GET OUT OF THE OFFICE AND INTO THE SPRINGTIME
This is my last day of work. Thank goodness. You might think I'd be all excited about keeping the paycheck and whatnot, but to be perfectly frank I'm glad to be saying my goodbyes to this shithole. I don't think I can stand to work for the Democratic Party if it doesn't read Michael Moore, or doesn't know who Michael Moore is at all. On the upside, though, I got to paint the front window to congratulate the new Miss Pennsylvania, who is from my home county, and the third-runner up in the pageant, with whom I did OM and band and all kinds of fun things. Painting stuff on windows is a lot of fun, and it gave me something concrete and useful to do this morning. Almost every Waynesburg street person who walked by waved at me. It has to be the most joyous moment of my whole internship, if not my summer.

GET OUT OF THE CITY AND INTO THE SUNSHINE
Mom says that whenever you see ironweed bloom, it's time to wrap up your summer. Ironweed is a hazy purple globe of a flower, and it looks like August ought to look. Living here for the summer doesn't necessarily bring out the best in me, and I'm glad I'll be going back to school. Back home, actually. I had totally forgotten how quiet and noncommunitative I could be with people my own age. Some of my co-workers are okay, but after a certain extent I don't feel like I should have to participate in conversations that just don't seem worthwhile to me. My legendary misanthropy returns in fine form. But honestly, I've decided that if somebody wants to talk about abolishing the Catholic church (or abolishing any other kind of organized religion), my participation isn't necessary. I don't really need to respond if one of my coworkers wants to tell me that I would be happier if I did something that made me a lot of money so I could get a nice car and a nice house. Sometimes arguing doesn't accomplish anything. For that reason I'm sure I come off as somewhat standoffish, but I'm only here for two more days.

Does that remind anybody of high school? Anybody?

HERE COMES MY CHINESE RUG
And the zine continues. Unfortunately, it probably won't be done in time for me to scam the copies at work because this is my last week for sure. (But there is still plenty of time to steal gluesticks, sharpies, and colored paper.) Also, this is going to be a really complicated zine to assemble for the following reasons:
1) The cover is triple-process color and it requires me to make not one but three stencils
2) There are certain pages inside that are somewhat unlike the other pages . . . more complicated . . . I know I'm being vague but I want to surprise you.
3) There are definitely some home-made rubber stamps involved. Shh!
4) It's twice as long as my previous zines.

The rest of my life is going well, except that I won't see Ram until we're back at school. This is a cause for great sadness. You may send your condolences directly to this address, preferably in the form of Godiva samplers or pints of ice cream. Scratch that. I prefer that you send your condolences in the form of Ram himself. Do not bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate him, and make sure there's sufficient postage.

Speaking of postage, I appologize to those of you who may be waiting on letters from me. Dave especially. I think the new album is great, but I haven't written out piece by piece why it's so great. Also, I forgot to send the last page of a letter to Ian the other day. Where is my mind?

Way out in the water, see it swimming

HONKY! HONKY!
I spent the entire weekend working on my zine. It's nice to give myself time to do it, as opposed to the horrible all-nighters that left me cranky and dissatisfied. No wonder my last zine had so many typos and misspellings. The layout is very cut-and-paste heavy, but generally at least it's different from the last two zines. Everything is falling into place with the content and the editing and the design; I can hardly believe how little a struggle it is. At the rate that I'm going, I should have it all pasted up by the end of the week. I have no idea where I'm going to copy it, but be sure that I'm going to scam as much as possible. This zine is going to be so hott. When it's done I'll post some contact information if you want to order it from me. It's going to be the best low-fi art book thing you've purchased all month!