It’s hard not to be overqualified.

Anyone who ever went to school for any length of time, a year, even for a single day, even setting one foot over the threshold, is overqualified.

That’s because, in terms of my job, I don’t have one.

I’m part of the greater 99% who have to worry about how they spend their money.

That’s not my problem, because I don’t have any.

I don’t have any because I don’t have a job because I’m overqualified.

I could wash dishes in the restaurant.

Overqualified.

I could sweep the street.

Overqualified. And they don’t do that anymore.

So I have no money, no source of income. I’m what they call unemployed. And I’m unemployable.

The government used to provide for us, take care of us. Now they pretend we don’t exist.

So where do I live? Wherever I am.

Where do I sleep?

I used to sleep on the street. It was hard and cold.

Then they cleared everybody away.

Then I slept on the grass by the road.

Then they cut the grass.

They used to call us homeless. Now they say we’re “unhoused.” That makes them feel better.

When we’re so hungry we’re starving, they say we’re “nutritionally challenged,” or “calorie deprived.”

Changing the words doesn’t solve a problem.

Now I sleep in the bushes and eat the food the market throws out that’s so old nobody else would.

They say my “job” is “helping to save the planet.”

They don’t hassle me in the bushes. They say they’re giving me room and bored. From the bushes on the hill, I can see the Bay and the Golden Gate. They say I have “a room with a view.”