my journal: various subjects, opinionating, CW at times
The title explains itself.
If you're interested in the ramblings of a middle-aged man with chronic conditions who, at times, sees things a little too clearly for his own good, then read on.
Sometimes I get political, but it won't be all the time.
I don't mind comments in general but if you're going to differ with what I write, that's fine--as long as you can explain your position clearly & reasonably. Rants, shouting & general incoherence will be ignored or flagged, depending on the situation. Try to remember that not everyone else in this world holds your beliefs.
Every so often I may post art or snapshots of projects I'm working on.
If you're still interested after reading all the above, great. (I do wonder at how much time you have on your hands, though)
Currently lying down in the back seat of my pickup truck. It's almost four in the morning. Got a pillow, a comforter folded under me, a few other things. Plus all my c-clamps on three pieces of metal I scavved off sidewalks a good while back. The bed is half loaded now...
God, the things I do to secure the few valuable possessions I have. And here I thought my days of security work were long over. 🤦🏼♂️😄
@slowdecline48 This reads like the epilogue of a post-apocalyptic novel in the form of journal entries. Four in the morning is a good time to be awake and look at the sky—you can see the morning star in the eastern sky.. it is the brightest one (unless you aren't a morning person)
@azurePond One other factor: streetlights. 😒 Funny you should say that...maybe it's not so surprising, since I like post-apoc fiction.
@slowdecline48 oh oh light pollution... but the light pollution glows like Aurora? (post apocalyptic vibes again)
Forgot to mention that before packing my chisels, I rubbed beeswax all over the blades...took @7Bear7 's advice. That's it for now
Back in the apartment now, with bone-deep tiredness. Trying not to think about it since physical labor is something I'll have to get used to.
Am so exhausted, I didn't even wash up after I got back inside. The hot bath can wait.
Woke up & actually felt good for maybe two minutes. Still sore, of course, but for a moment life was pleasurable. Now I'm feeling a slight flare (to be expected, I guess)... Still, it feels like...movement. Like I'm in a kayak & it's going forward a little faster...as if the water under & around it started flowing towards something. That's what my life feels like atm.
It's exciting & all, but I hope I'm heading towards garden-variety rapids--not a waterfall. 🫤
...now I'm hungry. A working body needs fuel.
Well I f***ing hope not... The one we had because of C0vid & the Fed printing 💵 like it was going out of style was bad enough already.
Gonna do what I can after I get up... But what if the apartment is not up to the leasing company's standards & I don't give a damn?
What can they do? At most, they can send me a cleaning bill. But the only reason to pay it is to make sure my credit rating doesn't drop...at this point I have just about everything I need. I haven't put my next address on any form the leasing firm has so they won't know where I am. Worst thing the firm can do is hand the bill over to a collection agency or something. Like I said, it only matters if I need to apply for a loan at some point in the future...I don't see myself doing that for anything. Besides, any debts you have go off your record after a seven-year period.
@unassumingEyes - this is one of the ways adults make decisions: by knowing what other people & entities can do. If they can't do very much to someone in your position, there is no reason to worry.
@slowdecline48 Over 50 countries got back to Trump about the tariffs and many are going the way of Taiwan and dropping them to zero
Now I have to hurry...dammit. I hate hurrying.
@slowdecline48 Me too 😬 I hope the inspection goes good with no complaints from their end. Good luck!
@mytwistedsoul At this point I mostly don't give a s***...see next entry.
It's getting toward 1 a.m. & I'm sitting in my truck because it started raining for the 2nd time this evening. Which interrupted my moving stuff out of the apartment. I've been up since before 9 in the morning, busting my a.ss to get the stuff outta there. (For the first time ever, I regretted my scavenging habit) I figured out what I'm keeping--not too much--so most of what I've been doing is loading crates or just schlepping things to the patio, then downstairs & loading it on the truck bed, driving to one of the property dumpsters & tossing it in. Then drive back to the apartment, rinse & repeat.
Had to stop earlier when we had a downpour. Now it happened again. This is getting absurd.
I am not going to keep hauling stuff out of there like a worker ant. At this point I'm tired as h€ll... walking down the stairs is a bit iffy at this point. I am not going to be here the rest of the night. Most of my stuff is out now; I had started on the bedroom. Phuck it.
All I'm gonna load is what I'm taking with me...then it's down the road to a rest stop where hopefully I can take a shower. At least it'll be a place where I can lie down in the back seat & sleep.
The leasing office can send me a bill for clearing or whatever if they want.
In my defense, I did have the bathroom & most of the kitchen cleaned (by a professional).
It is irritating that I had to jettison a few more possessions than planned... Left my bicycle. And my jobsite table saw.
The rain wouldn't stop & it was soaking my clothes in the laundry basket. That I'm not as annoyed about because they're easier to replace. Oh well....perhaps this is another indication of a closing of one chapter of my life, & the beginning of a new one.
Also, this shows one of the advantages of a scavenging lifestyle: if you picked up something off the streets/during a dumpster dive/etc., you got it for free. If you have to let go of it, you haven't lost any money. 😁 Many items of my furniture were obtained while treasure hunting.
Am in my truck now, parked on my parcel.
I have learned much in the few years before this. But there is still much more I have to learn. Probably a good proportion of that is place-specific.
There is also a lot of work ahead. So much work.
...maybe the move was a brief preparation for it. One thing I know is I will be sore & tired quite often. Any kind of labor-saving trick out there that doesn't cost too much bread, I will happily use. Gonna hafta pay attention to personal grooming with all this going on, too.
It will be a lot to handle. But it is what I signed up for, so I can't complain too much.
If I hem the pair of jeans I got today, physically that would be taking it easy...it was under $5 at a thrift store. You don't get too picky in thrift stores.(It's the right waist size but the inseam is 34". I am not that tall) 😒
Since last night I haven't been able to find my antidepressant pills...think I have to call the pharmacy & tell them to re-up.
One last tidbit: while we're all supposed to be accepting of mental conditions here--I am for the most part--there are limits. Age regressors are on my list of pet peeves now. Sorry if that offends you but that's how I feel about it.
@slowdecline48 Hey! I was just thinking about you and wondering how things were going. What are you going to do for water out there? You could get a storage tank maybe two and get them filled with potable water. Depending on what you get they're not too expensive. That might be more down the line though. You could get a camp shower but you'd still have to fill it. That would help with hygiene though and you have to make sure you stay hydrated. Especially with the heat and humidity down there 😬
@mytwistedsoul Less pain overall...probably because the rest of me has been sore from all the lifting & dragging. 😏 The body can only focus (for lack of a better word) on one source of pain at a time, or at least not a bunch at once.
Re H2O: I have two gallon jugs in the truck with me. (And other stuff. It's getting cramped in here! How in the f*** am I supposed to keep organized??) Also two glass carboys in the rental storage unit--they can hold 11 gallons total but I don't fill them up all the way because they're fearsomely heavy, especially the 6-gal. one. A larger container would be nice but that brings up access & purity issues...gotta keep the water drinkable. Unless the larger container is limited to water for washing dishes & oneself (I thought of this a couple days ago) You have a point there: in situations like this, personal grooming can be very difficult.
If worse comes to worst, there are rest stops in the general area. They're a bit of a drive north from here but they do have showers, washers & dryers for clothing, etc. (I discovered one for the first time on the way here...quite a few semi trucks parked behind it. No lot lizards, thank God)
Am not entirely without electricity if it gets important, either. Been charging my phone from the cigarette lighter outlet in the truck, so no prob there. I also have a generator...medium-sized. Not something you can run a house of appliances off of but it will keep a battery charger juiced, so I can use my drill, circular saw & angle grinder.
There is a laundromat in town as well....it's not open 24-7, though. In small-town America they roll up the sidewalks at midnight to 1 a.m.
The only other thing that concerns me is food. I have no refrigeration anywhere...it will all be canned, dried or cooked as soon as I get home. That'll be a challenge.
@slowdecline48 Oh damn I never gave refrigeration a thought! 🤦♂️ Coleman's make a decent ice chest (according to reviews) that's supposed to hold ice for 5 days. That probably depends on the conditions I'm sure. It's not that expensive either ($64) but ice would get costly after awhile - 20 lbs costs 7 bucks here. 7 bucks for frozen water (smh) They do make really small refrigerators that plug into car lighters. I'm not sure how good they are or how much they would drain your battery. All of this is added expense too
@mytwistedsoul , @unassumingEyes , @azurePond et al -
When I started this little adventure I knew that whatever I'm doing, I cannot afford to lose the keys to my truck.
Locking yourself out of your vehicle is irritating & embarrassing enough under normal circumstances. However, this video adds an unnerving angle to the situation...by all the gods mankind ever conceived I hadn't even f***ing thought about it.
...now I feel like I should have the ignition key permanently attached to me somehow...
Admittedly, if I screw up like that my situation isn't quite as bad. There are many items to cover oneself with in a forest.
(Go ahead & laugh)
@slowdecline48 why would you have thought of that possibility 😂😂
@unassumingEyes Are you sure you want an answer to that question... 😏
@slowdecline48 maybe not-
@unassumingEyes 😂😂
@slowdecline48 😂😂 I have locked myself out of my truck twice but I wasn't naked 😂 😂
If I have anything to say about it, I will never end up on the evening news or YT like
@slowdecline48 You'd be the Florida man of the day! 😂😂
@slowdecline48 I was really holding it together until he said he peed in a beer can... then I had tears in my eyes 😭😭 Also.. Larry deserved that beer — he's a real one. I have one annoying friend just like him. The way he saw the pizza boxes and said 'You said you weren’t hungry' — that's no best friend..that's a soul mate.
@azurePond Does your annoying friend sometimes act like she's nine years old? 😃
@slowdecline48 Yes. But the blame is on me .... my friend is trying to level with me by acting 9. But I just look like a 9 year old though. ( Translation : short)
Am not off to as great a start as I'd planned.... I was up last night with the runs (had to keep getting out of Avispado with pants & shoes on.). The chest pain is almost gone.
Still got all that stuff to do, but now the sun is high & it's high outside.
I could fix up my two older pair of jeans...one is a little threadbare. The sewing kit is in the bad with my other stuff.
*hot outside
Also there's a little divot out of one of the rear tires...better get that taken care of soon. Last thing I need is a blowout through the sidewall--no matter where I am.
I have a suspicion that inflation will pick up in May, & keep going in June.
Keep an eye on prices, my fellow Americans.
...that was a h€ll of a way to start the day.
Now I gotta do laundry. 😤 I hate doing laundry...
@slowdecline48 I hate doing laundry too.... except money laundering....(for legal reasons this is a joke)
You shouldn't wash dirty cash anyway unless you're already an expert. For that, I know a guy.
⬆️(This, too, is a joke. Rest easy, Mr. FBI agent)
In other unimportant news: the tires on my great steel beast of burden have a shorter life than I had thought....next week they will be replaced. Currently:
I'm livin' hobo fabulous.
@slowdecline48 That sucks! Tires are expensive 😬
@mytwistedsoul Yeah, especially the good ones. I didn't go for a top-of-the-line set, but I did not opt for a brand on the bottom of the ladder either. The truck is a beast of burden*...he is going to have to earn his keep. So to keep mixing metaphors here, if he's gonna pull weight & do it off the pavement then he needs good shoes, for traction.
*Right now, he is also where I sleep. 🤪
@slowdecline48 😭The joke made me laugh, then the image made me cry 😭
At least the journal hasn't left you bored 😂
Today it's Passover...considering my situation overall, my nonobservance is understandable.
Yesterday was rather busy--the afternoon was, at least--so today I'm not doing much.
Still gotta get the tires replaced this Monday...or Tuesday, if I have a flare-up or anything. Hopefully that won't be the case.
Yesterday evening it rained...drove home in it & went through my first period of rain inside the truck. I handled it well enough, I guess.
Also - Net connection is spotty out here...at least for my phone. Will have to make sure nothing is loose inside the phone itself once I'm a bit more settled.