Dear Diary . . . day by day

Monday December 4th - She has red hair . . . / Feed
My new PO Box is:
Heather Shaw
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222
Good news, friends.
I went to my first therapy appointment tonight. I'll admit, I was nervous. See, I haven't even talked to my therapist before tonight. I can't take calls during the day, which is when Planned Parenthood counselors can call you back - there are no direct calls, although you can page in a pinch. So my dear friend, David took on the task of playing phone tag and landed me this perfect time slot. But all I had to do was show up, and I did.
She met me downstairs, just as I was explaining over the intercom who I had an appointment with (it's sorta a rough neighborhood), and she let me in. The first thing I noticed is that she has red hair; she's the kind of redhead that would make my stolid friend JJ weak: freckles and deep orange hair. She had an easy smile and I liked her immediately. I think I'll call her Amber, for the purposes of this journal, but she was more down-to-earth than that name suggests. I had been worried over what I was going to talk about, but I needn't have worried; there's plenty to talk about.
Guys, I am so excited that I like my therapist. The last few I've been to/dealt with have either been too new age, or too mean too soon. No one have I connected with like I did Amber. It's very important that you feel the therapist understands you, and I think Amber can follow me so far. Yay!
Anyway, so I thought you'd like some good news; I worry that this journal is too gloom and doom, but just in case you miss that, here's an unrelated story:
During my morning break I went to the little Chinese take-out/conveinence store/liquor store around the corner to get a large bottle of water and a coke. As I'm standing in line, a homeless man shuffles into the store and deposits a small pocketful of coins - mostly pennies - on the counter and begins poking through it. This guy is so skinny his clothing looks like it's hanging from hangers. He is incredibly dirty, both clothes and skin caked in most places with layer of dirt and grime. He looks disoriented and I can tell he can't quite focus enough to count. He is visibly drooling down his long, raggedy beard.
Just as I'm deciding to buy this guy lunch, the man in front of me tells the cashier, "Hey, I'll pay for whatever this guy wants to eat." The cashier looks disparagingly over at the homeless guy and just charges the man for the stuff he's buying, though the man doesn't notice.
The homeless guy mutters something to the cashier, who hands him a styrofoam cup. The homeless guy looks at the cup in his hand and seems bewildered by its emptiness; the cashier takes it back and fills it from the carafes on the counter for him, and the homeless guy begins to pour sugar in.
When I buy my things next, I order up a plate of food - stir-fry with chicken and a kabob of some meat over rice. I tried to hand it to the homeless guy, but he just kept slowly working on his coffee. I set it on the counter in front of his coffee cup.
"This is for you," I said.
He sorta moved his head toward me and nodded.
"Take care of yourself." I almost patted him on the shoulder, but I have to admit I caught myself. It wasn't just that he was filthy, but I also caught a sense from him that my touching him would have been very unwelcome. He sorta nodded again after I caught myself.
I called David on a pay phone outside, just to chat for a minute, and while I was there I saw the homeless guy move past, obviously sans food. When I got off the phone I went back in and picked up the food; someone would surely want it.
The homeless shelter around the corner was only open twice daily, just for meals and prayer, so I couldn't leave it there. I saw no one nearby I could hand the food to, and I didn't want to leave it out on the street; I decided to try again at lunch.
It was during lunch that I approached a man on a bench who appeared to be sleeping. I said, "Excuse me, sir" kinda quietly, and then set the food beside him. Not wanting to wake him up to explain what it was (it was in a foam container in a plastic bag), I left a note on my diary paper I had with me:
Free Food
Please Eat!
Made today (Monday)
I don't know what I was thinking.
I realized that this is not Berkeley; these are not homeless kids begging for spare change along Shattuck or Telegraph. No, Oakland's homeless make Berkeley look like a colorful circus, with life and character come alive for your begging entertainment. These guys don't set up on a corner and beg. They might occasionally ask you for a quarter if you pass by and they're alert enough to ask, but for the most part, I think they try to be invisible. The women seem more active, collecting cans and such, (but then some of the Asians living in the neighborhood - this is on the edge of Chinatown - also collect cans as part of their general thriftiness). No, it's not a place for panhandlers, and beggar might be stretching it; what we have here are honest-to-goodness bums.
You may be wondering what happened to the food. I sat on a park bench across the park and ate my own lunch, and watched as the guy woke up, stood up and walked over to the port-a-potty, not even noticing the food or the note. Eventually he came back, but in the interim another homeless person had come by, looked at the note, and shuffled on her way. And he didn't even notice the note once he came back, although he did notice the package and put it behind the bench to get it out of his way. After awhile he read the note, looked behind the bench, and then decided it was too much trouble to pick up again. The woman came back and hollered at him to eat the food, but refused it herself. They weren't hungry. They might be cold and dirty and a few of them drunk, but they'd eaten. Oh yeah, the shelter around the corner . . .
You ain't in Berkeley any more, Dorothy.
PS Yes, this could have been written better; sorry about that.
Exercise log:
Helped move a loveseat down two flights of stairs onto a car then into my house. Hey, that sorta counts.
Took a walk to the park while I thought over my article idea. Jumped around the ampitheatre seats.
Writing log:
Working on an article on Octavia Butler for Strange Horizons.
I'm currently reading:
Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier

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