Bad Ties & Due Dates

It hit me today that it is entirely likely that I won't get home for the holidays. Certainly not both of them, at any rate. And that sucks... it really sucks. I love the holidays. Not the commercial crap, or the music and definitely not the shopping. I love my family, and seeing everybody, the ones I see fairly regularly, but especially the ones I only see a few times a year, or less. I love just hanging out and chatting for no reason other than no one has to work and it's just what you do on those days. It's a long way away, but for some reason it struck me most unpleasantly today; I came home and sobbed and sobbed, like I haven't sobbed since I first got here. It was totally pathetic. So much for bravery, eh?

Ok. My brother just told me he learned how to tie a necktie in the bar last night. I can just picture it, Matt and his buddy in some smokey, badly lit bar, surrounded with people, standing there tying and re-tying neckties. Apparently, the internet directions he looked up earlier this week didn't work out. He says he's got it now. Just in time for his interview with the fire department of the city he currently lives in. Only my brother could turn a neighbor's call to the Fire Department into a job opportunity. He's so charming. Oh, and on an even more awesome note, Matt is now officially free of the Marines. Today was his first day out. He said it was "relieving but weird." I thought that now he's got all this free time he should get a library card and read Peeps. He said that libraries are "scary." For those of you who don't know, there are four(!) degreed librarians in this family. Four. I think that he probably doesn't care for due dates. The same problem Dan and Ryan have, and why since I left, their literature intake has greatly decreased (I checked things out for them on my due date-free employee card). Ryan complained to me last week that he didn't have any audiobooks. I told him the hours of the three libraries closest to him.