Money for brains, brains for money.

Despite my parents' (and friends) chronic warnings to the contrary, I have taken my first leap into the pool of student loans. It isn't much, but it will help me survive until I find a decent job, and part of me feels entitled to the ease of being a professional student for a brief period, a pursuit so many people I know take for granted during their entire college careers. At this point, I just want to finish, and if loans will help me achieve this goal, then bring them on.

I have long since accepted the fact that I am merely purchasing my Bachelor's Degree from the University; there hasn't been much real effort or cranial expenditure on my part to make me feel like I'm earning that piece of paper, at least not yet. As far as accessories go, in the long run I feel that purchasing my ipod will have made me happier, but the degree will make me money, and money will purchase happiness. I must remember to pick some up next time I go browsing the aisles for inexpensive toiletries and cold cuts at 2 in the morning.

Like Eating Glass

In those first few seconds where we realize we are alive again, things can get really interesting. Think about opening your eyes and waking up in the hotel bed, those few seconds until your brain reminds you that these unfamiliar surroundings are supposed to be there; that you're not home. There's a terrifying satisfaction I get every time this happens to me. It is one of those small details of life that I never cease to get a real kick out of, even when it's something terrible, like waking up with a throat full of bloody glass.

I am living with the world's worst sore throat this morning, as I croak in pain and attempt to dislodge the burning substance that has taken residence in my mouth. There's something about being sick that makes you feel alive. It also gives you something to look forward to. I am looking forward to a morning of waking up without the sore throat, but I know for a fact that after the first or second morning, I will completely take my health for granted until it happens again. But I guess that's the beauty of the human condition. Once we get what we want, there are no limits to our sense of entitlement.

I've lived a sickly little life. I can distinctly remember having spent an entire birthday on a mattress in the empty bedroom of the new apartment my family had just moved into. I slept a lot, waking up intermittently to consume Gatorade and crackers, throw up, and read comic books. My dad would come check up on me between moving things, which I now recognize as one of the nicest things he has ever done. As I get older, I realize more and more how much like him I am becoming, and I hate having to do things for other people, even moreso after having performed any sort of taxing physical labor (doubly so for any scenarios involving staircases).

I used to get step throat seasonally, every September, the way other boys accepted the beginning of baseball season or high school band competitions as annual events that we could count on to mark the passage of months. I popped Tetracycline like M&Ms, to the point where antibiotics won't do much for me these days. Penicillin and I began sneaking off behind the boathouse during my more serious episodes. To this day, my sister needs about a gallon of water to swallow a mere Tylenol capsule, but I mastered the art of swallowing pills dry by age ten. Of course, nothing could compare to the beauty of getting a shot. I couldn't figure out why the other kids at the doctor's office had to be coddled and offered lollipops before being dragged into the exam room to bend over on those tissue-paper covered beds. Didn't they know how quickly they'd start feeling better as opposed to the results they'd get from drinking the bubble-gum flavored liquid medicine? Even as an 8-year old, I realized that children are idiots.

Last Date For Lulu

-Hi reader.

(awkward silence)

Consider this our first date. The good thing about this one is I can't screw it up.

One I definitely screwed up: Let's call her Lulu. The first night I met Lulu, I somehow ended up in her car after a show. We sat awkwardly in the parking lot while she played me the entire Built To Spill album "There's Nothing Wrong With Love," the space between us filled by the kind of tension you can't feel after the age of 25 and the genius of a young Doug Martsch. In hindsight, leaning over and holding her hand during the chorus of "Reasons" could have led to something amazing, but I'm kind of relieved nothing else happened during that fateful sit-in. I really like that album, and some things do not deserve to be sullied by human emotion.

For Lulu, I wrote a song to play at my next show, the lyrics of which had only one purpose: to cajole her into giving me her phone number. It had some snazzy chord changes, and it must have worked, because I called her and we met one afternoon after I moved into town. I had just quit a horrible job and used the money I had saved up to move out of my parents' house and into the room of a friend who lived closer to Lulu, but not for that specific reason (although I have made stupider housing decisions for a girl). For the first hour, we drove around aimlessly in an SUV while listening to the soundtrack to the Royal Tenenbaums before either of us had actually seen the film. It seems like such a perfect fit now, but when these things are happening, you're hardly worried about cross-referencing the moments of your life with Wes Anderson films.

Anyway, I got the bright idea that we should go hang out at my new place, only to arrive and find the doors locked and my roommate gone, with the realization that I didn't even have a key yet. Dejected and even more uncomfortable, we drove the thirty minutes back into town to see an art exhibit at the community college, and at one point we were in the parking lot of a mall, weighing the pros (the possibility of ice cream) and cons (neither of us really wanted ice cream) of actually setting foot in the mall. The ten minute conversation ended with her driving me back to my car, after which we said polite goodbyes. And then we never went out again.

Now, I'm sure I called her afterwards, or she called me, and it really didn't end with that one horrible date, but as time erodes the little details away, it becomes easier to say that my first date with Lulu was my last date with Lulu. Not a success by any means, but not a total failure in the big picture of things. She introduced me to Built To Spill, I told her she should definitely listen to more Elliot Smith, and I am certain that I'm not the only one who remembers the day we could have had ice cream, but didn't.