How can a person begin to cope with the world as it is, what easy answers can be offered when it seems all hope is lost? What does it mean that I feel I was not among the lucky host who lost their lives in the senseless carnage in Las Vegas? How should I compare my situation with those in Puerto Rico drinking water from creeks and streams, homes and all possessions lost in the storm? How can I possibly compare my loss with those who have lost everything? I am worth no more than they, whose lives and loved ones were cast into disarray and death through events far outside their own control.
As the song says: Nobody's fault but mine.
I had a home, it was in a town I moved to for a job. The job lasted three days, no explanation why. The mortgage was another 30 years, but I defaulted within the first three months. It was a shitty little house, had been on the market for three years before I was foolish enough to stumble along. 4 year later I discovered a serious erosion issue in the foundation, serious enough to suggest no one would be more foolish than I was no matter how long the house sat empty. What does the savvy person do when faced with no hope of fixing the issue, and less hope of pawning it off onto someone else? What would The Donald do?
Walk away.
I hated living in Eagle River Wisconsin, starting the day my job was pulled out from under my feet. The very same feet that went to the trouble and expense of moving 250 miles to take on the job. The same feet which could not find a rental, inasmuch as I had 2 cats. Dogs? Let them shit everywhere they please. Just no cats.
Over the four years I held out in Eagle River, doing the very same work the job I was *banned* from the property did, I was able to survive. The first three years were very lean years and forced me onto food stamps. By the fourth year word of mouth had gotten around and I was kind of enjoying having my own home: not a rental, but a real home. With another 26 years to go on the mortgage but here I am at age 55 so who am I kidding? I’ll never pay the damn thing off before I die anyway. But then I found the stream under my stairs.
And I had a “friend” who lived down-state (indeed I went from the very top of Wisconsin to the very bottom — a 500 mile round trip that was hell on my old 1985 Chevy van. But after three or four round trips traipsing from one end of the state to the other, my “friend” decided, from her new residence in Eugene Oregon where she had fallen in love with another, who had up and dropped her house that her mom had bought for her, and dropped the 40 acre organic farm her aunt had bought for her (and her mom was paying the mortgage on) decided that NO, in fact the four feral cats she had left behind had precedence over her human friend. Four cats left alone in an old farmhouse since March of this year. I phoned her up when I entered the house to find the main floor nearly covered in cat feces, and I said “Lindsey, the cats have got to go”. The furniture was soaked in urine, and even though they were all hand-me-downs from the same aunt she refused to allow me to do the cleansing required. I counted 30 flea bites on my legs. Oh: and the front porch, where she was raising free-range chickens for eggs, still had 8 inches of straw and chicken crap.
By the time she evicted me for wanting to clean up properly I had found a shitty little empty store front that I thought I could make into my new upholstery shop, and signed a year lease at $600.00/month.
The store front had been empty for years. Water pipes burst from the freezing cold. I cut through 3 layers of floor to get to the PVC pipes and replace them. My first ten days in the shop, I had no water due to the burst pipes. I wouldn’t find the on-demand hot water heater until I was 5 weeks into my stay. Its down in the crawl space, plumbed but never plugged in. So after the fifth week I had some warmish water to give myself a wash-rag bath in the tiny restroom sink.
I walked away from my home, to live in my friend’s home, and do her farming thing (where I have some hops planted by the way) and the whole thing was supposed to be all happy, the storefront just a side-gig to take up my time while the primary source of my income, some indoor farming let’s call it, kept the bills at bay. I used to have a nice little crop coming in constantly because of my on-going cloning process. Nice stuff too, nearly as good as what my “friend” can buy in any store in Oregon totally legally, any time she cares to wander into the local “headshop”.
So my entire ongoing, rotating crop thingie has died. If it ever achieves legality here in Wisconsin, even medicinally, I am good for the doctor’s excuse, being HIV+ doncha know. But with no new home my whole process has fallen to pieces. I now depend on an old friend (who had some of his intestines cut out due to Crones) so between him & me we cover the Top 2 reasons for medical marijuana.
A couple other friends, who have obviously made far better Life Choices than I, have tried to lend a hand here and there but that tap has now run dry.
I tried, as best I could to make a go of things. Put on a happy face for the occasional customer walking into my front door. Try to maintain some level of personal hygiene even though all I had was a restroom sink and a trickle of warm water to bathe with. I did an awful lot of work on the place, like get all the outlets on the walls working again. Patch up holes in drywall. Except for the big one — I have no idea why this happened.
Yes, that is in my workshop. I just pulled down the tapestry I was using to hide it, cuz I’m getting kicked out anyway.
Try as I might though, the monies are not rolling in fast enough for me to actually cover the rent. Or water. Or electric. And today I found an eviction notice taped to my door.
My local AIDS agency, AIDS Resource Center Wisconsin (ARCW) have firmly told me to go fuck myself as it’s a commercial lease so OF COURSE! no help is available.
They suggest I check into a shelter. Pets? Fuck that idea. Two cats and a shelter puppy are as homeless as I am. And my heart breaks.
I swear to god, why wasn’t I lucky enough to be in Vegas last night? How come i couldn’t take a bullet and check-out peacefully, by someone else’s hand and not my own?
Maybe its my meds giving me these ideations. Maybe its just my lot in life.
Nobody's fault but mine, and I am considering paying the reaper his due.
No one lives forever.
I’ve tried this before, back when I lost the job I moved for. Back then I was told in no uncertain terms “This is NOT my family” when it comes to looking for outside help here on DailyKos. In the past, when I could and when need presented itself to others, I always pitched in to help. Remember Little Itzil? That was one of the times I threw into the pot to help someone I didn’t know.
So today I put out this plea: in ten days I get evicted from my shitty little upholstery shop space unless I produce $1800.00 cash money. All I can think of is how high my ceiling is here, how far up with my extension ladder reach, and which location seems sturdiest when suspending a dead weight.
Yes,, I have been looking for a “day job” as the leasing agent suggested. But really, since my “friend” kicked me out of her urine soaked, feces strewn, flea ridden farmhouse mommy bought for her, I have absolutely NO REASON to even be in Monticello WI.
And now, I will be living out of my 1985 Chevy Van, because my HIV agency refuses to offer housing assistance in a commercial lease, even though I am, in fact, living here.
Its damned embarrassing.
In case anyone cares my paypal username is patricksews@gmail.com.
Even as a child, I knew my end would come with a rope attached.