you were a child. crawling on your knees.

ahhh... first entry.
how do blogs work?
i don't even journal. i mean, i did once. but it was because kurt cobain killed himself. and i got my period. and my best friend and i were fighting like a married couple (probably because i wanted to marry her), and i thought that was what seventh graders did. if they really "felt" things. i mean, i hadn't found drugs yet, so this was my idea of REALNESS.

the latest dead person this year- who really mattered - is michael jackson. i'm 28. i've been bleeding for 16 years, and i don't want to marry anyone. i have, however, taken a leap of faith in myself, my past, and my ability to say "fuck you" to anyone that wants to tell me i've made the wrong decisions.

here's the deal: i've moved to a trailer court. on 82nd ave. in portland, or. we're talking about a city that is so crisp, so moist, and so fucking sexy that every bus, in any part of town you hop on, has someone that looks like they are just soooooo over it, it hurts. it's not every part of the city though. there's a clear line where crisp becomes stale, and win becomes fail. that line, if you ask almost anyone under the age of 45, is 82nd ave. it is on this line that i have chosen to live, to stand between both worlds, and IN A TRAILER no less.

there was a time, about 8 or 9 years ago, when people were walking around wearing trucker hats and stained jeans. they listened to the rolling stones. they grew bad moustaches. they wore blue eye-liner. and, goddamit, they wanted to look poor. they wanted to look like grit and grime, and government commodity cheese and peanut butter, and drink pbr, and read charles bukowski (although, truth be told, poor people would never touch his shit). poor equaled hot. my best friend, who lived in LA at the time, even told me: "lacy. you grew up in a trailer. these people, though they would never admit it, want to BE YOU." i told her to go fuck herself, i think. i still kinda feel that way, actually. sorry, erika.

anyway, it went out of style, as it should have. being poor is just depressing. it's not hot.

so why am i doing this? i mean, fuck. i grew up in a trailer court. i spent my formative and teenage years snuggled in wood-panelled walls, pane-glass windows, and bad carpet. i was always embarrassed about it, because, for whatever reason, i made friends with people that had rich parents. it didn't matter though. they always loved coming over. we could smoke pot, smoke cigarettes, and eat cheap microwave burritoes until my mom kicked everybody out- which rarely happened. either way, i never thought i'd live in another trailer.

so what spawned this?

well... a lot of things.

one, i was over housemates. roommates, flatmates, co-habitants. whatever. over it. done. i don't want to consider my activities, or another person's, for a loooooong time.

two, i hate apartment complexes.

three, i wanted privacy.

four, i wanted to be far away from the so-hip-it-hurts mentality, but not so far that i forgot i was living in a pretty cool city. with beautiful people, and beautiful opportunities.

the thing is, i didn't know i was moving into a senior-living trailer court until the week before my move started.

OOPS.

i mean, i love old people. i really do. they make me tear up, and feel the depths of life at my fingertips, and everything else that the movie "on golden pond" does to people. however... i drink. and i like music. and i like it LOUD.

the management guy told me something. he said, "well, lacy. a senior community might benefit a young person like you. look at it this way: most of these people are probably hard of hearing. they won't even notice it. " and to that i replied, "you know. you're probably right. i hadn't thought of that."

my first moving in was a whirlwind. my friend kim showed up at my house at 8:00am (which is about 3 hours earlier than i usually wake up), with a huge volvo and a smile bigger than my future, new, single-wide trailer. the first load was easy. we drove the stuff across town, started moving it in to the trailer, took a break, and chilled... until we smelled a waft of cigarette smoke coming from ten feet away.

it was randy, my new next door neighbor.

at first glance, i thought i had seen a wizard. or a flannel-clad ghost. or some incarnate of the two.

he stood on his porch, with a very large gray bun in his hair, and smoked that damn cigarette like it was his last. i said, "hi. i'm lacy. i'm your new neighbor."
he looked at me, took a long drag from his cigarette, and, while exhaling, said, "Ya-ar?"

i said "yeah. nice to meet you?"

he said nothing. took another drag of his cigarette, threw it out, and went back inside.

"cool.", i thought. he smokes. i smoke too. this might work.