'Tis the season. A few days ago we received a 30-day-notice-to-quit because they want to sell the house and it needs a lot of work. I got them to extend it to the end of January because affordable five-bedroom houses are hard to find. Especially over Christmas. Sadly, most affordable large houses are out on the fringes and will create long expensive commutes regardless. There's literally nothing in town, bar the occasional old fixer-upper in a semi-shitty neighborhood. Next day, the hot water heater broke. Took a couple days to fix. While that was going on, my second car, the one that allows the other adults in the house to get shit done while we are at work, broke down. In an intersection. After dark. In the rain.
All that is handled now, but I'll be broker yet. Sheesh. Old cars are for people who can't afford new ones. But old cars that run are for people who can afford repairs. It's a fine line sometimes between how much I'm spending on repairs and how much I'd be spending to have a new or reliable set of cars.
Well, it's a season. We talk sometimes about writing the book. The one that reveals to an astonished world how incredible and astonishing is our life. But isn't that a common thing too? "We should write a book," people say, because they can hardly believe what's happening around them.
I could have a lot more to say about that picture. I took it after dropping a child off at middle school -- which was right after trying to drive the car home on a recharged battery only to have it crap out again under the freeway overpass, necessitating calls to shops and towing companies while rushing around making sure no one was late. Don't anyone talk to me about texting and talking while driving. These things are an absolute necessity. You just have to not be seen by a cop in addition to not let it make you an idiotic driver. Anyway, that picture -- this time of year, colder, wetter, I'm seeing these little encampments under many of the overpasses. I'm not the most compassionate of people. I tend to view the homeless as people who fucked up and kept fucking up until they had burned though all their friends and relatives and so how much should we feel compelled to help them really? But the fact is they did all that for some form of mental ill health exacerbating their mistakes, and many of us -- well, me, anyway -- are really only a few mistakes away from joining them. I don't see the homeless as some subtly alternative form of human, as many people do. I see them as my brothers and sisters who fucked up. Just like me, only they fucked up. Have I ever fucked up? Why, yes I have. Can I imagine being so debilitated by depression that I wind up under an overpass staring in relentless gloom at nothing in particular for hours on end? Why, yes, I can.
I won't, of course. But I can imagine it. Meanwhile, the book won't be written. Not that one. Some other, perhaps. I don't intend to spend my time writing a book that people won't read, blog posts that meet that same criterion notwithstanding.
5 comments:
Well, that fucking sucks. I hope you find something. What about 2 apts in a duplex, triplex, or whatev?
I feel exactly the same as you about the homeless. Exactly. Except I earn a lot less money so am rarely inclined to hand out any. I saw firsthand how someone went through the steps you mentioned; luckily a wealthy relative helped him out after only a few weeks of homelessness. But who knows how long that will last, or if the mental illness will cause the guy to reject even this last friend in some paranoid fit?
It's horribly sad. But some peeps just can't be fixed. They don't wanna be. And I totes get the impulse to shun trad rules and modes because gah boring. Stifling! But still, we all have to eat.
I know it's totes uncool, but mobile home parks sometimes have decent places for way less. My parents lived in a nice mobile home at the end. It was better than an apt for sure, and I would have transferred it to my name and taken over except you had to be 55+.
I don't think mobile homes are so totes uncool. Except in areas with high winds or tornadoes.
I've never seen a mobile home that can house seven people in five bedrooms.
This thing asked me to prove I'm not a robot. Me! De noive! I thought I never turned that feature on. How do I turn it off if I never turned it on? Oigh.
Every time I think of mobile homes, I think of James Rockford. Probably mobile homes aren't cool for more than one or two people. Once, when I was about 18, I lived in a trailer park, by myself, in a small rented travel trailer. It was kind of fun. Plus, when I blew a tire out on my car, I just swapped it out with one of the trailer wheels. I'm sure they never found out.
Yeah, I noticed the new "robot buster" thingy. Must have just turned everyone's option to "on" when they upgraded it. You should be able to go to settings and turn it off or on as you wish.
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