Well, 2017 is certainly off to a rough start. Many folks have been hounding me lately for information on why their pic hasn't been completed yet. A few others have been expressing more compassionate concern over my recent lack of communication. What follows should hopefully suffice to satisfy the inquiries of both parties.

In September 2016, my one year lease term ended. Lobo and I had signed it with a landlord who was extremely combative and, we found out later, strongly against the LGBT crowd (at the time of signing, he did not know we were gay). For the last six months of our lease, he crusaded against us, trying to use everything from Lobo's disability status to outright lies in order to pressure the HOA to evict us. He failed, but needless to say we did not renew our lease with him and we currently have pending discrimination litigation against him for his refusal to return our deposit without proper justification.

With Lobo requring three months at his UCSD lab and an additional physics course before he would be qualified for the technical specialty (Human-Computer Interaction Analyst) that would enhance his degree to employable levels, we needed to remain in the San Diego area through at least December but could not sign a year lease again as we did not know where he would be employed after completion. To make do, we signed a short-term sublease which only lasted for three months. While far from ideal (as it gave us little time and forced us to share a space with strangers), it at least allowed Lobo to finish his specialty certification.

What it did NOT allow was for me to get work done. The roommates were constantly inviting people over, making obscene amounts of noise, harassing me, and making it next to impossible to complete any artwork. I had items stolen from my desk, wifi outages from router tampering, beer spilled on my keyboard by "guests" and an incessant stream of questions mixed with an utter lack of personal space since there was no room in the bedroom for a desk. It was absolute hell and resulted in perhaps the least productive time I have ever spent in a home, to say nothing of the fact that it effectively prevented me from streaming save for the rare occasion when the roomates were gone.

But we make sacrifices for the people we love and I did so as best I could. Early in December, Lobo finished his certs and we began looking for more temporary housing--something short term or month to month, to allow him to hunt for jobs without being stuck in a place if he found one that required us to move. This was an extremely stressful process, as I had to divert considerable time and effort towards it and away from art. Sadly, the holiday season proved to be the WORST time to hunt for a place, and moreso for a short term one. Everyone in San Diego seemed to be upping their prices, making insane demands, and requiring a minimum of 1-2 years commitment. Even the places that traditionally had month to month leases were suddenly dumping them or demanding massive deposits for them (we're talking 3k and upwards).

Eventually, though, we found a place we thought would work. It was a lovely 1 bedroom on a property on the distant outskirts of town--close enough for him to drive to interviews but far enough to have some peace and quiet. The price was affordable, even if it had a wood stove instead of actual heating; the landlord lived in Hawaii and promised to be hands-off, and the lease terms were flexible. With our 3 month sublease ending on New Year's Eve, we were already packed and ready to move into the new place. The application had been accepted, paperwork had been sent, lease was supposedly good to go and everything seemed like it was aligned for a smooth transition....

...until it wasn't. On the night we were supposed to move in, we recieved a call from the landlord telling us that before money could change hands and we could get the key to the place, we needed to send her an itemized list of every financial transaction we had made in the last 3 months, a list of every interaction with renters, creditors, banks, government officials, and courts from the last three years, and, to top it off, FULL ACCESS to our bank account information including account numbers, social security numbers, log-in passwords, transcripts, and more. We knew instantly that we were being scammed, with demands for information coming only when our backs were to the wall and the nature of that information aligning with similar scams that groups in San Diego had been using to steal identities and cash from desperate people.

So, here we were, with a U-Haul and a van fully packed and literally nowhere to go. As New Years Eve rang to a close and no dog-friendly motels showing vacancy, we spent the night sleeping in said van with the rain pouring down overhead. The following day, we started making inquiries to see where we could stay, but we had few local friends and those who still lived nearby did not have room for guests. We eventually settled on staying with Lobo's aunt and uncle in a guest room in Ventura, but the situation here has been even WORSE than living in the car. They fight constantly, his uncle turns his new surround sound system up to max volume at all hours as a way of passive aggressively fighting his aunt, and they have 8 full grown macaws that shriek and holler to the point of madness. Oh, and the guest room we are meant to stay in is under construction, so there are random people walking in and out constantly (the doors dont lock, such fun!), allowing not a moment's peace. After only 24 hours of this, Lobo has declared that he would rather be back on the road than suffer another minute...and I don't blame him. This place is worse than a zoo on crack. So, he's back in the van, and I am preparing to pack the few things we unloaded and join him in the hopes that together we can manage to find a decent short term place now that the holiday season is over.

So, TL;DR--we're homeless right now and will likely remain so until we a) get lucky and find non scammy short term housing, or b) Lobo finds a permajob soon and we can get a longer term lease despite my having the kind of credit one might expect from a porn artist with no official W2s to speak of. Given the situation, I have been less than inclined to be talkative, and tried to chalk it up as vacation time so that people wouldn't pry. But here it is, the nitty and the gritty. I don't need emergency funds from anyone (money is honestly not the issue here), I'm not begging for anything, but I would appreciate if everyone would chill out, recognize that timing and shit circumstances have made life hell for me lately, and cut me a little slack until such time as things stabalize.

Thanks for understanding, and take care.

-BadCoyote

EDIT: Oh yeah, totally forgot to mention that my family literally disowned me when they found out I didn't vote for Trump. And that my father actually attacked Lobo on the phone when Lobo stood up for my right to make my own decisions, even going so far as to insult his military service. And that I got officially disinvited from all family holiday events until I could learn not to be such a "weak minded liberal." So yeah. Anyone thinking that kind of shit doesn't happen in the modern day has not had the joy of dealing with Midwest, hardcore Christian parents :-/