The Beach Slum

      I have to confess something to you guys. All... 3 of you.     I can't do a car lease.     Maybe you've read this blog and were like, yeah no shit you can't; maybe you had higher hopes for me, maybe you thought nothing of it at all because you're not even reading this, but it's an important conclusion for me to write.     I got the lease because I wanted to prove I could fit in with one specific person, but it didn't work, and he talked shit about me for two hours straight, and after months of saying I'd never do a lease again, I have decided to use my free will in the best way possible.     I'm going to sell my lease. Get rid of it. And buy a used car, like God intended. Like the universe did. I hate car payments, and I hate not owning the car. I still had to pay $500 a month for the four months my car sat in the goddamn shop. I can't do it anymore.      I was open to a Mazda3, or a Mazda6. Unfortunately for me,...

      I have a piece of writing to share from my stream of consciousness that hit me after a very contentious phone call with a body shop that still has my CX30, after two months.     It also fits my theme for my master's. It's not very pleasant to read. I'm sorry in advance. I never used to yell at service workers. I worked in the service industry since I was old enough to work, I knew what it was like. I have a temper but I always try to be understanding of short staffed shifts, poor management, and food that just needs to cook. I will never be understanding of mechanics who want to take advantage of people.\ When I first broke down in Dani in California, I took her to a mechanic in Oxnard who was the worst one I’d ever experienced. Maybe I’d been blessed finding mine, but they were one in a million, and I should’ve known. From the start, he treated me like a whitewashed girl who knew nothing. He claimed I needed an oil change before even looking at Dani. I li...

  I CRY. I CRY I CRY I CRY I CRY. MY EMOTIONS DO NOT END. THE GRIEF HAS NEVER STOPPED. I CRY. I SOB. I BAWL. I WAIL FOR MY BEST FRIEND ON MY KNEES AND MY EMOTIONS WILL NOT END. I CRY. I CRY I CRY I CRY I CRY. I GET DRUNK AND IT IS NEVER FUZZY. THE GRIEF WILL NEVER LEAVE.  i scream in my grief. 

    Anyone remember my super devastating car crash? The one that killed my best friend? And still continues to ruin me every time I get drunk enough to remember I am in actually super crippling grief?     Remember that?     WELL GUESS WHO CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF HER CATCH A GODDAMN BREAK.     And why is it always on a trip to California? California, what are you trying to say? Am I supposed to stay, and that's why I break down? Do you hate me and that's my punishment? Does it matter to me?     So I'm driving to California, right, because I have to go to USC, to see the super misogynistic doctor who is very obsessed with what my medication is going to do to my womb, if I ever bear fruit, as if I'm bearing fruit at all right now.     And I'm driving safely! It's a bright sunny day, dry roads, light traffic, I am in the left lane behind a black pick up truck, with enough space between us to fit an RV. I know this because there's an...

      Shortly after I wrote the last post, I went to California, on a road trip, in my new Mazda, with Nick.     I wanted to go to Coronado, but I was afraid. Afraid because the beach Dani and I used to go to all the time was going to prop up memories. Afraid to do it alone, but afraid to do it with Nick. I wasn't sure how I'd react, and I wasn't sure he'd be helpful. Not even I know what to do with my grief. How could an outsider know, even one who knows me best?     A little secret: sometimes I blame Nick for the accident.     That's not fair, and that's not true, but in my most irrational moments, I can trace the fault lines all the way back to him on that day, and I can trace them back even farther.     I moved into my new place that day, he came to see it, left and said we should get dinner. I was sweaty. I'd been cleaning all day. It wasn't a fancy place, but it didn't feel right to go to my first dinner as a renter with sweat...

      I have been refusing to make this post since it happened.              The family joke from the day I got Dani is that if she went, I went. I would die when she did. And I poured everything I had into making sure she did not. I poured everything I had into that car. The joke was that I would stop paying for repairs when she needed an engine rebuild, and even then, probably not. I'd probably rebuild it. We traded suffering. She drove me when I needed to cry and scream at night, and I suffered sweat and financial costs when she had some issue on the way to the beach.     I was so, so, so stupidly in love with that car. My pride and joy.     Notice the past tense? Tell me you see where this is going, because I want to cry writing this without even saying the words.     I always thought if Dani were to leave me, it would be in the kind way. One final wheeze to the beach and back, and I could let her g...