On the Dime,On the Streets welcomes you to;

 No prizes, just my eternal gratitude and the most fleeting of fame!
                  A Foreword;
    This site is dedicated to my dear friend and muse Jennifer L., her alter ego the Sugar Faerie (more on her later), my pen-pal kitty from Indiana (a real dear and all round good egg), and Dee Chambless. I count myself fortunate and blessed to have these people come into my life!
     Again, welcome! My name is Joseph. I reside in Moreno Valley in Riverside County, California. I was homeless there for about a year and a half starting with Mayday, 1999.Very little of this time “unhomed” was easy; some of it was hellish and left me desperate. At a point when I nearly gave up Jennifer L. gave me the reasons and the inspiration to go on.
     Dear friend if I haven’t said it enough before, Thank You!
     I “met” kitty online through her site at Fortune City. I might set up another site there so we could be neighbors. Her site is listed on my links page. We have become friends and keep in touch about how things are going in our lives. I have found her to be a warm hearted and good person.
 Later other people and their voices would come into my life and add to their words and actions. Some like kitty, Lucy and Harmony I would meet and come to know online. Others like Dee were right here in town. I especially wish to give a large note of appreciation to Dee.  She became a mentor and a voice I really needed to hear. She came at the right moment in this life! My friends are the gold lining of my life.
     Dee is a costume designer; she had a shop called Custom Costume in town. I was privileged to help her at time in the shop. Like when she built over forty costumes for a local production of Romeo and Juliet. This was a production a theater group called Shakespeare-Off-The-Fringe. I got to help with hand sewing and even made the patterns for two hats.  I admit my favorite was making masks for the ball scene! Though even sewing buttons on cloaks by hand was important, I learned more about putting buttons on coat than I ever thought there was to learn!
     It made watching the play a different experience having worked on the costumes and getting to know many of the cast!

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     Now for the reasons behind these pages; in the struggles to change my situation I have had my small measures of success. With time I started to earn some money. Not a great deal true but still enough to improve my life in many ways. While still homeless I became the owner of a used aluminum 21 speed Pacific Elite bicycle and a used laptop, a Compaq Presario 1247. With time I was able to buy a Ford Aerostar (1989) just before I moved into a small single room apartment.
     Among many of my friends it has been tradition to name their things. Houses, computers, cars all these things have risen to the esteem accorded pets and family members in that they are given names and folks, these items need names! I am asking you to submit your suggestions for their names. Heck you can even offer alternate names for this site! Now all decisions by the judge (me) are final - unless I change my mind! Also the judge is somewhat biased, after all I did tell both Jennifer and kitty about this contest long before telling you  (and you had to find this site!) asking for their suggestions first. If this makes me a dog then just call me Rover! Woof-woof?
     I will try to be fair and impartial. I hope to keep track of duplicate entries but the first entry of a name is the one that counts. All errors are solely mine and not the fault of anyone else! Everyone is welcome to enter!! I plan to do updates here especially concerning letting everyone know how it fares and when I pick winners!
     Please submit all entries by e-mail to me at mailto:onmyown@webmail.pe.net or to my guest book.
    Also this site is an attempt to bridge the distance I felt between myself and everyone else once I became homeless. In a less than heavy-handed way I am trying to reach out to you. It is thought that we all can grow in solitude but this is different. What others and I experienced is isolation, a sterile suffocating torture. It often seemed like the social equivalent of sense deprivation. We all become the character from THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY but not by choice.
    We want our place in the world among you back!
    Another note I plan to stress later in this site is that homeless people don't come from nowhere. Like revolutions homelessness doesn't occur in velvet lined boxes. Every homeless person is someone's, several someone's, relative. The next homeless person could be your child or parent. Your sibling, cousin or friend could be them, or even you. I want you to think on this and see what you can do within your community and family to prevent this from happening!

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                                 More acknowledgements:

     Here is the part where I am going to miss so many people I should be thanking for their help and words of encouragement. If you are one I miss, please forgive me but know your aid was appreciated.
     First I would like to thank Becky Sanchez for her encouragement and friendship. Not to forget the present of a really good sleeping bag. I still use it. It is warm and comfy and I don’t have to turn my heater up on those colder nights. Becky makes reproductions of Victorian clothing. She had a shop called Artisan’s Corner in the same mall as Dee’s. Both Dee and Becky have moved on to other endeavors elsewhere. A year later and people still tell me how much they miss these shops and the Old West Mercantile Co., which specialized in reproductions of attire from the American West. I had many a cup of coffee there in the early morning before Dee would arrive to open her shop.
     At this place I would like to send a large Zen hug to the cast and crew of Shakespeare-Off-The-Fringe. I enjoyed their open-air productions of AS YOU LIKE IT in ‘99 and ROMEO AND JULIET in ‘00. These were free and done with joy and lots of talent and hard work. Also they offered me a rare beautiful treasure; they were among the few who treated me as a fellow human being.
     There was Jaycee who waited on tables at Denny’s. She was polite and friendly. Her acquaintance warmed my soul better than the coffee did. She was working to pay for her schooling; she was in a nursing program. Her aim was to work with newborns. She’ll be a great asset to her hospital!
     I’d be remiss if I forgot to mention my online friends Cindy in Oregon or Harmony and BT in Norway. I met them through the Homeless Person’s Network, an email news and discussion group. I seem to have added them to my family.
     Also not to forget my brother Frank and his family, in New Jersey, or our sister Siri and her family, they live in Norway. Their encouragement has been too big a help to ever say thank you enough for! I care deeply about them!
 

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          Please, visit the chapters in this site:
 


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http:www.ucomics.com/bizarro


                                                                                http://www.zippythepinhead.com
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