More Holiday Joy

Another holiday looms ahead like a lousy Super Bowl halftime show: Thanksgiving. I think this and Christmas are he toughest holidays for homeless people, because most of us have no place to go to enjoy fellowship, comfort, and the traditional meals except at the usual bumfeeds. Well, there is fellowship to be found among our peers, but even those among us who are social sometimes get tired of hearing the same tirades, snivelings, dunderheaded discussions, and lame jokes all told over godawful malt liquor. I guess it's just hard to feel thankful while out here basting ourselves in false cheer, and the love of God and the fellowship of man both seem pretty far away when the yule log serves only as an impromptu seat and the mistletoe serves only to keep the rain or snow imperfectly at bay. Even as nice as it is to be gifted hand warmers and knit hats, such utilitarian charity doesn't really feel like presents, at least not like the cool stuff some of us used to get when we were kids.

Don't think that I'm maudlin; I'm actually pretty used to being a loner and eating instant mashed potatoes. I'm just saying that it's not much fun to realize that you're going to be pushing a shopping cart full of bottles and cans most of the day while there's people snug indoors, basking in the luxury of petty grievances about certain relatives and seasons-greeting repeats on TV. But, at the very least, I can say that I may spend the holiday season at least unmolested by my sketchy tweaker troglodyte neighbors in the area, which is indeed something to be thankful for. Until yesterday there was two encampments within a block of me and two vehicles parked on the street my loading dock lies on; as of last night only one encampment remains, which I will leave be until I start feeling like I'm being stalked by kleptomaniacal ghouls or am just getting woken up a lot by midnight noise and traffic.

In fact, yesterday afternoon I fired off a first salvo in a war I may or may not end up waging against the unsavory elements that have recently inundated the neighborhood. I printed out a dozen fliers and distributed them to the businesses near where I “live”, effectively encouraging their workers to call the police non-emergency number to complain whenever a meth-fueled compound gets erected nearby. Community policing. Half of the recipients commiserated with me as we traded stories of vandalism and theft; the other half gave me surreal glassy-eyed passive stares masking half-assed laissez-faire indignation and consternation as if I were espousing some kind of Endlösung for the homeless. We'll see how it pans out. I really don't plan on doing much more than expanding the distribution of fliers and calling the police whenever I feel too encroached upon; I can only effect my environment so much.

Another Casualty

Shitty Dave¹ died last night, The Abstract World (another Dave) told me. Dave was one of those hardcore street drunks, the kind who will pass out before 3:00 PM in painful-looking contortions on a set of concrete stairs around the corner of the local gas station. The kind of guy who had two (or was it three?) toes amputated a couple years ago because he passed out on aforementioned stairs before 3:00 PM on a snowy day without being properly dressed for the weather and without being with it enough to at least drag the sleeping bag off his shopping cart to cover himself. The kind of guy whose sleeping bags — and even the shopping cart he used to carry them — periodically got stolen. The kind of guy who hung out with jackass thieves, who for the past five months have waited for him to pass out so they could yank all the cash out of his wallet after he'd already paid for their beers; a $1600 a month disability check siphoned into a murky bog of douchebag addict opportunism. The kind of guy who could have used that money to get into housing, so he wouldn't have died on the street only fifty yards away from the hospital emergency room.

A somber reminder of how life on the streets can abruptly end. I don't drink like Dave did, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that I may one day mimic his disgraceful and tragic demise. Fortunately I've resumed participation in Central City Concern's various therapy modules: acupuncture, group therapy, one-on-ones with my counselor/case manager, and trying out things like yoga, art journaling, and whatever other classes and workshops pique my interest and strike me as being edifying. In a moment of an embarrassingly “Duh!” epiphany, it recently occurred to me that I haven't gotten anywhere because I haven't DONE ANYTHING! It's easy to be bored, bitter, and booze-saturated when all you're doing every day is canning and sitting at a local community center playing emulated MSX games while listening to Gwar. It's also an easy lifestyle to get used to, sitting around in between binges, scavenging for scraps and waiting for handouts. So, as I've said numerous times before it's time for me to fabricate some motivation and get serious about improving not only my health but the quality of my life. Which also means as soon as I get my food stamps on the first I'm going to start volunteering at both FreeGeek and Bike Farm, even if it's only to get out of the neighborhood and out of my head for a few hours a week. It's disheartening to realize that I'm going to have to psychologically ram a cattle prod up my ass to get started doing these things, let alone to sustain the effort; it's one thing to be too lazy to do one load of laundry at a time, it's another thing to be too lazy to do things that genuinely interest you and that enhance the quality of life.

As for Dave ... well, I'm honestly not the least bit choked up over his death. He kind of had it coming, and there's also the chilling but nonetheless valid argument that a life that wasn't all that worth living could hardly be tragically lost. It's too bad, though, because he was an okay guy, and if he'd have gotten into housing he probably would have lasted a while longer and died in relative comfort and dignity once his demise finally caught up with him. It's also a bit ironic, in that the jerks that took advantage of him and ripped him off are alive and well, and probably even eulogize the man they abused in drunken moments of skewed camaraderie and reminiscence. When in fact they can be considered partially, if only peripherally, responsible for his death.

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1. He was called this because he tended to crap his pants all the time. The Abstract World thinks it's because he used it as a repellent to cops and CHIERS, ensuring that he wouldn't get hauled off to the drunk tank or jail whenever he got busted for an open container.

Arctic Incursion

I'm sitting in the Friendly House wondering where in hell this damn arctic blast came from. Well, okay, I know WHENCE it came — I just said as much — but I'm still reeling in incredulity at the timing and ferocity of the frigid tendril that crept down the Columbia Gorge the day before yesterday out of the middle of the continent. It feels like Portland's getting a prolonged prostate exam by some naughty jǫtunn! It completely blind-sided us (especially those of us living outside!), practically shutting half the city down when the freezing rain and snow flurries swept over us yesterday; you have to understand, this time of year the average low is just above forty (5°C) and the average high just above fifty (11°C). And, it's not over yet: wind chill will push temperatures in the twenties (-2°C) down into the teens (-10°C) starting tonight and lasting through until Sunday night, after which the weather is predicted to slowly creep back up toward the seasonal average. I hope so, and we end up with the mild winter, but even NOAA seems to be rather poor at making long-term predictions; it's certainly time to begin preparing for the worse.

Fortunately, I've only suffered mild discomfort so far, and that mostly yesterday when the Friendly House was closed all day because of how poorly equipped Portland is to handle ice and snow. I ended up canning most of the day because there's really not much for a person living on the streets to do when most everything's closed. Well, there is, but other than meandering from one grocery store to another in order to warm up while loitering an hour or two at a time the only places to go that are warm are the daytime warming centers, which are usually packed to the gills with the more cantankerous and malodorous ne'er do well among street folk. I'll have to be in danger of more than mere discomfort to bring myself to dine at a grim soup-line mockery of Valhalla's tables. We'll see how my gear holds up over the next couple nights, though, and even though I'm a dignified person I'm not so foolish as to risk hospitalization for frostbite or pneumonia just to steer clear of the more troglodyte among my kin.

I don't think it will come to anything more than maybe a repeat of yesterday's nickel-scrounging on Sunday when the Friendly House is closed again and the library's only open for five hours. And, even then, I can just jump on the light rail and ride back and forth between Gresham and Hillsboro reading and writing if I weary of the cold and the tedium. One nice effect of the sudden and lingering cold snap is that I'm less interested in drinking, and not just because I'm averse to dying from exposure; who in Dante's ninth circle of hell in his right mind would want to drink cold beer in freezing weather? Well, the likes of Captain Caveman would, and I'm sure did, but I'm not even fractionally as obstinate in my foolishness as the more hard-core drunk among my peers are. If it ever came down to having to steal to support my alcoholic habit, I'd simply kick my habit; even now, though I am surely an addict, I don't beg or borrow in order to alleviate the symptoms of physical withdrawals (which fortunately I only seldom allow to occur) — I just bite the bullet and feel like crap for a day or two if I can't or don't feel like canning up the money.

Wish me luck for the next two or three days! And feel free to flip off the North Pole with me in sympathy, or perhaps even solidarity.

Fuck This!

Sometimes I just don't feel like doing this. Sometimes I just don't feel like doing anything. I suppose that nihilistic apathy is caused by depression, and by that I mean the clinical depression that is a legitimate and life-diminishing mental disorder not just “feeling blue”. Insofar as this blog is concerned, it's because I get tired of talking about how much of a failure or fool I am, how hopeless and pointless life seems, and how annoying or boring people and life are for me. I never felt like talking about my feelings or about the adversities of life is cathartic; in fact, I've generally only felt more distressed whenever I did. It also seems like a futile and impotent gesture to me, like a torrent of words as purposeful and effective as a stream running uphill into the sky.

It doesn't help that we got suddenly slammed by a very early and uncharacteristic arctic incursion, resulting in 30 mph winds in freezing temperatures. Where in hell does this stuff come from? I don't remember these kinds of weather patterns occurring when I was growing up here! Is global warming going to turn my normally mild and damp winters into beachfront property along the shores of Lake Cocytus? I suppose I'm just mad that I didn't prepare myself for this; I wasn't planning on truly cold weather until nearer the end of this month, by which time I would have finagled enough money to get long johns and a better sleeping bag and a tarp. Not only that, but even though there are blankets being collected and handed out, there's massive lines for them and they're all being distributed two miles away and at night when the wind chill drops the temperatures down into the low twenties! I think I will take whatever housing I can get, whenever my number comes up on the wait lists, even if said housing is a psychosis-driven and alcohol-fueled roach hotel poisoned by lead and asbestos.

Fuck this; I'll talk to y'all next week.