It's been an eventful few months. In brief, I got accepted to grad school, with funding. This bowls me over, because I applied on a whim, and I applied only for that one school. My old undergrad advisor warned me that getting accepted into a program is no slam-dunk, even if you got recommendation letters from Levi-Strauss, Boas and God Himself.

I'm set to start in a couple of months.

I turned 25 a few months ago. Growing up is weird.

I've been taking on greater and greater responsibilities in the intentional community I live in here in Tampa, which mostly involve knowing a lot about double-entry accounting and consensus-based decision-making.

Flower Girl's come and gone again, too, but she'll be back again in a few months. I almost kissed her the other night, after a fantastic night out in really ritzy surroudings. Although neither of us called it that, it probably was a date. I regret not having done so, and am worrying myself skinny and ragged that I might have given up any chances with her. This means more to me than I am comfortable with. If I'm right, then it's probably going to be a little awkward for the next three years, as she's been accepted into the same grad program as I have been. Either way, we're going to be running into each other a lot.

I'm a lot less worried about the end of the world as we know it, but mostly out of exhaustion than optimism. I've been reading a lot lately about the funny relationship between hope and fear. It's been hitting hard. I'm smoking again, and have told myself that if I don't quit for good the next time I quit, I'll smoke for the rest of my life. I think the decision to smoke has something to do with some weird and twisted impatience with my own mortality.