Outside our small safe place flies Mystery... A snake beneath the forest floor, a whisper: Melusine

1. I have been homeless four times in my lifetime (and we're not talking about the kind of college student couch-surfing kind of homelessness, this is sleeping on the street under bridges kind) over the past ten years. Let me break down my homeless history:

a) March 1998 to May 1998: Stayed at Salvation Army Hope Center after I couldn't afford rent and went bankrupt after outstanding hospital bills.
b) June 1998: Kicked out of Salvation Army after I defended a Gay friend who was asked to leave. We literally slept in a baseball dug out for a few nights.
c) June to July 1998: Stayed in an abandoned house for a month til I earned enough money from three jobs to get a new apartment.
d) June -- November 2001: Moved to Milwaukee to chase after a lover, lost several jobs, earned a living as a "street performer" giving Tarot readings on the sidewalks and restaurants. Temporary stay at halfway home for drug addicts in South Milwaukee (which I affectionately called "The House of Zombies" because everyone but me was on sedatives). After discovering my landlady was back on Heroin, I took off in the middle of the night and moved in with a crazy lady. After crazy lady has delusions that I am sleeping with her ex-boyfriend and thinks my beau is hers, I escape to sleep under a bridge on the East Side where a group of gutter punks keep me company. I get head lice. A waitress at George Webb's feels sorry for me and takes me in. We de-lice together. The waitress soon loses her apartment after her girlfriend goes to jail. We next sleep on the floor of an old store front in Riverwest. I get a job at Godiva and finally save up enough to get my own apartment at Wellington Hall.
e) May 2003: I am evicted after paying back the money I owed to my lover when we decided to foolishly move to Beaver Island for seven weeks to study stone circles.
f) May 2004: I lose my job at Godiva Chocolatier after they close down my location. While going through a series of dead-end temp jobs, I live with my father until...
g) August to September 2004: My father gets held up at gun point and I have a nervous breakdown as a result. Enter hospital again for problems. Move back to Stevens Point to live with my brother. What I thought was going to just be a few weeks stay ended up several months. I survive by working again downtown with old friends!

Hopefully that will be the last time I'll ever have to go through life without shelter!

2. Video and Computer games disturb me. I'm serious. I am emotionally overcome by them. I can't stand to watch anyone kill anything, even if it's a monster or enemy.

4. I used to love roleplaying games, from table top to live action, but fell out of love with it because I realized that all the friends I played with weren't really in my life. I knew more about their characters than I knew them. I would rather create a private fantasy world of my own and have a better social life outside of gaming.

5. I have a great love for history, especially the fashion and cultural side of medieval and 18th century history, but despite this interest, I really dislike historical re-enacting communities, like the Society for Creative Anachronism. I had the worst time getting along with those people. On the one hand they profess education as their goal for dressing up, but on the other it's all about partying. If you ask me, it's all about drinking in medieval drag! I've also noticed that these kinds of folks have little to no sexual morals, but yet they'd never admit it. They also claim that it's not expensive to be a part of their group, but I found it very hard on a small budget like mine. Let me break things down for you as to why I don't like SCA:

a) It is very expensive and takes a lot of energy to sew up even the simplest of garb (costumes).
b) Even if there are loaner garb, nothing's plus-sized or practical.
c) It's even more expensive to attend events because everyone camps outdoors. If you don't have the equipment, you're looking at spending a lot to have a place to sleep, unless you want to share a tent. I shared tents -- very inconvenient -- especially when you enter at night to find your sleeping space being used by several people having sex! Yike!
d) If you don't drink or like to sleep with strangers, you won't have any fun during an SCA event or festival. As soon as the sun goes down, people will drop you like a hat for a lay in the sack.
e) The only real fun I had during SCA events was shopping for exotic handmade jewelry.

Take me out to a Ren Faire anyday over SCA events.  At least at a Ren Faire I know people are being actors!

6. Needless to say, I don't like camping outdoors. Cooking, yes. Having a great picnic is fine. But I think I've had my fill of sleeping on the ground and getting eaten by bugs.

7. However, I'm most alive out in nature. I am deeply emotionally moved by trees and animals. I will sit for hours to watch ducks, fish, squirrels, you name it, and be perfectly content.

8. Technically, I'm disabled, but prefer to be considered "differently abled" -- just because I have a mood disorder does not mean I'm unable to take care of myself, it just makes things a little difficult. Most friends understand me well enough to not know me as "crazy" but as just a little on the weird side. I can live with that. However, the last date I had totally freaked out when I mentioned I was bi-polar. He literally left me with the bill and everything. I could've gotten really angry or sad, but just let it be. There was no reason for him to run.

9. I HATE CELLPHONES. Seriously, I do. I HATE TEXTING even more. I'm tired of listening to other people's private conversations or hearing that tippity-top of folks texting each other in public -- especially when they are standing right next to each other! -- that quite often I have been brave enough to tell others to just stop it or shut up. I like my peace.

10. I live, once again, nearby the apartment complex I used to live in when I was in college. In fact, I live in the very apartment complex where five of my best friends in college once lived 15/20 years ago. It used to be called the Honeycomb Apartments and they were once painted green. The place is now called Sonstra Apartments and the buildings are now painted a light brown. I preferred them as green. It's a wonderful place, full of memories and I've got the nature reserve in my backyard. I love it. Only occasionally does it get weird. There are times I wish I could just visit my old friends back in their old apartments, but they are long gone now.

11. I laugh a lot. Perhaps too much. I should say I laugh all the time. Even when I weep. I laugh out of nervousness, too, to the point where I've been accused to making fun of people, but I'm not. I just have a habit of laughing as a reflex.

12. I have a very vivid, lucid dream life and am able to recall my dreams at will. I obsessively write my dreams down to every detail. Sometimes I could make a movie based just on what I've dreamt.

13. I'm so alone, there are times when I feel like the only person left alive in the world. I'll go through days without contact with anyone. I wrote a short story about it. It's all about becoming invisible.

14. Sometimes, when I'm especially lonely, I pretend to talk to my friends -- both living and dead -- just like I talk to myself. I'll just take down someone's picture and talk to them as if they were right there with me. I know it's not "real" conversation, but it keeps me going.

15. I sing to my cat, Mr. Snuggles, all the time. We also dance. Every night! I'll take any old song from the radio or whatever and just make up lyrics to fit it around how great Mr. Snuggles is. When people see this, they laugh. It's great!

16. I read Tarot cards every night and do I Ching sticks, not to divine the future, but use them as tools to focus and connect with the influences around me. This nightly ritual keeps me calm and helps me get to sleep.

17. I have been illustrated. I had a wild dream about Quentin Tarantino and my friend, Jesse Recklaw (publishes a graphic novel depicting other people's dreams), thought it would be a great one to feature in his book. It was first published in 1997 and later as part of an anthology of dream-related comic art. So, yes, I am in a book.

18. I have a strange birth mark on the lower part of my right thigh. On the other thigh I have an old scar where I was bitten by a brown recluse spider. When I'm naked and push my thighs together it looks like I have this dark brown line under my buttocks, as if someone drew a mark there or if I sat down on something brown! Try explaining that to a lover!

19. I have a "devil's paw mark" on the left side of my neck -- a tiny mole not too unlike the one Anne Boleyn was supposed to have.

20. I was born without tear ducts. When I was very tiny, they had to create artifical ones for me so could hydrate my eyes and cry.

21. I saw the funniest thing the other day: a guy in a cat eared whimsical hat was angry, yelling and screaming bloody murder, on his cellphone. It was so funny. No one wearing a whimsical cat hat should be that angry! It was like watching Mickey Mouse about to smack his bitch up.

22. I hate taking public transport, but it is necessary because I cannot drive. Buses are the worst. One day you ride one where everyone wants to talk to you and ask questions about your personal life or, worse yet, someone on board is telling everyone their business and you really don't want so much information about them. The next day everyone on board is flat out ignoring that everyone else exists. After seeing the silly whimsical cat hat guy get his bitch on, other people with me on the bus were also laughing at him, but when I turned to talk to the girl sitting next to me about it, she literally turned her head away and pretended not to hear me. I then proceeded to speak to the people behind us. They, too, rudely ignored me. It wasn't like I was trying to poke my head into their personal business, I was just making a comment on what we were laughing at. I addressed them several times and was still ignored. It made me feel really weird. When the girl next to me answered her cell phone and began to talk into it loudly, I had enough. Even though there were no more seats available, I pushed my way over her to stand in the aisle and say, "Oh, so you can talk." I was still ignored after that remark. I know it was petty, but it really pissed me off.

23. Late at night, while trying to sleep, what seems to quiet my thoughts the most is to hug a body pillow and pretend it's someone I love.

24. My biggest ambition is to create artwork for a band and have them use my art as part of their "look!"

25. My fantasy vacation would be one where money and transportation is no object. I would travel from Point to Wisconsin Rapids first to visit Sarah, then visit my dad at the Menominee reservation, go visit Rebekah and Josh, next I'd visit Jason Bruenig, go to Green Bay to watch my old buddy Trent play the drums, then go to Milwaukee to visit Diana, head over to Jenn and Damien's place, and then go to Miya's place. Next I'd be taken home by horse and buggy and really take in the natural world. I may not camping, but I love horses and riding! And, oh, yes, I love my friends even more!

Wow. I completed all 25 things. Amazing what a slow day can bring