[masraum]

She doesn't really seem like a hippy after reading some of her stuff.

She carries a Ruger LCR, she's also got an AR15 (I think that'll get your hippy card revoked).

I used to feel pretty secure, since I was working hard & steady in the same factory for 6 years straight. I bought nice gifts for people every Christmas, and I bought everything I ever needed & wanted at the time. I had my own apartment, saved money, and paid cash for my first car. I even bought a house when I was 22. I was on quite a roll until I got laid off and never got called back.

Today I am writing about money since I've got money on the brain. It's hard not to think about money when you haven't got any, you are frustrated with collecting unemployment, and you are in debt & not comfortable with that.

I had a problem with my unemployment this morning and had to give them a call. I had to wait on hold for over 2 hours in order to talk to a real human. NO LIE. Thankfully I have lots of extra minutes on my phone plan. I wonder if they had such a "high call volume" (as the recording kept relaying to me) because it is Monday. Or maybe because there are SO MANY people unemployed right now. Sigh.

While being in my van this summer, however, I was able to pick up several misc. cash jobs. I did some interior painting for a landlord, sorted cherries at an orchard, and did some brush-cleanup & weed-whacking at a horse farm. I heard about those jobs through a friend, through the newspaper, and on a flyer at the grocery store. There are so many other options, though, for someone needing to make cash money. Dog~walking, cleaning houses, babysitting, and yard~work are a few things that I personally considered.

She works. Do hippies do that?

She owned (well, was paying for) a house at 22. When she got laid off, she took out a $10k personal loan to sell her house because she was upside down on it. Wouldn't a hippy have just left.

She seems more responsible than my mental image of hippies. Maybe my image is skewed because I was born in 70 and am not familiar enough with hippies. She seems more like a self sufficient nomad than a hippy.