Friday, May 13, 2011

And now I have a Lauryn Hill song in my head...

To be honest, I'm starting to enjoy my simple, urban camping lifestyle. I have running water, an electric tea kettle, and a refrigerator. I have my mattress AND my chair, plus a futon if I can figure out how to get all the dust out of the cushion by myself.

I wake up and go up to the kitchen to start the hot water for coffee. I'm cone brewing for now because I don't have a coffeemaker, obviously. I drink coffee, do my morning calisthenics, maybe watch a dvd, though I'm trying to go through those slowly because I don't have internet and they're all I've got. I eat something for breakfast with my second cup of coffee, and then I figure out the day.

Today was Friday, and I finished patching/sanding the walls Thursday morning, so I sat on my steps and finished my book while my buddy worked on the electrical outlets. I mentioned that my brakes were squeaky on my bike, so he fixed them, just like that. Then I went out for a ride because that's what you do when your brakes are suddenly quiet like ninja bike brakes.

I'm becoming addicted to bike rides. I don't think they'll ever replace running - not remotely the same feeling for me - but I really enjoy them. They're peaceful and dynamic at the same time.

When I'm not urban camping anymore - i.e. when everything I need to survive is at my house with me - then I won't be using my car at all. As of right now, I don't have internet, and I'm not comfortable taking my computer on my bike. If I have an accident... well, I'm made of squishy bits that have two things going for them that my laptop doesn't: 1, they can heal themselves and 2, they're insured. So I'm at Caribou Coffee and I had to use fossil fuels to do it.

The fact that I'm essentially having one over on the dinosaurs is only slight consolation. Jeff Goldblum did it better and everyone knows it. Plus, I read too much Dinotopia as a kid to really dislike dinosaurs. I still think a triceratops would be the best friend ever.

I don't really need the internet for at least another week, when my online class starts up. But I want it. My Hulu queue is starting to look impossible, and I miss bothering my friends on GChat while they're at work.

Urban camping would be perfect if there was internet. I could do it forever, I think. Especially once we get the washer and dryer hooked up.

Oh, I forgot to mention the exciting times I had at 9:30 this morning, when the delivery guys came by unannounced. I was still in my pajamas and not my cute, other-people-can-see-me-like-this pajamas. No, I was wearing my super comfy fluffy purple leopard spotted pants and a white wifebeater that I'd been sleeping in for a couple of days. The secret of wifebeaters is that you can't ever wear them in public more than once a washing. They stretch out really quickly.

So the delivery guys were kind of chuckling and said, "Did we wake you up?" and I lied and said they did, even though they really didn't and I'd been up for a couple of hours. I sometimes come home and change into pajamas for two hours in the middle of the day before I have to leave again. I don't understand people who are dressed in real clothes all the time.

So I showed them where to put the machines and they showed me how to hook them up once I got the hoses and things, and one of them managed to make asking if I had a boyfriend seem like a totally innocent question about tools. It was very artfully played and I deflected it into a discussion of roommates rather than say I was gay, somehow in recognition of that fact.

Either he has the worst gaydar on Planet Earth, or the fluffy purple leopard pants somehow negate all the gay vibes I'm told I exude. I don't do it on purpose and to be honest sometimes I really appreciate it when people don't know. It's not a lack of pride or anything, it's just that I don't like feeling like that's The Thing about me.

You know The Thing. Everyone has one. When you're trying to tell someone who someone else is, it's the first thing you say to describe them. "The tall guy," or "the chick with all the piercings," or "the one with all the tattoos." I don't like feeling like people preface me by saying, "You know, the raging dyke." So when people think I'm straight, it makes me think that maybe that's not The Thing about me.

Then I stop thinking about it, before I start wondering what The Thing actually is.


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