Christmas in a car

'Tis the season for all the people in the upper Midwest to migrate to southern Arizona. It's not hard to understand why. Days here are mild and generally sunny. For example, yesterday was 80°F. Nights hover around 43°F, rarely dropping below freezing. Compared to Boston's 12°F, this place is a winter paradise. That's why you see license plates from Minnesota, Montana, and North Dakota, especially on RVs. In the winter, Tucson hosts RVs of all shapes, sizes, and conditions. However, the real action is happening now in Quartzsite, the mecca of nomad life. I plan to head that way in mid-January for the annual meetup. Yes, I'm officially a nomad. Meanwhile, I lurk around the Tucson area, soaking up solar when I can and trying to stay warm in the early morning hours before sunrise. 

I remember my first Christmas in Los Angeles. 1977. It felt surreal. Royal palms are not a substitute for a freshly cut Douglas Fir dragged into the house and set in a red metal dish of water, where it is supposed to stay green until New Year's, when you take off as much tinsel as you can and chuck the thing in the trash. Eventually the Boy Scouts offered recycling programs for dead trees. If you really cared about the environment, which we did not, you'd buy a live tree in a pot and then plant it in the ground, where it would be dead by summer. And if you had given up on the whole stupid thing, like my mother finally did, you'd buy an artificial tree, store it in the basement, and pull it out on December 15, still decorated from last year. 

I dread going into stores at this time of year. The music, the stench, the crowds—it's all too much for my introvert Grinch. However, today I went to both Walmart and Target, looking for something cheap and specific. I couldn't find it, but I did notice something surprising: There were no crowds. It was mid-morning, prime shopping time, and I saw fewer people than I'd see on any regular Sunday morning. 

Maybe everyone already bought their penguin pajamas, beer, and gift wrapping. 

Maybe they all fear crowds as much as I do and did all their shopping online. 

Maybe they've sworn off consumerism in an effort to do their part to save the environment. 

Nah.

'Tis the season to wish each other well, so here goes: Wherever you are, I hope you are as warm as you want to be and as happy as you will allow yourself to be. 

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket.

Two brainiacs walked into a bar

I drew this picture in 2003, long before I had any reason to whine about medications. Back in the old days, when I was young and naive, when I thought because I didn't drink, smoke, or eat meat, I was therefore invincible. Back when I assumed I'd live to be a hundred. Ha.

I won't say my life is ruled by meds now that I'm older, because that wouldn't be true, and plus, it would be giving way too much of my brain space to the conundrum of mortality. However, I take a lot more meds than I used to. Less than many, probably, and I'm grateful to have healthcare, which I assume will continue even if the C-suite happens to meet with an unfortunate accident. 

I know it's foolish, but taking all these medications sometimes makes me feel like a moral failure. However, I admit to a thrill of triumph when I see the impressed look on the med aide's face when they take my blood pressure. It only takes two blood pressure medications to keep my BP looking good. 

I probably mentioned my brainiac neurologist disagrees with my diagnosis of vestibular paroxysmia. Why she should trust her years of eduation and experience in favor of my imprecise, anecdotal tales of woe is beyond me. I'd be happy with a little empathy. I've heard surgeons are incapable of empathy, which is why they go into a field where they (mostly) don't have to think about bedside manner. It might be the same with vestibular neurologists. I bet most of the patients this doctor meets are weepy, anxious, wobbly whiners who can't describe their symptoms beyond "I fall over and I can't get up." I think I might be an anomaly. I know my malady is kind of rare, but the fact that I show up having read the NIH articles about my condition might be something she has never encountered.

Anyway, all that to say, after Med #1 lost some of its effectiveness, she prescribed Med #2. She said I should know after the first week if it was going to work or not. I appreciated that information. I stuck it out for two weeks and reported that the new medication had not only made the symptoms worse but also given me a new set of symptoms to complain about. She told me to keep taking Med #1 and stop taking Med #2. She's cooking up Med #3 as we speak. Not literally, I hope. She's a brilliant brainiac, so you never know. She might have a lab in her basement.

Yesterday I was at a grocery store parking my empty cart in the cart parking place like a good little shopper when I noticed an older white-haired woman pushing her loaded cart in circles, scanning the parking lot. I could tell right away she'd lost her car.

"Do you need some help?" I asked.

"I can't seem to find my car."

"What are you driving?"

She told me the make and model, looking worried and chagrined. "I parked it and pulled through to the next slot, you know, so I could get out easily?"

I reassured her I did the same thing. "What color is it?" 

"Green."

"Is it dark green?"

"No, light green."

I trotted around and eventually found a very pale greenish-gray car I thought might be hers. I ran back and verified the license plate.

"You've done your good deed for the day," she said, clearly greatly relieved. 

As if someone would have stolen her car in an upscale grocery store in an upper-income part of town. I guess it could happen, but not likely. Now, if she'd parked in my usual neck of the woods, she might have come back to a car on blocks and stripped for parts. 

I patted her shoulder. "Happens to me all the time."  

Merry Christmas and all that happy horse pucky from sunny, warm southern Arizona. 

Everybody roomba!

My dogsit vacation at the Scottsdale resort is coming to an end. For the past three weeks, I've been living someone else's life. At times it's an uncomfortable persona, because I know what is coming next. However, I'm intent on being a person who is enjoying the last few days in paradise. 

Not only does this place have a stove, a refrigerator, running water, and a toilet, it also has a robotic vacuum cleaner. It's running around the floor outside this bedroom as I type this, bumping over the grout in the tiles and banging into furniture. The dog snoozing on the bed behind me appears to be oblivious. 

In addition, this Club Med housing development has an artificial lake, walking paths, and about a thousand dogs, all of whom are despised by the dog in my care. Maddie is not a big dog, and she knows it. She'll leave the bigger dogs alone, but any dog her size or smaller is fair game. She lunges on the leash with teeth bared and lets loose a barrage of insults that you wouldn't think could issue from such a puny creature. She is not a yapper. When she's pissed off, look out.

Maddie is not an obedient dog. She goes where she wants. If I happened to lose my deathgrip on the leash, she would be in the next housing development in a heartbeat. She doesn't care about ducks snoozing on the lake shore. It's the enticing aroma of old dog poop that really floats her boat. As I'm trying not to gag while I bend over to pick up her poop, I berate for the millionth time the dog owners who don't give a shit. Oh, pardon me. I mean, those loving pet parents who for some reason think their dog's poop is a gift to the rest of us. 

Curse you, irresponsible dog owners. 

The robot disk grinding in the other room just ran into the door stopper. Thwangggg! Maddie and I looked at each other, like, wha—? I investigated. The device backed up and went around it. Techology is amazing and frightening at the same time. Now the thing is banging on the bedroom door, like a 6-inch tall ankle-sucking murderer. The first time the robot cleaned, it ate a shoelace. It tried to eat the shoelace, that is. It couldn't ingest the shoe attached to the shoelace, so it came to a halt and wailed for assistance. I unwrapped the shoelace from its wheel and sent it back to work. 

I'm writing a lot on the final novel in a trilogy I started three years ago. My writing process is this: I start out as a planner and end up a total lost cause pantser. The only constraints I have are the easter eggs I wrote into Book 2, with no clue how I was going to resolve them in Book 3. I had to reread the first two books to remember the characters and find the clues I would have to address in this volume. I regret a few things. Yesterday I had a sinking realization I'd written myself into a corner. Last night as I soaked in the bathtub, I found the way out. Tubs are amazing. Showers are okay, too, if you don't have balance issues. Walking is good. Sleeping can be productive, although I never remember the hilarious plots twists and endearing characters in the morning. I have to believe my great ideas are out there somewhere in the ether, hoving around, waiting for an opening, and they will return to me when it's time.

Another disconcerting realization I've had to come to terms with is my failing memory. I used to be an excellent speller. I consistently won my 6th-grade spelling bees, the only time when I felt like a star instead of an alien from another planet. Now I can't remember the difference between its and it's. Well, I know the difference, but if I don't go back and edit my work, I don't find the errors. Like in this blog. I regularly omit articles. It's humbling, especially because I'm supposedly a professional editor. 

We carry on.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket. 

Liberated from the most wonderful time of the year

Did you have a good Buy Nothing Day? Great, I'm so glad. Doesn't it feel good to know you aren't contributing to the consumer madness that ruins the day after Thanksgiving? My family stopped giving gifts a long time ago. It's liberating. I'm a big proponent of Buy Nothing Day. I recommend it. 

It's a little embarrassing to complain when it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. I'd like to say everything is rosy, but you know how it is with a chronic malcontent. Nothing is ever good enough. There's always some bone to pick, some axe to grind. I guess I could be grateful that I'm naturally gifted when it comes to looking on the dark side. It's one of my strengths. 

Dang it, now I have that song in my head. I hate that. It's hard to escape the ear worms that proliferate in this season. I don't know what the appeal is. I mean, if you've heard one version of fill in the blank, you've pretty much heard them all. All holiday songs were deliberately crafted to stick with you, kind of like stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy. We'll be singing this stuff until spring. 

Snowbirds flock to southern Arizona in the winter. I totally understand why. If you live someplace where it's chilly, rainy, snowy, or icy, say Chicago or Minneapolis or Boston, you probably dream of warmer climes while you shiver in front of your roaring fire, if you are lucky enough to have one of those. It was 73°F here today, with some high clouds. In the shade, I felt cold. In the sun, I felt hot. There's no just right in the winter desert. That is hard for a Goldilocks person to accept. 

In a week or so I'll be done with my dogsit gig in Scottsdale. I'll pack up my gear and head back to Tucson, where I will pick up some stuff, drop off some stuff, rail at my neurologist (via the portal), and feel resentful when she tells me to get more blood drawn so we can find out how close I am to complete disintegration. I won't hang around long. It's almost time for the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Quartzsite, where I can park for free on federal land with half a milllion nomads and not feel like a homeless pariah. When I get tired of the crowd, I can pack up and go someplace else. You can do that when you are liberated. I recommend it.

Happy stupid cold overspending season from the Hellish Handbasket.

Here we go again

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Dumb platitude, but it feels true this holiday slash election slash stupid weather season. Haven't we seen this movie before? This hole in the sidewalk of American cultural insanity seems awfully familiar. Didn't it take years to crawl out of it last time? What am I talking about? I have no idea, but I suspect we haven't actually crawled out of any hole. We are not just still falling, but still digging the hole deeper. It's the American way. Rah rah rah.

So here we go again, into another stupid cold season of consumerism, fascism, and possibly alcoholism. I didn't think alcohol was my particular drug of choice, but never say never. However, when the stress hits the fan, many of us hit the bottle. I can see the appeal. The world looks better when it's somewhat blurry. The fear doesn't kick so hard while it's riding my back like a scream of wild monkeys if there's a layer of numbness. The cold is mitigated somewhat by dulled nerve endings, and the spectre of rampant shameless consumerism can easily be left on the doorstep simply by staying inside for the next month and a half (depending on how you feel about ringing in the new year). 

Speaking of ringing, I've got a new drug. 'Tis the season to experiment with remedies. I'm finding that remedies often create new maladies, which prompt a quest for new remedies. It's a vicious whirlpool that benefits only insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers. And by extension, shareholders. Don't forget the real power behind the throne of commerce. Gotta keep those shareholders happy. 

Anyhoo, I'm sure you want to know all the details. Well, sorry. Not going to happen. Suffice it to say, the first drug for the vestibular paroxysmia stopped working almost the moment I set foot in Arizona. Weather occurred, as it is wont to do here, and my head went wonky with it. I blame Arizona. The drug prescribed by the neurologist stopped working. What's more, it's chipping away at my white blood cell count, which is apparently not ideal. Which leads me to mention this new drug. I've only taken three doses. So far the benefits have not appeared. However, the side effects have been interesting. 

It's too soon to know if this new drug will work. I'm sure you will stay tuned, because this drama is so interesting and you want to know what comes next. I'd write an upbeat new episode if I could, one with a happy ending. In truth, I wish I could forget all about this endless dramedy, just cancel the show, fire the writers, take it off the air, especially because this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, and everyone deserves a little holiday cheer. Even the Chronic Malcontent.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket

Sliding into the season of shameless consumerism

I guess it's time to say happy holidays. Or merry effing Christmas if you prefer. Already, you scream? I know. This holiday season has come hard and fast. I was walking my four-legged master this morning and one of the neighbors had already decorated for Christmas. I ask you! It's not even Thanksgiving yet. I barely made it through Election Day. I sound so old. Probably because I am old. 

Where am I? Thanks for asking. I'm back in Scottsdale while my friends gallivant on the other side of the globe. I'm looking forward to congealing in the tub for the next three weeks. Maybe get some writing done (besides this blog). The chair I'm sitting in is a tiny bit too low, the desk is a tiny bit too high, or I can no longer sit up straight because my spine is bent, or all of the above. Whatever, I can ignore my aching carpals because there is a little dog snoring in my blankets on the bed behind me. She's like a mobile furnace. That is good because the blue sky and sunshine beyond the window belie the hollow chill of this house. It's unusually cold in Phoenix this week. Low 60s during the day. Oh, woe is me, alas, alackaday. We are hanging out in the bedroom with a space heater. 

What comes next? Who cares? I guess we watch the lunatics take over the asylum. It's mildly anxiety producing but not catastrophic from my vantage point of invisibility. The world is cracking apart, but it probably won't affect me much (unless social security evaporates, then I'm toast). In any case, this mucky dissolution is normal for humans. The civilizations we create fall apart from time to time. Go read a history book, if you can find one that hasn't been banned at your local library. If we are lucky, an asteroid China failed to nudge off course will smack into Earth and put paid to the whole thing. The Earth will continue, maybe in fragments, but don't they say we are all stardust anyway? Stardust to stardust. I ate pancakes this morning, so I'm well on my way to total annihilation. 

Where was I? Holidays, right. The winter holiday season was not all that important in my family. I think we all had ideas of how it was supposed to look. The Hallmark family sitting around the table laughing and talking and eating massive quantities of food that won't make them puke later. The perfect family enjoying the perfect holiday. Yeah, no. Not in my family. We all figured out that was not our reality and adjourned to our safe spaces to endure. Mom to the kitchen, Dad to watch football, my brother to the basement, my sister to her room, my little brother to pestering my sister, and me to my books. Not a Hallmark family. More like the family of Misfit Introverts. 

After an upbringing like that, you can imagine the holiday season isn't a big whoop for me. This is the time of year I go into stores only to buy food. I avoid anything that reeks of cinnamon and pine cones. I never go to coffee shops for pumpkin lattes or eggnog frapuccinos. I don't look for gifts, white elephants, or bargains. To me, everyday during the holidays is Buy as Little as Possible day. I would sooner eat paste than stand in line outside a Best Buy to buy a gargantuan flat screen TV, even if I had a place to hang it. Anywhere hordes of people go, I'm not. 

Now, I know some of you are thinking, wow, Carol, you are such a grinch. Lighten up, already. Go drink some wassail, eat some Chex mix, chill out, your Debby Downer routine is bringing us down. 

To that I say, go peddle your White consumerism to someone who cares. Not listening. La la la. I plan to enjoy my solitude, canoodle with the little dog, bask in the Arizona sunshine, and eat bon bons until I burst. 

Happy effing holidays from the Hellish Handbasket. 

Chaos and wreckage 2.0

As you might imagine, based on my previous posts, I would have preferred a different outcome in last Tuesday's presidential election. I've seen Orange Man 1.0, and it wasn't all that much fun. I anticipate 2.0 is going to be harder in some ways. Definitely more interesting, if you like chaos, confusion, and human wreckage. I don't want to count my chickens before they tear my lips off, but I don't expect the next four-plus years to be a walk in the park. I say four-plus because I think there's a good chance the Orange Man will be dead before 2028 and his sycophants and manipulators will hold a sham election so they can remain in power indefinitely. All the money in the world isn't enough for some people. They want all the power, too. Go figure.

My aspirations are modest in comparison to those who chase power, wealth, and fame. I'd like to say I used to have ambition, but the truth is, I was born retired. I never wanted to walk the well-trodden, rutted path of the traditional baby boomer. I just wanted to paint sunsets, write my stories, and draw goofy cartoons. By the time I realized I was destined for the poor side of the landfill, it was too late. I'm old. Unless there is some kind of divine intervention in the form of appearing on the New York Times bestseller list, I expect the balance of my life will be lived invisibly under the radar. 

I'm okay with anonymity. Invisibility can be a superpower in times of social turmoil. Still, I'd like to be part of the resistance, in some small way. I'm not a dramatic person. I can't really see me marching on Washington, even though in my last blogpost, I sounded pretty cocky about self-immolation. Don't worry. I have no plans for another road trip to the East Coast. Besides, I can self-immolate anywhere. In fact, all I have to do is take a trip next door to California. 

Time out. Full stop. What am I saying? I don't fall into rabbit holes anymore. That was the old me. Now I avoid the rabbit holes altogether. Been down there, too dark and stinky, got the N95 mask to prove it. We all went down that hole. Did you drink bleach? I didn't either. I considered it briefly, though. In my defense, I was out of my mind then, trying to keep my mother alive. Cleansing my soul from the inside out was tempting. 

All the blood we are stepping in is from my liberal compadres, lamenting as they tear their coiffed hair out and rend their designer clothes. I get it. I still haven't emerged from the painful haze of disbelief many of us share. I remember what we went through. It's beyond belief that we will go through that again. The worst part for me, though, is the nauseating awareness that Americans chose this. Apparently, we don't like freedom after all. Who knew? We kept up the pretense for so long, but I guess it was all a charade. We are just a bunch of whiny babies hoping Daddy will swoop in, kick some ass, and tell some of the bad kids to go sit in the corner while the rest of us eat cake. I am preparing to sit in the corner. 

We are one sick nation. Well, what's one more sick nation on a sick planet? This too shall pass, stardust, yada yada. We will get over our shock and horror and carry on, because that is what we do. I'm not sure we'll have our democracy for long, but let's try to enjoy it while we can. 

Crashing into the wreckage of the future

 

Here we are again. I used this image in a previous blogpost, probably in 2016. I'm sure I wrote a gloomy doomy post, bemoaning the demise of democracy. Past me could have no idea that future me would be having similar feelings in 2024, times a billion. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I survived 2016, which was just a amateur dress rehearsal for 2020 and early 2021. After a relatively calm four years, I guess we are ready to take the cold plunge into insanity once again. We don't learn from recent history—well, any history, actually. Such arrogance. 

My friend would caution me to stay out of the wreckage of the future. I confess to a feeling of impending doom, but it's not based on anything I've actually experienced. Nobody knows what will happen. Just because a gazillion red flags have been flying all over the field for the past decade doesn't mean bad things will happen. Right?

I mean, just because a person says they plan to be a jerk the moment they can doesn't mean they really will follow through, right? I remember my mom threatening to pull the car over when my siblings and I got too rambunctious in the back seat. "I'll give you something to cry about!" she yelled. But she never stopped the car, and we never got a whupping when we got to wherever we were going. 

What comes next? Should I march on Washington, D.C.? I have little to lose. I could do another road trip, park near the White House, and set myself on fire. After contacting the media, of course. I don't want to waste my effort, not to mention it's a long drive. However, there's a chance there will only be one news outlet by the time I get there, and they will turn my sacrifice into a taunting joke. Hm. Maybe it would be better to stay under the radar, grow my own food, and wait out the hard times. Well, soon we'll all be growing our own food. And picking apples and strawberries before they rot in the fields. Supermarket shelves will be empty, so I guess we'll all be getting a lot more exercise if we want to eat.

Oh, wait, not everyone will be out there picking beans and berries, sweating in the polluted air drinking polluting water. A friend told me someone told her that millionaires have safe havens in other countries. I guess if you have the money, you can just bail on the whole thing. But don't you want to experience the imminent looting of Dollar Trees and Dollar Generals? So exciting.

Think what you will, I'm just going to come right out and say it: I'm in favor of mandatory abortion. I probably mused on this topic before, but now I'm doubling-down on my position. Humans are too stupid to live and should not be allowed to procreate.  

Stop thinking and start doing

I'm at the Tucson Mall. Locals have informed me there are better malls in this city, but I haven't seen them. Driving in a city with no interior freeways is tedious and fraught. It's less stressful to stay in one area, and that area for me is Northwest Tucson. I like this mall. So far, no shootings, and the food court is amazing if you want burgers, pizza, pretzels, and rofles. What's a rofle, you ask? I have no idea but the pictures make me drool. 

I use the mall as my office. When it's 99°F outside, I see no alternative. I discovered there are two long counters equipped with power outlets and tall chairs. If I don't mind a billion people wandering around in front of me and behind me, yellling and laughing, I can get a lot of work done. I can plug in my laptop and charge my phones, if I remember to bring the charging cords with me. Plus, and here's the great thing about this mall setup—I can recharge my power stations. One at a time, of course. I put the power box into a shopping bag and lug it from the parking lot into the mall. My "big" power station is only 800 watts. It's not huge but it's heavy. I'm breathing hard by the time I stake out my space at the counter. The upside is, that power box charges super fast. It can go from 44% to 100% in about an hour. 

My other two power stations are smaller, more like 250 watts. The infant versions of power stations. They take longer to charge because they are old technology. 

You might be wondering why I don't recharge with my two solar panels. Thanks for asking. I will tell you why. It is considered a faux pas to deploy solar on mall property. They don't want you setting up camp in the parking lot. Visitors to the mall are there to shop, not make themselves at home. Not only that, it's brutally hot in the sun. No sane person spends time in the sun here. You are asking to be dead. If I were camping in the forest, and if I could have a combination of sun and shade, then I'd pull out my solar panels and get busy soaking up the free juice. The next best thing is to rub against the hoi polloi at the mall. 

I'm learning to make peace with this odd lifestyle. I will say, it's a challenge at times. I'm called to a new level of consciousness about the most basic activities of daily living. The other day I thought I had lost both my phones. You can imagine the frantic search that ensued. One day after I finished pumping gas, I almost left my debit card in the pay machine. You can imagine my utter horror. Now when I get gas, I have a mantra, essentially, "Carol, don't be a stupid girl, be a smart girl, don't be a stupid girl, etc." So many things can go wrong because there is a lot more to keep track of.

I've been visiting my possessions. They are stored in a 5 foot by 5 foot cubicle at a storage facility across the street from Lowe's, one of my favorite shopping destinations. I get sad when I visit my stuff. To avoid constant sadness, I'm getting rid of it. Well, most of it. The shelves I built, the drawer units I bought at Target with such hope, so much household stuff, my two gray IKEA rugs, even Mom's old flattish-screen TV, long obsolete. I feel deep chagrin and regret when I think of the many many dollars I have spent transporting and storing stuff I don't need anymore. It's so humbling to realize how little I really need to survive. It's not a badge of honor, though. I've never been bombed. I've never walked a thousand miles to emigrate to another country. I've got a minivan. Living in luxury, compared to many. No complaints from me. 

The other day I was parked at a park where nomads often park. A park ranger dude drove by in a little green cart and stopped to make sure I was okay. He knew I was in my car. He said if I ever need water or anything to let him know. His name is Jerry. He said he was homeless for a short time, living in his car. I'm guessing he's probably not voting for the candidate I voted for, and yet, he was the soul of kindness. This is how it is these days. Mobs cannot be trusted. Group think is real. And yet, when you have one person talking to another person, sometimes the humanity in all of us comes out, and I think there might be hope. 

I try not to think too much. Thinking is less productive than doing. I plan, don't get me wrong, but I try not to weigh the value of one thought to the next, one moment to the next. Thoughts are like moments, they come and go and have no power on their own. I admit I sometimes have opinions about the value of certain thoughts and moments, but I have accepted the reality that I don't control anything—not people, not the weather, not neurologists, not traffic . . . it's no use wasting time thinking about it. I focus on doing the next thing on the list. It's never sit here and think. It's more like go get water, get gas, get food, go to the mall, recharge batteries, write a blogpost. You know. The activities of daily living, the Hellish Handbasket way. 

Another day of fresh WTF

I'm back in Tucson, just in time for the big October warmup. Fall weather here is unpredictable. Eventually it will cool off. Then the days will be lovely, and the nights will be freezing. When you live in a car, weather matters. It's kind of all you think about. Today was about 80°F, hot in the sun and nice in the shade, which is why I'm back at my office, the underground parking at the mall. 

Tucson has a mountain. It's pretty tall. Like, tall enough to have snow in winter. It's just over 9,000 feet. Locals go up there in the winter to ski. In the summer, they drive up there to escape the heat in the valley. Hiking trails go all over the mountain. There's a little town somewhere up there, so I hear. I've never been. 

I don't care about the little town. I hear it's packed with sweltering Tusconians. I don't mind that they might stink with sweat. I just don't like hobnobbing with the hoi polloi, or anyone else. No, what I care about is a safe, cool place to park overnight. I have heard there might be dispersed camping up there. It's national forest land, which means technically you can park up there for free for either seven days or fourteen days, if it's not designated as private land. I'm a little nervous. I have a feeling it's going to be another one of those dirt/gravel road situations: steep grind in and hell skid out, with no place to turn around, and woe to me if it starts raining. I'm sort of over off-roading in a minivan. Really. There ought to be some sort of law. 

Speaking of voting, I mailed my ballot yesterday. I was going to drop it off at a library in Oro Valley. I mapped to the place and found out the dropbox won't be deployed until tomorrow. Rather than sit on the ballot another two days and then drive 45 minutes to any dropbox in the city, I put it in an actual mailbox at an actual post office. Fingers crossed. 

Speaking of WTF, the head med is not working well anymore. Ever since that low pressure front moved into Prescott (that was last Monday), my head has been back to non-normal, meaning the washing machine and the typewriter are at it again, chipping away at my serenity. Needless to say, I'm going to give that neurologist a good talking-to. Stay tuned.

Oh, lord. Time out. Someone has cranked up Billie Eilish on their car stereo. In this underground parking lot, the song bounces off the concrete, creating a wall of cacophony. I can feel the bass in my gut. There ought to be a law against this, too. Well, I can hardly complain. It's probably another nomad seeking respite from the sun. No. Spoke too soon. Just two young women, enjoying their favorite song before they lock up their cute shiny car with heavily tinted windows and go shopping for cute shiny handbags at Dillards. With so much room in this underground space, I don't see why other drivers have to park right next to me. There ought to be a law. Remember the six-foot rule?

Speaking of the six-foot rule, yesterday I was at a park and saw the beat-up camper rig of a nomad couple I used to see regularly last spring. They have signs all over their camper and truck: No trespassing, smile you are on camera, and practice social distancing, keep a six-foot distance at all times. I was sad to see that summer had not been good to their camper. The trailer part extending over the cab slanted askew at a new and terrifying angle. It looked like they had strapped it together with one of those cargo strap things. 

I wanted to ask them where they park overnight here in Tucson. I haven't seen them at Walmart. As I was gearing up my courage, a young man rode his bike along the bike path and stopped next to the camper. He apparently took a substance of some kind. Within minutes he was sacked out boneless in the dirt. The woman in the camper got out of the cab and shook his shoulder a few times and then got back in her truck. I guess she thought he was okay. I kept waiting for EMTs to show up, but they hadn't appeared by the time I left to find my parking spot for the night.

This morning I was at the park again, making coffee and waiting for the farmer's market to open. The kid's body was gone. Around 10:00 a.m., the camper pulled up and parked in the shade. 

Multitasking on the road

Greetings from someplace in Arizona. Yes, I am back in the brutally hot sunshine state. I guess soon every state will be brutally hot, but probably after I'm dead, so at least I don't have to live through that. This is bad enough. I'm doing my Goldilocks routine again, searching for a place that's not too hot and not too cold. Like most hothouse flowers, I require optimal temperatures to feel my best. 

I'm in Prescott, hanging out at a park with all the other travelers who live in their cars. I have figured out my wild camping routine. Wild camping means finding places to park overnight in a city. First, I search Google Earth for a park with a big parking lot. Street parking is no good. You can't deploy solar panels across from somebody's house. They will think you are stalking their children. In a park parking lot, normies come and go, doing their pet-walking, jogging, or biking thing. The ones who stay all day are people like me, the ones who would rather not waste gasoline driving all over the state just to charge up their batteries. I'm sitting in the sweltering shade of my car with a solar panel spread out on the roof. The battery that powers my fridge is slowly sipping power from the sun. Meanwhile I'm blogging. Look at me go, I'm a multitasker.

After my cross-country expedition, I still have no answers about where to look for housing. All the states I visited are lovely in the fall, but would not suit me in the summer or winter. California is beyond reach, financially, so that leaves Washington and Oregon. Both states are gloomy, but of the two, Oregon is a little less gloomy. Bright side: As long as I'm mobile, if the weather sucks, I can move on.

Happy birthday to me. I'm 68. Sometimes birthdays invite a reflection on the past year. In my case, I'm inspired to consider my entire past, the choices, events, and circumstances that led me to this lifestyle. I might add a page to my blog chronicling my timeline. I assume nobody will read it, or when they arrive there by accident, they will read two lines and quickly click away to assuage their boredom on another website. The timeline would be for me. There will come a day when I won't be able to pull together a timeline. Even now, the sequence and details of events are hazy. People and pets are fading into the mist. Certain events—my cat's death, COVID, and my mother's death, for instance—are gashes in the timeline, leaving a lingering trauma that probably will outlive me, but dates sometimes get fuzzy. 

I still can't believe this is my life. Sometimes shock hits me. The surreality of this existence flows over me like a massive wave, driving me deep, so I can't breathe for a moment. Then I surface and get on with things: Do I need water, do I need to dump trash, is my fridge powered up, do I have clean clothes, is there gas in the tank. The minutae of my daily life, just moving from task to task, getting it done, not thinking too much except beyond the next few minutes. 

There are people like me everywhere. Now I can spot them easily. Most of them aren't in soccer mom vans, but their ineptly made window covers are a clue. A rooftop box, a hitch box carrying a portable generator, a general dustiness, back window piled high with blankets... When the occupant gets out of a car and brushes his teeth with a bottle of water, spitting in the sand at a rest area, you can figure he is a nomad. 

Where do we go when the park closes? Thanks for asking. Walmarts used to open their parking lots to vehicles of all sizes. Not any more. Many Walmarts have posted signs to indicate they don't allow overnight parking of any kind, probably from all the shootings and trash. Those rascally nomads. Sometimes Walmart allows cars but not RVs and trucks. Sometimes there is a fringe of unpatrolled spaces in the wayback, where the riffraff is allowed to park. Back east, Walmarts were much friendlier to overnighters. Here in the west, not so much. However, you can almost always park overnight at a home improvement store, if you don't mind the employees who come and go in shifts all night long. After about 3:00 a.m., you will be the only car in the parking lot. If you don't mind that, for a few hours, it's quite peaceful. The other standby is Cracker Barrel, traditionally a welcoming respite for overnighters. 

In some ways, I am invisible. Older white gal in a nondescript white minivan. There are thousands of us cruising the streets of America. Not all of us live in our cars, but possibly more than you would think. In January I will find them in Quartzsite, Arizona, the traditional winter home of nomads. They will come from all over the country seeking desert sun. I will find my tribe there, and the moments of surreality will fade for a while. When everyone is living in their car, suddenly this lifestyle is normal, and it's all of you stick-and-brick folks who are the weirdos. 

Savoring the flavors

For the past month, I have made a slow boomerang across the country. I started in Oregon in early September, moving east state by state until I got to Boston, where I made a hard U-turn and started the slow return trip west. Now it's early October, and I'm in New Mexico. Arizona is just over the horizon. I could go south to Tucson or straight ahead to Flagstaff. It's not hard to decide: The temperature in Tucson today is 106°F. Flagstaff is 79°F. You pay attention to weather forecasts when you live in your car.

I'd like to say I learned some things. Probably I have, but I can't enumerate them because I've assimilated my experiences, which is another way of saying I don't remember much. Impressions, some feelings, a few snapshots, some reflections. 

For example, I've seen a lot of trucks. I don't think I fully appreciated how this nation's entire supply structure relies on trucks. Knowing this, I don't begrudge them idling their engines all night long at rest areas, because I know they are carrying the paper towels and Triscuits I will soon be buying at the Walmart down the road. 

I have a renewed commitment to not eating animals, especially beef. I saw cattle grazing in open pastures and cattle crowded into dirt pens, already half lifeless as if they knew they would soon be hamburger. I cried. 

I have compassion for the multitudes of raccoons, possums, skunks, squirrels, birds, and deer that got popped by fast-moving vehicles and then pummeled over and over until only a blood stain on the road marked their passing. I saw it happen. A hawk flew down from trees on the verge and smacked into a fast-moving SUV passing me on the left. I braked and waited to see where the bird would land. It fell into the middle of my lane. I made sure I didn't flatten it with my tires. I doubt it would have felt it if I had. I'm quite sure that bird was dead. I feel deep chagrin realizing nature and it's wildlife were here first. Humans are the encroachers. We wreck everything.

Speaking of wrecking things, some humans wreck more than others. I traveled the Trail of Tears. Now every billboard is hawking Native American artifacts, as if White settlers didn't commit genocide as they barb-wired the Plains. I could have visited museums and gift shops to see how humans have commemorated the decimation of cultures and their way of life. I'm not much of a tourist. I didn't stop.

Humans aren't all bad. Some humans are very creative. Case in point, the Uranus Fudge Factory. Cadillac Ranch. A church billboard stating "Weed love to see you" (not sure if that was a typo or what). 

Now that I'm back in the west (New Mexico), I miss the swells of dense green trees in West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. Who knew Kentucky was all perfectly mown lawn? Who could have imagined Arkansas was a misty green paradise? I sampled the air and savored the colors in every state I visited. And no, in case you are wondering, I did not visit any museums. I did not see any national parks or stay in state campgrounds. I wasn't a tourist. I was an explorer, a documenter of a personal odyssey. 

The logistics of this lifestyle keep me grounded in reality. Besides the challenges of personal hygiene, I have to find safe places to park overnight. Rest areas are good, but noisy. Cracker Barrel is a popular RV destination, safe but cramped. Lowe's and Home Depot are mostly good, if you don't mind workers coming and going all night. Mall parking lots are verboten: security will roust you with the knock. Walmarts are no longer consistently welcoming to travelers, having learned the hard way that some travelers cannot be trusted not to trash the place. 

Another challenge is keeping my power stations charged. Because I can't easily deploy my solar panels, I must keep moving. The power stations recharge when I drive. I ran out of power once, when I was in Minneapolis for a few days to see a friend. My fridge died. Since then, I try to drive at least three hours a day. You can cover a lot of ground in three hours. In Montana the freeway speed limit was 80 mph. In Minnesota the minimum speed limit on the freeway was 40 mph.

Sometimes I felt compelled to drive because of wildfire smoke or heat domes, even when I would have preferred to take my time. For instance, yesterday I drove six hours through three states to get to a place where I wouldn't fry. That's too much driving for me. 

After I have my final video call of the day, I will move on from this rest area. The amazing view over the craggy brown rocks and scrubby desert trees doesn't offset the stench of an overworked septic field. All around this tired old rest area are signs asking "How did we do?" and "How would you rate this rest area?" as if they know their rest area stinks. Some states have lovely rest areas, with huge tiled rest rooms that I could easily live in, if they would rent out a corner to the unhoused. 

In another few days I'll be back in Arizona. The adventure continues. 

Not missing you, Sonoran desert

I know you are all wondering what happened with the medication. Let me get this out of the way. Good news. I presented my calculations (via the message portal) to the neurologist (her assistant, actually), and begged again for help (implying it's their damn fault I am running out of pills). I think it was the plaintive line that did the trick:  "I am far from home, and I need help." Who could ignore that? The prescription was forthcoming forthwith. It only took a long walk and a long train ride to get to a pharmacy in Boston's Back Bay (one of two pharmacies the neurologist had "in their system," whatever that means.) Lucky for me, I had an escort: My sister, is an expert navigator of Boston trains.

I am now in possession of a 30-day supply (supposedly; I didn't take the pills out and count them). So my head has calmed down, and I'm once again able to enjoy my endless roadtrip. 

After Boston, I went through New York state, Pennsylvania again (but a in Kentucky. Each state has a unique personality, I have discovered. Crossing a state line sometimes means southerly route this time), a bit of New Jersey (avoiding toll roads), a bit of Maryland, West Virginia, and now I'm crossing a river, but sometimes it's just an imaginary boundary. If not for the GPS Lady saying "Welcome to New Jersey," for instance, I wouldn't have known I left Pennsylvania. But after a few miles, I can tell I'm not in Kansas anymore. 

The one thing all the states on this trip have had in common is the extraordinary lush greenness of the land (with the exception of Indiana; I only saw the northern tip so it hardly counts). The decidous woodsy forests all along the highways are just starting to change colors. I'm sure the ocean of trees will be spectacular in a few weeks, but I'm from Oregon, I've seen a lot of leaves in all stages of decay, from glorious orange boughs to yellow blizzards to slushy mushy piles of gray muck in the gutters. It's fall. Been there done that. I admit, that is one thing I kind of like about the desert. Hardly any fallen leaves. Just those damn cactuses everywhere. 

I've seen wondrous things on the eastern leg of this journey. GPS Lady sent me on some backroads, where I passed dozens of old cemeteries dating from the 1700s. Around every bend was a farmhouse with a steep roof, some in the final throes of collapse. Some were newly built mansions cleverly designed to look old, perched on the crest of a hill where the landowner could survey his kingdom of cows and hay bales. Barns in all stages of decrepitude. Truckloads of cows who (I'm guessing) would rather live than be slaughtered. Roadkill so destroyed by a vehicle, it looked like someone dumped raw hamburger on the pavement, just for the hell of it. 

I've seen many wondrous things, and I am forever changed as a result. 

It was 114°F in Scottsdale a couple days ago. Desert, I'm not missing you, glad you aren't here. 

Running to stay still

As I'm driving over hill and down dale in the green farmlands and woodsy forests of the hinterlands, trying to avoid toll roads if at all possible, I have lots of time to ponder my next blogpost. By the time I map to some Walmart, Lowe's, or rest area approximately three hours from the previous Walmart, Lowe's, or rest area, I've forgotten all the content, even the parts I wrote in my head and spoke out loud. Such is the nature of the aging memory. All that biting humor and pithy wisdom, lost. Alas, alackaday. 

What you are left with is me in the moment, trying to remember what it felt like to keep calm with the grill of a huge pickup truck inches from my back bumper. I'm just grateful to be stationary for a while, especially because here in Catskill, NY, I have a choice between a Walmart Supercenter or a Lowe's, both with enormous empty parking lots on a Sunday afternoon. Clouds have covered the sun. What a relief. It's not easy living in a mobile greenhouse. 

I bought some concoction at Walmart that is supposed to take the odors out of my car. Ha. Now I know how they get that Motel 6 smell. It comes in a can. Even with only one tiny slit uncovered, the smell is overwhelming. One thing they don't tell you about van life on these YouTube channels: You will spend three times as much money as you need to (or should) living this life, because most of the things you buy to make your life easier will actually make your life harder. You can't pack your mistakes around with you. Into the trash they go.

I don't think I've complained recently about the condition of my vestibular system. That's because I've been cured. Well, almost cured. The antiseizure med the neurologist prescribed actually started working. For the past month, I can happily say I've felt normal. I should have mentioned it, I suppose, but since when do you go around shouting, hey I feel normal! Yay. Let's hear it for normality.

Well, the happy days have come to an end. When I started getting low on the pills, I emailed the doctor to ask for a refill. I received what I thought was an affirmative response and gave the doctor's assistant the contact info for the nearest pharmacy that would have me in their system (Westerville, OH). I drove two hours south of where I wanted to be to pick up my refill. When I got to the pharmacy, no prescription. I emailed the doctor. Help! Refill! Now! Eventually the assistant called me on the phone to say no, no refill would be forthcoming. The "90-day supply" should last me until I return to Tucson at "the end of the month." 

Begging availed me nothing. 

I went back to my car and counted the pills. Then I counted the days on my calendar. Then I looked at the pill bottle. Then I panicked. Then I calmed down. Then I panicked again. I started trying to do math in my head, which is never a good sign for me, especially in the middle of the night. It took a while, but I figured out I got shorted 81 pills. My so-called 90-day supply was really a 63-day supply. I don't think she calculated the period of time during which the dosage ramped up to three pills a day. Today I have eighteen pills left. That means if I taper off to one pill a day, I will run out on October 9.

After two days of taking only one pill a day, rather than three, I am feeling the vertigo symptoms increase. Somebody put quarters in the the washing machine in my head, and it wasn't me. Here we go again, back into the swampy mess. I hope my calculations will convince her to rethink her refill refusal. She's out of the office until Tuesday. Surely she will see the light when she sees the facts. Facts are so convincing, so reassuring, right? Everyone trusts facts, even if they don't trust anything else, right? I have a feeling the response will be no, and don't call me Shirley.

The grass is definitely greener

One thing about doing a lot of highway driving: You see a lot of roadkill. Given that roadkill has been in the news lately, I have a heightened awareness of the possibilities. For instance, when I see deer, should I think, hmm, venison? I expect wackjobs will screech to a stop and scoop the carcass into the trunk of their Dodge Ram pickup. However, I don't know what to think when I see what looks like the flattened remains of a fox, a raccoon, a possum, a skunk, and what I fear might have been a guinea pig. Hard to say. After time baking in the sun, you can't really tell what it was. But seeing a fawn on the verge with its legs frozen in air saddens me deeply. I will not drive at night, mostly because I can't see well in the dark, but also because I don't want to hit anything that would prefer to live. I don't want to eat them, either.

The wildfire smoke chased me all the way across Montana and North Dakota. I did my best to stay ahead of it, running in the yellow zone, hoping it would dissipate before the red blob caught up to me. I was going to stay in Fargo, but my lungs were burning. I checked the smoke map and saw the red blob directly on top of the blue dot, which was me. It's like I somehow had attracted my own little bubble of smoke. Is that even possible? Fargo, I hardly knew you. I moved on and hunkered down at a Home Depot in a place called Fergus Falls. It was an uneasy night. The last few employee cars departed at 1:00 a.m., leaving me all alone, feeling like a sitting duck. I didn't think I would sleep. I woke when it was still dark to find my car surrounded by the cars of the 5:00 a.m. day shift. More were arriving. They got the drop on me, for sure. 

Chagrined, I scrambled into my pants, shucked my window covers, and eased out of the parking lot. Then I looked at my gas gauge. Note to self: It's better to get gas in the evening rather than in the dark before dawn. I found a 24-hour gas station nearby, which means at that hour, the pumps are on but nobody's home. I don't mind pumping my gas (used to it, California, Arizona, etc.), but I don't like pumping gas under bright fluorescent lights all by myself in the dark. When the gas started flowing, the little TV screen lit up and a man started shouting. I almost jumped out of my skin, until I realized he was hawking the services of a local bank. Sitting duck, again. 

Luckily, the only people out and about in Fergus Falls were the dozen or so Home Depot employees showing up for work before dawn. I had the streets to myself. I hit the road. Fergus Falls, never again.

If you like rolling hills and fields of green grass, yellow grass, occasional corn fields, and herds of cattle and sheep grazing under hundred-foot-wide watering machines amid scattered copses of green trees, Montana and North Dakota are for you. Montana was a bit yellower than North Dakota, with more open land, but along I-94, all the land in both states seemed to have been tamed by tractor ploughs. The beauty I saw on that drive belies the hell I know is coming. Probably soon. Snow, wind, ice, all the stuff I am desperate to avoid. 

Minnesota is green, too. So is Wisconsin. I'm gobsmacked by how green everything is. I always thought Northwest Oregon was the greenest place I'd ever seen, but goes to show how little I've seen. Oregon grass turned a dusty yellow-brown in the summer because we don't get rain for two or three months, and we have the kind of grass that does that naturally. The grass grew increasingly greener as I moved east. Is that a word, greener? More green? In sum, this part of the country is nothing like I imagined. 

I met a friend in Minneapolis. She offered me a bed for the night. I declined. We all know house guests who show up out of the blue expecting hospitality are just plain rude. She put aside her plans for the evening to take me to dinner. That was a gift. I was happy to spend the night on a quiet side street. As daylight was breaking, I headed southeast toward Madison, Wisconsin . . . Why? Just because. Why not? I've never been to Wisconsin. One place is as good as any when you have no destination. All of this is just because—all the parking lots, rest areas, Walmarts, and gas stations. It's about the journey. I'm leading a just-because life now, because I can. You probably wish you could, too. 

Oh, in case you are thinking of heading to North Dakota, don't bother to get off I-94 to see the Enchanted Highway. These gargantuan iron sculptures are the clickbait (should I say drivebait?) of an eccentric rural artist, designed to entice you to go an hour out of your way on a narrow windy road through a patchwork of green and brown fields, and you thinking, just over the next hill, just around the next bend, art, where is the damn art! I followed my blue dot on GPS out into the middle of bumfart nowhere. When my blue dot passed the spot of a supposed sculpture, with miles to the next art site, I realized I'd been conned. I turned around and called it a bust. I saw two sculptures. People I've asked said don't bother with Mt. Rushmore. I can now say the same thing about the Enchanted Highway.

I've learned that the best way to get a feel for a place is to GPS to the Walmart. Sleeping at rest stops might be more restful than bunking down on city streets or in Home Depot parking lots, but rest stops tell me nothing about the local area. I'm learning. Tomorrow I'm on my way to a town called Evanston, just north of Chicago. I have a friend there, who might be able to take time out of her busy morning to meet me for coffee. 

Outer solar system or bust

When I was an adolescent, I shared a room with my sister. A large black fly got in through the window and hung around. We named it Fred. Fred was big and slow, and he didn't make a mess. Fred was a perfect pet. One day our father visited us in our room after work. He was still wearing his senior trooper uniform and tall boots. Fred made the mistake of flying by, and our father clapped his hands. In a moment, Fred was flattened. 

"Dad, that was Fred!" we cried. Dad looked both surprised and sheepish. He probably thought he was doing us a favor. I don't recall if we had a funeral. I'll have to ask my sister. If she's still talking to me.

Despite misgivings from family, I'm firmly committed to continuing my epic roadtrip. After Portland, I headed east and then I turned north, hoping to avoid the heat wave that was coming to the west. I passed through Spokane and then crossed the border into Idaho. I spent the night in Coeur d' Alene. After the artsy energy of Spokane, Coeur d'Alene felt lacking for some reason, or maybe it was just the uneasy night I spent alone in a Fred Meyer parking lot. In any case, I didn't feel a connection to that city, so onward I went. I crossed the Idaho panhandle, winding through spectacular forests, thinking, oh boy, one tossed cigarette and we are literally toast. Note to self: avoid living in a fire zone. And on a flood plain. And while you are making a list, try to avoid earthquake fault lines, tsunami zones, tornado alley, and gulf coast hurricanes. I guess that leaves Corvallis.  

I made it as far as Missoula, MT, before the wildfire smoke in western Montana caught up with me. I checked the smoke map and saw that I was caught in a eastward drifting plume. I liked Missoula. Charming college town. I'd never live there in the winter, not being a cold weather person, but in the summer, it would be a great retreat from the Arizona heat. I would have stayed longer if not for the smoke. After two days, I left Missoula and kept going east, hoping to outrun the smoke plume, if not the heat. 

I found a place to park in Bozeman that felt pretty good. In the morning, smoke obscured the view of the mountains. My lungs and eyes were burning. I had planned to stay another night, but I was more interested in breathing, so I filled up the gas tank and hit the road, thinking, Billings, maybe Billings. 

The smoke map showed Billings on the edge of the smoke plume. Argh. I'd asked the long-suffering GPS lady to lead me to a mall, and she delivered. I parked in the lot outside the main entrance and checked the smoke map. I could have gone indoors and breathed fresh air-conditioned air along with a thousand other pairs of lungs. But what about after the mall closed? Where would I go? Assuming I wanted to avoid spending $150 on a motel room. 

It didn't take long to figure out Billings was not going to be safe, so I got more gas and resumed my route on 94 east. A few hours later, I fetched up in Miles City, Montana. The sky was clear when I got here at about 1:00. The temperature was a toasty 92°F, hotter than the Oregon coast, but not as hot as Phoenix. 

Now I'm sitting on a side street around the corner from Walmart, parked in the shade, waiting for the sun to go down, and wondering if I could get in trouble for transporting flies across state lines. 

Yes, I've unintentionally picked up a few winged hitchhikers on my journey. Usually my windows are closed when I'm driving to avoid losing my nice cool AC air. However, when I stop, when it's hot, I have to open the windows or run the risk of melting in my own juices. Right now my door is open and I've given up the fight. I've been overrun by flies. Not biting flies, not giant cluster flies, not slow and lazy flies. Just zippy little dudes curious to see what new smells and tastes have come into their territory. Yum! I have given up trying to shoot them with my only weapon:  a little plastic spray bottle of 70% rubbing alcohol. They seem impervious, and I'm almost out of ammo. It's hard to type with flies crawling on my arm and dive bombing my head. I don't know why I think my life is more important than theirs, but I'd still like to murder them. Sadly, they outnumber me, and they are fast. If only I had wings. Or some better ammo. 

Speaking of wings, I'm on my epic roadtrip, as I mentioned, and it seems some of my family aren't exactly happy with my bid for freedom. My theory is that they are envious because I'm free to travel and they are not. I'm trying not to let their fear and criticism stop me from enjoying my adventure. I imagine a rubberband stretched between me and the west coast. The further I push eastward, the tighter the band stretches. 

"Why don't you go back to Oregon?" family said.

I said, "What's in Oregon?"

"What if you get sick? What if you break down?"

"Medicare and road side assistance," I replied.

"What do you want?" they said. "What are you running away from?"

Those questions flummoxed me, so I consulted a friend to help. "Adventure and nothing," she texted.

I got back on the other text thread. "Adventure and nothing," I typed into the text window.

After some more back and forth during which I felt the box around me tightening, I finally texted, "Why don't you want me to have my adventure?"

After a few beats, the message came back: "Go, have your adventure! Have fun!" The subtext, I think, if I'm reading the faint smudges between the lines correctly is, go, have your adventure, even though I'm stuck here. Go, have fun, even though I'm not having any. 

I almost caved. I almost turned around, partly to assuage the fears of family, and partly because the smoke was getting to me. I started getting scared. Even though I know only the courageous cross the Continental Divide, doubt and fear cluttered my mind. 

Then I thought, when am I ever going to have another chance like this? If not now, when? I didn't get my adventure when my family member got theirs, gallivanting overseas. Did I worry? Of course! But I never said, don't go, better go back to Oregon where it's safe. I spent five increasingly intense years taking care of our mother. Five years during which I was blissfully unaware of all the physical maladies that would soon plague me. (Well, except for the vertigo, which started in 2015, but certainly all my other infirmities weren't yet on my radar.) 

Let's face it, sooner or later, if we live long enough, we become the primary adult caregivers in our own lives. I feel old age breathing down my neck. Decrepitude, dementia, and broken hips are just around the corner. Soon I won't be able to attempt a journey like this one. So, let the adventure continue! Next stop: outer solar system, or the Enchanted Highway, whichever comes first!

Finding myself in the now

One thing I've disccovered about living in a car is that my environment requires me to be present in the moment. Being present has never been my preference. In fact, I've gone to great lengths to avoid being present. For many years, I was a bystander in my own life. Back then, I didn't realize how great I had it—I was born in the right place (the U.S.) in the right time (the late 1950s) to loving if mostly out-to-lunch parents. I went to a mediocre public school, learned right from wrong (although I frequently chose wrong), and I had the right color skin (pale, prone to freckles). I was lucky on so many levels, but all I could see was what I lacked. In my self-centered distress, I did whatever I could to check out. 

Now, living in my car, I can't check out of anything. That is a byproduct of mobile living. I drive a lot. Checking out while I'm driving is not wise. About fifteen years ago, I had a dissociative episode while driving at night in rainy fog, and it freaked me out, but good. I did not know if I was driving a car or snuggled at home in bed. I wasn't sure I was conscious. I was not even sure I existed. I made it to the Christmas party, but that experience left a mark. Now I make sure I am parked before dark. 

Now-ness is physical. I am reminded of the physicality of my existence every time I pee in a jar or poop in a plastic bag. There is no handle to flush away the bioreality of my disgustingly repetitious human systems. I live in a perpetual hazmat zone. 

Preparing food is a Tetris game. There isn't enough room in this small space to lay out everything I need all at once. To use that thing, I have to move this thing. Everything happens on the bed, well, I think of it as a couch. The dry things come out of ziploc bags. Those must be stowed in their cubby before I can add the wet things. Adding blueberries is easy. Apples are a little more complicated, requiring a chopping board and a knife. Everything has a place, and everything has to go back in its place the moment I'm done with it, otherwise I will cave under a tsunami of stuff. The things that don't have places clutter up the aisle. I hate that. I'm gradually paring my possessions down to essentials, like a hiker packing to trek the PCT. 

On the bright side, I'm learning the beauty of now. I think it's hilarious. Now-ness is the temple of meditators, not of senior nomads like me. Well, I should speak for myself. It could be that all other senior nomads spend an hour meditating on their yoga rug before they hit the road. Not me. When I wake up, usually it's time to beat it, before some homeowner looks out their window and says, honey, that van is still there, do you think we should call the police? Sometimes I sleep at stores that allow overnight parking. I don't like the feeling of waking up to find my car surrounded by employee cars. I feel like a lazy bum. They are all in there working before dawn has cracked, and here I am rolled up in my blankets like a mole in a burrow, hidden (I hope) behind my homemade window covers. 

But this is where I am, in the now. It's confounding to be this present. I'm coping the way I always have, by pretending I'm not here, this isn't me, it's someone else living this bizarre life, dealing with the fallout of the structural shortage of affordable housing. 

The apartment manager I talked to last week said she was in the same boat. 

"I'm getting old," she said. "Sooner or later, I'll have to stop working. My apartment comes with this job. Where will I go then?"

"They need to build more affordable housing," I said. 

"They never will," she said. "They don't care about people like us. We don't matter."

I left feeling somewhat vindicated that I am not the only Debby Downer in the world, but also thinking, crap, I could be living in my car for a long time before my name bubbles to the top of a wait list somewhere. 

So, let me channel the optimist in me: I have a working car that should last a while (having spent $2,400 last week to make sure), I have money in the bank, and I have few obligations. I don't know how you would interpret these three facters, but to me, they all add up to one thing: road trip! 

Follow that pilot car

This week I've been diligently performing my role as pilot car. Being the pilot car means I'm a leader, not a follower, or I guess you could say, first I'm a leader, and then I'm the ultimate follower, after I pull over into the slow lane and let all the traffic behind me speed by. But until there's a passing lane or nice long turnout, everyone is stuck behind me, and I'm the leader. I take my role seriously, setting the pace just under the speed limit. Except on downhill grades, when with a gravity assist, my old car can get up a head of steam. 

In addition, to being a pilot car, I have other roles I'm diligently performing. For example, I've already mentioned I'm a traveler on the road less traveled. What that means is I don't tend to conform to norms. I live by another set of rules. Oh, don't get excited, that doesn't mean I am a jerk (at least not intentionally). The rules I live by have to do with things like freedom, autonomy, and independence. I guess you could call those principles, rather than rules. Rules are, like, get a good job, find proper housing, and don't pick your teeth at the dinner table. Principles are more along the lines of live and let live, let your freak flag fly, that sort of thing. 

I take my role as a nonconformist as seriously as I do my role as pilot car. When you feel called to do something, probably you should do your best at it. Hm. Well, when I write something like that, being a professional devil's advocate, I always see the loophole punched by Satan, if there is such a thing. Like, if I wanted to be a dictator, should I strive to be the best dictator I can be? Or, if I want to build a house in a sensitive ecosystem, I should strive to build the biggest bestest house I can? Hm. Clarity eludes me. I'm hot. My portable fan died. It gets really hot and stuffy in my car before the sun goes down. It's hard to think coherently, much less write. 

I drove from Bend to Portland today. I've been to Bend once before, in the early 1990s, I think. I didn't recognize the place. It looks like they took Portland and plopped it down in the high desert. Once I got outside the city limit, though, I recognized the high desert terrain. My grandfather used to run cattle on the range outside of Prineville. As I strolled along 97 with a train of cars and trucks behind me, I saw many herds of cattle, but also what looked like groups of wild horses. The land is breath-takingly beautiful, if you like wide expanses of dried grass punctuated by withered trees, dark green bushes, and scrubby brush, with forested mountains in the distance. Nary a cactus in sight. It's beautiful. It's also blazing hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. Lucky for me, I happened along on a relatively mild day. Blue sky, fluffy clouds, not too hot once the sun came up. 

I'd forgotten how majestic Mt. Hood is coming at it from the east. That is one impressive peak. Highway 26 winds over it's southern shoulder, uphill and downhill around curves with scary dropoffs. Views of the mountain appear through gaps in tall timber. Sadly, I couldn't saunter to appreciate the sights because of the train behind me. There's not much snow on the mountain this time of year, but this road goes through the snow zone. Glad I didn't have to chain up (I don't carry tire chains), I stopped at the rest area at Government Camp. The women's restroom was equipped with two long wooden benches, I assume for outdoor enthusiasts to remove their skis and snowshoes before using the facilities. 

Last this week, I left Eugene feeling I'd done my due diligence. Not the place for me. I returned to Portland, picked up my meds, and hit the road. I took a day trip to Maryhill Museum up the Columbia River Gorge. I spent one more night in Portland, and decided to visit some towns between Portland and the coast. Then I thought, well, as long as I'm halfway to the coast, I might as well go all the way. I meandered over to Florence and stayed at the Chinook Winds Casino with dozens of motorhomes and trailers, the occupants of which (I assume) spent most of their in the casino gambling, smoking, eating, or whatever people do in a casino. From my perch on the edge of the upper parking lot, past the rooftops of cars and timeshares I could see ocean for miles. 

I took time in Florence to look at a possible low-income senior housing option I'd found on one of those apartment listing websites. The onsite manager laughed when I asked about a one-bedroom apartment. 

"We have 250 people on the waitlist, honey," she said. "Residents have to die before a vacancy opens up. It could be several years. Priority is given to victims of domestic violence."

I realized then something I should have seen weeks ago: All the listings for rentals shown on the apartment rental sites are bogus. It's all a clickbait scam. Not one of those listings has a vacancy, and most of them have closed their waitlists. On the bright side, if there is such a thing, I'm number 29 on a waitlist for a place in Junction City. That's something. Not sure what. 

I went south on 101. At Reedsport, I headed inland to explore Roseburg. From there I drove through Grants Pass, Medford, and Ashland. I spent a cold rainy night at the Welcome to Oregon Travel Center, and from there drove a long lonely road through big trees to Klamath Falls. After eyeballing Klamath Falls and finding it lacking, I moseyed on up to Bend and spent the night parked on a peaceful side street next to the Sheriff's automotive facility. 

I'm done looking for "traditional" housing for now. I've spent a lot of time and gas driving in circles in places I don't care for, just to conform to the be sheltered at all costs mandate that pervades my local zeitgeist. I'm shooing away the black cloud of despair. If I'm meant to be housed, I will be housed. Meanwhile I will keep living my life as creatively as I know how, no matter how many people I piss off, no matter how many cars stack up behind me. I lead the way on the road less traveled. Come along, if you want. Or not. You free spirit, you. 

I choose the road less traveled

As I was sitting at a laundromat in Anytown, USA, yesterday, washing my skivvies with the neighborhood hoi polloi, I saw the photo of my mother that I taped in the front of my calendar. I remembering taking that photo. I was standing outside her retirement home window, which was in lockdown from COVID-19. In the photo, she's smiling and waving at me, as if she hadn't seen me in days (I visited daily), as if I were a long-lost friend, as if I were something special. I look at that photo often.

My mother had many friends, and she kept in touch with them until dementia claimed her free will. I don't know how she did it. Maybe that's because I am a diehard introvert, and she was a diehard extravert. Having friends probably made her marriage tolerable. Having friends probably gave her respite from child-rearing, a job I don't think she really wanted. 

Over the course of her life, she gathered a group of high school buddies, a cohort of nursing classmates, and a posse of librarians, and she took time to nurture those friendships, mostly in the form of sending cards and calling on the phone. Later, she learned how to butcher an email, but by then her brain cells were in tatters. 

She went to high school with a bunch of girls, who met every few years at Shari's for lunch. This must have been an elite bunch. I don't remember meeting more than one or two of these gals, ever. 

I was more familiar with her nursing classmates. She attended nursing school in the 1950s with a small tight-knit gaggle of tough women who went on to work, get married, have kids, and retire. They dragged their husbands to annual reunions, some of which were at our house, spread out on card tables in the backyard under the maple tree. The nursing classmates even had a round-robin letter to keep everyone updated on the news: whose husband had died, who broke a hip, whose kid got into rehab, who got Alzheimers, who was in a carehome, in lockdown, incommunicado. 

The librarians met for book discussions and pie, again, at Shari's, once in a while at Red Lobster. I had moved away by this time in my mother's friendship continuum, so I only knew the librarians by name. 

One by one, the friends died. Mom was not the last friend standing, but by the time she came to the end of her road, she couldn't correspond with anyone. She could barely remember who they were, even with photo-prompting. (She always knew me, a fact for which I am grateful.)

I look at my tiny circle of friends, dwindling year by year, and think, I am not rich in friends the way my mother was. She once told me to have friends, you have to be a friend. I try to be a good friend to the friends I have, but I don't have many. I'm realizing having only a few friends puts pressure on the few I have. With more friends, I could distribute my complaining more equitably, so no one person has to bear the burden. 

I think when I finally find a place to land and settle, I can apply myself to the task of growing my friend circle. If I can stand to reach outside my comfortable solitude, that is. 

Speaking of settling, I spent a week driving in circles in the Eugene metro area, verbally abused by the GPS lady, whose passive aggressive use of the bong sound is starting to get under my skin. I would probably hear that sound less often if I obediently followed her instructions without question, but sometimes that arrogant GPS lady is wrong. I admit, though, as I putter along the neighborhood streets, waiting for the cue "Turn here" and hoping I choose the correct driveway, I'm thankful for her guidance. I can't imagine what my life would be like trying to plot my route on a Thomas guide. The single best invention ever was the GPS lady. If the internet ever goes belly up, I'm going to park somewhere and get a bicycle. 

I don't like Eugene, just to let you know. I did my best to like it. I kind of liked its blue-collar neighbor, Springfield. Cottage Grove, Junction City, and Veneta are kind of charming. The problem is, there's no housing that I can afford. The few facilities earmarked low-income senior housing seem to have wait lists with more than fifty people ahead of me. There's no sense skulking around Eugene, hoping something will come open. It could take years. The fear foisted upon me by friends and family almost made me think I could tolerate the hell of sleeping at Home Depots until some facility called, just so maybe in a few years, I would not be homeless. 

Nope. No can do. Life moves on, and I'm going with it.

This is a very odd life. But it is what I have right now, so it's up to me to live it as creatively as I can, no matter what other people think of my choices.

The gift horse can sometimes tear your lips off

I'm coming to you from Track Town, USA, otherwise known as Eugene, Oregon. The weather finally cooled enough for me to leave the misty gray coastline and head inland to look for housing options in the Willamette Valley. I'm not sure this area is the right place for me, but it feels more right than Arizona or Texas. 

Every time I leave a safe haven, I feel a surge of trepidation. It's stressful not knowing where I am going to park at night. Oregon so far has been much less friendly toward nomads, compared to Arizona. The "no overnight parking" signs are hard to miss. It's clear some nomads ignore them, but I am not charmed at the prospect of getting "the knock," especially after I'm asleep. So, when I see those signs, I check the apps and look for other options in the vicinity. So far, I've been able to find places, although last night I tried three locations before I felt I was safe enough and legal enough to park without hassle.

My much-adored cousin arrived at the beach house on Monday. We spent time walking on the beach. She gave me the tour of the town. I saw some of the local sights. We talked a lot. Well, after a while, she talked a lot, and I listened. She had a lot to say. As I listened to her tell me the minutae of dividing and selling the acreage of her parent's house in Portland, I realized we had never spent that much time together, alone, just the two of us.  

My cousin did everything right in her life. She went to college, learned a useful skill, applied it for her entire career, and retired with a pension. Along the way, she married, had two kids, built wealth, and got divorced. Then she inherited some wealth. Newly retired, she now has two houses and the financial freedom to do as she pleases. Her health is excellent, she said. Perfect cholesterol, no heart problems, no osteoporosis, definitely no vertigo, and what's more, she's recently lost twenty pounds. She was triumphant that her skinny pants finally fit. If only her kids weren't a bit messed up, life would be perfect. (I'm so glad I'm a childless cat lady!)

On Wednesday, I volunteered to help her fetch a carload of firewood from a local friend's woodpile. She planned to use it in her woodstove. As she drove through the forest, she kept up chirpy patter about the houses and the people of the area. I can't match chirpiness. Little Mary Sunshine I am not. Even on a good day, I just don't have the energy. I started to feel a bit bludgeoned by her chirpiness even before we arrived at a huge house recently built on the edge of forestland. New sprinklers watered new grass. Beyond the grass was a narrow forest of tall timber. Beyond that was a view of the Pacific Ocean. 

The homeowners were outside puttering in their yard when we pulled in. My cousin turned her ebullience on them. After introductions, they ignored me. I stood nearby and looked at the trees. 

Eventually we got busy loading wood into her car. Her exuberance transferred to throwing wood enthusiastically into a wheelbarrow and then ramming the wheelbarrow up a short incline to the car. Her movements were punctuated by frequent utterances to show she was on top of it: "there!" she said a few times. "There!" I started thinking maybe I wasn't moving fast enough and stepped up my game. Then I thought, this is stupid. I'm overweight, out of shape, and plagued by an irregular heartbeat. No way was I going to keel over and have them trip the air raid siren to call out the local volunteer EMT. So embarrassing. 

I slowed to a steady pace. As we filled the car to the ceiling with wood, I made a remark about making sure the wood was secure in back so if she slammed on the brakes, we wouldn't get plastered against the dashboard.

"You always look on the dark side, don't you?" she said as she crammed more wood into the car. 

I should have made a joke at that point. If I weren't so irked, I would have come up with something goofy to show I was impervious to her mild criticism. I know she stabbed me in a loving way, as only family can do.

I can't say she's wrong. I do have some skill at playing devil's advocate. It's a special knack of mine. However, having been a school bus driver, I know what happens to precious cargo when you slam on the brakes. That is what I said.

"Oh, I didn't know you drove a school bus," she said. 

Today as I drove through the back country southwest of Eugene (yes, I took a wrong turn, but yes, it sure is pretty country), I thought about how every inch of this land is claimed and conquered by people who were smart enough to be born into wealth or who had worked a good job, saved their money, and bought land. Or who had married someone who owned land. Lots of ways to get a piece of the American dream, it seems. Unless you are trudging the road less traveled. 

"I recognize I come from a place of privilege," my cousin admitted after she described her opinion of the nation's housing shortage. She didn't blame me for my situation, but she didn't have much empathy to offer, either, which is all I wanted. Most of my friends and family wish I'd just settle for some kind of shelter and get on with life, so they don't have to worry about me anymore.

To that I would say (if I were asked), your fear is not making my situation any better. I'm beginning to realize, for most people, fear of homelessness is the ultimate existential fear. Possibly worse than climate change. 

I need to stop whining. My loved ones can't fix the housing shortage, so instead, they try to fix me. That's what loved ones do. It's the American way. 

There's a saying: You can't go to the hardware store for bread. There's another saying: Expectations are premeditated resentments. I brought my own, so I deserve what I get.