What is The Terrible Thing I Did Today?

I can’t even believe that I did what I did today. Today I used Unix in one of its hateful CLI forms. I haven’t had to deal with Unix in A While, the last time being a couple years ago when I would wake up and go to bed without eating between the two (this wasn’t Unix’s fault, but my bi-weekly exposure to it for a 3 month stretch didn’t help). Despite the problems of the past lying behind me where they belong, I knew, deep down in my heart of hearts, that I was going to have to deal with Unix again. This morning when I woke up to the sound of two different alarms and one person (me) swearing I could feel, either by intuition or by delicate sense organs not yet understood by modern science, that today would be different from yesterday and the many yesterdays that preceded it. Today would be a day of having to know a very small amount about Unix, and probably eating less than is recommended by dieticians, friends, relatives, and the like.

Was I right? I was right. About everything. I hope I don't have days like This One for a While.

Here are 657 Words About Who Knows What

You might find that this information deviates from the fare normally found here in this needless and needlessly vague and scattered blog. That is because this is a season finale, and as is typical for such affairs all the stops have been summarily pulled out and set aside for later use. Tomorrow I am expected to be conscious and appropriately dressed in a stuffy room at no later than 9 a.m. so that the finer points (and likely most other points) of socialization can be explained to me over the course of two-and-a-half hours every week, in a format that remains – this point – undisclosed. All the beach balls and sparkling cold drinks are being packed away to make room for the thick sweaters and bottles of antidepressants whose respective warmths are sure to be imminently necessary. So.

Here is that reflection on this year’s summer you requested.

Maybe this will not be the information you want at all. Nevertheless, I will present it to you in the form of paragraphs with diction and sentence structure the likes of which nobody ever needs expose themselves to. We here at The Place started the summer sleeping on bare mattresses in hatefully stifling rooms, living like ghosts, occasionally waking up with stomachs full of blood. When we were finally admitted to our proper residence it was unclear whether or not things actually planned on improving. Boxes and garbage bags heavy with personal effects sat on bare floors waiting for furniture and organization to take their rightful places in the Place. There was nowhere to sit, to sleep, to eat, to launder clothes. I spent time in a computer lab being re-taught the basic to intermediate-basics of the monster named statistics. I woke up with ants on me sometimes. I went swimming just once, and indoors. I failed to visit the most proximal ocean. Then that was over with, time passed, I started offering information here, and the days continued.

There were times of progress: the addition and immediate failure of laundry facilities, the possession of a bed, a desk, two typewriters (that I promise to give you information about someday, honest), new shoes, carbonated beverages and at least one airplane safety card. As near as I can tell personal growth was slim to none, and financial growth was of an inverted nature. At some point it seems like everyone got much quieter, and there was talk of serious matters in strained voices heard through walls and satellites. No easily pegged or overarching theme of the season made itself apparent, and despite living like some kind of almost-grown-up for the first time in Ever, very little about my information has changed, making this the summer of the status quo. I did not make any new lasting friends, but no bridges were incinerated throughout the season’s course. Things weren’t stagnant, their pace was simply glacial, their net gains and dividends as yet invisible from such a short distance.

Now it seems like things are happening every day. The reappearance of people I missed more than I was probably even aware of, the disappearance of people whose absences were unforeseen and more unsettling than expected. A conversation that did a little new good to a lot of vintage bad, and the annexation of necessary furniture and an unnecessary but hopefully functional fog machine. I promise to let you know about the fog machine. Looks like we made it.
Now though, it is time to go to sleep in preparation for the rude awakening of academic responsibilities the complete disappearance of the nauseating sentimentality with which this information you’ve just read is so uncharacteristically imbued. Everyone should write down a goal they hope to accomplish in the coming season. Write it down on notebook paper, fold it into quarters, and label it like this:



Don’t sign or date it. Leave it somewhere that it will be found by someone who couldn’t possibly know you.

Here is the First in a (Probably) Series of Lists of Apologies

I am sorry for a number of things. In order to assuage the fairly remarkable amount of guilt I’ve accumulated over the years I will post public apologies for a lot of things, in no particular order and with no guarantee of sincerity.

• I’m sorry about being mean to the weird kid in third grade (I think his name was Jason? He would usually pretend that he was a velociraptor, which mostly resulted in him appearing to have very serious carpal tunnel syndrome and bad posture). I should have behaved better and not given into peer pressure
• I feel bad that I download a lot of music and also the New Harry Potter Book and usually do not give anybody money for these things
• I feel bad about hitting a childhood friend of mine in the eye with the antenna of a remote controlled car. He was making fun of my brother, and I had to put him in his place – he had no right because he had buckteeth and his mom picked out all of his clothes until he was like 12
• If I have made anybody cry who did not deserve it I would be sorry about that
• I am sorry about the time I listened to an Eminem song and found myself enjoying it. I hope you can forgive me
• I’m sorry that I locked the keys in a rental car when I was 6 and caused a hassle for my parents
• I am Very Sorry about That Thing I Used To Do a Few Years Ago That Nobody Knows About. That was terrible, I am very ashamed of that.
  
• I’m sorry about that car I may have scratched that one night at that one Chinese restaurant – I should have done a better job of parking.
• Sorry I said a sentence that made someone so unhappy that they had to drive their car around for awhile just because of it
• Most recently I am sorry that I let a nonprofit worker think that I actually cared to give her dumb cause money when in fact I simply did not have the heart to immediately say “I’m not interested thank you” because I felt bad about the fact that she had a pretty noticeable scar through her right eyebrow
  

Soon: That information about that typewriter!