Notes from a Super Clinger:

As I walked into the Watson Institute this morning to begin another day of paid Brown clinging, I thought to myself I wish you (me) had spent more time with those kids who came to Providence this weekend to cling. You’re all cute; we have so much in common; and only one of you has ever smelled bad and, to my knowledge, him only once (readers can enumerate other times in comments section). But then it occurred to me that I shouldn’t beat myself up about not driving over to 401 to watch you watch the Oscars because I know you will be back in a big way! We (the ones who cling so hard we are never not clinging) don't know what is exactly that keeps drawing you back to us like small children to the strange noise of their grandparents' garbage disposal. Perhaps it’s our kindly disposition and overall outlook on life. Perhaps it’s the feeling that in THIS city we all live in one house (and its yellow with the greatest brick stoop this side of Hey Arnold). Perhaps it’s a story we wrote once a long time ago whose success we will be forever unable to replicate. Perhaps its this guy and the small-town journalism-as-it-used-to-be-paper that would have the courage to put a video of him on the very front of their website. For whatever the reason, you will continue to return, and we will continue to have potlucks to celebrate your presence. So carry on being just the tiniest bit dissatisfied with your big city lives, and we (I?) will continue to wait here with a loaf of bread I didn’t bake, ready….ready…

Visions Unrealized, Toothbrushes Forgotten

Readers, the technical sojourn to Providence has indeed concluded. After hours of entertaining/ distracting the now work swamped masses of Brown University your very own It Girl? finally departed the bubble on a hill at 10 PM last night. Faced with a four hour train and little in the way of distraction the atmosphere was ripe for reflection. Dear audience, let me share with you a number of thoughts I had whilst in my sparsely populated Amtrak car on my odyssey from the corporeal space of Brown University:

1. I really must get my DJing career off the ground.

2. My bike could have easily come on the trip down to New York with me. No one travels from Providence to New York at 10:22 on a Monday night. Those Amtrak baggage gatekeepers, so insistent upon sticking it to the little guy.

3. The appearance of "Clinging to the Past" as it were, may perhaps most visibly be witnessed in the act of returning to place where the memories and experiences of times past transpired. However in reality, the act of returning to a hallowed place is ultimately not an act of desperation for the past, but progress towards the future as it weakens the crispness of the memory. The past can never truly be retrieved. It's a truth that is, albeit obvious, reluctantly accepted. Visiting the site where so much occurred yet, as my colleague so elegantly phrased, only embers remain, reinforces not the past but the change that has come to pass. Indeed, clinging to the past is best (and perhaps better) done from a distance.

4. I forgot my toothbrush....perhaps it can be shipped with my bike?.....Meawa, wanna help an It Girl? out?

When I arrived home at my apartment at 2:30 in the morning it was with full awareness that the next day would be filled with "adult" adventures: waking up early, toothbrush replacement, job interviewing, searching for my bedside nightlight.... a full day indeed. And yet, along with such important activities, I knew with certainty that if it ever became overwhelming I'd always be able to cling.

The 401 Wickenden Mouse

Several particularly sharp-eyed “Clingees” have pointed out that Jake’s posts have a tendency to be lethargic and crabby.  As Jake himself put it: “I have nothing. I am egged on but then chastised for all that I produce.”  Under the assumption that young Jake is feeling “hemmed-in” by the constraints of a group blog, I’ve spent my lunch break devising a PROPOSAL.

PROPOSAL: we create a spin-off blog to be titled JAKE SCHORR, MOUSE KILLER.  Confused, dear reader?  A bit of background: my marathon visit to 401 Wickenden last November climaxed in a delirious all-nighter.  Between sporadic bursts of studying, Nicole Sander and I attempted to catch 401 Wickenden’s resident mouse by applying peanut butter to thirty individual Triscuits and scattering them hectically about the house.  The ploy was a bust, though; we awoke to find that the Triscuits had been scrubbed and stacked next to the sink by an industrious Meawa.

Back in New Jersey, I’d gchat Jake from time to time, asking what the house mouse was up to.  Eventually, Jake informed me that the concept of a single 401 Wickenden mouse was a construct—a sort of urban legend in reverse.  It seemed there were actually dozens of house mice, each brilliantly masquerading as the previous one—a scam that persisted despite Jake’s repeated successes in knocking the mice off.  (“Imagine,” Jake told me this weekend, between puffs on his bubble pipe, “an endless procession of Darrens on Bewitched…and all of them taking turns romancing the exact same Samantha.  That’s the mouse of 401 Wick in a nutshell.”  Jake then took a swig from his pipe, started choking, and had to use his inhaler.)

Ideally, JAKE SCHORR, MOUSE KILLER would be updated with daily mouse sightings, “pro and con” lists about each mouse’s personality, and meticulously-drawn blueprints displaying how Jake plans to capture and maim his quarry.  Jake would be able to design the blog as he pleases, and wouldn't have to worry about the grubby hands of “blog administrators” fiddling with his adjectives and punctuation.

Please leave your feedback in the comments section!  "Haters" are welcome!