OK, I've learned my lesson. Some deep fried chicken wings, a bucket of pretzels (a word I have suddenly forgotten how to spell,) some swallowed chewing gum and twelve bottles of Miller Genuine Draft do not a happy colon make. I didn't even get drunk; the beers were consumed over 12 hours, the first two with my cousin and the other ten with two women.

One of them, A., has a psychotic friend named Brian who tried to set me up with her and then got A. to drive him home but when they got there he refused to get out of her car for two hours. Not much of a turn-on in my book. And then there's her tourettic conversational patterns and habit of twisting her mouth into a little nub on one side of her face after every sentence. Other than that A. is very nice. Maybe I should be less judgmental. I have no time for women who will not put their foot down when and where appropriate. My feeling on it is that if you let your ex-boyfriend follow you around like a forlorn puppydog for four years, and even let him live with you and your new boyfriend, you are either a sadist or in need of spine.

The other, R., is a lovely 28-year-old marketer for a pharmaceutical firm. She's incredibly smart, plays jazz piano (her favorite is "Misty," which is one of mine, too) and has a 5 year old child prodigy daughter who I'd really like to meet. We had- for a change- things to talk about. The conversation wasn't a long series of uhs and what's your favorites and so when you were little did yous. She seems independent enough, firy, even. Not a heavy reader but hyperarticulate. The three of us agreed to go on a camping trip to the beach near Cape Canaveral. I emailed R. this morning and got a friendly response. She's perky enough that I think Charles Manson could email her and get a friendly response. We'll see.

The real newses of this week are these: (a) I am going to New York from Oct. 15-19th to interview for a New York City Teaching Fellowship; and (b) I am moving in with my cousin, who just sold his house and has a ranch a little north of where I am now, and his family. In exchange for cheap rent and board I'll cook for them (heavens forfend!) and help Sean put in a new ceiling, redo the walls, and add on a bathroom. All handy things to know how to do.

My family continue to treat me as though only an unreasonable person would be so deadset on living in New York. Sean, the most rural of them all, oddly supports it, after having taken it personally for awhile (his first thought was for the band.)

Jeb said it best. I just don't belong here. And I have had it with living a life of incongruities.