Searching for Excitement within the Mundane

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So... I feel like the momentum of the first week of daily posting is slightly wearing off now.  There was this sense of excitement in finding things to write about every day, but now I feel it slowly tapering off...

Anyway, I seem to be getting involuntarily plowed with a heavy dose of nostalgia lately.  It hit me this morning that this year marks twenty years that I've known my first real online friend, when we were both at the tender age of 15 years old.  We met initially through ICQ, which dates how long ago it was (1998) and we've stayed really good friends throughout all these years.  Nowadays he doesn't do social media at any level, nor really the internet in general, so he will most likely never see this.  But we've still managed to keep in touch, despite that.  It's just crazy how fast time flies by, once you stop and think about it.

Over the years, I've found that I've grown closer to my online friends than I ever have been with people I've actually met in real life.  It's just easier for me to be completely myself around them... probably comes from being so shy in person, although I like to believe that I've come out of my shell a decent amount within the last several years.  Being opened up to the completely different culture of California living has helped with that.  I'm definitely not the same person that I was when I lived in Oklahoma or Texas, but she's still not completely gone either.

I saw a brief blurb last night on the 11PM news about teenagers voluntarily eating those Tide laundry detergent pods, as part of some [incredibly stupid] fad called the "Tide Pod Challenge."  That was definitely a "WTF?!" moment for me.  (Source: here.)  Are these young people really that ignorant (or I suppose I should say illiterate, since there are warnings ON THE PACKAGE), that they would willingly risk their life like this?  Sometimes I truly worry about the intelligence of the younger generation.  They will not last long if stuff like this keeps popping up. 😖

In other news... I have to plan a visit into my personal banking establishment before the 19th of this month.  They have decided to charge a $12 monthly maintenance fee if I don't meet one of the eligible requirements to waive the fee, which I have no way of satisfying.  Now, I hardly use this account, since we opened a joint checking account at a local credit union months ago, and I usually keep less than $100 in it, so that $12 fee isn't going to work at all.  The requirements are as follows: 1) make a monthly direct deposit of $250 [I'm pretty much classified as a contractor so I have no option for direct deposit] or 2) keep a monthly balance of at least $1,500 [imagine hysterical laughter here].  My response to that?  Closing my checking & savings accounts.  😎