10.3.2024
Dear Deluded Diary,
I’m thinking about buying a 20-something foot step van (think UPS truck) on Facebook Marketplace. It’s $2,300, runs, has a diesel engine (though a notoriously problematic one), and would, I think, make for the bare bones of a wonderful rolling home. Essentially, I feel that it could become an uglier – albeit a far more personable and mobile – tiny home than the one I presently have in storage.
I don’t have the money to buy it. In fact, the situation is far more grim than that (though only on paper – out here in the real world it’s the end of summer, which means food and warmth aplenty). I owe $20k in total to two institutions, both of whom are calling me weekly about my late payments – even though I’ve only just managed to pay the last late payment two weeks ago. And I owe my Dad $3k for saving my ass throughout the past two years (he likely won’t say another word about it for as long as we both live – and ironically, he’s the one whom I feel the most urgency to repay). As a garnish, the IRS is reaching out about the $150 that I owe for the meager $15k that I earned last year through my architecture work.
Yes, a big boy would certainly recognize that I do not have the money to buy and properly care for this beefy, slightly worn, beast-of-a-truck.
Thankfully, I am a child, and the IRS can go fuck itself until I am adequately prepared to fork over my dues to the war mongers (I obviously will do so as soon as I feasibly can, if only to keep the screeching apes off of my back). So like a child, here I sit, with pad and pen, daydreaming about the possibilities that the truck affords and how quickly I would offer to buy it, should $2k suddenly show up in my lap.
I want to build something ugly.
For seven years in total, I strove towards the singular goal of crafting my magnum opus. Like a silversmith with no constraints, I attempted to perfectly bring to life the image that I had hand hewn in my mind, which detailed precisely what the finished tiny house should – and uncompromisingly would – look like upon completion. “No, the $1,000 propane heater (yes, I paid over $1,000 for a very specific model) cannot have a stainless steel finish, when every other fixture is black! We must disassemble it and high-temp powder-coat it black (for an additional $90), so that it matches the 3D model which I’ve constructed.”
And after seven grueling years of agonizing labor and chronic stress, the 3D rendering above has finally manifested into this:
Tiny House For Sale!
I do not care how many people congratulate me on my accomplishment, praise me for my craftsmanship, or stand there admiring the perfectly aligned birch paneling – I fucking loathe what I’ve “accomplished”. Not because I’m not proud of how it looks. It’s the feeling that bothers me – bondage, duty, requirement. And, even more significant perhaps, it’s what it doesn’t feel like which truly tears at my soul. It doesn’t feel like my home. In no way does it represent or reflect my own existence.
Save for a few small pinpricks of light here and there, the tiny house feels like a hollow chasm to me, devoid of warmth or connectivity. And my sense is that this lack of feeling is attributable to the sterile manner in which it was crafted.
There was no story or journey associated with most of the build process. I had envisioned birch wall and ceiling panels, and so birch panels I went out to buy, shelling out thousands of dollars for them over time (covid prices). I wanted a 24” propane oven (black, to match, of course), so I shelled out $900 for a new oven – the cheapest suitable model that I could find. Even the things that I “hand-crafted” and built myself were done so with materials which were shipped to me from faraway lands, and sold at exorbitant prices (though at the time I didn’t see them as exorbitant).
Not once did I excitedly walk into an architectural salvage shop, trip over a couple of boxes of flooring, and then say to myself, “Wow, that might just be perfect for the tiny house! How much? Fifty dollars, for all of it?! That’s EXACTLY what I have in my pocket!” (a surprisingly common occurrence in my life, whenever my mind is aligned with my heart). What instead happened was that I found myself hunched over in front of a computer late at night – eyes hollow and devoid of meaning – muttering to myself, “I need black vinyl floor planks that mimic the texture of wood.” And after frustratingly scouring the internet and the big box stores for some number of days, I’d eventually settle on a brand/model that I deemed passable for my wants, and then begrudgingly shell out $50 per box. And yet here I sit – hundreds of dollars later – not able to give a hot shit about that floor, which already shows clear signs of age and wear.
The delivery box truck isn’t black. It’s a beautifully-aged blue, with faded stickers and disappearing company logos on it’s sides. It isn’t new, or clean. It’s 8.2L Detroit Diesel engine is covered in soot – it’s been time-tested, and has somehow survived. Unlike the fucking flooring.
The night that I drove home to my parents’ home in Pittsburgh was an odd one. I didn’t listen to music as I drove the pickup truck, which was loaded full of potted plants – the last remnants of my life in Ohio. Rather, as I wound down dark country roads, I sat there daydreaming about removing the bed of the truck and transforming it into an RV – my next living space, and one that should prove to be far more mobile, and thus more suitable to my preferred lifestyle. I already had a name for her. Khiimori, or perhaps “Khi-Khi” for short. Was this all a bit pre-emptive, given that I had, only hours ago, just left my last residence in Ohio? No, I don’t think that it was. In fact, I think it was timed just right.
I imagined that I would bolt a custom steel floor frame to the bare chassis. Then, I’d construct a central, fiberglass bath/shower unit, and build a kitchenette. And then the whole thing would have gears and winches which would raise the roof and lower the sides to reveal an unfolding, canvas, tent-like structure. And I’d find a used car dolly, with which I could tow the fuel efficient Hyundai that was inherited down to me from Uncle Denny, and I could travel from town to town, national forest to state park, living a Gypsy life that I could love…presumably in a rig that was attractive/unique enough to convince strangers to let me stay in their back yards for a few weeks at a time.
Those of you who are designers at heart will understand the sensation when I say that the vision which appeared into my mind that night worked and flowed seamlessly with itself. By the end of the three hour drive, I had an entirely new home and lifestyle all mapped out, without any conceivably insurmountable conflicts. And what’s more is that as I continued fleshing out this idea over the following weeks, that feeling of “working” continued on, without any major question marks to suddenly dash it all to pieces. Even the opportunity to learn how to weld fell into my lap, a mere week after returning home. Fellow designers will understand that these kinds of “divinely appointed” design experiences are what we all live for – they are beautiful moments, and they are rare.
Except, I now can see the one fly in the ointment. I made a mistake – one which I’ve made before. I was designing something which would need to be painstakingly crafted and toiled over for years, before it could ever be ready to use for its intended purpose. New steel, new fiberglass resin, new wood, new water tanks, new canvas, new carpeting, new electrical bits, and (most critically) many new skills.
I had to claw my way into so many new skills in order to complete the tiny house. And while I’m not embittered by this fact, I’ll admit that I don’t give a shit about any of the skills that I have acquired from that time. Yes, I may now know enough about corrugated steel roofing, and window installation, and custom cabinet fabrication, to be able to tell you that I’d prefer it if I never had to perform any of those tasks again. Yet many, many times these past few months, I’ve patiently listened to those around me congratulate me for the new trades that I could now add to my tool belt, or for my improved “marketability” to future employers.
I doubt that these friends have noticed the subtle look in my eye whenever they’ve made such declarations. It’s a look that, if read correctly, would say, “What part of my life’s story makes you think that ‘marketability’ was the goal here? I wanted actualization, not employment. This tiny house shit was supposed to be about achieving spiritual freedom, and attempting to align my lifestyle with the true nature of my raging soul – but I lost sight of that goal. And so here I sit, trapped in this vapid conversation, with not nearly enough confidence to tell you that I think that your views on the purpose of life are built on perpetuated lies and empty pursuits.”
No, my heart is not telling me to acquire any new skills in this particular moment. It’s directing me to use the ones which I currently have, along with the resources that I have available to me, to build something simple, secure and basic, inside of which I can do the things that I actually feel called and inspired to do today:
Write. Walk. Be.
While it may not be pretty enough to convince “normal” people to let me stay on their properties (though I do usually prefer to spend time with the weirdos), this step van would present me with an opportunity to challenge myself to a particularly out-of-character task:
Could I craft a comfortable space for myself, with what I already have and what I can find cheaply at thrift stores & architectural salvage shops? And if so, would the finished space feel alive and soulful, as opposed to the hollow sensation that I feel while standing inside of my painstakingly crafted (and financed) tiny house?
What would it feel like to fully embrace, live by and create by my newly-forming design philosophies? They lead me to want to discard all order and control, and to instead find bliss in the chaos. I’d call it the “I Found This” design aesthetic. But perhaps it should just be called “Playful Living.”
If the money or the right situation materializes in the right time, so that I am able to receive the step van from the man (whom I’ve already spoken with), then I will do so, and begin this new (hopefully less frustrating) adventurous experiment. And I will use the van to explore, to write, and to Live Like the Animals for a season. But if not, then I accept my path. The “I Found This” aesthetic relies entirely upon one’s own ability to accept the trail on which you find yourself, as it is (rather than dwelling upon what one’s own life “should look like” when “completed”).
Regardless of whether I ever own that particular 1990s step van, the possibility of such has gotten the wheels spinning in an interesting new direction. It’s caused me to second guess my clingy resolution to transform my beloved pickup truck into something which it may not wish to be. And that, in itself, is a blessing. I’m tired of forcefully clinging to these ideas and designs that I’ve crafted in my own mind. I want to build a hovel, which perfectly reflects the chaos and absurdity of my life’s path and my innermost thoughts. I want a home that will serve as a living Polaroid of my existence in this particular moment – a petri dish/ecosystem teaming with life and memory, rather than some sterile, high-fashion, visionary “work of art.” Fuck art. I want a home where my life can grow.
