Robert StGenis Voice empowered

We had given him a $50 gift card and sent him out to buy some things. He then went out for a few hours to a clinic appointment, if I recall, initially, with some $32 or so dollars left on the card. I had told him to put $10 on his TAP card for Metro (transit). Once before, I had given him a gift card and said this was a "lottery gift"; find out what's left and it's yours. He ended up with some $24 or so dollars. In this case, it was not a gift, rather something he could use to get us things or we could tell him or agree to allow him to use for himself. For me, it was a trust building exercise with a gift card that we were given for going to our vacation ownership presentation. He had an appointment at a clinic and is over on the edges of West Hollywood.  I am not sure he didn't even suggest that he might say he might head over to "Boystown" before coming back but we knew he wasn't returning right after his appointment, which actually made sense to m...

You should read  When you sleep with someone homeless in your house  ,  Tony Disappears  and  Tony Returns...  prior to this entry to be completely "in the loop." Just after the 1st of the month, Tony got his food stamp benefits, called " CalFresh " in California, and he sent me a text. This means he has received his $192 per month to assist with food and other "basic needs."  He texts me and says he is on his way back and wants to stop at the store and make us dinner. I find out after he got back that he received some from his mother as well, which made sense when he offered to buy wine and I knew that his CalFresh benefits did not cover it. He wanted to make us a pizza. I thought it was a nice gesture but being on a Keto diet that was not in my picture and I let him know we had no expectations of his buying or paying for food for us. He explained that the pizza was over chicken breasts with tomato sauce and pepperoni; that fit my diet. I still th...

As I start to write this, I again realize how quickly time flies and all the more so, it seems, as you get older. The It Gets Better Project was started in 2010 by activist, author and journalist Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller following what seemed at the time to be an endless number of suicides of young gay kids throughout the US from varying backgrounds. As a gay man and one who never really was suicidal but definitely knows from being distraught, alone and in a state of despair, it definitively struck a cord. It motivated people like Dan and Terry to take on initiatives that I believe have helped many directly and equally shed a light and opened the minds and perspectives of many others. For my small part, at least in this direct "movement" I created this video. As you will learn about efforts I have made in the LGBTQ community, which are vast, they all should have some impact on a feeling of acceptance. Hopefully one that makes one feel less suicidal f...

Tony arrived with a bag from Target and the backpack we had given him. He had been staying somewhere on the Westside of Los Angeles (a favorable area) for roughly 10 days with some guy who had taken some romantic interest in him and then offered him some work, manual labor of sorts, like painting. But that story alters later, as he commuted from Silverlake (closer to Downtown Los Angeles or DTLA) to this guy's place in stories he tells me in days to follow. Perhaps it changed along the way. I am not doing a police investigation, so every detail isn't my primary objective. Once again, he had been robbed of his things, but not all of them. Among things that he seemed most disappointed about was that he has food there and couldn't get back in to retrieve it. Evidently the guy threatened to call the police if he didn't leave the property. My impulse would likely have been to let him call the police if he had my things. But, I am not him. I must remember drugs are involv...