Tomorrow is the first day of June. I don’t know why that seems significant to me, but it does. Probably because I associate June with Summer, with the hot and sticky weather. It’s going to be a drag carrying all my shit around during the hot weather. But I suppose I can’t help it - life just sucks for me now.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a place to sleep and three meals a day. But day by day I feel like a real vagabond. Last night one of the guys checking us in told me I needed to take a shower. That was a bit embarrassing, but I appreciate that he told me in a quiet manner. He saved me some embarrassment, I suppose.

Life in the shelter isn’t too bad. At least I’m not sleeping on the floor in the hallway outside the noisy bathroom; now I sleep on a pad (on the floor) in a room with only four other people. One guy in the room is quite obnoxious, but the rest are cool. Obnoxious guy has been arguing with his girlfriend over the phone at full volume and watching action movies - again at full volume - while others are trying to sleep. One guy asked him to use earphones and his answer was basically to fuck off. I wouldn’t mind if he fucked off, in fact.

The meals at this place are ok. I wish the portions were larger. I’m not going hungry, though, which is a good thing. It’s like I wrote before, I have a place to sleep and I get three meals a day. I need to keep reminding myself of the upside of my life rather than wallowing in my misery. The fact is that I’m unemployed and homeless, but I’m trying my best to keep that from getting to me. I have been reading a lot, and I applied for what looks to be a great job the other day. I need to ramp up my job search so I can get the fuck out of this hole I am in.

Writing this blog has been helping me a bit to organize my thoughts. I need to be doing some academic writing, though. Soon I’ll run out of books to read and I will get to the dissertation. I know I am years late in getting the manuscript together, but depression is an insidious thing; it saps all my intellectual energy and tells me I am no good, that I am stupid, that my work is not worthwhile, blah, blah, blah. I wish there was some easy treatment for depression, but there isn’t.

That being said, I think the move to the shelter has been, in some ways, a positive change for me. I am no longer lying on a couch all day every day watching videos. I have to get up early, eat meals at regular times, and I spend my days reading and writing. I wouldn’t say that depression is behind me, but the simple fact of shelter life have done something to help lift the fog. Let’s hope it continues to do so.

500+ words. This is getting easier.