April...Snow...Really?

Don't you just love Minnesota? It's the middle of April, and it snows. A week or two ago it was in the 70's. Now it's colder again. Oh yay.

NOTS went well, even though it snowed all evening/night. Woke up on Friday about noon, and realized I had nothing to do until 3 AM. So I went down to the church with my dad to help with set up. Hanging banners, setting up tables, all the boring stuff. Went home around 5:30 for some dinner and warmer clothes. It wasn't snowing yet, but the wind was picking up and the temp was dropping. Headed back to the church around 7 to start building boxes. When we get the boxes, they're just tubes without flaps. So we have to score the boxes, cut the corners, fold the newly created flaps from the scores, and then tape them up. Pretty simple, in concept. Throw in some wind, rain, sleet, snow, and the fact that you have to make about 450 of them in three hours, and it starts to suck. But we finally got them done around 10, and then the kids came and took them off to make their little box villages.

I left around 11 to go home and get dry. Hung out with Joey at the BP for a little bit, then watched tv until 2 AM. Then I went and picked up Anthony. We went over to the church and started our security patrol. Fortunately, it had stopped snowing by then, and the wind was gone. But it was still wet and cold. We were surprised to learn that a lot of kids had gone inside the church to sleep, since the boxes fell apart with the water. I think that's cheating. The whole point is to raise money to help homeless kids, and to teach kids about homelessness. What better way than to have to sleep outside in a shitty, soggy box in the snow while it's 25 degrees outside? Oh well. I think out of the 450 kids, by morning only 40-50 were left outside. The rest were all inside.

The security was pretty boring. Nothing happened, which I guess is a good thing. Me and Anthony spent it walking around the parking lot talking.

Once our shift was over, Anthony and I headed out for breakfast. We were both pretty tired, and it was getting hard to stay awake. After breakfast I dropped Anthony off at home so he could get ready for work. He had to work from 10 to 7. Originally I was going to stay up before work at 3, since I figured I wouldn't wake up in time. But my body won out, and I took a couple hour nap before going to work. My boss Linda was there when I got there and the first thing she said to me after hi was 'You look like shit. Are you feeling ok?' So then I had to explain what I had done the night before, and she tried to get me to go home and go to bed. I said I was fine, and I needed the money. Pretty boring night at work, but it was really hard trying to stay awake. No matter how much pop or coffee I drank I couldn't wake up. I was very happy when midnight rolled around and we closed. Finally got to sleep around 2 AM.

Woke up Sunday after about 10 hours of sleep, feeling better, but not great. Hung out with Anthony for a little bit, and we went to the Mall Of America. Anthony wanted to buy new shoes or something, but he didn't. I guess he couldn't find something he liked. It was pretty cool people watching. I love watching people. It's just fun for me.

Dropped Anthony off at home, and went home myself. Erik talked about a bike ride later, so I started to prepare for that. I hadn't been a bike ride all year, and it was going to be interesting. Erik, Boo Boo, and I loaded up the bikes and met up with Demian, Nate, and Nate's neighbor Carry in Uptown.

We decided to go down to the river and have a fire. So we started off, and I was feeling good. It was nice to get back on the bike after a long winter. It was still cold, around 45 degrees I think, but it was worth it. After a while we made it to the river and started looking around for wood. We had meant to bring our own and strap it to the back of Demian's trike, but we forgot it. We hunted down enough for a somewhat small fire, and started having a good time on the beach. I love being down at the river, on a white sand beach, having a fire in the middle of the night. It's really peaceful. The drunk people I was with kind of ruined the peacefulness, but it was still fun.

Erik getting the fire burning.



We headed back after a couple of hours, since most people had to work the next day. About 100 yards after we left the river, Nate fell off his bike, right over the handlebars. Guess he was a little drunk. Carry tried to help him up, but was drunk too so she ended up falling onto him. Then D came over and fell on them just for fun. So I, being the sober one, went to help them up. But D wanted more fun, so he pulled me down too. So we're a big pile of people in the middle of the Greenway (a bike path) laughing hysterically at 3 in the morning on a Sunday (well, Monday if you want to get technical). I managed to pull myself up, and then the pile broke up. Somehow, Nate's shoe came off, and Carry grabbed it and threw it over the fence for some reason. So now Nate's all pissed off because he only has one shoe. So I hop the fence and grab his shoe, and try to coral people back on their bikes so we can get moving again. It was a long ride back, but we finally made it without any more incident. I finally got to bed at 4:30.

Needless to say, I didn't get enough sleep this weekend. And I hurt. From the box building, working, and the ride. But it was all worth it, so who am I to complain? I did a good thing, I earned some money, and I had a good time with friends. Sounds like a good weekend to me.

I just found out that Saturday the 30th we'll be going up to the cabin, for the last time. We're going to go clean all of our stuff out, and then say goodbye. It's going to be very hard for everyone. To me, the cabin has always been my escape. When things got too much for me down here, I could just load up and go away for a day or a week. It was really nice last year when I finally came to terms with being gay. Having all the stress in my life it would just become too much, and it felt like my head was going to explode. And usually my mom could tell when I was getting to that point. She didn't know why, but she'd usually suggest I go up there. It was like my safety net, so to speak.

And now it's gone. I don't know what I'm going to do anymore. It was my refuge. I need a place where I can go even just for a day or two to get away and decompress, before my head goes insane. I get this horrible itch under my skin and I get really on edge. I hate the feeling. I have a feeling I'm going to have to live with it a lot more now. Only time will tell I guess.

I talked with my mom about it, and I'm going to go up Friday by myself, and then everyone else will come up on Saturday, and we'll all leave on Sunday. At least that way I'll get a little time to myself before the chaos starts. No one knows what the cabin means to me, or why I'm so upset about losing it. A lot of it has to deal with my grandpa dying, which they know, but they don't know about the other stuff. It just sucks.

Oh yeah. Somehow I managed to miss the one year anniversary of my blog. It was April 14th, or last Thursday. I can't believe it's been so long. It's been a crazy ride, but I'm glad I took it. I can't thank you guys enough for being here with me, and listening to my stupid, bullshit life. You guys rock. I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all of you. Thanks.

Well I'm tired, so I think I'll stop.

Hope you guys are well!

143

_Kevin

The video they put together after the Night On The Street. I doesn't so much show what happened, but what it's all about. So you don't quite get the feel of what it was like. But you get to see what they are trying to accomplish. I'm the box builder in the grey Snowbird hoodie and black hat. My dad has the pink bandanna on his head.