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Rachelle: Well, how do you know that?
Rachelle: No.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: She pretended to retch?
Rachelle: Because you told her you liked her sneakers?
Rachelle: That is pretty extreme.
Rachelle: Was this one of the sorority girls who lives down the street?
Rachelle: The one who looks like Jennifer Lawrence?
Rachelle: I thought so.
Rachelle: And did you tell her this in a way that sounded like what you really meant was that you wanted to see her naked?
Rachelle: I see.
Rachelle: Yes, of course.
Rachelle: Look, I know you’re just trying to generate some light in this crazy, angry world, Pickle, I get that!
Rachelle: And sure, somebody has to help scantily clad sorority girls who are 30 years younger than you, feel like they’re making the right fashion choices.
Rachelle: Imagine if every time one of them passed by a much, much, much older man and he didn’t say something about what they were wearing? What would happen then? Their self-esteem might just crater and then who knows what might happen?! It could be catastrophic!
Rachelle: I’m not being sarcastic.
Rachelle: No, I’m not.
Rachelle: Nope.
Rachelle: Jesus Pickle, OF COURSE I’m being sarcastic.
Rachelle: It’s amazing to me how slow you are to pick-up on sarcasm!
Rachelle: Like at the park when that woman was complimenting how high you could go on the swings?
Rachelle: That was sarcasm.
Rachelle: And at the drum circle, when that man said that you “displayed a beautiful mastery over movement?”
Rachelle: That was sarcasm, too.
Rachelle: Oh honey, I’m sorry.
Rachelle: I am.
Rachelle: You’re right, sarcasm truly is the lowest form of humour.
Rachelle: Look, it’s taking me longer than I thought here, do you mind picking Jones up from daycare?
Rachelle: Oh, I didn’t realize your group was meeting tonight.
Rachelle: I think it’s sweet that you guys get together and play Dungeons and Drama every month! Do you think you could let Jones join in? He’d love to dress up as Spiderman for it!
Rachelle: Dungeons and Dragons?
Rachelle: Oh, I always thought it was Dungeons and Drama.
Rachelle: I don’t know, I guess because of all the screaming and Lord of the Rings languages. Just seemed really dramatic.
Rachelle: Like an even nerdier version of Improv dramatic.
Rachelle: Whatever.
Rachelle: Okay, I get it.
Rachelle: It’s not a children’s game.
Rachelle: Very sophisticated. Very strategic. Good leadership training.
Rachelle: I’m surprised corporations like Google and Starbucks don’t use it as a training tool for their employees.
Rachelle: It really is a journey of discovery, isn’t it, Pickle?
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: That was about 98% sarcastic.
Rachelle: Okay, don’t worry about it. I’ll pick Jones up, and you, my little Dragonborn Sorcerer, you have a great time playing Dungeons and Diggers! xox
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I often pass Hand Job Park as I take our dog Heidi for a walk, and as fate would have it, I’ve become friendly with Billy, one of the men who spends time there.
Because I have really lousy teeth and travel with an oxygen tank, Billy believes that I am a reformed crackhead, and am thus something of an inspiration to him, evidence that you can turn your life around and one day inhabit a beautiful family. As such, he’s always asking me for advice, and I have taken on the unofficial role as Billy’s Life Coach.
Every Sunday, I walk down to the park, talk to him about his week, and give him a written list of daily goals for the next week. This was my last list:
Monday:
Find public fountain and wash clothes.
Scavenge with your head, not your heart. Look for healthy, nutritional garbage opportunities such as a discarded smoothie, for instance!
Say it out loud to yourself, again and again, “My name is Billy and I will Scavenge Smart!”
Walk for at least six hours.
Learn how to tune guitar.
Affirmation of the day: THERE IS A GIFT FOR ME IN EVERYTHING THAT I EXPERIENCE.
Tuesday:
When busking, perhaps do it in front of Shopper’s instead of the liquor store? Why tempt yourself? Remember Billy, GOOD CHOICES.
Stay away from Hyena’s Old Lady. Remember what happened last time she gave you a hand job?
Walk for at least six hours.
Practice guitar for an hour.
Affirmation of the day: THE VOICES IN MY HEAD ARE NOT REAL. I AM IN CONTROL.
Wednesday:
Today I would like you to go some place quiet (perhaps the Green P Carpark) and center yourself with some light stretching and meditation. Be mindful, Billy. Feel the sun upon your skin and hear the birds singing. You are not separate from nature, but are a perfect and integral component of nature.
Surrender to oneness. Think of everything in your life (guitar, Bo Jackson football jersey, etcetera) that you are grateful for and carry that with you throughout the day like it was a weapon in your backpack.
Remember to walk at least six hours.
Practice guitar for an hour.
Affirmation of the day: THE PAST IS OVER AND MY FUTURE IS NOW!
Thursday:
While busking, take an interest in the lives of those passing by. Remember, they’re people, too. However, remember not to take too intense an interest in the lives of the nearby Sorority girls.
Although you may mean “spicy” as a compliment, they may not take it that way.
Just because you’re homeless doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of society. Make inquiries into joining Choir! Choir! Choir!
Walk for six and a half hours.
Practice guitar for one.
Love yourself for twenty-four. : )
Affirmation of the day: EVERY MOMENT I STEP INTO THE WONDERFUL UNKNOWN
Friday:
Treat yourself to a nice wash in a public fountain.
Feel rejuvenated, in love with yourself and the world around you!
As today marks the opening of the Olympic Games in Rio,
why not jazz up business with a Brazilian theme? When strumming your guitar, add some latin flair! Try to scavenge for food that is unique to Brazil, and if one of the voices in your head speaks Portuguese, have a conversation with it!
Today is a reward day, so score some dope or booze if you can and celebrate the beautiful life that is Billy!
Affirmation of the day: REMEMBER TO GIVE HAND JOBS AND NOT JUST RECEIVE THEM!
]]>“And so they walked by and this one shouted, ‘How r u doing?!’ What, are they crazy, do they think that’s the right way to talk to a girl? Is that all they know? “
The girl who never got attention from boys nodded her head in some sort of eager accommodation, grateful for this glimpse into the romantic sphere of college life, while the girl who was always disappointed seemed validated, her face now angrier.
And then a gust of wind blew a tumble of leaves over the dog and I, and when I looked up I saw a familiar homeless man pacing the street, negotiating the angles of a completely different world, and then a pretty girl with bouncing blonde hair ran past him, past us and the Sorority girls, bounding down the street toward her destiny.
They were doing grunt work, now inhabiting the sort of job where you show up in the morning at some inconvenient location and then get taken by a van to go off and do some heavy lifting, receiving cash at the end of the day, and no expectations that you might return tomorrow. The immediate necessities of the day:
Rent.
Beer.
Car payment.
Gambling debt.
One guy, the meatiest, lounged on an abandoned sofa eating take-out rigatoni from a tin container. Others lined the periphery, less sure of things, smoking. In the middle of them sat a girl, wearing a hoodie and jeans, she was posed in a masculine way, but you could see the flutter of femininity in her young, pretty face. She smiled broadly, happy in her day, reminding me of Hilary Swank’s character in Boys Don’t Cry.
As we walked through them, I asked, “ So, what’s going up here, another great, glittering palace?” The guy on the sofa, the confident one, answered quickly, saying that it was going to be a brothel. They all laughed, the girl harder than she meant to. The guy went on, constructing a kind of fantasy that included the university students that inhabited the building across the street. “A Bunny Ranch, full of rich Daddy’s Girls gone bad,” he said, looking at the girl in the hoodie for about two seconds too long.
A little closer to Bloor a man spotted our Miniature Dachshund and became animated. He knelt down and stretched out his arm, upon which I could see three or four primitive tattoos. A diamond. A knife. A heart. Tattoos without imagination or intent, crudely carved into his flesh as if only because there was nothing else to do.
“Hey, you wanna smell me?”
Heidi, our dog, seemed uninterested.
“You wanna smell something good?”
I looked at his fingers, dirty and hard, his long fingernails.
“Ah, it just smells of beer anyway, I guess she don’t care.” And then he ambled away with a wave.
Later, on our way back home, students were moving into the building across the street from the house that was being renovated. The guy I had spoken to earlier about the house becoming a brothel full of sorority girls, was now wearing a protective mask and was throwing some sort of ashy drywall out the window. Twenty yards away, a pretty girl in yoga pants, her hair protected beneath a fashionable kerchief, was just starting to unload a truck with a big smile on her face. She was ready for her new life to begin, for it to stretch gloriously into the future, so happy in the sun of this new day.
