Latest adventures in Carsonation: A Trip to the Clinic, Imitating Indiana Jones, a run in with a Max Marshall, another female who doesn't want to live with me, and, parting words with my former self.

One month till I'm 26, better get checked out. I went to the doctor. Couldn't have done it without free health care. Might not need it if I didn't earn a wage that kept me up at night, gets me up early, makes me stress. So I go in and have all of my hypochondriac assumptions shot down. Older people in for flu shot. Maybe next time, I think, maybe never. I get shot with a needle and get three vials of blood removed from my right arm. Checking for everything, I assume. Results pending...

Before this, though, there was the last Thursday of the month, something to celebrate here. A new bar, the Mash Tun, has this patio with a garage door separating it from the interior. At exactly 11 p.m. the door starts to shut. I think that means last call or something. From across the patio, I race to the closing door and fling my arm underneath, ala Indy, and reach for something, anything. Amid the slid, I scrap. Now my hand has a mark that looks eerily like the bite Spiderman got before morphing. Change continues...

Not in roommates. Still have the one. Still looking for another. In the meantime I'm paying a ridiculous amount of money for a lonely life. The last potential female to look around the house seemed interested. She e-mails: (I) realized this weekend that I actually have to be on the road most of November (I think I'll be in Portland for only two days). I've decided not to get a new place and just put my stuff in storage. If I were staying, your place would have been my first choice, but I'm going to have to pass on it. I enjoyed meeting you guys and wish you luck finding someone else.

No longer looking for luck, looking for lunch.

And what else? I spoke to someone I used to be. Funny thing about looking at who you were. You see you, and you are thinking different thoughts that you know you couldn't have thought when you were. I sat down with my former self and here's the script.

Current Me: Silly.
Former Me: I am? Why?
CM: So foolish about stuff. Don't you know what matters?
FM: Thought I did. But I guess I don't know as well as you. Why? What's up?
CM: It's too late for you. I'm you later. And I know now what you should by now. Trouble with you is, you're done with. You can't change because I'm now you, and only I can.
FM: So I can't do anything to change the future?
CM: Of course not. Nor the past, so don't try.
FM: Do you hate me for doing the things I did?
CM: I don't. It's okay. I have to admit, though, that things could have worked out better.
FM: Better for who?
CM: Me and you. We're one in the same. There are things I now know that you don't. But, there are still uncertainties that we both might have forever.
FM: Yeah.
CM: Yeah. I'm accepting. I'm willing to work. My bounce is back.
FM: I lost that. I'm sorry. I don't even know how.
CM: That's not what you should worry about. Let's just try to hang onto it.
FM: Deal.

This morning I stepped off the Max (transit system), was met by a marshall and warned to pay next time. A deal's a deal. Done.