homeless and hurtin'

The past few days have been fascinating. Yesterday, I was sitting at home, minding my own business, when someone called me unawares....they said "is yo name Steve?"
I said "why sure."
They said "you the boy we been lookin' fo"...actually she said, "my name is Cassandra and I have some really old records and I'm on foot, so where can we meet?"
"On foot, as in homeless?" I enquired, having wanted to do a story on E.L.B. homeless for some time.
"Yes, yes, a million times yes," answered Cassandra. Actually, she played around with the concept, but she agreed to do an article, if I looked at the records.
We met at a burrito shop near the Ralph's at the Traffic Circle. The records were junk. She was nervous, smoking, irritable, her boyfriend hung about, as tho she'd need protection - after all, she didn't know me.
She wanted to get paid. I said no. She talked, I listened, she refused to let me take a photo, she got antsy, she isn't exactly crazy, but she's too depressed to do much about her sitch. Then they wanted $10 for the 78s/10" LPs, which I refused to do, they got huffy & left. So did I. Went over to the Great Balboa on 10th, which really isn't.

Today, I got scheduled to have my nagging cyst removed, but when I went in, a rather aloof, not so nice Dr. Paul said since it was infected, he couldn't do it, but it would have to be "opened & packed." That means a shot, a slice, blood and bandages. Real nice, real uncomfortable, and a need for daily return visits for the nurse to repack for a week, when Dr. P. sees me again. Oh, goody. That means I can't workout in the iterim.