Nick

Nicholas has returned. Oh joy, oh rapture. Sort of. He called at 9:30PM, Saturday, April 29, and said "I want to go back." Okaaaayyyy....So he wants to rejoin the human race, as he said. I went to visit him, took him to dinner, invited him to spend the night. The bottom line was that the mother of the boy he was staying with told him that he couldn't stay there anymore and he had to be out on Monday. No one would give him a job because they didn't want a deserter. He didn't want to go back to the Army, per se, but wanted to be discharged out of the Army the right way. We bundled him off to Fort Knox, where they out-process guys like him, and he returned on May 7th. So now he's looking for a job.

I should be joyous and enthusiastic, but what I feel is drained and wary. Wary because we've gone through this finding a job thing before, exactly this time last year in fact. And it hasn't been fruitful. There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency. I want him to be DESPARATE to find a job. I want him to be desparate to get his own place. What I see is sleeping in late, playing computer games, making a few phone calls, and nothing of any consequence happening.

He and his friend Jason have a deal where they'll get a place together at the end of June, when Jason's current lease expires. That's his deadline, but for Jason to accept him as a roommate Nick has to have a job. We're losing sleep over this because it's as if we've turned back the clock and we're pre-Army again. I'm not encouraged. So he's been home for two weeks and no job. He's submitted one application, to Dycarp. Jason works there and there is an open position.