Math Quiz: Work + Moving = ??

Answer below:

SUCKING

For those of you who answered incorrectly, go straight to special dumb dumb class.

Peach just joined the ranks of the other homeos in town--homeownership. Really not a home per se, but a v. v. v. small condo that I can't move into until the cell block is tranformed into a cell block with a dishwasher. Therefore, I'll be moving in with a friend for five whole months of "Odd Couple" style craziness. I'll be playing the part of the fat, slobby, bleakly depressed Janeane Garofalo* roommate, while friend will be playing the role of shrill, nit-picking, overly image-focused eating disordered/exercise bulimic (borderline) with no self esteem. Is going to be awesome laugh riot and will likely blow the Nielsen ratings through the roof!

*note Janeane is nowhere near fat--the reference is only to personality

So in the meantime, I've been going through mountains of clothes--which I should donate to VH1 for the next "I love the 90's" since it seems most of my wardrobe was inspired by Lisa Turtle or Jesse Spano on a good day. Or Patty Poole from "The Hogan Family." The closet is a fucking Jekyll and Hyde of neon-printed superteen YM fashion or a huge fat elastic-lovin' lady.

Oh my! You watch your language, missy!

Am v. excited to enter condo world and am sure will be filled with all sorts of juicy antics and incestuous neighbors. Until then, will be living off of cable t.v. and avoiding nights of man-trawling competition with roommate's Krazy Krew. Also know I am super asshole for complaining, as she's nice enough to take me in for a meager amount of $$ per month. That said, will be bigger challenge then "Survivor: Cook Islands!"

Back to School, Fool

The event program

Good morning, class! So it's September now and I'm feeling that wistful nostalgia termed "back to school blues" in the good ol' days. With no halls to haunt or books to carry, I have to resort to buying new "school clothes" (work clothes) and "school supplies" (giant bottle of vodka from ABC store) and begin "new projects" (volunteer work for other stinkass nonprofits in town) with a clean slate.

Tonight was the 9th Annual Wine & Beer Tasting of the Dooley Noted Society of Maymont. And guess what? All the same fucking psychos that trawl every event were there. I saw--immediately, and in this order--

1. Creepy revolting man who has come into my retail job and asked me a hundred questions as well as for a personal tour of the store and if he could give me a nickname b/c my name was such a mouthful...am gagging while I type this

2. 45-year-old "Bobby Braces" who scavenges through women at charity events including the Virginia Museum's Friends of Art, where he approached me with bizarre come-ons that led to the revelation that he had just had a colonoscopy and his driver's license was from 1980. I saw it--was in sepia tones. He was not kidding.

3. Perv who in past worked at Theater IV and squeezed friend's ass during a congratulatory after-the-show hug--and I know this b/c said friend was with me and saw this former coworker/buttocks massager and related story

4. The most hated single man in town who is super hot but notorious for hooking up with everyone and never calling or making further dates--also a member of every "young professional" society and very Larry from Three's Company.

5. Hideous mutated morons

6. Hot guys with girlfriends

I give up! Am calling escort service.

I can only dream of finding a gem like this one.

Curing the Summertime Blues

razor blades and vodka vacation!

VA Peach is taking some time off to cure a bad case of mid-mid-life crisis depression. I'll be off for another week or so screwing my head back on--removed from its former home of up my ass. Peace out fools...be back soon!

Everyone's a Poet

Underneath this hat it's all brains, baby...

Coping with the day to day insanity (and inanity) of our earthly existence can be tough. Therefore, I bring you a poem that sums it up courtesy of my coworker (front desk receptionist) who writes under the name of Shadwynn to reflect his Wiccan beliefs and express his true self through the mighty pen. Yeats and Wordsworth are surely reserving a place among the greats for Shadwynn, no?

SECOND WIND
by Shadwynn
____________________________________________________________
A jangling alarm routinely reminds us
to paint tired hope
upon our morning masks
in dawn-washed pastels of flimsy resolution,
an exercise in self-deception promising
fresh energy to face yet another day
while falling hard, we crash
onto cold, concrete reality
deserted by the last drained cup of coffee.

Plodding days parade themselves
into insensible paramnesia,
dying cigarettes of time
put out like burnt butts,
their tell-tale smoke hanging heavily
in the stale air of stagnant lives
compartmentalized in corporate boredom,
the daily death of working repetition,
like those sequential numbers
in squares upon the wall, calendar dates
dividing tedium's melancholic monotony.

Inhaling each moment that meets us
numbed with a nicotine far more dangerous
than cancer sticks or coffin nails,
we succumb, unfeelingly addicted
to a consistent consumption of time,
the hypnotic cycle of the work-a-day week
where regularity steals our soul,
its steady stream of hours unpunctuated
by nerve-tingling terror
or the elation that exhilarates sluggish spirits.

Like worn-out workaholics,
we are often weak in the knees
from the stress-testing treadmill
where no race holds hope for a reachable win,
sundown sliding our stride
to a nondescript dragging of reluctant feet
toward the same frayed finish line
draped across our dwelling's door.
We lean in, crossing its threshold
into evening exhaustion.
Psychically pulverized by the daily grind,
employees indentured to industrial pharaohs
sometimes murmur desperate prayers
invoking the capricious god of the second wind
for one last, lung-bursting surge of stamina
in a sprint to warp speed, an escape,
a letting go for life
lived in all of its glorious failure,
an unpredictable adventure
where risk and resolve
reveal the many guises of grace.

Disclaimer: VA Peach is not responsible for any bodily harm suffered as a result of reading the work above, i.e. vomiting, extreme eye-rolling, uncontrollable groaning, etc.

Renters HELL

"Ummm...the rent seems a little high..."

Usually I'm generous when it comes to living in this ancient tar pit of white bread douchebags, but these days the fangs of cynicism are dripping with venom for the Old Dominion.

The quest for a new apartment in this shit town continues. Thankfully, the bar for tenements was set quite high around the turn of the century, so I might be able to enjoy indoor plumbing for $1,000 month (no utilities and this is fucking RICHMOND, VA) instead of slinging a slop jar into the streets below. I'm eagerly awaiting being awakened by the flora and fauna of my new digs--the delightful brown cockroaches I'll be dining (and breakfasting and lunching) with each morning, and the rats that will be chewing on my earlobes each night and procreating in the dark corners of my room. I chuckle to think of what fun it will be when bed bugs burrow beneath my flesh, I welcome the burgeoning number of new bill collectors with a mug of hot tea and skin lice, and I visit with the myriad of robbers, rapists, and other chaps in my humble bedroom.

"Oh please come in...yes, sorry...my a.c. is on the fritz right now!"

I'm actually hoping for a lawsuit since most of these places have rotten floorboards, porches, etc. Maybe the only time I'll actually come into some luck or some cash is lying in a hospital bed somewhere waiting for a check from the local slumlord.

P.S. I changed the font--what you think?