and long discussions, she gained weight steadily hitting a healthy 138 in less than a year.

Anorexia isn't 'cured' with weight gain, however. Quite the contrary. We found quickly that the battleground would shift to new symptoms and 'compulsions' in a seemingly never-ending spiral of highs and lows that Ms. Grant battles to this day.

Here are some of the images from the first series and surrounding sets:

Images and Art and Visions

2009-11-27T16:10:58Z

I remember the experiment with the single lightbulb and all the math it took and how much better it would have been if I had enveloped everything with light-absorbing black cloth. As a figure study series, it was partly a success and partly needed improvement.

Taken years ago, in my Fenway Boston condo, I came across these yet again while going over archived versions of my old web site and... it finally hit me how I want to do them differently and with a different person.

Enjoy:

Light Study Series I - V.

Getting back to normal and back on the feet when back on the right path...

2009-11-27T06:34:00Z

Thanksgiving Day and I'm at the 3rd Street Diner. It's pouring out and the weather report says it's supposed to drop to freezing. I'm nervous about Tina and Amber working because I have the feeling that they're going to cut me off the way Angel did on the coffee...

*sigh*

Kelsey is in Long Island with her family celebrating the holiday and we've talked about how the relationship is about a million times better since the hospital/jail thing and as much as I agree that the sudden reclamation of my memories at the hospital (yes, there are still strange blanks, but... ) has been the biggest source of introduced 'sanity', I think the other element was that it had suddenly hit home for me that I really could NOT imagine life without a Kelsey...

The biggest thing was that there was... hmm... how to explain the experience? A connection between my thoughts on the one hand and my reactions/feelings on the other. If something triggered a memory, (e.g. a memory of catching Stephanie in a romantic affair) and the associated feeling, I knew that it was feelings about Stephanie and not Kelsey. Also, I found that feelings about things that happened long ago became appropriately faded for the most part, though some memories are still way too sharp for the amount of time that has passed for many of them.

Some things are, as I said, still blanks. I can remember drawing, but not the feeling of drawing... like, the hand-eye process of it. I remember sex as an act from before, but not the feeling of it. I remember playing piano and can play, but I noticed that this was a skill developed well before the 1989 cut-off of my memory loss. Tae Kwon Do and the mixed martial arts motions, too, I can mostly remember and can attribute whatever loss to the many years since I've been in the ring. Photography I have to think about with regard to composition, lighting, etc. It doesn't flow like I know it once did.

Of Kelsey and I, we both find ourselves falling deeper and deeper in love with each passing day and find the relationship and the stronger feelings to be a new playground of a sort. We're exploring things. Our discussions are more and more trusting and deeper and we both are losing that nagging fear of being 'judged' by the other, I think.

Sitting back to think as I write this, I find myself in awe of her in every way. She's more mature and thoughtful about things than any 20 or even 40 year old that I've ever known and considers her words and actions with a deliberation well beyond her years. I laugh at people such as 'Ray of Sunshine' that have been able to completely misunderstand and underestimate her... and who are mystified when she gets pissed off at the condescension and assumptions and "adults know best" attitudes. The fact that the adults who come at her in this way are so surprisingly ignorant or impotent or blindly judgemental irregardless of facts...

... I sometimes find myself worried about the familiar feelings of alienation. I was glad that she chose to go to her family over the holidays and find some reconnection. Even more glad that the uncomfortable subject of 'Sean' hasn't yet come up for her.

Then again, tact seems to be in far better supply with her family than it ever was with mine. lol!

Of Emily Alessi, there's still a lot of anger about the damage she caused and it seems that other people are starting to see her actions for what they are. That said, there's an irony to the fact that without all the events subsequent to her paranoid actions, Kelsey and I might never have been able to overcome the hurdle of our personalities and my PTSD vestiges.

Yes, there have been deperately low points over the past weeks. The night of the bridge was probably the last of those and I suspect that the impossibility of the situation I found myself in was exacerbated by running out of my meds. Maybe. Maybe not. I remember the feeling when I made the decision that I had been completely at peace with it... even had a sense of humor about it. More than anything, I truly felt that the jump, at the time, would have been a perfect answer to Kelsey's life, which has only been made difficult by me (as I thought at the time). It would be the perfect answer to Emily, Kelsey's parents, even Stephanie would never have to worry again.

It was less than no help to go into the shelter system as her parents suggested -- even PUSHED for -- and I truly can't figure out why people outside of this situation can't do the simple math enough to understand why it was such a bad decision. The good thing is that it gave me about a week of a break from the grind of survival and I actually gained some weight back. But, there's still a lot of anger about the system and the sheer unfairness of it. With two college degrees and marketable skills, I know that I'll eventually work myself out of this situation. Most of the others I left behind will be trapped there for years if not forever.

CARITAS demands that the homeless people drop everything by about 4:30 every day and that they take almost the entire Friday off every week to secure a bed for the next week. Richmond is an economically depressed town on the best of days and, in this economy, half of Broad and Main Streets are boarded up with closed down businesses. That doesn't leave a lot of jobs and I really can't think of a SINGLE job that allows a person to just leave at 4:30 every day, let alone take every Friday off.

It's a joke and anybody who suggests that I just knock on the doors of random churches for help seriously do not understand the Richmond system: There is no help. You just have to wait for a Salvation Army bed to open up and the waiting list is LONG.

I know this is different than most cities. The DC system was easy. One could come in at any time if there was a bed and there almost always was one at the NY Ave. Shelter. The system of getting up, working, going in... it was painfully slow with the memory loss, but every day saw me closer and closer to the goal. Richmond was, on one hand, a setback. On the other, Kelsey has, in every way, given me the feeling of working so hard FOR something important rather than merely putting one foot in front of the other for lack of something better to do.

Staying at Kelsey's, obviously, is not an option and her parents are even against me crashing in the car for a couple of weeks, so I've been sleeping on the River at nights and working at the 3rd Street Diner every day. The job with Jared Wilder I may or may not have back with the extra hours I'm able to work, but he's seemed to be completely offline during this holiday week, so it's hard to say. I may have the contract for the pizza place and that, by itself, would completely pay first, last and deposit on an apartment in Richmond with cash left over to begin returning the help that Kelsey has been giving me, so I'm hopeful.

The very first thing I would want to do with an apartment is to cook Kelsey such a meal that would send her into a complete coma of bliss. lol! No 'tuna creations' this time! The meals I cooked at Stephanie's won't even be a memory!

But... chickens before they're hatched...

The biggest thing is to keep moving things forward and to stop allowing others to get in the way. I think Kelsey has figured it out that getting people to understand a situation they would NEVER want to understand or accept is a losing battle... and, then again, I have the feeling she's had it figured out for a long time and was just hopeful.

I'm sure everybody's relationship is like that, though: Invite people in when you're having problems and it's like inviting a vampire into your home: Ya just won't ever get rid of them and they'll suck you dry of all hope!

No.

As I said to Kelsey's mother: The only way I can rehabilitate my image is to succeed. Nothing short of that will do.

Leaving CARITAS, no matter how hard it is to survive for the short time on the streets as it gets colder, is the only viable option for now, though we continue to look for other solutions.... but, on our own and without help or "advice."

Now..... back to work.

Getting there...

2009-11-24T21:51:24Z

To Do:

~~(1) Find a bed.~~
~~(2) Figure out food.~~
~~(3) Go after contracts~~
(4) Get at least 5 responses.
~~(5) Get into a negotiation with at least one contract job.~~
(6) Get Paid.

Getting there. A good day. Definitely more is getting done when I'm more discriminatory about the help I'm getting and from whom...

Every day is still bringing a new drama, though. Maybe people are starting to get it that the origins of drama aren't with me? That I'm not the only person being inconvenienced with them?

Naw. I didn't think so. ;)

With any luck, though, I'm on the right side of the curve and it appears that I am.

As long as I keep kicking out the proposals the way I have been, the numbers game will play itself out the way it always does and I'll have the extra work I'm looking for.... and, yes, pay.

Jared...? Not sure. Waited two days without him showing up online. It could be because of the holiday week, but maybe not. Until that job brings in money, I'll keep moving forward as if it's not there.

More legal stuff? No. The Nolle Prossed case against me is beyond dead in the water for the complaintant. The question is whether I should actually file suit. I haven't decided, yet. Given the additional trouble she's giving K__, it's a definite possibility. The consensus is that it's a strong case, so... why not?

If someone wants to breach a contract and try to blame it on someone else, that's their problem. Not mine.

Of the completion of CSS osC 2.0, I'm nearly there. Currently rewriting the application to handle both Register_Globals on AND off... and I'm hunting down the code line by line.

I'm happy: 30 CL posts that I've replied to, 2,900+ lines of code rewritten, 4 images resized and ready to be placed, 3 article ideas sketched out... and I was part of an interview spot for K___. :) LOL!

The offer of a bed will help. Got that on my own without help from anyone's friends and family...

Yup. Things seem to be back on the upswing, again. Took long enough, but... at the same time, the bad parts helped K___ get to a place with each other that wouldn't have been possible, otherwise. Maybe the road we took wasn't the easiest, but... where we are now compared to where both of us were with each other a month ago? I prefer this and so does K___.

I think the "problems" will be cut in half for everyone with the disappearance of a certain player. I don't see her leaving as a problem! It's a blessing!

ok... back to work!

Pushing it forward as quickly as possible...

2009-11-23T20:13:51Z

The drop in temperature and the rain make it imperitive that I get paid and get an apartment this week. I spent the weekend well and got a LOT done that I just wasn't able to get done when I was in CARITAS and having to leave every day at 4:30. In addition to the contract jobs and the regular job with Jared that I recovered, I also had time to really work on CSS osCommerce v.2.0 and am nearing completion on that.

Every day is now a race.

No Pressure!

10:43 pm. I have a job and we begin on Monday

2009-11-22T03:45:33Z

There.

What part of this cannot be understood? I am NOT enjoying a warm bed and did not enjoy free food, today. If I was, I would not have been told that I had work and it begins on Monday. The job is going to require that I work much later than 4:30 pm. After I do the work, I'll get paid. After I get paid, I'll get an apartment and will have my own bed and my own food that I earned.

I'll be able to wake up and work whenever I want because the apartment is mine. I'll not only get to sleep in my own bed and cook my own food from my own refrigerator, but will be able to invite over who I want whenever I want and be able to cook MY food for THEM.

I will no longer be homeless. I will be able to provide for those I love as well as myself.

All because I walked OUT of CARITAS, tonight.

What part of that was a bad decision?

I chose life.

I tried it your way, CARITAS... Thank you, but no thank you.

2009-11-22T01:06:49Z

Dear CARITAS and Dear Karen and Dear Ray of Sunshine:

I tried it your way. I could not keep my mouth shut and will never keep my mouth shut when I see a thing that is wrong. YOU ALL told me I had a choice between your food and bed, or to go out and live on the streets to get my job. When I BEGGED you to let me just work and keep my job, you cited "rules" and told me that CARITAS just could not allow the almighty rules to be bent. The rules in question?

THOU MAY NOT WORK.

Keep your Thanksgiving Dinner and the rule that we may not leave CARITAS shelter from Wednesday until Friday. I choose to work. I know that means living on the streets and braving hunger and cold, but I choose to work and escape my homelessness.

To anyone who seeks to judge me, go LIVE the system for a week. Hear it with your own ears and see it with your own eyes and don't listen to the people who tell you things are hunky dorey and everything is fine and CARITAS is doing good, charitable work. Live it. See it for yourselves the difference between what people will tell you and the way it really is.

Dear CARITAS:

No thank you. I'll skip the stuffing, this year. I choose to work and I choose to be a man.

Sean

CARITAS receives $200,000 from Bank of America: BoA SHOULD restrict the funding!!

2009-11-21T12:01:26Z

Bank of America gave $200,000 in unrestricted funding to CARITAS with the intention of furthering employment and long-term stability for CARITAS clients in Richmond, VA. Unless CARITAS removes the condition of having to be in the shelter by 5pm and the Friday search for new beds and otherwise removes the time restraints of those homeless that want to work... the money is wasted.

Bank of America may have just wasted $200,000 on CARITAS.

We'll see. Maybe someone will tell us homeless how this money will REALLY help us instead of CARITAS staff?

CARITAS in Virginia: Before you give money or funding to this Richmond Charity...

2009-11-21T11:44:28Z

As far as Richmond charitable organizations go, CARITAS is a very good one. It's a collaboration between several churches in the Greater Richmond Area to provide, among other things, a bed, food, showers and hygene packs to the homeless. Dental and Medical care is also provided, sometimes.

There's a ton of food, the beds are sleepable and the blankets warm. The rooms are dry and clean. There's a zero tolerance for alcohol and drugs and the staff and volunteers treat the homeless people that pass through the system with a modicum of respect and caring not often found in the shelter systems.

The system requires a weekly trek to "Central Intake" at the Conrad Center until homeless people figure out how to get a Case Worker and are willing to accept a busload of extra requirements in return for the coveted "reserve" status that bows them out of a Friday of waiting for one more week of a bed.

If you are planning to give money to CARITAS, don't.

It may seem ungrateful for a homeless person that depends on the bed and food of CARITAS to talk disparagingly about such a wonderful organization, but one crucial fact turns CARITAS into a gilded cage that entraps the homeless rather than an organization that helps people get back on their feet: It is job unfriendly.

Other organizations such as the Salvation Army would be a much better place for your donations. The extra beds there would allow us to finally escape homelessness.

Here's how the system works and, despite raising these objections to the very highest levels of CARITAS in Richmond, Virginia, I was told in an e-mail that I'm willing to publish that CARITAS is NOT designed for those homeless people looking to work and escape their poverty. I was told that I should look for OTHER options and that CARITAS may not be the solution I'm looking for.

So, here's the reality of the gilded cage of CARITAS:

You have to be at the shelter by 5 pm, which effectively means you have to leave jobs by 4 pm - 4:30 pm. That bars you from any professional, contracting, factory, warehouse, retail and most restaurant jobs.

You have to sit in a chair from about 6 am - 1:30 pm at Central Intake every Friday waiting to renew your bed for the next week. This bars you from any job in the MORNING and early afternoon that requires, even if you're leaving every day at 4:30 to at LEAST be there on work weekdays from Monday to Friday.

Richmond is already a depressed town. There already aren't a lot of jobs. There are MANY people in just my Site 3 who have work experience for professional jobs who can't get them because of this system.

Can we get work exceptions so that we can come in late and avoid the Friday trek to Central Intake? Yes. More trap.

You can get a work exception, but no ride to your site if it's located out of town. If you're a reservist, you have to volunteer for a ton of programs and volunteer work that take you away from your work week. :)

The Salvation army lets you work... there just aren't any beds. I've been waiting for two weeks for one and have lost jobs over it.

CARITAS WILL NOT consider a change. They've "already done this and already thought about this and there's nothing new to what I'm saying and nothing to be done" except other shelters here and in DC ALREADY give homeless people the chance to escape.

Giving money to CARITAS means making a gilded cage more golden. Nothing more.

Donating money to CARITAS means gold to the bars of the cage. Nothing more.

If ANYONE wants to refute me or say, "No! That isn't so!" they are welcome to do so on THIS page and against a person that KNOWS the system and doesn't just talk about it in the abstract from the comfort of oak tables and their own warm beds.

Argue with ME! I'm the homeless guy at the mercy of your charity.

Don't donate to CARITAS until they come up with a viable solution to time and work... not merely words and excuses. It is evil not to let a man work who wants to work. To tell him, flat out, that CARITAS is NOT for people who want to work; that other solutions would be better?

It's wrong.

Dearest Kelsey

2009-11-20T12:32:26Z

Dearest Kelsey:

Nobody in my life has been able to touch me in my heart the way you have been able to do. Every day, you show me in brand new ways a depth and breadth and heart and mind that often humbles me and inspires me. Your voice is a sound that truly begins my day and all the coffees and cigs and hours before that first "Good Morning" from you is merely waiting and merely surviving.

I find my world stopping and at a complete stanstill when the laughter is unable to reach your lips... or worse, when it reaches your lips, but not your eyes.

I know this last month has been made hard for you and that you have felt the sting of persecution even though the intended target was me. I know that you have born the burden of other people's words and actions and you have born mine as well and... often without complaint.

Through hardship that you never asked for, but willingly went into out of love, you yet have always been able to find beauty and loving moments and have always been able to show love, remain wise and offer council and advice and... always your actions have followed your beliefs with an integrity that I will never have words to describe.

People may wonder why I would write such a thing so publicly, but it is only because they long ago stopped building castle walls to blow the trumpet from. That feeling of wanting the world to know what I know about this one woman...? That she is unique and beautiful all the way to her core? That there is only one Kelsey and will never be another? And what is this feeling in me that wants the entire world to know these things?

You blush.

You never want the spotlight or the eyes on you. You're modest in every way that I'm not. You are often the one to touch my arm and slow me down on my path when I would run ahead to a destination and miss the flowers and the lights and the way that a vine climbs a particular tree and creates such a shape. You tell me that I give you the bravery to reach beyond that safe and cautious place, but it is you that teach me (when nobody else has been able to) to be more cautious.

I told you, "there are two people in a conversation," but you are the one that taught me what that meant and taught me to begin living it.

You look so surprised when I tell you that you teach me.

You do. Every day.

Today begins day 1 -- another day 1 and maybe this one will stick.

I love you. My ring and your pendant and there is nobody in the world that will ever prevent us from being able to feel the other when we touch those things. No matter how far away I sometimes must be, I am always there and it is only to close your eyes and reach out to know that my thoughts and my heart are there.

I love you. I'm in love with you. I have always been able to feel the love you feel for me and have learned to trust it.

I love you and, as I begin my day and the big climb up a bigger hill.... it is these thoughts that give me the strength to keep walking and to do it again and not give up.

Yet again.

One more time.

For Kelsey, one more time.

A win, sort of...

2009-11-20T12:04:36Z

The anti-climactic nature of a courtroom is something that I had forgotten about and had never seen from the perspective I had as a participant in a criminal case. The build-up had gone on for months and even as my lawyer, Christopher M. Bradshaw, had reassured me that he had a "stack of case law" to back us up, I don't think he realized that I had probably read all of them the past month.

Nolle prossed.

We anticipated that the prosecutor would try it and planned the objection, but Virginia gives the prosecutor wide discretion to hope that an alleged criminal will somehow provide more evidence over the course of a year when they hadn't, before. So, now my studies on the side when I'm not working has changed a bit:

Is it possible to file a lawsuit for malicious prosecution and fulfill the requirement that a prosecution has been decided in my favor in the case of Nolle Prosequi? Though the court usually regards malicious prosecution with disfavor, Niese v. Klos was settled by the Virginia Supreme Court with the decision that the nolle prosequi satisfied the plaintiff's burden that the prosecution had terminated the case in a manner not unfavorable to the plaintiff in a malicious prosecution case.

The Court reasoned that the entry of the order demonstrated the Commonwealth's unwillingness to proceed. Even though the prosecutor could reenter the charge, it would have constituted a new proceeding and this ruling follows the reasoning adopted by several other jursidictions.

Fine.

But, it's not enough merely to show that I was not found guilty of a crime. The prosecutor certainly proceeded in good faith (though a great deal of bias for which he was admonished by the judge) given the information that was given to him. Therefore, the malice wasn't on the part of the prosecutor. It must be proven that the facts of the case were provided to the prosecutor and known to be false or exaggerated and that the falsity and axaggeration was done with intent and malice.

Is the evidence that I would present only hearsay? No. The hearsay rule applies to conversations between people that would not be in the courtroom to defend themselves.

Was there evidence of motive? Yes. Several. The main issue for the original complaintant was that I was 40 and not 20, that I argued about a utility bill before agreeing to pay the difference and, in her words, "He just pissed me off!" (paraphrased and maybe misquoted since I wasn't the person that heard this).

"Following" was a threat that I was accused of. The facts of the case were that I was not even on the same street as the original complaintant. As far as I've been able to piece together, I was on one road and seen through a parking lot from a different road at one point and maybe seen from an intersection at another point at a different time. When I fianlly heard the explanation and was shown a map of the rout, I actually laughed. I was relieved.

Other "threats" were similarly provided as "evidence" and excluded context with the purpose of making me out to be the monster I was not. As soon as provable context was introduced, everybody not facing jail had a good chuckle.

So, is there a laundry list of evidence to prove that the allegations were not merely false, but provided knowingly with the intent to hurt someone by sending them through the wringer of our dear Commonwealth's legal system?

You betcha.

Did I suffer damage because of the malicious prosecution and subsequent actions? Yes. I lost a job. I lost posessions that were thrown away. I had a painful flare-up of arthritis in the knees that made it nearly impossible to walk and which was a direct result of my incarceration in a very cold prison with metal beds. I was unable to move ahead with jobs until November 19th and friends withheld assistance until November 19th would be decided. I was barred from my girlfriend's apartment and she had her own rights violated. She was unable to enjoy the rights as a tenent able to invite guests over the way every other tenent in the building was able to enjoy. She was made uncomfortable in her own apartment. She was slandered or libeled when she was accused of violating a protective order by inviting me over to sleep when, in fact, she hadn't and I had never stepped foot on the property after the judge gave the order.

I had no criminal record previous to this. Now, I have a charge against me.

What's the monetary value of such a lawsuit?

Actual damages I totalled at $7,900.

For pain and suffering, mental anguish and the other suits I'll be filing for sometimes multiple counts of slander, libel, defamation of character? Similar cases that I've researched have settled at amounts ranging from $40,000 - $80,000 and those numbers... just don't even seem very satisfying.

The nightmares and panic attacks that my girlfriend suffered through in anticipation of a court date that she should NEVER have had to worry about? The inconvenience of having to follow a protective order that I should never have been subjected to? The shame? The public humiliation?

I think the money wouldn't even begin to cover it. I think a formal letter of apology from the complaintant and her father would have to be the first step. An agreement to work a full 120 hours with homeless people both in the shelters and in the soup kitchens would be appropriate and maybe an eye opener. A complete replacement of the suitcase and the items in them (the one chessboard can not be replaced and was my only memory of Beirut from an artist now dead). An agreement to allow my girlfriend the OPTION at any time to be excused from her lease if she should wish it and whenever she would wish it. First, Last and Secuirity on a 2 bedroom apartment in The Fan complete with co-sign from the complaintant's father.

Yup.

That 'might' begin to help me recover from the deep anger and resentment I feel and would really help in allowing me to move on with my life.

Let's see what a civil court judge has to say about that...? It'll be expensive to argue no matter what and... I'm a pauper. Hard to get me to pay legal fees with money I don't have partly due to the complaintant's actions.

From now, though: It's November 20th. A day after the 19th and I have a lot of work to do to get myself back on my feet. Again. This time, a lot of people are depending on me to do it, so... here we go.

To Do Task #1: Move on.
To Do Task #2: Work.

Joseph Heller's Homeless Solution: CARITAS and the Richmond Central Intake Model

2009-11-18T11:55:38Z

Joseph Heller couldn't have designed a better system. For those of you (most of you being in Richmond and Arlington) who read my journal, welcome! I know that most of you are NOT people who like to actually read, so I'll save you the Google Search and say that Joseph Heller wrote "Catch-22" from which the common phrase originates.

From the outside, Homelessness looks like a problem suffered by alkies and druggies and lazy people who could very easily get out of the situation if they only applied themselves as ferverantly to that endeaver as they do to their vices. It's surprising to see, due mostly to the circumstances of a bad economy and the types of personal trajedies that can affect any person, the number of homeless that were only just recently a Banker, a Real Estate Agent, a Roofing Contractor, a Married Man, Widowed (widowered? What's the male gender of a widow, anyone, in the past tense?), a homeowner that lost their home in a fire, a tenent that lost their uninsured property in a water main break that also got their home condemned.

As many of you know from rumor, my own was a PTSD episode that is well documented by physicians, psychiatrists, therapists and many of my closest friends. One minute you have an apartment, the next moment, "poof."

These were the people that once looked down their own noses at people that were in the plight that they're in right now. They once walked past people that were homeless without seeing them and maybe gave some pocket change on a good day. Now, they WERE the people they had once despised. Maybe one of you that are reading this will someday experience it... one in seven Americans do.

I got a chance, over the past few days to talk to several of them about this Catch-22 of this situation and, it's agreed by us and the staff and everybody else familiar with the homeless solution, that a person that willingly submits to the Richmond Solution of homelessness is willingly giving up nearly all chances of ever getting out of it.

When you really see it for what it is, the Richmond System isn't the support system it purports to be. It's far more sinister than an enabling system. It is a trap with no logical escape.

The issue is time.

Here's how it works (and see if you get the big joke):

Central Intake at The Conrad Center:
With very few exceptions, it is impossible to get any bed in a shelter without a referral from Central Intake. It's located about 40 minutes (remember that we're all walking) from the center of town across the street from the Prison in a forgotten, empty valley in Richmond. It is closed on Saturday and Sunday (despite claims that it's open on Saturday) so if you find yourself homeless on either of those two days, please find a way to stay warm: You're screwed.

You sit in a room on a weekday from 9 am until your name is called. My name was called some time after 11 am, this last time. I've waited until 1 pm, before, without getting a bed. It was a waste of a day.

You then get a referral IF there is an open bed that lasts until the next Friday... at which time, you have to repeat the process. So, for all intent and purposes, try to get a job that does not include Friday mornings and possibly the afternoon.

CARITAS:
An example Shelter is CARITAS in which you're bussed to another town every day. You have to be IN THE DOOR by 5:00 pm. If you're walking, that means dropping whatever you're doing by 4 - 4:30 pm. This will, of course, preclude you from any office job, most restaurant jobs (busy times and shift changes are usually after 4pm except for breakfast places, which are hard to find), contracting and construction jobs, etc. The further requirement of not being able to work on Friday mornings make the job search that much harder. Even if you get a work exception and are allowed to come in late, the 40 minute bus ride may translate into about a 4 hour walk. By the time you get to your bed, it's almost time to go. You've missed all the food, anyway. What's the point?

If you're over-qualified for most of the minimum-wage jobs that WILL accommodate your schedule, you can always lie on your application.

Your Bag
Most shelters do NOT allow you to store your belongings. You must take them with you. This means going to a job with a huge bag filled with all of your belongings. There is no choice. It is possible, as some homeless try to do, to hide your bag in a bush, or in nooks and crannies such as an overpass or bridge, but every other homeless person is looking for your bag, so it's advised not to do that if you don't want your stuff stolen. When the employer sees your bag, of course, you'll probably have at least a few days of work before everybody complains about you and he/she has to fire you. That's how long it takes to come up with an excuse to get rid of your ass.

FOOD and STREET COSTS
This is just the very beginning hurdles you'll have to overcome. There is a higher cost to living on the streets, believe it or not, than living in a home. Because you can't cook your own food or store it, for example, you're forced either to rely on Soup Kitchens (Different place every day and each place a slightly different time) which you must spend time walking to, or to purchase prepared foods if you somehow have the cash to do so. Medication, with the VCC, is $4 per prescription. If you get sick or hurt, expect to spend the entire day at the bottom of the MVC uninsured totem pole and don't EVER tell them that you're homeless or you deny yourself the entire list of medical solutions that fall under the term: Narcotic. That means you'll be prescribed motrin because, as we all know, your homeless ass is a druggie and can't be trusted with actual pain relief. The fact that 40% of homeless people suffer pain from exposure to the elements or the harsh conditions of prison such as arthritus is irrelevant.

DO NOT STOP
Homeless people may not stop moving. Even the Richmond Library offers no refuge. If you stop for longer than a couple of hours, you'll be asked to leave. It does not matter if you have a legitimate purpose, there.

DO NOT PEE, POOP or EAT
You will not be allowed access to any bathroom in any facillity (and that INCLUDES Daily Planet, which serves homeless people). If you stop to eat, you'll be asked to leave. If you're caught humiliating yourself by having to find a place to deficate outside, you will, of course, be arrested or ticketed.

STAY AWAY FROM POLICE AND NEVER ARGUE
You have no rights. If a cop wants to search your bags, let them. If they ask you to move from a place you have a constitutional right to be at, move. If they want to search your coffee cup to be assured that it is, indeed, coffee, then you must let them. Never argue or you will, as I saw for one poor guy who knew too much about his former rights, be roughed up and possibly arrested for some unrelated charge such as disturbing the peace.

GET A JOB!
Oh.... and, for christ sakes: Get a f***ing job, you bum!

:D

A Diversion Program is needed
The long term costs of housing homeless people that don't want to be homeless, but are delayed in, or prevented from their attempts to work their way out of the situation MUST be higher than the costs of a very few, simple solutions that would remove the walls that block their escape.

There must be a cadre of staff who have BEEN homeless (many homeless shelter staff have been homeless) to handle the specific cases of those homeless who (1) do not do drugs or drink and (2) are willing to work, save and get an apartment of their own. The staff must be trained to understand those homeless who do not fit within the traditional stereotypes of homelessness and who may be qualified only for non-traditional or professional jobs with job compensation sometimes involving mechanisms for which no pay stub wll be available.

Consideration for the image of the employee must be paid with no attempt to get "proof" letters from employers who often would not be receptive to management-level employees who need such letters. Other proof, or a preponderance of evidence must be sufficient to qualify a homeless person for such a program.

Office clothes and shoes for at least a week's worth of work is needed. Most homeless with the ability to get professional jobs (usually also a limitiation in the ability to get non-professional jobs due to over-qualification) are barred for the simple reason of clothing.

"Appeal of Policy" recognizes that the "rules" of a homeless shelter as they are designed only for the staff cannot act as a trap for the homeless people the shelters seek to serve. On a case-by-case basis, there must be a mechanism in place for a formal appeal for exemptions from rules that, in an individuals case, should not apply, or for which the application of the rule proves an undue hardship.

Staff and volunteer training should be provided on an ongoing basis to provide both with the resources to recognize the peculiar needs of various classes of homeless people in a non-stereotypical way. A lack of such training or a lack of breadth in the training result in an inability to deal with certain needs or problems in an appropriate way by many staff upon whose sole discretion rests help provided to the homeless. Inappropriate and 'wrong' conclusions are drawn by untrained staff about the needs, motives, lives, habits and intent of homeless so that, often, cruel, restrictive and unnecessary hardship is often placed on the homeless persons with tragic results.

In a single shelter, I recognized and identified 5 separate chronic psychological disorders among a very small population of men: Bi-polar (manic-depressive), Depression, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Schizophrenia, Borderline Personality Disorder. I, myself, am recovering from PTSD and I've only met two other homeless people who legitimately suffered from it in the male population, though I imagine a much higher percentage in the female population where rape and abuse would be more common. Both men had been in the military and their accounts were detailed and accurate enough to believe the veracity of their alleged military record. I did not pursue the questions about why they were not receiving care through the Vet's administration.

While a informal poll showed that 30% of the people drank to excess or took narcotics, a quarter of the 30% admitted to drinking and drug abuse AFTER they had become homeless rather than before. 100% of that group admitted to giving up or feeling that their situation was hopeless.

Of the people that drank to excess or took narcotics, a majority of them also showed signs of depression and many of them admitted to being prescribed anti-depressants at some point in their life, though only 1 person was currently taking meds and 6 people, though they had prescriptions, did not have access to the funds necessary to fill their prescriptions.

Admittedly, these were very informal polls taken in a small population, but the numbers fit closely with what I had predicted and with what seems to be national averages where statistics are recorded.

Given this, staff training that does not take into account the behaviors and needs of homeless with additional psychological needs does the homeless a disservice in several ways. While it's understood that resources do not allow for a cadre of psychologists to act as overnight monitors at shelters, basic concepts and situational discretion certainly can be taught and a knowledge base can certainly be started as a resource to help staff and volunteers understand the nature of their charges and those they seek to help.

Conclusion
The Richmond Shelter System has a long way to go before it becomes a system designed, not merely to "help the homeless" but also to help people who DO NOT WANT to be homeless and who are actively trying to work their way out of the system. There is nothing more cruel than the speech given to the homeless on the bus ride to CARITAS shelters admonishing them not to be "complacent" when it is the system, itself, that entraps the homeless into the system. On any given night, there are 700,000 homeless people in america. Every single man, woman and child reading this article at this moment has an equal chance to become homeless at some point in their life, no matter how comfortable their present situation. How long that term lasts; how easy it is to recover their former life and put homelessness behind them depends on the forward-thinking ability of the decision-makers that design the system that's intended to help them.

A single, Board of Directors dinner exposing the board member, sometimes for the first time, to the homeless they are charged with helping is NOT enough. The system cannot be looked at, abstractly, from the comfort of oak tables. The problems, issues, system design and operations of the shelter systems have real consequences for homeless people and the unintended consequences of poor system design have a deliatory effect on the ability of the homeless to mainstream.

Get a job?

We'd love to.

-- Sean Rice

My Popularity in Virginia is amazing.

2009-11-17T18:21:06Z

I never knew I had so many "friends" in Richmond who were so interested in my life and writings. Arlington! Even Villanova, PA!

In Richmond, a person came on the 17th to these pages connected to vcu.edu and was using an Internet Explorer 7.0 browser using Windows XP. I know that isn't Kelsey, because she uses a Mac and I know it's not me because I use FireFox. So, where the hostname is saf.vcu.edu, I'm pretty positive that the router and server weren't located in the KI or Sculpture building. This same person has visited me on November 13th six times, November 16th three times and has visited me today twice.

Another person in Sterling, VA and using a Mac OS X and Safari 531.9 has visited a few times on the same days.

Oh! I see Kelsey using that Mac and Firefox 3.5.5 and hitting my LJ a lot and I can see that she's hitting it from her house on Floyd Street: Gotta love Verizon. ... but, I already knew she was a fan.

On November 15th, another Windows IE user (Vista, this time) was in Richmond to visit and I notice that a lot of these Richmond people were hitting me at nearly the same time: A conversation? "Hey look at this?"

Yes, I see the Arlington and Petersburg hits. The one from NY... Can see the computers and the monitors and the operating systems and the browsers and locations on a google street map.

There's a verb, "To lurk," which Princeton defines as to "lie in wait, lie in ambush, behave in a sneaky and secretive manner." I thought my e-mail must be broken, for surely with all this reading of my journal SOMEONE would have left an anonymous comment, but no. Lot's of visits, but nobody seems to have anything to say.

It's too bad, but I understand: For some people, coming onto my LJ so often 'might' be a violation of the protective order that they are as equally bound by as I am. Further, it would be embarassing for some people to be seen as "stalking" me far more than any of my actions will be seen as "stalking."

Don't some of you have homework to do, or something? :)

One Door Closes, Another Opens.

2009-11-16T13:03:56Z

"There's two people in a conversation," I have often said and, like my father, I should learn to take my own advice. I swear to god that if my father took even a 10th of his own advice, he would have been a very wealthy genius. Instead, he died a very poor, illiterate genius. If I were to use him as sort of an role anti-model, then I'd have to really start looking in the mirror before throwing condemnations out to other people. As much as I've demanded that other people consider the facts before hanging judgements on the mere words, "forty" and "homeless" and "psych ward" ... I've ignored the very facts that others NOT in my circumstances have had to deal with.

One tends to get selfish and arrogant about their misery and hardships and it's easy to feel as though you are the only one that is having the hard time. I have definitely been guilty of that, recently... and I've also been guilty of not exactly making other people's hardships easier to bear any more than they've made my life as less hard as it could have been.

That said, I am ashamed that I was not the first one to start making amends. I wasn't the first to see this and start walking toward the other rather than away. I was not the first to start showing understanding and wasn't even the first to apologize.

All I can do is to take the reprieve I've been offered and the breathing room and make the best of it. I cannot "say" that I am someone more than merely a "40 year old homeless man" but actually have to "show" it over time. I have proven that I will get up over and over again and keep walking forward even when it has become a MUCH better solution for everybody if I just stayed on the ground. I have K__ to thank for helping me back to my feet this last time and her parents to thank for that little, tiny bit of grace that MIGHT make walking forward something more than another useless exercise that will be wiped away on the cusp of success, again.

But, that "might" is on nobody but me.

Although K___ had to struggle a long time to get me to swallow my pride enough to accept her help, I did eventually learn to accept that some things are just bigger than my arrogant self; that it was selfishness not to accept help because it hurt K___ as much as it hurt me every day that I struggled longer than I had to.

On November 19th, I am confident that the court will find me innocent of the charges filed against me and I recognize that much of the mess was caused by my own actions and words even if they did not rise nearly to the level of the crime I am being charged with. I recognize that it does not matter that I did not "that" because there were things I DID do and it is not an excuse to claim a fragile mental state: I was still making decisions even if they were not the most well-advised or cogent ones. My actions are my own. I own them, good and bad.

It did not matter that I had the legal right to re-enter the apartment after being asked to leave. The fact is that I should have found another solution to avoid the potential for conflict. It did not matter that I had drawn the conclusions about Kelsey that I had for good reasons or no reasons at all: I should have known and trusted her enough to wait and hear the truth from her lips rather than listen to everyone else.

I should have confronted the people who threw my belongings out directly and face-to-face or in a courtroom rather than complain about it from far away in an LJ post. While their compensation has allowed me to come to peace with something that was a mistake, I am STILL the ass for my reaction and it is my own actions and words I feel shame for. "Things," no matter how precious, can always be replaced. Words cannot be taken back. Cannot be made right, once spoken or written.

I should not have allowed other peoples' prejudices and quick judgements affect who I was a person and should have been more understanding of their world and their ability to understand rather than demand that they suddenly uderstand ours. It is impatience and another arrogance that I have a hard time letting people grow in their own time rather than fitting into my schedule and... again, I let other people affect who I was as a person.

Yes, I'm 41... and I'm finding that a 19 year old is making me see that I still have a lot of room for growth and change. It's funny that she says the same thing to me about her: That I have helped her grow in the ways that she has wanted to grow and change. Even from the beginning, K___ has been able to say things that people have said to me for years, but she says it in a language that makes me stop and finally listen and hear. That she says I am able to put into words the thoughts and feelings she always struggles with... I guess that's what a partnership is.

Kinda sucks about the difference in age. Wish it wasn't there. I have a huge sympathy and understanding for couples in which one is black and the other is white; one comes from wealth where the other is poor; one is Christian and the other Jewish; one is crippled or blind or deaf or otherwise disabled when the other is whole.

I am glad that I have gone through some of the hardships and the PTSD if only because it has given me a peculiar insight into problems that K___ has been facing alone for so long. I am glad that I've been able to achieve as much as I DID achieve in such a short amount of time against all the odds because it has shown both of us that we're strong enough and loyal enough and caring enough and trusting enough to make it through to where we want to be.

How many things we've been able to find beautiful in our lives despite all of this and we find ourselves in amazement to see another person actually standing there; able to see what we see and dream what we dream: That the other person could see the light in the tree as we could. That the other person dreams of that walk on the River with a bottle of merlot and cheese and the color of cotton candy in the water and, "how would you draw that?" on the lips (Someday, K__. Someday).

How many times the other person has been able to make us laugh in the middle of despair? To smile through tears? To feel the hand on our shoulder and wonder in amazement that it was exactly what we wanted at exactly that time and how did the other person know?

Nobody can know how we came to the impossible decision to be together because nobody was there when it happened and it's unfair to expect people to understand something that we had a lot of time to think about before we did it.... and nobody could possibly know the mistakes and successes and thought and understanding and discussions it has taken to get us this far. Nobody could know unless they look at themselves and their own relationships and remembered how hard it sometimes was and... that the two of THEM were not so perfectly matched in the eyes of others and that there were hardships that nobody could understand but them.

So...

I have a little tiny chance to make this all work out, after all.

I have to make this not only a success for me, but a success for K___ and everybody else, as well. No pressure. lol! :)

Fine.

Get out of my way, now. I have work to do.

"Once upon a time, there was a troll king and a princess..."

2009-11-12T13:15:21Z

"Once upon a time, there was a troll king and a princess..."
-- Sean Rice

____________________________________________________

Evenscore
by sean rice

The Troll King sat with misery
that was written on his face
With the princess from the land nearby
busy shredding off her lace
The huntsmen could be heard
hunting all of the Troll King's Race
The Princess has been stolen!
said the criers of the case
The Troll King stole the Princess!
said the horsemen on the chase

"Silly shit," the Princess, said.
"I just don't understand!
why they cannot see it's red
like the blood of a common man"
The Troll King that all had wanted dead
that all had wanted from the land
he only smiled sadly with a heart made of lead
and took her by the hand

A troll is but a monster and a tale they only hear
he said it very gently with a heaving sigh to her
then caught into his fingertips a single falling tear
the princess shed it freely before he heard her saying, "Sure!
I can understand the awkwardness and even rage and fear
but I don't want to see the death of my only love, Dear Sir."
The horsemen on the farther hill were quickly drawing near
The troll considered carefully then made her climb a fir

Fashioning a mirror from the very rock that bred him
The Troll king shushed the Princess and ignored her every protest
The monster stood the shiny thing against a lower limb
and it was then that they all came upon the hilltop's crest
The Princesses stern sire then crossed forth (his beard was perfectly trim)
and in front of the quaking troll king his horse then came to rest

Neither spoke and neither moved and neither dared to breathe
Each strained against the angry words they wanted but to fling
The Sire gestured boldly to the princess with his empty sheath
The Troll King only lifted up the finger with the single wedding ring
to the magic seeing glass and invited but a look to the sire that merely seethed.
But then the gaze did fall and said the single Troll King:

See your face as it truly is for this mirror allows no mask
It's the king of monsters you're bound and oathed to kill
The problem is you've surpassed the object of your task
I'm but a Troll your daughter loved and the monster king until
another took his place so that there's only one to ask:
Are you ready, yet, my dear liege lord, your promise to fulfill?

Nothing to see here. I'm not saying anything you want to read.

2009-11-12T09:47:54Z

See! You wasted your time, but you didn't waste mine. Have a nice day, somewhere else. ;)

Day One.

2009-11-08T21:47:45Z

There's a wind that breezes through the attic and it sings a song of lonliness
There's a mask on the ground and it was painted in the air
A model posed the picture and I published it one day.
The mask is still lying there. The make still lies there.

There's a vision that three women turn to me in a cornfield row
I'm holding the camera tightly not to shake it.
The each wear the one mask and snap their heads toward as one,
"Why did you let that poor girl look back? Do you know what you did?"

They say it in chorus to the camera. Say it as one.

My dreams are art. They are a torture. They are vivid.
My dreams go onto paper when they can.
My dreams destroy the lives of all around me
and I fear to wake with my hands.

Once upon a time there was a Troll King grieving.
There was grief in the Troll King's eyes.
A princess came out to wipe the tears and cried.
It was the princess that cried and not the king.

The ugly troll, a monster, they say, rubbed her back.
Listened and wondered, "What is love" as she had asked
In a notebook full of thoughts and full of aspirations...
all scattered about the floor with her tears.

"Get up," The Troll King Said. "See how my life is?"
I get up every day despite this and to escape this:
Being the Troll. It sucks.
"Get Up. You're beautiful. You're brilliant. We'll make it."

She came back on a metro after having gone home.
She decided on that day to be with the Troll.
She decided that she could BE the person
If only the Troll King could escape being a troll.

Once upon a time, there was a life.
Two of them, in fact.
Once upon a time, two people started walking forward.
Once upon a time they slept.

There is a river through the land and it's called "James."
The Princess snored softly through the first freeze of the year.
Blankets. Huddled in the car. Finding the comfortable place for the hips.
Day One.

It's always Day One.

Unconditional, Stephanie Grant. Unconditional.

2009-11-08T20:45:07Z

Dear Stephanie Grant:

I'm sure the friendship will survive, but there are some things I will never tolerate and this is how I'm built. As much as I would never allow anybody to say bad, denigrating things about you when I was with you, I will NEVER tolerate a person saying bad things to me about Kelsey. This is called loyalty. Loyalty is a concept you don't seem to get and nobody around you really values you for that quality: Not Len, not Harun, Not Ezra Prior, not anybody.

I value you as a friend and support you as best I can. I appreciate the help you've given me. You may call ME anything you want including the "dumb ass" you called me for moving to Richmond in the first place. I'll accept that.

I told you once, though: Touch Kelsey and I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.

I am visciously protective of her and will NOT tolerate your words.

She has never done anything wrong to you and has acted, 100% in good conscience at all times. While there was some question about the events on that one night about why she would call the police, I am satisfied that she acted out of concern and was playing it safe in a situation in which she could not now my state of mind. She did not have your 2 years of experience with me to know that I would never have harmed anyone and my anger was words, only.

She did the best she could with a guy that she had been in a 2 month relationship with. My actions were based on a mental break down that YOU know all to well and can understand, but you have FAR more information to work with than she did.

You have no right to judge Kelsey Thurber. Kelsey has ALWAYS done well by you and has treated you well. You, my ex-girlfriend, have always been treated well by Kelsey.

So have I.

Kelsey has been a solid source of support and love that is completely unmatched by anybody in my past including you. I KNOW she will be there, tomorrow. I KNOW I can trust her and that she ALWAYS tells the truth. I know that she ALWAYS tries to make the right decision and does not use people. She does not give merely to people that are useful to her.

Stephanie Grant, you told me never to contact you because I called you on an unfair thing that you said about my love. The one person I NEVER have problems saying, "I love you" to. You attacked her and I attacked you because you were unfair and without cause to say the things you said.

I'm sorry if that loses my friendship with you, but frankly, a "friend" is not somebody who demands the right to trash Kelsey to me. A friend is NOT somebody who is here today and gone tomorrow. A friend is NOT a person that dances in and out of a person's life on a whim and a desire and a need to be right and unjudged.

Your help with money does NOT make you a friend... it merely makes you a person that has helped me. If you want a friendship, you'll have to learn that there are some beliefs that I WILL hold to: Kelsey is NOT to be touched. Not by you. Not by anyone.

Your choice, my "friend."

random words

2009-11-07T19:33:25Z

Did I tell you about the mountains, yet?
We'll visit them, someday.
The sky makes a sound we call silence up there
and the water that's trapped in the valleys are ice
but looks like water as blue as your eyes
until something touches it and it snaps like a trap into solid
and the breathing is labored with the lack of air
and the moon when its full is as big as two pies
but wanders away when you call it.

Did I tell you about the cities we'll see?
where the languages are strange and the laughter is warm?
Where the children for pennies no longer have to swarm
around you with dirty hands because their hands are cleaner than ours
and they play futball when they're not working in factories we once saw in Jersey
And the hotels now let their own people visit
and English is getting harder and harder to find
We'll see them, someday.

CSS osCommerce, Seven Stone, DC Photo Hub and Richmond, VA

2009-11-07T15:31:33Z

There are a ton of businesses in Richmond, VA with osCommerce sites that are barely designed let alone modified and they're easy to find because several of them haven't even modified the title tag of their sites: "osCommerce" shows up in the browser window, so a Google search of "Richmond" and "osCommerce" provides an instant contact list. A search of their products, of course, doesn't list them at all.

CSS osCommerce v.2.0 is nearly ready for release and I'm spending the day, after bidding for contract jobs, just cleaning up the code and preparing it for download by anyone willing to pay the mere $600 for source. I need to also set up the Demo Store and write the promotion pages to my site with links leading to the demo.

Seven Stone eCommerce is going to be a far larger project and after planning the entire site out, I feel it's going to compete successfully with application superstars such as Magento, but... honestly, the Atria Proposal asking for $80,000 in development funding is looking more and more realistic if I hope to launch before the Internet has become obsolete. If there are any angels out there reading this... Sean Rice needs $80,000 in capital investments and is willing to offer terms.

The Open Source solution of developing the "Free Version" at SourceForge is an option, but I need a clear distinction between superstar core features that would be found in the paid Premium Version. *sigh*

DC Photo Hub is most of the way coded on the architecture level and I should be able to launch the full site by the end of the month. Again, I'm proud of the concept and the execution as it exists, currently, in pre-alpha. I'm also mindful of the server problems that www.modelmayhem.com suffered as a victim of their own success. I'm hoping that the fact that DC Photo Hub is a regional site will obviate a lot of the issues. The Studio Schedular is its own marketing operation, though. 50 Studios willing to sign up and pay, by itself, translates into a nice income for everyone involved. Really, it's a no-brainer for businesses since we're skimming such small amounts from each reservation.

Richmond, VA is a tough nut to crack, but a lot of the problem is that everybody is too nervous with the economy to move on anything. We'll see. I'll just keep pounding it out every day until I make it, here. I still believe that the Rasa Design Studio move to Richmond was a good idea and that the city is growing in the right direction after the loss of its industry.

Dear Richmond, VA: Your web site needs a redesign and the only reason I'm not talking to you personally about this is because I can't find you on Google. :) If you have an osCommerce web site and your browser still says "osCommerce" at the top of the screen on any of the pages, you KNOW that you have some serious design and marketing issues. Talk to Rasa Design Studio and we'll fix you right up!

There. Think it'll help? :)

OK. Back to work.