Atlantic Day 2 – sea sick

Woke up 3. Or 2, according to my phone that somehow measures our time zones. But according to the ship, still 3. I dreamt that I offered a homeless guy of my own age to

Woke up 3. Or 2, according to my phone that somehow measures our time zones. But according to the ship, still 3. I dreamt that I offered a homeless guy of my own age to sleep at my home. He was on the border, as in still being a functioning normal person with a job or something, and no mental issues or substance abuse. But still – in the dream – I started regretting my offer, despite his friends being all happy about it. (They couldn’t since they all lived in collectives where they couldn’t bring more people.) Because if he’s homeless today, then he’ll be so the next day. What kind of rules should I have? I started talking about how I needed to go to bed at 12, gave him my telephone number and so on, and regretted it so much that I woke up. In real life, I don’t have a home, and am rather the ”homeless” person myself hehe.

I used to live next to a couple of drug abusers who had two apartments. They lived in one of them, and kept the other one empty, at all times. There was 0% chance that they’d let any of their homeless friends stay there, because they might never get rid of them. So it was an empty apartment, paid by Stockholm municipality. Homelessness is such a threat that really divides people in those who have and those who don’t. Being homeless is such a wheel of poverty. Being poor costs a lot of money. Being homeless costs more human resources than anything, and makes it very hard to come back. There has been tons of studies of ”housing first” that all have declared that if you just give a homeless abuser a place to live, everything else starts to work in his/her life, so that the city gets its money back. This has caused many cities worldwide to actually give homeless people apartments. But where do you draw the line between being homeless and just almost homeless? Do you need to prove that you’ve been on the streets for 100 days to get an apartment? The distinction problem is impossible, and no city can afford to give everyone a place to live, and to the extent they do, it becomes a planned economy with all kinds of inefficiencies, like in the case of my abusing neighbours above.

So, the government should give everyone – rich or poor – a 1000 USD/month. That gives everyone the right to a mattress somewhere. And if you’re a couple with two apartments, then you pay for both of them. Someone might prefer drugs for all the money of course. But for most people, getting money regularly actually makes you radically smarter, and in less pain to soothe with drugs.

Once upon a time me and three friends experimented with being homeless for 24 hours in the middle of the Swedish winter. It was horrible, and interesting. Later I tried 48 hours all alone, in May, which was also cold as hell. In the mornings, I entered the Stockholm central station as soon as it opened. It was surprisingly easy to hang out with the other homeless. They had quite the gang. And then the guards came to kick us all out. I was so afraid of being outside in the cold morning that I told the guard that I actually had a home, in Fisksätra, and was just playing to be homeless for 48 hours, but was actually middle-class. The guard said ”ok” and let me sleep inside the station, but kicked out everyone who were homeless for real. Because they would come back the day after, but I wouldn’t. That’s a class society.

Fell asleep and had an all-nighter with old friends. Bought cigarettes for Lönn, tried to sleep in the same bed as Karlén who got all homophobic and angry, and lost Olof and Erik while trying to get new beers at 8 in the morning. Then I woke up and had breakfast downstairs. I didn’t feel like it since the storm had started, but I paid 2300 € for this trip so please give me my food.

Fell asleep again and had more party dreams. Woke up at 10 to go the gym, but I got sick enough just by going to my own toilet so no more gym today, I’m sorry. I’m regretting posting that ”before picture”. The after picture will be the same, except for a bunch of pancakes in the middle.

After being sick for two hours I went downstairs for lunch. Lovely soup. Pasta with pesto. But I got so full directly and went home quickly. One of the staff told me to not be in my room, not in my bed, and most of all, not look at my computer. It was like seasickness came from thinking about it. I don’t know. No computer? I can’t sleep and dream about parties for 24 hours a day. He said I should go to the gym. Ok, I’ll try again later. But now I’ll keep watching the silly series that I for some reason downloaded.

Then I fell asleep and dreamt about partying. We were planning a pub crawl. Then it was time for the gym, but I got so sick by just sitting up. So I’ve been lying all day and looking at the curtains:

Boring image? Imagine the same for 24 hours, with occasional hours of party dreams. Not the worst day in life, but definitely not the best.

Dinner. Had a little. Didn’t see Daniel. Went home to sleep and watch the silly series. Sleeping, music, series, on and off. You couldn’t choose the most comfortable way to lie down, since the boat kept changing your position. You had to lie on the back with arms and legs out wide, or the same but on the stomach. It was like lying on the back of a truck from Örkelljunga to Västerås, but for 60 hours instead of 6. Sometimes I pretended I was on a flying mat taking me to the west, with the movements being the wind under the mat. That felt a bit better.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *