Day Late, Dollar Short. Something Like That.

I wrote this yesterday at school and totally forgot about it when I got home.

When I put on my jacket yesterday morning, I reached into the left pocket and there was a genetically altered Jolly Rancher deep, deep in the pocket which had morphed into something only recognizable by the shredded remains of the wrapper. It was bright blue, and I couldn't imagine at first what this sticky goo on my fingers was, but now I know, and I think I have to spend the weekend figuring out some way to get it the hell out of there.

I don't want to move to Arizona, or anywhere, really, which brings up something I've always wondered about: why do we all live where we do? Even where there are extremes of weather or frequent natural disasters? Is it inertia that keeps us where we are because we're already there? I get it that people move for jobs and like that, but what keeps us where we keep?

As for me, New Jersey is where my parents moved when they left the city -- the Bronx, in New York City -- in the mid-fifties. And most of the family is still relatively close, so I suppose that's why I'm here. But let me talk about the weather some.

It's hot in the summer, and humid, but not deathly hot and humid like Florida. It's cold in the winter, but it's not the Yukon. Hey, it's not even New England. We get their nor'easters here every so often, and a few times each decade we wake up to two or three feet of snow. But then life stops, no one has to go out in it, and we move on. Hurricanes? Yes, we do get hurricanes, and have had several severe ones in my fifty-plus years, but nothing like they get farther south. Earthquakes. I may have told my earthquake story before -- I'm not telling it now; I'll save it for another time -- but the reality is that although there are occasional mild earthquakes, I have only ever once been aware of one happening. Tornadoes have happened in north Jersey more in recent years, but again, never close to me and I have never seen one. Floods. Yes, there are many places here that flood, just like everyplace else with rivers nearby. B-Town is in a little pocket between two rivers, one of them very small, and so parts of town get minor flooding all the time, and bigtime flooding with evacuations when there's a hurricane. Forest fires? Way too humid for that, most of the time, and not so much in the way of forests left around here. New Jersey's biggest forest is the Pine Barrens in south Jersey -- you may recall this from The Sopranos; it's where they disposed of bodies -- but it's too humid there for a serious conflagration.

So the funny thing is that weather-wise, it's not so bad here. And no, it does not smell. New Jersey does not smell, despite the popular belief to the contrary. Of course there is somewhere in New Jersey that smells, just like anywhere else. Unfortunately for our reputation, that stretch of nasty smelling road is on the New Jersey Turnpike, where there are lots of oil refineries and swamps just before you get to New York City. The rest of the state smells mostly like pine, or tomatoes and strawberries, or here in B-Town, oreos. (We have a big Nabisco factory in town.)

And so. I met with the boss this morning and progress is being made on my library situation, although I'm not sure exactly what or exactly when. Our new vice-principal was involved in some part of it, and let me tell you, he is absolutely a sweetheart, but he is in so way over his head, he won't see air for years.

My neck is very sore from the exercises I've been doing, but sore like after exercise, not sore like my vertebrae want to go on vacation and not hold my head up any more. An improvement, perhaps.I'll be taking my second dose of the new medicine tomorrow, so maybe then I'll start to see some improvement there.

It's Friday, something I very much enjoy, and R and the GF are coming by for a visit tomorrow. And maybe I can sleep in a little.





watching ---- :: ENTRY #2126
READING: Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
READING: Reading Lolita in Teheran by Azar Nafisi