You know you aren't in Southern Arizona anymore when an older woman living her car feels the need to pull out her stun gun and press it when you walk by her car on the way to your own little house on wheels. I didn't know what it was, having never seen a stun gun or Taser, so I didn't have a reaction until I walked by, got in my car, and Googled what does a Taser sound like?
The only visible difference between us, besides that her car was a lot nicer than mine, was that she was Black and I am White. So there you go. Usually I am invisible, but not to her. I'm guessing her lived experience was a lot different from mine and possibly not in a happy way, if she felt the need to rattle her weapon when I walked by.
I visited a childhood friend this week. Remind me not to do that. To some people, I'm an outcast, I'm a pariah. Wrong life choices, yada yada. To others, I'm a curiosity, a specimen to be examined and interrogated. My beloved Arizona friend is the only one who checks in regularly to see how I feel about being unhoused. We figure it out together. To everyone else, I'm shunned, ridiculed, or ignored.
My new unicorn, I mean, PCP, prescribed a stronger statin to help prevent stroke and heart attack. Unfortunately for me, it enhances diarrhea. I hope the symptoms are on the wane, and I'm glad I stocked up on plastic bags. You haven't really experienced van life until you have diarrhea in your car. There's nothing quite like it.
My labs show that I'm still slightly anemic, ho hum, old news. He didn't seem to think it warranted any hand-wringing, so I'm not going to worry about it. I spent the past couple years freaking out about health stuff. I'm so over it. I'll try to up my vitamin game but other than that, I will carry on. Everyone dies sometime.
Meanwhile, rain. More rain. Showers. A little break, followed by more cold rain. A big reason I left Portland (besides that I could no longer afford rent here) was the incessant cool gray wet weather. I have a link to a temperature map on my phone. Today, almost every place in the continental U.S. is warmer than it is here. As soon as my meds are refilled, I'm leaving this slogfest.
I'm not sure where I will go next, because as you know, weather doesn't stay long in one place, whether we want it to or not. I haven't mastered the skill of traveling with the weather, but I plan to work on it over the next few months. Assuming I don't get tased by a paranoid fellow traveler. Or yelled at by a crazed homeowner who thinks the street in front of their house belongs to them. Or sideswiped by a semi. Or bled dry by car repairs and dental work. Or shamed into nonbeing by my so-called friends.
