Spring has arrived. Soon, the plants my sister and brother are sending me for my birthday will start arriving and I'll be able to put the compost to good use. They are sending me 3 butterfly bushes, 3 red latham raspberry bushes, and 6 oriental poppies. I'm very excited about gardening this year.

I haven't done any gardening since I rented the house in Columbia, Missouri and grew carrots out back. It was a very small house with a small yard, but it was a house with a yard and it was $185/month. Wow, that price seems great now, I couldn't rent a room for that around here these days. It's a different season here, in more ways than just not being winter anymore.

I'm going to be landing in Saint Louis this Friday on a one-way airline ticket. It will be the first time my brother, my sister, my parents, and I will all be in the same place at the same time in over a decade. I'm looking very much forward to this.

Sunday, we will all be heading down for the day to Murphysboro, Illinois - where I was born - to see my family down there.

Sometime during my stay in Missouri I hope to see type_40.

I also want to find a way to get to Columbia, I haven't seen the town for a long while and I'd really like to meet up with ceruleanct11. However my tight budget and the infrequent bus schedule very well might thwart that endeavour.

I plan to go home via rail and/or bus, but that leg of the trip has not been fully set in place. I will definitely be stopping in Saint Thomas, Ontario on the way back to spend some time with goldmourn.

I'm also hoping to meet up with likeamermaid on my journey, but if that will occur is not certain as of yet.

While this isn't well planned out, I have a good feeling about it. I'm sure it will be an adventure at the very least.

I left Missouri in February, 1994. I had been living in my car in Columbia, and suddenly I realized "I'm living in my car, why the fuck am I still in Missouri?". My first stop was Terra Haute, Indiana. I had almost gone to college there and wanted to see what my life would have been like if I had.

The only night I spent there, I met Andrea at a coffee house. Andrea was 29 years old and on SSI. Her mother had power of attorney and controlled her finances. The night I met her in that nameless coffee shop, she asked me "Do you want to go to Boston?". I had been planning to make my way down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but I figured what the hell and replied, "Yes".

The biggest problem with our trip was financing. I had little in the way of funds and Andrea couldn't access hers without her mother's permission. Her mom would never consent to a haphazardly planned trip across the country, so we came up with a plan. I met her mom, and Andrea told her that I was a nice Jewish girl that wanted to go tour the Jewish History museums on the east coast. I did as little talking as possible, worrying that my voice could give me away. To my amazement, her mother bought the story and gave her $650. We left.

At this point the plan was to go to Boston, then head up through Canada and then down the west coast. It was an ambitious plan in a 12 year old 1982 Buick LeSaber. But, I had nothing to lose, so what the hell?

Our first stop was Indianapolis. Nothing very interesting happened there. In fact, we were pretty much bored to tears. Neither of us knowing anyone or even a good place to start looking for interesting people lead to us pretty much not doing much.

Next stop was Cincinnati. Apart from almost getting killed a couple of times, it was about as interesting as Indianapolis. We decided to make the rest of the trip to Boston in one go.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it all the way to Boston as easily as we had hoped. My car broke down in Pennsylvania crossing the Appalachians. We were near the top of a nameless mountain, and pushed the car down to some nameless town. There was a mechanic in that town who was very kind and noted the low-cash situation we were in. He offered to replace the coolant system thermostat for just the cost of parts, which was $40.

We spent the night in the town, then headed on our way. By the time we got to Boston, the car was having problems again. It would only go so far before it overheated, but we completed the trip.

One of the first things I saw upon arriving to Boston was a homeless man being chased out of a Dunkin' Donuts with a broom. I took that as a bad omen.

To save money on parking, we decided to park the car in the outskirts of town where it would be easier to find a spot. Instead, we ended up spending the first night in Roxbury as the car refused to travel only a mile or so at a go. The second night, we stayed on the floor of a ratty apartment of some slight creepy guys Andrea had just met. The third night, we stayed in one of the back alleys of Central Square.

By this time, I was ready to leave Boston. Andrea had just wasted around $60 on new boots while I was struggling to deal with the parking situation. I was very worried that I might lose my car. I told her that I was leaving Boston and she had two choices: come with me or get her stuff out of my car. She refused to do either, so I ended up leaving Boston with a good deal of her stuff.

My car was doing quite badly at this point, and could not go over 40mph. I got pulled over on the Mass Pike around Framingham for going too slow and was told to take another route. I took Route 9 from that point to Northampton. The cooling system was acting up during the trip as well, and I had to make frequent stops. I ended up spending the night on the side of the road somewhere along Route 9 in Central Massachusetts.

After waking up, I noted I needed gas. I had a black cloth skirt on with a black button down shirt with a high collar. I hadn't had access to bathroom facilities, so my face was quite stubbly. I pulled up to the gas station and pumped the gas. When I attempted to pay, the attend said "It's free for the church, Father." Figuring at that point that I could use free gas more than the church, I went with along it.

After limping the rest of the way to Northampton, my car finally died in the parking lot behind the Haymarket my second day in town. A blizzard hit that night, a snow emergency was declared, and my car was towed.

The following morning Liz, who I had just met the night of the blizzard, used her AAA membership to have my car towed from the tow lot to E lot at UMass in Amherst. A semester parking pass for E lot cost only $10 at that point and wasn't restricted to students, so I was able to have my car parked legally until the end of the semester. My car was my home until June, by which time it had decayed significantly and was quickly towed.

I put the schools I went to on my profile, with the exception of one of them that wasn't yet listed in the directory. I had resisted participating in the LiveJournal school directory, but I have decided to do it. I may change my mind and take them off at a later date. I hated school. I hated the vast majority of the assholes I went to school with. Fuck em.

This morning I called around trying to find free (or at least sliding scale) mental health services. I found one in Arlington (after calling around different mental health agencies). I called, and the secretary told me that everyone was in a meeting and they'd call me back.

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Around, 1:30, neodarkling came over. I'd met her briefly at the Diesel Café, just long enough for her to comment she liked my shoes and me to give her a wish pod. We found each other online through feline's journal.

Apparently she and I have some similar tastes in music. She is also one of the few people I have met outside of Columbia, MO that has heard of Odor of Pears.

Nothing like romping through the forest in crimson satin pajamas and a wonderfully flowing matching silk bathrobe! We went to the Great Meadow, only to find the path to the stepping stones was flooded. Without getting to the stepping stones, there is no way cross the Bog of Eternal Stench and get to the Magik Pond.

We walked around the accessible area of the Great Meadow for a while than headed back to my house. I was very very talkative today. Talk talk talk! I just couldn't shut up. Recanting past adventures.

Upon arriving back home, she left. Right before she left, I told her, "There's something important I don't know about you: your name". She mentioned she didn't know my name either. It was something that had simply never came up. Neither of us had ever asked. We then traded names in a introduction-type fassion

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I noticed that the Arlington Mental Health Clinic had never called me back, so I called them. The secretary said that the person who makes the initial calls was making her calls right then. About two minutes later, I got the call. Things went well at first. But towards the end of the conversation, I wasn't so sure I really wanted to deal with these people. I asked if anyone there had any training or experience with multiples. She answered "no." I explained that I wasn't sure if I wanted to let someone who didn't know what they were doing mess with our delicate balance. She told me, very snidely, that I could wait until I get MassHealth and try to find a better place. She told me that she would call me back later tonight, to see if I had made a decision as to if I really wanted help.

We've had mental health people who don't know how to deal with multiples simply make things worse. And, I don't think it would be helpful to see such a person. I was stressed out and went to bed.

Around 7:00 I woke up. purpleglitter suggested to me that I should ask them to help with issues like eating problems and cutting, and to leave everything else alone. At first this sounded like a great idea. And almost immediately after her suggestion, the person from the clinic called back. I asked her if that was possible. She answered that I could make such a request to whatever therapist I ended up being assigned to. I went ahead and made an appointment with intake Tuesday morning, and I should be able to start therapy within a couple weeks.

After the phone call, I realized that the eating problems and the cutting are tied into multiplicity issues. There's no real way to separate them. So, trying to deal with one exclusively seems like a futile prospect. That leads us back to the inept therapist screwing up what balance and stability we have left. I can't risk it. It's just not worth it.

Lake really didn't want Clover coming over. She broke almost all of our nice glassware and a plate for good measure. Shirley wanted to cut very badly, but we had to comfort Lake, who was horrified at her outburst of anger.

We ended up renting "The Family Man". Lake liked it, I didn't.

Lake went to bed and we just purged. I didn't really binge. Shirley though we'd eaten too much and I just wanted to get rid of the energy of the day. So we did. Then we brushed our teeth and drank a baking soda solution.

Now I'm going to go clean up the rest of the broken glass in the kitchen.

I'm really sad about the glasses. I can't tell Lake how much they meant to me, or she'd feel even more guilty. They were the glasses I had 9 years ago, when I lived in a small rental house in Columbia, Missouri with my cat, Galena. Just me and Galena and a little garden in the backyard. I used to make spaghetti and me and Galena would sit at an upsidedown milk crate together and eat out of the same plate. I miss that place. A lot happened there. Good and bad. Those glasses were my last piece of that place. Only three remain now. 1 goblet (which were my favorite) and 2 tumblers. When they break, I'll have no connection.

While we were on the way home from the Diesel last night, Mandy told me she knew another mtf transsexual who has DID. She said she'll introduce us. We've only know one other multiple, when we lived in Columbia. I miss her. The prospect of meeting another multiple transwoman is exciting.