1. Today was one of those days at work where it seemed like it was one thing after another going wrong. Between tons of holiday donations coming in, deliveries, ill-tempered clients, and staff getting stressed out and snapping at each other over nothing, it was nice t finally get out of there. Fortunately I was able to leave early, though not as ( Read more... )

Coworker: Did you need some help with anything?
Me: Are you a psychiatrist? I could use help with a lot of things.
Coworker: Well let's just start with putting this stuff away and go from there. Small steps, Mike.

I've recently gotten some emails pointing out that it has been quite some time since I've updated this. Two months now since I've updated; have I really been that slack? Most of this year has gone by in such a blur that its been easy to lose track--hence the pronounced lack of posts lately. On the other hand, I'm glad to see people are reading ( Read more... )

Yet another week has flown by and it seems as if I am always busy now. I wonder where the summer went so fast. Karley and Becky have both bugged me about my recently infrequent updating, so here's a post. At least I know I have some interested readers out there ( Read more... )

I just had a talk with another local activist who volunteers with the Street Exposure website, who informed me he was harrassed by the Chapel Hill police while talking to an IFC client outside of Community House a half hour after the 8 PM curfew. Its of course hard to say whether the police are doing that of their own initiative or have been ( Read more... )

Not much exciting has happened today. I actually slept in (if you can call 8 AM "sleeping in") so that was nice since this whole thing with IFC and the craziness of this week has left me pretty somewhat emotionally exhausted. Then I had a bunch of mundane errands to run, relaxed for a bit, and I'm finally getting around to getting online today ( Read more... )

I've just returned from a late afternoon interview with a writer for the Daily Tarheel (DTH; for those of you who aren't local, that is the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's student run newspaper). I had a conversation yesterday with Ryan Tuck, the editor-in-chief of the DTH and I gave the reporter covering last night's Council meeting a ( Read more... )

Racial tensions, verbal abuse by staff members, favortism, homophobic slurs. These are all things one would normally expect to find in institutions--for example, a state penitentiary. But in this case, its not the state pen we're talking about, but Project Homestart, IFC's facility in Chapel Hill for women and children who are experiencing ( Read more... )