No Room to Judge

Hello all! I hope your weeks have all gone better than the thought of a reenactment of Guardians of the Galaxy performed by cats.

I recently had a moment that reminded me that, while everyone's perceptions of reality are different, mine are probably a little more warped than your average Jill.

It's not that I don't believe that other people have strange occurrences in their lives, I know they do! It's more a matter of frequency.

Having worked in the past as a street outreach worker, a bouncer, a concert house lighting technician and my current job as the head of security for a homeless shelter means that I've been exposed to a myriad of strange experiences. (Need proof? Check out my two books.)

It has gotten to the point where chaos and bizarre circumstances almost feel natural to me. I'm sure that someone else would look at a man dressed in a green, full-body, spandex suit running around screaming, "I'm a leprechaun! I'm a leprechaun!" and find that a rather rare, if not scary, experience. For me, I just call that Tuesday.

I did not realize how much my perceptions of what 'normal' and 'sane' had been skewed until recently, at the end of a work day, when I happened to look up at the television screen that had been flipped on for the clients to watch. On the screen, I found myself looking at a grown woman tap dancing while dressed as a ladybug.

For a brief moment I watched the woman and actually thought to myself, "Wow, TV-land is one weird place."

Then I paused for a second and realized that not five minutes before I had just ended an hour-long battle with a woman who refused to wear pants because they were 'of the devil.' The only way I could get the only-t-shirt-clad woman to put something on her lower half, was to convince her that because this was a Catholic owned shelter, the pants' very presence in this building meant that they were safe from any form of possession.

Before that I had been forced to stop a heated argument between two grown men over whose tattoo was more faded, and earlier that morning I had to tell someone that iguanas were not technically service animals.

I looked back up at the woman on the screen, dancing her heart out in her little red and black costume and realized, I probably was no longer a great judge of what constituted as 'weird.'

You do you ladybug lady, you do you.

Anyone else have any perception revelations of late?

In other news, "Life is a Pirate Ship Run by a Velociraptor" has garnered itself another five star review! Reader Brenda writes, "A great escape into the unknown and the funny. This is a quirky, off-beat tale that filled me with delight. The author has unusual voice that had me laughing out loud. A bit on the bizarre side that I took pleasure in."

See the full review here! 

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Twitter, and check out my books on Amazon! 

I Broke Mental Health

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a more splendid week than the thought of "Cats" the musical performed by wallabies.

This week there was another 5* review for "Life is a Circus Run by a Platypus!" Amazon reader Eclectic wrote, "You cannot be in a funk when reading this book! Allison Hawn's deliciously wicked prose will make you laugh until your sides ache."

See the full review here!

For those of you just tuning in, I am the head of security for a very large homeless shelter. How large? We see roughly between 250 to 650 people a day.

My job is basically to keep a round lid of calm on a square box of chaos. A couple weeks back I had to put my lid-fitting skills to the absolute test.

I had just opened the doors to the shelter, letting our usual breakfast crowd in, when one man wandered through, catching my attention. Now keep in mind he was competing for my notice that morning with someone came in dressed as a pony and another one who came in with a pot on his head.

Barefoot, wearing pants that he had most certainly recently peed in, he was wandering through our day room levitating his hands over sleeping peoples' heads and muttering. Worried that he might end up with a fist in his face, I wandered over and said, "Hey! You're a new face, what's your name?"

 "Jesus Christ."

It was at that moment that I knew I wouldn't get a chance to finish my first cup of coffee for the day and I might as well throw out the idea of getting anything else productive done.

I blinked at him a little and said, "Alright Mr. Christ, what are you doing?"

His hands hovered over a sleeping patron, "I'm healing them."

"Can we wait until they're awake to heal them? How about we let them sleep, okay? Let's get you a doughnut."

Eventually I was able to convince him, in all his majestic glory, to go sit down long enough for one of the staff members at the shelter to provide him with a doughnut. He held the doughnut in his hands, looked at us, then held it above his head and said, "I will feed all the hungry with this!"

Our first miracle of the day was that, as he crumbled the doughnut into crumbs and began flinging it everywhere to 'multiply' it, none of our other patrons threw punches back.

The entire day, our visitor was insistent that he was in fact Jesus Christ and refused to respond to anything else. We tried J.C., Buddy, Buckaroo... apparently he was dead set on being our savior, which we soon found out had some odd rituals with it.

Never in my life would I have dreamed that one day I would have to yell things like, "Jesus, you have to wear pants!" and, "No, Jesus, we don't try to lick people!"

Eventually, it got to the point where the staff collectively decided that he was really a danger to himself. Okay, he wasn't a danger to himself, he was a danger to others becoming a danger to himself. This meant that it was time to call on our trusty friends at the local mental health crisis response center.

This is how that conversation went:

Mental Health Crisis Response: "Crisis Response, what can we help you with?"

Me: "Well, we have a guy here who is claiming to be Jesus Christ who is persistently trying to heal people who are sleeping, refuses to put socks or shoes on and has now peed himself twice. We could use an Mental Health Professional."

MHCR: *Silence, that was then broken by uncontrollable laughter* I'm... *snicker* sorry... Can I get the individuals first and last name?"

Me: First name: Jesus, Last name: Christ. He won't give us any other name and this morning he called me a harlot for not allowing him to exorcise a demon from our piano.
 
MHCR: *Laughing* "Can I get a date of birth?"

Me: "I don't know!? 12/25/0 AD-ish? The guy just tried to multiply a doughnut by crumbling it into bits and throwing it into the air, he's not really into giving out useful info right now."
 
MHCR: *THUD-CRASH!*
 
Me: "Are we okay over there?"
 
MHCR: *Absolute belly shaking laughter* "Sorry! I fell out of my chair! We'll send some MHP's to your *snicker snicker snicker* location!"

I officially managed to break mental health crisis response. After a while they came to take him to where he could be analyzed, at which point he tried to start a 'tickle-fight' with the escorting police officers.

So the next time I have people at my apartment door asking if I've heard the good news, I'm going to tell them that the good news is currently being evaluated by professionals for several delusion disorders.

Have you heard any good news lately?

Don't forget to follow my adventures on Facebook and Twitter (@AllisonHawn) and check out my books on Amazon.