The Bitch is Back in Beantown

I'm officially back in Boston, lying in pajamas in my cold, dirty, empty apartment. As suspected, the place fell to shambles in my absence. So really, this was more a return to my maid duties than to my domicile. I should really deduct this service from the utilities I pay my roomies. It took about 45 minutes to re-organize all my books, which is one of those weird things I do, it seems, about once a month. I think I just really like to touch them all. There are so many. But now I officially have a shelf devoted to my 2010-reading-goal books (per the last blog post). I have no groceries, so I guess I'm ordering pizza and crying myself to sleep. Possible movie fest. I got the first three seasons of Six Feet Under for fifteen bucks at a Blockbuster that was going out of business. Those should tide me over through the semester, along with the million other movies I picked up at said Blockbuster.

I've been off my beloved ciggies for three weeks--three full weeks, in fact, as I made the decision the Friday night I got into PA. I had one with my aunt and grandpa (because they wouldn't restrain their addictions around me) and one today, after cleaning my room, just to check in with how it would feel. Neither was all that enjoyable, so I figure I'm pretty much good to go. Drunk smokes; special occasion smokes; once-in-a-while-with-my-still-smoking-roommate...these I will not kick myself over. I've just come to the conclusion that I no longer want to be a daily smoker, even though a number of my idols were lifelong puffers--Anne Sexton (at a whopping three packs a day, my god), Virginia Woolf (who rolled her own), basically every Atwood heroine, of course, Joe Camel, oh, and that queen from Brideshead Revisited. It's been shockingly easy--I just flushed one down the toilet and busied myself if/when a craving hit (which was not what I expected--less the burning desire to suck ash, as was the usual hint when I was still smoking, and more of a tightness in my chest, like a really really minor panic attack). Maybe I really was a poseur for those four years. Also, I can't believe I was a legit smoker for over four years. Wow, time flies, furrul.

Any case, classes resume in 9 days. I owe a bunch of people money. I have about 450809 textbooks to buy (mostly my fault, since I included upwards of 20 books on the syllabus for my directed study--thankfully, I owed several already). I fear I'll be blues-y until I'm too busy to acknowledge it anymore, but it was to be expected. The Jenny Wilson album, Hardships, deserves a retroactive inclusion on my best-of-2009 list, as I hadn't heard it until about a week ago. Also, the new Beach House album, Teen Dream, is really great. Probably not as good as Devotion, their last one, but still damn good. Check both of these out.

The magic 8 ball says MOAR BOOK RUH-VEWZ are in the near future. Stay tuned.