Five Facts.

[oak]

Thank you for the continued five facts. It is some of the best writing I read all day. Well done.

Do not feel obligated, or bad, even, if you don't feel like posting. Facing homelessness is a difficult situation.

When I was couch surfing for some years, as recently as 2012, I realize now I was involved in a scam. Most of modern life is a scam, I am coming to realize. For me the question is not "Am I getting scammed?" but rather "Am I getting paid/compensated well enough for the scamming that is being perpetuated on me?".

What I realize now, my friend, is that the people who lorded over me being able to couch surf were no wiser/better/smarter than me. They had a couch. And a better plan a few years earlier so they had a couch to rent to me. Often times they proved to be dumber than me, with much worse plans. But they had a couch.

When you say "moral system" I see that phrases, in my own experience, as "scam". A socially polite, acceptable scam.

Music in the morning is impolite, and house keys are lost. The couch-landlord can be capricious indeed, but couch (no pun intended) their scam in righteous indignation. But it is just a scam.

Some terrible advice: if the question is not IF we're going to be scammed (we are) but if we are going to be compensated properly for the scamming that society is giving us.

I am not much for Twitter, but I found much truth in the following, spoken in jest by Joanne the Scammer: Scam today before today scams you.

Sorry if this doesn't make any sense!

[HowDidIGetHere]

Man, I think maybe we are twins separated at birth.

Or maybe it's just standard-issue "hard recovery" stuff. I mean, I've known a lot of people in the rooms who sound a lot like us and they're usually the ones for whom putting down the substance was only the beginning of what turned out to be an incredibly hard path. If they're lucky, they get through it without picking up, but not always—and not always without a major intervention of another kind (hospital or jail, usually).

I don't know, man. Right now, it's just so damn exhausting to want so desperately to stop moving but to be unable to. Even worse when all I really want is to be left alone to just try to get through the rest of my life without killing anyone, myself included.

Boy, I sound just like I did when I first started going to meetings.

[oak]

Very good, How. Hang in there, man.

You're going to make it through this.

I'll look forward to more posts here when you get a chance.

[HowDidIGetHere]

1. While I'm typing this, I'm listening to this documentary on Netflix: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_drummers_dream/. Music—both listening to it and making it—is one of the purest joys I've ever experienced. (Side note: Afro-Caribbean rhythms? Unbelievable. Totally unbelievable.)

2. Ironically enough, I've also got tremendous stage fright. I used to be able to play in front of people many years ago, but I haven't even tried lately. So maybe I should say I used to have tremendous stage fright.

3. Embarrassing admission: I'm told I was a very good musician as a kid. There's still part of me that thinks I could have been a child prodigy and resents the fact that it didn't happen.

4. As I sit here, I wonder how things will be different once I'm being properly treated for whatever the hell is wrong with me. Especially when it comes to creative things. Like, maybe I'll actually be able to start a project and finish it all in a reasonable amount of time.

5. I'm wondering why so many monastic orders don't allow their members to play or listen to music. I mean, any musician will tell you that playing can be as close to seeing God as anything. Maybe they don't like not having control over what kind of religious experience people are having.

[HowDidIGetHere]

1. I chose to sleep on the street for the past four nights rather than stay with my partner because her PTSD and my (I'm guessing) borderline personality were leading to violence every morning and I couldn't deal with it anymore.

2. I'm hungry and tired and about to start crying in the library because I just want to go home, but there's no home to go to.

3. I've also been at half dose of my antidepressant because I only got two weeks' worth from the clinic and I don't see how I'll ever get treated while I'm living like this.

4. I saw a survey of people teaching themselves to code and there were people in their 60s and 70s included. It made me think of oak (not because I think he's 60), which I thought was nice.

5. I want to go home more than Dorothy. I will kill any number of wicked witches. Just let me go home.

[HowDidIGetHere]

1. Last night, my sleepmate was a giant papier mache skull on wheels that was left over from a Dia de los Muertos parade last year. It was pretty damn awesome.

2. This morning, I woke up with my back to the sunrise and got to see some truly beautiful pink and orange clouds in the distance.

3. I think it's completely insane that I'm holding down a job and posting on message boards while sleeping outside next to papier mache skulls.

4. I met a guy this morning while waiting for the library to open up. The first thing he did was offer me one of his cigarettes. The next thing he did was give me a lemon Warhead. Homeless people (myself not included) are way more generous than others.

5. Near the papier mache skull was a custom pinata maker, which is pretty damn awesome just by its existence.

Bonus fact: I got to put my bare feet in cold green grass for the first time is years this morning. It felt amazingly normal.

[oak]

You know, the word "perfect" gets thrown around a lot these days. But #1, which is as far as I've gotten, is perfect. It just keeps getting better. It is a novel in one sentence.

It is worthy of Burrows, Bukowski, and Orwell.

Thanks for the namecheck. And while I am not 60, I am pleased to hear older folks are studying code: that demonstrates that we can change, grow, and try on new identities.

When you get a chance, keep doing what you're doing: using your words. I am sorry to hear that you are suffering, but I am glad that you are expressing yourself.

Hang in there. Someday this will be in your rearview mirror.

[HowDidIGetHere]

Thanks, oak. I wish I could post a picture here more easily because it was really a sight to see. The paper skin was half shed and there was a steel-and-chicken wire skeleton underneath, all rusted and brown. I kept wondering if they'd strip the rest of the skin and reuse it for this year, but I'm kinda hoping they don't.

[HowDidIGetHere]

1. I just glanced over and realized that the message board software includes this emoji: . Can you think of anything more out of place here?

2. Last night, I was resting on the grass in the park and looking up at the stars after not having eaten all day. Just then, a guy named Marcus came around with a big box of snacks and offered me one, along with a couple of sheets of Bible study. I'm not much of a believer anymore, but I could surely see how Marcus might have been a gift from the universe.

3. I even said a little "god bless you" for Marcus. Not because I believe in God, but because Marcus does.

4. Earlier in the day, I had found a little Gideon bible—just the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. The cover was the latest army desert camo pattern.

5. I took a picture of it on the ground. I gotta tell you, that camo pattern really works. Even up close.

[HowDidIGetHere]

1. Gratitude is probably the hardest thing in the world to hold onto—except perhaps for the thrill of the first high.

2. I'm watching a couple of elderly Mexican (probably) folks practicing their sign language in a Target in Arizona. Apparently, they come here to learn sign because they can't learn it at home. "Dirty immigrants" my ass.

3. I'm off the street this week and I want to go back.

4. I used to think that I had allergies and asthma from my earliest days, but a while back my mother told me they didn't appear until I was about three and a half. I just realized yesterday that's about the time my little sister was born.

5. I always hated movies and TV shows that showed the nerdy asthmatic kid who'd start wheezing every time he got scared. Now I'm thinking I was that kid all along.