Pigeon-watching hotspots to see around town #10: Figueroa at 4th St. Underpass flock.

This flock is a delight to visit (for me, at least, because I'm training them). They are currently (October 2024) becoming trained on the clicker, for "come." One of the birds swooped down in front of me, just earlier, today, as I arrived. I was positioned in an unfamiliar place, for feeding's sake, so it was especially flattering that the bird recognized me by the clicker. 

Some of the pigeon flock at Figueroa at 4th St. Underpass. 

This flock is particularly charming for its resilience in the face of challenges. Several of the birds (much more than by averages of other flocks) have visible battle scars, in the form of deformed and swollen feet, from having string tied around their feet, by former trappers that frequented the area, although they're here no longer, I seem to notice. I'm not well-versed in trapping the pigeons, to save them from their plight, at this time. I just show up and feed them. You can check out some of their quaint and isolated behaviors (although fairly common fare, for pigeons; I just felt that they could be a control flock, eventually, in psychological terms, with their progress and development in mind, on account of their isolation) in some video footage I captured while socializing my deceased pigeon friend that I brought along, and wrote an article on, a couple of weeks ago, below. 

Here, you can see my pigeon friend is being investigated by one of the males in the Figueroa at 4th St. Underpass flock's regular members.

Regardless of being new to the place, my pigeon friend felt right at home with the new birds, and he took to some sharing of the same meal as the other birds, while we visited. 

This bird, (unnamed, so far) is one of the more charming of the flock. He had a broken leg happen to him, several months ago, and it hasn't quite healed properly, but he could potentially heal up and be just fine, some day. 

The location is fairly quiet, lately, and, as I noted, isolated, but it's ideal if you happen to show up with food for the birds, and you can spot them roosting on the light poles. They'll swoop down and accept food, if they spot you tossing some out, in many cases. If you have a clicker, that's even better, because they're becoming trained on clicker noises. 
 

I just recently saw a former friend in porn + some back story surfaced.

 As that I'm single, right now, I'm still drawn to pornography, at age 42. It's been a rough set of years in dating, as a schizophrenic, with several bad breakups preceding my schizophrenia onset, as the backdrop to a row of horrors that ensued. This particular incident dates back to the beginning of my dating years, which was back in college and university. There, I was with one girl throughout my college career. I hear that she hangs out with the guy whom I saw in the porn video; a mutual friend. After I realized that the guy is, potentially, recognizably, the same person that I was friends with, back in university times, some melodrama unfolded. I hear that the purpose of me hearing it was that I'd been done a number on, so to speak. 

According to the allegory, my ex-girlfriend and ex-fiancee had moved back to my college home town, of back then, and had been settling in, with friends, there, meanwhile, I'd heard nothing of it. I'm not all that much attached, any more, and there's a lot of sore feelings that go along with processing this sort of thing, which, usually, lately, I'd not give much credence to, yet I found that the story satisfyingly enough fulfilled a dark hole portion of my mind's memories, coming up to the present day. She was upset that I never came back out to try to find my way in life, with her running around town, but I guess that that's where things get fanciful, in believing the story. I have to maintain some restraint, since the girl remains distant to me. 

There were a bunch of short tales of misdeeds leading up to ruin, in their own lives, likewise, as I'd experienced. It was like a lucid dream, that I'd had, in hearing this stuff out, while I'm trying to get to sleep. I'd been ailing over the notion of becoming old, as a single person, lately, since I find it hard to socialize, and all of my former relationships, whether they be guys or girls, are largely all broken ones, so it's a bit awkward, starting over again. I just have to keep faith and persevere through this; I've been through a rotten bunch of years, but when things are good, they're good times to be had, for sure. I'll just have to wait things out. I don't get very far, in contacting people, from long ago. It tends to exacerbate my symptoms. In general, though, I've been on a good path towards rehabilitation, and I've been feeling better, and more on top of things, in my life. The pigeons help keep me stable, because they show affections towards me when I show up to feed them. 

Update: Now, a couple of hours or so after writing this article, I have new voices in my head, feigning possibilities about the pigeons' fate, should I ever choose to leave town, which, I figure, could be plausible, being that there's a train that runs out to Riverside, from Downtown Los Angeles (I went to UC Riverside). They're saying that they could keep the pigeons fed, in my absence. Perhaps I'll be able to figure something out that works with the schedules and needs of all included, within this issue, daydreaming aside; I still would like to finish up my Master's Degree in Music Composition, being that I've had plenty of years on me, at this point, and I have, as well, some cool compositions that I've worked on, over the years.

A peek at my room at the Russ Hotel.

 I've been assigned to Interim Housing, through the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, since around February of this year, after spending a spat of perhaps 8 or 9 months, or so, being out on the streets, wherein I moved out to Century City and Cheviot Hills Sports and Recreation Park, to be specific, around this time (October) of last year. I'd been haunted by voices in my head, throwing me out of town, so to speak, and I was hinged upon negativity surrounding me, within my personal space. All of this was preceded by an apparent overdose, in July, where I don't remember much of what happened, and I lost all of my belongings, including my beloved iPad Pro. I'm only now within sights of recuperating and procuring another iPad Pro, soon, perhaps before the holiday season, if my estimations are seen through to fulfillment, and, that being the case, a large portion of those hopes are already accounted for and paid, or, as good as paid... since I want to have another iPad Pro so dearly (I had to pay off the balance on the one that I lost). 

In any case, my housing wasn't all that friendly towards me, in my first interim housing assignment, and I got thrown out, at the same time that I was taken in to this new place, which has been a huge boon to my wellbeing and progress, both in health and in my work life, which is, essentially, ordering and reviewing products from Amazon, donating blood plasma, and, here and there, recently, I'd gotten in to some tech industry user studies and product use in-person interview studies sorts of things.

Anyways, no one is allowed to come and visit my room, according to the rules, here, but I get the place to myself, and it's located right next to all of the spots I would normally frequent, out here, in the Skid Row portion of Downtown Los Angeles, CA, but I've gotten my room up to fairly impressive interior design status (aside from the slight mess, pictured below; it's just that the space is small, and it's a hassle to reorganize everything. I just wanted to show folks the lighting and the wild array of products that I have, which are nearly organized; at least, as best as I could fit them in and on to things that I use as storage and display shelves). For a decade and a half, or so, now, I've been fortunate enough to, in some way, or other, have the means to develop the aesthetic of my home (when I am housed, that is).

These are my toiletries, fragrance bottles, and my home and living storage and display spaces, with some art work, up top. To the left, I have a mini closet that's full of boxes, currently. Art buffs and art critics might liken the organization and display aesthetic to the "cabinet of curiosities" style.

This is my bed, my slight art exhibition, some messy product box stuff, and, to he right, is my small utility cart, which stores some of my hopes and aspirations in which I fancy I'd do a pop-up shop, and come out with a bunch of products, for the public, somehow; hence, a utility cart with mostly miniature and small knick knacks. I have some lighting set up, here, for decorative effect, and a big lot of nutritional supplements that I take, which I procured from my product reviewing gig.

A different angle of my bed, with knick knacks everywhere, my charging station, nutritional supplements, etc. 

I'm going to be moving to a new place, in November, or so, so I'm planning on doing some fire sale stuff, and giveaways, I suppose, locally, as well. That's my estimation, in any case. My phone service just got cut off, so I'm a bit in limbo, as far as posting items for sale, since the Internet connection I do have access to is spotty and slow, at best. All in all, though, it's hard to stop myself from ordering yet even more items, and, to be honest, I don't even try to stop myself. It's just fun.

Update: October 27th, 2024: I got a new storage rack, for boxes, and I took some cleaner photo close-ups of some of the detail portions of the room. I also got a new panel lighting piece. Plus, I included the digital photo frame of the still life with pigeons image, sitting across from the foot of my bed.

A look at the lighting scheme, in front of my bed - blue, red, and violet-purple.

A lower view of my cabinet space, with a weaving loom (bottom left), and my new shelving racks, with LED lighting for the middle shelves (the lights aren't on, here), a moon-surfaced globe alarm clock and tea kettle, up top. In the middle shelves, there's food and nutritional supplements. 

The MIDI keyboard 🎹, and the still life with pigeons digital picture frame (currently, that's the only image on it).

Some of my current favorites in nutritional supplementation, recently, as seen here, are ML Naturals New Zealand Green Lipped Mussel 50:1 Extract (great for inflammation), ML Naturals Biotin, Sunflower Lecithin, SAM-e, Berberine Phytosyme, Iodine, and pill-form electrolytes (they work well). In the lower left hand side, I have stacks of product boxes, waiting to be sold or thrown out, perhaps. On the center-right-lower portion, I have a display case of some of my aroma chemicals.

A corner view of my fragrance ingredients collection (left), my tea rack (center), currently featuring Lapsang Souchong Black Tea (it's smoky), Coffee Cherry (Cascara), Jasmine Pearl Tea (traditional), and Tulsi Licorice Root (non-caffeinated) and some detail of my cabinet shelving top portion (top, right), which features my cosmetics and toiletries, such as finished and retail colognes and perfumes, perfume single ingredients, a hydrogen generator water bottle, humic acid and minerals, some other supplements, such as liquid zinc. I also have an electric water atomizer, for humidifying the room, when necessary, and to water seeds and seedlings that I grow.

I found my own personal pigeon friend.

 Yesterday, when I was out feeding the pigeons, I noticed that one of the pigeons stayed behind, while the other birds left, after their meal. He was puffy feathered, which indicated that he might be under the weather. I tried picking him up, and, surprisingly, he let me pick him up. 

I'm not sure why he's not flying away, but I took him to another pigeon-feeding spot, and I let him wander around, with the new pigeons, and, after their meal, he let me pick him up, again, so I took him home. 

He's an adorable puffy pigeon. He slept next to my bed, and I gave him a water dish and some cookie crumbs, while I'm out, for the day. 

I'm not sure if I'm going to keep him, for the long term, just yet. I have to figure out if his condition is temporary, or not, and see if he stops letting me pick him up, after a few days, or so. He seems fairly healthy, aside from the puffy feathers, and he might make a good housed pigeon, for me to keep. 

Update: the pigeon succumbed to whatever was ailing him, and he passed away, 2 nights ago. I had one day with him, which was nice :)

Some fond memories of my adorable little black puffy pigeon:

If you're interested in adopting (purchasing) your own personal pigeon friend, yourself, I recommend Farid's Pet Shop, at the corner of 6th at Maple in Skid Row, Downtown Los Angeles. He has a variety of pigeons, from time to time, and he currently has some pigeons (Late October, 2024) in stock, I saw them just yesterday. It's a good start to establishing your own small pigeons and avian pet friends hobby, with hand-feeding the young, as the next step in having a tame bird as a pet. As you can see, pigeons are adorable birds!

The new and updated Sticker Time October 2024 complete series (48 pieces).

 These are all images that have previously been shown and published, here on iPigeon.institute, and elsewhere; it's just that I set out to do as complete a collection as I felt would be appropriate, considering the recent art work in imagery I've done, as well as examples and images from my earlier years in image, photography, and illustration creation.

My latest, most complete Sticker Time set yet - I decided to do a small run of prints for nearly all of my Sticker Time images.

The Sticker Time Collection is a (currently) small novelty art, Generative Artificial Intelligence imagery, and photography series, which is in ongoing development, for the sake of popularizing and reawakening the connections we have, as humans, with birds; a colloquy which brings some of the cute things about birds, and our imagination and bond that people have, with regards to the human endeavor, in exploring the potential that we have: a life enriched, when we have an inclusion of bird friends amongst us, captured in the miniature form and artistic medium of 2-inch stickers, which, individually, portray some small aspect of birds, brought to light.

The project is still in it's early stages, as my artistic aspirations and hopes for this collection are expansive, with regards to differing mediums, with which to present the art, as well as that I'd like to explore more themes in creating numerous amounts more stickers. 

What it's like to overdose, these days, in Los Angeles (Santa Monica).

 Oops, I overdosed on fentanyl, again.

Luckily, this time around wasn't so bad - I was in broad public, during the last of the daylight hours, and I had just arrived in Santa Monica, to do some recyclables collecting, to supplement my income, at the end of the month. Along the way, on the ride there, I happened upon a suspect small plastic bag that contained some powder. Having been a previous overdose victim, due to snorting a substance that I'd assumed was something else, more innocuous and commonplace, I made sure to taste test the white powder, before ingesting it via insufflation. There was little to no taste to it. Mind you, my whole mindset was fraught against me, since I had used crystal meth, earlier in the day, heavily, and I was generally not all that satisfied with my take, with it, despite that it was a generous amount that I'd received. I waited until I arrived in Santa Monica. When I arrived, there, there were uniformed officers tending the Metro train station's gate exits, and we had to tap our TAP cards to exit, like they had begun in North Hollywood. No big deal, for me, since I paid for my fare. Once I was in, loose in the city, I headed to the bathroom. It had been about 30-45 minutes since I taste-tested the powdery substance. I should have known that it wasn't crystal meth, straight out, but my impulses led me astray, and I decided to nasally sample the bag's contents, in their entirety, once I reached a restroom. At that point, I knew that the substance was some kind of synthetic chemical, and I went about my day, thinking that I could perhaps outperform the effects of this product, if I simply remain vigilant. 

I started out collecting recyclables, again, and some of the tourists there offered me some of their recyclables, out at a corner driveway, nearby the pier. At this point, which was 10-15 minutes after I had snorted the contents of the bag, I began feeling troublesomely woozy and a bit nauseous and lightheaded, but managing receiving the recyclables from this pair of gentlemen proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, and I started to fall over, due to having lost my balance. I'd waited too long to get help, and get some Narcan in me. 

Next time, I'll know better, or I'll do better, or something (I figured).

Of course I would do better, on the occasion of my third fentanyl overdose, in hindsight. I've started, for example, to take precautions, in conditioning myself, in a general sense, to live out a more sober set of lifestyle traits, now that my housing is stable, and I'm generally well-taken care of, with the help of the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department, and my Caseworkers, Nurse, and new Doctor, whom are somewhat my peers, generationally-speaking, so that's a nice feature of my treatment paradigm, at the moment. For example, I make sure to do small, simple tasks, like making out my Google Calendar, to mark not only tasks that need to be completed, but also, I cover events that I plan for, or happen upon, as I go about my day. I do this for some sense of accountability and for busy work's sake. It's one of my sober tasks that I keep up, being that I was trained on outright homelessness, for a long time, and that was a lot of recycling (that should be a clue, for me, next time), to a large degree, and I was also living outside, completely, with nowhere to turn, much, for a reasonable take on shelter. I kept on, in making sure that I kept the pigeons fed, regularly, during this time, so that was added activities to finance and support; essentially, much of my days, when I wasn't resting, was characterized by these and similar sorts of laborious and physically exertive tasks, as a homeless person, travelling, in this latest outset of homelessness, from Century City, back over to Downtown Los Angeles, and back, on a regular basis, to keep up with everything. I had been homeless since late spring, of last year, and last July was my previous overdose, which I don't really recall the foreshadowing details of, if there were any, and which was particularly detrimental to me and my work, since I had lost everything: my clothes, my wallet, my iPad Pro, all of my belongings. I was just set out on the street, anew, once I was released from the hospital, in that instance. Here, in this last weekend's hospitalization, I lost my wallet and recyclables, but I didn't lose my ID, so most of the items I had with me are really simple things to replace. 

Overdosing, as an experience, in this instance, was fairly well met with supportive assistance and friendly service, from law enforcement and the fire department paramedics, who gave me a general rundown of 1. that I had lost consciousness and, essentially, I overdosed on fentanyl, 2. that I was going to the hospital, at which point I became aware of my surroundings - it was the same setting in which the two gentlemen were offering me recyclables to collect, and the sun hadn't quite set, yet, by that point - I lost consciousness amidst a huge crowd of pedestrian foot traffic, essentially, and 3. they gave me some timely followup talk with regards to what to expect, such as that I'd be feeling nauseous, and I might need to throw up. They gave me a portable vomit container, which I ended up using a few of. I figure that the dose of fentanyl that I took, given that I'd previously had melatonin, in pure powder form, which was supplied to me, with a 2 mg spoon, was about 8 mg - that's a lot, for someone with no tolerance to opiates - about a week's worth of dosages. If I had my senses and sensibilities about me, I would have rejected the found small bag of powder, altogether, but I had no oversight watching over me, and I took it, somewhat as a guilty, indulgent pleasure, that I felt I might get out of it. I see guys and girls smoking fentanyl all the time, where I live, but I suppose that they're more accustomed and experienced with dealing with negative side effects and overdose situations. One of the medics told me that he'd placed a catheter in to my arm, ostensibly to relieve some pressure, or to perform tests on my heart and blood pressure, since they had to figure out why I was unconscious.

Nearly a week after the overdose, I have some bruising in my arm, where the catheter was inserted.

I was taken to Saint John's Hospital, in Santa Monica - not far, and I stayed there for a few hours. The vibe was pretty relaxed; I was left to myself, and the attendants and nurses followed up with me, regularly - it was good service. I threw up, a few times, but after a few hours, I was ready to head on home, and they released me with a prescription for Ondansetron (Zofran). Several days later, the nausea is gone, and I'm fairly much back to normal. Thanks, to everyone who helped out, on this incident. 

Pigeon-watching hotspots to see around town #9: DTLA Flower at 9th Street Flock, at Starbucks

 This flock has been developing ever since the 7-11 moved in to town, just up the street. Although the birds perch and hang out in various small nooks along Flower, and sometimes, in front of Ralph's, today I observed the birds hanging out at the side of the Starbucks cafe, and I felt like this was the perfect location to start establishing a regular visiting spot, for the birds to come and congregate, for a meal. 

The 9th at Flower locale pigeon flock, in the spot that I fancy, next to the Starbucks cafe.

Another view of the pigeons, with the Starbucks in view.