Hello Sacramento...again

So it's almost two in the morning, and what I'm doing? Listening to my YouTube playlist while posting on Twitter, Facebook and now my long neglected blogger account. Why? Because I'm trying very hard to accept the fact that I am once again living in the city of my birth, against my most fervent wishes. I've fallen in love with Oakland and the East Bay area, and I'm hoping and praying that the apartment that I have been filling out paperwork for (over and over and over, because there's a new owner, and the old manager has no idea how to deal with the new paperwork) will FINALLY go through. I have been going through this since December. It's almost May. But I will continue to do whatever it takes to get back to Oakland because Sacramento is INCREDIBLY DULL BY COMPARISON! The public transportation system is a joke, and even if it were better, what is there to do? I've been spoiled by the Bay Area, where I could hop on a bus or BART and go anywhere just for the hell of it. And I did that. Not all the time, but at least the option was there for me.

So, since the paperwork situation is still being ironed out and the apartment is being gutted and rehabilitated because the chain smoking woman who lived there previously had very much trashed the place, I will be stuck in Sac for probably maybe two to three months. I'm living with my niece, her cousin and his husband (yes, I used the correct pronoun) for the time being in a very nice three bedroom, two bathroom apartment across the way from Cal Expo. I am very grateful for this. The alternative would have been homelessness. I really don't want to go into that story, but let it suffice to say that sometimes life is painful. And yes, I did pay my rent, and I don't drink, smoke, do drugs or have wild guests in my place. In fact, I'm extremely quiet. But sometimes, this thing we do called living sends curveballs that will smash a person upside the head, and lead to a temporary concussive state. Coming out of it seems surreal. However, I'm recovering. Looking back over the expanse of my 56 years, that's what I seem to do. I might go down and hit the mat hard, but I'm one of those stubborn people who refuses to stay down. At my lowest point, I stood on a dock overlooking the inlet from the Bay that separates the island of Alameda from the city of Oakland, and contemplated the possibility of surviving a swan dive into the cold, brackish water. I shook that thought off. Not like that. I'm not giving up and going out like that. There's too much to live for, learn from, and prosper by.

Besides, there are so many people who have helped me through those dark days, and it was their voices that I heard as I stood out there staring at the tethered boats bobbing up and down on the waves.  I wish I could name who these angels are, but for many reasons, they are going to have to remain anonymous. They know who they are. They threw me a spiritual and emotional lifesaver, and I hope that someday I will be able to do the same for them. There is one friend I would like to thank who has several names; none of which are the ones he was born with: "The Perverted Samurai", "Dirty Old Man Who Stands on the Corner", "The British Guy" (whose accent has a name, but it's slipped my memory) "The Texas Trailerpark Denizen" and the name that is my least favorite because my friend liked to tease me with it, "Pat". Thank you for the laughter. It kept me from slipping into the abyss.

So, in honor of patience and kindness of my friend, please listen to one of my favorite Earth, Wind and Fire songs, "Head to the Sky".