The Hellish Handbasket Blog

  • Attitude of gratitude

    I took housing for granted. I didn’t know it at the time, but now that I’m housed, I realize being unhoused is not normal. Shelter is a human need. Even animals need shelter. They dig holes, they build nests, they hang out under rocks. I supposed there are some that live under the open sky, but humans can’t for long. I’ve seen them try, and it doesn’t end well.

    I was lucky, so lucky, I had a car. Many unhoused people are not that lucky. I am grateful for that car, and I’m even more grateful that now it’s just a big hunk of metal on four rubber tires, sitting in the rain in the parking lot. It’s hard to believe I lived my life in that box for a year and a half. It’s hard to believe I don’t have to anymore.

    Now I am slogging through dissociation, trying to assimilate my new living situation. It feels surreal to walk across an entire room, to have two hallways to mix up (which one goes the bathroom, which one to the front door?), to have a bed way over there, ten generous steps from where I sit now typing. It’s been almost two months, and I still can’t believe this is where I live. That this space is for me.

    Eventually my brain will settle in, and the time I spent living in my car will fade into memory. Already, I’m marveling that I had the courage (and naivete) to drive across the country, sleeping overnight in rest areas and parking lots. It’s almost as if someone else was brave (and stupid), not me.

    This self-questioning has happened to me before. I’ve done things in my lfe I can’t believe I did . . . produced fashion shows, ran a marathon, taught at a college, earned a doctorate, published books . . . Now I can add my epic cross-country road trip to the list. I’m grateful to the Universe I was able to make that trip, because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do something like that again.

    Speaking of which, did I mention I tore out the build in my car? My little house on wheels is no longer habitable. It’s just empty space now, with a steering wheel at the front. If it disappeared from the parking lot, I would be sad, but I would be okay. Everything I need is within walking distance. Food, doctor, library. What more does one need?

    My friends tell me I sound a lot more relaxed now. I am. I can feel it. The tension in my body has dissipated a lot, in spite of arthritis eating at my hip, in spite of my continued dizziness. I have a lot fewer things to worry about. On the road, I was constantly planning and doing, white-knuckling in the moment. Now I meander from one activity to another, with long stretches of time during which I stare out the window at green grass, trees, and clouds, doing nothing. The only thing I lack is a bathtub. If I had a tub, I’d be in it right now.

    I still have plans, but now my plans don’t involve devising survival strategies. I’m noodling around with my next writing project, trying to find a way into a new world. I’m spending a lot of time (for very little compensation) being a helpful committee member to wannabe dissertators. I go for walks when it’s not too cold. I eat more vegetables. I keep blogging.

    On the downside, I spend way too much time watching independent news channels, but on the upside, I also spend a lot of time enjoying Korean romcoms. It’s a nice balance of terror and comedy, a small personalized reflection of reality.

  • Traumatized brain stuck in a rut

    Life goes on against the backdrop of general insanity. We don’t stop breathing until it’s over. Meanwhile, we navigate the speedbumps and keep going. Despite all the madness, I still count myself lucky to have been born in this place and time. Having the correct color of skin helps too. Despite my guilt, it’s not something I take for granted. There but for a random twist of DNA in a random universe go I.

    Anyway, all that to say, I continue to persist as best I can, aware that my safe White old person bubble could burst at any moment along with my front door. (Odds are low that ICE will come knocking, but so are the odds of a plane crash. It happens. As a news addict, I can’t ignore the videos of violence happening in Portland and Eugene.)

    Meanwhile. I’m still processing the shock of my new existence as a housed person. Did I mention I almost had a panic attack? The strange reality of being housed is apparently so unsettling, my brain had to exit my body for a moment by way of mild hyperventilation. It was brief, and I was aware it was happening, so I was able to talk myself into breathing normally. I’m okay, but little vestiges of panic come up at least once a day, especially when I look at my toilet. For some reason, toilets are a symbol of safety, not sure why that is.

    I sometimes shop for household stuff at Walmart, one of the least bad big box options. I feel guilty and demoralized at the idea that I’m abetting a mega-corporation that abuses its employees. However, I’m boycotting Amazon. And Home Depot. And now I’ve added Lowes to the list. Instead, I support WinCo and BiMart, both employee-owned, and I shop at Fred Meyer, a Kroger brand, because, well, Fred Meyer started in Portland, and I spent most of my pre-adult life in the Gateway store.

    When I shop anywhere, my eye zeroes in on items I no longer need. I’m talking about butane canisters, bungie cords, and giant tote bins. Camping chairs, cheap tents, tie-downs, tarps. Shower tents, USB-powered water pump faucets, collapsible dishes, rolls of Reflectix, USB-powered lights and fans.

    When I’m driving, I still note places to dump trash, refill my water jugs, park overnight, park during the day. If the sun is shining, I think, yay, time to recharge my power stations. If it’s raining, I think, bummer, now I have to recharge somewhere like Starbucks or the local library. If it’s cold, I think, how am I going to stay warm? If it’s hot, I think, how am I going to sleep when it’s 95° in my car?

    Now I don’t have to do all those things. Gradually they are fading out of my brain, and I find I have a lot more time to do other things. For example, in addition to worrying about the state of democracy, I’ve started nibbling around the corners of my next book project.

  • Invoking my superpower

    When it comes to living situations, it’s my nature to cope with whatever I get. Rarely have I chosen. Whether I was living with parents, siblings, roommates, partners, whatever . . . I dealt with it. Ten-foot square bedroom? No problem. Give me a few shelves to hold all my stuff, I’m good. Ten-foot square storefront with no running water? Piece of cake. A makeshift cutting table has a lot of storage space under it. A hanging garment rack makes a perfect place to hide a foam mattress on the floor.

    I am a master at utilizing small spaces. All I need are some particle board and a little duct tape, a jigsaw, and a drill. After a year and a half living in my car (which at 4 feet by 8 feet was practically a palace), I am an expert at staying clean, warm(ish), hydrated, and fed, even without consistent access to bathrooms, heaters, running water, and stoves and refrigerators.

    It’s amazing how humans can adapt to survive. For me, as long as I knew living in my car was temporary, I had hope that things could get better. However, now that the situation has drastically improved, the idea of having to live in my car again generates paralyzing dread.

    So I ripped out the build in my car.

    Yep. Stripped it down to its essence. The bed platform, the cabinets, the curtain rods, all gone. The minivan has reverted to a space to transport cargo. That’s what it was built to be. It was never meant to be a home. And now it’s not.

    It’s strange to think I fit my life into that small space. I did what I had to do while I waited for my name to come up on a waitlist. I coped. Every now and then, usually when I was sitting on my makeshift toilet trying to pee quietly in the middle of the night while parked on a Portland city street, I would have a sense of surreality, like the life I was living belonged to someone else. These were difficult moments.

    A couple times, I wondered what would happen if I stopped being able to cope. In those moments, I wondered how people around me would react if I started screaming. Each time, I eased myself back into the present moment, where the simple acts of daily living kept me grounded and sane. “Don’t dramatize. Lots of people are suffering. Millions would be thrilled to trade places with you. Get over it. Go refill your water jugs. Go get apples. Get gas. Dump your trash. Put out your solar panels. Keep going, don’t give up, and don’t be a jerk while you do it.”

    Now that I’m housed, the thought of going back into that small space makes me hyperventilate. That’s how I know how traumatic the past year and a half was for me. I couldn’t admit my fears while I was immersed in them. I would have given up. I’m stronger now, though. I know how to fit my life into a minivan box and survive until the situation gets better. I’ve always had the knack. It’s my superpower. If I have to invoke it again, I can and I will.

  • Still chronically malcontented after all these years

    I’m never satisfied. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing, I admit, I’m rarely content. I’m not always conscious that I’m not content. Lately I’m just taking life as it comes, but sometimes I wake up and realize things in the world, and in my life, could be better.

    I can’t do anything about the world’s problems, and my only choices to improve my own life are (a) change my attitude or (b) change my situation. I’m ruled by fear, I know. I fall repeately into the wreckage of the future.

    Speaking of future wrecking, this week, I signed a lease on a studio apartment in a low-income senior housing . . . what do you call it? A facility? A complex? It’s not a nursing home, I don’t think. It’s not big enough to be called a complex, whatever that is.

    I’ve seen the apartments from the outside, but I haven’t actually seen the apartment I’m renting. That’s nuts, right? At this point, I don’t care. As long as it has hot water, heat, and no cockroaches, I’m good. Mainly, I’m looking forward to making my family happy.

    So what did I do? I paid my rent, deposit, and the electricity deposit, and immediately left town.

    Actually I had a preplanned gig to babysit the little dog Maddie. I left Portland on Wednesday, stopped in Coos Bay to sign the lease and hand over a large amount of money, and then I hit the road, heading south toward the desert.

    Did you know that California hates travelers? I’d forgotten. California has arranged the rest areas along I-5 to be (a) stuck in endless renovation, (b) limited to an eight-hour stay, or (c) barred to overnight parking. I experienced this lack of courtesy on the drive north, which is why I ended up driving from the Cracker Barrel in Bakersfield all the way to the Welcome Center in Ashland, Oregon.

    This time, I made the trip in reverse. From Medford, I drove south on I-5, assuming I would come to a rest area that would put me up for the night. Closed, time limit, no overnight parking, yada yada. So I kept going south, heading toward the only place I knew I could park without a hassle. Yep. Cracker Barrel in Bakersfield.

    On the bright side, literally: the Beaver Moon. On the downside, I can’t see well at night. Plus, I wasn’t familiar with the road from I-5 to Bakersfield. Lots of irate drivers stacked up behind me. I’m always the pilot car. I put a handmade sticker on my back window: Go around me. It’s probably only readable when the semi behind me is about to crawl up my tail pipe.

    Remind me never to eat at Cracker Barrel again. What was I thinking? In my defense, I know I ate there once before, and I forgot that I had vowed not to repeat the horrors. Second worst coffee ever. I forget where I had the worst coffee. I won’t remember until I go there again.

    So now I’m sitting in my car, which is parked in the desert outside of Quartzsite, where everyone around me is doing the same thing, a hundred yards away in all directions, spread out like galaxies in the expanding universe. The breeze is light, the sun is shining, the sky is brilliant blue, and the temperature is heading up, up, up. Perfect. I’d stay here forever if it weren’t so dang hot in the summer. And if I had proper housing with air conditioning.

    But my life is about to change. Soon I will be housed, at least for the next year. My savings will drain away slowly, as they have since I left Portland in 2021. This trajectory can only go one way, unless I win the lottery, which is unlikely.

    I’m going to take contrary action and refuse to succumb to my chronically malcontented self. Out here, with the dome of blue sky overhead, I almost feel content. Soon I will be loading my stuff out of the storage unit and into my car to make the two-hour drive to my new town. I hope the apartment will not be too dark or depressing. I hope the people are nice, and more important, quiet. I hope I can find some cheap used furniture (the kind that doesn’t come with bedbugs). Mainly, I hope I have enough savings to last the year.

    If it all goes sideways . . . and if I my car still works, and if I can still drive, I can always come back to the desert.

  • 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.