Here's a story I keep meaning to (re)tell, and reading Shantygirl's latest entry finally prompted it. This is the story of how I suddenly up and packed up my whole life and moved to another state, with no college education and almost no money. It's kind of a long story with a rather windy beginning, but worth the read.

The summer I turned 20 my friend "Topless Sue" (you'll see) and I decided to move to California together. We each had a car, and we would pack up all our stuff & drive out together. Thought it would be cool to get jobs at Disneyland or something, as a start. Around the time we decided this, her parents moved from our hometown to a farm in Wisconsin, & she didn't want to have to move her stuff twice so she moved in with me, my mom, & my brother. I had the basement, so there was plenty of room there. We made a pact that even if we met someone we still had to stick to the plan. I had met a guy named Jason who was cool, but I knew there was no future or anything, and I had NO intention of breaking the pact. She started dating this older guy, and I could tell it was getting pretty sticky.

A week before we were supposed to leave, I came home from work one day to find ALL her stuff gone, and a note on my bed saying she didn't think it was such a good idea for her to go to California and that working at Disney wasn't going to advance her in her chosen field, which was to be an Air Traffic Controller. (We were 20...you have to do something in the meantime, hello..?) So she had packed up all her shit and went to her parents'.

BOY was I PISSED!! I couldn't go without her. I needed her to share rent with, and we needed both cars to move our stuff, and incase one of us had a problem on the way. And I was all set to get out of my house. What a freakin' let down!

A month or two later I ended up moving in with my best friend from highschool, there in town, and after two months we almost killed each other, she moved back home, and I found an overpriced basement apartment on the same street, where I lived for about four months or so until I couldn't pay my bills anymore & everything got shut off.

From there I moved in with my ex-friend Fran & her husband, and agreed to babysit for free in exchange for living there. Cool deal. It was a blast for awhile, and then Fran went psycho on me. (This is a whole 'nother entry, and I will tell it someday, because it's a riot) Anyway, the day after my 21st birthday, with the mother of all hangovers, I had to call the cops to come stand by the door while I hauled my stuff out of their apartment because they had locked me out & wouldn't let me get it! (I sure am a psycho magnet!) SO! I ended up moving back home to my mom's for another year so I could pay off my bills & save up some money to go elsewhere. The plan was to probably move up to the Minneapolis area. Somewhere along the line, I heard that Sue was dancing topless in a bar in Bloomington, and she herself confirmed the fact to a good friend of mine, later on. I'll bet that's advancing her in the world of Air Traffic Controlling!

THEN, within a couple months after turning 21, I went out barhopping with a few friends one night and had parked my car on the street outside this bar, and everyone was drunk (including me) and I knew I couldn't drive home, but people were telling me that if I left my car on the street there overnight it would get towed, so I went out to simply pull it up into the now-vacant parking lot, got as far as my key in the ignition, and was stopped by a cop. It is considered "operating a motor vehicle" if you simply have the key in the ignition. Even if you're just listening to the radio! It still counts! I explained to him what I was doing, but it didn't matter.. anyway, got hauled in, mug-shot, etc. End result: license revoked. Now I had a problem of how I was going to get to my THREE jobs....

I made up (for whatever insane reason) with Fran, and offered her use of my car, since her husband had theirs all day, in exchange for her picking me up & dropping me off at my jobs. Well, the first night, she failed to pick me up, and at 11:00 at night I had to call another friend of mine to come get me, who had FORTUNATELY just gotten her own license like TWO DAYS before. We drove out to Fran's and knocked on the door, but no one would answer, despite the fact I could hear the TV going and their son making noise in there. I had the second set of keys to my car, and she didn't live too terribly far from my house, so I asked my friend to just follow me & I'd drive it home (with a bunch of Fran's stuff in it which she never saw again!). Got it home safe & sound, but the next day I had to be at work in the morning & no way to get there, so I decided to risk driving there. Got there without incident, but on my way home, no sooner had I pulled out onto the highway than I was pulled over. Turns out those freaks (Fran & Co.) had turned me in!! THEN, they had the balls to show up at the restaurant where I worked in the evening (I was on my way from one job to the other & had to have the cop TAKE me to work!) and they acted like totally oblivious! I'm serious - you would NOT believe these people!! Absolute freaks.

Before this incident, I had brought Fran into the restaurant to see if she could get a job there too, and as soon as I severed the friendship again (after this last incident) I found out they HIRED her! Well, everyone there already knew me and were my friends, so they stuck by me and gave her a real hard time. One fish-fry Friday they caused her to throw an absolute FIT of some sort, in front of the customers, and the owners told her not to come back. Hehehe! (Just the queen of revenge, aren't I?) I see this story seems to be getting off track, but trust me, this all leads up to it. The thing was, after losing my license and getting a driving after revocation ticket under my mom's insurance, her insurance company said that as long as I was living at the same address she was going to have to carry risk insurance. She didn't want this on her record, nor to have to pay the extra, therefore I had to move out. I knew I didn't want to live out my pathetic life in that bass-ackwards dinkyass town, and I had always craved the big city... L.A. was out of the question now, since I had no license, so I opted for New York. Also, because I was BIG TIME into SNL and I half-hoped I could get a job doing ANYTHING remotely related to it. (I've always been a dreamer!) But just living where it was filmed would suffice.

I think I had about a month's notice when I had to officially be out of my mom's house, and I worked my ass off at my 3 jobs and managed to save just over $1,000, which for whatever delusional reason I thought would be enough, and bought me a one-way ticket to the Big Apple.

I had never been there before, didn't know anyone there, had no home or job lined up, and had never even been on a plane before. And you know, my mom was still trying to talk me into simply moving up to Minneapolis, even on the way to the airport. But I was adamant. I was like, nope, you're kickin' me out...if I have to go, I'm going somewhere big! There's a whole freakin' world out there. I don't want to live out my entire life in Minnefreakinsota.

And it never really hit me, even on the plane, that I had NO CLUE where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there.

When I arrived in JFK airport with four suitcases to my name, I found a payphone and called the only person I knew who was even in the vicinity. I had a friend from back home who was nannying upstate in Mt. Kisco, and I figured the people she worked for would know the city somewhat and might be able to direct me to a hotel I could afford.

Unfortunately, I had chosen to arrive at the time of the Democratic convention in '92, and hotel rates were higher. I ended up staying at the Pan American Inn in Queens for $80 a night. I stayed two nights while I hunted through the paper for an apartment, thinking I'd probably end up living in Long Island or Jersey or somewhere a little further out cuz it would be cheaper, and then commute to the city for work. So the Manhattan section was the last part I looked at, and that was actually where I found an apartment listed for $475 a month, in a decent neighborhood. I spent my last $35 or $40 having a car service take me & my suitcases to my new apartment, and then I had to call my mom & have her wire me an advance of the paychecks I was still owed from my three jobs, since I'd had to leave before a couple of the pay periods ended.

It was just a small room, like dorm-room sized, with no kitchen - just a small fridge - and a bathroom so small that you couldn't shut the door & turn around in there. But it was mine, and it was in Manhattan!

I had no furniture, so once I got some money I just went down to Woolworth & bought a bunch of pillows so I'd have something to sleep on. I started looking for a job and found something within the first couple of days...it was probably the worst job I ever had in a lot of ways, but in other ways probably one of the best. I canvassed door-to-door for an organization called the National Enviornmental Law Center, which was a branch created off of NYPIRG. HARD fucking work, let me tell you!! Getting doors slammed in your face all night, people cussing at you, dogs chasing you, getting rained on...but on the plus side, I worked with some of the coolest people, and some of them are still friends I've stayed in touch with, plus it made me learn to deal with people and somewhat overcome my shyness, and all the walking around in the heat helped me shed about 10-15 pounds. :)

Some people were really cool; they'd invite you back for dinner, give you stuff, let you use the bathroom...I had a group one time invite me in during a rainstorm, they were sitting around watching the Olympics, drinking beers and just invited me to join 'em. Some people were just really cool that way. Then there were others who were total ASSHOLES, or they'd find any excuse not to even come to the door. The funniest one I ever got was a lady who yelled from an upstairs window, "I can't come down, I'm UPSTAIRS!" and I was like, ...o-kay...so I yelled back up, "Should I send for help?" We had this form called a "tick sheet" where we listed the addresses we went to and there was a space for comments and we'd always make little notes of anything especially funny they said, or something cool or stupid they did. I wish I could remember more of that stuff, but I'm drawing a blank right now.

Anyway, that job was a lot of fun, in those ways, but it was hard bloody work, and usually pretty thankless, and it wasn't paying the bills so I had to look elsewhere. But it was a great experience, and I mostly just took it because it was the first place that hired me & I needed a job! From there on though, it got better, and I got into more stable,"normal" jobs.� Anyway, that's pretty much that. For my next big gig I'll tell the story about Fran and her psychotic behavior patterns. *bows*

Posted on Saturday November22, 2003.