Maybe I need to just accept that my "things" are bad writing and insomnia.

It seems like every time I come home, you all get treated to my little walks down memory lane. I'm not sure if this is because I find my past entertaining, or if when I come home I'm just trying to find some way to sort through all the things I've been trying to keep from affecting me these last four years. I honestly can't tell you which one is the right answer. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

At any rate, I had this wonderful little book set out at my graduation party, and as people came by I asked them to write something in it. For the most part, people wrote about half a page. Some of them were short and sweet, and some still make me laugh ("Loren, you're my favorite cousin, because you're the only one who laughs at my jokes. Love, Mike") (This is probably true). But my brother takes the cake. He didn't get around to writing in it until the night after the party, but he wrote a good four-and-a-half pages. And it is my favorite four-and-a-half pages of the entire book, except probably for the two lines on which my dad did the math problem

2 good
+2 be
4gotten.

My two siblings and I each got our fair share of the good genes, and so my brother is much wittier than I am, and a much better musician. My sister is the only athlete of the three of us. Come to think of it, I am the only one without a clear-cut "thing." Unless it's the website? Oh, wait. Wrong again.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and just throw it out there, my high school graduation SUCKED, and that's not something I often just come right out and say. "It was hard," maybe, or "I can't believe that's how it all happened," but I don't often beg pity for it all. So when I go back and read this little piece of what my brother wrote to me, it never ceases to remind me of how much I wish I had a quarter of his sense of humor:

"...Anyway, my memory fails to serve me (as it always does, in case you didn't notice yet), but we've been around each other for quite a while (duh), and yet sometimes, I have no idea what you're doing or thinking. Apparently, you're quite successful, and bright, and happy. Okay, so maybe I know that...but sometimes, when you seem so unhappy with something I've done, I just don't get it. But, hey, which one of us is valedictorian? I'd give you a clue, but..."

So as you can see, this doesn't really fit in with all the other comments people left--things more along the lines of "You're Great!" and "Remember all the good times we've had!" instead of "I just don't get what's going through your head!" But hey, here I am four years later, and who's the one getting quoted on the internet? I guess that's the price I pay for not getting to be the funny one.