Friday, October 7th, 2005: Last night I cleaned out the basement some more. It’s almost completely done now. Some neighbor kids helped me carry all the wood I had left over to Tom’s house. I took another full carload to storage, got some Tostitos for supper and came home. I might actually be able to leave this place by the end of the month.

I spent an hour last night looking through the Albany newspapers, real estate magazines and pamphlets that I picked up during Spring Break earlier this year. I found houses for sale there for just $10,000! I might get me one of those. I hope I can find another house to pointlessly renovate. I’ll probably end up in a trailer or manufactured home, though. I read the history of Albany too and it’s really boring there. I think I will hate it. I remember hating the people there the last time I lived there. Now I can hate their history too. You know when the hyped-up literature put out by the Albany visitors office makes it sound boring, it can’t be that interesting. Their biggest claim is that they have a lot of historical houses. The town is 150 years old so of course there’s going to be old houses there. Just like anywhere else in the country.

It’s named Albany because the founder (I think it was the founder) was from New York, whose capitol is Albany. So he exclaimed, “I can’t think up an original name of my own so I’ll steal Albany and nobody will ever know since it’s on the other side of the country!” At one point Indians changed the name to something else which translated into “hole in the ground” but the townspeople decided that wasn’t very flattering and settled on Albany again. I remember reading the history of Albany on the web once, and one of the highlights of their history being the construction of the movie theater. Another highlight was when Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in the world (who, incidentally, is from Alton), visited Albany. At least the literature from the visitors office leaves those boring tidbits out. I don’t know why I care about history so much, but it does matter to me.

It seems like nothing interesting actually ever happened in Albany during it’s 150 years. I’ve read 3 different versions of their history now and there’s just nothing there. Like in Alton we have man-eating monsters and it’s supposed to be one of the most haunted towns in America. Okay, maybe that just means we’re nuts. But we had Lovejoy, the slave rights journalist/activist who was killed by a mob here. We had the smallpox epidemic, Lincoln spent lots of time here and challenged some state guy to a dual with swords, Miles Davis, Robert Wadlow, neat caves, a one-of-a-kind bridge, indians killing children, ummm…okay I’m grasping for interesting things now. One thing that I remember about Albany is that there were absolutely no black people there. Just lots of burley white men with big belt buckles and moustaches. I kind of like the whole diversity thing. Maybe it’s a little different now, who knows.

Not that I’m determined to hate Albany or anything. It’s a nice little town, about the same size as Alton. When I was there earlier this year, I remember thinking that it was kind of nice and there were a lot of improvements from when I lived there 10 years ago. I just remember how much I disliked that place by the time I left it. I hope I’m happy there. I guess if it sucks too bad, I could just move to Portland.

I’m excited to get out of here though. It’s nice to have a good excuse to pack up and leave town forever. I’ve got a busy month ahead of me. Tomorrow I’m going to NYC. Then in 2 weeks Orlando. Then possibly the week after that Oregon.

Went to Bonnie’s today and we had lunch together. Ended up driving all the way to Edwardsville and ate at a place in downtown called Lauries. Was a 3 hour lunch, but it was fun. Went to Jamestown Mall this evening. I was going to go to 2600 but halfway there I changed my mind and decided I didn’t feel like being social. So I ended up at the mall, walked around, bought a book (Mark Twain biography) and bought a couple of really cheap shirts. In JC Penny I glanced at this old man with wild hair and a mustache. He had a packed shirt in his hands and he was biting down on it like a sandwich! I kept walking and he started telling me, quite loudly, how you have to do that to check something on them. He ranted until I was out of earshot. If I’d been in a better mood, I would have gone back and listened to his theories.

Went home and finished packing for my trip tomorrow.