Writer's Block: Smoked Out

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I smoke. Not very much or every day, and I'm planning on stopping altogether after graduation, but I do smoke. I have a good lighter with a whimsical fairy on it, and I have a preferred brand (Camel Crush, which are great if you are an advanced twitchy person), and I carry my pack and lighter around just in case.

Smoking is one of the last truly communal activities. The brotherhood of smokers is ubiquitous and anonymous. Smokers will lend you cigarettes without knowing your name, because they know that someone, somewhere, will do the same for them. They will exchange lighters. They will huddle in groups outside doors and near ashtrays and talk of great matters for the three minutes it takes to smoke a coffin nail to the filter. They acknowledge inevitable death cheerfully. They will brave the elements for their fix.

Banning smoking inside is a boon to nonsmokers and light smokers, whose bodies and sensibilities may be irritated immensely by the pall of smoke that will hang in the air; there's no doubt about that. It's an inconvenience to addicts. But the exclusion has fostered this sub-subculture, as exclusions will. There are places on campus that I know will always be full of smokers: the alcove outside the library, the courtyard outside the U.C., the doors of Anspach. Chilly havens where the wind whips away the smoke as soon as it leaves the lips, where a lighter will always be welcome.

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I'm considering getting a credit card. With my current financial status (and the random medical fees, processing fees, and other crap that I just had to shell out to CMU), I can either buy groceries and pay the electric bill for the next month or so OR I can apply to graduate programs in time to get into one for the fall (that shit costs money). The problem is not necessarily having the money at all (even with the state of Michigan's economy, I'm sure I can get a job at the Taco Bell I worked at over the summer and earn back the few hundred I need when I go home), the problem is having it NOW.

It occurs to me that if I get a credit card, I can buy groceries and just pay it all off in small amounts, and use the money I have now for applications.

If you have a credit card: What's the best kind to get if you're just buying groceries and small shit? How much would I have to pay off each month, or is it a percentage? How does this stuff work?

ETA: The student account portal thing won't actually take my card, which is an Independent Bank Visa card. There is an Independent Bank kiosk right in the damn student center. The university has a deal with them and special student accounts and all sorts of things, and you can't actually pay your damn account with their card. What the fuck?

GRAD STUFF UPDATE

Since my Non-Western Lit class got canceled again today, I have been taking the time to look at grad programs.

WMU actually looks good, although half of their web pages are down, so I can't find much about funding or assistantships. Columbia in NY does too, but the application fee is twice that of most of the other schools (and I can't find anything about funding on their site either; pages aren't down, just no links). Sarah Lawrence looks fantastic, but...no funding? D: Columbia in Chicago has a two-year MFA in poetry but apparently not in fiction, but they do have a tuition waiver for the first year and possible grad student teaching positions. Indiana looks really amazing, but they only admit twelve students per year, holycrap. Art Institute of Chicago has an MFA in "Writing," which looks like it's largely focused on creative writing; Prof. Blake said that one of the girls I went to Poetry Collective with is going there and loves it, so there's that.

I'm looking at this thing right now; it's a NEOMFA, a program that's shared among four universities, all of which are less than an hour away from each other. Scheduling and driving seems like it would be a pain, but it'd mean being able to be in Kent with Seth, and it looks like a good program.

I need to get my shit together for actual graduation, too. Sigh.