I do this thing everyday where I work for about 9-10 hours — and yeah, it’s work, so of course it’s not always the most invigorating way to spend my day — then I ride the subway home before I get to walk fifteen minutes from the station to my apartment. I don’t mind public transportation because I have no other choice but to use it, however there are some days when the public I share rapid transit with make me want to pack up and leave those god forsaken tunnels of filth forever.

I’ve complained about the G train before, but that had to do with the range of smells to be disturbed by while riding it. Here I have a short list of the awful awful sounds that make me grind my teeth into nothing.

1. The sound of someone singing along to their iPod.

2. An already low-fi recording of New York State of Mind blasting out of someone’s pay-as-you-go cell phone. Clearly no one wants to listen to this song on Wednesday at 7:30pm when they’re on their way home from their dead-end job.

3. Children screaming “mommy, no” when their mother deprives them of snacks.

4. Gum snapping/lip smacking/crinkling bags — anything food related goes in this category.

Well, months and years late, I am here and no longer a student. I graduated and wrote a small book of poetry. I wrote a useless introduction for the collection of poems, then I got a job at a restaurant in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn as an Office Manager.

I aspire to become a cat.

We used the word ADVICE to come up with six other words: Addiction, Death, Voyeur, Itching, Celibacy, and Eczema.  She chose the first three words, I chose the last.  We swapped words so that I had the first three and she had the last, then we each made a list of at least six different tweets using the individual word as a trend.  With our six piles of six tweets or more, we went to class.  Depending on birth order (oldest to youngest), we chose who got to roll the die first to determine which word they would get (1-Addiction, 2-Death, 3-Voyeur), etc.  Then from youngest to oldest, we cast the die to determine which number the tweet would be for the first stanza.  For the second stanza, we reversed the die-casting order from oldest to youngest, and so on until we had six stanzas then a tercet until we had created something like a Sestina.

And the result:

Last night Julie and I went to O’Lacy’s — possibly the only bar in Batavia that was ever hyped up enough for me to want to go to it.  Our High School chemistry teacher was there.  He was chewing tobacco and spitting into a plastic cup.  Apparently he has his first baby due in a few weeks.

Perhaps for old time’s sake, perhaps just because this is what we always do when we’re together in a public setting in Batavia, Julie and I crouched next to each other pointing and laughing at most of the people in the bar.  Later on when Julie left, I went to T.F. Brown’s with Michael and a few others.  Upon realizing that the band covering Beatles songs and the crowd of Batavia High graduates was too much to handle, I followed Michael outside to smoke a cigarette.  I didn’t have a lighter so I walked over to a table that seemed to be filled with strangers.  The girl closest to me who I decided to ask was wearing a pair of gray fleece sweatpants and had her hair in a pony tail.  “Yeah, what’s your name?” she said.

“Sharon”

“Clark?!”

“Um”

“You called Caitlin Hayes fat.  That’s not cool, she had a baby.”

“I don’t remember calling her fat, actually.”

“Here’s my lighter.”

“Thanks.”

I returned to my table and tried to focus on things like how my Jack and ginger ale tasted sort of like a blow pop.  I also tried to think about how despite the horrific encounter that I had to endure with the patron saint of Caitlin Hayes, I was drinking something that was half the price of what I would be buying in New York.

Tomorrow I go back to Brooklyn.  I’m hoping that my flight gets in on time so I can make it to the only class I have that subtracts a letter grade for each absence.  That’s right, the small press class at Pratt does that.

Friday I helped Julie with some sweeping and such at the gallery before her opening.  The Needle & Groove was incredibly successful, totally worth the flight back to see a very good friend’s work on display.

I finally told my parents that I’m planning on traveling for a month after graduation.  I also talked about moving out of my apartment.  The prospect of both of these things seemed fine with them.

I bought a ton of dresses from salvation army that I’m going to hem right now.  Bye.

Tonight I’m flying to Buffalo so I can make it to Julie’s gallery opening and to a few Doctor’s appointments.

So I thought about my blog and how I hadn’t updated it in awhile.  Rather than start out with how bummed I am that I’ve been “neglecting” it like it’s some kind of writerly duty, I thought I would round up some other blogs whose writers think “I should write in this more often.”

Here’s an example of the vague, but probably philosophical at the time it was written, “I should stop resting on my nonexistent laurels and do something with myself” sort of post.

This guy hasn’t written since 2007.  Because he’s been making money!  You don’t really need a Xanga if you’re making money.

It looks like this entry was the first and last for this gamespot.com user.  He/she is self-conscious of the fact that they will be publishing their “first official” journal entry on The Internet, but this doesn’t keep him/her from saying “Christmas is cumming.”

And of course, I’ll end with the practice makes perfect “shoulda coulda woulda” entry.

I don’t know if I’ll write more.  I just landed on the other side of the annual hump in the year where I think that I want to drop out of my expensive art school to be a window washer in Seattle, and one of my co-workers gave me a pep-talk about writing about what I’m interested in.

This is what I’m interested in:  eating oatmeal cookie Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream and watching Jon Hamm seduce women.

Freedom from the week-weekend-week-weekend-week-weekend-week cycle.  Please.

XO

Sharon