fine whine

I really shouldn't complain about staying up too late at nights. It's not like I don't do it to myself, what with movies, web browsing and instant messaging to keep me awake.

If you go by the date atop this, yesterday I talked about being all caught up. If you go by the date I'm actually typing this, you may find a discrepancy and moreover discover that I am again catching myself up.

To do so I am staying awake past bedtime, but I'd probably be up anyway. Back when we lived in the apartment, though, there was often a good half hour between when Jessica would go to bed and then when would I (sorry about the backwards grammar, it just sounded cool). This was when I was to be getting to work at 7am and she at 8 or 9. Nowadays I need to get to work at 8:30 and Jessica's alarm goes off at 5:30am. Big switch. Back then, though, we were pretty much on the same bedtime schedule, except for the nights I'd stay awake, toiling away on this and other projects.

Now I just stay awake, playing games or watching movies. Except today, when I happened to bump into good college buddy Gonzojag, with whom I haven't had any contact since I graduated some two years back.

My fault, really. I'm a real bastard about keeping up with people. This you may already know.

So anyway, we had a nice chat (he was at work, over in Tokyo) and reminisced and whatnot. At one point we were talking about my graduation ceremony (he'd graduated the year before, taking a mere four years to get a degree instead of my five) and I started to think about why graduations are sad and people cry. Sure, it' sthe end of things, but it's not like the day crept up or anything.

No, the reason I think that graduation was sad was that here I was, sitting in a field with a bunch of my friends, and all we could do was face forward and listen to a bunch of people talk. In black robes, in partly sunny conditions.

Why didn't we bust out some frisbees and footballs? Our last hours together, and we sat around? What's up with that?

So maybe that's why I stole my chair. I still have it, the chair in which I graduated (and listened to Kofi Annan speak, and so on and so forth), but that's small consolation for missed opportunities.