upsidedown house

Urban Camping

I had told myself that it would "be like camping, but with a better shelter than a tent and just for a little while. I'm sure I'll have that electricity hooked up soon enough anyway". Yea 2 weeks later, we'll see about that. It has been good, but just for incite here's some of the everyday issues I have gotten myself into with my urban camping situation.

When you do not have electricity it seems like civilization is all around you, but you are still a neanderthall waiting for that extra, power. (I'm joking) Things like oh say, meals and more importantly morning coffee plus keeping anything preserved so having ice around are an issue. Keeping my phone charged, my battery charger and inverter charged too, so I can have some music and company, plus my indispensable chordless drill batteries charged are all new considerations lately and additions on my To-DO list. Keeping warm has not been too much of an issue, yet.

I like hanging out on my porch and seeing when the neighbors are coming and going, but reading by candlelight is a drag. When it get's dark is when I have to shift into my camping mode most. Reading for example only serves to make me tired, so at night I have begun to incessantly rewrite my to do list and make notes about the particulars about each item on the list mostly as an exercise to do with myself in the evenings. This I can manage by candlelight.

It is important when in this situation to stay focused and motivated to move on and not settle on just getting by, so I have been trying to deal with my compliance with DTE regulations, but when they leave notes like the most recent that reads "Meter can is required to be no more than 42 inches to the center of meter can, please correct" you have to wonder if you will ever understand what they mean and want from you beside a monthly payment. We just want hot things and light. Needless to say I have been eating out and hanging out quite a bit outside of the Upsidedownhouse lately.

Electricity is something I have lived without before, aside from camping. Travelling in Hawaii I stayed in a treehouse part of the time and the rest made a shelter out of wood, tarps and corrugated metal. Just like now I still had access here and there though. Once I lived out of my car in SanFrancisco, mostly around Golden Gate Park and travelling throughout the country too gave me a taste of roughing it. I've slept in ditches out under the stars and with all the mosquitoes too and it's moments like those that you realized how ridiculous anti-civilization theorists can get. Fuck that, I want to be able to play my records! I also ate food out of the garbage that others might have munched on and really appreciated the opportunites I did have to the airwaves, even if I were limited to a few moments on my car stereo that could not be driven because I was out of gas and money, but the point is we take a lot for granted when our experiences are limited and right now things for me are not hard.

Maybe folks do need to know what it would be like to live on the streets before they really get involved with control of their own lives and helping others, rather than throw money at some huge institution (who in all likelihood has some people making a lot of money from their efforts to "help the homeless")and go on with their own "business"? I'm not going to ever be a part of making a decision like that though. A poet friend of mine who is a little crazy actually told me last week that he wishes he could flip the script on the rich and that would be their chance to rehabilitate, they would have to live on the street. Yea, I think that was a movie once, but he would not have seen it.

Let me be clear. I'm not even slightly making some pretense that my going without is akin to what people who legitamately have no electricity go through to get ready for their day or tuck the kids in for bed at night, but I think even with electricity all around me; it not at the flick of a switch is something most of the people I know should experience, often.

I think I wanted to go through this to better inform my relationship to such a huge system of power before I just plug in. I desire a more meaningful and instructive experience when I am officically connected into it. And when I am on the grid my plan is to immediately begin to try and get off of relying on it. I am already working on that too, with a bike powered alternator and battery system, which I think I have mentioned before and plans for a greenhouse and solar set up later on down the road.

Remember when a huge portion of the country including Detroit was blacked-out? That was a great day for me. Everyone hanging around outside, meeting new neighbors, bonfires and cooking on grills, but it is important to keep in mind how it effects our hospitals, the elderly, transportation and all those who are shocked when they do not have what they so rely on, or shocked because they do not have the experience of mutual aid in commuities they are apart of and feel abandoned or have to rely on the state. I'm sure the people of Cuba who experience roling blackouts often totally feel the same. yea right. Just to mention with the benefits of community support so too come responibilites. Yea, yea. going off on tangents and whatever. I can do that here though.

Did I mention I do not have any plumbing either. I am often filling up water jugs for cleaning up, and buy 3 gallons of water at a time for drinking (which I conserve) from a local "canteen". It's amazing how much water I use to wash a spoon. Relieving myself is another issue and mostly involves my yard and taking advantage of using others facilities when I am out. In the end I do not plan on pissing and shitting in clean drinking water coming from a toilet and want to combine my food scraps with my own wastes and make compost. Our current system is about as wasteful as it gets, and I guess that goes as much for the war as the sewers.

I realize I am mostly relying on others who are hooked up to the water and electrical system, and my closest friends, but I sleep there every night and wonder if I smell too often. Washing down (with soap) using cold water has been a harrowing experience and again really makes you appreciate things like a hot shower when you have been working with cement, caulk, dirt and who knows what all day. They are real experiences, but they are also what they are and that is to say mine is not an extreme situation.

I don't feel like I have truly done justice to this issue with this piece, but I need to get back to the house and do some work. So, I look foward to soon have recorded music for my listening pleasures at the flick of a switch, but still I am a little weary of which way is better and I think already I look forward to the city of Detroit going camping someday. I don't see why we can not dream of things like that cooperating and sharing all that we bring to the situation, material objects and ideas alike, when we live in such a nightmare.

To the next industrial revolution, maybe this time we will get it right and remember to consider nature in our plans an designs, otherwise it will no doubt deal with us in a way equally as inconsiderate.

solid

posted by the upsidedown house @ 9:17 AM