This article really, really scares me… because the homeless people involved are in a nearly identical situation to me.  The landlord who lets all of us stay here is a kind, hardworking man.  For very low rent, far lower than we could find anywhere else, we have a series of trailers/garages/sheds to stay in.

Yet, let’s be honest, things aren’t up to code.  If anybody ever cared enough to make it difficult for him, he’d be in the same bind as 66-year-old Dan de Vaul, the San Luis Obispo man who was just sentenced to 90 days in jail for “safety violations” on his ranch property, where he allowed homeless people to stay in his barn and trailers, in exchange for maintaining a clean and sober lifestyle.  De Vaul provided free counseling and dental visits for the residents, and he also gave them opportunities to work and maintain an income during their stay, as they transitioned back into mainstream society and located jobs and apartments.  You can read more about de Vaul’s registered nonprofit, Sunny Acres, at its website.

De Vaul was offered a choice between probation and jail.  He chose the jail time, because the terms of his probation would have required him to evict the 30 homeless people residing on his ranch, and his conscience would not allow him to do that.  He had the integrity to put the welfare of those 30 people above his own, baldly stating to the media “I’m proud to go to jail for housing the homeless”.

The day following de Vaul’s conviction, he was bailed out of jail on appeal… the $500 bail bond was paid by one of the jurors who convicted him, Mary Partin.  She claimed to have been pressured to convict de Vaul, although she believed in his innocence.  Jury misconduct is the basis of de Vaul’s appeal.

The whole case makes me feel ill, frankly.  SLO is a few hours north of me and has a real problem with a shortage of housing for homeless individuals.  I have at least two personal friends in the area who have been homeless at one point (Michael of SLOHomeless and Rev. Cynthia over at Homeless Tales).  Yet, neighbors and police persisted in bringing charges upon a man who was doing so much good for others.  Apparently sleeping rough on a curb or bench is less of a safety issue than sleeping in a converted barn that doesn’t meet code.

The results of de Vaul’s appeal remain to be seen.  However, the whole case got me thinking about my own circumstances.  From the photos on de Vaul’s website, Sunny Acres looks a bit ramshackle, yes.  But then, so does the property where I’m staying.  And yet, it’s something.  It’s a far preferable alternative to sleeping rough (or yes, even camping out in a Walmart parking lot without utilities hookups).  It’s also, for many, a distinct notch above staying in a shelter, for many reasons.  The safety and privacy of my current circumstances far rivals any shelter I could find in the area.  And none of us have to wander the streets during the day, before being admitted at night.  We all have our own little area and niche.  We are less limited as to the amount of personal belongings we are able to retain.  We even have access to water, electricity, and the internet.

I will be leaving relatively soon, I know that.  I am here pending the receipt of the advance money for my book, and then Matt and I would like to get an apartment for ourselves and Fezzik, and scrupulously use the rest of the funds to work our way toward our ultimate goal:  a house.

But the people that I have befriended here, will still be here.  Some of them have been here for several years, or have left and then come back.  I may no longer have to worry, but they do.  All it takes is some complete douchebag to report the good man who has spent years helping those with nowhere else to go, and then their lives (and his) are turned all topsy-turvy.

This realization worries and sickens me.

I posted this update over at Homeless Tales, Matt’s site, and wanted to repost here to fill everybody in on what’s been going on with the two of us (to make up for my somewhat vague update a couple of posts ago).

* * * * *

I will start out with Matt’s joyous news – Wednesday, October 28th, at 9:25 AM Scotland time (2:25 AM PST), Matt’s daughter was born via Cesarean section. Her name is Kelsey, after his grandmother, she weighed just about 6 lbs. even, has bright blue eyes, and undetermined (but darkish-seeming) hair. She’s absolutely gorgeous. I don’t think Matt wants to post photos/video of her online, understandably, but if you’re interested in seeing her, perhaps he can e-mail you privately. That’s his call, though, and she pretty much looks like… a baby.

(Since you’ve likely guessed by now that I wasn’t the one giving birth, I should probably head off any negative knee-jerk reactions at the pass, so: No, there was no infidelity involved; yes, there was protection being used; and no, there is no ill will on the part of any parties involved).

Matt and I found out about Kelsey’s impending arrival a couple of months into our relationship. For a girl who decided at about age 9 that she never wanted to have kids (I mean, look at the role model I had to go on!), it was something of a shock for me and a lot to take in, and Matt graciously gave me the option of backing out. But I love him so much, and I know I’ll love his daughter, so I stuck around, obviously. Now I’m nervously prepping for the responsibilities that come with being a stepmom, and eventually a full-time mother, since we will likely have children ourselves one day.

Life-altering event #2 came the day after Kelsey’s birth, when I received an offer for a book deal (thanks to my brilliant agent, Chris Schelling, who also represents the famed Augusten Burroughs)! Chris is clearly the most awesome evil genius ever; the preparing of the contract and such details takes a few weeks, but upon signing, I receive a decent advance. It won’t buy us a house or anything, but it will rent us an apartment and should also clear up my debts, opening the way for us to get a home loan, we hope! There’s also talk about potentially turning the story into movie-ness, which is kind of mind-blowing to me, so I’m just kind of trying to study up on the various options one day at a time and make sure Matt is involved in all decisions, since it’s his story, too!

So where do we go from here? Well, for now, I’m still in the trailer, waiting on contracts and such to be ironed out. But upon receipt of the advance, we are likely going to look into relocating to upstate NY – towards the small, tree-covered town where we’d like to settle permanently, when we have the means – and yet within a couple hours’ drive of the city, for when book promotions and such things start, which I get the feeling might be largely NYC-centric.

Matt and I would also like to get married, although we still need to bat around immigration red tape, and now with Kelsey thrown into the mix, options are further narrowed down, so that’s just one big wait-and-see game. I imagine once Matt flies back to CA, there will be lots of running around and spazzing out like decapitated chickens, trying to get things planned and settled. I’ve entered that phase already, truth be told, but not much I can do about it for several more weeks, so I’m probably just stressing myself unduly.

In case you can’t tell, I never in a million years imagined something like this would happen to us, and I’m sort of floored and flabbergasted and quasi-in-denial. I don’t feel like an author or the subject of a movie, or anything grand like that, which kind of makes me feel a little like a fraud. I’m still very much “just plain me”. I keep wondering whether they’ve just got the wrong person and haven’t realized it yet. Or I keep coming up with “what-if” scenarios and future disasters like “what if it all falls through and they change their mind before the contract is eked out?!?!?!” Which is unlikely, I know, but still, what can I say? I’m panicky and uncertain right now. A large portion of my life I’ve been told that I’m untalented, uninteresting, a disappointment to my family and to God, and ugly to boot; it’s still so hard for me to imagine or accept people being interested in me, much less enough to ask me to write an entire book about myself.

* * * * *

I can’t say it enough; I am so grateful to my readers, friends, and the Street Voices and Twitter communities for having my back for so long.  Things are finally really looking up and there’s no way that I would have gotten to this point without the online support network that I’ve been lucky enough to find, as well as the utter kindness and generosity of E. Jean Carroll, ELLE magazine, and the most fantabulous Chris Schelling.  Thank you all, guys.

*Note: This is not the neighbor's house next door. I lifted a random house image online for dramatic effect. No copyright infringement intended.

Ha!  Bet you are just sitting at your computer rubbing your hands in glee, having waited 8 months for THAT headline to one of my blog posts.

Natural disasters seem to be something of a recurring theme in my life the past week or so.  There was the flooding in Huntly, Matt’s town (oh, by the way, yes he did get in touch with me finally — his internet was down prior and he was unable to leave the house to text me due to heavy rain and gales.  True story:  men in Scotland don’t carry umbrellas.  Apparently not very manly or something.  It caused Matt no end of consternation here to know that an umbrella is a very unisex item, whipped out on the rare occasion that it even casually mists over in Southern California).

Then there was the fire in Pomona/Diamond Bar I drove through on the freeway on November 3rd — the hills were ablaze every 500 yards for several miles, leading me to think it was arson, but it turned out a malfunctioning truck caught fire and the occupants didn’t notice, so they kept driving, merrily sending out an occasional shower of sparks into the dry brush as they drove until finally some poor soul managed to flag them down.  You can see my hastily snapped (and not-at-all-dangerous, I swear!) camera phone photos by clicking the links above.

Then there was an hour ago, when I was unceremoniously awakened by the sound of a woman yelling.  It was Sheree, one of my neighbors in another trailer on the lot.  She was dragging a hose around and spraying down our trailers, calling to another woman on the lot to keep her doors and windows closed.  At 1:30 a.m.  Huh? Sleepily, I poked my head out of my door to find out what was going on.

“The house next door is on FIRE!!!!!” she cried.  “We need to water everything down so that sparks don’t catch us!”

The word “fire” galvanized me into (albeit clumsy) action; I threw a chunky, black, oversized Nightmare Before Christmas blanket around myself and ran outside.  My trailer is right next to the property line, and over the fence I could see, perhaps a hundred yards away or less, a building completely ablaze, engulfed in flames.  I would later find out that it was a large garage-type structure being used as storage, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out.  I didn’t want to be in my trailer if things went up in smoke (which, by the way, was acrid and filling the air, huge columns billowing up into the sky).

So, I ran out of there.

I wasn’t thinking particularly clearly, especially in my half-asleep state, so I left everything.  Purse, glasses, keys, cell phone, shoes… you name it.  You know, anything that could possibly actually be of any use to me whatsoever.  Good to know that I can handle a crisis situation rationally and intelligently, right?

I fled barefoot over the pebbly ground of the lot, tearing my feet up rather nicely.  I heard Sheree bellowing Sage’s name, trying to wake her up in her nearby guest house, but Sage wasn’t responding, so I darted to her gate, screaming my head off.

“FIRE!!!!!  FIIIIIRE!!!!!  SAAAAAGE, WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUPOHMIGAWDFIIIIIIIIIRE!!!!!”

Fezzik and his buddy, Sage’s dog Piglet, streamed out the front door barking rabidly, raising the alarm at the wild-eyed intruder with the sleep-matted hair, before realizing Oh, hey!  It’s just you!  We totally love you!!!!!

Sage, unlike me, either sleeps clothed or is the fastest dresser you will ever meet, because within mere seconds she was out the door, fully alert, and in a tank top and shorts.  I, meanwhile, looked like Carrot Top in a black flannel tube dress.

Sage woke our landlord, who apparently fell out of bed in his panic and gave himself a charley horse in his leg (but at least he thought to throw on a robe), and we ran out into the street, where the fire trucks had already started to arrive (Sheree, ever the hero, called 911 — you rock, Sheree!)  The neighbor was out front, and she was surprisingly very calm.  Nobody slept in that building, thank goodness, but she told us that all of her Christmas stuff was in there and went up in flames.  Right now, it’s looking like arson.  Neighbors had reported a suspicious truck driving away from the scene quickly.

It was right about then, that I realized that I was very naked, standing in the middle of the street, amidst a bunch of firemen and police officers, with only a blanket to protect my modesty.  Everyone else, including the neighbors, was at least in some state of dress.  My fellow tenants noted my sudden discomfort and cracked jokes about me coming out to find myself a cute firefighter (sorry, Matt!  Hehe).

The firefighters managed to smother most of the fire within 30 minutes or so, and it was again safe to go back to our trailers, so I limped back inside, my feet hurting much more on the trip back, now that I was coming down from the adrenaline rush that came from fleeing fucking fire. But one of the power lines is now spouting big showers of sparks, so the lights in here are flickering every time it happens, which makes me think that we may lose electricity soon.  Not that it matters too much, because in about 3 hours I need to drive out to Irvine anyway (I picked up some temp work there this week).

Perhaps I’ll head to the local gas station and pick up a snack or something.  Now I’m all awake and I don’t know if it’s worth it trying to get back to sleep.  Blegh.

I’ve been mildly irked because I hadn’t heard from Matt in a couple of days… the rural town in Scotland he lives in (Huntly) has very crappy internet connection (as the internet company told him over the phone, “We don’t put masts up for cows!”) so often his internet will go down for several hours or even a day or two.

Still, I haven’t received so much as a text from him, which got me worried, and I just found out 5 minutes ago that Huntly has flooded and been evacuated!!!!!  Needless to say, I’m freaking out with worry, and Matt’s phone is off, so I’m unable to learn anything so far.

Does anyone over in the U.K. know anything about the flooding, or what they’ve done with the evacuees?  I’m sure that if he was anywhere with internet availability, he’d have contacted me already.  Are they being put up in hotels?  Are they being told to stay with family?  Does anyone know???

Thank you guys so much, in advance.  I’m so worried about my man  :`(

~Bri