Getting the Fuck out of Dodge

I'm just about to return to Cambridge after a three-year absence - my life self-destructed about the time I started this journal and I think May was when I decided to get the hell out of Dodge.

I've been in this dry shithole of a town - San Diego - long enough to turn me inside out and upside down. If you've seen two the Governator's more famous movies, Terminator and Terminator II, you'll have seen Linda Hamilton turned from a struggling, valiant girl-child into a grizzled, barely sane criminal beast willing to do anything - anything - to get the fuck out of Dodge.

It's a terrifying transformation. I mean, she's a fucking monster. On the good v. evil chart, she's left of centre - left being evil.

Except for the natural environment, which is dry and hot if also starkly lovely and sunny, Southern California is the outer circle of Hell.

You ever see Cops? Ever wonder how in the name of all that is holy there could be a show with so many ghetto-ass bitches in one place? Well, that's a fairly accurate representation of Southern California.

When I moved here, a friend of mine who grew up in Cali said that I'd end up a beast if I stayed here. He was right. I've had so much bad shit happen to me I can't believe it - more violence than in the rest of my entire life, more than even travelling in Indonesia alone.

The CDC has just set up shop here - a friend of mine's partner was just posted to it - because of the giant wave of drug addiction and venereal disease. It's all about meth addiction and unsafe sex and criminal activity, no matter what class you are. It's worse than New York during the crack epidemic of the 80s-90s.

Oh, and all anybody ever gives a fuck about is their fucking car. I thought it was a fucking cliché before I moved to California, but out here it's a goddamn way of life. Not that anyone can drive to save their fucking lives - when they're not high or drunk, they're completely incompetent.

Everyone - rich or poor - seems to embody the absolute worst characteristics of humanity here: drugs, money; there's something you got and they want it and you can't stop them unless you use serious force. Whores (of all sexes) and drug peddlars openly walk the streets during the day, even in nice neighbourhoods, and the police are fucking pigs.

Civil government is corrupt as fuck; ALL the police stations are closed outside of the 9-5 M-F work-week and the laws are so fucked up that I got a ticket for driving with an out of state license - Violation 12500A I. Not just a ticket - I hadda go to Court because it's illegal to drive in California with a valid out-of-state license.

I have been assaulted repeatedly and several times men tried to force me into their trucks (during daylight hours, yes), but the worst was when - with witnesses in the nicest area of town during the day with IDed person and vehicle - the police turned over to the DA an Assault with Special Circumstance - and the DA dropped the case. Why? I believe it was bribery, actually, based on what the man said to me when he attacked me, but *they* claimed it wasn't important enough. I gotta fucking prove my case is significant enough to warrant justice? WTF. I was blindsided by a crazed European immigrant!

Also, not once was I attacked or stoned or threatened because of my status as a sexual minority. No, it was just You Are A Girl, Business As Usual, Come Get Beaten And Raped During Daylight Hours.

Let me clarify with yet another scenario: once a meth-crazed man pulled a gun from his car and began screaming he was going to kill my friend. We called 911. It was about six PM during the week. The man drove off and kept circling. We called 911 again about twenty minutes later - he's got a gun and he's trying to kill us. To make a point, my friend then called Domino's - after the second call to 911. Guess who showed up in fifteen minutes? Guess who showed up two HOURS later? And when they did show up, they said there was nothing they could do and left. They didn't even take a police report.

It's like a goddamn demilitarised zone on good days and like a war zone on bad ones. Fuck this shit and fuck these people. I don't need to live with disease-ridden rapist thugs in what is rapidly becoming the most expensive city in the United States. I'm tired of being afraid. My friend was just almost raped two days ago in the nicest part of town outside her doctor's office and I can't live here - it's too fucking expensive to be believed.

Screw you guys, I'm going home. I hope a plague kills you all once I've left.

If I was a misanthrope and a man-hating stone-cold bitch before, you can't imagine what I'm like now. My friend was going to buy me a handgun - that was when I decided it was Time To Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge, that I have to carry a piece. I'm supposed to be nonviolent and all I'm getting is homicidal from the beatings and stonings. Yeah, I mean stonings, as in twice I've been attacked by rock-throwing mobs of Mexican teenagers. (That time they didn't go after me because I was a woman but because I was Muslim. No, I haven't converted. Apparently since I'm dark but not Mexican I must be an Arab.) Fuckers were probably illegals themselves.

I'm leaving before I kill someone in self-defence. I mean, sure, bad things happen in Cambridge, but they happen to me with such fucking frequency here that it's just a matter of time before I have to strike back or die. So far I've stayed nonviolent, but the day will come and I don't want to leave myself in a situation where that is going to be a certainty rather than a possibility.

Now that I have displayed the full range of the fucking appalling human being I've become, it's time to stop for the day.