Everything is in a state of chaos and complete upheaval at my campsite in the Berkeley hills. They’re doing a massive tree-cutting operation cutting down God only knows how many trees. Tens of thousands? For fire prevention, I assume. Last week hordes of construction workers descended
on my campsite like an invading army, destroying everything in their path. They didn’t get all the way up to my campsite, but pretty darn close. And they completely ruined my campsite. I used to be able to hide behind this big wall of trees and bushes. But now I’ve been flushed out in the open. Fuck.

My cats are so freaked out by all the commotion, I haven’t seen two of them — Fatty and Moo Cat — for over 10 days. They headed for the hills. Well, they’re already in the hills so they headed for the even hillier parts of the hills. And may be gone for good.

Mini Scaredy is still here, of course. She’s so attached to me, as long as she gets to hang out by my side, she could care less about all the tree-cutters.

It’s pretty sad and devastating to me. I’ve passed all those trees just about every day over the last decade I’ve been living there. And — not to sound too much like a goddamn hippie — I knew and loved all those trees. . . But that’s life on the streets for you. Everything can be running smoothly, and then your entire world can be turned up-side down, literally overnight.

So now I’m going to have to move to a new campsite. There’s a nice spot nestled in the woods much further up the hill. But the problem is, it’s difficult to get to. Especially late at night, in the pitch dark, and drunk out of my fucking mind. I could break my neck. . . Oh well. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m so stressed out, I slashed my finger opening up a can of cat food. Blood dripping everywhere. . . Kind of symbolic of how I’m feeling right now.

Ace Backwords is a homeless writer and artist who lives in Berkeley, California. You can find more writing on his blogs.