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Bus stop lady

Nowadays, Sling, you'd not even be noticed... all us guys with the bluetooth are always talking to the air. :)
Now, throw in a few break-dance moves, then folks might notice you...
 
I Ratant said:
Nowadays, Sling, you'd not even be noticed... all us guys with the bluetooth are always talking to the air. :)
Now, throw in a few break-dance moves, then folks might notice you...
Click to expand...

Nah, then I'd just break a hip or something. ;)

But that is a good idea...I can always hold my hand up to my ear as if I had a cell phone; my long hair would cover up the fact that it's just my empty hand...

Thanks! :D
 
marplots said:
The sadness comes from my expectation that being removed from society is miserable and tragic. But I've felt very disconnected at times, almost to the extent that having interactions with another human was painful. Was I mentally ill?

What are we to make of those who just don't want to participate in our game?

I wonder about it. The first idea, that they have failed and that's why they aren't part of society -- and if they could just be trained or medicated, they would play the game better -- that's the default, but I have no idea how true that is. I suspect it, only because I'm someone who is able to play by the rules so my bias is set with what I'm competent at.

I also wonder if the bus stop lady enjoyed her conversations with her invisible friend. Imagine that. Someone who is always ready to listen. Someone worth talking to. Someone who will never borrow money from you nor steal your cigarettes when you aren't looking. That's a good friend there.
Click to expand...
The cold, hard truth is that without imposing restrictions on everyone--restrictions that are, in my eye, excessive, there is no way to prevent these people from living amongst us. Sure, we can impose mandatory medication, and force its administration on those judged to be abberant--but the big question is: who gets to decide?
Talk about your slippery slopes...
 
WildCat said:
How is this not about the rights of the mentally ill? You're advocating helping people who likely don't want help. That severely limits the options available. That woman's family and friends couldn't help her, what makes you think the government could?

I'm reminded of a story from Lake County, IL where a mentally ill woman was arrested on a warrant for missing jury duty. While in the county jail she went on a hunger strike and died 15 days later. The kicker? She was an immigrant from India, and not a US citizen so she wasn't even eligible for jury duty! Sometimes getting the government involved just makes things much worse.
Click to expand...

Yes. That post was about the rights of the mentally ill. I did not intend the original post to be mostly about that, but that is how it was taken. My bad.

And while I appreciate the value of your couple of anecdotes, I have been dealing on a daily basis with both the homeless and the mentally ill for nearly 35 years. I do not see it as a single problem with a single solution. I see it issue as a many faceted situation with multiple ways to make sure that anyone who needs and wants help has access to it. I am not sure how the story of the unjustly jailed lady applies, but apparently you do, so be it.

Sadly, most of the people I see who talk to invisible friends are not James Stewart and their friends are not friendly six foot tall rabbits. It is usually a contentious relationship involving a lot of shouting and arguing. I once mentioned this to psychiatrist I know, and he said that was quite common; the invisible friend is often actually an invisible enemy.
 
LibraryLady said:
We see all kinds inside the library and out.

Outside of our library, at the corner of Cathedral and Mulberry Streets, there’s a bus shelter, one of those Plexiglas and metal three sided enclosures to protect people from the elements while they wait for the bus. A couple of years ago, a woman took up residence there.

At first she was very domestic. I saw her spraying the glass with an empty Windex bottle, and wiping it down with newspaper. She began to put pictures up with tape and decorated the bench with cushions made of rags and stuffed with newspaper. And every morning, city workers would take down the pictures and remove the cushions while she was at breakfast at Our Sisters Place across the street. This went on for a while, but she finally took the hint and gave up on the homely touches.

But there she would sit unless the weather got too cold or stormy, and she would sit in the library coffee shop. She was an expert at cadging smokes and I would see her sitting on her bench, which is carefully constructed to prevent anyone from lying down. She’d puff on her cigarette and have long, animated, and somewhat profane arguments with a friend that only she could see. She dressed a bit like Moms Mabley, and carried the requisite bags of precious refuse always with her.

The library maintenance crew starts their shift at 4am. This morning they found her, sitting on her bench, cigarette in hand, having died during the night.

I am sad that she died there alone, and I’m angry that a large, rich, and powerful country cannot take care of its mentally ill citizens. But I’m also a little glad she died at home.
Click to expand...
Its not entirely societys fault. You can no longer hold these unfortunant people in mental hospitals against their will. Back in the 70's you could force people with mental problems to stay in the hospital. They didn't like it but they got three perks. Three meals daily, medical care and a roof over their heads. Not to mention a bath now and again.
 
And will someone please point out to me where I said anything about forced medication or institutionalization. I can't find it.
 
Allow me to repeat my post without directing it to WC's insensitivity:

I see a common false assumption recurring in this thread. The homeless mentally ill are not a homogenous group refusing help. They don't all refuse meds. And they don't all have family that refuse to help them. That stereotype allows people to disregard the needs of the homeless mentally ill by making it a false dichotomous choice between rights of self determination or incarceration.
 
I'm still wrestling with the idea of where the line between being human and not resides. I mention it because if there is a wandering dog, malnurished and mangey, I have an impulse to take over their life and would consider myself ignoble not to do so. The dog doesn't get a say so precisely because it doesn't have human status. But at some point, neither do humans. If, for example, I find you unconscious and drowning in a ditch, I would feel the same compulsion to render aid -- precisely because you have lost your status of functioning human and become a suffering animal.

However, the lines are really poorly drawn when it comes to figuring out if you are making a choice that results in a condition I find untenable or even horrific. Can I just say that the behavior is diagnostic? We do that for suicide. If you tell me you are going to off yourself, I feel duty bound to act against what are apparently your wishes -- even if I think you are (mostly?) of sound mind. The act justifies the treatment.

I know there are cases where we assume an animal status for someone who is markedly and profoundly off their rocker. We do it for the senile as well. We do it for infants, the comatose, and the profoundly retarded. We do it to criminals.

I still don't like it. Perhaps someone could ask Jesus to sort it all out for me.
 
Howie Felterbush said:
I knew a "bus stop lady" once.

Only it was a guy, and he didn't live at a bus stop, he kind of lived behind a Publix supermarket next to my apartment in Florida. He used to bum cigarettes all the time, and when I got Chinese take out, I'd get him a box of fried rice or some egg rolls. I actually got to know him, and on more than one occasion, tried to get him to go to a homeless shelter. He didn't want anything to do with the idea. As far as I could tell, he was mentally competent. He would do odd jobs from time to time for a little cash, didn't really get rip-roaring drunk (we would drink a beer or two every now and then) and wasn't on any kind of dope, to my knowledge.

In think he probably could have gotten a job and been a "normal" citizen, if he'd wanted to. He just had something in his brain that kept him from doing it.

He got beaten to death by a couple of thugs one night. Heaven only knows why; poor S.O.B. didn't have a damn thing worth stealing.
Click to expand...

It happens more often than most people want to admit. My son, Matt, got jumped repeatedly. He's lucky to be alive after some of these incidents, and the police do little to help, except notify the families.
 
Roadtoad said:
It happens more often than most people want to admit. My son, Matt, got jumped repeatedly. He's lucky to be alive after some of these incidents, and the police do little to help, except notify the families.
Click to expand...

Yep, in my old job I got to know most of the homeless in my city. All of the longer term ones said they had numerous beatings. I know of two murdered. Easy targets for scum to pick on.
 
Roadtoad said:
It happens more often than most people want to admit. My son, Matt, got jumped repeatedly. He's lucky to be alive after some of these incidents, and the police do little to help, except notify the families.
Click to expand...


I ended up talking to the fuzz because the guy from Publix that found the body told them I knew the guy. They didn't seem real confident that they would find the people that killed him. As far as I know, they never did. Sometimes I kind of wish I could have found them, if you know what I mean.
 
Sadly the kind of scum who would beat and/or kill a homeless person really don't have any motive other than nastiness. Unless there are witnesses or something gets left behind the police just don't have much to work with to try and find the creeps. No connection to the victim, nothing taken from the scene, and often a group of friends who will swear themselves blue in the face that they were all somewhere else at the time of the crime.
 
Often, when I don't see one of our "regulars" for a long time, I assume they're dead. It often turns out to be true. But not always.

Not long ago, I went to buy some make up at the Clinique counter at Macy's. It was quite early, I think they had just opened. As I approached, I saw the clerk with a tiny woman with very distinctive wild hair. I knew her instantly, she used to haunt the library, small and meek. We exchanged nods of recognition. As she walked away, I mentioned to the clerk that I had recognized her from the library. The clerk explained that she now lives in the mall, and every morning, this wonderful sales person puts a little foundation and blush on her, so she can feel ready for her day.

I thought about writing a letter to Clinique, but thought they might not like it and put a stop to it. It's nice to think of the little lady, we used to call "The Tutor Lady" sitting up a little prouder with her face nicely made up.
 
LibraryLady said:
Often, when I don't see one of our "regulars" for a long time, I assume they're dead. It often turns out to be true. But not always.

Not long ago, I went to buy some make up at the Clinique counter at Macy's. It was quite early, I think they had just opened. As I approached, I saw the clerk with a tiny woman with very distinctive wild hair. I knew her instantly, she used to haunt the library, small and meek. We exchanged nods of recognition. As she walked away, I mentioned to the clerk that I had recognized her from the library. The clerk explained that she now lives in the mall, and every morning, this wonderful sales person puts a little foundation and blush on her, so she can feel ready for her day.

I thought about writing a letter to Clinique, but thought they might not like it and put a stop to it. It's nice to think of the little lady, we used to call "The Tutor Lady" sitting up a little prouder with her face nicely made up.
Click to expand...

This means a lot to read. It means so much, that so many of us have retained our humanity.
 
rwguinn said:
The cold, hard truth is that without imposing restrictions on everyone--restrictions that are, in my eye, excessive, there is no way to prevent these people from living amongst us. Sure, we can impose mandatory medication, and force its administration on those judged to be abberant--but the big question is: who gets to decide?
Talk about your slippery slopes...
Click to expand...
"Time for your soma!". Isn't there a book about that world?
 
angrysoba said:
Did you ever talk to her to ask her about her story?
Click to expand...

Bingo. Got it in one. (Please don't take the rest of what I say as particularly directed at you; if anything, it's less directed toward you.)

People don't want to talk to the down-and-out. They want to categorize them to make them feel good about themselves. If they are to the right, they have a self-aggrandizing moral story about sin or hard work or substance abuse. If they are to the left, they have a self-aggrandizing story about mental illness or homelessness. If they are not in the US, they tell themselves it never happens here (which is false; there are plenty of statistics, but you haven't heard of them). In all cases it is the process of pouring down a layer of insulation between oneself and Those People.™ Whether contempt of sympathy or "not in my country," the thing is distance.

It's possible that the distance is because people know that it could happen to them, at any time, without warning. Rather than stopping this, people adopt elaborate mechanisms not to see. Of course, fora like this one is a place you can go go avoid the hoi polloi. Bus Stop Lady™ isn't going to show up here.

However, I am. Some people know me, and I think honestly that they only thing you can find wrong with me is that I am on the obnoxious and hostile side. (My obnoxiousness is why I'm writing this. I am quite aware this is an act of arrogance.) I freely admit that not only that I am, but I am more so than I used to be. A long time ago, I used to get depressed, and drugs helped, but not any more (I don't get depressed, and drugs don't work). Really, though, my only problem is an income.

Really, three weeks working, at anywhere near the kind of income that is appropriate, and my life would be fine. Three weeks. Not everything would get fixed—most of my possessions would still be gone, never to return—but at least my pseudo-friends are gone, too.

Without that, I literally face death, not in years or months but unknown in possible days.

So, let's see, all I need is a job, right? So every night with the computer I do have, I send out several resumes a night, and some other people do that for me. But then, I have to think of things. I have six remaining teeth up front on the bottom, and eight on the top. What am I going to do in an interview, not smile? I belch and fart. This is possibly related to the stent I got between my pancreas and stomach to fix a problem that was killing me by slow starvation. Is it? I don't know. I cannot afford a medical appointment. That comes after the three weeks.

I get plenty of interest for people who want to hire me. A few miles away. It might as well be the moon. There is just no way I couldn't even live for three weeks. No car, either. It was repossessed within $2000 of being paid off. Rent a car? No money. No credit card anyway. Nothing I can do. Easier job within walking distance? Who the hell is going to pay me at a menial position with my history? "You wouldn't be happy doing this." Well, not being able to afford a candy bar let along gasoline is really making me cream my jeans right now! (Which, I have to say, are hand-me downs, because used jeans are $7 at Goodwill which is far beyond my budget.)

You have to risk money to make money. You have to have money to make it. Well, a couple of months ago, I got a promise of a position from a headhunter in San Francisco. Nice; I could have survived. Nay, thrived, at $52 and hour. So I went. Turned out to be that headhunters have gotten a lot less professional. Some can tell me it's my fault, even though I had been dealing with headhunters for more than a decade and never been treated unprofessionally. But, yeah, it was stupid of me.

Still, when I was there, I came across a guy who was pushing a cart along the street. So I talked to him and stopped him. He got a bit tight in his body language when he started to think I was a "helper," but then I just talked to him. I learned some fascinating things. I won't tell you them, though. They'd just make you unhappy. Think of him as a Whatever It Is.™ Doesn't really matter, as long as he's in a little box, and you can make a safe little story.

So anyway, I've been sponging off remaining friends. It's amazing how few one finds out one has. It hasn't worked. I have one more left. When I was a kid, I had an ear infection. They were down to one last antibiotic. They were scared to try it, because if it didn't work, I'd die. Same thing with this one last move. I blew all possible cash reserves on following up on a fake job opportunity. There are no more. There won't be any more.

How did I get into this position? Who cares? Literally. Your world has to make sense. It has to be a fair and just world. So whatever it is, whatever I say must be wrong, .

You do not want to understand this, either, but being in the position of constantly facing the possibility of oblivion has an effect. Either one succumbs to depression, which I have decided not to, or one becomes amused. Ultimately, does it matter if I exist? I got this way by sacrificing for someone with health problems, whom I wanted to support and get better. So I did. My resources went to her. And now, whether or not she is getting better, she has decided that everything I did to help her, all the money, all the times I wiped her ass with the bead pan, all of that was because I have a Huge Ego and think that the whole world revolves around me. So I'm gone, and at least half the people who were helping me out during that time are gone, too, and good riddance.

That was stupid of me, of course. Sacrificing always is. It does nobody any good. I'll prove it. Let's say there was someone who thought that being good to someone, sacrificing for them, is good. Say Person C thinks that Person A is good for sacrificing for Person B. Well, the sacrifice has to stop eventually. Person A either runs out or dies. If Person A runs out, then by the same token, Person C will decide Person A has become bad for not doing the good thing any more. Or else Person A is dead. QED.

Look, I know people don't care. That's the point. The fact that I know you don't care, though, has to affect my thinking. Should I survive? Should I triumph again? Should I die? Should I wind up in a bus stop? The point is that, from your shared culture with others, it does not make the slightest bit of difference, provided that you be able to insulate yourself from and therefore not think about me.

That kind of knowledge, that by popular consent, one does not matter, hardens the mind in certain ways. Some wind up polishing plexiglas with newspaper. Some wind up writing the things I write, taking the bigger, more meta-approach. Since it does not really matter, then I accept that my life doesn't matter.

A little wistful slice-of life about Bus Stop Lady who is not even human enough to warrant a name. A little tongue-clicking, a little tsk-tsk in between sips of a Cosmopolitan with Grey Goose. Well, I might die, and if I do, a lot of people will have happier lives for not having to think about me. But I might not, in which case I hope to irritate a few and raise their blood pressures, thus shortening their life spans. Pretty much all I can do at this point.
 
epepke said:
Bingo. Got it in one. (Please don't take the rest of what I say as particularly directed at you; if anything, it's less directed toward you.)

People don't want to talk to the down-and-out. They want to categorize them to make them feel good about themselves. If they are to the right, they have a self-aggrandizing moral story about sin or hard work or substance abuse. If they are to the left, they have a self-aggrandizing story about mental illness or homelessness. If they are not in the US, they tell themselves it never happens here (which is false; there are plenty of statistics, but you haven't heard of them). In all cases it is the process of pouring down a layer of insulation between oneself and Those People.™ Whether contempt of sympathy or "not in my country," the thing is distance.

It's possible that the distance is because people know that it could happen to them, at any time, without warning. Rather than stopping this, people adopt elaborate mechanisms not to see. Of course, fora like this one is a place you can go go avoid the hoi polloi. Bus Stop Lady™ isn't going to show up here.

However, I am. Some people know me, and I think honestly that they only thing you can find wrong with me is that I am on the obnoxious and hostile side. (My obnoxiousness is why I'm writing this. I am quite aware this is an act of arrogance.) I freely admit that not only that I am, but I am more so than I used to be. A long time ago, I used to get depressed, and drugs helped, but not any more (I don't get depressed, and drugs don't work). Really, though, my only problem is an income.

Really, three weeks working, at anywhere near the kind of income that is appropriate, and my life would be fine. Three weeks. Not everything would get fixed—most of my possessions would still be gone, never to return—but at least my pseudo-friends are gone, too.

Without that, I literally face death, not in years or months but unknown in possible days.

So, let's see, all I need is a job, right? So every night with the computer I do have, I send out several resumes a night, and some other people do that for me. But then, I have to think of things. I have six remaining teeth up front on the bottom, and eight on the top. What am I going to do in an interview, not smile? I belch and fart. This is possibly related to the stent I got between my pancreas and stomach to fix a problem that was killing me by slow starvation. Is it? I don't know. I cannot afford a medical appointment. That comes after the three weeks.

I get plenty of interest for people who want to hire me. A few miles away. It might as well be the moon. There is just no way I couldn't even live for three weeks. No car, either. It was repossessed within $2000 of being paid off. Rent a car? No money. No credit card anyway. Nothing I can do. Easier job within walking distance? Who the hell is going to pay me at a menial position with my history? "You wouldn't be happy doing this." Well, not being able to afford a candy bar let along gasoline is really making me cream my jeans right now! (Which, I have to say, are hand-me downs, because used jeans are $7 at Goodwill which is far beyond my budget.)

You have to risk money to make money. You have to have money to make it. Well, a couple of months ago, I got a promise of a position from a headhunter in San Francisco. Nice; I could have survived. Nay, thrived, at $52 and hour. So I went. Turned out to be that headhunters have gotten a lot less professional. Some can tell me it's my fault, even though I had been dealing with headhunters for more than a decade and never been treated unprofessionally. But, yeah, it was stupid of me.

Still, when I was there, I came across a guy who was pushing a cart along the street. So I talked to him and stopped him. He got a bit tight in his body language when he started to think I was a "helper," but then I just talked to him. I learned some fascinating things. I won't tell you them, though. They'd just make you unhappy. Think of him as a Whatever It Is.™ Doesn't really matter, as long as he's in a little box, and you can make a safe little story.

So anyway, I've been sponging off remaining friends. It's amazing how few one finds out one has. It hasn't worked. I have one more left. When I was a kid, I had an ear infection. They were down to one last antibiotic. They were scared to try it, because if it didn't work, I'd die. Same thing with this one last move. I blew all possible cash reserves on following up on a fake job opportunity. There are no more. There won't be any more.

How did I get into this position? Who cares? Literally. Your world has to make sense. It has to be a fair and just world. So whatever it is, whatever I say must be wrong, .

You do not want to understand this, either, but being in the position of constantly facing the possibility of oblivion has an effect. Either one succumbs to depression, which I have decided not to, or one becomes amused. Ultimately, does it matter if I exist? I got this way by sacrificing for someone with health problems, whom I wanted to support and get better. So I did. My resources went to her. And now, whether or not she is getting better, she has decided that everything I did to help her, all the money, all the times I wiped her ass with the bead pan, all of that was because I have a Huge Ego and think that the whole world revolves around me. So I'm gone, and at least half the people who were helping me out during that time are gone, too, and good riddance.

That was stupid of me, of course. Sacrificing always is. It does nobody any good. I'll prove it. Let's say there was someone who thought that being good to someone, sacrificing for them, is good. Say Person C thinks that Person A is good for sacrificing for Person B. Well, the sacrifice has to stop eventually. Person A either runs out or dies. If Person A runs out, then by the same token, Person C will decide Person A has become bad for not doing the good thing any more. Or else Person A is dead. QED.

Look, I know people don't care. That's the point. The fact that I know you don't care, though, has to affect my thinking. Should I survive? Should I triumph again? Should I die? Should I wind up in a bus stop? The point is that, from your shared culture with others, it does not make the slightest bit of difference, provided that you be able to insulate yourself from and therefore not think about me.

That kind of knowledge, that by popular consent, one does not matter, hardens the mind in certain ways. Some wind up polishing plexiglas with newspaper. Some wind up writing the things I write, taking the bigger, more meta-approach. Since it does not really matter, then I accept that my life doesn't matter.

A little wistful slice-of life about Bus Stop Lady who is not even human enough to warrant a name. A little tongue-clicking, a little tsk-tsk in between sips of a Cosmopolitan with Grey Goose. Well, I might die, and if I do, a lot of people will have happier lives for not having to think about me. But I might not, in which case I hope to irritate a few and raise their blood pressures, thus shortening their life spans. Pretty much all I can do at this point.
Click to expand...

Nominated. You have nailed the rest of us with our moral smugness, and made it clear there is no justification for that.

Suddenly, a Cosmo doesn't sound too inviting. And Thunderbird is more than a little patronizing.
 
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