The thing about living without heat, or hot water, or gas to cook with is that everything is cold. The air is cold, the floor is cold, the showers are really cold, and the food I’ve been eating is cold.

I really shouldn’t call them showers, per se, they’re more like sponge baths coupled with the incredibly humbling experience of washing your hair under ice-cold water. But I’m clean.

It’s amazing, really, what you can bear. I don’t mean me specifically, I mean humans. I’ll never look at another homeless person again and wonder how they could possibly deal with the conditions that they are living in, why don’t they just do something? Why is because humans are incredibly adaptable.

No heat? Wear more clothes.
No fire to cook with? Make sandwiches.
No hot water? Take cold “showers”.

Not that I’m equating myself with a homeless person, my hardships don’t even come close. My place is freezing, but at least it’s a place. It’s just that this whole experience of living in an empty two-bedroom with nothing but a bed and chair, with no gas, and really only a tenuous end in sight… it’s shown me time and again, how pliable people can be when called upon to do so. No need to freak out, I’ll manage, is the philosophy.

Of course, it may also be because I just don’t fucking care. Just none of it is really a big deal, you know? It’s inconvenient as hell, but nothing to really break down about.

So my apartment burned down and I lost a good half of my stuff. So what? I can buy new stuff, and it gives me a chance to purge a lot of junk I don’t need.

>I got rear-ended three times in less than 2 months. Well, that’s just a good freakin’ story that will grow and expand in the upcoming year. “Yeah, I got T-boned by a semi going about 80. It was cool, though, he gave me a shot from his flask and he still takes me for rides when he comes through this way.” (Aside: I could have lived without the first guy not having insurance and me eating the $800 for a new bumper that got destroyed within 20 minutes of its existence, however).

So they turned off my gas, and I’m squatting in a freezing hole of an apartment with no amenities. Bleh… you just have to laugh at stuff like that, don’t you? I’ll just bitch and whine every now and again on my blog, and everything else I can work out.

It occurs to me, though, that this might also mean that I’m dead inside. I’ll have to explore that one later.