On Being Transient

I have been called elusive. Cheap. Fat. And Lazy.

And Brilliant.

When I returned to the Square State from Charm City, it was in the middle of the academic year. More problematic, I was intending to go right back to the City of Charm after 5 months of being back in the Square State. This would mean I would need to find some weird sub-lease or bite bullets to the tune of 800 dollars a month to rent a studio apartment with a sweet premium. The studio idea was manageable, but my business in Denver was only 3 days a week, and I wanted to spend a lot of time on the Western Slope and the I-70 corridor and the I-haven't-been-snowboarding-in-12-years slopes (and your hearts); and spending a lot of money to live somewhere for 3 days a week seemed ludicrous.

So, I went with an option so much more ludicrous that it just.

Might.

Work.

I decided to become a Transient whilst in Denver. In Grand Junction as well, I would not just stay with my parents but with friends as well. A couch crasher. And if the Mrs. Is willing, a home wrecker.

Before I left for Baltimore, I hatched a plan of being a couch crasher. I had a long list of friends that had roofs, heat, and showers that they'd be willing to share for 3 days or so, especially with a pal that just got back from a 6 month internship on the Eastern seaboard.

I was blessed (and condemned) when a professor of mine in Denver suggested housesitting for her while she was out of the country. Blessed, because it was a month of rent I didn't have to pay (or couch crash), and condemned because it made the amount of time to rent a place in Denver even more ludicrous (4 months...The place with the studio had 3 month leases and 5 month leases. Thanks, AMLI!).

Anyway, I sold my overheating Honda and invested in a Subaru Legacy Outback. A couple years newer, forty thousand miles fewer, an existent rear wiper, a Yakima RocketBox, two more doors, and air conditioning is the sum of the switch. I needed a vehicle that I could afford financially that itself could afford to have a bunch of miles put on it in a hurry: round trip each week is 500 miles, plus whatever driving I do while in town.

One protester of this plan proclaimed that it would be more expensive to do this than to just rent a place. Not so. I've done the calculations. Oil changes, new tires, OK GO! cds, gasoline (dinosaur bones, Mr. Cash), and grocery/meals for the host and hostess still comes to less than keeping a place.

Plus, it is a lot more sociable. This taciturn catepillar is slowly turning into a social butterfly.

I am learning about the great hospitality of my friends and gaining a little bit of solidarity with my transient brothers. I fully recognize I am not as bad off as many of them, since I am some bloated fat American white preppie that has a car, a lap-top, credit cards accepted by Chipotle and Wi-Fi friendly (free o' charge) Panera Bread Co., friends with showers, and a 24 hour gym membership that allows showers and mirror checks to preserve my vanity. I am closely monitoring my emotional state, as I have been advised that not having a home can cause identity crises and loss of bowel/bladder/sinus control.

Whoever I am just crapped/pissed/snotted on this public library keyboard.


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I'll try to write up little observations of this life as I go along, but if I do not my saving grace is in Physics: we cannot know both the position and speed of certain particles because measuring one affects the other. So I cannot both record life and keep living it.