The Remains of a Poet

 A discussion about sugar content in beverages with my roommate's family (with a guest appearance by her little brother's BFF):

LITTLE BROTHER: "Ew, how much sugar do you put in your ice tea?  That's disgusting!"
ROOMMATE: "There's more sugar in your coke than I just put in my tea!"
LB: "Did you see how much sugar you just put in there?  No there isn't."
R: "Okay, try some of my tea and then try some of your coke, and you'll see that there's more sugar in the coke."
LB: "I don't want to try your tea, it's gross!"
R: *drinks some ice tea, then drinks some of LB's coke* "Yeah, it's --"
LB: "One is carbonated, of course it tastes different!"
R: "No, it --"
LB: "Look, you can't even compare them!  One comes from a tree --"
LB's BFF: "Tea comes from herbs, bro."


Ahahahaha!

My family and I have been on a road trip for the past few weeks, and we are currently staying in a trailer at a camp in Nebraska.  All I can say is the trailer, the camp, and for that matter, the state of Nebraska all, as I told my mom, “just smell like sweet daisies!” (no offense to anyone who lives in Nebraska, of course)  Seriously, the trailer smells like my Uncle Robert and Aunt Diana’s place -- that is, like old people and sour milk.  Outside it smells, as my sister put it, “good.  Good being defined, in this case, as horrendous, heinous, horrible, awful, and like poo.”  Aside from the lovely scent, the trailer is totally the thing horror films are made of.  One bedroom door creaks and won’t close, the back door doesn’t lock, the shower sounds like a boiling kettle (“TEA TIME!”), and every time you flush the toilet the pipes shake the whole trailer and make a horrendous sound like someone dragging their body back and forth under the trailer (we call these “the dead-body-pipes”).  Then there’s the room my mom’s staying in, which we labeled “The Monk Cell,” and looks like someone died in it (the bed in there would make the Teutonic Knights proud in terms of shortness; my mother, who isn’t more than 5’2”, still finds her feet hanging over the edge).

In other news, I am currently working on a rather depressing piece about Jocelyn and her life after she marries Hector.  I hope to have it finished before the week is out.  It’s quite sad, but I’m extremely satisfied with it.

Well, I’m off to smell the roses (AKA, the dumpster on the path from the trailer to the dining hall)!