it's the end of the summer as we know it...

...and I ain't fine about it. I have no idea where the time all went....it seemed like just yesterday that I got back from Alabama in as positive a fashion as one could return from Alabama, leading into the beginning of my summer. All in all, it was a pretty eventful time, with the biggest event this activity called: nothing. This summer, I took the advice of my man, Ron Livingston in one of DD's classics, Office Space. When asked what he would do if he had a million dollars, he said he would "do nothing." this was the first summer I did nothing since I was 11 or 12 years old.

There was always something to be done in the summer- the mandatory SAT preparation class, the debate camps, the math camps, the summer accelerated programs, sometimes just being sent to camp while my parents traversed the world- it was always something. I really envied a lot of my friends growing up, as they got to do whatever they wanted to do with their summers. One of my friends had parents that would leave the minute the summer started to go on some sort of semi-world tour, Asia one summer, Africa another, the "Cradle of Civilization" another summer. This left my friend, at 13, 14, 15, alone in his home, no parents in the country, much less the house. It was absolute freedom, and I loved, loved, LOVED going over to his house. The first, and most obvious reason, is because my parents had NO IDEA his parents were gone for the summer, which meant I could stay the night (or two, or three) and there was no checks, at all. Even if you're a pretty good kid, that's the kind of shit that can get you in trouble. Most of the major parties held in the town, at all, were held at this kids house, and the police department was a frequent visitor at the house. There was more than one occasion where me, as the sober one of the group (contrary to popular belief, my drinking problem didn't start until i was actually 21- don't get me wrong, we all just had different preferences, and I could cope better when I was "not right" than most of the other foolios I hung out with.

There was even the summer of the Boy Scout Jamboree- the decision my mother called "the dumbest shit i've ever heard." You see, my mom was against the Boy Scouts. Not for the clearly PC reasons that many have turned their collective backs on the organization- but because "the Boy Scouts taught you shit that didn't help you live in the world you live in- it's for some world of fucked up kids much whiter than you." She never pulled punches, and thus neither do I, so if you need someone to cast blame on, well, here you go, although me being an asshole makes it easy to just blame me. Well, the Boy Scout Jamboree, apparently, is relatively stringent with regards to the consumption of illgeal, illicit, smokable products, and so when they discovered that I had, in what was one of my dumber moments (in my defense, I did take the fall for a friend, who, in no uncertain terms, would have been sent to military school had he been discovered to have been smoking in general, and they already thought I was a bad influence, and I, to this day, am not sure of the reason). Long story short, there are Department of Forestry sheriffs, the head of Boy Scouts of America, me and my parents having a LONG conversation of the dangers of smoking in the woods (never mind I wasn't 18, or the potent smokable wasn't legal, or that we actually started a fire when my compadre thought we were were lost (paranoia) and said we needed to start a fire (it was 88 degrees) and he didn't want to freeze (it was 4:10pm). Ironically, or maybe justly, it was the fire that got us caught, as that was when the Department of Forestry was called.

Maybe it was because of these things, or maybe because I'm teaching now and feel I deserve the time off, driving my desire to do nothing. I did have a summer gig lined up, and when it fell through, I made the decision to not look for another gig, and to enjoy the summer for what it was. a ton of free time with limited obligations that I put off like pretty girls put off dorky guys. I had all summer to blog and I think I had less than 10 entries all summer.

I did, however, tighten up my poker, get much better at NCAA 10 and Fight Night 4, and do a ton of nothing. It. Was. Awesome.

Not looking at going back to work...