Fort Bragg, CA

I am unable to sleep for the first time in months. The last time this happened to me, I was in Sacramento and drank myself to the point of vomiting in an attempt to pass out -- because good old falling asleep wasn't really working. What I learned is that whiskey is a sub-par replacement for exhaustion.

My cousin got married today. The general subject of marriage sat in the air all day, occasionally receiving visits from my mother and me. What we decided: I am never getting married. I can never imagine myself getting really excited because someone proposed to me, for one. What I can imagine is the incredible discomfort I would feel having to verbalize that I love someone enough to marry them. Definitely not my ideal conversation. It would also make me feel very uncomfortable to watch other people get excited for me. I am actually getting awkward right now, and I'm completely by myself, not speaking out loud.

Fort Bragg is a strange place to be. I thought I knew people here, but apparently they've all moved away from this the tiniest of hometowns. The only thing I've had the opportunity to do that even slightly resembles a social event (a wedding I was forcibly coerced into doesn't count) is my mother's high school "preunion", a term coined by my father and me. That is, the night before her actually reunion, she invited me to a bar with all of her old high school classmates. I reminded her that I am only 20, and her response was, "Come on... don't you have a fake ID?" This from a woman who joined AA when she was only a few years older than me.

I'm excited, because we're having more couch surfers when I get back to San Francisco. Chris came back to visit -- took his few days off and flew back to San Francisco from Las Vegas. Don't you just love making friends whose company you actually enjoy?

Maybe I'll just stay up so I can sleep on the ride home. I drove the whole way here from Sacramento, while my mother sat in the backseat "attempting to sleep" (aka. verbally correcting my driving).