So yeah. I took a month off. SUE ME!

No, for real. I was home for three weeks. The first week was pretty crazy becuase Erin was graduating and I’d just gotten back and stuff. The third week was equally as nuts because I was getting ready to move back to Kirksville into the house, and I decided that’d be a good week to work too. (I really have no good excuse for the middle week…)

Contrary to what seemed to be my apparent demise at the close of Humans vs. Zombies, I managed to survive the semester. Just barely. Things got pretty rough. I referred to this as my semester of “lasts”, as I would be escaping German, Math, and Chemistry after I’d completed these final courses. They weren’t going down without a fight though. At present, I’ve still yet to check my grades. Given how battered I was at the end of the semester, I don’t really want to see them just yet.

In other news, I turned twenty! I did.
Instead of taking the time to wonder aloud as to how crazy the past five years have been, and wonder how crazy the next five will be, I’m going to recount a lighter aspect of birthdays: GIFTS.

One gift, actually, stood out from the rest in its grandeur. Yamato is a Japanese toy company that makes products from the Macross anime series. Undoubtedly, most of you haven’t heard of that do to a big licensing quagmire related to its release and syndication in the United States as something called “Robotech”. None of that’s really important though.

What is important is that it’s the best toy I’ve ever had.
Imagine a transformer, but then make it perfect.
I present to you the YF-19 Variable Fighter!

The first few are pictures of the ‘fighter’ mode, which is a typical plane. The last one is the robot form, called ‘battroid’.

I even bought some add-ons for it (more armor, rocket booster), but I currently lack pictures of those, so maybe later. Case in point, my toy-addiction has evolved to a new level. I was looking into perhaps purchasing him a friend, but the First National Bank for Tom’s Childish Obsessions/Hobbies is a little strapped at the moment, so this is a while off.

In other news directly after my birthday, Erin graduated from high school! Goodness! Go her, being all competent and whatnot. She even gave the super-important speech at the ceremony and did the best job I’ve ever seen one of those done! And this is the third year in a row I’ve been there. So that was really cool. She also had a giant party at the house, the day I got home from school, which was a little surreal.

But there was Jackstack Barbeque, so I got over it pretty quick.

The whole thing was just another item in the long (and growing ever longer) list of things that make me feel old. It’s already been two entire years since I sulked across that stage to get my empty diploma holder. They mailed the actual diploma to me later… though now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it myself. Huh. Hope I didn’t lose it…

On a final note, before heading back up to Kirksville to move into the house (which will be another entry unto itself, with some forthcoming photographic tributes to its state of disrepair), Ethan, Kathryn, Lizz and I all saw Death Cab for Cutie in concert at City Market!

The concert was really good. The venue, City Market, always leaves something to be desired… Given that it’s you and a zillion other people crammed into this out-door space at the end of May when it’s just starting to get up to that characteristically mid-western “hotter than hell” range. Ick. But I got a shirt, and despite a few close calls and head-kicks, we all maintained consciousness throughout the show. [For more details and the set-list, check out the Kansas City Star’s blog post about the concert.]

Here at the bottom I guess I should mention, for posterity’s sake, that the past few days have been pretty hard for me. I’m going through some radical changes in my social life. Things that stayed the same for so long are now suddenly different. I suppose, in spite of everything, that I’m handling it OK.

I am just in awe, truthfully, that I’m even capable of feeling so much pain.
That’s really the only surprise of the whole ordeal…

Lest I get even more DeviantArt than I already have, I think I’ll stop there. I’ve sortof made it a policy to not discuss my intimate personal life on the Blog, and this is no cause to change that. Suffice to say that today’s song says pretty much all you’d need to know to get the general idea of what a mess my life’s been the past few days (and will presumably be to degrading extents in the foreseeable future)…