So I don't think I've been on the Internet since...well, since I broke into Seibert to check email.  Last Sunday.  A one week hiatus from technology is anathema to someone of our generation.  I feel a little poisoned.

Not much has happened in the past week, except that I've now started the same short story three different times, writing it in three different ways.  If my father keeps opening my door and talking to me while I'm using the anything-but-quiet typewriter, I may be tempted to hurl (a) invectives, (b) paperclips fashioned into spears, and (c) my mother's old Smith-Corona electric, which is under my desk.  Yeah, not throwing my own typewriter.

And this is just sad.  The poor kittens!  They all deserve good homes.

Also, I had a dream the other night that readingirl got a job in a library and invited chiara_suzuka, valindamar, otakumeep , and me out for a visit.  Our friendly neighborhood librarian kept a pet cat there (like the one that was in the library last summer, and we subsequently lost chiara_suzuka  somewhere around the 300s when she decided to follow the critter into the stacks), and Ms. Manning also invented an interesting means of dealing with the more annoying and unnecessary members of her clientele:  a death-dealing implement known as The Shakespeare (hey--it's my dream, it's gotta be a bad pun!).  She demonstrated it on kids trying to play WoW on the library computers, and then otakumeep pilfered The Shakespeare, put on an eye patch, and started a successful career as a pirate on the Great Lakes with valindamar as her first mate.  They eventually conquered Canada.  Shaffer and the cat were never rediscovered.  Kate and I went to a deli and had sandwiches on good rye bread.

Now to another weird thing from this past week.  Tuesday night, I discovered this programme called The Gilmore Girls.  The episode's main characters are scrunched-up nose mom lady, handyman/diner owner man, I can't act girl, emo floppy hair boyfriend guy, and angsty nephew kid.  It started out with angsty nephew kid moving in with his uncle, handyman/diner owner man.  That scene was just a mess, because scrunched-up nose mom lady and her daughter I can't act girl had to have their pancakes.  C'mon, Handyman, make us some pancakes!  As far as I can discern, every episode is about mom lady and I can't act girl making snarky non-sequitors to each other for upwards of three years.  Anywho, I can't act girl and angsty nephew kid flirt with each other like whoa in that "I really hate you so I'm going to leer at you and hate you although I really really like you" way, which complicates matters because I can't act girl is really dating emo floppy hair boyfriend, who gave her a bracelet that she lost; he noticed she lost it at a book sale and--DRAMA LLAMA!--she said she had taken it off because of a rash.  But he's a poser because he didn't want to look at the books anyway, and she was only allowed to look at the astrology section if they later went to a movie that he wanted to see.  So they agree.  Anyway, she gets back to her house, where scrunched-up nose mom lady had angsty nephew kid cleaning the gutters; mom lady and nephew kid were eating leftover Chinese food, and I can't act girl starts going off about this bracelet.  The witticisms ensue.  Then she talks to angsty nephew kid, and they talk about books.  He says that he doesn't read much.

At this point, I thought, "No.  Don't do it.  Do...not...have the angsty subversive kid read 'Howl.'"  Sarcastovoyance, warning:  Later in the episode, angsty nephew kid pulls a copy of "Howl" from his pocket and mentions how he's read it a lot, and I can't act girl says, "I thought you said you didn't read much."  To wit:  "Ah, but what is...much?"

I'm really getting tired of people using "Howl" as a catch-all symbol that somebody is a member of some sort of subculture or different or angsty or somehow more badass than the rest of the world.  Allen Ginsberg...I bet he wouldn't have been caught dead in an episode of The Gilmore Girls.  The show is exactly the kind of mindwashing that Ginsberg was lamenting in the poem.  I promptly stopped the show and turned off the television before there was a scene with a couch.  I imagine that it would have gone like this:  "So...angsty nephew kid and I can't act girl were lying on Allen Ginsberg's couch, and...let's just leave it that."

Oh, chiara_suzuka, lamentable day!  How Allen Ginsberg follows us, even when we are miles away from the ivory tower and the  literary hub that is Selinsgrove!  I don't think that I could endure another episode of The Gilmore Girls....

NOTE:  To get this entry's "music" from NPR, click here.  It is a good poem...I just wish Mr. Ginsberg could leave us alone!