Onward toward the future.

I learned a lot about myself this summer. Namely, I've learned that I'm only really happy when I hate something. If I don't hate something about my life, then I'm not going to try to get out of some sort of bad situation, and therefore, I fall into a state of ennui and then begin to hate everything instead of just one thing. So with that in mind, I'm really looking forward to hating my place of employment in the coming year. With my hate correctly focused, maybe I can begin to enjoy the rest of my life, now that the pressure is off of me to try to like everything all of the time.

My brother said this about me about a month ago: Never in my life have I met anyone who hates with as much glee as you.

And by "you" he meant me.

I might as well just embrace that with the full force of...something forceful... and let the hating begin. I think we'll all be a lot happier when I am not trying to be nice or make friends anymore. I wasn't good at it. I know enough to know when to admit failure and move on to better things, like being full of hate. I have a whole lifetime of practice being a jerk. If I am good at absolutely nothing else, I'm good at having a bad attitude.

I have decided to start smoking again, for one. I am really looking forward to it. The problem is that I keep forgetting that I have decided to take up smoking again, so I haven't gotten around to buying a pack of cigarettes. And because I keep forgetting that I want to start smoking again, I don't even have a stash of half-smoked butts for when I get desperate, which has been never because I am not addicted to smoking (yet). If I have some activity that is already unhealthy and is largely frowned upon by the majority of the population, then maybe I will feel like I am getting away with something whenever I smoke (as long as I remember to smoke) and then maybe cheese won't occupy the place that cigarettes once did. Instead, cigarettes will occupy the place that cigarettes once did, which is almost poetic in its irony, if you look at it right.

I used to work with this woman Amy who refused to bring work home. She came home right after work, had a few cocktails, and hung out by her pool. Now, I'm not one to hang out by a pool because I would only spend the time poking at my stomach fat, which defeats the purpose. However, I have never been one to turn down a few cocktails. Drinking earlier in the day seemed to make Amy enjoy her job/life more, so in addition to re-starting smoking, I'm going to begin drinking earlier in the day. This should also help.

I'm trying to come up with a survival plan for the next year, and so far, it involves substance abuse. That's okay, right?

Meanwhile, my mom is leaving tomorrow, after we have been hanging out together for almost two months with very short breaks in between. You might think that this has been too much time, but it hasn't. We got into a big thing during Nikki's wedding that I might write about later, but after that big thing, I decided it's best to just let the past stay in the past and we aren't getting any younger and my mom is retired now and life is difficult enough trying to get people not related to stick around, etc. And since then, the summer with my mom has been pleasant. No one is more surprised than I am.

Also, about three weeks ago, I turned 33. That's weird. It's not too terribly old, not like I need to start thinking about how I'm going to fund my retirement or anything, at least not yet, and I think I can get away with general flakiness for three more years before my indecision just reads as generally pathetic. If you were to google "thirty three years old" you would find a lot of dead and/or pregnant women. So you see, I still have a lot of time to figure shit out and/or become pregnant or die. Maybe this is the year that I will become pregnant and/or dead.

This was not what I had planned on writing, but there you have it.

The end.