I really wanted to give you a tip. I always tip. I often tip too well. I tip when the service is horrendous and the person I'm tipping routinely kicks me out of the bar for no reason. I could not tip you however as you didn't have change to break a twenty and there was no place on the credit card receipt for me to write one in. It was on the corner of Tonawanda and Niagara. My minivan's belt flew off after barreling through a puddle on the 198 on my way to graduation. You found it odd that graduation was held before the final day to submit work. I agreed. You said you were still working on a paper and it was due next week. I said good luck. When it became apparent that I could not give you a tip, you told me not to worry about it and to tip the next guy. I asked your name as I left. You said Brain. I planned on mailing a tip the next week addressed to you at your employer, but like most of my good intentions, I failed to follow through. If this was indeed you Stickboy, than I do believe I owe you a drink or two.

I come home from a long day of pushing the fog button to find my housemate has a certain girl he’s been hooking up with since the wild party we had on Sunday. That’s fine, I like her. Unfortunately she happens to be best friends with the girl I drunkenly hooked up with after a hard day of rocking at the art fest and she’s sitting in the living room as well right now. The decent and best solution to this problem would be to talk to her and somehow explain how I am not interested in performing such acts again. I don’t have any problems with her; I’m just not interested in having any sort of continual relationship, even if it’s just hooking up, with anyone at the moment. All I wanted to do was come home, finish reading an article I started at work and go to sleep. Looks like I’ll be bolting from my room, making a mad dash across the living room, and heading somewhere to drown out my conscious. Perhaps someday I’ll make an attempt to solve problems as they arise rather than simply running and hiding from them. Not this evening.

I suppose I was a little harsh on the houseguests in the last entry. While they did drudge up unpleasant memories of touring the Binghamton Whalers locker room when I was younger whenever they came within ten feet of me, they certainly werent ungrateful guests. They traveled with a fully stocked bar in addition to a kitchen with mountains of burrito fixings. Lenny a card carrying graduate of the New York State Bartenders Academy was more than egger to mix up a variety of drinks using whatever he could find around the apartment including Roxys three week old leftover clam juice. I wasnt so much pissed at them personally, but more my inability to resist consuming whatever intoxicants are within my sight. I had wanted to make a drastic change in my lifestyle immediately following graduation, but this has not taken place as of yet and I think I was just looking for something / someone else to blame besides myself. The house is quiet and mostly aired out now, and Im looking forward to a peaceful evening alone before having to go back to work in the morning. With the exception of two days last week, Ive worked everyday for the last two weeks as an assistant tech for a marathon of dance recitals at work. I bust my ass for the setup and breakdown, but during the actual recitals I mainly stand around and try not to look at the girls for fear that my look of confusion as to why parents pay to see their six year daughter dress and dance like a sex object maybe easily be mistaken as a look of arousal. Though I did accidentally see some little girl half naked this evening, I mostly avoid such awkward situations by staring at my notepad and writing shitty haikus.

Dance little rich girl
Daddys little prostitot
Mommys on Zoloft.

Im not even sure Im writing these properly, but it helps pass the evening when the novelty of watching rich suburban teenagers tap dance to techno remixes of Nirvana wears thin.

With the exception of maybe one or two nights, we’ve been entertaining houseguests for the past three weeks straight and it’s fucking got to stop. They pride themselves on having no home and earning their keep slinging burritos and beer at festivals, but for living such a modest life they certainly pack more than their fair share of “white coffee� up their schnozzles. I actually heard one of them commenting about not being able to afford deodorant while in the process of blasting a line off a piece of broken mirror. I'm sure they mean well, but if you’re staying at someone’s house for a week, crashing on their couches and using their blankets, if not for your own sake have some consideration for your humble hosts: take a fucking shower.

I’m tired of feeling guilty about things, and as if I didn’t have enough things to feel guilty about already, now I feel guilty as each day passes and I don’t add anything to this journal. It’s not that I don’t think about it, I think extensively during the day about topics I’d like to address or stories I think are worthy of being retold, but once I sit down to do so I blank on what exactly I want to use this journal for. I started keeping a written private journal around two and a half years ago, but only began writing deeply and religiously in it following a serious personal disaster I let myself fall into little more than a year ago. Since then most of my entries have tended to be severely self-critical, and while this may or may not have helped dig myself out of the particular ditch I was stuck in during that time, I find it very difficult to write in my journal now about anything other than my perceived shortcomings. Since realizing this, I’ve been keeping two other small personal journal / notepads that I mostly use to keep personal reminders and ideas for projects, as well as a full sized notebook that I try to write about whatever comes to my mind for a predetermined amount of time several times a week. I feel guilty when I fail to update any of these journals on a regular basis, and now that I have this journal, I find myself at a loss for it’s purpose and feel as if I’ve failed myself and others by not posting even sporadically often. Let me think this over a little more and I’ll try to work some time into my routine to post regularly. I find myself equally freaked out and fascinated by the concept of online public journals and am beginning a one year project tomorrow that addresses some of the issues that relate to this blurring of private and public presentations of self. I’ll write more about that once it gets underway.