Cliche Mother's Day Post

Things like Mother's Day makes me go back to my old school angry white rap music days. I was waiting at the bus stop today when an older gentleman wished me a happy mother's day. I replied, "I'm not a mother thank God." I found it hard to hide my snarl when he said, "Well, you still have a mother."

 My older brother was an Eminem fanatic when I was growing up and I remember listening to the following song and dreaming of the day I could settle the score with my own mother the way Eminem did, just probably through a different medium. ;)

I didn't come on here today to fight with my childhood though. I want to honor a mom that probably won't get the recognition she deserves; not because she is undervalued but because she is prized by people who have a hard time being vulnerable enough to express genuine gratitude.

Maybe my biological mother was a failure but there have been other "mom"s who have come through for me. One of which has been a mom to me for the past year.

There's a staff at #1, whom I don't even know what her job is exactly. I don't know if anyone does actually. My guess is that she's part of the drug program but it doesn't really matter. We all just call her "Mom". Regardless of what the job description on her paycheck is; that is the job she does for us. She's probably the only day program staff I genuinely miss on a regular basis.

I remember last summer she talked about her daughter getting married. I interrupted her almost immediately and said, "You have kids? Outside of us?"

I felt like she was cheating on us but I guess all that mothering had to come from somewhere.

She's about my size, so pretty stinking tiny, but she breaks up fights on a regular basis. She does this by asking the youth if they want to go smoke a cigarette with her. It's explicitly forbidden for staff to offer cigarettes to youth but she says if it's to break up a fight who cares? No street kid turns down a free smoke and she says it gives them time to vent to her and cool down. It works almost every time.

When I was torn up about how KL was missing she was the only staff to express concern and not tell me to "just move on". She is the one street kids go to when we really need to say what's going on  in our lives. Hugs are scarce within street culture. And youth just plain don't hug staff. Usually, physical contact between staff and youth doesn't go beyond fist bumps or high fives.  I personally loathe hugs. We all hug Mom. Even more remarkable is that the youth initiate the hugs, not her.

On Thursday I went to the clinic because I honest to God thought I was going to die. Mom was there so I yelled to get her attention. I called her by her first name to which she responded, "Who just called me that?" She asked why I looked so sick and felt my forehead saying, "You're burning up. You need to go to bed. No work for a few days." Then she yelled at me for sitting next to her while she was smoking.

Street kids are not used to maternal care but I think more than anyone we need it. I can't imagine making it through the streets without having a mom. The encouragement, the guidance, and most importantly: the comfort is so essential to surviving in such a difficult lifestyle.

Being a mother has nothing to do with giving birth and everything to do with investing your time, energy, and love into a child. I'm thankful for my downtown Portland mom and all the other "mom"s I've had step up when my own mother failed. I consider myself fortunate to have so many wonderful women in my life to model myself after.

--MM

Sorry I'm a Douche

Sorry I haven't updated. I started two jobs and with school I'm stretched pretty thin.

Just wanted to let you know I'm okay for the most part. We're moving into our place fine. and everything is good.

I found Kitten Lady. She's in St. Louis but she's okay.

I'll post for real again some day.

Moving On Up

Sorry for the continued delay in updates. It's been crazy over here! Moving is a lot of work. We are still without furniture. Every time we are supposed to go get our furniture OI puts it off. It's quite infuriating. I got most of my belongings back from my old roommate's house so we have a tv and I have my old futon but we are still sleeping/living in the downstairs and poor Gru is stuck on an air mattress.

We don't have a microwave or a toaster or pots or pans or any household essentials. This is becoming difficult the longer we go without these things. You don't notice how much you need them until you don't have any!

We finally moved the monster cat home. I am so happy to finally have him back. Before this we had never gone more than a weekend apart and we just spent almost nine months away from each other. It was devastating. He definitely knows who his mama is though and has gone back to sleeping on top of me and waking me up by drooling in my eye. Nothing makes me happier than coming home to see a giant orange fluff ball running toward me to give me a kiss. Having him back has truly improved my quality of life.

There are three weeks left in this term for school. This final push has been really difficult. I missed so much school with this move that I'm still playing catch up. I think I might be able to pass everything though I'm sad I've gone from a straight A student to happy with passing grades.

If we don't find jobs by April we're going to be in trouble. Gru and I have been working our butts off in this area. This weekend we went to a hiring fair for Home Depot. I did get a call back for a second round of interviewing. My phone interview went well so now I have to wait for the third and final interview. Gru didn't get a call back but we are interviewing next week with Petco which he will be a much better fit for.

After our Home Depot interview we went to Goodwill's hiring connection service. This was extremely helpful and ended up with us applying for several more jobs. I finished most of my applications though Gru is needing a kick in the butt to get all his done. She also gave me information on how to get my charge expunged so I'm going to go to that clinic on Monday. Hopefully, I'll be able to get that done and be more competitive in the job market.

Our goal is for Gru to get one job and continue school full time while I get two jobs and go to school part time. I only need two more classes for my degree and I want a break from school. Gru still has a ways to go for his degree so I want him to focus on that.

It's been rough but I think we're going to be okay. If we keep up this momentum we will find jobs soon. Our biggest concern right now is the lack of furniture. If you or anyone you know are getting rid of furniture or kitchen appliances please let me know. We will gladly take them off your hands. Or if you're looking for hard working kids to hire. ;)

Hopefully, there won't be a large gap between now and my next post. Stay positive and I'll talk to you again soon!

No Longer Homeless

God, I have a lot to fill you in on. I'm in between classes and really should be working on homework as I'm almost a full term behind in most of my classes but I just can't even think straight so I'm going to dump everything in a blog post before I head to class.

Last night Gru and I signed a lease on a beautiful two bedroom townhouse. It has a nice patio and huge living space. I'm thrilled we got it. The hotel we've been staying in is a nightmare. It had fleas and a few nights ago it started leaking quite dramatically at 4am. (We had to run buckets back and forth so it wouldn't flood.) We don't have any furniture or beds yet but it's a vast improvement from what we were dealing with. And we don't have to worry about homeless kid drama or the staff.

I'm worried that we won't be able to find jobs soon enough to make ends meet. We can carry ourselves for awhile with FASFA but there's not as much wiggle room as I would like. Bernard is going to help me get my theft charge off of my record so that I will have better chances finding a job.

This morning he helped me move my belongings into the new place. He picked up my stuff from the housing program then picked me up with the rest of my shit and drove me to the apartment. He was happy with the place I picked out and just plain thrilled I'm out of housing. He is furious with what has been done to me since I went to the other case manager. He's not allowed to say so but a few days ago he accidentally slipped and said he was upset and this whole thing was complete and total bullshit.

After we dropped my stuff off he drove me to school. He told me he used to be a cop which was surprising at first but made sense after I thought about it. He just asked, "How do you think I knew so much about your legal stuff?" I shrugged. I guess I figured that was part of the job description for working with homeless kids.  He was a cop for ten years before getting into social work. He told me to keep that information quiet, that he doesn't tell many people that. My guess is because homeless kids rather hate police.

No matter how hard I try I find it impossible to imagine the lives of the people who work at the homeless organizations outside of their job. This is unusual for me because I'm that person who imagines lives for people I've never met but anytime I try to imagine anyone from our organizations I just come up blank. The extent of my ability is only when we see doppelgangers. Which means now I can imagine Director Lady as a bartender but nothing else.

It's hard to imagine Bernard as a cop. Mostly because he's not an asshole. I googled him out of curiosity trying to figure out why he stopped being a cop. Found other random stuff instead. It's weird to think of people having lives outside of homeless kids.

He asked about the mother figure today. I've been talking to her because of Megan dying. She actually really liked Megan. I asked if I could still use the address of the program to have my mother send packages because I don't want her to have my address. He said he would take care of any packages that came for me.

He asked about Megan and I told him it was just like her to not tell everyone so they wouldn't worry. I told him how weird it was to talk to the old crew again. My first boyfriend is now divorced. To me that's the weirdest thing. (Although to find out his ex-wife cheated on him is actually almost funny if you knew her.)I feel so old.

I should be estatic and relieved that I found a place. In reality though everything is overshadowed by the loss of my friend. I feel like I have a knot in my stomach all day everyday. I have to remember to eat. I don't think I've even grasped the fact that she has cancer yet--let alone the fact that she's dead. I just can't believe it. I've seen a lot of death in my life but this one is just so awful. I'm really struggling with this.

--mm

Technology Eclipse

DISCLAIMER: I don't expect anyone to read the entirety of this post. I'm really just purging right now. For the shortened version here are the bullet points:
*I've been having a lot of problems with technology lately, hence the lack of posts.
*I'm living in a hotel room that has fleas, waiting to hear back on apartments.
*I'm having case manager issues.
*A dear, dear, dear friend of mine just died of lung cancer.
*I'm really having a hard time right now.

Sorry I have fallen off the face of the earth. My laptop blew up (literally. My roommate made it explode) and we've been having a difficult time with the internet. There's also just been a lot going on. It's really quite overwhelming. I don't even know what to say or what format to write this in. I'm just staring at the computer listening to Missy Higgins and waiting for the words to magically appear on their own.

I guess we can start with Christmas. For Christmas it was just Gru and me. Everyone else went to stay with their significant others and friends. We exchanged presents. I got him porn and he got me a zippo lighter that is secretly a pipe. We had seen it together at the porn shop by shelter and he had me picked out but under the assumption that it was for him.  Gru and I ended up encouraging everyone who was in housing for the day to join us in our dorm. We built a blanket fort and played cards until staff shut us down.

Gru confessed after a night of dancing that staff consistently ask him what his "intentions" are with me. He asked if staff ever ask me similar questions and I said no. He confessed that being asked this had made him question what his intentions were exactly and found that he does want more from the relationship. I had never even considered it. He is my friend's ex and we are roommates, those are two rules I have always been set upon.

The next day I met his dad. His dad is a truck driver and got a route to Portland with just enough time to visit. We insisted upon taking him on a quick tour of Portland. We forced him to walk, jaywalk, eat at food carts, befriend homeless people, and get a cock-n-balls from Voodoo doughnuts. I liked him. He reminded me of my best friend's dad. He insisted on taking pictures of me for his wife and when he talked to her on the phone he said, "She's liiiiitle". Pfft. Before he left he hugged me three times. It occurred to me then that Gru and I have never hugged once. I really hate hugs. A few nights ago he told Gru on the phone that he thinks I'm his future daughter-in-law. Oy.

Fast forward to last weekish and that's where the real drama begins. Zelda informed me that housing is indeed kicking me out and I had nine days to find a place. I can't say I was surprised. I was surprised that I've been left hanging without a case manager or any support for almost three months. And that they would do the kicking out in a way that provided me no options. My case manager has been MIA for the last month (not just for me, for everybody) and no one was going to step up until I went to Zelda and demanded to know what the hell is going.

She said she and Bernard were going to work on finding me a place but no one can find a place in nine days. When I told Gru what was going on he would not speak. Not a word. Lips tight, staring, no reaction. If I didn't know him as well as I do it would have been unnerving. But this is something Gru and I share. We aren't much of talkers when there's little to say.

We ended up gambling all night. I had science labs that desperately needed to be done but we went to safeway and bought scratch tickets until we just couldn't buy them anymore. We would buy the tickets at Safeway, scratch them there, then walk to Plaid Pantry to cash them out so we could walk to Safeway to buy more scratch tickets. And so the cycle continued for three hours.

While we were chain smoking and scratching tickets Gru made a proposal (well, he made several but one in particular is on my mind). Now, my plan for this inevitability was to get institutionalized, kill myself, or go to jail. I honestly don't know what else to do.

Gru proposed we get an apartment together.

My knee-jerk reaction was absolutely not. Then I thought about it more carefully. Getting an apartment together is a viable option. The money from school could potentially carry us until we could find jobs or get jobs from the temp agencies in the area. We also have our food stamps and food banks in the area. I'd be able to have Spencer again which would help me quite a bit. We'd be away from drama, homeless kids, and all of that nonsense.

So we've spent the last week and a half searching for a place. We've put in two applications and are waiting to hear back from them. One in particular we are aiming for that's 920sqft townhouse and $670. We don't know what's going to happen though.

Right now we are living in a cheap motel for $200 a week. Zelda turned on me a week or so ago. I caught her in a lie. I no longer talk with her at all. I'm angry with Bernard too, for other reasons, but I think I'll get over those real fast. The truth is I do still need him despite me saying I don't.

Today, I learned that my friend lost her battle with lung cancer. She was only 22 years old and leaves behind a 2 year old daughter. I'm completely heart broken. I was so wrapped up in my own stuff I hadn't talked to her for awhile. I didn't get to say goodbye. I really thought she'd win out over the cancer. I really thought we'd have more time, that I could get my shit together and then be there for her. I hate myself for thinking that way.

I've connected with our old friends from high school. One of them told me that she had talked to her boyfriend and he informed her that Penny had been lying about her health. When I had talked to her last she said they were trying new treatments and they were working. I thought they'd buy me enough time to go visit her. The truth is that they weren't working at all. She was lying to all of us because she didn't want people to be sad.

I'm heartbroken and furious with myself that I didn't take more time to put my issues aside to spend time with her. She was very important to me. I'm going to miss her so much.

I'm going through a lot on top of that. Things with housing really broke me. As ridiculous as that sounds. But walking into a place everyday and being told everyone there hates you, is really hard. I can't even stand to go by the building anymore. I don't trust Bernard, or anyone there, at all anymore which makes things even harder because I need to be able to trust Bernard.

I'm really, really depressed. I'm barely holding on anymore. I don't know what's going to happen to me if we don't get this apartment. I'm devastated by the loss of my friend. I'm really struggling. I really don't know what to do.

Please, just keep me in your thoughts.

--mm

A Very Difficult 24 Hours

I'm going on less than three hours of sleep. I need to go to bed but I can't. I'm so torn up about events that have happened in the last twenty-four hours. There is A LOT of housing drama. I'm also having personal drama and I'm pretty sure I'm having my midlife crisis twenty years early right now. There's been a lot of deaths around me. There's been a lot of just not good stuff. Then today was just all around awful.

I was coming back from an awful night in which my roommate and I got stranded in Clackamas, and our train stopped at the Union Station. "Oh God," I said, "This is never good."

The conductor got on and said that the train could not proceed into downtown due to an accident on the tracks. "Told you it's never good when the conductor starts talking on a stopped train," I said as the hundred or so people on the train clamored off.

Both of us had food poisoning and I needed to find a bathroom so we walked to my old work. In front of the entrance we found the "accident" the conductor had been talking about.

Accident was not the right word. Not at all.

A man had gone to the top of the building I worked in and jumped off the top floor, falling twelve floors to his death. We arrived at the scene as the police officers were covering the body with trash bags. A mother climbed out of the car in front of the scene cradling a small boy, maybe six years old, to block him from seeing. The man's shoe had fallen off and lay in the middle of the road.

Right where I used to work.

I can't stop thinking about that. I can't shake it. It was awful. With all the death I've been surrounded by, lately. I'm just, at a loss. And as such I'm on here instead of getting much needed sleep. I just don't know anymore.

Homeless Kids That Eat Like Kings

I've been in housing two months now. Hard to believe that it's been so long since shelter, yet it seems like a life time ago at the same time. Today, our housing director, Oliver, brought me some magazines from the Food Network. I had to share them with other residents but his thought was for me, which is really nice. I've kind of become a culinary legend around here.

Since I now have a fully functional kitchen and exquisite roommates to share it with I've been spoiling my roommates regularly with food. We are the only dorm that eats meals and grocery shops together. One of the housing staff came in earlier this week and laughed at our chore chart. One of my roommates had written his own chore assignment under the one staff gives us. He labeled me as the "cooker" and the other female in the house the "sandwich maker". He labeled himself as "man stuff". Apparently this particular staff found it absolutely hilarious because after he stopped laughing he said, "I'm really impressed with you guys; you took very basic housing and turned it into a home." We are the only dorm like ours where everyone is close and warm and fuzzy. We also are the only dorm with a Christmas tree. Although, ours is a Christmakah tree because we have a Jewish roommate so we are doing both Hanukkah and Christmas (or rather really failing at trying to).

The one thing that keeps us the most connected are the meals. We always announce when I'm done cooking and invite the other dorms and staff to our food. Only one staff takes the offer, though Zelda says she would if she wasn't vegan. (Well....kind of. Standing outside after the fire alarm went off for someone else's cooking she said, "I feel really dirty eating your guys' food; but then I also feel really dirty not eating your guys' food. I haven't quite figured that out in my head yet so I blame it on being vegan.) Technically, they aren't supposed to eat the food we make but it's not a set in stone rule. I do get offended when people refuse my food offers. Everyone who has tried my cooking though, sing my praises. Even when I ask my roommates for honest opinions they always tell me it's good. I believe them because there are rarely left overs! It's amazing to me how food brings people together.

Here are some of my meals:

I bake cookies almost everyday. I don't really like cookies but as we all know I really, really love cookie dough. Problem is that when it comes time to actually bake the cookies I get lazy and since they are really only for my roommates to eat. For this ginormous cookie I got sick  of making balls of dough and just put the three batters I was working with in one big cookie. My roommates still ate it without a single complaint. 

My roommates CONSTANTLY ask for Orgasm-in-your-Mouth Chicken. Cover the chicken with mayonnaise then bread with crunched up french fried onions. The Mayo keeps the chicken moist and delicious. Going to try this with Greek yogurt next to see if it has the same effect in a healthier form.

Thanksgiving breakfast. Pancakes with bananas, chocolate chips, and I forget what else with scrambled eggs with bell pepper/onion. There was also  bacon of course. 

Our full Thanksgiving feast. My first ever ham (10lbs!). Plus green bean casserole made with cream of chicken instead of mushroom to avoid a mushroom allergy, biscuits, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing.

Pumpkin pie made from scratch minus the crust. (first ever pie attempt and totally edible!)

Peanut Butter cake also made completely from scratch. (My first ever from scratch cake and it was actually good!) Even the glaze is homemade. We were celebrating a birthday in housing. We asked staff for special permission to light candles for the cake, which can result in immediate eviction. They said, "We won't be monitoring in here for awhile." So we lit the candles briefly so he could make a wish.  It was a nice night. 

--mm