I'll Meet You by the Cemetery Gates

Toe,
Happy Halloween, man. How was the exam? Man, it sounds like you were seriously stressed. I hope it went well.

I am just working today. May go to the library and photocopy some stuff and renew a library book. Is it wrong of me to have my own business but still use the photocopier at the library? I haven't gotten one of my own because I am cheap and there is no room in my office. I also don't own a fax for those two reasons, with the additional one that I think faxes are outdated technology.

Excuses, excuses...

Thinking of buying a house here soon. I'm calling to look at some places. We're going for cheaper properties so we don't have massive monthly payments.

Anyway, I need to work. Hope you're well and that you aced it.
E-word

Ashtray floors

E-word,

I am still studying for this exam I have tonight at 7. This is horrible. While I'm starting to get the gist of what I'm doing, I realize that as an 'old' student (that's what El's mom calls me) this kind of study has caused me to become quite ascetic. I've barely left the house since I came home from work on Friday, eating what food is available and drinking the occasional red bulls when I'm starting to come down a little bit. This is my life. I feel a bit like a monk, sitting at my table with a desk lamp memorizing verses, or whatever monks do.

This weekend has been ridiculous. I called in sick today because I was having panic attacks about my exam. This shit is crazy, it's no wonder I was such a bad student; putting this much effort into studying stresses me the fuck out.

Well, better get back to the grindstone. I've got a few more hours here before my test. I'm feeling a lot better than I did this morning, tell you what. I was freaking out.

Have a good day in D_b.

Toe

Air supply

Hey Toe,
Drinking while traveling seems the norm. I find I tend to drink a little more when I am in DC. My plane was delayed coming out, so of course I had some beers at the airport bar. It makes the time go, you know?

What was Oilton like, other than being full of rich, surgically enhanced women?

Thanks for the compliments about the photos. Yeah, rubbing out the faces was a little bit of an odd choice, true. I kept thinking of someone coming across this Web site and saying "hey, I didn't give permission to have my picture posted there." So I brought out the Windows Paint program--amazing how much you can do with that software. It ain't photoshop, but it works for me.

Hope your exam goes well today. I don't really understand anything you're studying, but you're a smart guy, so I imagine you'll do all right.

It's gonna be warm here in D_b, so I am opening the windows. Nothing like fresh air.

Yeah, I got nothing either.
E-word

I look at them out together, and I see that she's wearing my sweater

E-word,

It's a windy fall afternoon here in Silver Spring. El is in New York, and I'm here supposedly studying for another exam I have on Monday. I am utterly unmotivated. I don't think taking two classes at a time is good for me, it's more than I can bear.

It is truly a bummer that I was in Oilston this week while you were visiting DC. Alas, what can you do. This modern life.

I really enjoy the photos you put up. Downtown D_b looks quaint, though the rubbed-out faces are kind of creepy. Also, Drugs? Actually, quaint and weird. The main thoroughfare seems awful wide for such a small town.

Well, I don't have much to say right now. I ended up drinking a lot while on travel, and starting thinking that setting and appearances are much more important than I previously thought they were.

I got nothin'.

Toe

Sunset on Prairietown

Toe,
A quiet autumn evening in D_b, on the main street.

Hope your trip to oilville is going well. I am off to the Imperial City tomorrow. Since you won't be around, I decided to stay outside town w/ my sister. It'll save the company money. We'll see how the commute is--this may be the last time I do it.

Had a decent weekend. Hope yours was good.

Sorry to be so brief.
Later,
E-Word

3000 Words

Fuzz and nerves

Hey Toe,
Just a few images I took from around town. I went for a long bike ride around our small town a few weekends ago with my camera. I'll post more over the next few days.

I imagine school must be so hard, what with working full time and all. I got my masters, but I was working part time at a bookstore back then. Like I said before, you have my respect.

Just think of the sense of accomplishment you'll have when all of this is over.

Tests--ach. I didn't have to take tests in grad school, how's that for scholarly? English lit is just a whole other ball of yarn. I assume you are probably a lot better at testing than you think you are, but perhaps the thought itself is causing you to panic and perform poorly? How are your results?

BTW: "Nervous diarrhea" is one of the best subject headings I've seen.

It's a cloudy day here in D_b. I am going to go for a walk or something to clear the fuzz out. I'll talk to you soon, man.
E-word

Nervous diarrhea

E-word,

Whew, nice to have that exam off my back, but at the same time I have another one coming up in two weeks. I think the thing that is most amazing about me going to school especially at this age and voluntarily is the fact that I have an enormous test phobia. I truly believe that I don't take tests well, which I think has become self-fulfilling prophecy. I'll have to work on that.

It's Tuesday morning, and for the first weekday this semester I actually got a decent amount of sleep. Augh, semesters. After I graduated it took me a couple of years to stop measuring time by semesters.

I really go up and down on this school thing. Like, part of me believes it's a good thing to do for myself, my career, learning is good, etc, but another part of me is like, man, I'd like to go the gym or read a book or like go out or something, but ha, the funny thing I'm guessing is if I didn't have school I'd just be watching tv or something useless.

Man, I'm incoherent.

Work sucks dick!

Toe

Grass marmot grass marmot grass marmot grass marmot grass

Hi Toe,
This morning I took the car in for one of it's big milestone services. It is a beautiful morning, so I rode my bike back home along a bike trail near the river (it's really just a creek, but it is called a river here). As I got past the water treatment plant, I could see across the stream a brown and white hawk standing on an embankment about 6 feet from a fat marmot. There seemed to be no interaction happening between the two creatures, but I wondered: Had the hawk descended hoping to kill the marmot and realized at the last minute that it was too big? The marmot seemed oblivious to the hawk's presence--it just lazily nibbled on the grass on the upper banks of the river. It seemed confident that it was too big a meal for the hawk.

I stopped my bike to watch the scene. The hawk watched me, but the marmot kept grazing. I stood for a minute, and then the hawk took off, flapping across the river toward the water treatment plant. It landed on the plant fence, which has several rows of barbed wire on top angled toward the interior of the plant. I worried that if I remained I might startle the hawk into the barbed wire, so I continued on my way home.

Ten yards further on, I startled a pair of blue herons, which took off back toward the hawk and the marmot. It was like an episode of Wild Kingdom.
E-word