122903

 

San Antonio, TX

Monday December 29, 2003

     6:10am  I'm scoring again at the Taco Cabana in front of Sam's again. At first I told her, "Hey, I don't suppose you could hook me up with breakfast?" She couldn't understand me, so I talked to her some more. She goes, "Well, what do you want?" I told her, "Surprise me, sister." Cool. I'm going to get breakfast. Awesome.

                   This morning I woke up at 5:30am. Sam had to go to work. He had told me I could just leave the door unlocked when I left. I told him, "Dude, you got so much stuff in here I don't want you losing because of me. I won't risk that. I'll take off when you do." So, I left at about 6:05am and it's 6:10 right now. I'm getting hooked up at Taco Cabana. Breakfast.

                   Her name was Aurora.

     6:24am  It was cool. I was at the Taco Cabana and some Mexican dude walks in. He comes up to me and asks me, "Hey, where's your staff?" I told him how I broke it. I asked him, "Where have you seen me before?" He told me he lived at the apartments across the street. Sam's apartments. It was some guy I bummed a cigarette off one time and I told him my scripture. I wrote down his apartment address and stuff. I gotta go look it up.

                   I'm going to go bum a cigarette at the . . . man, I thought I quit smoking.

                   Ah, I won't ask this old hillbilly guy in the gas station. He won't hook me up. I'm going to keep walking to Crossroads.

                   Oh yeah, I was talking to Richard on the bus yesterday. I was telling him about how I get hooked up everywhere. He was all, "That's weird. It's like you've got corporate sponsors." I tell him, "Exactly!"

     6:38am  Will hooked me up with a cigarette. The 602 bus driver. I appreciate it, brother.

     6:48am  Jumping on the 92.

     6:49am  I asked the driver for a courtesy ride and he said, "Didn't I give you one Friday?" I told him, "Yeah, you got credit for it, too." He said, "I'm going to give you one more ride, but that's it." I told him he was in my book again, hehe.

     7:15am  We got stuck at a train. To kill the time I counted every single car on that train. Eighty six total. It held us up for a long time.

     7:25am  I rode the bus downtown and was walking down the sidewalk in front of the Greyhound station. I asked this lady at the payphones for a cigarette and as she was willingly handing me one, these State Patrol cop comes up to me and ask me, "Do you have a ticket?" I told them no and they said, "Well, you gotta keep walking." I was on the sidewalk. What bullshit.

                   Ugh, I had just asked this lady for a cigarette and these two cops walk up to me and say, "You can't be panhandling here." I told them, "I wasn't. I was asking for a cigarette, which she willingly gave me." Idiot. Man, why the hell do cops always have to mess with people who look different? They just assume that since I got bags on that I am homeless. And I'm wearing a rainbow beanie and I look like a hippie.

     7:40am  Matt just hooked me up with a cigarette. I appreciate it, Matt.

     8:07am  I went looking for the Health Department. I got directions from some cop. Now, I'm at Milam Park over on Commerce and Santa Rosa. This guy just pointed me to the Health Department. It's that big building over there.

     8:20am  I came in the Health Department. They gave me a number and I waited. They called me up eventually and drew some blood. They're giving me an HIV and Syphilis test. There's no charge. They're free. Exactly what I needed.

                   This guy is showing me a chart about the risk factors. He told me that homosexuals or bisexuals were at a much higher risk of contracting something. I'm not either one of those, so the odds are on my side. Like I've thought from the beginning.

     9:42am  I just got out of, I went and gave my blood sample. It will be a couple weeks before they have the results. The 13th or 14th of January. The guy told me, "Man, I can almost tell you for sure you don't have it. I know where the diseases are. If you had told me you were gay and just had unprotected sex at the Bath House I would probably say you were infected. It's really hard for a straight guy to get it from a girl."

                  Whew.

     9:52am  David gave me a cigarette. I appreciate it, David.

     10:21am  Mr. Ramos, the nice driver, is giving me a ride to the UTSA downtown campus. I wanna find a place to type up my stuff.

                     After I gave him my presentation I asked, "Don't suppose you could spare a transfer to the cause?" He hooked me up.

                     This cool-ass bus driver let me on. Let me get his email address.

                     JSRMS1@aol.com

                     Okay, that dude dropped me off close to the UTSA downtown campus. I'm going to go see if they have a computer I can use here.

     10:32am  I asked this one lady walking around if she knew anywhere on campus where I could check my email. She told me, "I don't know, you could try, but I think it's just for the students."

                     I just realized that it's still the holiday week. School's aren't in session.

     10:43am  I just walked to the Bill Miller's Offices/Bakery/Commissary/Restaurant to use the restroom. I tried my gasoline-for-the-stomach line. Actually, I did it in Spanish. She told me, "No, it's not my food. I'm sorry."

                     Whoa, Shipley's Donuts. I'm going to go hit them up.

                     They said no.

                     That's funny. I came into the Subway and talked to the manager. I told him, "Hey, can you donate some gasoline for the stomach?" I told him my mission objectives and after I told him I was going to get marijuana legalized, he told the other dude, "Man, make him a sandwich."

     11:25am  McFly gave me a cigarette. Mosca.

     11:57am  Eric hooked me up with a cigarette outside of Denny's downtown. I appreciate it, brother. Everybody gets credit in my game.

     12:08pm  Oh, let me tell you about Scott. I went back down on the river thinking to myself, "Hmm, I'm going to go find somebody to smoke out." I saw some dude sitting on a bench by himself. I went up to him and said, "Hey man, you wanna smoke a bowl?" He told me, "Yeah, sure!" I thought about a place where we could smoke and Scott said, "I got a motel room at the La Quinta. That's where we are now. We're going to smoke out in here. Oh yeah, he told me about something he wants to include in my book. Scott's nineteen, by the way.

                   Scott: "I was in the office at the airport and there was a woman hesitantly helping some little girl get her baggage off the conveyor belt. She calls over her husband and she says, I actually wrote it down just because I thought, as far as the ignorance/apathy debate, she said, "I just hurt myself for helping other people." She was actually complaining. I just thought that was something that would fit into both those categories. I just thought that was one of the things that's wrong."

     1:37pm  I just told Scott my legend. He asked me if I was hungry, that he'd take me somewhere to eat on The Riverwalk. Score! He's also given me a contact on the East Coast already. New York City. He's into movies and stuff. Maybe as the project evolves he might be able to provide me some resources. Excellent. His email is SRR253@nvu.edu

     1:46pm  Sweet, Scott is treating me to the Zuni Grill here on The Riverwalk. Just ordered me an eight dollar chicken sandwich. I appreciate it, Scott.

                   Oh yeah, Scott is also hooking me up with twenty dollars for my January bus pass!!! Yeehaw! It'll come back to you, man. I promise.

                   Man, that was awesome I ran into that guy Scott! He bought me food and hung out with me all day. That was so cool.

                   Man, you know what sucks? I think I lost my pipe today. Argh. My glass one-hitter from California that I so cherished.

     2:34pm  I was here at Travis Park just walking around. Some guy tells me, "What's up, man. Where's your stick at?" It was some dude who smoked me out a long time ago on the Southside one time. I tried to tell him what I was doing and this one girl close by caught interest. She let me get through a lot of my story. She actually listened to me. Some guys walked up to her and said, "Hey baby, come over here so I can holla at you." She told me she wanted to go over there and I told her, "By all means, don't let me impose. Do what you want."

                  Oh yeah, then some other guy walked by me and said, "Hey man, I've seen you somewhere." I asked him where and he said, "I don't know. I've just seen you somewhere."

     2:45pm  Leonard hooked me up with a cigarette in front of Bohannons. I appreciate it, brother.

     2:55pm  I walked over to the VIA office downtown and bought my bus pass.

     3:48pm  I just rode the bus all the way to North Star Mall. I'm going to go walk through the mall and let people see me.

     4:00pm  Mark hooked me up with a cigarette outside of North Star Mall. I appreciate it, brother.

                   Man, I just had the best presentation with Mark and this girl. Yeah, they had their thumbs up the whole time while I was talking to them. Hehe, on my way to save the world.

     4:17pm  Lloyd hooked me up with a cigarette outside of North Star.

     4:48pm  The #2 was cool and gave me a courtesy ride. I just rode it to Blanco, a couple blocks away. I'm going to walk now. I'm walkin'. Just because I want to. I'll walk until the next 534 comes and see if he lets me on. If he doesn't, I'll keep walkin'. These boots are made for walkin'.

     4:55pm  I walked over to Lockehill Selma/Blanco. I just saw a sticker on the front of the gas station that says, "Napster - 15 songs for $14.85" Haha, who pays for music still? What a scam. Napster never got shut down. It just got filtered to where you couldn't search for exact names. So what people did to go around that was . . . just misspell the filename. Duh. But soon afterwards the filtration of Napster, Napster-clones started popping up(where you could still search for exact names). Kazaa being the best one, in my opinion(and keep in mind I've been offline and traveling and there's always new stuff).

                  You cannot stop bytes.

     5:07pm  The bastard driving the 534 didn't give me a courtesy ride.

     5:28pm  Some idiots just drove past me and yelled, "Get a car!"

     5:32pm  I walked all the way to West Avenue and Lockehill Selma. I already saw the 534 pass going to North Star, where it goes around and comes back. I don't know if it was running late or early. It passed me at 25 when it should have been at North Star at 25. So, I'm hoping it was early and the next one is due at 37. I'm going to see if this one comes.

     5:40pm  I got to one bus stop and just stood there. The traffic is hectic right now. I felt like smoking a cigarette, but didn't have any. I stood there waiting and got the idea that when the light turns red right here, all these cars will stop and I'm sure someone will be smoking a cigarette and I'll be able to bum one.

                   Sure enough, this girl pulled up and hooked me up.

     6:25pm  The guy on the 604 wouldn't give me a ride.

     6:50pm  I just got off the 92. I was able to give my presentation to the driver before I got off over by Sam's. I'm going to walk to Sam's. When I was getting close to my the stop I told him, "Next stop, please." I hate dinging the bell.  It's so impersonal.  When I got off I told him, "You drive carefully, brother. Thanks a lot." He told me, "Good luck."

     6:57pm  Hmm, I'm going to go hit up Pizza Hut right here.

                   Sweet! Scored me a whole pizza, man. I asked the nice lady manager and she handed me a box and told me to fill up on the buffet.

Next day..