I lived in Seattle, Washington, during 2004. I and my partner started that year with $1500 to our name (thanks to a "friend" who stole over a thousand dollars from us and spent it all on herself). We stayed with friends of friends for the first few days, who then kicked us out and into a hotel room. They were obviously very well-off and did not seem to understand that the $1500 we had was all the money we had in the world, and that we could not afford to spend it on a hotel room forever.

We had to negotiate with an apartment complex heavily before they'd let us rent with them. They wanted $1200 up-front--first and last month's rent, plus a deposit--on a studio apartment that simply wasn't worth the price they asked. But, being poor, we didn't have much choice. They also wanted a co-signer on the lease, so we had to wait even longer for approval. While we were waiting, we were buying food from Pike's Place (more on that in a second) and basically living for days at a time off a single piece of cheese, a small jar of jelly, and a loaf of bread.

Those days in that hotel room were spent preparing to spend a few nights on the street. We couldn't afford to keep paying for a $60/night room when we also had a $1200 bill coming up. We counted ourselves lucky that the landlady decided to let us sign a lease. When we moved in, we had a pile of towels and sweaters to sleep on, some clothes and a couple of books. Nothing else.

The first couple of months we lived there, we kept asking people to point us to a "grocery store". No one seemed to know what that was. We later found that in the North, "grocery store" is not in the lexicon; all such stores are called "supermarkets". Instead of getting directed to places where food is sold, we had to resort to local convenience stores. We bought cookware and a sleeping bag from a camping store because we couldn't find anyplace locally that sold these items for cheap.

When we became aware of local supermarkets, we found, to our delight, that they were an impossible trek away. We couldn't afford a car in Seattle, not on our pathetic budget. Often, especially in the early months, we couldn't afford bus fare, and the buses never ran the correct routes anyhow. To get groceries, we had to walk, a walk that was about 45 minutes to an hour one-way. We could only buy what we could carry home.

Later, when we had a roommate who actually paid her bills, we counted ourselves lucky that we could afford $30 for a taxi.

Now, the cost of being poor did not end with the problems of buying food. My partner had to walk to and from her school (a two-hour round trip). She also walked to and from her jobs, which added another 45 minutes of exhaustion. For most of my jobs, I also walked--most averaged an hour- to an hour-and-a-half round trip. One of my jobs required that I take a bus. This bus's schedule was just enough out-of-synch with my usual shift that I'd end up arriving at work early and sitting around late at night, waiting for my ride home.

After a miserable shift serving rich people food and cleaning up rich people's messes, nothing makes your day better than knowing you have to walk another hour in the dead of night, gritting your teeth to keep from panic-breathing, your hand always on the pocket-siren your father sent you for safety, flinching at every shadow and panicking at the sight of another person, your back seizing up from all the overloaded trays of filthy dishes you had to sling, your nose full of the unique scent of swill that always follows you after a shift... and, knowing that after you get home, you have to walk to the grocery store, bring home what you can carry, and try to cook/eat it without just falling the fuck asleep into the saucepan.

But, you know, we had a television*, so we must not have been poor at all. And we were just stupid and making bad, lazy choices when we spent our money on processed food from a convenience store less than a ten-minute walk from our apartment, cigarettes, and beer. Right?

_{*A television with a ten-inch screen that was gifted to us by a maintenance worker at our building. But it was a TV, so clearly, we were not and never have been poor.}

During an interview discussing tourism to Vatican City, Bishop Janusz Kaleta was asked whether or not the Roman Catholic Church welcomed gay and lesbian tourists. The bishop's initial response was that "demonstrations" weren't welcome there. The interviewer, thinking that Kaleta'd misheard the question, clarified that they were asking about GLBT tourists interested solely in visiting.

The bishop's response:

"I consider if someone is homosexual, it is a provocation and an abuse of this place. Try to go to a mosque if you are not Muslim. It is abuse of our buildings and our religion because the church interprets our religion that it is not ethical. We expect respect of our church as we expect to respect that a person does not have to belong to the Catholic Church. If you have different ideas, go to a different location."

Here, Kaleta demonstrated all kinds of ignorance--for example, falsely claiming that non-Muslims cannot enter mosques. Or his clear assertion that the Catholic Church does not even want gay people to step inside of their buildings, which probably comes as a surprise to many Catholics. Or the morbidly-amusing fact that he portrays the very presence of queers as "abuse" while participating in a government-barely-pretending-to-be-a-religion that actively protects, to this day, its leaders who like to pin down small, helpless children and viciously rape them inside of those same buildings. Fascinating, how my very presence in a Catholic building would be "abuse", but the presence of costumed men who rape (you know, abuse) children is not.

However, really, I just have two questions for the good bishop:

1. Will you please give back all of the artworks and buildings in Vatican City that were crafted/decorated by queer people? Seeing as we aren't good enough to even enter your country, why should our work be good enough to be there?

2. Once you give it all back, how will you keep up that heterosexual-only tourist trade when there's nothing left in Vatican City but barren fields and a bunch of costumed kid-fuckers to look at?

I was bothered over the fact that the fate of Eames wasn't even mentioned in the article I cited in my last journal, so I checked Wikipedia to see if there was any news there.

And this is so much worse than I originally heard that it's untrue.

Here's what happened. "Monk" is on its final season, and USA Network felt that there should be another lighthearted, quirky detective, someone who's very Monk-ish, to keep those "Monk" viewers tuned in to their network. USA's execs figured that Nichols is a perfect Monk substitute, whereas Goren is too dark to take that role. (It didn't hurt that Dick Wolf apparently prefers Jeff Goldblum's character to Vincent D'Onofrio's, either.)

So, they're going to take the show apart and put it back together in a Monk-ish fashion. Goren, Eames, and Ross are therefore all being jettisoned. Goren and Eames will hand off Major Case to Nichols in the two-hour season premiere in March '10. It's not clear to me whether Ross will be leaving at that time or later in the season. In addition, Wheeler will be jettisoned sometime during season 9, because Julianne Nicholson reportedly is tired of being on the show.

My understanding is that they're going to drop the whole "Partner A/Partner B" format, since the show will now revolve around Nichols. Nichol's new partner will be played by Saffron Burrows.

You know, I was distinctly unthrilled with Nichols when he was added to the show, and deeply disappointed with what a poor character he was (especially considering that Goldblum is normally a great character actor). Now I really have no choice but to hate him. He's ruined my fucking show. And even worse, he's the reason why they're now changing my show into a "Monk" knockoff. I hated "Monk" when it was first on, and I see no reason why I'd like it now that it's infected one of my favorite programs.

There aren't enough curse words in the world.

What's the fucking point of watching it anymore?

Not that I'm surprised. But I'm already having a bad year.

So the wife and I have been trying to rescue a mother-cat with three kittens nested outside her place of work. We tried to get her co-workers to take the cats. We tried to call the SPCA. Finally, this week, we got in touch with some wonderful people who work with cat-rescue organizations.

Those people told us that, by the laws of our state, we were the legal owners of the cats because we fed them. And that we could therefore legally surrender the animals to the SPCA. The wife spent all of yesterday trying to contact the person we were told to speak to at the SPCA to arrange the surrendering.

The wife also begged me to let her bring the mother-cat and kittens home. I told her no. I told her that we'd lose the apartment if we got caught with them (we already have three). I told her we couldn't afford them. I pointed out that we might not be able to get them all homes. She sighed, then finally agreed with me and left them alone.

Today, she went to go feed the cats. And they're not there anymore. She called for them; she laid out food for them. Their nest is empty. There is no sign of them anywhere. None of her co-workers adopted any of them. They don't appear to have been attacked. They're just gone.

And the selfish part of me is killing myself over it, because I know that if I had been compassionate instead of selfish, it would have worked out better. If I had lived up to my own principles I would never have suggested that leaving innocent kittens outside all alone was a good idea. I really hate myself right now and I don't even have a right to--it's not like I'm the one who's probably in desperate trouble, is it?

I haven't stopped crying. I don't deserve to stop.