Dear blog,
Confined to this cell without provisions, company or internet access, I am forced (or allowed, as the reader desires to perceive) to compose an update for this blog. The basic process of my life relating to this blog is simple enough. A change occurs, leading to instability, followed by re-equilibrilating and stability wherein I write about the change and post to this blog. It has been such a long time since the last post because such major changes have been happening and at such a frequency that the re-establishment of the equilibrilized state has been hindered. (In other words, I’ve been busy.)
(If you can’t tell, I’m a bit bored.) They say never to open a paragraph with a parenthetical, (fuck ‘em). (Close it too with those bent vertical bars, if ye be of stout tendons and wiry beers. To the beers…)…
Over the last month I have passed through at least two and possibly more rites to adulthood. Major changes, and inevitable changes, supporting the title of this blog. Trials of pain. Tests of independence (some would call it responsibility. I hate that cliché). The social pinnacle of order…enough of my euphemisms.
For twenty one years, eight months and twenty-six days I was sexually abstinent. It was a good run. I’m starting another as of December 21, 2007. I highly doubt this next run will approach the length of the last, a lot of (evidently blind) girls think I’m cute. This doesn’t rank all that high on the wall-o-accomplishments but warrants an honorary mention on the chart of “becoming a man” (I hate these clichés!) The reason I don’t rank it that high is because it was just four hours of fun. What follows is something somewhat different.
I moved out.
So innocent sounding, so brief. Three little words, nonchalant, inconspicuous. Those things in my favor: A while back I disposed of the majority of my possessions, leaving only clothing, books, this computer, my guitar and a few nick-knacks (a slide-rule, tokens, bits of jewelry &c); and I only had to move two hundred miles.
The odds and ends are all stored in a very small space in my parents’ attic until such time as I can ferret it off to a more permanent abode. The rest came with me, and fit in my tiny car without obscuring any mirrors (on that last count I am extremely proud, not just in my lack of things, but in my ability to sort them in such a way as to maximize safety). However, it still probably weighs four hundred pounds, combined with my near three hundred drove my car to a hearty shaking whenever I went uphill or exceeded fifty miles an hour. Thus a three and a half hour trip, that could have been made three even by speeding, became a four hour trip, during which I would not have been surprised if my engine had melted. (Note to self, this thing will never make it to New York.)
Orientation at Central State University started at eight AM. Other people from Cleveland got up at two and drove down that morning. They are all writing their respective blogs about trials of pain. I left at TEN PM on the third, and arrived at TWO AM on the fourth. Cue trial of boredom and freezing feet, getting sleepier and sleepier until right when I might have fallen asleep, orientation began. It was fifteen degrees that night. I sat in my car from arrival until eight, and I must say, things really picked up around five thirty when a few cars started going down the road behind me, visible in my mirrors. (Again glad that I didn’t stack things up to block them.) Then registration, counseling services, three hours of presentations, two and a half hours of waiting in line for financial aid, an hour of waiting in assorted other lines to be assigned a room, to get a school ID card, and everything else necessary to be squared away for class on the seventh. All processes lumped together with all staff on deck for convenience. (A good theory at least.) Squaring off a great time, I got to take all the stuff out of my car that I had just put in the same day (relative twenty four hour period unbroken by sleep), and carry it into my new room. When I was done, I had been awake for twenty four hours, and crashed. (Secondary note to self, purchase monitor that weighs less than sixty pounds.)
But, I’m in. I’m registered for classes, I have paid for tuition (have deferred payment for tuition). Only sent an eight hundred dollar bill to my parents, and should I manage to pay that off soon, I can call myself independent, ergo fully adult (oh those little hang-ups, if only growing up were a discrete process). Hopefully this place is desperate enough for tutors that they’ll hire a dope like me.
I don’t want to take stock in my life right now. It would fit nicely, a full accounting of all rites of passage taken care of as of now, but I kind of just want to sleep until class begins. A brief overview in lieu; I turned eighteen, I purchased a cigar, smoked some of it, I voted, I killed a raccoon with my car (not as a rite, it was dark and I couldn’t swerve fast enough), I got a job, I kept a job, I purchased a beer and left it on the counter, I grew a beard, I had sex and I moved out.
Signed in the last minutes of the fourth of January, 2008, awaiting internet set up before posting,
Ian Hogan.
Post Script, got a camera for Christmas. Here are the “move” pictures.
Really, the whole thing is just a note to myself. I think that I might be very curious about how I felt about this when it happened in the future.
