Homeless & Voyeurism & Van Dwelling and Car Living 05 Jun 2006 11:53 am
Ironic contrast of the posh and the poor.
The weekend has been quite eventful from a personal turmoil standpoint. Thankfully it’ll wrap-up nicely as I’m seeing one of my dearest friends tonight. It’ll surely end on a good note!
Yesterday I got some rather decimating personal finance news that’ll I’ll detail later, but the contrast between the proverbial us and them was never felt as strongly as last night. Just hours after getting some seriously bad news about my potential income for the year I go to a posh condo for a friends going away dinner.
Walk Down Memory Lane
This dinner party took place in my old neighborhood, the one I lived in when the times were good and money plentiful. It’s the Edgewater district of Chicago. Ten years ago it was still a bit of a pit, with high crime rates and very low real estate prices, but now it’s gentrified rather thoroughly. Just to the right, behind the buildings, is Lake Michigan. My condo building was a few blocks North of here.
The host’s condo was much nicer and bigger than mine but similarities were striking. The view off the balcony was similar, though I was higher up. We has a discussion about his remodeling efforts out here on how he wanted walnut flooring and looked at cherry but just didn’t like the redness of it. Of course I was thinking to myself, “I was happy enough to get something over the bare plywood floor in my van.” And his kitchen just isn’t going to do either and he’s going to have a six burner range top with dual ovens and all new cabinetry, and I think, “wow, and I’m thrilled with a single $20 burner and a Thermos. …and my ‘kitchen’ cabinet is made from scrap wood gotten for free.” And then the complaints of how the master bath’s shower wasn’t functioning for ten months after he moved in–because he never called the plumber–requiring him to walk down the hall to the other bathroom every morning and I think, “wow, I’d love to have a shower of any sort in my van. I’d love to even just have running water!”
This wasn’t entirely bitter grapes though. We talked later and he asked where I lived and I gave the standard back story. “Oh, since I’ve been servicing my clients off site for so many years I decided that I didn’t need to be any particular place, so I’ve got a small RV, van sized really, and I’m going to spend some time traveling and working on the road.” This is what I tell people generally, it’s easy and acceptable and I don’t get treated like a basket case. It’s the non-pity party with the world’s smallest violin playing description of what’s going on. It’s the soft white lie that’s not the literal truth of, “I’m running out of money rapidly, have no real job prospects or income and in a couple months will be penniless at current projections. I currently live in a crappy old van and wonder when my pre-existing medical ailments are going to catch up and kill me as I haven’t seen a doctor in two and a half years. Oh, and I’m going to stuff myself at dinner as it’s free food, because that’s what we poor people do.”
To tell the truth is a party killer, it stops people dead in their tracks and while I’m actively trying to forget my woes I then hear at length about how I just need to send out resumes or network out and find jobs and all the other helpful advice I’ve not only heard plenty enough already but have been actively following for years now. And if someone is in a position to help me out I can just ask, “hey, I’m looking to fill some free time in the next couple months. Do you know anyone needing some help?” “No, that’s cool. Keep an ear out for me, okay?” I don’t need to tell the whole story and become the social pariah that everyone casts pity eyes upon and whispers about when my back is turned. It’s what turns “oh, she’s on some big exciting adventure” into “poor thing, did you hear she’s homeless? how sad.”
It seems like every person I met likes the story about my working on the road and getting out of all that time spent toiling in my old home office. Last summer I spent nearly everyday working inside that office and missed out on pretty much every social event so friends are excited to hear I’ll be having some fun now. Everybody is living vicariously through this as they’re all stuck in day jobs with homes and bills and don’t get to travel and see exciting things. In their minds I’m going to get to work on top of Mt. Rainier or in the Grand Canyon and then go extreme snow boarding or whatever other iconic vision of my travels they seem to hold. But the reality is that I’m quite jealous of them. While I too hate working “for the man” and being tethered 9-5 to a desk, at this point in my life I’d sure take it. The reality is I’ve sold off nearly everything I own to keep afloat and do whatever I can to make a couple bucks here and there.
The dinner was lovely and I did indeed stuff myself. When the Go Away Girl is a chef at a four star restaurant you know the food is going to be good. In fact, it was probably one of the best meals I had eaten in a long time. But I still had this sinking feeling all night and one that later turned back into an anxiety attack that kept me awake most of the night.
I’ll detail more of what’s going on later, once I grow past the pain of it a little bit, but for now I’m going to go try ignoring my fate a little more and enjoy my friends. Writing about it now would just be a exercise in bleak self-pity. Ideally I’ll find a bright spot or silver lining somewhere in the news and attach myself to that. The future is, of course, yet to come.
on 06 Jun 2006 at 2:11 pm 1.mary said …
Poor baby, hang in there. You are a good writer, have you submitted any manuscripts. Years ago couldn’t not attend a cousin’s baby shower, my Mom depending upon me for transportation, and my Aunt would have been hurt if I were a no-show. My college educated Engineer cousin earned $100,000. a year, and was planning on continuing to work after the baby was born. Don’t know how much money her husband earned. I can usually get some affordable thing, that doesn’t look cheap for a gift. There was also the “Well”, (what are they called, “Baby Shower Wells?), the gift could be got for a buck. The cincher was the disposable diaper pyramid. Have you ever priced them? Don’t recall my salary at the time, but I had to do the 20 hours overtime each week, as well as deliver newspapers part time, just to put an affordable apartment over my head. “gifts” didn’t make my budget, so the party was a splurge for me. While everyone was having fun, I kept my thoughts to myself. I think she could afford to buy her own darn diapers.
on 06 Jun 2006 at 11:15 pm 2.April said …
Thanks Mary.
Our culture is a funny one. The whole baby/wedding shower thing seems to out of date to me. Lots of people do it but few really need it as so many people wait until they’re older and more established to get married and have kids. It’s not like in the past where there was 15 year old spinsters. This isn’t little house on prairie. Some still need the help, sure, but not universally.
Traditions in general are funny things to me as often they have no justification for existing any longer except for the continued sentimentality of “that just how it’s done.” Maybe six or seven months back my sister was upset with the kids for leaving the salt out. She had bought those frozen pretzels that you add salt to and bake. But since the salt comes frozen it must stay frozen right? It’s how it was done when we grew up and she has never questioned it. So she yelled at the kids for letting the salt sit out at room temperature. Never mind there was a box of identical kosher salt in the pantry. That’s not from the pretzel box so… it doesn’t go bad? …it doesn’t melt? What? This was such a long standing pattern for her that when I said the salt was just plain old kosher salt like in the cupboard she doubted me as certainly there just had to be more to it than that!
on 23 Jun 2006 at 6:55 pm 3.mary said …
This also is the cause of marital problems~we always did it this way, with neither able to budge and make new family traditions for themselves.