Letters to be written:

Ray Lamontagne-thank you; are you okay?

Guster- thank you; Brian, why do you play the drums without sticks?

Jonathan Safran Foer- belated congrats on baby; what is your wife like?; thank you; do you need a protégé ?

Tzipi Livni- have strength and heart; I think often of what's going on; have more strength and more heart.

Rite Aid- you've been horrible. Absolutely horrible! Please hold a customer service training seminar ASAP.

James Joyce- I know you're dead but I have so many things to ask you and yes I said yes I will yes.

John Krasinski- good job; do you have to be funny and charming to play funny and charming?; I adore Jim/(you?).

Andrea Lafferty and Rev. Louis P. Sheldon-- you are terrifying; stop now; you're hurting people; how can you?; please call so we can really talk this out for hours.

Fergie's pub- Pete's wings are delicious; Mo is an excellent waitress; thank you for: always pouring our beer in glasses with the name of our beer on them/ bringing bluegrass to me so often.

Philadelphia Trolly Tours- good job.

Ray and Guster

For Lindsay's birthday, I bought her a ticket to a Ray Lamontagne/Guster concert at Festival Pier. It was last Thursday. We laughed a lot. Lindsay dipped her pretzel in the left-over cheese from Pete's cheesesteak and they joked. My friend Stacie talked about some casual sex in front of her and I let her sip my beer when it got dark. I was proud that she was my sister, so I told her.

RAY

When Ray came on, my heart burst into a million pieces and then those pieces burst again like they were all little hearts themselves and it kept happening until he walked off stage. Until he walked off stage. He walked off stage. He walked. Off stage. I kept repeating it to people after he did so, because he really did just walk off stage. This is how it happened- he said he would play a couple more songs. Someone up front shouted sounds and he said, "Sure I could play that one, too" and I wished I knew what Someone said so I could expect it with him. Then Ray played "All the Wild Horses" with his eyes closed. When he finished, he tossed his guitar down. He walked off stage. I don't know why he was upset, but I'm going to write him a letter to ask him. I'll send along the postcard of a picture of a boy reading a book to an elephant, which I love, which I first saw on a billboard on my way home from work in NYC while Ray was on my IPod, which I listened to while on my way to Pier 54 to see Gregory Colbert's "Ashes and Snow" exhibit, which I saw again at Santa Monica Pier while visiting family and telling them about Ray. I feel like the elephant talks to the boy, telling him which parts of the story he likes or when the story is boring, and when he does, it sounds like a Ray Lamontagne song, and sometimes, the boy is the elephant's guitar for him. Here it is:

I'll let you know if I hear anything back.

GUSTER

As for Guster, they strummed joy out of their guitars and rose a huge, orange moon with their voices. Lindsay and I faced each other to sing the songs we knew into grinning faces. I will write them a letter, too, because I shouldn't just write letters to see if people are okay or to complain. Guster is different from Ray because when they said they'd play a few more songs and people booed a bit, they smiled into the crowd and commented on a man sitting atop his friend's shoulders while waving his shirt in the air. They said that if they could see at least 5 more sets of man-boobs, then they would play at least 5 more songs. So the crowd filled with man-boobs, shirts spiraling from hands and laughter. Guster laughed and the crowd laughed and we clapped so they would know we didn't want them to leave, but that was the end of their set so they had to say thank you and leave. We kept clapping and they came out again, shirtless, showing their own man-boobs and making life-long fans while we all screamed the classics to each other-band and audience-surrounded by man-boobs.

I need some cool stationery.

saving last year's sent emails from a closing account

Three important emails from 2005



I'm dying of:

mean people on the street. This morning a hobo looked up at me and said, "You're not that pretty. You need to lose weight." I wanted to say, "You're a hobo," but I couldn't bear to.

your emotionlessness. It's infuriating me. I need some passion or sadness or regret!! I feel utterly insane about you-worked up and tied in knots-coming out of my apathy like from the closet. I'm vigorous and hungry and feeling knawed at. You get off the phone so fast. You don't say, "I wish" anymore. Has your heart grown cold, dead, black and stone?? I'm going to beat you move far away if you don't start loving me like you're supposed to.

Sean.

this job. I have approx. one hour and 20 minutes of work to do in 8 hours. I forgot my wallet today, which means I have to be buzzed in, embarassingly, because I don't have my simplex card.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't tired.

my weight. As the woman said, I need to lose weight. I'm not that pretty.

As I see it, I can do something about the latter two. What sucks is I can't do anything about the job until I hear something from Penn Press. I really want to take classes there for free and my chance of getting a job there would be severly limited if I quit this job now for a million reasons. I feel so stuck, stuck, stuck stuckstuckstuckstuckstuckperiod.

STUCK is SUCK with a t.

you make me a drama queen, stoneheart.
______________________________
Lowtalker,

I really hope your throat is feeling better.

Guess what!??!!>!??!?!?!:MOIN@!!"?!?!?!
Guess.
Okay fine, I'll tell you.

IT'S ONLY 9 DAYS UNTIL WE ARE DRIVING DOWN TO WVA. That's it. 9. Nine. Neuf. Nueva. Oh baby, baby, baby.

So today is Alison's last day and I am sad. I also have a lot of work to do which makes me pretty sad. Plus, Sco threw up on the train this morning and I left my wallet at home in Mahopac, so I have to meet my dad in Yonkers again tomorrow. And I need to show picture ID to get into my interview today at 2:30. Hahaha.

You know what I say to all of that? Nine. I say nine days until cabins, love, hiking, good food and long showers and ipods filled with thought and taste and a nice readjustment and laughing hard and eating hard and sunrises and fires.

I'm going to get back to work. I hope your final went/ goes well. I'm sure it will. I'll let you know how the interview went.

Much love,
J

_________________________________
Of course I remember. I was laying stomach down on my bed in Taylor Hall and I was thinking I knew what was going to happen. I was trying to decide if it's what I wanted and then you said it and I went blank.

I remember how Ron IM'd me and how it was so easy to sit next to you and how I searched the whole night for your shoes on the stairs and followed you everywhere on the sly, and how we talked about reading and fishing and you made it seem so normal that Tony was making out next to us. I remember how I wrote out what I was going to say when I called you the first time and how I didn't think you were going to call me back, and how you called me back when I was at a makeup counter with my mom and Linds in the Allentown Mall and I hopped from side to side afterwards to make them laugh and to release the nervous energy in my belly.

I remember even more about sitting on the bridge in the park and telling you I liked you all the way to 17th street and you said you liked me out of allentown all together. I remember junior year and feeling very sad that you might think about failure when you saw me at Muhlenberg, and very afraid I would associate your breath with my panic. Doesn't that seem so ass silly now? And I remember at the end of senior year, feeling like the only thing tugging me together when I was falling apart on grad day (a.k.a. wake up call of my life day) was knowing I wasn't losing you, and that, if anything, we were going to get better and better. Let's try this again.

Love.

The nerve to give notice

It only took me an hour to walk into her office, but once I did, I laughed at myself for worrying.


Kelly Hadsell/AACR
07/18/2006 10:34 AM
To David Buff/AACR@aacr, Crystal Cheepudom/AACR@aacr, Kristin Murray/AACR@aacr, Naima Stone/AACR@aacr, Michael Williams/AACR
cc Jessica R. Farris/AACR@aacr
Subject No, no, no, no, no!!!!!!!!

Hello, all. I am sorry to report that Jess has tendered her resignation with the AACR. Her last day of work will be August 11. She has been afforded a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity to study in Dublin, Ireland for a year. I'm sure that you all join me in wishing her well and we need to get started planning a big send-off for her!

__________________________________
I'm leaving a good place.

"What's that on your bag?"

"Is that underwear?"

That's all anyone I passed had to ask.

***

Today's lunch hour started in Joyce Leslie. I was looking for a simple, black, jersey dress. What I found was a little leopard-print humiliation.

I wandered through Joyce Leslie for about 10 minutes, moving deeper into the complicated net of a poorly planned store layout. I zigzagged my way back to the wide walking space in the middle, dodging pointy jewelry racks and skimming the poles that hold the clothes.

I left JL and meandered to Hallmark to buy a "welcome to your new house!" card that will wait in a CA mailbox until my parents get there. Got a weird look from the lady behind me, but chalked it up to lunch hour grumpiness. I browsed through the cooking and literature sections at Borders and got a few more looks. I left The Gallery to buy a hotdog on the street and I walked around the block a couple times while I ate it. Was I being paranoid or were those girls giggling and talking about me? I went to the post office to buy a stamp for the Hallmark card and thought I heard someone behind me say "thong." Finally, I walked through the doors to my workplace, in front of a couple of women, noted a giggle after I flashed the guards my ID badge, and was followed into the elevator by Dave, a cool guy who works in production and ascended in obliviousness.

I used my magnetic card to open the door on our floor while Dave stood behind me. Then I checked in with my boss and walked by cubicle after cubicle saying hi to everyone before my beautiful Naima said "Hold up. Jessica, my love, why are you hanging a thong from your bag at work?"  

To be clear there was

A

Joyce

Leslie
Leopard-print

thong

on

a

hanger

dangling

from

the

side

pocket

of

my

bag.

Oh my God.




No, no, no.

The looks and giggles clicked into reality. It made for an interesting day! Maybe I should leave it on??

Trust Naima to say what needed to be said. Dave, you are totally forgiven because I never want to hear you say the word undies. 

Photos courtesy of Naima.

Reasons why I may someday weigh 900 pounds

Monday-Friday at 11:30 or 3:00 and sometimes at 11:30 and 3:00, I slip 75 cents in the vending machine and hit E8- the sweet combo of buttons that makes the Snickers fall. Then I whisper, “Hey beautiful,” while I undress it.

Because you don’t scare me, large bucket of hot wings. You make my vegetarian friends, who eat you when drunk, poop hot butt lava. Others, who may not know you so well, have picked their noses with your sauce still on their fingers. They are idiots. For some, your mere size intimidates. What will they do with the left-overs? THERE SHOULD BE NO LEFTOVERS, I say, mouth full, from atop my mountain of wings. It has been written and shall be so that he who so ordereth the wings of hotness shall eat them with swiftness and totality forever and ever until they are gone.

Not so long ago, my mother taught me how to make a delicious and healthy apple/berry crisp with a little bit of butter, brown sugar and rolled oats. What I took from the tutorial: one stick of butter, half a bag of brown sugar and a little bit of oats mixed together in a pan makes a fantastic dinner.

Sweet potato fries with Ketchup.

SWEET AS PAH (pie).

My friend Naima just returned from a week and a half in Alabama. When I asked her how things went, she said, "I got off the plane and it was so hot- so hot I just melted and thought, I'm home." Then she used words like Daddy, dandelion wine, magnolia and honeysuckle. She sounds like she’s singing a little when she talks, and when she’s at work with me, her music lolls me happily to quitting time.

More Naima praise:

She has a full soul that pours out and bathes me when she tells stories. And they are good stories. For instance, today I found out that Naima was a phone sex operator in college. When she wanted to quit, the same adult entertainment company trained her as a psychic. A couple of times she got nervous because she was off base with people, so she just hung up the phone- like the time a woman called and Naima said, "I don't see things going well or evolving with your boyfriend," and the woman said, "But...he just proposed to me."

Also, every time we talk, she makes me laugh.

She asks questions like she's inhaling the world and then breathing herself and her inquiries back into it- as such a breather, she looks in place and involved with wherever she is.

She compares paper cuts with me. When one of mine is bad, she makes me feel like I hiked up my pant leg to show her the shattered knee I got in 'Nam. It's so fulfilling to be validated like that.

She notices a billion things.
************************

I'm glad she's back.

Delicious Glaceau Fruit Water... Sean put it perfectly when he said, "It's like you thought rain would taste when you were a kid."

Not girl ones. REAL ones.

Tonight was my favorite "Rough 'N Tough" aerobics class. The instructor, Arik, likes to make the class grunt and we like to grunt. We all follow him up the aggression face of Work Out Mountain- punching, kicking, grunting, sweating to so much techno and then he turns on the slow version of "When Doves Cry" and we glide down the other face, Tibetan monk face. I feel like a lotus flower when we end. Sean likes my aerobics class too, because I physically abuse him mostly sometimes now instead of totally always.

This class is a part of my plan to be a better Jess. For the last year or so, I’ve been trying to look at my body and think kind things instead of berating myself for not sculpting thinner legs or growing better hair. In the beginning of this whole talking to myself thing, I had to scream a flat, stiff blanket of semi-genuine niceties over the rambling breaks in my self-confidence. Now, I really mean it.

Sometimes in bed, I'll lift my legs up so they're perpendicular to the bed and say, “Holy crap, you guys keep me going on the city sidewalks, weaving me between fast bicycles and slow girls in heels. You take me out of bed in the morning and sink me into baths at night. You run me places when I’m excited and absorb my springing joy at concerts. Awesome.”

To my arms, I say, “Yo arms, thanks for reaching books on tall shelves and wrapping yourselves around the people I like a lot.

To my mid, “Shout out to the tummy for anchoring my body and keeping my back strong. Thanks for the balance. Nice job with all the guys, boobs.”

It didn't used to be this way. Allow me to make an excuse for myself by sharing with you a snippet of my highschool graduation. The superintendent, Dr. Sabatella, read out the names of my graduating class,“Gina Danitella, Angelina Dennabella, Lisa Donatucci, Michelangela Fabiwasborninitalymonapoli, Jessica Farris, Daniella Ferrario…” Perhaps you’ve deduced that in this crowd, your hair could not be dark or shiny enough, your boobs not copious and your butt un-apple-like. My innocent reflection withstood years of unfair comparisons. I tugged my hair straight and I plumped and thinned my limbs through binges and diets.

For the last year or so, I’ve also been trying to see a cheeseburger as a delicious and simple mixing of beef, bread and cheese rather than a fat, juicy ticket to self-loathing. I know a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger but, to me, it feels a lot like an ugly hook-up I brought back from the bar. I lay in bed the morning after and still feel the stare of the cheeseburger’s squinty eyes; its toenails are unclipped, it has plaque, gingivitis and an unfortunate mushroom cut, and the filthy memory of our merging is with me long after it’s gotten up to put on its blue jeans and split. No matter how many times I tell myself before sleep that it was okay to eat it, okay to treat myself, okay to mess up a little, I still wake up and smell its breath. I’m haunted and unforgiving. I’m working on that.

In the meantime, my new favorite thing about being healthy is the power felt when completing 15 regular push-ups when 2 weeks ago I could only do 10.

lazy week

Because today was a day of work which came after a day of no work, it feels like tomorrow should be Tuesday. However, it will be Thursday- a most blessed day. I salute you, 4th of July, by laying back and playing some guitar the day after you came, for the weekend is almost here.

Like Li’l Kim, this will be my first free weekend in a very long while. I will entertain no visitors nor will I visit anyone. No appointments plague me, I'm no obligation's bitch, there will not even be any plans for fun. There may be cleaning, but I’m just sick enough to think that’s awesome.

My to-do list is as follows:

Go to the Salvation Army, if you feel like it.
If the mood strikes, finish Herzog.
Maybe rent a movie.
You may possibly crave a berry crisp. Make it. Or don’t.

I feel a little guilty about this idle weekend, but the forthcoming pleasure is surefire as a sober, southern man. I suspect it will be similar to, as Dave Attell once mused, eating a Bald Eagle egg…wrong, but filled with the sweet taste of freedom.

Do you know what time it is? Tenacious Sean time....

I ask you, HAVE YOU EVER HEARD AN ANGEL SING?










Becuase there's one in my apartment with an affinity for lime green shirts.

on being 24

It's just like 23, except I am one year closer to flying somewhere and renting a car, bitches!

A list of 5 things of which I currently cannot get enough (1)

Sweet potato fries

Gin Rummy at night with Sean

Brazil Nut Body Butter from The Body Shop

The Cold War Kids

Meryl Streep in The Prairie Home Companion

RIP, beautiful things.

I've loved you all.

In an effort to prepare myself for living abroad, Sean and I plan to rid ourselves of all things extranous or not containable in a hiking backpack. To make matters extra unbearable for my consume-and-horde self, the fam moves to a small California home on July 17th, leaving me with no homebase to store my loads of beautiful posessions.

Sean thinks it's liberating. I do too. Yeah, like liberating myself from my fingernails.




I always encourage writing through one's feelings; ergo, to cope, I've written a healing poem of the Bigley/Farris apartment sweep.

Our fondue pot cannot stay.
My orange couch must go away.
Kilmt, a bookshelf, Mac, TV,
popcorn popper, gone they be.
Right now I am in crier-land
But soon I'll be in...
!!!!!!!

Caribbean highlights and downfalls

Caribbean highlights:

Finding 3 bags manufactured in 1972 for sale in a Caribbean “department store” -- one waterproof, yellowish, Le Sportsac-looking bag, one large, dull purple canvas tote and one bright red satchel with “MY NEEDLEWORK” stamped across it for 5 dollars total.

The key lime pie in Key West.

Chickens and roosters roaming the streets.


Crying with laughter every night because Sean’s family is so freakin’ funny. Or as Sean likes to call it, sucking up shamelessly because I want his family to like me.

Coming back to a new towel animal every night. My favorite was the towel monkey- Val Kilmer.

Eating the chocolate mints on my pillow while burrowing into a soft, turned-down bed, then using, “I’m on vacation” as justification for not getting up to brush my teeth. In fact, using, “I’m on vacation” for all my hygienic, behavioral and diet-related ineptitude.

24/7 frozen yogurt.

Caribbean downfalls:

Falling off an ocean ledge and walking through THE PIT OF ALL THINGS EVIL AND ROTTING

Back story: Sean and I were gallivanting across the beaches of Coco Kay and spying many island sorts of things- stingrays, a long blue and yellow fish, conches- it was great. Not long into our journey, we happened upon an irregular part of the beach where, at one second, we were wading in ankle deep waters and, in the next, the ocean had gobbled us head to foot. Now Sean thought dropping off a ledge was splendid fun, but I burst into a tearful hysteria and started swimming for my life from the abyss of cold, dark, liquid fear (water).

We went back to the beach chairs to regroup. I put on my Jackie O. hat and sunglasses and we waded out again, very careful to look for the dark spots. That’s when the second danger of Coco Kay hit- the sulfur swamp. Sean was walking; the water touched his knees. I held his hand and sat cross-legged in the water, being pulled alongside him. My whole head was dry and out of the water but my body was sumptuously immersed and gliding. Suddenly, Sean sank down and I thought, “Not another cliff!” But no. It was far worse. It was a long pit of poop-like substance. The taste rested on my tongue in a film and it smelled like someone farted in my nostrils. Sean loosed a scream and high-stepped it out of there. He gripped me like a surfboard, so that my stomach rested against his hip and my head pointed upward and he ran the whole time like this (about 45 seconds). Finally, we reached firm ground and I realized the dryness of my head. Sean had managed to carry me knee-deep through poo without getting my hat or sunglasses wet. I almost proposed to him.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

A recent trip to the Rite Aid on Market Street illuminated how different my city life is from my county-suburb one.

***

Before New York and Philadelphia, I picked up litter everywhere I walked. If I saw a smoldering cigarette flicked to the sidewalk, I ground my heal into it to protect the world for unborn babies. I planted seeds in cups and gave them away as presents. I said things like, "Earth Day is everyday." and "PICK IT UP, BUTTFACE!" to those who littered. When I walked by the especially observant they’d say, “What’s that sound Jess? That faint song I hear?” I’d reply, “Hark. It's the Captain Planet theme song, earth brother. I emanate it. Here, have this daisy crown.” I could make a flower bloom by looking at it.

I said good morning to everyone I passed before 11:59 AM and grinned so hard in response to stragers' smiles that a friend told me I looked like I was pooping. I strolled, allowed others to stroll and stopped in the middle of sidewalks to talk to ladybugs and small twigs.

These days, I only pick up litter if it's in the Society Hill area and looks really clean. When I see a smoldering cigarette I leave it burning-I'll even protect it by kicking it lightly out of the main foot traffic path- because some bum is going to sniff it out and make sweet oral love to it. I give gift cards as presents and refrain from eye contact. The only song I emanate now is one I made up called, "Walk faster, you piece of shit."

With regards to daily human interaction, my earth brothers and sisters have vanished. Now, my world is made up of people who talk to themselves and people who don't. The people who talk to themselves occasionally open to the outside world to ask if your butt likes “whoopass sandwiches humph diddy potata.” (1) The people who don’t talk to themselves might tell you, with utter and terrifying clarity, that they hate your face and "want to beat the white bitch out of you."(2)

***

So, back to the Rite Aid--I was picking up some meds when an old man walked by the pharmacy counter to ask where he could find eyeglass holders. I’m guessing he’d lived about 75 years. He left a minty/smoky scented trail and reminded me of my great-grandfather; I thought he probably even used the old powdered toothpaste that Papa loved because he had a tiny smudge of white on his upper lip. He was sweet looking; time had bent his shoulders down a little so that when he lifted his lined face to look around, he resembled a peering turtle. I made a mental note to start volunteering at a nursing home.

When no one at the pharmacy answered him, he ambled away. I left my place in line, against my city sensibilities, to look for the small eyeglasses tower that all drug stores have. “Sir, hold on; I’ve found them,” I called out, reaching out for a soft leather case and a hard plastic one. I walked them over and he said, “Oh, thank you, dear” and then he put them in his breast pocket AND WALKED OUT OF THE STORE.

As he was leaving, I heard one pharmacy assistant say to the other, “Well, looks like the old cokehead just stole some more stuff.”





1. attributed to the woman by the bus station who crunks to head phones that are not plugged in.

2. attributed to James Massenson, the man who lives 6 doors down from me and who stared at me the entire time the police filled out the report on why he chased me up the block about 3 weeks ago. Yes Kate, I now get out my mace and start shaking it as I turn onto 13th.

On this day, 17 years ago, I got her.

Hey, remember when you used to sleep in my bed and I would chuck your pillow across the room? You’d go retrieve it, climb back in bed, rest your pretty head down and I’d throw it again. I usually did it 18 or so times in a row. God, that was funny.

This entry is devoted to my little sister, B-Bob Farris (what…she was named after her grandfather). On this day, 17 years ago, I got her.

Dear B-Bob,

Around this time…


15 years ago, your body shook with laughter when I blew raspberries on your tummy. Dog and dad were interchangeable and you would say “Daddy poo?” for “Let’s go in the pool, Dad” and “Daddy’s a bum.” for “Someone give this dog a bone.”


13 years ago, you sat on my butt every time I lay on my stomach in front of the TV. You wanted to watch Cinderella everyday and you loved going down the carpeted basement stairs in your silky Care Bears sleeping bag.


11 years ago, you often perched on Papa’s lap to watch the Weather Channel with the focus of an 80-year-old. You picked out a little black cat and would only consider naming her feminine-sounding synonyms for black.


9 years ago, you still brushed your hair out and thought Dad’s farts were hysterical.

7 years ago, mom kicked us out of a restaurant for being too damn funny. We did a butt dance for fluffy lemon chiffon pie and got down on our knees to beg for mom’s forgiveness when she returned to the hotel room.


5 years ago, you thought Britney Spears was the shit. I was in Allentown and I missed you a lot.


3 years ago, you danced dances that actually looked good and played songs on the piano so beautifully that I thought the radio was on. You made me laugh every time I saw you. I started thinking of you as Lindsay, my friend and sister.


last year at your sweet 16, you walked to the front of the room and spoke with the humor and eloquence of an adult. You were changed! Old! Mature! But you wore a light blue dress with sparkles, like Cinderella, so I could cope.


Happy birthday, Lindsay.


Love,
Jessie

REASONS FOR APPLICATION

Please explain your reasons for applying to the MA programme. Give details of your experience and interest in your proposed field of study. This statement is a key part of your application.


I called my housemate Sarah into my room two years ago. She sat on my bed and I on the hardwood floor and I said, "Listen."

"To what?" she asked.

"To this. ‘Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear? Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events.’"

"Woah," we said together.

This was our last semester of college. We were weary of our small campus and restless for the world. Joyce woke us up and kept us happy. During my senior year, I read "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," "Dubliners" and "Ulysses." Joyce’s writing knocked in my skull with a rhythm unique. His words--"rosesoft" and "softworded"-- slid down my throat. I was drunk on him and I’ve missed talking about him since.

Since my senior year I have surrounded myself with language. I’ve been an editorial assistant at Cambridge University Press and The American Association for Cancer Research. I appreciate the endurance of grammar and words more now than ever. The fact that I can correct a sentence on Fas-induced apoptosis without any knowledge of its meaning delights me. I’ve joined book clubs and been bold in writing workshops. I’ve befriended my local bookstore owners and given them a fortune in return for soft cover literary company. I’m ready, however, to rejoin academia. To study Ireland’s writers in Ireland seems right, and after much investigation, I’d like the MA in Anglo-Irish Literature to be my first step toward a Ph.d.