Long time, no blog. Again. This time a 7 year gap.
Several months ago, I
managed to finally obtain my own, real housing. A rather spacious one
bedroom apartment in a handy Berkeley neighborhood. Actually, it's only
about three blocks from the encampment I'd spent most of last year at.
I
figured that the three years I spent at a rented "office/studio" wasn't
really "legitimate" housing, since we weren't supposed to actually
reside there, although it sure was good enough and even zoned for
live/work - but it didn't meet all the code specs for that purpose.
Instead, it was on the wink-wink-nudge-nudge basis, just so long as we
kept up appearances otherwise. Until the property changed hands again
and I suddenly lost it.
I don't really consider the
year spent in a converted garage "cottage" behind the house in Albany as
totally genuine housing, either, since it both was not a legal unit and
due to having to "share" the kitchen and bathroom in the house, too.
The landlady turned out to be bonkers, a real pain, and only allowed
minimal access. Until she simply locked me out, despite my being fully
paid.
So, since I've had any form of legitimate,
autonomous housing of my own has been at least 10 or 11 years. Whew! I'm
glad that, back then, I really had no idea what a long, rough road this
all was to become. Might've made it much harder to endure. At first, I
figured it might take me only a matter of a couple or few months.
But
now, I find myself in more of an 'aftermath' than I'd reckoned on.
There's the 'adjustment' to make back to 'normal' lifestyle, but also
now I have to finally contend with my storage predicament. As affordable
as this place is, it's added hundreds of dollars to my monthly
expenses. I no longer can afford this AND the storage container AND the
RV storage space. Whoopsies!
Since this all got
precipitated when the Berkeley Police began to harrass me, come after my
truck, reneged on a deal we'd struck (and I'd begun partial payment
against), then took my truck from me anyway, forcing me back onto the
street, my entire plan underway came to sudden halt. I needed that
truck. I'd taken storage way up in North Richmond because it was so much
of a better deal up there than anywhere closer. But it's quite a ways
from here and public transportation doesn't even take me all the way.
There's a distance I've had to take a bicycle to traverse. Just the
commuting up there and back can easily take half a day, which seriously
reduced my time there to deal with things and restricts my ability to
remove anything to what I can carry on a bicycle. And a bicycle that
must be put on the bus front racks and taken into BART trains with me.
Not very much at all.
