Welp, it's over. The last of my student loans went the way of the dodo today... to the tune of not quite nine hundred dollars. Now, the only outstanding debt that I have left is my car loan. You would not believe what a relief this is to me. I hate being indebted to anyone or anything. My student loan was the worst. The monthly payment was so small that I would frequently forget about it and it was going to take forever to pay down. Ugh. Good riddance.

I suppose I should explain why I am flushing my debts. I'm hoping to buy a house. You heard correctly. I did the math: a 15 year mortgage on a $75000 house @ 8% works out to a monthly payment of right around $650 and, in the end, I'll own something. Now, weigh that against my current monthly rent of $750 with no hope of any tangible ownership. Hrmm...

Of course there is another side to this: I'll own a house. That's kind of a scary prospect. In my mind it implies a lot of commitment. Commitment to contuing to live in Tulsa, commitment to nominally being a responsible adult, and commitment to a lifestyle. I suppose when I really look at that list only the second item is real, the others are mental artifacts. It's a pain but I can always sell any house I buy and maybe even come out a little bit ahead (hey, it's possible). How would my lifestyle really change? I think too much.

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I've started reading Aldous Huxley's _Doors of Perception_. Ugh. I should do my homework first. I really feel that having read one intellectual's account of her/his personal experience with hallucinogens is wholly adequate. I read Albert Hoffman's paper on his experiences with the discovery and lab testing of LSD and considered myself done. Can any of you tell me whether there is any merit in coninuing to read Huxley's version of this story? Huxley is a formidable writer, that much I will say, but drugs are boring frankly.

How's that for irony? Parents, if you are struggling with trying to educate your kids about drugs why not integrate that little tidbit? Drugs are boring.

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I've been doing a lot of reading about the brain on the web. There are an unbelievable amount of interesting tidbits of information available on the topic. I've read about neurons, vision, memory, etc. The explanations of the functioning of neurons have been of particular interest. What amazing little structures. I am left with a number of nagging questions, though. The most pressing of these is what determines which neurons are interconnected? Is it genetic, or based on proximity, or is it something far more esoteric? This is really confounding me.