Where Is Here?
One would think that boredom would be the last concern when one decides to honestly engage in existential transformation, but I’ll be dipped…it’s the number one issue that I hear about as a barrier. I don’t get it. We are at zero, now we have to start making some maps. Remember, this is the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy; food, shelter, clothing level. We have shelter, we are assuming clothes on back and suitcase of clothing. Now food.
After I moved out of the chop shop and employee lounge of the art gallery that I had gotten a job with, I moved into a two room apartment on Magazine Street. It was one large room in actuality, with a small bathroom built into what was previously a closet, a kitchen alcove created by an old door placed on its side and a countertop installed. I was on the third floor of what had been built as a grand single family residence back at some point in history. Like every other house that had been carved up like this in New Orleans, it was supposedly a whorehouse at some point. I dumped the contents of my suitcase on the floor for a bed.
Where are you in proximity to a few things?
1. Work
2. Public Transportation
3. Groceries
4. Bank
We are going to establish a fictitious protagonist in a fictitious location in south Minneapolis.
Delbert Lewis
4862 Standish Ave. South
Mpls, MN, 55407
It’s an intersection next to a lake. For all intents and purposes, this is the address of a long-term transitional housing building. This is where Del lives. I’m going to use the floorplan of one of the units at the Continental or Balmoral Hotels. [For the purposes of floorplan example only. This is in no way a reflection on the building itself or it’s management.] Both are multi-unit brownstones on Portland Ave, both accept public housing funding. This distinction is important because as we refer back to process, Del will have applied for and received public assistance every step of the way. This is not a critique of public assistance; this is a demonstration of function in process. This unit has a closet, a bathroom, and a kitchenette. A 4-500 sq.ft room. Functional in every way. To the conditions, I will be using those that I lived in in 1993 in New Orleans, LA. Let’s just say that I find them to be similar in regard to the physical conditions, not exactly 2 star accommodations. It is a template of real world conditions as they exist in this time and place in Mpls. Dig? Let’s continue.
Now let’s give Del a fictitious employer and address in downtown Minneapolis. Let’s say he is a, “Maintenance Engineer,” as the classic Replacements tune, “Waitress In The Sky” dubbed the common “Janitor”. Del is a Janitor at the IDS Building. He works for Scandahoovian Cleaning Services.
IDS Center
80 South 8th Street
Minneapolis, MN, 55402
This is the baseline from where we shall be deriving Del’s circumstances from. Del doesn’t have time to be bored. Del has some things to figure out. For one, where’s the next nearest available sammich? Del has just dumped his suitcase on the floor. Del needs to literally figure out where he is, and how does he get from here to any and all physical resources needed or required. We’re going to give Dell a clean record, for the most part. Maybe a gross misdemeanor trespass charge floating around back there somewhere, no felonies. That’s next level, and will be gone over much further along in this project. It took effort for Del to get this far. A lot of it. He had to start from nothing over a year ago. He stepped off the bus without so much as ID. Not to mention Delbert was a mess. Del got his ass dumped on a bus by a local Sheriff’s deputy in some Podunk town in Arkansas to run the rummy out of town, Minneapolis just happened to be the next departure on the bus line. But now Del has stepped into his fresh start.
Next – “Delbert Gets A Dossier”