Tonight at work for a brief second I started looking forward to going to Chumley's, my bar back in Lafayette, before I came back to myself and remembered I'm in Austin, Texas now. Chumley's was my place: I could go there to write, to lounge around after work, to watch sports, or to see people I knew because everyone I liked went there as opposed to the campus bars. I don't have a place here in Austin; I don't have any sort of bar I feel fine in when I'm on my own.

I moved here because I wanted to establish residency in Texas on the off-chance I get into UT's grad school. Back in Indiana, working at Barnes & Noble after I graduated Purdue, I felt like if anyone from my old high school ever saw me there, they'd say to themselves, "Damn, he's still here?" I had to get out, for my own good. I was living a very comfortable life, and comfort leads to complacency. Grad school would have constantly been something I'd think about "next year." Moving was a good thing, because it broke me out of that trap.

A lot of nights here I'm glad I'm taking steps to do something with my life; but on nights like tonight I miss Chumley's and my friends.

UPDATE: But tonight I did eclipse both 30,000 words and 100 pages on my novel, both of which equal 1/5 of my set goal of around 150,000 words and 500 pages (Word Processor). So that's a nice little mark of progress.