There has been one unforeseen element to this Homeless Experiment that has me wanting to get it over with soon as possible:
I find myself “thinking like I’m homeless” all the time! Every time I drive by an area of Austin where I may find myself this upcoming Thursday-Monday I have thoughts such as:
- “Hmmm…I could probably sleep behind that store and no one would know.”
- “If I REALLY need to take a dump I can go in that patch of woods on 9th St.”
- “I could totally sleep under those bleachers at the baseball park behind ACC.”
- “The South West corner of this intersection gets traffic that comes out of the Burger King parking lot, I bet I can score some food on that corner.”
There is a constant stream of these types of thoughts, and it’s MAKING ME ACTUALLY FEEL HOMELESS. In a way this is good, because my experiment is based on my alias who gets evicted from his apartment with no money and no place to go.
A person in that situation probably sees living on the street as a viable option a few days before he actually becomes homeless…so in a way these thoughts are making this experiment more realistic.
So now every time I go Downtown to a coffee shop, bar, the library etc. I look at things in a different way.
It’s weird.
For this reason I’m sticking to my June 4th starting date. That’s actually a horrible weekend to pursue this experiment because there’s a lot of fun events I’ll be missing, however this thought process has to stop soon. I’d rather forgo some fun for being able to think normally again.
Since I’ve also stopped all facial grooming these last few days my hair hair is quite a mess and I have to wear hats all the time (Haven’t had a hair cut in roughly 2-something months). I can still put gel in it, but it’s so long I have to slick it back like an Italian goodfella. When it’s not done, the homeless look really starts to show:
The beard came in REALLY quick. I stopped shaving May 15th, now 17 days later on June 1st this is how it looks:
I’m also starting to grow a uni-brow, plus my eyebrows are getting kind of bushy:
….I mean, they’re not on the Ramit Sethi level yet, but they’re catching up everyday:
So not only am I starting to “think homeless” but I’m also slowly beginning to look the part. When you think like that all the time, then are re-affirmed by scruffy looking face in the mirror, it’s an odd feeling.