Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

Day 25: I Have a Dream, Too

Dear Martin Luther King: You had a dream, and it came true! We now have a black man in the White House. Mr. King, please come back to life: I have a dream. Get us out of this mess! With two smart black men in the White House (President Obama would find something for you to do [...]

Day 24: Wall Street Raiders

Okay, who is he? The corporate pirate who’s selling his office furniture on craigslist. Trying to hide this, too, just like Merrill Lynch hid millions in bonuses it paid to its employees right before its merger with Bank of America. Or, is it someone at AIG (American International Group), another bonus-paying scoundrel. We’re not talking Staples-office-style [...]

Day 23 — Anaïs Nin, Here I Come

I’ve seen the light—and I’m in it, as the next Anaï s Nin! What would I do if my ex didn’t have a PhD? He enlightens me on all sorts of things. To back up, I have a crushingly boring freelance assignment to write profiles of people who are making gobs of money. Most of them are [...]

Day 22 — My Boyfriend’s Package

It took me a week to unpack the box my boyfriend sent to me, and I cried unwrapping every item he had wrapped in tissue paper. Did he think he would make me feel better by taking extra time gift-wrapping the contents rather than simply folding them neatly in a box? I’m sending a few things [...]

Day 21 — Living with My Ex

One of the many problems of being unemployed is leaving the house. You often feel compelled to work at your computer hoping to keep busy and discover a job opening that had escaped you earlier in the week. Before you know it, another day has passed, and it’s time to go home, which you’re [...]