Homeless, Part I
I’m homeless.
I’m sitting in my bed in an apartment that’s paid for. There is no threat that I’ll have to sleep outside.
But I do not have a home.
When I moved to San Francisco, I lived with three young men in a terrific location. We got along fine! I was awake two hours before anyone else, and asleep by at least that much as well. The walls were thin, the fucking was loud, and there was a fair amount of it. But on the whole, we got along great. We just weren’t a cultural fit for each other — I didn’t need to be Auntie Amie to an apartment full of horny gay boys.
I met my downstairs neighbor. We did drugs and had dance parties. I moved into her apartment. It was my first mistake. I told my friend Benji, “I think this is a mistake.” Benji suggested that I listen to myself. Benji told me not to do it.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Now, here I am, living as a bag lady, jumping from here to my boyfriend’s girlfriend’s house to a catsitting gig in Guerneville to my friend Evelyn’s place.
How do you become homeless? You start by feeling uncomfortable. The aesthetics are perfect. They must be kept that way. Your roommate asks you to use her towels instead of yours because yours do not match her color palette. You wash, dry, and put away every dish after you use it. You vet every move you make, worried it will disrupt the perfection.
You begin to feel unsafe. Conversations verge on the emotional. Agreement must be reached, fast, or you’ll have hell to pay. Hell to pay. How did I would have hell to pay before I did? I don’t know. But I did.
I’ve learned lessons about women since I became one. Lesson One: women are bitches. Lesson Two: women do not travel in groups of three.
I met Katya through my roommate. The three of us went for a walk up Twin Peaks. A week or so later I wanted to go on another uphill hike. I asked my roommate for Katya’s number. I invited my roommate along. Roommate couldn’t go, so Katya and I went for a hike by ourselves. A week after that, same thing — I scheduled a hike, I invited my roommate, she couldn’t join us, Katya and I went for a hike.
By the fourth time around, I stopped inviting my roommate.
A couple of months worth of weekly hikes later, Katya and I had developed a friendship. We had even started a project together, a not-for-profit that would allow formerly incarcerated people to work, for free, as tutors to students in need. Say what you will about the project, it’s not not idealistic enough.
While Katya and I got closer, my roommate and Katya had stopped hanging out entirely.
In September, I went on a short vacation a couple of hours north of the city. I rented a room in a hotel that was probably glorious in the 70’s. I sat overlooking the foggy coast, sitting in the jacuzzi tub, shucking oysters in the bathroom sink, and drinking champagne from a can.
While that was happening, Katya and and my roommate met for a final showdown.
I wasn’t there, but they both texted me the exact same question immediately afterward: What the fuck is up with your friend?
Here’s what I know: Katya had asked my roommate for a favor. She stopped by the house to collect it. My roommate admits she was in a bad mood. They had a conversation that left them feeling so at odds that neither one of them was interested in reconciliation—ever again.
How do I fit in? Good question. I am trying to figure it out.
A week later, my roommate and I went out for dinner. She picked a nice place, a one Michelin star eatery open late by San Francisco standards—till 9pm.
We sat at the bar. We had a drink, then another. The food was slow—service is so much worse post-pandemic. We ordered a half-dozen oysters. 45 minutes later, they hadn’t arrived. We were buzzed and hungry. She says to me, “Curious about you and Katya. Did the two of you ever talk about me?”
This is when I made my second mistake.
“Well… yeah, I think we did. Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I don’t know, to be honest.” This was true. The only thing I did remember telling Katya was that moving in with my roommate had been a mistake. I said it, and I meant it, but I definitely was not going to share it with her, starving at this overrated restaurant.
She pressed me for details. What exactly did you say?
I scrambled. I ended up telling her that we probably talked about her boyfriends. I’m not even sure that’s true, but it’s possible. Isn’t that what you talk about when you talk about a friend? Their relationships?
Here’s what I should have said: “I don’t remember. You should ask Katya.” It was Katya and my roommate who’d had a fight, not me. They could work it out. But there I was, refereeing a game that I wasn’t playing, qualified like a Foot Locker clerk is qualified to work an NFL game.
She asked me if I didn’t think that was bad behavior. I sniffed back at her, annoyed that I should be put to the test for a few off-the-cuff comments. I think I showed more assertiveness, more defiance, than she thought to expect from me. She stepped outside for a cigarette. By the time she came back, it was too late. I tried to cool her hurt feelings. I apologized. I offered to buy her a drink. It was over—our relationship was broken.
I woke up at five in the morning with a terrible stomachache.
Over the following week, I offered the following apologies:
- On Sunday, a cute note with an apology, plus a link to the Juliana Hatfield song “My Sister,” a treatise about how two sisters can fight and still love each other.
- A tearful apology in our kitchen on Monday.
- A hour-and-a-half-long, eye-to-eye apology, again in the kitchen, on Tuesday.
- A string of unqualified apologies via text message on Sunday—apologies so unvarnished and self-effacing that I literally felt nauseous afterward.
I sent the text messages from Guerneville where I’d escaped at Benji’s suggestion. After I sent those, I felt uneasy—the apologies were dishonest, but I also felt like I could do nothing to soothe this situation.
On Monday night I got home. My roommate and I had a couple of nervous conversations. Superficial stuff. Mild-to-pleasant.
On Tuesday, at 9pm, she stopped by my open door.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
This can’t be about the fight … can it?
“Sure,” I said, with a nervous smile.
She pulled me into the living room.
“I wanted to tell you how hurt I am by what you did.”
I sat quietly and listened as she ran through her complaint, the same complaint for which I had apologized repeatedly. As I sit here now, I don’t even know what I had been apologizing for, but I had—at length and without qualification.
When she finished, I spoke.
“I don’t know what to say to you. I apologized to you on Saturday, and on Sunday, and on Monday. On Tuesday, we talked for an hour and a half right in that kitchen. On Sunday, we texted, and I apologized again. I can repeat that apology again, but I do not have anything new to say. So for now, I am just going to say goodnight.”
I left the room, I walked into my bedroom, and I closed the door.
Two days later, I told my roommate I was going to move out.
She told me I was having a mood shift. The hormones had changed me, she said, in the four months she’d known me. She asked me to take the weekend then let her know.
My college friends were visiting for a long Columbus Day weekend. I stayed with them — my apartment didn’t feel safe.
On Monday, my roommate and I met up on the couch in her office. The autumn afternoon sun shone in my eyes as it moved through the trees.
“I’ve thought about the living situation. I’m moving out.”
She understood. But she also reminded me that I signed a contract, and that I am obligated to pay for the rest of the lease.
This began a long conversation about leases and obligations that was really about control and hurt feelings.
I paid the rent and lived out of the house as much as possible. I looked for a new place.
While I was away for Thanksgiving, I asked my roommate to negotiate with me the details of my move-out.
When you think things can’t get any worse, that’s when they do.
Over a series of emails. I remained neutral, kind, and concise. She responded with accusation, and the insistence that I owed her the full term of the lease.
(My favorite riff in this series was her line that she had always “treated [me] like a sister.” Really? Is this how sisters treat each other? If so, I can understand why yours live an ocean away.)
I told her that California law states that a landlord has an obligation to find a new tenant when the old tenant breaks a lease. Standard practice is that the old tenant pays one or two months’ rent to cover the potential gap.
She replied and said that she spoke to a lawyer, and that she is a tenant and not a landlord, and therefore she is not subject to that law.
That’s not true, but that’s one small suggestion of how this conversation proceeded.
My boyfriend’s wife’s boyfriend — I promise, all of that checks out—told me about his girlfriend, a lawyer who works on behalf of renters. Ellen agreed to help me. She sent a letter by certified mail explaining the statute and asked to negotiate a settlement. No settlement was reached.
I am sitting at the desk of my boyfriend’s girlfriend—she let me stay here while I try to find a place. I have a rental car that I have to return. I’ll have one more week, by myself, in what used to be my home. I’ll leave town to celebrate Christmas with my family.
Then I’ll move everything I own into storage and hit the road.
My mom hates the word homeless. Of all the words a mother does not want applied to her child, homeless might be at the top.
Trans is up there too, but that ship has sailed.
But what if your child is living out of a suitcase? What if she does not have a home? What word should you use?
I can handle it. I lived in a van in 2018. Home was every state in the USA. This year, I survived a state of major personal disruption—I broke up with my husband, changed my gender and name, and moved to a city where I knew almost no one.
Yep, I can handle it. I’m a free agent. I make friends easily. I can be trusted. And, for the most part, I find people I trust.
But it would be nice if my underwear were in the same drawer every morning. If my coffeepot were ready for me. I could leave my door open and not worry that someone will make demands of me that I cannot meet.
Alas, not today. I’m in the home that I am leaving, but I have to move out. I anticipated a week here by myself, but it’s over after two days. My roommate wrote last night—her plans changed. She is coming back early.
Tonight, I’ll stay with my friend Evelyn.
I’ll find my way from there.
