Jeff Drew

Everyone in our dorm knew she was a mess. They wrote a song about her. She didn’t care. She thought it was funny.

• Worst roommates

• "I was sleeping and I woke up to a noise. I didn’t know what it was. Greg comes flying into my room. He throws my door open. He has his hands over his face. His entire face is just covered in blood." (July 8, 2015)

Casino entrance. “The big change came when Penn came in from Pennsylvania, and Jerry Brown gave it its blessing."

Photo by Matthew Suárez

• The casino's been built

• Driving down a Jamul backroad, I spot a personal aircraft haphazardly parked in a field of tall grass, a man in chaps riding a horse down the road, and a makeshift target-practice range. The lack of a homeowners’ association is evident in many sections of town. It’s a hodge-podge of manufactured homes, palatial mansions, and do-it-yourself home-improvement projects and add-ons. (Jan. 31, 2018)

Andrea Smith was introduced to the life of prostitution at age 11, through her mother

Photo by Andy Boyd

• We need our hearts broken over this

• A leopard-print sign hanging on Andrea Smith’s front door announces, “I am a luxury few can afford.” Three years ago there was heavy truth in that statement. Smith was bringing in about $2500 a night. (June 22, 2016)

Skyler Henry is paying about $1000 per month in student loan repayment. “It’s more than my rent. I’ll be done paying it off when I’m like 45.”

Photo by Matthew Suárez

• College is over

• When my husband and I moved to San Diego from Lawrence, Kansas, upon him receiving his first “real job” out of college, we assumed what normal Midwesterners would — that we would live in an apartment facing the ocean with wall to wall windows. (April 11, 2018)

Panda nonsense

Ashley McLaughlin (<a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/hardshellart">etsy.com/shop/hardshellart</a>)

• What we hate about San Diego

• A childhood friend of mine from Chicago recently admitted that she unfollowed my Facebook feed. “In February Chicago had its coldest month on record since 1875! We froze our asses off. Looking at pictures of you frolicking on the beach while I am forced to shovel out a parking space just so I can park my car in front of my building, was infuriating,” (April 29, 2015)

Miranda Mears

• Musicians, hippies, and travelers in Ocean Beach

• Miranda Mears is sitting on the sea wall at the end of Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach. Waves crash behind her. The dreary sky covers everything in a blanket of gray. A white hoodie covers Mears’s cropped pink hair. Underneath it she wears a colorful triangle bikini top and a blue button-down tied in a knot at her ribcage. Her skirt hits just below the knee exposing sores on her shins. (Dec. 7, 2016)

Siobhan Braun has written feature stories for the Reader since 2009.