I'm In Ur Fambly, Judgin' ur Vayoos

Oh, hello there. Didn't see you come in.

Love what you've done with your hair.

City living is, as the song goes*, demanding. All of my adventures revolve around homeless people, though. I made friends with one on the subway last week, when I let him onto the aforementioned subways with an extra swipe of my metro card. He then proceeded to tell me much of the awfulness that was his life. While smoking! His name is Gabriel, and it is tough being him. His wife of eighteen years was leaving him, and his eleven year old daughter hates him. He also has no home, and has been to Jail, where he informed me that they can take everything from you.

*Hurray for the Marcy Stop!

He then gave me a lottery ticket and one of the cross necklaces he was wearing, and gave me a hug when we had to split paths. It was kinda intense - at least a lot more intense than I'm used to.

Homeless guy encounter #2 occurred when I was on a walk with a good ladyfriend (right before we saw The Ten, which was pretty good), and it was considerably more distressing than Gabriel. Nameless homeless fella was trying to scale a wrought-iron fence as we walked by, and right as we passed him, he fell backwards onto the bricks, and was, I guess, knocked out in the same way that can only be accomplished by falling backwards five feet, right onto the back of the head.

He was twitching a little.

Anyway, it turns out that it wasn't anything, er, ah, kinda maybe permanent? Another friendly samaritan stopped by us panicky white folks, and was speaking the Spaniash at him, but to about as much avail as my "Are you okay?". Blinking at us, and having soiled hisself, homeless guy stumbled off into the streets. So what are people to do? We want to be responsible citizens, not to mention, just good people. In other words, we had no idea how to proceed. Ladyfriend calls the nine one one, and gives a description of what happens, and then proceeds to agonize over if this was the right thing to do.

Then we went to Whole Foods, and looked at the models and investment bankers as they bought strawberries and sushi for at least 40% markup! Hurray Whole Foods!

The only other thing I have approaching a new friend in the city is Mr. Woo, who is the superintendent of the building I'm living in for another, oh, week or so. Then I, too, will be homeless. But until that happens, the apartment I reside in is being shown to prospective and profitable renters, who are willing to pay $500 more dollars per month than I am. From about 10 am in the morning to about a little after 6 in the evening, a whole gaggle of people awkwardly walk in, and check my place out. Most of them seem decent folk, though a handful of them are more or less in some kind of paralysis. Mr. Woo, for his part, is probably sick of this nonsense already, and just slumps down on my couch, and we talk about the weather, while the realtor (which sounds like a supervillain name. I mean, I can't be the first person to think this) talks about how much light the place gets. They often neglect to leave out how it's basically a bustling avenue until after the bars close, but that's why I always like to pipe in about how hard it is to sleep on the weekends.

I also don't tell them about my roachy friend, Clarence.
Moowa ha haaa.

One of the worst parts about living in New York is that the whole place functions alot like one big damn college campus, and is concerned solely with New York. I turned on headline news today to discover that the rest of the world seems to be very literally collapsing - earthquakes, mines, and Roberto Gonzales's's's's respectability. I suppose some things are inevitable.