Hick in the District

I used think I was a hick. I used to make jokes about it. And everyone thought it was funny because they were erudite and cultured and wore nice clothes and drove nice cars and had siblings at other high ranking schools and had parents that made lots of money and been to Europe and Hawaii and I was straight out of King of the Hill. Which is pretty much true. Except for John Red Corn.

But now we’ve moved from the peach orchard ringed metropolis of Atwater to Waterford, which is about 15 miles due east of Modesto, right on the Tuolumne River. If that’s a river I’m an offensive lineman for the ‘9ers. A well heaved rock from this house would make it into the water, but it wouldn’t splash much. The house is in a large gated community—plank board fence constitutes a wall out here—still under construction. Our neighbors just got sod in a few days ago and the houses at the end of the block are still skeletons. I’m told a pool is coming on the other side of the complex, but for now my dog just pees in that field. All in all it’s not so bad.

On the other side of my backyard’s fence (torn down at the moment so they can put in the impressive 2 foot retaining wall they promised but forgot) is a very small orchard and about an acre of fallow land. This land is used to rear six or seven sheep and several cows. Not the cute haha great cheese comes from happy cows happy cows come from California cows, but huge and pissy moan all night and bray all day cows. I had no idea these things were so loud. You can hear them over the phone. Clearly.

A couple nights ago the cows were having some kind of moo-off competition (not to be confused with the karaoke at the honky tonk on the other side of the small field). I just about got my dad’s Ruger .45 for target practice, but I decided this was part of the charm of living in the country. That’s when I realized I’d become a hick.

# posted by Mike @ 2:38 AM 1 comments

Another suitcase in another hall.

The general consensus says Washington, D.C. has options and possibilities for me. I have friends there from the way old BCR days, before Andrea Irvin, even before Dave Galich if you can believe that, who are passing my resume around and have offered up their couch in exchange for lemon bars (I was famous for those before cookies and brownies). A buddy from my fraternity is seriously considering moving out with me, which would be awesome beyond all awesomeness. Mom casually mentioned that they could loan me some money to go out there and get a job, but I’m characteristically reluctant to take that big a risk without something more definite waiting on the other end. So for now I’m back to the job hunt, but more focused than I was in Rounds 1-3.

Call in three months time and I’ll be fine, I know. I’ll survive anyhow.

# posted by Mike @ 10:51 PM 4 comments

It doesn’t look like I can go. No bank/lender will loan me money to go to a school not on their pre-approved list, and Bilkent isn’t on any of those lists. Guess I should have looked into this before the GRE, letters of rec, application, passport and visa were taken care of.

On to plan G.

# posted by Mike @ 3:29 AM 5 comments