I wish I were a little less perfectionistic in regard to selecting a DC apartment. I look, I peruse, I look at dozens of offers, I change my mind, I decide, I change my mind, so on and so forth.

Ugh.

I just need to pick one and get it over with.

Oh, yeah, I also have to be at the airport in 5 hours for a flight.

Mood: Anxious
Song: Norah Jones, "Sunrise"

I recently found the website of Joel Veitch, a British guy who makes pseudo-animations including the recent ad campaign of Quiznos Subs. You know, the singing rodent-like creatures? They're hilarious and/or terrifying.

Here they perform the Moon Song. Good stuff.

Ron Brownstein's weekly column in the LA Times:
GOP Leaders Leaving Sacrifice for the Generations to Come

With Democrats almost daily beseeching Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to run as John F. Kerry's vice president on a national unity ticket, this might not be the most opportune time for senior Republicans to question whether McCain still belongs in the GOP.

But that's exactly what House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), ordinarily a more sure-footed political operator, did in an exchange with reporters last week.

"A Republican?" Hastert asked with mock incredulity, when asked about McCain, who has served in Congress as a Republican for more than 20 years and won seven states in the race for the GOP presidential nomination just four years ago.

What heresy from McCain prompted Hastert to question his party loyalty? The senator had challenged the propriety of cutting taxes during a time of war. Here's what McCain told a Washington conference last week:

"Throughout our history, war has been a time of sacrifice…. But about the only sacrifice taking place is that by the brave men and women fighting to defend and protect the liberties we hold so dear, and that of their families.

"It is time for others to step up and start sacrificing. Just in the last year we have approved legislation containing billions and billions of dollars in … pork barrel projects, huge tax breaks for the wealthy, and … a corporate tax bill estimated to cost $180 billion…. This is a far cry from sacrifice."

Republicans, especially in the House, have plenty of reason to chafe at McCain. Since his 2000 race, he's followed an increasingly independent course, often teaming with Senate Democrats to block the true-believer conservative initiatives the House regularly disgorges. And House members, of either party, hate lectures from senators.

But in this case, McCain is articulating what ought to be a bedrock principle for conservatives, not to mention liberals, moderates and everyone else from Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) to Vice President Dick Cheney: Every generation, as much as it possibly can, should pay for its own defense.

Today, President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress are engaged in a project unprecedented in American history — pursuing massive tax cuts while the nation is at war. The result is that we are paying for the war in Iraq, like the war in Afghanistan and the entire post-9/11 buildup in military strength and homeland security, almost entirely by increasing the national debt.

Bush is presiding over annual federal deficits so large that the Congressional Budget Office projects the publicly held federal debt will soar by 50% through 2010. In effect, that means passing on the bill for our defense to our children.

No earlier generation of Americans has done anything like it. McCain is right; it's a mark of shame.

It's true that previous generations have increased the national debt to help pay for wars. But only after first contributing more themselves, often significantly more, through higher taxes.

Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed into law the income and inheritance tax to help fund the Civil War. Republican President William McKinley imposed excise taxes and reinstated the inheritance tax during the Spanish American War.

In World War I, under Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Washington increased the top rate on the income tax from 7% to 77%. In World War II, under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Washington increased the number of Americans subject to the income tax tenfold and raised the top rate to 91%. Washington raised income taxes even to fund more limited conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

None of these burdens were easy for Americans. During the first three years of World War II, the share of the economy consumed by federal taxes nearly tripled. The share jumped by almost a third during the first two years of the Korean War and by about one-sixth at the height of the Vietnam War.

But today, after Bush's huge tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and the smaller reductions approved in 2002, federal revenue is moving in the opposite direction, even as the bills mount for defending the nation.

When Bush took office, federal revenue equaled about 20% of the economy. This year, the administration anticipates that Washington will collect revenue equal to 15.7% of the economy — the lowest level since 1951. Both administration and congressional forecasters expect that number to rise in the years ahead. But both project that for the indefinite future, the federal government will collect less revenue, as a share of the economy, than it did when Bush was inaugurated.

Wedded to the tax cuts, Bush and the Republican congressional majority have developed a single strategy for funding all of their priorities: Put it on the next generation's tab. The war Bush launched in Iraq has already cost more than $125 billion. He has just requested another $25 billion to fund that war — the first installment on a bill likely to reach between $60 and $80 billion this year.

Beyond the war itself, he is pursuing a defense buildup that will increase Pentagon spending by $1 trillion after inflation over the next decade. Spending on homeland security is soaring, too.

And Bush has not proposed to raise a penny in revenue to pay for any of this.

Last fall, when Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) proposed to offset part of Iraq's cost by rolling back the income tax cuts benefiting the most affluent 1% of families, Bush and Senate Republicans joined to kill the measure. Just one Republican voted for the principle that Americans at home should pay the bill for those fighting abroad: John McCain.

Biden will be back this summer with another amendment to roll back tax breaks for the top earners when the Senate votes on the latest $25 billion for Iraq. That amendment will force Congress and the country to confront the same question that Hastert denounced McCain for even asking: If Iraq is important enough to bleed for, isn't it important enough to pay for?

Big progress on the application, getting ready for an important week. Hopefully by the time I left for Texas on Friday (for the wedding), I'll have an apartment set up for next year and my application will be nearly complete.

Mood: Improving
Song: Seether, "Broken"

‘Cause I’m broken when I’m open
And I don’t feel like I am strong enough
‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away

Today was a good day.

Made progress on AMCAS, did more apartment research for DC, got some exercise.

I re-read my last post from yesterday. Wow. One of the problems with a blog is that, unlike a regular conversation, there's not someone there to tell you when you're (a) not making any sense or (b) clearly need to take a deep breath (or a stiff drink) and just let something go. And, besides, being angry sucks.

So here I am, hopefully back to normal.

Today was a good day.

Mood: On the mend.
Song: Norah Jones, "Sunrise"

The sun came up this morning. It's a new day.

Now I can move past yesterday's whining and get on with my life. :-)

Ugh.

So bored.

Sick of no one being around. Lonely, in general. Lonely for friends or lonely for a relationship? Either, I suppose.

This whole week has been strangely detatched from reality. Spent most of my time in the apartment, didn't talk to many people, didn't do much during the days, did even less at night. I read a few books; don't really remember them much. Saw a few movies, don't remember them either.

Maybe I'm not ready to live without a roommate next year.

Or maybe I'm just sad that my friends are gone and, more recently, I feel a little bit used by a certain person. Maybe it's that I made a lot of friends this year, but not good friends. I'm friends with a lot of people, but not so friendly with any of them that I know exactly what they're up to this week, or even where they are.

Perhaps I'm just losing my mind because I don't have enough things to do. My only major project right now is my med school application, which many people know is the last thing I want to do.

I know this is a petty issue, but I feel pretty much consumed by it right now. Nowhere to go, few people to talk with, and not much to do until the end of next week.

The scary thing is that I'm getting a little bitter right now. I'm not entirely sure why. Do I spread myself too thin with my friends, so that I get to know a lot of people, but only on a superficial level? In the last two weeks, as the year was drawing to a close, a lot of people I know came up to me and said I was a nice guy. Sometimes they went so far as to making it jokingly accusational: "Why are you such a nice guy?" Another person told me a story about how they needed something during a party, and one of the people they were talking to made a joking comment that they should ask me to go get it since I probably would. People in the past have said I'm too cooperative or too accomodating and that I need to think more about myself. It's situations like these that make me stop and consider those comments seriously.

And now I want to call the person who turned me down earlier today and really tell her how I feel. Not in a "please go out with me!" way, but instead in a "what the hell did you think you were doing? you are so inconsiderate. stop fucking around with my mind" sort of way. But that's not gonna get anything done, other than making me feel better for a mere 15 seconds and assuring that this person never speaks to me again. And I hate burning bridges.

So.......what to do. Movie? No, movies always include romance or a beautiful woman, neither of which is going to help me relax. Med school application? I can never focus on that at night; I just end up reading CNN.com or the NY Times or the Washington Post. Reading? Perhaps, except that I finished most of the books on my shelf, or at least those that are interesting to read. I'm not going to start reading cookbooks or textbooks.

(deep breath) Alright, self. One week to your trip for the wedding, then a week here, then a week in Oregon, then I start work. That's not much time. Try to enjoy it while you can. Tomorrow, it's back to the track, back to the gym. Time to burn off this mood, whatever it is...

Mood: Lonely
Song: Michael Kamen, theme from "Band of Brothers" and REM, "Strange Currencies"

Oops!

As a fairly optimisic individual about human nature, I recently made the silly mistake of actually trusting someone. My mistake.

"Yeah, I'm sorry if I led you on, but I'm sort of seeing someone right now. I mean, we were together, then we weren't, and right now I think we are. And I would still like to have dinner with you, but you and I both know how dangerous that could be, right? So I'm sorry if I led you on."

If you led me on? No, not really. I just thought that somewhere in your mix of "I've been wanting to ask you out all year" and "Why don't you and I spend some time together?" and "This can totally work out because we'll both live in the same neighborhood next year," I thought you had actually suggested that you might actually be interested. Oops.

Hello world.

I re-joined society today: drove around the city, bought groceries and other essentials, went out for lunch, etc. I don't think I had been out of Baltimore in at least two weeks, maybe almost a month.

Yet, at the same time, I dove into my med school application today, an activity that will surely remove me from day-to-day society as quickly as I entered it. My goal? Have it done by the end of the month. My true deadline is the day before I start work -- June 16th -- but I would like to have most of it complete long before then.

Tomorrow's goal? Wake up before noon.

Mood: Calm, a little bit complacent.
Song: ELO, "Do Ya"

Blah. This is one of those nights when I actually wish that school wasn't over and that there were actually people around to hang out with. Sitting here and looking for housing isn't exactly my idea of a good time...

After three days of work, the apartment is clean. This is incredible.

I'm doing some background research as I prepare to apply for med school again, and I couldn't find the paperwork that indicated when I had taken the GRE. No problem! I just searched the blog, assuming that I had posted something online after finishing the exam, and -- voila! -- had the date within a few moments.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. Shania Twain? Hotttttttttttttt.

Hallelujah...

Roll credits.

It's the end of the movie. The plot lines come full circle. As expected, the protagonist is learning the lessons that he should have realized long ago.

The girl who took his breath away but didn't seem interested? He should have just kept up the fight; she was too busy to return his calls, but she wished he had called one more time. Another love lost.

The guy who everyone else got along with, yet always seemed to be angry at our main character? Surprise! He was indeed a nice guy, but our character didn't take the initiative to talk with him and break through the stereotypes. Another friendship missed.

The friend who always seemed a little distant and unwilling to talk? She was just looking for an invitation to share her story, but it never came, so our character waits until now to find that out.

In the end, it seems like everyone is okay, but only after experiencing these silly lessons that should have been easily recognized and resolved from the beginning.

The audience gets up and leave the theater, enjoying the catharsis of seeing our character mature and learn to finally make the right decisions. But in many cases, it's too late to make corrections. Oops.

I can't think of many things more frustrating than learning some very basic lessons after an unnecessarily long struggle with them. C'mon, I'm a pretty smart guy...why did it take me this long to learn these lesssons? I don't particularly want to be that movie character who takes forever to make some basic realizations about life.

All my stress about the girl? Pointless. My confusion with my supposed enemy? Meaningless. The worries from not connecting with my friend? Could have been easily remedied long, long ago.

(sigh) Do I learn lessons from this? Yes. Is it just incredibly frustrating to see what I lost, left behind, and let slip by? You better belive it.

Mood: Disenchanted and a little bit depressed. Detatched from myself. But strangely, distantly hopeful.
Song: REM, "Let Me In"

He gathered up his loved ones and he brought
Them all around to say goodbye, nice try.

And so it begins, part II.

Today was incredible for a bunch of reasons, the most obvious of which is the end of my graduate school academic requirements. But there were so, so many more. I'm pretty sure I'll wake up tomorrow with a new outlook on the near future...

Note to self: We only do this life thing once, so why don't you stop stressing out and instead try to live a little bit? Things will work out.

I think I'm depressed.

I don't feel specifically upset or morose or anything like that, but I have all the other symptoms -- consistent anxiousness, indecisiveness, lack of appetite, exhaustion, etc.

The most frustrating thing is that I don't know why.

Worried about the end of my program at Hopkins? Probably.
Already feeling detatched from my friends here? Yes.
Concerned about my ability to work at Lewin? Not as much, no.
Recent concerns about my dating life? Yeah, that too.

Ugh. It's odd...I know I don't have any logical reason to be upset, but I'm also painfully aware that it doesn't make any difference.

Time for a glass of wine and a movie on TV.

Mood: Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Song: Ozzy, "I Just Want You" and Van Halen, "Humans Being"

As school comes to a close, I thought I could look forward to a few weeks of relaxation. But as my mind stopped filling itself with the continual day-to-day reminders of my academic responsibilities, it started to fill with the continual day-to-day reminders of other aspects of my life.

Who am I going to ask out next week?

Where am I going to live in DC?

When am I going to finish my med school application?

I hate worrying about things in the abstract. I can be stressed about a paper I have to write, but I know that it's due in four days and after that it will be over. With these abstract concerns with no real deadline, though, my mind could run endless circiles around them and not make any progress whatsoever.

Oh, wait, that's what has been happening for a week now...

Mood: Anxious, but for no good reason.
Song: Foo Fighters, "Everlong" (acoustic)

It's getting late, and I have to be up early (5 hrs from now? 4 and a half?) so this will be quick:

I will miss Friends.

Hold on a second. Before you release your hitmen or let slip the dogs of war, let me explain. First, I will readily admit that Friends was not the greatest comedy ever or my favorite time of the week or anything along those lines. It was just a TV show. And, for those fanatics out there, I'll admit that I was not the most die-hard watcher of the show. But over 10 years, I certainly watched a lot of episodes and enjoyed most of them.

I'll miss the idea of Friends. A simple show about six people, living their lives, facing the silly-yet-not-entirely-unrealistic challenges of young adulthood, finding jobs, finding love, losing love, finding it again, and experiencing the various oddities that make life...well, life. Were some things unrealistic? Sure. Did some plots seem a bit contrived? Of course! But did it address many of the entering-the-real-world concerns and odd experiences that we've experienced in our short adult lives? For me it did.

And Friends was decent. (And, no, I don't mean 'decent' as defined by the FCC.) I mean that it was simply about normal people living relatively normal lives. More importantly, I believe it was fundamentally good. It didn't rely on violence. It had romance without relying on the near-pornography of certain other shows. And it certainly related more to my life than does America's new opiate-like addiction to the barren meaninglessness of reality television.

A Washington Post article online tonight said,

Now, "scripted" TV shows seem to be falling out of favor as so-called "reality" shows that feature real people in allegedly unrehearsed situations proliferate. NBC promoted its own tasteless reality entry, "Fear Factor," during the "Friends" finale; shots from next Monday's show featured girls in bikinis being covered with bugs and worms and then locked in coffins. Real quality stuff from NBC's ruthless, try-anything boss Jeff Zucker.

Friends was just about love and facing challenges together and making sure we didn't take life too seriously.

Maybe Friends was the first long-running sitcom for my generation. 90210 was huge, sure, but I didn't watch it very often and my impression in hindsight was that we -- and, yes, I'm defining "we" pretty narrowly here -- were too young to understand the inflated drama of the "real world" it referred to.

And maybe Friends will be the last sitcom of my generation, at least while we're still young. The Post article concludes, "Will another "Friends" come along to replace this one? There hasn't been another "Seinfeld" or, for that matter, another "Cosby Show" either. At the once-mighty networks, and for the viewing nation, too, this is truly no laughing matter."

Was I a rabid fan of Friends? No.

But was it an entertaining show with a positive message? Certainly.

Will I miss it? You bet.

And so it begins.

School is nearly over for the year. I have one paper, one presentation, and one final remaining. For all intents and purposes, it's almost nothing.

However, this week I started...

• looking for apartments in DC
  
• determining my budget for next year
  
• planning my school-to-work transition, including travel
  
• writing my personal statement for medical school, and
  
• filling out AMCAS for the third time
  

I'm particularly thrilled about the last two. Ugh.

And so it begins.

Early evening blogging. I almost never sit down and type now.

I just took a walk to the local grocery store, just a few blocks down the street. I was a little foggy-headed...insomnia last night, lots of caffeine this morning, class all day, mid-afternoon mental haze. It was raining lightly.

No thoughts in my head. Except dinner, perhaps, since that's why I was going to the store. For the most part, though, I just walked quietly down the street, absorbing everything around me.

Birds chirping. Runners getting their exercise before sunset. Lots of traffic, still. Pause, wait for crosswalk signal. Go. Smell of bread coming from the Subway on the corner, loud car going by, people walking with flowers toward the hospital one block east. Man walking dog.

It felt like I was in a movie, experiencing the world around me without really interacting very much with it. I walked through the store, picking up what I needed, but in an oddly detatched sort of way. Without day-to-day stress on my mind, I became strangely interested in each aspect of my shopping experience, mostly just regular little questions.

What sort of bread should I buy? How much cereal do I need? I think salmon is for dinner tonight. Must buy onions. Yum, chocolate milk. Buy that too.

But that was it. No concerns about the complexities of dinner, no thoughts of jobs or classes or responsibilities, not the traffic or the rain or the upcoming tasks I had to accomplish. Just me in that moment. And I wasn't working or trying to maintain this feeling; it just sort of washed over me.

And I enjoyed each little bit of it. I slowly walked back from the store, feeling the rain, seeing the puddles, and enjoying the peacefulness. The three blocks back to my apartment probably took 10 minutes.

Maybe this is what "stopping to smell the roses" really is.