A Living Magazine - Day 30 - Just Say Know

Woke up fairly well-rested. No problems during the night. I both enjoyed and was bothered a bit by the irony of sleeping outside, under a tree, next to a hotel. I took my wipe bath, brushed my hair, brushed my teeth and pulled the burs out of my socks and shoes (which is a never ending job!).

As with Redding, my walk into town will always follow the same road. And, this makeshift routine in each new town where I stay has added a new dimension to this journey: Getting to KNOW a place.

When I am done with A Living Magazine, it may very well be that I will have had experiences akin to "vacationing" in a hundred cities. What an experience! Who does that? And my travels around an area are not isolating me in a car. I see every bottle cap, cigarette butt, flower, brick and street sign--at 3 miles per hour. I am so detail-oriented too--can remember each of those things and more, and am becoming almost like a savant in that respect, that the slowness of my travels (besides sometimes being a burden) can be a real blessing. Knowing a place means I have become part of it. Even a temporary stay can leave a permanent chunk of REAL estate my mind, making it a part of me.

As I've elaborated on ad infinitum here, there are also very monotonous and superfluous aspects that wear away at the psyche. The extreme case of this was my extended stay in Livermore. Think about the things that you tire of in your own town or city, then multiply that by the duration of your exposure to them each day IF you were to be walking rather than driving by them. 

For me, it's business signs and logos, the boring architecture of the box stores... like in Grants Pass here at the box store section of town... HARK! ...here comes another one!  

The most "cost efficient" architectural "style" in corporate America (choke!).

And, I'm not impressed by the stagnant habit of many Americans to NOT want to know. Our majorities tend to form delicate, egg-shell worldviews, entirely based upon what we were raised to think makes us "fit in." Not only are we afraid to think for ourselves, but we are often thrown under the bus for even trying. Our largest stores' architecture could be a metaphor for this. The bigger you are, the more of a box you become. Interesting...

Moving in towards the center of town, I caught site of another of the wall murals that I've seen in each place I've been to here in Oregon. It is nice and goes some way toward eliminating the monotony I mentioned above...

I worked for about 6 hours at my new hangout here, Rogue Roasters. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the trendy and the post-pretentious. There's a term for you! Let me offer a definition: the post-pretentious: People who behave the way they do as a result of using immature pretension to obtain a state that rises above the shallow and trite values thereof, thus becoming more mature. 

I worked as long as I could without overstaying my welcome; which everyone does there anyway, so it wouldn't have been a big deal--perhaps, more of my own ethical issue. It was over 100° F again this day. After the air conditioned environment of the cafe, the air outside felt kind of nice at first. Then hell ascended and began to pull the moisture out of my pores and the energy out of my motivation. For a "homed" person (my tentative term for the non-homeless) resident of places like this, a short walk around town is but a brief discomfort, followed by a shower, a cold glass of water and shady spot to relax privately.

For me - and many others - walking in the oven is an open-ended prospect, without any relief until sundown. Naturally, I have it much better than the others, since, usually I do have some amount of resources to step into a business and buy a water or juice, which then allows me to cool off. Nevertheless, I can imagine what they go through; not only because I've been there myself (wandering without resources), but also because I see them every day, doing just that. I've spoken of this before... In addition to the discomfort of the sweltering heat, comes the intensely awkward problem of rarely being able to rest. Sit on planter or wall? You are told to move on. Stand near a business? You are told to move on. Sometimes curbs can give respite, but usually these are exposed to the sun.

These folks often can't even get a break in the park, because of harassment from other homeless people. I've observed that in order to find relief in the parks, one has to get to know the locals and be willing to give up your privacy, which - at least for my temperament - would not be much of a solution. I'd rather be hot, than bothered.

I put up with the heat to find places to take some pictures, if I was able...

Cloud, trying to become a thunderhead.

Putting green, with artificial grass.

I forgot to mention that while in Medford, my glasses' bows separated again as a result of my crappy duct tape fix. Then the idea occurred to me that I didn't even need bows, if I had a good strap. I found one at the Dollar Tree that was perfect. It was soft material, had soft rubber ends, and an adjustable tightener in the back. I bought some paper clips (good to have for a lot of different things) and then poked them through the rubber and the screw holes to make a good solid fixture. It made the glasses easier to use and store. I wondered if this had been thought of before... 

Bowless, wallking glasses? Salable? (Maybe not this frame style.)

The afternoon went by slowly. When I couldn't take the heat anymore, I stopped into a Japaneses Sushi bar and Chinese buffet. I couldn't afford the full buffet, but bought a plate of sushi, something I hadn't had since I was in Livermore. Good price... $8.95 for ten pieces. For some reason they gave me a Chinese fortune cookie. And, even though I'm not a big believer in fortunes, I do have a childlike excitement when I get one. This couldn't have meant anything more to me at the time...

Love it!

Afterward, and because my laptop was charged, I had saved a dollar for an evening visit to McDonald's where I could do one last stint online. There, I decided to look for outdoor clothing stores in the area. Maybe I could avoid the whole shipping of the boots and simply buy them here, once I had the funds. Sure enough in a place like Grants Pass, I found a place called Big 5. The boots I saw online were not L.L.Bean quality, but they weren't bad. Further, they were half the price. I just needed something to replace the sneakers that were now subject to being punctured by stones. I still had to get in touch with Allyson (the friend who had offered to purchase them for me and had suffered the loss/theft of the first pair). So, that was the new plan. God-willing, I would be able to do this as soon as possible.

Eventually, the sun sank below the mountains and a soft, and welcome, darkness settled over southern Oregon.

For the first time here I saw this sign after dark...

Notice that it is not a sign warning panhandlers, but drivers.

There is a sign for panhandling too, but it is on private property.

It was time to return to my nesting place. I had a request to take a picture of the area. So, I did that and thought I'd include a short video clip of what it looks like when a car comes down the off ramp of Interstate 5...

The Grants Pass nest.

The view of the street that freeway cars use to get into town.

A car doing exactly that.

With another day over, I settled on top of the sleeping bag and slipped into a deep sleep. Around 3:30 am, I woke to a voice. With a dream still fresh in my mind, I turned my head to see a small man on a bike. I think he'd said, "Is there someone in there?" I didn't answer. He rode off, and I went back to my dream. Thankfully, I remembered it this time.