So here's how it is.
I'm sitting in my room in my boxers just thinking, because I don't know what else to do. I been in Iowa for less then two years, and already I've lost my will. The same problems are there that have been there my whole life, problems I addressed long ago, but now... that's not enough. Since coming to college, I've just muddled about, scraping along and getting by in my classes.
I set off after graduating from high school to figure out who I am and catch a whiff of some greater purpose. But I haven't found a damned thing. Not a person, not a cause, not a place where I belong... not a trace of something nor someone I can feel good about devoting myself to! Not even a few friends I can have a good time with every now and then who believe in life beyond The Great Bottle. It's gotten to the point where it doesn't matter when I succeed because no one will hear about it. When I fail, no one will gloat. Everyone has stopped listening, and I've stopped giving... and I really don't know what to do.
I have to do something. Something! A new major, maybe, something less isolated; or a new college, one where the people don't all seem so hollow and empty inside (if such a place even exists!) Or maybe I just need to make some new friends here... start going to class again, rebuild my body and mind. Friends who think, even! But I don't know where to look that I haven't already. Or where I would go that would be less desperate and desolate a place than Ames, Iowa.
But I can't help feeling like it would all be okay if I could just talk to someone over coffee, and maybe even listen again. Care again. That was always enough to keep me going before. Maybe that's how it is now.

~

I have twelve days more in Iowa. Nine before transfer applications start coming due, and nine before finals start. Nine days to do everything.
It will have to be enough, won't it? Everything will work itself out in the end, I'm sure... I probably just need a little patience. Eighteen months isn't so long a time, when you think about it, right?
...right.

on consumption.

Oh, a postscript for radio heads. I was at my uncle's house for a while on the American Giving of Thanks Day. Me, Angela, the parents, aunt, uncle, and Aunt Bev. I'm really not sure how I'm related to Aunt Bev except to know that she's not really my aunt, but comes to family outings anyway. So there she was, slightly senile, sitting in a chair, and there I was, standing, reading the newspaper in the dining room. Silence.
I turned the page.
Silence.
An old, fat Persian cat lazily sauntered across the room.
"Do you know how to play cribbage, Robert?" Aunt Bev said suddenly, motioning to a board on the dinner table.
"Never really picked it up," I said crisply. "So many pegs, and cards, and ah..."
"Neither did I. Some friends tried to teach me the rules once... you take the cards, and set your peg down, and somethin'-somethin'-something fifteen. It's all crazy."
I thought of someone, and I smiled right then and every time I saw Aunt Bev for the rest of the day.

"I am cancelling you.
The brazillians and their skills together."
--robot friend's notice.