A lot has happened.  Life is good.  To get it out of the way, first off, I am glad I did not skip work to storm the PJ concert in S.F.  Vedder was sick and walked off stage early on.  They subsequently canceled the rest of the tour, not due to the illness, but due to the difficulties of the tour.  (ie, Ticketmaster)  Later, they uncanceled their last threee gigs, but still left five or six canceled.  I am anxiously awaiting the bootlegs, and, since the cancelations, their is a good chance I can get the whole Sac. gig, complete and uncut.  Video is a hope as well.

Earlier today I returned home from HOP.  I left Wesnesday morning, with my father's Saturn-my car was in the shop, getting a new clutch.  It was supposed to be done in time for the trip, but the mechanic couldn't get a part he needed, so dad loaned me his car.  The whole thing was just so much fun, I met so many people.  By all counts, there were some twenty odd that I actually got to know a little, dozens more who was I briefly introduced to.  One guy I met, Brian, and I got to be fairly well acquainted.  He' s from S. CA, near Santa Cruz, San Diego.  He, like me, is into climbing, and we plan to do such together.  He's got actual experience, so it should be good for me, to learn the ropes, so to speak.  I smoked marijuana for the first time with him, another of his friends, and some girls who were there for some music camp, they were only like sixteen though, so it wasn't as if we were trying to pick up on them.  I got a couple of good drags on the pipe, pulling it into mny lungs, and I felt proud of not coughing and gagging like first time smokers.  I didn't really get very high, however, but Brian told me the first few times can be like that, so maybe the next time will be better.  Considering everything, I'll be able to get marijuana and alcohol from him-he knows how to grow it, and seems to always have a supply near, plus he turns 21 in September, so that's cool.  I had always assumed I'd be getting into that stuff up there, away from home, at least to try it, but never actually thought too much about it, or put too much emphasis on it, or whatever, not too much reality into the thought, but now I now I will, for sure.  Later that same night-last night, we met one of Brian's friends from the area-Matt Browning, and he got us some beers, so we took those back to the dorms and drank those.  It was such a great experience, overall.  No-one knew anyone else really, so making friends was a matter of just starting a conversation-walking into someone's open dorm room, chilling out, etc.  I spent all three nights chilling in a lounge like area seperating a couple of guys' rooms, just talking all night, hanging out.  Other people would walk in, bored, or whatever, and join in-it was so great.  We just talked about so many things, and one of the guys I met, Greg, from Berkely, and I got to talking about suicide and hard times, and everyone just listened as we described how things had been for us, what it was like to want to kill oneself, the reasons we had wanted to, etc.  It was really free feeling, opening up to a group of strangers things that I never even really tried to think about-how my early teens and even earlier were really hard, being primarily friendless, and feeling pressured by school, picked on because I was an outsider, and everything else, how for just the longest time, things just built up, little by little, until it just all seemed so unbearable.  I talked about how I lay in bed one day, while my parents were gone, just thinking about suicide, seriously, really thinking about doing it, contemplating a razor blade in the bathroom, knowing, that if I sat up, I would try to really go throught with it. I don't know, it felt so liberating to be discussing all of it, how it made me stronger, having hit bottom, and having nowhere else to go but up, and how being in college, surrounded by everyone, how it was a new beginning, an end to the social hermatage.  I just felt good to be talking about it all, and I couldn't help but wonder if people were learning from what Greg and I were saying.  Most of the people at HOP were freshmen, it seemed, and Brian, myself, and another guy, Stan seemed to be the only transfers in the room that night. Maybe, I thought, this little speech of mine and Gregs would help them through any similiar difficulty.  I said that such an experience makes you put things in perspective, makes you realize how trivial some things really are.  I don't know, but there is just so much to do up there, especially outdoors.  There's kayaking lessons through the university center, yoga classes I'm thinking about to improve my flexibility for climbing, backpacking, camping, rafting, of course climbing, in addition to everything else already inherent in college life.  I am just so looking forward to going back to school now, I almost can't wait until classes begin-it just seems like one lives life so much fuller-it did when I was there just for these past few days.