This is a column I've wanted to write for about a month now. My past few months have been very exciting, fun, and somewhat sad.

I'll start off with the somewhat sad note. I broke up with my girlfriend of 3 on/off years. When some people found out they said things like "Oh, I'm sorry." But it was a really good thing. The past few months sucked (pick the expletive of your choice) and by the time we came to the conclusion to part ways, we were both ready for it. She moved out about a month ago and I'm not really lonely. I am able to get more work done and my apartment doesn't have to be clean all the time and I can just be myself. I don't have to worry if my actions will bring down some kind of complaint.

Why the break up? Several reasons. For the past few months the only thing I ever heard from her was complaints. The bills were too much, all I ever did was sit on the computer, complaints about work including gossip I really didn't want to hear, and she never cooked. I cooked on my days off. But she never cooked. She said it was because I never liked anything she made. I'd been happy with spaghettie sauce from a jar over noodles. She fried hamburger, poured tomato sauce over it and put that on noodles. No onions, no garlic, nothing. If I need to explain what is wrong with this, um, well I shouldn't have to.

Reason Numeral Two - I've been changing a lot. I don't drink. I don't "party." I work out every day. I've lost about 30-35 pounds. I'm becoming more spiritual (not religious, I don't know if I'll ever be religious again, that's another column). I was tired of the same girl that didn't find herself attractive and couldn't even fathom why I did. After so much of this, I no longer found her attractive. You must first love yourself before someone else can love you.

The final thing is I don't think she ever really wanted to live with me. She was always going home and spending all of her bank account on trips to Ellensberg and more expensively Viriginia. I can understand spending some, but she'd spend all of her account. And guess who'd have to foot all the bills for yet another month.

It was sad and that last week she lived her and we weren't "together" it was rough. So I smoked a pack of cigarettes and go through. No that doesn't mean I'm smoking again. I just needed something to get me through it. I felt bad for her that's what made me sad. If you knew the mental brainwashing her parents have on her you'd know what I mean. As they take trips to Vegas, she's telling me they're broke. Yup, I just fell off the turnip truck yesterday.

So now I feel better. I'm a nicer person at work and at school. Pullman is the perfect town to be young and single in. Each day is fun and I've never looked so forward to going through and seeing where the day takes me. The other day one of the front end supervisor's asked me how I was doing. My honest reply was "I'm at the top of my game." It can still go up, but so far in my 22 years, this is definitely the peak.

And now I log on about three times a day because my email has never been so full of awesome, thoughtful conversation. Does anyone else think the same way. When you check your account and you have 8 messages and only 2 are junk mail and one's from Becky about Jeff and her week and one's from Allison talking about how she just read a book about Nostradamus, and Polly's bitching about something (just kidding). It's great to get email that's real.

What was my motivation for losing weight and working out? I want to be a pro wrestler one day. I'm not saying I want to be in the WWF. I just want to go to wrestling school and see how well I can do. It'll give me something to do during the summer breaks of my teaching career. Hey, it worked for George "The Animal" Steele, Axe from the tag team Demolition, and, most recently, Albert. All were teachers either past or present.

That's about all I have to say...I need to figure out a cool thing to say at the end of my columns.