Pictures

Here are a few pictures of our living conditions. More will come but these will fuse your imagination with reality. The forerunner is obviously the sleeping car, and the buick is the luggage car.

The Bed
Notice the space underneath for DVD's. It's a crucial piece.

Helter Skelter

I just finished the book "Helter Skelter" which is one of the craziest, in some ways scariest, and one of the most interesting books I've ever read. It's definitely not for everyone because it's very hard to swallow but its really well written, sometimes like a crime scene drama, sometimes like a courtroom drama. Like I said, its a really bizarre true story that probably many people don't want to know, but it's a crazy account of how wayward the human mind can go, and how everyone has such an innate desire to belong somewhere, even the farthest outcasts look for a community and that was the great tragedy of this story. That these people found no other place to feel a sense of belonging, and that desire was deeply betrayed. Anyways, don't go out and read it right away, lest you believe that Jon Rand is a deeply disturbed psycho, but it a story of the extreme end of mankind and I was intrigued.

Anyways, after that I need to read a more fluffy book to clear my mind of the density of what I just read. Living in a car affords me a lot of reading time which I love. (suggestions for more books to read are good by the way). I also been listening to a lot of podcasts by Erwin McManus about actively pursuing the things that you desire to do in life, rather than writing them off as too far fetched, and this really reinforces the motivation of this living in a car experience. The closer I get to graduation the more this little fear creeps up in the back of my mind that I'm going to end up being bound and shackled to a paycheck from a means-to-an-end job that I either hate or am bored with. So I guess the point of this car experience is to get myself outside the typical, expected routine of life and remind myself that life is actually incredibly amazing and new and mysterious and fleeting and I don't want to be lulled to sleep by the everyday routine. So this car experience eliminates that expected routine, making spontaneous demands on my day to day life that I have to constantly examine and adjust and discover. Its more like a "pinch me" experience where I'm trying to wake myself up so I really go after life and change the rhythm of living.

Sorry this sounds all ideological and ridiculous but I had a small bout with insomnia tonight so my thinking is off kilter but I think this ultimately explains the reason why I wake up every morning and roll out of the side door of a Toyota 4runner despite awkward stares of the people walking by on their way to class.

Also its cold enough now that the outdoors serves as a natural refrigerator so I have been buying lunch meat and keeping it on the roof of the forerunner. It's a nice luxury.

Sleep is a necessary sacrifice

I got out of class at 2pm exhausted from a long night of poker, FIFA and studying (by studying I mean typing 30 vocab terms and then being too tired to define any of them), and I headed out the door to take a long nap at "home." Since its been getting increasingly cold, taking midday naps have become way more manageable not to mention comfortable. So I headed out towards the car when suddenly I caught the distinct smell of bacon. It was so strong it was impossible to ignore. The closer I got to the car, the stronger the smell, like a mix of bacon or ham of some sort. Lo and behold as I rounded the corner I saw an esteemed gentlemen of the Macomb Police Department parked in the back of the parking lot near our car. I don't really have any reason to believe that he was there for the 4runner, because that would be pretty incredible and a lot of planets would have to align for that to happen, but I wasn't about to crawl into the back and settle in for a good three hour nap with him parked right there. So here I am at the library, tempted to find a secluded spot and curl up on the floor and make a night of it.

I ended up walking something like mile because I thought he'd be gone in a few minutes. Instead I lugged my ten ton backpack around for a good twenty minutes or so listening to "Sadie" by Alkaline Trio on repeat trying to make sense of it. John has gotten way less sleep then me though, probably recording 12 to 15 hours over the last three days (but he's making up for it and he's as healthy as a horse, dave and jodie). They work you hard over there at Wal-Mart in the meat department.

Which brings me my next point. You're probably thinking poor ol Jo(h)n, living like a vagabond out of a car. It's a shame he can't enjoy the finer side of life like me in my fancy queen sized bed and enjoy lavish frozen pizzas and mac and cheese dinners but let me answer your sympathy with a question. How are you enjoying those Colossal shrimp dinners? Oh wait, that's me who's eating shrimp dinners sauteed in Heineken and butter. Thanks to John's newly acquired job, we eat like kings. I'll bet you never even knew that there were shrimp so big they were called Colossal shrimp. ( I didn't either and it was kind of unnerving eating shrimp as big as my hand but thankfully the heavenly taste helped overcome the mental image). Overall things are going good still, I look forward to this colder weather and midterms are done which means I'm halfway out of here. All in all, living in a car still a good choice.



I know a few really good decent cops, they don't smell like bacon.

More Night Visitors

I've gone a long time with limited contact with my guitar and its been killing me very slowly. So lately, when I return home around midnight or so, I'll grab my guitar and just sit in the Buick and play for a while. If you happen upon the CSC parking lot late at night and hear a distant guitar and see some strange person sitting in a strange car at the back of the lot, don't worry, just slide right into the drivers seat provide me with some harmonies.

While I've done this the last couple of nights I've noticed a strange array of nocturnal creatures making their way toward our cars. Only one for each night, but still considerably diverse. I started to worry that they'd take a nap under the car and when I'd open the door and step out they'd be frightened into attacking my ankles, and I'd have to smash them in the head with my guitar (its been through worse). But as I watched a raccoon approach the car I realized that he had a distinct curiosity in the place where I spit out my toothpaste. He investigated it and then walked away. The next night, a possum walked up to the car and went to a different spot, again, a toothpaste spatter. It's been like this for the past few nights and I realized I should just let them lick up the second hand toothpaste puddles in peace and leave them alone. But next night, I'll play a little trick on them and spit my toothpaste out where I take my midnight bathroom break.

Its starting to get into sleeping bag weather. The nights are nice and cool and the sun doesn't fry you in the morning anymore, unless you're facing east like John is, then its still acts as an early alarm clock. Its still going great, and in my new found wisdom of age, I've decided I made a good decision to do this.