It's been a very long time since I've written much here, but I warned everyone a while ago that updates would be far less frequent.  It's free shit to read, so you can't complain too much.

I've entered a period of life that will probably be one of the most oddly memorable.  It's more that likely going to get some sort of moniker that I'll use in my head and with my closest friends to simply describe this point.  Some examples?  My early college "good-kid years" where I concentrated way too hard on school.... my mid-college "adventurous time" where I did way too many drugs, did political protests and didn't do anything terribly important... my end-of-college "time with Satan" where I seriously dated someone who didn't work for me at all and nearly destroyed me as a person, and my "single time" between Satan and Amy.  The amount of time spent in each era is not consistent, with my "adventurous time" lasting perhaps 18 months, while "single time" lasted around six.  And I hadn't really had a shifting of eras since I met Amy, which meant I had been in a period of time I could have classified under her name for something like five years (with important sub-eras dedicated to time in "Muncie" and "Akron").

Something else is happening now, and I don't know what to make of it.  A shift occured around the time I figured out I wasn't guaranteed funding for next year at Kent, and I've been working that problem ever since.  That seemingly minor change pulled the rug out from beneath everything.  I've already detailed how this has come to pass in various levels of detail.

Fast-forward to the here-and-now.  The right-now.  I just got back from Boston on early Monday morning after what may have been one of the weirder trips of my life.  Granted, it wasn't really weird for any reason besides what all happened in my head.  It was certainly more Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas than anything else.  No, I didn't even need psychotrophic substances to make that a reality... after enough sleep deprivation, an event as simple as some guy with long hair boarding my train can seem remarkably profound.

It was sleep deprivation that ruled the first portion of the trip.  I woke up Sunday at 7-something after four hours of sleep to go with Amy to a new church (bizarre enough in its own right) and didn't sleep again until Tuesday night.  My train, which left Cleveland at 2:30 am Monday, had been delayed, getting into DC too late to hit a train to Boston, resulting in a sleepless night on a redeye train that arrived 7:00 am Tuesday.  I slept very little Tuesday night, and very little Wednesday night due to being out with people, "networking" and drinking and such.  I am unsure to this point how I survived this portion of the week.

Either way, the combination of sleep deprivation and chemical alteration made for a strange week.  I somehow won the Geography Bowl MVP, mostly by accident.  My presentation really bombed and no one from Kent came (which I found to be somewhat strange, considering my consistent attendance at everyone else's but honestly par-for-the-course right now).  I hung out with an old friend and behaved exceptionally immaturely in her presence, but apparently all was forgiven (forgotten?) in the morning.  I rode out a couple of "hard" nights to avoid hangovers, which worked to that end but really fucked with my time perceptions.  I ate no more than one small meal a day.  I smoked more cigarettes than anyone ever should, particularly a non-smoker.  All of these things together, and all of it in an amazing setting (Boston, which I had never visited), I really did feel like Hunter S. by the end of the week.

As weird as that week was, I'm still off-kilter now that I'm home.  Currently, I am seeking some measure of control in my life.  I suspect that my chain-smoking, drinking, and sleep-depriving rabble-rousing last week was some sort of expression of this.  Right now, in this new era, I feel like I have no control and no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel, trapped into decisions that I may have made too hastily.  Messing with my body was one way to control this, though admittedly not one I can do in Amy's presence (nor without the sponsorship of better-off people that I enjoyed at AAG).  Now that I am home, I have convinced myself briefly to embrace doctrines of meat-eating, job-quitting, dog-dumping, chain-smoking (withdrawal sucks even worse than I remembered, but I'm three days out, so from here it's pie), cable-purchasing, school-quitting, anorexia, and even abstinence. 

Ultimately, none of these stick in my head for very long, but what they symbolize is key.  My life is spinning away from me, faster than I can keep track.  This image was further singed into my mind by the bombing of my presentation at AAG, because my research is normally the one place where I can always kick ass, the one source of my guaranteed highs in a sea of lows... blowing that presentation really fucked with me.  I'm trying desperately to grab control, but I'm grasping at straws.  Unfortunately, the only time I'm going to be able to right the ship is with the help of someone else, a note in the mail or a phone call that tells me I've got a job interview or something of the sort.  At that point, I can work the problem I've been given.  Right now?  I've got nothing.  And what a weird place that is to be.