"Only From Disaster Can We Be Resurrected"

The past week (Friday through Friday) has seen me travel some 6000 miles, sleep for less than 35 hours, consume fewer than 4000 calories (Sunday-Friday) resulting in a loss of 7-10 lbs of body weight , experience the rapid rise-plunge-rise-plunge of both testosterone and seratonin levels, and listen to endless hours of Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers. Basically, the last seven days has condensed a wealth of human experience and emotion down into a few poignant moments wedged between endless time stalking airport corridors and somnambulist passing of mile markers. Personally, I think I'm at the end of a long period of "dismantlement", where the person I thought I was and what I've thought I've believed has been show to be false in a lot of ways, so I'd like to think I've turned a corner in some sense. I've realized that I feel ways about things, which is weird, scary, and oddly refreshing. I'm not going to be anymore specific, because I'm not sure how this is going to pan out, and I'd rather not feel compelled to delete this post later. So, outside of that, here is last week's rundown:

• Spent a few days in West Palm Beach, Fl hanging out, freaking out, and airing it out, respectively. I defied death numerous times, from watching electrical storms on the roof of a twenty story building, to almost drowning while snorkeling out in front of The Breakers. How did I almost drown? In a nutshell, spending time building fast-twitch muscle fibers has limited use in paddling through pounding surf, and an over-whelming fear of drowning (most likely caused by my general incompentence in the skill of swimming) leads to panicked breathing when I fail to successfully eject all the water in my snorkel. In my defense, I'm more scared of looking like a pansy than I am of drowning, and the water was really cloudy and murky, so I don't think anyone saw me tear off my mask numerous times and frantically paddle my way to the surface.
• After catching the red-eye (a delayed red-eye at that) back to Newport News, VA and driving back to the beach Monday night (arriving at my house for a few sweet hours of sleep before running into work), I spent the day frantically putting together a PowerPoint presentation for my job interview on Thursday. Taking off Wednesday morning, I found out while confirming my intinerary for the interview in the airport in Atlanta that a PowerPoint was unnecessary, so I attempted to redact my whole presentation to be strictly auditory at around 34,000 ft somewhere over Appalachia. The presentation was later described as "adequate." Yes!
• Saw my brother up in Pittsburgh Wednesday night, ate two pieces of Stuffed Crust pizza and a couple of breadsticks (the closest thing to a meal since Saturday night), and battled out about five hours of sleep before getting up at 4:30 AM, taking a shower, choking down half a yogurt, and hauling ass over to Cleveland for my 9:00 interview. From my perspective, the interview went as well as it could have for me having little (ie: nothing) in the way of relative experience of education, and we'll (ie: I'll) know within a week if I got by on my good looks and charm. I'm feeling optimistic, but not so optimistic as to sign the lease on my Lambo...

"When the doors on this Diablo raise, I'm going to have the front of your crib looking like Diablo's doorways..."