March 25, 1988

A column? No! Don't make me do this! I hurt too much! Ouch! This is too loud! Stop using all those exclamation points!
Alright, so I had a little too much to drink last night. But I was entitled.
You see, my best friend left this morning for Korea. For a year. And not as a tourist.
No, a soldier. The DMZ. That small stretch of mis-named land where north meets south and man meets his own inhumanity / stupidity / insanity / anything else that causes wars and police actions and people shooting at each other across a couple yards of barbed wire.
It's hard to write what I feel right now, as he's somewhere over Ohio, I imagine, on his way. What will it be like over there? Uncertainty is the worst thing. Not knowing what lies ahead. Only knowing that it lies ahead 8,000 miles from home.
As his friend, it bothers me, as well. I enjoy being concerned about him, it's one of the few things that I am good at. That, and spending money that I don't have.
And so, the only thing to do is wait. A phone call would be nice, although a letter would go over very well. If it got delivered. Uh,oh- I feel a change in subject coming...
The Post Office. I do not call it the “Postal Service” for the simple reason that it is a contradiction in terms.
When I mail a letter, do I have any guarantee that it will arrive at it's destination- not only safely, but at all? No. I have sent things like checks and stamps and such to Georgia, only a few states away, and they have never arrived.
Now they want to raise postage rates again.
So, although I need to go buy 25¢ stamps, my local post office is now closed on Saturdays because of cut backs.
When do I buy my stamps?

28 March, 1988

It's not the purchase, but the actual act of purchasing that I get into. Take last night for instance.
I wandered into a music store and saw a keyboard that I have always wanted. It was used, so they knocked about a thousand dollars off the price. I had to act, and act fast.
“Do you have a credit plan?” I inquired. They did. I filled out the papers.
I felt good as I left the mall, like I had bought something, even though I hadn't. Now I sit around waiting for the credit check to be completed, and I feel like I didn't really need it, but I might end up being stuck with it anyway. But whether I like it or not, that's the one I'm getting, and that's the one I'm going to learn how to play.
One day, when my friend Tom returns from tax exile in Korea, we'll put together a band. Not anything fancy, just the kind of band that needs it's own electric power company to tour on the road. Something loud. A band which never really puts out an album, but one that still is in the back of everyone's mind. A band that drinks a lot and wrecks hotel rooms, and the manager of the hotel asks them back anyway.
That kind of band.
Actually, Tom's not in tax exile. He just wishes he were. In reality, he is in the future. He's researching life for his new book, except he's living life before all the rest of us. He's perpetually a day ahead of us. I mean, more than usual.
And while he does that, he's protecting us from the scourge known as communism and the north. If there were some sort of invasion on a Friday, he would quell it before sun set on Thursday over here. This is Time Mechanics, a subject that I simply don't have enough room to go on about in this column. Maybe later on I will go into detail, but not today. Or is it yesterday?
MEANWHILE… Why do you suppose no one has ever questioned the... or... well, I guess... never mind. It's not really worth discussing here and now. Besides, it could be a dangerous subject to breach in this family forum.

March 29, 1988

Good Afternoon!
Have you ever had one of those days where you just felt normal?
When you're as odd as I am, you are elated to feel normal once in a while- not all the time, of course, because my expectations are so high in these matters- but it's still unusual.
It's not that things aren't still on my mind- my girlfriend, my best friend in Korea, money, work, etc., but for some reason I was in a good mood this morning when I got out of bed. It could have been the weather. Who knows? And who am I do dispute it? Besides, if I analyze it too much, it's liable to disappear.
An unfortunate side effect of this whole “good mood” thing is that I can't really think of much to write about. Usually, the best writers are at points in their lives that seem hopeless, or pretty darn bad at best. Today I don't feel that way, really.
I'm sure that tomorrow I'll feel worse, and you'll see a marked improvement in my column thusly.

30 June 1988

Life sucks.
That line is a bit overused, and by many, many people. However, it is the one phrase that best sums up how I (and, evidently, many others) feel.
My (and, evidently, many others) financial situation is incredibly bad. Being 21 and $11,000 in debt is not good. Having a checking account that is $1000 overdrawn is not good. It is pretty rotten. However, on the bright side, it is somewhat noteworthy to be so far in the hole while still so young.

Christmas in Oakton

Christmas. The mere mention of the holiday always filled me with dread. Another year of awkward interaction with a family that I always thought didn't really give a damn. The only thing that mattered was who got whom what. Being around them only intensified my feeling of loneliness. Somehow, I thought, Christmas has to mean more than presents and commercials and animated TV specials. It had to have some deeper purpose.
The meaning of Christmas. Does it mean a reunion with someone you haven't seen for a while, and have missed a great deal? If so, this will be the best Christmas I've ever had. Thomas went to the Army. I'd grown so attached to him that he became more of a brother to me than anyone I was actually related to by blood. How should I act? I'll miss him more than I've missed anybody before, but do I tell him that? Is that the sort of thing you want to tell your best friend? All that's neither here nor there, now. He's gone, but I'm carrying on, still alive, writing a letter everyday. And waiting for December 20th.
On the other hand, does the week after Christmas mean saying goodbye to those people all over again? That's the really depressing part. Not having anybody means that you never lose them. But what do you do when it's the opposite situation?
Specifically, what's it going to be like to say goodbye to Tom again? I'm excited and worked up about his return, but then he'll be gone again. Oh, I could always think to myself that I haven't been out drinking for the last two months, and I have survived; and he does accrue leave like anybody else. Somehow my mind doesn't rationalize this correctly.
It's different now. Up until last year, I was alone- no friends, nobody who liked me, and, I suppose, vice versa. I became used to being by myself, literally and figuratively. But it feels entirely different to have a friend and be alone. I miss him. It sounds really simpy, wimpy, and, I suppose, sort of queer in a way, but it's not. OK, so I tend to go a bit overboard. But Thomas is the first best friend I have had in 21 years. Maybe I try to make up for those years and push a little too hard. It's a weird feeling to know that someone out there besides me gives a damn. And I give a damn about him. I'm concerned about his progress, it provides motivation for me. And I worry when I get a letter from him where I read something between the lines. Or, in a more recent case, when it's something that he feels strongly enough about to come out and say in the open. I feel sort of helpless in those situations, I wish I could do something to help, but I can't. I feel like I've let him down.
I'm straying from the point, as usual.
Christmas is not a day, it's not an event, but it's a feeling. It's the feeling you get when you're reunited with someone you care about. It's the feeling you get when you sit outside and quietly watch the snow drift to the ground, surveying the world with an eye used to seeing traffic and smog and litter and people being terrible to one another. It's that feeling of happiness, of being happy and spreading happiness. It's light and cheer and humanity. It's not giving of expensive presents, it's giving of love and sentiment, of peace and goodwill. It's taking time to do things for the people who are important to you- not because they expect it, but because you want to. And it's not limited to those people. It's the feeling that everyone is a person who is important to you. It's all about giving a damn.

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