Hey! There's my new landlord outside of the coffee shop I'm sitting in.

myspAnd a guy who looks like Karl Rove just crossed the street.

I'm still in Champaign and not much is going on. I've been staying in my sister's apartment a lot because 1) I don't know of anything to do around here, 2) I only know my sister's friends, and 3) my sister has free cable. It's not just basic cable either she has the SPEED channel and the NASA channel. If you haven't seen the NASA channel your life is empty and worthless or I guess it could mean that my life, at present, is empty and worthless either way. Even though I sometimes don't move from the couch for half days at a time my sister has been really nice about me living there. We haven't fought hardly at all, except for some salty talk when I was learning how to drive her standard transmission truck and that mostly came from me. We've also been playing soccer on her friend's playstation. Though I'm getting better, I'm still the player who runs away from the ball, gets stuck in the goal's net, or runs the ball out of bounds when no one is around me. So far my higher learning is getting off to great start.

I got an apartment, which should be apparent from the title of this post. There's nothing interesting about it except that it's cheap and clean, a combination of things I was beginning to think impossible to find in Champaign. The best thing about it is that it has a really rad front door.

Speaking of doors, the night I left Lincoln I dropped my beloved Mrs. Castle off on someone's back doorstep. Even though I thought she was in good hands I didn't hear anything about the drop-off and I got really worried that she might have ended up in the garbage. That is until Daniel called to say she had found her way into his life. I'm not sure how Mrs. Castle was received when I dropped her off, but I chuckled the whole way to Illinois.

Daniel, now Mrs. Castle is in your care. You can keep her around the house as a security dummy or you may choose to drop her off at other people's houses (a house warming gift for Scott?), but you must retreive her after the joke and you must take care of her until you aren't able.

From what I've observed so far, I think I have the coolest bike in town and definately, the only Kona Smoke.

Hugs and Kisses,

eH

It's Not Illinois Anymore, It's Just Noise

Leah gave me detailed directions to the library this morning and half way there I realized I hadn't paid attention. I made it to the grad library though, and then moved on to the ag. library. So far, Illinois is just not that interesting. Well, except for the shithole apartments I've looked at. In one, I was amazed that they wanted me to pay them for living there, when, in fact, they should have paid me, as an experiment, to see how long I could survive breathing in the smell of pit bull pee.

I think Leah wants me out of her house soon, even though I've vacuumed twice and wash the dishes.

Tree City, USA

Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey*, No More

Friday was my last day at work; the sweet, sweet end to my attempt at being responsible and adult-like. Surprisingly, the day flew by, partly because I had to type a four page e-mail to a guy I had spent Thursday afternoon with explaining the process I go through to yield the maps I generated for my job. Apparently, he heard not a word I said to him in the two and a half hours I sat at his side watching him repeatedly start typing on the wrong keyboard in front of him, getting frustrated and listening to my explanations less and less. The culprit was the two computers, two monitors, two mice, and two keyboards he thought he needed on his desk and the longer I sat by him the less sense I could see in doubling up on computing power. I didn't think I did a bad job of explaining the basic parameters of the program I then went on to tell him how he should set up his project, and that's where I think I lost him. Well, no. He was lost at about the time I sat down and opened my mouth, but I didn't realize that until around three o'clock when I knew that, for my sanity, I couldn't spend the whole afternoon holding his hand. I made my excuses and bowed out around 3:30, by 10:30 Friday morning he had written me the e-mail I would spend my last day at work writing.

His e-mail started out stating that he wished he could have the two hours back from the day before, I sincerely wished that too, but when I read it I couldn't help but being irritated by his brazenness. It went on to list 12 questions he wanted answered (actually 11 questions, he typed "2" twice). Eleven questions about everything I covered the previous afternoon except for the last question, which was "Could we get together on Saturday to go over this some more? I can maybe compensate you for your time with some computer programs" (programs he was stealing off the internet). And even though it was my last day at work I didn't write back with my real answer to this question ("Fuck no, I'm not wasting my Saturday with you!") but let him down gently still comforted with the slight thrill I got from driving a state car across town, the air-conditioner on full blast and the college radio station playing loudly, and then leaving the radio's volume up really loud on the college radio station to startle the next driver, a person who most likely favors either sports-talk radio or Jesus-talk radio.

Monday was filled with meeting my now former boss and a few co-workers for a farewell lunch. Afterward I stopped by the office to fax my final time card and then, giddy with freedom, went to the library and hung out with all the other unemployed freaks. I checked out two books, a cooking memoir and a prostitution memoir. The prostitution book kept me busy the rest of Monday night and on into Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday was filled with the same, sleeping in late and then reading the rest of the day, I certainly wasn't squandering my time with packing for my upcoming move. From my experience, cooking and prostitution are pretty time consuming.

Today I had to leave my apartment because my landlord was showing it off. I made the minor effort of washing the dishes piled in the sink to make it look presentable. Otherwise, it's pretty messy and I've chosen not to think too hard about what the prospective renter might think about a person who keeps a utility knife on the edge of the bathroom sink and who lives with a giant yellow humanish sculpture in the corner of the bedroom (I suppose I can see why my landlords have been having a hard time renting my apartment). It was nice to get out. I'm starting to tour Lincoln recording my favorite spots, or memorable spots. Today was UN-L's campus and the downtown Mill, about which I'll post and write later.








*A line from the memoir, Julie and Julia, a line that I have no idea what it means, and a line I couldn't even figure out from the context of the story. Nevertheless, I have taken it on as a metaphor for my newly unemployed, soon to be graduate school lifestyle. No more am I a cubicle-monkey, government-drone, but a freed soul; I'm also trying to cut cheese out of my diet. Again, because of my unexplainable weight gain that can not follow me through relocation, though, as I type this I'm at The Mill drinking a calorie-laden granita (with a shot of toddy).