Okay, Traci, here you go. The product of like, five or so blogs. I lost count, distracted by Graham emailing me a picture of his foot. Yeah. His foot. And the pharmacy where he works. Ugh.
***
[I wrote most of this in a state of travel-delirium. Please excuse anything that makes little to no sense, because I'm sure that at the time it made perfect sense to me]
So I'm on the bus. There is no connection so I'm not myspacey. The bus has literally nobody on it. There's an elderly couple, and a couple with a 5-6 year old, but they're both at the front and I'm in the middle. There's only the six of us and the driver. I'm caught between ambivalence and distress. Graham is texting me comforting things [namely generic talk coupled with excitement] and Heather showed up right before/after I boarded text-wise.
So. I'm moving. It's started. This is insane and just ridiculous, but it's also exactly right. I'm entirely positive that this is the right thing to do, but it's still weird for me, and man do I wish I could have a cigarette. This is insane. This whole bus-thing. This entire thing.
I dunno. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's entirely right, which is what I believe. I'm done with typing for now….
Now it is much later. I'm at the train station, and I couldn't possibly imagine a worse place to be spending tonight. Um. Okay, I could. But seriously. The train is TWO HOURS late—for now. When they told us first, back at Ann Arbor, it was only an hour late. Wtf? Ugh. So we all traipsed around, the only lot of people [and only twenty or so of us] at the station, hanging out, raiding the soda/snack/coffee machines, and I called both Nic and Heather. Somewhere in talking to Heather I got directions to a gas station for more cigarettes, and so I went. Obviously.
Everyone was a dick to me. I'm not kidding. People shouted worse things than they do in DETROIT. At the gas station, I watched the cashier be super sweet to several black customers, and then a complete bitch to me, ignoring everything conversational I said and pretty much just taking my money and ushering me out. The sidewalks are much cleaner here, though, I'll give 'em
that. And I got a pack of Camels and a huge coffee for $5.35. How cool is that?
Then I get back and there's some bitch and her kids sitting in my seat despite my luggage being there, and so now I'm stuck on the end of some cushion-oval thing. The MP3 player was alternating Deftones and Moonspell for quite a bit, serving only to make me pissed as fuck at everything, and I can't talk to Graham because he's talking to some friend about me. At length. I'm not kidding, it's been like an hour now, and I want to motherfucking know what he's saying. And I want to get high. I'm going to take the [Vicodin Missy gave me]. It's important that you understand that before I typed that bracketed part I realized that I had put the Vicodin in my Marlboros box. And that I'd smoked my last Marlboro on the way to buying my Camels. That I'd crushed the Marlboro box in my angry fist and thrown it on the sidewalk. So I shoved the laptop back in my purse and ran to that sidewalk with my coffee a-sloshing, through piles of yelling asshole boys and sprinklers that got me RIGHT IN THE FACE, and I found it, and I took that gorram pill and I chew/swallowed it as is my customary Vicodin practice. I like the acetaminophen taste, what can I say?
So this blows. At least one more hour until my train arrives. Ugh. The computer keeps telling me I have an Internet signal and then when I open a window it tells me I no longer have one. It's starting to really piss me off, but whatever. In a good ten minutes it won't matter.
And it is hot as hell here.
Though I have to say it's like the MP3 player knows my brain. Take a pill, it plays Coma White. Decide you're going to kill everyone you see, it plays I'm Afraid of Americans.
You know. In Toledo black people have been really mean to me tonight, but all the white people have themselves closed up with headphones and laptops. And the only not-white person who has been nice to me is a boy who reminds me of My Andy. He's super nice. I told him how to get to the gas station. I hope he sits near me on the train. Him and Emo-boy, who is probably not emo at all, but rather like me and gets assumed to be because he's got thick dark glasses and a sad and slightly confused look about him. He's also got the headphones/laptop thing going on, like the rest of us. Us. I think it's weird that I'm talking about an ethnicity as a unit, and I don't like it. All the black people, though, despite headphones and laptops and text messaging are interacting with one another, talking and trying to enjoy this two-plus hours of waiting and doom.
The rest of us, we seem to just like our misery and we like to have it alone.
Ah, Vicodin. The term "sweet release" comes to mind, and Missy, I love you for having given me this pill. Nervous breakdown, beer, bus, hangover, coffee, painkiller, that's been my day. As soon as the train starts moving I'm going to pass out, to awaken only for edibles and to tell Aunt Alice my train will be THREE HOURS late to Harpers Ferry. Motherfucker.
Ugh, awful, it was some GIRL grilling Graham about me. Now I have to be endlessly curious and also hate her a little bit. Pfff. I don't even want to write what Graham said she said. Mostly because I just want to so I can laugh about it with people, but I think Graham might like, I dunno, get self-conscious at how open I am about things to the General Public. Don't worry, Heather, I'll tell you.
Ok. So I can guarantee that I am the only person here listening to anything even remotely like what I've got in my ears. And that makes me happy. I like the slick change from Bowie to Green Day to Tori. I wish I had Gish-the entire thing-on this playlist, and I hate it that Heather's broke, for that is one sad affair. I mourn her loverly disc.
Heather, do you remember that time we laid on your bed after smoking all that Kind and just listened to what was it, Machina? And we just laid there for like, what, hours, and your Dad tried to hang out with us but we were all too stoned to realize he was making conversation, we just kind of wrote him off as acting like a Dad, which he was clearly trying really hard to not do… You know, now that we think about it. Oh man, good times.
Okay. In theory, the train should be here in like, half an hour or so. We'll see what happens. Motherfucker, I am bored. Fucking bored. At least Graham is back and at least there's the computer, which is my new Very Best In-Person Friend. I need a good computer name. I just have nothing at the moment. But if I'm going to personify it, it must have a human[ish] name. Too bad it has no legs, or I'd teach it to Silly Walk. Ah, silly walking.
Missy, holy crap, this pill is really kicking me well. It's the good thing about Vicodin, it's like it KNOWS when you need it most and it really exerts itself for you at those times. Heather, I know you know what I mean, and Nic and Andy I'm sure. The rest of you, I hope you do too, because that's the only explanation I have.
Um, okay. So my train that left at "midnight" should show up around two-thirty. Yeeeah. This is unpleasant and entirely un-okay, and I would be angry if I were sober. So there, Ohio. Fuck you.
Oh man, tonight is getting worse as it goes along. Though the train will be here soon enough, and I will get on it, and that will be okay. Graham is around again although it's late [he's been up drinking but I also think he just knows I need him to be around and talkative tonight, and he's also been saying for days now that I must tell him when I get on the train at the, like, exact moment, the weirdo], and Heather is around for texting when I stop typing here, and so that's all fabulous. FABULOUS. People are fucking lining up for the train that isn't even here yet. Crazy-ass people.
I have nothing to say except to ramble on about how much this blows. It really, really does blow, you know. If only the interwebs would work for more than thirty seconds at a time!
There are little shiny spots on the keys I use the most… That amuses me. My silly fingers, having oily finger oil bits on them. Leaving them places they've been as though they want everybody to know what they're typing.
Well. They do. You're reading this, aren't you?
Motherfucker! 2:30, no train. No more coffee, just Vicodin and computer and Graham text-wise. Which is how I always have him. Which is just fine. I know everybody likes to joke around about it and stuff, but really it is okay, it means I can use it as an excuse to keep boys away and it means I can talk to him fucking constantly, and that is fucking awesome. Aside from You Guys, Nic and Heather and Andy and the Mikes, he's the only one who can calm me down with rationality. I admit that I am completely flighty and irrational and nonsensical, and I don't usually respond well to sense and reason. Aaaaand, now he's going to sleeeeeep, I can't blame him, it's nearing 3 am and he usually isn't up this late. This sucks in an exponential sense. I could kill someone right now. Like, omg, I could just skull-fuck someone with a machete about now.
Well. Time to pack up. Everybody else is…
Okay. It's Sunday, eight-something am, and I am sore and tired. I slept intermittently for something like 2-3 hours. I used the train's excuse for a bathroom and nearly smashed both my elbows at the same time by sitting still. I paid 7 dollars for bad coffee, pre-scrambled eggs and cold hashbrowns. I met a very nice, well-to-do man who travels a lot [like, all over all countries] and was very softspoken and intelligent, with the kind of eyes that look sleepy but are definitely taking in every minute detail. I also met a woman, talkative and clearly a little wound up, and she told me all about her son enlisting at age 35 [!] and how they're sending him to Iraq at Christmas. She gave me a motion-sickness pill [hangover + no sleep + rocky train through Pennsylvania hill-side], and when breakfast was over she slipped me two more. What a sweetie. She's got something like five grandkids, so she must have just loved having someone to take care of, even just a little bit.
I just saw some awesome graffiti outside the Pittsburg station: "Fuck with people daily!"
Man. I'd love to have a cigarette, but I just don't think my not-quite-a-headache could handle it. Maybe I'll take a nap. Yeah. That's it.
Riding a train is like riding in a car and riding on a boat simultaneously.
Well. I DID take a nap there. I napped until noonish, and at some point they stopped the train in… Um. Cumberland, MD, and they let us get out and smoke. I met this really nice guy named Doug, and it was really funny when later I discovered that while I hadn't wanted to be like "oh, hey, that's my ex's name!" he had been thinking the exact same thing. Only his ex is that kind of dumb bitch who spells her name Stefanie. I think that just looks silly. Anyway. We hung out and played cards and talked about all sorts of things. He's in some train-conductor training program bit, and so he's heading up to Delaware for that. Thanks to the train being so late, he is probably still on a bus or just arriving only to be due in some important class at 8am. Sucks for him. But he was really super nice and if his friend from Wisconsin hadn't been asleep we'd have gotten a Euchre game together, but that's okay because my stop came before we'd have finished it. And he was a sweetie and didn't ask for my number or my email address and therefore I didn't have to lie to him that I was "seeing someone". I do really hate lying, and Graham likes to be all nonchalant about the fact that I'm doing it and that he wants me to do it and to keep doing it [though he'd never tell me to, I made that choice on my own, it just happened to be the one he likes], but the fact is that there has been NO seeing, no seeing at all even remotely. And my phone has like, zero signal at my Aunt's house. In a few angles it works okay, sitting in the right place on the ottoman or the outside coffee table. So now I can barely talk to him at all. Which sucks so much.
But it's gorgeous here. The mountains, the river, the buildings, the streets even. The air smells different, better. The outside nighttime noises are much louder and there are more of them as well. Driving down the road is like being on a roller coaster, there are hills and curves and just madness everywhere. Well. I'm passing out. So. Well. About time, eh?
Okay. It's nearing eleven am, and I am awake and currently filling myself with coffee. I came outside in hopes of improving phone signal, and found a despondent message from Graham, who is clearly sad at this lack of talking. That makes me simultaneously sad for him but pleased that he cares about talking to me enough to get sad when he can't. Hopefully this spurs the flesh-meeting, because eventually I can get a new phone that works better in mountainous countryside [he's suggested this prepaid thing that he uses where he bought unlimited texting], but until then I'm going to go crazy without him. Anyway. After this coffee marathon I'm going to set out calling all the job ads in the paper and then to muck around with my resume and HOPEFULLY my aunt has interwebs here that I can plug into so I can put up some profiles on various nanny-searching sites. For that would be neat. Find some rich-ass family looking for a live-in nanny, go live with them. Some of the ads were for full room and board "spacious accommodations", plus $1000/wk. Holy crap! Well. Even the daytime is louder here, the bugs are going crazy. I saw something that looked like a combination moth/hornet, and Joe [who is renting a room from my Aunt, the room next to mine AND the bathroom across from my room *shakes fist*] said that's totally normal, and yeah, they ARE huge aren't they?
I'm in mourning for my phone signal. I feel so cut off and remote and. And sooner or later that's really going to get to me. The people here are all really nice, though, everybody waves when you pass them or holds doors for you or chats with you in the grocery store, and they all talk about half as fast as I do—when I'm TRYING to speak slowly. Like, I know I talk fast, but when I talk at the speed the rest of you guys do [my slowdown speed, that is] they say "too fast, too fast, don't worry! We'll let you get to the end of your sentence!"
Um, okay, that bee is like the size of my pinky finger. Holy crap. Well. I should go getting to doing things, because I have forever to type and I am currently very busy and very curious. I get to organize my aunt's ENTIRE HOUSE and I am sooo excited!
***
it's very different here. everybody is so nice, and you get introduced to them and poof! it's like instantly you've been friends for twenty years. they make a lot of jokes, but not the funny mean sarcastic ones we make back home. like, silly little jokes you chuckle at but don't really laugh wholeheartedly. i much prefer the witty sarcasm of the northlands. you don't need to laugh at it because you're busy making your own witty sarcastic reply. i heart sarcasm.
but the scenery, oh man, that makes up for it. i can see maryland and virginia mountain-wise, across the river. the river is amazing. it's like. the neighbors told me it was "cold this summer" but it's way warmer than the chip, it was like taking a bath. when you jump in from the dock it's up to my chin [and that's onlylike, five feet out from shore], and omg. omg is is wonderful. you can see the current, and it's slow, and i am positive that if i felt so inclined i could swim across with no problems whatsoever. but, you know, then i'd be tired and i'd need to swim back.
ugh. well. you know, i'm fucking tired. i applied for some jobs today, woot. let's hope i get one of them for they are very very close to me. i mean that in relative terms, of course.
***
and so, more news. the job hunt continues. there's a place hiring servers, but it's a strip club and i can't work there AND live here, my aunt would positively kick me out on my ass. plus i know full well that they're mostly hiring just dancers, because i've seen like forty ads for them and only one ad for servers. and, um, yeah. i know, i know. not a good idea. i've been applying all over the place, and online a lot, and yadda yadda yadda on to more interesting things.
i learned today that when i am in the river i am in MARYLAND. no more west virginia. like, when i climb off the stairs onto the dock i am technically not in wv anymore. that is super neat. i got up today, and heard all sorts of bitching about how cold it was, saw people driving around outside in sweatshirts, and i put my swimsuit on and jumped in the river to a bunch of people going . they all thought i was going to get freaking hypothermia or something, but in actuality, it was still a little on the warm side.
but um, yeah, okay. i'm off now to apply for some more jobs: bank teller [the bank manager gave me her card so i can use her for a reference! how sweet!], grocery-store something or another, and more at the race track. woot!
***
So. Yesterday was fairly awful for various reasons. Bought cheese I was less than pleased with [like a cheap version of Black Diamond, only really I just wanted a smooth-textured sharp white cheddar, but it's crumbly and I hate that in a hard cheese], bought delicious looking crackers that I'm very not pleased with, I did lots of registering with different online job sites, etc. etc., went on a meandering journey alongside a rocky, curvy highway through brambles and other such nonsense to have a clear enough signal to talk to Graham, wound up texting awhile, dodging cars that were positively RACING down the hills, and getting really upset.
Came home with burrs in my clothes and hair, huge cut on my leg, in tears, pissed as fuck, and left him some sappy sad "I think you'll wind up hating me if I don't just leave you alone" message, and just turned on the tv and. Ugh. Constantine was on. So I mean, seriously.
Anyway. Had a really really amazing tarot reading after that, and then, out of nowhere, when my phone was proudly proclaiming its complete lack of signal, I got a very sweet urgent seeming text from Graham about having gotten my message and was I ok and so on and so forth [all of you understand that I'm just psychotic and every so often I think it's the motherfucking end of the world. I'm not sure if Graham hasn't learned yet that you can just leave me alone and I'll chill out or if he just cares enough to not like that it happens at all. So sweet.].
So then [it's like, midnight-thirty at this point] I threw on some shoes, ran outside, and proceeded to run up and down streets in and out of signal-areas, texting madly until like, two am.
Graham told me a lot of important stuff. I'm really even more interested with him now, even. I'm still anxious as fuck to talk to him, but things are much more awesome. I'm sure I'm going to run out to the end of the subdivision tonight to text him ridiculously again, whether he's there or not, just so I can know that I'm talking to him.
Gods, I'm such a GIRL.
Anyway. Then I went to sleep, woke up, and instantly the phone rang! Not 24-hours earlier I had created a profile on a nanny-finding website, and some wonderfully well-off doctor in Williamsburg, VA responded to my post. She's even only got one daughter and they live in some ritzy gated community with pools, tennis courts, and a golf course. I mean, holy fuck. Anyway, we talked for like an hour and she's going to call me back. I got an email from another family, and I'll call her tomorrow afternoon if I don't hear from Williamsburg lady. She'd have the easier job to offer me, with better pay and days off, as well as being closer to [fucking duh] Graham.
Speaking of Graham, I've started knitting him a tie, out of that yarn that I was making the lace sock out of before I frogged it. Then I went swimming, and set up my webcam stuff so I can talk to Odin, and now I'm going to go make sure my Aunt isn't trapped at the bottom of the ladder [that leads to the river] with her canoe. Then comes more Graham-knitting time and I think I'm going to just fucking veg with the TV. I have a few letters to finish [ok, only one letter, my letter to Heather, I have a letter to Andy to START], and hopefully soon my next package arrives, for it contains within it my envelopes and stamps.
Strange, mailing yourself stamps... Anyway, I'm away! What a fucking kickass day!!!
***
So. More days have passed here, rainy ones full of glorious gloom and streaming wind and lots of joyful things.
Things like a visit to a tiny library where I found an amazing and helpful Tarot book and discovering that even though Graham and I can't text due to my lack of signal, we can IM via yahoo messenger, and if he's not actually on messenger I can just send him an email and he receives it as a text message. And I can send him pictures, so I did. The cutesy one of Heather and Andy and me, and the one where I'm giving Andy a talking-to for the time he called Pat and went off about a certain something [photo by Heather], and um. I dunno. Oh yeah, the awesome one of the fan and my face at Heather's Dad's wedding.
I'm really only typing all of this while I'm working up the courage to call this lady who contacted me from a nanny site...
Anyway, shit is cool. I'm looking for a job and a car simultaneously, and that's neat I guess. Right now I'm slugging down the coffee and contemplating doing a load of laundry, or maybe just turning on some cartoons and slamming my brain inside that Tarot book again.
[a bit later] eeeee! I got the package I sent myself full of professional stuff, and I got a call from a job, only they called my cell phone and the call dropped. But I called back, so somebody should get ahold of me soonish I would think.
um, yeah, okay. i'm done here.
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