Deep in the cell of my heart I really want to go...

some part of the scrawny, gawky kid who hated himself and never fit in still lingers within me, and that fucker has a knack for doing and saying the wrong thing.

this should, i spose, be a happy post about my graduation from community college with an associates of science in drafting design. and it is. but it's funny how whatever i write is colored by the mood i am in at the time. so it will seem a little incongruous when i say i am feeling a bit like a failure.

now, come back and talk to me tomorrow. all will be well, i will have cast off this funk caused by lack of sleep (i used to be permanently exhausted due to the kids not sleeping and now i am permanently exhausted because after i do what i have to do, i do what i want to do and there just isn't enough hours in the day.)

so, back to my graduation. i thought my grades in more recent times would be more than sufficient to bring up my cumulative gpa to graduate with honors. i had an abysmally poor showing at my first year of college, where i barely went to class let alone read or study. well, apparently how i do the math and how they do the math are not the same and i came in just below the "with honors" cut off.

small matter. i was still excited (in my ben stein kinda way) to be graduating, and proud of myself (in my self-deprecating manner) of my accomplishments. it felt good to walk across that stage in my robe and mortarboard, tassel tickling my ear. it's taken me an incredibly long time to sort of "come into my own" so to speak, and my graduation ceremony was a sort of culmination. and i got to have my wonderful, lovely wife (who told me i was the hottest guy up there) and my two boys (who cheered and kept shooting me thumbs up or double index finger pistol shots combined with winks) there, and that was at least as important as getting the diploma in the first place.

i am looking for jobs, but the prospect looks bleak around the area, so further into summer i may look for a job on base that is unrelated to my actual degree but that would at least afford me a paycheck. can't be too picky these days, can we?

i don't know what to say about the tiny misfit riding along inside me. i'm never gonna be fully rid of that guy. and i couldn't be, or i would cease to be me. i wish i could suppress him more. but then, again, i would cease to be me. as i said, this too shall pass, let's focus on my graduation.

darth sardonic