Homeless people...
There's so many downtown, I watch them a lot and try to figure out what the hell went so wrong in their lives. Mark and I play a game called "Whats Their Story" when we are just sitting around at restaurants and parks. We watch people, either individually or in groups and figure out what their story is just by observation. Watching homeless people is no different, but they are harder to figure out. Some of them have been homeless a long time, you can tell. I saw a guy this morning that looked "newly" homeless. He had dockers on, and a clean shirt. The buggy he was pushing around wasn't making a racket, and everything he had in it was clean and neat. He had a sleeping bag in the bottom, and it looked old and dirty, but everything else looked in pretty good shape. And he didn't have much in the buggy either. A couple of bags of cans, another grocery bag full of 'something'..and a half drunk bottle of generic Dr. Pepper. I wondered what the last straw was that brought him to the street. And what are people thinking when they first get on the street?
"I wonder where I get a buggy from"

They all have buggys...or "trollies" as Mark says. The first time you go get a buggy are you self concious when you are wheeling it (empty) away from the grocery store parking lot? It's always so out of place to see a buggy in a residential neighborhood, discarded on the corner or something. Buggys are completely out of place when they are away from the store.

But the buggys become the primary possession of the homeless person. Whatever worldly goods they have managed to salvage from their former life are contained within. And new things are put in regularly. Things gleaned from the street, the trash, other homeless people. Do they barter things that are in their buggys?

"Hey, I see you have a pillow, wanna trade for these sunglasses?"

When I go outside to smoke, I am barraged by homeless people wanting cigarettes. I only take one cigarette out with me, so I never have any to give. But would I? Probably not. I tend not to give things to homeless people.

One time Dan and I were confronted outside the Cheesecake Factory after we'd had a big, expensive meal. A homeless man approached us and asked if he could have our leftovers, our 'doggy bags'. We gave them to him. I guess I figured if you are desperate enough to ask for half eaten food..you must want it pretty bad.

Im going outside again now. I am intent on observing the homeless today.