Contrary to unpopular belief, derrick has not fallen off the face of this earth, he has merely been inundated with a whole bunch of crap. I've actually made it back in one solid piece more or less to my homeland of Chicago. The US-Canada boarder is pretty easy to cross by car. Just bring your passport and you should be fine. No body cavity searches or the like are necessary.

The trip itself was pretty enjoyable. I got to see a whole bunch family that I haven't seen in years with a whole bunch of cousins, nieces and nephews who were too young to remember my last visit. It's official, I'm now the uncle that says "you don't remember me but the last time I saw you, you were this tall..." Shocking, but true. I never anticipated I'd reach that particular point in my life... Oh well.

Aside from the Christening and wedding I was scheduled to attend, there were a few dinners scattered among my relatives in the days in between. I probably gained 10 pounds from all the food. More of me to love I guess. Emotionally it was all a mixed bag as cousins I was really close to in the past seemed to have moved on to a life of their careers and their families while I started to bond with other cousins that I barely talked to in the past while still other cousins are starting to come of partying age, like the one who took me out clubbing last Tuesday.

I felt pretty tight to the cousin who just got married last weekend. It's not so much me as it is her personality, she was just so easy to click with, you know like one of those friends that you haven't seen in a long time but once you do you can pick up right where you left off. In a way I'm happy that she has found her love and has finally tied the knot but in another way I'm saddened like I'm somehow being left behind. It's like you blink and everything changes and in the next breath everything changes again and the ultimate feeling is one of life simply passing you by, so much so that maybe the next time we meet we won't be able to pick up right where we left off because the gap in between with the time and the distance and the places we are in life are just so huge that the once familiar somehow transforms into almost complete strangers.

Is it just me or does the bitter seem to always accompany the sweet as time progresses? Still, this whole wedding experience has reinforced the idea that true love and marriage can co-exist. Honestly, I've seen too many weddings where the bride and groom were simply going through the motions. This wedding was exceptionally different and the level of emotional intensity was just off the scale. I'm not sure if I will ever reach that point in life but I know it's something worth hoping for and it is something worth reaching for.

My arrival back home was less than stellar. While I was gone, it seems that all of my things have been displaced as my sister moved into my old room and my step dad moved into her room and most of my stuff was inter-dispersed between the hallway and the room in the garden level (basement) that I was supposed to move into. I am slowly but surely beginning to organize my things which is no easy task considering none of it was really organized to begin with. I had to spend several hours while I was already tired from my trip home to get settled enough so that I actually had a place to sleep.

It's all just the tip of the iceberg because the room I am moving into is not a permanent arrangement. There is a chance that I may have to move into a smaller room if my cousin takes in a boarder to rent the room I am in now. I'm not sure why my mom still wants me to visit her on the weekends, but eventually I'm going to break myself away from that whole "tradition" and wind up just keeping my things all in one place and not go through the inconvenience of trying to live between two places especially when one of them is so unconfirmed.

If that isn't enough to bitch about, one of the courses I need to graduate just got dropped due to low enrollment over the weekend. I sent an e-mail to my faculty advisor to see if I can take another course in replacement. It's going to suck either way though because the replacement course will very likely be harder than the one I'm actually required to take and that's only if an alternate course is allowed. If not I have to drag it out for yet another quarter pushing my graduation date back to March instead of November which would suck beyond all belief. Either way it all sucks.

My mom is not helping much either. As of late she has just been a geyser of negativity. I told her that one of my required classes was dropped and that I may have to drag it out an extra quarter, ignoring whatever disappointment I may have already developed she threw in a bunch of charcoal and lighter fluid, threw in a lit match and commenced in grilling my ass. I'm thinking wtf and I do mean WHAT THE FUCK!!! Seriously, this woman that calls herself my mother needs to calm the fuck down or she's going to see me disappear from her life.

So the master plan has changed slightly. I'm waiting for a reply from my faculty advisor on what to do for school. If I can't take a replacement course I'll probably drop my other class and seek full-time employment. If I can't find a job right away I may resume that internship offer I had initially until the next quarter. Hopefully, I'll find a decent job rather soon though. I guess we will see how it all goes.

For those who didn't notice, I've been performing a few tweaks here and there to my "liquid-mojo lite" layout. I took out the interior scrolling, so there is only one place to scroll, which is actually the entire window now. I also took out all the color going instead with a grayscale scheme.  It seems only fitting since I'm falling back to a simpler design template. I also took out the now defunct comments and the "state of mind, state of cock and epiphany of the moment" options since they serve little if any purpose nowadays. Perhaps they will return when I get myself a job, who knows? Until then it's likely going to be the last design change unless I suddenly find myself some motivation. For right now though I think I need to eat.