I've slept the last two nights in my new, clean, comfortable, quiet, commodious studio apartment (with huge walk-in closet, spacious full bathroom)--still scarcely believing my good fortune. I pay $177.00 (30% of my monthly stipend) for what (were I not homeless and had I not a tragic mental disability) would cost me (otherwise) $600.00 more than that. Not that I'm not grateful for the noisy, stinking, filthy, cheek-by-jowl Criminal Shelter which has been my home since the 22nd of December--but oh the lovely silence! The solitude! The sweet clean air! I've mostly just been lying on my complete (box-springs, mattress, sheets, bedspread, pillows), clean bed, reading, drinking tea (which I prepare in my lovely new microwave), and listening to music, which, surrounded as I now am by silence, I can hear--no crackling, moronic "announcements" (threats and adjurations) over the loudspeakers every three minutes, no pounding rock "music," no hideously blaring television and DVD's, no raucous shrieks of rage and mindless hilarity. Oh God the lovely silence--how I've missed it.