Preparations

I haven't really mentioned the whole roommate search that took place between late May and late June. I posted three Craigslist ads, received 2-8 responses per ad and actually showed the place to three people. Of those three, none took it. One woman wanted the bedroom furnished. Another, well, she seemed nice but non-commital. The last came with her mother and asked about bus routes. None called back. Now this might suggest that the apartment blows and that I am entirely rude or off-putting to these people. I don't think either is true. It's the luck of the draw, really. My new roommate is named S., he hasn't arrived yet and I have never met him in person. I found him through Quakerly channels, it was sort of a Craigslist of a different kind (that's funny to about three people). I am hoping that we will get along. It has been a while since I lived with a dude that I wasn't sleeping with...but, when I think about the dudes with whom I lived with in a non-romantic context (5?), I remember the experiences, as a whole and in the end, all fondly. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders and we share a few similar interests, so I think it'll work out. I google image searched 'new roommate' and these are the images that came up in the top spots.
Maybe my roommate will have a beard and I will scratch it while someone takes a blurry photograph of us. What a great memory!
I don't really understand this. The dialogue bubbles (there must be a more proper term) are confusing and the actual words just don't make a lot of sense to me. Narrative fail (or cc Fail).
This is moderately more interesting and not without the possibility of humor, though it doesn't apply to my upcoming living situation. I did once live in an apartment above a lesbian couple and I most certainly heard them when they were intimate (I did not, however, pleasure myself at the same time).
This accompanied a pretty funny Onion piece. I rediscovered cereal last month by the bye.
S. arrives on Monday and I have been cleaning one area after the other in preparation for his arrival. The problem is that I started too soon. The rugs have been vacuumed, but not so recently that Zul's hair hasn't already reasserted itself as part of the their pattern and color scheme (grrr). And I am a clutter magnet. I do leave little piles of things to deal with later all over my space. So, since D. hasn't been in the apartment since the 22nd, I've made a few more piles in the commonspace (I did not do this when D. was home because I have manners). So now I have all these frackin areas I need to re-organize, both in my bedroom and in the greater apartment. Sigh. Is it simply that I'm lazy? Or can one really be naturally better or worse at cleaning and staying organized? I know people work at it, but what if, even if I worked at it, my environments would always fall back to their natural state of dishevelment? Saturday and Sunday will become days of cleaning...and watching the final two discs of the last season of Battlestar Galactica (I have not written at length about how much I have fallen for this show and its storylines and characters but serious watching has been taking place).

Garblack

Last weekend I also took a walk. I took a lot of photographs near the Art Museum and then along Kelly Drive and then by the Rodin museum. But I'm not bothering with them at the moment. Instead I'm thinking about my impending move. You see, I found (with a lot of long distance craigslist help from my mother) quite a nice apartment ridiculously near my place of work, tracked down a roommate and the ebf was kind enough to bring all my stuff from Chicago to Philadelphia (I feel it is important to clarify that this was not something I asked for but, rather, something he suggested. It was extremely helpful if, as always, a little sad making to see him). Now, however, I have a whole new bunch of problems.

1) My entire neighborhood has permit parking. If you don't have parking there's a two hour limit. So, well, I need to get myself a permit.
2) In order to get a permit one must have a car with Pennsylvania plates.
3) In order to have Pennsylvania plates you must have a Pennsylvania driver's license.
4) Also, in order to have PA plates you have to make sure that the lien holder on your car doesn't mind the change of location/you may have to pay another heaping pile of money for a Pennsylvania title.
5) In order to get a Pennsylvania license you need to have proof of residence.
6) It would make sense to get the license with my new address but in order to do this I'd need to have official mail sent to me there. But that wouldn't happen until the 1st and where would I park my car?
7) I don't really have a base of people I can cajole into helping me move so I need to decide whether I want to hire movers and a truck, rent a UHAUL and move as much as I can by myself, bring things from the storage unit at a piecemeal pace and continue paying for the unit even after I've moved in.
8) I still don't have a local bank account (Chase, it seems, exists on every street corner in Chicago and New York but has some sort of craaaazy issue with existing at all in Philly).
There are more but I'm sort of over even thinking about it.

Sigh.

Inauspicious

Yesterday I did make one foray out into the world...three actually but of the three this is the only one in which I was successful. I took a little walk. I came across this community garden. It was pretty.
Right after I took this photograph a man walking towards me suggested that he could eat my pussy.
Which was strange since I had just been thinking that of all the things in the world that Zul might like, being eaten by a 20 something black man in mid-90s tee shirt and running pants in Philadelphia was probably his #1 goal. It's like the guy was a mind reader or something!
Well, I did exactly what I shouldn't have done. I drove to the event. Half way there I realized I hadn't remembered to get the camera (and how would I manage if I didn't have a camera?). Parking was stupid. And so I gave up and went home. Zul has been a regular pukefest for the last twenty four hours which, one might guess, concerns me. I've scheduled a vet appointment for later today. How he could have been healthy just last week and now unhealthy is beyond me but, with the whole Meow Cat experience always in my mind, I have decided to err on the side of crazy worry. Some things I, as a not vet person, think might be the problem:

1) That two days of being drugged in a car with not as much food or water as he's used to has made his stomach shrink and so now every time he eats he gulps it down (which isn't even entirely true) and then his stomach doesn't like it.

2) The stress of being in a new place is giving him anxiety attacks.

3) The vaccines he got in Tennessee coupled with the drugs and the stress have wonked out his system entirely.

4) He managed to eat something in this apartment he shouldn't have and now his intestines are slowly shutting down.

5) Asbestos?

6) Lack of large quantities of fresh air (there are windows with screens and the balcony has a screen too but I'm terrified that he would suddenly think it was a good idea to lean on or push these screens thus falling 17 floors to his death).

I'm feeling a little defeated.

Argh!

A few weeks back a cousin of mine mentioned that this fellowship was about to created and offered to MFA students everywhere. I want it. But now that they've actually put up the requirements, well, I'm not qualified. One large reason I wanted it was because I want literary journal experience...and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get it...except that I have to already have it. I've found that this is a problem with a number of jobs I have applied for: they're basically entry-level except you need to have already entered.

Then there are the jobs I am qualified for that, still, I don't seem to be getting. I know it's a process and you have to keep keeping on but as time goes by I start applying to jobs that have nothing to do with writing which, by that very characteristic, will never lead to jobs that have something to do with writing. I've applied to be an alumni publications associate editor for Vassar College, a school I did not attend but spent a whole heck of time visiting....and I am totally qualified for the position and would actually enjoy the work and love the location but have little hope of actually being picked. I've applied to be entry-level editorial assistants at publishing houses in New York but I know that, even with my saying I already live in NYC, you need to know somebody to get into the final rounds. I have begun to look at admissions jobs at colleges in rural areas. My thinking goes like this: spend two years in the middle of nowhere with no friends (at least to start with she says hopefully?) and then have the qualifications to go to a more prominent school in a more interesting area. My logic is flawed somehow.

I-Pod Wearies

Yesterday my mother went to Tullahoma for any number of things. Then when driving back to the mountain we stopped at the dreaded Wal-Mart. I picked up a charger for my ipod that allows you to connect it (or any USB enabled device) into the gadget and voila! it's charged.

Except that in this case it ain't working.

The ipod says it's charging. It looks charged but if you disconnect it from the chargey thing its battery icon goes back to a sliver of a sliver of red.

What does this mean? Does it mean my battery is fried? Does it mean my cord sucks? It worries me since I'd like to listen to my ipod while traveling all about and stuff.

Alan Greenspan Got an $8 Million Advance For His Book

I googled new job and this was the most entertaining, if not entirely accurate to my situation, of the first few images. Today was my first day jobbing. I liked highlighting things on the computer different colors, I really did-no sarcasm. And I can't wait until I get my own headset where I touch a button and the phone lifts itself up so's I don't have to hold the receiver (I'm not really joking about that either). I wonder if I will like it as much in 6 months. Maybe. The thing that freaks me out is how I didn't factor in having to pay x amount of money per month for health insurance. And, more importantly, the entire concept of 401(K)s is confusing and strange. Suddenly I should be saving for my retirement? Actually, I should have started saving for my retirement eight years ago. Here's the thing. I was planning on saving money but my plan for that money wasn't retirement, it was a house or a kick ass cheese tour trip in France. Now I have to worry about how I'll live when I'm 65? Sheee-it. I wasn't as worried about my future before I got a job. Well, yes I was. It was just a different version of worry. Ah me. I'm having a glass of Cakebread Cellears Rubaiyat wine c/o the dogs' owner...and she's right, it's very tasty.