After thinking it over, I”m really leaning on getting rid of my car. I just spent over a grand on it to get it running again, and with the inspection coming up later this year, I may have to spend another couple hundred on the car even more. I”m at the point where I would be spending money on it is more than the car is actually worth. So I may just get rid of the car and cut my losses. It sorta puts a cramp on some things I do, but I can get around it by borrowing someone else's car, or mass transit. One of the positives I can see is that whatever money I save up for the insurance can be put to a new car. I am looking over my budget that I have made up, and so far at this rate with the salary I have, it should be a while until I even get enough for the down payment on a car (lets just say at my age, as a college grad, and considering where I live, I make quite a bit less than I realistically should be). But it is what it is, this is the hand that I am dealt, and I will have to work with it. I did lower my 401(k) contribution a bit, but considering that BofA is matching what I put in up to 5%, I am still putting more it than I was last year. SO I'm not cheating my retirement.

Although I am going to be in a “save mode”, I will splurge on one thing. Some I know are planning on getting a place over the Labor day weekend and I intend on joining them. Partly because it is going to be upstate, and it's going to be a nice area where the place is. Second, it's my birthday and the people I would be spending the weekend with are those who I can't think of anyone better to hang out with. Why would I say this? Simple, two years ago, some of these people (who I barely knew), were the only ones who showed up to hang out for my birthday. That left a real impression on me, considering that they did more than a lot of those I knew for over a decade. Honestly I thought they showed up as a favor to my cousin, but since then I've gotten to know all these guys and I've always enjoyed hanging out with them. I consider these people my true friends, and they rank above a lot others I call friends.

Along with these guys and gals, there is one more person I put in that same category. She and I have been friends for a while now, and we met via the internet when I was looking for fellow PSU alums. We started talking, and we ended up being good friends, and chose not to try anymore since the distance between us would make it difficult, and also if we were to hang out, there would be “pressure” to make it worth both of us (as in one of us traveling that far and having a good time-otherwise it could feel like one wasted their time). We talk and email each other, and she will call me to see how I am doing just out of the blue, as I would do the same. I have emailed or called her with some issue I was having, and with all the problems she could be having, she'd take time out to deal with my pissy little problem. Some are probably reading this and saying “well duh, you are friends”, and that's true, but still the fact she would do that and also come to me with some problem is a big deal to me-makes me feel what I do is worth it.

What really made me see how valuable she is happened late last year. I was trying to rebuild something from the past with someone else who I though cared about me and said that to me several times, and although I was promised by this person that things would be better and we would have more time together, it clearly wasn't. To put things in perspective, in the two months that I saw this person until December when this person called me to tell me off and in essence have a breakdown on the phone where I was the target of her venting for some reason, I got a total of 3 emails and 2 phone calls from her. Yeah, I was a fool and thought if I was patient that she would come around, but what made me realize that this was wrong for me to do was when my friend would call me through this time just to see how I was doing. It hit me; here's someone who has no real attachment to me other than just talking, who has never met me face to face, and she has shown more attention to me than someone who repeatedly told me how her job now can afford her to see me more compared to last time, and how she is going to go out of her way to make time to see me and talk to me. Right then and there my friend got put in a higher level of friend compared to most of those I talk to. Needless to say that my friend is the only one of these two I talk to, and I had to apologize to her over this whole time period where I wasn't really cool with her over our talks over this situation.

I have no real clue what the hell I am writing about tonight, I just thought I would write what was on my mind before I go to bed.