My zone is flooded, how's your zone?

Everyone copes with stress in their own way. For example, one of my family members is writing Substack newsletters identifying and excoriating the lunatics, while another has unplugged from all media. One of my friends is sending out mass hair-on-fire emails urging us to rise up and do something. Another friend is choosing one action they can take to "make things better." 

I've subscribed to multiple Substacks and YouTube channels, adding my puny clicks to help balance the media landscape. I doubt if we liberals will ever catch up to the Foxies but we can try, one scream at a time. I originally subscribed because my hair was on fire. After a while, my hair fell out, and now I congratulate myself on helping the brave liberal media pundits grow their subscriber lists. 

I have given up trying to read or watch everything. The clickbait headlines aren't fooling me anymore. I know it's how media gets our attention these days—even NPR is doing it. Sometimes I sigh, roll my eyes, and take the bait. I'm usually disappointed. Mostly, I just ignore it all. I guess that means I've unplugged my eyeballs but not unplugged from the technology. Hm.

Lately, I'm just selecting everything in my inbox and pressing delete. I can't keep up. I'm not going to fret if I miss something. Head-exploding emails are a lot like waves in the ocean. It won't be long before another one detonates in my inbox. I've taken to watching the highlights. Why listen to anything in real time when other people have done all the emotional labor of chewing, swallowing, and upchucking the news of the day? I don't have the energy to paddle through the muck. 

People say it's not good to isolate, especially in times of stress. I'm not so sure, if the people around you are losing their sh*t when some new catastrophe floods their inboxes. I personally think it might be healthy to avoid people whose hair is smoking. You can usually spot them. They are the ones sending you mass emails exhorting you to do something.

I'm taking the Zen approach, striving for unattachment to particular outcomes. I admit, it hasn't been easy. At first, I was running around like Chicken Little proclaiming the sky is falling. Then I found out the sky might really be falling, not tomorrow, but possibly in my lifetime, and then I realized, I can do nothing to deflect an asteroid. Similarly, I can't by myself move the baby planet nucleus that currently occupies the center of reality into a dementia care facility where it belongs. 

Together, we can do a lot, though. Humans are jerks but we are definitely resourceful. If we can nudge an asteroid into a new orbit, we can certainly nudge an assh*le out of the Oval Office. This is not hard to grasp. The part that requires master Zen skills is the realization that there is a raft of crazies floating in the hazmat zone around that termite-ridden desk. These nutjobs cannot easily be nudged off their paths, on account of they are mean haters who are terrified of losing something they think they have or not getting something they are sure they want. 

This means it is critical to vote early and often. Assuming we still live in a democracy. 

I take heart in remembering that conspiracies fall apart eventually, because humans are pathetic self-centered terrified idiots who are genetically programmed to look out only for themselves. Sooner or later, their quest for power (aka safety) will cause them to eat each other the way caged gerbils eat their young. The way ancient civilizations cut and burned the forests that sustained them. The way ice skaters take crowbars to the kneecaps of competitors. The way the citizens of the winning team tear down their city's signal lights and bash in store windows. I could go on.  

I could whine and say, it's not me, it's those guys over there, the haters, the ones who wish I would die, or at least, cease to exist, so they could get on with whatever they plan to do when their world is finally white enough. When all the grass is in a museum, when anything colorful is behind bars in a zoo or other secure facility. When they have all the money. Although, what they think they are going to spend it on when there's no one left to make the crap they want to buy is probably not on their radar. 

No, it's not me, it's not my fault, but I'm part of the human collective, therefore, I am part of the problem. I drive a fossil-fuel burning car, I buy stuff from big box stores, I want the easy path to the cash and prizes the American dream promised me when I was in art school. 

Therefore, it is me. And you. It's all of us. The outcome we get we deserve. 

I reserve the right to blame drug-induced rage

When the world seems to be falling apart, when up is down, and nothing makes sense, I recommend finding something to alter your mood. For some, that might mean filling the cabinets with rum. For others, maybe Rocky Road is the drug of choice. Those are just two ideas. The possibilities are endless. Me, I am trying a new anticonvulsant, because, you know, the end of the world is no time to be convulsing. After six doses, my head is still doing it's spastic freight-train washing-machine antics, but the side effects are helping me cope with reality. So far, I'm too tired to care about anything. Being boneless is the bomb. 

Eventually I have to get my bones back together, what's left of them, anyway, given how arthritis is carving up my hips. That's a story for another day. It's so weird, though, how everyone I know is needing joints replaced. What's up with that? It's almost like we're getting old or something. I know. So weird.

I had a great idea for a blogpost, and once again, I forgot to write it down. Gone, off into the ether, to seek another writer whose brain can hang onto ideas for more than thirty seconds. I'm sure that other writer will do a great job with my great idea, whatever it was.

I'm not mad, although I could be. One of the side effects of my new med is rage. I know you are thinking, Carol . . . wait. What are you thinking? I'm trying to predict what you would say, and I'm coming up empty. Am I normally a rageful person? It's so hard to know from the inside. In fact, the neurologist told me I won't know if I'm acting like a jerk. I have to rely on the people around me to tell me. 

She was serious. "Let them know," she said. "Ask them to tell you if you are unusually angry or mean."

I texted my sister to tell me if I start acting snarky. I asked my Scottsdale friend to let me know if I suddenly start being mean. They both said they would. That covers the people I'm close to. But what about all the innocent folks I run into daily? The kind Walmart associates who check my receipt when I leave the store to make sure I haven't stolen a big-screen TV? The nice guys who changed the oil in my car and told me I'd soon need new brakes and a battery? The dude who hit me up for spare change in the parking lot with a sob story about being homeless and living in his car? (Like, get real, dude, who isn't?) 

Am I being mean to them and they are too polite or too hurt to show it? 

Maybe this is how Dr. Jekyll felt. 

Don't we all have reasons to be pissed off right now? Even in calm happy times, there's never a lack of things to get mad about. This seems to be a special case of world insanity, but I think I'm meeting the moment with equanimity. I haven't felt my blood boiling yet, so maybe I'm dodging the side effect of uncontrollable rage. On the other hand, maybe some righteous anger would be appropriate. I say, bring it on.

Speaking of righteous anger, I filled out contact forms for both my U.S. Senators and for my U.S. Congressperson, who happens to be a Republican. I made sure I wasn't snarky, mean, or angry. I was aiming for polite, somewhere south of flabbergasted. I didn't present a frothy emotional appeal. That never works. Cold, hard facts don't work either, though. So what are we left with? Relentless phone calls, emails, and marches. 

I got new marching shoes. I'm ready. 

There can be no rest. 

The intersection of angry and old

My lovely sojurn in paradise, i.e., Scottsdale, has ended, and I'm back on the road. I've stopped enroute for a couple days to enjoy free camping in the desert near Marana. Tomorrow I'll head into Tucson to check my mailbox, visit my possessions in the storage unit, and prepare for my afternoon neurology appointment. I'm joking on the last one. There's nothing to prepare. I have very low expectations that anything will change. I had my two months of remission. I'm grateful.

Meanwhile, as the world falls apart, I have had the luxury of complaining about the challenges of aging with my friend. Everytime we tell a story, we begin with the words "Have I told you this before? Stop me if I've told you this before." In my case, I don't remember what anyone tells me until halfway through the story when I realize I've heard it before. My diagnosis is I'm halfway to dementia. Wheee, look at me go.

The sun is setting over the mountains. The desert is half in shade, half still golden with the waning sunlight. It's a remarkable landscape. Mostly dry desert dirt, rocks, some scrubby bushes, and quite a few short green trees. In the distance, the mountains are varying shades of gray-orange with purple and blue shadows. If you've ever seen a Maxfield Parrish painting, you know what I'm trying to describe. I have grown to love the winter desert. In the summer, this place is an inferno no one in their right mind would visit, much less choose as their home. I'm lucky to be here at the best time. Along about April or May, I will vacate the desert and head for clouds and rain, i.e., the Pacific Northwest. I don't like gray skies, but I prefer them to baking to a crisp in Southern Arizona.

I thought I had something to write about in my weekly rant. It was going to be some eloquent poignant diatribe about the unfairness of growing old. Now that it's Sunday, I find I don't have the energy to complain. No one cares, and I include myself in that bunch. 

I emailed my U.S. senators. They are both Democrats. Preaching to the choir, I know. Now I'm composing a message for Republicans. I just need to figure out who to send it to. It's not a frothy plea for mercy and empathy. I know better than to go to the hardware store for bread. It won't be a threat, as in, I'm coming for you if you don't do my bidding. I don't believe in retribution. I'm a live and let live kind of person. I hope it will be a reasonable message from a person who cares about democracy and who hopes others do, too. 

I'm not sure what I will say yet, but I'll think of something. 

Meanwhile, we persist and soldier on.

Here's to the Resistance. 

Sometimes you have to let the train crash

In theory, when my life is free of conflict, there shouldn't be much to write about. Maybe today is one of those days. I haven't had any arguments, nobody has upset me, I don't think I've upset anyone else (no more than usual, anyway), and mostly everything is going well for me. It seems odd that my perception of how my own life is going is so different from my perception of how life on the planet is going, as if I'm standing on some other planet observing the ongoing implosion of human civilization. It's kind of sad that humans feel compelled to take everything down with us, but nothing is really precious if everything is precious. Stardust comes and goes. 

I have no idea what to think or say about the unfolding human train wreck. We've always been greedy, lustful, ambitious creatures. We've always separated ourselves into predators and prey. We've always felt as if we were the center of the universe. The multiverse. As if there could be no species in the universe more intelligent than us.

Sometimes writing about something helps me understand it, but in this case, the conundrum of why humans seem to hate each other so much is beyond my comprehension. I don't have the energy to try to figure it out. I definitely don't have the energy to hate anyone, no matter how much I might find reasons to do it. I just don't care that much, I guess. 

Maybe this is despondency. Maybe it's denial. Maybe I've finally reached the Zen-like state of detachment from ambition and greed that my mother achieved through dementia. Hm. Maybe this is dementia.

I thought I had a blog topic for today, but I didn't write it down, so of course, I lost it. My ability to remember things fails more than half the time now. I sometimes feel resentful when I hear about people twenty years older than me whose minds are "sharp as a tack." That's the phrase I usually hear. A failing memory is not entirely bad. I've already forgotten my resentment. I don't have the energy to berate myself for my failures. I think I've finally reached the Zen-like state of detachment from . . . wait, did I already say that? 

How do you cope with uncertainty? Do you tell yourself it doesn't matter if you don't know what is going to happen, you can't control it anyway? Do you imagine you are an empty boat on the river of life, going with the flow with faith and trust that everything is unfolding as it should? 

Yeah, me neither.

Usually, it feels better to say, I knew this was going to happen . .  the fatalist's view. Or, how bad could it be? Maybe it won't be as bad as I fear. That's as close to Little Mary Sunshine as I can get. Or, my favorite (Debby Downer): Who cares, it doesn't matter, we're all going to die. 

The universe survived just fine before I existed, and it will go on without me.

I don't like to think of all the suffering that will most likely be coming over the next few years. Knowing humans' ability to whitewash, gaslight, ignore, and avoid, no matter how bad things get socially, environmentally, financially . . . some of us will always be ready to point the finger at someone else and say, it's all your fault. Some of us can't accept that we might be at fault. The pain of admitting our wrongs is worse than the pain of watching everything fall apart. 

So, here's what I believe. 

• All borders separating nations should be abolished. 
• All white people should undergo mandatory abortions.
• People who make a lot of money should be taxed at a higher rate, and the funds should be distributed to lower income people and used to provide infrastructure, safety nets, and services that benefit everyone.
• The climate crisis should be treated as an existential threat. 
• Everyone deserves adequate healthcare, food, and shelter, no matter who they are or where they live. 
• Kids should learn civics in school. 
• The moment they invent a vaccine for stupid, we should all be forced to get it, whether we want it or not. 

Don't hold me to any of this. I won't remember it tomorrow. 

Where do we go from here?

Greetings from sunny Scottsdale. Yes, I'm back in paradise, walking the dog, taking out the trash, and pretending I'm a friend of the family and not the hired help. Am I a guest who happens to get paid $25 a day to feed and walk the dog? Am I just here for dog love? It's a curious conundrum I don't spend much time contemplating. What's the point? It's great to have dog love, and did I mention there's a tub?

Meanwhile, I am getting some writing done. The third book of this trilogy is not obedient. The characters are determined to develop themselves, as if I have nothing to do with their goals and dreams. The plot stopped thickening about thirty pages in. Now it's so thin, it's running off in all directions like the coffee I keep knocking over in my car. Just like the drips of stale coffee, I keep finding loose ends, blind alleys, and pointless panoramas. Who cares if my hero steps in a bucket? Is that necessary? Or is it just a joke that means nothing to anyone but me? 

In the end, I have to write for me. If I don't find it funny and entertaining, then what's the point? I'm not writing to impress anyone. I'm sure not writing to earn money. I'm sad my one and only fan has been contending with the L.A. wildfires. She may not have a house anymore. It's unlikely she will be replacing the previous books she bought from me, let alone buying this new one, if I ever finish it. Still, it's heartwarming to know I once had a fan.

I have a mental map of my life. A gold star proclaims "you are here." The path behind me is unchangeable but blessedly hazy. I remember snapshots of humilations, regrets, and unfulfilled dreams but not much else, not without photos to prompt me. The path in front of me might be predictable, if past performance were actually a predictor of future results. However, if you have ever invested your IRA in small cap funds, you've seen the disclaimer. You may not have read it, assuming the market would always rise, but the warning label is there. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. You could lose everything. Then again, you could win the lottery. Just because my past trajectory suggests disasters will compound in my future doesn't mean there aren't other possibilities. 

For example, my writing might get discovered by someone who has enough presence to influence others to buy my books. I know it's not likely, especially given that TikTok is on life support and possibly dead. I have a Ph.D. in marketing, after all. The first challenge for any new product, even before being findable, is to generate awareness of its existence. My books are findable, but nobody knows they exist. It stands to reason: Readers have to know about my books before they might consider buying my books. Sadly for me, I am a social media avoider. I'm also an extreme introvert. Therefore, my only hope is magic.

I am not retreating into magic for the next four years, in case you are wondering. I am keeping my options open. I might write postcards, I might submit exhortations to certain politicians to stop being assholes, I might drive my minivan to Washington and sit outside the Capitol Building with a sign. I'm not sure what the sign would say, but the internet will help me find an appropriate meme. With any luck, I'll make the national news, especially if I self-immolate. If I were young, attractive, and persistent, like Greta, no worries. However, I'm old, wrinkled, and tired. Nobody cares. It would take a seriously drastic action to make the front page of the New York Times. I'm not sure self-immolation would actually be newsworthy. Everyone would claim it's AI and Photoshop. Nothing is real anymore, not even self-sacrifice.

Plus, if I did something that final, I'd miss the show that is coming. Like a typical reader, I want to keep turning the pages to see what happens. The ending might be disappointing, maybe a bit bloody, but sometimes it's the plotlines and characters that keep me going. 

Tips for coping with reality

Now that I live in my car, I'm a new person. It's as if all the years of art school, business school, teaching, editing, taking care of my mother are artifacts of someone else's life. Who am I now? That's always a useful question to ask, if you want to do a reset in the here and now. I'm not normally interested in being in the here and now (as if I had a choice), but as a seeker, I always enjoy figuring out how to reframe my current situation so it doesn't make me insane.

I still have moments of surreality. The sordid necessities of living in a vehicle tend to outshout my curiosity about understanding it. Worries such as, do I have enough trash bags, water, wipes, and alcohol take over worries about more esoteric considerations (like who am I? Where did I come from, and how soon can I go back?). Mostly, I've come to accept my strange lifestyle. (I know you are going to say, Carol, shelter solutions exist: you can always share housing, get a [real] job, marry a rich person, win the lottery, move to another country . . . any number of possibilities, so quitcher whining.) I will not give your comment any energy by responding, except to say, where did you come from and how soon can you leave?

I hope vehicle dwelling is temporary, but I know it's real. 

Right now, I'm parked on Bureau of Land Management land outside of the town of Quartzsite. You might wonder, why there, Carol? Thanks for asking. Quartzsite is the winter roost for vanlifers, who drive many miles to escape the snow, ice, and cold rain back at home. The winter gathering started a few days ago and will run through the week. I'm not a very social person, but I do enjoy being around other people who are doing the exact thing I'm doing: living in a vehicle. Some are in fancy motorhomes and travel trailers, some are in posh sprinter vans, many are in minivans, and I even saw one intrepid nomad who lives in her Smart Car. I'm going to stop complaining about my lack of space. Compared to that car, I live in a mansion. 

The main thing I like is that nobody here thinks I'm weird, bad, or wrong. In fact, everyone here supports, applauds, and celebrates this nomadic lifestyle. Some are part-timers, some are full-timers, but we all have one thing in common: We live life on wheels. 

I'm a helping person, so in case you are thinking about downsizing into a home on wheels, here are a few tips. 

• If you use something, put it back right away. Odds are, if you put it down somewhere, you will never find it again. If you lose something, check where it's supposed to be (and check again, no, I mean, really check). If it's not there, check the trash. Check under your blankets. Check the space between your mattress and the wall. If you don't find it, you either dropped it at Walmart or you're sitting on it.
• Resign yourself to the idea that you will buy things repeatedly because (a) you forgot you already bought it or (b) you forgot where you put it. 
• Don't be alarmed if sometimes you just sit there, wondering what to do next. 
• If you cook with a portable gas stove, stand upwind, use a wind screen, and don't spray water on hot olive oil if you want to keep your eyebrows. 
• Give some serious thought to the question, how many pillows do I really need?
• Expect to pay three to four times as much as you should have spent on your build as you come to accept how little you really need to have a healthy useful mobile life. Get used to going to Goodwill. You won't have time or space to sell your castoffs on eBay. 
• Get more trash bags, wipes, and paper towels than you think you could possibly need. You will need them. And dump your trash quickly and often, or be prepared to smell poop all night.

There you have it. My tips on surviving life on wheels. Yes, there are constraints to living in a small space, but the upside is if you don't like where you are, you can drive away. Of course, wherever you go, there you are, but that's a different post.

Hope your new year is off to a good start.

Cheers from the Hellish Handbasket.

The year of no thinking

I'm swearing off thinking for 2025. I know that sounds radical, even impossible, but let me make my case. Before you say, I'm with you, Carol. We humans spend far too much time in our heads, not enough time in our guts and our hearts, I disdainfully disgree. I think thinking and feeling are highly overrated. See, there I go again, thinking. It's a chronic compulsion. I'm sure I've ranted about this before, but seeing as how it's a new year, it seems like it might be time for a recommitment to my goal to stop thinking. 

Thinking often leads to feeling. Not always, but for me, until now, there has been a direct line. Think about something, then go nah, way too hard, or yay, sure to bring happiness . . . in other words, conjuring feelings of pessimism or optimism, somewhere on the scale between. 

Not going there. 2025 will be the year of action. Thinking will be allowed only in the service of making goals and the tasklists to achieve them. Feelings will henceforth refer not to emotions but to physical discomforts like hunger, thirst, fatigue, and urgent bucket needs. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Meanwhile, the journey continues. I won't say the nomadic life is all roses and lollipops, but it has its . . . let's not call them joys, that would be much too close to the emotional hole in the sidewalk. Maybe advantages is a more neutral word. Doesn't quite convey the idea . . . perks, maybe? 

Let's say it's not all good, it's not all bad. On the futile continuum of judging one's lifestyle, its somewhere in the middle. I muddle along from day to day, focused on the basic daily activities of living. I try not to think much about the state of things, internally and externally, except beyond the physical needs previously mentioned. People are not in my control, even when they seem insane to me. Circumstances do not bend to my whim. Weather defies me continuously, too hot, too cold.

I could get angry. I see a lot of angry people. Angry people do unpredictable things, sometimes violent. I can understand, but in this new year, I'm not dwelling on the whats and whys of insanity. It just is, like weather. It happens. Deal with it.

I admit, sometimes it takes some effort to stop thinking and feeling. Today, for example, I felt sadness. The fourth anniversary of my mother's death is next Tuesday. Even though I would not want her back from the dead, I miss her. I wonder what I would say if she asked me how I am. 

When I start to feel things, I get back to basics. Is the sun shining? Can I get solar? Do I need to drive to recharge? These things matter to me. I'm going out to Quartzsite next week to be near other people who would not consider my lifestyle weird or wrong. Before I go, I need to get water, trash bags, food. These things will be hard to find and cost a fortune in the small town of Q, truck stop for motorhomes on the I-10. I'll shop at Walmart. Fry's, probably, to stock up on the basics of my nomad life. It's not bad, it just is. 

Happy 2025 from the Hellish Handbasket

Here we are again at the end of a year, with a new year staring us in the face. I remember when time moved so slowly, it seemed as if the school year would never end. Now I can't believe how fast time passes. It's confounding. Digging in my heels and making skid marks only works in the cartoons. 

Do you set goals for yourself at the start of a new year? I have a friend who makes a list and then tracks her progress on each goal. At the end of the year, she publishes a cute pie chart showing how she spent her time and a bar chart showing how much of each goal she accomplished. I've heard that tracking a goal makes it more likely to succeed. When I wrote my first novel, I tracked my word count daily. I wanted to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I wrote 90,000. Overachiever. But the point is tracking works.

I have not been tracking my word count for my current novel. However, I am writing a lot. My goal was to finish the third book of my trilogy. I'm only a year behind. 

I could blame my new lifestyle. Well, yes, I blame my new lifestyle. Living in my car makes it harder to focus on creativity. I spend a lot of my time thinking about mundane things like water, trash, food, power, and gas. Not to mention plastic bags, wipes, vinegar, and alcohol, as in, do I have enough of these things to last another few days, or do I need to stop at Walmart? 

I remember a time when I swore I'd never set foot in a Walmart. Ha ha. 

This tiny keyboard is hard to type on. I probably look a lot like Linus when he's playing his dinky piano. Which proves my life is pretty much a cartoon.

Speaking of cartoons, my brainiac head doc is on vacation until January 6. Can you believe it, the nerve of her taking time off over the holidays when I'm a vestibular-challenged puddle of dizzy goo. It's a travesty.

Speaking of travesties, politics. I'm not an eloquent writer on that subject, but I subscribe to writers who are. I'm not alone in my sense of impending doom. Maybe doom is already here. Hm. I read that AI could kill off humans within thirty years. Could. It makes sense to me. AI will have no need for humans. 

I'm sure more could be said, but I'd just be barking out my butt.

Happy new year from the Hellish Handbasket.

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.