The past is a real problem. It is this really compelling, riveting, truly active problem. And while I don't think that I'm alone, exactly, I have been alone. And that time, when it corresponds in some way...when it becomes possible to validate (verify?) how completely separate I am from other people, I begin to feel very disturbed. What becomes obvious if you look back just a few years is that everyone feels very, very differently now. Then. They (we) were looking through a glass of an entirely different shade. When you are aware of that absolute quality of change, you begin to see the transience of this set of of feelings. You did (will) feel differently in a few years. At some point things will...shift. If you look around you, and think about your own life, you can see that it's happened several times already. I find myself mourning bygone states of mind more often than people. But then, of course, I am thinking of Sam.

I guess what I mean about the past is not that a change in perception with regards to a particular person or idea is a tragedy, but that past itself is tragic. It is a tragedy that we have to live our lives this way. I am constantly losing things, ideals, people, and places, but I retain a sense of those feelings. I can clearly remember how important this was, how sad and magnificent it all was. But it's gone. Completely gone.

Today (yesterday) was my last day at Holgate. After convincing me to work on new years eve, they decided to push their luck and offered me $50 to stay and work a double. And I thought, OH HELL NO. I'm tired, I'll probably pass out as soon as I get home.

It's 6:25am now, and that shift ends in 5 minutes. So I'm basically out $50 + my hourly pittance for nothing. Nothing except the sense of unreality and impending doom that I've been nurturing over the past 8 hours, snooping around on my own damn computer...Hell, if I'd held out until then end of the night I probably could have gotten the $200 (plus an extra day off) that they bribed my coworker with. Foolish, very foolish.

Predictably, I feel lonely and adrift without a job. The agency that I've interviewed with has not called me back, and I'm beginning to lose hope. Perhaps I will end up crawling back to Holgate in a month. I suppose we'll see.

Christmas went fairly well, for Christmas. I missed my family, and I tried not to bare my teeth at innocent bystanders. I suck at holidays. And I'm not even a drunk yet! Just wait until I take to the bottle! On the upside, the real drunk in the family has renounced his title as of December 29th, 2007. I received two extremely awesome Sock Zombies, whose exploits I plan to document as soon as I figure out what the hell is wrong with my camera. New years was uneventful. After I got off of work, things sucked quite a bit less. I signed up for drunken karaoke but did not sing. I stumbled drunkenly across the Burnside bridge and contemplated a beautiful starry dive. My learned brother-in-law discussed politics with me.

Which brings me to my next question...what he hell is the deal with these Iowa caucuses? Why do we care?

Up next: W's birthday bash.

Tales of an Extremely Drunken Debacle
So, for W's birthday we decided to drink Southern Comfort and have delicious steak dinner. I chased my Southern Comfort with peach schnapps. What followed was, in a word, ridiculous.

It started with a call to Andrew, in which I think I praised his answering machine and instructed him to delete the message immediately. Because you see, I was (at least in terms of this particular evening) still sober. Then we ran around making trouble for a few hours.

But Craigslist beckoned. And I did something totally inappropriate in Casual Encounters...The next morning I woke up and my very first thought, before I even registered the searing pain in my head and neck, was OH HOLY JESUS GOD. And then I nearly re-broke my back running to the computer to try and assess the damage. The responses that found their way into my inbox will remain my darkest, creepiest secret.

I rounded out the night by attempting a very poorly thought-out handstand and basically faceplanted into my own bookshelf. Really, what I did was assume the Fifth Grade Gymnastics Dropout Stance (arms up, legs poised daintily) and then just dove headfirst into the bookshelf, where my forehead connected solidly with the wooden frame. Apparently, after putting my arms up, I basically decided that I didn't need them anymore and stuck them out at my sides like some really misguided hula dancer. W claims that he tried to stop me, but all I remember is blacking out amid hysterical laughter.

My vision returned a few seconds later, and we limped off to bed. He was still laughing, and trying to reassure me that I (probably) didn't have a skull fracture. I wound up with an impressive purplish-red nob on my forehead, right between my eyes. Which hurt like a motherfucker pretty much constantly for the next few days, especially when I tried to move my eyebrows. Which is apparently something that I do ALL THE GODDAMN TIME.

It was the perhaps the dumbest single thing I have ever done in my entire life.

Which is really an accomplishment.