michaelb's blog

so the other night (tuesday to bve exact) i started to feel a pain in my right side.  annoying.  then it got sharper.  and sharper.  then without feling nauseous, i somehow knew to walk to the bathroom and lean over the toilet where i threw up violently multiple times.

i spent the next few hours alternately writhing in pain and vomiting.  the doctor finally returned my pages and told me to go to the emergency room.  they drugged me with morphine (!) and did a CATscan.  the diagnosis?  kidneystone.

i have NEVER had pain like that in my life.

well, the votes are in and all six of you seem to think i should continue on with my postings about Hagar House.  however, since these are no longer reports from IN THE FIELD but are now recollections of past events, i shall be changing the title to:

MUSINGS ON A HALFWAY HOUSE

celebrate this change in the best way you know.  postings will resume soon.

Before I've been able to make much headway on this series, I have moved out of the halfway house.  As of Friday evening, I have obtained my own studio apartment in the Central West End section of St. Louis, conveniently four doors away from the city's Alano club.

Therefore, while I'd like to play catch-up with the rest of the personalities and situations I've encountered while in the church basement, I feel it would be somewhat disingenuous to continue.

What's your opinion: should I keep up or move on?

Pastor George Woods is the "CEO" of Hagar Houseing (sic), which runs the halfway house program in which i'm residing.  There are nine houses in the Hagar House system, five for men and four for women.  Each is referred to by the street it is on; mine is referred to as the Myron House or alternately as "the Church" since it's the church where Pastor Woods holds services.

Pastor Woods is a preacher for the Pentecostal Church of Christ, a sect that practices a fairly fiery and loud style of worship (sometimes with speaking in tongues).  Sundays are a day to be avoided at the Myron House as the services are held directly above those of us in the basement.  Sunday School starts at 9 a.m., followed by bible study and then the actual worship itself.  This goes on until about 1 or 2.  Much singing, many shouts of praise and a lot of stomping on the floor.  If you happen to be downstairs while the service is going on, Pastor Woods will sometimes come down and "suggest" you come up for the service.

You don't say no to Pastor Woods.

He is a big man, with a deep voice.  He looks like Richard Roundtree.  His late father was a pastor and his mother is too, only having recently passed the reins of the congregation off to him.  He has been clean and sober for 19 years.  He sponsors two of the guys in our house.  He is also a licensed drug and alcohol counselor.

When i came to the house, i was crying and saying i was unfixable.  he gave me a great big hug and told me i was wrong.  he overlooked rent costs when i didn't have it.  he told me yesterday that i don't ever need to worry about paying that rent back.  "save it for your family" he said.  Then he had me mow the front lawn of the church.

he has a white suit that is spotless.

We're going meta today: What questions would you'd like to see become QoTDs?

i would very much like to see the following questions:

• why don't they put more pictures of clay aiken on the cover of the magazine Entertainment Weekly?
• don't the editors of the magazine entertainment weekly know that there is a large underground of "claymates" who would buy extra copies of their magazine if clay were on the cover?  this would boost sales!
• if the editors don't know, wouldn't the publishers know?  if they did, they could force the editors to put clay on the cover more.
• if clay aiken and taylor hicks competed in a ballad contest, who would be the winner? (answer: we ALL would win!)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

so i'm currently living in a halfway house located in north st. louis, a notoriously poverty-stricken and crime-ridden area; it's part of a pentacostal church (basically a house that they built a sanctuary in the front of).  Pastor Woods says i'm the only white guy that's been there the entire time he's run this program.  the other guys have fun with this and so do i.  4 guys live in rooms on the church level.  5 live in the unfinished basement.  there are three cubicles with doors built out of plywood.  i and one other fellow have our beds out in the open room.  the upper level has the house manager and the fellows with longer sobriety.  the bottom level is more like a flophouse and has had a greater cast of characters who've been rotating out as fast as their addictions can take them.

this BLOG!!! will introduce you to these interesting types (in an anonymous way of course).