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