Oh the bay...

The bay area that is, Berkeley in particular. I LOVE IT. I do. I have made some super amazing friends, the kind that make you feel good about just being alive, just by being near them. The kind you want to sort of rub up against so that you can get a little of what they have. The kind that light up rooms.

I went to a little dinner party tonight that was thrown by a couple of them. Dasan and I just dig them! And while the people are awesome, even the walk to the BART station was lovely... the whole neighborhood smelled like the most wonderful flowers. And even the BART ride was awesome! We looked out at the lights of the houses and the moon and the stars and both Dasan and I were just talking about how much we like it here. How it just feels good to be here.

I never thought I could love a place that didn't have a beach, but I guess I was wrong.


My mom always said that I used to tell her when I was like 2 years old that I wanted to dye my hair black and run away to San Francisco, turns out the whole time I needed to bleach my hair blonde and run away to Berkeley.

Just try to love the life around you...

I have been sick.
Dasan has returned from DC.

I want to fill in all the details, but most of it's just heard through the grapevine anyway.

Truth be told, I need to write more. I used to write every single day - good stuff too. At some point I lost my teenage/early 20's angst and got all wrapped up in being a mom and a student and an employee and all that and I lost one of the things that I loved, that I was good at, that made me always feel better and more connected to who I AM.

Maybe what I wrote was sad or nostalgic or depressing or hopeful, but it was MINE, for me, and it worked. I would watch some dramatic indy film or listen to some sad song for hours and then I would sob and sob and get it all OUT.

I think that's why I've been sick. Those feelings are poison. Better poison on a page than in my space.

So that's my goal. I'm going to get a new notebook, oh yes that's write, I'm talking about actual paper and pen, and I am going to fill it up.

Sleeplessness...

When I was still in community college I took a creative writing class. Our final was to turn in a chapbook.

In mine, the dedication was a Vonnegut quote.

It read: "A purpose in human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."

It was from his book, The Sirens of Titan.

I think I want that as one of my next tattoos. I already have one Vonnegut tattoo, but in this case I think getting a second would be just fine.

Dear Blog...

Lately, I can't sleep very well. I am moving soon. I still don't have a real job.

I sit here, late at night, surrounded sometimes by amazing friends, and sometimes only by the white picket fence that was provided to me for two years by the university housing. My two years are UP and they were not shy about letting me know.

Dasan's trip is looking good. We have a place to live all lined up.

I still just want a sunny beach somewhere...and a board to surf on. The waves don't even have to be all that good, as long as the weather is nice...

Peek-a-boo

I was in hiding there for a bit, apologies. After taking a break from the blog for a week or so, I have realized that the reality is that even though there are people out there that want to paint me as a monster, the truth is that I have nothing to hide.

I start Monday working as an assistant to a professor at UC Berkeley. It is only a few hours a week, but it will be fun and I can do it from home. In addition to that I had a job interview that went well today and I have my fingers crossed that It will work out.

I have purchased Dasan's ticket for his DC conference and it wiped me out, but I have faith that I can make it all work. Of course, as you know I am not opposed to asking for help ;)

The program is not entirely paid for and they take around $250 from my account every month on the 15th. I don't have it...soooo... be generous if you can, or if you know anyone that can feel free to share the link! His facebook page is here: Dasan to DC!

I've been riding my bike around everywhere lately and it feels good. Tomorrow we're going to a birthday party and we get to swim! Love it.

Swimming with the fishes...

Sometimes when I'm in the shower I turn the water on really cold and pretend like I'm in a swimming pool. I miss swimming. I don't know how my mom did it when I was a kid, but we always had somewhere to swim. Either a beach or a pool. My kid can't really swim very well and I could swim before I could walk. My mom says that she just tossed me overboard and made me fend for myself because she was always afraid of what would happen if we got caught in a storm. We lived on a boat for the first year of my life. When she got pregnant with my brother we stopped living on the boat and after my dad was lost at sea, I'm pretty sure she didn't just toss my brother overboard, but he still could swim at a pretty young age. I remember she used to be a lifeguard at some pool that we would swim at when we were super little. I think by that time she had married my step dad. It might even have been at the hot springs near Julian, CA. We were such weird, tanned, water babies. Whenever someone asks what animal I would most like to be I say some kind of swimming animal. Like a dolphin. Or a shark. Or a giant whale. Or a manatee.

Anyway I really want to go swimming.

Today I am having Creme Brulee ice cream and a glass of wine for breakfast because I'm a grown up.

Energy, I need you.

I have been sick and mopey for days now. It's just silly. I need a job like crazy and it's getting really depressing. I have to book Dasan's tickets to DC and it's going to totally wipe me out. Plus I have to go to the dentist before I die of a tooth infection like the ancients. So basically this time next week I will have exactly zero dollars to my name and no foreseeable income. Horrifying. I'm hoping for a small miracle. I'm really kind of hoping that the self proclaimed "lesbian friendly sperm bank" calls me. That would be super interesting... wish me luck with all this. I need it.

ch.ch.ch.ch...changes...

This space needs a change.
Expect a revamp-ing soon.

My whole world view needs a re-vamping... in the vampiest way ever.

Something sparkely this way is coming...

Trying to take it day by day...

We were supposed to have a post grad anthropology party. The thing is, the morning of, some of us found out that one of us had passed away. That was Sunday morning. Some of us, the few of us that were planning to go, were devastated. It just didn't happen. For me it was a sharp blow to the chest. That kind of pain that you never expect. Which is of course what took him...

A heart attack, deadly, in the middle of the night. I never for a moment thought that when he approached me for pictures at our graduation that it would be the last time I saw him. I struggle with loss. I don't deal with it well. I have a long history with loss, so some might think that it comes naturally to me. That I can deal with it better than others, but that is SOOOO not the case.


So this coming Friday our anthropology department is having a memorial for him. His family is all in either France or Portugal and I'm so glad that someone or many someones, whatever, thought that it would be good to hold a memorial here. His family is grateful to know that though he was far away to get his degree, that he was loved. I don't even know what to say about it. He was here two weeks ago and now he's gone.

He used to talk about making little action figures based on famous anthropological figures. I thought it was brilliant. He was brilliant. He was funny, sassy, smart, welcoming, warm, thoughtful, vibrant, caring, giving, wonderful, and all of those things that people say, except that he really was all of that.


Life is so brutal. I don't think any amount of higher education will ever be able to explain why.

Sleepless

So since I last posted, I've graduated, turned 33, had a really awful tooth infection, and wondered what the hell I'm doing with my life.

I had an amazing visit with my family, and I've decided to not pay my cell phone bill and start over with a new number, maybe.

I want to vanish. To start a whole new life. I'm just not sure how to do it...

Wowzers!

So as of this morning I have officially completed all of my undergraduate work at UC Berkeley. I still have the dreadful business of coming up with the money to buy my degree and transcripts from them, but at least I know that I've done all the work they required of me and I'm done.

Plus, Dasan is enrolled for the Junior National Young Leaders Conference! We raised enough money to get him signed up and have a payment plan for the rest.

Now what...? Find a job. Study for the LSAT. Hope that Boalt will let me in next year so that I can get some more Berkeley lovin'.

Procrastination

I've been watching the fishing shows on the discovery channel lately. I hate fishing, but I sort of feel like I am getting to know my dad a little by watching it. My mom watches sometimes and when I've seen her watching she looks so distant and sad. I don't know why I do this to myself, but lately, maybe because I'm about to graduate, I just sort of wish that I'd had a dad...

That mean ugly ocean is so amazing to me. And they really aren't kidding around when they say how dangerous it is. Those kids really are risking their lives every day they are out there so that you can have some fish sticks and sushi or whatever. Breaks my heart.


I have finals still. I have been putting off my last paper. I have to do it tomorrow. I had the worst job interview ever today. Dasan still needs about $1250 to register for DC. It's rough kids. Help if you can.

Yo-yo

Up and down my kiddies, that is the life of me.

This morning I got the bad news that Dasan will not be getting the scholarship for the DC program. This is sad news. We are in push mode now. We need an additional $2000 in one week. Deadline to register is May 13th. Please, anything helps.

visit his facebook page

And if you can, donate!

Just keep swimming...

I had another phone interview this evening (well, I suppose since it's past midnight I can say that it was yesterday.) It's a very small independently owned company in Oakland. I have an in person interview on Saturday where he will likely test my ability to perform like a chimp some basic office tasks (remind me to brush up on my excel skills) and there may very well be math involved and that would be all bad. I'm hoping my charm and stellar ability to BS my way through life will pay off. Trouble is, my professional wardrobe is much smaller than my body these days. So I must hit up the goodwill for something that hides my tattoos.

This phone interview went WAY better than the last one. This time I was totally prepared. It's hard when you are applying to at least 5 places a day to keep them all in order. I have been very careful about making sure I know exactly where I've been sending my resume though, and when he called I was totally ready and very confident.

I am still trying to catch up on the last couple of weeks of reading for my last final and I have to start my last paper for my other class. I also have to prep and send out my graduation announcements, and all the while we are still waiting to find out about whether or not Dasan will receive the scholarship for the DC program. If not, we are in big trouble. The deadline to register is May 14th. That's a lot of money to raise while all this other stuff is going on.

One day this will all pay off. All of this struggle and stress will seem worth it. Right now it's just a chore to try to remember to breathe.

Vacant

Nothing is really working right now. I'm out of my head. Not in a dangerous way, more like I'm trying to imagine a kind of life that doesn't involve so much pain. I'm floating a little.


The boy is at the beach in Santa Cruz all day today and I am left here to think about things. I will do laundry and read and study a little. And nap of course, because napping is really important.


That said, I graduate soon. I have one more paper and one more final and that's it. I bought myself a silly square hat and I will wear it on the 21st.

Crazy.

I should be reading.

Obviously, I am not. Dasan submitted his application for the scholarship to the Junior National Young Leaders Conference. We find out in two weeks. In the meantime, we have raised enough money for the plane ticket, but we still need so much more to actually get him there. Even if he receives the full scholarship amount he will need to get a week's worth of "business casual" attire in order to attend the conference. Ripped jeans and skate shoes full of holes are against the dress code. For real. These kids have a strict dress code.


In other news, I sent a nasty email to the company that runs the Walk Through the American Revolution presentation that happened at Dasan's school, and he talked to his teacher about it.

Slavery and genocide are not a "bummer." They are very serious and horrific events in the history of this country and should not be made light of. If you want to write to them as well, there is a comments section on their website at California Weekly Explorer, Inc.


And last, but not least, if you can... Donate! Dasan needs all the help he can get :)

Today was a pretty good day :)

So first off, thank you to anyone and everyone that has donated to Dasan's "get to DC" fund! He has almost $500 of the $3000 that he needs! For just 2 days, that's amazing... but we need to register as soon as possible so that space doesn't run out. So if you can, visit his facebook page and donate! And tell all your friends ;)

In other news... I had a phone interview today with the very lovely lady in HR at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. I was so nervous it's kind of ridiculous. Keep your fingers crossed though! I'm waiting to hear back to see if they will be calling me in for an interview with the department heads. I SO want this.

Also this morning Dasan was Thomas Jefferson in some kind of interactive history lesson/play at his school. It was LONG, but totally adorable. Though I must say I'm more than a little irritated that it was all about the original 13 colonies and there was nothing more than a collective "oh bummer" about both slavery and the genocide of Native Americans. I'm going to send that program a little something something because they literally just said "oh bummer" about it. Not cool.

Ok... back to work. I've got stuff to read and finals to study for. Oh, and a paper to write. Ugh.

It's raining... but the future is bright as hell :)

My amazing son has been nominated to take part in this summer's Junior National Young Leaders Conference in Washington DC!

The problem...?? We can't afford it. So we are fund raising. Starting now! The sooner the better, because even though the event is only open to nominated children, it is also first come first serve, and we just don't have any money. So if you can, help get my amazing kid to this amazing event!

Here is a link to a facebook page, that includes in the info section, a link to donate.
click here to change a kid's life

You won't regret it.

Stuff that's important

There are things in life that are more important than autopoiesis and pedagogy (sorry, the last article I read was all about that.)

One of those things is simply having someone to talk to. A good friend, maybe a couple of them.

I have been lucky enough in life to have more than one of them, in fact, I have quite a few and each of them offers both amazing advice and insight into my life, and also the kind of support that most people can only imagine.

So a little bit ago I posted about being rejected by the lab rat people, turns out they changed their minds. So tomorrow I am going to the clinic for my first round of tests to see if I really do qualify to take the drug they are testing. It's actually already FDA approved to help people quit smoking and they are now testing it to see if it has any effect on drinking. This should be fun.

I have so much reading to do, and a paper to write, but I can't focus on a damn thing because I just really need a job. So I spend all my time applying to jobs instead of doing my work.

I can't even sleep at night. My brain won't stop. Something has got to give.

Damn Capitalism

Being poor is hard.

I never really understood when I was growing up what it was like for my mom. We lived in a really odd sort of space, my step father's mother owned some property in one of the richest parts of Orange County, but we had nothing. So the old lady let my parents rent an apartment from her for dirt cheap, in a town where nothing was dirt cheap. I went to school with kids that lived in mansions, literally. The television show "The OC" was almost certainly based on where I grew up. The writer, I'm pretty sure, was a graduate of the high school I dropped out of.

So among the rich kids I always wanted what they had, not so much the pool slides from the 3rd story bedroom window, but I did want to have nice clothes. You know, the name brand stuff.

Now, I regret every "mom please" that I ever uttered.

Lucky for me, my son doesn't care about all that. He's grown up punk rock. Holes in your shoes just show character. But for me, it's hard. Holes in your shoes don't really show character, they show that you can't afford to get new shoes.

So I pretend to shop. I go online and look at things that I would buy if only I had the money. I load up my online shopping cart and then..... CLOSE THE WINDOW. In a strange way it's very comforting. Knowing that the stuff is out there, and maybe soon I can get some of it. Knowing that someday I might not have to worry about it. Someday I might not have to choose between shoes and vegetables. Between batteries for the Wii remote and toothpaste and toilet paper.

Dammit, I'm making myself get all sad. Enough of this.



When I'm a rich lawyer, or forensic anthropologist, or professor, or whatever, I'm going to buy tons of shit and give it to poor single mothers. Cuz man, we need it.

Let's do the time warp again...

So trying to get the mamas to commit to a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a lot harder than getting a bunch of teenagers to do it. I guess that's one of the sacrifices of adulthood, going out at midnight just isn't as easy as it used to be.

However, we will try.

In other news, I'm in a very Bukowski mood these days, so I will share with you this:

escape by Charles Bukowski

the day you were starving and watching the
swans in the park,
it was truly not a bad day
watching them circle,
it was quiet,
you looked at their feathers, their necks,
their eyes.
for a moment you thought of
catching one, killing it, eating it.
but
you had nothing to cook
one on.
and you knew you couldn't do
it anyway.
there were many things you
couldn't do.
that's why you were starving in a public park.

then there were voices, a
young lady in her summer
dress, and she was with her
young man and they were
laughing.

you looked at them and made
them dead,
you placed them in their
grave,
you saw their bones,
the skulls.

then you got up from the
grass and left them there with
the swans.

you walked out of the park,
you were on the boulevard,
you began walking,
walking seemed sensible
and it wasn't a bad
day,
just another day,
walking the sidewalk,
the world slanting through
your brain -
a white shot of
light.
being alone you decided, was a
magnificent
miracle.
nothing else made any
sense at
all.

Productivity... Kinda

I got out of bed today and actually put REAL pants on! Usually on my days off I just lay around in my jammies. The thing is, all of my jammies were in desperate need of being washed. So I actually did laundry today too. In addition to that, I finally caught up with all of my reading! This is exciting because it means that I will have time to start research for my paper.

Ok, so maybe none of that is exciting.

Best part of the day though...? Yesterday I applied to be a lab rat in a clinical trial whose supposed goal was to help people quit smoking. I was rejected because I don't smoke enough. On the one hand, that's hilarious. On the other hand, I could have really used the money...

Zombie Day!

It's raining which pretty much means I will stay in my jammies all day and pretend like there is no outside world. That's what rainy days do to me when I don't have any need to leave the house. The kid is currently at an indoor egg hunt at a friends house and I am having an early glass of wine while listening to Silence of the Lambs on the television in the background and I think it's kind of perfect.

My silly boy totally thought that I would let this holiday go by without giving him a basket full of candy and so he was very pleasantly surprised to find one this morning and has been a lovely child all day long. I did wake up early to whip up some chocolate chip pancakes for him for breakfast, but since then napping has occupied much of my day. I always feel weird celebrating holidays like this. Growing up, my family was sort of half-non-practicing-non-church-going-catholic, but I'm straight up atheist so it just makes me uncomfortable, especially now that my mom runs away to Mexico for every holiday and my grandparents are all dead. But dude, my kid wants chocolate bunnies too! So I play along, grudgingly.

I need to finish reading a book called Prison Religion and write a short paper about it for Tuesday. And a billion other things to read. And I have to come up with three more poems to enter for this scholarship that I probably won't get, but am going to try for anyway. And I have to figure out my life.

Tonight, if I can get any reading done at all, I will watch Capitalism, a Love Story.

Tomorrow I might go apply for a job at the local brewery. I could be the hostess with the mostest and that would be better than nothing I suppose.

Happy zombie day kids, I'm going to try to get some shit done. Even though it's raining.

I need sunny days.

The nights where I sit around and realize that almost everything that has gone wrong in my life is because I am kind of a jerk really suck. They force me to recognize how alone I am, and that it is because I am distant and anti-social.

Also I am extreme and passionate, which I think are good things, but most others find to be really damn off-putting.

What to do...?

The ways in which we avoid doing our required reading...

When I started this blog it was partly to raise money to be able to move to Berkeley and partly to document what happened once I arrived.

Never did it occur to me that there were more of me. Never did I think that there was going to be this extensive community of mothers that had suffered, struggled, succeeded, and surpassed all expectations of "what they should have been."

I never once thought that "at my age" I would go to some university and actually make friends, and I never once thought that the friends I would make would be this network of people that really are more than a network and more than "just" friends. I think, as I near the end of my struggle through undergraduate academia and near the beginning of a new struggle altogether, I think that I was pretty blind to think that the mamas of the world couldn't do this, that they wouldn't be here. I think that I was brought up to assume that single mamas just don't go to college, they don't do smart shit with their lives. And I also think that my being taught that was no mistake, and no misunderstanding, and that it was deliberate, and that it still happens to young mamas every single day. I also think we should try to fix that shit.


As soon as we realize that they, "they," whoever the fuck "they" are have no say in our real lives, the better off we are.

I should be doing my homework. It's just that I'm so full of emotion lately. The notion of leaving here, with nowhere to go, except of course the homes of the women here who are willing to take me in... it just twists my head up in all kinds of different Foulcauldian ways. I love the love, but I hate "the system" even more now than I did when I was a teen-aged anarchist. That's life, I suppose.

Late night babble.

I have a lot of things that I could complain about.

That's not what I'm going to do right now, I could, but I'm not going to.

Instead I want to talk about how amazing my mama family is. I have been so damn lucky for the last 11 years. Since first finding a family through Hipmama and since then finding my Cal family of mamas, I just feel like even though the universe has us pegged as miscreants, losers, and statistics we have built up this network of awesomeness that is a force to be reckoned with. In the course of my son's life I have been lucky enough to cross paths with some of the most wonderful, talented, creative, strong, beautiful, amazing women and the kinds of children that I would be grateful to have in places of power.

Some of us are hurting right now, myself included, because of the ways in which the systems in place, political, economic, societal, cultural, and educational, are set up to see us fail... yet we still thrive and survive. Like a good mama friend of mine keeps saying, the fact that we are breathing is counter hegemonic. That's not good enough for me though.

I want to see a movement that is powerful. I want to see us challenge the systems that are in place and take that shit over. I want to see us take over, and to see our children take over, and to see us use our ability to create meaningful and powerful networks in ways that allow for imagining new ways of life for us and our families.

Maybe it's the insomnia talking, or maybe there are just too many of us for it to make sense that we sit by and watch time drift past us while we could be changing the world.

Where do we start? Who's with me?

Flip... flops...

Nope, not just the weather kids (although the weather has been quite lovely too.)

I am going to graduate after all. May 21st is the big day. I will somehow get enough money to rent the damn cap and gown and send out some announcements and deal with all of my family being here at the same time and it will be awesome. (?)

I have been doing a tag team job search with my lovely friend and fellow Cal victim who has been staying with me, and we have high hopes for figuring this crap out.

In the meantime we are both trying not to shave our heads. It's really interesting how hair can play such a huge role in a person's life. It can totally control a person.

Speaking of things that can control a person, I am going to be writing a paper for my class on controlling processes about the counter hegemonic ways that single mothers at UC Berkeley form community and alternative families as a way to get through all this and survive beyond.

So come May I will officially be a Cal grad. I may also be homeless, so if you know anyone that wants to give me a job go ahead and send them my way!

All of my music is depressing. Of course that's okay, because like I said to my roomie earlier, no one wants to hear about happy shit. People want to hear about how you have clawed your way out of the goddamned gutter with no claws. Well I clipped my nails earlier tonight kids, and I'm on my way out of this gutter if it's the last thing I do.

Reflection... it's not always about the mirror.

8 years ago today I tossed my grandmother's ashes into the pacific ocean. It was windy. My mother was in a wheelchair and high on painkillers and I was a drunken mess.

Not much has changed, except that nothing at all is the same.

It killed me to read that post again, because man I am in such a darker place right now, and my self back then would never have even thought that what I've been doing the last few years would have even been a possibility. It's all about perspective. Time and space and reflection.

Cheers gramma <3


As of now it looks like the thesis probably won't happen. It looks like I am going to have to withdraw from this semester and hope for a do-over next year. And that would be okay. I think maybe I just need to catch my breath.

March 4th 2010

Technically, this is all happening later today, but let's pretend that my insomnia does not exist and just talk about it all like it's happening tomorrow...

The Strike. The big one. State wide. It was personal before, but now it's like really, really personal. I mean my professors that canceled classes in support of this very strike talk about the very things that are making my life hell and a half right now. They talk about them as though they are things that will make trouble for future generations, but the reality is that it is my future, and my son's future that is at stake here, in addition to all of the others that may never have a chance at getting to this space where I have found myself.

So tomorrow, March 4th, we will rally and march in Berkeley, Sacramento, SF, Davis, UCLA, and all the others. We will make an attempt to show the state and the world that we will not put up with the continued privatization and corporatization of the UC system and we will not just sit back and watch California public schools from K-University levels be stripped of the diversity and accessibility that we not only expect, but deserve.

I know that the cuts and fee hikes that I have to deal with won't go away, but if we can change anything about the direction that the system is headed in, then it is more than worth it for me to get out there with so many others and make our voices heard.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=190712843977&index=1

Do what you can, speak up. Apathy and silence is acceptance.

Hey, Melissa Alvarez, this blog's for you!

So the other night I was pretty freaked out man. It was a shock to the system, and one that came at me after 3 days of very little sleep, a stressed out boy that was sad that we were moving back to SoCal, and of course, the stress of school, and life.

Turns out, (as always) the things that seem like setbacks and total chaos and destruction are actually little signals that tell me I was going the wrong way.

So just a day later I feel better than ever, and though nothing is certain at the moment, I feel like my game plan just might work. And if it does, then I will be leaving here maybe a year later than planned, but with honors and ready for anything :)

Had a good long talk with mom tonight too. And I will be able to sleep tonight knowing that everything is going to work out, or at least we will all try our hardest to make it so.

And Melissa, if you want to be inspired, there are a ton of us single mamas working this UC Berkeley world. Some of the most amazing people on the planet are mama students right here. My neighbors and friends. I'm lucky to have them, and I hope you come join us :)

A new day...

So I've slept on it. Which means next to nothing, but it does mean that I actually got more than 3 hours of sleep for a change and everything seems maybe just a little less awful than it did yesterday.


I keep wondering if maybe instead of boo-hoo-ing about all of this I can maybe convince my major adviser that I should stay an extra year to do an honors thesis...? It is a year long program, and I have the gpa to do it, so maybe?

Of course, I'd need a topic... and a professor to sponsor me.

This could work.

I will make it work.

I always do :)

How quickly things can change...

Let's just say that the last few months have been confusing, and challenging, and just straight up rough.

So up until today I've been looking for jobs on campus, thinking shit would work itself out and since now I am like 99% certain that is not the case I decided to check out the craigslist ads for work. This is not the first time I've done this, I mean I'm not living in a total fantasy land so I like to keep on the up and up about what's out there, but this is the first time that I have looked really seriously at it.

I had no idea how horribly sad it would make me to think that I've spent all this time trying to work toward something else, something that didn't make me want to crawl into a hole and die, only to be looking at the want ads for the same shit I've done for years. The shit that drained me of my soul.

I know, so dramatic, but fuck. I didn't give up everything and move away and cause all kinds of drama just to do the same thing I was doing before I left, but right now that is probably my most viable option. And since it is tax season, there is shit out there.

So I will brush the tears aside, brush up my resume, and hit up the salvation army for some respectable clothes, because right now it looks like all those years I spent telling people that an education would make no difference in my life, well, it looks like maybe I was right.

4 units away from a lame education (that has actually been the highlight of my life, but what good does that do my poor ass?) and I am on the verge of being without a degree and looking to go right back where I started, except homeless and dogless and the enemy of my family.


If I had just stayed where I was, maybe my mom would get to keep her house. Maybe I wouldn't have to give up my dogs (who are like children to me,) and maybe I wouldn't have had to put my son through two years of making friends just to rip him away from them.


Maybe the people who said that I was just being stupid and selfish by coming here were right. Probably they were.

So fine, you guys win. For now, but don't doubt for a second that I won't keep fighting.