the voices dying with a dying fall

Songs of the hour: Starman by David Bowie, assorted Liz Phair

I have finally managed to put the cards down and focus on life a
little. I spent yesterday afternoon researching grad schools– and  I
say again, University websites are the bane of my existence. They tell
you nothing.

I’ve decided (as much as I decide anything) that I’d rather go into a
PsyD program than a PhD program. The main difference is that the PhD
prepares you for research as well as practice, while the PsyD focuses
on practice. It’s also about a year shorter on average. The problem is,
there are far less PsyD programs out there. Looking at ranked
universities, Widener in Philadelphia seems to be one of the best. The
the others are in MA, NJ, MI, IN, CT, CA and there’s one in VA at The
College of William and Mary. Point is, none of these are in NC.

It’s not that I’m averse to moving. I just can’t imagine leaving my dad
all alone. I brought up the subject yesterday in a roundabout fashion,
somewhere along the lines of  "So daddy, how do you feel about moving
to Philadelphia?"  He stopped what he was doing and stared at me,  in
one of his characteristic eternal pauses, "Not so good."
"Dad, I don’t want to leave you here alone."
I explained the situation and his immediate response was, "Well, you on
to where you need to go and do what you got to do. We’ll be fine here."
Meaning of course,  him and Joss. 
"Daddy, I’m taking Joss with me."
"No you’re not either."
"Dad, I’m not leaving him for years. When I move, he moves with me."
Long pause.
"Jenny, I can’t get along without that little boy."
"I know it. That’s why you’re moving with us. So where do you want to live? Philadelphia? Massachusetts?"
"Naw, it’s cold up there."
"What about Alabama? or Florida? You tell me where you want to live,
and I’ll work something out. There’s just nothing here. Not in NC."

He started playing the harmonica and I let it drop. But I’ve planted
the seeds of his uprooting, I need to give them time to take hold. I
really don’t know what to do. Given the choice between skipping out on
grad school, and forcing my dad to live out of Joss’ reach, I’m
skipping school. I don’t think I could leave Joss and be content
flying/driving back on weekends. Of course there are a zillion
financial considerations no matter what happens, and I have no idea
what kind of schools I’ll even be able to get into, and the whole
goddamn thing’s sketchy as hell to me, but this is the biggest hurdle.
I’ll have to see how he "figures" it.

On a different note, I would like to share with you my latest
discovery. Here we have Vojo’s citrus energy mints. Sugar free,
contains some amount of vitamins  caffeine,
and comes in this sleek
box. Very exciting. But when I opened it, lo and behold, it revealed itself to be the ideal, cutting edge cocaine carrier that it is. Not only does it contain a nice amount of space convenient for any shape substance, it also has a mirror inside the lid. Obviously, I do not involve myself in narcotics of any sort. however, I can’t help but wonder what other purpose such a mirror  would serve in such a container.

   

The mints themselves, being a connoisseur of mints, are a little tart  and have that bitter vitaminy aftertaste. I, however, love them. They taste just like baby aspirin. And when I was a child, I loved baby aspirin.

Actually, I ate half a bottle of baby aspirin once. I had just watched that cartoon "The Littles" about little people about the size of mice that lived in walls and had to hide all the time so that no one found out about them. There was an evil man  that suspected their existence and was always hunting them. Anyway, that episode, they
were doing a don’t do drugs thing and the immediate danger of some kid who was on the verge of doing some kind of drug was enough to make the littles REVEAL THEMSELVES to the kid to talk him out of it. I may be misremembering, but I think that’s the gist of it. So I, in my tricky 8 year old cleverness, went back to my room with a bottle of baby aspirin and narrated loudly and at length what I was about to do to an empty room. When I had finally consumed half the bottle in slow, dramatic, narrative gestures, I finally concluded– what’s that? You think I concluded that they didn’t exist? Don’t be silly. Of course they exist. I concluded that they didn’t care if I lived or died.

what a brat. my god.

love.

Song of the Hour: I Hear the Bells by Mike Doughty, assorted Okkervil River.

Due
to a recently reborn spades addiction, I have been unavailable for
comment. If you would like to wave at me, I can generally be found at
pogo.com nilling some poor unsuspecting Canadian retiree to death. I
have a problem. It’s not gambling, but you do win lottery prizes and of
course there’s your all important ranking system. Who needs to research
grad schools or study for the GRE? There hands to be played, dammit, and if i don’t play them, who will?

It’s
nostalgic, really. Spades, and Suzie’s porch are forever linked. Gin
and Kool-aid (what was wrong with us?), and the meth lab next door
(what was wrong with everybody?). I’ve
spent more time chatting with online spades partners than I have the
people around me. I can only hope I grow bored with it soon.

I
bowled a 125 today. Which isn’t stellar by any means, but it’s my best
since class started. I’ve found bowling to be as much a lesson in
anatomy as in physics. By pulling different muscles everyday, I get to
learn about muscle groupings and the length and breadth of each. This
is high quality, hands on education that I couldn’t have come by at an
earlier age. Thirty is still young, but bowling didn’t feel like this
at twenty, that’s for damn sure.

Wow. I seriously have nothing
exciting to report. It’s all spades and bowling alleys and Joss. And
Star Trek TNG. We’re on season 3 now, and I feel this bizarre mingling
of guilt and pleasure as Joss gets more and more interested in it. I
subjected him to Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars, X-Men and now Star Trek
with equal dedication. It’s as though I’m going out of my way to shape
a bona fide geek, such as I am. I even got him to watch the D&D
cartoon that I watched growing up. Should
I feel guilty? You can’t force someone to like something. As much as my
parents tried to force me to like more "normal" things, the influence
of wanting to please them only went so far. I think Joss genuinely
likes the sci-fi/fantasy stuff I throw at him… I hope so at least. I
hope he isn’t just trying to please me. Last night he was very
insistent that we watch the next episode, and completely without
prodding. He obviously doesn’t get all the science jargon, of which
there is a copious amount if you’ve never watched the show, but he
wants to watch it anyway. I don’t know, should I feel guilty? I guess
he’ll grow out of it soon if he’s only doing it for my sake. I stopped
watching all the sports/wrestling crap that my dad and brother watched
when I was about his age. It wasn’t worth it anymore.

I also
spend about 7 hours a week playing Joss’ new favorite video game, Jak
III. It’s like this weird cross between Road Warrior and Sonic the
Hedgehog where you’re fighting a losing war against an army of powerful
machines fueled by "dark ego" and you have a series of missions to
accomplish that are fairly difficult. I’ve never been so interested in
the actual story of a video game before. It’s kind of dark at times,
you’re wondering through a town and there are raids by the enemy and
your character mumbles "we’ve already lost this war"  when the battles
are over, even though you won. I was skeptical at first that Joss
would, I don’t know, "get it"– but one of the allies says some really
harsh things about "acceptable losses" that has spawned some
interesting conversations between us. Insights into human nature come
from the strangest corners I guess. Regardless, it’s something fun to
do together. And since Joss is doing his "end of grade" testing all
week, he doesn’t have any homework.
let’s see how this "no child left behind" thing goes.

Alrighty. Time for one more spades tournament before I meet the jossling’s bus.
I really, really hope I get bored with this cards thing soon. It’s worse than The Sims.

love.