A while back I received notice that the Stimulus Package was being put into effect, raising my weekly unemployment benefit as well as upping my monthly food stamp payment as well. Everybody bit helps, right?

Then I received noticed from the Department of Human Services that my food stamp benefits were scheduled to be determinated, with June being my last beneficiary month, but that I could come in and get them extended for another six months. That’s what I’m doing this morning.

7:43 I’m on the red line Metro, opting to take the train instead of bus/long walk since it’s supposed to be pretty warm today. Quite a difference from the cold and rainy day in January, when I was last here.

7:55 I’m here now corraling in the waiting room. They do seem to be calling people a little faster this time, although I know that’s pobably no indication of how quickly I will be processed. And only two screaming/crying kids!

8:08 Being here is kind of like being at the DMV: lots of waiting with fellow humans that you probably would ever encounter elsewhere in your life circles.

8:44 Name called to fill out paperwork. Then wait again for appt with case worker.

9:52 Coming up on the two-hour mark and these chairs are not comfortable at all. There is a man that came in and took off his shoes, no socks. He grabs a towel from his bag and wipes his feet off. He puts on brand new athletic socks and puts his sneakers back on. He is also carrying another, nicer pair, of sneakers in his bag. Now he’s putting on a yellow tie, yet he’s wearing a tshirt.

10:30 They’re putting The Wiz on the TV!

10:52 Well that was a fucking waste of time. Now they’re saying I need to show all this different paperwork that wasn’t needed before. Which means now I’ve got to get in touch w/ the H8ST8 to get proof of unemployment payments with them, as well as proof of lease (neither of which was necessary before). I think it all depends on who you get waiting on you and what kind of mood they’re in.

Do you know what happened 40 years ago today? You should.

It’s been a bizarre week. Nine dead on the Metro crash. Farrah loses her battle with Cancer. Michael Jackson unexpectedly dies. Distant deaths of people I didn’t know but have had some sort of impact or memory in my life. Thursday I found out I’m separated by one degree to the driver of the Metro train that crashed.

In 1977 I had “the poster” iron-on on a yellow tshirt, and wore it to school. My principal made me turn my tshirt inside out for the remainder of the day. Apparently the teeth or the boobs (or the nipple) was too much. Some people didn’t know how to handle Farrah’s sex appeal. I also had a puzzle of the poster image, too. Her teeth was perfectly centered onto one of the pieces and I always thought that was cool. Maybe if that piece had not been cut so, if her teeth had been divided between pieces, I might never have remembered even owning that puzzle.

There are many more memories and associations with Michael Jackson. The first was back in 1972 or so. On my Cub Scouts handbook (Wolf? Bear? I can’t remember.) I had affixed a Michael Jackson plastic 3-dimensional sticker, which I probably got at the bottom of a cereal box. And also I remember watching the Jackson 5 cartoon series, with its groovy warm colors and animated videos to their songs. And singing Rockin’ Robin in music class.

Later, as an adolescent, I can remember the singles from Off The Wall on heavy rotation on both radio and at the skating rink. My favorite was always Workin’ Day & Night, maybe because it was the most frenetic of the singles from that album, maybe because all the staccato of the percussion. This, of course, was setting the stage for my fascination with the sequencer-laden pop from the early 80s and in particular one Mr. Nick Rhodes.

Then, right after high school, Thriller dropped. The sleeper first hit, The Girl Is Mine, was pretty much under my radar but then Billie Jean showed up on the radio and MTV, and I swear that bassline is still the hottest to date. I watched, live (at broadcast date) the Motown 25 special, where he first moonwalked and really declared his independence from his brothers, who had performed with him minutes earlier but then left the stage once the bass from Billie Jean started. Soon everybody was talking about the Beat It video and had I seen it yet or not. And you probably know the rest of the story from there: the Pepsi spot, the premiere of the Thriller video, super-hyper-mega-stardom, etc.

My interest in MJ waned over the years, but it was always obvious when a new album was coming out and there was no escaping the publicity about his personal life. Wacko? Guilty? Perv? I guess it really doesn’t matter now. The talk on the news is what he will be remembered for, will it be the music or will it be the oddities and scandals? I presume it will be both. No one speaks of Marilyn without mentioning JFK; nobody mentions Elvis without referencing the gaudiness of Vegas shows and dying on a toilet. And it’s probably better that we do remember both sides of Michael, the great music and the perverse plastic oddity he had become.

Today I found out a friend’s cat also passed away, the cute and friendly Kosmo that I spent some time with back in April. Friend’s pets passing is always sad for me, having The Twins™ pass away and knowing what those feelings entail. So RIP to all, even Mr. McMahon.

Today my Aunt & Uncle who live in Stephens City, VA (near Winchester, the home of Patsy Cline) are having a horseshoe/BBQ in honor of my Mother. I guess it’s a Father’s Day thing, too. I’m going to ride out there with my cousin and it takes a few hours to get out there so it’s going to be a long day.

Last night I went to bed early, taking a sleeping pill to assure a long night’s rest. Well, I woke up around 1:00 after a couple hours of sleep. Laying awake until about 5:00, the 8:30 alarm resulted in waking from a groggy sleep to Courtney wanting to be the girl with the most cake and Peter’s heart going boom-boom-boom.

A bit of explaining: Years ago, I guess in the early 90s or thereabouts my Mom would always organize a horseshoe tournament over Thanksgiving or the holidays when all the family was around. I was away at school for some of these but they were always fun and a good way to work off some of the huge meal we had just eaten. There was a plaque with a list of winners and I think some trophies were handed out too. These games ended when my Grandfather had a stroke; my Mom’s efforts were centered elsewhere than horseshoes. My Uncle (my Mom’s brother) is trying to start this tradition back up again, which is nice.)

Back to today. On the way way out west we drive through the vehicular mess that is present day Tyson’s Corner and I’m amazed at all of the closed car dealerships that line Route 7. I once test drove a Mustang at that one. I test drove a Fiero at that one. I sat in a DeLorean at that one. Hello, new economy.

Several hours later we’re in at my Uncle’s house and three grills of burgers & dogs are cooking, with a whole spread of food inside (my Aunt Waima makes the best potato salad). I’m paired up with my cousin Rick for horseshoes which is good because I pretty much suck and I’m hoping Rick will carry our team. We won our first game but then lost our 2nd. That’s fine, it was all fun to play. It’s like billiards or bowling: you don’t have to be good at it to throw some metal and have fun.

The winners: my brother Chuck and cousin Don (Rick’s brother). It did turn out to be a long day (getting home around 9) but it was great to see everybody and get out of the city for the day.

Taking advice from friends and talk show hosts, last week I decided (after 14 years of residency) to obtain a DC Library card. The main reason for doing this was to have a new book to take to the beach with me. A supplemental reason was because it was free. They’ve got DVDs there too and I’m cranking down my Netflix to the minimum (cash-saving move) and I can pick up supplemental discs from the library.

I decided to checkout Douglas Coupland’s “The Gum Thief” which has been out for a year or so but I never got around to purchasing and, of course, there’s no way I can pay for a book now.

I took it to the beach but because of having too much fun with the dozen friends there, I didn’t even crack the cover. I did start reading it in the car on the way back though.

———

The above was written almost a month ago, May 29. I barreled halfway through the book but then had to slow down. I finished it a couple of weeks ago but held onto it in case I needed to reference it this post. In true fashion, it sat there collecting dust like the characters in the book-within-a-book Glove Pond, written by Roger, the main storyteller in TGF.

As it sat there and I pushed back it’s due date I started to think more and more about Roger. Roger is in his early/mid-forties (I think he’s 43—this is why I wanted to keep the book awhile longer for reference). His life is in freefall: his wife has left him, a son has been killed in a car accident and he’s lost his job. He’s forced to take a mind-numbing job as a stockboy at Staples, but you get the sense he’s okay with this since he can drink on the job.

Minus the failed relationship and the deceased son, I can relate to Roger’s situation. Forced to take a McJob and half-sleep out of his car (at least he has one) he retreats into the book he’s writing, picking up character traits for his fictional characters from his old-enough-to-be-my-offspring coworkers and what few adults remain in his life.

I have not uttered a word in 43 hours.

Last week I passed the six-month mark of being unemployed. The majority of jobs I can find that I’m qualified for are positions or employers I don’t want to hold/work for. I’ve received notice that my food stamp benefits are to be cut at the end of this month, unless I can convince them otherwise when I have a meeting with my case worker next week. I’m not sure how long my unemployment benefits will continue; it’s supposed to be a year now but I haven’t heard any word and I’m hoping that’s a good thing.

But it may be time for this to come to an end, and not a happy ending. I may be Roger, having to take whatever is available at any level, working at Staples or Best Buy or some other immediately-hating and soul-sucking McJob. Do you want fries with that?

Here are some extra shots of the Pride street festival on Sunday and the pool party afterward, hosted by Chris & Jeff. I wanted to see Martha Wash and RuPaul close out the festival but they weren’t scheduled to go on until 5:30 or so, and getting to the pool while there was still sunlight was the best idea. It was a great day at the pool, most of the folks who were on the float in the parade were at poolside, plus residents of the pHierce School.

There are times in your life when even though the simplest thing is possible, a friend will extend their hand and say “Hey, stay here and make it a little easier.” And that means the most in the world.

Wow so fun!

My assignment for Evolve’s parade float was to pass out beads towards the front of the three-car float. The first truck played the sound system and the second truck was the float with the constructed apartment building. The third truck a vintage truck from the 50s, nicknamed “Hank” and was a repository for more beads.

The staging area was a very vibrant area, everybody playing their music and getting in a good mood and walking around and taking pictures. It was a great community.

Once the parade started, it was on. The people screaming and yelling for beads in Dupont Circle and also on 17th Street was amazing, and the feeling of euphoria felt while passing these beads out was absolutely incredible. I couldn’t throw beads to everyone who was yelling for them but it was great to sail them to those that you could pick out of the crowd. If you didn’t scream or yell out, then you didn’t get beads from me! Being a participant in the parade was so much more fun than being an observer on the sidelines.

I tried to connect with friends along the parade route, they let me know where they’d be. Some I couldn’t find (too bizzay throwin’ beads) but some I did have a quick chance to run over and say hello to. Other friends I found along the way was a great surprise, the biggest being Joe.My.God, whom I did a blargcrawl with a couple of years ago. Joe remembered me, even knowing my last name, which was a great honor coming from only the biggest and best blogger from NYC. His slideshow of the parade is here, giving me a shoutout by name. Joe, when is the next blargcrawl in NYC?

Pride Week is here again! Yay! For this year’s Pride Parade, I am again going to be involved in Evolve’s float and hopefully it won’t end up being a fiasco like last years. I doubt it will: the pool party is being held after tomorrow’s street festival instead of before the parade. That way I won’t end up lost in Dupont with no keys, no cash, no ATM card, no phone, no dignity, etc.

Yesterday I went over to Jeff & Chris’s house to do a little decorating. Jeff had seen some of the restaurants on 17th St put up these huge rainbow flags using plastic tablecloth covers and he wanted to wrap the School’s metal fence in them. Surprisingly it didn’t take us nearly as long as I thought it would. I thought we’d fold the table clothes and weave them through the fence but Jeff’s idea was to bunch up each color which made much more sense and allowed for tweaking the spacing of the stripes once they were put in place.

I think it turned out looking pretty great! Neighbors and passersby were making approving comments as we were putting it up, and one person even asked if there was a new bar opening up. They apparently don’t know about Dick & Kitty’s upstairs!

Last night I went with J & C, Eddy and the gang over to the (newly renamed) EFN Bar for a Pride happy hour that had $5 half-pitchers of Blue Moon Hefeweizen and free pizza. Not a bad deal at all. And here’s Jeff, beaming with pride at his new fence and happy with his Coors.

No job, no car, no cash to buy food. I do have the food stamps though, on my EBT card. Normally a trip to the grocery store consists of what I can carry the eight blocks home, usually amounting to one of those handbaskets full and and maybe a little overflowing. I would do this trip a few times a week. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either.

Since I’ve been away the last three weekends and all last week I was trying to get lean on the groceries in my cupboard and fridge so that nothing would go to waste. I didn’t see the point in making grocery runs since I was going to be away for many days. Add to that another monthly deposit into my EBT account, and I have a whopping $373 on which to spend on groceries. It was time to spend $15 and rent the Zipcar for a couple of hours.

On today’s trip I was actually able to push a cart through the grocery store. I’m buying crazy stuff that I never would have dreamed of before: gallons of milk, 12-pack of paper towels, Odwalla chocolate protein shakes, three boxes of cereal, eight cans each of 28-ounce crushed and diced tomatoes, two magnums of Fresca & a 12-pack of Diet Dr Pepper, a five-pack of Mac & Cheese and over a gallon of laundry detergent.

Because of the humongous balance on my account I was buying things I normally wouldn’t, items that weren’t on sale (gasp!) or multiple items that were on sale and will be used stored and used eventually.

Purchase: $231.89
EBT Card Balance: $141.57
Club Card Savings: $76.17 (23% of purchase)