Home Again. Need this.

Lovey photo of the city near where I grew up from here

I'm finally home! It was a long drive, but I had Littlest Brother riding shotgun to keep me company as I blasted my entire collection of Mae, Anberlin, Taking Back Sunday, and T.A.T.U. music (did I mention I have every song any of them have ever produced? When I like a band, I REALLY like a band). The whole trip, breakfast, lunch, and gas breaks included, took a little over nine hours. I could have probably made the trip faster by myself, especially considering I don't eat that much on road trips, but we took too cars and my parents insisted on staying together. Thus, I did not make as good of time as I would have liked, but in return my mom kept jumping out of the car and paying for gas before I had time to get my own card out. I suppose you have to find little ways to still "support" your children when they have been living away for four years and you don't even pay tuition bills.

Did I mention I get paid to go to college? It's a pretty nice deal, except for the part where in return, the government owns my body for the next eight years. I think I also may have failed to mention that I got Uncle Sam to pay for my grad school, but he gets an extra three years for that instead of the standard five and fly. As the current plan is to stay career military, unless I catch a whim to go pursue politics and see how far an uncorrupt non-pawnlike idealist with multiple tattoos and a few piercings would get once *my* generation is in charge of things. I'd like to think we'll be more open-minded and tolerant and in general, create a better world…but I'm sure the flower children thought that, too.

I picked up Achilles, our ginormous and ever-slobbering Greater Swiss Mountain dog up this morning. Since the 'rents were in New York visiting my brother and me for the weekend, and since now Little Brother (note: not Littlest) is in Canada skiing for the rest of the week, and both mama and papa had to go work today, reuniting Achilles with her home fell to me. Littlest Brother cannot, and likely never will, drive due to his epilepsy and autism. Thus, my beater car, affectionately known as the P.O.S.-Rocket by Little Brother and I, is covered in slime and fur and smells terrible.

Regardless, I'm home in the beautiful state of Virginia, and that is worth all the dog slime in the world. Now it's time for a nice, long run to take my mind off of everything, and then I'm going to grab some sushi with my dad for lunch.