The suckiest part of being in these stretches of housing limbo is having my belongings scattered about. I've lost so much precious stuff the last eight years, in addition to losing so much precious sleep. Lost master copies of some of my work, and some of my favorite shirts.Instead of collecting memories, I spent much of my Twenties collecting dust and receiving notices from collection agencies.
One time when I was resettling into California, my distant father recommended I try the one distant relative he has in the state. A nerdy grad student named Carmel living in Berkeley, living in some dilapitated apartment way atop the Berkeley Hills.
Night one turned into one nightmare prima facie. My Dodge Neon rental car from Oakland Airport was ramsacked, half of my belongings snatched by another one of these homeless goons that the city of Berkeley embraces with such civic pride. I swear a few of them looked like the sasquatch from Harry and the Hendersons. (btw, did you know that guy also played the Predator, and was married to Rose from 227, and died from AIDS in 1990? Action packed life indeed.)
Not long after that terrible experience, I read that students were murdered outside a sorority right around the block from Carmel's pad. They found the killers yesterday. Is the East Bay becoming the armpit of the West Coast?
Berkeley was most recently in the news for this brouhaha. It's a complicated issue. All I know is this: Whenever the military's stomping boots stop storming into other people's backyards -- in about 100 years according to Grandpa McCain and daddy's little cutie -- we'll all be safer. Then they can replace those Army Temp Agencies with medical clinics for all the volunteers who come back mentally deranged for the rest of their lives like Barkley from Men at Work. Or like the guy who broke into my Neon.
