View from the Sidewalk

I have been reading Michael Brown's View from the Sidewalk blog this morning after seeing it on Digg. This guy is really real, which is to say an honest, educated person who has fallen on hard times. I'm maybe two missed paychecks away from where he is right now. I don't know what, if anything, I can do to help, but I am going to start telling people about him. Maybe someone I know has the resources to help him.

We haven't asked the other girls' mother what led to her losing her house (she still works, near as we can tell), since I deem it ain't our business. One thing I have observed, however, is that she seems...well, comfortable with being in a homeless program. She's savvy about how it works, all its little nuances, and seemingly has no problem being there with her kids.

I, on the other hand, am very uncomfortable indeed. Sorry, I'm not one of Reagan's "homeless-by-choice" and I'm not trying to stay in that progrm through its entire duration, 12 weeks. I want out. I want my own space with a roof over my head, I want it so bad I can taste it, and I'll be damned if I let anything stop
me.

The day I get comfortable with being in a homeless program, someone please put a bullet through my skull.

Night before last, a man approached Jen at Taco Cabana and asked if she'd buy some food for him and his wife. He didn't ask for money, as so many people do these days, but rather for food. We bought a small meal for them and gave it to him. He thanked us and shook my hand. We wondered most of the way home from Austin where we stopped for a bite what his story was. I wish I knew...