When bitten by the bug to clean things up I sometimes take it to the extreme. For example, last week I drop LSD and decide to clean up a pile of clutter in the corner of my front room. Pulling that thread leads to the demolition and subsequent reconstruction of an apartment I moved into 2 years ago.  When the dust settles four hours later, I’m naked and sweaty with dirt stuck to my slick skin like war paint. Everything’s different and all that’s left of the old arrangement is a small pile of detritus in the center of the room. I feel refreshed.

This type of kamikaze chore-doing is not for everyone. Adopting minimalism makes things easier but paring down my material belongings is still a slow process. Abandoning nostalgia and sentimentality, the first few purges were highly productive. I know what to throw away. I know what to keep. Easily. The rest is just sorting through lint and memories, reserving any documents with any numbers or names that are relevant to responsible record-keeping. Every year my physical paperwork fits into a smaller backpack. At a certain point I stopped needing to prove my existence with documentation. No one questions that I belong here anymore.

Entrenched in Lower Queen Anne Hill, I’m a boisterous windbag living better than I deserve in circumstances most people wouldn’t tolerate. I come from a place of power and privilege most people covet and few give up willingly. Knowing the risk, there are times I’ve questioned my choices and mused at the idea of failure. Hyper-rational, I know the safest thing to do is show caution and protect my assets. Terminally romantic, I couldn’t keep living up on the hill hoping my wishes come true randomly. Using the momentum of my descent, I got a decent head start. Now I’m working every day to prevent any backslide.

Currently, my cost of living is sparse and my prospects are limited. Choosing the right location pays off in the long game. I’m patiently waiting for a time when my standard of comfort isn’t strictly based on income. The things I can’t do because of time or money hover just out of sight, pallid memories of late nights and fair weather friends. It’s all a fucking lie. We all have to live somewhere and I’m someone that chooses to stay adjacent to places I want to be. I go without the luxury of junk food or hair cuts in order to afford my rent. I don’t buy anything without a direct purpose and accept Spartan as the status quo.

Working in a restaurant saves me the cost of food and not drinking at home is another huge money saver. Bar drinks are more expensive but, thanks to that, I don’t have nearly as many of them. Incidentally, only drinking in bars also helps prevent descending into spirals of depressed isolation and chronic alcoholism. My cheapest form of entertainment is doing drugs and laughing at the irony of human nature. Otherwise I mostly play video games and masturbate. None of this makes me special except that I’m choosing my lifestyle instead of having it chosen for me. I’m fairly certain no one would choose this but me.