A List of Diners in SJ That I Like

OK, so I've noticed that there are many many hits on this site that imply that people would like a list of Diners in South Jersey. Well here are the ones that I know of that I like and that should serve the people through information--

• The Woodstown Diner, Rte. 40, Woodstown, NJ (WARNING: Admittedly NOT what it used to be.)
  
• The Malaga Diner, Rts. 40 & 47, Malaga, NJ (Don't ask them to make you a Root Beer Float... believe me.)
  
• Point 40 Diner, Rts. 40 & 77, Upper Pittsgrove/Elmer, NJ at "the Circle" outside of Woodstown going East on Rte. 40 (Where to go if you want GRITS!)
  
• Richman's (not technically a diner, but still, menu-wise, falls into the category, and has good ice cream as it used to be an independent ice cream manufacturer), Rte. 40, Sharptown, NJ
• Michael's Diner, Rte. 49, Pennsville, NJ
• Elmer Diner, Rte. 40, Elmer, NJ
• Ponzio's, Rte. 130, Brooklawn, NJ (if you're coming from PA, it's right over the Walt Whitman Bridge--take the 130 exit off of 76 immediately after the bridge)
• The Colonial Diner, Rte. 45, Woodbury, NJ (Last I checked, 24 hours!!!)
  
• The Harrison House, Rte. 45 at Rte. 322, Mullica Hill, NJ
• The Salem Oak Diner, 113 W. Broadway, Salem, NJ (one of the old, shiny boxcar diners, but Salem itself is a little... tarnished.)
  

Most of the Diners that I liked in DE are now defunct-- The Blue Hen Diner (aka the 1st State Diner, the Eagle Diner, etc, all in Newark, DE)-- but one remains open, although it's a bit of a haul. If you're heading down Rte. 13 through the DelMarVa region, then check this one out (it's where the picture on the header of this blog was taken)--

• The Seaford Eagle Diner, Rte. 13, Seaford, DE

OK, there you go. That's a list of South Jersey Diners, and one Diner in Delaware. ENJOY!

Would that it would snow...

Today was very brisk and cold. As I drove from Salem to Hometown, I saw the clouds heavy, heavy, heavy with snow. I wanted to stop and take pictures of the watertower behind the vo-tech school because the dark clouds made the light blue of the tower stand out for perhaps the first time ever. I didn't even know the vo-tech had a water tower until today.

In other news, they ruled out the possibility that I have some sort of weirdness in my lungs by doing a CT Scan on me today at the hospital. Glad that I don't have a pulmonary embolism. Sux that I'm going to have a huge bill to pay. The medical system in this country is so fucked up. (Things to look forward to, Tiara, when you come back to the U.S.--horrible health care and tremendous bills for even the smallest things. I'm so sorry you're coming back to this Darwinian Mess of a Health Care System before we managed to figure out how to get everyone equal coverage under the law. Nonetheless, welcome back!!!)

Now, I just need to get my breathing under control. I've been really short of breath lately. I wonder if I have asthma?

Sorry for the rambly. Not feeling all that great these days.

Even-Keel Girl

Been a little off-balance lately, not good. Taking on too many projects... my participation in this NaBloPoMo thing is probably due to things being a bit off-kilter. Too much energy, probably just a cyclothymic thing. I'm feeling better, although now I'm finding it hard to motivate for NaNoWriMo. When I'm off-balance I am (somewhat paradoxically) super-productive. I'm also super-irritable, as the email to my HS friends displays...

...but with regard to that, my goodness! Some people have responded to me telling me to just chill, and some people have responded with "It-wasn't-about-YOU" logic, which is in essence... telling me to just chill. Which actually has succeeded in pissing me off even more.

Can't win with Off-Kilter Girl, it seems.

Even-Keel Girl, however, now she is not rattled by stuff like this.

I still think I did the right thing by sending the email, even if it was generally dismissed by my friends. My evil exbf from North Jersey who hates my HS friends with the fire of a thousand suns even told me to back off. "Take it easy on your friends," he said. "They're just kidding around!" And then he added as a p.s. "Besides, nobody's ever moved to Canada based on an election!"

Well, I just might! I think Canada would be good for me.

As it's shaping up, this place might not be...

Cackelacky Logic

I talked tonight with a former friend/lover, all now tucked away in North Cackelacky with two kids, a wife and a house--a total amnesiac about our affair, too, (which, BTW, happened long before he was married) and which is probably better for him in the long run, but hangs like a white elephant doing the merengue on the telephone line between us.

We talked about the election. He's voting for McCain, because he thinks he's straightforward and won't "Rob Peter to Pay Paul", as he thinks Obama will do. So even if he agrees with Obama on social policy, apparently owning a house will make you vote for, essentially, the perception of better financial security.

As I don't own a house, I couldn't jump to the defense of Obama's economic policies. That and I know squat about economics in general.

Shamefully, especially since my friend lives in one of the most hotly contested battleground states in the union, I did not try to turn his head with my Most Heated Liberal Arguments. Instead I just kind of lay down and let him turn traitor. Why? Because I didn't want to push him any further to the right. It seems these days that that's all arguing over politics does--entrench people even further in their beliefs.

I went to hippie-dippie Montessori school until I was seven. In my hippie-dippie heaven, there was no gender, no race, no religion. It was *so* late-'70s nirvana. I have carried all those teachings with me ever since, and the school remains my imagined "happy place" when I see what's wrong with the world. I fit in well in San Liberal, where it seemed everyone lived in a hippie-dippie bubble.

Now that I'm back here, in the Red Part of a Blue State, I cling vehemently to my past, to my liberal views, but I've stopped trying to convert the McCainiacs. They'll just call me Pinko Commie Liberal. And I'll just call them Redneck Xenophobes.

God, I miss my friends in San Liberal. Not that they were open minded. They were not. It's just that their closed-mindedness I understood and agreed with. San Liberal is a bubble, though, and I'm learning more about what it *really* means to be an "Amercun" here in SJ.

I don't like what I see.

It's very lonely here these days. Just the writing and the working and the 'rents. Very little in the way of friends. And even less by way of dating.

Maybe I should call an ex-boyfriend or two. One is lurking outside of D.C. and another outside of N.Y.C.

Consider yourselves warned. ;-)

It's Accurate.

You are 49% Southern Jerseyan

Who are you kidding you'll never fit in here. Just because you moved to the Shore house doesn't make you a local local. It takes a special kind of person to live here. You probably don't even drink the water.

South Jersey Quiz
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True, I don't fit in here. And considering that half of me is Californian, I have to say, this test is dead-on.

But here I am anyway.

Really? Biker Poetry?

I was combing through the listings on the New Jersey Poets and Poetry blog to see if there was anything doing in SJ anytime soon. Anything. Even if it means getting lost on my way to Hippie Fruit Farm out in the wilds.

What did I find?

A reading for Biker Poetry.

As interesting as this looks-- and believe it or not, I do have a poem I could read there, if only it were open mic-- I am going to have to say my usual "WHA WHA WHAAAAAT?" to that, because I had no idea that Bridgeton was a place where Bikers like to hang and rev their engines and wax eloquent about the road.

Man, I bet that reading would be fabulous!

Too bad I can't go.

And I would include my "Sturgis" poem here, but I have a rule about publishing poetry on Teh Interwebs, as in, I don't do it. Too paranoid.

But, hey, cheers to the Bikers of Bridgeton, NJ. May Rte. 47 always be well-paved and humble.

Why Go Home?

Sure, North Jersey has 'em. The Diners, that is. But really, they've got nothing on the Greeks and the Turks that run a Diner Mafia down here below the Burlington county line, where 295 and the Turnpike run parallel, where you can't get there from here.

I've been living in San Liberal, CA for seven years now and have just returned to my native land, South Jersey, Salem County, to be exact.

In San Liberal, "SJ" did not mean South Jersey, it meant "San Jose", and what a relief it is to be back where there isn't a Spanish name to be heard for miles... well, not until you hit Malaga on Rte. 47, and have a piss-poor root beer float there. They're probably not even aware of Malaga, Spain. Of course, in Spain they write it Málaga. How right they are.

I've also just returned from Spain where I was dicking off for about seven months. I went there in between San Liberal and South Jersey, and then the dollar tanked and, pues, here I be, starting this blog about coming home, to see if you actually can go home again.

I'm not living at home. I have an apartment in my hometown on a street that has a bad reputation. But I pay $300 a month for two bedrooms, f-in awesome. I've got a full-on study in which to write.

I'm a writer. Working on a novel. Working at a hospital in the meantime, putting that Spanish to use in the ER, translating for patients that have been through the wringer: rapes, heart attacks, demons chasing them, puppies with lasers trying to kill them... I've seen, if not it all, then I've seen a lot.

So why go home?

That's the question I'll be exploring here.

Why, indeed.