homeless (right at home).

I’ve used the word “homeless” quite a bit these past few months, in reference to my absence of a conceptual home.  The sublet I stayed in was someone else’s home.  Staying on a friend’s floor, while full of my once furniture, was still not my home.  Especially now in my new Berlin digs, sharing close quarters with four elderly Chinese men * - this is where I sleep, but this is not (yet) my home!

Each time I used the word “homeless” in the United States, the first look I would get back was pity.  By the expression on his face I expected the young guy at the storage facility to either (a) offer up his couch for the evening or (b) prepare the paperwork in auctioning off my goods for the impending non-payment.  Americans are so stubbornly independent that the perception of a homeless man is not only taken as somehow pathetically invasive, it’s considered an outright character flaw.  People never took that word to mean a man without a nest of his own, the reaction always jumped to a mild bout of outrage.  Three times I found myself far too amused to attempt a proper explanation.

Each time I use the word “homeless” in Berlin, the face on the other side immediately nods in understanding.  Perhaps this is because tons of broke-ass people move to broke-ass Berlin and trade the concept of salary for the concept of scrimping.  I am no different – this city is littered with ex-pats seeking 200 Euro / month rooms, most hoping for that all-elusive steady job as well as that all-elusive meeting someone who speaks their native language sans eyeroll.

I am incredibly comforted by the sheer scale of how people drift here.  Days blow by with only coffee stains and conversation as evidence, such lavish bohemia is haunted by only two demons – visa extensions and rent.

Today I decided to apply for a visa extension of my own, to be able to spend an entire summer here at the Disneyland of hunger, happening, and ruin.  I have begun burning reams of A4-sized paper to the gods of Bureaucracy, in hopes I can trick them into giving me the freedom to stay.  All it takes is a mountain of cash, a legion of impossible promises (in writing), and an affidavit notarized by Werner Herzog.

…but really I’ve come back to spend some quality time with three very good friends of mine:

(pictured: Dr. Haribo Extra Sauer Pommes, Mrs. Barilla Pesto alla Calabrese mit Paprika, Prof. Bitter Lemon + Vodka esq.)

* may or may not be true