The time has come for me to once again embody the greatest of all living myths, The Phoenix, and be born again from the ashes of my former self. Of all the world mythologies, this is the one I hold most closely to my heart. I know that when change is required, it will happen if you make it. I have more faith in the ability for a human to change his or herself than I do in religion, the government, or middle management at my job. The necessity is derived in equal parts by Darwinian adaptation and part social reinvention and “I am become it”. (Bad grammar intended for poetic emphasis) So I bathed away the muck and grime of last year with my once-a-year bubble bath, after which I shaved my head in an effort to externalize my internal fresh start. From this I have begun to change my life, hopefully for the better. I have given up binge gaming at night and replaced it with the more calming act of reading. This should also assist in my efforts to focus on school. This is not to imply that I have ever ignored my schoolwork, but I wish to be more diligent in reading all of the material instead of just that which completes the assignments. My long term “to-do” list has grown exponentially over the past year and it is about time to start chipping away at that too. My health too will become an area of focus. I have made strides in every quarter to make sure I get physical exercise, but I intend to regulate it anew and take proper vitamins to supplement it. My journal has long collected dust, but no more shall I allow that to be the case. Hopefully, all of this will help me reach my larger goal of re-attaining some inner peace. A good nights sleep, organized and healthy life, calm mind, and focused attention sound like the ingredients which will come together to make me more than what I am.

As the new year dawns in the vast, dry lands of my life, we are praying for rain.

It isn’t enough for our eyes to watch the sky, we must find water where it lies.

On Aging:

I am by no means old, but I have reached an interesting point in my life; or, at least, I think it is interesting. I am 22 years old, so I have experienced all of the major turning points for a young man in American society. I successfully entered the double digits at age 10, learned to drive at 16, bought my own pornography and saw “R” rated movies on my own at 18, and I bought alcohol just last year at 21. From here on out, nothing changes. And in a way, I have nothing else to look forward to. Now, I sincerely hope that life offers me many experiences to which I can look forward. I’m not saying my life will be empty from now on, but being able to do those things created a fun sort of desire in me and occasionally afforded me challenges to overcome and be admired for. For example, I was well known for my ability in high school to miraculously obtain liquor. I don’t really have that anymore. I feel like I don’t have much anymore.

Beyond all of this nonsense, things around me are changing. In all the facets of my life people and places look, sound, and feel different. I feel like I am mourning the joy of my past.

For many years I have been telling my friends that things will always change because that is what they do and that is healthy, but here I sit, effectively eating my words because I am having trouble handling it. Nostalgia is painful if you cannot find anything to help facilitate it.

All of my favorite hockey players have retired and all of my favorite television shows have stopped airing. No one wants to get together to play the old video games because they are too involved with the new ones.

My good friends have graduated college and are becoming professionals. They’ve bought expensive new cars and hold entry level office jobs. They are getting married and moving away in search of bigger and better things. They listen to different music and have become intensely different people. I feel like they’ve all forgotten. And the funny thing is, I’m not sure if I feel left in the past or left out.

A psychologist once told me that friends are only around as long as they need to be. But that kind of reasoning renders the past useless. An *old* good friend of mine used to tell me that he was quite sure his best days had already come and gone. At times like now, I understand what he meant.

Hi Just_a_Fond_Memory! It's been 666 (wow, that's a big number) days since you joined Xanga... won't you support us by going Premium?

Oh, that means its Satan day here on Xanga.

Maybe it is a sign from a higher power that this is my chance to atone for all of the sins I’ve committed on my site and that my words will now and forever be righteous and holy.

Or maybe it’s a meaningless coincidence.

Now where did I put my party hats?

On Drugs:

Although I love starting a post off with double entendre, this one is going to get a little more bitter as I write, so enjoy it while you can.

I am not a proponent of drugs, which contextualized in this sense means illicit opiates, depressants, and hallucinogens, but nor do I totally oppose them. Though I have never tried any of them myself, I see most drugs as an opportunity to expand one’s experience as a person; that is, if they are appreciated as such. Trying a drug once or twice is okay in my book, but written on the page next to it are the words “Everything in Moderation” So, you smoke weed with some friends a few times: Fine. You pop ecstasy at a rave one time: Hey let me know how that goes. But the second you start keeping an 8 ball of coke in your closet so you can stay up all night getting your homework done, that’s where we have a problem. Addiction, either mental or physical, is a bad thing.

I have mentioned my brother on Xanga a time or two. We have grown up under parents who used to be giant potheads back in their teens, but that ended before I was born. They tried to instill in us knowledge by experience, i.e. too much of a fun thing is bad. They weren’t the horror stories some parents offer up, but seemingly reasonable and realistic retrospective accounts of how it ended up affecting them. Good parenting if you ask me.

Now some of his friends spend the better parts of their lives on acid, so six months ago when I learn that my brother has tried “almost every drug there is” it wasn’t a total shock And when he smokes weed in front of me at a poker game every once in a while, I am not too terribly bothered. But when I walk downstairs to finish a load of laundry and I stumble on him secretly smoking up in the back room with a fan blowing out the porthole window, I find myself quietly appalled. “Holy shit” I say to myself “My brother is a pot head”.

Now he didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to him, but he knew that I understood exactly what had transpired. I also think that he believes that I will not tell our mother, but not because I am an honorable brother, but because he probably thinks I am a pussy. He is right on the one count, but thankfully not on the other. So I am left with a quintessential moral pickle. Do I ignore the problem and hope this is just a phase or Do I confront him about it and what it means to me? Because, as I have implied, his opinion of me isn’t the adoration it used to be.

Another part of this is experience. I am not trying be more holy than anyone here, its just not something I've eveer had any interest in. So I have never smoked weed, but I’ve known 100 people who have and still do. Of those 100, only two have managed any kind of success and order in their lives. My brother is a smart kid. He very well could join the ranks of those elite two, but again, where do I place my responsibility?