In the beginning of May I bought a house in the Dickinson area.  For those of you who don’t know, Dickinson went through an oil boom from 2007 through 2015 where the housing prices quadrupled.  Though the oil boom has been over for five years, the real estate prices remain artificially and ridiculously high, way out of proportion to what the local economy is now and will be for the foreseeable future.

I recommend not buying a house in Dickinson at this time, because the real estate prices are too high and they are headed for a long downfall.  But, I bought a “For Sale By Owner” house that was not advertised, appraised, or handled by a realtor so I got it for about 30% of what houses here are being advertised.

I am kind of numb from everything that has been happening in my life recently, good and bad, ups and downs.  I can hardly believe that I have enough property now to park my vehicles and trailers without anyone bitching at me, wanting to charge me money, the Police wanting to Red Tag it for being parked on the street, or the Meth addict thieves trying to steal things every night.

The apartment building where I had lived in downtown Dickinson for the past three years, I can’t believe that I lived like that.  I try to make sense of it, 75% of the people who live in this building are just trying to live a normal, peaceful, stable, productive life, but there has always been this constant turnover of white-trash drug-addict short-term renters that have made this apartment building a ghetto flop-house.

Now that I think about it, moving out of this downtown apartment building is kind of like getting out of prison for me.   I’m not really sure if I’m free or not, and I’m not really sure if I can let my guard down from getting robbed, stabbed, stolen from, or conned by the low-life drug-addict thieves in downtown Dickinson.

During this past week, I have had to do a lot of shopping for my new home.  In one of the stores that I have been going to, I met who I thought was a nice, intelligent, friendly young lady.  No, I want to make it very clear, this was not some woman working at a convenience store, gas station, liquor store, restaurant, or bar.  She was more like a salesperson or manager at a furniture store, flooring store, or building supply store.

Because this woman was acting so friendly, which is not normal for Dickinson, I asked her where she was from.  She is from Montana.  The second day that I saw her and talked to her, she told me a little about what she had done in Montana, when she came to Dickinson back in 2009, and what she had done in Dickinson.   She came to Dickinson with her boyfriend that she had been living with, they got married, and now she is divorced.

The first time that I saw this woman, I got the impression that she was in her mid to late twenties.  I thought that she was plain looking, and I didn’t have any interest in her.  But, since she was friendly, which is so unusual in Dickinson, and I was able to talk to her, she seemed like she was a decent person and that she was wanting to make friends.

This woman seemed to be fairly intelligent, responsible, even-tempered, reasonable, and easy to get along with.  One of the reasons why I thought this about her, was because she was the manager of the business where she worked, and she said that she had paid off her own home.   She was in her early thirties, not her mid twenties like I had thought.

The third time that I went back to this store, I asked this woman if she would like to go with me to the Mexican restaurant tonight or tomorrow night.  She said that she couldn’t, that she had to work.  I thought that this was a stupid answer, because her store closes at 6:00 p.m.  I thought that she just didn’t want to go with me.

Out of politeness or guilt, she began explaining to me that her business was short-staffed, and that she had to work every day.  Then, she began explaining that she had sole custody of her eight year old daughter.  Then, that her ex-husband was a Meth addict who had destroyed all of the walls and windows in her home, that he had been No-Trespassed from her home, and that she had had to go stay at the women’s shelter for two weeks.  And, that her ex-husband lives a couple of blocks away from her.

Prior to asking this woman if she wanted to go out to dinner with me, I had thought that she liked me.  She seemed that she liked me.  Did she like me because she was lonely, bored, alone, wanted company, thought that I was different, thought that I had money,….. I don’t know.

Me, I thought that she would be or could be good company because she was friendly, intelligent, reasonable, responsible, and decent acting.

When she did not want to go out to dinner with me, I was surprised, and I wondered what had caused her to change her mind about acting friendly toward me.  It didn’t really matter at this point, because her mind appeared to be made up.  At first her explanation just seemed like a stupid excuse.  As she elaborated on her situation, I thought that she was just trying to make me lose interest in her and give up on ever asking her out again.

But, if I would have just stopped and listened to what she was telling me, that her ex-husband was a Meth addict who had destroyed all the walls and windows in her house, was No-Trespassed by the Police, that she had had to go stay in the women’s shelter, that her ex-husband lived a couple of blocks away from her and that they had an eight year old daughter together, why the fuck would I want to get involved in that situation?  I just got out of a Meth-addict hell-hole living in downtown Dickinson.

Something else that I thought about, what does this say about this woman’s character and judgment, that she dated, married, and had a child with a Meth-addict, white-trash hoodlum?

When I described meeting this woman, I said that she did not work at a convenience store, gas station, liquor store, bar, or restaurant, which is where you will usually find the Meth-addict women in Dickinson.  But I guess it doesn’t matter, the people in Dickinson aren’t even at the blue-collar level or low-class level of people, they are at the Meth-addict level.  See, I didn’t get out of prison after all, I’m still here in Dickinson with the Meth addicts.