My Stint in the Ghetto

Hello, hello.  It's been forever since I've posted on my blog.  It's not because I've fallen out of love with it, it's because I have been dealing with some extenuating circumstances of late.  You will not believe all the different layers of crazy I've experienced since leaving Ocean City.  That was at the end of December and the beginning of January, and I was kind of broke.

During that time I came to Baltimore and stayed in a youth hostel in the Mt. Vernon area near the Basilica Cathedral.  That wasn't so bad, but it was expensive as hell.  That place charged me an arm and a leg just for a three-day stay--thanks to Baltimore's 15% hotel occupancy tax and other fees.  Anyway I didn't have much money and I couldn't stay at the youth hostel for longer than three days, so I ended up rented a place for $100 a week in East Baltimore.

If you didn't already know East Baltimore is a ghetto and a living a hell.  Blah, blah--The Wire--blah, blah.  I can't believe I lived there for two months.  My room had a window that faced the busy street called E. Monument, and I would hear the most obscene, offensive conversations audible to humankind.  It was so loud.  At least ten police sirens would pass by my building everyday.  Punk ass kids would just hang out in front of my window too and be obnoxious as hell.  Living in the ghetto is not for me. No way, Jose.

But I was poor.  So I endured while I slowly went mad yet also sought out opportunities for financial advancement.  Craigslist.org in Baltimore, as far as employment is concerned, is full of shit.  All the posters are scammers.  I had to go Washington, D.C. for gig selling stuff at Obama's inauguration, but that turned out to be kind of illegal.  I almost gave up but instead I did some volunteering--cough-medical-research-cough.  :)

While I was busy "volunteering," I was following up on an online opportunity to write and edit.  All the other websites that I've worked for previously didn't pay well enough for me to survive on.  However, this opportunity was different.  Don't get me wrong.  I definitely had to jump through some hoops to prove that I could write and ultimately edit.  I passed my qualifications tests, and I am now a better paid freelancer.

Thankfully, this meant that I could afford to move out of the ghetto in Baltimore.  It's a good thing too, because as the whether got warmer people were getting rowdier.  Right now I rent a room in Charles Village which is further north of Mt. Vernon.  I'm next to the John Hopkins campus, and it is so quiet.  Now I have time to address my side projects which is what I really want to do.  And TaaDaa!  Here I am back blogging again as if the whole nightmare never happened.