Gee, a lot has changed since my last post. I have a job, for one thing. I'm working at a construction site, cleaning up and doing odd jobs. I've been at it three days so far, and it's been all right. Kind of reminds me of Mycogen last summer. I work with this guy my brother's age, Matt, and this guy a couple years older than me. I kind of know him, from way back. I went to church with him and his brother, who's my age. His name's Luke. He's a good supervisor. Even the guys above him, including the guy in charge of the whole site, seem all right.

 

The construction site is a school, Lenihan. It was used maybe twenty years ago, but then they moved all the students to other schools, and turned it into an administrative center. Now, the city is changing around which grades go to which school. Right now we have two different middle schools. The plan for this fall is to send fifth- and sixth-graders to Lenihan, and seventh- and eighth-graders to Miller. A lot of the schools in town are getting an upgrade just like Lenihan. I heard they've about doubled the size of Miller Middle School, where I went. What's stranger, though, is to walk around in this almost-finished school. I feel like someday I'll be able to look back and tell people I stood on the roof, or walked through all the rooms before they had anything except dust and debris. Some head trip.

 

I just checked my own last post, to see if Rachel and I were broken up, as of eight days ago. My suspicions were correct. And I have to say, I'm still pretty broken up.

 

Yes, I did think of that joke prior to writing it. But, to my credit, I didn't realize the additional meaning of "not being with Rachel" until I thought about it for a while.

 

Not much else to say, I guess. Stuff has pretty well turned around. I have a job, but I've lost Rachel. My friends are all in different towns. Home life has become infuriating and annoying, by turns. My sense of being lost has changed from not knowing what to do in the outside world to not knowing what to do in my internal world of thoughts and emotions. As always, I'm working on that, but it seems like hard times ahead. If I might be selfish enough to ask, could everybody send me some love? I feel pretty pathetic, asking that, but I'm happy to have graduated, at this point in my life, to having friends who are genuinely interested in my wellbeing.

 

This is enough pity partying for me. I was going to say "Goodness knows that's the only partying I ever do," but seeing as how I just said, "no more pity partying," I guess I can't say that. The second thing. Yeah, "goodness knows."

 

Later, everyone. And I do mean everyone.