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.