Editor's Notes

“Never start a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

I don’t think that way, ink is hella expensive! I just really like that quote and moreover, I have to buy ink by the barrel. I’m very specific in how I use that ink. Again, hella expensive.

That’s kind of how you need to approach this thing each month. What’s worthy of the ink?

I’m not here to share my political beliefs. Whether JFK or GWB’s portraits hang above my bed is of no concern to you. And I won’t make it your concern. Those of you who have been with me since the first issue, know me to be even-handed, non-agenda driven, quick to diffuse and all around keep my nose out of it, kind of guy. Most of the time, I don’t even have a damn opinion. That hasn’t stopped people from asking me what my views are. Truth of it is; I don’t have a team, a party, a majority way of thinking. I’m a down the middle dude. Always have been.

“What are you?”

“Oh, I have so many names.”

That’s a line from the movie “Devil’s Advocate”. In a moment of revelation, Keanu Reeves character finally figures out that the man he’s been working for is the Devil. And though no foster kid has ever been proven to be the Devil (though I make a case for Charles Manson), some of us have been called that and many, many other things. We have so many names.

Man, oh man, do I love awards!

I love getting them. Love watching them. And after this issue, I love handing them out.

Admittedly, I like the awards show for the Hosts. My head nearly exploded when Amy Poehler and Tina Fey hosted the Golden Globes for those few glorious years. I liked Chris Rock’s take on the world. Hell, I even liked how Ricky Gervais went after the celebs right in the room. I look forward to award season and the many monologues.

Oh, what strange times these are.

Not the first time you’ve heard that this month, is it?

I’ll bet you think I’m going to write about the election. Maybe how I feel about the results.

Nope. No. Not a chance. Hell no. Hell to the no (ya know? For emphasis.)!

It gets tough to do every month. Not a complaint, just an observation.

I’ve been at this for over five years now and truth be told, it gets tougher and tougher to pump these out each month. Hindsight being 20/20, maybe I should have considered spreading it out to a bi-monthly or quarterly, but foster care demands constant attention. My constant attention.

It was a tough Labor Day weekend if you found yourself on the bubble of making a NFL team with aspirations of stardom. Each year NFL teams are forced to make some tough decisions in an attempt to trim their rosters to 53 players and another 10 for the practice squad.

In the NFL, 53 are chosen to stay. In foster care, 53 are told to go home, EVERYDAY.

Nobody on the road,
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
The summer's out of reach

~Don Henley

I dig that song. Never gave much thought to the words until these last three months smacked me in the face.

They say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. If that’s true, then May came in like a lion and left like a bigger, hungrier lion. What a fantastic National Foster Care Month that was!

I sit expressionless in a questionable motel an hour away from my interview subject. I am empty inside.

The interviewee is perhaps the most important person to ever wear the label “foster care alumni”. She should be; she basically defined what it means to be an alumni.

She is dying. She is doing so on her own terms, her own pace.