My Great American Novel. Chapter 1.

Writing my ( not so ) great American novel after being laid off during the covid 19 pandemic. This is a glimpse into my cluttered mind, stream of concious style.

Personally, I feel like the pandemic could have been really slowed down by every country in the world requiring anyone coming back from China to sit in a 2 week quarantine, but what do I know. I guess it is better having everyone in the entire world sitting in quarantine, right?

I have a tiny little keyboard meant for a pad computer hooked up to my phone. I went to get a picture of my setup and reached for my phone.  Then I was like, that is stupid, I can't get a picture of my phone on the pad keyboard, so just imagine you are seeing my phone with this same paragraph leaning back against the pad.

It really is a neat setup, technology is so great. It's not a flying car, but it is pretty cool. Oh yeah, I was unpacking the little storage building and found a folding table, so the workshop now has a table for my drawing board. And this little typing device too. And probably a few other things.

I have been offgrid for a couple of years now.  Yeah, I am one of "those" people.  But is is really cool to be able to run everything off solar panels.  Of course, I am poor, so everything I need is a lot less than most people.

I mentioned being laid off. But how can I be poor and be  working, you ask.  Let me tell you about struggling on 11 dollars an hour as a single older man with no utilities.

It sucks. Period. End of story. If you pay anybody working for you less than this, I seriously hope you burn in hell. Forever.

Wow, that turned dark quick, sorry about that.

I was falling further and further behind each paycheck. Basically one paycheck each month went to rent and utilities.The other paycheck I used to start building a very tiny little 100 square foot tiny house.  Food was optional.

Now, I had a lot of crap from life that I should have gotten rid of, like a beautiful roll top desk that is over a 100 years old. Can't get rid of it. Only thing left from my old life where I made over $200,000 in a single 12 month period.  Not always poor, I bet you didn't see that coming. Don't worry, I'll get back to that.

You probably noticed the Joose in the picture.  I lovingly refer to this can of wonder as a 5 pack in a can.  It is 23.5 ounces and 14% alcohol in a can.  Spell check just helpfully offered alcoholic as a suggestion.  It may be right.

I mentioned that I now have a workshop right?  I am building my second tiny house right now. A palacial 300 square feet. I finally finished the deck and... hold on a second.

The heater is kicking in right now.  30,000 British Thermal Units of glorious heat.  Very nice. I look at the CO detector and not a beep. No warning me to seek fresh air.

Sorry, where was I, oh right... I finished the deck for the new house,  12x16 feet with R-40 of fiberglass and R6.5 of  reflective foam  board to hold the insulation up. Put 6 sheets of dryply on that.

I can feel the Joose kicking in right now.  Feels nice. A little buzz. I am going to have to wait until morning to upload this little story. Steal some Internet from a friend.

I look around the workshop. I am warm and dry and very comfortable. The heater is clicking behind me as it cools off from shutting back down. I timed it. I runs 5 minutes on and turns off for 15 minutes when it is cold. It has a thermostat so it didn't run all day long today.  It was warm enough and sunny enough that it didn't need to run.  I have a double layer of plastic sheeting 5 feet high by 12 feet long facing south for heat. It works awesome when it is sunny.

So anyway, I have the platform insulated to R-46.5, but now I have to keep it dry, can't let the fiberglass insulation get wet so I throw a plastic sheet over it from a roll my friend has. It is for big truck trailers. Those huge trucks that put cracks in your windshields when you follow too closely.

So, I thought, this was before the pandemic, it was just a news story on tv affecting one province in china, I need to build a workshop on top of the platform. I need to keep the insulation dry anyway, so why not create a place to build the roof trusses and to unload the tiny house.

The tiny house is packed full of stuff. I have too much stuff.  I told you before I have too much stuff from my former life.  And I buy a little more stuff every 2 weeks when I get paid. Got paid.

I unloaded a lot of it into a shed whose roof I ignored until it was leaking water into the interior.

I admit it. I'm not perfect.  By the time I realized that the roof was leaking I had no room to move the damage anywhere, and I was having a stroke so I couldn't do anything about it anyway.  Couldn't lift more than 10 pounds.

More on the stroke later. Just so you don't worry all I have left from it is a touch of numbness in my right shoulder an an addiction to statins.

I just finished the Joose and realized it was too quiet. So I turned on the radio. I love 103.1, alternative music.   I have been skipping my statin so I can day drink since I was laid off on Tuesday, or Wednesday, I can't remember.

I almost cussed there, so I think I will sign off for now.  Don't want to offend anyone, and spell check is helping me more than I like to admit.

Stay tuned for chapter two, where you find out about how I made all that money and the stroke. And my coninuing saga of the tiny house.