I Just Remembered Something: You Should Go On.

The title comes from a song by Face to Face singer, Trever Keith called Cross Your Heart. And now, bed.



I have wondered aloud, for a good six month span starting at the end of last year, often, occasionally in Zach's arms (there's documentation of this), Does This Make Me An Alcoholic? By that point in the evening/afternoon/12:15 p.m. I'd been drinking, though one moment stands out. I was seriously considering drinking at lunch sponsored by the Campus, in honor of the seniors on the staff, two girls and I. The editor in chief, a junior, was sitting a couple chairs down and said to us "hey, you guys can order drinks, it's after noon" and I seriously considered it for a couple minutes.

Does that make me an alcoholic? Not really.

I find myself wishing I had something alcoholic more and more often. Today, I reached for a Coke. (I always wondered when I didn't drink, which was worse, having a local beer or Coke, since ehhhh, technically, alcohol was bad, but wasn't Coke's stranglehold on Indian water as well as other "understandings" with the world I'm not aware of, worse?) Anyway. It was a Coke today. Monday, it was a Hershey bar. Just something sweet. Something to stave off that feeling of "You know what would make this better? Booze!"

And booze won't make it better. I know this. I know what booze does to my head. It just makes me think things are better and limits my inhibitors, which can be useful in some scenarios and terrible in others. I know the reason why I associate happiness with alcohol is because I drink a lot with my friends and that's fun, because we're all less inhibited and more prone to drunken singing and fun times.

I'm still using the present tense there. I should know better. That was that. I mean, I'm still thinking about plans to return to Allegheny, but it's not until next year at the earliest. But even then, it won't be the same. You can't go home, I know. Some of this is as simple as I wish I did different things over the last four years. Jesus, I wish I was more social, got out of my room senior year. I wish I had kissed more girls. Taken more chances with different girls. Said "Here's my number. Call me." Instead of just walking away after saying something nice at the bar.

Whatever. (And in the 8 minutes between writing that and coming back, I saw an image of Jade and Davey from AFI, years and years ago, playing ping-pong during a break in recording Art of Drowning and am now much happier.) Something so out of place and gloriously unprepared for a band that has historically spent a lot of time on image for their live shows just makes me smile and is a wonderful yogurt for my mental palate.

Back to the continued desire for alcohol. I know something about it. I know that I'm confusing my desire to be around people whom I already trust and love with the desire to drink. The two run together when I'm not doing anything except waiting for people to get back to me. It's been three weeks swallowed. Lord, how the time has passed me by.

Speaking of three weeks swallowed, I've been spending far too long looking at Facebook to see what Allegheny kids are up to. I miss them. But I've said that over and over again. I wake up in 6 hours, less now, to Iowa to visit family. It's my hope I can use that time to not check Facebook for a week. To fling myself into the reality of being in Chicago with no plans to come back to what I did or used to do. There's little things I can take with me, though. I'm hoping at least one gaming group at home comes through. To get me to meet new people. Start new relationships. Fire up old ones.

Facebook makes it easy to get caught up in old relationships and to go awwww. (Woah. My world just did a bit of a rotation and I wasn't in control of my head.) I have hit the iChat button three times out of habit within the last two minutes. I think that says something. I'm addicted to the constant pulse of the buddy list. Knowing people are there, just by look at that list on the right or lefthand corner of my screen.

At Allegheny, I had something like that buddy list. Call up Zach or James head over to their rooms to chill when I was confused or depressed or needed to talk. I had that mental safety net. Chicago, I'm just waiting for my good, good friends to come back. Now, Iowa offers me an opportunity to spend a weekend without that safety net.

It's my hope that the time this goes up that I'm asleep, but also, that while I'm away, I won't get on the internet or check shit. Detox, whether it's alcohol or constant communication. Reconnect with me. To prove to me that I can do that. To interact with people without Twitter, Facebook, IM clients and Gmail. Just me and my family. Maybe even turn off my phone and be disconnected and in this moment, fully, without any external stimuli.

And if I can do that for three days, then I can do that for a week. And if I can do it for a week, what about two? It's that kind of growth that I think would make my friends (and myself) most proud, that if I do come back to Allegheny, for a weekend or something next year, it won't be as a grad limping back to the school for "the old days" but as part of a positively evolving person, moving forward.

To really get the most out of the Allegheny experience, looking back, I must recognize that it wasn't just a dream and that these experiences are things I can take with me as I walk further on the path of life and return to these experiences at different points in my life to gleam different lessons from them.

This blog, in as much as it is a statement, it isn't a road that will take me to the stars, but it's hopefully, a road that will see me through. Now, to decipher what the signs mean.