Last Christmas I was furthering my experiments in living alone. I booked a business class seat on Amtrak for Vancouver, B.C. and my favorite hotel in the heart of the city’s homeless section. I had packed only what would fit in my eVest, so unlike the homeless with their grocery carts and black trash bags, I was essentially more dissolute than them. And when one stopped me on the street to inquire “whether the old age pension checks had come in,” I felt as if I had transitioned completely to life on the street.

   But it wasn’t to be.