I canceled out on getting together with a friend yesterday afternoon as I just wasn’t up for being casually social. My mind was going all fidgety and speeding along the various problems and potential solutions to my current daily woe. So I spent my day trying to quell the anxiety attack and focused on money issues.

The back story

In recent years the bulk of my income have come from two main clients. I’d learned the hard way the dangers of too many eggs in a single basket. But in early January I worked my last for Client Number Two and was told they wouldn’t be needing my skills any longer due to changes in their business. But this didn’t seem so bad as I still had my bread and butter client remaining and Number Two actually referred me a couple quick one shot deals that netted some pocket change. So things ended well there.

Client Number One was great. I liked what I did and who I was doing it with. The hours were brutal but it was condensed as ninety percent of the work with them happening in the summer. I started with them a couple years back and was hired to just do few simple tasks. It wasn’t anything of note but it was simple, quick money. Soon my notoriety grew for being over the top with my skilled execution, rapid turn around and I charmed my way into bigger and bigger projects. They were happy with me and I was happy with them and all was good.

Over the weekend I finally heard back from my contact person for the company and it was bad news. The midwest wasn’t in their current plans and so I wasn’t going to be working with them. I still had hopes up as they always waited until the last minute to green light projects so I figured I’d soon be frantically working on projects. But no, I’m not in New York or LA so I’m no longer in the picture. I wasn’t counting on getting the work, I don’t speculate on wishes, but I was really, really hoping for some action from them. It really could have turned my year around.

My response

The news left me feeling broad sided and sleeping horribly last night and feeling very out of sorts. Even though the work would have been in the summer I wouldn’t see any checks until late summer or early fall–possibly longer. Being a large company getting paid took forever, sometimes even over 90 days–but it always came.

Now I don’t have any scheduled income for the year and I have zero clue what to depend on to replace it with. This really worries me as I don’t know where any of my future money could come from. As I’ve mentioned earlier in the blog I plan out my money months at a time as that’s how it comes to me, in lump sums a couple times a year. So I’ll still be okay for a while but that belt is going to tighten about a dozen notches further now. And I’ll really have to scramble to find a replacement–and fast.

Yesterday Afternoon

I felt bad skipping out on my friend yesterday afternoon but I wasn’t going to be much fun to be around and I didn’t want to force anyone into therapist mode. There was just too much on my mind to work through and it all needed to be addressed I could process it through best on my own.

The person I stayed with for my Big City Visit has a neighbor who’s moving out of state. She was leaving town mid-afternoon and had a panic moment that brought her knocking and looking for help. It was a nice distraction as I helped pack a couple boxes and schlep them over to the local UPS Store to ship them to her new home. She was running behind and a few minutes assistance got her back on track and I snapped out of my funk a little bit.

After dropping off the packages we went our separate ways. I was going to return to pointlessly sending out more resumes to be ignored by companies. I’d already spent a couple hours but figured I’d be good for at least a few more submittals. But on the way back I stopped into a dollar store to see what deals they had.

Getting more than I bargained for

I’ve become quite the wiz with resumes and job searching. People come to me for advice and I’ve done numerous resumes for friends and they’ve quickly found jobs with them. I do all the tricks. I look all over for job leads, research the company, write cover letter that address the points in their ads and how I could specifically address their needs–both from the ads and my own research–and send a resume tailored to their position. I literally have a selection of generalized resumes for different types of position and a large master resume to create special ones from. This way I can just pull a stock resume out for most jobs and for the special few I can pull out the three page one and cut out what doesn’t directly fit. I’ve even been known to read local business sites and newspaper looking for companies announcing expansions, research who they are and what they to then send letters to the appropriate managers.

So why have I not gotten a job or some new clients? I haven’t a clue. And this is a big part of the problem as when you can’t define a problem you can develop a solution. So I’ve been feeling like my hours spent soliciting for work to be pointlessly spent as I’m expending effort but not getting rewarded in anyway for it. And this is a problem I can define. I work and I don’t get paid. Rather then blindly send responses to ads and net nothing in return I need to do something else. Something more effective and something that pays immediate results that are tangible if not outright profitable.

This was comically realized while in the dollar store looking at hair care products. In my job search I’m a product and I’m trying to sell myself to people looking to have a need met. If I’m not getting sold then there must be a reason. I was struck by the logic behind the old saw, “like selling a freezer to an eskimo,” where you can have the right product but the wrong audience, or the right audience and the wrong product.

Looking at the packaging of the Wuwangwo shampoo I wondered who in their right mind would buy such a product. The label was a mess! Butchered English, sloppy typography and an ugly look done on the cheap. No wonder it was in a dollar store! Then I started thinking about this as I walked around. I couldn’t figure out who’d buy it yet there was open space on the shelf as if some was purchased. And then it hit me.

This wasn’t a shampoo meant to appeal to me, it’s not my product nor is it for people like me. It’s clearly someone else’s shampoo. I’m presuming from the non-English characters that it was made in China so perhaps the neighborhood Chinese people were buying it. And many of the other customers in the store, from what I could discern, didn’t speak English as their native language. They wouldn’t question the quality of the product because of the lack of concern with proper translation. And so what if the overall look of the package doesn’t appeal to me? That doesn’t mean that a native of some other land wouldn’t see it as attractive. The problem wasn’t the product, for all I know that’s a top selling item. the problem was my narrow viewpoint as the empty spots on the shelf made it look to me like Wuwangwo shampoo was a well selling item.

So what I need to do is drastically rethink what I’m trying to do. My current resume and sales spiel just isn’t working and the problem isn’t refining it anymore. I’ve done that to death. The problem must be that I’m using the wrong tools to sell the wrong skill to the wrong people in the wrong way.

Of course, I have no idea where to go with this at the moment and will have to ponder fiercely on this topic. I need to find that “aha” light bulb overhead idea that’ll change my fate.

Post freakout

I’m realizing that I have a few months before I really need to worry. I’ve counted up my pennies and I’ll be okay for a while. It’s still unsettling to know that I have essentially no income at all anymore, that my income has been a pittance thus far this year and I have no clue where more could come from. I was hoping to pick up several thousand from the canceled gig but I wasn’t betting the farm on it. Nothing in the future is certain and I don’t pretend it is. The present tells me that I’ve lost this gig but tomorrow is another day with new opportunities.

This is a tough blow as I’m not sure what I’ll be doing. It makes the need to find money all the more imperative and the need to conserve all the more keen. The move from living in an apartment to living in a vehicle was motivated by making my expenses match my income. But now with my income further diminished I’m wondering how I can possibly cut more from my life.

Nothing in life in certain but the optimist in me was hoping that I’d be working for Client Number One again this year even though it didn’t very sure. But hearing the final “no” and realizing that it’s too late to change the opinion was a big, rude wake-up slap.

In a very short order I need to change things around. And that’s one thing I can believe in with 100% certainty. The current path isn’t working and continuing in it is completely futile as if it hasn’t worked yet isn’t not going to. I thought that I was expanding out and trying new things in the last couple years but now I don’t think I tried hard enough. I need to reinvent, and do so in a drastic new way. And what I do needs to be directly related to income. No more working for days, weeks, months at a time achieving nothing. Results are needed, not just effort.

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.

I’ve been pondering in bed a good bit on the nature of sanity the last few days. Laying in my van always brings certain realizations to mind–like that I’m living in a van mainly. And while it’s not such a bad lifestyle I sure didn’t enter it by choice. And it’s been furthered in a way by visiting my old ‘hood and seeing friends. Especially as one of them lives in the building I used to reside at.

Keith Didion and I had a Instant Messenger conversation and we touched into the issue. It was all of ten lines but it triggered some deeper pondering on my part. What will the long term mental effect of homelessness be?

It’s a very differently life, to put it mildly. My last apartment, a 1920s era brick structure, had a closet with probably as much cubic volume as what’s inside my van. The size is radically small and my possession that I get to keep and take with are quite few. Everyday I worry that I’m going to get asked by a cop what I’m doing in there and if I’m living in there. And will people notice? I try to act nonchalant when coming and going, but I’m constantly wary that people will see. And also that if I have a problem I can’t buy my way out of it. I don’t have the money to fix problems with so I need to worry extra hard about how to prevent them in the first place. Even something small like accidently breaking something in a shop with a You Break It, You Buy It policy or a minor illness could decimate my finances.

I’m suddenly living a life of great secrecy, paranoia and inconvenience.

This all started with a conversation on dreams. Since living in my van I’ve found myself increasingly confused over what’s really happened and what I’ve only thought or dreamed about. I spend a lot of time by myself having imaginary conversations and thinking about what I’d say to people–if they were around. But they’re not and thus my brain fill the empty space with internal conversations in imagined settings. And my dreams historically have been novel twists on my everyday life. Like seeing familiar people in settings that are remarkable like, say, my first college or other familiar public space. But they are as familiar as they are different. So as I’m wandering around in my current life everything is different, yet it’s the same. One library is largely the same as the other, same with grocery stores, Laundromats and pretty much everything else we do in the public sphere.

And one of the things I’ve noticed lately is how often I see people who look so strikingly familiar to people I know. Yesterday I saw what looked like an old boss and a friend’s ex-girlfriend. It was uncanny really. Some proportions were wrong so I knew it wasn’t them, but the over all look and the mannerisms were all spot on. And it seems like everywhere I’ve been lately it’s been a familiar yet different area and I seen familiar seeming yet complete strangers.

The surreal life of being homeless has changed my lifestyle rather profoundly and I’ve lost much of my stable footing that I used to take for granted. I feel like I’m on a business trip that never ends. I go places, work all the time, but never have a home to return to–at leas not what I’d historically call a home. The van is my home now but it’s still very much a work in progress. There’s a bed in there and familiar items. Like the princess blanket that’s becoming a Linus’ Security Blanket to me. So there’s a bit of continuity, but for nearly forty years I’ve lived in a proper home–a house or apartment/condo–and have come to expect the conveniences of a regular dwelling. Like being able to stand and not hunch over all the time, to have furniture and rooms, running water, a toilet and running water, to be able to bathe at my leisure.

At this point I’d love just to have lights at night.

Another thing Keith and I have talked about is what we do at night. We often seem to bump into each other rather late on our pilfered wifi connections. He’s playing poker and I’m usually just being an insomniac and writing here or in my personal journal. I mentioned to him that I was laying in the dark one night as my flashlight was nearly died, my laptop was essentially dead and I didn’t want to kill my starting battery too by running the lights. So I decided to doodle in my sketch book in the dark.

It’s an interesting task to draw in the dark. And I do mean dark too, like absolute pitch black were I could have poked myself in the eye before seeing the hand in front of my face. I used the edge of the paper to try and get some sense of where I was in the paper but it still is impossible to start something and retain a relative sense of where it is when you try to match it’s positioning. Like ears for example, they just get all higgledy-piggledy. And you have to remember what you’ve drawn and what’s been missed too as I didn’t cheat and only flashed the van’s ceiling light on for a moment to see what I’ve done.

This is Marcus, a really bad local drummer who tries with great earnestness but just isn’t very good but plays in a fairly prominent band for its genre. I wanted to do a whole bunch of drawings of bad musicians who I felt were overly fortunate in their placement into good and successful bands, but eventually slept crept up and I cut the drawing session short.

Eventually I’ll have my second set of batteries that’ll make my van much more RV like and livable. Then I can power things at night and not worry about starting the next day as it’ll be a completely separate system from the engine.

I’m spending the weekend with friends in The Big City, plus maybe Monday and Tuesday. It’ll be a nice break from being out in the sticks and working hard at being homeless and unemployed.

As I tend to work in bursts throughout the day it’s difficult to tally firm numbers, but I’ll guess I spend a good ten hours a day on maintaining this so called “lazy” lifestyle. Physically there’s been lots of work on the van, making it more of a home and functional as a living/working space. I’ve also combed job listings and responded, with tailored cover letters and tweaked resumes of course. When at my sister’s house I’ve spent an hour or two a day helping take care of things for her in exchange for a parking spot and bathroom access. She’s disabled so that generally means physical tasks. I’ve also been tickling the freelance connections I have but there’s nothing going on there. No one hears of enough for themselves let alone work to pass along. And just in case I get bored I can contact potential clients and employers directly too as even though it’s the ultimate craps shoot in finding work it’s still better than nothing.

But this weekend will be for relaxing and will be a much appreciated break. Memorial Day weekend was a funny one for me. I spent the whole time working on things, mostly indoors because of the heat, and later was asked during the week, “wasn’t it so nice and relaxing having three days off like that?” Um, yeah. Sure…

There’s an old saying that I rather like, “when you’re unemployed everyday is Saturday.” While that maybe true for some, my variation is, “when you’re unemployed everyday is like Monday.”

Several people have suggested, in both comments here and emails, that I take donations from folks to help with my expenses. But while I really greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness and compassion I feel I must decline at this point.

I’ve given it a great deal of thought and spent a lot of time with the issue, hence why I haven’t responded yet to the comments, but I felt I had to sort out the issue for myself before sharing the thoughts with the world. As such, I’ve been muddling through this entry for several weeks now.

There’s people with less than I have, the money should go to them.

I have a place to sleep at night, a week of casual clothing that is in good shape and I generally manage to find something to eat somewhere. But yet I read of other people who don’t have such luck and feel the money would better serve them at this point.

Plus I have a small stash of money to live off. It’s not much, that’s for certain, but I’m not in immediate danger of zeroing out financially just yet. This money is of course limited as I no longer have anything of substantial worth that can readily be liquidated and my job searching keeps yielding nothing. But nonetheless I still do have a reserve where some folks are truly penniless.

What I need more than money is a way to make ongoing money.

I need something so that I don’t have to eat away at the little nest egg so that it can be an emergency fund as I don’t have health insurance, credit cards or financially well endowed family members that can offer a buffer in hard times. I need the fishing lessons, not the fish–to speak proverbially.

For many years I’ve worked freelance and gotten my yearly income in just a couple of lump sums throughout the year, so I’m fine with budgeting and allocating for the future. The trouble is that I’m just not working enough and the money from last gig is running short and only exists becuase I took in some money from selling off most of my possessions.

I’ve never taken handouts and would prefer to continue that trend.

In my adult life I’ve only taken money or anything of substance once. My parents once sent me a $1,000 check to help with some long-term medical expenses I was facing. I was undergoing treatments that cost about $115 per week and they knew I was having trouble making ends meet. This was immediately post-9/11 and I was hurting badly for proper employment. I really didn’t want to take it. Dad had worked hard for that money and I was supposed to be a self-sufficient adult. But, Mom wouldn’t have spontaneously mailed it had they not wanted me to have it. Or at least Dad wanted Mom to be happy and Mom wanted me to have the money.

So after it sat on my desk for a couple weeks I finally deposited it–and after some prodding from Mom. I really didn’t want to take it. I was torn though as I really could use it. Mom was the softy of the two and now that dad is a widower I’m sure financial help isn’t coming for pretty much anything. Especially as he’s on a fixed income now and doesn’t have much room for extra spending.

Plenty of times I’ll have people treat me to meals and things like that, but there’s a big difference between being handed twenty bucks by a stranger and going off with a generous friend to have lunch. Then it’s about the conversation and companionship. With handouts it’s all about just being poor.

I don’t want to be indebted or accountable to anyone or made to feel guilty on how I’d spend the money–even if only by the voices in my head.

When I take possession of something I believe that I’m supposed to be a good shepherd of it. I tell myself to take care of it and so does the internalized guilt voice in my head. Like my grandfather who lived through the depression and would milk every bit of life out of everything before getting rid of it and was extremely cheap about everything. Or my mother saying, “but aunt so and so gave you that because they love you” after I wonder why I got three bars of stinky old lady soap. “…that’s perfectly good soap and there’s no reason not to use it. I think it smells nice. And send your aunt a thank you letter when you’re done bathing with it.”

Certainly this is to variable degrees of course, someone passing along a newspaper on the bus doesn’t care what happens to it. But for someone to pass along money they are doing so that another person could benefit from it. But what is that benefit?

I’m not a drug addict or drunk nor am I addicted to gambling, so we can rule out the money being used to enable a vice. But would someone expect it to be spent on food? Gas to keep my van moving? Medical expenses? Could I use it for psychological comfort and treat myself to something frugal but frivolous? Like buying some nail polish to give myself a nice manicure–something that I’ve been really wishing for the last few weeks?

Think Positively

I like to think of myself as a realistic optimist, that good things will happen within reason. Even if I played the lottery I wouldn’t expect to ever win it, hence why I don’t play, and thus I’m not expecting multi-million dollar windfalls. But, I’d like to think some kind of job or freelance gig of some sort will come along to refill my checking account before long. It doesn’t even need to be enough to allow a return to a fixed dwelling with an address, I’d just like some sort of income at this point and I like to think it’ll come. And frankly I’ve been pretty okay with the van dwelling life. Living in a vehicle is challenging in its own ways but I have more important things in my life than just a fixed address. Like getting health insurance and seeing a doctor. It’s been years now since I’ve had proper medical care.
To take money at this point will, in a way, make me admit that my situation is actually pretty dire. I’ve not had any appreciable income for what will soon be half a year now. In fact, I’ve pretty much made nearly nothing. Having worked freelance I’m used to feast and famine, but lean times having been getting increasingly long and the brief breaks of employment decreasingly profitable.

I trust that soon something will snap and good things will come my way.

Pennies from heaven or fool’s gold?

What would happen if suddenly my blog became so popular that I started making a decent enough living off of begging for change electronically? How would that change me? Would I start relying on such generosity from strangers as a crutch instead of trying to find a proper revenue stream from my own labors?

I believe strongly in self-sufficiency and independence. It’s been instilled into me from my very early days and I still believe that wealth shouldn’t come without work or merit of some sort. I don’t want that work to become panhandling to hustle up some money.

Good gooses and good ganders

Other people have paypal donation buttons on their website and I don’t fault them for it. It’s a personal choice. I even wish I had some money to send Kevin Barbieux for his laptop fund as I value his writing. But this online tin cup just isn’t for me, at least not for now. And hopefully the time for having to take outright donations will never come.

This is an actual conversation I had with someone recently who knows I am homeless.

guy: Here, you should take this. It’s still perfectly good. [has a coiled up handful of cable television wire]
me: What do I need the cable TV wire for?
guy: So you can run it to your van and watch television. When you park at people’s houses you can tap into their signal!
me: [looking at wire] I’d have to imagine what pictures are coming off that end there as I have no television to hook it too.
guy: [left speechless]
bystander: What about if you take it for if you ever do get a TV?
me: Well, thanks but no thanks. I’m not much of a TV watcher anyways and space is really limited in there. It was a nice thought though.

Everyone has their form of entertainment and I have mine and television is one of them. In fact, I can happily live for years without watching even a single bit of it, though I freely admit that I do like a movie now and then. But people who do choose television as their form are in such a vast majority that it’s just assumed that everyone also has made the same choice.

Apparently it’s also so pervasive in their lives that it can be their downfall too. A homeless camp in Tarpon Springs, Florida was busted when extension cords leading from a subdivision’s gate lead police off into the brush. They had lights and radios, both easily battery powered, and a television that would not be so easily powered without a line of AC.

So they could have stealth camped easily with just a cache of batteries for lanterns and radios and been just fine but the lure of the flickering blue glow ended their encampment when they were forced to move on and even netted two of the campers a misdemeanor and a felony count.

Back in the heyday I lived in a high rise condo with a nice city view. I was always amazed at night with all the windows with blue cast flickers coming out. Sometimes I’d even find ones that were in sync with one another as they were watching the same show. Likely, this is a blue glow that’ll never emanate from my van. I just don’t care enough. Even with a free antenna, a free pilfering cable and a free 12 volt flat panel I’d likely not want to spent the time to install it as I’d just never watch it.

The last couple nights were pretty unbearable in the van. The weather took an early warm turn here and I am rather unprepared for the heat. I wasn’t expecting this degree of warmth for a at least a couple more weeks when, ideally, I’d be a bit further north in cooler climes.

The only windows I have that open are the ones in the front doors and I don’t want to open them too far. Doing so would just scream “come pilfer my goodies!” And especially as my whole world is in there plus me sleeping in back I don’t want to do that in urban areas. So they’re cracked, but not so much that someone could reach in and unlock the door.

I’ve already tinted the windows and I put Reflectix light shields on all but the open windows. Plus I insulated the van when I put the interior in. But none of that solves the air flow issues. It’s damn hot in there and the air is dead still. I need, need, need to get a vent in that roof pronto!

Last night, after two minimally restful night and steamy days I got really fed up and desperate. I hadn’t had a haircut in about nine months so it was good and long, down nearly to the end of my sternum. In my youth I had constant battles with my mother over hairstyles and it was always really traumatic for me. It wasn’t until a particularly huge blow out fight that at age seventeen I was allowed control over my own hair style. And now as an adult I’m funny about hair cuts. I don’t trust the cheap places as that’s what my cuts were back then but I haven’t been afford to readily afford a decent salon for some years now.

So the last nine months I’ve been putting off spending any money on my hair and it kept growing longer and longer. Plus, when I had to make rent every month I couldn’t afford all my medications and my endocrine system was getting wacked out and making my hair thin. I’d also been so broke the two years that I’d often have little money for food–or anything else for that matter. So between the frustration and sadness over being so broke and thus not eating plus only being able to afford poor quality food I’m sure I lost plenty of hair there too in quantity and quality. So everything about my hair was making me unhappy.

And then the heat hit.

Laying in the blast furnace van trying to sleep with long hair getting tangled up and stuck to my skin all over my face, arms, chest and back was driving me absolutely mad. As if sweating out quarts of liquid and breathing hot, stale air wasn’t bad enough, my hair was stuck everywhere and constantly getting pulled too.

So last night I was at the family homestead for an early Memorial Day BBQ and asked if there was a pair of scissors handy. When asked what I was going to do with them I calmly replied, “I’m going to go in the bathroom and give myself a hair cut.” The look I got back was probably no different than what I’d have seen if I said, “oh, I’d like the chain saw to go weed out the slower running neighbors.”

There was plenty of warnings and doomsday scenarios presented and there was even offers of setting me up with one of those dreaded eight buck hair cuts but I was fed up and desperate for relief. There was no AC and I had been damp with sweat for two solid days.

Off to the Bathroom

I got naked and stood at the mirror and my hair was wet from a quick jump in the shower. When I was debating about doing this I was already thinking through how it’d have to be cut. I’d obviously be limited in movement but I thought about how stylists have cut my hair and what I wanted it to look like. What I was shooting for was a cross between two hair style I had, one about five years ago and one nine years ago.

Because of not having enough money for my medications my hair had gotten really fine and thin plus it tangles easily. This made it really difficult to brush out and move around. Of course I had no comb to make this easier either. But I gathered up the first section and spent probably two minutes trying to get the scissors in the right place and chop through the mess of hair. When I was hacking away at that first cut I was laughing so hard. The scene was so preposterous!

How could this be me?! Cutting my own hair!? My childhood installed such a neurosis in me over my hair and here I was cutting willy nilly and barely even able to see what I was doing in the foggy mirror without my glasses and having great technical difficulty with the pseduo-yoga moves I was doing to get the cut done with the not especially sharp scissors. Then after another couple minutes I had the rest chopped in the second cut. And I started laughing again! In those two cuts I lost easily six to eight inches of length.

I took a look at the general effect and was actually quite pleased and laughed some more! It was looking good! I realized that I’d never do a decent job a the mirror for the fine tuning. My hair when damp is too hard to style these days and the reflection was throwing off my coordination. So I returned to the shower.

With water flowing through my hair moved around easily, the water was cold and refreshing and got me out of the heat and humidity for a while too and I trimmed bits here and there and finished the cut. I stood in the shower and did it all without looking, just going by feel and just visualizing what it looked like.

When I got out no one believed I actually did it, especially as it looked good. I didn’t even bother saying I hadn’t looked at while doing it and hadn’t seen it properly yet. My sister was shocked that I actually managed to do layers. I asked my niece what she thought of the job my new stylist did and she approved enthusiastically and then flipped when I said I was that stylist. My other niece looked at me like I was crazy but liked the results. And most importantly I was comfortable with my shoulder length hair. None of the guys said anything of course.

It was such a liberating experience to cut my own hair. To take that much control over it and also to accept that if I turned out badly that I could just get another, that there’d still be plenty of length to cut it back some more. And to really enrich the experience, the scissors that I used were the ones my father used to cut our hair as kids, back when I also had no control over style but didn’t mind too much.

Later in the evening I cut a couple missed spots but otherwise it was quite sound. I went to bed and baked in a 93 degree stale air van and woke early–about as soon as the sun hit the van and it started to warm. When I checked myself in the mirror this morning I was ever so pleased with myself. The haircut passed my true test–what it looks like after sleeping on it and it looked great. Not only was it cut well but it looked drastically better than the old broken end snarl hair.

I had half expected to have an emergency run to a stylist–any stylist–but instead I celebrated inside. I was looking cute, feeling good and didn’t spend a cent. And I might just have a new skill to perfect! Likely the skill building will start by playing with it a bit more in the next couple of days as I tweak out the cut a bit more. Though thus far I’m still happy.

Addendum

I actually had a really good relationship with my mother before and after my teen years. But while I was too young to be an adult and she was still treated me like a small child we butted heads regularly. From about 25 years old and on we were very close and had a great peer-like relationship.

This last weekend I joined some family members and had a garage sale and I’m glad I did. A couple years ago I started selling stuff to bridge gaps in the budget and probably nine months back now I started selling furniture and less necessary possessions to make either moving into a cheaper apartment or my van easier–and that ever needed cash was of course nice too.

Late Sunday remnants.

Basically all I had to sell over the weekend was junk. The stuff that’s not worth enough to list on craigslist and wasn’t wanted by friends. As such, my expectations were quite low on what I’d be getting from this. A hundred? Maybe a bit more? I was wondering if I’d even earn enough to reach the hypothetical break even point for the effort. Money was spent on a permit, signs and such.But those three days of sales plus two beforehand to prepare and Monday morning to clean up did pay off. I made about $300 dollars profit from the weekend! But it’s odd to think now that I have no material resources in which to sell for some quick cash. No more electronics or grown up toys, no more furniture, no nothing that could raise easy money without hurting myself in the long term. Like I’d be a fool to sell the tools I use to make money. Cash now, sure, but what about tomorrow, next week or next year?

“You got any old tools?”

My two favorite questions of the weekend were both from guys. Lots of inquiries about old tools and those that I had sold out quickly. The other was “do you have any collectable stuff, men’s collectables? Like beer signs and manly stuff like that?”

About half the money made this weekend came from selling my old laptop as it sold for $150. I bought it in 2000 and made almost $20,000 with it that year. That’s almost $10 of profit for each dollar spent. Since 9/11 the money making has not been nearly as good, but still, the purchase price was already long since paid off. A computer in my hands is a money making tool. I wasn’t expecting to sell this here but when she saw some random computer junk asked, “do you have any Mac stuff?” She just happened to want a cheap laptop and veering into that masculine tool seeking turf.

The happy new owner

A couple days ago I jumped into a debate on a discussion forum about homeless people having laptops and how some couldn’t believe they’d have them. I really didn’t participate much in the discussion other than to say that many homeless people have jobs but lack sufficient income for home and that their laptops might just be part of that income generation. Then as a turnaround, I asked if they’d expect a homeless carpenter or mechanic not to have some basic tools.It’s been a couple of days with no responses so I suspect I “won” the thread. Computers can be luxury entertainment devices or they can make money. Last year I made $800 doing a writing project with that $150 PowerBook I sold. My current Powerbook was waiting for the funds to repair it. And with that bottom of the rung laptop I made the repair money and a bunch more too.

I was out having a social visit last night and made a comment that struck me as strange. I said, “well, I’m getting sleepy. I should be getting home.”

As I thought about it while speaking I was pre-living the experience in my head. More than just a picture I imagine myself in the situation, experiencing it and I felt the stifling humidity in the van, heard the drizzle on the roof, the feel fuzzy princess blanket and flannel of my bedding and was drawing in my journal–the paper one. I even felt the spiral binder of the journal, the roughness of the paper and the smooth barrel of the mechanical pencil and the way the slick lead glides over the page. The light was bouncing off the red wall of my van from the flashlight.

And this is now home. Parked in a safe spot that’s reasonably quiet and has occasional wifi. The van isn’t too stifling yet as the night is still reasonably cool. I need to fix the air flow in here as currently there is none–zero. But overall I’m quite happy with my house on wheels.

Last night I really wished my van had a bathroom. Even though I made darn sure to have a fully functioning bathroom visit before retiring for the night I really wished I had some sort of toilet in the van. At some point I’ll be taking care of that, but for now it’s a bit of a hike to relieve myself. This was not urban camping at it’s best, this was clearly the van dwelling that is not suited to be romanticized.

My troubles started yesterday when I found a little stash of my medications and returned to taking them. One of them is a diuretic and true to it’s nature will keep me running to the bathroom to pee the first five or so hours after I take it. And when did I take last night’s medication? Oh, about 9pm. The effect is especially strong after not taking them for a few days. Oops!

So within an hour of going to bed I had the rather pointed desire to pee. Not fun, especially as there was people outside the van chatting obliviously to my being there and I didn’t want to change that. And smart thing too, as it turned out there was two visits from the cops in the immediate area and I really don’t want to be hassled for living in my van. I was parked within eye sight of a Jerry Springer style relationship drama involving a trampy ho new girlfriend, a baby daddy and a psycho ex girlfriend with jealousy issues. It was a bit comical that the outside there were potty mouths talking shit about each other, that outside was a free flowing human sewer while inside the van I didn’t have a pot to piss in.

At some point I’ll either get a bucket/sawdust system or a self-contained toilet, but that’ll have to wait for the future. A pee bottle would have been really nice last night and the inconvenience of using would would likely have outweighed the pains in my bladder.

My descent into the bowels of hell

As much as I love free food I really should say no more often. This whole last weekend I ate junk, largely to conserve funds and partially to simply indulge in some forbidden fruit.

For medical reasons I do have some eating restrictions. I’m lactose intolerant so dairy isn’t the best choice I can make and I had my gallbladder removed years ago so high fat foods also disrupt my digestive system. Then there is also the hyperglycemia, where simple carbs throw my blood sugar into a tizzy at the drop of a hat. I’m fine with slow digesting whole grains and more natural foods with a low glycemic index, but anything processed, fast food or grocery store convenience food is probably going to cause blood sugar issues. White flour and sugars are in just about anything ready to eat.

And what did I have the last two days? Lasagna, soda, chips and salsa, chili con queso, cheese and crackers. Tons of white flour, tons of dairy and even some pure sugar water in a can. But hey… it was free, right?

So on top of really needing to pee last night my entire digestive tract was bloated and crampy and I really wished my van was more of an RV and that I had more common sense this weekend. Free is not necessarily the best choice for me when it comes to food. Eating right is the first step to good health especially when there’s outstanding medical issues. And the whole taking a medication with a strong diuretic effect immediately before bed was just ignorance to the reality of living in a home without a bathroom of any sort.

Oh RV conversion fairies! Please wave your magic wands! I’m too stupid to save myself from myself!

In medieval London, people did not have indoor plumbing. It was common to use a chamber pot as an indoor toilet. The chamber pot could then be dumped out a window into the street gutter below. A person who did not have a “pot to piss in” was poor indeed.

In medieval times the word “piss” was not considered at all vulgar. It was not until Victorian England that words such as piss were deemed vulgar. Even today phrases like “pot to piss in” and “Full of Piss and Vinegar” are somehow considered to be generally acceptable and only moderately crude.

stolen from Phrases. Clichés, Expressions & Sayings