December 2010
So I bought myself a Christmas present today - 1.8 acres of trees in the thumb of Michigan! A little nowhere town called Deford. (prounounced DEE-ford)   This is a new angle for me. I'm not Michigan-friendly. I've spent my life in California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia and Maine. What do I know about the snow belt of the Great Lakes, for crying out loud! Guess I'm about to figure it out. I know what you're thinking - this property would be great if anybody needed to build an airstrip 22 miles from Lake Huron. But look again. It's almost two acres of solid trees, and one end sits in the driveway of some kind of construction company. This means easy street access. This means I can park my truck on the lot, which just happens to be owned by me. What are they going to do, tell me to move it? This also means I can run an extension cord out to their building overnight and on weekends! The cost on this was $1,250 - more than I have been spending, but I feel really good about it. It is absolutely the kind of situation I could put myself in for months at a time, any time from early Spring until early Winter, and get outta there before the snow hits. Electricity is right there to warm the block heater...it just feels right, and certainly incorporates the thrill of venturing far into the unknown - the Northern Midwest and the Great Lakes. Annual property taxes for almost two acres: $111.70. * * * It just dawned on me today what I really want to do with the strip of trees in Michigan, and possibly the treed lot in Arkansas....a treehouse! Now the wheels are turning again, as I imagine parking the truck, wandering through the forest and stumbling upon the perfect combination of trees...the makeshift ladder...the boards, the netting, the design, the joy of hiding. I'm already excited about putting together a practice treehouse in my forest here in Maine. Then when I get to Michigan I can have some experience, and try to replicate what I already know, hopefully with mostly free materials - it would be a shame to have to blow my food allowance on 2x4's and plywood. Yeah, a treehouse. Here goes that Peter Pan thing again. Wendy...where are you? * * * I tried putting the tarp up (again) over the PVC frame, and OF COURSE we had record-setting winds AGAIN. And the whole thing was demolished again. I guess that's a good thing, as I continue to work on perfecting the whole setup. It's easy enough to collapse it in strong wind, but I'd like to actually see it standing for a whole day! From looking at the photo, it's obvious to me much more support would be needed underneath to bear rainwater at this angle. I don't want to get too intricate with this idea - it needs to be extremeley low-tech and portable, so I'll try adding two more rafters first, then perhaps shortening the vertical legs. I want it to be functional, but I really didn't want to have to spend an hour assembling it each time. And yes, it will be this ugly. But it will be the kind of thing nobody will ever see but me. It is for extreme solo situations only.  I think I have a buyer for the pool table at $300, and that will be a major piece to get rid of. Sold $30 worth of books this weekend, as well as $15 worth of computer mice. Next I sold a mannequin for $30, the hammer drill for $90, and a Christmas windmill decoration for $40. And now the people around me at work want me to bring in a "Deal Of The Day" - some object I find that I can get a couple bucks for...so that ought to be kinda fun. Sell, sell, sell. * * * Yes, the pool table is gone at $300. Not a bad deal, the thing only cost me a little over $300 new. That was Christmas 2005, one of the darkest periods of my life. My wife of eight months had left six months prior, and Katie-Poo had rescued me from the misery of it all. It was a whirlwind affair. I had not seen Katie-Poo in twenty years, and I knew it was Fate, that she appeared when she did. She and her four kids. Didn't matter. I loved them all too quickly, and we made plan upon plan on what we would do when they all moved to Virginia the next year. She could go back to school. We could get married on October 7th. We would renovate the outbuildings and have a couple horses. We would bring in a trailer home on the property to start a childcare service so Katie could be with the youngins all day long. I feverishly began remodeling the basement to add two boys' rooms. And I bought a $300 pool table from Wal-Mart to serve as Christmas present for the family troops. Two weeks before Christmas, Katie-Poo called to tell me they weren't coming for Christmas, and they weren't coming ever. So it's probably not fair to ask me what I was thinking about as I loaded the pool table onto some guy's 5x8 utility trailer for his grandkids. He drove away happy, and I counted a wad of twenties. I also sold a nice coffee table book for $25, an unfinished bass neck for $40, and some Christmas ornaments for $10. Snow has finally arrived, so the tarp idea is just going to have to ride out the winter as is. I think it's just too much tarp. The wind has been non-stop fierce and I've never been able to see the tarp stand in place one full day. "Sometimes if you ask a question long enough, and watch something not happen for long enough, and if you are perceptive enough, you'll have all your answers right there." - Darren Stone, "The Genius Of The Obvious: Some Things Don't Work" [book yet to be written] I'll probably end up cutting the tarp into smaller pieces to fit my needs. * * * Holidays are always rough for eternally single people, and I think the rest of the world forgets this. All I can manage at this stage of my life is to get from one day to the next, one future idea to the next, one bottle to the next. And the next bottle to the next. And the next. All I can do is try to maintain some semblance of normalcy and keep the anxiety attacks away and keep the crying attacks to a minimum. I almost lose it every day. I'm too close to the edge right now. I can't go in the grocery store or Walmart or walk down a populated street without feeling the panic or fighting the tears away. I hate my life or I'm completely bored with it, and I feel like so much of what I am is being wasted on the cycle of owning/paying/owning/paying. I just want out. I wouldn't say I'm suicidal, but every day I feel this strangeness, like the pressure of a gun against my temple...or the sensation of a rope around my neck. I'm okay, but I would need serious care if I didn't have this crazy idea about living in a truck. And I know that's what's keeping me out of an asylum or a casket right now. I just have to focus. Sell stuff. Think about the truck and the properties. I am working on several ideas for the design of the treehouses I intend to build, as well as pits I intend to dig in the desert. This appeals to me in a crazy wonderful way, and now I know why I feel the need to own pieces of land......so I can have my little survival shelters whenever I want them! (let's not forget I come home to my huge house these days, and go upstairs and spend the night in my tent.....mattress, laptop, cat, whiskey - screw the house, I want out) I feel complete inside the tent, and the truck is just going to be a glorified version of that. The treehouses and the pit shelters - again, just extenstions of the tent-life I live now. I'll probably just give my friends my GPS coordinates, and tell them to come out and find me if they want to come hang out in a tree or a hole. Seriously though, I'll have nothing but time on my hands out there in the California desert, and I love the idea of digging a five-foot-deep hole in the ground, suspending a tarp over the top, climbing in and watching The Honeymooners on a little iPad or some kind of tablet. Or John Wayne. Or Scarlett Johansson. (don't get me started on Scarlett) (but, what is the deal with her??) (I think she reminds me of Amy too much, and that's why I can't keep my eyes off her.) (and don't get me started on Amy) January 2011 It Certainly Seems More Normal Than An Apartment Complex Making Peace With Chapter One |