after i got out of juvie when i was fifteen, i was sent to an emergency foster home in downers grove. emergency meant i could only stay for three months. but i needed someplace stable so i could go to college. i’m not sure why i was trusted with finding a family.
this is denise. she was my roommate at the emergency group home in downers grove. many years later, i’d be at a diner and she was my waitress. it was awkward.
i went to north philadelphia to meet with gwen, whose family i lived with for close to three years after the emergency foster home. gwen has not seen her daughter in ten years but is negotiating a reconciliation and while gwen is supported by social security disability for the rest of her life because the lid of the trunk of the car she drove smashed down on her back, she works at creating a comic book adventuress jenny everywhere who can be seen at
this is holly. for hours every day, she rocked in a chair placed directly in front of the speakers while listening to peter frampton’s first record. she lived in the bedroom across the hall from me and denise. i can’t stand peter frampton.
gwen and her partner maggie had similar life trajectories and the two of them connected on facebook in the mideighties. you say facebook wasn’t invented yet? ha!
we had dinner at their favorite chinese restaurant and the evening was over before i was able to accomplish what i had come to do:
okay, post ativan:
arlynnpresser 
May 7th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
arlynn…fb friend > 300 here (so i will never see you :-))…you are being a little hard on yourself. even though i think i am going to hell, the easiest way for me to manage impending doom is believing something like this:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Love-Wins/Rob-Bell/e/9780062049643
*chin up
May 7th, 2011 at 10:22 pm
rodney, i’m so amazed. do you think that you’re going to hell too? i saw the book. i understand the concept. i just can’t get myself there sometimes. i like the profile pics stuff you do!