January 25th, 2018- Collapsed tent, conspiracy theories, and cash flow

As a homeless guy working on building a business from my art and writing, 2018 started out rough.  I currently qualify for food stamps, but I let my mom a big chunk of them last month when I was staying with her for a while.  Because of that, I ran out way early, and was waiting for them to come in early this month.

I did three drawing projects over the holidays, and expected to get paid quick for two of the drawings early in the month.  That money didn't come through.  So I was super tight financially.  Running a super small (soon-yo-be) business, that means waiting to take action on one thing or another.  But since I'm homeless as well, running out of money means running out of food money.  I didn't quite get there, but it was close.

On top of that, we got hit by the crazy cold polar vortex for a week and a half.  It was like a perfect storm of misery for my circumstances.  So instead of getting a decent sized chunk of money, and starting new projects, I was thrown back into a moment by moment, day by day, struggle just to survive.  My thoughts were like, "Really?  Isn't the other stuff going on enough?" 

My food stamps came in, and I made a bit of money from other things, and I squeaked by.  THEN we got hit by six inches of snow last week.  A friend let me crash on his couch on the cold night before the snow, so that really helped.  Then I got some money for one of the drawings the next day, so I was able to get a warm, cozy, sketchy-ass motel room (and a $5 Little Caesar's Pepperoni pizza), and sit out the snow storm watching TV and skate videos online.  That was a much needed break.

But after those two nights, I had no idea how my tent had handled the snow.  I hiked out to it the next night... and couldn't find it.  At that point, I realized I shouldn't have waited until after dark to go there.  Eventually I found my tent, about 80% collapsed.  Not good.  I managed to get the frozen zipper open, and crawled into the one spot that was still standing.  I curled up under my bedding, with my head facing downhill, and managed to get a little bit of sleep.  It was a rough night.

Then the weather warmed up the next day.  For most people in North Carolina, who hate snow, that was a good thing.  But for me, it was a mixed blessing.  Melting snow means water.  Water, water everywhere.  The next night, my bedding was wet around the edges, my tent was still mostly collapsed and frozen under six inches of snow, and the temperature was around 25 degrees.  It wasn't near as bad as the night before, but it was still pretty rough.  The water slowly soaked through to me as the night progressed.  Lame.

The day after that, I shoveled the snow off my tent with a big stick, and got it mostly standing again.  I also bought some clothesline, tied it between a few trees, and let all my bedding dry out.  That night, thought still hitting about 28 degrees, was WONDERFUL.  Since then, things are have been going better.

Yesterday, while I was doing a little drawing at a fast food place, a guy came in and started talking about conspiracies and bunch of other stuff.  The "I've got earbuds in which means leave me the fuck alone" memo hasn't made it to North Carolina, apparently.  I kept trying to get back to drawing, but he kept talking.  He wanted my take on all sorts of conspiracy ideas.  This is a standard under cover cop/agent questioning technique.  Find where someone hangs out, strike up a conversation as in a casual way by talking about something you know already that the person is interested in.  But this guy wasn't near as good at it as people I had question me in California years ago.  Maybe he was just some nutcase.  It doesn't really matter.  The vast majority of "conspiracy theories" now are just propaganda to distract people from what may really be going on.  He went through the list, The Illuminati (total BS), chem trails, other random things, and the crazy idea du jour, targeted individuals.  There are some conspiracy ideas that you simply shouldn't talk about at any given time, and targeted individuals are in that category these days.  If it's not real, then lots of people are psychotic with the same symptoms.  If it actually is some black ops program being done by some group, then the truth won't come out for 20 or 30 years, and the anyone caught in it is just fucked.  Kinda like Alex Jones is.  He may have made some sense 20 years ago, but now he might as well be Breitbart, getting fed propaganda and spoon feeding it to the masses of idiots out there. 

I've got another drawing order to work on right now, and I'm going to have at least one of my drawings in a front window, on Trade Street in Winston-Salem, for the February First Friday Art Walk.  That will be the first time one of my original drawings will be up in the Trade Street art district here.  More on that later.  So that's what I've been up to.  Oh, I'm writing a small book on building creative scenes, as well.  I'm just working day after day, and things are slowly improving on the lifestyle level.  I'm thinking about the last few weeks as just a "darkest before the dawn" period.  I'm doing better now.  Onward...