About this time last year I made a trip to the desert for a wedding and met a man. I don't know what it is about Tucson, but it one of the places I feel at home.


I used to take so many photos. When I moved a few years ago I accidentally threw away 20 years of negatives.



Every bus station in every town.

It is so dusty there, and hot. The Mexican food is the best. I always have a good time when I visit. So what is it, that feeling, feeling homesick without really knowing where home is.

But outside the hospital unit, the general looked grim. "There's not a kid in that unit who knew what they were getting into," he said. "When I asked them, are you ready to go?, they would say, 'Yes, sir.' But then I'd look at those 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds, two weeks out of boot camp, and thought, no, they are not ready for this struggle. I knew how scared they were, how reluctant they were."

My Fruitvale neighborhood is officially gentrified. The house next door is a twin of my house. Miss Ramsey, now in a rest home, lived her entire life in this house since 1912. Since her stroke, the house has been empty, gathering mice and sliding off its foundation.



I have enjoyed gentrifying neighborhoods such as The Mission, Bucktown, Spanish Harlem, South Denver and now Fruitvale. You would think I would welcome rising property values and safer streets, but I am apprehensive someone will ask me to cut my lawn.

Same old shit. Tea, yoga, meeting, paperwork. Happy birthday to my ex-husband. More paperwork. Sandwich. Looking at the garden. A. is cleaning out a house today. The elderly owners took cyanide while holding hands. Just the facts.




Notice it was never sent.

Execution last night at San Quentin. It is so bad here, in the city I am from, that I live in. Generations of poverty etc. I don't have anything profound to say except that is scares me. I am literally looking over my shoulder when I get in my car, when I walked around the corner to Frank's house, when I walk someone's dog. I feel compassion and then I just hate. I don't know what I can do to make it better except keep my mind on nursing school.

Minutes, Hours, Days

Someone is demanding I update this. I swear I don't have much to say. Today I cleaned up all the dog pee on my blankets, my bed, my rug, my chair. I also washed out the dog barf in the car. I still need to get some Nature's Miracle before everything is ruined. I worried about Skippy and whether anyone would adopt him. I went to an AA meeting and drank some foul coffee. I went to the dump, I sliced open my elbow on something rusty, I found a nice screwdriver, I ate at the taco truck, I took the dog for a walk, I ate a brautwurst with sauerkraut.