I just argued with my friends on politics. I don't think I'd ever done that. But it felt AMAZING. It changed my entire outlook on life. I think I heard "All Along the Watchtower" in my head wherever I walked, which felt like it was in slow motion. I needed more.

Soon I was calling out factual errors on my friends' IM away messages about the national debt. Making snide comments about John Kerry any time I saw a campaign poster on campus (which was ... well, once per blink). And then came the following discussion in — of all places — online journalism:

Girl Behind Me: "There was four years of Bush's life that was never documented!"

Boy Directly In Front Of Girl Behind Me: "Well, there was 20 years of Jesus' life that was never documented. Are you suggesting Bush is one-fifth Jesus?"

Girl Behind Me: "Okay ... asshole."

The rush gathered from a political pissing contest rivaled no other feeling in the world. Frankly I'm surprised I didn't bring up Iraq during sex. That would have made it, like, ten times better ("We're fighting them there so we don't ... right there, OH GOD RIGHT THERE!!")

But like any addiction in college, it had to come to an end at some point. In this case, it was the day after the election. There was simply nothing else left to argue about. There was no more election. Did I win anything? Well, no. My ex-girlfriend canceled out my vote. That was very unsettling.

For the remainder of my senior year, I went cold turkey on politics by resigning as opinion editor and settling down into a nice little project of bringing back the defunct humor page.

Oh sure, like any recovering politiholic, I had my moments of weakness, here in the Blogcritics comment pool ("below the Amazon belt, as I call it"). But then I think back to that news junkie in college that barely survived the euphoric bender.

Some people were just not built to ever take political discourse.