Okay, the reason I went several months there without posting is that NOTHING good has been happening in my life.

I STILL haven't been able to find a job because before the nation's economy collapsed, our city's economy had already collapsed when a flood wiped out all of downtown and a large part of residential area. So finding a fulltime job has been nearly impossible.

I've been donating plasma for money to buy food, and even that got so bad that my girlfriend had to start giving me money every week because I came down with the flu and couldn't donate for a while. All the groceries I've bought in the last few weeks have involved putting something between bread because that's cheap.

But the worst thing of all is my ticket. A friend of mine who has been in Afghanistan for a long time came back to visit and for his last day, he wanted me to drive him up to Iowa City to visit another one of our friends. When we were coming back, a cop started following us and eventually, pulled us over. I don't have insurance right now because like I said, I'm struggling just to eat, and since I'm 19, with an accident on my record, insurance is pushing about 100 dollars a month for me. They were going to tow my car and leave me stranded in Iowa City but I explained I had to get my friend back because he was shipping out again in the morning, so instead they just gave me a $380 ticket for driving without insurance.

My ticket's due in a week, on the 21st. If I spend no money between now and then, donate plasma at every possible opportunity, and completely drain what's left of my savings, leaving me with nothing to fall back on, I'll be about 80 dollars short. Even if my girlfriend loans me her entire paycheck, we'll still have to come up with about twenty bucks, and I don't want to do that to her.

We'll probably find someway to pull through, that's not much more money that we need, but even if we do, it'll still really suck.

I can't believe money has gotten so bad that I'm comparing the price per ounce on loaves of bread that both cost less than $1.25.