The long strange trip is not over yet

This week I was reminded once again that there are penalties for being a nomad. The USPS, in an effort to stem the flow of drugs through the mail (they say fentanyl but I assume they really mean mifepristone), is requiring all people who rent mailboxes from mailbox companies to produce two pieces of ID that show a residential address, and the addresses have to match. I have neither. What that means is the mailbox I've rented since I moved to Tucson four years ago is now going to be closed at the end of the month. 

I wish the mailbox company would engage in some "good trouble" and stand up to these new requirements, but I can understand their desire not to be put out of business. They will be losing a customer, and I bet I'm not the only one. However, I just renewed for a year last December, so I have eight months left on my box lease. They knew this was coming, and they waited until now to notify me. And here's the bummer: no refunds. Yep. They lose a customer, and I'm out about $250. Plus, soon I will have no mailing address.

What a strange trip this has become. I am having a hard time assimilating the ups and downs of the past ten years. Well, twenty years. Hell, get real. My entire life has been a series of . . . I don't know what to call them. Self-centered fearful choices might be one way to describe them. Safe roads rejected in favor of the most weedy overgrown crumbling cliff-edge trails I could find. 

In other words, I did this to myself.

That's one way to look at it. 

On the other hand, I did not create a shortage of affordable housing. I did not create the tendency for some members of society to ignore, exploit, or abuse senior citizens. I certainly did not vote for the human chainsaws tearing the US democracy into bloody bits. It must be a heady feeling to believe you can destroy a 250-year-old democracy on a whim, and do it in three months. It's a remarkable feat, a breathtaking demonstration of what happens when circumstances place wealth and power in the hands of insane megalomaniacs. I can destroy things, too, but I'm a lot slower. 

Some of my crankiness might be attributable to Keppra rage, but not all of it. There are lots of other reasons to be irritated. I've had some moments of irritation over the past week after compulsively watching the independent media channels I've started following. I know what you are going to say: Carol, why do you watch that stuff? It's almost like you want to be bludgeoned. Almost like you enjoy your simmering rage. Could be you are correct. I always choose the road less traveled. I'm sure you never feel that way.

It's not just meds and politics. Weather is pissing me off, too. Wind and rain are the product of air pressure changes. That means when there's weather, I'm dizzy all the time. My head is like an unbalanced washing machine stuck on spin cycle pounding the wall and making dishes fall out of your cupboards. That would annoy just about anyone.

Consider me annoyed. 

Meanwhile, I'm relocating my domicile to a place where I have the documentation I need to rent a new mailbox. That would be my brother's address. So, back to Oregon I go to become an Oregon resident again, before I hit the road for parts unknown, waiting for the affordable housing shortage to end.