School having officially ended yesterday[ May 9, 2014] at New Mexico State University and its Dona Ana Community College Branch [ where I was for the past five semesters], technically I am supposed to be Homeless and Hopeless in the [ So-called] Land of Opportunity called America. The registered ISBN title for what will be, now, my third novel from those 19 notebook-sized journals; plus childhood and teenage memories growing up [ but never really maturing in the traditional sense-Erikson's Psychosocial Theories] in Baldwin, New York and Newtown, Connecticut. A few weeks ago, I assumed that I'd be living in the car once again. Staying here in Las Cruces, New Mexico until the end of May/early June when I can get the Ford Escape XLT registration renewed. Avoiding the hassles of trying to register it in New York where I don't even have an address yet, but will soon be starting school at the State University of New York's Potsdam College come late August.
Yeah you heard that right. I'll soon be going from a climate where I've seen fewer than 25 rainy days in the since settling into my former rental cottage at 2215-1/2 South Solano Drive in late October 2011; to one where it rains frequently throughout the warmer season, and yes, snows rather often in winter. Four-foot long icicles hanging from the many rooftops throughout rural Potsdam Village in New York's North State from Thanksgiving through late March or early April, it's the stuff those Santa Claus cartoons on TV feature every Holiday Season in America. Offering the children a pleasant alternative to the bitter bullshit and metaphorical lies associated with that other fantasy character Christians call "Jesus Christ". Santa, after all, makes the otherwise lame holiday called "Christ-mas" [ the Pagan Holiday, Yule, which the Christo-Catholics stole and later moved three days ahead on the Gregorian Calendar from Dec. 21st to the 25th] palatable to children who really couldn't care less about " sin" and if some ancient Jewish menace to Rome supposedly died for the " sins" they shall commit throughout their long lives.
I will miss a few of the friends I have made at NMSU. [ none at Dona Ana, however. A fucking career-oriented community college populated mostly by awfully conservative Mexican-Americans and New Mexico rednecks hailing from both beef ranch and pecan field alike.] In particular, Tori C. Kathryn P, Chris L, and a few others. Many of who will be graduating in about a year or two from NMSU. Something that I was getting closer to at NMSU-Dona Ana Branch with 48 credits; upon enrollment, they accepted 29 credits from all my other attempts at college over the past thirty fucked up years of my life as " It" Oropal-the pathetic loser in life.
And so a new town and new place. Las Cruces never having become a place that even felt close to anything I could call " home" within two weeks after moving into that fucking cottage owned by my former landlord, Roz. A Catholic school teacher who had three daughters and lived in their new house on La Purisima in Las Cruces fancy-schmancy-ish East Mesa and was only keeping the old property for her oldest daughter to eventually live in. Then again, that seems to be something I've often said, and felt about every other place I have lived; Baldwin, Long Island, NY; Newtown, CT; Orlando, FL; Southbury, CT; and every place I briefly settled down in over the two years I spent homeless and traveling across this socially-challenged, economically-unjust fuck-hole called the United States of America. I cannot say that I have ever felt a part of any outside entity. My expression I use for town, city, or other domicile, seeing them all from the perspective of being " On the outside looking in". A line from a song by Longmeadow, Massachusetts' Band Stain'D, by the way.
After all, stemming from what I learned about life as the misfit child and teenager in both Baldwin, NY and [ especially] Newtown, CT, I came to this generalization about everyplace in America. You're either one of the chosen many; or you're one of the alienated few. I've always seen being the " Team player" as just a crock of bullshit, probably because I've always been blackballed by every group of "team players" in every place I've ever been. In this place, I must admit my attitude stems from getting hollered at several times a week on S. Solano Dr. where I first lived at in that small cottage. That and an LGBT community that was somewhat accepting of me at first, but later shunned me, for the most part because I didn't have that " Las Cruces Attitude".
I haven't any problem admitting that I am hardly the optimistic type, unlike many I've met here in this pathetic desert dust bowl full of sunshine and bullshit. In fact I see many optimistic people as fucking phonies and always have, particularly those who say we need to " love our opponents" and not categorize people by their religion, beliefs, financial class, etc. Having went to high school at Newtown High in Sandy Hook, Connecticut from September of 1977 through June of 1980 [ when I unofficially "dropped out" and went on homebound schooling because I was never going to pass physical education], I soon learned that everyone had their place. Everyone fit into their own clique, whether you were one of the jockstraps and preppy-jock cheerleader perfume cunts who were " Kings" and "Queens" of the school; or you were one of the " Burnouts" or " Stoners" whose primary motivation for attending school was to smoke pot and stay stoned all day long. Not giving a shit whether you graduated or did not.
Nevertheless, this attitude has stayed with me throughout my so-called "adulthood". A time when most Generation Y's have since moved on to jobbie-land and career-dale and had children of their own. I've never been one to volunteer for anything unless the cause was of benefit to me in some way. I'm not one of those pathetic " Christian" phonies who only serve others because some outdated, fairy tale " guidebook for living" called the Bible tells them they must do so to satisfy the requirements of what some long dead " Man-God" creature told them to do. Nor am I one of these " Community types" who feel a need to give back to whatever piece of shit they reside in. Not that I did not try to be one of them; I did for ten fucking years every fucking Sunday morning when I went to Mattituck Unitarian-Universalist Society in Woodbury, CT. Surrounded by so-called " liberals" who, while being friendly toward me in general, often gossipped behind my back. Saying how I should have been on psychiatric medication and how I never knew how to " Act appropriately". Fuck them. More on this in my former blog, The Diary of Cheryl Lynne Oropal.
Anyway, how does this relate to Las Cruces. A place which actually has a Facebook page titled Whatever Forever Las Cruces dedicated to all the excitement that goes on here in Las Cruces, New Mexico. What will I miss? The many rainless days full of sunshine, roughly 350 days' worth, annually, that supposedly make Dona Ana County, NM the " Outdoor recreation paradise". A place which, for me, has essentially choked my right lung with dust parasites and caused COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Turning me from once-active hiker who loved the outdoors back in Connecticut throughout all four seasons; to a lazy and fat person for whom this " Outdoor recreation paradise" has been everything but a paradise. I fail to see the beauty in an arroyo, or " Dry brook" as I call them and still have yet to see what that actual spring looks like at the end of Dripping Springs Trail in the Bureau of Land Management area looks like; locals claim it actually flows during the summer Monsoon, or thunderstorm season. I haven't seen a babbling brook since first arriving in New Mexico and spending some quality time as a homeless bitch and deserter of a Brooklyn homeless shelter back in New York City, crossing the Gila River while hiking in the Gila National Forest [ 140 miles away from lame Las Cruces]. In fact I've gained nearly 60 pounds, going from about 268 when first coming to NM, to about 312 as of yesterday.
The reason that I'm still here on campus, past the May 10th move out date, is this. On Sunday April 27, that boil under my left arm recurred. This after 29 years; back in 1985 I had a huge and painful boil that required draining by a doctor at an Orlando, FL urgent care clinic called Centra-Care on West Oak Ridge Rd. The lumpy skin still there and in dormancy all those years [ long before transition as transgender woman], last year my nurse practitioner [ like a doctor doing family practice] discovered that very same lump and was worried it might have been breast cancer. Suffering through Monday as the boil grew to the size of an orange, I waited until Tuesday to call the Presbyterian Health Centennial Care Plan's Nurseline, the Medicaid-Managed Care Plan I got because I'm on both Medicaid and SNAP Benefits under the Affordable Healthcare Act signed by President Obama. A president many of these self-sufficient Christo-fascist douchebag Republicans love to accuse of destroying the American Work Ethic of self-sufficiency touting the free-market and faith-based initiatives as the answer to poverty; and those trickle down economic principles which were a failure to most Americans.
Anyway, I ended up taking that nurses' advice and going to the Urgent Care on Walton Blvd. here in Las Cruces.
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