Would you believe I made a whopping 10 grand yesterday?

That's more than I've made any year in my entire life so far . . . 'course I'm not very old, only twenty-six, but I've been working since I was hatched.

I come from one of those southwestern towns where "pest control" means keeping the armadillos from digging condo burrows under the already dead, brown lawn. My dad says I was weaned on beer and Mexican food. He should know. But that there's a whole 'nother story. Not near as much fun as this tale, I promise you.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Ten grand. Ten thousand luscious dollars in nicely used bills . . . which just might have traces of coke if someone rolled one up to snort with it . . . but it wasn't me. I don't do that shit. Burns your brain cells up and I ain't got all that many to spare.

I get high on the money, thank you very much. Ten delicious grand . . . I wanted to spread it out all over the bed and roll naked in it. I didn't. But I wanted to.

And I earned it doing something I love!

All I can say is that I've always had a real desire to take a whack at the piñata of life.

I think I hit it straight on!

Except I fell in love 'n I wasn't supposed to—

But I'm telling the story backwards.

Bad me.

Let's start over again—at the beginning.

******

I'd never been anywhere.

Well, that's not totally true. I'd been in cactus, two-stepped over the rattlesnakes, been trained from childhood to remember to put my shoes on before I got out of bed to go to the bathroom during the night so as not to step down barefoot on a trespassing scorpion, sun-burning my pale-cream skin to a blistered red oozing mass . . . damn desert.

But that doesn't count as "anywhere"— does it?

All that upbringing did was make me wanta get out. Outta Dodge. As soon as I could. No matter how I had to get there. And I wasn't very original—or very rich. Just packed my worldly belongings around my life savings, stuffed it into my old school back-pack and took the dog-gone bus, pun intended.

I still remember the smell of that trip. Dust. Sweat. Fear.

Diesel fuel. Long steaming days, fridged nights. Lights flashing into the exhausted passengers' eyes; '60s strobes for the po' folk still blinding travelers in the new millennium. The rattle and jerking of the rectangle metal box on worn, balding tires I was trapped in.

It would be much better when I got to Hollywood, I just knew it would.

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NEXT POSTING ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11TH. PLEASE COME BACK.

Thank you for reading, Jada

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