212,826

Finished my Homeless in Long Beach 2004/2005 memoir. 212,826 words including titles. Wanda Sykes said in her book, "yeah, I said it" that her editor needed 70,000 to 90,000 to make a book. I wrote one via blog posts! And that does not include all the deleted posts. Yeah, my story could use even more editing. How many times must I say "I do not remember" or "I mix up" (two people and their names)? And some of the first posts were just a general overview, my impression of my homelessness. I actually like some of those posts better than the actual detailed accounts of days spent on the streets.

Anyway, that comes to 583 words to tell about one homeless day or one homeless person. And that is why I wondered what 583 words look like.

And, I did not finish telling my tale as it happened. I never got around to writing about a gentleman who let me stay in his apartment. Nor about Mel, so drunk he crashed under bushes near the Alfredo's picnic area parking lot ~ not waking when the sprinklers went off in the morning. He gave me his heavy soaked Bible to hold for him. He needed my help to get him to his motel room. I had too much weight of my own. He was a nice, older gentleman, and I was torn between helping (enabling) him and looking out for my own self. Everything he had in his backpack was sopping wet. Jeans are heavy enough dry, how could he expect me to carry his wet stuff along with my own stuff because he could not manage it all due to his inability to control his drinking?

So, yeah, I wrote a lot, some of it too boring and also left a lot unsaid. But who cares really? Kathy from the Village told me she stayed up late one night reading and said it was "fascinating". Too much time has elapsed from when I started the project for me to remember why I thought people would be interested in my homeless adventures.

In that mood, decided to just "end it" the original story and get on with the 2006 Homeless in Long Beach tale. Talk about deleting posts, a lot of that is gone, especially the time period of getting off the streets via Safe Haven and the program, blah, blah, blah.