tuesday november 20 2001    |    2:25 a.m.

i honestly can't remember the last time i bought an album. through a random act of kindness, i came into two cds back in august, and a while later johnny swindled sigur rós for me. but i've been so broke for so long that i've only managed to scrape up change for cheap cigarettes and the occasional cup of coffee or bottle of beer.

now with the job and the weekly paychecks starting to come in, that bleak scene should be changing soon. except christmas shopping looms in the not-so-distant distance, so instead of going batty at blue note records, i should be exercising some restraint.

it wouldn't be so bad if the store i work at carried cds as well as books, because at least we'd get a discount. but we really don't, aside from a runty seasonal display, and a handful of copies of the new britney album, of all things. but it was slow on saturday at the west register, so this kid shaun i work with and i were exploring the possibilities of specially ordering cds for ourselves into the store. looks likely. i think i'll make myself the guinea pig.

so in related news, i slid into the h.r. manager's mailbox a request for december 7th and 8th off. because the 7th is the trans am / of montreal / oxes show, and the 8th will have to be recoup-and-regroup day. i hope it goes over well, and i don't see why not, since i'm scheduled to work all weekends as well as holiday eves and aftermaths. right?

so i worked the hellish day, and sunday, which was better, and now i have off until wednesday afternoon. and all i want to do, all i have been doing, is laze around the house, sleep, and read. (i finally finished hawaii, and now i feel a little displaced and sad. i miss it. it happens to me a lot, this book withdrawal.) i broke plans to have coffee with papo twice, yesterday and tonight.

which isn't in character. but going out is really starting to suck. i have a much better time prolonging dinnertime talk with the parents, watching ally mcbeal reruns with mom, staying up till all hours tangled in my sheets and a book.

and god, i miss my friends. i don't care if i sound like a broken record. it's not getting any easier.

several days ago i had the strange realization that i am not going back to kenyon. not really. i'll visit, i'm sure, but i won't ever go back. maybe it sounds weird that this is dawning on me six months after graduation. it's hard to explain. maybe it's every college, everywhere, but i tend to think there's some kind of crazy spellbinding thing about kenyon in particular...

in the e-mail julie sent me yesterday, she wrote, among other things of course, we've got to somehow recover from the trauma kenyon inflicted on us. when i first read that, i chuckled, because it speaks volumes of our love-hate relationship with that place. but it hasn't left my head all day. and it's an absolutely serious statement, actually. it really has been a traumatic experience, not necessarily in a negative way, but definitely in a way that has left us marked and sort of haunted. and jules is absolutely right. we have to get over it before we can move on. frankly, i'm still pretty entrenched, but i think it's getting better.

i must sound like a total neurotic, but i know other kenyon grads understand.

and yes, i want to go back to school. not right now, and not terribly soon, but soon enough. but things need to get done before i can start thinking seriously about that. the gears are turning, though. introspection is good.

and take it from jules and me, one extremely valuable lesson: don't ever let anyone tell you that you think too much. i think this is one of the only instances in which i would advocate kicking the shit out of someone.