First Day of School (Day 114)

I'm both excited and nervous for the first day of school. I'm worried about the unspoken questions my teachers and friends may have about why I've disappeared since last fall. I walk to Savior Man's house right around the corner from the hotel but I have to make two trips to carry all my stuff and Spencer. This makes me late and Savior Man snaps at me that he's now late and it's my fault. In my defense I called him twice.

Then when he can't find something it's just his exboyfriend/boyfriend/roommate waiting for him. I ask if Savior Man is having a bad morning and informs me they got into an argument and he's worried about not getting signed into a speech course. I nod, sympathetic.

I have two hours to kill before my classes after we finally get to the campus. I visit teachers I've missed in the months I've been gone but feel awkward. I feel them wondering but not asking where I've been all this time. I haven't quite decided how honest I'm going to be. I've always been an upfront and honest person, too much so, but this is just different. In recent weeks I've gotten more open about it. The more open I am the more empowered I feel, but I know it wouldn't take too much to take that empowerment away. Though I know my teachers would most likely be accommodating to my situation, I've had all but one (who is new to campus) of my teachers before and I took their classes because I adore them. (Technically, I haven't taken my photo journalism teacher's class before, but he is a friend to me.)

I walk to Kmart to find a few things I forgot to grab before class. I stop by Dutch Brothers on my way back to campus. When I rode with my friend to classes before I would treat him to a coffee every morning for giving me a ride. At the time I had money so I was able to do so without it being an issue. Now, not so much but since I know Savior Man is having a bad morning and I didn't help I buy him a latte. I find him on the way to my political science class and give him the latte. He smiles surprised and thanks me.

I head to class and get there a few minutes before it starts. I find a seat in the back and settle in. While I wait for the teacher (who comes in late) I fill out my productive time sheets for my housing application. Political Science is the one teacher I don't know. I had been wanting to take a political science class since I graduated high school but didn't because there was only one political science teacher on campus and he started a political cult on campus. (I'm not even joking.) He sued the campus and teachers on it and I believe another teacher is suing him. Anyhow, he was a crazy guy I heard a lot about working on the paper. His scandals were in the paper just about every week so as a result I waited until he left campus to enroll in political science.

The political science teacher to replace our former one also teaches at the state university which makes me happy, hopefully it won't be nonsense. He assigns us chapters out of the text book to read which sucks for me because I never buy the book until the first day of class. He wants it read by Wednesday so I'm screwed if I don't buy it today. Fuck. My. Life.

After class I stop by the newspaper lab to see everybody. There are hugs given out and "how was your summer"s. Our classroom has been changed around and the semen couch has been removed, much to all of our dismay.

My literature class in the afternoon is taught by one of my favorite teachers on campus. Her Creative Writing Nonfiction class was one of the classes I took the first term I was on campus. I adored her and trusted her enough to submit a 145 page final (it was supposed to be 12 pages) at the end of class. She read the whole thing and edited it for me, pushing me to consider publishing. I appreciate her doing that and will list her in the gratitude list should I ever publish, as I promised her on the first page of my manuscript I turned in almost two years ago.

As it turns out Savior Man's boyfriend is in my class. I kick the back of his chair as a greeting on my way to a seat in the front of the classroom. She goes over the syllabus and takes roll. We look at a short story online  that was written in the 1800's. She gives us a list of books and holds a small discussion. I slip out to go to the bookstore and buy my political science book. $96 used. I hate myself for spending that much at the student bookstore but I can't go without it. I cannot get behind.

Savior Man drops me off at Clackamas Town Center after his boyfriend and I get out of class. I run to Target to get some school supplies then take the max to downtown. In shelter I put on music and try to tune everything out so that I can focus on homework.

Yougio and McDonalds Buddy in shelter help by not letting people distract me and intervening when the Ginger Clan start to pick on me. I appreciate them so much. I'm up until one in the morning working on political science before I take a shower and stumble to bed.

--mm

BABY TIME!!!!!!!!!

So, currently in the hospital with Baby Mama, her boyfriend, and her dad. Doctors are working on getting her cervix dilated enough to induce labor. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO Excited to finally meet this baby!!! I'm exhausted but sleeping in the hospital definitely beats shelter! So excited.

Day 112-113

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

I spend the weekend enjoying my hotel room with Spencer. I'm not sure how to be alone anymore so I ask my shelter friends to come over the second day. I run around to get school supplies and end up stealing most of what I need. The $15 Bernard gave me in gift cards doesn't go far with my pretentious tastes in school supplies.

Spencer and I bond again, and it's good to have him sleeping on my side again. I don't know how I'm going to go back to being without him. I miss my kitten so much.

During this time, to my frustration my computer dies completely. It just stops working. I try to restore it but that only makes the problems worse. I'm definitely frustrated.

I take a bubble bath again, like I did when Jesus and I had the hotel room. I spend the three days naked. I have missed being naked quite a bit.

All in all though it's good to recoop before I start back up at school. I need the time to rest, even though I'm not quite sure how to anymore.

--mm

Day One Hundred and Eleven

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

I'm completely and totally drained. There is nothing left in me at all anymore. I don't even want to fight or argue. I'm just done. Months of harassment and bullying have just taken everything out of me. There is nothing left to me. No bark. No bite. I just want to sleep.

I go to the library to hide but hiding doesn't happen. A particular girl in shelter texts me to ask where I am. I haven't mentioned her before (that I can remember) though she's been here since before me. She is kind of mousey and often acts like a little kid. For a long time I avoided her for these reasons. She was too naive, too just fragile. She is a Twilight fan. I didn't want to associate with her and her boyfriend.

Since the baby shower this has changed. She and her boyfriend single handily won every game I threw at them. They were sweet and involved, wished Baby Mama luck. Slowly, I began to get to know them for more than their outward appearances.

Still, I'm not up for company. I look like complete and total shit; frazzled hair, bags under my eyes; I can't remember if I've bothered to shower in the past two days. (Oh yeah, I did. I kicked a hole in the wall.) I'm not one to blow people off like that though. I admit I'm in the library.

She and her boyfriend come upstairs and find me. No bullshit, just straight, "You have your ID on you?"
"Are we going to get trashed?"
"Yes."
"Hallelujah."

We go to the liquor store. None of us look 21. When we get to the register we slam down our ID's at the same time. The clerk laughs at us and says, "I feel like a pedophile."

We take our raspberry vodka up to a park outside of downtown. We buy Gateroaide on the way and drink down the bottles so we can mix some vodka in. They brought their dog with them. She's a toy Pomeranian but to me she looks like a rat. She's quiet. Spencer would eat her in two bites.

I make a decision while we're drinking. I decide I'm going to use my aunt's check to get a hotel room. We walk back to the day program and I pick up the check then deposit it. I call the hotel I stayed at with Jesus and bargain for a room for the weekend. I pick up Spencer then we go to the hotel room.

My bank put a hold on the check so my card declines. They loan me the $200 and I swear I'll pay them back. We drink some but end up passing out. Shelter has exhausted all of us. We are too excited to be sleeping on real beds.

I try to go without my sleeping pill since I drank booze but after my third time waking from nightmares I get up and take it so I can finally enjoy sleeping on a real bed.

--mm

Day One Hundred and Ten.

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

Seeing as I'm so behind on everything right now I'm only going to write the important details for days 110-115.

Before I go into shelter I go to Whole Foods for my internet time. I get bored so I decide to sign into my nine month neglected OkCupid account. I'm just going to poke around and play some of the games/quizzes and delete messages but when I see the account that's emailed me I stop dead.

Are my eyes decieving me or has this guy really messaged me?

Two years ago while I was homeless and living at Nat's I began talking to a particular Mexican guy. We talked everyday for the month I was in California. It was the first time I ever felt so comfortable with someone. I was able to share things with him that my best friend hardly knew. We flirted late into the night with me giggling on my best friend's floor, keeping her awake before she had to go to school the next day.

We liked to joke that he looked like our celebrity crush at the time, ghost hunter Ryan Buell. (Paranormal State is a whole nother story). I would tease him about this, and he equally teased me back saying, "What was that? There's a ghost in my house!" For this reason for the blog we will name him Ryan.

When I came back to Portland I stayed in a hotel room. On a whim he drove from Salem (45 minutes) to my hotel after work. We watched Drillbit Taylor laying on the bed, not even touching. When we started to doze off he asked permission to sleep in his boxers. I laughed at him.

Our shyness didn't last long. One minute we went from talking, to touching, to clothes ripping off in the dark. I had never done anything like that with anyone before but I felt completely safe with him. I have issues with having my neck touched; I hate it. I don't think I ever had to tell him, he just somehow knew not to touch my neck.

We didn't sleep together that night, we did everything but. In the heat of the moment I pulled back and said no and he respected me. Two nights later we were both too sexually frustrated to stand it. He drove to my place (I had found one by then) from 45 minutes away and we finished the job.

This happened a few times. He was the only one with a car but he made the drive every time. When we couldn't see each other we sent each other cutesy stuff. He used to work at Starbucks so everytime I got a coffee I sent a picture of the scribbled code to him for him to guess what drink I got. He sent me an audio bite of him and his two year old meowing at each other.

I got clingy and needy. I was a fucking mess and then some. I wouldn't have been able to handle myself if I were him. He stopped calling and we never spoke again.

Until, now. He's messaging me again.

I squeal and call Nat right away and tell her. She starts laughing but tells me I should blow him off the way he blew me off. I tell her I don't want to do that. I understand and I'm not going to hold a grudge. She tells me he's probably just using me. He admitted he is on the rebound from a two year relationship. I say I don't care. I'm still kind of on the rebound too, but that's another story.

I'm not looking for happily ever after here. I'm looking for some fun sexcapades. We had such an immediate attraction to each other. I don't see why not to have fun with it again. I'm really excited. We talk until I go into shelter.

When I come into shelter one of the boys pulls me aside. He tells me they filled the one remaining bedroom I was trying to get into. The one there was no hurry to fill until I got a job. I'm livid. I ask Bitch Lady to confirm this is true. She says it is.

"That's fucked up," is all I say before turning to take a shower.

Angry Black Lady pulls me aside and tries to talk to me about this whole conundrum but I don't want to talk. I can't take anymore. I ignore her and go into the shower stall. I start the water and jump in, thinking shit there's no way. There is no way I can go to school and work and live in shelter. Not with the bullying and harassment I can't stand.

I can't take anymore. I just can't. I want my life back. I am so close but it's all going to slip through my fingers if I don't get out of this hell hole. I kick the wall in the shower. I underestimate my kick and my foot goes straight through the wall. I should be worried about a BLA but I just start laughing. Staff didn't see it so they can't do anything. And if they argue they can, all I have to do is say "why were you watching me in the shower because if you didn't see it with your own two eyes you can't give me a BLA."

I find this almost too funny. It's nice that for once the bullshit they pull on me will backfire in their face. I finish my shower and dry off. I put on pajamas and start towards my dorm. I think I'm just going to go to bed and sleep off this frustration but Angry Black Lady pulls me aside and tries to talk to me again. I DON'T want to talk but I oblige.

Bitch Lady sees this and comes up to the two of us sitting at the table and yells at me, "You need to knock it off." I look at Angry Black Lady completely speechless. This is a new low for Bitch Lady; to try and bully me when I'm talking to a completely different staff. Nevermind the fact that I did not want to have this conversation in the first place.

The staff bullying carries on until one in the morning. Director Lady watches all of this until she leaves at eleven but she doesn't intervene on my behalf, even after Angry Black Lady pulls Director Lady aside to talk to her about the way Bitch Lady is acting. I try to go to bed but it continues so I grab my cell phone and call Baby Mama to see if I can go to her place. She says it's okay but the bus to her house stopped ten minutes prior.

I start putting on layers to sleep outside. Angry Black Lady says, "I wish you wouldn't" when I tell her I'm leaving to sleep outside. It's the same thing Upchuck's rich girlfriend said before I left the south. But, I know myself and I know I have to go. I cannot take one more minute in the shelter. I ignore the Ginger Clan who sit openly laughing at me.

My McDonald's buddy sees me walking out with all the blankets and layers and stops me. "What the hell is going on M?" I tell him I'm sleeping outside. I can't take one more moment in shelter. I don't want to be in here. I cannot take anymore. I can't. I'm so far past my breaking point.

"You can't leave," he says, "You can't leave me and Yougio. Who is going to help us pull off everything we take to house meeting? Look at all the stuff we've changed." He pulls down a stapled pamphlet Director Lady put up after our last house meeting per our request. It lists all of the various proposals we passed in our last house meeting. All of which were proposed and thought of with the three of us. They are (mostly) as follows:
*Putting Clorox wipes on the back of the toilet so we can piss without having to sit on piss.
*No movie Wednesday nights so we can use the area as a TV room
*Extended the time we are allowed to purchase food.

There were a number of other things but I don't remember. "Without you we wouldn't have been able to do all this," he says, "You can't leave here. You can't just give up. You can't."

He hugs me and sends me to bed. I toss and turn and hardly sleep; hating every moment I'm in the shelter.

--mm

Day One Hundred and Nine

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

For our third day of JRT it's over at 1pm. I go to the day program and ask Bernard if he found the information to get me an honored citizen bus pass. He hands me the form and I take it to the clinic to get it filled out. While I wait for it to be finished my phone rings. It's a number I don't know.

"Hello?"
"Hi, this is C from Tj Max."
I leap off the bench I'm sitting on. I can't sit still. I pace around the clinic and do miniature gigs, waiting for what I believe will be good news. The other people in the clinic but I don't care.
"I wanted to hire you if you are still interested."
I try to avoid sounding too eager. I accept the job saying I'm still interested. I explain my school schedule and he says there won't be a problem with that. It's part time but that's okay.

After I hang up I scream upstairs to the day program for Bernard. He rolls his eyes at me as I scream up the stairs, "I got the job."
"Hold on," He says and starts down the stairs. When he gets down he says, "You could have had the receptionist call me."
"Yelling was faster."

He congratulates me and says we'll have to make sure that school and work will both be manageable. I roll my eyes. Does he so easily forget I'm a workaholic? He says he knows I like to stay busy but he doesn't want me to overwork myself. I roll my eyes again. He says he'll get me into the Annex so I can have my own room. Now that I have work and school surely they can't deny me.

I go to Trimet and turn in my honored citizen application. I'm worried they'll look me up and see that I have a past due Trimet ticket but they give me the pass anyways. I'm elated. School, a job, a cheap bus pass. Huzzah. And I'll be getting my own room soon. Right?

Nope. When I talk to Director Lady she blows me off saying that I have to work 80 hours before I can get into the annex. This is some serious bullshit. How does she continually keep changing the requirements behind everyone's back? I'm sick of her manipulating me and the rest of the youth. I'm starting to see past her sweet act. It isn't lost on me that no matter how many times I talk to her nothing ever changes. She acts like she cares but so far, nothing has changed. I'm bullied daily by staff and youth. I'm being set up for failure by these constantly changing requirements that no one else seems to know about.

I'm really not sure how I'm going to pull this one off.

In shelter Bitch Lady tells me she wrote me a reference letter to get me into the annex. This confuses me. In part because I didn't know that was a requirement for the annex. I also don't see why she's writing a letter to get me in seeing as Director Lady is apparently dead set against me moving up into the shelter. Then there's also the fact that this is Bitch Lady. It appears she's up to something because she is the LAST person that I would think to ask for a reference to anything.

"I think you have a lot of good qualities," she says as I stitch my baby blanket, "You're generous and determined...." She trails off and I stop listening. I feel uneasy. As nice as it would be to believe that Bitch Lady is turning a new leaf with me I also know that there has to be something more to it than that. Or at least there should be an apology connected to it.

--mm

My Pretties!

I'm so sorry to have neglected you. I've been sooooooo busy with school and my computer's harddrive broke down. I will be back on updating soon. Computer will be home from doctor's tomorrow.

Day One Hundred and Eight

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

It's the second day of the job readiness training. I'm ready. In the morning I want to give Bernard my housing application but he's with a youth in the community. I sigh and roll my eyes. Why don't people just sit around and wait for me all day? (jk) ;)

JRT is alright. I don't really know what to say about it. It goes over the secrets on resumes, applications and the like to figure out what is nationally most appealing. It's a lot of stuff I already know from working but every now and then there's something that surprises me. The ginger clan follow me but I ignore them.

The instructor said we can work around me starting school next week if I finish everything in the class this week. So I'm working my butt off to get these assignments done. Bernard said it was up to me if I wanted to continue the class since I'm going to school but I figured it wouldn't hurt. It'll provide productive time and maybe give me an upper hand. Even with school I'm still going to need a job. I don't have my tuition waiver or scholarships this year.

After I finish at the class for the day I meet with Bernard about the final things we need to do before I can get into housing and about getting me an honored citizen bus pass. This will save me a ton of money. Instead of paying over $100 a month for a bus pass it will be $26 a month or $1 per bus ride. I want that. He says he'll look into it.

When I check my email I have one from the college dean saying that my refund for the math class has been approved and expedited. He personally welcomes me back. I want to scream. I don't have to cash my aunt's check! I have been welcome back to school by the dean! I could do cart wheels in the street if I knew how!

I am so thrilled with how everything is working out. I tell my aunt the news and she tells me I can use the check for books and bus passes if I need to. I really hope I don't have to. I'm just so happy that I get to go home to my "print family" and my school. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is looking out for me. Finally.

But no, it will still get better.

--mm

Day One Hundred and Seven

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

The biggest complaint I hear about the job readiness program is that it feels too much like school. This is what I'm most looking forward to.

Bernard warns me my dearly beloved ginger kids will be in JRT too. Guess those kids just can't get enough of me. He tells me he warned the instructor of our issues so she'll keep an eye on us. I head over to the program as soon as we're done talking and get there right in time. It is tremendously like school but I'm thrilled about this. I miss being a student. I miss learning.

The program times itself so that it lines up with the day program. We work on job applications and go over basic work place information that is almost juvenile but I understand not everyone has had job experience. Most of these kids have their GED at best so I try not to be irritable when it gets redundant. Instead I use it as time to crochet. I'm almost done with the baby blanket which is a good thing. There's only thirteen days left until Mr. Cire's birthday.

I have to miss afternoon class to see the ear doctor. I still have whatever it is OHSU got stuck in my ear stuck in my ear. It's a walk to get there and it's ninety outside but it's not too far behind shelter which is a nice surprise. The doctor has a chair that looks like a dentist chair and all kinds of crazy contraptions that I haven't seen before. While I wait for him to come in I hear the receptionist on the phone explaining a surgery to someone.

It makes my stomach turn and my body shudder. Just the word "surgery" is very much a dirty word to me. It's been almost a year and I'm still recovering from my ordeal. I get nervous that maybe the doctor won't be able to get whatever it is that's stuck in my ear and they'll have to cut me open again.

I don't need to worry. When the doctor comes in he uses his fancy contraption to look in my good ear. He says it looks perfect, almost too perfect. Then he looks in the bad ear. It's not ear wax. It's a Q-tip. He wets it and pulls it out with tweazers. It's all over. A month after OHSU screwed up my ear I can now hear again. Hallelujah. And all it took was two minutes.

I spend the rest of the day working on my housing application. I get it until it's absolutely flawless then print it. In shelter Director Lady decides to hold a meeting between me and the ginger clan. I use it as an opportunity to tear the ginger kids a new asshole. In my defense though I've been as mature as I can with this whole situation.

When I catch them staring at me I smile and wave. When I hear them talking shit about me I roll my eyes and ignore it. When I hear them talking loudly about how they are prioritized for transitional housing because she is pregnant I remind myself how pathetic it is to get pregnant just so you can have access to resources. I try to bite down my abortion recommendations I would like to give them. I've been a good little girl. My case manager has even commended me about how I've handled this whole thing. The poor guy is stuck with all three of us for case management.

So when I ask him for help getting a restraining order against them he tells me, "We'll figure it out if this is what you want to do." He finds the information online and tells me to ignore what they are saying about being prioritized. He lets it slip that they haven't been meeting with him like they're supposed to. It's just more to smile about. What I want most right now in this situation is to beat them into housing. Ginger Kid is always saying that shelter is supposed to be the place you come to work on getting out. He says that you don't have to be homeless if you work the program.

He's been in shelter longer than anybody in there.

I just want to throw it in his face that I worked the program and got out so he should take his own advice. Don't worry, I'll be nice about it. I'm thinking I'll just send them a thank-you letter once I'm out. I figure I owe them for keeping me motivated and helping Bernard prioritize me so I don't have to deal with their harassment anymore. I really owe them.

Director Lady has to shut down the meeting I'm so mean. I just needed to let it out. 

In shelter I put it in sheet protects and bind it in a folder. I'm joking with my shelter group while I'm doing this and we're all having a good time. This gets the Ginger Kids all riled up but I'm having an excellent time with my friends and my application. I get to go back to school. I get to go into housing. My life is finally looking up.

--mm

Finally Something Good Happens (Day 106)

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

Sorry I've gotten so behind. The job readiness program has been keeping me very busy. Finally doing something constructive.

So Sunday (Day 106) I went to Whole Foods to spend my time. I briefly contemplated going to church but didn't feel up to it. I just wanted quiet time to myself. This was a very good decision because as it turned out my best friend in the whole universe was online.

You lovely readers have not yet been introduced to my dearest best friend ever so here is our story. We first met when I was in fifth grade (I'm a year older than her) and we were in the same theater program. We didn't speak again until high school when we were on the water polo team. We became pretty decent friends but didn't get closer until my senior year when we both participated in the journalism program.

We became best friends on prom night of that year. Best Friend held a sleep over at her house following prom. She had to help me out of my prom dress because I was so damn poofy. (I should have weighed that dress. Pretty sure  it was at least 10 pounds).

Us girls ended up playing with an Oujia board which I had never done before. I don't know how I made it to eighteen without ever playing with a Oujia board, it seems like such a childhood rite of passage to me now. I don't really know what it is that happened that night but somehow Best Friend and I just bonded in a way we hadn't in all the years we had known each other before. I found I could just be real with her.

I'll admit our friendship is weird. We should not be best friends. Her parents are (somewhat begrudgingly) still married and she is the second oldest of four. Her family is quirky and funny but really tight nit. They are the kind of family all of us other kids were jealous of. Laid back parents who were cool and siblings you can get along with. (At the prom sleep over I realized that I had become friends with Best Friend and her brother both separately in school.)

My best friend doesn't know what it's like to have a completely deranged mother or to be forced to sleep on concrete but she has never judged me for these things and somehow despite how fucked up my life is we still relate. When I lost my first job out here (a nanny job) I went back to my hometown to try and stay with my mother. This lasted all of two days before my mother kicked me out to the street.

My best friend and her mother picked me up off the side of the road and I stayed with her family for three months. I finally found the sister I always wanted growing up. I became dearly attached to her entire family. Her siblings still call me their "other sister" and it's not all that uncommon for me to end up staying at their house even when Nat is off at college.

Christmas morning my grandmother came to pick me up from her house to go to breakfast. I was still upstairs when she arrived. My grandmother mistook my friend for me and planted a wet one on her cheek saying, "I've missed you!" I came flying down the stairs to intervene on my friend's behalf. To this day she still says this was the worst moment of her life. As I'm typing this I'm trying not to laugh.

Nat is now going to school at UCLA and living her dreams. Originally she said she was going to go for biology which I always knew she would drop to pursue a more artistic career. She is now studying acting and directing. I always said I'd be a therapist. Nat always knew I wouldn't have the patience for that and would instead pursue my passion: writing.

I think it's safe to say we know each other better than we know ourselves.

We both like to keep busy so it's hard for us to find time for skype and email and chatting. Sometimes we'll go six or nine months without talking. When we do finally talk again we talk for hours and it's like no time has passed. We finish each others sentences. I threaten to castrate her boyfriend. You know the usual.

So when I actually see her online and we have a chance to chat I get excited. We haven't talked since May or June. We end up talking the ENTIRE day. I don't leave the computer once until dinner time when I have to go get something to eat and take care of business. When I get back online she's still there so we pick right back up. I fill her in on being homeless and everything else. It's not awkward at all. She knows I did it before and can do it again and she does not pity me for it.

During this time I receive a phone call from my maternal aunt. She is currently looking for work and living off of her savings. She tells me that she wants to send me the money I need to get into school despite the fact she has no funds for herself.

To understand how important this is here is a bit of family history for you: my mother stole THOUSANDS of dollars from her family. So much so my aunt says I cannot know the amount until I publish a book. My mother also stole her siblings' inheritance when their father died.

As such my maternal family has NEVER given me money besides on birthdays and Christmas. (I get $40 every year from my grandmother. $20 on my birthday and $20 on Christmas). On top of that until this summer my aunt and I have not had any form of relationship. (This is also due to my mother who told me as a child that my aunt practiced witchcraft. The truth is my aunt caught my father with one of his girlfriends when he and my mother were married.)

"I have to give you a chance to prove you're not your mother." My aunt tells me, as long as I pay her back, she will send me the $735 needed to get into school.

Obviously, Nat and I agree my aunt must be a good witch not a bad witch.

This is a miracle to me. The Flying Spaghetti Monster at his finest. I don't even know what to say. I feel like I have something to prove too. I'm not going to falter on getting this money back to my aunt. I'm going to prove I'm not my mother. I can be trusted.

I go to the clinic to have her check my dry socket and ensure it's healing correctly. I tell her I've been achy more often than not lately. She says she wants to pursue a fibro milja diagnosis. I've been pretty sure I have it for over a year but I haven't gotten the diagnosis.

"But, it looks bad for insurance," I say.
"Hun, you have so many things that look bad on insurance."
I laugh. It's true. She points out that Obama care should be taking effect soon so it won't matter for much longer. If I have the label I'll be able to get regular massages and have other resources open for me. We go over the questionnaire and determine I do in fact meet the qualifications.

I know it sounds like a bad thing to get a diagnosis of a medical disorder like this but it's not. It doesn't change anything. I know my body and I feel the pain. Having it labeled doesn't make it any less painful. It opens me up for other treatment options.

So all in all I think it has been an amazing day. I get to go back to school.What makes this moment all the more special is I get to share it with my Sisterly BFF. I don't know how life can even possibly begin to get better.

But trust me, it does.

--mm

Best friend rocking my princess prom dress!

September 26, 2009. We got to meet the love of my life and
spokesperson for homeless and foster kids. Jimmy Wayne. This was
the first time she had ever seen me cry. It was totally pathetic.

(Figured I could get away with posting pics seeing as they are almost four years old now!)

Introspective Bullshit About 105 Days

No shit? We've really been doing this for 105 days now. It feels so much shorter and so much longer at the same time. To those of you who have been here since the beginning I don't know how you can even begin to put up with me but I appreciate you doing so more than I could ever say. 

A lot has happened in the past 105 days. It's easy to forget those first few days that were so tumultuous. I don't know what the heck I was thinking trying to go through the women's shelter originally. That place was dirty and terrifying. It was so hard that first day when I thought I was going to be stuck sleeping outside by myself. I was so thankful to find a somewhat more stable organization in the youth program. Though sometimes I forget how bad that first shelter was.

I forget how hard this was on me at first; how tired and sore I was. Having to carry a heavy backpack all day, having to be on my feet twelve hours a day; it was almost traumatizing to my body and my spirit. Eventually both became conditioned to this lifestyle though, and now I think little of it. 

I really wanted to  keep Spencer with me but I see now that it would have never worked. It would have made it impossible to do a lot of things that I need to do, especially now that he's gotten so big. Spencer never would have been able to tolerate being a "street cat". He's been much too spoiled his whole life. 

I do miss having him with me. I miss having him sleep on my side and watch Disney movies with me. I know this was the best decision though because sometimes you have to make difficult decisions for what's best. Spencer is in an excellent foster home now. I get to see him any time I want and he's happy and healthy. I couldn't ask for anything more. I am so lucky I have such awesome friends like I do that were able to just take him in. I would have slept outside before I gave Spencer away. 

I feel like I've changed a lot in the past hundred days. At first I was ashamed of being homeless. I wouldn't sit on the side walk and I tried to pretend I carried my backpack for school purposes. This didn't last long at all. I never realized how absolutely exhausting being homeless is. You're on your feet twelve hours a day. It doesn't matter if you're sick or tired or about to drop dead. If you have to throw up you have to throw up on the side of the road. If you need to rest all you can do is sit on the ground. You have to carry everything you own on you. After awhile you just give up on not appearing homeless. 

At first I wouldn't tell my friends I was homeless. I was afraid of being pitied. I didn't want to lose these friendships. More and more I've been telling people and it has helped me realize who my real friends and family are. I worried for a long time that my friends that read this blog might be ashamed of me and the things I have done since being homeless. If they have felt that way they've never showed it. 

Instead when I was arrested my friend responded by showing me a picture of what she was wearing when she was arrested. They didn't comment when I made questionable decisions for the sake of friendships with street kids. When I ran out of money I was afraid they'd judge me for frivolous spending but instead they sent money. Never once have I been asked to justify a single decision I've made, even when I put myself at great risk.

I think the worst decision I've made so far was to hold needles and buy drugs for my friend. I ended up getting pricked by one of her needles and will need to be tested for Hep C and HIV again in three and six months. At the time I don't think I realized that I could be stopped and searched by the police at any time. If this had happened the consequences for doing such a thing could have been much more serve than I could imagine. On top of that I was enabling the drug use. At the time I thought I was being a good friend when in fact I was quite the opposite. 

I think the most tangible change in me has been the issue of theft. In the earlier entries of the blog I refused to allow people to steal with me present. I would get to my stomach at the very idea and insist they let me buy whatever they wanted rather than them stealing it. The theft started out of necessity. We ran out of food stamps. I needed to eat. The food at the day programs isn't always edible and they require going there to eat at the precise hours they are serving, which isn't always doable when you're out doing whatever it is you do during the day. 

At that time the day program refused to give us food gift cards under the assumption that they would be sold. This left us with little option besides stealing. Once I learned I could get stuff for free it spiraled along from there. It's addicting. Sometimes if I walk in a store I want to steal something just for the hell of it, or to get back at Republicans. At the same time I hate it because I sincerely fear being arrested again. When I steal I get sick to my stomach. I hate it. 

I talked to my case manager about this and I really think if they would have helped me when I ran out of food stamps I wouldn't have developed this problem. He told me they wouldn't help me because I was with Kitten Lady so much they thought I'd sell them. "She has a history of that after all," he told me. 
"But I don't."
"I know, but you guys were so intertwined the association was there." 
"You guys should have had more faith in me than that." 
"I agree."

Regardless, the damage is done. So that I could eat I learned how to steal. Because I learned how to steal I started stealing more. Because I started stealing more I got cocky. Because I got cocky I got arrested. 

In all honesty it doesn't really matter how I ended up started on stealing. I need to be responsible for my own actions. It's not something I feel guilty about nor do I feel I'm doing something immoral. I don't understand why I should pay billion dollar corporations what little money I have for something with a 500% mark up. I think the whole idea of having to pay them so they can get their next mansion is immoral. However, stealing is not worth risking being arrested. It's going to be my first habit on a long list to be broken when it no longer is a necessity. 

Being homeless I picked up a lot of bad habits I never had before. Of course there is the stealing. However, I also do things like litter, smoke, talk in slang terms I never used before, use improper grammar (oh my!), go out without putting effort in my appearance, losing things...the list goes on. Sure, not all of these are serious. God forbid, I stop having nightmares about comma slices! Yet, these were things that are so unlike who I was before. I hardly if ever littered and I would have died if I heard how I talk now. Grammar was important to me. So was being organized and timely. 

Picking up smoking again was just a matter of being around such a stressful environment all the time. I picked it back up when I was in Alabama dealing with my father's drama. I always say, something will kill me before the cigarettes do, but now that a friend I grew up with is fighting lung cancer I don't feel that way anymore. And the horrible eating habits. God. Being homeless and only being fed carbs has killed my jean size!

The past 105 days have been really hard. It hasn't been "rock bottom". It hasn't been the absolute worse phase of my life. It hasn't been the end of the world but it has been hard. There have been times where I've worried I'm losing myself in all of this. I don't think I have though. Maybe some things about myself have changed and I've picked up some bad habits but I think overall the changes in my life have been good. 

I'm a lot less focused on physical appearances now. I've spent a large part of my time with someone who walks around in public wearing a face mask for Christ sake! I find it a lot easier to look past someone's outside appearances and get to know them based on things much more important. I'm not talking just about pretty faces. I'm talking about sitting down and hearing someone's story and not judging them by their struggles. I thought I did this previous to  my current situation but I didn't really. I judged people who dropped out of high school. I wouldn't touch a drug addict with a ten foot pole. If you didn't value your education you were wasting your life. I'm glad I've been able to see past these preconceived notations now.

I think I've also developed slightly more confidence in the past 100 days. I no longer care what people think about me. I haven't been afraid of speaking my mind because what do I have to lose? I also have had NO privacy. I never have my own space. To top it off, I have even less privacy than most homeless kids because I have this blog. 

My mission was to give an honest representation of what it was like to be homeless. This meant no omitting details, ever. I spared myself no shame. Trust me, I was not excited about writing my shitting on the side of the road experience. I've tried to tell you the things I've been thinking even when I didn't want to share them. Trust me, that isn't always easy. It's not just strangers that read this. My friends read this religiously and you better believe they aren't afraid to tell me what they think of my adventures! 

Still, this blog has helped to keep me sane. I don't think I could have survived the last 105 days without it. It has given me an outlet. Knowing that people have been reading has kept me going when I have wanted to give up. I couldn't just give in to everything around me because then what would I have told you? 

I've changed a lot. I've grown a lot. I've learned a lot. Now I have a lot of big news for you. 

I think at this point my homeless phase is almost finished. While I was working on this very post I received a call from my aunt. She is going to loan me the $735 to get back into school. This means I now meet the qualifications to get into housing. This means in exactly a week instead of sitting in Whole Foods I'll be sitting in my dearly missed classrooms. This means I'll have financial aid again. This is almost over. I get to go back to my home, my school, my family. I have never been more thankful for anything in my life. 

Day One Hundred and Five

     ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

In the morning I straighten my hair for the first time in God only knows how long. I look in the mirror and groan at myself. I look like shit but I'll fix myself up the rest of the way once I get to the day program. I'm going to go to the TJ Max interview and I'm going to rock it. I need to start finding a way to get some income. Thing is with this job I honestly don't care if I get it or not. I just want to start trying.

Once I get to #1 I change into a skirt and my brown boots. It's not what I would normally wear to an interview but it's all I've got. I spend fifteen minutes in the bathroom trying desperately to cover up blemishes and the bags under my eyes. I update my resume one last time and print out the application to attach to it. A lot of the kids are intending on going to this interview but for whatever reason I'm the one that catches the attention. They joke with me and allow me to stay late to get ready. I walk there by myself and see Moby walking out as I go in. He says it was quick and painless and they'll call people they intend to hire on the 21st. "It's all customer service questions," he tells me, "You'll be fine."

I'm taken back almost immediately for the interview. I haven't worn heels in so long that I feel like I'm the little mermaid in the original fairytale, where when she gets legs every step feels like walking on knives. I smile anyways. I tell him I was referred by the youth program as this is supposed to give us an upper hand. The interview takes about five minutes. When it's over I sit down and pry off my boots and walk back to the day program bare foot.

I ask the receptionist if I can be let upstairs to get my shoes from Bernard's office. She calls but he doesn't answer because he's in an interview. I tell her to call another case manager and this continues on until I throw a tizzy fit and a staff goes up to get the director of case managers to open my locker for me. Success. :)

I go to the library until 1pm. I go back to the day program to talk to Bernard about this whole school thing. I have to make him understand that the school is my home. I need to get back there. He is pretty much useless. I roll my eyes and decide to try and call the dean on campus. I'm surprised when I get through. It's a Friday after all. As soon as I state my name he warms up to me, he wants me back at school, particularly on the paper. He tells me to email the student accounts and CC him into it. I draft the email and have Bernard check it before I send it to make sure I didn't miss anything.

After I send it I'm not ready to sit still on this so I call student accounts and argue with her for twenty-five minutes. I get her to tell me who it is in charge of the committee that decides which students can be refunded. I'm in luck. I know the lady in charge. I forward my email to her and leave her a message. By the time I'm done with all this I'm drained and my head hurts. I walk out and see Houdini sitting on a bench outside of the day room.

"What are you upset about now?" He asks me.
"I just want to go back to school. I would do anything to just get back into school."

In between nodding off he tells me I should try the #2 education program or start selling dope, see which one can help me. Brilliant.

I decide I need out of downtown and I need groceries so I take the max to Gateway to get groceries at Winco. Once I'm done I take the max down to Whole Foods where I wait for shelter to open. In shelter I heat up a tamale for what may just well be my best dinner in 105 days.  I sit with Yougio and another one of the guys. We go through the house agreements editing them to present our proposed changes for the next house meeting. I realize I forgot to get my sleeping meds refilled so I take three Clondine to try and help me sleep. This works and I'm out fairly quickly.

--mm

Thank You Captain Obvious

Yesteday morning the following article was on my Facebook newsfeed:

http://www.registerguard.com/web/news/28745912-57/fluoride-portland-public-fluoridation-vote.html.csp

A similar article was on the front page of The Oregonian. The overwhelming response from Portland natives? Well duh. (At least the ones I know).

I've always kind of figured the corrupt and violent police officers that roam Portland were old news to rest of the world. We make national headlines about it on a regular basis. The list of people Portland police have murdered for little to no reason only seems to continually grow more. The list of injuries is even longer. I will never forget trying to get to school the day they shut down the Occupy Portland movement. It took my bus over an hour just to drive through downtown. (Normally it takes like ten minutes.) Why? Well mainly this:

The thing is Occupy Portland was a peaceful movement. I know; I covered it for my newspaper. I walked through the protest on a fairly regular basis and never once felt unsafe or threatened. I considered sleeping out in the protest more than once just to experience it first hand. (The reason I never did was due to health concerns as I was preparing for surgery at this time.) When the police came out to shut it down they came out in armored cars and full riot gear. To me this seemed completely unnecessary. Occupiers were not hurting anyone.  I wasn't even all that sympathetic to the movement. I agreed with it but I didn't think they were going about it the right way. I felt they recognized the problem but offered no solutions and "occupying" the park didn't seem like it would accomplish anything to me besides burdening tax payers with having to renovate the park once they were gone. Thus I was kind of apathetic on the whole thing being shut down. That is until I saw how they intended to go about cleaning out the park. 

Watching them drive by on the bus was both exciting and terrifying. It was hard to believe it was real; it was too much like a movie. I was excited to be caught up in this moment of history but at the same time the police made me feel more unsafe than the Occupiers ever did. Seeing military vehicles with what looked like GI Joes riding on them was scary. I wouldn't even stay in downtown for fear of being mistaken for a protester and getting hurt or arrested. 

This image made national headlines last year during the Occupy protests. I feel like it requires little comment. It just speaks for itself, especially the woman standing right next to the girl being pepper sprayed holding up a peace sign. To me the protesters are not the ones who look dangerous in this image. 

Portland has a bunch of rent a cops that ride their bikes around the city wearing yellow and black. I call them the bumble bees. They are called the "clean and safe" police but in reality their whole job is to shuffle homeless people around. The only other purpose is to just make sure the police have their presence felt in downtown. I resent this. 

I could list endless news stories about police brutality in Portland but I don't think that would make for an interesting blog post. You can easily find that information on your own. Instead I'm going to tell you how this police brutality affects me, the rest of Portland and everyone as a whole. 

Two Christmases ago I wasn't homeless. I lived right behind a Kmart in a two bedroom apartment. To get to the Kmart I had to walk through a little back alley in Oregon City. Oregon City is a fairly safe community so it rarely if ever bothered me. That year I had to buy my roommates something for Christmas that I didn't want them to see. I hadn't had an opportunity to sneak away to get it yet so I decided to wait until they had gone to bed one night to walk to Kmart to get it. In the parking lot was a cop car. I didn't think much of it, just noticed it. 

On my walk home a man drove up to me in a car then proceeded to get out of his car next to me. In a back alley at two in the morning you better believe it scared me. Clutching my pepper spray I ran to the cop car as fast as my stubby legs would carry me. The police officer said he would just drive me home to make sure I arrived at my door safely. He had to run a background check on me to get the ride. "I have to make sure you're not a serial killer," he told me. 

When he started driving I asked, "So I guess I'm not a serial killer?"

"Well if you have you haven't been caught yet." 

I personally felt safe in the back of that police car. The security guards at my school would walk me home at night because I lived in an apartment right behind the campus. I trusted the police officers and security guards to keep me safe despite the fact that they were armed and could easily over power me when left alone in a back alley with me. 

I wasn't homeless then.

Today I'd rather take that guy getting out of his car in an alley over a police officer. Once you're homeless you aren't even a person to the police anymore. You are trash that needs to be cleaned up and thrown away. Our lives are disposable. And I'm lucky because I'm white. If I were black I'd really be screwed. Portland is one of the most racist liberal places I've seen.

Every time Houdini is arrested the cops beat him. It never fails. One of the times he was arrested they beat him so badly they had to drop their charges against him. That kid is paranoid more than anyone I know so he is actually more complaint and toes the line more than I even do. (Despite of course, the drugs he has been addicted to since he was fourteen but that's a different issue.) Yet, even when I'm the one stealing things and being naughty he's the one that's accused. Why? He's black. And that is honest to God the only reason. We run into this often and it never fails to piss me off. Yes, he does do scandalous shit sometimes but he's not nearly as bad as he gets treated.

My only time running into a campus security guard was on Day 28 when I attempted to go to the financial aid office to see about getting back in school.  The campus was closed but as I was trying to get information off the door on when it would be open again a campus security guard came and hassled me in a way I had never been bothered on campus before. I didn't look as neat and tidy as I used to. I wasn't clean cut and making straight A's but I was still the same person and I had every right to be on public property regardless of whether or not I'm homeless.

When Jesus had his fake gun that he made the cops were called on him constantly. It was a legit concern from case managers that if he continued to keep his prop the police officers would shoot him. I personally was actually terrified of such a thing happening. One of the times when the cops got called on us they bullied Vampire Girl. They called her a brat then threw her background check in her face saying, "Well obviously you've had a horrible life." This led me to call the police department and file a complaint immediately.

Police frequently drive by shelter as we are waiting to get in. It's crushing to watch them stop and search street kids just because they can. I'm stopped once a week just to have them run my name through the system, without ever committing a crime. I never even got detention in school but now I run into cops almost daily. All because of where I sleep. This bothers me. Read more about that here.

The purpose of any police force anywhere is to protect and serve the community. Portland Police forgot this a long time ago. They forgot who pays their salary with tax money. They continue to strip people of their rights, their dignity, even their lives.

This has to stop. And maybe Portland residents need to be standing up against this more and more often. Because what happens if the police decide they no longer want to just target the homeless and the mentally ill? What if they want to target you even though you are perfectly stable, living in a house? What if they decide they don't like your political party or your voting record? Or maybe they just don't like your eye color? The more people sit back and allow them to strip the rights of the homeless, mentally ill or marginilized community they are making it all the more easy for the police to continue moving on to the rights and safety of others.

That's why I'm proud of our federal government for finally blowing a whistle to something that has gone on for much too long. The abuses of power must end now. An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

--mm

Want more information about police brutality? Check out the following links:

list of shootings and fatalities
$250k bill to man shot with taser five times
Occupy Portland

Who are you protecting? 

Day One Hundred and Four

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

It's a really big day for me. It's my first time returning to my beloved college campus. My first home in Oregon; my first family. I don't know how the day will play out but I can't help but get my hopes up. If I could just get back into school all of this would be over. I'd be put in housing. I could get my job back. I could get my life back. I'd be me again.

I straighten my hair before I leave shelter. As soon as I get to #1 I'm rushed to go back to Bernard's office and we leave immediately. I do my makeup in the car and super glue on fake nails stolen from the dollar store. Bernard looks at me like I'm crazy and keeps telling me, "Oh don't poke yourself in the eye. There's bumps," as I apply my eyeliner. He asks how much it costs to get your nails done in a salon on how long they last. When I answer him he's bewildered by this knowledge. I don't know what he'll do if he ever has teenage daughters.

We go through drive through on the way and he gets me a diet coke. I'm not supposed to be drinking anything carbonated and definitely not out of a straw but I figure my tooth is so fucked up anyways why should it matter anymore?

I direct him to the campus without a problem. I can't even get from shelter to the day program without getting lost half the time but I don't even have to think about how to get to school. I could walk there in my sleep. I get the same feeling once we're on the campus that I do when I go to my hometown. It's home to me. I know everything and everyone on that campus. The president of the college knows my name. I know almost too much about the campus.

Staff in the program don't understand why I want to return to a school where I have to pay $700 to get in when it's so far out of my way but everything on the campus screams home to me. It's a big part of my life, a part of my history of how Oregon became my home state. I'm not ready to leave it yet. Being back on campus just reassures this more. All I want to do is walk around and enjoy the places I know and love.

We have to wait thirty minutes for the student accounts people to come talk to us. When we do the guy is less than polite and helpful. When I try to explain the situation he keeps cutting me off until I finally cut him off from cutting me off and snap, "Listen to me." This makes Bernard laugh. The guy refuses to offer any assistance and says I must resubmit a form that I've already submitted and been rejected from. He says my only option to get back in for fall term is to pay the $735 out right.

Obviously if I had $735 I wouldn't be homeless right now. This rains on my parade. I want to be back in school more than anything. It would instantly drop me back into my old life that I miss so much. I could get my job back on the paper. I'd be okay. Okay isn't going to happen today though. I am not going to get to register for my classes, no matter how badly I want to. No matter how badly I deserve to.

This makes me want to cry and have another melt down. I miss school so much. More than even realized before I stepped foot on this campus. We get back in the car and I stare at the window looking at the campus, blinking hard. This isn't fair. It just isn't fair. I was forced to drop out because I had surgery and my teacher wasn't willing to allow me to make up the work. It's not my fault my ovary flipped out on me. I never asked for that to happen.

I push the injustices of it all down. I can't let myself dwell on that sort of thing. Once you start thinking that life isn't fair your whole world starts to fall apart. I can't let myself think that way. I don't want to live thinking the world is out to get me. I bite my lip and push it down.

"M," Bernard says, "We'll get you back in school. Why don't you just switch to PCC? Maybe you'll like their journalism program better."

I almost want to laugh at the idea that their paper might be better. For one thing, we smash PCC in competitions. For another, it takes a lot of time and effort to build the rapport that I have with CCC's community. I know everyone's name, everyone's story and I can get them all to tell me their secrets. Most of all though the newspaper on CCC is my family. It's the first family I ever made when I moved to Portland and I'm sure as hell not cutting ties with it to go to another paper.

Bernard doesn't understand this though and just says, "We'll talk about this when you're in a better space." I just roll my eyes and go back to looking out the window. "M, I'm going to get you back into school. It's going to happen. I promise. We're not going to give this up we just have to work the process."

I don't have time for "working the process"; I need to re-enroll now. I need my life back. I want it so badly. Probably more than I have wanted anything through this entire homelessness. Maybe more than I've ever wanted anything.

Bernard had grabbed a class schedule when we were at the campus. When we get out of the car I dump it in the trash. I feel like it's taunting me. I go to the library to get work accomplished, though that means I just end up watching one of my favorite comedies, Charlie Bartlette.

Savior Man texts me and says I can come over. I leave that second and get on the max. I steal two phone cards for my new pay as you go phone. Then I go to Winco to buy groceries but for the second time in a row I can't find my ebt card when I was in the check out line. I'm pretty humiliated by this but I ditch the groceries. (again).

Savior Man picks me up and I try to use the phone codes but they don't work since they were run through the scanner. I figure that's an easy enough fix though. I can probably get someone to scan it for me by batting my eyes, saying I lost my receipt and pulling down my cleavage. Worst case scenario I can  buy a card and use the receipt from that one to get my card activated.

Savior Man and I talk about the frustrations about me not being let back into school. "It's dysfunctional but it's our dysfunctional family," he says. Hearing exactly what I'm feeling in someone else's mouth gives me all the more resolve. I will get in for fall term. I will find a way. I don't know how yet but I will do it.

I snuggle with Spencer whenever he will let me even though he really is a little bastard now. We get him high with cat nip. I think the only way I might be able to get my cat to love me again is to bribe him with drugs. I leave when it's close to eight. I decide to stop by the Fred Meyer at shelter to buy phone minutes. While I'm on my way I decide to do something I might regret later. I call my mother.

See, every now and then my mother will decide she wants to be a parent. I have a haunch that right now might be one of those times. It's only ever happened once in my entire life but that one time she did send me money. Maybe it's only happened once but that doesn't mean it's totally impossible for it to happen twice. I explain the situation with the school. She says she'll see if she can come up with part of the money and maybe my uncle or other family will come up with the rest. All I need is $735 and I will never be homeless again.

I go to Fred Meyer and buy a phone card. I decide it'll just be easier if I have a receipt to use to get the other cards activated. I put the minutes on my phone then go into shelter. Dinner tonight is beans with hot dogs cut up in it. At least it's not lasagna. I get a bowl and sit down with some of the kids. One of them is a boy I've yet to have a conversation with yet. "What's up? Never talked to you before. Tell me your story." I demand.
"That's not a way to ask for a story." he tells me.
"That's M's way two of the other guys say."

He moved here from Chicago. He kind of glosses over the details of how he became homeless but the rest of his family is Orthodox Jewish. He didn't want to go the religious route though, "Jewish kids don't really have a childhood. They spend so much time having to learn Hebrew and then they still have to learn Spanish and English in school." I think he has a valid point.

He tells me TJ Max is having a job fair tomorrow and are looking to hire people from the day program. I decide that I will be checking them out tomorrow. They are looking to hire one hundred people to get a new store started. I go to bed after updating my resume thinking about how I can throw myself together for a job interview overnight.

--mm

Day One Hundred and Three

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

I have only one mission for the day: to get my medical records so Bernard and I can try and get back into school tomorrow. I call the women's health department where I had my surgery but they transfer me to the medical records department where of course no one answers. This happens four times before I decide to give up and just go to the hospital.

Now for those of you who aren't from the Portland areas OHSU hospital is broken up into two main buildings. The first building is on the top of a giant hill; the second is located at the  bottom. The two buildings are connected by a giant air tram that gives you a beautiful view of the city.

I hop on the street car to take me to the bottom building of the hospital. It's not until the street car is making the second loop through downtown that I realize I got on the train going the wrong direction. I sigh and continue crocheting. Oh well, I'll get there eventually.

A little girl gets on the bus and peers over at me. "What are you doing?" she asks.
"I'm crocheting."
"My friend Sophie crochets," she tells me, "Can you make me something?"
"I don't think I'd have time to on the bus."
"Oh. Do you like Scooby Doo? I'm having a Scooby Doo birthday party maybe you could come."
This little girl makes the hour long bus ride totally worth it.

When I get to the OHSU building I ask how to find the medical records department. The receptionist tells me to go to the top of the hill and gives me a pass for the tram. On the tram there are three tourists with their Canon cameras. I roll my eyes. For me this hospital will always be associated with my exploding ovary of doom that led me down the path of homelessness. Having a tram full of tourists snapping pictures of it is a little weird to me.

When I get off I get lost in the insanity that is OHSU. The place is huge. It takes me asking three different people for directions before I end up in the x-ray lab. They then tell me I need to go back downtown to find my Oz in a completely different building, located back right where I started. You have got to be kidding me.

I take the tram back to the lower part of the hospital where I get back on the street car to get back downtown. I get to Fifth and Columbia where the building is supposed to be but I can't find it. I ask directions from people in a different building. They look at me and just go, "Uh, try across the street." I do and eventually find the right building but then I can't find the right floor.

Almost three hours after I originally left downtown I find myself finally in the right spot to get my records. The lady asks me, "So at any point did anyone tell you that we charge to get medical records?"
OH MY FUCKING GOD! 

She gives them to me even though I can't pay because I went through so much trouble to get them. I go back to #1 where I use the bathroom and catch my breath for a little bit. I cannot believe my luck the past few days. I go to the library where I hide until it closes at 8pm. I decide to head towards shelter early to hang out with everyone before it is time to go inside. I see Kitten Lady and Houdini at McDonalds so I decide to check in and see how they are doing.

Kitten Lady tells me that she got her health insurance back and she is now on medications so that she isn't using heroin so much. She apologizes for flipping out on me a few nights ago when she overheard me talking to Flippy Hair Guy about her. She says, "I know you were saying the things a good friend would say. I was just having a bad day." She says she and Houdini have been doing chores at #2 so that they can get clothes upstairs and then sell the clothes. They've been making good money doing so. She isn't nearly as thin as she was a few weeks ago. Her face isn't picked at. She looks good. I believe her when she says she's doing better. I'm happy to be in her company again. When she goes into shelter I hug her and say, "You're still my family."

It's house meeting tonight when we get upstairs. Yougio and I came up with an idea that we think is pretty marvelous to present tonight. We want for one night a week to not have a movie and instead use the television room as a place to hang out and talk away from staff. It passes with the warning that we can't let it get out of control and we must self police. Yougio and I high five. We get to try it out tonight to see how it goes.

After the meeting Director Lady asks me if I will meet with her and the Ginger Clan. Even though I told Bernard I would I tell her, "Not tonight. I'm having a good night tonight. I want to hang out and just enjoy my night." She says I'm being rude but I don't see it that way. I'm not going to move something positive out of my agenda to make time for something negative. She says we'll have to meet Monday then. I agree to meet Monday.

Our hanging out in the television room isn't flawless. There are two guys pissed about the no movie policy who spend their time being rowdy in hopes of getting our plan shut down. When we try to self police them it doesn't work so we go to staff. Staff get upset at first saying, "What about your self policing policy?"
"We tried," Yougio says, "The next step is if we can't self police is to ask staff for help. We're following what we said."
I back him up, "They're doing this intentionally to get our thing shut down. If you close the whole thing you'll only be reinforcing that behavior."
Douche Guy looks down at me, rubs his face and says, "I know, we need to find a way around that."

In the end Director Lady pulls each of the boys out separately to talk to them. We are told a few times after that that our volume is too high but we all hiss "shh" at each other when someone gets too loud. When I go to bed I'm proud of ourselves. Even though it had its hiccups our plan still worked and we were able to execute it and have a good time. I enjoy just talking with everyone and getting to know my forty something roommates a little bit better. I'm a happy camper when I go to bed.

--mm 

Day One Hundred and Two

  ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS**

In the morning I walk from shelter to breakfast alone. As I'm minding my own business the guy walking in front of me looks back. I think he kind of looks familiar. He keeps looking back and it's the confused face he's making that gives away who he is. Oh shit. It's... I start to think and he yells, "hey!" I seriously regret not doing my make up this morning.

We originally met seven years ago when I was thirteen and he was sixteen. I was in a rough patch then with family problems way beyond a thirteen year old's comprehension. He had come down to my town on a missions trip with his church. He and I happened to be at the same park at the same time and happened to form a really strange best friend relationship. His father had abandoned him; he had thought he was dead until when he was ten his dad showed up trying to have a relationship with him. This didn't go over well as I'm sure you can guess.

He called me his little sister. We talked weekly if not daily. He was the one I called when I got heart broken. He was the one I made boyfriends go through for approval. He was the one I went to for advice. Once when he was struggling with his girlfriend troubles (I was also dearly attached to her) I asked him, "Do you love her?" He told me something I'll never forget, "Love is a choice, not an emotion. It's your actions not your feelings." I took those words to heart for a long time. I trusted him with everything. He was my only friend that ever met my father. He was a huge part of my life.

If I were being honest I'd say that he was more to me than that. But, I'm not feeling that honest today.

When I was sixteen I was in and out of the mental hospital, trying to get away from my abusive mother any way I could. He used to call me at two or three in the morning when he got off work and talk to me on his drive home. I'd be laying in bed, often talking in my sleep to him. Then as things got to get sticky with my first time being homeless and my mother and everything he started calling less and less. The last time we talked during that period I had called him from the hospital pay phone.

"Is this going to be your thing now?" he asked me, "This is what you're going to do with your life?"

We didn't speak again for almost two years. Another mutual friend forced me to reconnect with him. When we spoke after I moved to Oregon he said, "I'm sorry I ditched you like that. It was just too much to deal with when I was going through my break up." (The break up was with a new girlfriend). His apology stung. I wish I could just decide that I didn't want to deal with homelessness and walk away from it but I don't have that luxury. Never have.

We stayed friends for about a year after this. I met his girlfriend who was ridiculously mean to me. I got stressed out when I talked to him; he was judgmental which was completely different from the Leo I used to know. The final straw was when I took a mental health day instead of looking for a job after a week of trying. He chewed me out for taking that one day break. I told him not to call me again. So he didn't. We haven't spoken since and that was three years ago. I think he may have been the first guy to ever crush me.

So I'm more than a little surprised to see him again. He hugs me and it's awkward how un-awkward it is for us just to fall back into step, talking with each other as if we just saw one another yesterday. He's married now but I already knew that. It was right before his wedding that I deleted him from Facebook. I couldn't stomach the thought that he married that girl that came into the picture and destroyed our friendship. Destroyed who he used to be.

He asks me what I'm doing in downtown. I decide not to lie. I tell the truth. I lost him a long time ago; there is nothing left to lose now. With so much time passed I'm indifferent to him now. I don't feel the need to impress him. Seeing as the first time I was homeless he went running away I'm not expecting this to be a reunion that rebirths an old friendship. I deserve better friends in my life than ones who run away the moment things get tough. I may have my faults but I know I'm a better friend than that and I deserve the same.

"What are you doing in downtown?" I ask him.
"I got a job in downtown. I work for a nonprofit. I help adults who..." Either he trails off or I stop listening because I could not for the life of me tell you what he does with adults. I'm actually really proud of him though. In all the years I've known him he's always said he wanted to work for nonprofits. Him accomplishing this means that he still kept a little piece of the version of him that I knew alive.

I walk him to work. He asks for my phone number and says that it's been "too long" and we should talk more. I don't expect him to call me or see me again when I walk away. I don't think a homeless "little sister" fits quite into his plan of a pretty little life with his pretty little wife. Maybe if I was still religious and housed we'd be friends still but I don't fit his ideal of me anymore just like he doesn't fit my ideal version of him for me anymore. The last thing I need is one more person in my life that is just going to walk away when I need them.

I shake off this unusual encounter to go to breakfast and get bus passes. I head to the dentist to get my tooth packed again. When I get there they make me wait for two hours even though there's no one in front of me and my tooth only takes ten seconds. I ask the lady at the front desk what's going on and she refuses to give me a general time frame of how long this is going to take. I ask if I can be scheduled to come in later and she refuses to do so. She talks down to me as if I'm a little kid. I hate when people do this to me. Just because I look young doesn't mean I'm going to let you patronize me.

The staff behind the desk start calling me a brat telling me I just don't want to wait my turn. I say I'd be okay with waiting if I got a general time frame but I can't be held hostage for hours over something that takes two seconds. They threaten to call the police on me after I say I'm leaving. I walk out without getting my tooth fixed. No amount of pain is going to justify this kind of treatment. I'm so sick of the way people treat me because of their own ageism.

Today it's a little too much to handle. When I get to the bus stop and sit down  I can't help it I start crying. I can't help myself for about thirty seconds then I force myself to stop. There is no reason to act like a baby just because my tooth helps and no one will help me.

I go back to the day program #1 and rant about the tooth fiasco. Mother Goose asks me if I want to sleep. I do just want to sleep off the oddness of the day. She puts me in an office where I lay down and watch The Little Mermaid until I pass out. I get up before lunch to heat up some soup which I eat hiding in the office. Shortly before dinner I leave and go to the library but I feel claustrophobic. With my morning company I'm feeling trapped in this small city. I call up Savior Man. He's about to go grocery shopping so I ask to join him.

At the grocery store I ask if I could grab a pizza to cook Savior Man and his roommates. I would really like fresh pizza. "I totally would," he tells me, "But, my roommate has a problem with you."
This is news to me, "What did I do to him?"
"Nothing. He just hates homeless people. I had to convince him that you didn't steal his cigarettes because he lost them like a week after you came over one time."

I try not to show it but I'm stung. In the big picture it doesn't matter what his roommate thinks of me but right now it matters. His opinion of me means I can't see my cat anytime he's home. It means I can't just come over and see Savior Man. It means that people truly have the idea that because I'm homeless I'm less of a person.

I head back to downtown. On my way into shelter I pass some guys standing outside of a hole in the wall pizza shop. They ask me how I'm doing so I say I'm okay. As I'm walking away I turn around and say, "Tell you a joke for a slice of pizza?" I'm surprised when the guy obliges and for the first time in 102 days I eat a fresh, hot slice of not cardboard pizza. It's like Heaven.

Maybe in normal circumstances a slice of pizza wouldn't be enough to unravel the heart ache that comes from a close friend's rejection, a bad tooth and a mean roommate but for me right now it's enough. I still got the pizza I wanted. I feel remarkably better when I arrive at shelter. I sign up for dishes and burn a cd until it's time to go downstairs.

As I'm getting ready for dishes Nazi Man and Blue Eyes from downstairs staff are in my kitchen causing trouble. Blue Eyes splashes Nazi Man with water and runs past me, out of the kitchen. Nazi Man takes the  hose out of the sink and tries to spray Blue Eyes but sprays me instead.

"You asshole!" I scream but I'm laughing.
"I'm so, so sorry. You can spray me if you want."
"That's water abuse. That's a BLA!"
"I'm so sorry," he keeps saying but neither of us can keep a straight face.

Blue Eyes comes in later to bring in more dishes. I already have my dishes organized so I yell at him when he almost puts a bowl with my plates. He apologizes and puts the bowl where it belongs. I give him shit for "starting trouble in my kitchen". Fuck You by Lily Allen starts playing on my cd. "This song is how I feel about you right now." I tell him.
"If I responded to that I'd be fired," he says.

I can always count on downstairs staff to leave me laughing before bed on a bad day. I think I might actually kind of miss them when I'm gone.

--mm

Day One Hundred and One

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

I get up in the morning to shower. I need to leave early so that I can find a dentist to fix the dry socket and I need to talk to Bernard about all the drama the ginger kids are creating for me.  He says that he wants to just rush me into transitional housing to get me out of the shelter. Clearly, I'm not cut out for this stuff.

The clinic finds me a dentist. I go as soon as I finish off a bowl of oatmeal. The dentist lady cleans out the hole with water then fills it with gauze and medicine. It takes two seconds. When she's done I go back to #1 and Mother Goose lets me up to sleep in an office until lunch. They let me hide upstairs all day even though the day program is closed.

Beard Man and I hang out and bullshit. He complains that I didn't give him gummies so I throw Gushers at him. He tells me that he's glad I've been taking care of myself lately instead of trying to help everyone else. We bullshit and Beard man is highly unprofessional as we're joking around. A new volunteer walks in. We aren't sure if she's a girl or a boy so Beard Man sort of mumbles, "sir...ma'am...I'm not sure." I start to giggle. Once her back is turned I whisper, "So I totally thought she was Nerdboy."
"God, she does kind of look like him. That's why I wasn't sure."
We both start laughing.

"M, if I leave you alone in here will you steal stuff?" He asks me so he can go takes a dump.
"I will steal everything." I say.
"Okay," he says and heads off to the bathroom. When he comes back he starts giggling. "Did you just send a picture of your crap to Gauges Guy?" I ask him.
"How'd you know?" he asks me.
"You're giggling like a high school girl."
"Oh yeah. Guess that's a good give away. I wanted to show him what I created."

I roll my eyes. The scary thing is I find nothing unusual about this conversation.

Mother Goose gives me gift cards for Safeway so I can buy soft foods. I hide out until shelter where the ginger clan creates all kinds of trouble for me. I go to bed just to escape them. I sneak on the internet and play Spider Solitaire until I pass out.

--mm

Day One Hundred

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS****

My tooth is what wakes me up in the morning. It hurts a lot. I roll out of bed and realize I need to pay my phone bill today or it will be shut off tonight. I hate to wake up and leave but that's what I have to do today. I go to the library to try and send a few emails but the pain in my tooth overwhelms me and I end up leaving after just a few minutes to go to #1.

I'm crying by the time I get to the day program and ask Beard Man for a way to find an emergency dentist. Because it's Sunday there's nowhere I can go. The best I can do is wait for the youth clinic to open and see if she can do anything. I sit holding an ice pack to my face until the clinic opens.

When Lazy-Eye-Doctor-Lady sees me sitting in the waiting room of the clinic, holding an ice pack to my face, rocking back and forth crying she says, "This does not look good." Her murse assistant takes me to the doctor's office to do my vitals. I scream he can't take my vitals I just want to doctor. I don't know what it is about being in the doctor's office but I decide now is a good time to have a complete and total melt down. God knows I'm overdo.

I'm crying like a pathetic little kid when she comes in. She has to check my mouth to see if there's a dry socket but I can't even open my mouth wide enough. It takes a few tries and much pain that makes me all the more hysterical, but she's able to see that there's a dry socket where my tooth was pulled. She can see the bone.  She gives me a prescription for oxy. My next challenge is to find a pharmacy that will be open at 7pm on a Sunday night. To make it even more challenging I can't find my id. The lady at the front desk gets Rite Aid to agree to give me my prescription without my ID as long as I get there in fifteen minutes.

"Sister, what's wrong?" Houdini asks me when he sees me there crying.
I'm on my knees digging through my backpack on the floor. He hugs me to him though sitting on the floor I'm shorter than his knee cap. I tell him to watch my stuff and run to Rite Aid with the ice pack pressed to my face.  I get the oxy and take one right away, hoping it'll get the edge off the pain enough to function.

I go back up to the day clinic and they say that Houdini left with my bags. Now I have to track him down to get them. I'm worried I won't be able to find him; not that he would do anything with them. I wouldn't trust Houdini with my medications or my money but otherwise I'd trust that kid with my life. I think that I'm lucky he's an addict. That means there's only a handful of places he could be. There is also only two black guys with dreadlocks in downtown Portland. Houdini and Dreadlocks. And there's probably only one of them that's carrying a blue floral backpack. Houdini shouldn't be hard to find. Pioneer Square has an event going on so it's all gated off. My next guess is Voodoo Doughnuts. I find him and Kitten Lady there. He says he left the backpack at the clinic.

I start to cry. I'm light headed from not being able to eat but taking medications anyways. I honestly don't know if I can make it back up to the clinic and back again. I'm tired. No free rail zone means I have to walk the whole way. Kitten Lady just walks away and leaves me there. I look at Houdini. "I was going to keep it on me," he says, "But she made me leave it there. I'm sorry."
"This is why I'm not around anymore," I say, "I never left her side when she was sick. She doesn't care about anyone but herself."

I get myself back up to the clinic where I find the bags left behind a different desk with a different staff person. They begrudgingly give it back to me. The doctor calls shelter to see if they'll let me up early. They say I can go up at 8:30 but I have to sit on the chairs until 9pm. I do that until a little before nine when I ask the guy in charge of the downstairs shelter if I can just go in and go to bed. He says he'll check with staff and see if they're okay with that. When he doesn't come back after ten minutes I ask the staff if he talked to them.

"We'll never let you in early again if you keep creating problems," the new staff person tells me. I think this is cruel. All I asked for was to go to bed. How does that effect them any? Why does that mean they need to be mean to me? I start to cry again. They let me in right before the clock changes to 9pm and I go straight to bed, sleeping on frozen peas.

--mm