The Hellish Handbasket Blog

  • I love my neighbor, but they don’t love me

    In fact, my neighbors hate me. Well, maybe not me specifically, but people like me, vehicle dwellers. If my skin wasn’t lily white, I’d be in real trouble. As it is, I feel like an outcast, a pariah, a loser.

    Someone on a podcast said Jesus was an advocate for the outsider. I’m not a Christian, but I understand the idea of ostracizing people from society simply because of their lifestyle, their appearance, their income status . . . well, you name it. There is never not a good reason to exclude someone from the ingroup. As I’ve said before, it’s built into the human survival instinct. Preserve the tribe against all encroachers. Circle the wagons around the homestead. Build a fortress, drop a bomb before they can drop one on you.

    I am not a Christian, but each day I pray to something I don’t understand to help me be loving and kind. Kindness and fear are like oil water. They don’t mix. It’s hard to hate someone when you are kind to them. Try it and tell me if I’m wrong.

    I’m pissed off a lot lately, which makes it harder to be kind. That’s why I am doubling-down on my amateur prayer. It’s difficult to be kind to someone when I see them wrecking things because they are haters. It takes a lot of effort to empathize with someone who hates me and wishes I were dead. Not just hate for me but hate for everyone. I don’t understand it. I can only surmise they hate themselves. That’s why it’s especially important to intentionally practice kindness. Even when I want to say kiss my rosy red rump.

    I don’t have to love everyone like family, but I do believe for me it’s important to love everyone as if they were my neighbor. It’s how I would like to be treated, for one thing, and for another thing, we might actually be neighbors one day. Unlikely but possible. I might want to borrow a cup of sugar. They might need a jump. I want to meet them with generous empathy. I know they are scared they are going to lose something they treasure or not get something they want. I get it. I have the same fears.

    In fact, my simmering anger and resentment come from fear. It’s a lot more satisfying to be angry than it is to be scared. Anger is energtic. Fear is passive. Anger inspires action. Fear cowers. I don’t want to be a wimp. I want to be strong.

    Righteous anger is especially seductive. I can feel strong and right at the same time. Nothing makes me feel more powerful than condemning someone from a position of self-righteousness. Self-justification is a part of the human instinct for survival. How else can you explain why people in power refuse to admit their actions harm others? If they realized their attitudes and actions are based on fear and self-loathing, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves. They would have to self-destruct from shame. That won’t happen. Therefore, they take refuge on their self-constructed hill and lob missiles at those of us who happen to live in the lowland.

    A friend told me resentment is anger coming out a very small hole. That statement always makes me laugh. It conjures up images of buttholes, which by definition are hilarious. Appreciation for anus-related jokes are also part of human instinct, at least for those who will survive the current apocalypse. These humans possess the ability to laugh at the human condition even while they live as humans among humans. It’s so meta and comical at the same time.

    The only way out of this mess is through it. Practicing kindness toward ourselves and others paves some of the potholes on the path to respect and cooperation. I recommend it when you are feeling the urge to kill someone.

  • What lies beyond the refuge of resentment?

    I’ve been walking a lot lately. Today I walked at a favorite location: the Sandy River Delta. It costs money to park in the parking lot, so I park at the Lewis & Clark State Recreation Area (which FYI as of October 1 also requires a $10 per day parking permit, but you can get an annual permit for only $30).

    The path to the Delta goes under a railroad bridge and then under the east bound and westbound lanes of the I-84 freeway.

    Today I passed two big dumpsters just before I got to the underpasses, both filled to the rims with plastic bags and trash. I thought, uh-oh.

    Many homeless people live in encampments along the Sandy River, just past the freeway. At least, until now.

    Today I walked under the underpass and found two uniformed guards standing in front of a white canopy tent. A portapotty on a little trailer was parked next to the tent. One of the guards was young and pale, with a toothy smile. The other was older and shorter with brown skin (not Hispanic, more like Middle Eastern). Both perked up when they saw me coming toward them.

    I emerged into the sunlight, put on my I-come-in-peace face, and said hello, how are you doing? Then I asked, what are you doing?

    “Making sure no one goes that way,” the young guy said, pointing toward the River where the encampments were.

    “Oh, that’s what those dumpsters . . . ?”

    He nodded.

    I pointed in the opposite direction, toward the Delta parking lot. “I always go that way.”

    I almost told them I got lost in the woods one time and passed many little huts, tents, and tarp shelters pitched among the trees and along the riverbank. Why bother, though? I just wanted to tell someone I got lost. It’s not exactly news. I get lost pretty much everywhere I go. For sure, I didn’t want to ask my burning question: Where the hell do you think these people are going to go?

    “Have a nice day,” said the kid.

    Speaking of unhoused, I’m still waiting to hear if the property management company is going to rent to me. I’m living in limbo these days, roaming the I-5 freeway, bopping from one rest area to another, trying to avoid Portland as much as possible. I wouldn’t call this the nomadic life the YouTubers gush about. This lifestyle reminds me of a short sci-fi story I read once, where parking was so scarce, people spent their lives in their cars. Obviously, that was before drive-thru was de rigeur.

    The weather is shifting toward winter here in the Pacific Northwest. Nights are getting cold. Sunbreaks are rare, which means I’m having to charge my big power station at a library or coffee shop. Compared to living in the Arizona, maintaining electricity while homeless is a lot of work.

    Not to mention, Portland is apparently on fire. Somehow that happened, and I didn’t notice.

    I would head south right now but there’s a No Kings day planned for October 18. Gotta be there. Then I have medical stuff in early November. The minute that is done, I’m making tracks for Arizona.

    Unless I get housing. Then a new chapter begins.

  • They can’t look me in the eye

    I’ve noticed a certain response when people find out I live in my car. They wince. Their eyes get a little wider, and their spine gets a little straighter. Their muscles tense up.

    They try hard not to appear judgmental. It might be easier for me if they just came out and said what they think: You live in your car? What a loser.

    My PCP gave me some suggestions about nutrition. He assumed I have a kitchen. It’s normal. Most people have kitchens. And bathrooms and a proper bed to sleep in, a place to hang their clothes. I waited until our third meeting before I mentioned my situation. His response, after wincing, was to ask if I’d seen the clinic’s case manager.

    What can a case manager do that I’m not already doing? Put me into treatment for a drug problem? Give me a bed for one night in a shelter?

    I’ve been seeking low-income senior housing for over a year. I’m on three or four waitlists in various cities in Oregon. Recently I came to the top of a waitlist for a studio apartment in Veneta, Oregon. I started to feel a glimmer of hope. After talking with the property manager, I thought chances were good I might be housed by October 1. I started thinking about what kind of bed I would build, what kind of mattress I would buy. Getting my paltry stack of belongings out of storage.

    After our conversation, the property manager left over Labor Day. Another property manager took over. She called me for clarification on one of my references. During the phone call, she asked me what move-in date the previous manager had promised. I said October 1. She asked me where I was currently living. I said, in my car. I couldn’t see her face, but she said, oh! in a way that made me think she might be wincing. Like, what kind of loser old person lives in a car?

    We had a phone conversation last week about my financial situation. She walked me through the form, box by box, line by line, and things were going well, I thought, until we got to the box about other income. I told her I was semi-self-employed and that I had a job as contingent faculty for an online for-profit education college. The process stuttered to a halt.

    “I don’t know how to handle this,” she said. “I need to talk to my supervisor. I’ll call you later today, tomorrow at the latest.”

    That was Tuesday. Today is Saturday.

    She could be out of the office with Covid. Maybe she just went out on maternity leave. It could be she reached a breaking point trying to wrangle elderly tenants who can’t fill out forms and walked out of her job. It takes a lot of patience to work with elders. When I told her she could text me, she sounded pleasantly surprised. Like, wow, an older peson who can text! Maybe unicorns exist after all!

    There’s nothing I can do to make housing happen. I’m over it. Even if something comes through, I have other things to do, other places to be. Scottsdale in November, Quartzsite in January. I’ve got a lot on my dance card. It’s all a lot more fun and interesting than hanging around Portland waiting to earn non-loser status.

    Meanwhile.

  • Only a doomed species eats its young

    I had a blog post idea. I planned to rant about how people (“those people”) don’t have a right to complain about violence in politics if they are willing to accept kids getting shot in schools. I was thinking I’d write about how we as a society broke after Sandy Hook. Pundits were so horrified, they couldn’t handle their feelings in any other way except to deny the tragedy ever took place. And then they found out their public denials could make them rich, and there you go. That was the end of America. It’s been downhill ever since.

    But I’m over it. I can’t dredge up the righteous anger I had last week. It fizzled among the detritus of my humdrum quest for existence. It seemed like a solid idea. I had some words and phrases. Something to do with gerbils. But I didn’t write them down, and you know what happens when you don’t write things down. Banana, sunrise, chair, that’s what. Yep. Dementia.

    Lucky for me, I’m not totally demented yet. But I’m also no longer angry. I think I’ve hit the resignation wall. I’ve gone past anger, past despair, and now I’m in the empty boat. I threw my metaphorical paddle overboard. Sort of along the lines of . . . Calgon, take me away. If I had a tub, I’d be in it right now.

    So what do I write about if I don’t have anything to set my ire on fire?

    If I cared about getting viewers to find my blog, I need to use certain keywords. I know this because I have a Phd in marketing. And what do viewers want? Anger, hatred, resentment, ridicule (toward the “other side,” of course). Not only am I not skilled enough to write that kind of content, I can’t pretend I have anger, hatred, resentment, or a desire to ridicule others. I can’t match the energy. I have no desire to try. I wish everyone would just shut up and go outside.

    I get cranky sometimes. Like, right now I’m cranky that this toy tablet I’m working on is balking at uploading artwork to the media library. That’s why there’s no image for today’s blog post. I think that might be the first time EVER that I have omitted the drawing. This situation upsets me. I’m a creature of habit. I rely on my routine. To soothe my irritation, I want to get a brand new computer and give this tablet to Barbie, because she’s the only person who could find it useful. If Barbie were a person.

    I don’t think I’m depressed, but I feel like I’m acting the way a depressed person would act, if they spent too much time watching the news. Did someone else get shot today? Do we care? Clearly not or we would do something about it.

  • The original deportee

    It occurred to me as I was walking in a park somewhere, I can’t remember which one, that deporting people we don’t like has a long history, dating back to at least the start of the Christian era. In fact, Jesus was the ultimate deportee. I don’t know much except what I have forgotten from Sunday school at my mother’s Presbyterian church; however, it’s not hard to imagine that the authorities of that time (I think they were Romans?) hated any rabblerouser who could rouse a rabble that might threaten the regime.

    Cartoon character saying better all the time

    All the paintings notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure Jesus had brown skin and brown eyes. All the locals did back then—it was the Middle East, for crying out loud. Further, although the ancient Romans who killed Jesus might not have been as White as our homegrown Christian White supremacists, odds are the Romans were whiter than Jesus. Choosing to marginalize a group by skin color is a time-tested excuse when that group holds an undesirable ideology, especially if the group is growing in numbers and power.

    So it’s not hard to see why Jesus got some flak. I’m not a Christian, but even I can see the guy was doomed.

    “Go back to where you came from” probably started around that time. It’s comical that not too long after he was extinguished, he once again crossed the border. That is, the border between heaven and earth, if there is such a border, to which I personally do not subscribe but I hear many earthlings do.

    In other words, he was an immigrant, he got deported, and like so many have done since, he returned to try again.

    Nowadays, he’d be detained in a concentration camp for a few years before he was finally expelled, but you get my drift. My drift is that I’m pissed off.

    I can hear you complaining already: But Carol, all these undocumented immigrants with brown skin aren’t Jesus! They are criminals and thugs, fathers and uncles, mothers and brothers, and yes, some are children, we admit, but we don’t want them here. They threaten our comfortable bubble. They’re not like us. They’re brown!

    Again, I’m not a Christian, and I’m sure not a Biblical scholar, but isn’t there a thing in that book somewhere about showing compassion for foreigners because most of us (with the notable exception of Native Americans [who also were “deported” to concentration camps, which we call reservations, because of the color of their skin] were foreigners once ourselves? Or our ancestors were. Mine came from the whitest part of England, so there’s no mistaking me for having Italian, Greek, or Asian heritage.

    Which means I might escape the pogroms, but I digress.

    Humans are so predictable, but it’s not our fault. We are hard-wired to protect self, family, tribe, and nation, in that order. Anyone who threatens self, family, tribe, or nation must be repelled—and preferably destroyed. The fear of welcoming strangers is no match for the existential fear of losing what you have (wealth and power) or not getting what you want (wealth and power).

    Fox and Fanatics co-anchor Brian Kilmeade said mentally ill homeless people should be executed by lethal injection. I’m sure many hold similar views, especially when they see their neighborhoods overrun with tents, trash, and broken down RVs. Just kill them all. It’s a neat solution to a messy problem. It wouldn’t be all that hard. We could just put something in the water at the gas station where they fill up their water jugs. They wouldn’t feel a thing.

    Alternatively, we could bash in their car windows, pull them out by their hair, throw them on the ground (after tasing them a few times), put them in zipties, and then detain them in concentration camps, where they receive little food and no medical care. If they survive that, then we’ll spend millions of taxpayer dollars to send them to a jail in a foreign country where they don’t speak the language. Pat on the back, job well done, here’s your medal of freedom.

    Then we’ll go golfing while the nation implodes.

    Angry, much?

  • Hey NIMBYs! If you want to end homelessness, legalize fentanyl

    Whenever I read news of the number of unhoused people on the streets of Portland, Oregon, I am curious to see who or what the author blames. Something or someone is always at fault. Homelessness isn’t a force of nature. It isn’t caused by a drop in barometric pressure. Homelessness is a people problem caused by people’s behaviors and attitudes toward other people.

    Cartoon character saying better all the time

    When attributing blame, the easiest tactic is to blame the unhoused themselves. If only they weren’t so [stupid/ uneducated/ lazy/ addicted/ mental/ belligerent/ uncivilized], they wouldn’t find themselves without a place to live that isn’t a dorm room filled with bunk beds (AKA a shelter). In other words, it’s on them. If they just [got a job/ took a shower/ dressed in clean clothes/ stopped using drugs/ quit pitching their tents in my backyard], they would be able to successfully integrate into polite society like the rest of us.

    The corollary to that position is to blame the mental condition of the unhoused. It’s pretty obvious that nobody in their right mind would choose to live in a busted down RV parked on a busy street parked end-to-end with other busted down motorhomes and flat-tired trailers. Like, who would want that? Therefore, it stands to reason anyone living like that must be insane. It’s a logical conclusion. The solution, based on that conclusion, is that we need more mental health services for the unhoused. Because they are all bat-shit crazy. However, when asked if they would be willing to fund increased mental health services, citizens balk. Let the government handle it (but not with our tax dollars), and for sure, no half-way houses in our neighborhoods.

    Those with some measure of compassion are willing to consider the idea that the homeless are not to blame for their situation (well, most of the homeless). Instead, these good-hearted folks attribute the homeless problem to a lack of affordable housing. Anyone can look up the stats and discover that in most places in the country, and certainly in Portland, the demand for low-income housing far outstrips the supply. The solution: Build more housing, naturally. Duh. Tenements, housing projects, pack ’em in like sardines (but not in my neighborhood). At least, they will have a place to stash all the crap they previously dumped in the parking strip outside my Inner Eastside bungalow.

    Well, but then, you might say, how do we get more housing? We need developers to build that housing. If developers would build more low-income housing, problem solved. But alas, they won’t because they would never be able to recoup the cost of construction. Rents are too damn low, they cry. We’d love to help, but our financial hands are tied by the urban growth boundary, our obligations to our stockholders, and our desire to make ten million dollars in profit this year.

    Okay, if the developers won’t step up of their own free will, then maybe they could be enticed by government incentives. It’s not developers’ fault. They have bills to pay and bottom lines to feed. The blame lies with the government for not being willing to subsidize affordable housing. Which government? It doesn’t matter. City, county, state, federal—at every level, elected officials are reluctant to fund low-income housing. There’s no money for that, and besides, local zoning laws don’t allow in-fill construction. Our hands are tied. If only the zoning laws were changed, then maybe we could think about offering builders incentives to build.

    Then how do we change the zoning laws? How do we force the government to give developers the financial incentives they need to build more low-income housing?

    For the time being, we still live in a representative democracy. The people choose their elected representatives, who presumably carry out the will of their constituents. The elected officals shrug and say, if the constituents don’t want us to vote for zoning law revisions, if the voters don’t want to spend their taxpayer dollars to subsidize the construction of affordable housing, then what can we do? The voters have spoken.

    Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t homeless people voters, too? Yeah, but who cares?

    The votes that matter are homeowners. The ones who bought, built, or inherited wealth in the form of real estate. Lucky them. Here, I think, is the root cause of the homeless issue. Homeowners don’t want affordable housing in their neighborhoods because it could lower their property values.

    I have news for them. How valuable do you think your property is when your neighborhood is occupied by homeless encampments? Do you think that bulldozing them from Mt. Tabor to Montavilla is going to help? It might solve the problem in your parking strip, but the community is interconnected, and I have more news for you: Homeless people get around. They are supremely mobile, much more than you are, Ms. Homeowner. You can’t pack up your belongings and be someplace else in five minutes. You are trapped by your little quarter acre of the American dream. The homeless are like squirrels. You can run them off with poison, but soon they will develop an immunity to your poison, and next thing you know, they’ll be back with their tents leaning against your $5,000 fence.

    Mr. Homeowner of the house on the corner, what if I were to tell you that building affordable housing in your community would actually increase your property values? Think about it for a second. If you built affordable housing of various types–single family homes, duplexes, triplexes, small apartment buildings–you would attract people who work in your local hospital, grocery store, nursinghome, or elementary school. These workers would not have to commute from Hillsboro or Gresham, but more to the point, they would become part of the fabric of the community. They would shop locally. They would participate in local civics because they care about the safety and beauty of the neighborhood. There would be less crime.

    You would be safer. Your neighborhood would be cared for by residents who care. You might even make new friends, who knows? Even if you live behind a tall fence with your yappy dog, you have to come out sometime. Meet your neighbors. You can all walk your yappy dogs together.

    Come on, NIMBYs. Get on board the compassion train. Put your heart and money toward a real solution, instead of blaming everyone else for the homeless problem. YOU are the problem. Join the solution or quit whining. You can’t have it both ways.

    And if you aren’t ready to become part of the multicultural magical fabric of a vibrant community, then lobby your elected officials to legalize fentanyl. When it comes to taking out drug addicts, candy is dandy, but fentanyl is a lot quicker. That will take care of the worst of the problem. Then all you have to worry about are the old women in your neighborhood who are living in their cars.

  • The stench of change

    Like tar burping out of the ground at the La Brea Tar Pits, my name bubbled up to the top of a waitlist at a low-income senior apartment complex in Veneta, Oregon. Veneta, Oregon, you say. Where the heck is that? And more to the point, having Google Mapped it, why on earth would you choose to live there?

    I found the place the way I find everything: wandering aimlessly in the hinterlands hoping the GPS Lady will rescue me. Veneta, Oregon, is a small place just west of Eugene, which is similar to Portland in the sense that it is big, congested, and ugly. However, in contrast to Portland, Eugene is overrun by college students, to whom I am completely invisible, which is fine, unless I want to buy something at Best Buy, which in that case, I have to yell at the top of my lungs for some brat to notice me. I use the term brat in a perjorative sense.

    Anyway, a studio apartment in Veneta came open at the same time my name came up, and thus I received an offer: Do I want to rent the place?

    There was a time when I would have demanded to see the apartment first. Now, I don’t care what it looks like. As long as I can afford it and it doesn’t have cockroaches, I can make it work.

    I have to give the property manager a lot of credit. She started trying to reach my former landlords and ran into some roadblocks—nevertheless, she persisted. I did my best to resolve the roadblocks. I think she might have gained the information she sought, but I haven’t heard from her yet this week, so it’s possible the info she received wasn’t positive. In her defense, it was a holiday weekend. Maybe she vacationed in Eugene for a long weekend. What am I saying? She probably lives in Eugene. No young person would choose to live in Veneta. Maybe she is out of the office with Covid. Who knows. She might have said, enough already, and quit like several property managers I’ve met in the past four years. Dealing with wackjob tenants is probably a thankless job, especially if they are over 65.

    Thankless, perhaps, but not because of me. I thanked her profusely, even though she probably had nothing to do with how long it took for my name to rise to the top of the desperate heap. I’m grateful, for sure. However, I’ll feel a lot more grateful when I finally have the keys in my hand. And when I see for myself there are no cockroach bait traps under the kitchen sink.

  • Welcome to the new Hellish Handbasket blog

    The Hellish Handbasket Blog has existed since 2012 as a Google Blogger site. I started blogging when I was an instructor at a shady for-profit career college (I outlasted you, all you fake educator/administrators, bwahaha).

    Since then, I’ve ranted about surviving graduate school, slogging through my mother’s decline and death, regretting my move to Tucson, and last year, making the dubious decision to downsize into my car. It’s been a ride, and I guess it’s not over. Through it all, this blog has been my patient albeit silent therapist.

    Who am I? Thanks for asking.

    In case you are new here, I’m Carol B., previously known as Carol B., the Chronic Malcontent. I always thought I was a pessimistic fatalist. Addicted to fatal pessimism. Something like that. Then I took a test. My results showed I was actually a hopeful optimist.

    What do they say about knowing thyself? Clearly, I didn’t.

    I came from Portland, Oregon, spent twenty years in Los Angeles, moved back to Portland for twenty-four more years, and then made the colossal four-year mistake of moving to Tucson. It took a while for me to see the light: Tucson was not my home, and if I didn’t take drastic action, I was going to run out of money.

    Hence, the nomadic lifestyle. Now I live everywhere and nowhere, not by choice, but by necessity. I am old, my income is limited, and the rents are too damn high.

    Why do I write anonymously?

    I chose to write anonymously for a few reasons. First, I was employed, and much of my whining involved my employer. I wanted to stay employed. Second, I wrote a lot about family. My sister didn’t want to be outed. Third, while I was still employed, I enrolled in graduate school. If anyone at that school had Googled my name, they would have discovered my disdain for for-profit higher education. Considering my dissertation was about academic quality in for-profit education, I didn’t think it wise to attract that much scrutiny. Gatekeepers can be ruthless.

    Finally, possibly most important, I needed someone to listen to me.

    I don’t feel embarrassed about that. After some years of counseling and a gazillion years of something that might pass for recovery on a good day, I have accepted the reality that I just need to be heard. I think most people just want to be heard. In fact, I believe listening deeply to others is the greatest gift we can offer.

    Whoa. Back on track.

    This blog has been my therapist since the beginning. It took me a while to find my voice, but eventually I figured out what I wanted to say and how to say it. If I ever write a memoir, I have a boatload of content.

    I’ve moved the blog to a WordPress platform.

    The new URL is thehellishhandbasket.com. If you are reading this, you already know that.

    If you are one of my regular readers, I hope you will bookmark the new site.

    If you want notifications of new posts in your email inbox, you will need to enroll the site in your favorite RSS feed app. There are many. You probably know more about all that than I do. For obvious reasons, I don’t have an option to subscribe to this website. I’m not interested in building traffic, driving engagement, or selling products. No merch here. I just want to express myself anonymously without fear of retaliation, rejection, or remorse.

    Just the unabridged, uncut rantings of a former chronic malcontent.

    I believe you can add comments, though. The former blogsite allowed comments as well, but after the first year, nobody ever left any. (I blame Google.) The only way I knew I had readers was if someone called me after reading a post to ask me how I was feeling (subtext: are you really going to [ram your head against a wall / drive your car off a cliff / march on Washington and self-immolate in front of the White House?])

    But Carol, what about the art?

    cartoon of a whiner

    If you are a regular reader of The Hellish Handbasket, you are familiar with the format: text plus a drawing. I have attempted to duplicate that format on this new platform. I’m still learning the new WordPress interface, so don’t be surprised if I screw it up. It’s how I roll.

    I still have a thousand or so drawings that you haven’t seen. Plus, I have lots more to complain about. I could keep this up for years.