Where to start (keyboard)?

Get a reasonable midi keyboard ... they are getting cheaper these days and the 48 key ones are not spendy ... from there you plug it into the computer then you go looking for VST's for piano ... and many of them are free, and voila ... you have a piano available to you.

They say that practice makes perfect, and then you find many a musician, that is an individualist and disdains any kind of teaching ... and it goes as far as folks like Keith Jarrett trashing education for not teaching you anything except what is dead and wasted after so many years of repetitions!

To me, and I am a writer, the "muscle memory" is only necessary when you are mechanical in your playing. If you are a person that plays off colors and visionary material, it only has to do with your familiarity with what each note sounds like, and you would never worry about any teaching or chords and a teacher that is not an artist ... he/she is a musician ... massive difference.

If you have a good FEEL for the notes on the keys, musical theory won't enter the equation ... because you are following your own feel for what the notes speak to you personally, which has nothing to do with theory at all ... and you better realize that before you take it up ... because that is the first brick in your head ... you want to play something you can't find ... ditch it ... instead visualize a scene and put your fingers around the keys for it ... 

For a weird/bizarre idea, if you read well check out the folks that are really special in their creativity, and notice how they are not into the chords and notes ... they are into the quality of their feeling via this note and then that note .. has nothing to do with theory whatsoever. And the best joke of all is the one that musicians hate the most ... in the Robert Wyatt book there is a story about Syd Barrett in one of the sessions for his album ... and a guitarist asks Robert what key Syd is in. Robert's reply? "He don't know the chords or the notes. He just plays!" ... a perfect example of the memory of "knowing" what it sounds like when you do this, or that ... and that's what you need to create "music" ... the rest is all notes!

Also, do you have any advice for what gear I should buy? Something not too expensive (I'm short on money), something with which I could play with headphones (I have neighbors and I want to play at 3AM), something I can easily carry.

Sorry for sounding like a complete noob (because I am). Hope I didn't ask anything stupid.