My eyes are getting worse.

I have what some may call an irrational fear of microwaves. Of microwaves frying my ovaries, to be specific. Our microwave is at abdomen-level. I rarely use it, but when I do I linger in our pantry because I (irrationally) think that the waves can't travel sideways.

This is how I discovered a draft coming through the backdoor. I bought a thing to block the draft, but I won't know if it worked until I use the microwave again.

My mom asked if I'll be home on Monday because she's sending a package to me. I sent her a card last week intending to boost her confidence/self-esteem/whatever she's lacking/just to say, "Hey, I suppose I'm here for you and would reckon that I still love you." She cried and was so touched that she bought me something.

So I started sending cards to everyone. Just because.

I just bought two books: Modern Poetry of Pakistan and Best New Poets 2010 (edited by Claudia Emerson). I've been wanting poetry from under-appreciated cultures. I wish I was bilingual. I was starting to learn, but I lost my teacher. Well. I killed him.

Here:

Ghazal: The Luster of a Pearl Is Something Else (by Tanveer Abbasi)

The luster of a pearl is something else
The sparkle of eyes, something else

The depth of the sea is a reality
The heart of a poet, something else

The cooing of a dove is music
The roar of cannons, something else

Clouds change color at twilight
The nuclear cloud is something else

What is in the heart is on the lips as well
The poet's demeanor is something else

The body is a cage for the soul
A cage for the cage, something else

Look at the bloodstains and weep
Whose blood this is, something else

Pure gold shines bright
A smiling face is something else

Gold is good, and so is silver
The heart is something else

Hope is support enough, Tanveer
The fear of pain, something else

So I got hired by an axe murderer

I start training on the 1st for the proofreader position. The company is called Ath Power (pronounced "eighth"). It's a consulting firm that (I believe) deals in "customer experience solutions." I'll be proofreading customer response surveys, or something like that. I don't know.

It's 40 hrs/wk, telecommute. I set my own schedule and work anywhere I want. In 3 months I'll be eligible for health insurance benefits (which I've already paid for through Emerson for the year) and vacation time.

You're probably saying, "That's awesome, Shannon!" Way to go me. And if you're my mom, you're probably telling all your family and friends how "these things just have a way of falling into her lap!"...ignoring the fact that I applied to 14 jobs--ranging from Whole Foods to desk jobs to distributing pamphlets--before getting an interview.

So what's the issue? The guy who hired me--the same guy who will be training me--wants to set up the training at his apartment. (Okay...?) There are 4 proofreaders in all that he's training, 2 of which cannot make the training next week; I will be in PA, so I fall into this awkward category. I have a car; the other girl does not, and that's why I think he's setting it up at his apartment. Proximity to public trans. But still...can't we make other arrangements? Pick her up at the train/bus station? If it wasn't in the early afternoon I'd be more hesitant. He gave us the option to do that or go to the office.

Where is my mixed martial arts training when I need it?!

In other news:

I'm developing a throat thing.

It's chilly. The leaves are pretty. It's windy all the time.

I'm listening to music for what feels like the first time (though may be the second time) since I moved here. All the songs are tied to PA, so I presently have no idea where I am.

Poems are very, very, slowly coming along. So slow I'm verging on disappointed. It's hard pushing this shit out. I never tried writing before when I wasn't "in the mood."

I hope Halloween never comes because as soon as it's over all the Christmas garbage comes out.

Book Fest was neat. The first event I worked was supposed to be two authors discussing their novels. An Israeli man and Palestinian woman. They didn't talk very long about their novels. Fireworks, name calling, and shouts from the audience. Lots of people walked out. Lots of people were angry with the volunteers, wanting to know who organized such a "horrible," "offensive" event. I was surprised that people didn't see that coming. I mean, seriously. It was in the Old South Church sanctuary. Beautiful church. It was all very poetic.

Interesting thing about that church, they accept the LGBT community and even ordain homosexual ministers. Very cool.

I didn't see the justice talks.

School is awesome, but getting hectic. End of the semester and such. I'm looking forward to the break--lots of reading/writing time. Maybe snowboarding.

Casey is awesome. Kind of eats a lot. Poops pretty much all the time. My god.

I read last night that Elizabeth Short, a.k.a the Black Dahlia, lived in my town.

My town really blows. Thank goodness I'm so close to the city and essentially everything that doesn't blow.

4 days till PA.

S'all gravy, baby

> I finally have a job interview. I know nothing about the company. The ad on craigslist just said "a local firm." Normally I stay away from vague ads that say "a local company needs help. Send your resume." But it seems legit. When the guy called he said the name of the company and it sounded like another one I applied for, but later I got an email from THAT company saying they didn't want to pursue me. Imagine my confusion. So I googled the address and it's either an engineering firm or a legal firm.

Anyway, it's a full-time telecommuting proofreading job that would support me very well while staying flexible with school. The guy said that one of their proofreaders is working toward his doctorate in architecture. I feel like I pretty much have it since he said that based on my resume/cover letter I'm what they're looking for and they could be a good fit for me. I also feel that this could be another Vertical Screen experience, minus the cubicle; but I don't care at this point. Just need income.

So...it seems 14-15 applications is what it takes before I get a call back about anything.

> I'm starting today as a volunteer poetry reader for Ploughshares--Emerson's nationally recognized lit journal. (Emerson has a lot of literary outlets, which I LOVE. Temple had...one.) Each genre has it's own batch of volunteer readers that serve as a first-tier screening process for the tens of thousands of submissions they get during their 6 month reading period. (I think poetry alone gets 12,000 submissions.)

Writers that I know/read/admire work on this thing as guest editors. It's amazing. I'm very happy to be somehow apart of it. I'm also happy that I'm finally updating my resume with relevant experience.

> Boston Book Fest is this Saturday. I volunteered to help, then retracted my offer because I didn't feel comfortable(?) doing it for some reason anymore. The intern in charge of the volunteers tried to talk me back into it, but I never got back to her. Figured it was done and I'd just go enjoy the festival as a non-volunteer. A few weeks later I get my volunteer assignment. I guess I was never removed. I took it as a sign from the universe that I need to be involved/get out of the house/network/make friends/whatever else. So I had a pre-fest shift yesterday that was supposed to be from 9-1, but ended up being 9-10:30. We folded shirts. Saturday I'm 9-1 as a line counter. Oooh.

There's a justice lecture I want to see at 3. I think there are 4 speakers, but I'm only interested in seeing Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor that gives the very popular and recently televised justice lectures. I watched a few of them when I lived in PA. Though The Social Network gave me a new level of aversion toward the Ivy League, I'm not above taking what I can get for free.



Then from 4-5 I'm in a free poetry workshop called Poem Generator. Hope it helps. I'm not exactly prolific.

> The Social Network was really good. I hate Harvard, but it was really good. I want to assure the general public that not everyone who goes to Harvard is as good looking as the people in the film. I know, I was disappointed to. But there is no IQ:Hotness ratio. (Though, I believe there is an algorithm for it in the movie.)

> Justin and I went to Salem over the weekend. That was a joke. I feel better about missing this Mardi Gras-esque Halloween bash now, as I highly doubt it will be even remotely that good.



For anyone who has never been, Salem consists of 1 old house, a dozen "museums" that are the size of the average living room and which do not contain actual artifacts, 3 restaurants (the beer selection: Coors Lite, Miller Lite, Bud Lite, Heineken, Sam Adams), no bars, and 1 extremely hazardous bookstore. If interested in experiencing a museum from home, say, the Lizzie Borden "40 Whacks" Museum, search wikipedia for Lizzie Borden. Print it out, tape it on the walls around your living room, and set up a dozen or so antiques that could pass for being hers but that which have nothing to do with her. Also, give yourself $11 for it, $9 if you have your student ID. Presto.

For people who are actually interested in historical accuracy, go to the library instead. Little in Salem has anything to do with the witch trials or Puritan lifestyle. Everything looks like it was bought in the Halloween Outlet. Somehow Salem became the mecca for Wiccans, Warlocks, and people with pointy hat fetishes.



> Thank goodness for Honk Fest saving the day.



> Casey has been waking me up in the middle of the night lately. She flops around on my head and licks my face for an uncomfortable amount of time. I think it verges on (reverse?) bestiality. Apparently I shut her in the closet earlier and neither of us noticed because she fell asleep in there. I'm a bad mom. Anyway, now I need to get up the motivation to go into the city and do some research. I'd rather nap.

> P.S - I didn't take any of these pictures.

I'll preface by saying I'm good. It's almost always cloudy up in MA, which is better than the weather in PA during this time of year--week long rains. It rains every other day, never hard but enough to soak your shoes if you have to walk around the city all day. Now I know why everyone wears rain boots up here.

I'm still unemployed. Really thought I'd have something by now. I've applied for 13 or 14 so far. I'm starting to lose track. On the plus side, the refund from my loan disbursement gives me an extra month to find something before I'm broke. Unfortunately, my projected date of going broke is just before X-mas. Sorry, kids.

School is fine. I like it. I have trouble pushing myself to write, but I'm finally starting to get myself into the right habits. The right mentality. It takes a particularly severe type of devotion to be a poet. I'm learning.

I'm volunteering at the Boston Book Fest next weekend. Free shirt.

I also took a reading test to be a volunteer reader for Ploughshares--Emerson's nationally recognized literary journal. Trying to boost the resume.

Casey seems completely adjusted to indoor life now.

I get restless, but I'm making friends. Surprisingly, I haven't felt very homesick. Maybe not surprisingly. I love it up here. I think I got all my homesickness out before I moved. Very efficient.

I haven't really written anything new, but revised a couple old poems. Trying to write new stuff now. We'll see. I guess it's going alright. I'll post them in the near-to-distant future.

Haven't done laundry in over a month. I'll probably take care of that tomorrow so I can finish putting away my summer clothes. Not looking forward to New England winter. Especially since I left my winter coat in PA. Doh.

I normally love October, but it just doesn't feel right without my buds. The leaves are much prettier up here, however. I guess that's the trade off.

It just feels good to be coming home

Was away in Indiana for a while. Destination wedding. You'll be hard-pressed to find a dish in Seymour, IN that doesn't contain meat (specifically bacon) and/or marshmallows. Feels good to be home in MA with my girl Casey. She won't let me out of her sight. Presently, she's asleep with her face smashed into my knee and her legs wrapped over my thigh. She's perfect.

Still unemployed. Getting incredibly anxious/frustrated about this. See also, extremely upset and increasingly self-deprecating. Adverb adjective.

Making 1- and 3-year plans. Mostly involving contests to enter, places to submit, places to read aloud. Things like goals.

MA passed a law making it illegal to text and drive. Good thing I rarely have a need to drive.

Philadelphia must have started taxing water. Because they taxed my water this morning. My fault for leaving my reusable one in my b/f's jeep. Totally knew I'd do that. I even said, "I'm going to forget this."

My brother gave me my birthday present 6.7 months late. It's a blown up picture of him in Afghanistan, in an armored hummer aiming some sort of gun. Not sure what to do with this.

I traveled through 8 states in 24 hours. I'm fuckin' beat.

"How can you see your life unless you leave it?"

My first week in MA is just about over. Moving day was super stressful, especially with the cat. She HATED it. But we're settling in, and she's returning to some level of normalcy. My first class is tonight. Poetry workshop with John Skoyles. I met him at orientation last week, and he told me that I need to relax.

Here's an update:

+ Orientation was last Thurs from 9-3. Long ass day. But they gave me lunch, and I got to meet a couple girls who I'll have class with. Realized that everyone is in the same I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-here-how-will-I-pay-for-this-everyone-is-better-than-me boat. Justin wandered the city alone while I was orientating. Bought me a sunflower and lavender massage oil for my feet. +10,000 points.

+ The area I'm in is very cute. Although, if you go a couple blocks east it starts getting industrial and dumpy. But still nicer than Philly's dumpy, industrial blocks. Most of the people who live here are students or young professionals. I noticed that lots of people like jogging up here. Not really my thing.

+ Casey finally let me sleep last night. For the last few nights she's been wandering the apartment between the hours of 1 and 5am crying her little head off, which means I'm up from 1-5 cursing, crying, begging, and threatening to beat the piss out of her. She does this for 2 reasons: these are her peak outside hours (she hasn't been outside in a week...must be torture), and she's looking for my dad and his cats. But FINALLY, after days of begging and desperate praying (which I never do unless I'm desperate and/or sleep deprived) she quieted down and cuddled with my head all night. I think the key is forcing her to wake up and explore the apartment periodically through the day, and a little play time.

+ Oh, I got the blue room. Bigger closet. [Scroll down]

+ First Red Sox game with Justin, thanks to Daniel for the free tickets. Also, witnessed first street fight, with most punches being thrown by a woman. Kind of tough to watch...awkward, little scary, went on for a while which made it more awkward and scary. And I may have been one of two people in a crowd of about 100 looking for police. The streets around Fenway get packed with tens of thousands of people walking to the game and bar-hopping. For those of you who have never been, Fenway is situated in the neighborhood. It's not like Philly where the stadiums are grouped in a complex. So, there's no tailgating at Fenway. There aren't any parking lots. Just a couple $30 garages. Also, the train lets you out at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, so try to follow anyone in Red Sox gear to the stadium.

Anyway, we left around the 5th inning because we were bored and Justin had to get up early to leave. The seats were nice in that they were in right field along the first baseline. Prime foul ball area. But I guess they didn't know how to angle seats in 1912? Because when you faced forward you faced a big wall and absolutely no action. So you had to sit at an angle to see the game, which wasn't exactly comfortable, and you couldn't really see what was happening until it was over. But they were free tickets. I just wanted to check out a new area, and maybe try to steal some Fenway grass for my dad. Oh, and for the first 3 innings we were in the wrong seats.

+ Justin and I learned that when someone tells you that a particular place serves "The best pizza in Boston," you'd better prepare for the worst pizza of your life.

+ Harvard Square is cute, but gets boring fast. I found a second hand shop that sells all designer clothes. Sadly, they are still a tad too expensive for me, being jobless and all. The shoes were cheap, though.

+ MIT/Kendall Square is boring as shit. Seriously, that place blows. However, we watched 2 young Asian boys (presumably freshman, judging by how awkward and lost they were) carry a mini fridge (with microwave inside) from the subway. They eventually stopped because they were so lost, but it was funny and I took video of it.

+ Justin left Sunday, and I've been bumming around since. Haven't left the apartment since then. It's weird. I feel like I'm in Ambler, and I'm waiting for it to sink in that I'm in Mass. Other than being a little bored, I don't feel far away. Though, I couldn't look at pictures of Brian's Welcome Home party because it was sad not being there.

+ I applied for a part time job at Harvard that will pay me a minimum of $26,198. That's for 3 days of work! In a museum gift shop! I'm hoping so bad that I get it. It will make the next two years so much easier. [Pleasepleasepleasegivemethatjob.] I checked the other colleges in the area, but none have anything that I'm qualified to do. A lot of it is science related. It's a very science-y area. I'm not really sure where else to look. I'm trying to find a decent job before I resort to something like retail or food service.

- I have to leave for class early because my printer conveniently ran out of ink without warning. I didn't even get documents that were slowly fading. Just, prints fine, then prints nothing. What the hell.

+ I took pictures/video of a lot of stuff to try and document it all for you. We'll see when I get those up.

+ I'm doing well so far.

In exactly one week, just about to the minute, I'll be starting my new chapter. Crazy. Things have been unbelievably and, at times, unbearably hectic. Between packing my whole life into boxes, cleaning for the going-away party, planning said party, and just trying to squeeze in all the people who are trying to get their last minutes in with me...I'm surprised I haven't had more breakdowns.

Still lots to do, though most of my things are pretty much packed or donated to Salvation Army.

I'm never really quite sure what to do with myself lately. I frequently have talks with Casey about moving, each time asking her nicely to not fuck it up with the roommate. Please.

It pretty much goes without saying that I haven't been writing, or reading for that matter. A handful of us went to the Mutter Museum on Monday. It was a wonderful day. Rainy at times, but that didn't seem to matter. I like the city best when it's cloudy anyway.



We saw lots of weird stuff. Like the colon of a man who was pretty much inexplicably constipated his whole life. (He died young, obviously.) Tons of fetuses and fetal skeletons, which look like demons, or what I think demons look like. The skeleton of a dwarf woman (and the skull of her baby by her feet) who was in a difficult labor because her baby's head was too large for her pelvis, so the doctors tried to crush the baby's head to get it out. That didn't work, so they decided to do a cesarean. The baby obviously died, and the woman died 3 days later of infection. How tragic.

I stared for a long time at the skeleton of a young man who died at 39 of a painful disease in which his bones grew into his muscle tissue. His skeleton looked like petrified shreds of meat. He was basically turning into stone.

The museum is largely a museum of medical anomalies, but about a third of it speaks to medical malpractice. So glad it's not the 1860s anymore. Did you know President Garfield died of infection after he was shot? He could have been saved, but they didn't know about germs, and they also didn't know that you can't give nutrients rectally, which explains why he also more or less starved to death. Fuckin' amateurs.

The most violent thing about Hollywood today is the rapidity with which it's losing its imagination.




2 weeks.

I have 2 teenagers myself.
I try to disregard them as much as possible.
Text me when you’re 30.

When I was 9 years old, I was a creative kid.
Burning Hot Wheels in the backyard with my friend.
I was lucky to have a mother who believed in The Plan.

About 21 days left. This is going by awfully fast, and it's making me feel awfully awful. I'm having a blast of a last PA summer, though.

Some bullet points:

.Went to OCMD - dug some clams. got some burns. made some loves. Was really impressed by the ease with which my girlfriends finagle shots out of young men. I have much to learn. Also, wild horses (and their babies), and mosquitoes.

.Went camping in Knoebels - took a nap outside on a sofabed! Under the trees, in the sun. Kinda sweaty. Mostly sweet. Found more evidence of rural PA's unbearable and uncomfortable creepiness when a fraction of our party attempted to get breakfast on the way home. I've never seen Deliverance, but I feel I've lived it in some small way.



.Going to see mewithoutYou on Friday @ the TLA. Hot dog.

.Went to Steak Night at Lower Frederick Fire Co. Saturday night. I know, I know. A vegetarian at steak night?! Trust me, every hickey em-effer there was just as confused. The woman "manning" the salad station (ie, salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, slimy cantaloupe, etc) WOULD NOT let me use the "good paper plates" because they were saving them for the steaks. She tried to get me to use a small bowl for the salad. I gestured to the whole spread and said, "This is all I'm getting." She said there are separate bowls for the soups, and I had to explain how I didn't want soup, and I need more than a bowl because I wasn't eating anything else. She made me get out of line and get a regular paper plate. When I got back up to her she said, "Just rabbit food, huh?" Sorry I'm not interested in eating a slab of meat that is 95% fat. Sorry I wanted to use the good plates for rabbit food.



.Drank 5 Coors Lites at said Steak Night. Felt really confused all night because I was drinking a lot, but not feeling drunk. Did a shot of Jack and a shot of something red that someone bought me (kamikaze?). Switched to Lager. Woke up the next morning still confused as to whether or not I was hung over. Turns out I was just tired.

.No, it's not hard being vegetarian. It is hard sitting in a redneck bar listening to my new friends sing 'Paradise by the Dashboard Lights' and pretending to not know them. I considered asking the stranger next to me if I could try his cigar. (Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.)

.I need to start taking more pictures of these things. Everything feels so strange sometimes, and I can't explain how. It's like forgetting and remembering at the same time. Like movies. Everything feels immediate and nostalgic.

.Started packing dishes and other kitchen items today. Broke a glass I didn't want. I didn't realize how much crap I was living with that I didn't want or need until I put in a position to travel light. I'm considering my life in terms of want/need, need/don't need. I'm so light. It hurts.

.Considering a dabble with veganism after noticing how cheese makes me feel: somewhat off and internally greasy.


.I didn't write about any of this. But I might.

30 days

I said my bones are splintering driftwood,

you said, no stop that's not true.

Now it's all scary real

These are the pictures Daniel took for me since I couldn't be there.

It's on the first floor of a house about a block from Tufts University, and 2 train stops from Harvard. It's actually Medford and not Boston, but Boston is so small that pretty much anything within a certain radius is Boston. It has a front/back yard that the landlord maintains. Hook up for washer/dryer. On street parking (I'll have to get a permit. I heard something about visitors permits, too). The street is residential and pretty quiet, according to Daniel, which will be nice for letting Casey out. Approximate 12 min. walk to subway. 15-20 min. ride to school.

Home and homeless

• Still no apartment: The realtor that my roommate Daniel made an appointment with called while we were en route to MA to say he had nothing to show us. Daniel did a good job scrambling to find someone who could show us some places. We met with 2 guys (the first one we agreed was more of a used car salesmen), and saw a total of 5 places (3 of which were total dumps; 2 of those had tenants inside who weren't expecting us), but none of them were right. The 2 nice ones were amazing, but one was way out of our price range, and the other was in an inconvenient building in an even more inconvenient location. So, we went back to the drawing board with Daniel continuing to do most of the leg work.
• 
  
• 
  
• Daniel is pretty cool. We get along well so far, and he's very polite. We both have an aversion for organized religion. He likes soccer. He has 7 tattoos, but 9 if you count the 2 he covered up. His girlfriend is nice. Saturday, when we were waiting for our 3rd realtor to scrape together some places to show us, we sat in Davis Square eating sorbet and fro-yo. Daniel pointed out heroin addicts to me and Amber, explaining that Boston has a real heroin problem, and then we noticed one puking a mere 12 yards from us. So we left and I laughed about how weird things are.
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Later that night, I took Amber into the city and we found a hypodermic needle on Winter St. Then we got bagels at Finagle A Bagel. Fuckin' delish.
  
• 
  
• 
  
• While I was showing Amber my school we walked past a homeless man who said something to me about marmots. He was clearly a fan of The Big Lebowski.
• 
  
• 
  
• Last night I sat in the hotel bath tub till 1:30am, trying to write, having several heart attacks about moving, texting Andrew like crazy because he gives me more pep talks than anyone (and the best). Because he really knows. I said, "I'm scared." and he said, "I think you're stronger than you think and it won't be as hard as you think."
• 
  
• 
  
• The bus terminal at Alewife station smells like pigeon everywhere. Pigeon smells like urine, hay, and like you're not at home. Incidentally, we learned that the bus schedule exists as a mere formality and it's utterly incomprehensible. But if you're lucky you'll find a nice bus driver to give you a ride back to the hotel despite being out-of-service for the night, because he's a good person and you didn't know that the buses stopped running an hour ago.
  
• 
  
• 
  
• I discovered a passion for running through flash floods looking for firetrucks.
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Boston has the best veggie burgers. Hands down. Best veggie everything.
• 
  
• 
  
• I drank iced peppermint tea in Harvard Square and thought, I could get used to this.
  
• 
  
• 
  
• I think that's it.
  

If it's not bolted down, I'm selling it.

3 weeks till freedom and financial instability.

In unrelated news: good, good ideas floating around in my head space.

I commented on a friend's wall that I didn't know where else to write what i needed to say (because his facebook is twitter updates and no wall, so I commented on a twitter post something unrelated to said post). He emailed me saying that email was the way to go. And you wanna know what my reaction was to that?

HOW WILL ANYONE ELSE SEE WHAT I WRITE TO YOU?!

I think I have a problem.

It's official. My last day of retail will be July 23rd. Ad's b-day festivities July 24th. Visiting my favorite cop in MD maybe after that?

Talked to my dad about having a going-away party. He's all for it. He volunteered to make sloppy joes and french toast. "That's the extent of my skills." Or meatballs. He makes killer meatballs. The logic for the french toast was that after people have been drinking all night they'll want some french toast.

WHY DO I HAVE THE GREATEST FUCKING DAD?!

A thing about dreams or destiny

I was sorting out some shit, per usual, and I came across some yearbooks from middle school (in which everyone told me to have a "kick ass summer"), and a few books I "published" in elementary school. It got me thinking about my whole life as sort of a time-line of events that led me to becoming (or attempting to become) a writer, specifically a poet.

Here is that time-line:

April 1992 (1st Grade)- "Published" a book entitled MY CAT. Also dedicated to my cat. "My cat's name is Sebastian. He has soft fur. My cat is cute. He slept under the Christmas tree last Christmas. My cat bites my head and bats my head. My cat always eats his treats. My cat slept on my foot last night. My cat's birthday is January 1st. My cat has brown eyes. The end." And so the Crazy Cat Lady foundation was laid.

1992-1993 (2nd Grade) - Decided that I really want to publish books. Began my prolific elementary school writing career. Published a book called SUMMER that detailed the types of bathing suits you could have.

1993-1994 (3rd Grade) - Realized I'm not good at math when my teacher had a talk with my parents about how I'm not good at math. She sent home a special book to help me with my math skills, but I never studied. Being bad at math made me feel special. This is probably where my habit of (and later belief in) not studying began.

1994-1995 (4th Grade) - Made friends with a 14 year-old girl in our class (she had a rough life) who was really "into" "art". We sat next to each other and drew portraits of each other. Decided I wanted to be an artist despite being terrible at drawing. My perception of art was extremely limited to drawing. Continued to do poorly in math, but my writing and editing skills were exceptional. Wrote a book called WHY BABIES CRY about a couple who has a baby that won't stop talking, so they pray to some mythical baby god for help, and the baby god takes away the baby's ability to speak.

Fourth and Fifth graders had to gather for the 5th grade spelling bee. I wrote down the proper spelling of every word and decided I was going to be in the 5th grad spelling bee.

1995-1996 (5th Grade) - Decided I wanted to be an artist, a writer, and a lifeguard. Wrote a book called MISCHIEF NIGHT about a gang of 9 kids who made up a club called "The Spray Paint Kids" because "they spray paint buildings, houses, etc. Sometimes they'd dress up in black and silly string people." They were caught by a 70-year-old man and thrown into his basement that HAD NO STAIRS!! Hilarity and hi-jinx ensue as they plot to escape the basement and "get" the old man. Miraculously there were horses waiting for them outside and they all rode off into the sunset. My favorite word was "sarcastically"--had no idea what it meant, and rereading it now that I know what it means, the story makes even less sense.

Also, I was in the fifth grade spelling bee. I didn't win, but I did well. The kid next to me--Bob White--kept farting. Nasty.

1996-1997 (6th Grade) - The summer Olympics in Atlanta took place before the start of 6th grade. My brother was really impressed with the female swimmers, because of how jacked they were. He said something about how they could beat him up, and I joined the swim team that fall. This begins the phase of trying to find my little self without making any friends. Seriously, even my teachers thought I was a loser. This is probably why I'm good at making friends now.

1996-1999 (6th-8th Grade) - Off and on wanted to be some sort of athlete or pop star. (In 8th grade I wanted to be Gwen Stefani specifically.) I frequently sang and danced in front of my mirror and watched every sporting event with my dad. I just wanted to be famous really. Took up ballet and jazz, swimming, softball, cheerleading, and basketball (hated). The one friend I made in dance class I ended up kicking really hard because she did something I thought was mean. She cried, and I felt terrible, but neither one of us told the instructor about it. I can't remember if this is why we stopped talking.

Towards the end of middle school, all the activities I did were just to get out of the house. I was a good swimmer, but competitions scared me, so I just went to practice. I just wanted to swim. That was probably my favorite.

In 7th grade I openly admitted that I wanted to be a boy. Actually, the picture in my head was something of a 7' tall black man. I remember asking my parents why I wasn't black, and they really weren't sure what to do with this.

In 8th grade we went on a class trip to the new Regal theater to see 10 Things I Hate About You. Discovered Letters to Cleo and decided I wanted to be "alternative" and a "feminist". One of those lib arts kids with a nose ring and funky hair that read a lot.

1999-2000 (9th grade) - dropped all extracurricular activities. Made the volleyball team. Still wanted to be an artist, but still thought this meant I had to be good at drawing. Also decided I wanted to be an actress. This may have been around the time I learned the difference between job and career. Nothing traditional felt right, though I periodically wanted to be a teacher.

2000-2003 (10th-12th grades) - Off and on I wanted to be an extreme sport athlete, in a punk band, or an astronomer (until I realized how much math was involved). Taught myself how to snowboard at 15. Experienced my first concussion and thought that made me badass. Thought I could go pro even though I sucked and was too afraid to attempt any tricks.

Joined Art League. Built a haunted house. Mosaic. Gardened a little. Did some sets for plays.
Really liked set design. Wanted to get into that for a while.

Got selfish by the end of high school and began thinking it was pointless to become a teacher. To go to school your whole life just to teach someone else how to do the same thing. It just seemed like a dead-end cycle and the thought of it made me feel limited.

Found out I'm good at stuff without really trying. Like I got good grades without putting much effort out. Made me wonder what would happen if I did try. But I never tried. My mom left and that sort of killed all the trying I had in me, among other things.

10th grade--started writing what is typically referred to as "rant poetry". The kind where it's like a one-sided fight. Also known as teen angst poetry. TAP occurs when kids listen to really shitty music and think the lyrics are really profound. Often, their favorite poets are Papa Roach and Taking Back Sunday. I thought it was very good and I was prolific. Wrote all the time. Thought I was fucking brilliant.

In 11th grade I still wanted to be a lifeguard, so I took a lifeguarding course and got certified. I was too self-conscious in a bathing suit to apply for any lifeguard jobs. Summer before 12th grade I made a poetry blog (the word blog didn't exist then. Back then it was "open diary".) where I posted all of my shitty poems. A girl from GA liked some of them. She had a diary, too and wanted to be a fiction writer. We corresponded some, and then stopped sometime in college, though we're still friends on Facebook. I think we're waiting to see if we become famous writers. At least, that's what I'm doing.

12th grade--still wanted to be an artist. Still had no idea what this meant or what my options were. No clue what my talents were. Applied at the absolute last minute to BCCC for fine arts.

2003-2004 (Freshman year) - Realized I definitely hated drawing, but I desperately wanted to be an artist. Enjoyed painting. My work suffered because of a boy, and this is where I began learning a hard-learned lesson about boys vs. work and which one is more important. This may be why I come off as "the guy" sometimes, especially when I have something I want to focus on. I think I could've been so much more and so much better if it wasn't for boys.

Went to Boston for a few days with a friend over the summer. Decided I want to live in Boston, specifically Beacon Hill.

2004-2005 (Sophomore year) - Scratch what I said about boys a second ago. Met one that pushed me in a good way. In that he was in a real art school, and I wanted desperately to impress him because I, for some reason, thought if I sucked at anything he would lose interest. So this was a very productive year, though burdensome. Very creative. I loved my classes, loved my work, but didn't see a future in art. My writing teacher was floored with my essays, and other professors asked me what I was doing not writing and "what are you doing at Bucks?" Discovered photography (finally, my niche!), and began a long tug-of-war between photo and writing. In my comp class I read The Prince of Tides (which sucked) and decided I wanted to be a "moody writer". This pleased my teacher very much (though my poetry was still abominable). Transferred to Temple at the end of the year for no other reason than my friend (boyfriend's best friend) was transferring to Temple for Journalism. He was trying to be a writer, and I thought that's what I need to do too. The boyfriend was also at Temple, and I felt like I was being left behind. Like I HAD to do SOMETHING. I felt a sense of urgency, and the decision was very abrupt. I'm normally (painfully) indecisive.

2005-2007 (Junior and Senior years) - Struggled through my course load while working odd hours catering. Realized quickly that I didn't know how to write a proper research paper, and that Bucks must've been kindergarten. Missed my art classes terribly. Realized after reading some of the same material covered in high school (ie, Beowulf) that I hate old literature, and I don't see the point in dwelling much in the past, as far as literature goes. I mean, Shakespeare is great, but he's not the only good thing about English literature. I wanted to know what was happening NOW. I wanted to be a part of that. The now. Began looking for the now.

Applied to Tyler School of Art for photography. Wanted to attempt some sort of double major with English. They told me it wasn't possible, though I knew people who were doubling in academic and art majors, but they let me apply anyway. The woman I spoke with was a snot and condescended me when I said that my drawing skills were ok, but not as strong as my other skills. Gave some shit about their expectations, though I knew full well the kind of shit that has come out of Tyler. Granted, most of it is really fucking good, but not all of it. Not enough to be elitist about. Anyway, didn't get accepted, and it was like the universe telling me to choose, and I'd better choose writing. Can't do both.

Took a fiction writing class--realized I'm not a fiction writer. Took another--still not a fiction writer, but maybe experimentally? Took a poetry workshop--bingo. Put all energy into that.

During my last semester I took a photo class. It was the best class I ever had in my life. Definitely made me consider going to grad school for photo, and I looked into it, but still didn't see a future. It didn't feel like who I really was, though I wanted it to be.

A philosophy major gave me shit in our Georges Bataille grad seminar about being an English major and wanting to be a writer, and how this essentially means I'm wasting money. I simply said, "You're a fucking philosophy major." And always really sweaty because he would bike to class from Fishtown. Other kids biked from Fishtown and didn't look so sweaty. He and his boyfriend shared a cat, but lived in separate apartments, so they would transport the cat back and forth like a bizarre child custody arrangement. Anyway, he was in the process of applying to grad school for Library Sciences, and it got me thinking about grad school. Finally understood that a writer was who I was gonna be.

I think I found Emerson in this time and thought that sounded like a good program. ( Though, since I was 20 I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence. I looked into Sarah Lawrence a dozen times between high school and right before I applied to writing programs. It was just too expensive.) I ultimately put off grad school for two years because I didn't feel mature enough--as a person and as a writer. This is also why I turned down a position with Teach for America. They bypassed me to the final interview based on my initial essay alone, but I didn't feel mature enough to commit 2 years of my life to teaching--especially to teaching kids who could probably kill me.

2008-2009 (post graduation) - Was given a scholarship to attend the Philadelphia Writers Conference in June of 2008, but ultimately didn't go because of a severe ringworm epidemic. (Thanks, Casey.) I'm curious what would've changed in me if I did go.

I worked at VSI for a year and a half and completely forgot what it was like to have dreams. Got fed up in summer 09 and needed to do something drastic. Decided to just fucking go for it. Originally planned to go to school for fiction (because I thought I'd make more money being as fiction has a better market than poetry), but quickly realized/remembered that I'm a poet, or at least a prose poet. I can write short short fiction, which actually is a thing gaining popularity. Anyway, quit my job and cut out a handful of distractions, and put all efforts into getting accepted to Emerson.

2010- Accepted to Emerson's poetry program. Moving to Boston. Ta da! Now I'm trying to figure out how to be more serious as a poet. Now I'm starting to flesh out my plans and career options. How very exciting.

The Fundamental difference between me and my brother

Yesterday I watched my brother wage chemical warfare on a small hive of hornets that was building under one of our deck chairs. He doused their nest, them. They fell to the deck, twitching, one or two trying to crawl away. They never saw it coming; they had been working quietly, diligently. He walked away like it wasn't anything, leaving their little insect bodies scattered. Some curled, like the Raid was eating away their intestines, if they even have those. I felt bad--I was the one who remembered it was there, who set them up--and he shrugged like he could do it for a living.

Checked Emerson's student employment listing. Nothing available for the fall yet. Once I find an apartment the job search will be easier. I'll have roots somewhere.

Also, I finished reading The Keep in about 3 days. Mostly in one day. It was what they call a "fast read." It's about this guy, Danny, who flees NY due to complications with these guys busting up his knee (presumably mob guys), and he goes to Eastern Europe to work on renovating a 900-year-old castle with his cousin, Howard. As a child, Danny and Howie (and another cousin) explored some cave, and Danny pushed Howie into this glowing pool of water before he and the other cousin ran out with the flashlight, leaving Howie alone in there for 3 days before anyone found him. This is the "traumatic incident." Upon arriving at the castle, almost immediately, Danny thinks Howard is plotting revenge. All of this is told by an inmate in prison for murder, writing the story for his prison writing class.

It was sort of like ghost story meets neurotic paranoia. Like it's all in your head, but maybe it's not. It creeped me out reading it alone last night after my dad went out. But I'm always creeped out alone at night. I don't know how I feel about all the twists, though. Sort of like M. Night Shyamalan. That could be good or bad.

Someone told me today that you don't talk about Egyptian politics online. You meaning everyone. Someone meaning I think I loved him. Loved meaning he never wrote and I realize this as I pull all the books off my shelves.

I found a postcard I wrote to my dad when I was 13 and on vacation with family in Disney World: Everyone is ok. I didn't lose my marbles yet and didn't lose mom yet. I added the last yet as an afterthought. I found a letter my grandma sent me, also when I was 13. She had taught my 4 year old cousin how to use her type writer. It went something like this: oinvaoalkdmncnwdjm vklkk l kf;sl,m xlikmopvmvp;sz mom oinvklz cniwp-jmvm nz;ljvn stop ao lnkld,.xc. He scribbled his name huge and shaky at the bottom. Grandma circled the only two words he made: mom. stop. Things are funny after the fact.

What happens in the past stays in Vegas

I have a very non-linear approach to sorting things out for moving. For instance, today I packed some dishes, measured my kitchen table, and then started sorting through a mess of letters, postcards, greeting cards, other correspondence that I've collected my whole life and stored (stuffed) in an old Longaberger basket. Letter writing is definitely a dying art, if not completely dead. It's sad. We would decorate the envelopes with different colored pens and stickers, and it made you feel special and excited to get a really boring letter that said, "I'm watching Home Improvement. It's a re-run. Well, I have to go do my homework now."

I want to make an effort to send at least postcards from Boston to my best friends. Maybe everyone initially. I had an idea to send poems via postcards, which I stole from Abe's Penny.

I'm keeping all the letters from pen pals, my brother and his army buds, and ones from best friends I'm still best friends with (ie, the twins, Raub Daub). Things that document places I've never been, and in some cases people I've never met. Out of curiosity I read through some of the ones I'm tossing out...letters from people I was friends with in elementary and middle school that don't really mean anything anymore. Mostly because they go something like, "What did you get for Christmas? My vacation was nice." I think in every case I'm the one that stopped writing. I found one that said, "This is the 4th or 5th letter and I still haven't heard from you!" Typical me.

But here are some lines from various people that I thought were particularly funny (I didn't bother reading the ones I'm actually keeping. Too many.). Keep in mind they're mostly from late elementary and into middle school:

"You know how I told you that Brian of the Backstreet Boys had heart surgery? Well, he didn't have it yet. He is going to have it soon, though." --Amanda W.

[A postcard I sent to my dad from Disney World] "Everyone is ok. I didn't lose my marbles yet and didn't lose mom. ^yet"

"I got a new job, at the bread shop, I start at the end of January. Randy [my brother] is gonna be pissed. I think he is a real loser. Well, I gotta go." --Terri H.

"Did you hear about Walt Disney World's new park, Animal Kingdom? That seems fun. It has animals there from all over the world." --Amanda W.

"Well, do you remember that kid Danny I told you about? Well I was going out with him for 1 month and 21 days. Then we broke up. Then a week later I was asked out by a kid named David Snyder. But he was a jerk so I dumped him. Then today Danny asked me out so me and him are together again. Do you have a boyfriend?" --Amanda S.

"I heard that Baby Spice is pregnant?!? It might be a rumor." --Amanda W.

"I can't believe they took BSB off the countdown on TRL. Their a whole lot better than Korn!" --Amanda S.

"OO, I gotta tell you want I did at the Valentine's Day dance at the Fullerton playground. I frenched Danny 3 times. That is so unlike me." --Amanda S.

"Everyone in Florida hates Hanson now." --Amanda W.

"I'm not going out with Danny anymore. But I might be going out with Tom." --Amanda S.

"Yesterday I went to K-Mart and bought this lotion. It smells really good. Well, it's almost dinner time. Bye!" --Amanda W.

"Or you could rent Buffy the Vampire Slayer! I'd give it 10 thumbs up, even if I don't have 10 thumbs!" --Julie V.

"I wrote to Justin Timberlake the other day." --Amanda S.

"I was going to beat up this girl in Research class. I told her she better watch her back." --Rachelle (cousin by marriage)

"Write back unless you ran out of papper. Then what would you do?" --Julie V.

"When do you get out of school? Anyway Tom has a great personality. I met another kid. Here's some info...1- Cute, 2- Nice, 3- Good personality, 4- Great dancer, 5- In 6th grade (but that doesn't matter. --Amanda S.

"In all, I have 3 Beanie Babies." --Amanda W.

"Right now, I am listening to Hanson, the music group." --Amanda W.

"First of all, girl! I wouldn't go out with Jeff even if I was given 1 million dollars. I don't go out with "things"! [...] I will never forgive you after you said that! I don't like him or her, whatever he/she is." --Amanda S.

"I have ten beany babies and two tamagothi beany babies. All my friends say the one looks like a sperm. In a way it does." --Amanda S.

"P.S - Did you get sunburn yet?" --Amanda S.

"Do you remember Jeff Buss from elementary school or should I say last year for you. [...]You know what he said about you? He said you were the ugliest girl he ever saw." --Amanda S.

Why I write: #47

Because I want to fight the good fight against Nicholas Sparks.

In a recent interview with USA Today, Nicholas Sparks criticized Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, and romance novelists in general for essentially writing the same story over and over:

"(Romances) are all essentially the same story: You've got a woman, she's down on her luck, she meets the handsome stranger who falls desperately in love with her, but he's got these quirks, she must change him, and they have their conflicts, and then they end up happily ever after."

But he claims that he is not a romance novelist. He is a fiction writer who writes love stories.

"You read a romance because you know what to expect. You read a love story because you don't know what to expect."

Really Nicholas Sparks? Really?

I gave up on the Diaz book. The plot wasn't holding my interest. I didn't really like the prose.

After reading the interview with Jennifer Egan, I had a dream that I found her books on a shelf in a used bookstore. I took it as a sign and went to the library and checked out The Keep.

Last week I went through my amazon.com wishlist and ordered all the books I could find for a penny. This is what I got:

Cake by Sandra Newman (Have been waiting 3 years to read this. Had to order it from England. It's not available anywhere in the US. Not that I found. She taught my fiction writing class at Temple. But that was before I knew who she was. After the class ended I checked her first book out of the library on a whim, read it in 2 days, loved it, and proceeded to feel like a stupid piece of shit for writing shitty crap in her class. How embarrassing. But during a meeting, I explained to her that I'm a poet, and maybe that's excuse enough.)

Plainwater: Essays and Poetry by Anne Carson (I kind of really look up to her. In ways.)

This is Not Chick Lit edited by Elizabeth Merrick (To feed my addiction to women writers. Huge, massive fan of women writers. Good ones. Somehow this makes me a feminist, but if I were to read poetry and literature written by only men this would make me normal. No one would think anything of it. Of course she's reading a book written by a man. Just as anyone should.)

Poets Teaching Poets (ordered for my workshop. Looks boring.)

White Elephants by Reetika Vazirani (to satisfy my craving for Indian and Middle Eastern female poets, and my fascination with poets who commit suicide.)

Can't wait to quit my job and spend the day reading under a tree.

Target's HR rep talked to me about my Boston plans. Apparently the store manager was/is under the impression that I'm not definitely moving, that I'm probably not moving at all, and has shared this with HR. Target being Target, shit like that spreads. Since I haven't left yet people are wondering if I'm going at all.

"So, you're 100% going to Boston?"

"Yes."

"Without a doubt, you're definitely going, there's no way you're not going."

For the 54th fucking time. YES.

He asked me again if I considered transferring to a Target up there. I said that I don't think I'll be able to support myself with Target money, so I want to explore other options. For some reason he thought it was unbelievable that all of my living expenses are on me. Part of me wonders if there's a bonus involved in getting someone to transfer locations. Unless they want to pay me at least 11 an hour my stint in retail will end this summer.

Will end next month.

C0ntrary to popular belief, you cannot pack up your entire life in one week.

Sold 7 CDs so far. Not sure how much I made off those...I didn't keep track. Money I didn't previously have, though. The cool thing about selling them is that before I list them online I make sure they're on my itunes, and I'm rediscovering all the music I've collected since I started collecting. I've been time traveling. Tracing my roots. It's all very symbolic

Last night, before my headache got too bad (been getting a lot of those lately), I read an interview with Jennifer Egan on Narrative.com. Unfortunately, you have to sign up to read it, so I won't even bother linking it. Anyway, it got me really excited to be a writer, and got me thinking about a side career in journalism. She's a journalist for the NY Times magazine. She researches all sorts of things and people that inevitably make their way into her stories. Like a twin sister rap duo that didn't really go anywhere, or gay teens who live their "real" lives online and their "fake" lives in the real world, women who worked in a naval yard during WWII. It's fascinating.

I'm less nervous about the move. Probably not nervous at all anymore. I think because I know it's something I must do, like self-preservation maybe. I'll die if I don't. My dad said when you're on the right path things just sort of fall into place and happen for you. I'm pretty sure I'm on the right path and that's why I'm not nervous. I'm excited to do what I've always wanted to do. What I think I was always meant to do.

Anyway, I just got called into work. Great. Got shit to do, son.

Why I don't eat meat: #27

"Down in the blood pit the say that the smell of blood makes you aggressive. And it does. You get an attitude that if that hog kicks at me, I'm going to get even. You're already going to kill the hog, but that's not enough. It has to suffer...You go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose. A live hog would be running around the pit. It would just be looking up at me and I'd be sticking, and I would just take my knife and--eerk--cut its eye out while it was just sitting there. And this hog would just scream. One time I took my knife--it's sharp enough--and I sliced off the end of a hog's nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left on my hand--I was wearing a rubber glove--and I stuck the salt right up the hog's ass. The poor hog didn't know whether to shit or go blind...I wasn't the only guy doing this kind of stuff. One guy I work with actually chases hogs into the scalding tank. And everybody--hog drivers, shacklers, utility men--uses lead pipes on the hogs. Everybody knows it, all of it."

--From Gail Eisnitz's Slaughterhouse (as quoted in JSF's Eating Animals)

Why I write: #34

"The artist's job is to expose us to what is hidden, what is 'imperfect', what popular culture might not be ready to hear."

---Elizabeth Merrick (from the introduction to This is Not Chick Lit)

Money, money makes the world go 'round

Money never mattered to me in the sense that I would sacrifice my personal happiness in pursuit of it. I thought I made this obvious when I abruptly quit my last job and decided I wanted to move 6 hours away from all my security and stability to pursue a graduate degree in poetry.

I understand that a lot of my friends are concerned; they don't want to see me struggle, or at the very least they don't want to hear about it. But I'm disappointed that I'm asked, "what about the money?", "don't you need money?", "what are you going to do for money?" more than I'm asked, "how are we going to spend your last summer here?" or "what's going to make you happy?".

What's not making me happy is spending almost 40 hours a week standing in a 10' x 3' area for $8.36/hr, knowing the money I make won't even make a dent in terms of savings, knowing that for $62.70 before taxes I'm missing out on family and friends--you know, priceless things. Sure, I could work the rest of the summer, maybe save $200 and get my bills paid on time. Or I could do what doesn't crush my soul and make me miserable. I don't know, it seems obvious to me, but I'm finding my values aren't exactly in line with everyone else's.


And now, an open letter to Elizabeth Hasselbeck of The View:

Dear Elizabeth Hasselbeck,

I do admire that you're so vocal about your opinions, and that you passionately defend what you believe in. I feel these are very important traits for a woman to have. That being said, you're a fucking moron. One of your hot topics was about how Janeane Garofalo said that Obama's call for prayer (for the Gulf situation) is anti-intellectual and essentially non-productive. (And don't get me started on the site I found that video on.) You took it as a personal hit against people who pray, saying anti-intellectual means "dumb". Means you're dumb. I'll explain how you're dumb and how it's not because you pray.

Intellect isn't necessarily the same as intelligence. I understand your confusion. Semantics. But intellect, as defined by dictionary.com means "the mind by which one knows or understands, as distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills; the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge." Just to further clarify, prayer--the thing by which one feels and one wills--is not faculty of the mind, but of the heart. It's vague. It's blind-faith. Nothing against prayer, but it's surely a desperate situation when our president asks us to pray because we really have no other hope. Literally. No hope whatsoever.

Lastly, you said Janeane's comment was bigoted, and you called Joy a bigot when she tried to explain the difference between intellect (thought) and intelligence (smarts) and prayer (faith), and how this is the separation of church and state (something you seem to not support). It's great that you know the first amendment protects your right to pray to whatever god you choose, but it also protects our right to not be blanketed by American Brand religion, and you're a bigot for thinking Janeane (and myself) is an asshole for thinking prayer is not really a viable solution. For thinking we're assholes for not wanting to pray at all. To clarify once more, bigot means "intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion". She wasn't being intolerant. She was being intellectual. (See what I did there?)

In the future, argue more with your intellect and less with your prayer.


Sincerely,

Shannon Wagner

Fundraising

1. Selling about 3/4 of my cd collection on half.com

2. Permission from dad to sell his shoe collection on ebay

3. Picking up loose change wherever found

4. Tuition refund should be disbursed automatically in October after the drop/add period. Should be.

5. Switching to part-time. Not exactly helping to raise funds, but will go a long way in raising levels of morale and sanity. Dad gave me his blessing to quit. He said stick it out for as long as you can, and then give your 2 weeks if you have enough to cover bills for the summer. Mom-mom gave me some money for "school expenses", and he said I could use that for the summer, but I'm not sure yet. Just...sick of standing for 8 hours a night when I could be spending time with people I love or doing one of the 10,000 important things I need to do or sitting outside/swimming because it's gorgeous out. It's summertime, people.

6. Thinking about pawning some of mom's jewelry (i.e, wedding/engagement rings, another ring from my dad...things she gave me that don't fit and that I secretly think are bad luck).

7. Yard sale?

8. I'm in the process now of just sorting things out. What I'm taking vs. What I'm not taking.

9. Can't view student employment opportunities till they give me an email address. Thinking about getting in with a temp agency after I move. If I only have 2 classes a semester, I could probably swing full-time and still have time to work on my poetry. I'm thinking regular pay and benefits. But who knows, really.


Miscellaneous

1. I watched some of CBS Sunday Morning yesterday. They did a segment on Bob and Ziggy Marley. Spent the rest of the day with "Could this be love" stuck in my head. Ad's friend Zee reminds me vaguely of Bob Marley.

2. Forgot to request off for Boston. Forgot/thought it was a week further away than it really is. The request was due yesterday (but I called out to see my family). I'm hoping I can still get it in today. There's no way I can miss this trip. It's absolutely out of the question. So...I'll quit if I have to. (I think I'm just looking for an excuse at this point.) (Also, I increasingly hope to be fired, though I don't really give them a reason to fire to me other than I consistently show up 3-5 minutes late.)

3. I turned the cartoon dad on the father's day card I bought into a crossdresser.

4. I think I need a new dresser. The one I have is way too big for an apartment. The one I used in Ambler has a couple broken drawers. The one at my mom's makes my clothes smell weird. Like wood chips and animal.

5. Dabbling with veganism. It's freakin' expensive. So I switched to soymilk. It's actually really good and doesn't expire as quickly as milk. Baby steps.

Relieving a little anxiety

Got my tuition statement today. I'll get a $1,041.00 refund and won't need to take out any additional loans this year. (Hopefully.)

Things are starting to make sense. I'm really doing this.

In the time it takes you to read this you could have written back to me.

Risk be damned

I watched the CBS Sunday Morning show this morning, as I typically try to do every Sunday morning, and today Ben Stein's commentary had significant impact. It was about happy people vs. unhappy people, and how you end up in one category or the other. Essentially, the happy ones

"decided to do what their hearts told them to do, to do what was in them to do. They took risks and they took chances, and they tried a lot of different things until they got to where they wanted to be.

This very often means working incredibly hard and living on the edge. But it gets you to where you can look back on your life and say it wasn't wasted."

While his inadvertent moral support got me pumped to be a poet and to be among the few Americans who follow their hearts and stay true to themselves, it got me thinking about alternate meanings of "risk" and why I feel I might puke for the duration of the 6 hour drive on moving day. (Well, it's all stuff I've thought of before, but now I'm vocalizing it.)

I'm not scared that my endeavor will fail. I have no question about my capabilities and my future success. Granted, there are a lot of gray areas in my process because I'm really shooting in the dark, having never attempted something this life-changing before. But I'm not afraid of failure in that sense. Good things will come of this. I'll establish a good career that I enjoy, and I'll meet amazing people. And I know that this is what I need to do; this is who I am.

But what happens to everyone I leave behind? How many will I never see again? In what ways will we grow apart? Will they get used to not having me around? Will I get used to not being around? Will we replace each other? The principal risk lies with the people I love, and I wonder how far-reaching will be the impact of my move.

You see, it's not that I can't live without them; I just don't see the point.

I don't know why I only write late at night. My sleep is all sorts of fucked from staying up late trying to have meaningful connections with friends. I work from 2-10, hang out from 10-2, sleep from 2-10. My day in 8 hour increments. I recently started getting those sleep headaches. Like the ones you get kind of above your eyebrows that make you squint and want to pass out everywhere. I miss my buds. My security blanket is getting on a plane tomorrow for another hemisphere.

What am I going to do in stupid fucking Boston.

Oh yeah, and I've been reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Not really sure what the point is yet. I'm almost half-way through the fucking thing and it's all back-story. Everything is happening in the super past tense just to give you a sense of what a character's deal is. But so far I don't think anything has actually happened. Maybe I'm missing something. It's like Sherman Alexie meets Jonathan Safran Foer, and I don't like Sherman Alexie AT ALL.

Please, someone understand what I mean.

To-do List

1. TETANUS SHOT

Family doctor referred me to the Bucks County Health Clinic since I don't have insurance. Called the Q-town office (or what I thought was the number for the Q-town office since it's listed on the county's website under "Quakertown Health Office"), left a message. Received a rather snotty message the next day from a woman (she's what kids today would call a huge bitch) firmly and loudly explaining that I didn't call the right number, I need to call the number for the main office and the woman I left a message for is out on sick leave. In the same amount of time she could have simply answered my question, which was, "Do you offer tetanus shots?" Waited days to call back because I don't want to be pricked by huge bitches. Called today forgetting it's Memorial Day. Thinking about calling Emerson tomorrow to see just how mandatory this shot is.

On PA roadkill

In rural PA, the Third Reich's coal mine, maggots have a habit of gutting dead deer via asshole. On the side of Rt. 81 there was one--stiff and eaten out, something like black tar seeping from it's hind. R---- said it's most likely shit, the thing probably shat itself twice--once on impact and again as its body died--but it could also be flies or blood or something. A couple miles away, another one. Its rigid startled legs pointed at me. A hole in its under belly at least the size of my torso exposed its chest cavity. You could probably crawl in and sleep.

Happenings: things found

1. Found out that itchy red patch of dry skin in my right arm pit is eczema. Found out it's the same as the patch that has popped up on the back of my neck along my hair line off and on for the last year. Got some cream for it.

2. Found a roommate. His name is Daniel. He's 28 and we've never met. It's possible he'll kill me. It's possible I'll kill him. Anything is possible.

3. Discovered approximately 3 reasons why I can't wait to get out of PA, specifically Quakertown (rednecks, over-abundance of fast food, how the town is a vacuum and if you stay too long you'll never get out), and approximately 5,768 reasons why I'm homesick already.

4. A general area to live in: Porter/Davis Square in Somerville, MA. Near Harvard. Accessible by the red line. Maybe 15-20 mins to school, but I have no idea. My move date will be 9/1.

5. Noticed a large Nazi flag hanging in the living room window of a house about a block away from my brother's new home in Mt. Carmel, PA. It's a living ghost town known for it's coal mines/mountains. Everyone I saw was dead with their eyes open. I walked ten minutes to and from the gas station, uncomfortable and somewhat nervous that everyone I passed could see that I loved a Muslim and that they would probably hang me for being a traitor. A large dog tried to jump through a window at me. Twice.

6. One by one, we'll leave and never really know how much of us is left behind.

Broke is an understatement

The details of school/moving are starting to flesh out. This is a mixed blessing. I've been trying desperately (blindly, haphazardly, confusedly, etc) to propel this thing forward, and with that comes the nauseating reality of costs. If Emerson would please hurry up and send my financial aid statement, I can get my personal loan and have some false breathing room.

Fuck if this isn't the most stressful undertaking. Ever.

My trip to Boston over the weekend was useful in acclimating me to the area around Emerson. I got a general idea of where some of the neighborhoods are in relation to school, and I mastered the subway. Boston seems really small compared to Philly. Also, it's unbelievably cleaner and more efficient. And super expensive. O0f.

Anywho, looks like I'm not moving till Sept. 1. I've found a couple apartments that seem nice, but I'm not ready to commit, and I can't go up again any time soon to look in person or sign documents. I wish Boston was where NYC is. And I wish NYC just didn't exist.

So, in closing, my booky blog is turning into my moving-process blog. I guess that's ok.

Nothin doin

I'm getting over-zealous with my overly ambitious and ever-growing reading list (now with 50 titles of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry collections). I finished 2 (Flow, Everything is Illuminated), gave up on one (As I Lay Dying), and I'm presently reading another 2 (A Clockwork Orange, American Fascists). At one point I was trying to read 3 at once. Need to reel it in a bit.

I haven't written anything new lately. Just some ideas about war and plagues. RS and AF told me to read The Mask of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe. Something about people sweating blood. RS suggested using 'miasma' in a poem because it's a nice word. I used to have the collected works of Poe, but loaned it to someone (brand new) in high school for a project; instead of returning it he loaned it to someone else who proceeded to lose it. Never replaced it. I'm still sore about it. I've loaned out 3 books that have never been returned--one of which is one of my all time favorites. As an English major and writer, this is akin to loaning out my own children. I now put everyone through rigorous screening before I loan them a book. It's a cross between the Ivy League application process and marine boot camp.

A septic pipe cracked or burst at work, causing shit and fetid water to seep up through the floor drains in the bathrooms. By the end of the night, all the water in the building was coming out of the faucets brown. Probably not profitable to close. Oh, the horrors of corporate retail:

mi·as·ma

1.

noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere.

2.

a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere.

Grandpa met grandma in Philadelphia when he was 14 and she was 12, and he thought to himself, 'boy, that's a pretty girl.'

2 years later they started going together.

5 years later: "She broke my heart...but then she put it back together again."

I said I liked his stories because we're the same, though I'm probably more like her. He said people don't change, and he meant it in the best possible way.

Just to be safe, we separated into a thousand pieces and never called home.

1. I've burned many tongues.

2. I wander the house in the dark.

3. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Toying with the idea of super brief book reviews. Because I want to talk about books, but even I get bored.

WHOREADSTHISSHIT.

News as of late

Things have been rather hectic lately. Here's what I've been doing instead of writing new poems:

1. Sun, sun, sun, sun, rain.

2. Got accepted to Emerson and confirmed my enrollment. Started making extensive to-do lists.

3. Health care reform

4. Presently reading: Flow: The Cultural History of Menstruation; As I Lay Dying. Wondering if the two are related at all.

5. About to start reading: American Fascists; Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Wondering if the two will be related.

6. Keep forgetting to do my taxes.

7. Keep forgetting to fill out my financial aid forms.

8. Have no trouble forgetting to accrue more debt.

9. Probably becoming vegetarian, not necessarily by choice. Thanks for ruining my favorite foods, Jonathan Safran Foer.

10. Got lunch yesterday with 2 good friends. Ended up in a bookstore drinking frappuccinos, making lists of books we need to read, and researching whether or not there is paperwork involved in declaring war on Nicholas Sparks.

11. Thinking of submitting somewhere.

Bassiouny, don't read this. This is stupid.

Third thing's first: Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You

Miranda July can make you laugh and cringe in the same sentence, which is a talent I truly admire. Her characters are painfully relatable and endearing, and often when we search within them we see something of ourselves, and it's usually pathetic.

If reading the book from cover-to-cover, her characters feel monochromatic; they are similarly awkward, socially inept, and desperate for, but incapable of meaningful connections with others. Often, they're alone with no real friends, and it's safe to assume that in high school they were all the weird kid. What's really interesting here, though, is that even if we weren't the weird kid we could always relate to them on a secret level that held more meaning than some of the other friendships we had; a level that made us feel guilty for existing in a way that highlighted the weird kid as weird. This is the feeling often created by July's characters, intentional or not.

Standing as individual stories, her work is poignant, endearing, frank, and sexually frustrated. As a collection they blur into a mess of awkwardness and basketcases who never really find what they're looking for, and who generally don't even know what it is exactly they're looking for in the first place. I found this problem when I tried to read Joyce Carol Oates' collection of short stories (Dear Husband). After the third story I found it difficult to believe in the voice as the character's own and not simply Oates' manner of writing--which is exactly what it was.