Before leaving Olympia, some people wanted to know my e-mail address. I told them not to bother, because I wouldn't be getting online that much. Even when I said this, it was partly a lie, partly wishful thinking. But no, I'm online a bunch. My e-mail address is embarrassing, created as it was when I was in sixth grade, a reference to an obscure comic book I loved then. But here I am, in Philadelphia, on my brother's computer, which resides in the room I sleep in. It's his studio. I sleep on the floor. My stuff is crammed into one small corner when I am not asleep. When I am asleep, I spread sheets across the open part of the floor. Looked at people's Livejournals. Thor met Stephen Malkmus and saw Need New Body. Need New Body live in Philadelphia and I've yet to see them. I have no real reason to meet Stephen Malkmus, but I'm sure that if I did, it would be the high point of the month.

I have a part-time job working in a really shitty record store. It's owned by a fat dude. He buys things cheap from flea markets and stuff then marks them up. It's really terrible. I get paid... I guess six bucks an hour? And it's part-time... For two days work, Saturday and Sunday, I got fifty bucks. This would suck, except: Because I am sleeping on a floor in my brother's studio, I'm only paying $100 a month for rent. I also have to help him keep shit clean, but that's a good deal. Oh, and there's soon going to be a second store, so I can work full-time. It's seriously absurd that he can open a second store. His is the worst record store on South Street, and there's a lot of competition for that title. It's open late. That seems to be the only thing it has going for it. It has diversity, but mainly because the owner's retarded. Still. I'm getting paid, and it's a reference to put down. Is it weird that they don't call themselves a record store, they call themselves a CD store? Even other places that sell nothing but CDs seem to call themselves record stores if they market themselves to a very music-savvy demographic. (i.e. Tower Records) This place doesn't. It's a store for retards. Someone asked me where the oldies section was. I told them we didn't have an oldies section, but if she told me what she wanted, I could find it in the existing sections. What she meant by oldies: "like the old Biggie and Tupac." No one I tell that story to laughs at it. It's fucking hilarious. Biggie and Tupac aren't even old-school hip-hop. Ready To Die came out in 1994. But, hey, they hired me. I didn't have to fill out a job application, either. Just walked in, gave my name, phone number, and told them I was eighteen.

Every time I walk home I want to drink milk as soon as I get back. The Freudian interpretation of this is that, when I work, I feel like an adult and want to drink milk to bring me back to childhood. A more practical explanation is that I have a very poor diet, lacking in calcium, and after I do work, I need calcium. Before I got the job, my roommate said to me "Nothing like a cold one after a day at work," and I just kind of agreed in a vague sense. You know, how I do.

When I go to sleep, I dream that I'm still at Evergreen. None of my friends are in Olympia, though.

Philadelphia isn't living up to its history of being awesome. I wish there were shows to see. I wish there were independent films to see. I need to eat more food. I've been eating at Lorenzo's a lot, which I missed, but it's not the full experience. I've also had water ice once or twice. Also: the comic shop on South Street is fucking weird, too. It caters to a bizarre demographic. I believe the term is "buppies." Only they're not that young. I mean black people that seem stereotypically white. I did overhear a comment about the racial politics of an issue of G.I. Joe, but... it's just weird. It's like dads. It's probably the only shop, comic or otherwise, I've been at the same time as a uniformed cop. Oh, and their selection is pretty crappy as well. It's really generic superhero centric. If you're a black cop in your thirties/forties who really digs The Flash, it's the fucking store for you.

On the good side: TLA Video has copies of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, as well as Eraserhead on DVD. I need to see those. TLA Video is something I missed about Philadelphia. I also got to see Pedro The Lion doing a little acoustic set behind Spaceboy. I missed Spaceboy, but I haven't bought anything from there yet.

So, where is the grass greenest? I want everybody to take a picture of some grass in their area. I mean "grass" in the literal sense, and you are not clever if you photograph marijuana instead. I want those photos of grass to also include that which is awesome about the area in which they're at. This idea just came to me, and I don't think anyone's actually going to do it. I don't even know if anyone else would find it at all amusing to do. I'm just typing crazy type.