So I managed to make it out of Florida alive, despite the murderous heat, the rabid turtles, the ducks who eyed me with evil intent, and that terrible old lady hurricane mucking about the whole time trying to get some damn attention and love. I said to her "You catch more flies with honey!" but she just kept on haranguing us with a rain that turned the air to swamp. Oh it was horrible. And the Orlando airport was horrible, filled with lost souls who'd spent god knows how much of their hard-earned incomes on ill-advised trips to Disney World only to be rained out completely. Like this huge ragtag family from Scotland we sat next to on the plane who I believe spent their week long vacation in their hotel room watching TV. SUCKAS! I did have an awesome time on the plane watching my new favorite show Mad Men, which totally makes me want to smoke cigarettes at all times and develop a taste for manly booze. Oh and I cleeeeaned up at poker with my sister and our amazing host Glenna, who amongst other things told us she spent the last hurricane shut up in her closet with Jack, then showed us a photo of herself sitting in her closet hugging a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Here is my sister and me determinedly facing down Florida in all its evilness.



We flew into New York Saturday (by the skin of our teeth!) and then Sunday I rented a car and Joi and I drove down to Pennsylvania, where I witnessed the final demise of my short-lived but extremely sweet homespun summer country hometown romance that I suppose I knew wouldn't really last but thought might proceed slightly more elegantly than it did... SIGH... and then amongst other things Joi and Barb and Heather and I all met for another glamorous BULIMICS reunion after which Joi, Barb and I proceeded to the GRANGE FAIR where Joi and Barb posed alluringly alongside Chicken and Waffles trucks, as one does,



and where yours truly was charmed by completely inspired word arrangements such as the following (it says PEANUTS LOLLIPOPS CASHEWS, as my camera phone roodly refused to note),



and where we admired extremely obscene vegetable matter,



and where Barb and yours truly also played some mighty fine BINGO even though all the prizes were horrible thus forcing me to admit that the only allure was the joy of locating called-out numbers on boards and placing red circles above them -- it's so fun, though! --



and where Joi found herself less than enthralled by her surrounds, being "city folk" as she is.



I myself might have to admit to being far more citified than I would like to think, despite my secret aspirations to be a country bumpkin and outright refusal before now to note the dark side to country bumpkinism out here in the center of Pennsylvania... For example last night we passed a tshirt stand where we saw a man, the proprietor, wearing a t-shirt that said across the back FIGHTING SOLVES EVERYTHING, and I immediately wanted one of course and we approached and asked if he sold that one (since everything actually for sale was tie-dyed) and he, who turned out to be a hyuuuuge skinhead type, wearing said t-shirt which across the FRONT seemed to profess some sort of alliance to some sort of something very mysterious and evil, said "OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. You got to KNOW SOMEONE to get one of these..." and then we realized it was very likely a white power kinda thing and suddenly our ironic citified hipsterdom tendencies came glaring forward and for a moment blinked out, its eyeballs sputtering, before collapsing upon the ground clutching its heart... And well, we left shortly after..... just as the last dregs of the hickly future I saw sprawled before me sputtered out and DIED.

I still plan to have many quaint country residences however.

And now that I am back and my guest is gone -- I dropped off Joi at the train station this morn -- I am verrry excited to work on 50000 projects with much renewed energy, including a new book idea about the ridiculous dating life of an UMMM HIGHLY ROMANTIC AND OVERLY IMAGINATIVE TYPE LIKE YOURS TRULY... as well as watch the whole first season of Mad Men and also go see the awesomely shlocky looking Mirrors this eve, right after my accordion lesson.

The end.