It constitutes outlawry, but I like living in my car. I had thought that the Supreme Court, back during my young personhood, and with regard to that county government expedient known as the “Chain Gang” (that is, being picked up for vagrancy and sentenced to 60 days on the county roads), had declared it unconstitutional to outlaw poverty. Seems I was mistaken.

I moved into the car back in 2015, when I threw up an unsatisfactory employment situation, yet again, and took myself off, from California to Oregon. I packed the vehicle with, easily, twice the stuff it now holds and hit the road. It was lovely. I spent five months in Oregon, sort of looking for work, but not really. You may not credit it, but I lost 30 pounds in that five months, doing nothing more strenuous than walking from my car to the library, my car to the river, my car to this marvelous supermarket with seating on an upper level, overlooking the grocery aisles, where I spent hours each day, coloring. Incidentally, these are some of my output from that time, Johanna Basford‘s postcards, which I will be using for cover art on this blog, as soon as I figure out how to do it.

But this is what throwing up an unsatisfactory employment situation will do for you, as long as you can accommodate a real minimalist lifestyle, and like to color. And the minimalism is material, emotional and intellectual; it’s not for everybody.

I should explain that back at the age of eight I likely experienced my first bout of clinical depression. I deduce this from the fact that, I swear, all my mother had to say to be during that time was “don’t pout.” I was diagnosed at age 20 and that was a bad year. From then on, I worked when I could, but at fairly regular intervals, I didn’t.

Say what you will about the failings of our nation, I will continue to be grateful to live in a country wherein a single female with a decided disability can, more or less, most of the time, keep herself. I discovered the “temp agency.” As long as you don’t actually scream, spit, or throw things, and however abruptly you might leave an assignment, as long as you can do the work, they will find you another spot. And, it’s only the truth, I am an excellent legal secretary. It’s a detrimental quality, actually. That last assignment in 2015, I was started on trial, to see if I could cope with the second most obnoxious attorney in the firm. I could, and was then assigned the first most obnoxious attorney in the firm. Then I was hired on permanent, lasted eight months, crashed, and left. It’s a depressing scenario, you have to admit, and by the time I headed off to Oregon it had become a decidedly repetitious feature of my working life.

So, for most of my time in Oregon, I puttered, and I learned to live in a car. Practical considerations: if you are a back sleeper, you can’t do it. At least, not in a Honda Accord. Me, I’m a side sleeper. In each of the back seat leg wells there is a large duffel bag: one has my comfy clothes and the other is entirely stuffed with socks and underwear, so as to minimize trips to the laundromat. These two duffel bags extend the bed space so that, head to the passenger seat, butt to the center back, and feet to the driver’s seat, a person can stretch their legs when necessary. Cramped or comfortable is entirely a matter of disposition, and mine is fairly amiable. Placed over the duffel bags during the daytime are the sleeping bag and the pillow, and that’s all the big stuff in the back seat during most days.

But not all the stuff. The door pockets are immensely useful. It is in the back seat that I do my ablutions in the morning. We will get right down into it here. Another circumstance in favor of solo female vehicle living is being no longer young. I was 59 in 2015. “Dried up old lady” is not a very kindly phrase, but it’s factual. And a dried up old lady can keep herself reasonably clean with a little squirty bottle of rubbing alcohol and a role of paper towels. The paper towels with the half sheets are the best. Folded in half and squirted with alcohol, they may be applied to all the smelly spots. and render a person fit for the office.

Right now I’m reading The Adventures of Barbara Pym, by Paula Burne, a biography of a novelist I like. “Jane Austin, but funnier” is what they say, and I agree. So, in the manner of a person who frequently cannot concentrate on much of anything for any length of time, I read a page and a half, and then doze for half an hour … all day long. The key is not to angst about your incapacities … just wallow in them.

Which, for my five months in Oregon, is pretty much what I did. The thing about Oregon is that, on those occasions when one feels a moral compulsion to look for work, there isn’t much work to look for. I sent my resume off for an admin position with Oregon’s answer to Good Vibrations. Did not get an interview. A prudent person would have papered the local law firms, but, oh, I could not bring myself to do that. And so the money ran out, and I had to come back to the Bay Area. I was back with the lawyers in two weeks, and remained in the car.

It seems, I like it in the car.