But Call Me Betsy

Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry...I took approximately ten forms of public transportation today including the subway, the R 5 regional rail, the #47 bus (twice), the feet, the Pony Express, and the rickshaw. Consequently, I opted not to take the Greyhound to New York as planned, though I will have to catch it in the a.m. in order to get to downtown Manhattan for the AWP Conference plus lunch with Joe, whom I never thought I would see again. Bet he wears his khaki coat. There will be a Penn State reunion this week--hoping to see Jeff and Carla and Matt Siegel and Hoffer and Matt Perez and Adam and Dave and last but not least, Luke, Liz, Snake and Tessa (though Tessa is last on my list of individuals to see). Had my philosophy and pop culture class last night; I think I'm going to really like it though I did space out a bit when we were discussing philosophy and style. I'd like to write one of my papers on the philosophy of the show, Intervention , how they subscribe to...

I don't know what the hell I've been doing with my time, but I seem to be too busy to post. I had my first grad play writing class on Saturday and almost didn't go...Did I really want to commit to 15 weeks of getting up early on the weekend? But then I realized that that was being colossally lazy and I went in. I'm glad I did because the teacher arrived about five minutes late and the first thing he said when he walked into the class was "Well, I'm filled with hatred." I liked him immediately. He's a big man who tells good stories and is captivating in the way only some theatre people are; listening to him talk is like listening to a good episode of This American Life. He had stories about Madonna and Sean Penn (Sean Penn had a role in Earthworms, a play the teacher wrote) about going to Yale Drama School at the time Meryl Streep and Sigorney Weaver were also there, but it wasn't like he was name-dropping. The class is small, about 8 of us and only...

Wait, is there a war in Iraq? Who cares about that; what does Mary Kate Ashley Brittany Olsen have to do with the death of this actor? The reading went really well last night. They had it in Foster Auditorium in the Paterno Library and so the seats were arranged like theater in the round and it was a good turn-out, mostly because some students were required to attend. But Julie and Danny and Sherri and Sheila and Adam and Matt and Mary and Penny showed up so that was nice. Charlotte Holmes took me and to dinner at the Indian Pavilion and two grad students attended; both were great though it sounds like the MFA students of today aren't as big of alcoholics/drug addicts as we had in my day. Charlotte remembered everybody and remembered all the drama--the affairs, the broken windows, the blood-letting. Going to dinner was a good distraction from the nervousness so that by the time I got there, I was feeling okay, not too jittery. Charlotte gave a nice introduction and then I went up ...

I have made it to State College for my reading tonight and even managed to practice the stories I think I want to read; had to be sure I wasn't going on too long or cutting it too short either. I know I will be nervous, but I'm trying not to be pre-nervous. Going to dinner at the Indian Pavillion with a former professor and two grad students at 5:30 and will not drink ten glasses of wine beforehand, though I may have some after. In choosing the pieces to read, I am worried that they are too similar; all these quirky girls with problems connecting to others. Sometimes, I hear from other people that the stories are sad, but I don't see them that way. Well, that' s not totally true b/c there are a lot of stories where someone dies or leaves permanently, but...that seems realistic. I'm staying at the Nittany Lion Inn in a room with a king-sized bed and two bottles of Aqua Fina and an ironing board and those little plastic bottles of cheap shampoo. Julie took me to lunc...

For just a little while, my computer was dead due to a water spill facilitated by Ernesto. Then, it corrected itself. But later, Ernesto and Emma C. got into a fight and Ernesto jumped onto my keyboard and fucked something up so now my Windows won't stop cascading vertically. So, I am typing this while watching my letters unfold vertically. It's giving me a headache, but I cannot figure out how to fix it. Secondly, I sent what I thought was a witty, friendly and funny email to someone and he misread it completely and created more anxiety in my life, worrying that I would show up somewhere with a SWAT team at the ready. I feel like I keep making the same mistakes; I am continually a little too open even though the reaction I get is often this sort of skepticism. Maybe I am not meant to be a professional. Maybe I should take up a job as a mime or talk show host; no, I probably wouldn't do well as a talk show host either because I'd ask Tom Cruise why he didn't just c...

So, Top Gun was on last night (I imagine it plays virtually every day on some channel or another) and even though I was tired after having been to an art opening and a party in Germantown (I am quite popular), I had to stay up to watch the whole thing. I kept saying, Okay, I'll go to bed after Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis make out...Okay, I'll go to bed after Meg Ryan shows up...After Goose dies...I finally made it upstairs after the credits ran at 2 a.m. The best is the volleyball scene where Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer and that other dude who was in Roxanne are shirtless but then Goose has on a tee shirt and Bermuda shorts. That's got to have hurt his pride somewhat. Is this film an underground classic in the male gay culture? It should be, since every other scene has these dudes walking around in white towels for no real reason. And let's face it, Kelly McGillis isn't the most feminine of women. She could definitely be a guy in drag. In grad school, my friend Da...

That is what I have been advised to do. I will try it--in my head only, but if that doesn't work this time, I'll see what happens when I create an actual chest guard out of aluminum foil and packing tape. Per a magazine article about something else, I started making a list this morning of 100 things I want to do in the next couple of years; huge, impossible goals and manageable ones. I've found that none of them so far include high risk activities like bungee jumping or sky-diving or swimming with boa constrictors (I only made it to 30 before having to leave for work). Of course, I'm scared to do any of those things, yes, but I also don't have an overwhelming desire to say I've done them or to actually do them. Maybe I should? I also don't have a desire to travel to third world countries, though I should probably want to do that too. And I'm not much of a tropical beach person either. Like, Hawaii, Maui, Bali or an of the other "i-ending" vac...

I have been trying to use my digital camera more; I carry it with me wherever I go, but mostly that just means it gets gum and Liberty Bell stamps stuck to it from floating around in my purse. But I did take this picture of a neighborhood cemetery today. It's weird to see your name on a tombstone, but it will happen one day. Though I prefer to be cremated. I still have Gretel's ashes in a wooden box that resembles a recipe holder. I don't have to scatter her ashes, do I? I want to keep them. Even though I suspect that what I really have is an olio of a Dalmatian named Spot and three cats named Blackie . I doubt they incinerate each animal individually. Spent a couple of hours at the 10 th Street laundromat and was relieved to find that it wasn't too competitive today. I did five loads of laundry. Why so much? I just washed my clothes like a month ago. Eavesdropped on a Spanish conversation between a man and a woman who didn't know each other. The man just kept a...

As promised, I would like to say a few words about last Saturday night when we gals (I hate the word "gals") went out to Smith's to belatedly celebrate Molly's birthday. I was very excited because: 1. I don't get out much; 2. Stephanie agreed to come in from K of Prussia to attend; 3. Molly invited her sister and I was dying to meet her. She works in children's oncology at HUP and I was really interested to talk to her about her job and also to see what she was like. Molly is one of my favorite people and when you have a favorite person, it's quite possible that her/his relative might also be someone you can add to your favorite list. Unfortunately, though her sister (Jennifer?) came from work and was therefore wearing scrubs (how cool is that? I had a dream last night that I was allowed to wear scrubs to work. I also dreamt that I lived in this house that got robbed and I was offended b/c they didn't even attempt to steal my TV), I didn't get much...

No severance pay (unless you count half a bag of One cat food and some Meow Mix treats), no warning, and no hope for future employment. She has been returned. I went over to P & C's house on Tuesday night to retrieve her, expecting a welcome reunion, but instead, I got a disinterested flick of the tail. She then spent the rest of the evening in Padhraig's lap, her head buried in his elbow in disbelief of the betrayal. Back to the house of cats where she is not the sole animal (though she is still the queen bee). She did not catch one mouse but instead clawed up the wicker carpet and spread fur all over the Ikea chair. She did sniff at the holes where the mices disappeared, but that's really it. Useless.

I checked out this book from the new releases in the library by Marion Copeland called Cockroach . It's a nonfictional account of the cockroach--its history, the reasons for the species survival, its place in literature, why it has a bad rap, etc. The book contains numerous great illustrations, both painting and photographs. I have been reading it while on the bike at the gym and even though I am starting to empathize more with the roach, I find myself feeling itchy while reading, like little buggy-bugs are scampering up the back of my neck. What is it with the general ick about these bugs? They don't bite, they don't sting, they're not strictly carnivores or even predators of any kind, they don't behave badly to one another, they don't carry diseases, and they don't like people and will run away (can speed off into corners at a rate equivalent to a person running 90 m.p.h.). People like me who have lived in Florida have more reason to ick-out at cockroaches...

She has been loaned out to Padhraig and Carrie to try to catch the mice/squirrels scrambling inside their walls. She hated being in the carrier, and was a little spastic when I first let her out into the new place, but then she seemed okay. Padhraig later text-messaged me to let me know that she did a little poo in her litter box. Hooray! I fear she may be too fat to catch mice, but what a triumph if she would. I warned Carrie not to fall too deeply in love with her as she must be returned to me at some point. Henri seems very happy to have her gone, and Ernesto appears non-plussed. Liz and Luke were up this past weekend for New Year's and we had fun though we didn't do much of anything, except spend 12 hours at IKEA, eat ginger cookies, play Sims and watch Intervention . We had Indian food at Padhraig and Carrie's on New Year's Eve along with LM and John and then set out to a party in Fishtown where everyone was very nice and very young. The guy who threw the party ow...