Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

I know I already talked about it on myspace...but I can't get the title of this memoir out of my head. It's succinct, creates a visual, and honestly, any sentence that has the word suck in it is usually one I like. Besides, if I work as hard as I should the next few weeks on my take home final, article critique, and practicum paper, I'm going to have more than a few bullshit nights. And depending on my mood, I sometimes feel like this city is a bit sucky.

OK, on to my point of this blog. Yesterday,my closest childhood friend (as in we've been friends since I was 6) called to tell me her teenaged daughter's best friend's brother died of AIDS. This would be equivalent to my sister or her brother dying. They were a close families. He was 21. He had been diagnosed with full blown AIDS at the age of 17. What the fuck? He had contracted it through male-to-male unprotected sex, they don't know from who definitively. She said he had been abused by a boyfriend of his mom and they think he got it then. Nice. She works at an agency that serves families and men/women with HIV and AIDS so she deals with sickness and death regularly...but this was too close. We don't hear about AIDS anymore. The media and government protray it as a problem that's going away. But it's not. Young black males are being diagnosed with AIDS at rates that are unacceptable. Why is this not a problem?

Then, she tells me that her child's father is in jail. He's been addicted to crystal meth for years and is in an unhealthy marriage to a skanky addict. Now he's in jail for domestic abuse. This is his second strike. In California, three strikes mean 25 to life. She's certain that if he doesn't clean up, a third strike is inevitable. He'll probably go to jail for four years this time. We all went to high school together. His daughters are like my family. What happens to people when they're on drugs to change them so radically?

On a brighter note, I have a student...I've referred to him as my thug. He is now the sweetest, most loving, polite, well-behaved child in my room. In fact, I don't even know why he's still with me. This is why I teach. Transformation.