Author: JennyTrout

Weed tourism and Jamaica have been synonymous for a long time, but cannabis has been decriminalized for less than a year. Really think about that. Less than a year. You could legally smoke weed in Washington before you could legally smoke in Jamaica. Last year, laws went into effect allowing for religious and medical exemptions, and personal use under two ounces was decriminalized, resulting in a ticket and fine. Which, by the way, is awesome, since Rastafarians use cannabis in religious worship and have been trying to get it legalized for years. It was shitty that American tourists could go down to Jamaica and smoke weed on resorts and have no legal repercussions, but Rastafarians who lived there faced religious persecution over it.

Before we went, people were telling us, “Yeah, you’re going to find it everywhere, people on the street will ask you if you want to buy. People at the airport are selling it.” I doubted that highly, but within two hours of arriving, I was rolling a j in my hotel room. Here’s exactly how it happened:

Me: *walking down the beach*
Random guy: “Hello, my friend! Do you have everything you need?”
Me: “Actually…”
Random guy: “Okay, how much do you want to spend?”

And that was it. I just had to go down and dip my feet in the ocean. Be real, real, real sure that you and the person you’re buying from are on the same page, though, because I accidentally almost bought blow. Keep your purchase low-key; it’s still illegal to sell it, and it’s just good weed etiquette to not get someone busted. Also, not everyone selling marijuana is selling other stuff (for example, the aforementioned coke), so don’t make dickish assumptions.

Now, about the price. You’re going to find people on the internet claiming to have bought four pounds of weed for thirty dollars or some shit. Do not expect this. Pot is definitely cheaper in Jamaica, but if you’re buying on a resort beach, you’re going to get charged resort prices. My personal thought on this is that they’re doing you a service by coming to you. Don’t barter. And for god’s sake, tip your dealer. You’d tip a pizza delivery person, right?

“But Jenny,” some of you seasoned stoners might be saying, “the weed in Jamaica just isn’t as good as it is in the U.S.!” This is totally not true. Beach weed in Jamaica doesn’t give you as powerful a high as something named “shark wreck” that you get from a pot shop in Denver, but that doesn’t make it of lower quality. The nameless green I bought had a beautiful, mild high without paranoia. Just a blissful sense of well-being. And my body didn’t feel sluggish; I smoked a joint about as long as my hand before I went snorkeling and never felt tired or like I was going to get in trouble swimming (though I’m a pretty strong swimmer in the first place).

Of course, snorkeling while high is probably not the best idea, so don’t take this as a recommendation. On our second swim out, I saw a fucking huge barracuda and thought, “right on,” instead of, “this is not good and I should leave this part of the reef.” But I also saw a sting ray gliding majestically through the water and thought, “That should be called a sea pancake,” so it was probably worth the danger.

Not everyone in Jamaica is a total stoner, and not everybody is cool with weed. Don’t go into a restaurant and spark up. Don’t be that tourist. I mostly smoked on the beach at night, and on our balcony during the day. And don’t worry, housekeeping is savvy:

That is a clean ashtray. The housekeeper took the old one, but left our roaches in the clean one. A++ service.

Staying at an all-inclusive resort meant there was never a lack of food for when the munchies came calling. The buffet at the World Café was amazing for this. Smoke up, get hungry, wander into a paradise untold where you could get all sorts of fruits and fruit juices. Which, by the way, is what you’ll probably get the munchies for while you’re there; the combination of the heat and the cotton mouth is going to drive you straight into a pile of fresh pineapple, papaya, and otaheiti apple (which has the consistency of a pear and tastes the way roses smell). Mid-afternoon a guy with a little cart full of coconuts and straws would walk around, if you’re into coconut water. You will, however, give yourself away if you sit down with a plate heaped with pineapple and six or seven glasses of juice.

Basically, smoking weed in Jamaica isn’t all that different than smoking it in the States. It’s just easier to get, a little bit cheaper, and the high is a lot more mellow. I took my own rolling papers and a new, sealed roller in my suitcase. When I returned home, all of that stuff stayed behind. Do not try to bring home any “souvenirs” you’ve smoked out of or rolled with, because customs can give you a big hassle, and you can be busted if residue is found on those items. To be honest, I wouldn’t even chance bringing clean paraphernalia back to the U.S. Get something better. Something classy. Like I did:

Hey there, friends! As I mentioned last week, Apple Vacations gave me and Mr. Jen the fantastic opportunity to visit the Secrets St. James resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Mr. Jen and I don’t get a chance to go on many vacations together. Oh sure, I travel a lot for work, so I can get out and see as many of you guys as are willing to travel to a hotel ballroom to get an awkwardly over-enthusiastic welcome from me. But those trips are actually kind of exhausting, because every day of a conference you have to be “on.” So it was nice to get away from it all, not have to be “on”, and also not be at Disney World (a vacation we took late last year as a family, and which required a recovery period of its own). However, when explaining the concept of an all-inclusive, adults-only resort to our children, that’s exactly the frame of reference we used: “Imagine everything you find boring, but that adults love. Then put all of that together in a place like Disney World, but a Disney World you would immediately want to come home from.”

It didn’t hurt that everything was free, so we didn’t have to work that out. Yes, if you couldn’t already tell, this is a sponsored post. I don’t do many of those, because I like to keep this as add-free a space as possible. But come on. It was a trip to Jamaica.

We were sent as Preferred Club guests. That meant getting some extra perks, like a private lobby with private check-in, a bar, and an all day buffet of little gourmet treats. They don’t care if you take those little gourmet treats back to your room, either; two staff members watched me with amused, knowing looks as I stumbled toward them, glassy-eyed, a plate of multiple bowls of salmon tartar and some kind of ceviche on one arm, an almost Seussian stack of deserts on the other, and called out, “Hey, you don’t mind if I take this and hit the road, do you?”

The staff of this resort wants you to relax and have a good time–and to have a good time with you–from the moment you touch down at the airport. As we stepped off the plane, we were greeted by a uniformed Apple Vacations representative, who whisked us through immigrations and customs, bypassing lines like big shots. I don’t know if this is a service I got because I was going to write blog posts about the trip, or if it’s just something that comes with the Preferred Club service. On our return trip we decided to independently investigate something called Club Mobay, which is essentially the same thing. It costs $30.00 USD, and you just breeze in and out of the airport like you went to the post office and there was no line. We didn’t use the arrival service, as Apple had us set up, but the departure service was awesome. You wait in their lobby full of complimentary beverages and food (like an actual buffet; you could plan to have your lunch or breakfast there) until it’s time to go. I highly recommend that for everybody.

Anyway, as we took our private transport (thanks for that, too, Apple!), the driver told us all sorts of facts about Jamaica–which I’ll talk about in Troutcation, Part Two: “Things That Surprised Me About Jamaica”. At the hotel, we were whisked to the private Preferred Club check-in, where they greeted us with glasses of ice cold champagne and cold towels. “You’re just like Obama,” a bellman joked.  This is also where we elected to independently investigate the resort’s credit voucher system. You pay $200.00 USD and get a book of vouchers for $10.00 off bottles of wine (4), $60 off a romantic candlelight dinner (1), and some other random amount off spa services that I can’t remember. Basically, it totaled $200.00, anyway. It’s the Disney Dollar of the resort: got ’em, so you might as well spend ’em . If you’re not planning on getting spa treatments, now maybe you are, because you don’t want to lose money on the coupons. Getting a bottle of wine with dinner? Now you are! You want to use up those credits. Even if you were planning to do all that stuff, anyway, why not just keep the $200.00? Verdict: nah.

We did, however, opt for the candlelight dinner. It was pricey (somewhere around $250.00 USD), but we considered it an early tenth anniversary present. We did this on the last day of our trip, and enjoyed a dinner on the beach in the moonlight, with the gorgeous mountains in the distance. The dinner was amazing, with a shrimp tempura appetizer course, caprese salad, filet mignon and lobster tail entree, and a dessert that was like a red velvet cake with fruit and chocolate on top.

I highly recommend this option, which comes with various package levels. We did the very basic one. And after dinner:

Really cool, right? It was totally romantic. I mean, Mr. Jen and I aren’t romantic, so we ended up watching CNN and taking turns in the tub so we could both see the TV. But it was still a wonderful evening.

However, do you notice something about the placement of the bathtub? This is pretty key. See, Mr. Jen and I have been together for fourteen years, married for ten. So a bathroom set up like this:

isn’t going to phase us. We have no boundaries anymore. Well…almost no boundaries. One morning, the copious amount of alcohol consumed and the unlimited amount of complimentary gourmet food took its toll. “Hey, Jenny? You mind, uh…spending some time on the balcony?” he asked plaintively. “And turn the shower on? For some noise?”

I’m just saying that if your relationship is in the “bashful flower” phase, you might want to have a talk about the bathroom arrangement up front before you book this vacation. I do, however, know that this is something Apple Vacations takes into consideration for its customers at the other, equally exciting vacation destination properties they can book you at, so if you call and talk to an agent, maybe that’s something they can help you with.

Another perk of the Preferred Club was that we got butlers. Plural. Two butlers handle the arrangements for anything you’d like to do while you’re at the resort. Want that romantic dinner? They’ll help you. Excursions? No problem. Tarje and Patrick have you covered. You even get a little phone you carry around with you so you can call them if you need something, and they’ll be there in a moment’s notice. This was, of course, a service we barely used. They called everyday asking, “Are you sure there’s nothing we can do?” I tried to explain that we are but simple country folk and are used to doing for ourselves, but it was too late. I was already Obama.

We had a fantastic time at Secrets, and a big part of that was what I considered our “Apple safety net.” One of the things I dislike the most about traveling is having to know where to be, when, how much time to budget to get stuff done, etc. The night before we left, an Apple representative contacted us about when our flight would leave, what time our transport would take us to the airport, and what time to check out in the morning. When we had questions, we just went down to the lobby to ask her for clarification, because Apple has representatives on the property. Every day, they were there if we needed their help with setting up outside tours or handling travel arrangements. That was a really cool piece of mind to have.

We stayed for three nights, and honestly, that was just about the right amount of time. Sure, people go down there and stay longer, but three nights was just long enough to feel like we’d gotten away from it all, without getting sunburned or missing the kids too much. And when we did get home, we felt like we’d been gone for weeks. On our first night back, snuggled in our own bed, I leaned over to Mr. Jen and said, “Hey. Feel my neck. It’s not doing that thing anymore.”

All of us have neck things, right? Well, for a few glorious days, I did not. And it was magical.

I know this post comes off as quite commercial-ish, but I honestly can’t say enough about how well the whole thing was set up, both on Apple Vacation’s end and at the resort. Mr. Jen and I are already talking about booking a trip with them for another vacation some time. I creeped their website and it looks like for the exact vacation we had, you’d be spending under $4,000.00 total (this is leaving out some stuff I’ll talk about in another post, I’m just talking hotel/flight/Preferred Club upgrade). So, if you’ve got that kind of vacation cash and you’re looking for something short and tropical, this is definitely a good option. For us in the midwest, it’s actually a shorter flight than going to Vegas.

Also, you get to see Cuba!

So anyway, I’ll be making more posts this week about some other stuff that happened on vacation, like stuff that surprised me about Jamaica and funny stuff that happened there, including why you should never book a ground floor room at Secrets Wild Orchid, and why every Jamaican person we met wanted to talk about tattoos. Stick around.

I’m back from my Troutcation hiatus! And you’ll note that this post is happening on a Saturday. That’s because I told Bronwyn and Jess that I couldn’t do a #LegionXIII post this week, because I was still on blog vacation. And they were like, “That’s over on Friday, bitch. We’re moving the post to Saturday.”

Quick rundown of the episode: This is the episode where everyone is angry, and everyone deals with that anger in their own, immensely self-destructive ways.

Vorenus’s little “got your head!” trick with Erastes Fulman last week has led to total chaos on the Aventine. Rival gangs are killing each other in the street, and old ladies are warning people away from the Vorenus house. Even Eirene has had it with Vorenus’s shit. She’s worried that she’ll get pregnant with a monster baby if they’re living in a house with a decapitated head just rotting on the floor.

Antony has to meet with Cleopatra, and Atia is not a fan. She doesn’t have a lot to worry about, at the moment, as Cleopatra is in Rome looking for money for her son, Caesar’s heir. Considering the fact that Caesar’s actual heir, Octavian, can’t get one red cent out of his inheritance as long as Antony controls it. When Cleo tells Antony to declare Caesarion Caesar’s legitimate heir, Antony tells her to go fuck herself, and they do not part on good terms. He still has to have dinner with her at Atia’s house, though.

Titus Pullo goes to Mark Antony to ask him for help with Vorenus. Pullo actually describes Vorenus as having “gone awry”, which is my favorite way anyone has ever described a breakdown. I’m going to call all my breakdowns “going awry” from now on. Antony goes full-on Tough Love Jen on Vorenus (Bronwyn knows what this means) and tells Vorenus to either commit suicide or clean up the Aventine and get the gangs under control, since he created that problem.

Speaking of creating problems for one’s self, Antony tells Atia that Cleopatra isn’t really hot or anything, she’s just really plain and mousy. So when Cleo shows up at Atia’s dinner looking hot as fuck, it’s clear that Antony is doing that thing where guys downplay the hotness of a girl they might end up cheating on their girlfriend with later. Queen or not, when Cleo leaves the party, Atia has some words for her. One of them is “trollop”.

Also at the party? Servillia, who has been forced to come to keep up political appearances. Unfortunately, keeping up appearances means that she has to stand there and take all of Atia’s gloating apologies and publicly accept her offer of friendship. Atia cannot, however, murder Servillia as she had planned, so she sends Timon off to his pointless story about his life that goes absolutely nowhere. Basically, it all boils down to Timon is Jewish, but not Jewish enough for his brother, who’s like, some kind of super pious political agitator. This storyline will go nowhere and add nothing to the overall season.

Concord, who is basically the goddess of getting along, is in charge of a parlay. All the rival gang leaders meet with Vorenus, who tells them that he’s in charge now. Nobody wants to commit any kind of violence or anything in front of the statue of Concord, so they don’t attack Vorenus for talking some shit about them and bossing them around. But the thing is, Vorenus doesn’t give a shit about Concord. He talks about sodomizing Concord, then smashes the statue all to pieces in front of the horrified priests and gang members. Then he tells everyone that he’s a son of Hades, and they’re kind of like, okay. We have to do this, because this guy is dangerous.

Back at Atia’s house, a lot of shit is going on. Antony and Atia are fighting about whether or not he fucked Cleo, Octavian and Antony are fighting over Octavian’s money, and Octavia has literally no fucks left to give. She just eats fruit salad and ignores everybody’s drama. Good choice, Octavia.

The thing Octavian wants to do with his money is give away the money Caesar pledged to the plebs. But Antony thinks that’s stupid, so he’s not going to give it to him. Octavian tells Octavia that he plans to take control of Rome from Antony, and she doesn’t take it real seriously.

Pullo warns Vorenus that fucking around with the gods is probably not the best idea. And this is coming from a dude who sat in a sinking boat and told the sea god to suck his cock. But you know what you shouldn’t do, Pullo? Employ some rough-around-the-edges-but-smolderingly-sexy woman to manage the prostitutes in your new mafia brothel.

The news reader guy announces that yay, the plebs are getting their money, and Antony and Atia are freaked the fuck out. They get even more freaked out when Octavian tells him he borrowed millions of whatever denomination of money they use. Shit gets super violent in one of the most uncomfortable scenes I think I’ve ever seen on TV, and Antony nearly kills Octavian. When Atia leaves the scene with Antony, leaving Octavian on the floor, he decides to say fuck it to everyone in his family and runs away to Agrippa’s house. On the way, they pass a wagon full of slaves. And inside are Lyde and the children, alive after all.

My favorite part of the episode: It’s a toss up between Vorenus trashing the sacred statue, the smooth transition between Cleopatra’s double slap of Antony, and Cleo’s expression when she recognizes Titus Pullo.

My least favorite part of the episode: The introduction of Gaia, for reasons that will be clear as the series goes on. But most of all, the introduction of Timon’s story. The reason I dislike it so much is that so much screen time is invested in it, with such little payoff. I will be annoyed by this until the end of the show. I also find that after seeing a full season of Timon killing Atia’s enemies to get the opportunity to fuck her, it’s very difficult to give a damn about him once you find out he’s got a wife and kids he’s deserting to pull all this shit all the time.

Favorite costume: This is such a mob meeting, there’s even a guy in a track suit and gold medallion:

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Atia. She threatened the queen of Egypt, over a guy. That is some brass.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet: 

Dear Mom,
Sorry you’re a bitch.
Love, Octavian #LegionXIII

— Dylan Bimberg (@dylanbim) March 15, 2016

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? 

If Bronwyn grows her hair out, I will help her make this hair style. Because I guarantee she covets it.

Guess Jess’s head canon. Two key points for Jess in this episode: When Mark Antony steps up real close behind Vorenus and tells him that he’s his master, which launches yet another ship for the Jarmada (if it hadn’t already sailed), and she got a scene wherein Pullo tenderly cared for Vorenus by shaving his face for him. So much HoYay in this episode!

Now go check out Bronwyn’s and Jess’s posts, and join us Monday at 9 PM EST for season two, episode three, “These Being The Words Of Marcus Tullius Cicero”. Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!

Quick rundown of the episode: Because this show is incredible, season two starts directly where season one ended, with Caesar dead on the senate floor. Brutus is traumatized as fuck by the horrible thing he just did, but his horrible mother is like, that’s my boy. And speaking of dead on the floor, Vorenus is still cradling Niobe’s dead body. His kids and sister-in-law come home and find him violently shaking his “grandson”, and he realizes that his entire family has been in on the lie. He beats Vorena the Elder, curses her, and spits on her, then throws a curse on everyone just to be thorough. Then he staggers into the street, where some old guy headbutts him into unconsciousness. Meanwhile, Mark Antony has to run from murderers, and Posca has to try and get Caesar’s body through Rome for a proper burial or whatever.

Timon goes to Atia with a bunch of men to try and protect the house, and she’s super happy to see him. He’s feeling pretty heroic, until Mark Antony shows up in a full-on fury, and Atia is all, thank god you’re okay. Sorry, Timon, it ain’t never gonna happen. Antony wants Atia and Octavia and Octavian and Calpurnia to leave the city, but Calpurnia isn’t fucking budging. She wants the will read and all the funeral stuff wrapped the fuck up. But when they find out that Caesar has named Octavian his heir, shit gets complicated. The city isn’t celebrating the death of the tyrant, Mark Antony points out to Servilia and her little band of murder plotters. Octavian has figured out a really bad loophole in the “murder Caesar” plan, which means he gets to keep all the money Caesar left him. If Caesar was a tyrant, all his senate appointments are void, because they were unlawful acts of tyranny. So they’ll have to have general elections. Since the conspirators have a lot to lose if that happens, they’re forced to step back the whole tyrant thing and enter into a truce with Antony, who then uses Caesar’s funeral to whip up a lot of pro-Caesar sentiment.

Pullo and Eirene get dirt married, even though he murdered her boyfriend. Their honeymoon is cut short when they find out that Caesar is dead, and then things get real unromantic when they return to the Aventine to find that Niobe is dead and Vorenus’s kids are missing. Erastes Fulman took them. Vorenus and Pullo kill all of Fulman’s men and hold Fulman hostage long enough to learn that he raped the children, murdered them, and threw them in the river. Vorenus decapitates him and carries his severed head like a bowling bag through the Aventine.

My favorite part of the episode: When Calpurnia spit in Servilia’s face, and then spit in her face again. Oh, also, when Brutus says to Servilia, “You too, mother?” What a fucking amazing choice that line was.

My least favorite part of the episode: I really didn’t enjoy the fact that, after Antony has raped a slave, they depict her as looking all sexy and satisfied.

Favorite costume: Atia’s funeral outfit, because she looks like an Aerosmith video girl in 1997. 

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Team Atia. She’s the mother of the richest man in Rome.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet: 

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS????? #LegionXIII

— Bronwyn Green (@Bronwyn_Green) March 1, 2016

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? Bronwyn has massive hair envy, so I know Atia’s long in-mourning hair had her gnashing her teeth with jealousy.

Guess Jess’s head canon. Oh man, I know for a fact she’s a sucker for strong, wounded male characters being healed emotionally and physically by another strong male character, so the Vorenus/Pullo arc is really hitting every branch on the slash tree for her at this point.

Now go check out Bronwyn’s and Jess’s posts, and join us Monday at 9 PM EST for season two, episode one, “Passover”. Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!

Hey there everybody! I have some news, but first I want to let you in on how my PopSugar reading challenge is going!

So far, I’ve completed the following items on my list:

A book written by a celebrity: Why Not Me?, Mindy Kaling. Whoo boy. This book was something else for me. While Kaling writes a lot about struggles I’m never going to have to deal with (striving to succeed as a dark-skinned Indian woman in a world where so many doors are closed to anyone who isn’t white), I empathized a lot with her fears about success being snatched away, professional envy, and the overall feeling of the title–why not me? This book came at a time that was so awesome. I was down in the dumps after hearing about yet another incredibly bad book becoming a blockbuster, and hearing someone as successful as Mindy having similar doubts and fears as me (despite our personalities being so vastly different), sprinkled in with hilarious anecdotes about what it’s like to work in Hollywood (my favorite? A cringe-inducing story in which she spouts off about anti-vaxxers in a room full of them and tries, unsuccessfully, to dig her way out of a hole that only becomes deeper), really lifted me out of a bad depressive episode.

A book with a blue cover: Truthwitch, Susan Dennard. I saw a lot of bloggers fighting over ARCs of this book, and in my experience, books with that amount of prolonged hype don’t live up to expectations. But I decided I would read it because it sounded like an interesting premise, the author is from Michigan, and I met her on a plane and she seemed pretty cool. It not only lived up to, but exceeded the hype. It’s a YA traditional high fantasy in the vein of A Song of Ice and Fire. Set in a world on the brink of war as the terms of a peace treaty are set to run out, politics and magic mingle freely. The main characters, Safi and Iseult, are “theadsisters” of vastly different backgrounds (one is a poor girl from a racial group closely resembling the Roma, the other a noble woman used as a pawn in her uncle’s political machinations). Their only ambition is to be able to live their lives together, while outside forces pull them apart. The system of magic in the world building is awesome, and the storytelling is as cinematic as George R.R. Martin’s. I recommend this book so hard, I have to restrain myself here from blurting out the whole story like a second grader giving a book report. “And then…and then…and then…” Seriously, it’s that good.

A book about a culture you’re unfamiliar with: Craving Flight, Tamsen Parker.  I picked this book because it’s a BDSM erotic romance about an Orthodox Jewish couple. How do you not pick up that book, right? I know basically nothing about Judaism, other than the dietary restrictions, so it was interesting to see how a convert struggled to fall in line with expectations and custom as opposed to how members of the community from birth viewed their way of life. At the same time, I felt like the book was too short to include all of that and present a believable romance. I would have loved to get the hero’s side of the story; he’s a widower who, despite his family’s objections, marries a woman his family doesn’t approve of. He also just happens to be a Dom, and it’s clear that this was a role he had with his late wife. But very little of that is explored, and that’s a fascinating idea to me. How does this man, whose late wife was his last sub, feel about moving on to a similar sexual relationship with a stranger only three years after her death? Plus, I thought the romantic resolution was rushed, and the lack of safe words or discussion of safety of any kind in the bondage scenes bothered me. That aside, this was a good read. Just not the OMGYOUHAVETOREADTHISRIGHTNOWITSTHEMOSTAMAZINGBOOKEVER book I was promised when people recommended it to me. Still, I liked it enough that I wish it would have been longer.

That’s it for my reading challenge news for now, so on to the rest!

Are you in the mood for something to watch? Cinema Tyrant has come up with a list of the ten best French movies available from Netflix.

Audiobook news! My recent re-release, Bride Of The Wolf, will be getting an audio version. More information to come on that one. It will be produced and narrated by two-time Earphone Award winner and 2013 Audie nominee, Tanya Eby, who has narrated books by Lisa Kleypas, Susan Mallery, Debbie Macomber, and Nora Roberts. So I know this book is in good hands.

New installment of The Afflicted. Another chapter of my historical horror serial is up at Wattpad. You can read it here.

The social justice hot topic of the moment in the United States comes to us straight from the the most hated generation to come of age since the cast members of Reality Bites could afford health insurance. As someone born in the tail end of Gen X, I have to say that I am grateful to Millennials for distracting the Baby Boomers from us, much in the way Ian Malcolm led the T-Rex away from Sam Neil and those kids in the overturned Jeep. I feel for you, Millennials, as most Gen Xers spent their early twenties similarly disparaged by a generation who continues to insist that if they could buy a house with cash at age twenty-four (when the average new home cost roughly $30,000.00), then so too should a Millennial be able to afford a new house in their twenties (despite the current price for a new home resting somewhere around the $200,000.00 mark). As someone whose Boomer in-laws gifted my husband and I with a book titled You’re Broke Because You Want To Be when we’d just lost our house, I keenly understand the frustration felt by a generation being held to wildly outdated standards.

And it’s clearly that frustration that led Talia Jane to write “An Open Letter To My CEO“. In it, Jane describes the extreme poverty she and other employees of Yelp, an internet company that enables anyone with a smartphone to become a pro-am food critic, experience while trying to live in the San Francisco area on a $12/hr salary. The responses to the article are divided into two camps of extreme opposites, with one side viewing Jane as a working class hero exposing the truth about wage inequality, and the other side painting her as a spoiled Millennial brat who doesn’t want to work hard to get ahead in life. Even fellow Millennials have roasted her, like Stephanie Williams, who boasted about her ability to overcome the same circumstances through hard work and commitment that sounds an awful lot like a combination of luck and privilege that Jane doesn’t share.

After seeing people I know, from every age group and walk of life, weigh in on Jane’s piece, I began to wonder if I was the only person standing firmly between those two unforgiving poles. Is it possible to view wage inequality and poverty as serious issues affecting our country, especially our youngest adults, while at the same time finding it difficult to praise Jane or her letter?

When I read Jane’s piece, I was with her on her overall point: if a company chooses to operate their business out of what is known to be the U.S. city with the highest cost of living, it should be obligated to pay its employees a living wage. I’ve seen a lot of people suggesting Jane should simply move to another city. It seems a simple solution, but on an annual salary of $24,000.00, the costs of moving would likely set her back even further. I’ve seen plenty of accusations of entitlement on Jane’s part–”just because she wants to live in the Bay area doesn’t mean she just gets to if she can’t afford it!”–but very few calling out Yelp. If we’re talking about entitlement here, doesn’t it stand to reason that the company that showed a $32.9 million net income last year should be the ones doing the moving? Is it not a gross display of blatant entitlement for a company to ask its employees to simply be grateful for their meager paychecks so the company can occupy desirable real estate? Since it began, Yelp has only shown a profit in 2014. Their revenue was down in 2015. If it’s too expensive for Talia Jane to live in San Fransisco, then can’t the same be said of Yelp?

On the other hand, the job Jane had with Yelp, while not paying a living wage, included benefits that many post-college jobs don’t. For example, the free food that starving employees ravaged. Jane’s complaint about these snacks not being stocked on the weekends likely seemed the pinnacle of entitlement to readers who not only don’t have break room food to scavenge, but who also watch their children go hungry on weekends because the only meals they get are their free–and meager–school lunches. I’m reminded of the woman I worked with at McDonald’s, who would take her free break meal home in her purse and divide up the medium fries and six piece nuggets between her two kids, while she went hungry. She was eventually fired when she was caught eating breakfast food she’d been asked to throw in the trash during changeover. Almost every working- and middle-class American has a story like that to share, either of their own experiences or someone else’s, so it’s no wonder that Jane’s complaint of not receiving the free food due to her on weekends was met with an extreme response.

Her Instagram account received similar criticism. Since January, Jane has posted photos of homemade cupcakes garnished with fresh mint and sliced fruit, expensive bourbon, and a steak dinner she made for a friend. The backlash against her was such that her Instagram account is now private, but someone was so irritated by the images that directly contradicted her claims of hunger pains and an all-rice diet that they now host screenshots of images taken from her account on thatsalotofrice.com, the domain name itself a withering condemnation. Jane has since explained that many of the meals pictured on her Instagram were given to her, and that she only posts positive images to her account. Who among us can say that we’ve never used social media to make our lives seem more pulled together or glamorous? If that’s one of Jane’s sins, it’s minor at best.

I bristle at the assertion that people living in poverty don’t deserve “luxury” items. Only five years ago I sat in the parking lot of a pawn shop, sobbing, because my engagement ring would fetch only $35.00, but it was a $35.00 that could feed us for several days. While I ultimately held on to the ring–damn my sentimentality–I came home to find that a politically conservative relative had made a passive aggressive Facebook post, cryptically alluding to this family she happened to know who claimed to need food stamps, but whose children had electronic devices. The devices she referred to had been given to my children by my mother-in-law for Christmas; that we couldn’t find it in our hearts to snatch them away from our kids so as to be poor correctly was considered a moral failing.

I don’t fault Jane for keeping her expensive bourbon; I do fault her for not making her Instagram private before she started this internet firestorm. By not doing so, the self-righteous arbiters of what strangers should be spending money on have further ammunition with which to discredit all poor people everywhere. The people who fully believe that poverty is simply living it up without obligation. The senators who insist that welfare and food stamp recipients should only eat rice and beans, rather than spend the tax payers’ hard earned dollars on steak and lobster (while cleverly ignoring the fact that, as government employees, the tax payers’ hard earned dollars are paying for every politician’s steak and lobster). Jane’s intent may have been to expose the reality of poverty, but she greatly exaggerated her circumstances by claiming that she’s only eating rice and barely staving off hunger pains. “Most of the food I eat is free from the break room or occasionally gifted to me by friends who can actually afford groceries,” would have been honest and less damaging to the coworkers who struggle right along with her. One wonders what will become of those break room goodies now that she’s revealed that employees routinely take them home at the end of the day.

Others have criticized Jane for her reckless actions, which resulted in her termination. Numerous unemployed people have criticized her for throwing away a job that “anyone” would be happy to have. Obviously, Jane was not happy to have the job; she had to know that the outcome of not only blasting the company CEO on Twitter (going so far as to suggest he fire her), but writing a scathing viral blog post, would end with unemployment. That’s her choice to make, but it is an objectively foolish one. If Jane was starving on $12/hr, how will that situation improve on $0/hr? She announced the news of her firing with handy links to places where people could send her money. It’s a shrewd choice; she’s already made more money by capitalizing on her viral fame than she would have in a month at Yelp, and this experience may lead to job offers that suit her better. But it’s hard to fault people for being cynical when one of Jane’s infamous Instagram photos is a text in which she bemoans the fact that she doesn’t have a big enough internet presence to induce people to send her money for nothing. While money-for-nothing is the dream of every American, it’s also the allegation made by those aforementioned enemies of the poor, who will now seize on Jane’s words as “proof” that all Millennials and all impoverished people are secretly lazy and horrible, and who could fix their circumstances entirely with bootstraps and elbow grease.

Further fueling that cynicism is Jane’s complaint at learning she would have to wait a year before being considered for a promotion. Of course that’s going to be met with scoffs and eye rolls. But at the same time, attacking Jane for getting a “useless” degree should be met with equal measures of disdain. Outside of STEM and medical fields, not many people find themselves in jobs directly relating to their college majors. Working at Yelp was probably not covered in Jane’s studies, but she landed the position, anyway. She’s obviously capable of finding employment despite the egregious burden of her “useless” college experience.

Does Jane’s original letter raise salient points about wage inequality in the United States? Absolutely. Does she still come off as entitled and dishonest about her circumstances? I think she does. Are all Millennials likewise exaggerating and embellishing valid complaints for dramatic effect? No, but if you’re one of the Gen Xers or Baby Boomers who eat up every click-bait article confirming that wrong opinion for you, your mind is already made up on that point. But can we move past the ideology that if a person is right about something, it automatically means their motives were righteous? Or that a person has to have righteous motives to point out what should be obvious in the first place?

Criticism of Jane’s piece shouldn’t be seen as an automatic denial of the serious economic failings in our country. But it’s entirely possible to point out the areas where Jane is right without making excuses to defend all the places where she’s wrong. Am I saying that Jane has no right to complain about her circumstances when there are other people in worse situations? No, that’s a silly belief for people to ascribe to, as there will always be someone who has it worse, and who may not be in a position to speak out against the inequalities that are holding them down. What I’m saying is that while it may seem that Jane has made heroic overtures in the battle for socioeconomic equality, uncritical defense of her open letter only advances Jane and destroys the credibility of other Millennials struggling to clear the poverty line. “See?” deniers will say. “None of them are really poor. And they clearly don’t need food stamps or student loan forgiveness when they can just make a GoFundMe.”

Millennials are no better or worse than Gen Xers or Baby Boomers. Just like Monica Lewinsky is not every Gen Xer and Jeffrey Skilling is not every Baby Boomer, Talia Jane is not every Millennial. She’s also not the poster child for every impoverished worker in America, nor should she be. Until we’re willing to have nuanced conversations about the realities of poverty and the people affected by it, we won’t see any headway in correcting our attitudes toward it. That means that we must accept that if poor people can be as hardworking and honest as a rich person, then they can also be just as opportunistic and bend the truth as much as a rich person. Either way, no one deserves to struggle the way so many struggle in a nation that prides itself on its economic superiority. Not Talia Jane, and not anyone else, regardless of which generation they were born into.

If you tell people you are from, or live near, Kalamazoo, Michigan, the response is usually, “I didn’t know that place existed for real.” That’s probably because “Kalamazoo” is a weird word, and I believe Bugs Bunny once took a wrong turn on his way to a carrot convention there. Glenn Miller made the town famous with the song “(I Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo)”.

If you’ve ever lived, worked, or even just visited Kalamazoo, you know the town slogan: “Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo!” Located exactly halfway between Detroit and Chicago, the city got its name from the Potawatomi people, whose name for the area was “boiling water”. I know this because it’s engraved on a lovely fountain on the downtown mall (the first pedestrian mall in the country). The fountain features a lovely bowl of gently burbling water at about chest height; I once got my friend Warnement to lean down to read the inscription, then used both hands to force the water out and over his head. He retaliated by later pushing me into the much larger fountain in Bronson Park.

Every year, the park is turned into a Christmas wonderland (and the fountains are drained of water, making it a much safer time of year to go there with pushing-inclined friends), with each tree draped in lights. When I was a child, my grandparents would bundle me up and take me out to see the decorations, including the now retired Frosty the Snowman and giant candy canes. My friend Jill Barry got engaged under those same candy canes (we posed for her wedding pictures in front of the Kalamazoo sign downtown). Once, she and I saw a man wearing what appeared to be a suit of Christmas lights riding a bicycle (also covered with Christmas lights) through downtown. He turned off the street and headed into the park, and, being the holiday season, we knew we had no chance of finding him.

I met Jill and Lisa and Anna, my twenty-plus years BFFs, when I started as a freshman at Hackett Catholic Central High School. Living in my rural town twenty miles outside of the city, Kalamazoo was the place for me, where I spent much time roaming around with my friends and visiting the local coffee shops, Fourth Coast and Boogie’s. Boogies had a wall you could write and draw on in their loft; Fourth Coast stank of cigarettes and you could always find a game of hearts. My first date was at the now-torn down movie theatre at the West Main mall; my first backseat adventure with a boy was in the driveway of the Soccer Complex.

My first apartment in Kalamazoo was in a basement on Rose street, where people would routinely knock on our ground-level kitchen window and inquire as to whether Ray-Ray was home. I don’t know who Ray-Ray was, but he was popular. The location was great for me, as it wasn’t a very long walk to the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre, where I played Annelle in a production of Steel Magnolias, and a milkmaid in Oliver!. Over the years, my involvement in Kalamazoo theatre included stage roles and tech jobs at both the Civic and The Whole Art, the former a grand 1920s building with a resident ghost, the latter a black box with leaky basement dressing rooms cordoned off with sheets and laundry lines.

Kalamazoo was a great place to live as a young adult. Being irresponsible and flaky as I am, I had jobs all over the city. Mostly retail and food service, briefly at Borgess hospital (where my first novel, Blood Ties Book One: The Turning was inspired) and a nursing home. My move from Rose street to Nichols and West Main necessitated a lot of bike riding to get to the two jobs I needed to keep my $500 a month second apartment at The Landings. I’ll never forget the morning I finally managed to ride my bike all the way up the unbelievably steep Westnedge hill without stopping; a guy slowed his car, opened his window, and shouted encouragement at me all the way.

Now that I am a boring adult, Kalamazoo is the place where I go to concerts at venues like The State Theatre, or where Mr. Jen and I go on dates. Our son attended preschool and kindergarten at St. Augustine, which, despite its spelling, is always pronounced “August-IN” instead of “AugustTINE,” and to which we add the ubiquitous Michigan possessive ‘s. Mr. Jen works in Kalamazoo. Many of our friends still live there.

Over the weekend, a mass shooting took place in Kalamazoo. A man drove around the city, indiscriminately killing people in their cars between picking up Uber fairs. Seven people were killed, ten were injured.  Most were women and children. I guess, considering the climate of the United States with regards to gun violence, it was only a matter of time before it happened close to home. But I’ve made this post not to talk about the tragedy, but to share just a handful of my memories of the city, and show a side of Kalamazoo that is both weird and wonderful. A city where the local library once had a real mummy in a sarcophagus just kind of sitting out in the children’s reading room (the mummy was later moved to the old Kalamazoo Valley museum upstairs, and later to the new museum; they made an episode of Reading Rainbow about her). A place brutally hit by an F3 tornado in 1980, and which later adopted the tragedy as a point of pride, going so far as to host a semi-pro football team called the Kalamazoo Tornadoes. The birthplace of Gibson Guitars and the Checker Taxi. One of the most important craft beer scenes in the U.S., where many restaurants offer their own microbrews, and home of Bell’s brewery, known world wide for its Oberon, Two Hearted Ale, and Hopslam beers. A college town that can claim alumni Tim Allen, Terry Crews, Bruce Campell, Marin Mazzie and Luther Vandross (Western Michigan University), as well as Steven Yeun, Selma Blair, and Ty Warner (Kalamazoo College), among others.

It will continue to thrive and survive, and be the place that nobody thinks is real. But yes, there really is a Kalamazoo, and it is so much more than one horrific Saturday reported in the media.