Chicken

(Thank you for the link to the second Passover. This year it would be this Saturday. Apparently we are waiting for the biopsies to grow, like a throat culture, but uterine cancer has been ruled out. At this point I've pretty much mentally checked out because if I engage I am enraged at how this is all taking so long after we were told the whole point of going to Texas was the fast turn around time. There is nothing fast about this.)

So Gwyneth Paltrow did yet another celebrity food stamp challenge. Ugh, the limes. Really, almost all the green stuff. I imagine this is probably accurate though, for people who are used to being at least middle class and then all of a sudden ... aren't. How can they possibly know off the top of their heads which foods will go farther and give them more value? Still. She should have bought carrots.

My disgust was tempered both by Laurie's cancer shit and by the fact that I already got all riled up about this before a few years ago. What did get me angry is that she didn't get through a full week, cracking at four days in. Come ON. That's just completely pathetic. Didn't Gwyneth brace herself to do something hard for a week? I mean, she gave birth. Twice! Surely this isn't as hard as that was, right? Didn't she know it wouldn't be all Goop-worthy meals all week? 

I don't want to compete

On my first day of kindergarten I sat between my mother's legs as she did my hair. She told me there would be nice kids and mean kids, and sometimes the mean kids are louder and easier to notice but that just means I have to look harder for the nice kids. That I had a decision to make every single day, of whether I wanted to be a nice kid or a mean kid. Would people be seeking me out or trying to avoid me?

Last week one morning I was doing my hair before work and thought of that. Because all the bitchy people at work were getting me down. A manager at work asked me to get her a coffee and when I went in the kitchen it took me a while, to figure out how to use the machine. I felt So Stupid, So Poor, for not knowing how to use it.

Whenever I feel poor I feel alone. It's not being poor that makes you feel badly. It's feeling alone in the poorness that feels bad. The crazy thing is, I'm not poor now. I have a really good job. Every morning before I leave for work I have to remind myself of that. Any day now it will kick in.

The other people are not better than me. I am much luckier than so many other people. Money doesn't buy everything you need. In some ways I am much richer than other people. Over and over and over again.

Deep baths

All the biggest talks always happen when someone's in bed or in the bathtub. Not sure why, but it's always that way. When I got home from work I decided to take a bath. A real one with candles and bubbles and a magazine. Not five minutes into the water, I heard the door open. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be home alone for a while. Obviously I love everybody, but my brain only ever has time to process outside thoughts, not to wander.

Josh came in and sat on the edge of the tub. I asked him how much it would cost to go skiing for a weekend. He nearly fell in. I am thinking maybe about asking Arnie about taking a Friday off and going just for a weekend.

The other day at school this girl I sort of know was telling me about how she went out for dinner with her family, to celebrate her brother's birthday. He got to pick the restaurant and she didn't like it, so she spent the whole meal bitching about how there was nothing for her to eat, and all the food sucked and kept going the whole time.

You know, every time we talk she's upset about some injustice in the world done to her. She is always hurt. Always upset. Nothing is ever her fault - life just happens to her. Even when it's something she could have prevented, even if she could have done things differently, she always lets the bad thing happen, so she can bitch about it. Well maybe that's not why, but she will like, blow all her money on bullshit and then bitch and rage about how mean the phone company is for turning off her phone because she paid them "only" two days late.

It's like she is the devil on my shoulder showing me what would happen if the angel on my other shoulder didn't win. She is my other future I could be having. It's scary.

Planning

So thanks to this site, I am now sort of getting all the Wall Street protesting. I don't really get what Wall Street does, or why it's responsible for all the horribleness everyone is going through rather than the government, but it's better than nothing.

While my sisters and I were reading this week's latest entries Danielle asked if I thought it'd have been smarter to just learn a trade and work full time doing that. I haven't had to take out loans yet. That, combined with working around 30 hours a week makes me think I'm doing okay, but maybe it just hasn't hit yet. Or maybe I'm missing something.

Josh suggested to Danielle that she should do that instead of going to college. She got all huffy and told him that of the three of us, of course she should go. He got all huffy right back and asked what made her so special. Danielle explained, like he's an idiot, that everyone knows I'm the street smart one, she's the book smart one, and Alex is the people smart one. Later, privately, Josh told me he disagrees with those categorizations and was surprised that Alex and I didn't. He made me promise I wasn't going to let Danielle talk me into quitting school. Spent the rest of the day ignoring her, telling me it was so he wouldn't say something he regretted.

It seems like the trifecta is to avoid student loans, getting sick without health insurance, and not having a job. Life is really scary.

Slumming it

Sometimes Josh gets in a mood where he wants to understand what it's like to be poor. I don't think he really gets that it's different for everyone. One family's priorities are not another family's. I try to explain it anyway feeling it's somehow important, although I don't exactly know why. Sometimes Josh jokes about it, and I'm not sure if he genuinely thinks it's funny that we walked around wearing sneakers that had holes in them or he's doing that whole "laughing because I'm nervous" thing.

This weekend when we were food shopping, Josh asked me to make a "poor people meal." I didn't even get into how insulting it is to say that, because sometimes you have to pick your battles. Really, the least expensive meal that's still healthy is rice and beans. You can only eat that so many days in a row until you opt to just skip dinner rather than eat it one more time. That's where "chicken-n-shit" comes in. I'd get two chicken breasts, chop them up, toss them in a frying pan with whatever vegetables were still left in the fridge, cook up some rice or something, and call it a day.

Josh nodded. "Make it?" I knew there was no rice at home, so I grabbed a box of Rice-a-Roni since it was on sale. Looking through the fridge I found green pepper, tomato and broccolini. Josh sat on the counter watching me cook the whole time. Dani came in to see what was going on. She took one look at the stove and turned to Josh. "Are we breaking up?" He had to reassure her we're not, and got all awkward trying to explain why he'd want to slum it when we don't have to. "You could have at least used brown rice," were Danielle's parting words.

I handed Josh a bowl of food. He ate the whole thing, saying it was good. Sure it's good - when it's all a big joke with your girlfriend. Not so good when there aren't lots of options and each day when you come home you're not sure what food will still be there. Josh can go enjoy the high sodium rice on his own.

Shopping rich-people style

When Josh asked me to go clothing shopping with him I thought it meant we'd go to JCrew or somewhere and spend an hour picking out polos and t-shirts. Josh's rich-boy friends are always wearing t-shirts that are supposed to imply they're tough and dangerous. Bronx Boxing. As if any of them have ever let anyone punch them in the same faces that go to the dermatologist every month.

No. Josh has a personal shopper at a department store. He has fancy dressing rooms, separate from the masses. They have cushy chairs and offer you champagne. They pulled things in his sizes and put them on a big rack. There was no limit to the number of things Josh was allowed to take in the dressing room. Nobody counted each pair of pants, separating them to make sure nothing was balled up to be stolen later.

The women were so nice. Jeremy, the personal dude shopper (as Josh called him) told me I could go into the little dressing room with him, but I was embarrassed. Instead I sat outside next to his rack of clothes and studied, while every so often telling Josh he looked pretty. He spent over $1100. On clothes. For the summer.

Then I went to a fire family dinner with my sisters, where we were given a garbage bag that had sweatshirts smelling of cat pee on them.

Reasons why being a grownup is too hard

1. It's really, really awkward to try to live in the same house with someone you're fighting with. Friday and Saturday night Josh stayed out. He came back early this afternoon and tonight I'm sleeping with my sister because I can't see how you can sleep in the same bed with someone when you're in a fight with them. Soon after Josh got home we left for fire family dinner, then when we got back he was on the phone. I took a shower and got into Danielle's bed to study and Josh never came to talk to me.

2. Alex had a growth spurt. This is why I hate buying her brand new jeans. Her winter coat barely reaches her wrists and she is shoving her jeans down her hip bones so the bottoms will not look retarded. So this morning I told her to find a new coat she likes. I was thinking maybe she is old enough to shop for herself. Turns out I was completely wrong. Guess this week I will go to Old Navy with Danielle and have her pick out the warmest coat they have that's under $50 that she likes, so she can give her old one to Alex. I don't know why she has such expensive taste, but the shitty thing is when she doesn't get the most expensive thing she's picked out, Alex always looks like she's so hurt, as if we didn't get her something just to be mean.

Danielle pointed out to her that Alex can always decide to save up her own money and buy a coat herself. Alex hated this idea, and promptly make herself look like shit by yelling, "But I just spent all that time saving up to pay Sammer back!" Yeah. Like that's my fault. Dani took pity anyway and said she'll buy Alex one pair of pants. So I said I would too, and then Danielle and I agreed in private we'll get her a third pair for Christmas.

3. Maybe I am getting sick. I've had a headache all weekend. Last night I was hot and cold all at the same time and couldn't sleep even though I was totally exhausted. I don't want to write my English paper. I don't want to do my part of the statistics project I'm supposed to turn in. I don't want to make my own fucking soup. I don't want to get on the train tomorrow and get coughed on by weird tourists and have strangers touching me. Nerves are totally rubbed raw.

Maybe there's a deaf homeless network

The mother of the kid I tutored today had some kind of lunch party and offered me leftovers. So because I am bad at turning down free food, I took a few cucumber sandwiches, swept a handful of raw veggies into a baggie, and grabbed a chocolate croissant. On the way home I realized there was a book at school this girl was holding for me, but I'd forgotten it. So I turned back and found her in the library. We wound up chatting for a while, a long while actually, and I wasn't heading home until after 9pm.

I passed this guy laying on the sidewalk, and saw him move a little under all the blankets. Realizing I had food, I stopped a few feet away so as not to invade his space, and whispered, "Are you still awake?" He half sat up to look at me. "Would you like some food?" I held out a bag to him. He put his hands up, palms facing me, and shook them back and forth, making a noise that kind of sounded like no. I realized he couldn't talk. "You sure? A pastry?" He did it again, so I said good night and kept walking.

Usually the people who decline food are asking for money because they need drugs or booze. This guy seemed clean though. It was kind of weird. Less than a block away, I was crossing the street and there was a guy pushing a shopping cart loaded with stuff in the opposite direction. Not wanting to be too stuck in the rejection, I decided to try again. "Hey, you want some food?" The guy stopped pushing and looked at me. "Yeah?" Once again I offered my bag of food to a homeless guy. "Yeah,"I confirmed. He took it, saying thank you, and balanced it on top of his pile of towels and blankets. His thank you sounded weird, and I realized he was deaf.

Standing outside waiting for the bus, I wondered if the two guys were friends. Kind of hope they are.

How did I not know about Black Friday before?

Does everyone know about this? I looked it up and it's not a new thing, but totally never noticed it before. Yesterday my sisters and I went to help at a soup kitchen in the morning. It was really funny - more than half the other volunteers who didn't work there were here from another country. Danielle had a long talk with a Canadian girl who's a scientist. Alex entertained a little girl who was there with her Korean mother. We were there when they were prepping food. It was nice to work with genuinely kind people. They were totally cool with sneaking food to people who showed up early, and still told them to come back later for the full meal.

When we went to Laurie and John's, I brought flowers because when Josh called Laurie to ask, she said that's what her table was missing. It was a little weird being at a dinner with my boss, but Arnie was pretty cool about it. We played Kinect on Xbox while we were there - that was really funny. My face hurt from laughing so much.

John and I had a long talk about the traveling thing. He suggested I go with the scanner, saying even if it's more radiation than an hour of flying or whatever, since I've barely been exposed to any radiation aside from a cell phone this won't cause me cancer. "Plus I pity anyone who touches you when you don't want to be touched, and I don't want to have to bail you out of jail." So yeah.

Laurie pulled me aside to say she overheard Alex talking to one of her friends about the soup kitchen experience. Apparently Alex told the woman, "Canadian people are so adorable; they like to pretend they're from a whole other country!"*

During dinner people were talking about Black Friday and how they hoped there wasn't such big crowds that anyone would die from being trampled this year. Danielle and Alex decided they wanted to go and talked me into being crazy on the way home. We looked up a whole bunch of deals online, and then I set my alarm for 3:30 in the morning. I now have four dresses - two for warm weather and two for cold weather. I got gray ones, figuring if they fade they won't look weird. Going into stores you've never been in before is a little overwhelming on a Black Friday. I had no idea Espirit had dresses before yesterday.

Alex got three new pairs of jeans at Old Navy. We all got the same sweater, but in different colors. Josh was so excited that I got brown instead of black. Dani got the black one - we may wind up trading, so he shouldn't get too excited. We wear the same size shoe so we each got a pair of flats, and I am really pleased with our purchases. Alex doesn't know it but Danielle got her Christmas present today.

When we got home I made caponata soup and polenta. Then I took a nap because getting up in the middle of the night from a dead sleep is really harsh. Josh asked me to make a fancy meal tonight so I sent him food shopping and served soup and then cornish game hens. I'm not sure if that really goes together, but oh well. It tasted good and that's what matters.

*Yes, Alex knows Canada is technically another country. But it was agreed long ago among the three of us that if you can drive there and they speak English, that doesn't really count.

Some people build houses

to make a difference. I go to sleep early (or attempt to) and try to eat all the meals to make a difference. Josh asked if I would go on vacation with him if we did Habitat for Humanity, so it would be like a working vacation. It makes me feel like he doesn't understand my vacation issues at all. Tonight I asked Danielle if she felt like she'd be okay if I left her and Alex home alone for a while, instead of having to find a place for both of them to stay while I go somewhere with Josh. His parents have let them stay a bunch of times, but I feel bad and don't want to ask.

Danielle is 16, you'd think she could stay home without me for a few days right? Josh really really wants to go on a vacation with me. He said something about how it will make me a whole different person and he wants to see what I'm like as a relaxed person. By December 1st, I have to ask Arnie for a week off from work when Josh and I are both out of school. I think it will be better to leave my sisters home alone while their schools are still in session so it means we can't go anywhere the week between Christmas and New Years. It's really important to make all the details fall into place. At the start of the summer when we were talking about the holidays Josh said he doesn't want anything from me for Chanukah except to go on a vacation with him. Then on the way home from our apple-picking weekend a few weeks ago, Josh told me again that's all he wants. He couldn't drop any clearer hints if he wrote it down and handed me a piece of paper.

So I guess going on a real vacation needs to happen. Today I went to the post office to find out how you get a passport. I'm not poor anymore. I mean, I guess most people have the backing of a family and I don't, but we don't get food stamps anymore. This year I haven't been embarrassed about any of my clothes, not even once. It still makes me nervous to grab lunch at a corner store, but I have a feeling that even if I won the lottery and became a gazillionnaire I would still get nervous every time I spend money.

People like to think poor people are poor because of bad decisions, not because of circumstances. I think it makes them feel safer - that they don't have to worry about being poor because they will make better decisions. Sometimes it's true - you can be poor because you were an idiot and made bad money decisions. It's really easy to tell which type of person you're talking to. We weren't poor when I was little, but extras were ... infrequent and small. We'd all split a milkshake, for example. I've always thought that certain things were for Other People. Like passports. They're not for my kind of people.

Josh has tried to argue with me about this - he thinks every opportunity is for everyone. Maybe if everyone acted that way then I'd feel that way. But when you're given other people's worn and stained clothes and expected to be happy about it? You're being told exactly what your place is in life, and it's not in first class. When people find out you've eaten at a certain restaurant and express surprise you've been there? They want to ask why you're not getting your food from a food pantry and eating Spaghetti-O's or something. It makes me not want to let people know things. It makes me want to over-explain myself.

So when I walked into the post office and told the woman I wanted to start the process of getting a passport? I was totally prepared for her to say, "For you?" She didn't, of course. She didn't say I don't deserve to leave the country. Didn't say I should be saving my money for other, more important things that are less frivolous. She just slapped a form down and told me what to bring back in a monotone without any eye contact.

And then I went apple-picking

Two papers, two tests, and one quiz. Maybe I'm just not that sensitive, but I just went home and did dinner and schoolwork and studying and sistering and then Friday after work I packed a bag and went upstate with Josh and two other people and we went apple-picking and to a pumpkin farm (field?) and stayed until Monday afternoon.

You can't really grow up in the shitty section of the Bronx and avoid getting flashed. Or seeing a guy squat down, face a wall, and light up a crack pipe. Or avoid walking past an alleyway and seeing a hooker blowing a guy. Or avoid getting propositioned by a pimp. When I told Josh on Friday what had happened, he pointed out that most nannies have probably been propositioned at work at least once if not more.

I never went upstate before - any time I've left the city, it's been to go out to Long Island. The other guy who came on the upstate trip is one of Josh's good friends he's known forever, and he brought his girlfriend. As we crossed through Scarsdale, Josh's friend asked if I'd ever left lower New York before. When I said no, he laughed and said I should have gone to the Fresh Air Fund and everyone laughed at that. I did not find it all that funny, and when he asked if I even had a passport Josh changed the subject.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast - it's like half hotel, half house. It was like on Gilmore Girls, but less wacky people. Josh told me you can take the toiletries and it's not stealing but I had a hard time believing that. We spent Saturday just exploring the area and stopping anywhere that looked interesting. Apparently people go driving in CT and upstate New York in the fall to look at the changing leaves, which seems totally crazy to me. Josh wanted to stop at an outlet mall because he thought I should see one, but his friend's girlfriend got very upset and said I absolutely should never buy anything from an outlet store.

Josh said an outlet mall is full of stuff that didn't sell in regular stores or extras that were made but didn't even get sent to stores. The girl said though, it's things that are flawed in some way, or stuff that never sold after tons of people tried it on. She said I can do much better just shopping the good sales at regular department stores if I don't care about having things from the previous season.

When I asked Josh if he ever actually bought anything at an outlet store he admitted he never has. I am not sure I can afford the kinds of things she buys. She had a Bottega Veneta bag that she told me she doesn't even really like, but just got on a whim. She probably spent more on her bag than I spend in three years on clothes. I didn't buy anything at the outlet mall.

Sunday we went to an apple orchard and picked apples. They give you a big basket, and you can take a wagon to put the baskets on and pull which we did. The woman at the front had index cards with recipes for things you can make with apples, and I pretty much took one of each. You can freeze applesauce, right?

There were lots of antique stores and we stopped in a few to look around. After the second one it kind of seemed the same, and were the type of places to call themselves shoppes. There were also candle and soap stores and they all smelled very flowery, and not in a good way. There was a store where they made fudge, and that place did smell good. We found an old timey ice cream store and that was great.

On Monday we went to a place that has horses and went horseback riding which was crazy fun - it felt like I was falling every time the horse moved. It was my first time and didn't fall off, so it's going down as a success. Then we went to a pumpkin field and went on a hayride. After we picked pumpkins we had lunch and then drove home. It was really funny being a tourist somewhere. I tried to not be an annoying one. I am going to be up crazy-late each night this week cooking.

Something you hope to never have to do

I have only ever lived in boroughs of New York City. The idea of living somewhere that's not a city seems horrifying to me. Unless it's a place like Santa Monica, which I imagine has houses where when you step out of your back door (because I imagine the houses have them there) your feet are touching sand and the Pacific Ocean is right in front of you. I don't count Los Angeles as a real city because supposedly you have to have a car there. Real cities don't require cars. New Yorkers may be the only people who consider it something to be proud of - that they can't drive.

Anyway, I imagine that in non-cities, like farm areas or really suburban places, that people are grouped together based on how much money they have. Like all the rich people live in a gated community and all the poor people live on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. In New York it's not like that at all. Sure, if someone lives on the Upper East Side they're probably well off, but you can be a multi-millionaire and still be stepping around (or over) homeless people sleeping on your block.

There was once a guy, a rapper, on MTV who did an episode of Cribs or something, and he went in a limo to pick up his food stamps. Eventually it caught up with him and he got busted for it, but that's how New York is for the most part. Especially because you go to other neighborhoods so easily within the city. So yes, maybe you live in the shitty South Bronx, but you might go to school in a fancy part of Brooklyn. Then you go into Manhattan to buy food at Trader Joe's.

I think it would be easier to live in a really poor part of Indiana, where everyone around you is on food stamps. Then when you go to pay at the supermarket and your EBT card won't go through, the people behind you don't glare and start cursing you out because they know in four minutes it's going to be their EBT card that won't go through.

In New York it doesn't work like that. First of all, I think they purposely make that black magnetic strip on the back so it purposely won't work when you try to scan it. Mine never worked. The cashier would always make me scan it again, and then do it themselves, as if I was too retarded to know how to scan it properly. I always had to tell them it didn't work and they never just took my word for it. Then they'd always say "Press the EBT button" as if I didn't know it was a food stamp card and might accidentally press the debit card button instead, so that everyone else in line would know the person holding everyone up was poor, and of course people are poor because they're stupid, so stupid they need to be told which button to press. So humiliating.

I think it would be easier to be on food stamps if I lived in the Kentucky mountains. When I think of places like that I imagine there's a WalMart, and everyone buys everything they need from that store only. There's no WalMart in the city, so I've never been to one, but from everything I've heard about it, it's the absolutely most trashy place in the world to go.

So yeah I hope to never need food stamps again. If I do, I'm totally moving to a place where babies drink Mountain Dew out of their baby bottles and where you can wear wacky things in WalMart. Because I'm pretty sure I'd get fewer dirty looks when I pulled out that EBT card.

Food and poorness

I really like this article about poor people and food a lot. I didn't like it at first, in January when I first read it. It's kind of embarrassing to think people look at you and go "Oh, you're poor? So you grew up only having four feet of kitchen counter space? So you only had one frying pan and one pot? So you had roaches in your kitchen cabinets?" But it's true.

There's a lot of about my mom and nana I remember, but there's a lot that I don't. I have no idea how many frying pans my mom had. She just always had enough. I'm pretty sure she had a few pots because I can see in my mind a stock pot of soup, a pot of gravy and a third pot all cooking on the oven making the house smell good. But I can't really remember and who knows what happened to all our kitchen stuff?

Aunt Elaine didn't own any cookbooks. It took until eighth grade to convince her to get internet; before that I would copy down recipes from cookbooks in the library or at the bookstore. To be honest, I lost them a lot. Okay and I threw them out a lot too. Or Aunt Elaine would, if I left them in the kitchen where I wasn't supposed to keep things.

Both the oven and refrigerator were smaller than normal. I couldn't really cook more than one thing in the oven at once, and even that didn't work out well sometimes. Aunt Elaine has a microwave oven but it shorts out a lot. To use it you have to turn it on and watch how long it's cooked something for so you know how much more time it needs to cook when it shorts out.

There were roaches in the kitchen cabinets and the rule my sisters and I agreed on was that we'd throw something out if roaches were crawling directly on the food, but not if they just crawled on the packaging. Lighting in the kitchen was not great. I didn't realize this for a long time, but it wasn't. It is so much easier now to see when meat is finished cooking on the stove than it was living with Aunt Elaine.

We always lived (not in Brooklyn, but with Aunt Elaine) near a few fast food restaurants. Closer than that were corner stores that sell a lot of Nissan Cup O Noodles, bags of chips, soda, cookies, beer, and candy. Sometimes they'd sell a few apples or a bunch of bananas. Everything is marked up about 30% more than what it costs in the supermarket. So in a supermarket I could buy a loaf of 12 grain bread on sale, with a coupon, for about $2.50 but in a corner store bread is never on sale, it's independently owned so they don't have to accept coupons if they don't want to, and you can easily pay close to $5 for a loaf of white bread.

There were always supermarkets close enough to walk to, but the challenge was walking home carrying bags of food without getting mugged. Especially in the winter when you're walking on icy, broken-up sidewalks you want to keep at least one hand free. We'd take the bus to get to Trader Joe's and that was always kind of bittersweet. It's less expensive than Whole Foods but so VERY crowded. Plus, we always had the urge to stock up on stuff and would wind up putting a lot back because we'd realize there was no cabinet space. In the last apartment we lived in with Aunt Elaine there were four cabinets above the sink. Two were used for dishes and glasses.

So yeah. Being poor does affect how you eat. The assumption that poor people eat badly because of course poor people are uneducated is really, really offensive. The whole "beggars can't be choosers" thing is really offensive also. You're poor, so let us feed you the shitty food we wouldn't eat ourselves, so you can help us by getting diabetes and other poor people illnesses and ultimately die earlier.

It was really hurtful to have to listen to Josh talk about there being nothing to eat sometimes. Now he says, "I can't find anything I'm in the mood for" and doesn't suffer dirty looks from three girls anymore.

TMI Warning:
We have more money now. I earn a lot more than when I was just working at the diner and maybe I'm not saving as much as I should but we three eat much, much better. I am totally convinced it's why I've gotten my period every month since October and why Dani finally got hers this past fall.

We are never shopping at H&M again

This makes me want to cry. New York is like only second to Paris when it comes to clothes. Do you have any idea how much pressure there is to dress right? Every single person looks you up and down when they see you, to check out your outfit. Because of me, Danielle's always worn hand-me-downs. Because of me and Danielle, Alex has always worn them too. Because of 9/11, the three of us have been given a lot of third and fourth hand clothes. A lot of them were ill-fitting and stained. We wore them anyway.

We wore shirts wider than our bodies. Jeans with gaps in the back. Stretched out sweaters and tank tops. So to read that H&M not only throws away clothing but ruins it so dumpster divers can't even take it home and wear it? Disgusted.

Weekend

Of course there was no fire family dinner last night, because of course everyone is doing something special for the long weekend. Daniellle worked seven hours yesterday and is working six today. Someone did drop off a bag of stuff for us though. Sheets and pillowcases.

The sheets are for bigger beds than our twin mattresses though so we can't use them. Danielle noticed weird yellow stains on them - we don't know what they are. They look like pee to be honest. I had no idea adults just randomly pee in their beds. Danielle offered the sheets to Aunt Elaine since she has a big bed. Aunt Elaine asked why she would want new sheets and Alex was like, "Because you never change the ones on your bed so now you could?"

For a super huge fat person Aunt Elaine can move really fast when she's inspired to slap someone. Alex was so pissed off, because her face is just getting back to normal. She only has two bruises left that are yellowish. I don't blame her for being angry.

I am going into the city with this boy Sebastian in a couple of hours. He is gay, Puerto Rican doesn't believe sweater vests should make a comeback and has made it his personal mission to educate me on Broadway shows. Every time we hang out at least an hour is spent watching Youtube clips of different shows.

It's a tough life

I think of the diner as "real work" and the real estate office as "fake work" because firstly the diner came first and secondly I barely do any work at the office. You really can get paid money to sit around and look pretty. I got a really cute pair of shoes at the Gap that are like ballet flats with bows on top. Danielle wants to wear them to school but I am scared she will lose them or they'll get ruined or something.

The funny thing is I thought that like the office job would just pay more than the diner but there wouldn't be any free stuff. Wrong! So when you buy real estate there is a closing and they always have pastries or bagels or something and then champagne for it. It is part of my job to clean up the conference offices at the end of the day and load the dishwasher and run it.

Arnie's assistant is this really nice lady (she drove me home once) and she said I can take leftovers home. So I take home everything except the bagels and the champagne. Okay I have taken home champagne twice.

I sit around doing homework. Every time I could use a little break from it, the phone rings or somebody walks in to distract me at the perfect moment. All the people are super-nice. The old men ask me about my homework and school, they don't flirt or try to hook up with me. It's like a completely different world. I feel like a complete fraud.

Beggars can't be choosers

Once my mom took me and Dani to a flea market or farmer's market or something. I was really little, like five-ish, and Dani was a baby. It was the middle of summer and crazy hot. She sent me to a stand to ask for an ice water. The lady gave me water in a cup. No ice, no straw. When I asked for those she told me beggars can't be choosers. She didn't even give me the chance to tell her I'd been sent with money in my pocket.

Today the wife of a guy who used to work with my brother dropped off a garbage bag filled with clothes for us. It was nice of her, but I wonder. Since we didn't beg, can we be choosy about this? They have two girls, who, according to all the tops in the bag, are very messy eaters. Every single top is stained. One kid is really overweight and all the pants would fall down on Alex. They're the right length but Al could fit two of her into each pair of jeans. Plus there are holes in the seams. Then there are a bunch of shorts but they are all ones with words across the ass and also don't fit. Dani could wear them but they just about show her underwear. I really would not want her to go out in public looking like that. Alex can't wear them - she'd get pants'd.

We could wear some of the shirts but not to work. They're all like extra wide on me and Danielle. Maybe this makes us ungrateful but I don't want to keep any of these clothes. They're all either stained, too big, too small, slutty, or just ... gross. I hate having to be all thank you, you're so nice to us, for what amounts to like total crap.

Alex wants to get those plaid shorts we're seeing all over. I am going to try to get her a pair for the summer. She wants to be a little preppie girl.