sweetheart redux

I was raised middle class but I always knew I would be poor. In the broadest possible terms, my mom was from a poor dad and a poor mom so she was 100% poor, while my dad was 50/50, so that has me at 3/4 poor, not in precise math I guess but definitely in fractions as done through an emotional filter. So, maybe that has something to do with it.  In any event, when I went grocery shopping with my middle class dad and stepmom, it was usually to the Gelsen's in Marina del Rey, and in case you've never been there, let me describe the experience. For starters, the store resides withing spitting distance of a marina full of docked yachts and the top-shelf only bars where carefree, asshole-ish yacht-owners drink and dine (maybe not in precise geography but definitely in the Marina del Rey of my mind). Being in Gelsen's and knowing that all goods on display could be bought by this half of my family was a palpable relief. At this Gelsen's, if you were standing in front of a r...

When I was a little kid my mom lived in this rooftop apartment on Marengo Street in Pasadena.  But rooftop apartment isn’t quite the right description – it wasn’t an open-air bar atop a fancy hotel.  It was this building:    My dad had custody of me during the week, letting my mom have me for the weekends. This apartment was the first and best location for my mom weekends.  I was still crazy about her and she wasn’t out of control yet.  She was an alcoholic but she managed to keep the same part time job for years.  In her later years she became a hoarder; but at the apartment on Marengo she was just a scatter-brained collector with a perfect eye trained towards trash and cheap stuff that was beautiful.  In this apartment, the vintage children’s books weren’t on the floor and soaked in cat pee like they were in her last apartment, and the old toys weren’t mixed in with clothes she never wore in the bedroom she couldn’t ope...