Well, not really, as evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this journal.

I've not had the pleasure of your company in a while, nor do I think I will ever again, in the forseeable future, at least. Things now are set in motion such that they cannot be stopped, nor reduced, nor redirected. But change is good, and I'm not complaining.

I think... yes, I think I know now, at least a little, what my life will be. I'm switching schools, changing majors. Mining town to College town, Computer Science to Physics. If I'm lucky, I'll get a job building thermonuclear weapons. If I'm luckier, they won't end up spreading short-lived isotopes all over Iran and North Korea. But then again, I never really liked Iran or North Korea.

Got a job now, making some money. Not much, but more than most people my age, and far more than enough for a 19-year-old with no wife, no kids, and no mortgage.

Got a house with some kids. Don't know how that's going to work out; they say that rooming with your best mate is a bad idea, but we'll see; There are various stopgaps that one can use to moderate a situation before things get too tense. In my case, the order is: words, fists, harsher words, eviction.

My days now are reduced to studying, reading/writing code (look forward to a significant alteration of the Python interpreter, especially if you've always wanted standard access modifiers on object members), and joking about babies and blenders with my local friends. This often earns me looks of derision, the occasional verbal attack; but the only one for whom I have any kind of real connection approves, and she even joins in sometimes.

What about art? Not much. Like most people, maybe even laymen moreso even than the artisans, I have images and concepts in my mind which I'm dying to express, but find myself unable to do so. Rutherford, in his garden on the North Island, throwing down his spade in victory; J. Robert Oppenheimer and Richard P. Feynman at the success of the Trinity test; Linus torvalds at the first successful build of the Linux kernel; a man, faceless, kneeling, arms bound behind is back with handcuffs, blood streaming therefrom because of his attempts to escape; later, his broken left hand his well-earned freedom; a hemovoltaic cell. All of these are concepts or images that I wish desperately I could express- or at the very least, direct in their expression- but I find myself unable to do so.

The times, they are a-changin'. I approve though; any time d(life)/dt > 0, there is cause for celebration.