In my lifetime, I have stayed in all kinds of places. I have slept
all sorts of ways.
Like in drain pipes & abandoned sheds. Beneath the overhang at the local Denny’s. Like curled up in a downtown alley, where your alarm clock is the morning garbage truck slamming the dumpster you’re sleeping behind. Like a begged-for three hours’ shut-eye on a friend’s loveseat just to get kicked out after two.
I’ve snoozed in homeless shelters where they’ll steal the shoes right off your feet as you sleep, so you’re best off crushing your footwear beneath the bedposts for the night. I’ve slept business hours in the reference section at the Houston Public Library, which comes with free air conditioning, a water fountain, a toilet, & a sink.
There have been the park benches & there have been the city buses – places where you hope to enter REM before they come & chase you off.
You learn to sleep on the go, eventually.
I’ve stayed in hotel business meeting rooms on at least three dozen separate occasions, where sometimes they’ll even leave the leftover food out when they finish. So, you know… Bonus!
Then there have been the houses. I’ve stayed in some houses. Some for a while. At least three, it seems to me: My family’s when I was a little girl, my grandmother’s during the summers, & Aunt Sharon’s for a few weeks just after my parents died.
There was a college dorm, two townhouses, & there was a condo by the lake that was in a converted bank building with the old vault still intact. The condo was in the converted bank building, I mean. Not the lake.
There have been cars. There’s been a whole lot of cars. A full spectrum of modern motor vehicles, really. Some operational. Most not. My first was a burned-out shit brown 1970 Plymouth Fury 3 with a paisley vinyl top. Stayed there three weeks & even started storing some odds & ends inside until I came back one morning to find the city’d towed the damn thing off.
A week in a black 1986 Mercury Cougar that had been stripped for parts, broken down just east of where Minute Maid Park now stands. Another week in a maroon Chevy S-10 with bumper stickers on the back that read, “Actung Baby” & “Clinton/Gore '92.”
& school buses in the summer & tarped motorboats in the winter.
Wet places. Dry places. Places fit & unfit for human habitation.
But of all the places I’ve ever laid my head, there’s really only been one of them that’s ever felt like home sweet home. My center. My bunker. My base of operations.
That’s the place I call Temixoch.
Now, I have spoken of Temixoch before, but for those of you with short-term memory loss or who are just cruising through, I will go through it all one more time. Temixoch is what I call this storage closet I found just off an abandoned underground freight elevator beneath downtown Houston.
The way I figure it, in the old days – probably in the Twenties or maybe in the Thirties – this freight elevator came right up out of the sidewalk. You just pulled aside these horizontal metal doors & boom! It had this fancy gold metal working all over it that would probably make your grandmother talk about how they used to make everything better back in the day.
& the elevator’s long gone, though the shaft is still there, & there’s a truck got lodged down in it somehow during the flood of 2001. But if you should climb down through this truck, which is sort of just hanging there face-down in the shaft, you’ll come to a storage closet. Eight feet wide by eight feet deep.
& that’s Temixoch.
No matter where else I might stay for a week, for a month, for a year, one thing stays pretty much the same. Temixoch, well, that’s home.
So it got to be last week & the rumors started. I’m staying at this flophouse – flophouse #7, for those of you keeping score – & the rumors started, first as a whisper & then as a roar.
Word on the street is somebody’s moved into my abandoned underground storage closet. Somebody’s been sleeping in Temixoch & it’s not me!
Word on the street is the intruder calls himself “Dr. Clitoris,” & he wears a cape & dark hood & it is suspected by some that he might be a little crazy. I could not fathom any of this & I could not believe it, but Merlyn Pagano personally confirmed it to me & Merlyn Pagano is never wrong.
Does this Dr. Clitoris character not know? Is he somehow… unaware? Has nobody told him that Temixoch is my center, my bunker, my base of operations?
Now, I hate to get all possessive about the places where I illegally squat, but… Something has to be done! This Dr. Clitoris, he must be evicted, kicked out, or he must be forcibly removed.
Temixoch my Temixoch, my home sweet home. You’re the only place where I have ever dreamed.
So I am assembling a posse to recapture Temixoch. Gathering the least reputable characters I know. & though organizing the homeless is a lot like herding cats, we are going to go & we are going to take back Temixoch from this questionably-named trespasser.
I’ll bet he’s not even a real doctor.
did you claim scatters rights to the time capsule Temixoch?
ReplyDeletetheir is plenty room for you at the Lunar Temixoch. One can check out any time via the time portal
more info
GOODSTUFF’S CYBER WORLD is more than a “virtual entity” -- therefore, we hereby make the following declaration
http://goodstuffsworld.blogspot.com/2012/09/goodstuff-lunar-squatting-declaration.html
Hi, GOODSTUFF!
DeleteThere is such a things as "adverse possession" in Texas, which is essentially squatter's rights. Sadly, my closet does not and never will qualify.
There is always the moon!
Your life really has been a literal hell-on-earth Katy, i`m so sorry, genuinely.
ReplyDeleteMy life has been fantastic! I am having a blast.
DeleteThose pictures look like Harrison Ford frozen in carbonite.
ReplyDeleteHey, it sort of does!
DeleteIf Jabba the Hutt had been gay and living in the disco era, that is absolutely how he would have stored Han Solo.
I totally enjoyed this post Katy, but I feel required to point out also this is the best internet comment of the day so far, and the best idea for a riff on Star Wars that anybody has come up with yet.
DeleteHan Solo's relationship with a giant hairy guy makes a lot more sense in my version...
DeleteFor some reason, I think someone who refers to himself as Dr. Clitoris may need an abandoned storage closet more than you. And how would you evict Clitoris? He's as much a part of that dank, abandoned box as the truck lodged in the shaft...wait a second, I'm starting to realize something here.
ReplyDeleteIs it always about sex with you heteros?
DeleteJust a random guess: does Dr Clitoris like to dress up in latex?
ReplyDeleteI have not had the opportunity to meet him yet - only know him by myth and reputation.
DeleteBut I'm beginning to construct an image of him in my own mind, and yeah, in my mind, he's wearing latex.
Are you planning to change the name of the blog to Ampersands In My Soup or something?
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, I wrote about href="http://bill-purkayastha.blogspot.in/2013/02/fairly-useless-facts-no-2.html".hyena clitorises today.
I'll bet Dr Clitoris can't stand up to an assault by a hyena clitoris.
Once every six months or so, I get the overwhelming urge to post a blog using ampersands.
DeleteI'd like to say there is a rhyme or a reason to when I why I do this, but if there is, I am not consciously aware of it.
Because of this clitoral coincidence, I hereby declare the clitoris to be Body Part of the Week. Although I'm almost scared to see it is relevant to your blog...
Can you apply copywrite law here and claim it on the grounds of first use? Of course you get a lawyer and he gets a lawyer it takes 4 years to work through the east Texas federal court system. You know from personal experience the only thing worse than herding cats and the homeless is herding lawyers. Not only do they go every whichway they charge by the hour to do it.
ReplyDeleteNevermind, you are better off with the homeless mob. You going with the 20's tar/feathers/rail version of the mob? That would be appropriate given the age of Temixoch. Maybe old school with clubs/pitchforks/torches? Given the urban nature of your environment, pitchfork mobs are probably better left to the metro Ponder TX crowd.
Self-help methods are probably the only thing left open to me.
DeleteWhatever happens, I'm sure it's going to make a great blog. My only regret is that I'm pretty much out of these irrelevant colored rubber pics to post along with it...
NOOOO NO self help books. They are horrible. Flee from anything that has you sitting in a circle pounding on a drum with half naked middle men.
DeleteI LOVE THE PICTURES!!
Hmm... i guess I'll cancel Dr. Phil serving as our posse leader.
DeleteI had the speech written and everything: "You, sire, have gotta get out of this whole in the ground where you are living and do something with your life! What kind of name is 'Dr. Clitoris,' anyway? Is that Latin? You're never going to get people's respect with that name!"
Incidentally, Clitoris IX is my preferred Pope name when I am elected Pope next month!
Ahhh my mistake, Dr. Phil would have been brilliant! That squatter (Dr Clitoris that is) would have fled screaming after 4 minutes of Dr Phil psycho babbling mixed with West Texas hog wash.
DeleteYou would make an awesome pope. I can see you rocking the lids. Has there ever been a ginger pope?
I've never actually seen Dr. Phil. I'm at a disadvantage: I try and make pop culture references, but I rarely consume pop culture. I have heard good things about Harry Potter, though...
DeleteIt's hard to know about the Popes. Most of them have been old and bald. But I don't now that are many ginger Italians, which makes the chances of there having been a ginger low...
I love this post, but have nothing clever to say about it. I have nominated you for two trite blogging awards because I like to nominate people whose content elevates them above those who would actually participate in such nonsense. It accomplishes two things: I can share my favorite bloggers and I can kill memes dead. Ergo, please, with my gracious compliments, permit me to offer you the Liebster and Very Inspiring Blogger Awards. http://faithinambiguity.blogspot.com/2013/02/its-awards-season-again.html
ReplyDeleteHi, Tara! I have a tough time with comments, too. I read some of the best blogs around, and then I feel weird because my comments consistently feel trite.
DeleteI have been trying to be a better networker and friend online recently, so I am going to put in an effort to do the things connected with your awards. Typically, I don't, but this is the new and improved Katy 2013!
According to some men I've talked to, Dr. Clitoris is just a myth and doesn't actually exist. In fact, some men have spent their entire life looking for him only to not find him. Me, I'd like to think I've found him, but I'm married, so he doesn't come around much anymore.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see what happens when we get our posse together and go underground to look for him.
DeleteIf we can find his assistant, Saint G the Spot, I think we will still be able to get the job done.
Happy Valentines Day Katy, you gorgeous little darlin`.
ReplyDeleteHappy Valentine's Day, Hamst.
DeleteDon't make me regret posting that.
Give Dr. Clit a lickin' for me.
ReplyDelete(Oh. And, happy VD day, and all that....)
Look what the cat dragged in.
DeleteWhere have you been, Will?
Katie, the phrase "sexual orientation" is derived from sexual repression as well because only in a sexually repressive society would people want to put themselves into supposed different "sexual catorgories".
ReplyDeleteI sort of agree with that. Granted, I don't think I put myself into a category. It just so happened that I am only attracted to women.
DeleteIt doesn't seem like my lack of attraction to men or animals or kitchen utensils is due to repression.
I'm just not.
I am sort of writing on this very subject for the blog TONIGHT.
I've slept on park benches, under bridges and other various places before. I really don't care to go back. It's a lonely place that puts your back through hell!
ReplyDeleteIt's also very itchy. Ya just can't discount the itchiness factor...
DeleteNo, I'll tell you what's itchy...jailhouse blankets. Covering up with a county jail blanket is like sleeping in poison ivy.
DeleteI once purposefully got myself arrested once, just so I could have a place to lay my head. I was warm, it was cozy. Plus I got 3 free meals a day! It would've been heaven if it weren't for those damn blankets.
Haha... Dan, you know, I have a blog from last year (not transferred over yet) where I TRIED to turn myself in (warrants for unpaid tickets) and they wouldn't take me. It was a cold week and they were too full.
DeleteGreat minds think alike?
I bet that was a big blow to your ego. I mean, if the jails don't want you, then who does?
DeleteI can't even get arrested in this town.
DeleteNow if only you could tell true stories...
ReplyDeleteIs there a second half to that sentence?
DeleteDid I say that half sentence back then? It's so unlike my literary style and discipline.
DeleteBTW, you seriously need to put up an index to your posts, because currently there is no way to find any of the posts you are moving to here, as Old Reader is not flagging the posts you have moved as "new". Since you don't have a friend any more, I guess no one is helping you test your page these days, sigh.
I don't assume there's only one Anonymous.
DeleteHowever, thanks for the heads-up. I''m disappointed that my "You Might Also Like" section doesn't include the old posts.
When my transfer of old posts is complete, I'm going to do pages for my navigation strip that lay out blog highlights and the seasons of the site. I've got big plans...