About one year ago I was fresh out of a mental hospital — having stayed for a bit to prevent my quitting the struggle in a very final way — I’d just become homeless after years of debilitating illness, and had just arrived to Long Beach, California with hopes of somehow making a life. I’d read about a ginormous low-income housing development and drove right to it, hoping they’d hear my story, understand my situation, and be able to help in some way. HA! 🤣
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That’s not how it works. At. All. In order to get a shot at low-income housing there’s an *annual* lottery to get on a list (competing with all of LA county), and if you are among the lucky small percentage that wins the lottery you get....to be on the end of a waiting list! A DECADE-long waiting list! It felt infuriatingly pointless at the time. Shelters also generally have zero-occupancy. And it takes several *years* to get a disability hearing. Our country’s safety nets aren’t what I was led to believe, I had no idea how little support there is. (But I did find showers! And a place that accepted only mail pertaining to my Disability case. That’s about it.)
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Anyways, things have kinda come full circle. I’m worlds healthier, and just started a job with the very city department that created the low-income housing community I oh-so-fruitlessly visited a year ago. And looking through the materials covering the last ten years of low-income housing creation and it’s effects — it’s easy to see that it’s far from pointless. It’s pretty darn amazing. (And pretty darn insufficient, but you gotta start somewhere, eh?) This here lovely building is one such community. What a year.
Fuckless Adventure #1, Play the Cloud Game (8/20): For lunch today I found a sunny bench outside the courthouse near work, ate a deeelish salad, and searched the skies for clouds of recognizable shape. Southern California doesn’t have great skies for the cloud game (usually just gloriously blue), so I thought I’d better jump today even though they were a little stringy... At first a fish caught my eye, then the wind must have swooped up — slowly turning it into a shark, mid sharp turn. Here we have a few folks swimming in the sky and a lil’ Pegasus crawling out of a cloud. I also happened to witness a man in a very expensive and serious-looking suit ride by on a very silly scooter/skateboard thing. Delightful. ⛅️
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My book baby, being tested here, is called How I Lost All My F-cks. She’s one part my fuckfull to fuckless tale of misadventure; 2nd part’s a meditation challenge to introduce you to your mind (you might think you know... 🤯); And the final part’s a series of 20 Fuckless Adventures (like so!), which are a whole lot like dares. A month that won’t soon be forgotten...
Fuckless Adventure #3, Wear Something “Weird” for You (7/20): You May have gathered from my purple hairs that I looooove color. A few years ago, a couple friends and I were getting ready to go to a pride event and one of them pointed out that I was all rainbow-y, assuming it was for the occasion. But nope, not really an act of ally support so much as just my being comfy in color. It’s especially strong with purple. I actively have to stop myself from buying purple stuff because I don’t truly want to wear 5 purple things at once, but they’re what I got around...cause they always look so pretty in the store. 🙄😈
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Anyways. Not a drop of colored clothing today! (Though I must admit, my earrings are colorful as fuck.) I’ve also spent the last six post-layoff weeks in pjs and before that it was working at the dispensary, which involved wearing a lot of men’s promotional tees (though cannabis, def kept some 💚); and it was literally years of more pjs before that (#spoonieproblems). So for my first day at this jobber, I went with something that decidedly doesn’t channel the chronic-illness-bag-lady-dress-code mojo I’ve been working. It was nice to feel put together and I liked the idea of a clean first impression, letting my words do the talking. (My outfit’s way cuter tomorrow though.)
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P.S. So far so awesome working for the city! It’s really nice on my nerd feels, I could see it really bringing out my best Knope. Grateful.
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P.S.S. This Adventure in non-baggy-pigment-deficient clothing is brought to you by my testing #howilostallmyfucks, my dearest bookbaby and month-long adventure. Check her out in my bio link, if you so fancy.
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P.S.S.S. Hope your night’s a goodie 😘
