Summer Breeze

Dear blog,

As usual, my time spent in life altering affairs left me with little time and desire to actually write about them. My summer was so packed with fabulous events that it is only now, that life has returned to monotonous academia, that I feel compelled to plunger the depths of my soul for yet more floods of pointless, self-aggrandizing verbiage.

That being said, I hope that the bulk of sane readers have made hasty exit, for this may include some embarrassing material.

I ended the spring semester on May 1st with straight A's in Statistics II, Calculus I (honors), Foundations of Education, Special Education and Multicultural Education (honors) and a bad case of general malaise. Most of the semester had been wonderful. The tail end however, was not a fairy tale ending. I felt that I had no control over one of my grades and received negative comments on a final project, regardless of my top-of-the-class status. Finals had drained me; the whole semester had drained me. My first week upon returning I spent in general disarray before regaining a normal sense of self, with the help of some friends.

Shortly thereafter, my friend and two of her friends were in a bad car accident. The driver hit her head on the rear-view and lost a fair amount of blood. The guy in the back-seat hit his head on his own thigh, and my friend's leg received severe muscle damage.

The driver and rear passenger, part of a group of pot-heads; this had been the only car and driver's license between them, so I came to the rescue (awkward sentence!). Trips to the hospital and doctor's office earned me a fair number of brownie points with the heads and friend. Assistance cleaning my friend's legs in the shower got me a fair few more. I don't really feel much like talking about the subject, but I'm sure it deserves mention in the list o' things I did this summer.

Shortly thereafter an interesting social development: I won't go into the sordid details of the back-story, but overview. A girl, Katie, who I had engaged in befuddled high-school semi-dating messiness and abandoned as a person around age twenty made a re-entrance. A friend named Rheanna, once part of the social circle including myself, the befuddled mate, another befuddled person and a boyfriend and girlfriend or eight, tried desperately and for no discernible reason to get me to talk to Katie again.

I could get no insight into why from, Alex, the boyfriend, nor Sam, the injured observer, nor from my own prodigious mind. I resisted initially, before relenting and talking to Katie once more. I had my own delusions, that I was the kind of person who could remain detached, who could act out revenge, be cold and heartless, could engage in one-night-standery. These goofy thoughts roamed my head as I talked to Katie and slowly came to the realization that I was none of those things.

Meanwhile, I started a summer class, Calculus II, condensed to eight weeks from sixteen at Cuyahoga Community College. The last class I'll ever take there, as I have been taking classes since 2004 and actually have hit some kind of technical time maximum, as well as gained an associates degree. I started making chain-mail, a vest, and two pieces for others to be completed before summer's end.

These things I'm not entirely sure of the start dates, in my head they all blur together as things I started in May and June.

So there I was, making chain-mail while deciding what to make of my new relationship with this old face and learning the tedious facets of algebraic nonsense on top of calculaic theory, when yet another social avenue opened up to me. A girl named Gretta, who I barely knew in my early days of college (while I was still flunking out/going to Community College full time) -- I remember only one clear experience that involved her actually. Her whispering to someone else in the room, though not quietly enough, that I was creeping her out. (I used to sit and stare a lot.) -- came part of the package with Katie, as best friend. She liked the more confident and talkative version of me, and made blatant advances within days of dumping her guy, Dan.

My primary fear of moving in too quickly after a break-up was mitigated by the fact that she was dead sexy, and on June 26 I officially asked her out, around nine in the morning, after a long, long, extraordinarily fun night. I fell in love with her that same hour. She with me three days later. (We're both quick on that draw at least.)

Together, we shattered my old relationship record of four days, by two weeks and three days and possibly a half, depending where one draws the end-line, which isn't quite as clear as the start. (For those less adept at adding, we were together for three weeks.) A very fine three weeks, for the most part. There were some nastier incidents, all on her end unfortunately, and all even more unfortunately outside my small realm of influence. She was kicked out of her mother's place, and then out of our friend's parent's attic, readmitted and kicked out again. These events aside, we had a great time.

The end was messy though. There was some sex, I was not involved, Brandon was, and friend loyalty lines were drawn which lead to Gretta ultimately making up with her mother and moving back home.

I passed Calculus II with a B, had since completed a piece of chain-mail for my sister and then completed my vest. The last piece I made this summer was a strip, about forty inches long with improvised metal hooks on one end and an actual ring (like, for fingers) woven into it, an effective belt. The ring has special significance, I have in the past, worn it whenever in love. The belt I gave to Gretta as a birthday present, as I had promised to do before we dated. I had to give it well in advance of her birthday, not for seven days yet, as I was leaving for school (the essential reason for the breakup). She seems to like it, which makes me glad.

And here I am, skimming the draft and wondering what else I should probably throw in. Fudge it. I don't feel like writing any more.

Obediently,
Ian Hogan.