I'm moving to the country, but I really don't like peaches.

In approximately two weeks I'll be bidding farewell to Athens proper.

No, I'm not going back to Ohio (though that has been a recurrent thought for a while). But I am going for a complete change of scenery and am moving out to Bishop. Into a house that sits on 30 acres, mostly wooded. I will be sharing the house with some others that I've just met (well, I've met one of them. I'll be meeting his wife tonight, and then possibly his friend in a month or so). But it will be cheaper. And quieter. And there is a creek and a pool and a hot tub and goats and rabbits and dogs and chickens and a tractor that will plow up the ground to make a space for some organic gardening and a 5-acre pasture with a giant 'burn pile' in the middle of it that will produce one hell of a bonfire. I will have two rooms to myself, and my own bathroom. One of the rooms has a little deck, and all the rooms have lots of windows and they all have sliding glass doors (though most of them don't lead to anything... I have a feeling that the house's owner wanted full-wall windows, but I bet big ass regular windows are more expensive than a sliding glass door, which gives you the same effect). So yeah.

I can't wait.

Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Today I found my first four-leaf clover of the season. I took a NetFlix movie to my mailbox, looked down, and there it was. So I picked it, brought it in and stuck it between the pages of my trusty copy of "The New St. Martin's Handbook" with my other pressed clovers. This is the only thing I have ever used this book for, of course. Pressing four-leaf clovers. And yes, I did say other pressed clovers. I have hundreds. Pretty much the only slightly remarkable talent I have is the ability to find four-leaf clovers. I've been finding them everywhere since I was little, and over the course of my life have probably picked entire meadows of them. But they bring me no good luck whatsoever. I have also always had chronic bad luck, and unfortunately no amount of fabled good fortune can reverse that.

      Speaking of good fortune, at Beet Tower a couple of weeks ago, Ann brought over a handful of the fortune cookies that Taco Stand has, and everyone took turns opening them and reading their fortunes out loud. I open my cookie, and lo and behold, it's empty. So I go get another cookie, open that one, and it's empty too. I was going to stop there because, hey, no news is better than bad news. But Ann went and got a third cookie for me. I open that one, and the fortune is not really a fortune at all, but a statement saying something along the lines of "don't question things you can't control" which I thought was funny since it sort of felt like the cookie was reprimanding me for not being content with no fortune. Twice.

    Anyway, back to the clovers... If anyone thinks they may benefit from having as their own a four-leaf clover found by me, let me know. I can find you one on a page describing proper subject-verb agreement or acceptable usage of semi-colons or even the ways to cite sources in a formal research paper. Maybe the good luck will work for you. And I won't be running out of them any time soon. I'm sure I'll find myself with nothing to do on some sunny day, and next thing you know, I'll be outside in the little field next to my house looking for more clovers. The neighbors will wonder what I'm doing, and may start to talk. But maybe that will be the day I find my own lucky clover, or better yet, that pot of gold those leprechauns are always talking about.

Observations, Neuroses... whatever you want to call them.

So my life is once again descending into the shitter, and it leaves me pondering. And what does my strange brain ponder? Instead of focusing on the issues at hand 100% of the time, this kind of crap creeps in. Honestly, though, I think it might be this kind of crap that actually is keeping me sane.

- If you misspell 'kmart' when trying to go the website, you may end up somewhere completely unrelated. I accidently typed 'kmairt' and ended up at a site called 'newmissbootay.com'.

- Speaking of misspelling... at least 90% of the people who are posting housing ads on Craigslist where they use the word 'roommate' are misspelling it. Aren't most of these kids in college? Didn't most of them get higher SAT scores than I did?

- Speaking of Craigslist... I need a job. A real-life job. I don't need to fill out surveys all damn day, or request information from 50 online colleges. The number of spam/scam job listings is phenomenal. And bullshit.

- Drinking coffee pretty much always guarantees to be followed by a satisfying poop.

- Most drivers on the road are anti-turn signal. Which makes me anti-them. They aren't on your cars for pretty shiny flashy time, people. I don't want you to use your turn signal so I know what you are doing; I want you to use your turn signal so I know that YOU know what you are doing.

- Pretty much any clothing that isn't 100% wool or silk, or made of paper, survives a regular old washing and drying just fine. Dry Clean Only be damned! And if it came from Goodwill, it always gets washed.
*exception: the wool Banana Republic coat that still had the pockets sewn closed that I bought there for $5. That will not be washed...

- Now that I'm happy with the size of my boobs, I'm not happy with the size of my waist.

- Right now it is 63 degrees outside, and the forecasted high is 68. There is still snow on the ground. Now, last time I checked, stuff made of water melts at temperatures above 32 degrees. WTF?? What is this shit made of?

- And speaking of the snow... how amazing that we can get 7" of snow one day, and 4 days later it's 70. Who needs real seasons?

- There are some shitty, shitty rentals out there. I just looked at a house the other day- granted it was cheap; only $400 a month for a two-bedroom, but geez. Not only was it nasty (it reeked of mildew and dog and the carpet had many large unidentifiable stains on it, where there were still fibers in the carpet at least, and the doors barely fit the doorframes, and the bedrooms didn't have doors), but every wall in the place was made of cinderblock. I know some buildings are made of cinderblock, and that's cool. But even the internal walls, down to the little breakfast bar thing between the kitchen and living room was cinderblock. So the house had no real walls, and no insulation. When you touch the wall, you can tell what the temperature is outside. Huh. An ectothermic house.

- My neighbor has what I think may be the oldest dog in the universe. He's blind, deaf, has no teeth (well, very few, and those are worn down to little nubs), has several squishy subcutaneous masses, and smells awful. His muzzle is all grey and he's skinny as a rail. He wanders around the yard, baying at nothing, and it takes him several minutes to take a dump. But he looks happy as can be.

I had more. But just like usual I've forgotten what else I wanted to write here. Eh, whatevs.