I need an idea for a story, but all I can think about is gas at four dollars a gallon, the credit cards I had to charge up to pay for the emergencies that happened while I was on temporary layoff from work due to the tanking economy, and the ten percent pay decrease I just found out about today.

The housing market hasn’t fallen this far since the Great Depression.

At work today, everyone was crying; I thought of Woody Guthrie:

“Ever’body might be just one big soul

Well it looks that away to me.”

Dust Bowl Ballads

I think of souls rubbed raw by exposure. Dust stinging the tender pink openness of those not accustomed to suffering.

Common suffering. We all offered each other advice. Stop your 401K deductions, get a part time job at night, stop going to Starbucks everyday, go after your deadbeat husband for child support.

I cried when I told my husband.

“I’m sorry, I feel like I’m always making things harder for us.” I am looking for a part time job though. And one day I really will write that novel, I will. But writing and publishing are two different things, and even if it does get published I probably won’t make that much… I’ll just work two jobs. Good for nothing. At least I don’t eat much.

At least we don’t have kids.

I saw a picture of an eighteen year old mother living in a tent in Imperial Valley, California. Her baby lay across her lap as she gazed at the dirt. -1937

Maybe one day we’ll have grass in the back yard, right now it’s our own Dust Bowl.

October 29^th, 1929- Black Tuesday. The stock market crash destroys businesses and leaves millions of Americans jobless. Psychologically, men are hit hardest. They are the providers, the everyday heroes, waiting in bread lines.

I applied for a job in a wine store. It’s a means to an end. The manager asked me if I could say pencil in Italian. He liked my black hair in braids. And tugged on one.

“Can you say bad hair piece in Italian?”

Good for nothing, at ten percent less today than yesterday.