Morning at the campground, and rswfire is already inside the trailer with the camera running, moving through a space that does not yet permit easy movement. The floor and surfaces are occupied. Contents sit unsorted where they landed. He says plainly that it is hard to do anything in here, and that this includes showering — he is still wearing yesterday's shirt. He does not apologize for the state of it. He states it the way one states a condition of the site, then keeps working.
The first thing he shows is the lights. He has finished running them, command light clips carrying the line all the way across, then all the way across again, dropping a little at the far end. The ceiling material near the far corner did not take the clips well, and he says he may have to rethink that if they start falling. He knows the sequence looks wrong. He says so himself — that it is crazy to be putting up lights in the middle of a mess like this, that he is doing it backwards, that he knows he is doing it backwards because navigating the space is genuinely difficult. And then he holds the sequence anyway. He describes being highly sensitive, and that for him the environment matters a great deal: overhead lighting in a restaurant can give him anxiety, and he says he cannot fully explain why. Getting the light right is what makes the shell begin to read as home. The organizing can follow.
If you are observant, he says, you will notice the pictures have moved. He has brought the framed photograph into the bathroom. It is a picture of a specific parcel — fourteen to eighteen acres, he thinks, he cannot remember exactly — that he tried to buy and could not, because no one could produce a clean title. He is precise about the distinction between his dream and the ones circulating on YouTube: he wanted to own land long before he knew about that community, and he was not homesteading. He was going to build a very cool house on the top of the hill. Trails through his own acreage. Some cabins. A completely different life, he says, which is what he is living now, only a different version of it. He looked for other land and found nothing comparable — the location, everything, was right. He describes it as maybe not being the time, and places the dream a few years out rather than behind him. The photograph was taken in winter, when the trees were bare and read as dead, and he says he loves it for that: it is right on the verge of green, and he is heading there.
Between the lights and the photograph, he is also learning from the site next door. A family, experienced, kids, a setup that works. He notices their water filter is out near the hookup pedestal; his is near the camper. Someone had already left a comment telling him the same thing about the electrical — the surge protector belongs near the source, and he put his near the trailer. They have custom stabilizers, and one of his is not working. He tries to show the camera without being intrusive about it. He names it as backwards again, and as apprenticeship: picking up skills by watching people who know more than he does, and by reading what viewers tell him.
Then the computer. He got it working, and he says it is the coolest thing he has seen in a long time, aware that this sounds silly and saying it anyway. It is the best machine available to a consumer, and he upgraded it himself after buying it; parting with it was never on the table. The mouse is broken. He knew he would have this problem and brought a spare, and cannot find the spare, and thinks there may be another at the house. The printer came too — years of a subscription that ships ink, though he has not yet worked out how the ink will find him here. He has learned that campgrounds sometimes want pre-registration forms printed. The power conditioner sits nearby; he says it is a surge protector but does more, makes the electricity work better, and declines to explain further. With that computer, he says, you do everything you can. He names what all of this is: blending his two worlds.
The rest of the weekend is already mapped. More down lights, running all the way across, and once those are in, the baskets can go up. A second nut mounted like the first, only better. He needs the piece raised. In the bathroom the pajamas are stowed — he is not a pajama guy, but the ones at Kohl's were so soft he bought them, because it is a new life and maybe he wants pajamas now; he has not worn them yet. The towels needed a place and netting will not work, because hanging it would block the medicine cabinet and there is simply no room. So the coats come down and a shelf goes up in their place, since he needs space anywhere he can get it. It has to be very secure. He says he cannot rely on command strips — everything gets bolted, screwed, fixed into the wall. And then, when the weekend's work is done, he is going to go get his cats. He says he has missed the hell out of them already, that there is risk in bringing them and he will do everything possible to keep them safe, and that he cannot imagine life without them. Earlier, walking the narrow floor between his unsorted things, he had said he was just acting like a cat, moving around his camper.