Dear Neil Armstrong,
Once upon a time, my perfect day was a Tuesday.

Way back in my high school senior year, I was filling in the blanks for the Herman W. Lay Scholarship Application. The blank said simply, "Describe your perfect day," and all I could think of was a pretty typical Tuesday. So, I described what an Earthbound Tuesday entailed from sunup to sundown.

My mom didn't like my essay, so I wrote another one in which I generalized it to say that my perfect day had already come. It was here, right staring at me, and I just need to grab it out of the air. My perfect day was a Governor's School Tuesday, and I knew it, even then.

Nowadays, I don't like to think about a perfect day. If I were to think about it, I can tell you one thing, it wouldn't be like how I'm presently living. This lazy summer is killing my spirit, no doubt. I can't wait for school to start and bring to me people to whom I am not related. I can't wait to laugh and swear and wear funny suits. I can't wait to get out of the house for months at a time. Late night flights around the town aren't enough. I need freedom.

This isn't how I pictured my summer, but it turns out there are no computer jobs in the Charlotte area for kids without two years of experience, minimum… I guess all the internships are taken. Color me, disillusioned.

Last week, it began:Mission Operation Project WaHo Z.E.R.0.: 2K1 Reloaded, Covered, and Smothered - Special Director's Cut Edition; Two Star Revision; Jade Fox is a bitch; Long live Colatown, Rock Thrill, G-ville, the Avalon Estate WaHo Uno, and all points in between excepting for Mr. Waffle, Club -- The Syphean Quest to Eat Enough Hash Browns, Drink Enough 'Nilla Coke, and Say, "Howdy Y'All" to Enough Hobo, Etc., Etc., Etc.

Our team, Shige', John, and Matt, drove up from Columbia to pick me up on Friday, approximately 1200 hours. The plan was simple: Take 85 south to Atlanta. There make camp and scout the surrounding area for Avondale Estates, known location of the original Waffle House. Upon finding the original Waffle House, reconnaissance photos would be taken, hash browns consumed, and the mission would be considered a success. If time permitted, the Waffle House HQ in Norcross, Georgia was also to be scouted. Not known at the time was whether such Waffle House still existed, at this juncture, be able.

The point in time that I like to consider the beginning of the end of my academic demise was when I got a little business card from Kurt C. Wagner that said, "Arkansas!" on the back. It's pretty tattered now, but I still have it. When I went looking for it, it was right where I left it, the front breast pocket of the blue cashmere suit I was wearing when he gave it to me. At the time, I was pretty excited, but I should have known better.

I had just drawn business card straws to see of the four eligible students, who would go to the "Arkansas!" science confrence and who would be stuck in "Hartsville, Sorry L."

Oh how, I my then green haired self hoped for "Arkansas!" My little proto-existentialist being was trying its darnedest to Run, Lola Run chance into letting me go. And I did.

And while there I dismantled a broken emergency exit door to pass time before a geology lecture. Thus earning my third suspension, second in two years.

Pretty much crushing any hopes I had of getting into a college with a reputation.

On that day with the business cards, my mom was busy being disappointed in my hair color. She should have been thinking about the vagaries of chance instead. Existential moments. Coin tosses. Gambling soldiers at the foot of the cross. Hot Springs, Arkansas!.

So we chilled in Shige's mom's fly ride and cruised out of town, after stopping for lunch at our friendly neighborhood Waffle House, of course. We took SC-5 West to I-85 South, where we passed the most vile Mr. Waffles. We killed time by playing the alphabet game with passing signs, listening to the Space Ghost CD then Powerpuff Girls' soundtrack, telling jokes and stories, videotaping things, the usual. It was a road trip in all its glorious inanity, from being chased by imaginary ninjas to debating the one star/two star ratings of movies.

We had hulked our way to the ATL in no time, and managed to stay un-lost until right at the end. But even that smoothed out pretty quickly, as we went to meet our first contact–one Sir David the Wise of Georgia Tech.