Sunday morning Lisa and I were blithely sitting in our kitchen eating breakfast, when this sketchy dude came striding into our backyard smoking. He went to the downstairs tenants' blue box, rummaged through that, then came right on up the back stairs. He peered in the window, saw me in the kitchen, smiled, and waved. I opened the door to yell at him. He was skinny, about 6'3", and covered in sores. He claimed that because recycling day wasn't on the weekend that he was coming up to ask me for bottles. He was Québecois, so I told him off in French. OK, no matter how polite he was, this is not cool. I'm not a violent guy, but he's very lucky I was so awestruck at his brazenness that I didn't beat him out of the yard with a shovel. That may not be the case next time. What if it Lisa had been sitting in the kitchen alone?

OK, I don't like it, but I can at least understand someone entering the ungated back property of an apartment building to check for bottles. But this guy seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to come right into someone's gated back yard of a detached house to ask for them. If this is acceptable, how long will be be before it's cool to peer in people's windows and see what fun goodies are inside for the taking?

When did it become acceptable for people to enter other people's yards at all? If he'd come to the front foor and rung the bell I would have been more inclined (though still unlikely) to give him the bottles; because, well, it's the front door. You can go up to someone's front door if you need to talk to them. But buddy comes right up my back stairs, probably getting hep b or who knows what else all over my handrails...this is even more acutely on my mind after last week's hep b scare.

I guess this is the result of the cops cracking down in the downtown east side...people from there are diffusing into residential neighbourhoods more. I'm starting to think that the tacit subsidies we leave out in the alleys in the form of recycling bottles is also a problem, because clearly it's getting competitive.

I don't really know why I'm writing...I just don't know what to do. The guy was clearly not entirely with it...calling the cops on him wouldn't do any good and they couldn't have got there in time anyway. I don't want to get physical in a situation like that, because frankly I don't want to touch a guy covered in open sores, and if he gets vengeance on his mind, all he has to do is sit in my alley and wait for me to leave; then he can have his way with my back door lock and help himself.

Guess I'm just at my wit's end. I want to be sympathetic. I don't want to be afraid of other people. I don't want to treat homeless guys like garbage. But when homelessness reaches a point where people are staring in my windows at me and my girlfriend, and to top that, thinking it's OK to do so...well...sympathy has a limit.

They say that a liberal is a conservative (note lowercase letters please) who's never been mugged. I've always hated that statement, largely because I can't deny that there's truth to it. I always hoped I would never start to feel it. As harmless as the guy may have been, I felt the need to protect my home and my girlfriend. I had a moment where I felt unsafe in my home. And I began to understand that cynical fucking statement. I think I hate that the most.

Yeah. I guess I just don't know what to do.