Day Five and Six

9-29-10

          Yesterday was my first day of class while being homeless. I had a presentation which kept me up a little later than I was hoping and so I only got six hours of sleep, which compounded my somewhat sleep deprived brain. I must admit it was really funny giving the presentation because I tend to be far loser when it comes to those things. My two partners had 39 slides for their twenty minutes of the presentation, while I had two for the last ten minutes. My first, much more organized partner asked me what I was doing for the activity (something else I was in charge of) and what I was doing for my part of the presentation, and a few other things my sleep deprived brain didn’t quite understand and so I just said “let’s just play it by ear” her response was one of those priceless looks and “no lets know what we are going to say.” The other partner has worked with me a couple of times in the past and is also more organized than me, but has learned to not worry about my lack of notes.  But she did smile at one point and say “o Dustin, you stress me out sometimes.” It’s kind of funny though, I always want to say “no lets plan it out less,” because they both read off their near verbatim notes. I didn’t have any at all, so I just walked around the room talking about what I thought were the most interesting points of my section of the chapter, showed a few short YouTube clips (“Who You Gonna Call?” from Improve Everywhere was my favorite), and then had the class go skipping around the school to feel the internal tension of breaking even a minor social norm (I joined in – o how fun :), and then we ended by talking about the power of norms in regulating groups. Overall I think it went really well. I still don’t understand though why people think “knowing what we’re going to say” is ever better than just talking with the audience and trying to share something useful.

            By the end of day (6pm), I seriously considered curling up on the grass and just going to sleep there.  Instead I drove to “my” parking garage, where two nice trucks were parked near the spot I normally park (Luckily I had an extra key in my backpack because I had accidentally locked my main key in the car - opps.) I parked at the other side of the parking lot, and ate dinner while enjoying the view, hoping they would soon leave. While I was eating my dinner, the two guys came up, and then left again. I thought; “great, well I better not go to bed yet.” Sure enough a cop car showed up about 15 minutes later to check me out. The second time around it was easier to assure him I was not some axe murder and I was then free to go to bed.  For the first time I got a great night’s sleep which is good because I have quite a bit of work to do today.


9-28-10

           I am amazed how fast the sense of ownership creeps into a person’s mind. Last night I drove to the top of “my” marking garage and found three high school boys just hanging out. My first thought was something along the lines of “scram, I’m tired and you’re keeping me from going to sleep.” It was good though because it forced me to go workout which is not something I want to do. Once again the elliptical machine kicked my butt, but not as badly the second time around. By the time I was done the high school kids were gone, but I now understand why homeless people get so grumpy when “their” space is trespassed.

Day Three

Being homeless is not an easy exercise, but it is good. Last night I was feeling the weight of not having an established space to myself. However, I am praying a lot more because of how dependent I am on God for basic necessities. Having to pray for a safe nights sleep is not something I have ever had to do, and I love it. I never thought about how peaceful it would be to put myself in the hands of God for basic needs.  I got to 24 Fitness at 10 PM an did a thirty minuet workout on a strange stepping/cycling machine that kicked my butt. After ten minutes I had burned 100 calories and wanted to quit really bad. I didn't quit though because there was a short little women going twice as fast next to me, and I just couldn't bring myself to walk away after 1/3 of a workout that she was doing twice as well. I am able to hike or walk for miles without getting tired, but that workout gave me a lot of respect for people who do it regularly to lose weight.  In total, I burned less than 300 calories and was quite glad that I don't have to work that hard to burn off every sandwich I eat.

I got to sleep a little be for 12am and had a wonderful nights sleep. After waking up, I did a few laps in the pool and finished with a little time in the wet sauna (I do love that thing).

Day Two

After the first night, I was quite tired so I slept on the third story of a parking garage next to 24 Fitness. It seems to be the best place. No one parks on the top story, and there is a building next to the parking garage that blocks the morning sun. Unfortunately, I spent a long time at the old house cooking up some food and didn't get to sleep until 2AM again. I slept until 8:30, and then moved down to the second story to catch up on some more sleep out of the sun. There is only a few cars that park on this story, but I woke up at 11:30 to the police tapping on my window (I now know what it is like to wake up to a light shining in my eyes). I crawled out of my traveling circus and tried to wipe away my sleep daze while explaining what I was doing. After checking my ID and finding out that I am an APU student, the two cop cars wrote me off as another disturbed individual and left. Apparently someone had called them because there are a lot of break-in in the area and I looked suspicions :) - They did say though that it's not technically illegal to sleep in my car, but I will probably attract attention. As far as break-ins go, I'm banking on the fact that most robbers are not looking for trouble and will not mess with a car that has someone in it, and also that they will break into one of the five or six BMW roadsters on the second level, before going to their third level and breaking into my 93' Subaru. I am however still trying to work out a good ventilation system for the car. Currently I crack all the windows, but that is not quite good enough.

It has become clear thought that I will need to change my daily routine. In the past, I stayed up until 1am and slept until 9AM. Now that I am at the mercy of the sun, I must shift my day back three hours. I will probably need to start going to sleep around 10PM and waking up with the sun at about 6AM. This is not a bad thing, but will make nighttime activity with other people a little more difficult.

Day One

I purposely stayed up until 2am to get a good idea of which parking lot I could stay in. In the end, I camped in Home Depot's parking lot where I slept like a baby until 4:25am (I'm glad I have the weekend to work out a system). I fell back asleep until 8:30am when the sun came up and the car got quite warm in a matter of minutes. After this, I went to 24 Fitness where I spent a little time in the hot tub, went swimming, and then tried out both the dry and wet saunas.

I have started to establish my mission for this experience:
       1)      Live a better, healthier life while in my car.
       2)      Maintain a professional image, and excel in my field of study.
       3)      Fund at least three children, to help them achieve their dreams while striving for mine.


I am still working out the organization of things, but here is the basic layout of my car.

Here are some of the pictures I took while packing. 

Ironically, the first time I actually washed my car was after I decided to live in it. Only after becoming homeless did I care about the appearance of my car.

Launch!

Tonight I become homeless. Once again, I will forsake social norms, and travel into the unknown. I repress the fear that comes before any jump, but I suspect I will find joy, peace and comfort. Not because living will be easy, but because I will be living intentionally. My plan is simple; give up a little so I can give a lot. Currently I spend $10 each day to live in a house ($300 per month). I also spend around $3 per day for utilities, which brings the grand total to $13. By becoming homeless, I will be able to instead spend that money supporting several children through Food For the Hungry.

My daily budget breaks down as follows:

.67 cents per day for a gym membership
.50 cents per day for ice for my ice chest
1 dollar a day for candy (Just to sweeten the deal)
3 dollars a day to support three different children - more or less as God puts it on my heart, but right now three seems like the right number

Total daily budget (other than food) = $5.17 ($7.87 less than living in a house)

For less than half the cost of rent & utilities, I will be supporting three children, have 24 hour access to a pool, a wet sauna, a dry sauna, two work out rooms, and of course showers. When not sleeping or enjoying the workout center, I will be at the APU campus studying and getting involved in all kinds of activities. Now all that remains is to jump.