In Which I Toss Off Some Word Salad and Scrambled Ideas

I’m finally getting sick of this constant rain. Is this how people in Seattle live? The people on Frasier were always wet. Are there homeless in Seattle? Not in Fraiser’s Seattle, but in real life? Of course there are. There are homeless everywhere. It seems so impossible. To be homeless in a place like that. And no laugh track even. Or like the homeless in Boston. Snow falling on you and you’ve got nowhere to go. Nowhere where anyone— let alone everyone— knows your name. Why does the rain seem worse though? It can’t be. It can’t be worse than the snow. Can it? Constant wetness coming down, finding ways to get into where you’re sleeping, into your space, your clothes. Coating your skin. The snow is slower. Colder, but slower. That’s the tradeoff. And I imagine— this is all imagination, I have no real personal knowledge of any of this— you can use the snow to your advantage. Pack into the shape of a wall. Give yourself a corner, a break from the wind. It’s manageable until it melts. Hopefully, it melts slowly. You have a little time to prepare until it becomes liquid again. So rain seems worse.

We know, Martin.

But it’s all fun speculation for me— for us— here in my cozy home, fully ensconced in protective layers of married life, social ties, and professional success. It’s all a game. Same game we all play when we first move to the city and see homelessness all around us. Take our small-town knowledge, add the stuff we’ve seen on TV and a dash of what we think of as common sense and make our little plans for what we’d do if we ever became homeless: Pick out a nook in a building that looks clean. Find a spot under an overpass that seems quiet. Choose which grocery stores you’d steal from or root for food in their dumpsters.

Never mind that the best places were probably taken. Never mind that the security at the Safeway seems eager for confrontation. Never mind that sleeping outside and alone in a city is probably one of the scariest things you’d ever have to do in your life. Never mind that you’d never get that far because you’re young enough to couch surf without shame or cute enough to hook up with someone who you wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with. And if any of that failed you always had enough money tucked away for a bus ride home. Even if your old bedroom was now a den or an office or a gym. It would still be warm. And dry. The wifi is bad but they still have cable. And there’s no homelessness on TV.