I only talk shit about Oklahoma because I care. It has the potential to be a really neat state.
A lot going on. Got my old job back as a counselor, wrote another manuscript to send off, and now getting ready to see some far away stuff. It didn’t happen the way I thought it would, plans changed over and over again but was still able to make what I wanted happen.
Still gonna make those trips happen. Though I’m disappointed in not being able to visit Mexico. My aunt told me it was bad, and that “Obama said ‘it was dangerous’ to go down there.” But I shrugged it off–he’s the effing president of the United States, and he’s black. He’s not safe in any part of the world.
But then I kept hearing stuff about tourists getting snatched up like money at a dice game. People getting gunned down at the border execution style. But when I heard real live Mexicans saying this, I knew it was true. So there went that trip to Mazatlan, and Guadalajara. Only 137 bucks to take a day bus ride. But not worth it all.
The biggest disappointment was my dream of finding a Mexican woman and bringing her back to my royal squalor.
“Aye Roberto, you have so much room in your 3 bedroom mansion.”
“Nah baby this is a one bedroom one bathroom with a walk in closet.”
“You only have one roommate Roberto? You ever get lonely?”
“No its tight quarters around here.”
“Do you have to boil your agua?”
“nope.”
“Oh Roberto this is so wonderful. And look. Your sleeping bag will be so much more comfortable than the straw mat I had in my adobe hut. Es muy paradiso Roberto. Make love to me like the World Cup champion you told me you were.”
“Alright baby, let’s make juevos rancheros.”
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ITs cool working again though its been strange. I was unemployed for like four months, got a big boy job for like two months, then went back to my lower paying, but fun gig at the shelter.
I was making good money but the job was full of meetings and trainings, like I was in school again. I always thought that was the whole point of getting a degree–so I wouldn’t have to sit with my notepad and pen and doodle while someone was talking.
I feel lied to. This is what I took out all those loans for?
Its not like the old days of poverty. I could count on that loan check to come in to go from broke to baller.
“Yes I have 2,000 dollars in my account. I can buy 500 packs of Ramen noodles. I’ll eat like shit for five months and then buy a guitar with the remaining cash. I’ll be playing like Hendrix in no time.”
Five months later, broke again, and the guitar lays in the corner barely touched, strings out of tune from two days of playing with no ideas about chord structure, frets, or scales.
Now I have a small check that comes in bi-monthly that I must put away for bigger ambitions, not really using my Literature degree for anything.
But I love my job now. Love hanging out with kids, and picking their brains. All that angst, and these particular kids who come my way usually have bigger problems than hormones and sadistic peers.
ITs crazy to know that it will be much harder for them down the road. I can’t recommend college for most of them. School is not the way to go, and they know it early on. Better off getting them enrolled in trade schools at 14 and 15. At least they’ll be able to use that skill. No one has ever paid me 20 an hour to read books all day and critique them. Maybe there is a job like that but I like doing other things besides reading all day.
So what do you tell these kids today? There’s hope just over the rainbow as soon as these wars end. Our economy is screwed. Foreigners come over here to up to spend money like we’re Canada or Mexico. Things have to change.
WE have to become more resourceful, less wasteful and now. I don’t know if education is the answer. Maybe it is. But we have so many who are uneducated and we value stupidity over ingenuity here in our country.
How can we say we value education when its impossible to go to school and afford to live. I’d love to get a master’s degree but by the time I got out I’d be in debt twice the amount of my yearly salary.
Barack gets a lot of the blame but if the U.S. were a car, it’d be a ’68 Mustang with a bad motor and ripped up interior. Great reputation for being a classic, but needing a lot of overhaul. Barack was handed the keys to a lemon of a country.
Here in Oklahoma Obama is hated. Some people have been quoted as saying he’s anti-American, that he sides with his Muslim brothers. These people actually get quoted in the Tulsa World. I couldn’t believe the shit I was reading. These idiots are the people who eventually have their kids as my clients.
Oklahoma is still stuck in the 1920’s. When black people knew their place and men didn’t molest little girls because they could just marry them. Forget about mass transit systems and ecology. Forget about pumping some money into schools and teachers. Lay em off, lay off the police force too. Congress here’s our share of the national defense money.
Meanwhile the economy worsens, and the need for social services become higher, and hence I still have a job…….”WHAT A COUNTRY!!!!!”
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 
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