Oh the Places You'll Sleep

At RIT, bedrooms tunnel under every building... if you're an easy sleeper and aren't too picky, and if you can get in. Of course, once you breach the barriers of the post-ten-o'clock lockdown, getting to the tunnels is easy. Finding safe harbor is not- at least not before 1am, before the 'corner' store closes.

If I stayed out late, and missed curfew, I never really spent much longer than an hour or so out in the freezing cold, watching for students to return to the dorm hall, so long as it wasn't too late; sometimes, I'd have to stay in the car. When they came, I'd have my bookbag over my shoulder and I brisked to the door to meet with them. "Hold the door!" And they usually complied. "Thanks, I didn't want to dig through this bag for my keys."

Some nights, I'd go straight to a dark and dusty crevice (a skinny little alley between the wall and staircase is a great choice- totally unnoticeable unless you're looking). Some nights, I'd get in with larger crowds into the corner store andsample the wares, collecting dinner and breakfast. Crowds are always better, because they're all looking at each other, and not at me. Some nights, I'd stay with him, and we already know how that goes, but at least I'd get a hot shower.

Actually, it's not too hard to get a shower. Just wait for students outside the key-accessed elevator, and "Hold the elevator, please!" Up to the 3rd floor, Computer Science House, for a quick one in the morning (or if I'm staying with him, I can take one at night. I much prefer night. Relaxes me). Or up to the 4th floor, Photo House, for minimal spotting, if I didn't want him to catch me around.

In the wall/stairs alley, I felt safest- well, not so much as safety goes, but mostly invisible. I could sleep easily knowing I'd most likely not be seen. My favourite place to sleep was further down the tunnels, under, or sometimes on, a big, huge, heating pipe. So warm. Sometimes, if I passed an open utility room, I'd sneak in there, and disappear into the darkest spot, surrounded by pipes and tubes, and wires, and be warm all night. But rooms are always occupied by someone. And eventually, someone'd come by, and I'd wake up and bolt. Never got the opportunity to actually run from someone. Never got caught. Too paranoid, I guess. Always on my best guard, even when I slept.

Will Fuck For Food

I never held up a sign about working for food, but I did, just for a day, open up my violin case and fiddled around on it. I busked, if you can even call it that. I made eight dollars. I should point out, though, that I cannot actually play the violin. Sure, I can belt out strong, solid notes without screeching like so many amateurs do, but I couldn't take requests. I couldn't play full tunes. The sign I had propped against my case read "need money for lessons".

When it got too cold to feel the chilling pain in my fingers, I called it a day. I packed up my money and hit a diner for a light breakfast and coffee. It didn't really feel good to pay my bill in small change, and I had no idea if busking is even legal in this city, so I decided, as my waitress rolled her eyes at me, wishing she hadn't just clipped her fingernails so she could easily pick up the small change, that I wouldn't do it again. Then I spent the rest on gas so I could keep running my car in the morning and night for heat during the cold, cold winter.

Busking for money is many steps above just begging. You are sharing your talent, and actually working some for your money. But you NEED talent to do it, and I had none, so I got my food the hard way. The horrible way.

The way I got my food from here-on turned my stomach half the time. Not just due to the health issues of picking day-old food from the trash (I have had some raw experiences with bulk foods, some I scraped the mold off without the desired result, and some that were frozen before they hit the dumpster, and, being winter, remained frozen in the dumpster, but had an expiration date for a reason), but because I had to beg my boyfriend and his friends. My boyfriend hated when I begged for him not to throw away the other half of his sandwich, or whatever remains his friends picked off their food. When he needed sex, he'd make me stay with him for a week at a time, even though I needed to go out and find work, find money, find food, or whatever. He made me stay, and he made me pay, but he never fed me. He took me out to lots of food-related gatherings, but would never get me any food. So I had to beg for it. Sometimes he let me have a bite, and sometimes he'd throw it away on sheer principal of punishing me for stooping so low.

At night, back in the dorms, I'd pretend to need to go to the bathroom, and would instead sneak into the commonplace kitchen to dig through the trash for the food I knew had been thrown away earlier. Warm mayonnaise on a slimy tomato slice will never taste good no matter how hungry you are, but at least my stomach stopped growling from hunger. Later, it'd growl for other reasons, but at least not hunger.

What Do You Want In A Woman? "My Dick."

I looked for work every day, but to no lucky end, all while hopping from couch to couch until I landed in the spare room of a friend's mom's house. A few months in, I ran out of money, and instead of going back home, instead of admitting defeat, I stayed in the car. A TV, some shoes, and my school stuff in the front seat; books and a box of random things in the trunk; and clothes-stuffed bags, blankets, and pillows in the back seat. I traded in my dresser, my midi keyboard, and my broken computer for an extra week to move out. I didn't need them anyway. Most times, my boyfriend would let me sleep with him in the dorms at RIT. That meant not living in my car, but rather out of my car.

I started dating Ron a couple months before the shit hit the fan. Our relationship was nice until I ran out of moeny. Then things started to get sour. I began living out of my car just before the Honeymoon Effect of our relationship wore off. And after it did wear off, he treated sex like part of the girlfriend package. No longer be modest about his constant erections, he instead suggest I do something about it, even in front of people. Oddly, I had a lot of fun staying at RIT with him, even though he sometimes deliberately ignored me or put me down in front of people, or promised me things he'd never deliver and whatnot. Details. Should have registered the first signs, really- like when I invited him to a party, but decided he should go and I should stay to do his laundry. Oh, and the rape? Not that fun.

Yes, sometimes at night, he would be... in the mood, while I was already half asleep, and, well... He made me feel so guilty about not wanting to at that moment, that I felt like I had no choice but to let him. And I never let him see me cry, but I wished every damn time it happened that his roommate would wake up while I pleaded not to do it. I let it happen for seven months. Because I was young. I was one of those stupid girls who just wanted him to love me. Hell, to even pretend to love me, or even like me at that point! It was winter, and even though it wasn't as cold as the previous years, I still didn't want to live in my car. So I let him.

I began spending a lot of time over at my best friend Fin's house. I told her about what was happening. Not in these words, but in innocent, I-don't-really-grasp-the-seriousness-of-this-shit terms, and she looked at me and said, "Dude. That's not cool," and the power of those words hit me and I started to get misty-eyed. That's when I grew a pair and I told him, Look. No more sex at all, until you start acting like you love me or even like me again.

And that was it.

Later, Fin told me that, on that night I left misty-eyed, she had a chat with her boyfriend, who was a good friend of Ron's, and he told him to quit jerking my feelings around and if he didn't want me, then fucking dump me already. And thank you, thank you, thank you Fin for freeing me.

Finally free.
But homeless.
Officially this time.

At First

I didn't leave at first. Last day of school, and I didn't leave yet. My best friend had just thrown himself in front of a train and before my mind snapped, it just shut off. I packed a bag and called a friend to get me out of there. Had my first beer that night. I couch surfed in town with friend after friend. I didn't go back for weeks, but when I did, I spent July to November in a blur, locked away in my room, sleeping and playing mindless, button-mashing video games. I left the comfort of my blankets to pee once, maybe twice a day, and go to work twice a week. Leaving in those first weeks was like when you're at a party, and you go outside for a breath of fresh air, and realize you don't want to be there, and that you don't have to go back in... I could finally breathe. But I had to hold my breath for just a little while longer.

My boss rescued me on Thanksgiving. I took some key items, a bag of clothes, as many books as I could carry, and my grandmother's accordion, which I was never allowed to play. She let me stay on her couch for two months before her lease went up and we got a place together. I worked at the bookstore full-time until the holidays were good and over. Then I switched to working a couple jobs as a checkout girl and waiting tables. And then switched back to the bookstore again. Biked everywhere, and I was at my thinnest. It was great. I was very happy. And then the lease went up. The bookstore closed down. And my roommate found love across the country. I had a very difficult time debating on whether or not to abandon everything to make sure nothing important abandoned me and hop into the van with her. But for some reason or another, I decided to stay. Not the best decision, but not the worst.

I packed up my car, gave away furniture, or put it in storage. And I hit the road in search of the next best thing. But where to go? It wasn't the first time I had everything pulled out from under me, but this is the first time I had a life of my own to fuck up in one fell swoop.

Someone hit reset.

This Is What Will Happen

Well, what will probably happen, anyway. I'm going to write stories / blogs about being homeless and events leading up to being homeless. They won't be in any "order" because I'm going by how I find them in my files, and by which events I feel like writing about at the time. Some will be set in the car, on couches, porn stores, dorms, dumpsters, or whatever. Some will be childhood memories. Terrible ones. Ones that made me WANT to leave. Ones that drove me out.

I'll begin posting today. I need a nap right now. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, hello.

I'm afraid you've caught me at quite an embarrassing moment. See, I've not yet gotten around to posting anything here yet. But hey, give me a break. I've only just created this blog today, and it was mostly to comment on someone else's blog.

Anyway, my plan for this blog is to post all the events leading up to my homelessness, as well as some far-fetched but true tales of BEING homeless.

If you want me to further entertain you, my other blogspot account (not updated in a year) is Outlanders, where I review foreign entertainment. And there's Make Your Character Cry, for class, but you can come, too.
If that's not good enough, my livejournal gets updated fairly often.
Failing that, I've got a facebook. But I'm not telling you what it is. If you're smart enough to figure it out, then you'll figure it out.

And don't worry. I've got a home now.