Chapter 1
I wonder if government cheese is like Velveeta, where it's super gooey and tasty but not really very much like cheese.
My only experience with government / welfare food is mostly canned meats.
"I didn't know death was so heavy."
I was really not expecting Cupcake's mom to die, or at least not so soon in the story. And the fact that she was thirty-four, that is awful.
It is so intriguing how much music (and TV) impacts our lives. At the end of chapter 1 when Cupcake says that her and her mom share 2 songs, a living song and a death song, I can really relate to that. My dad's and mine's living song is "Black Velvet" and our death song is "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Freebird".
There are more than three songs that make me think of him because he was a "Listen to albums on repeat" sort of guy, so most Pat Benatar and Poison songs remind me of him. But those 3 are very strong emotional songs because we danced to "Black Velvet" and the 2 songs he wanted at his funeral were "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Freebird."
Chapter 2
I've always been jealous of the families that have aunts and uncles (or "fake aunts and uncles" - friends of the family) that come over really often. I always felt like my house and my family consisted of just my parents, my siblings, and me, and I always wanted to see my aunts and uncles more. So, I hope when I have kid, that I'm able to give them a well rounded family filled with aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends to build lifelong bonds with.
It's really sad that they didn't really have anyone bring food over. I know when my dad died, people I didn't even know came and brought food.
Ugh the story of the kids having to go with their biological parents is so fucked. I feel like the system has changed a little bit and that kids wouldn't be torn from their family and placed with a stranger, but who knows. Especially for a poor family in a poor neighborhood.
Chapter 4
Does 11 seem a young age to have had a sex ed class? I'm pretty sure I was 12 or 13 when I had my first one.
While I'm not surprised by the sexual assault, it is so fucked. It's so messed up that a 21 year old would even want to fuck an 11 year old, but on top of that, the fact that his mother didn't care how fucked up it was I think is worst of all.
Chapter 6
The 'game' the foster mother played, having the kids look for something she had hidden, definitely reminded me of "A Child Called 'It'".
Chapter 8
I don't blame Cupcake for leaving Larry behind. He's the older brother so if he was concerned about leaving he should have been helping her plan things.
"That’s one thing about druggies, they’ll
gladly take you anywhere you need to go, if there’s a high in it for them."
Do you think drinking and smoking younger makes you more addicted? I don't really understand why she'd spend her money on weed and booze when she could use it towards getting home. I understand the drugs for the sake of turning tricks, but why the booze before she got on the bus?
Chapter 9
It made me really sad that Mr. Bassinet was only nice to Cupcake after she started "cheerleading practice".
And as fucked up as the whole setup was where Cupcake kind of stopped feeling guilty about getting Mr. Bassinet off because he was doing things for her in return. I think I have somewhat of that mentality, that sex is more of a tool or bargaining chip than it is a sign of love.
Chapter 10
This book is making me want, more and more, to be a foster parents and just take in kids and be such a better person than the foster parents in books like these.
Chapter 12
"...mostly, I think I loved Tim because he said he loved me."
Chapter 13
I can't imagine being pregnant at 13. Then to be pregnant, and basically refused to be taken to a hospital but a psychotic woman. I'd like to think that these injustices happened because of the times but, lord knows, things like this happen still today.
Chapter 17
Interesting how you never think of gangs as being safe places, but that is exactly how Cupcake describes her experience there after she got jumped in.
"Every now and then my conscience would rise up and I’d begin to feel bad about
the way I was living and the things we were doing. But then I’d get around the homies. Between their love, the
booze, the drugs, and the blackouts, my conscience was shut down. Besides, there was no time for guilt—I
was becoming a ghetto star."
Chapter 21
"I thought I knew whyI drank, used drugs,
and banged. But I didn’t understand why she did. I mean, she had everything Iused to have before my mom
died: her own room, more clothes than a child could ever need, a loving mother and daddy, and a loving,
caring home. She’d never been raped or beaten, had never gone hungry, was constantly given emotional,
physical, and psychological support and encouragement. Hell, she didn’t even know what a trick was!"
Chapter 22
My mom lived in Chula Vista when she was in hear late teens / early twenties!
Chapter 23
The part about the IUD moving is what makes me terrified to get one, even if it is only likely to happen from having it in too long. Not worth the risk.
I'm surprised she was able to get pregnant so soon after the damage to her uterus by the IUD.
Chapter 24
I'm so glad Cup was honest and real with Mr. Burns when he called asking for money. I can't believe Larry had fallen for his pity me crap.
Chapter 25
"I soon realized a benefit from, and even
began to welcome, the memory loss because it allowed me to remain oblivious to the extremely ignorant and
hostile person I became when drunk."
Sometimes I wonder why our bodies don't automatically miscarry if we're doing a shit ton of drugs, instead of all of these babies being born dependent. Cup flat out said she popped a ton of pills before even going to the doctor before her second abortion. Why do our bodies hang on to babies when they're probably going to be messed up from the mother's choices.
The scam Cup came up with, where a bunch of black friends distract clerks and security while a white girl shoplifts, was actually pretty ingenious - using people's racism against them like that.
Chapter 26
Obviously I didn't do it because I was taking speed, but I also typed out the words while watching TV when I was practicing my typing.
Chapter 27
I can't believe Greg forgave Cup for getting shot at an insane party just because she gave him $10 worth of weed.
Chapter 28
I love that Cup's dad said that if the guys she was fucking couldn't afford a hotel then they weren't worth it.
"At first, we had a hard time finding an apartment. No one wanted to rent to two teenagers—one who listed
“welfare” and the other “hustlin’ ” for income."
Why would their Dad just let them take everything out from under them? Is it because he has no faith that they'll going to actually make it and they'll end up back home sooner rather than later anyway?
Chapter 29
My brother prefers Heineken beer so it's funny that's what Cup and her friends thought of as "classy".
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” I knew damn well I didn’t know him.
“I don’t know. Do you?” he quietly replied. A smartass.
I liked that!
“Probably not, but I’d like to,”
Chapter 30
What liquor do you have to stay away from because of how it makes you feel the next day?
"I felt like shit enough without having the object of my exploits hanging
around as a remnant."
"Breakfast? Who was this idiot? No one ever of ered me breakfast! Maybe hush money to ensure my
silence in case I ever ran into them with their wives. And, on occasion, a couple of bucks left on the night
stand in a desperate attempt to erase their own feelings of dirtiness and shame. But breakfast?"
I wonder what Tommy saw in her that made him so instantly attracted to Cup for more than sex or drugs.
Chapter 32
"Is it white folks that made you leave out those parts of your past, or is it your own pain in remembering
them? Could you be blaming white folks for your own unwillingness or inability to deal with your past?"
It's so funny how these typists in the 80s who worked the night shift all dressed sexily and today an office job is ideal cuz you can most likely get away with yoga pants.
"So that’s how it went. I went to work loaded on uppers, but never drunk. I knew if I got drunk, I’d show up
and cuss everybody out. So I never went drunk—only loaded—though never loaded on basin’. I immediately
realized that once I started basin’ I couldn’t stop till all the dope, or money—whichever ran out first—was
gone. So I vowed to freebase only on the weekends."
"Typing is the perfect activity to do when speeding because it
requires fast, quick movements of the hands. Tweaking on the typewriter soon became one of my favorite
things to do, which made the job even more enjoyable."
"Working also made me feel better about the illegal shit I was doing. I mean, hell, it wasn’t like I was a thug or a bum. I had a job, dammit!"
Chapter 33
“Girl, why you think I got all these kids? I get a fat checkand Uncle Sam pays my rent! I get food stamps,
free medical, and I don’t have to move my fat ass!” Nancy busted up laughing, obviously very proud of her fringe
benefits.
“Cup.” Tommy had finally regrouped himself enough to speak. “It’s not worth it. Think about it! By
working you get more money in two weeks than a bitch on welfare gets in a month! Think about it. You are in no position
to have children! You can’t stand noise. Children cry all the time! You have no patience. Think about how other people’s kids get on your nerves now! You barely feed yourself! How are you going to feed a child? Do
you really want the responsibility of taking care of someone else all the time? You hate people in your business! You hate having to answer to others. If you keep that baby and go on
welfare, Uncle Sam will own you. He will tell you what you can do and cannot do, where you can do it, and
how long to do it! You can own only certain things, and you can’t even have a bank account. And Uncle Sam is nosy as hell. They get all in your business, asking thousands of questions—regularly.”
"I felt like the system had never asked any damn questions—or at least the right ones—when they
were supposed to. When I was getting raped, molested, beaten, mistreated, shifted from home to home, no one
ever said a fuckin’ thing. No one ever asked me why I ran! They simply labeled me “hard to place” because I
ran. And now the bastards wanted to ask questions?"
"I loved the special status I got among drunks and druggies simply from the
fact that I managed to get something few of them ever had or could even get."
Chapter 35
Being paid minimum wage for answering phones, filing forms, and cleaning seems ridiculous! Wonder when the pay increased because anymore most legal secretary jobs like that start at least $2 above minimum wage.
I can't imagine how my boss would feel if I had to re-type letters 2-3 times to get them right, even when I first started.
Made me laugh imagining and office covered in post-its.
"I sat back and thought about what they’d said, and realized they were right. Slowly, but surely, I was
indeed becoming a mothafuckin’ legal secretary—on dope."
Chapter 36
If 'crack' is cooked down 'powdered coke' then why is it cheaper than plain 'coke'?
“Girl, only virgins get to wear white!”
I began to think about how I’d lost my virginity. I never gave it to anyone; it was stolen.
"I told myself, fighting back tears as I realized that druggies, gangstas, hos, and high-school
dropouts didn’t make good princesses so I’d never really get to be one."
"You DO have family here. You’ve got Daddy and Jr. here. You’ve got dope and booze here. That’s all
the family you need."
I can't imagine not being able to remember my wedding, or not remembering changing dresses, or not remembering going on my honeymoon. And it was awful that she started her period and had no idea
"I returned to the table a while later. The entire time I was in the bathroom, Tommy stayed at the table
drinking. He never once came to see what was wrong. Never wondered about why I had taken so long. When I
walked over to the table and told him what had happened, he got upset that I was on my period because that
meant we couldn’t have sex.
“Nigga, I done embarrassed myself by walking around God knows how long soaked to the core in blood
and all you care about is you ain’t gettin’ no pussy!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was livid. "
Chapter 37
"But I couldn’t just roll over and do nothing. So I’d always hit him back. Even though I knew he was
bigger, taller, and stronger than me, and could kick my ass with minimal effort, I couldn’t allow him to just hit
me without my doing something.'"
"...ignorance manufactures
denial. "
Chapter 39
Dave's accident was horrible [being hit while riding your bike and ending up paralyzed from the neck down]. I'm pretty sure I would take my boss' death pretty fucking hard. He's my longest adult relationship, ever.
"I really tried not to get loaded the next time I went to visit Dave. But no matter how I tried to not drink or
use, I couldn’t. I don’t know where I lost control. One day, I thought the booze and drugs were providing me
with the peace and solitude I needed to get through the day. The next, they were working against me, flooding
me with anxiety and depression and leaving me with increasingly severe hangovers. I didn’t want to get drunk
or loaded, but I couldn’t stop. Try as I might to stay sober, I always ended up drunk."
Chapter 40
I think it's funny how Cupcake said that secretary's are supposed to be "reserved". I consider myself reserved but I know that I also shut down a lot of small talk that client's try to start with me because I'm uncomfortable. Kind of like Cupcake and her slang, I'm always worried I'll say something super unprofessional or just too much information.
"I once asked her why she hadn’t jumped on the “Let’s hate Cupcake” bandwagon.
She stood for a moment pondering the question and then softly replied that “God” had instructed her to love
me. That’s when I realized that Maria was nuts."
"At least Ken was pleased with me. He didn’t seem to notice my unprofessional attire, my unusually loud
voice, my noisy smacking, or my messy desk. All he seemed to care about was that I did what he asked and his
clients loved me." - I'm pretty sure that's how Tony feels about me.
Chapter 41
How much pride can you really take in "fooling" your husband about hiding dope when he was still beating your ass over it? Sure, you got the dope, but was it worth it?
Even though the author references it more than once I forget to imagine Cup as a super disheveled crack addict. That fact that she never took care of her hair or teeth is insane, and I don't know how she managed to keep getting hired if she looked unkempt.
I also don't understand how her dad stayed out of her business so entirely and for so long. I can't even keep my mom off of my ass about my diet and we don't even live together.
I can't believe Tommy was skewered on a fence! And how fucked is it that Cup didn't even bother going to the hospital or anything. Especially since she claims to not have seen a problem with the abuse until that night.
Chapter 43
“Cup,” he snapped back, “every day you buy dope like it ain’t shit. When you go to cop, you don’t care
who sees you. When you sellin’ your TV and shit, you don’t care who sees you. And now that we’re trying to
save your life, you want to be incognito?”
Chapter 44
It's bad enough that Cup was willing to take her daddy's money, but the fact that even Tommy saying it was an awful thing do to didn't stop her, makes her problem that much more obvious.
"Tommy’s using was dipping into that minimum, so, like anything
else that interfered with my using, he had to go."
"I decided to talk to God right then
and there. Just like I was. No religion, no prayers or holy verses, no rules, no deals, no bargains. Just me, with
all sincerity, asking for help. I really didn’t have a choice because if He couldn’t help me, I was surely
fucked."
Chapter 45
"As I got deeper into the letters, it all started becoming
clear: there was no longer any denying it because it was laid out in front of me in black and white and in my
own handwriting. Job or no job, school or no school, married or unmarried, I was definitely an addict. By the
end of the second letter, I was crying so hard, my tears were smearing the ink on the paper."
"As crazy as it sounds, I used to cry when I heard the theme song from the
television show “Cheers”: Wouldn’t you like to go where everybody knows your name?
And they’re always glad you came . . ."
--I don't think it's crazy actually. I may not have cried but I've always wanted to be a "regular" somewhere.
"She talked about wanting to be a part of something, wanting to be desired, to be “special,” craving to be
loved. She talked about experiencing the kind of loneliness so immense it could swallow you up. She called it
“loneliness that crowds couldn’t cure.” "
Chapter 46
Finally, she ended our conversation by telling me that I never had to drink and use again—even if I wanted
to. “You mean even if I want to use, I don’t have to?” I repeated in disbelief. The concept of not acting on a
desire to use had never occurred to me.
Chapter 47
"Even now, you probably have
doubts as to how bad your using really was. That’s because you have a disease that tells you you don’t have a
disease.”
“Don’t worry about yesterday, it’s already gone. There’s nothing you can do about it. And tomorrow isn’t
here yet. Just don’t use today. You can do anything for one day.”
"Again, V walked me through the fear and uncertainty. She made me realize that if Ken had wanted to toss
me to the curb he would have done so when he saw the scrawny, dirty, stinky, drunken dope fiend standing in
his office doorway.
“Obviously, he cares about you.” "
The bit where Cup is describing her empty apartment and how ashamed she is, reminds me of the Boy Meets World episode where they get their first place, but Shawn keeps saying how they can fix it up and take pride in all the work they did.
Chapter 48
I find it super amusing that Cup felt the same camaraderie in her 12-step program as she did with the gangbangers. Just seems like 2 very different types of people, but I totally understand how that could be.
It's pretty asinine that Tommy and Rose ordered booze on Cup's 69th day sober celebration.
"pride gets us drunk. Ego keeps us drunk. Humility allows us to ask for help; it enables us to get
honest about what’s really going on inside.”
Chapter 49
"people with addictive
behaviors, especially women, have a tendency to put a man before their own well-being, so much so that they
stop taking care of themselves. If they exercised regularly, they’d stop once a man came along. If they had
friends, they forgot about them once a man appeared. If a woman was self-sufficient and self-assured, she’d
get a man and suddenly become insecure and needy."
It's so dumb that the doctor told her she was only "allowed" to have three abortions. Obviously she was just going to go somewhere else and lie about how many she'd had in order to have one.
“Will you just wait!” he’d holler as I hopped out of the car before he could get around to my side to let me
out.
“You move too damn slow!” I was so impatient.
“Cup, why don’t you just let someone be good to you?” V fussed one night when I complained about Brett
getting angry that I wouldn’t wait for him to let me out of the car. “You’re fighting it because you feel like you
don’t deserve it. But you do! Let someone love you!”
I love the part with the post-its. "What do you want other people to say about you?" And saying you have to "change the tapes" in your head to be positive.
Chapter 50
"the acronym for ‘fear’ can mean one of two things: ‘Fuck Everything And Run or
Face Everything And Recover.’"
Chapter 51
I can't believe Cup paid for all of her school out of pocket! That's part of why I quit because I didn't want loans or to pay out of pocket and wasn't eligible for aid.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
"There’s an old saying: “it takes a village to raise a child.” That is so true. Unfortunately, by the time I’d
decided to try and turn my life around, I was no longer a child. I was an adult. It takes a community to change
an adult."
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