Y'know, I wonder if I'll have a future with people in it if I don't end up living in Missouri. I think about going to the coasts for graduate school, to places like Stanford, Amherst (either of the two colleges known as Amherst), CalTech, USC, or Boston University—but if I end up there for graduate school, I may well end up staying there for a long time. Yesterday it occurred to me that despite all these grandiose ideas I have about escaping the gray Midwestern winters and finding a better place to live, I may well be severing ties with most of the good friends I have if I leave.

I may end up living a fairly unpopulated existence. I've already shown a real reluctance to get to know many people at this here university, which is in Missouri, and I don't see that changing very much in the future. I just don't like people that much, y'know?

The upshot of all this? I'm not sure. It occurs to me that I might be happy living in Columbia in that not-so-far-off someday. As far as I can recall, I don't have any truly bad memories of the place. I'm generally happy when I'm there. The city itself is beautiful. Of course, I may love the place so much simply because everything I've experienced there happens to have been pleasant. [shrugs] It might be the answer, though.

We'll see.

I woke up literally rolling over to kiss my pillow, then got online only to find that some Missouri Republicans mailing list with my name on it had clogged my inbox, then noticed that a guy had responded to my request for various items on Freecycle by telling me to go to the library if I wanted books. Wonderful.

A side note: Starting next Monday, Campus Girl Scouts will be selling Girl Scout cookies every day in the student center from 11 a.m.–1 p.m. If you want cookies, tell me and give me money and I'll get you some. I'm taking orders...

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