Marlboro Lights to Misty 120s

What's the suicide rate in Kentucky?

Scenario: Wake up today. Beautiful day. 65 degrees. I'm kinda-sorta having trouble breathing. Still trying to get over this whole sinus thing that puts me on my ass around this time every year. This shit never happened until I was in Kentucky. Anyway, I go to fucking Spanish class because the teacher -- the nice lady who uses the textbook curriculum almost verbatim -- docks three percentage points off the final grade for every absence. Conceivably I could get an A on every assignment and still fail the course. So I go and I try not to pass out and I leave for a moment to blow my nose and I come back and we leave and then I go outside and the weather has fucking dropped fifteen degrees. And what about the blue sky and white clouds? Gone. Hello, gray.

I blame Kentucky.

Sure, shit happens, but here it runs its own company. And when Shit retires, Shit Jr. will keep his legacy alive.

Excuse the triteness, but words can't express how fucking sick of this place I am. I have all the funny, disgusting anecdotes regarding America's heart and soul -- the "real" people -- that I'll ever need. Remind me to tell you the one about the morbidly obese girl with dried shit stuck in between the folds of her lower back. Or about a different morbidly obese girl who cashed a twenty dollar child support check in a liquor store and made the whole fucking store stink like curdled buttermilk and ass sweat. You'll never guess what happened next...

Another time. I'm sucked dry of creativity right now. So close to finishing my script and I have to deal with an illness, a diet, a professor who wants me to fail, tons of busy work because professors don't know how to pace their fucking classes, and Kentucky. I have to deal with Kentucky.


I was walking to breakfast after class this morning and this sorority bitch was gabbing away on her Razr phone about some asshole named Matt and his truck or something. One word struck me though. Senioritis. "I think it's senioritis," she squawked. Now was she talking about herself or Matt? My guess was herself.

Now how the fuck can an Elementary Ed Major get senioritis? She's spent her whole college career learning about different types of construction paper and how Crayola crayons are superior to Rose Art crayons. She's read every Berenstain Bears, Amelia Bedelia, and Mr. Frog and Mr. Toad. She probably didn't even take the honors class, which involves Goosebumps, the Boxcar Children, and the Babysitters Club (Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls, baby).

And she has senioritis?

Here's the rest of her life:

If she's not already married, she will be. Maybe to Travis. She'll have a kid soon. Maybe in Travis's truck. She'll take residence in her hometown. She probably won't teach. I see clerical work in her future. More kids. Her hair gets big. She graduates from Marlboro Lights to Misty 120s. She goes to the football games every Friday night. She dreams her kids will grow up to be something, just like her parents dreamed the same of her.

The cycle will continue. And that's why places like Kentucky are the way they are.

It all reminds me of an episode of MTVs "Made" I saw once. This Ole Miss cheerleader, this fucking bottle-blonde Southern Belle, wanted to dance in New York City. Here she was at school with an omigod! hawt boyfriend, tons of popularity, and bffs gushing from her anus. God, a girl like her could do anything.

Except dance in New York. Or live in New York. Or just visit New York. She was on a different fucking planet. People weren't charmed by her dumb, coquettish methods. I-hate-you looks ran aplenty from everybody. Even her coach. And all she wanted to do was go home, back to where she could hide away from the rest of the world and get married and grow big hair and talk about how mean and strange big city folk are because nobody recognized her sickening sweetness or called her princess or stuck a fucking glittery star sticker to her over-rouged cheek.

There's no place like denial.