6:30 a.m. First night sleeping in my permanent winter camp. I get up and put more holds on the tarps that cover my tent with parachute cord and bungie’s. It’s starting to rain lightly. I was so excited about my camp I knew it was going to rain but I wanted to get a feel for my new respite for the winter. I do a quick video of my camp. Next I get my stuff together and drive out to LA fitness to play handball with the homies.
8:50 a.m. I arrive at LA fitness, when I get inside Pat and Mike are already there. First we play triples, and then Dennis shows up and we play doubles. I get a video of us playing small ball four wall. Hand ball Saturdays is like Church for me. It’s my therapy and helps keep me sane.
11:50 a.m. I leave handball and I drive to my friend’s house where I begin to organize my gear. I separate gear into a bigger travel pack that has all my gear to camp outside when I travel outside my permacamp zone, and a smaller pack I can carry with me when I travel within a radius of my camp zone. I work on catching up on writing blogs and going through my notes and editing and uploading some videos and such. A girl I met out west reaches out to me. I ask her if she wants to hang out and I’d be willing to drive an hour and a half to spend the evening and morning with her. She agrees but tells me to text her before I leave to confirm. I put down what I’m doing and get ready as if I’m going to go on a date.
When it’s time to go see her around 4:45, I text her and she never gets back. I’m not surprised. I’m used to these types of games. Since I was ready to go out I reached out to one of my best friends Christopher. I asked him if he wanted to do something. I try to spend time on the weekends with my family and friends. These relationships are so important to me and they are the lifeblood of my life. He says he wants to go out to dinner so we make plans to meet up at his house at 7:00 and go to China Jade.
I drive over to Chris’s house and when I get there he’s a little bit sauced. He’s been out drinking with another one of our friends. The plan was to go eat Chinese food, but now he wants to go to fibber McGee’s, or bonefish Harry’s popular bar spots. I tell him that I don’t want to be recognized since I’m doing this homeless project and it’s a night to enjoy a good dinner. I convinced him that we should go to China Jade, a dark little hole in the wall where I can gorge on Chinese food. A pleasure that a fat boy like me really needs because of the emotional physical hammering I’ve been taking sleeping outside living homeless, while seeing the plight of others that live that way. We go to China Jade and crush a poo poo platter for two, Chris has a couple drinks and there’s a guy sitting next to him at the bar. He’s a really good looking guy, he looks like the guy from Fantastic Four Chris Evens. The guy talks incessantly about himself and his life. He’s a really nice guy, but definitely very self-absorbed. I do not talk much but I’m happy that Chris is enjoying the conversation. We hang out for a while until almost all the Chinese food is gone. We drink some water. Now there’s another older gentleman engaged in conversation with us with this other Chris Evans looking guy, and they talk about roast beef sandwiches for about 20 minutes. Such small talk bores me. I love roast beefs, but a beef convo should never pass the 5-minute mark. I nudge my buddy Chris, and he looks at me. I’ve paid the tab and we decide to leave.
9:15 p.m. I brought Chris home. There’s been times in the past where I’ve taken Chris out and he’s drinking too much and I brought him home and he’s misbehaved himself. So I’m always careful that he doesn’t drink too much when he’s out with me. I don’t want to incur wrath from his wife who is also a good friend of mine. After I drop Chris off. I go to another one of my friend’s house. I’m relaxing in the living room waiting for him to come home. There are some things I’m helping him work through. While I’m waiting I fall asleep there.