Chuck (44)

“I am a man in the United States. With my girlfriend of 21 years, I own more of the value of our green house than the institution that holds our mortgage. (…)
Our city is now considered fashionable by people whose opinions appear in magazines and in the newspaper of record.
(…)
I am an immigrant. One of my birth countries official languages is English, of which I am a native speaker, in an accent not recognizably foreign to Americans. I am white. When I tell other white people that I am an immigrant, more often than not they first think I am kidding, and then, when I gently insist, give me a look that I interpret as meaning, “oh, you’re not really.”
(…)
Like most others of my class in my city, I live a portion of life on the street. When I am doing my living on the street, I don’t worry about food, shelter, harassment by authority or by others, nor, for the vast part, personal security. Instead I worry about how I am perceived by others, about whether I will make enough money to validate my self-identity, and about the nature of fulfillment.
(…)
I have a small office downtown. It is nine feet wide and about fifteen feet long. The view out of the window is of a brick office building with white frames, windows set in rows of three.
(…)
On Wednesdays I volunteer at p:ear. I am a mentor to homeless and transitional youth. I think the age range is 15 to 24. I listen and joke with the kids. I run the dishwasher and try to be funny. In some cases I don’t have to listen very much to be freely offered information.
(…)
Here are some things I have learned from various sources, and some personal anecdotes.
(…)
3) If your bicycle is stolen, and you call the police, and they come and you tell them your name, and they look up your name and find out that there is a warrant for your arrest in a neighboring city for small things like unpaid jaywalking tickets, then you will be arrested, and you will still not have your bicycle back.

4) It is possible to be a young man who is a talented painter, musician, and computer programmer, who enjoys reading philosophy, and whose erotic capital is of value enough to appeal to particular sorts of nerdy young women even in the face of short stature and slight built, and still to be so lonely and angry that there can never be true personal freedom and no physical institution could be worse than the mental prison of every day existence.
(…)”