With the Holiday season quickly approaching, all the major retailers are busy trying to convince you that Santa Claus himself personally shops at their store. Well, I sincerely hope Santa makes more than 5 figures, because he lives further north than me and from the looks of my financial situation, the more north you go, the more it costs. To that end, I'm a little unhappy at the current state of my bank account. See, it's preventing me from enjoying my Friday night like I want to seeing as how I have approximately $13.00 after taxes, bills, food, insurance, and of course monthly banking charges which I honestly don't understand - I use everyone else's services online for free, what could BOA possibly be charging me for? They aren't some cool community portal or subscription newspaper service. They don't allow me to download MP3's of my recent bank statements to my palm pilot.

Regardless, it's not their fault - I'm actually trying to live beyond my means. Allow me to fantasize: I want the life of my co-worker, Jay. Jay is a 27 year old programmer by day / playboy by night who regularly spends $400.00 entertaining like, extremely hot foreign women at really nice clubs. I would approach him to hang out, but I'm sure he'd be like, "Oh, so you're prepared to drop a paycheck this weekend?" So, really interesting methods of revenue generation have been floating through my mind lately. For example, I haven't looked into live organ donation, but that might be an option.

But really, I'm being silly - I'm extremely happy with what I have, but I need to manage it better - I guess it comes with age. What I have here is a much larger problem now that I've accepted my staying home tonight, which is, how do you ensure a steady flow of experience? How do you keep the vibrancy of your day-to-day life? In college, my vibrancy was Reena, Kappa Sigma, my roommate Steve, and the DAS Crew. My routine was Maud's, the Union, Buster, and the work I poured myself into desperately trying to get somewhere. My other co-worker says I'm ahead of the curve so I must need to find equilibrium with DC - a nice mixture of work, fun, responsibility and fulfillment.

Three short months has yielded amazing times but no steady flow of adventures...it's kind of segmented - definite down-times here and there, which I don't like because I guess I can feel myself getting older. I told Reena once, "Give me a year and I'll know Gainesville like the back of my hand." Well, I didn't take it as slow this time, assuming nothing here could possibly wait around for me to come to terms. I guess I was hoping that I'd arrive here and be this totally different person, that somehow the city would open itself up and accept me - "Here I am!!". After speaking to Ash though, who is my new therapist, she reminded me to make things happen on YOUR terms. I just need to find a rhythm and make new routines, like she is doing and, incidently, like Reena is also doing. At times, other people's stories seem very applicable to you, and Ashlie and Reena are two excellent examples of people going with the flow until the time is right. I find solace in that and it fills me with a deep happiness to see people I care about succeed - it's an affirmation, really.

I have to admit - this is the first time I've been just a little scared for a long time. Or mabye I just haven't had enough time to realize it. Good thing I'm going home for Christmas - just in time for a little boost of confidence from friends and family.