September is coming up which means school is just around the corner. I get to look forward to attending late night classes already tired from 8 hours of work, drinking crazy amounts of Red Bull just to stay awake. The last 11 courses are no longer a breeze. It would have been 10 courses but I had to drop the Server-Side Web Application Development class which is basically the heart of my E-Commerce curriculum. It's basically the technology and programming behind transactions that takes place on the internet.�The instructor in the class I was in was a damn nazi. Homework every class, quizzes every class and one huge ugly final project where you have to program a functional shopping cart that properly records transactions to a database with well designed front-end and you are expected to program this in VBScript even though the primary teaching language is Java. Even with my background in Visual Basic, VBScript is different enough that it's like learning a new language. I fear this class because if I can't hack it I'm going to have to find yet another major. At this point I'm just filled with so much self-doubt. I can't afford to drop another class. The last time I dropped the class it ripped me a new asshole financially speaking of course.

That's just the cake though, here's the icing. I haven't been in my apartment practically this whole summer. That's right, Derrick has a swank downtown apartment that he has been subconsciously avoiding. In fact I haven't really given it much thought until the whole school issue came up. I guess there are a few reasons I have been avoiding my apartment now that I think about it. The most obvious reason is that there's hardly any food in my joint, unless you count my endless packets of Ramen Noodles a.k.a. Ghetto Pasta [TM]. I'll eat those if I'm starving I guess but consuming that on a daily basis can be a fucking drag. There are also boxes of Mac and Cheese, but you need milk and margarine to cook that. I make that on special nights like when I have guests over or something. I also like to keep a case of Red Bull in my fridge, but yeah that's about it. I had a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka in my freezer. It's gone now though, someone must have poured it down my throat when I wasn't looking. I'll have to make a mental note to re-stock that necessity. If it weren't for the various dining establishments within walking distance and my credit card, I would have likely been malnourished. Thank god for Potbelly Sandwich Works and Chipotle. It started out early this summer with me apartment sitting and keeping my sister company while my mom went on a month vacation, and because I don't really have to worry about food because my mom like cooks for fun, I've basically been staying with my mom and sister ever since.

It goes beyond nourishment however. What was once a symbol of freedom and the promise of a new life, my apartment has become a very real reminder of how lonely my life has become. When I was attending classes loneliness was a non-issue, I needed the quiet time and the solitude to study, work on assignments and projects or just to relax and unwind. I've had many Zen-like moments just looking out of the balcony at night and just absorbing the Chicago skyline. Burning the candle at both ends, I was really too tired to do or think about much else. But then I was faced with my first summer break in that apartment. Suddenly I had too much time to think to myself. I once thought if I straightened myself out, get a good job, continue my education and live on my own in some swank bachelor pad that I would finally be attractive to women. Well I've worked hard and have achieved most of those things but it seems all that has had absolutely no bearing on my success with the opposite sex. This leads me to believe that it must be something else, that it's not my job, it's not my status, it's not the place I live, I can't even blame my looks because I've been told I have at least some degree of physical attraction. This leaves one last possibility, it must be me. Down to the most basic level it is just me that is inadequate in the eyes of women. No other reason, no other excuse.

I look at my empty apartment, I look at my empty, unmade queen-sized bed, I look at my own reflection in the mirrored walls and all I see is emptiness. Of all the times I've been in that apartment I've never had a woman in there, I have never had sex in there and it's fucking making me crazy. I can't fall back on the lame excuse that I can't bring females to the same place my mom and sister are living in anymore, because that's no longer a factor. It is because of me, because I'm quiet, because I'm shy, because I feel inadequate, because I truly am not good enough. Thus is why I am is unsuccessful with women and I honestly believe that nothing short of a Deus Ex Machina type of divine intervention or some freakish once-in-a-billion-years type of celestial alignment will ever turn things around for me. But I can't expect the universe to change just for me, just because I'm lonely and I want someone to be with me and we can make each other happy for once. I should just accept reality, accept my lot in life as a confirmed bachelor who has failed every attempt at finding love. I should accept the fact that life fucking sucks the only thing I have to look forward to is life to showing me how much more badly it is going to suck. Then I should just call it a life and move on to the next incarnation where hopefully life is less of a bitch to me and the only sucking that takes place will be of my cock (or whatever body part I wind up with)...