Being homeless is tiring. Not that I was properly homeless; I still had a job, and a car, and friends with couches and spare rooms and beds. But when most of what you own is in a POD, and the rest of it is in the boot of your car (and the back seat and the passenger seat), there's a mild sense of fatigue that never seems to go away.

I moved out of my condo on the 6th of July. Closed the door to a stuffed-to-the-gills POD, and drove away from the place that had been my home since March 2005. That's longer than I've been blogging, or able to grow facial hair. I put in bamboo flooring, and re-tiled the fireplace and entrance. BluRay's weren't available for sale, and no one had heard of Lady Gaga. I had six roommates in that time, changed show, got two promotions, and started going grey. I wrote a book, and two screenplays.

The point is, a lot of shit happened in those seven years. It's the longest I've lived in a house since I left England in 1995, and the place I moved in to isn't going to be home in the same way. I don't own it; I can't, as my credit is shite. The condo went from $229k when I bought it, to $245k when I refinanced three years later, to $280k four months after I refinanced, to being sold in July for $75k. That's not a lot of money for the time and effort and emotion, but it's the way of the world. Now I'm in a new place, which is older than my old place, and definitely a different experience.

When I moved into my condo, it was barely lived in. Everything was clean. It was the equivalent of getting a five year old car with ten thousand miles on the clock. This new one? It's been lived in. A lot. By a lot of cats. And some people too, but mostly cats. There's a certain voyeuristic pleasure in moving in somewhere, and finding those little things that hint at the sort of person who lived in a place before you. Of course, depending on what you find, this can last a while, or be gone almost instantly.

For me it was pretty instant. Along with enough animal fur to stuff a king size mattress ground into the carpets (there's one room I've just shut the door to. I'm dealing with that one next month), I've so far found a business card for a strip club in Idaho, a pair of unopened white thigh high fishnets, instructions for putting on a condom, and three boxes of cereal.

Oh, and five porn DVD's.

To be fair to the last owner, they were in the trash. To be unfair to the owner, the trash can was upside down, so when I picked it up, two of them made a break for freedom (Horny Moms and Big Rides), one did the obligatory circumference roll until it was flat (Nina Hartley's guide to alternate sex), and the other two lay there unashamedly, as did their titles (Dragon girls #7 and No Spring Chicken #4).

Coupled with the mirrored ceiling in one of the bathrooms, and the blue neon light in the bedroom, it really makes wonder about the people that lived here. Not too much though.

Regardless of all that, I now have a fridge and an oven and a bed of my own. One of the carpets is ripped out and (mostly) replaced. New sink and cabinet in the master bedroom. An unpacked box as a nightstand. And a tonne of stuff I'm going to have to figure out what to do with in another two and a half years, when I will once again become voluntarily homeless.

At least that's something to be grateful for; my homelessness is voluntary. That's why I hesitate to call myself actually homeless. I haven't been one of those poor sods who has little choice in the matter. I haven't had to worry about where the next meal will come from, or a secure place to sleep, and I won't be in that situation next time either. I prefer the moniker 'Of no fixed abode.'

And I can't wait for the next time I wear that label.