Friday, May 6, 2011
The Prologue.
It was 2:25am on a Friday morning when I realized that everything had already been done and that there was nothing left for me to do. Its been taken, its all saturated. This lead me to a place where I felt an absence of purpose. I quite deliberately mean that I felt and absence and not that I just didn’t feel I had a purpose, that would be wrong to say. I did feel. I know that I felt something just then in the middle of the night as I thought about all the bad things to come and I knew that it felt so heavy, so terribly ominous and far reaching that it pushed everything else far away into a hungry darkness, creating an absence. An absence of purpose. A hard downshifting into neutral. I had been under the impression that my whole life was a thing that I was to mold, to keep and to nurture, for the day when I would be called up from the dregs of mediocrity to fulfill my calling, my purpose. Now that day would never come. I was a kid in a pair of pants and a shirt I hated taking off. I was nobody. I am nobody.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A LOT HAS HAPPENED...
I think we all know that I hate blogging. It is so disenchanting especially when you feel like your day to day is uneventful. However. There is some news.
I was planning on staying in the van til June. And I was looking forward to it very much as I knew the weather would be warming and I could finish out my little project like I started it -in the glory days of the hot sun! Life has had different plans for me though.
On March 31st I asked the love of my life, my best friend, the most wonderful human ever to be born up in this earth yo, Heidi, to marry me. Where did I ask her? On top of the van of course. And she said yes and cried and cried and slobbered a little bit. I will tell the full details of this story very shorty.
So we are getting married in July and in preparation started looking for a place to live for around then. Turns out that our dream place had an opening around the first of May and we pounced on that junk.
SO I MOVED OUT OF THE VAN AND NOW, AS OF MAY 1ST, I LIVE IN AN APARTMENT WITH A BED AND WITH A SHOWER AND A KITCHEN!!!!!!!!!!
This sudden exodus from the life that I have come to somehow see as normal for the last year has sparked something in me. In the mayhem of the life I was living I just could not see anything that was interesting to write about, or talk about, or even think about. On top of several other factors, I was toward the end of my stint, since about December, suffering -and I mean suffering- from a strange form of insomnia not unlike a phenomenon that I have recently read about that happens in Arctic places like Greenland, called Polar Hysteria. More on this later too.
These things that have beaten and worn me down over the past year had left me lifeless and completely without creative function. When I got the key to our new place I practically broke the door down, stripped off all my clothes, and rushed into the shower. (p.s. its a real nice shower...) I guess there, underneath my own shower head, behind my very own map-of-the-world-shower-curtain, I had a long awaited baptism. Those big warm beautiful drops of water began to wash away the life of the past year, cleansing me from the outside in. I stepped out a new person, or maybe the person I had been before. Ive been showering DAILY ever since. The apartment life took some adjusting though and still does. More on this to come too......
What this post is, if you have noticed, is me letting you know that I have a lot to write about. I want to put on paper, if but cyber paper, the incredible flood of new perspectives and feelings that I have about leaving normalcy, and heading straight into a world of uncomfortable, sleepless, freezing, poor, destitution. Ill tell you it all. As a matter of fact, I have had so much to say about this whole thing, whatever this thing was, that I have been writing non stop for the past few weeks. I want to get the whole story, the entire thing down. I have over 60 typed pages covering just the first week of homelessness at this point. Stay tuned and Ill share as much of it as I can.
I want your feedback. I want your approval. I want your criticism. I want you to read this.
Kurt.
I was planning on staying in the van til June. And I was looking forward to it very much as I knew the weather would be warming and I could finish out my little project like I started it -in the glory days of the hot sun! Life has had different plans for me though.
On March 31st I asked the love of my life, my best friend, the most wonderful human ever to be born up in this earth yo, Heidi, to marry me. Where did I ask her? On top of the van of course. And she said yes and cried and cried and slobbered a little bit. I will tell the full details of this story very shorty.
So we are getting married in July and in preparation started looking for a place to live for around then. Turns out that our dream place had an opening around the first of May and we pounced on that junk.
SO I MOVED OUT OF THE VAN AND NOW, AS OF MAY 1ST, I LIVE IN AN APARTMENT WITH A BED AND WITH A SHOWER AND A KITCHEN!!!!!!!!!!
This sudden exodus from the life that I have come to somehow see as normal for the last year has sparked something in me. In the mayhem of the life I was living I just could not see anything that was interesting to write about, or talk about, or even think about. On top of several other factors, I was toward the end of my stint, since about December, suffering -and I mean suffering- from a strange form of insomnia not unlike a phenomenon that I have recently read about that happens in Arctic places like Greenland, called Polar Hysteria. More on this later too.
These things that have beaten and worn me down over the past year had left me lifeless and completely without creative function. When I got the key to our new place I practically broke the door down, stripped off all my clothes, and rushed into the shower. (p.s. its a real nice shower...) I guess there, underneath my own shower head, behind my very own map-of-the-world-shower-curtain, I had a long awaited baptism. Those big warm beautiful drops of water began to wash away the life of the past year, cleansing me from the outside in. I stepped out a new person, or maybe the person I had been before. Ive been showering DAILY ever since. The apartment life took some adjusting though and still does. More on this to come too......
What this post is, if you have noticed, is me letting you know that I have a lot to write about. I want to put on paper, if but cyber paper, the incredible flood of new perspectives and feelings that I have about leaving normalcy, and heading straight into a world of uncomfortable, sleepless, freezing, poor, destitution. Ill tell you it all. As a matter of fact, I have had so much to say about this whole thing, whatever this thing was, that I have been writing non stop for the past few weeks. I want to get the whole story, the entire thing down. I have over 60 typed pages covering just the first week of homelessness at this point. Stay tuned and Ill share as much of it as I can.
I want your feedback. I want your approval. I want your criticism. I want you to read this.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Cold Souls
Im finally doing it folk. Im spending the night sleeping through negative degree temperatures tonight. Wish me luck. If Im frozen to death in the morning lets have a charity auction and sell my van off. Wait. No. I want you to light the van on fire and drop it off a helicopter into the arctic ocean!
Monday, January 10, 2011
THE HOW TO GUIDE TO MAKING IT IN AMERICA!
This is a comprehensive guide to help you make it during these troubling times in America. Ive learned quite a few things in the past six months living on the road and hope to learn even more in the next six months! Im going to share some of those things the best I can with you.
1. GET IN CONTROL OF YOUR MONEY!
I cant tell you how good it feels to not have to calculate rent or utilities or cable bills into my monthly finances. Its incredibly liberating. It has made me so anxious to be in control of my money for the rest of my life. never again do I want to be at the mercy of a company or a board of trustees or the government. I want to be cushioned from all of those things with warm, soft cash (as opposed to cold hard cash). Ive been reading up and practicing and have come up with a few good tips. Live on a third of what you make, if possible folks. Im currently making crap money and yet I have reduced my spending to around a fourth of my income. Ill tell you it feels a whole bunch better than sitting in front of a TV or having a hot shower everyday, as crazy as that may sound. I know not everyone can live out of a broken down old junker van but I think that any step you can take toward, well I guess AWAY from dependence on money, is a step worth taking. If you want something then its very simple you see. Simply do whatever it takes. And I think that will be the point of this post. The American dream may not be what we have always thought. It may not be a white picket fence and a wrap around porch. It may not be a golden retriever and a wife that wears flirty aprons and heels to cook dinner. It might not be a job that requires a suitcase and a shoe shine. But perhaps it is something more fundamental. Perhaps it is just what I said before. America is the place wear you can do what it takes. It might be just as hard as it could be elsewhere in the world, and sometimes even harder. You may have to sift and wade through so much red tape and grey matter that you lose sight of whats real and whats fair and what isn't. But, if you think about it, the American dream is still out there, whatever that may be for each of us. The great thing is that we are allowed to do whatever it takes to try and grab it. I live in a trunk. Some live on a park bench. Some borrow on their name. Others may just 'go with the flow'. And gosh darn it thats America.
Next: Thinking outside the house!
1. GET IN CONTROL OF YOUR MONEY!
I cant tell you how good it feels to not have to calculate rent or utilities or cable bills into my monthly finances. Its incredibly liberating. It has made me so anxious to be in control of my money for the rest of my life. never again do I want to be at the mercy of a company or a board of trustees or the government. I want to be cushioned from all of those things with warm, soft cash (as opposed to cold hard cash). Ive been reading up and practicing and have come up with a few good tips. Live on a third of what you make, if possible folks. Im currently making crap money and yet I have reduced my spending to around a fourth of my income. Ill tell you it feels a whole bunch better than sitting in front of a TV or having a hot shower everyday, as crazy as that may sound. I know not everyone can live out of a broken down old junker van but I think that any step you can take toward, well I guess AWAY from dependence on money, is a step worth taking. If you want something then its very simple you see. Simply do whatever it takes. And I think that will be the point of this post. The American dream may not be what we have always thought. It may not be a white picket fence and a wrap around porch. It may not be a golden retriever and a wife that wears flirty aprons and heels to cook dinner. It might not be a job that requires a suitcase and a shoe shine. But perhaps it is something more fundamental. Perhaps it is just what I said before. America is the place wear you can do what it takes. It might be just as hard as it could be elsewhere in the world, and sometimes even harder. You may have to sift and wade through so much red tape and grey matter that you lose sight of whats real and whats fair and what isn't. But, if you think about it, the American dream is still out there, whatever that may be for each of us. The great thing is that we are allowed to do whatever it takes to try and grab it. I live in a trunk. Some live on a park bench. Some borrow on their name. Others may just 'go with the flow'. And gosh darn it thats America.
Next: Thinking outside the house!
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