Oh, the places I've been.
Break out the Kleenex, the diploma and cap, get ready to say goodbye and all that graduation type crap.

Chances are, at least one person will receive a copy of Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss as a graduation present.

In fact, perhaps even two people will get this book, which I was planning to parody for the duration of the column as to avoid any overtly cheesy references to how much I love Penn State. Ah, who the hell am I kidding? Spouting my affections for college is up there with eyebrow maintenance.

After my first semester of college I considered petitioning the governor to change the state slogan to "Pennsylvania, we put the P-A in crappy." I'm sorry to offend -- I'm from Virginia.

If it helps, I've never really thought Virginia was for lovers.

But, Virginia was not the source of my angst for four years. Pennsylvania was. First off, the sun's embargo on State College during the winter has lent me a profound understanding for how Smeagol became Gollum.

I mean really, the amount of murkiness here could turn the bubbliest of collegiates into a raw-fish-eating, slithering, loincloth-wearing bunch of former hobbits.

Secondly, there is constant construction on campus, off campus, 20 miles outside of campus, and it's accompanied by bright orange signs reminding me whose mother I could potentially run over.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I still haven't gotten over the fact that, after 18 years of providing loving support to my parents, they would abandon me four hours from everything I knew in a parking garage. Worse off still is that while I cried countless tears because I was positive I dressed like I was 13 and smelled weird and knew that I wouldn't make a single friend, my parents shed nary a drop for my absence.

It was walking back from the parking deck behind the Nittany Lion Inn that I realized I was extremely alone, tomato-faced from all the sobbing and covered in snot.

It was like I was 4 years old and lost in a grocery store. Sure, there's all sorts of cool stuff in a grocery store -- miniature donuts, Fruit Loops, the candy aisle -- but even a box of Animal Crackers couldn't replace your mom giving you a hug. I'll give you a moment to think about hugging your mom. It's nice, isn't it?

But back to Dr. Seuss. I realized after re-reading Oh the Place's You'll Go that I couldn't really make fun of it. It is not like those inspirational posters psychologists and teachers put on their walls, with pictures of men dangling off cliffs with the word "perseverance" written above it.

In fact, I am sure Dr. Seuss would not have recommended folks dangle off anything larger than a curb. He realized that even without the treachery of scaling large mountains without a safety net, life dealt more in metaphorical cliff hanging.

He eloquently says that people as "brainy and footsy" as (insert name of person reading book, or Class of 2004 or 2008 or 2012) will not always top all the rest and be the winningest winners. Everyone slumps, and waits, and "gets all hung up in a prickle-ly perch." (I'm not really sure about this one; maybe Dr. Seuss sat on a cactus.)

And, most relevant to those abandoned in a parking garage, at a grocery store, waiting for a job at home, travelling overseas, being left behind or moving to Duluth away from his or her overweight cat, everyone gets lonely.

"You'll play lonely games too/games you can't win/'cause you'll play against you," he writes. While there is no real comfort in playing those ambiguous "lonely games" or running into howling "Hakken-Kraks," it's just Dr. Seuss telling us that, as long as we realize life is a "Great Balancing Act," we'll do all right for ourselves. Sure, it's not widely optimistic or inspirational.

But doggonit, it's honest. And by the time all is said and done, being told you should constantly try to meet the mythological status of "perfectly successful in every way" is a drag anyway. Just look at Martha Stewart.

And just so as not to be a complete cynic, I do have (some) friends in Pennsylvania.

And also, I like this quote: "We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."