Becoming Legit

Oh man, I’ve been out of commission for a while here. I’m so sorry… I know my three followers have lost all faith in my ability to blog successfully. I think I picked the wrong format anyway, since Tumblr is pretty much all about pictures. Man, I just keep getting it wrong. I knew I should have gone to WordPress.

Anyway, what was I going to write about before I got distracted by my own lack of blogging ability. Oh yes, Newtown.

Yes, I have been studiously ignoring the Newtown Massacre (yes, I know they don’t call it that.) One, because I wasn’t there, two, because I don’t know anyone who was there and three, because I hate what the media has done with it. They’ve turned a legitimate tragedy that has real meaning for some people into some kind of national spectacle. I won’t go into it any more, because the depths of my rage and disgust probably wouldn’t make for good reading.

I will point this out, though. This is a quick Wikipedia snippet:

“On December 14, 2012, 26 people, including 20 children, were killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The incident is the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, behind the killings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and the third deadliest school attack behind the Virginia Tech massacre and the Bath School disaster.”

It says third deadliest. Yes, third. America is nuts.

I think it’s all an evil plot by the Kardashians.

Just a quick post to let people know that comments are now enabled.

You’ve probably never been homeless. And neither had I. Until I was.

Being homeless sucks. It sucks in all kinds of ways you could never imagine until you’ve been there. And it’s nothing like being one of those hoboes old movies used to depict; the plucky, kind-hearted street philosopher type, sort of like the defunct Hobo Joe’s restaurant kind of hobo.



Imagine you’re homeless and you want a cot or bed to sleep in for the night. Simple right? Lots of shelters and places for the homeless, we see ‘em on the news during the holidays when someone spends their Thanksgiving handing out turkey and shit. But no… Not simple at all. So for your reading pleasure, I will excerpt something I wrote when I personally was homeless:

“I’m standing at the counter, waiting for a bed, when they ask me for ‘proof of homelessness.’ I’m thinking: If I’m talking to your shelter-running ass at 7 in the morning, looking for any place at all to sleep, next to Crackhead Joe over there, I gotta be fuckin’ homeless, right? What the fuck is proof of homelessness, anyway? Do we gotta pay like a membership due, join the homeless union or some shit? Do they check our feet for calluses like fuckin’ horses hooves, or stick a GPS tracker up our ass?”

I mean seriously, do people think that anyone who has any other place to go will stand in line for 3 or 4 hours, just to get a ticket for a one night cot? Maybe just as, what? a fun vacation? a break from staying at the Ritz? a new extreme sport?

“Thrills, Chills and Spills! Dodge knife-wielding hos, the perpetually bleeding man with open sores and sleep next to the guy with a mouth that smells like an open sewer. Pick crack bags out of your bed and watch people shit in public!”

Anyway, I did manage to carve out a little routine, score a bed for 30 days (because that’s how long it takes to fix being homeless) and sleep in till the luxurious hour of 5:15 am. Every morning I would wake up, get kicked out of the shelter and wade my way through the lovely stench of piss and cheap weed to meet the new day with hope and optimism.

Unexpectedly, however, I also found the ultimate realization of Bill Gates’ dream:

“When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software,” recalls Gates. “We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home.”

Right and left, I found people with no desk and no home, but -  you guessed it - a computer. And wireless internet. And on line dating accounts. And business websites. 

I had no idea.

Interesting side note:

It turns out a Hobo Joe’s does still exist! Run, I imagine, by people so clueless you have to love them. Here’s the address:

Hobo Joe’s Coffee Shop
660 E Mingus Ave, Cottonwood, AZ 
(928) 634-2651

Go there and marvel for me. And then turn to someone and say:

“Brother, can you spare a dime?”

Or maybe don’t. Because Arizona is a gun totin’ state

And even better, it turns out the chain didn’t just die a deserved death because of its outrageous name, but because of embezzlement, a car bomb and the mafia. No, I’m not kidding… I hope you’re as happy as I am about this. Look it up. I read it on the internet. It must be true.

Okay, so I started a blog. Now I’m wondering if it was a mistake.

Being someone that does a little research, I started looking around the net about blogging. Dear god, the blogging community is annoying… Suddenly I was knee deep in obnoxious girls making snotty comments about famous people I don’t even recognize.

Or maybe this is me just not liking people again.

Then there’s this whole thing about professional blogging. I guess that’s a real thing, but…

Seriously I thought it was a joke when a banner popped up:

Struggling to Find Time to Blog? Get Our New Productivity eBook

Oh yes, that’s my problem, my life keeps getting in the way of my blogging. What I really want to do is sit at home, watch Gossip Girl, eat junk food and be a professional blogger.

Okay, enough from me for tonight, I’m all out of wry social commentary.

For anyone that wants to contact me, I’m on facebook as Becoming Legit. Pretty creative, huh.

Anyway, as an added bonus - and since I have worked in customer service myself - here is a blog thing with some funny content:

http://notalwaysright.com/

Also, check out a tumblr page I follow with cool Brazilian street art, Art na Cidade, which I think translates as Art in the City or something:

http://artenacidade.tumblr.com/

It’s probably a better use of your time than reading my blog.

Welcome to my new blog.

In recent years I have been on an interesting journey. It has its ups and downs, but it also seems completely absurd at other times.  My sister commented, after I talked about some other new legitimate thing I was doing, like opening a bank account:

“Wow, pretty soon you’re going to be totally normal.”

I just looked at her sidelong…

She went on to say:

“Well, maybe not normal, but totally legit.”

Just to reassure everyone who knows me, this does not mean I will start shopping at Ikea.

Some of the pluses of the new journey:

    •    I don’t end up in jail, forced to eat baloney sandwiches.
    •    I won’t hit you with my car after using the Home Depot parking ramp as an exciting crack-fueled roller coaster.

Some of the minuses:

    •    I know who the Kardashians are.
    •    I have an ongoing, one-sided relationship with the IRS.

Now this journey towards legitimacy requires me to deal with all sorts of people. Contrary to what you might think, a lot of drug dealers are very straightforward people and there’s not a lot of messing around in convoluted social games. Normal people, however, are anything but…

I now live in a house with a woman who unplugs every appliance. Yes, the toaster, the oven, the washing machine etc.; no, not the fridge.  She says it’s because someone told her it saves electricity. Naturally, I asked her how much? She gave me this stunned look, like the question had never occurred to her. If I was running around my house plugging and unplugging appliances, I would want to know it was worth it.

Before that, I lived in the attic of a house with a man who cordoned off areas of the fridge to each roommate. I mean, exactly to the inch. I expected a knock on my door every day: “Your carrot has violated the perimeter of the designated food storage area.”

I had a heated argument with him one night about whether I could wash my laundry with my super eco-friendly laundry soap. That will probably be the only time in my life I will hear the words: “It has to be fucking HE detergent!” while a man pushes his chest out and pounds his washing machine.

Ironically enough, this was the day after I was shot at right across the street while walking home from work. I explained that I would no longer be living there after the first, as it wasn’t safe. He was offended and told me that this had never happened before.  I replied that whether it had or not, that being shot at after living somewhere a week was a pretty good indication that it was not safe.

I neglected to point out that he lived behind a padlocked fence with two giant pit bulls.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the month house hunting. And boy, was that an eye-opener…

Let’s imagine I have an apartment and my roommate is leaving. I want to rent that room to someone new. Correct me if I’m wrong, but one of the first things I might do is clean my house.

No? Am I being picky? Don’t get me wrong; I spent many a month crouched in a drug-addled stupor hoping my dishes would wash themselves, or pushing stuff into piles and stacks into corners of my apartment. But I was FUCKED UP! I wasn’t posting an ad on craigslist to the effect of:

Roommate wanted.
Must be willing to pay rent to live in squalor with me and my six dogs. Dishwashing optional.

Seriously, if you already have a place to live and just need something to do on the weekend, go room hunting for amusement. I met in my short search:

    •    The very charming woman who reeked of hard alcohol at 11 am and told me there was an extra guy living on the couch at the moment.
    •    The progressive feminist lesbian whose girlfriend had left her in the lurch and wanted someone to move in right away - like tomorrow - pay the rest of the month and next month’s rent immediately.
    •    The New Age healer/massage therapist who wasn’t even in town, but deftly scheduled her roommate to forget about me.
    •    The super controlling real estate agent who told me six times that she does a criminal background check and rents out the Murphy bed in her living room.

I didn’t even get to meet the guy who rents out his couch for $10 a night. And I shudder to think about any woman answering those ads for “free rent, women only.”

By the end of the month I was starting to feel like I had seriously misjudged what was considered a reasonable roommate situation.

Anyway, it all worked out for the moment, at least enough for me to be sitting here, writing this.

By the way, if you met me and are offended by my description of your house, I just want to say:

“Thanks for reading my blog! Don’t tell anyone who I am, but please share my blog with your friends.”