City of Amnesia

My thread on RPG.net detailing some of my experiences can be found right here. (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=543615)

So yeah, I'm getting the fuck out of here. My current destination is Washington DC, which I hear from some people is not a bad place to live. My only choice for transportation over that kind of distance is Amtrak, but the nearest station is still maybe thirty or forty miles away depending on the town.

I cannot even begin to tell you all the horror stories I've got about living in Montegut, Louisiana-- I could try, but no words can convey it with any justice. You'd have to see it to know what I mean. At least one fellow I came across on RPG.net described where I am now as "Deliverance" territory, which is actually a pretty good basis from which to infer the rest. They're gonna fight to keep me here-- they already have-- so any words of encouragement you guys can offer me towards galvanizing my resolve are much appreciated.

There's a shitload of obstacles besides, the main one being not having any reliable means of getting from place to place (no car, and nobody we can ask for a ride who won't try to get out of it or rob us), which incidentally is about to get our utilities cut off for nonpayment (I tried to find some way to pay my bills online, but we have such a shit bank the only way to contact them on their website is to pass through a Captcha system with a broken link for an image). We're also almost out of food; the concoction I made out of expired mac-and-cheese and three-year-old chili powder has caused me more intestinal grief than you want to hear about.

Tomorrow, I'm going to walk the five miles or so to my uncle's house and see if he can give us a ride into town so we can cash our $1,200 pile of almost-expired paychecks and buy some damn comestibles and household necessities. Like a suitcase. For me. Once I sort out a few other issues and I get my stuff in order, I'm getting a ticket to DC and kissing this cesspool of a town goodbye.

On second thought, I'll just blow the kiss from the train window.

Don't fully understand whats happening. Who's moving, you or your family? And... job? Uncashed paychecks? Wuh?

I didn't even know you had a job Randolf.

And Washington D.C. might not be the best choice. If you want a more quiet life but with all the basic ammonites then maybe you should move into a small farming community, even in those there are still suburbs. Hell I live in one, and I feel safe and happy here.

BTW it's Wilmore KY, look it up. We have a crime rate of less then one percent, and we have 3000 people in this town. I'm not saying move here, but if you want a quieter and happier life then look for someplace like this. Small town with all the basics but a Walmart and a bookstore, and the only thing I wish this place had was a bookstore.

No, Yuko, I wasn't implying that Randolf had a job. I was stutteringly asking if he had one. He didn't specify if he was going alone or not.

Also DC is notoriously poor and rough in some places. On the other hand, that means low rent.

Some clarifications:

1. I do not have a job. My mother does. I had one before, but she and I were both only being paid one paycheck, and I was spending just about the whole day doing nothing, occasionally having to bear witness to things I really didn't want to.

2. We have no car, and our bank is about 20 miles away. Thus, said paychecks piled up with no place to cash them.

To bring things up to date, all the checks were cashed today, and my mother got her picture ID at last.

Yeah, I hear DC is poor. Frankly, if you have a better suggestion, I'm open. I'm looking for an urban place with easy access to goods and services on foot or by public transit. And where people generally aren't ignorant rednecks who hate brown-skinned people, have warped political views and think I have a pretty mouth.

I always suggest St. Louis, MO. I was raised here, and know the place well. And I can get to everything I need without having to go too terribly far. I used to walk to work, grocery store, and the costume shop...And the FYE (entertainment store that bought Suncoast). Didn't really need to go anywhere else...and I walked to the zoo too (which is one of the few free ones left). The park that it's in has all kinds of stuff in it to do, most of it free (except the skating rink and maybe a couple of other things).

I've only been to D.C. like..twice, so I have no idea which are the "You'll get stabbed" areas.

The last time, which was the end of october, a bunch of us were wandering around trying to find a place to eat/where the hell the metro station was in regards to this, we stopped outside a firehouse and somebody went in to ask...and the firehouse was seemingly empty. A firehouse in a major city being empty seems somewhat odd to me so just based on that I probably wouldn't recommend D.C.


If you end up looking for one of these, Adams County PA is close to D.C...or..close ish its within an hour or so driving distance.

My point is whatever you do, do not move into the borough of Gettysburg. If you're even five feet across the line of their jurisdiction, whatever, but believe me they're the most incompetent and corrupt governance that I think I've ever heard of (and I know corruption, I grew up for almost two decades in New Jersey, and every day I miss that because at least their corruption made SENSE)

What I know about DC from having spent most of my life in a suburb of it:
Anacostia is the "get-stabbed" part.
Dupont Circle is the gay neighborhood.
Museums that aren't Smithsonian aren't free.
Wandering Chinatown isn't always a bad idea.

What about Grand Haven, MI? That's the other place I've been considering-- after talking about DC for a while, enough people seem to have a low opinion of it that maybe this other town would be an improvement.

I looked it up on Google Maps; damned if there isn't a police station, library, two banks, an ATM, an insurance company, grocery store and a beauty parlor within a block of each other. And there's a park that's bigger than... any other park I've seen. Gives a pretty prosperous impression so far.

Heads up: the thread you linked to is apparently unreadable without resignation

Damn... forgot Tangency's not open to guests. Ah, well, it's mostly whining. And some stories about how my ex-boss told my mother to make him a sandwich and hours on hours of racist talk about murdering the president and the Hispanic cable man and finally me wandering around in their attic trying to escape from the bigotry and festering inter-family distrust below.

And how there's a broken sewer pipe under my window, we haven't had hot water for 17 years, haven't had an overhead light in my room for 11, and I once went without food for ten days (and before that for seven days, and before that again for four). And a bunch of other reasons why Louisiana sucks ass and Montegut should be struck by a comet, which I'll spare you since it's probably nothing you don't already know.

And yet you have Internet. Get your priorities straight, man. The forum and we will still be here--fucking move already. Get out of there. I'm sorry to get all explicit but damn. Consider it tough love. Shit.

I'm not the one that wears the pants in this family, I'm afraid, so I don't exactly get to set priorities (plus, good luck finding anybody in fifty miles willing and able to actually fix a buried sewer line). But that's mostly because I'm kinda sorta codependent on my mother and never actually grew the balls to act independently. Recent experiences are changing this, however.

Also, your explicitness is appreciated. I need to haul my ass out of here and fast, but there's so many loose ends to tie up first-- getting all my shit in order, planning, finding a place to stay when I get there and convincing somebody to give me a lift to the train station when the time comes. Not to mention that for all my suffering in this place, it's the home I've had for every one of my soon-to-be 24 years; the longest I've ever been away from it was three weeks in squalid hurricane shelters during Gustav and Ike in '08. It might be crap, but it's all I've ever really known as far as a home.

I have someone I'm talking to online about making arrangements for this; it might just be bald sentimentality, but I'll probably stick around for the holidays and be out by the New Year.

Disclaimer: I am well aware of how pansy I'm being and expect no sympathy.

 :-* Hope life becomes better.

 My brothers and sisters say we might move there also,
 maybe instead to Seattle.  :'(

 "Wishing you were somehow here again;wishing you were somehow  near.
 Sometimes it seemed,if I just dreamed, somehow you would be here."



This poem isn't really correct, but i remember reading something like that from some biology text
    and thought it felt right to put it here , as best as I can remember.
It comes from some Play I fergot the name of  :-\  ::)


____________________________________________________
               :o  :o           :o  :o
Wait now i remember its called the Phantom of the Opera,ACT II, Scene 5
      by Christine Daae

 It was raining ... ahhhhh ... how i miss my younger days
 and *sigh* i am only 16
 if it feels this bad at this age...
 I wonder how it feels for those who are well beyond their 50's and 60's
    nigh death .... nigh sans eyes sans feet sans hands sans mind sans all sans none sans sans  :'(

So long, Mono, and thanks for all the lulz.

Ka-Banned.

You banned the google bot? Oh well I guess it's for the best.

Um...now to say this in the right thread...

I have a friend in Grand Haven, I can ask her how it is. (and Ace is gonna think something that involves the name "Pimp Char" when he reads that. And that friend and I go WAY back.)

But ultimately what you need to look into is the cost of living wherever you want to go...

I thought it was at first, but now I'm pretty sure it was just a moron.

Char, thanks, I appreciate that. As for cost of living, if my mother continues to offer me her support, I can look forward to maybe one or two hundred a month, if she's feeling generous. While looking around DC, I found some apartments for $150 a month, but that's DC. Grand Haven looks to be pricier. I may be able to earn a few bucks on my own depending on the circumstances, but I'll likely wind up in some glum conditions one way or another.

A good starting off suggestion is to make friends wherever you're heading...or head where some you have are...and try to split rent with them, get a job, and whatnot.

Which reminds me I need to look into a 5 bedroom house for sale for some friends of mine.

Randolf,

Good luck with everything... Hope it all turns out good...but, yeah, the change of scenery will definitely help your situation. I wasn't sure if you had a job, but that was just because we've got quite a few students on this forum.  I'm working now, but I do go back for classes now and again (mostly community college).

I haven't been to D.C....yet...but from what I've heard about working there, most of those who work in D.C. live outside of the D.C. metro area, and take commuter trains in/out of the city.


Char's got an excellent idea. For instance, my brother-in-law is recently divorced, and has moved back to CT, but he still needs to pay off the mortgage to his house in Dallas, TX (that's where his ex is, too). So, he has a few people renting, and I think all of them have like $400/$500/$600 a month rents, which is cheaper rent than an apartment there.

I'm over toward Pittsburgh, PA. The mass-transit was good with tons of trolleys and buses (some neighborhoods were once called "streetcar suburbs", since one didn't need a car, and could travel wherever by trolley). However, these days, the PATransit system is only good if you're close to the city. The roads around the city aren't really good, but travel a half-hour North/South/East/West, and the road system is much better. (Wait - I actually live south, and a half-hour doesn't seem long enough. You'll probably need to travel an hour south to see better roads). There wasn't much crime before, however, that's changed... I think we're still low crime, though. As for job opportunities...hmm...I would say computers (my field), medicine, engineering, culinary, and probably several service jobs. Did I mention that the current mayor is young? Even younger than...me...Darn! Now I really feel old. Although old attitudes still exist, Pittsburgh has quite a bit of diversity, just no official "little Italy" or "Chinatown" neighborhoods. However, the food district is awesome as far as international foods go.

I haven't been to Gettysburg, but we took up lodging around Harrisburg, and that sucked...

I've been to Atlanta, GA and they have the MARTA commuter trains, new buildings, and lots of businesses, but I've heard from others that it's not the kind of city where you can escape racist talk...

Dallas, TX is nice, but expensive - and definitely steer clear of Pittsburg, TX and Longview, TX. My brother-in-law is still recovering from his experiences there...

We met a couple from Branson, MO, and they seem happy there.

Sorry, I don't mean to confuse you with all these cities. I'm sure everything will turn out fine. Good luck with your move...

Branson=Tourist trap
Grand Haven=Tourist trap. Nice place, rich tastes, touristy. not really cheap. Talked to my contact there.

The house I'm looking at is about $486 a month.

WHAT the FUCK. Pardon me, I was just WHAT THE FUCK.

On LI, it can cost 900 a month just for a basic apartment.

Just offhand, Char, do they have any nice homeless shelters in Grand Haven?

Randolf: ...Um...I don't know...

R. Dan: Bwahahahaha  ;D The cost of living here in STL is fairly nice. I have found cheaper. One listed is 4 bed, 4 bath for like...$120 a month. But it's further in the city than I want to be...and I'm already further in the city than I want to be...and I'm kinda on the edge of it. I like to be just outside the edge a few miles.

I only ask because it might be nice to have something to fall back on if proper housing doesn't materialize. I'm not completely shut to begging favors from strangers, but I prefer to to keep that as a last resort.

I know GH is probably going to be expensive as hell, but that's kind of my point; I want to get out of the sticks, out of the poverty-- out of the love of poverty that so many people here seem to have. There's just too much madness and ignorance here for me.

I recently found out that my father (whom I have never seen and whose name I do not know) came from the Dakotas-- far north. This has been a talking point for me, since I can now claim my nascent Union blood is instinctively commanding me to emigrate north (which I swear some people around here would seriously believe).

Join the Union... the Feds... the Systemmm....

That's it, I'm buying some jackboots.

COMRADE RANDOLF DOES NOT APPRECIATE YOUR GUMBO AND ACCORDIONS. HE SHALL REPORT YOUR FISHBOATS TO THE COMMISSAR.

They'll strap me to a fucking rocket.

I actually did a search on 'Branson "Tourist Trap"' and got back travel photos and videos. It looks like Vegas, Jr., right down to the "music legends" show (although we saw one of these in Myrtle Beach, and it was good). By the way, we also visited Virgiia Beach, and I haven't heard nice stuff about the Chesapeake area of Virginia.

I have heard good stuff about the west, only Colorado. A now-deceased manager of mine once said that the flowers in the mountains smell like the "mountain scents" you find in soaps and detergents.

When my brother-in-law was still living in his house in Dallas, just after his divorce, he looked up the first renter using roomates.com. I'm not endorsing it, but that renter is still renting (he's one of three now). I think his is the $500/month rent (for one bedroom & bath, but he's free to use the kitchen and living room). Apparently, you can do a reverse lookup to also find an affordable place to rent.

We're like slender man. One way or the other we'll find you.

You wake up one night one of us is just there

I know a girl that lives in Virginia Beach too. She's supposed to be moving here though. Expensive place, no basements, bad weather on occasion.

I reiterate. She's moving here.