03.15.08
boy, your lips look delicious
earson: boys like girls, death cab for cutie, dean martin
eyeson: make me a supermodel, the mist
thoughton: absenteeism
a little update:
retook my LNA test at a little job corps site up in the Silent Hill section of vergennes, VT. imagine if you will the drive, vergennes is a one-road town of stylish tourist restaurants and coquettish storefronts, a pretty town square and a big white church that's popular with out of town weddings, the sort with black shutters and a tall steeple. the area is blanketed with the most beautiful, pristine cotton-like snow cover. all of the trees, though bare, are not skeletons .. but gently reaching things with partially clothed limbs, brushing at the blue sky that day.
my instructor's asked me to please make a right at the yellow blinking light halfway through town and i do this. the road is steep, she says, and very curvy. i pass classic vermont houses, turreted - huge front porches, rambling and unplanned windows. a river runs to my left and i pass through a shallow gulley that is covered in ice, recently flooded. at this point the charming surroundings take on something ominous .. the lingering ghosts tickle at something sinister in the back of your brain and you begin to wonder. the road is narrow; just past an incredibly dangerous and narrow curve a pick-up with huge fog lights on the top comes near to running me off the road, passing me on the left with roaring speed.
i approach the campus of the place where i am to test. it is a jumble of those same vermont houses except some of them now have cataract eyes, boarded windows and cracking sides, sagging porch boards. some of them are not boarded and these have small signs labeling them with the number and nature of their occupation as it applies to the 'school.' mixed in with these are 1 story buildings with grey rooves, very close to the ground, appearing to be elementary schools long unused to children.
i make my left and it's a dirt road pocked with deep bumper-crushing potholes. i swerve slowly to avoid these as best i can and a gentleman waves me into an icy parking spot. i'm about 5 minutes late and i pull on my scrub top as i'm walking .. drift through the front doors and it -is- an elementary school setting .. there are chips in the jaundiced paint on the walls, posters everywhere say 'your counselor is responsible for your job placement, arranging your transportation, finding you housing!' .. denizens stray past in huge hoodies, all stars, hands in pockets .. pale, great dark glittering eyes that affix and follow me not just -past- but down the hallway, square jaw chawing on a mouthful of gum. maybe 18-20 years old, could have been handsome if he didn't look prowling and vicious.
the gentleman escorts me to the room where i'll be taking my test. from what i've gathered so far from murmurs and atmosphere, the place is occupational preparation for delinquent or at-risk youth. it could be, from chipped paint and non-working wall clocks, that the population is generally from a juvenille crime-type facility. i wait patiently while other questionable looking 18-20 year olds take thier written exam, picking through an old national geographic .. the view from the window is rolling mountains, pine forest, a steep hill and a river below. the campus is in the middle of no-where.
when others had finished their written test, i was the first to take the skills portion that i'd come to do. there was an actor pretending to be the patient in this 'medical professions' learning lab where the odd buzzing bell rang at 40 minute intervals though the hands on the wall clock never moved. between testing scenarios i was asked to wait in the hallway. while in the hallway i was asked if i was the mother of one of the students (which clued me in to the actual -nature- of their youth) .. the vicious and pale possibly under 18 person passes me twice in the hallway, once at my back and once ahead of me between my body and the door.
i tested well and fled from the building feeling on edge, the beauty all around just made it all more eerie. on the way home i made note of curio shops, maple syrup joints, honey wine stores, glass art galleries, fine art galleries, truck driver diners .. also there's a strange underground in VT for outdoor art installations and they were everywhere, peeking from the underbrush. .. all in all .. fruitful, strange, glorious, ghostly day ..
i think i passed!
written at 9:09 p.m.
