Moving in With Your Parents Sucks Ass – Part 1

It’s official. A brilliant West Coast sun has finally set on my days as a wanderer. At this moment, I find myself locked in the freezing attic of my parents’ suburban Michigan home. I gave up my life on the road for … well, it’s frankly just a long-ass story. So start the flashback sequence because I’m incapable of doing anything with consistency. Including [especially] blogging.

Dateline:
April-ish
SAN DIEGO – As you may [or more likely may NOT] have read previously, due to some questionable financial moves with my credit cards, I found myself in about $5,000 worth of debt. [The word “found” is a strong one. In reality, I created and maintained that debt pretty solidly for the past four years or so.] Keep in mind, that five grand did not include a penny of the ass-numbing amount of money I owe on my school loans. I could have gotten a moderately sweet condo for what I paid for a Journalism degree from Miami University.

Smash cut to the day in June when I moved out of the comfortable, scenic apartment I’d shared with my cousin for the past year in Ocean Beach. Due to the debt I’d acquired, a fairly lax dress code at the office I was working in as an “SEO Specialist,” and an inspirational kill-your-debt book by Dave Ramsey that my Dad gave me, I decided that it would be both financially and creatively beneficial for me to move into my car.

Several hilarious interludes with law enforcement and a couple parking lot nudity incidents notwithstanding, living out of my tiny Ford Escort was pretty much the perfect situation. I was saving almost $800 a month and putting it on credit cards. I spent long nights at my favorite goth coffee shop writing and applying to jobs. I finished the video editing I’d been putting off for months. I experienced a newfound drive to spend quality time with friends I’d neglected. And after three months, I’d paid off one of my credit cards, made it through a major car breakdown financially unscathed, and actually felt like I was really living life again in a way that I hadn’t in a long time…

And then I got laid off.

Living out of your car is pretty easy when you have a standard 9-to-5 gig. You get up in the morning, remove your head from the trunk, climb into the front seat, and drive the three blocks to the gym to shower. [During this period in my life, I went to the gym to shower… And only to shower. It was a rare day when kick boxing, spinning, or the treadmill factored into my gym time. It was strictly a cheap shower facility for me.  A brief thank you is in order for LA Fitness. You made my homelessness possible. After all, it’s totally acceptable to be homeless. But it’s definitely frowned upon to look homeless, and even less kosher to smell homeless.] Being homeless was easy with the office job… By the time I got out of work, I’d head to a friend’s house to hang out, read a book in a parking lot, post up with my embarrassingly large computer in a coffee shop, or just spread a blanket on the sand and watch the sun descend into the ocean. The vagrant lifestyle suited me.

But when I got laid off [another blog for another day] it became especially difficult to survive on “The Streets.” There was no where for me to go when I removed my head from my trunk. No place to relax during the sweltering of the late Southern California summer. In retrospect, I probably should have put more effort into making my jobless life productive on the road, but that may just be the attic chill talking. I ended up crashing on the couch of a friend for a month, but this particular one-bedroom apartment wasn’t built to quarter three humans, two dogs, and my various sexual partners.

Long story short – because it’s getting to be the long version – I took my freedom from the office and my first unemployment check and did some traveling with a girlfriend from Holland. Another friend said she’d pay for accommodations for a week at a Panamanian surf camp if we’d pay our own airfare… And all that saving and paying off debt went out the window. I took all that additional space I’d made on my newly freed credit card and bought a ticket to Panama City.

Approximately $2,200 and 10,000 miles later, I’m home at my parents house in Saline, Michigan, living in the same room where I spent my senior year of high school brooding. And it wouldn’t be a proper blog entry if I didn’t have a new plan of action. [Because an MFA from film school is just not in the cards right now…]

I’m going to write a novel. And pay off that card again. Afterwards? Who knows. But I think at this point I’m looking at about four to five months of dealing with my borderline insane parents and temperatures that have a tendency to slip towards the ball-shrinking end of the spectrum.

There’s more. But there always is. And it’s 4 a.m. And I’m rusty at this writing thing…

Perhaps more consistency is in order? Stay tuned.

~ by California Girl in The Mitten on October 31, 2009.