Fleas.

My dog has fleas.

I've tried to get rid of them 4 or 5 times now, and its just not happening. It's futile. I get rid of most of them, but a few live on. And breed. And they keep coming back. No matter what I do, I can't get rid of all of them.

And I can't help but see it as one huge metaphor for the rest of my life right now. I get rid of the fleas, but immediately find new ones. What's the point if I can't get rid of all of it at once? One thing remains, and soon enough, it's all back to the way it way. A dog, covered in fleas. I quit smoking and biting my nails, but the drinking stays. The drinking leads to smoking, which leads to biting my nails, and now I'm back to where I was all of a sudden. I start running, I work my way all the way up to a 5k in under 40 minutes, but the other habits wear me down until I stop and just watch 4 hours of tv and smoke and drink more.

I can't turn my life around. There's always something left that slowly drags back the rest of it. I don't even know what the end goal is anymore. Sure, there are the basics. Quit drinking. Quit biting my nails. Quit eating like shit.

Seriously. I skip breakfast before I go to work, I grab some McDonald's around 10, usually a McMuffin or something cheap, then I eat a good lunch, then I skip dinner. I'm not in a good place. But hey, it's cheap and I'm not eating so much junk food. I think my mind's solution to eating like crap was just to stop eating. If I go buy food, it won't be good food. So I just don't buy anything. That effectively leaves me with no food, and by the time I get hungry, I'm either too lazy or too drunk to go get anything to eat. So I just don't eat dinner.

The same with working out. When I'm in a good mood for a few weeks, I'll work out after work. I'll go running around the lake, I make it a few miles, I feel good afterwards. I'll have a burger and a beer to reward myself. But then I have a bad day at work. I skip working out, I drink instead. I skip eating. I watch netflix like it's a religion and then the next day, I say to myself, "Well, that was a lot easier than trying." And I do it again, but without the 3 miles before it. And now I'm in the same place I started.

I can't get rid of my fleas, much less my dog's.

I think I know what I want, but I'm too scared too go after it, so I sit and drink instead. I want to go back to school and go for a doctorate in economics. I love knowing how the world works. Researching all the patterns of people and of the world. I want to move to Colorado. Or Washington. For different reasons - Colorado because of the mountains, Washington because of the beauty. Both because of the culture. It has very little to do with the whole 'weed is legal' bit, I promise. It's all the reasons why it became legal there. The people, the feel, the atmosphere. Everything to do with why more than half of the state would choose to say, "fuck it, I don't give a shit what you do with your time."

These are the things I want. But I'm too comfortable where I am now. I'm too scared too put it all out on the table and try with everything I have to go for it.

What I need is that veterinarian who knows how to get rid of all the fleas at once. To cleanse my life of all the bad shit dragging me down all at once. I need someone or something to barge into my life, fix everything, and get me to where I need to be. But that doesn't exist. That person, the one who has to fix everything, is me, and I don't think I have it in me.

There is no magical person like that. Back in high school, or even earlier, I had my parents. They were the go to fix it machine. They solved the problems. told me where I needed to go, what I needed to do. I never realized how much I leaned on that. I hated them for it. I called Mom a nazi for it. But I did, I leaned on that over-protection. I accepted it. And now that it's gone, now that I have to live my own life, I'm lost in the abyss.

This is why, if I ever have the opportunity, I will never be the helicopter parent. It doesn't help, it just makes kids dependent. I don't know how to take care of myself. I never had to learn how. And now I'm here, working a job I don't particularly enjoy, watching tv for the rest of it, eating like crap, caught up on habits like drinking and smoking, all because I never had to make my own decisions, and now suddenly I do, and what I chose was the easiest route to take. And it's not a good one.

So I have to actively make the good decisions. To do what's best. To make myself happy. To move to a distant place. To go back to school and pay for it myself. I don't have practice with that... I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm scared. Too scared to make the big calls on my own. I'm too used to having someone do it for me.

If only that magical person came out of no where, said, "I'm moving to Colorado and you're coming with me and here's a good job you can have and we're going running every day," I would do it. I would be on board and I would be in a better place. That's the voice of conscious that most people have that drive what they do and how they live, and mine never had a chance to develop. I keep waiting on someone to come along and be that person, all because I can't do it myself.

And I think every day I hate myself a little more for not being able to fill the role.

Sorry for the depressing post. What were the odds, I've been drinking again. Nice new whiskey I decided to try out. (see I can make my own decisions, but this what happens when I do.) The important thing is, this Friday I'm going to Denver. It wouldn't be happening without my friend Charlie, who set up the plane tickets and everything. But I'm going, and it's gonna be great. Friday and Saturday are going to be packed with awesome Denver things, and I'll tell you how it all goes when I get back. In the meantime, I'll just try to get through Thursday without cracking and quitting my job in a fit of rage. I'll just keep biting at the fleas until then.

Is coffee the key to happiness?

Okay okay, I'll get the obligatory 'sorry I've been gone' out of the way. I've been busy, I'm sure you'll get over it.

But really, I have been. I've been planning my trip to Colorado. Next Friday - a week from tomorrow - I'm going to Colorado. I'm not totally sure what airline I'm using, where I'm staying, or what I'm doing most of my time there. I think it's Frontier airlines. Charlie was in charge of that. He got the plane tickets and the tickets to the game. We're going to Denver next weekend to watch FC Dallas, the local major league soccer team, play in Colorado. That's the excuse to go visit the world of endless micro-breweries and legal pot. So we have a ride there, tickets to one event, and the ride back. I think I was in charge of finding a place to stay.

Ever heard of couchsurfing.org? I hadn't either until Charlie mentioned the idea and I decided hotel prices blow. So I looked into it, and it's really a pretty awesome place. It's like a real social media site, except the point is to actually go out and do stuff rather than sit online. It's a whole social network devoted to meeting new people, in person, by letting strangers into your home to crash on your couch. This bitch is worldwide. Think people who backpack through Europe without an itinerary. These are the people loving, culture learning, good people of the planet. These people just go meet new people, even if they're tied down and it means just inviting travelers into their home for a few days.

So for the past few days, I've been trying to find a host. Someone who will take us in for Friday and Saturday night and give us a couch or two to pass out on. It's a tricky business. Some people want to spend the whole time with you. Some people only maybe have a couch. Some are super religious - you know how evangelicals are, with their open arms, ready to accept whatever passes through their doorstep.

Anyway, long story short, I've been busy with that. And of course, lots of netflix as usual. Can you blame me? It's hard to break old habits. Like smoking. and biting my nails. And a slew of other things I'm sure I have no conscious control over.

I stopped smoking about a month and a half ago. It lasted a while. Honestly, it did. But one day, I was drinking, and for some reason I bought a pack. After like six weeks of not smoking. And I maybe had one just to calm the urge. But there were 19 cigarettes left. I put it aside, saying okay, maybe I'll only have them when I'm really drunk and just need one. That slowly turned into one a day, two a day.... suddenly I have one at lunch after a really bad morning on calls at work, and boom. Back to normal. One in the morning, One on break around 10. One before lunch. Two after lunch. One on the way home. Whatever once I get home.

It's an awful habit. I need to stop. But my brain is hardwired to love them. How do I stop such a strong physical addiction when I know I have an alarmingly addictive personality in the first place? It's not just cigarettes. It's shit like Netflix. Like biting my nails. Like my ancestral line of alcoholism.

It goes beyond that though. I'm just addicted to routine, and the nicotine encourages that. I don't go past a certain point. I've already said: one in the morning, one on break, 3 over lunch, one on the way home, a few at night. That's when I smoke. And my brain knows it and loves it. I get twitchy when I don't have a smoke when I'm "supposed to." It's the same way, albeit not as twitchy, with the rest of my life. I'm perfectly content just going through my pattern all day, every day. Wake up at the same time every day, take shower, get ready for work, leave at the same time, get to work around the same time, serve my time, get home, take the dog out, watch tv, go to sleep. repeat. The same thing, every day. And part of me is just okay with it. That's maybe why I don't post so much. It's just not part of the schedule.

Recently I looked at my high school class' facebook group. Seeing where everyone is going, what they're doing with their lives... they broke out. They're moving all over the country. To LA, Seattle, Denver, New York.... and here I am. Quite graduate from a close school, back where I started, running the same pattern I did in college, except with work instead of school. Why can't I break out? What is it that I want to do?

I ask that because I don't know. Looking through everyone's lives, it's like, "Oh, yeah, naturally, that's totally where I expected them to end up." Like the slightly flamboyant kid who ended up teaching drama classes. Or the outgoing popular girl becoming a model in LA and then settling down with a husband and kid. But what am I doing? What's the thing people would say, "oh of course, that's where he ended up. What else would he be doing, honestly?"

I just don't have an answer. I'm just... drifting. I guess it's just like I did in high school. No defined group, no defined purpose. I have a job. It's not what I love doing, and it's "temporary" in my mind. But I've been there over a year. How is that "temporary" at all? I fell into a new groove, and like always, it's hard to break out of what I've decided is a normal pattern. I need to stop and reexamine everything and decide what it is that I love doing.

That's one of the worst parts about being depressed. Nothing is really intriguing. There's nothing I'm truly passionate about. I don't have any hobbies. I don't have anything that excites me. I like economics, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty, I lose focus and suddenly it's just work again.

My brother wants to open a coffee shop in Denver. Or Colorado Springs. Or somewhere in Colorado. And he wants me to join him. His heart is dead set on it. And the weird part is that mine is too. I can't decide if my excitement is just breaking the mold I'm stuck in that I hate, or if it's just contagious excitement from him about the idea, but I'm excited. I don't think I've been excited about anything in awhile. Sure, I'm going to Baylor this weekend. Sure, I'm excited for the game. I'm going to Denver. I've got plans and things to figure out. But this is more. It's long term. Excited about a "career," if you will. Excited about life. That's something I haven't been able to say about life since middle school.

And if that's not a reason to pursue it, nothing is.

I love the idea that I can still get excited about doing something for more than a few hours. I don't know if it'll ever actually pan out, but just knowing that I can still get excited to do something that I can make a living off of makes me... oh, I can't think of the word, but it makes me think I can at least do something that I enjoy. It makes me want to try. It makes me want to search for happiness.

On a side note, I should really stop doing these drunk. I might be able to articulate my thoughts a bit better. Tonight I'm trying a random whiskey I pulled off the shelf. It's called Paddleford Creek. Not too bad. If you have any bourbon suggestions, I'm all ears. I do like bourbon.

I'm not happy. Not with my job, not with life, not with much of anything. But I feel like if I could just get the courage to throw myself out into the world.... to try to start a coffee shop, or even just find a job that I'm excited about going to everyday... life could be okay. And if life is okay, that's a good start. If I'm at least content with life - and it'll be the first time in a long time - maybe I can think about other things. Like dating. For the longest time I thought all I needed was a girlfriend, but it's just a crutch like everything else. I need to be happy with my life before I can consider dragging someone else into it.

Anyway, that's enough drunk rambling for the evening. Happy Thursday. Go Bears, go Cowboys. This weekend won't be easy for either, and they need all the support they can get.

The Not-Weekdays Are Great.

Hey everyone.

First I want to geek out for a minute. Criminal Minds. Season 4 Episode 3. You all know I'm a TV buff. But this is the only occurrence I've seen of a crossover of the cast of LOST and Star Trek: Enterprise. This particular episode has both Jeff Fahey (Frank Lapidus) and Connor Trinneer (Charles "Trip" Tucker III) in it, and I for one love all three TV shows and freaked out a little when I saw it all together like that.

In other news, I'm watching Criminal Minds right now. Good show. I recommend it.

But the real reason I'm here tonight is to talk about my weekend. My one last bastion of freedom and individuality. I spent last weekend in Oklahoma. I dunno if I've said much about how I feel about Oklahoma, but let me put it this way. To some, I'm only known for my catch phrase, "fuck Oklahoma." I hate it. I hate the state, the schools, the back country people, the way they call Oklahoma City "The City," the country music, the cops, the roads... everything. Everything about it is awful. The only good thing about that twisted, inbred, terrible state is their camping - the one place in the state untouched by the awful citizens.

Now, with that said, I had a pretty good weekend. My brother, for some ungodly reason, chose to go to OSU. Not the better known Ohio State, but good ol' Oklahoma State University, located in the middle of nowhere bumfuck Stillwater, Oklahoma. I met up with his girlfriend in town and we drove up. Now, this is a four hour drive with no rush hour, but we left Friday afternoon in the heart of it.

(please excuse me if I sound like a rambling idiot through any of this, I just finished off a bottle of wine I opened about 3 hours ago.)

Usually when I visit Connor, my brother, I drive alone. I blast music and enjoy what little scenery OK has to offer. This time I had Kayla. She's great. We went to high school together. I was her senior section leader when she was a freshman. Remember those blog posts from then? When I talked about how awful my section was? She was one of the exceptions. She was great. We all loved her. In the end, though, Connor won her and they've been dating for awhile. Plus, she's at Baylor now, so we have that in common too. So we went to Stoolwater together and made a grand ol' road trip out of it.

And we talked the way up and down. And I realized something. I talk. A lot. It's uncontrollable. I think when I moved back to Dallas and started effectively living alone, with my own thoughts and no one to share them with, I just about snapped. Like I mentioned last time, I need this blog. And it's something I didn't have for a long time, so I have a lot to say. Maybe too much. I don't get to vent. So when I finally had an audience trapped in a car with me, I couldn't stop. I vented. And reminisced.  About high school, about Baylor... about whatever I could. I am a story telling fiend.

Too much so, I think. You'd think it'd be a two way conversation, right? It was sometimes. But I talked so much. I finally had someone to talk to. Someone who could relate. Someone right there and in person. And I just unloaded. I feel so bad about the whole thing.. I even realized while I was doing it. That little voice in my head was screaming, "shut up Kyle! It's her turn! Why are you going off on some tangent that didn't relate AT ALL to the original topic of discussion. Shut up. SHUT UP."

I'm probably exaggerating it a little. It wasn't so bad. We had a good car ride and good conversations. But I feel like I talked at least 80% of the time. I'm so wrapped up in myself and my memories and I love to talk about it all. I talked about high school. College. Religion. Relationships. You name it, I talked on and on about it.

Eventually, we were in Stilly. We met up with Connor and his roommates. Soon after, his two roommates decided it was time to go to bars. Now, I wasn't about to pass up a good bar on a Friday night, and besides, the two needed some alone time. So I went to some bar with the two roommates. They both went to Coppell, one was a trumpet. I know both of them; we're all good there. It's not like I decided to go bar hopping with some strangers.

Another little side track.. I stopped smoking awhile ago. Maybe six weeks? I dunno, I haven't kept track. That's a whole other post waiting to happen about bettering myself, but I'll get to that later. The important part is that I've been actively trying to stop smoking. So you can imagine the dilemma I faced when we got out of the car and I found a pack of 19 cigarettes on the ground. If you don't smoke, you don't know the minor excitement that comes with seeing a pack on the ground, not knowing if it's empty or not. Usually it is. Usually someone has thrown it on the ground when it was empty, just casually littering like they would any other cigarette butt. But the optimist in you has to check. Every time. This time it paid off. Nearly a whole pack of them. It was a gold mine. And I didn't have the self control to say no. So the rest of the night I justified it by sharing with whoever wanted one. I even gave them away to strangers who I overheard saying they were bumming cigs all night. Oh what's that? You say you're looking for a cigarette? Well, friend, it's your lucky fucking night, I'm giving them away. I was a philanthropist that evening. Afterwards one of the roomies and I went to his friend's place and hung out till about 5 or so, then I headed home.

Three hours later, my brother woke me up to go golfing, but there was a competition on the course, which destroyed our plans there and left acting a bit like a zombie, as anyone tends to do without plans and working on 3 hours of sleep. I ended up playing Peggle all day. If you don't know what Peggle is, look it up. It's basically a cellphone game. I first played peggle on my iPod Video, before the iPhone existed. It's evolved, to say the least. So I played it for hours on the household xbox, until I couldn't think straight and hated myself. It's one of those games that makes you just give up on life after awhile. So after my brother's midday nap and my masochistic video games, we decided it was about time we did something productive. We went shopping for stuff. That's right. Shopping because we were bored. Now, shopping for me is a little different than girl shopping. I came home with a case of PBR and new whiskey glasses.

The case of Pabst was for beer pong for the evening. We only drank 6 of them, if that explains how the evening went that Saturday night. Kayla had a few friends over, Connor had a friend show up, but largely it was just us playing beer pong. I've accepted that I'm wildly out of practice. I was a god at beer pong back in college. All those times I mentioned those parties, beer pong was a staple, and I was just killer at the table. Those days are long over, and I'm just so, SO mediocre now. Freshman can beat me. It's sad.

But I met a few new people and we had a good enough time, and now I have 26 PBRs that I'm not sure what to do with. Sunday Connor had work, so we visited him there, had some of his amazing pancake brunch, and then had the trek home, which was more of the same Kyle talk Kayla listen to Kyle ramble and talk and talk and talk that I mentioned earlier.

All in all? A pretty solid weekend. But that pack of cigarettes might have destroyed my urge to quit. I caved and after claiming 'last cigarette ever' on the way home, AGAIN, I went and bought a pack today. I don't have any self control. Not for something so readily available and so addictive. But again, that's another story for another time.

I promised not to complain about work, but today I found out I was passed up for another spot with a new job description. I won't call it a promotion, but it was something besides taking calls from idiot homeowners all day. And they decided on someone else, even with insiders on my side and actively (and avidly) recommending me. I'm so thankful to Reem for trying, but big boss man does what he wants, and choosing me wasn't what he wanted, I guess. So that was a downer today, but all in all, the past week hasn't been bad at all, and the outlook keeps getting better. Tomorrow I'm going to an FC Dallas game - major league soccer, you should check it out - and Thursday I'm going to play golf with an old high school friend. It's an exciting week, as far as work weeks are concerned, so be happy for me, even through all my venting and depression.

See y'all soon. Maybe next time will be the time for that story for another time.

I just read through each of the 138 posts I've written in this blog over the course of the last day. This was prompted by a conversation I was having with a friend of mine over the value of therapy. Why, I asked, would you pay someone to listen to you complain about life, when you have the whole of the internet at your fingertips? When you have a diary, or a blog, or somewhere like /r/offmychest on Reddit, where people just want to listen to you. That's all the therapist does anyway, right? Listen to you rant, and then "insert comments to make you think she understands even though she doesn't," as my friend put it. Why pay for that?

Why shell out money to have someone do in person what the internet can do all the time? So that brought the discussion to this blog, which I haven't looked at or thought about for a little over a year. Remember those times I would come back after a month or so and say that nasty little blogger icon in my bookmarks was staring at me again? I deleted it. I had learned my lesson. This honest, open place was no longer the online diary it started out as, because I could no longer be honest. There was too much at stake. Too many interested parties that could take what I say here and use it against me. An employer. A concerned friend. Parents. Those sort of people. So I stopped. For just over a year now, I stopped. Left it to rot, to be forgotten. I left it as a tribute to my high school and college years, a everlasting diary on the internet, with almost no way to find it. I deleted the link to it from my Facebook. I deleted a few incriminating entries. What was left was just a portal to the past, to how I felt as an angst-filled teen. To how I was a lost little freshman in the world of college. To how I slowly came to accept that what I was feeling was depression, not just laziness or apathy or simple unhappiness.

All 138 entries are honest. And they tell a story. It doesn't have a beginning; it only references the beginning. The first blog. The MySpace blog. MySpace revamped and is now a music site and the blogs are lost forever, or at least I can't find it. But it picks up in 2009, near the end of my Junior year of high school. I felt used, ignored, under-appreciated. I felt like what I thought or wanted didn't matter. I was just beginning to see my parents as real people. I was naive. Innocent, to an extent. I had never been drunk. I had never tried marijuana. I was the purest I would be for the rest of my life. But I was not happy. I worried about school because I was supposed to. I filled the roles set in front of me - leader of boy scouts, leader of band kids, hardworking (albeit rebellious) son and student. I did these things without the recognition I thought I deserved, but I did nothing about it.

Then I died and was reborn. I went to college and life started over. I had one friend that semester. I was lonely and I blamed myself for it. I missed high school and my previous life. But life went on without consideration for how I felt. I blamed my new situation on my sadness and indirection. I left as though if I just had friends near me, I would be whole. With graduation goggles permanently in place, high school seemed like a perfect time. Putting aside those times I called my parents nazis, those times I was stressed about a million things at the same time, those responsibilities I reluctantly took on, I remembered only my friends, and how I now had none. I was almost completely alone and certainly lost. I considered therapy but never went. I needed friends, not a therapist, I argued.

I pledged. I made band friends. I met Eric, who I don't think I ever mentioned by name on this blog, but who has been there since that second semester of college. Now I had friends. The invigorating drama was back. Taylor entered the picture. Ethan and I moved into an apartment, but grew apart as K Psi and the friend group around it consumed my life more and more. Now that I had friends, surely I would be happy. But I still wasn't. I found my classes boring. I found life uninteresting. I wanted someone I could never have, and even attended her wedding. I complained about wasting my life away watching tv but did nothing about it, and still constantly worried about not having a direction in life. Friends had not been the solution.

After that year I got into trouble. I stopped blogging. There was a gap. A whole semester undocumented. I was too scared to trust people, and far too scared to talk earnestly here, so instead of lying, I said nothing. I wasn't about to make the whole blog sound like how I talked about that girl I was in love with. That wouldn't do at all. During that blackout, I lived alone for the first time in my life. I was lonely again. I watched more tv than ever, I was unproductive, sad, and alone. I had excellent grades, definite prospects for a future, but none of that interested me. I finally accepted the fact that I needed help. Since I couldn't rely on this blog to be my safe haven, I finally visited the counselors on campus.

It was a wash. I liked going and being able to talk freely, to not have to hide and worry what people would read into or hold against me. But it wasn't helpful. As my friend said, they say they understand. Unfortunately fake empathy doesn't translate to answers, and certainly not happiness. This poor grad student couldn't help me. Said I had depression and that I should consider a proper psychologist, but the on campus one wasn't taking new people. Encouraged me to find one in Dallas once I moved there. But in true Kyle fashion, I took a small task like choosing a new, real therapist and blew it out of proportion until I was overwhelmed. It was effort, and I was undermotivated, so it never happened.

Then I graduated. I took a road trip with Eric. I got ready to start working. And when I started, I left this blog to rot in the archives of internet history. Classes won't fire you for complaining about them. They won't kick out out if you admit to not doing the homework. Baylor could have probably taken action against me for the admissions of occasional cheating, but with fifteen thousand students to keep track of, what were the odds they'd find this little blog? The company I work for is not fifteen thousand people. I finally became too scared to say anything at all, because if they found it and held it against me, I was done for.

So that's where the epic journal ended. Four years of intermittent note keeping that just stopped without a goodbye. I do apologize for that. I didn't mean to disappear, but I thought maybe it was better this way. Maybe I shouldn't document the transition from college to real life. As uneventful as I thought college was at times, or as distant as I thought friendships were, it was ten times worse in real life. Everyone concerned with their own lives. So little time for new friend making. Working forty hours every week doesn't lend itself to exciting nights 5 out of 7 days a week. My blog started looking prophetic; I've spent my evenings too tired to do much except watch tv. My weekends are spent with old friends, both college and high school friends, but the rest of the time I'm alone.

Right after I graduated, I moved home. I did exactly what I thought - spent a little time with old friends, but largely I spent the evenings watching tv with my parents. Eventually the old frictions started to set in. I needed out. I patiently waited for Eric to graduate since he was only 5 months behind me. We got a nice apartment in uptown Dallas. His boyfriend quickly followed and moved in nearby, and after that I almost never saw him. I was alone again.

Taylor - remember Taylor? - has her own story, but she was even more lost than I was. Deserted and alone, I offered Taylor refuge from her mother's home at my apartment. We lived together for a time. I wasn't alone. I had someone who legitimately cared about me. We played house for a few months. I still was not happy.

Taylor didn't have an income. There were other problems I don't feel like expanding on. Eric, who had been there for years now, moved out after 6 months. He moved in with the boyfriend. Taylor went home. I was left out of Eric's new life, forced to fend for myself. It was still too early for the friends my age to have graduated, so I had no one to turn to. This brings us to present day, where I reside alone, in a bad part of town because I can't afford a nice apartment on my own, with Berkley as my roommate. Waiting.

Waiting for my life to get going. Waiting for my friends to have enough money to rent a house with me so I can move out of the ghetto. Waiting for the chance at a new job. Waiting for a chance to go back to college. Waiting to be happy.

This blog has told the story of a depressed adolescent trying to find a place in the world, trying to figure out what's wrong and where happiness is. The chapter is over for that kid, but the book keeps going. I may have to be more careful, but I need someone to talk to. Somewhere to talk, anyway. I don't need to pay a therapist, but I do need somewhere to rant. I need this blog. It took a year to realize it, but I need it. I don't mind if you follow along or not, but I'm bringing this sucker back from the dead.

Thanks, Reem.

Labor Day weekend is over

Happy Labor Day everyone. All, uh, five of you that are still around. It's whatever; this blog was never about you. It was always for me. A personal little diary that is completely open for the public to read if they feel inclined.

So let me tell you about the weekend. It was basically how I predicted it, plus some things, minus some things. Denton, check. Friday afternoon pool party, full college kids I didn't know and rampant day drinking. Pair that with a six inch deep tanning part of the pool and a lounge chair and I was all set for a great Friday.

College football gets a half check. It was a blowout. We demolished the other team. But after driving 140 miles, the guy who we went with decided that since it was a blowout, we should leave after halftime. And what do I do? I leave with him. He was my ride. I could have found another one. I should have. But I've never been able to say no to whatever the fuck he wants to do, so off we went, after I lied to all the friends in the stadium, saying we'll be right back. I was under the impression we were just going to get more beer, as it was half time and we were too sober. But then they caught me off guard and started leaving and whatever. Well, now I know for next weekend, but I'm still bummed that happened the way it did. But the party that night made up for it, though I remember very little of it. Good ol' college.

Sunday we drove up to Arlington for the Rangers game, which despite my fool proof predictions for the weekend, lost 4-2 and now we're wayyyy too close to the A's. But this isn't a sports blog and I'm not about to waste several paragraphs on that. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, but incredibly hot. Lucky for us, we were in the shade.

This morning was officially Labor Day, so naturally it was golfing day. Problem was, it was raining. We (my dad and I) decided this was no concern of ours, and it was only a drizzle, so we went ahead. I think we decided that was a mistake by the 4th hole, where it started really coming down. After taking shelter every once in a while under a tree somewhere, we managed to get through it. We were both soaked and slightly miserable, but considering everything, I had a pretty good game going on, so I can't complain too much. It was fun. I've never played where the hole was filled with water while you're trying to putt. It's, uh... interesting.

The rest of the day was a Castle marathon on TNT. Thank god we recorded them, because TNT has way too many commercials. It should be illegal how many they have, but we pretty much skipped all of them. And it still took the rest of the day (12 hours? More or less) to get through them.

And now here I am, back at home. Tomorrow I get to take Kim to the airport, but past that I don't have anything on my schedule. More TV I guess. Super exciting week lined up. It involves doing absolutely nothing for the last time in my life until I retire.

I think it's really starting to hit me that after this week, I'm going to work for most of the rest of my life. Getting another week like this will be one hell of a treat. And I don't think there's any way I can't take it for granted. I'm too excited to start working. I'm too bored at home. Everyone else is off doing things. This week is just another week without anything to do. But I should be enjoying it.

Why can't I just be happy with things. I always find the downside, don't I? I know what the upside is and how I should be feeling, and then for some reason I'm never feeling that. Oh well.

There's always good to offset the bad :)

I've been living at home for a few weeks now I guess, and what's happened? Quite a bit of bad luck, as life would have it. First, I had 18 hours worth of dental work. Party. Spinning off of that, I now have a perpetual and never ending toothache, which is splendid. To top off that, I did some work in the backyard and apparently got myself into poison ivy or something, because my hands, fingers, arms, and legs all burst into an itchy mess. My hands are so bubbly I look like a troll. It's just fantastic. Oh, and my dog has fleas again, which is just what I needed.

Then there was jury duty, which is always fun. Oh, and a total waste of my day. Lucky me though, I didn't get picked to actually serve on a jury. I talked my way out of that one. But during that day, I got exceptionally bored, and couldn't help but to notice a small blood blister on the tip of my finger, and so naturally I started gnawing at it OCD style until I had effectively chewed a hole in my finger. The blister was deeper than I had anticipated. So three days later, it still hurts like crazy whenever I touch anything (typing is hard with 9 fingers) or think about it too hard. So that's awesome. And to go with my finger, the back of my left ear feels like its drying up and getting ready to dissolve like Quirrell at the end of the first harry potter movie. But really, there's some kinda rash or something going on back there, and I don't like how it feels. So there's something else to worry about.

Bad things come in more than threes for me, I'm just that lucky. Fortunately, though, the bad has got to be behind me at this point. Over the past week, I've gone half an hour up the highway to see my friends at UNT a few times, and those trips have been fun. I'm going again tomorrow, with my friend Kim, who's in town from Kansas of all places. I haven't seen her in too long, so that'll be a fun reunion. Then Saturday, its down to Waco because ITS FOOTBALL SEASON BABY! I've been waiting to say that for longer than I'm willing to admit. It's especially good this year because it gets to serve as my excuse to go live college style for a day out of the week and escape adulthood. And there's no band. Which is a double edged thing I guess; I loved band, but God it's nice to get to tailgate and attend a football game properly. Free, too, because I have friends who can get tickets for me :)

--pause to scratch arms violently--

In other news, in my wayyyy too much free time while I wait for my job to start in just 11 days, I've started working out (which I never, ever saw myself doing voluntarily), my golf game has improved a bit, and my klout score has improved, as I've regressed to being a facebook junkie.

Basically, I can't wait for my job to start. Just so I have something to do all day, more than anything, because I know for sure that this job isn't going to be stellar. It's not the kind of job kids dream of having, but they hired me, and I'll love them until the end of time for giving me a job. And I'm sure I'll do well at it, whether I try or not, like much of everything else, so that's probably good. This probably falls under the category of things not to say online, especially about your employer in case they find and read it, but here goes: this wasn't the job I imagined having, even starting my senior year. I don't want to have to be the bad guy that calls when you're defaulting on your loan. That just sounds like it sucks. But as I haven't even started training yet, I'll go with it and try not to judge my new position too much before I really know what I've gotten myself into.

But if it does suck, then tough for me; I'll stick it out a year and then look for a completely different entry-level position that my major will get me. I hope no one will judge me too hard for being like, "look, I gave it a year, it wasn't for me, I'm trying something else before 40 years of my life pass me and I'm all, what the fuck just happened? I don't even like this job." Not to say I won't like it; it's just a nice back up plan.

Sorry, off topic. Back to the good things going on this weekend. It's football season. Today is DBGDD, or to spell it out to non-baylor-band-kids, its the Day Before GameDay Day. Just go with it, okay? Anyway, Saturday opens the season, then there'll be a party somewhere or I'll go out with friends or something, then Sunday I'm back in Dallas, and probably going to a Rangers game, which is just another dose of sporting awesomeness, because let's be real, its the Rangers, and they have a pretty good shot at winning. Not to mention there's a fireworks show after the game.

So yeah, I've had a whole bunch of bad things happen to me over the last week and a half. I've been more than miserable. But I've got so many good things coming up in the next three days, and I've had a couple good things over the past two weeks to where I'm pretty sure it all balances out. As bad as things get, it always seems to work out that way eventually.

Now I'm gonna go to bed, because I don't run, but I did it anyway and now I hurt all over.

So, I'm done with college.

Well, I graduated. That happened. And I got the only mild laughter of the whole ceremony, so that's something else.

Yeah. I gave the president of the university a high five. I feel vaguely accomplished just for that.

But now what?

I start my job in roughly two weeks. Until then, I'm just at home. And yeah, I'm enjoying a bottle of whiskey in the privacy of my newly reorganized room, complete with my degree on the wall. Well, let me restate that. With my degree frame on the wall. They had to reorder my degree because I graduated cum laude and they didn't manage to get that onto my degree. They had a month and a half to take care of their shit and didn't manage to. So it'll be another four to six weeks before I see my degree. You know how frustrating it is to pay so much money to graduate from an expensive private school, only to find a "we're sorry" letter in the tube that's supposed to have your degree in it? Yeah. So that's fun.

But paper degree or no paper degree, I'm a graduate of Baylor. And I'm supposed to be super psyched about that. And I'm supposed to be super excited about starting my job and getting my life started. But deep down inside, even though I got excited in the moment, as you can pretty obviously tell from the picture, it wore off pretty fast. I'm living with my parents again. At home, all alone, while nearly everyone I care about is off at school having a grand ol' college time. I want that back. I don't do well with change, especially when there's no one around to help me through it. It's like freshman year all over again.

But I dealt with it then, and I'll deal with it now. Life goes on. On a side note, am I more honest when I write these drunk? Because I am. I think this is the second time in my life I've gotten drunk all by myself, and I feel particularly reflective, so here I am. The first time was during my grand road trip that I haven't mentioned yet, so I guess I'll go into that.

During the last week of July and the first week of August, I took a road trip with one of my best friends around the west half of the country. We hit up the grand canyon, San Francisco, Seattle, Yellowstone, and most of Colorado, to sum it up nicely. Realistically, it was so much more than that, but those were the main destinations, and it was fun as hell. I've learned my lesson about sharing too much on this blog, but I'll leave it at we had a lot of fun. Anyway, one night in San Francisco my friend met up with one of his old friends and I had a night to myself, so I went out drinking on my own for the first time.

Tonight is the second, and I'm in my old room at home. The worst part isn't even what you're thinking, because I quit smoking when I moved home 4 days ago, and it's eating at me, especially when I drink. And not weed, but good old cigarettes. And that's so much harder than weed. Stopping smoking weed was a cake walk. It's not addictive, it's just a choice. Cigarettes are different. They get in your head. They put that little voice in your head that says, "oh come on, its just one more pack. You can just smoke it when you drink. I know you want one, and what's the harm. Just go buy a pack, for old time's sake. Just one. DO IT."

I have nicotine gum to help me through it. I don't want to get on e cigs or anything, because I know I'll be hooked on those instead. My mom has been chewing nicorette since she quit smoking 30 years ago, but I've never been much of a gum chewer, so it should be different. I hope. But anyway, I'm determined to quit because I've been saying for a year that I'd quit when I was done with college, and I'll be damned if I'm going to lie to myself like that.

But yeah, that's the hardest part about life right now. I guess. Really, I think the hardest part to deal with is something completely intangible. It's knowing how unexcited I am about it all. About finishing college in three years with two majors and graduating cum laude with a 3.75 and extremely time consuming extracurriculars. About starting a new job at a pretty decent salary. About life. I'm just not excited, even though I should be. I should be excited about all the good stuff happening in my life. But when I'm not in the moment - when I'm not high fiving Ken Starr or opening graduation presents or whatever, I'm just not that into it. It's whatever.

So I graduated. Everyone expected me to, so what's the big deal. So I graduated with honors. That's cool I guess, but it's not like I tried to. You know what I did in college. I screwed around and partied and smoked too many drugs and watched too much Netflix. I don't deserve any of it. But it happened, so yay me I guess. And the average person would be super excited to finish college like I did. But I'm just not.

So, if you know a phycologist in the area that can help me with my clinical depression, I'm up for suggestions. Because I'm pretty sure that's what it is. The councilor at Baylor thought that's what it is, and I'm leaning toward agreeing with her. I am depressed. I've come to accept the fact, and I need help. Probably medical help. Because life isn't exciting on any level. I glide through it. I do well at it. I'm pretty damn good at it, and I just don't care.

Sorry for the depressing post... I guess that's what you get when I write posts alone and drunk in my childhood bedroom. BUT ANYWAY. Seeing as I have little else to do, I may even go back to writing on a regular basis again. It's not like I have anyone to rant to anymore. Or talk to at all. I haven't seen anyone my age in a week, and reality is setting in that this is kinda how it's gonna be for the next several months. All alone, driving a minimum half hour to see friends on the weekends if I'm lucky.

I'm not even sure anyone reads this anymore, and I'm not sure I even care about that. It's just good to type it all out every once in awhile. Night everyone.