| I'm Sick, But Everyone's Healthy |
[May. 30th, 2007|06:01 pm] |
Today I finally got to see a doctor. For the last couple of days I've been feeling really wiped, and definitely not myself. When the muscle aches started, all I could think was, oh crap. Here comes the mono I narrowly evaded two years ago.
Sure enough, I tested positive. It's not like this is a fatal sickness, it's just getting me angry...I mean, I guess I would be angry if I had the energy to be. Our little village is humming with activity despite the falling snow. I can see smoke rising from the street where people have built fires - most of our houses don't have working fireplaces because they're college housing - so we do a lot of cooking outside. I can hear people laughing. Life is starting to seem good here. I just wish I could be helping out with Mark's latest project, a large stockade around the majority of the blocks who are cooperating with each other to make sure we have food and resources. This thing is going to encompass eight blocks when it's done, complete with ramparts where our watchmen can walk! A couple of the neighborhood engineering students designed it. And, it's segmented so we can move it to expand later on. I'm really excited.
After reading ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) miawithoutoil's post about making a change in the people around us who are still living in denial or ignorance, I've decided to start some outreach. Our community here is safe and secure, and it's time for us to pass it on to others: maybe in the form of surplus, maybe in the form of advice or classes in raising your own crops, maybe other ways. I haven't decided. But I've got this blog here that has documented my troubles and travails, to show that it is possible to survive and thrive in this new world.
Also, there's more good news - I guess someone on the Board of Regents has taken notice of our organizing, and I'm being offered a full tuition scholarship to return to school for winter semester! Although I realize it's going to be a lot of work doing all of this, I'm really eager to start moving forward with my education. Not to sound cheesy, but it really is the only tool that I really lack right now to make a change. Cheers, U of M! |
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| The Northside Crop Collective |
[May. 24th, 2007|06:36 pm] |
Everyone within a three-block radius has decided to stop paying rent. So nobody is anymore. This means that, although we've broken contract, we don't owe anything to our landlords anymore. This is a crisis situation. In Andy's words, we're in a state of pseudo-national emergency. It's not the emergency that's pseudo, it's the nation.
Organizational structures are cropping up here, no pun intended. We called a neighborhood meeting for anyone interested to attend, and at it we chartered the Northside Crop Collective. Basically we have a schedule of crop rotation for people with gardens in the interest of growing as much, as efficiently as we can. Andrew from the gas station, who has moved into a vacant apartment nearby, has agreed to trade some of the precious fuel for food that we get by driving out into the country. Yes, he has a car. Yes, it is a hybrid. This guy rules.
We've also been working out how much food we need and how much we have, and how to close the gap between those two figures. It's certainly not hopeless, just hard, although generally we need more rice and backup canned goods. I don't know how much I want to depend upon hunting. We don't even know how much game there is out there, and I don't want to be reduced to eating squirrels this winter.
But together, we are strong. Together, we won't let each other starve. We're not so alone anymore. Andrew and I are driving out to find some milk tomorrow. We've placed some phone calls, and the farmers seem more than happy to sell us ten gallons, at only a little more than pre-shock prices. They're trying to offload the stuff because they can't efficiently get it to consumers. Go us! |
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| Landlords |
[May. 24th, 2007|12:10 pm] |
A couple of the kids who live in our block have returned to classes. The university is griping about not getting students to return, but really, I don't have a job and my family doesn't have the money to send me to college as well as feed themselves. So, I'm just going to have to wait. It's pretty painful because I just have a year to go, and I found the master's degree program I really want to pursue, at the School of Information here. Helen told me last night that you do a four-year joint degree through the School of Information and the School of Law and get an MSI and a JD at the same time! Nice, but, again, I'm going to have to wait. Intellectual property law is something I'm really passionate about, so I'm a little down about it.
I told Krissy, one of the kids who's returning, how jealous I am of her. She told me that she wouldn't be able to do it without me. And that's the general feeling that's been circulating: some people are just giving up their academic careers for the safety and security of the community. I guess that's okay but I'm also kind of bummed out.
Our landlord finally came by this morning to check up on us. We've been sending in rent, but were a little late this month, and I don't think they've seen the property since the riots. I had to talk to the head of maintenance, Leroy, about what we'd done with the stockade, why it was the only recourse for us, and he seemed pretty understanding. The maintenance guys at our real estate company are all really just aging hippies. I showed them around the garden and they were pretty impressed with what we'd done.
"Will we have to tear this down?" I asked.
"No, we don't have the resources right now to do anything about it. We're glad you guys are doing well," Leroy told me. "We're all just trying to get by."
And that was that. Some of the other houses' landlords haven't been as friendly, and have been over to yell at them about their land use. Someone got charged $1000 for the shed they tore down in order to make way for our garden. As if we can pay that, and as if we had any other option but to do everything in our power to help ourselves! It's like they expect us to do nothing. Doing nothing these days equates to getting yourself killed or starving to death or...god knows what else. Fining us exorbitant sums for trying to protect ourselves and our friends is just cruel. We barely have the money to make the rent. |
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| Moving Out, Moving On |
[May. 23rd, 2007|11:34 am] |
Yesterday six people decided they were skipping town. I tried to convince them not to go - that we can do more here for both ourselves and the greater good - but they were insistent on leaving. One of the girls had been having panic attacks about more rioting after seeing three guys get killed last time. They said they'd just rather not run the risk. One of the kids was a student whose family is in New York. I have to wonder if they're going to try to get back out there. Like Brendan said, that's bold, and best of luck to them. I hope nothing bad happens.
On the other hand, we took in three of our friends who live elsewhere in the city. Three of the students lived in the apartment above the dental office, and one of the dentists and her family have decided to move in to be closer to work. It's going to be kind of awkward when the landlords get wind of this.
We've also been talking about demolishing all the sheds and things in the middle of the block to expand the garden and maybe grow some grazing areas. I know it's not a lot of space to keep livestock but Lindsay who lives on the other side of the block has obtained six chickens and a goat. It feels really weird to say that. But she says that if we clear more space maybe we can get a cow. Cool, huh?
I have started thinking about saving up food for the winter months. We all have an enormous stockpile of canned goods, but I don't think that'll be enough to sustain us through the winter. It gets bitterly cold here in January and February: how are we going to heat our homes? The obvious answer is wood-burning but first, most of our places don't have fireplaces, and second, where do we get the wood from? I guess if we demolish the sheds in back and cut down some of the trees out there we will have some wood. But still, it doesn't seem like the best solution. Does anyone have any better ideas?
In terms of food, Jake, who lives next to the dentist's office, said that over the winter he plans to do a lot of hunting. His father has taken him hunting since he was thirteen. That's reassuring: maybe we'll have fresh meat from time to time. He is trying to get his hands on a gun before the summer is over. Chris said he would help us find a few rifles.
Other than that, it has been home repairs and fending off reporters since the trial ended. We are reorganizing our basement as the food-storage center, and you should see the disarray it's in! We've been pulling out cans, organizing food by type, throwing out stuff from down there we don't need. We have rows upon rows of canned fruit and beans and pounds and pounds of rice. It's a promise of a meager existence, but an existence nonetheless. |
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| A Free Man |
[May. 22nd, 2007|04:18 pm] |
Thanks to everyone for your kind words of support. I've been trying to keep up reading your stuff but posting has been more of a problem. I can definitely take out time for that today, though, because today my case was dismissed on the grounds that the slaying was "self-defense." Things were looking really hairy there for a minute, I can tell you - the plaintiff called in as many favors as possible to try and lock me up, but quite frankly, I can't see how it was ever a question. Moreover anyone who was witness to the riots that have been rocking this town will attest - it's not even far-fetched that someone might have to defend themselves with lethal force.
Luckily the riots here have been burning themselves out. Between arrests, deaths, and simple lack of energy, the only things we really have anymore are random acts of vandalism. Occasionally someone gets accosted on their way home after dark because the street lights are still really spotty. The town feels like a wasteland. At least when there was rioting there were people in the street.
In other news, my trial made some crazy local news. People are fascinated by that kind of thing, and, as a result, the entire block has joined our collective. Though the new houses don't have the kind of defenses that our original compound had, we also have the manpower to erect defenses if we see fit. Honestly I don't think anyone will be threatening us anytime soon, but lead_tag warns us of would-be warlords waiting in the wings.
I have to say that it does make me wonder about my own motivations in this. I do want to protect my friends. I do want to be able to provide for them. But the fantasy of power is pretty fantastic. Thinking about a little pseudo-nation of my own brings a smile to my face. When I was a little kid I always liked to dream up ways in which I could become king of my own little country, and what I'd do with it. Then, it was a place where there would be no strife. Now, it's a place where I don't have to abide by the laws and proclamations of the United States, which lately have been getting to me, for obvious reasons. But I'm not a bad man, am I? I believe in peace, freedom and the American way. But you know what they say. All power corrupts.
I asked Brendan about this and he laughed - he always knew I had an instinct for leadership, and by extension, an instinct for rulership. I told him I didn't want to be an overlord - did he think we should maybe have elections for a governing council of the collective? He thought that might be a good idea, but also gave me a playful punch in the shoulder and some quip about the Roman republic.
I guess we'll see. For now, we have been pooling our resources and thinking about how we can expand our garden space. Another cool feature of our block is that the dental office that is housed in a former residence is now part of our collective, which I imagine is something pretty precious. The doctors still come into work now and then, and I got my teeth cleaned the other day for the first time in probably too long. We talked a little about exchanges of goods and services, and I told them that their skilled trade was really valued here. If they wanted to have some of our food for their families, we would share in exchange for dental services. Neat, huh? |
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| Laying Off a Bit |
[May. 14th, 2007|02:21 pm] |
So I've been trying to take it easy the past week or so. A little less working (don't get me wrong, I've been putting in 6-8 hours a day working on the stockade around our compound and making connections with other compounds that are raising livestock) and a little more chilling. We've been making a lot of music, smiling a little more, but I can't say that I feel any better.
Lauren has stopped sleeping in the same bed as me. I keep trying to make it up to her. I even brought her back a bouquet of fresh-picked wildflowers on my last long bike ride. I've been trying to talk to her. She doesn't believe me when I tell her that she means the world to me, and I really don't have any more ideas as to how to make this work. I mean, if someone outright refuses to listen to you, you can't really talk to them, can you? She's also been dipping into out alcohol stores a bit more, I think, and I don't know what to do about that.
Speaking of dipping into supplies, I proposed at the last meeting that we ration some specific food items. Not a good proposal, apparently. During discussions over it, several residents walked out. I withdrew my proposal: maybe now is not the time. Things seem pretty okay for most people, and they don't want to be thinking about the possibility of things getting worse now that they've at least stabilized somewhat.
But I am worried things will get worse. I don't want the people I care about to be caught unprepared. I've been riding my bike out to the target range lately. One of the cops who used to come into our deli, Chris, meets me down there every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and we shoot clay pigeons together and talk about how things seem to be stabilizing, but might get worse. He's worried about feeding his three sons and wife, now that she doesn't have a job anymore. He's also worried about getting hurt on the job. I'm getting pretty good at this clay pigeons thing. I hope I never have to use the gun on any people. Chris has proposed we go hunting this weekend, me and him and his partner, Jeff. I think I'll go. Maybe I'll get some more food, and it'll be good to get away from home. |
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| Just Lay Low |
[May. 13th, 2007|07:15 pm] |
Sorry I haven't gotten a chance to update at all lately. Since the first break-in at our compound I've been throwing myself into planning better protection and, now that my cast is off (THANK GOD), putting those plans into action. I just haven't had the energy at the end of the day to sit down and pound out even a paragraph - not just that, but the blackouts have been increasing in length and frequency. I feel bad using electricity anyway. I'm getting really...tired, I guess, not just physically, but also mentally and spiritually. Nothing seems to be going my way.
Everyone is really tired of working. Nobody wants to worry about this anymore, and some people have just taken to trying to live life "normally" in the compound. They get mad at me when I ask them to help, or change their wasteful habits. Some people have even stopped showing up for their watch shifts. On top of that, which is bad enough, Lauren and I have been fighting a lot. For the longest time she has been the one good thing that I had to latch onto when everything else just seemed like total hell. She claims that I'm working too much and not listening to her. I told her that if I didn't, I didn't think anyone would do the work I'm doing. Because we've been fighting, I think I've been more interested in throwing myself wholly into my work: in the past two weeks I've finished six bicycles, learned how to fire the pistol we confiscated from the guys who broke into the compound (and found more ammunition, wow!), and designed some major improvements for our compound walls, as well as collecting most of the supplies I need to begin work on building them.
Now that the riots have quieted down, the area is living in a semi-feudal type of society, peppered with farming communes and more violent communities. I told Brendan the other night that I can't let us fall under the control of one of these groups: it's not right, not worth it, and not okay with me at all.
"You're the only one who cares," he told me, sounding a little bit exasperated.
"We have to protect ourselves, but we don't have to be on the offensive. A lot of these guys are interested in conquering the state," I said.
He re-emphasized that nobody else really cares. Everyone's tired, he said. Everyone's sick and tired.
"Don't get me wrong," I told him, "I'm sick and tired, too - in fact, I may be the most sick and tired guy here."
He said I had a point. And then he said maybe I should stop being so worried about everything.
Stop being so worried? I really couldn't think of anything else to say. My previous argument stands. I just can't stop fighting now. Not after we've accomplished so much. Not now, that we have so much opportunity to do so much more. But, like miawithoutoil, I really don't feel prepared to deal with this new world. I feel cheated. I feel like it's all really meaningless. And not just the shortages, the violence, and the chaos, also the fact that I've been fighting with my girlfriend and my best friends over trivial things. What's happening to us? |
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| No Job |
[May. 10th, 2007|10:30 am] |
Well, that's it. The liquor store/deli where Brendan and I worked is now closed until further notice. Our bosses, two brothers, were kind enough to include us when they divvied up the remaining food/cooking supplies/booze. Our cupboards are now nicely stocked! We even have fresh milk, eggs, bread, wine, beer, deli meat, a couple massive cans of tuna, all the condiments you could want, gourmet chocolate, potato chips, and three different kinds of olives. Yum! They said they liked the idea of us getting it better than the idea of looters getting it - just in case. Vic was kind enough to drive it all over to our compound in his Armada, which I imagine must cost him an arm and a leg to operate, not to mention the dangers of getting attacked. He got some seriously evil looks in our neighborhood, so he wished us luck and got out of there as fast as possible.
I guess my job now is feeding and protecting the compound. We got our other neighbors, and the house that is behind the apartment building, to start building the wall around their properties, too. We tore down the chain-link fence between the properties and are expanding the garden. We have started setting out regular patrols: someone sits on top of the apartment building with a big Maglight and emergency flares from someone's car. If they see anything sketchy on the street below they set off a flare and there are always a couple of us awake. Usually me.
We managed to siphon a ton of gas from the cars around that hadn't been lit on fire in the riots two weeks ago. So right now, in my basement, we're sitting on about twenty gallons of gasoline. Although I don't know what to do with it, we did give five gallons to Vic when he dropped off the food. I think it's best to save for emergencies. I'm wondering if I can get my hands on a moped with a sidecar, we could use it to transport food. The other residents of our compound seemed to like this idea when I presented it to them during our last meeting. Brendan, Andy and I have started looking.
Tim has moved into our neighbor's house and is sleeping on the futon in their living room. I guess there's safety in numbers, and the kid sure does have a green thumb! The community is going really well, and leadership has kind of fallen to me, maybe because I seem like I'm the most with it. It's not as though I don't like the attention, it's just that I don't really feel qualified for such a place of authority. There are five residents of my house, six in the house next to us, five in Andy's house, four in the house behind the apartment building, and seventeen in the apartment building itself. That's thirty-seven people! I can't mess up - we'd be screwed. Our entire block would be out. On the other hand, as long as we work together, I don't need to do much else but coordinate.
I wonder if becoming this insular is good for us. The neighbors across the street expressed interest in joining our collective, and I don't see why not - they're just going to have to build their own walls. |
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| Broken Leg |
[May. 7th, 2007|12:13 am] |
I feel like a really stupid fuck. I broke my leg last night moving a box of parts into the basement - fell down the stairs and twisted my left ankle, snapped my right tibia. It's really amazing how fragile people can be. Brendan and Amy took me to the hospital - we decided this was as close to an emergency as we'd probably get, and we might as well use the car. I haven't ridden in that thing in ages.
I got x-rayed and they put a plaster cast on my leg. They wrote me a scrip for some oxycodone but we haven't gotten the chance to go to a drugstore that still has some of this shit in stock. Whatever. We have a big bottle of Aleve that I've been sucking down like there's no tomorrow. I feel like such a dumbass. This was not good timing, especially with the bike trips to the countryside that we've been conducting, and continuing to plan. I guess it just means someone is going to have to take my place, but I hate not being useful. I'll probably just have more time to devote to building bikes, and maybe this means I'll actually do some school work because I have no choice but to stay seated basically all the time.
This makes me worried about what might happen in a month or so if someone gets hurt. Should we start stockpiling medical supplies now? We have a really big, well-stocked first aid kit, but will it be enough? I'm really glad Amy is premed - she knows how to deal with a lot of this shit. I think I'll get my oxycodone scrip filled but keep it in the first aid kit. Nothing is shittier than being in excruciating pain and not having another way of dealing with it. What if someone hurts themselves and we can't get them to a doctor?
I gave Amy some money to fill up the gas tank on the car, so we'll have a full tank for emergencies. Because we park it on the street I'm really worried about people stealing gas from it, but when we got back from the hospital we were able to park right in front of the house. It's better than nothing, but I really wish our across-the-street neighbors would let us park in their lot - it's much more secure, and they're almost always home.
That's all for now. Lauren took the train back to metro Detroit to go visit her family for a couple days. I think I'm going to have a drink and go to bed - it's been a long day. |
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| Free Fixed-gear Bikes. |
[May. 5th, 2007|01:33 pm] |
Tim came back again for lunch today. He had with him a couple of tomatoes and a couple of cucumbers. He told me he really wanted to get a fixed-gear bike from me: I showed him my basement shop and the bike I was working on. It might be a while, I told him, because I've got a waiting list. The Critical Mass guys and I are cranking them out as fast as we can. I'm still taking classes spring term, so it's not like I have all day every day to do this, although it's getting harder and harder to get class work done when all I can think about is making bikes for kids who need them.
I guess in this town you don't need them so much, but a couple days ago Lauren and I rode out to Dexter and talked to some farmers about getting milk and veggies and stuff for our neighborhood. They said if we could transport the produce ourselves they'd give us a price break. I'm working on finding one of those bike trailers for kids: good for precious cargo no matter what you're carrying! Maybe we could get a group out on bikes with trailers and pick up milk and produce.
Brendan's store has been cutting him hours. They don't have any liquor or groceries to sell. Sometimes the produce distributor will bring them something and there will be some sandwiches, but even their formidable beer supply is dwindling. Don't get me wrong, I realize there are bigger problems, but how in the hell am I supposed to unwind here?
I've been reading a lot of stuff about violence around the country and I'm getting more and more scared. I can't say that I scare easily, but I'm an hour by car away from my family, and the more I think about what we'd do in the event of a real emergency the more I start to doubt that my friends and I are prepared. Our friendship and braininess are not going to get us through a violent riot or martial law, or a complete lack of food. We're really smart, but not in a way that would enable us to protect ourselves. I mean the books on my bedstand right now are important works, but all I really know about when it comes down to it is fixing bikes, cooking omelettes, philosophy of language, and playing the bass. I don't know if my skill set is really designed for survival, but I will try my damnedest. I can't imagine abandoning anyone in the posse, or really any of the kids in the neighborhood. We're all far from home and trying to make a new one, and threats to our little, tenuous community always seem huge. |
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| Break-in |
[May. 4th, 2007|11:47 am] |
Last night was really weird. Lauren, Amy and I were over at my neighbor's house having some quality time on their patio, which is really cool, because it's actually a fenced-in bit of roof. They had busted out a couple bottles of cheap wine for the occasion! I was smoking a cigarette and looking over at my house, all the lights off to conserve energy, and I noticed something moving in the shadows on our back patio. I wasn't really sure what it was, because we do get some homeless folks coming around and looking for recyclables, so I really didn't think anything of it. Then I heard the door open.
I knew something was wrong - Brendan was at work, Alex was visiting her family back home, Irene was over at her boyfriend's house, and Amy was on the patio with us. Moreover, if someone was coming home early, they'd at least light a candle in the kitchen. I shot Amy a look, like maybe we should go check this out. I know I was a little bit tipsy and I think that Amy was a little more far-gone than I was. My neighbor Andy said he'd come with me, and he took an empty wine bottle. I wasn't sure what we'd find, but I was pretty glad Andy was coming with me.
We decided to go in loud and see if we could startle whoever was in there. I even turned on the living room light to make sure everything was well-lit and we could see everything. Nobody in the front of the house. Andy went into the kitchen first, turned on the light, and gave a shout! When I looked, there was some guy in our fridge, just eating out of it.
Now, I realize food is hard to come by, but really? We're barely scraping by as it is. Turns out the guy's apartment building turned out a bunch of its tenants because they simply couldn't make rent. His name is Tim and Andy invited him over. I was mad he ate one of the oranges I had bought as a surprise for Lauren, but he turned out to be an all right guy. I told him that if he ever needs food, he can come by and we can work out a deal. There's always a couch to sleep on, too.
Maybe it's naive of me, but I really want to trust people's good intentions. |
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