h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's almost time for me to leave for college--exactly one week from tomorrow! This is going to be a big change for me. I'm leaving home, maybe forever. My best friend is getting an apartment next spring and he said I can stay with him during the summers. That way I won't have to go back to living with my mother, who I just can't get along with at all. Hopefully I fare better with my room mate! I talked to him briefly on the phone, and he seems all right, but really I don't know anything about him. I'm going to miss my friends. I only know one person who's going to Kent State with me, and while I get along ok with him, we're not really very close. I've got a lot of concerns, but there's a lot to look forward to as well. I'll finally be away from my mom, and I can make a fresh start. I guess there is an up side to being anonymous there. No one knows me, so no one will prejudge who I am by who I used to be. That's important, because right now I'm really not all that sure who I am myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm not getting moody or depressed like I used to, but I'm still trying to establish a real identity. But hey, what teenager isn't, you know?

Anyway, back to the friends thing, last night I went out to my favorite Mexican restaurant with three of my friends, and it was weird. They all knew I was leaving and even though they were staying in town, it's still a major change for them. Bobbie's going to college here in Youngstown, and other than JR, we all just graduated from high school a few months ago, and he only graduated a year ago. So it's like were just fresh from high school, on our way to taking our different paths in life, and yet all through dinner we're reminiscing about the last few years like they were a lifetime ago. And you know what, it sort of feels like they were. We've been waiting for this time to come for our whole lives, and now it's here, so it's like, where do we go from here. It's more real now that the ceremonies and parties are all over, but sometimes it still seems like a dream to me, like any day now I'm going to wake up and Mr. Carney's going to be lecturing about government or economics and pretty soon he'll go off on a tangent and start reminiscing about his life back when he was in college, like he always does, and I'll be thinking "college: that's so far away". But it isn't. It's in a week! One frickin' week! And that just seems impossible, because the only life I've ever known was at home here in little Campbell, Ohio, where nothing ever changes, and every year is just different classes and different teachers but school is school and it's always the same, summer vacation will always come, and then all too soon fall, and the cycles continues on and on for eternity. But the cycle is broken! I'm going to live in a different town, in a little room in a residence hall with some other guy I've never even met, Mom will just be a voice on the telephone and once in a while an unwelcome visitor from the past come to bitch at me, every time I see my friends it will be like a reunion, and when my four years are up, I move even further away! Pittsburgh awaits, along with a real job and a house of my own, maybe even a wife and family! I mean, sure, I knew this would all happen, but after 18 years of the same boring life, well, it doesn't seem possible that the transition period has finally come. And even though I'm not depressed like before, those questions ARE coming back to haunt me. Am I making the right choices? Will I regret this or that or the other, will it follow me for the rest of my life, will I succeed, will I fail, I feel like my head's just going to EXPLODE and yeah, everyone faces this point in life, where you just can't be a kid anymore, but you don't know how to be anything else, but most people seem to take it in stride, and are they just actors, am I more REAL than them, or is it ME who's life is just a play, just choosing roles in a script that was prepared by someone else, and maybe improvising here and there, but usually just screwing up, but it's LIVE so I can't redo it and every now and then I just yell "I QUIT YOU SONS OF BITCHES! GET ONE OF THE BALDWINS OR SOMETHING! I'VE HAD ENOUGH!" and then my mom pops in with an evil grin on her face and holds up the contract she forced me to sign, and I realize that I can't quit, I just have to keep going on and making the best of it, but it's STILL JUST A PLAY, it's all fake, it's...it's...it's...time I lay off the sugar! Holy crap, I would have made old Carn-Dog proud with that novel of a rant. Someone call Guiness people and have them put me in for most ridiculous ramble, and while their at it they can get me a Guiness, I think I need it right now. Yeesh!

I enjoyed your rant. It was very moving as rants go. You rant well. I wonder if there's a career to be had in ranting. If so, you should go far.

Sal

Why thank you. I'm afraid my new journal entry isn't quite as long or rambling but you may find it entertaining nonetheless.

Yes, your latest is poetic. Lots in it and yet brief. How clever. How do you bong a beer? You don't inhale something through it, do you? Better not answer that.

By the way, I noticed a "new this week" Zarquon in the Who's Online window yesterday. I wonder if that happens much. I know there's more than one Aurora but one is just plain Aurora and the other's Aurora patron saint of something or other. Hmm, could get confusing.

There was like one other Zarquon before plus a couple varieties such as GreatProphetZarquon etc, but they kinda fell off the face of h2g2, so everyone knows who I am. I picked the name so the guys at floor 42 would know who I was. I joined it before h2g2 opened and that was my name there.

Bonging a beer? You pour it into a funnel that has a bong attached to it and just let it pour down your throat in a matter of seconds. You can get messed up pretty fast that way. But hey, I'm a college freshman, I gotta get the partying over with.

I think I'll recognise which Zarquon it is from your style now.

Bonging beer sounds potentially messy, if not during then after. Still, as you say, you're a freshman, you have a nice new liver to abuse - where's the harm? When my liver tolerated such behaviour I used to subject it to revolting and unlikely cocktails. Thinking about it, the beer, although guzzled at an indecent rate, is probably less toxic than the horrible cocktails. Just remember the little grey cells don't repair or renew so try to keep some intact for your exams.

Speaking of which, first big exam is tomorrow. But I'm ready! Oh and I found my shoe! Oh wait I never told you how I lost it. I won't go into detail but it involves vodka, girls, and a wrestler named Tack. I had to wear dress shoes to class on Friday.

Good luck with the exam. I hope it goes splendidly well for you! Glad you found your shoe. Was it your lucky shoe? If so, you certainly wouldn't want to face an exam, how ever well prepared, knowing that your lucky shoe was lost or at the mercy of a wrestler. I hope it's still in serviceable condition after its adventures. I myself have lost shoes in circumstances I'd rather not remember (if indeed I was able to remember), so I do sympathise.