The Transitory Scrantonite - Introduction

Because most of my new prose is presently being devoted to actual novel work - of the sort I don't want to post for the prying eyes of everyone not reading this blog - I'll be spending the next six entries thrilling you with some of my only autobiographical work. The Transitory Scrantonite was written back in 2005 and chronicles my life as a college student in Scranton. It is not very good. It makes the blog look active, however, so here it is.

Introduction
You've all had it happen at some point in your life. You're sitting at home, minding your business - perhaps enjoying a quiet supper with the family - when an all-too-familiar noise fills the room. It's wet and sloppy and fills you with an intense and irrational agitation. It is the sound of your dog, lapping at his own genitals. And the feeling you get from the sound? That crawling out of your skin irritation? Well, that's exactly what it feels like to live in Scranton.

I'm not entirely sure how, but by some grave folly of judgement, I lived in Scranton for roughly two years while attending college before retreating to my home in New York, which I now appreciate immeasurably by comparison. Every night that I flopped down on the bed after a day of classes, cell phone in hand, wailing to my parents about how much I despised Scranton, I always got the same answer: "It can't be that bad." Indeed, my now-ex boyfriend suggested I might even find Scranton "fun" if I gave it a chance. I suppose in retrospect, it is very easy to think everything in life must be fun when you yourself are continually balls deep in a parade of tramps on the tropical island paradise of O'ahu. Me, bitter? Naaah. But I digress...

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure Scranton seems pretty fun superficially. If your idea of fun is sitting in aggressive, Jersey-like traffic for hours just to reach one of the numerous gun and porn stores haphazardly heaped atop the mountain sides of nearby Dixon City, the place is a blast! However, economies centering primarily around inflatable sex dolls and hunting rifles should provide ample warning to the astute observer: there is nothing to do in Scranton but masturbate and kill things (wait, why did I say I hated it there again?).

At any rate, my hobbies included neither buttplugs nor bow hunting, so I had to make my own fun as a transitory Scrantonite. Alone and running mostly on an overabundance of hate and Chai, I made my way through the pothole addled streets of Scranton and scaled the mighty consumerist mountains of Dixon City, dodging Pennsylvanian perverts and accumulating massive numbers of highly pampered Siamese fighting fish in the process. The following tales are an account of my more memorable journeys through the place I thankfully no longer call home.