Hmmmmm

The Stars

I feel as if I am on the verge of something, on the verge of knowing if I can have a life here. I almost have friends I almost have a routine I almost have a sense of familiarity. Roads, landmarks, directions are becoming increasingly familiar. The woman at the gas station, the guys at the library, the manager at the Family Dollar.

Tonight I saw the stars.

Money is still hard. I get food stamp benefits and that is hard. Knowing that so many of the people I know disapprove of government financial assistance. I say to myself, "My situation is different because I'm helping people and it's only temporary and your tax money already pays my living allowance and I paid lots of taxes for years myself." But really, my work is no better than that of the single mom working at McDonalds and getting EBT. She helps you get that Big Mac. She helps stimulate the economy. You make sure her kids get enough nutrition. We all have different ideas of the best way to help people, of the best way for people to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. If they can only get so high, why should they live less of a life than anyone else? Too little space to give this line of thought the full teasing out it deserves. It's never as simple as it should be.

The hardest part is that I get enough money that I could keep going to Kroger, with its decent prices and good quality products. But when I can, I instead go to Family Dollar and Save-a-Lot and Dollar General and Dollar Tree, where no one looks at me sidewise when I use my EBT card, the American flag waving bravely on it, reminding me of how priveleged I am to live in this country, to be supported by this thoughtful democratic society where we all have the right to the American dream. Stars and stripes.

My headlight went out again and tomorrow I will buy another and try to do a better job of making sure it doesn't fall out of place and burn more wires and blow itself out. I like getting grease on my hands and solving these problems I am not at all qualified to deal with. People are embarrassed of my car for me but I love it. It's mine.

The Reclamation of the Golden Shoes

Hands - Jewel

What I'm eating for dinner

As I was leaving work I saw a blond, Caucasian woman with dreadlocks secured neatly to her head, in a beautiful wrap skirt, walking with a beautiful little girl with a shaved head, save for long bangs, wearing a stylish, colorful outfit and I thought, "How appropriate. I wonder if their life is the way it looks it is, if it is really as romantic as I imagine it to be."

I got to drive more through other parts of Kentucky. It is so beautiful right now! There are cows and the leaves are bright oranges and reds and deep browns and mellow yellow tans. Some of the buildings are still quaint, men in trucks, women on tractors, eying me as any would eye a suspicious stranger. I drive along the highway and can't imagine ever not being there.

I made a delicious tuna salad. If you like tuna salad you might find tuna salad difficult to make not-delicious but I've made bland tuna salad before and eaten just regular boring tuna salad before. Now I know how to make it the right amount of spicy and the right amount of sweet; how to put in enough curry to be detectable but not too much to overpower the tuna flavor. I spread a spoonful of this tuna on slice of Aunt Millie's Lite Whole Grain Bread, sprinkled some pre-shredded "casserole" cheese on top, and put it in the toaster oven. It came out delicious.

Then I pulled one of the cinnamon rolls I baked (from scratch) a few nights ago out of the freezer and put it into the microwave. The taste was so perfect for this day, even better than it was out of the oven, that I thought I needed to make it more perfect. There was no sound in my apartment as I was bouncing from doing work work to scanning pages from recipe books to taking bites from my cinnamon roll. I put on a Joni Mitchell record and I am listening to it now and drinking an-alcohol-free, crushed-red-pepper-infused Hot Places I've Never Been Chocolate.

I love Joni Mitchell but I wonder who loved her first. Whose skin am I trying to wear? Where did I see that painting that I decided should be the ideal for my own life? I feel if the perfectness of this all was more authentic I wouldn't feel so strongly a need to tell the world about it. Or maybe it's too perfect to be spending it alone?

Cost of Living Comparison: compare New York, New York to Cincinnati, Ohio

When I told people I would be moving to do AmeriCorps, one of the things that would invariably come up was finances. I would of course tell people that part of being a VISTA is receiving a living allowance that was just barely above the poverty level, and that I wouldn't be allowed any other form of income. (Obviously financial gifts from family and friends is acceptable as is government assistance.) If I didn't mention the word "poverty" and just said that I wouldn't be making much money, no one ever failed to say, "Yeah, but the cost of living has to be a lot cheaper than NYC, amIright?" Yes, yes, you are right. However, my current gross income is approximately 28% of my gross income in New York. The good thing is that housing really is cheap here. I am able to live in a small, but comfortable, studio apartment. There are larger one bedroom apartments (with 4 to 5 rooms total) for a comparable price, but with fewer amenities. Below is a link to a comparison calculator to show how much money I would have to make here to compare to my life in New York...and to show the difference in the cost of housing.

Cost of Living Comparison: compare New York, New York to Cincinnati, Ohio

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Nice

I went to my sewing class for the first time in a month, after I'd only been twice, and one of the women told me, "You have really been missed;" I could've cried.

Things I Like About Living Here

If you almost cut someone off in traffic on accident, but wave and smile an apology, they wave and smile back, instead of calling you a "stupid bitch."