Made it home alive. The past 24 hours have been wonderfully retarded and retardedly wonderful. I left home at one in the afternoon yesterday and didn’t return ‘till just now, wearing my boyfriend’s sweatpants. My parents probably aren’t impressed with my habit of arriving home in Cory’s clothing (I tend to do it with complete nonchalance, but to them it’s probably about as subtle as donning a t-shirt that reads “I JUST FUCKED MY BOYFRIEND”) but considering that it was either these or going commando in a damp pair of blue jeans, I don’t feel terribly guilty.

Fuck the rain. Fuck bitter cold and wet dampness in October. I’d almost prefer the snow since I have a wardrobe that actually knows how to deal with it. Ever since I inexplicably misplaced my windbreaker, I’ve been S.O.L. when it comes to the rain.

So yesterday I headed for campus around one and studied in the campus bookstore until quarter to six (except for meal breaks) because fuck paying for textbooks. Cory and I hung out on campus and caught up. It’d been a week since we’d seen each other, which of course felt like forever because relationships are like that (I think, this is the only real one I’ve had so I wouldn’t know if others are different) and we had a lot to catch up on. One of the things I love about being with Cory is how different things can from month to month, from week to week or even from day to day. Everybody else can seem pretty much the same as the last time you saw them, but being in love with someone is like holding up a magnifying glass that lets you see the textures of their personality; rough and bumpy one day, smooth and silky the next. And you realize that a person is not a uniform being but that the experience of consciousness makes a person sticky and complicated, multifaceted, and everchanging. I told Cory that I’d quit my job, expressing both my joy and my nagging feelings of failure. He hugged me.

We saw the university’s improv club show and then headed back to his place, where Josh and Jordan were chilling out… as usual. The next morning I woke up still half-drunk and scrambled to get ready for school, only realizing an hour or two later that I’d forgotten my laptop cord at Cory’s place and couldn’t take notes without it. Thereafter I embarked on an epic quest to locate my boyfriend’s house using public transit and failed miserably after wandering around in the rain for a solid 20 minutes to no avail, only to discover that I had been a mere five minutes away from the correct little alleyway to turn into his driveway. As I was standing on the corner of the games shop where we buy most of our Magic: The Gathering cards, Cory snuck up behind me where he stood for a good 30 seconds while I wallowed in damp self-pity before finally turning around and screeching horribly when I realized he was there. He took me back to his place, gave me a warm shower, joked around and held me. He also promised to help me study for my learner’s license test so I don’t have to torture myself using public transit anymore. I was actually speechless with gratitude.

Damn, bitches, I am mentally and physically exhausted. Got only about five hours of sleep last night ‘cause I was up late downloading pornography, then spent all of my time in between classes studying like a motherfucker for my triad of exams coming up on the 11th. It only occurs to you how much of a lazy bitch you really are when a simple day of studying and academia leaves you feeling functionally high and fully retarded.

I gave my notice yesterday.

I have mixed feelings over leaving the grocery chain I’ve been with for over a year now, but the predominant one is euphoria, like a well of unmitigated freedom bursting forth from the confines of an unfulfilling position that has been sapping time and energy from all the things that give me even the most minute drop of enjoyment in my life. Still, a part of me feels a vague sense of disappointment, or perhaps failure. Maybe it’s because this is one shitty situation that my desire to inject joy and poetry into every moment of my life couldn’t cure. Or maybe it’s because that this job (which, ironically, became a major landmark in my life in spite of my resentment for it), which swept me into the lives of some of the few people in this world I treasure most, finally came to a bitter end.

Still, the future is full of promise. One day my friends and I will be older. We’ll put away our nerdy playthings, our video games and our TV shows and our collectible card playing games, and we’ll have real jobs and we’ll go to sleep on time, but until then I look forward to linking hands with them and chasing the joy and my dreams like a majestic robot unicorn.