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At Share, unboxing, the most appalling kitsch, resin angels, ceramic cats, carved wooden pigs, somebodies entire life collection of dust collectors, knick-knacks, trifles, curios, curated by the most undiscriminating eye, put away into storage, lovingly wrapped in newspapers.
Old newspapers. The highest quality of reading. National Enquirer, the Sunday Sport, Weekly World News. The Columnist, Ed Anger - "My America", tales of Bat-Boy, escaped from a lab and terrorizing the US, lonely hearts, agony aunts. I get distracted reading out the headlines.
I miss these. I mean, in Edmonton, once in a while I would buy them and laugh all the way through. But they've long since disappeared. Britain, well, they still have them.
But what I miss most of all is the fact that they were all - universally acknowledged - occasionally amusing, but otherwise complete and utter rubbish.
Nowadays, Fox News, Tucker Carlson - the quality of rubbish is the same but turned to a political ends, and too many believe it.
And so I read the clippings out loud for the amusement of the volunteers, staff, and sadly think of the time when people were a bit less credulous, more skeptical, when a lie was a lie, and think of the labels we should be applying to our era. There was modernism, post modernism - how to describe the political, social, moral landscape now?
Post-Truth. The Truth nowadays is irrelevant, nobody cares. We live in the Post-Truth era.
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Website offline due to being hacked.
So, a dozen or so hours later it's been restored. There was a while there where it was not looking so good.
Tech Support - $15 in Long Distance fees for no services rendered. Tell them what is wrong and they tell you it's something else. Website hacked, need a fresh install. 1 Million + words, gone gone gone. 10000 Pictures, gone gone gone.
OK. Try to repair, fresh installation, copy pictures - hours of ftp, then re-upload, I've no time for this, or place, homelessness doesn't work well with technology, coding, programming. This PC of no memory, of forgetting, loading things onto a failing thumb drive, forever needing to scan and repair, this is painful.
Finally, scanning the code via FTP I spot the problems. Fix. Website up. Now to remove all the corrupted files. Another hour or so and - change password, hold my breath - all is up and running.
Now on to better things...
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The thrift shop finished for the week. Progress has been made, I've managed to clear the entire floor - meaning the donations can now be taken to the back. So - on schedule, or thereabouts, to be unemployed. In the meantime I've set up a box in the back for "my things" - stuff I don't want to be carrying with me that will eventually find it's way to the locker - and - hopefully - a studio. SO far, a broken old fiddle and cuckoo clock.
Now the back end - and this is no trivial task, as it is filled with things that everyone has picked up, looked at, second guessed, set down. This is the problem - watch the veterans walk around the floor, comparing finds they've unboxed, laying them aside until they have time to do "more research", this - "more research", it becomes unending, get rid of it already, if it sells for a few dollars less than it could have that's a great thing, it brings people back, and it's out the door, room for more donations - and there's always more donations.
After work, a cheap meal in town, stock up on booze and cigarettes, carrying - laundry, sleeping bag, computer and writing stuff, too much shit. And the weather is turning for the weekend so a bus to Balfour so I can sleep inside the next few days. Fully employed and entirely homeless.
And - just when I'm thinking I might be making some money it's time to make a dentist appointment. Not time, overdue, and whatever I'm earning isn't going to be enough - not by a long shot, this will be one of a series of regular trips to misery and discomfort, death on the installment plan, but - fucking hell, it's overdue and sometimes you just have to suck it up and resign yourself.
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The other night, at the restaurant, an ursine visitor. Senior describes it, a clatter in back, on the loading dock, comes down to confront a black bear on it's hind legs. Somehow, cozy on the sofa inside the restaurant, I missed it.
Last night, a comfortable bench by the Prestige on lakefront. Homelessness I'm used to, but without a vehicle it sucks. That should resolve itself in a month or so. In the meantime I'm carrying my bag, laundry with me, light sleeping bag, as well as a notebook and laptop and chargers, etc. 40 lbs of "essentials". It gets a little old walking around with all this shit, but - what are you going to do?
Anyways, eat in town yesterday, 3 squares, a vegan wrap and side at "Sprouts", a Pho at Yom Sum, and then again later a Yogi Burger at the Yellow Deli.
These weekends at the restaurant - I eat there as well, but a lot less, the food bores me (after 5 years, yeah, of course). And so I'm trying to catch up, balance my diet while I have a chance.
8:00, I'm down on the waterfront, watching the blue-bottomed (swifts? swallows?) comb the water for insects. There are dozens. Watch the people. A couple fighting, she's going off for an extended stay at a "Hot-Tub" party, he wants to break up, she's pleading with him that it's just a "Hot Tub Party" and it's more work than it sounds like. Joggers, Dog walkers. Later, after the sun sets, an Eagle in a nest across the lake makes it's appearance. When the sun goes down I spread out my sleeping bag on the bench and go to sleep.
1:00 AM I'm woken by a drunken asshole swearing into his phone, he's surprised to find me there, he came down to the waterfront looking for privacy.
Eventually he wanders off and I drift off again.
2:00 I'm woken by a large splashing in the water. A lot of noise. I strain my eyes against the darkness. Nada. About a minute later more splashing, then I see it - a very large black bear has swum to a pier about 30 yards away. I sit up and light a cigarette. I don't want him swimming over to me and finding me in surprise. He's a big one, maybe 400, 500 pounds, larger even. He cuts a big silhouette against the stars on the water. I watch him pacing, before eventually jumping in the water and swimming to shore. I watch to make sure he's not heading my way, he's not. Back to sleep.
By 3:00 AM it's getting cold. Curl in and cover up.
6:00 AM and I'm awake, shivering, waiting for Oso to open so I can get a coffee, warm up, charge my phone...
And - for the moment, this is life. Coffee, 7:00 until 8:00, then off to work at the thrift shop.
Finish at 4:00, find somewhere to eat and kill time until the sun goes down...
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It goes. From this:
The foreground mess is unsorted donations. This was 2 weeks ago. Now, the area is largely clear.
Finds along the way (and I should be taking more pictures, really) include an "electric paring knife", like - wtf? And this:
Now, nothing extraordinary about this - we get dozens of "similar" as seen on TV "labor saving" K-Tel or Ronco devices every day. Mostly they don't sell. We give about half of them a week on the shelf before they're culled for the dump. What I found - haunting - about this one - look at the woman's face:
I mean, that smile, those eyes, it's like she thinks she can win back some marital affection by making all these sweets and devilled eggs. Clearly from the "Isn't Princess Diana Beautiful" days, there's just something a little off about it all. Anyways....
Real finds: a 50 year old Chinese Alarm Clock, with a party slogan and (?? Chairman Mao ??) on the face. Many new pots and pans, a pretty crystal necklace, various items of clothing, old clock, treasures too many to list and now that I'm on the turtle carrying my possessions on my back I'm ill inclined to add to the weight...so it's just look and don't touch.