I've struggled to write this. It should be so much better. However I need to get it out one way or another. Oct. 1st begins Domestic Violence Awareness Month and today I want to tell you about my friend Jenifer. Jenifer, Nicole, and I met in high school and were instant friends. We had a lot in common. Our first babies were born a couple weeks apart. All boys. We were extremely close through some very tumultuous young adult years. Breakups, marriage, more children, new jobs. Everything. Jenifer started dating Steven and it seemed they were serious very early on. She fell for him quickly. Eventually, though, he became violent and the classic cycle of abuse, apology, honeymoon, tension, abuse began and lasted for a couple years. She left. She reported. She got protection orders. He would manipulate his way back in. He would threaten her children. Threaten her family. Sometimes he was just extremely charming. Other times she felt guilty. She did love him after all. In the end, s...
No one cries as loud or as long as the new residents of a gentrified neighborhood about the inconvenience of fireworks every 4 th of July. If you Google it, it's happening in every major city across the country where gentrified neighborhoods experience an exponential uptick in 311 calls. They not only cry to each other.. But to the police. In social media neighborhood pages they let tirades loose among posts which usually consist of lost cats/dogs, furniture for sale, and posts asking, “what weeds are these in my yard?” They never go up to their neighbors and ask to have a conversation about it. One neighbor posted a Fox 31 news story about how they're illegal and prefaced it herself with, "Sadly, new residents are afraid to confront their neighbors because of rising violence." Actual recorded violence or the fear of? I asked, she deleted my comments. The belly-aching in my neighborhood group started in mid June and yet, the day after the big holiday, they’r...