What I Learned: Part 1

  These past two weeks spent in comfy air-conditioned Nashville, I've had a lot of time to think about the things that happened this summer and what I learned. Although nobody could've predicted all the weird turns my life took over the course of three or so months, the lessons I had to consider as a result were even more unexpected. Am I glad I went? Of course. Did things turn out like I had planned in the beginning? Well, no. Do things ever? See question two.

  I didn't write some brilliant article during my free time at the archives and get a publication to show off, and no brilliant researcher, dazzled by my historical acumen and wisdom beyond my years, whisked me away to become their precocious understudy and collaborator. I didn't find out definitively that archiving is the only profession I could ever love, or even that it's one I could realistically do. Nothing was decided or even clarified much by this internship. At the end of the job, the only thing that really changed was the handwriting on a couple boxes of archival material and the "work and volunteer experience" section of my resume. But was it worth it?

  Of course. And I'll tell you why: because of the things I found that I wasn't even looking for.

  I'm gonna tell you this story in two parts. I would condense it, but a) things I learned fall into one of two distinct categories, and b) I just got Confessions of a Prairie Bitch from the library and am eager to start in on it tonight. So, two parts.

  Part One: Things I Learned about WG (I'm going to assume you know who I'm talking about, but probably need to distance this blog from anyone or any organization I recently worked for...)

  WG was my folk music idol from high school. He helped me ace AP history (everything I know about the Depression, I learned from WG), taught me that hard times and situations can be funny, and even gave me an intro to the world of songwriting when a poem I wrote at school won a competition and a cash prize. I took his word as the honest, sensible observations of a poor man who had the great misfortune to live through the lean times of the '30s as many did, but whose talent in writing about the suffering of the common people set him apart. I thought that he was the legitimate article, come to the city and consciousness of the middle-class to show the nation how a great many forgotten souls were living out beyond the streetlights and paved roads. Uneducated but wise in the ways of the world, WG wrote simple songs that told it like it was for the poor people, his people, the dusty dustbowlers.

  Well... not exactly.

  WG was an artist trying to make a living in the '30s and '40s, and even as a folk singer (or really, especially as a folk singer) this meant conforming to a certain image. Just like VU educated Dr. Humphrey Bates and his band were dubbed "The Possum Hunters" to give people what they expected to hear on the Opry (see before and after), WG was playing into a stereotype for profit. While spinning himself as the humble son of toil who observed the modern world with an aw-shucks and a snap of the suspenders, he proved himself an articulate, political, well-traveled, and thoroughly modern songwriter whose business sense was confirmed when the public took him at face value.

  This was a really weird thing to learn, especially coming from a state that, when they even bother to acknowledge him, tends to frame WG in similarly romantic and cliched terms. Getting the full story was a months-long affair, reinforced every day by conversations with my bosses or material found buried in the archives.

  Asking my boss why NY had the archives instead of his home state: well, because he lived in NYC longer than he did in OK. But who was gonna listen to the "Brooklyn Balladeer"?

  Poring through letters to his wife from aboard a WWII Merchant Marine ship: "Did he just name drop Buddha, God, and Marx in a single sentence?"

  Digging through '40s photo albums: "Is that... a turtleneck?"

  Rubbing elbows with the Greenwich Village intelligentsia and becoming a labor activist while maintaining the persona of the country rube requires more sophisticated navigation and aplomb than I possess, I know that. I don't think he was playing his listeners for fools, really... just that, to broadcast his message out and across, he had to adopt the frequency they were expecting it to come in on. Not that that stopped him from getting political and topical:

  "Can you make up a joke that'll get us all a job?" Will Rogers Highway

  My time at the archives revealed my old idol to be a much more complex, human, and ultimately tragic figure than I was expecting. It's hard not to get some kind of insight into a person's life and mind when you're paging through years of their journals and letters. Like how he felt about his wife, his children, and occasionally himself. Turns out you can be famous and genius while simultaneously experiencing all the stuff us mortals do, like jealousy, anxiety, and self-doubt:

  "I don't feel any too well pleased when I hear my voice because it is dry and dull and thin and it rattles like a bucketful of rocks."  1944

 His letters to his wife during the war were almost comically human, in their chronicling of the everyday aboard a ship and repeated requests for more frequent letters. What? I thought. If WG were my husband, wouldn't I be writing him every day? Geez lady, don't you know you're married to a folk legend?


  Well, no. He was just a dude -- her husband, but still just a person. Just W.

  One of the most eye-opening days was the one where the archivist showed us one of the few recorded clips of WG (others can be seen here and here). It's a home video they usually keep under wraps because of its private and sensitive nature. It's WG and fam having a visit after his disease got really bad and he'd been hospitalized for years. From the late '40s to his death in 1967, WG suffered the effects of a genetic degenerative nerve disease, the same that had plagued his mother and led to her hospitalization and death. I'd always known what he had and vaguely what happened to a person with HD, but seeing a scrawny withered little man whose limbs were going every which way without him telling them to, and knowing that the boxes of  heart-breakingly hopeful letters marked "Greystone Asylum" and "Brooklyn State Hospital" came from him was almost too much.

  "And I will never dread the day I will die/ 'cause my sunset is somebody's morning sky." My Battle

  The letters themselves are almost enough to make you wish you hadn't seen them, or at least couldn't compare the unsteady, childish, nearly illegible handwriting and repetitive childish thoughts with the fluid, articulate letters of ten years previous. Where once he had filled every inch of a sheet with tiny neat cursive, now there were only pages and pages of wobbly misspelled words that documented the decline of a great mind that was failing even faster than the body that housed it.

  "Just be patient and one day I'll write you a letter you can read." c. late '50s

  When I first saw them in the archives, I thought they were notes and doodles from one of his kids, which also crop up a fair amount in the archives. But no, they were from the man himself, as each day he lost a little more control over his body and mind and the person who inspired millions gradually and cruelly slipped away.

"Teach me how, how to love this battle of life." My Battle

  

My fave WG song, as far as lyrics go.

August 24

  The return to Nash has not exactly been the non-stop party I wanted it to be -- there's been no music, no parades, and my bacon/pancake consumption is extremely deficient. Currently waging an all out war against a thrift store item in my bathtub that is eerily familiar to an episode from earlier this year that had disastrous consequences. The problem may lie in the inability to procure cold water from any faucet in the city during  the hellishly hot daytime hours, a dilemma I halfway solved with throwing a couple of those freezer packs into a full tub, but that particular stroke of genius may have come too late.

  As you can tell, I'm not going to have any good stories today. But that's okay, because I know someone who does. CB of xkcblag has graciously agreed to be our guest blogger for the evening, an agreement we arrived at after she sent me what has to be one of the top ten funniest letters ever penned by human hands. Without further ceremony, we bring you the story of:

"The Dishwasher Burn"

  "We really thought we were living the high life. Actually, we are, but high life doesn't mean disaster-free. Our beautiful apartment does come with some issues... nearby train tracks (apparently trains run from dusk til dawn, regardless of light sleepers who dream about noises they hear in their sleep. Let's just say being ran over by a train is much scarier in dream than in reality. I know because I've experienced both.), toilets that sound like women dying a horrible death (probably by train) even when no one has been near in hours, and a dishwasher...

  I've never used a dishwasher, except maybe to help (my grandma) load up after Sunday dinner. The only thing I really know is you still have to rinse dishes off before they go in and some things never go in. What things? I don't know! [...] Maybe those are old rules like don't wear white after Labor Day or bathing suits should go from neck to ankle (clavicle to lateral malleolus -- if those are wrong, just don't tell me. I like to pretend like I've learned something besides how to survive Broke Diaries style from VU). So, I decided we should put everything in there. Plates, silverware, wooden spoons. The first wash, everything goes great! Even if you have to rinse everything you're still saving 10 minutes standing at your sink.

  High. Life.

  The next night, we do the same thing. Everything in! And the next morning there is a sticky note on my bathroom door:

  "Cousin, why does our entire apartment smell like PORK?"

  I thought, "Shit! I didn't clean up after breakfast. Now everything smells like ham!" But... I'm not smelling anything... so I forget about it.

  When [my cousin/roommate] wakes up, she says she suspects our magical dishwasher. So, I open it up and stick my entire face in. And almost DIE! It was so nasty. It didn't smell like someone left a frying pan w/ ham grease out -- no, it smelled like someone slaughtered a pig and washed it in our dishwasher! I just slammed the door and walked away.

  Later, I found the problem. Our wooden spoons had fallen down to the bottom and burned like my breakfast ham. The smell would not go away! Tried lemon juice and vinegar and prayers. Still smelled like a raw pig. Then it happened again! We thought rearranging the spoons would help. No! Three or four fell back down there. Only one was damaged beyond use; the others were just charred.

  Plan 86 (because obviously, 1-85 failed) was to let the dishwasher air out and light some of my candles to cover the pig. So far, so good.

  Lesson learned: the one thing that is not dishwasher safe is, of course, spoons!

 Shoulda asked Johnny."


  Other highlights from the CB repertoire include this gem, carefully edited to conceal what/who we were laughing at:

  "... just thinking about [something terrible that happened last semester to us] made me laugh so hard that my entire face hurts and tears were streaming down my face like some sort of sad Jesus fountain -- for the first time this summer, they were not tears of sorrow/pain, but fear/laughter."

 Needless to say, CB writes awesome letters... all of which I keep in a locked box in my closet, where they are safe from the eyes of those who just wouldn't understand.

August 20 - Jer-z Nites

  What what what. I have too much to write about. If I carried around a tape recorder and a time machine, I still wouldn't be able to document and experience all the ridiculous crap that happens to me on an hourly basis.

  Currently sitting in D.C.'s Reagan airport, waiting on a delayed flight to the homeland while listening to some Satanicide and dodging the sketchy glances of a dude five seats down. I'm gonna be lazy and bullet point this list of things to write about while spending two car-less and sweltering weeks in the Nash.  I'll spare you the entries from what I call "Angry Glovebox Journal" (things written in my actual journal late at night while waiting for people to vacate my parking lot so I could sleep in it -- might have to start a separate blog for that) and just hit the high points:

*  last days of the internship. Why yes, I will be putting this sweet autographed book on my shelf, although I also wouldn't turn down your Grammy.

*  NYC Sleepover with first college friend, who is there for a year mentoring program. Highlights include a giant apartment (even compared to real ones, not just the postage stamp size Manhattan variety), sage advice about the neighborhood ("You're little and white. Don't go any further south."), and hospitality, Bronx-style: "Good morning! I hope those gunshots didn't wake you up earlier." It was awesome -- I wanna move to the Bronx! Between Fordham and Kingsbridge and during the hours of daylight, that is.

*  the ill-advised overnight drive from NY to VA -- oh my holy God, the drive. Eleven hours on the road, minus a brief sleep in, you guessed, a Walmart parking lot, and several stops on the hellish turnpike. Exhausting but fairly uneventful except for that part where I rear-ended a guy at a Jersey tollbooth. Can't have it all, I guess.

*  sunrise over Philadelphia: the bridge was beautiful but what is all that stuff up in the air?

* sociological observations of the trip on I-95 south -- by Maryland, it was hella hot. By Virginia, everyone was hella friendly. Welcome baaaaaaaaacccckkkkk...

* sweet digs in Arlington. Maybe the price is worth it -- this room in the basement is bigger than any room I've ever had and I might not have to live off ramen anymore. Am I dreaming?

  Now I'm going to transcribe the lyrics for Satanicide's "Jer-z Nights", so a) I can try transcribing something that's not recorded on a scratchy record 80+ years ago like I've been doing all summer, b) you can understand why this band (a Tragedy-esque tribute/mocker band of 80s hair metal) is so fantastic, and c) so if anyone googles the lyrics (which I don't think exist online yet), they'll hit my page. Because that's the kind of people I want reading my blog.

Jersey nights, Jersey lights

I wanna get into a Jersey fight

Oh nooooo

I'm going back to Jersey

Feathered hair, souped-up cars

And don't forget the Jersey local bars

Oh nooooo

I'm going back to Jersey

To be this cool oughta be a law

I've seen the world and traveled far

I already know there's a place for me

I'm going back to Jersey

Jersey nights, Jersey lights

acid-washed jeans so nice and tight

I'm going back to Jersey

"Hold on a second, fellas... listen up. Remember back in the day, getting pissface drunk and dropping some beer in my GTO? Cruising the high school parking lot... yeah. Well, it's good to know that times have not changed. Who's with me?"

Tailgate nights, party down the shore

when we run outta booze, we'll just steal some more

well, we're all going down to Atlantic City

because a man put the stop to the New York city

To be this cool oughta be a law

I've seen the world and traveled far

I already know there's a place for me

It starts with Jer and ends with Z

 After that, it's more of the same for roughly seven minutes, complete with superfluous drum solos and screaming hordes of fans to simulate the arena rock experience. It's genius.

August 13

  I just broke another of WPR's dishes.

 How am I allowed to walk around on my own? I clearly need some sort of keeper.

 While the first one was purely accidental and could've happened to anybody, this incident is is solely a result of my own stupidity. I had heated something up in the microwave and used a glass bowl since, as previously mentioned, the fancy pants ceramic bowls can't go in there. When I took it out, it was hella hot and I could see some of the pasta sauce starting to get baked on. Oh my, I thought in my culinary naivety. I'd better soak that immediately to ensure easy cleaning!


  Stupid.

  I put it in the sink and turn the faucet on it. The water wasn't cold, but turns out it didn't have to be. I heard a tiny pop and had just enough time to look down at the still intact bowl and think Huh... before it suddenly and anticlimactically split into three pieces. I don't mean it shattered or even cracked dramatically -- just one minute, it was whole, and the next, it was lying in jagged pieces while the faucet ran blithely on. It was like a cartoon.

  Undoubtedly anyone I tell this story to will be shocked that I did not see it coming. To them I say (preemptively): I'm not a freakin' chemist. And fourth grade, which was the last time I heard anything about molecules and states of matter, was several lifetimes ago. But apparently life is full of just such things that you are expected to know. Sometimes I feel like the only first timer in a world full of reincarnated Newtons. Thank god for wikihow.

  Anyway.

  After I comprehended what had happened and looked around for the hidden cameras that were surely broadcasting my incredulous expression to millions of viewers nationwide, disposal was the next order of business. I'm not going to Kisco til Monday, so last week's plan was out. In desperation I stashed the broken glass inside an empty ice cream carton, which I'm going to throw out in a street trash can at the earliest available opportunity. Maybe I can make it more secure, but maybe not: I hate to think of city workers getting cut while emptying the trash, but if anyone sees me lobbing a taped up box into a public trash can  in NY they're liable to send in the bomb squad.

  That's today's "adventure". WPR came back briefly, and I do mean briefly, between his international flight and driving up to see what is apparently his steady girlfriend. If someone wanted to see me after roughly a day of travel, not to mention a hellish time change, they'd be waiting at least three days. WPR drops his stuff, takes a shower, and bolts out the door with gifts in under 45 minutes. What a guy. So I've got the apartment to myself, although surely not for long once he realizes I'm destroying it. Might should go down to Our Lady of Wal-mart to see about some bowls...

August 12

  Writing today from the comfort of a $2k a month apartment in White Plains, sadly bereft of its owner's presence til his flight arrives from Dublin this evening.

  The major takeaway from this adventure seems to be: stick with WP roomie. He's kind, easygoing, and frankly, financially loaded. He leaves papers, including his lease, laying around (hence my incredulous discovery of the price of the WP high life) but that may be counted as his only fault. In a space of about five hours, dude rescued me from car camping and offered to set me up at his place, no questions asked. And he did it all from across the effing Atlantic.

  I'm going to convert just so I can nominate this guy for sainthood. People of the world, take note: WPR is a god among men.

  Here's how this miracle went down.

  Thursday at work I get a short email from WPR just saying hey, asking what I've been up to. We've been messaging on and off since I left his place in June, so there's nothing odd about it. I mention I'm on a new adventure in Westchester (namely car camping), but kind of joke about it and go on to talk about other things. Within hours, he's posted onto my ad on the CS site begging someone to give me a couch, and sent me the phone number of his friend in a nearby town who has his apartment keys.

  I contact the woman via phone, text, and carrier pigeon. In short, I hound her like a third grade nickname. She agrees to pass along the keys. I get a half tank of gas and wile away my last hours at the A&P as I wait for her to get home from work. I am pretty much vibrating with excitement at this point that I might have a place to stay. I roll into this woman's neighborhood around 10:30 p.m. (she must be southern, or at least not from Westchester, as she immediately hugs and offers to feed me), get the keys, and speed to White Plains, where the giant, empty, and blissfully immobile apartment was waiting for me.

  So that's where I am now. WPR should be back tonight -- I offered to go get him, but trying to get from an airport in the city to the suburbs on a Friday at 5:30 seemed like too much of a suicide mission. I also offered to take a bullet for him if need be but hopefully it won't come to that. Already visited the Wal-mart Temple, got a parking ticket (oops -- I guess my fall from grace is nearly complete), and am currently soaking the river shoes and pillowcase because it smells like my car and gives me nightmares. I swept and cleaned up the kitchen today as well. I guess having a math Ph.D. doesn't guarantee good housekeeping skills after all.

  The kitchen particularly was like a murder scene, or, more accurately, the ruins of Pompeii. Flour, crumbs, bowls and knives as far as the eye could see.  It was like he'd been Raptured in the middle of baking bread. Maybe he'd just forgotten about his flight to Europe til the last minute, as these absentminded professors are apt to do. Whatever. I fixed it, and if he asks how the counters got so clean, I'll blame it on fairies. He's Irish, he won't argue.

  While I was doing the dishes, a pot fell off the drying rack and cracked one of his fancy ceramic bowls right in my hands. Flower pattern, delicate fluting... these are the kind of bowls that can't even go in the microwave. I was horrified. Not so horrified that I told him, though. There's no way he will ever find out what happened, as I disposed of the evidence in a public trash can in another town. I counted the others in the cabinet: only ten! Since the set was already incomplete, maybe he won't notice. Five seconds later I found another one in the fridge. So much for that. But who needs twelve bowls anyway?

  It is 80 freakin' degrees and smells like fall outside -- am I dreaming? How am I gonna go back to 95+ Nashville in a week? My brief bout of homesickness was a direct result of briefly not having a home, so now that that's resolved I feel fine taking up permanent residence in NY, especially in White Plains where the people are friendly (aka, normal). I don't know where the chocolate pretzels thing came from -- I literally never had those til I came here and started sneaking them from the boss's snack basket. The SNL craving was the result of my being disappointed in not having seen a taping whilst in NYC because the procedure and wait for getting standby tickets is reminiscent of Depression era breadlines or some Soviet bureaucratic nightmare. Ed Helms, you may be famous, but I can't line up at 3 a.m. to see you crack jokes at 8 that night. I just can't.

  Last weekend in NY -- what am I doing hanging 'round?

August 9

  A recent study (last night) of a panel of experts (me) empirically proves (in my opinion) that sleeping on a reclined front seat is superior to backseat sleeping. You keep instinctively trying to get more horizontal than the seat allows, but it beats folding yourself in half in the back. It also helps to be really tired. I actually woke up to daylight this morning.  I know I'm risking discovery and possible arrest by going to the same place every night... but it's the best place around.

  I congratulated myself with a terrible donut from the A&P. Attention shoppers: we made this pathetic excuse for a chocolate burger by covering an already piss-poor donut with Magic Shell. Side note, although CBs are my favorite donuts, it just occurred to me that I've never heard anybody else call them that. Is this a Cleveland thing or just a me-and-my-mom thing? This is, well, a graphic rendering of the product in question, because looking at a real picture makes me too sad that I don't have one in my hand right now. Essentially it's a hole-less donut glazed in chocolate and filled with cream. I'm aware that a bastardized version exists in which custard is the filling, but I refuse to even discuss such a thing.

  Maybe a housesitting job in the next county for next week... oh please please please!

  Just got off the phone with my mom, who asked why I don't say much when I call her. I think it's probably because I can't keep straight all the lies I'm telling her. I feel a member of the BSC in any of the Super Specials where every chapter opened with a cheerful postcard to family re: the weather, the kids, missing them, etc., then immediately transitioned into "There's so much I didn't tell my parents!" with the baby-sitters being shipwrecked, or the inn being haunted, or Stacey being seduced by eighteen-year-old lifeguards. Maybe I'll have more to say when I feel like less of a bum / secret agent.

  I'm making a list of everything I want to do in Nash when I get back. It starts with 1) sleep forever, 2) take a bath... forever, 3) watch some SNL, 4) eat chocolate pretzels, and 5) see T&B and hopefully C.

  In the mean time, check out this trailer for an awesome short film that will never be finished:

August 8

  Night one of car living, only… ten to go?!?

  It was actually pretty easy… I mean, uncomfortable, yes. Paranoid, yes. Depressing, oh yeah. But easy enough to park behind a building, read by streetlight, make a nest in the backseat and go to sleep. The dreams are wacked out, but you do sleep. And since last night was undisturbed by the police or a murderer with a hook for a hand, this would seem to be the best temporary solution I can come up with.

  At work now. I keep waiting for boss to offer her basement now that the party business is over, but just remembered their cat is coming home from an extended absence, so theoretically the house will already be too disturbed for them to consider taking on a guest, even one as unobtrusive as I try to be.

  So… that’s where I’m at. No plans beyond finishing these ten or so days, driving down to D.C., and flying back to my bed in Nashville, which god forbid I ever leave again.

  It goes without saying that if any readers talk to anyone (especially family) about this, our friendship is dissolved. Sorry, but them’s the breaks.

  You made homelessness sound so good, Woody! I feel cheated!

August 6

  Haven't left the apartment all day, which is kind of maddening when you know there's a world of interesting things to do and see just a subway ride away. The perpetual dimness of an apartment with no natural light makes it feel weirdly frozen in time in space, since there are no glimpses of life beyond the fire escape. But I've been trying to keep close tabs on the cat (and give hourly text updates to the owner). Plus, you know, homeless research.

  I've pretty much accepted that I'm going to be living out of my car for the next two weeks. No response from Couchsurfers, WP roomie still out of the country, even a tip from an unknown CSer (helping out a stranger in true CS spirit) about a restaurant that rents rooms upstairs on the DL proved fruitless. I know someone staying in the Bronx part of NYC and she's offered me the landlord-stated-maximum visit of two nights, so I may do that til Tuesday. No other real leads. Only NYC has hostels (pricey), and this county is so geared towards rich folks that the only normal hotels are in the next state. So, car it is.

  I'm not too panicked about it, although there is no way in hell I will ever tell anyone at home. If one has to be homeless, Westchester Co. in late summer is about the best place to be. It's warm but not hot, everyone's rich and the streets are safe, and parks and strip malls with parking lots abound. I got used to inconspicuously hanging out in public places for long hours (see pre-Kisco entries), and I've definitely slept in a car before. With access to phone service, internet (work and library), a car, and even a fridge (at work), I'm doing light years better than millions of homeless people. So really it'll be like more of a short term camping adventure.

  Trolling the internet for tips (urban legend that Wal-marts let you sleep in the parking lot = confirmed! Only downside is that uppity Westchester doesn't have Wal-marts.), I came across the "Survival Guide to Homelessness" blog. Wow... check the comments for some of the most eye-opening experiences in modern America that rarely get heard. I'm most concerned with finding access to a shower, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. My favorite pieces of advice from this guy? "Get used to lying" and "Fashion is for the rich." A-men.

August 5

  A homeless Okie in the city, working at an archive devoted to a famous homeless Okie in the city: irony, thou art a heartless bitch.

  As Broke Diaries Ang would say, peep this...

  Long story short (although the long story will be told), my guaranteed housing til Aug. 9 was shortened to Aug. 3 on a few days' notice. Then, the offer of interim emergency housing was also reneged, leaving me, not to mention BB, with nowhere to sleep on three hours' notice.

  What in the actual eff.

  Grateful as I am for the awesome free housing I've had thus far, it's difficult for me to comprehend that I was ousted twice soley for someone else's convenience. The first time because another expected guest at the Kisco house decided she didn't want to share the place (it's 3 floors, and I stay in the basement...), and the second when my boss's husband decided putting me up in their basement would interfere with their four-year-old's birthday festivities this weekend. Thus, two people feeling awkward equals me homeless.

  My other boss thankfully stepped in and offered us her couches in Manhattan this weekend, so at least BB had accommodations her last night in NY. I'm playing cat nurse while my boss is gone til Sunday afternoon, at which point I have to vacate the premises for... well, nowhere. I have nowhere to go. Couchsurfing ads have gone unanswered (understandably -- it's just not reasonable to spring requests on people three days before you need a place), and I don't know anyone here.

  The most infuriating part (well, maybe not) was the surprising lack of indignation on the part of my bosses:
"Can't you go stay with that guy in White Plains again?"
"No, he's in Sweden."
"You can't go stay at his empty place?"
 "It's an apartment. How would I...  no."
... as if temporary homelessness is an everyday and easily resolvable problem, and I'm silly for being concerned about it.

  Well, maybe it does seem like that for them. Boss #1 suggests I book a hostel in NYC (which runs about $50 a night, plus the $25 daily train commute). Meanwhile I'm scheming on how to camp out without being detected in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Boss #2 pointed out a hobo jungle by the train tracks on the way here as a point of interest; I marked it down as a point of possible future residence.

  All this while I'm booking a flight from D.C. to Nash while contemplating the unexpectedly high rent that D.C. woman has decided to charge me. I also took off my shirt in the aisle of a Salvation Army thrifty this afternoon (no, not to raise funds! Get your mind out of the gutter! There's just no dressing rooms in there), so things have taken a turn for the crappy. Including this entry, which should've been about last effing Friday night, which featured such highlights as flirting with TrageJake, missing the last train home at 2 a.m., and passing a sleepless night on Times Square benches and McDonald's.

  I just... wha... cccchhhhh....

August 1

  Just let the rain wash tree sap and two months of dirt off my car, then rinsed it with tap water from a watering can. Sometimes even I'm surprised at how good I am at being a professional brokeass.

  Before I left, my dad insisted on us washing and waxing my car, for some unknown reason that immediately became nullified the minute we bounced onto the dirt road I briefly lived on. But even then, I doubted New Yorkers would be judgmental of my dirty and/or matte (some parts are never shiny -- I think bits of it were painted with house paint) auto. If anything, they'll be judging me because of my Williamson County plates or the fact that I'm driving 70 miles an hour with my arm hanging out the window. Not because my car's a little dusty.

  Yesterday was an epic boxing marathon with BB. Fifteen or so boxes with some great stamps, though we were on this hellish trail for roughly four hours. The mosquitoes were also out in full force and must have sensed weakness because they attacked with surprising ferocity. I'm totally covered in bites: it looks like I have about four elbows on each arm. This is the itchiest I've been in quite awhile, which is something considering I get chiggers almost every summer from wandering into swamps, etc. with shorts on.

  The depression over the alc situation was short-lived -- while it's sad to think that everything I took for overtures of romance was all in my mind (and the minds of every friend I ran the story by), it's not like I really lost anything in my brief period of pretending to live a normal teenage life. That doesn't mean, however, that I'm not ducking his messages asking when I'll be back. Leaving me hanging for two months was kind of a dick move and not something I'll forget quickly. Also, I think we can put the blame for the misunderstanding squarely on his shoulders -- before he started acting like he liked me, I had no idea who he even was despite the fact that he lived down the hall.. I thought his name was Patrick for at least six months, for crying out loud. But I'm pretty past it. Number nine on Sheldon Kopp's Eschatological Laundry List says it all: "There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things."

  Back to what I actually meant to post about: last Friday. I'm going to summarize because, just like it did two years ago, thinking back on periods of intense awesomeness makes me kind of sad in the present because they're over and my life is no longer loud, glittery, and full of dudes in spandex making inappropriate jokes and embracing me.

  Anyway.

  The day didn't get off to a particularly auspicious start -- I got sick and we missed the morning train a total of three times -- but things began to look up after we got into the city. We started off at the New York Public Library to ride the lions out front and check out the redonk interior. Aside from boatloads of tourists, there were actually people in there trying to use it as a legitimate library. I have no idea why they even bothered -- how much studying are you getting done while nerdy bibliophiles (us) are posing for pictures in the stacks?

  Did that for awhile, then booked it to the Met (my second attempt -- damn you, Madame X!), only to find the American wing still closed. What? At least more of the European painting rooms were open, so I got to see some new things, if not what I actually came for.

  After that we hightailed it across Central Park to the legendary Shake Shack (though in true Broke Diaries style, I had brown-bagged a PB&J for the commute), which may well be NYC's only legit burger establishment. People regularly line up around the block for this place, and it was pretty delicious. I think the secret ingredient that so captures the hearts and palates of NYers has to be the banned trans fat they can't get anywhere else. But I could be wrong. Then to Alice's Tea Cup, a cute little tea room where we experienced pumpkins scones, Trafalgar Square tea, and the jarring realization that there was no way in hell we were going to make Brooklyn by 7 p.m.

  Outside it was starting to rain. Ruuuuun to the subway, ride a couple stops while trying to map our route, then emerge above ground to find it still raining. More running as we try to make it to the venue before 7 (show isn't til 8:30, but before 7 there's no cover -- our choice is clear), and suddenly it is hurricane.

  It was one of those things that is so awful it's good: I'm soaked to the bone, maps and papers disintegrating in my  pathetically non-waterproof bag, Brooklynites staring as we sprint through puddles and yell in the rain about where the hell Wythe Avenue could be.

  We finally make it there (albeit too late to get in free) and truck it on up to the ladies' room to dry our hair and selves under the hand dryers, and in my case, whip out my Tragedy t-shirt.

  To be continued...