ASSIGNMENTS:
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Anonymous
San Francisco, California USA
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REPORTS:
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I was born in 1972, the day after my parents got married while stoned at the same church that Ron and Nancy Reagan were married. My parents and my half brother (who is 14 years older than me) lived in various apartment buildings in North Hollywood and then finally a house. I was a more or less happy, albeit very shy, child. The atmosphere in my house was one of extremes. Feast or famine, happy or sad, yelling or silence. My parents fought a lot and separated constantly. My mother was an alcoholic, my dad and brother, potheads. They were loving to me but not so much to each other.
When I was 10 we moved deeper into the San Fernando Valley. My mom stopped drinking. I had no friends and was miserable, until I met one friend and then another, who remains my best friend to this day. Countless days were spent trolling the hills and abandoned houses, looking for secret places to hide. My friends and I fantasized about meeting Duran Duran and covered our walls with posters. I started junior high right around the time my parents divorced and my dad moved out. He remarried soon after. I cried in the car when my mother told me.
In high school I met a group of people that I still know and who became my best friends throughout my teenage years. We did lots of drugs and spent summers driving through the Southwest, through Native American reservations, repairing houses, making out with each other, dropping acid. I hated school and ditched whenever possible, usually with my friend L, an artist with whom I would drive to downtown Los Angeles at every chance we got. I started hanging out at a café on 6th and La Brea and was introduced to artists, drag queens, dilettantes, drug addicts. My people. I fell in real super love with a guy and began a tortuous three year relationship with him in which we screwed around a lot but never committed to each other. It was very dramatic. I wrote about him a lot.
After barely graduating high school I went to community college and tried to become a beatnik. Met my first real official boyfriend and had sex for the first time, under the influence of muscle relaxants and rum and cokes. I was living back in the city with my mom, and things were good as she finally had a steady job. We made it through the LA riots. I went to lots of Jane's Addiction shows. I took a jazz appreciation class and started seeing jazz shows. The boyfriend dumped me once, and then again, after a bad mushroom trip. I started having anxiety attacks. I couldn't sleep until the sun came up. I couldn't be in a public place without feeling like I was going to drop dead or do something crazy. I filled up a big journal almost monthly. I thought I was possessed. I went a little insane. I smoked and drank a lot. Eventually, it passed.
I fell in love again. It was unrequited, but I didn't care. I just loved him. We took lots of road trips up and down the coast from SF to LA. I moved to Santa Cruz to go to college. Had a falling out with guy I loved. My mom lost her job, my dad lost his wife/; both had nervous breakdowns. My grandmother died. I lived with hippies. Hated SC. Discovered I wanted to be a writer. Didn't make it into the program. Barely ever went to class. Still suffered from anxiety attacks. Met a boy. Drank a lot with him. Started doing crystal methadrine. Got dumped by boy. Spent a summer in LA, working at the coffee shop I used to frequent as a teen. Had weird, random, glamorous in that druggie sort of way hook ups. Went back to SC and met another boy. Was dirt poor. Stupidly moved in with him. He didn't like me to leave the house. Slept on the kitchen floor a lot. Left him and went back to LA.
Went back to SC to finish college. Met a good boy. Loved him madly. Graduated with a degree in American Literature and moved up to Berkeley the next day. Stopped doing crystal methadrine. Worked at a French deli and at a film organization. Hated Berkeley. Moved back to SC. Lived with boyfriend then got my own place. Everyone was doing heroin except me. Moved to San Francisco.
Worked at a weekly newspaper in the personal ad department. Met two women who would become great friends. Quit smoking. Lost 40 pounds. Got another job at a book publisher. Had an alcoholic boss who slept with all her authors. Vowed to get out of corporate publishing. Worked in a local literary legend's living room for a year. Went insane and left there, too. Got some money from my great aunt and decided to drive to NY and back to clear my head.
Came back and fell into a random corporate job. Moved in with boyfriend. Broke up with boyfriend. Started smoking again. Gained back 20 pounds. Went out a lot. Met some fantastic people. Met some pretty stupid people. Met X. Became inseparable from her. Met a group of guys. She married one; I fell in and out of love with one. Went a little crazy. Started a magazine. Started playing drums. Joined a band. Met M. Became inseparable from him. Joined his band. Stopped hanging out with stupid people. Stopped drinking so much. Stopped doing things I don't like to do so much. Moved into my own place. And that's where I reside now.
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