I'm Back! Start of a New Series of Articles

          Tonight part of an overheard phone conversation inspired me to start writing non-fiction prose again. "That must have been some phone conversation, Abigail," you might say, in what I imagine is a Russian accent because I like Russian accents. "No, sexy Russian person," I reply to you, and then quickly add, "did I just say that last part out loud?" "Huh?" you politely feign ignorance. "All you said was 'No.'" "Oh, OK," I answer, relieved. What I meant to say after "no" was that it was actually not such an extraordinary phone conversation. It was my dad on the phone, talking about who-knows-what, while I was making tea. I overheard him explain the convoluted way in which he is now meeting up again with someone who helped him with his campaign to get elected to the School Board in 1989. "Small world," he concluded his musings. "No, dad," I idly mentally chided him. "It is not a small world. It is the fact that you have not left Ohio since 1989. If you stand in the same spot for 21 years, even lightning would have run out of other places to touch down and will hit you twice."
          Lately I have been writing only poetry, almost no prose; and of that prose, a tiny fraction of it has been non-fiction, and of that non-fiction, all of it has been facebook statuses. So why did this overheard bit of malarkey and a random clever thought break that pattern? It was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. I have lived in Ohio for the past twenty-two years, and I have wanted to leave for the past fourteen years. I am now completely insane, and to stave off homicidal rage, I have turned to creative writing as a sort of therapy. If eventually one of my posts consists of page after page of  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy notify the police in my area immediately.
          While brainstorming about a creative way to whine about things I can't control, I came up with the sentence "I don't know who wrote Lamentations, but he was probably in Ohio in January when he wrote it." That gave me an idea for a five-part project that will not only be a spiritually edifying Bible study but will also be weird and funny and, I hope, a little different from most mopy contributions from people who live in a horrible place for no apparent reason when they could easily rob a bank and move somewhere warm.

          Jeremiah was a Jew, and I don't think I have to tell anybody that the Jews have collectively had a tough time of it. Perhaps if you've heard one story of oppression, you've heard them all. Perhaps the holocaust was just another Egypt. Really, if you look at history as a whole, it feels like God was playing Mad Libs and, creatively, repeatedly changed up the "Noun preceded by the word evil" but kept putting the word "Jews" on the line that said "Name of Person Who Is Going to Get Royally Screwed."
          Jeremiah lived in a time when the Jews were being oppressed by Babylon, who, I believe, were more classy than Hitler. They did their oppressing in style, with lions and hanging gardens and such. This made no difference at all to Jeremiah, however. The man was majorly depressed for being opressed. He wrote an entire book lamenting the state his nation was in due to Babylonian hijinks.
          Well, Jeremiah the Jew in Babylon, I am Abigail the Ohioan in January, and I totally know how you feel, man. No one else in my family wants to live anywhere but in this, the shittiest of states. How can I leave my loved ones behind for gentler climes? I love them and yet I don't understand them at all. Ohio is basically Canada, and Canada is basically The Arctic. I don't understand the logic behind some places being declared habitable, but I intend to find the Committee for Declaring Places Habitable's website and send them a strongly worded e-mail about everything north of South Carolina. I refuse to leave my house until two-digit numbers that start with 8 show up on my computer's thermometer feature.
          They say misery loves company, so when it's blizzarding and my internet connection is down, I think of you, Jeremiah of Bible fame. Man, let's get together and cry into our beers, lamenting most eloquently in tragic tandem.

ladies and gentlemen, Jeremiah and Abigail present to you:

A Basically Canada in cooperation with The Old Testament production:

Lamentations Loves Company

Part 1
Part 2 - coming soon
Part 3 - coming soon
Part 4 - coming soon
Part 5 - coming soon