I guess by now you are wondering why I chose the name BandysBeard for this website. Ever since I was 18, I could grow a thick, full, and dark beard. I often admired pictures civil war generals and adventurous mountain men for their facial follicle prowess. Being homeless and on the move leaves me with little choice. Carrying around razors and shaving cream, and finding a private place to clean up has always been more hassle than it's worth. Due to my natural ability to produce an unusually bushy face covering, I decided early in life to let my beard sprout to the fullest.

When I went in to ask Yolanda for the job, my beard and mustache was trimmed neatly to about half an inch in length. The first months at my new job went surprisingly quick. Yolanda taught me how to run all aspects of the bakery including the working the cash register, washing dishes, and making baked goods. I had an instant knack for mixing and cooking flour laden treats from my years of cooking for my parents at home. When I was a kid, I had to invent foods with a sparse pantry sometimes filled only with a 50lb bag of flour, sugar, vegetable and salt (fried dough was a favorite of mine!). I always dreamed of the day when I'd have infinite ingredients at my disposal. With Yolanda at the Vanilla Tea Bakery, the possibilities were endless.

I was working steadily for around a year and was becoming really comfortable and confident about myself. With the money I earned, I moved into a one room apartment on the top floor of a building in the industrial district. The place was the first that ever truly felt like home. The noise of trains rolling along the tracks outside was very calming to me and reminded me of my train-riding days. I felt almost complete, but something was still missing in my life.

In my last post I mentioned that Yolanda and I fell in love. Unfortunately this is more a delusion of mine than actual reality. I began to have such strong feelings for her. I tried to flirt and playfully tease her, but my games were rarely reciprocated. After some of the worst days at work, I went back to my apartment and sketched pictures of Yolanda while crying. It was as if she couldn't fathom that her and I could even be together. She often talked about crushes and the dates she went on. I usually humored her, but it was torture for me. Sometimes I was so frustrated at her lack of interest in me that I locked myself in the work bathroom for hours.

The day when I lost my job still makes me nauseous when I think about it. It started off like any normal day for me. I rolled out of bed excited to go to my job and be with Yolanda. The bakery had ordered a few dozen too many eggs that were nearing expiration, so I had took a bunch home throughout the week. I made myself a giant garlic and onion omelet with six of the questionable eggs.

I left my apartment and walked the twenty blocks to the bakery. It was a brisk fall day which made me reminisce about the time my mother raked all the leaves in our yard and formed a giant pile for me to jump into. As I walked along whistling a flat blues tune my stomach started slightly rumbling like the agitated ocean before a hurricane.

When I got to work the door was unlocked, but Yolanda was nowhere in sight. I looked around the main room and didn't see her. I started to hear this strange noise like animals fighting coming from the back storage room. We occasionally had issues with raccoons breaking in and eating the bags of sugar. I figured this would be a repetition of that previous event, so I grabbed a broom and headed to the back. As I got closer, the noise sounded less like beasts and more like humans. I opened the door and saw Yolanda laying naked on a cardboard box with a man's head between her legs. I was at first shocked and excited to see my love naked. That feeling lasted for about five seconds until I erupted in a nuclear explosion of jealous rage. I took the broom in my hands and started whacking the unknown man in his head. The first blow was enough to knock him on the ground. He laid there unconsciously with a pool of blood forming around his head. I looked around in a moment of clarity and saw Yolanda's angelic body convulsing in horror. She looked at me as if I was a murderer. Her look shocked me so much that all of a sudden I felt a soft warm mass appear in the back of my pants. At this point I must have passed out. I woke up in a 10 by 10 foot jail cell smelling like sulfur...