Can we talk something else?

Can we talk about something else?

Hello.

Out there.

I never miss a chance at self-indulgence when the opportunity arises to mention that I was in my past life,

a social worker with the elderly and disabled from the age of 15 until my early 30s. I bring it up a lot because it's an important part of how I developed into what I am, weird, darkly humored, highly questionable,

which is how dark topic has been described by critics. I started in nursing homes with the dying,

lending an ear and a hand to the mouth,

wanting a drag of my cigarette. You could smoke in private nursing homes back then. At least we did.

I graduated to the streets with the homeless, but dropped out after a couple of years of that.

I had a father from whom I'd already learned much of in the field, or should I say the ditch,

who was difficult to manage, and those unhoused gentlemen I'd helped process at the shelter

were worse than even him. I had until that point romanticized the hobo through literary works

like William Kennedy's Ironweed and Jack Kerouac's Darmah Bums.

But these were not hobos I was dealing with. I was out there trying to shine up street trash

and getting spit on for my efforts. So I shifted focus from shelters to societies like that of the

John Howard, eventually becoming a child and youth counselor in a

variety of group homes settings. These group homes that became like a home, to me, were the type of

places not many go into. They were secret places, meant to keep a low profile. As some of the residents

were under protection after having been mistreated by a family member or guardian, and now

they were what's called a crown ward of the CAS, the Children's Aid Society. They have been

removed from their home due to abuse and placed in the care of homes like the ones I supervised

...