Packing up

I need to pack. I've just read my post from March 27. I was feeling stuck, then. I am stuck no more. I am definitely moving to the farm to work and live in a tent until the RV is renovated (she's back). The moving truck is reserved for June 27th (how's that for symmetry) and my gear has arrived. Honestly speaking, I feel like I'm swimming in molasses. I feel the urge to move, to pack, to do something and yet, this change is so huge that I don't know where to begin. I feel as though I'm going in circles. Which clothes do I take? How much food will I need? How will I store it? Where? Will I be able to load the truck, get it up north, unload it and turn it in to the rental shop in time? Do I need warmer clothes? Where am I doing laundry? I still need medium for the toilet and a gas canister for the stove. And a bike. I didn't worry so much when I was younger. I'm trying to recapture that part of my youth.

Behold the Throne!!!

Pieces do fall into place bit by bit as time goes on. The truck is reserved, storage is reserved, the tent is here and the portable loo and gas stove and water container and sleeping bag and boots and a few other odds and ends. Still, I'm not sure how everything will be set up. What happens when it rains? I do have a tarp for a ground cloth. There is so much to do. I am grading my students' final papers and project at the same time. I think I'll start with the clothing. Get everything out of my room and make final decisions about what goes with me and what goes to charity. So, this post is short and sweet. Heave ho!

Opts Out/Opts In (The Movie): Chapter One

Update Update Update! Here is what has happened with the camper so far.  This update is in the form of a little movie.  I'm thinking to do more of these little movies. It means fewer entries each month but I'm thinking that these are more fun than just text.  It's an experiment!  Enjoy.

Full Speed Ahead!

Things are happening so fast now that I actually don't have time to blog about one thing before the next thing happens. It's funny. All that work in the beginning - the slow, slogging pace of it - and now, all of a sudden, all at once the dreams behind that work are coming true.

I have my New York State Driver license, the camper is insured, I have my Social Security card in my own name (a full two weeks early), and, yesterday, I got the camper registered.  I have plates!!!  It is a temporary registration; I have ten days to get the camper inspected.

Experience has taught me not to wait for anything and so I spent some time this afternoon dialing one number after the other, looking for an auto shop authorized to inspect vehicles for the DMV that also dealt with campers. I finally found someone on Long Island.

Now, to the average Californian, a two hour drive is nothing. The New Yorkers I've talked to all recoil in horror when I say that I'm taking my camper that far for service. I'm just exceedingly grateful to have found a place.

The plan is for me to get the camper from New Jersey in the morning and drive it to Long Island for this inspection. HA! Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I am claiming power and success and calm for this trip. I will drive my 24' pookums over some bridge into New York and then find the Long Island Expressway without getting stuck under some low laying bridge, scalping my baby in the process. I will find the autobody shop and the inspection will go well.  No one will be harmed in the making of this production for Bach Rescue Pastilles are with me. This is a special occasion. Pray for everybody.

Goal Candy

The month of June ends on a high note, I am so very happy to say.  I found a source for tires for my hand-made shoes, the tooth that has bothered me for two years is gone, my driver license and social security cards are on the way, and (the very latest) the camper has been insured. The next step is to get it registered and repaired.

There were a few days this month when I thought that I would have to sell the camper and start over again. Things seemed pretty bleak and I often felt disoriented in the complex maze of overlapping and intersecting government offices and forms and requirements. The constant trot from obstacle to hurdle consumed my energies and I felt disconnected from the passion that fuels what I do.

Thankfully, a friend posted this video on my Facebook page and my passion came flooding back. This family is simply amazing and they have inspired a few long-term goals for me. It can be done! So, here is some goal candy:

Dress Shoes

New York City's first real heatwave of the year coincided with my heroic (and ultimately futile)  effort to get a New York State driver license so that I can register my new camper (which I still have not met).  Three trips to the DMV in one afternoon (on foot) and I still don't have a New York driver license. It turns out that the document California sent me is not the right one. I have ordered the necessary document - which will come in another seven-to-ten days [Update: Just found out that it is really 4-6 weeks.  I weep].

In the meanwhile, I discovered that I would not be getting any classes to teach for the summer and that final paycheck for the semester that I was counting on?  Well, I had counted wrong.  There went my main source of income and rent for the month of June. And July.  And August.  This was an unexpected but totally affirming example of why I am doing this life-style re-design. I do not want to be up a certain very smelly creek without a paddle (or even a canoe, really) ever again.

Part of my happy lifestyle design thing is creating streams of income that allow me to be independent and to travel. I didn't expect to dive into being my own income making factory quite this quickly but, who says life has to be convenient.  I've taken stock of my stuff and my skills and this is what I've come up with.

First.  I have a computer, video camera and shooting/editing skills.  I'm currently working on a sizzle (best of reel/EPK* type thing) for a band.  If you are in a band, have a small budget, and need a simple video, hit me up. My terms are very reasonable.

Second. I have a guitar and an amp, a mic and a chair.  This is all one needs to go out and literally sing for one's supper.  If you're in NYC and happen by the uptown side of the one train at 59th Street/Columbus Circle, check out the music.  You might just find me there.  Please be generous!

Third.  I have a sewing machine and a few self-taught skills.  Here is where some serendipity happened.

My mom happened to send my sister and me an email with the subject heading "Shoes"!  I'm still not sure what that had to do with the email she sent because she didn't say anything about shoes in the message.

My sister thought my mom was asking us to help collect shoes for the 120 or so kids she and my dad provide food and clothing for in South Africa (more on that in another post - they need your help and by that I mean go there and actually help).

Being a consummate entrepreneur, I wrote to my sister suggesting that, instead of sending shoes to South Africa, we collect money and buy the shoes there.

My sister pointed out that finding a place to get the shoes might be an issue so I fired right back, suggesting that we make the shoes.  I thought we could teach the older kids and so that they could learn entrepreneurship and earn some income. A quick Google search turned up easy patterns for making shoes.

I loved the patterns I found and I thought, I'd like to have those shoes! My mind went wild with the different designs I could create and the materials I could use. My aim is to make and sell 100% vegan, 90% recycled hand-crafted flat shoes.

I had spied my sewing machine buried behind some boxes when I had sold my chair to Jasmine. One long subway ride and a snug fit into my grocery cart later, I had my sewing machine at home. Check out my shoe video. For this shoe I have recycled an old dress that I can no longer wear.

Neat, huh? A quick call to a used tire business and I have access to all the discarded tires I can use for the soles. I'm trying to get over there next week. And I'm taking orders!

In the meanwhile, a big mediation came my way and I will likely be teaching a class in July after all.  It constantly amazes me how these things find a way of working themselves out. Life is good.

*EPK stands for Electronic Press Kit

Snagged (again)

I'm waiting for my phone to finish charging before heading to the DMV. Again.  As I wait, I'm facing the very real possibility that my dreams of the RV life might be over! (For now).  To recap (do this slowly, I find it helps):

I need to register the camper.  To register the camper I must have 1) A New York State driver license and 2) Insurance on the camper.  Fine.  I'm heading out to get the driver license now.  Fingers crossed.

Part two . . . well now, therein lays the rub.  You see, there is front end damage on the camper.  Fine.  I am now learning that 1) Only certain insurance companies insure campers. And, 2) Nobody wants to insure a camper with damage on it.  Even for one day.  Without insurance, I can't register the camper.  Without registration I can't move the camper.  Without moving the camper, I can't get it fixed. Without registration and insurance I can't store it at the RV park with very reasonable rates (Did you read all that slowly?)

But I could get it towed!  (Never mind that the thing drives on its own, ok.) The first quote was  $250.00 (steep but do-able) plus $100.00/day storage.  Get out!  And the gentleman at the company I called couldn't think of anyone who could fix it. That freaked me out until a good friend pointed out that the Cruisemaster is really a van; I just needed someone who worked on vans. That calmed me down a little.

Unless I can find a way to get a one day permit to drive the camper to a location where I can store it for a reasonable price, I am facing the very difficult reality of having to junk my baby! This calls for ice cream. Except I'm lactose intolerant so I'm just going to think about ice cream.

Unshackling

Nightmare at U-haul

Now that I have my rig, I have to consider moving into it.  There is a fair amount of renovating to do but it is never too early to start planning the actual move.  In the past five years I've moved from a two bedroomed two bathroom house with a fully furnished basement to a one bedroom apartment to sharing an already furnished apartment. Somehow, the amount of stuff I have has not diminished a fast as my living space has. Instead, I am shackled to mountains of stuff in storage.

Storage is expensive. If I am to really embrace being happy, I need to get rid of all this stuff. It is a burden on my mind and on my wallet.

I actually got an encouraging start to paring down on the Friday before I bought my rig. I was about to blog about that when the big purchase happened so my story about selling my first item was delayed. Well, here it is.

When I first moved into my one-bedroom apartment, I had practically nothing. No bed, no chair, no table, not even a shower curtain. I bought the bed first. I splurged a little, bought a full-sized Serta from Sleepy's. I loved that bed. The second thing I bought was a plush and cushy comfy chair. Having a nice place to curl up with a good book and a glass of Martinelli was a priority for me. Sadly, I can't take either of those items on the rig; time has come for them to go.

I placed an ad on Craigslist - which can literally be like taking one's life into one's hands. I have put stuff on Craigslist before - with absolutely no luck - so I really didn't expect much. And then, about three days after I placed the ad, I received an email. Someone was interested in the chair. The person included a phone number so I called.

The voice on the other end was high energy but low pitched. The background was very noisy so what I heard was that Tony wanted to buy my chair, could he come by and see it that afternoon if his friend's van was available? Well, sure he could, I thought. And then I thought, it's Craigslist. What if Tony is a serial killer?

I reached out to my Facebook family, begging for someone to come with me and at least witness my demise. One friend wrote back saying, "I wish I could go with you . . . God has your back". What?  "No!" I replied. "God said 'Bring back-up!"

Tony called again to get directions and I gave him the address. I like to be sure that I am calling people by their correct names so I double-checked as we were about to end the call. "This is Tony, right?" I screamed into the phone. The background was still deafening. "Jasmine!" I heard in reply.  Jasmine?!  Lord have mercy, this was a woman on the line! My anxiety level immediately dropped but I chided myself for that. Women also kill, I thought. I still wanted someone to come with me.

Ultimately no one could go with me. I made sure that my phone was fully charged, told the people of Facebook where to find my body, and I figured that since I had to check in to reach my storage unit, someone would eventually figure out that I was missing and come looking for me. With that, I took off for U-haul.

Jasmine had not arrived when I got there. I decided to go to the storage unit to poke around while I waited.  I called Jasmine and asked her to call me when she arrived.  After about twenty minutes the call came through and I hurried down stairs and out to the gate. Jasmine said that she and her friend  (I'm calling her Ana) would be waiting in a green van.  Sure enough, I saw the van parked outside the gates in front of a lovely Econoline E450.

Rrrrowrrr!

This is when things got weird. As I reached the gate, three boys approached me. They must have been around eleven years old. They each had bits of yarn hanging from their heads (I have no idea). One of them said,

"Um, hey, I like your hair".
"Thank you", I replied.
The second boy said, "I'm Jamaican, too".

I chuckled to myself.  Apparently wearing dreadlocs was synonymous with Jamaican to them.

Then the third boy said, "Take me home with you." Huh? Now I was concerned. What was wrong here? Were these boys orphans? Did they need foster care? By this time I had reached Jasmine and Ana. The three boys trailed behind me repeating their request. Jasmine took one look and started yelling at them. Only then did I catch on to what was going on. These eleven-year-old boys were hitting on me! I was horrified! Jasmine chased them off, muttering about what happens when idiot boys see a fine booty, so I never got to ask the boys the question that still burns in my mind: What, precisely, did they expect to happen?

Jasmine turned out to be a delight. She curses like a sailor and her heart is as big as the universe. Ana played a ruefully amused straight-woman to Jasmine's antics.

Jasmine

Jasmine loved the chair! Her chair. No way would her husband and son get this chair, she declared. I actually felt a little choked up. I was so happy to know that my chair, my little island of refuge, was going to someone who would truly love and appreciate what it offered. If she couldn't have a room of her own, at least she could have her own comfy chair.

While I still have a long way to go before I have cleared out my stuff, I am really happy about how this part of my process has begun. I told Jasmine about my plan to live in a van. At first she looked at me as though I had newts growing out of my head. Then she got another look in her eye. An enterprising look. "You don't got kids?" She asked. "No," I answered and she nodded.  "Yeah, you can do this. This is a great idea.  Let me tell you whatchu gonna do." And then she gave me all the inside tips for how to get a van for free. She is quite the source of information and inspiration and good luck, apparently.  Just two days later I got my rig - not quite for free but almost.

I've Found My Thrill!

Home Sweet Home

I am so excited, I don't know where to start. At the beginning, perhaps? Sometime in March of this year I got this crazy notion to move into a bus and live a simplified life. After stumbling upon my first Skoolie conversion I went back and forth between buses, vans and campers.  I had settled on getting a van so that parking would be less of an issue.  I plan to stay in the New York area so that I can keep teaching.  I spent many, many hours late into the night searching eBay and Craigslist, dreaming and drooling over YouTube videos. I became obsessed with Econoline e450s. I learned to spot the difference between a Sprinter and a Transit (Mercedes and Ford respectively). I just knew that it would take me at least a year to be able to save up the five to seven thousand dollars I would need to purchase a van.

Then, about two weeks ago, another crazy notion popped into my head: Somebody is going to give me a van.

In the grand scheme of my crazy notions, this one was no crazier than the others.  I accepted it and kept on looking.  Then a camper, a class C listed at 23', caught my eye on eBay.  The starting bid was $100.00 and there was no reserve price. I could handle that. I decided what my top price would be (based on how much money I had managed to save by then) and started bidding in five dollar increments. I placed my first bid and immediately got notice that I had been outbid. Someone had set a higher maximum price.  I placed a few more bids then stopped. It was still more than a day before the auction's end and I didn't want to set off a bidding war.

The auction was set to end in the afternoon on May 12. That morning I checked the auction. The price had gone up to over $200.00. I put in a bid and (gasp!) got notice that mine was currently the winning bid!  I checked back an hour later and found that I had been outbid. Curses!

I was excited about the possibility of winning something that I could afford - even though it was the wrong thing!  I had been looking for a van, a Class B camper. This was a significantly bigger Class C RV. Where would I park?  Still, the chances of coming across a deal this good again . . . I couldn't rationally pass it up.  I placed another bid and won again. A few minutes later another bid came in. Now I knew that my counterpart was also bidding in very small increments and that those amounts ended in zero. I waited.

Fifteen minutes before the auction ended I decided to set my maximum price at $300.00.  No!  $305.00.   I sat and I waited, my eyes glued to the screen, watching the minutes tick by. At seven minutes before the deadline I placed my next bid and won. Again I waited, my heart pounding as though I were running a marathon. Nothing happened.  My counterpart was waiting, too.  At about three minutes before the auction ended I put in my maximum bid.  $305.00.  And I waited.  The eBay clock counted down the seconds and I watched, my heart thundering, my eyes riveted to the numbers ticking by.

Suddenly I saw the number of bids change. Twenty-six bids, twenty-seven bids. The clock ticked down to 60 seconds and more bids came in: Twenty-eight bids, then twenty-nine.  Bid thirty came in at 5 seconds before the deadline. Then the clock hit zero and a green bar appeared on my screen.  "You are the winner!" it said. I sat stunned and bug-eyed and paralyzed for a moment. My ploy worked!  I won! I had done it! What had I done? The price: $300.00.  Not free, exactly, but, considering my purchase, it was pretty darn close.

After about a full minute of stunned gaping, I dashed off a note to the seller:

Hi Rick*, my name is Bathabile and it looks like I've just purchased your RV! I'm really excited. May I send the payment tomorrow? Also, I live in NYC and will need to arrange for a place to keep the RV - especially while I renovate it. How long can it stay with you?

"It looks like I've just purchased your RV".  That was shock talking. I still wasn't entirely convinced. And what about the details? Would Rick expect me to take the van right away?  I decided to put worry aside. I wouldn't have won the van if it wasn't meant to happen and if it was meant to happen, then the parking situation would also get solved.

I was ready to pay for my purchase but discovered that the Rick had not provided an electronic option.  I had no idea how to pay for the van.  The instructions said to contact the seller. I had done that so I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

By the next morning I started to fear that, perhaps, Rick couldn't believe the price either. Maybe he was suffering seller's remorse. I had felt a little doubtful about this purchase the day before but now I was fully committed. I started having fantasies about decorating it and all the places we would go. He was going to sell me the camper, dammit!  So I called eBay.

It turns out that sales agreements on eBay are non-binding! Even though the auction was over and I was the winner, the seller was still free to back out of the deal (as was I). Who knew?! "But it's a contract," I wailed to the customer service representative on the phone.  I was ready, willing and able to make good on the deal. "How would you feel," the representative asked, "if your camper only sold for $300.00?" I was stunned.  Seriously?  "That's easy, set a reserve price!" I replied.  Thankfully, eBay has an option for sharing contact information with other members and so I sent a message to Rick with my phone number.  And I waited. I felt my initial excitement begin to seep from my heart and I started preparing myself to start the van search all over again.

Later that evening I finally got the email I was waiting for. It was Rick congratulating me on my purchase! He was going to sell me the camper! I literally jumped up and down. We arranged to meet the next day (Tuesday) so that I could give him the money and he could give me the title. I still couldn't believe it! Neither could a dear friend of mine who insisted on driving out to see the camper for himself.  Rick sounded a little amused but he agreed to meet my friend who ultimately confirmed that, yes, the camper did really exist, looked like the pictures, and yes it really did start.

Rick met me as we agreed. We ducked into a Starbucks where he wrote out a bill of sale and we both filled out the title document. I have ten days to register my new home. I'm looking for a place to park it.  I would appreciate any suggestions for a location that is in New Jersey but close to New York City without being outrageously expensive.

I don't have pictures quite yet. Look for another breathless update all about meeting my camper for the first time.  Would it be wrong to name her "Down by the River"?

*Rick isn't his real name. I don't (yet) have permission to reveal it.