Moved

We have moved, and we are not happy. Our old apartment was too expensive and I sort of knew this was coming, but I thought since it didn't happen this summer it wouldn't happen at least until next summer. And I thought we'd get to look at different apartments and choose. Not that Aunt Elaine would just choose for all of us.

So now we've moved from one crappy section of the South Bronx to a differently crappy section of the South Bronx. I miss our crackwhores. We've got less crackwhores here, but more drug deals and fighting, it seems. I never felt like our crackwhores were dangerous. To each other they maybe are, but not to us. To us they've always been really nice. The drug dealers seem more aggressive, and I think we have different ideas of personal space because I keep feeling like they get all up in mine. Dani and I had agreed just this year that Alex could start coming home from school by herself, but now that we moved she can't. Alex doesn't mind because she's scared to walk past the older boys who stand near the doors anyway.

Our new bedroom is smaller than the old one and that one was too small. So right now our dresser is in the hallway. Which Aunt Elaine doesn't like because there's barely room to get by, even for me, and she's like four of me put together. So Dani, who must have been smoking crack to have the balls to say this, suggested to Aunt Elaine that she give us her bedroom, since it's bigger, and we're more people. When I went to bed last night Dani said her cheek still stung from the slap. I feel bad for her, not so much that it hurts, but more because Aunt Elaine said she slapped Dani for being disrespectful since she's the adult, she should get the bigger bedroom, but I don't think Dani was really being fresh, just offering up a solution to a way we could get the dresser out of the hallway.

Our beds leave us with almost no floorspace at all, so there's really no room for the dresser. The three of us could probably fit on two mattresses, but I feel like if we start sleeping like we're in a third world country it'll be like a slippery slope down to cooking the cockroaches for dinner. The way it is now is a fire hazard, and Topher would not be happy at all. I tried making a horseshoe like Craig did for us this summer, but the beds don't lay flat that way. Plus then we'd have to put the dresser in the middle of the horseshoe, which would mean one of us would have to be sleeping behind the dresser and nobody wants to, which means I'd have to. We don't have the hall closet like we did in the old apartment anymore either, so Aunt Elaine had me put all that stuff on the floor of our closet. So now our Mommy boxes don't fit. So they're on top of the dresser in the hallway, which looks really ugly. Plus we don't have anywhere to put all the stuff we'd been keeping on top of our dresser. If we put that stuff on top of the boxes, Alex can't reach.

I did something really mean and told Alex she had to get rid of all her old magazines. We don't have the room anymore. Alex cried and said she wanted to collect all the magazines with their holiday stuff for this season. Sorry. But then she decided to send them to San Diego for the kids staying at that football stadium to have something to do. Dani said that's a dumb idea, that it'll make people feel bad to look at magazines full of stuff that they maybe used to have but burned, but Alex said kids would like it. They kept arguing about it but I walked out, so I don't know what happened after that.

I want to go to a fabric store and get pretty colors of fabric and cover our Mommy boxes with that. If they're going to be out all the time, I want them to look pretty. Dani said we should just draw on them but I think that'll just make them look old. She must be so upset with herself for dying and leaving us like this. I am so positive this is not how she meant for us to be living at all.

All my rules for getting a job are over. I don't even care if I have to wear a polyester uniform - wait, yes I do who the hell am I kidding. Okay, I don't care if … well I still have all the same rules. No, okay, a uniform is okay with me, as long as it's not polyester. But I really need to step up the job search. Because I don't think Danielle and Alex would ever forgive me if I graduated from high school and didn't move them out of here. I probably wouldn't forgive myself.