Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah

Drove through the Great Salt Lake desert and it was AMAZING. Miles and miles and hours of white sand everywhere like snow.

"the coldest winter I ever spent..."

... was a summer in San Francisco. I finally made it to San Fran and to my aunt Shirley and cousins Eunice and Lydia's house. I was FREEZING. I loved the city but I could never get used to the clouds and cold. (me and Nephi at Golden Gate park)

the Pacific

I could walk to the beach from the house cause they live right off Hwy 1. Gorgeous views!

Yosemite National Park, California

I drove down into the Yosemite Valley cause I hear that's the part you can't miss. Honestly, and maybe it's cause I'm partial, it reminded me of Zion without color... no rich red dirt between my toes. Anthony tells me if you're a climber you'd appreciate Yosemite better. What I did like, though, was that it truly felt like it was "our" park, as a National Park should feel. It didn't feel like federal land, it felt like my land... one giant backyard we all share. People were having picnics everywhere and family reunions and swimming in the Merced. It was so crowded but in a nice way. Maybe other seasons aren't like that, but I kind of liked it. I drove back out and across the Tioga pass and THAT was my favorite part of Yosemite. Incredible fields and lakes and enormous views from way up high. Here are some pics of the valley and the pass and another one of those "I'm traveling alone so I have to take these awful close up pics at arms length of my face and my giant neck."

Bishop, California

I was driving into Bishop to stay for the night and I saw a bicyclist struggling up the hill I was driving down and then he stopped and just smiled. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw it too. I pulled off the highway and jumped out of my car and just sat on my bumper and stared. It looked like an upside-down waterfall was coming out of the Sierras. That's the only way I can describe it. They're pretty much the same picture but I loved these pics I took.

Manzanar "War Relocation Center," California

I heard from a local that Manzanar was a must see. It's a Japanese internment camp from WWII that doesn't really exist much anymore, even though it's a national historic sight. There's a visitor center and they brought one mess hall back so we can see atleast one building as it stood in the 40s. The rest of the camp is just a collection of signs that you drive around and see where buildings once stood. I couldn't believe I hadn't known more about this. And though it's situated on a busy, tourist-traveled scenic highway between Yosemite and Death Valley, I was one of the few visitors there. Here's a picture of the Manzanar entrance, cemetary, and Camo net factory where the camp residents/prisoners? helped "contribute to the war effort." The video at the visitor center was incredible and all 7 of us in there I think cried.

Death Valley, California

Drove through Death Valley... it was 116 degrees and I was too afraid to use my ac and overheat... so I didn't explore much. Instead of switchbacks, you drive down 4000 feet into the valley on a straight road that just dips enough to slow you down. It was an incredible sight. And the scenery changes with each elevation. It had rained the night before (the ranger said it was more like a hurricane) and power had gone out and the roads were covered with mud. Plows were out, plowing the mud off the road like snow in an Ohio winter. A lake had formed (or maybe it's always there?) just off the road and I had never expected to see so much water in Death Valley. Stopped at the Visitor Center long enough to watch the slideshow and then I was off.

Mesquite, Nevada

Stopped in Mesquite where I attempted to go climbing with my friend Anthony and his friends Joe and Stacey. It stormed the night before, swelling the Virgin River and coloring the waters brown. It got pretty deep and swift in the middle and it took an hour and a half to cross the river so we could even get to the rock wall. They sent me down a zipline kind of thing (I don't know all that climber lingo), but the rope was "dynamic" (see me trying to talk like them?) and it dropped me right down into the water and I was inching across with the river swirling all around me. It was amazing! Anthony, who should not have been climing anyway due to a serious knee injury from falling from this same wall a couple weeks ago, was carried across the river anyway. So the whole zipline thing... I guess that was just for kicks.

MTV Todd

So my phone rang last week... it was a number I didn't know and I didn't feel like answering it. But then I felt guilty so I called back...

A guy's voice answered, "Hello Juli."
"...hello?"
"This is Todd from MTV."
"Hello... Todd from MTV..."
"How are you doing?"
"Fine."
"How's the project coming?"
(I'm finally putting 2 and 2 together...)
"Oh, it's great. Almost done. I'm ready to be done. My body's exhausted. I'm exhausted. But it's been good work."
"That's really great to hear. Where are you from again Juli?"
(I think he's interested in me...)
"Ohio..."
"Where in Ohio, Juli?"
(oh maybe he wants to visit me...)
"Mansfield."
"How do you spell that Juli?"
(ah shoot, Todd from MTV wants me to spell Mansfield)
"M-A-N-S-F-I-E-L-D"
"And how old are you?"
"23"
"Cool. Thanks! Just want to let you know you are for sure going to be in our piece on MTV news... at this point. We still need to do revisions."

You know what that means? Tentatively, this FRIDAY, AUGUST 25th, St. Bernard Parish will be on MTV News (most likely a little 3 minute bit) and... you might see me making a fool of myself because I don't remember saying anything intelligent.


... so I saved that number... put it in my phone as "MTV Todd"... just so I can feel special that MTV called me.

... You know you would have done it too.

lil update

I really don't usually have this much time to update like this and I don't know if a great number of people actually read my blogs anymore but I have too many stories to share that I can't keep to myself... and this is an example...

So my week began gracefully with my mercury spill. I brought a total of 5 emergency vehicles to good old camp hope from about 3:00 to 10:00 Monday night; 2 fire trucks, fire chief, the EPA, and a Hazmat crew. It was exciting.

Tuesday I am exhausted. I come back from work and shower and collapse on my bed. 10 minutes later my mom calls me. My credit card company called her. Someone's trying to steal my identity. They charged over $1000 worth of stuff on my card somehow. Don't know how they got my information but I think this means I should probably change my passwords online. I don't know what else they have access too if they got my card numbers. So I spent that night calling the company and some other place that investigates these things. It was fun.

Then... Thursday I'm at the work site and my team is doing an amazing job. I'm inside breaking down a door and using myself as a ramrod and I was really getting into it. (Little did I know there was an old piano wedged up behind it) And I hear someone calling my name outside the house. My team yells for me and I go out. And this tiny (I mean the most ridiculously tiny and lesser butt than I have) asian girl introduces herself to me as Sue Chin Pak from MTV news. I have no clue who this is. But she interviews me and apparently this is airing within the next two weeks. I'm not promising I'll be on it since it's only supposed to be a 3 minute piece. But, pretty exciting huh? And did I mention a few weeks ago I taught this up and coming musician Teddy Geiger and his band how to lay a roof? And then got free tickets to his show that night in downtown New Orleans. He was nice, though I didn't really talk to him much. I think he looks exactly like Harry Potter, but he doesn't wear those dark rimmed glasses in his shows. I guess it's too Harry Potterish. And that's probably a good decision on his part. I also didn't know who he was.

Ok, that's all I had to share. Some Australian news crew came into our house on Wednesday unannounced and we kicked them out for not introducing themselves.

good times with mercury

So yesterday I made a nice name for myself here... As bus captains we're required to snip the little vile of mercury off the thermostats and drop it into a bottle of water. Well, we've been so fortunate the past couple weeks to have a buttload of FEMA water shipped to camp and it comes in cans (and tastes like, in my opinion, when an annoying little kid splashes around in a hotel hot tub and water gets on your lips... mmm... salty body sweat and chlorine...). So I did not have a bottle at the site and decided instead of bringing back a little vile of mercury that was bound to get lost or crushed, to bring the whole thermostat back. As I was getting ready to place the vile into a plastic bottle to take outside to our mercury bucket, it was knocked out of my hands and shattered at my feet. Mercury went everywhere. I was laughing hysterically... for some reason it was funny at the time. But as more people walked by and a couple of us were pushing it into a pile in the middle of the hallway, I kept hearing comments about how scary mercury was. And then someone looked it up online and found out it is in fact pretty scary despite my mom always telling me she played with it all the time when she was little.

I went to ask our firemen who are always on site what to do. They weren't there so we called. Soon we had two fire trucks in front of the building and my little area outside my room was entirely blocked off with yellow tape. People were mad cause they couldn't get to their rooms. The firemen were annoyed because now they had to follow some protocol and evacuate the area and call EPA when all they wanted to do was sweep it up and forget about it. Then they started hassling me about how I had to go through decontamination and stuff. The director of the camp was furious that we didn't tell him. Some big wig army guy that oversees this whole operation showed up and they pointed me out to him... "she's the culprit..." Some dirty firemen began making crude comments to me about having to strip down there and take a chemical shower. I had to get out of this place.

So I went to get some pizza with some people. And as we were leaving, the director of the camp called. "The EPA is here. They need you to come back immediately so they can write up a report and get you decontaminated." I came back and they were taking pictures of the scene. More of the building had been blocked off. Everyone was standing around, tapping their feet, giving me dagger eyes (ok, not really... I might have been dreaming that part up). And they pulled me aside and asked me a bunch of questions. Apparently the EPA does not understand what a thermostat is because they didn't understand how much mercury there was. I even knew that. It's just a drop!

A haz-mat team pulled up and suited up in big yellow tyvec suits and masks and headed in. After a long time of chin-rubbing and "hmms" they decided to get a special vacuum that apparently sucks up the mercury. They sucked it up but the big scare was what was still in the air. So they had this little machine that tests the air quality and it was still too dangerous to enter. (The crew leader for EPA was quoted as saying "I'm not risking my mens lives to send them in there!")

So they took my clothes... and my teva sandals I was wearing at the time. They put them all in special bags and put a machine up to them to test the mercury levels. They were all 2 times the safety reading so they asked if I was really attached. I said yes. We only get a couple pairs of shirts and shorts and I have to wear them every day for work and get them sweaty and smelly. And my tevas... well, they're my tevas and yes I'm attached.

They took my information and told me they'd call me back to let me know if the decontamination process worked out with my clothes. Otherwise, they will have to be disposed of. Finally around 10:30 or so we were allowed back into our rooms and all the doors were left open all night and day to air the place out.

Didn't sleep at all last night cause I kept having these little anxiety moments where I was sure I was going to die now of mercury. And I never would have worried except for the stinking EPA stressed me out so much and took my clothes. So bus captains are no longer allowed to handle mercury. We have to leave it for hazmat at the site. People are now getting trained about mercury. The big wigs are having meetings about it all. Everyone important is asking "Why the hell did that bus captain have mercury in the building?!!" And I'm thinking why do we always have to find blame in someone? It was an accident! We'll move on. And I'll just go crazy by the time I reach 30.

cemetary

photo tour

volunteers?

www.camphopeonline.com

'nallins (or 'nawlins... you pick)

Woke up this morning to sheets of rain pouring down on the metal roof. It never rains alittle in New Orleans. The first time I saw it rain I was terrified. I was sure the whole place was going to flood. It doesn't seem the sewage system has been entirely cleared yet because when it rains the streets do flood here in St. Bernard Parish. I moved my bags away from the wall, just in case it would come in. I live in a gutted elementary school in Violet, LA. When we first arrived, rooms were mostly separated by a tarp. Since then, they've hung sheetrock, but the ceiling's not finished yet so it doesn't reach the roof and the place can get really noisy... especially when it rains in sheets. Sounds like it's all going to come down on me.

Last night I walked Bourbon and Decatur streets with some new friends. I absolutely love downtown New Orleans. Bourbon street can get pretty dirty and crazy at night, but the bars are amazing. Last night we ate dinner at an old bar where I finaly tried the Muffaletta (apparently an important bit of NO cuisine). Then we walked to Preservation Hall where we watched a 6 man band perform in this tiny, dark, hot room that looks untouched since the early 1900s. They played Just a Closer Walk with Thee, which is often a funeral song down here that starts out slow and speeds up when the funeral's over and they're dancing down the streets. They played their signature "When the Saints" where everybody sang along. And they played an old slow jazz song where the sax player "Stackman" stood up and mumbled some crazy lyrics and puffed on his horn in a way I only imagined I'd ever see in New Orleans. It's just as I ever expected it. The culture is so rich. You walk down the street and live jazz music flows from each door and meets in the middle where sweaty bodies meander from bar to bar. And it doesn't feel like they have some rich history they're constantly trying to recreate for tourism... the history's now and they're just continuing their way of life... full of jazz, drinks, and some of the craziest art I've ever seen. A couple weekends ago, I went to Pat Obrien's where we sat at an old piano bar where two pianos face each other, beer steins hang from the ceiling, and waiters dressed penguin-style with bowties and a cloth hanging from their forearm carrying small trays squeeze through the tables and take your order. You get to request songs and they honestly play everything. Two times in the same night, someone requested "Hang On Sloopy" and the whole bar broke into O-H-I-O. I was so excited! But only a few of us were doing the hand motions.

So not all of 'nallins is on Bourbon street. The reason why I'm here is we are working with the St. Bernard Parish government to "muck out" houses. A typical day begins at 5:30... wake up, eat breakfast (which depends on what was donated this week... sometimes breakfast is alittle lacking), get dressed and pack my bag. The first two weeks, I would travel with teammates from Americorps and we'd all just work on a house together, but this past week we had over 300 people here at Camp Hope so I was assigned to be a "bus captain." Basically, I still gutted houses, but had to carry a radio and make judgment calls that I'm probably not that comfortable to make. My team was from all over the US and Canada, people who heard about this opportunity and made arrangements to get down here and are committing 1-2 weeks to rebuilding St. Bernard Parish. I get on a school bus with my team and the bus drops us off at our assignment for the day. We start work early before it gets too hot and end around 1:30.

I have to go into the home first with the team leader and we bang around with pitchforks and crowbars and scare any snakes and rats away (since most of these homes have not been entered since the hurricane). We go to each room and open all the windows and try to get some air circulating. The house we started Thursday was pitch black in most places. The homeowner obviously tried to board it up before the hurricane and then pulled heavy curtains over the windows. We couldn't see anything so we ended up opening most windows from the outside with a crowbar. You walk into these homes and all the furniture and nic-nacs are swirled around all over the place. Couches and mattresses against doors, china cabinets on their sides with broken glass strewn about the room, overturned kitchen tables, a stuffed animal eerily stuck to the ceiling... You never know what you'll find. Somehow I usually find the mice families, as I pick up a dresser drawer that just falls apart in my fingers and 6 little mice scurry out of my hands. Brown recluse spiders everywhere because this is their haven. We've only seen one snake but he was pretty decent-sized. He liked the dark, quiet house too (and my team cut his head off with a shovel despite my "I'll hate you forever if you kill him!!! Let him get away!!!").

One little piece at a time (you have to be patient and enduring), we carry everything to the curb. We clear the entire home out, salvaging as much as we can. Usually the salvage pile is just glasses that stayed in the kitchen cupboards and some mirrors. Photos hardly ever make it, but when you find one, it's a treasure. Can't save anything porous so even if a stuffed animal or a quilt or embroidery look old and meaningful to someone, you can't save them. Everything's covered with black mold. After we clear a room, we take down the drywall, which just crumbles in your fingers. Take down the ceiling (if it didn't fall down already) and all the fixtures. Within 1-3 days, the house is nothing but a foundation with 2x4 framework and a roof.

I have been able to meet many of the homeowners, which is unique because many people just left town and don't plan on returning. It's ranged from Tim, who came and actually worked with us and threw away everything we salvaged for him (I did see him take a lot of smoke breaks on his front porch, though, just staring with glassy eyes at his life on the curb...), to Kathleen who looked so disoriented as she walked in the front doorway and looked at me and said, "this was my home," and began sobbing. I took her outside and showed her the salvage pile and I took off my hat and facemask and started crying with her as she picked up a couple of her grandmother's rings and put them on her fingers and tried to open her grandfather's old doctor bag that had sealed shut. An old framed diploma made it through almost perfectly and she held it and cried.

It's such an emotional and physical roller coaster down here. It's not like anything you've seen on the news. They show you 'nallins and all the life that's back in there and the jazz and the pretty people with smiles on their faces and the colorful homes all rebuilt... No one shows you St. Bernard Parish and the fact that no home, rich or poor, was spared; that the levees broke right here and knocked whole homes right off their foundations, dropped a giant shrimp boat in a neighborhood that no one claims now, placed refrigerators and mattresses on rooftops, and claimed lives marked with a big X and a 1 underneath it spray painted on every single house and business. Dead dogs still rot inside homes and my friend had to scrape a carcass that was just bones and some fur off a front porch on a home she worked on yesterday. You can smell a house that still has a dead animal inside. It's actually worse than the smell of a rotting fridge, which is one of the most foulest smells ever imaginable. Black ooze leaks out of the fridge as you carry it out to the curb and washing machines still full of what's called "Katrina water" spill out all over your clothes.

If you thought 'nallins was back, please look into St. Bernard Parish or Waveland, MS. These are two places where the stories are almost forgotten by US media. The anniversary's coming up so maybe they'll finally take a look our way. But they probably won't. So I'll try to keep this updated with photos and stories. Some pretty incredible stories I have to share already, but this post is too long as usual.

Roadtrip

Didn't think we'd cram it all in (plus ourselves), but Scrappy pulled through and was spacious and gracious enough for our travels to begin... just not real comfortably.

Arches, our first stop

Bryce Canyon

(we're pretending to be hoodoos)

viewing the Zion fires

my Zion

The tent still stands... we were kind of sad to still see it. There goes our cool story. You can see the blackened rocks right behind it from the fires.

Grand Canyon

Antelope Canyon

Kiss a cactus

Saguaro National Park

The infamous Punch and Casey who took us in for a few days.

leaving Tucson

Packed the little hatchback up with all our treasures from Mexico and the parks (including a ridiculous number of Mexican blankets) and stuffed ourselves in all the extra space left. With fake smiles we left Tucson.

that's right, numero uno

Went hiking before summer break with my friend Jamie (who we convinced to move out here!) in Colorado Springs.

summer break!

It's summer break for Americorps and I'm on an incredible roadtrip with four other girls and my car Scrappy! Hoping to get some pics posted when I get to a faster computer. But I'll do a quick little update... Ok, it will probably not be quick.

Left last Friday after our last meeting in Denver and arrived in Moab, UT. Searched for a little while in the dark for a cheap campground and finally found a $10 BLM site down a curvy back road. Slept with bright stars above our heads for the first time in months and noisy boy scouts and a splashing creek beside us. It was our first night so I wasn't used to sleeping with bulging rocks and twigs under my back so I didn't sleep much.

Explored Arches National Park the next morning, like regular tourists would... drive down the road, get out to see balancing rock... drive some more, slow down to take pictures of random beautiful rock formations not worth stopping for... drive... stop at the Windows, hike to windows, take pictures in windows, take pictures for an old man from Pittsburgh traveling alone... drive... park at Delicate arch viewpoint cause we don't have 3 hours to hike it, walk to viewpoint, click... drive... park at Devil's gardens but not enough time to explore or to walk the short way to Landscape arch so we turn around and drive...

Drove to Bryce Canyon National Park that afternoon. It was the last day of Bryce's astronomy week. Stood at Sunset point for sunset and walked down alittle ways, taking way too many pictures of all the wierd hoodoos. Attended a ranger talk on the stars. Then attended a special star viewing at the parking lot. All the lights were off cause Bryce claims they are one of the last places in the US where you can get a great view of the stars and milky way. We looked through telescopes as rangers and volunteers showed us Jupiter and Saturn and the milky way and an exploded star close up. Camped in a beautiful spot right on the edge of the canyon. Woke up the next morning and sat on the hill above our campsite looking down into the eerie abyss below eating a pop tart. It was heavenly.

With shaking hands and hyperventilation, I drove us to Zion that morning. I was insanely excited to see my home again. I kept trying to remind myself that things might be different, that my favorite restaurant Oscar's could be gone or the rangers in the entrance stations could be unfamiliar or a huge rockslide could have changed a landscape. But luckily... Zion was pretty much the same... I loved it. I was actually hugging everybody, which is something I don't normally do, because I was so excited. Also hugged a couple rocks I guess.

Set up our tent at Mosquito Cove BLM lands outside the park because it's free and took off to see the park. As we drove back to our tent later that evening, a friendly cop with a huge smile on her face eating a giant rice krispie treat greated us in the middle of the road. "Oh, we evacuated Mosquito Cove. Saw your tent there... sorry bout that. It's about to burn. The wildfires are jumping across the road. You'll have to find somewhere else to sleep." Then she smiled again as she waved us on to turn around. I'd be lying if I said we were upset. With joy and anticipation we readied our incredible stories to tell everyone back in Denver about our tent and sleeping bags being lost in wildfire and how we got a free night's stay in a hotel. Except we hadn't arranged that yet. So we drove on into town to find our free hotel.

There's probably about 10-12 hotels in the tourist trap of Springdale, UT. We stopped at every one. Got plenty of offers to stay with creepy front desk attendents... one lady that I think had a thing for Erin and I. One man even stopped us and offered for us to sleep on the floor of his hotel room with his wife and 4 kids. I felt alittle guilty. We weren't that desperate. We could find a place to stay, I just wanted a good story. That's all. We ended up sleeping on the floor of one of the park service houses where my friend Rayne lives. We thought that was still a pretty good ending to our story, as long as the part where the tent burnt up still worked out.

Unfortunately the next morning we drove to Mosquito Cove to find that indeed the fires had pretty much destroyed the other side of the road. Everything was completely black, right up to the campground. Our tent was spared.

We did Angel's Landing and part of the Narrows of course because the girls needed to experience that. Ate at Oscar's where they still knew me and gave me the generous local's discount. A shuttle driver in town stopped in the middle of his route and yelled out the window, "Hey I remember you!" The mean man who works the photo shop in town that I always say bad stuff about remembered me and told me I could get a discount in his shop if I wanted it. We got extra glossy maps at the entrance station (which at Zion, is a big deal). Ate a nice Lodge breakfast for more than half off cause they remembered me. Had dinner and good times at Jock and Robin's house (the park superintendent) and I "jammed" with him on the guitars even though I could only do a couple songs. I had really missed them. Did lots more that I don't feel like writing cause this post is too long.

Anyway, I felt like a queen. Loved it. I love Springdale and how everyone knows you and how someone even recognized my car was in town and gave me a call to see if we could meet for coffee. I love Zion, have I mentioned that? And all the red rock towers and orange brown dirt that sticks to your legs.

When it was time to go, I got a chai tea at my favorite shop and drove one last time through the park and on to Page, AZ. The only way I could get myself to leave was to promise I'd be back, soon.

Drove to Page and did Antelope Canyon. The girls loved it. I told them it was worth the $21 and they finally agreed. Drove on to Grand Canyon that night, South rim, cause North rim is on fire. Camped there and enjoyed the canyon the next morning by ourselves. I realized it was the first time I've been alone for 5 months, except when I'm in the bathroom. In Americorps, you're never ever alone.

Left that afternoon for Tucson and here we are... soaking in the red hot sun and waiting til evening when the sun lets up so we can finally open our eyes and see the landscape around us.

blogging in Beaumont... finally

My mom's right. She says I'm learning what not to do with my life through this experience. I went into Americorps thinking I'd find my corner of the world with some non-profit that I'd fall in love with. So far, it hasn't happened. So far, I know exactly where I don't want to be.

I've been neglecting the blog the past few months... I was noticing everything was becoming shallow and boring. And this will probably be that way too, but I am sitting in front of a computer with internet and I figured I'd take advantage...

I left Denver sometime in late February for Detroit, MI. My team spent the next 6 weeks working with the Accounting Aid Society doing a free tax service for low income families. I hate numbers but I loved the concept of it all. We were told that the rebates were 10% of many of the individuals' income for the year. It was such an important service and I'm glad I got a chance to be a part of it.

In mid-April we drove to Beaumont, Texas to work with the Salvation Army and Boys and Girls Clubs of Beaumont. We were told that the area had been hit hard by Rita last fall and that there would be plenty of work to do. While I've seen house after house with a blue tarp on the roof, we have spent most of our time organizing donations in their warehouse. I've had to ask myself almost every day why I am even doing this. While other teams are in New Orleans clearing out homes left untouched since Katrina, we are pulling out clothing to send to the thrift store, and I feel worthless.

Today I'm sitting at the receptionist desk at the Salvation Army, answering the phone and transferring calls. Yesterday a lady named Nadine called. She was crying. She told me an awful story about losing her home in the hurricane, moving in with her father who molested her children, moving out, and now losing all water and electricity to the home. She begged me to help her find a place to live. Then she begged me just to pray for her. I hung up and looked around the glass cage I was in.

I want out. Hurricane season is on its way and I can't understand why so many broken roofs are still covered by a piece of blue plastic. I'm selfish and I want to see my service make a visable difference. I admire the people who can serve without receiving anything in return. But I'm not one of them and this clear plate of glass that separates me from each person who comes into this office asking for assistance is making me crazy.

A lady just walked in asking for clothes. She said she's been wearing the same ones for three weeks now. I told her about our thrift store downtown and she said she couldn't afford it. I told her to go to the Goodwill downtown because everything they sell is a dollar. She said she had no money. I looked at my bag and wished there were a shirt and shorts inside. I looked at myself and wished I could give her my clothes. It's a ridiculous thing for a person to walk the streets of this rich nation without clothing. I really can't blame the prostitutes around here for selling all they own. Even with social service organizations left and right, it takes a lot to admit that you need them.

This is a rant and rave with really no answer. I'm tired and frustrated. But I have no solutions.