The next Survivor will be filmed in Harvard Square

About a week ago... okay, last Monday actually, a guy living in his car parked on the street in front of the building where I work. I had to walk past him every day to get to work, and when I realized what I was seeing I felt bad. Bad in that "I'm always bitching about my life, and you never know how good you've really got it" sort of way. Bad because of that fear one gets that somehow that's going to end up being you, and the belief that you should be doing something to help. Bad because even though I felt that way, I wasn't going to stop and talk to this guy, or give him money, in that way that society teaches us to be afraid of strange men and the homeless, sort of way.

On Tuesday, the car was still there, full of apparently every item this guy owned, and a few other things he'd scrounged, like cardboard to cover the windows, and aluminum foil to reflect the sun back and keep the heat out. I noticed it all but did that avert-your-eyes thing to not actually look at the guy sitting in his car.

On Wednesday, the whole scenario started to slide off of my guilt-meter, and onto my this-is-getting-fuckin'-weird meter. The car had been there for three days now, in the same spot. It was now half covered with a sheet. Now, understand, I work in Harvard Square, close enough to Harvard Square to be able to *say* I work in Harvard Square. Space is at a premium, and parking spaces are not come by lightly. There are 1/2 hour, 1 hour, and 2 hour parking meters everywhere. Our street is covered in 2 hour parking meters, and they are strictly enforced. You stay in a spot more than 2 hours, you get a ticket. If you're still there in another two hours, another ticket. You rack up enough tickets, they boot you (an actual clamp on your wheel til the towtruck arrives). This guy had been in the same spot now for three days, and I hadn't seen a single ticket, an irate meter maid, or any police intervention. I began to question how he was getting away with this, bad though I felt about his homeless state.

On Thursday, he put out lawn furniture behind his car. Two of those nice chairs of the type you take to the beach, with plenty of room to stretch out the legs.

On Friday, when I walked past, he was lying back smoking a cigar in said lawn furniture, and a recorder (of the flute type nature) had been jammed into the front grill of the vehicle, pointing outward as though the car were feeling musically inclined.

On Sunday, my uncle called to inform me that the guy had done his laundry and hung all his clothing out to dry along the railings by Johnny's Diner. Oh, and he'd used the area in front of Johnny's -- below street level, but in front of the glass window where the diner patrons sit, as his dressing room. Johnny, rather perturbed on behalf of said patrons, had called the police, but they had not responded.

This morning, when I arrived for work, an actual shelter was under construction. And by this, I mean the sort of thing you would expect to see if you discovered a person trying to survive while stranded on an island in the Pacific. The neighborhood trees, puny as they are, had apparently given several of their lives to help fence in the lawn furniture. The roof of the shelter had not yet gone up, but the walls were looking pretty good.

I went out around three, all hopeful about seeing how it was going and... the whole shebang was gone. Sigh. It was actually sort of fun while it lasted, seeing how much he could get away with.

The Mad Bomber What Bombs at Noonish

My parents officially live in a hellhole. I get to say officially now, because, I am quite sure, there is some sort of rule that says when your neighbors are actively engaged in possible terrorist activities, or at least, really fuckin' stupid activities, that can result in death, you get to say that.

They actually live in a mass chain type apartment building in a neighborhood that's not bad, but not particularly great. They pay way too much, but they do get a lot of space. Which is good. Because they have more JUNK than the next six families combined. I live in fear of inheriting that crap. I've been very unhappy with their living arrangement for some time now, and unhappy with my inability to suddenly come by a job where I make a million a year or so, or, say to win the lottery for twenty million or so (that would work) in order to buy them an actual house. Very, very disappointed.

Today, however, the police arrived. They were there to serve a search warrant on the guy who lives below, and kitty-corner, to my parents apartment. No one is clear on what the police were there to search for, but what they found were -- explosives. Apparently, Freakish Neighbor #27, or whoever the hell he was, was building pipe bombs down there. This was not what they were prepared to find. They freaked, and evacuated the building. Mom grabbed her purse on the way out, and Dad grabbed... nothing. Yes, it is good to know your parents are retaining their survival skills in their old age. Worse, once outside, they discovered what was happening, and he was gripped with a particular powerful case of phonitis. This inherited condition (yes, that's right, I've got it, shut up) causes the sufferer to compulsively call all and sundry friends to keep them updated on even the most mundane and boring-ass aspects of one's life, sometimes for longer than the actual events themselves took to occur. Actual exciting news can only exacerbate the condition. In the grip of phonitis, Dad attempted to re-enter the building to get his cell phone, to send out live updates. The police were no so polite in their opinions about his need to return for the phone.

Faced with a closet full of pipe bombs, or whatever, and superior survival instincts to my father's, the police decided simply to detonate the bomb where it was, rather than transport it and detonate it elsewhere. So they did. They managed to blow out a nice number of windows, too.

The excitement over, the bombs all bombed out, people milled around and got to go in. My mom went after a police officer to get details. He couldn't provide her with many. She said to him "Well, at least you found out about this, and he'll be gone, now." To which the police officer replied "Oh, we're not arresting him." To which she replied, "....What?!"

Pipe bombs were not, after all, what they'd been looking for. But I'm still left befuzzled beyond comprehension. What, it's legal to build pipe bombs in an apartment complex? You don't get arrested after the police have arrived and blown up your apartment? The HELL?

But apparently, the police truly have no intention of arresting him, he can move back in. So now my hope lies in landlord-tenant law, and the belief that surely, the owners of the building do not want this guy MOVING BACK IN to finish off the job, as much as I do not want him living underneath my parents.

I am not happy. No.