one is the loneliest number

I found a homeless-looking guy staring at me yesterday - he was actually quite good-looking, in a scruffy, unkempt way. I wondered if he was staring at me because *I* looked like a homeless person? Dunno. I wish I could get some honest feedback from somewhere - for a while I'll feel like I'm fitting in because I'm around people I know and I don't feel like I'm any different from anybody else, but then I'll be around some *other* folks who seem to suddenly be treating me differently, and I don't know if it's because of how I look? Or how I'm acting? Or some random thing like the weather or the phase of the moon. Or maybe they're just exhibiting some kind of brainless, irritating herd behavior, and have chosen me as the 'outcast' of the moment, simply because I'm not with a group?

People are weird.

And a so-called 'friend' muttered an aside to me at a gig some months ago, a church service dedicated to the theme of homelessness. He referred to us (the musicians) as the "nearly homeless". I began to get incensed, thinking he was slamming me, but then wondered if he was including himself in that statement, or maybe all of us, since many musicians struggle to survive, especially free-lancers, which is what most of the musicians in that group were. I've never remembered to ask him, though it niggles at the back of my mind. Maybe I need to feed this minor little demon, then it'll go away :-)