For all intents and purposes, I am currently homeless.
No, I am not writing to you from the sidewalk outside of a Starbuck’s, there is no paper cup to collect dollars or change. Nor am I seeking shelter from the rain. (Can we please get some sun, already? Come ON!)
No, instead I’m working as a receptionist today at a school on the Upper East Side, with several crying/screeching/bumbling children in the lobby. Birth control at it’s finest.
When my shift ends, I can either walk around (weather permitting — would you just fucking PERMIT already, Weather?), or I can head back to my temporary rental in Queens and get my stuff sorted back into the various cases and bags I arrived with in the beginning of May.
From here, it’s a 3-day writer’s retreat into Vermont that begins this Wednesday, followed by a couple of days with a friend in New Jersey, and then a flight to California, where I will live indefinitely.
Sky’s the limit, bitches, yeah!
So you may be asking, how did you manage to avoid the bedraggled, wayward life of so many other homeless people?
Strategising and fighting. That’s how.
Working an exhaustive 12 hours a day for a few months, and being so tired by the time I got home, I didn’t want to spend money on anything. All I wanted to do was veg out and sleep.
While I don’t miss that gig, I am very grateful for the money it has allowed me to save to be able to do this. Getting more cushion for the California pushin’.
When I tell people, “I’m moving to California”, it is usually accepted with a response of, “oh, California is very expensive.”
Ahhhhh, Pot? Kettle is on Line 1.
Yes, California is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. I know this. In the beginning, there will be struggle. I’m used to struggle. I know Struggle so well, we snuggle.
I snuggle with Struggle. And then we drive off in a Buggle. Leaving my mind a fuggle. My heart strings all a-tuggle.
Damn it, I went too far again.
Telling someone wherever they’re going, or whatever plans they’ve made is going to be difficult, is like telling a cancer patient that they can live, but they’ll have to take chemo treatments and/or drugs.
This is not a newsflash. It doesn’t enlighten the person. Maybe you think you’re doing them a favour by warning them, but you’re really just bringing them down on their new adventure. When someone needs a boost over a fence, you don’t drop weights on their feet.
In a week and a half, I’m heading west by planes, trains and automobiles. I have my stuff, my notebooks, and my tenacity. How far that will get me is anybody’s guess.
Behavioural Issues 