KARBYTES_JOURNAL_2023_ENTRY_113
Update: A “pro tip” to myself would be to avoid carrying blankets (because they tend to be bulky and to get heavy and take a long time to dry when soaked with rain) in favor of acquiring more thermal and “quick dry” undergarments. The latter might not seem as cozy but it is more versatile and travel-friendly than the former.
I also wanted to mention something I saw while walking past Castro Village today which made me smile: a band of old guys playing acoustic instruments under a storefront overhang in a spot I did not expect to see a live music show. There is also some nice live jazz guitar music being played in my house by the resident in the room adjacent to mine named Steve. I got to briefly visit my dad and Brea the cat. My social security card arrived in the mailbox. Out the east sitting room window were some loud crows having some kind of show down dance for dominance (and what looked like for fun). My laundry is in the washer right now.
The reason why I do not plan to stay here instead of going back outside to weather the elements under some overhang is because the Thought Police are extra annoying whenever I go to Castro Valley (especially when I go inside either one of my parents’ houses). Rather than quietly battle them out in front of other people who know me, I would rather seclude myself because what I have to deal with is very undignified and I would rather not spread that misery to other people (especially people I know).
The voice who annoys me most sounds like a young woman making nonstop catty remarks and distracting sound effects (expectant shallow breathing, whimpering, giggling, demure moaning, whispering, and intonations which sound attention-seeking, thought-stopping, and lacking in flow (like she is full of pent up enegy but keeps her expressions dainty and stifled), et cetera). Perhaps she does not want me to enjoy having a roof over my head. She follows me outside too. Perhaps she does not want me to enjoy my life at all. It sure seems that way. It seems that she never tires of berating me and trying desperately to provoke my anxiety and anger so that I cannot relax enough to focus on my preferred interests. I think she wants me to be frazzled, mentally unstable, and too grouchy to appear attractive to other people. It seems like she does not want me to do anything other than seclude myself while laying down, saying nothing, keeping my eyes closed, and hardly moving while she coos triumphantly in her soft, high-pitched, snarky, sing-song voice.
Perhaps I am not strong enough (yet or ever) to put up with her such that I stay in my house instead of let her bully me into leaving. I figure that, if I leave as much stuff as possible in my room before leaving back to Dublin or Fremont to camp at an overhang, I have so little to lose that I will not feel as stressed as I usually do. I have been carrying around my birth certificate in my backpack since I obtained it. Perhaps I should just leave my birth certificate and my social security card in that metal safe in one of those plastic bins in my room. Items I hardly use should be left at home. I just have to convince myself that the chances of my stuff getting stolen or tampered with is sufficiently low to justify such a “risk”. (Up until now I was thinking that my stuff was safest on my person (but I have had items go missing even while keeping them on my person which means that such items are probably only marginally safer on my person than left behind at “my” house)).
A bigger-picture takeaway from this journal entry is that I am starting to learn what the essential difficulties of being homeless are. Not having a place to go to get warm, dry, and cleaned up after being in bad weather, in dirty conditions, and exposed to almost nonstop stimuli in the environment is what seems to make homelessness most stressful (in my opinion). The fact that I have a place to go to shower, do laundry, and receive mail is what essentially what makes me not homeless (but I do not consider it to be truly living on my own because other people can easily tamper with my stuff and I have to share the house with other people (which means that I cannot just be as comfortably uninhibited as I want to be because other people seem to be watching me at all times)). I do not want those other people to see me angry or stressed but I think they know I am. It feels like I am being punished and tortured severely while they watch and condone that I be treated in what I think is an inhumane manner by the Thought Police. I wish I could simply be as easy-going and happy as I think I really would be without the meddling of the Thought Police. Unfortunately for me, I do not seem to get to live happily at home because the Thought Police prefer that I be miserable and deprived of many of the things I think I deserve.
On a more positive note, I have been having consistently good results while using the night bugs sound generator at the web page linked below. That sound generator creates a nice ambience with or without headphones and fills whatever space I am inside of with a sense of being immersed in a forest which is teeming with life. It does significantly ease my misophonia and put me in a happier mood.
karbytes_favorite_sound_generator: https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/ultrasonicNoiseGenerator.php
I have some more good news but I want to wait until what I think is a more strategic time and place to disclose that news publicly on this website. Stay tuned!
Update: I bought some laundry detergent from the Whole Foods Market in Dublin (and some food and drink items). Then I rode the BART train to Castro Valley. While I was waiting for the train to arrive, it started raining lightly and then progressively more heavy (off and on). I also noticed an interesting looking man who exuded a quiet intelligent demeanor; merely standing on the platform and not doing anything other than patiently waiting (and he seemed serene, thoughtful, and natural). (I have an embarrassing tendency to fidget and look anxious (and I blame the Thought Police for that because they seem opposed to me being as relaxed, happy, and engaged in something non-trivial and non-filibuster-y as I would be without their buzz kill interference). When we both got onto the same train car, I saw him pull out a paper book and he started reading it. I pulled out my phone and looked at Instagram. We both got off the train at Castro Valley BART station.
Then I walked past the Farmer’s Market in the BART parking lot and eventually to the laundry mat in the Lucky’s supermarket. I saw that I needed to put quarters into the machines. There were approximately five customers in there doing their laundry. I decided against using that laundry mat last minute. I also decided to forgo getting a post office box. I decided that the chances of my mail getting intercepted at my dad’s place is not very high and that subscribing to a tiny post office box which is too small to receive packages such as replacement backpacks is a waste of my money. Also, I do not mind just using the washing machine and dryer machine at my dad’s house (even though I am afraid some articles of clothing will get stolen because that is what happened several times in the past).
(As I was walking away from the laundry mat and towards my dad’s house, my mom called me on the phone to let me know that she needed to use the Toyota Matrix which is parked in her driveway because her BMW is having issues. I said that I do not expect to need the Toyota Matrix any time in the future. As “inconvenient” and “counter-cultural” as it is for me to attempt to live without a car I either own or else borrow, I think it is the most cost-effective, environmentally-conscious, and low-stress commute option (especially given the fact that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have access to the BART train system, Lyft, et cetera)).
If you are wondering why I said in the previous journal entry that I might not be going back to my parents’ houses, I said that because I was momentarily obsessed with “living on my own” (because I have some recurring thoughts which suggest that I deserve to be treated like a wayward child until I officially move out of my parents’ houses). In retrospect, I think that is some lame cultural brainwashing which does not make much rational sense given how prohibitively expensive the cost of living is in the San Francisco Bay Area. I currently do not make enough money to do much other than pay rent for a room in someone else’s house (which is about $800 per month while an apartment would cost me at least $1,500 per month).
If I learned anything during this weekend it is that I am literally “on track” with my goals (and I have yet to disclose the relevant details because I want to wait until the very last minute to showcase milestone accomplishments so that my blog is more of a “done list” than a “to do list”).
Lastly, if anyone wants to know why I would rather minimize how often and how long I visit Castro Valley in favor of hanging out in Fremont or in Dublin, it is because I feel more at home in those other cities than I do in Castro Valley. Basically, I live like a homeless person even though I technically have a home so that I can (a) spend most of my time living alone and (b) so that I can spend most of my time in public places which I think are most conducive to studying and relaxing.
Today I tried calling the Public Storage I made a reservation for a small storage unit at in order to cancel my reservation and to possibly get a refund on the two months of rent I accidentally paid for (and I only attempted to pay for one of those months but an error on the Public Storage website made it seem like I did not submit the first payment (so I ended up making the same payment twice while initially thinking I only made it once)). Even during business hours no human answered the phone (but I did leave a message).
After that, I called the phone number on the debit card which was issued to me by Patelco and was able to relatively quickly and easily get those two payments of approximately $52 each to Public Storage refunded.
Finally, I made an appointment to pick up my new driver’s license from the Pleasanton Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) so that I can use that new driver’s license (which will display my legal address instead of Spencer’s old address) to rent a Post Office box and have packages sent there instead of to my legal address (but in order to rent a P.O. box, I need to bring proof of residence (and I had almost all the documents I needed last time I attempted to rent a P.O. box at the UPS store in Castro Valley except for a driver’s license with an address which matched a print-out of one of my Patelco bank statements))).
(Screenshots of email messages and website activity which pertain to these transactions has been added to one of my private GitHub repositories in case I need to look up that information in the future).
Since I “have to” presumably go to my dad’s house (which has been my current legal address of residence since 2016 (and before that the only other place I legally lived at was my mom’s house)) to pick up my driver’s license, I am planning on walking there today to see if my social security card arrived (and maybe to get a little drum practice in). On my way back to Pleasanton/Dublin, I tentatively plan on using the laundry mat right next door to the UPS store in Castro Valley to do some laundry (using a small bottle of detergent which I will keep stowed away under a bush or something (because I do not have much room in my backpack and because I do not want that liquid to spill on my electronics, clothes, and papers)).
This web page was last updated on 04_FEBRUARY_2023. The content displayed on this web page is licensed as PUBLIC_DOMAIN intellectual property.
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