I was drowning in debt. So I went to Kosovo.

My optimism hadn’t blinded me: I knew a ‘Real Job’ would likely not exist on the other side of this penultimate semester of grad school; even if it did, it would likely sap my writing time, which was as essential to me as blood and air and water and the whole reason I had gone to grad school in the first place. If I wanted to keep writing I was going to have to be creative about financing it.

In case you have ever considered donating your eggs, here is an essay in The Atlantic by Catherine Lacey, a woman who has done it twice! And then almost did it again, but did not. Super good, but: $8,000 doesn’t seem like enough money for what a pain egg donation seems to be? I’m changing a life by giving away a baby, I should at least be able to, I don’t know, buy a low-end Honda Civic.

"I knew how all of this would end: I would sell the Bean. "

When I lost my job I went out to California and I suppose there are a few reasons for that. One is that this is just what we do, we Americans, when we find ourselves without work: We go West to where things might be (have to be, please God let them be) better.