June 13

  Independently confirmed: rural NY is like a foreign country. A foreign country where seventy degree summers are normal and everyone looks like they've just wandered out of the wilderness. It's a strange bastion of liberalism full of old dudes with long hair and college girls preaching on the evils of the farm system. I always wondered what it would be like to live in a blue state, and now I know: it's weird. In short, I am a stranger in a strange land with five days a week of time to fill.

  Okay, enough about that. I'm sure I'll have lots of stories about this and similar topics, since it appears my landlord is running a free-range chicken farm under my window. But let's talk about the house, with all names and identifying information changed so none of this can be found and used as grounds for my eviction.

  It's basically a small two-story house on a rural route dating from about 1930, which coincidentally is also when the owner (my landlord / downstairs roommate) last renovated. The fridge closes with a rusted latch -- I shit you not. I mean, it has a handle and everything, but this is clearly a pre-Kennedy fridge. Getting hot water requires descending the uneven cellar stairs to the water heater and clicking the flame on, but you have to remember to turn it off once you think you've heated enough water, lest you burn the whole place down. Similar rules for anything requiring electricity or water in the house. The owner is what may best be described as an aging hippie, but that hardly scratches the surface. I think I told you my dad's response to seeing this guy's picture, and I have to admit that upon meeting him, my first feeling was indeed regret that I had not brought a gun.

  Wow, this sounds terrible... let me backpedal so I look like less of a beotch. The guy is perfectly harmless and certainly doing us all a favor by renting to students at such an unimaginably cheap rate. The only downside is his constant presence and tendency to sit on the front lawn in a half-collapsed lawn chair staring at nothing. And he's talky, but only about things you don't want to talk about. I basically creep around the house like a ninja rehearsing comments about the weather to use if he happens to surprise me.

 Mine and the other tenant's rooms are upstairs, and I think they must've been kids' rooms. His looks blue from what I've seen from the doorway, and mine can only be described as the fallout of an explosion at the Necco factory: bright pink and yellow. I'll put up pictures later if I can, but they could hardly do it justice. The downstairs is interesting as well, in that it too is frozen in time. I don't know just what time, exactly, but I do know it is probably one best forgotten.

  The idyllic mountain landscape of the area is somewhat complicated by the fact that it's covered in prisons, albeit picturesque ones. To get home, I either have to turn onto an extremely holey dirt road (at which point my dad started singing the "Green Acres" theme on the way to move in), or take the longer paved route through the prison grounds where multiple posted signs announce "NY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY -- DO NOT STOP".

  I probably won't buy into the internet at home. There's a public library (where I am currently) in the next real town, and I think I'll need to make this a pretty frequent destination if I plan on keeping my sanity afloat for any span of time.

  I really didn't start this blog for complaints, though in that aspect it's a pretty good reflection of my attitude in real life. Next time I swear I'll have something more cheerful to say about the town, or my internship, or going to the city this weekend. Til then.