Because it could; Because I can

You wanted an update, I needed to vent

2009-08-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

I’ve been sitting here for a whiling, pondering what I should put down on this. I haven’t updated in an extremely long time, for a myriad of reasons, but primarily just because I haven’t felt inspired to. I don’t feel particularly inspired now, to be truthful, but I have a inkling that necessity will bridge that gap which is normally filled by inspiration. Another issue is the fact I don’t know what to write. I have a very unstable life and so much has happened and I don’t know how much to bother explaining or how much detail to go into.
I’ve decided, after a bit of thinking, that those most likely to read this, i.e. nobody, myself, my girlfriend, and maybe one or two close friends, know the current state of my life and don’t need a detailed refresher. And as for who else is likely to read this, namely random strangers who stumble across it, probably don’t care enough to read pages of minutiae detailing how I arrived where I’m at.
As such, here’s the basics: I’m unemployed, living by bouncing from friend to friend and living on my air mattress, my car is down for a count for a long while and is back in my father’s yard. My credit score, lack of a finished college education and the economy as a whole have all made it extremely difficult for me to find a job. No matter how many applications I submit, there seems to always be someone better suited for the job than me and the employer either tells me such (which I appreciate) or just never contacts me (which I resent).
So, I am currently living in the dining room of my very gracious friend Eric, who has been very helpful and understanding during this time. He’s helped me look for work and as such knows about the fact that, despite my efforts, I have the hardest time being hired. I often wonder if I’m just not a desireable person overall or if perhaps I’m merely putting the wrong things down on my applications. I don’t have the greatest work history due to the fact I move around a lot, so I can understand that it may look as though I can’t commit to a job, but applications give so very little room to explain such things that I feel slighted by how little of myself is expressed by an application. I should probably just make a resume but that seems a bit futile when I have no access to a printer.
The current plan is that, one Kayla visits and heads back home, I pack up my stuff, have my friend Ben drive me to Virginia, where I shall rendevous with a friend, Kyle, whom I met over Xbox Live and who has offered me a place to stay with him and his family in Pennsylvannia. He assures me that they can find me a job up there and that, so long as I do my part around the house and cook dinner when the parents are unable to do so, I can keep my paychecks and save them up for when Kayla and I are hopefully able to get our own place next summer.
Kayla shall be visiting in a little under two weeks, so hopefully in a little over three weeks, I should be leaving the godforsaken Carolinas for the rest of my life.
It’s not until recently that I realized some things about myself. One is that I really do hate the South. I think the only think I do not hate about the South is the food. Everything else…the ignorance, the misguided priorities, the omnidirectional racism, the hypocrisy, the accents, the heat, the selection of overly loud cultures…it all just grates on me and puts me in a bad mood when I have to be engulfed in it. This may be the reason why I am in such a touchy, aggressive mood so often down here, particularly in Florence, which is a place of seeming magetism for the very stereotypical culture drones that piss me off the most. All the ghetto bangers, Good Ol’ Boys, scene kids, and overly competitive pseudo intellectuals just seem to congregate in Florence and my only recourse to avoid them is to stay inside, at which point I get cabin fever and my restlessness puts me in the same overly edgy mood I was trying to avoid in the first place. I can’t even escape into music or movies properly because Eric, living in a town home, has thin walls and easily offended neighbors, limiting the volume at which I can listen to and, by virtue of therapy, sing along with my music.
I do feel incredible lucky that the one aspect of my life that always calms me down and never fails to put a smile on my face is talking to Kayla. True, my efforts to make contact with her every day, whether dealing with the library’s stuffy atmosphere or traipsing around the property here grasping for some vestige of a neighbor’s wireless signal for Eric’s laptop to latch onto, cause more frustration than anything else sometimes, but it’s worth it to talk to her. It wasn’t so bad when I had my phone, but ever since Virgin Mobile decided they couldn’t stop sniffing their shit-covered thumbs long enough to transfer my service correctly I haven’t been able to call her and hear her voice, so the internet is my only recourse for my best therapy. I guess to some extent it’s a testament of how much she means to me and how much I appreciate the love we share. She never fails to bring a smile to my face, no matter how short our chance to talk.
Lately I’ve noticed that my social anxiety has gotten worse. Maybe it’s having spent so much time alone and away from a campus atmosphere, but I only seem to level out when I either alone or with only one other person. It reached a new high at the apartment, where, apparently, I lost nearly 2 weeks of my life and I don’t remember it. I thought I’d only been in Florence for 2 weeks, but Eric told me I’d been here for a month by that point and I honestly could not remember being here that long. He says I’d been at the apartment nearly the entire time and I don’t remember that. It frightens me that something like that could happen and I not remember it. I hate not being in control of my actions.
Normally in a crowd, I get nervous and either withdraw into myself or become manic and try and try to befriend everyone to an embarassing extent, which is why I generally stay alone. Except, whether cruelly or ironically I can’t decide, I get lonely very easily. It’s a frustrating catch-22 that I strive for social interaction, and yet that very social interaction stresses me so much that I am not myself. I really do feel as if I’m a completely different person sometimes when I’m in a group of people. But what happened at the apartment…it’s different. It’s as if I’d withdrawn into that environment to the point of excluding the part of myself that has become as a result of living alone for most of my life. Something similar happened during the time I was dating Michelle, but even then I was able to see myself from the outside and understand I was acting irrationally, even if I felt seemingly helpless to stop it. But this time…I don’t remember it at all. I remember bits and pieces, but Eric says I was over there for a week straight at one point and I just have no recollection being there for that long.
It’s possible that the shift in sleep schedules just caused a memory lapse along with the stress of meeting so many new people. That’s what Eric thinks and I really hope he’s right. It really scares me to think that there’s something deeper, more permanent at work. My mind is the only thing I can always call mine and that cannot be taken away from me; when I have nothing else, I will always at least have the sanctity of my mind. But if my mind is not reliable and is no longer the wall I have come to see it as…what do I have left when the world has taken so much else away from me? Even now, I’m not nearly as articulate and eloquent as I normally am when writing to nobody in particular. My heart is beating erratically and my thoughts flicker like film strips spliced in haste by a haggard blind man. I find it hard to concentrate when I think back on how embarrassed I am at myself for allowing a fugue state to overcome the part of myself that I consider nigh-unbreakable. My mind bends and flexes and strains with the effort of life, but never has it broken. But my time in Florence has shown me that the first stress fractures are beginning to come out of the shadows. How much more can my mind bend before it breaks? And if it ever does, can the pieces be reassembled into a still cohesive whole or will the self I know today forever cease to be, merely to be replaced by a cracked and cratered shell of what once was and what once could have been.
There are times when I can envision something so completely that it overshadows the physical world that I am looking at. I guess you could call it my over-vivid imagination, but sometimes I see scenarios, hypotheticals that could be real but aren’t. I see them as if they were true as day unfolding right in front of me. A hypothetical involving me hitchhiking the side of the road on a cloudy day, poised with my thumb up beside some massive 8-lane roadway, a pack upon my shoulders and cars wizzing by. A new scenario where I’m sitting in the living room of the apartment, thanking everyone there for being so nice to me and explaining my oddities and eccentricies to them so that they might better understand me. Seeing my father get a phone call from the police as they tell him I’ve been in a traffic accident. Were I asleep, these would merely be cast aside as dreams.
But I am not asleep. I am most often walking or observing a group of people I know while they’re talking. Often times, in situations where I’m already around people, the ‘dream’ is very similar to what I’m actually seeing, but instead the topic is something different and the conversation takes a different set of turns. It very well could be real, if only for the fact that I can look through this daydream and see the real world as easily as one shifts their depth of focus to look through painted glass. It’s as though a translucent movie screen is pulled over my eyes and across that screen plays things that could happen or might happen or I wish could have happened and if I’m not careful, I’ll forget that what I’m seeing isn’t real, but merely an imagined alternate reality acting as an accessory to the real one in which I live.
Maybe I’m making this out as more than it is. Maybe it seems more severe than it is because I’m the one experiencing it and I don’t understand it. It’s not extremely common; it only occurs when I extremely stressed about a specific topic or subject of my life. Maybe, like my nervousness in a crowd, it’s merely a new coping mechanism. It’s a small price to pay for overall stability in my daily lives. I guess a 5-minute break from reality is better than a complete and total mental breakdown, but I still don’t like the uncertainty that comes with it. I like to aware of my surroundings and in complete control of my actions and far too often I don’t feel like I am either of those things.
Of course, that seems to be the overall theme of my life at the moment: no control. I’m having to rely on the whims of the world and the convictions of those around me to help me through this. I hate depending on others for anything and now I’m stuck unable to take any other recourse. It’s maddening and humiliating. I’m strong, I’m smart, I’m perceptive, physically fit and mentally acute and yet I’m living in a goddamned dining room, walking to the library to use the internet and picking up loose change out of the gutter at every chance so that I can eat something other than ramen or rice. Maybe I’m supposed to get something out of this like humility or grace or a smaller waistline but lately the thing I’ve been gaining the most is the seething, writhing, barely contained rage at the world around me and the circumstances that put me here. I feel as though I could snap at any moment and break down a brick wall with all this resentment. I have to think of the possibilities of the future if I can only make it through this in order to calm my nerves. Eric has no idea how difficult it was for my not to hit Charles when I asked to talk to him and he blew me off. It’s not small thing for me to confide in a male and to be blown off when I open myself up to that kind of vulnerability…it’s an insult I do not lightly forgive…or forget. Maybe it’s merely bad luck on our parts that I am having all this thrown at me at once and I guess it has taught me better control over my anger than I ever previously had, but luck, by virtue of being luck, should not be consistent and if there’s one thing in my life that has been consistent, it has been bad luck.
At least I finally feel the inspiration to draw and write poetry and songs again. Ever since I’ve left Winthrop, my passion to create has been a withered, dead and dusty thing and finally, finally when nothing else in the world is thriving, my passion to release and create blooms forth, red and reeking with the rage of a slave to bad luck and a world that perpetuates darkly skewed chaos.
…I miss Kayla.
It always comes back to that. No matter how bad things seem to be or how bleak the outlook of my future appears to be, all I have to do is think of Kayla and I get this odd surge of confidence that if I can only be patient and survive, things will work out so long as she’s by my side; or, since she’s taller than me, I’m by her side. For some reason, she seems to be the only person capable to counteracting my bad luck because when I’m with her, nothing ever goes horribly wrong. The little things that do go wrong may seem severe to some, but in comparison to the disasters I’ve grown accustomed to, they’re all roses to me. Two weeks…

…also…I want to start a band.

“Distrust to Relent” (By myself)

Let’s not worsen these inward wounds
Bleeding, blacked out, emotions choking
Back the epitaphs of our bonded tombs.
You claim ‘never intending, always not knowing’,
The pain released by all your smiles, eyes untrue.

Fickle loyalties dancing back and forth
Movements graceful in their treachery.
Betrayal never known to taste more
Rich in tears falling so heavily.

Relent before we make you repent.
Relent before we make you repent.
Relent as we see you repent.
Repent. Repent. Repent.

Rediscover the beauty you destroyed in haste
Hold her hands and gasp inward
When bones break and you finally get a taste
Of a broken bond of trust delivered
In a loved one’s smiling crushing dying embrace.

Kneeling and crying, asking forgiveness
Your words still drip and dangle feeling distrustful
Saying anything in order to end this
All you know is winking greedy, you wake up lustful.
Your manipulations persistent, endless.

Relent before we make you repent.
Relent before we make you repent.
Relent as we see you repent.
Repent. Repent. Repent. Re-

Pent up aggressions seething and writhing
The pack turns inward holding you without dispute
Accountable for pains born from sanguine lying.
Weaken bonds break and friends turn against you
Ripping and tearing, their words snapping and biting.

Sitting there wounded, staring disbelieving
As your tools twist, and turn and easily trample
That which you thought incapable of leaving.
Head held in your hands, an unstable example
Of the chaos twisted hands wind up often wreaking.

Relent before we make you repent.
Relent as we see you re-

Pent up aggressions seething and writhing,
Sitting wounded, staring with resentment
Your mouth locked, discontinued guising,
Instead of repented you are forced relented.

Repent while we make you relent.
Repent as we make you relent.
Relent. Repent. Repent. Repent.

Repent.

Life, and Death, are what you make them.

2009-04-21T00:16:00.001-07:00

To preface, I wrote this while drunk and low on sleep, so take it for what it is: a drunken ramble by a sleepless mind.

Have you ever stared at your feet as you walked down a straight street and pictured that instead of you walking along the Earth that the Earth was rotating beneath your feet and that you are, in fact, not moving at all? A stationary circus performer atop the largest balance ball imaginable.

The Earth moves. As does Time. Our lives move along with them, but in contrast to their cosmic consistency, our lives and the forces exerted therein are merely grains of sand stubbornly sticking to the side of an hourglass; refusing to smoothly follow the progress of the tide of sand. We are insignificant to the cycle of existence and no amount of political influence or wealth can change the fact that the Earth and Time just do not care. They don’t even notice.

Our gravest crises do not even merit an annoyed swat. If the individual and all the individual’s efforts are so unspectacular, then what is the point of living? What is the point of an existence that does not affect? For what purpose do we arise out of bed, aside from the instinct to live long enough to sleep again?

Knowledge. Experience.

Living.

The secret of living is not to attain some approval from some great cosmic creator for admittance into some other rumored superior form of existence. No. If that were true, then Death as we view it would not exist and live would truly have no purpose. The secret purpose of Life is merely to live. We exist solely to experience things for ourselves and grow to appreciate the beauty of those instances as the miracles they are. As I age, as you age, as we all age we experience things that no other person has or ever will experience. Even if they were there when the action or event happened, they still do not share your exact experience because they are not you; they do not have your insight and your exact appreciation and interpretation of what happens and has happened.

We are all great tomes of knowledge and each day is a new page. Is minute is a new page. Each second, each blink of an eye, is a new page. As far as Time is concerned, there is no length minimum or maximum for a page in the book of Life. Time only exists when laid alongside life; Time has no measure for the living. Time is relative because Life is relative to the one living it. A year to me is not the same as a year to you and the reason is as simple as the fact that I am not you. We both view Time differently and because we perceive Time differently, Time actuality is different for each of us. My minute is not your minute. While the clock between may beg to differ, it does not know my appreciation of a minute versus yours. Time exists only in the manner in which we perceive it. Time does not exist for a rock or a leaf or a field mouse. They do not perceive Time; the previous and impending are not concepts they can fathom and as such past and future do not exist for them. Most creatures only perceive the now and time as we conceive it literally does not affect them.

Time is a creation of sentience.

Existence is a creation of sentience.

The only creature who can know the concept of Existence is one that can conceptualize the assumed reality of its own Existence. To any other creature, they merely are; being ‘not’ isn’t even an option to them because they cannot perceive the idea. That previously mentioned field mouse? It doesn’t know what Death is. It does not know that force which it fears. It only knows fear of something unknown; something beyond it.

We are still field mice as far as the universe is concerned. We fear Death because we do not know what it is; and because we do not know what Death is and admit that we fear it because so, we are the laughing stock of the universe.

What worries me isn’t the unknown aspect of Death. Honestly, it’s the unknown aspect of Death that draws me toward it. It ignites my curiosity. Just what is on the other side? I am at times obsessed with the thought. Were there some way I could ensure my safe return, I would zealously plunge into Death if only to find out just what Death actually entails. I would love to experience Death if only I were able to retain the knowledge of that experience. But I don’t have any assurance of being able to keep that knowledge and as such, I am compelled to keep Death at bay until I feel I’ve experienced enough of Living that I’ll be satisfied with the possibility of experiencing no more.

It’s not the unknown of Death that scares me; it’s the possibility of losing the knowledge I have gained, that I have earned by warding off Death long enough to wake up again and again. I do not want to lose love. I do not want to lose happiness. I do not want to even lose sadness, because it is the bitterness of sadness that makes happiness so sweet. When we die, what happens to all that knowledge? All those unique perceptions of personal existence…do they merely disappear? Do they go to waste?

Is that what a soul is? The stockpile of experience we gain through living? Is a soul merely a hope chest stuffed to the brim with memories? Is the reason that humanity created the concept of a soul because of our fear of our memories going to waste? Because if our memories will do naught but cease to be when our bodies do, what’s the point?

The point is to ignore the point. The point is to just live and let your memories take care of themselves. We cannot change the inevitable nature of Death and we must all find out the truth behind Death, whether we want to or not. If we fear the end of Time, then it is our own fault when that end draws near far too quickly for our tastes. We created Time and as such we control Time. Time exists only as the individual perceives it. The fact that we’ve all agreed to a standardization of Time is merely a testament to our insistence to conform. If man had not invented ways to try and measure Time, then Time would not exist. Time is a measurement of Existence. And if Time is merely a perception of Existence and Time only exists as we perceive it, then we exist only as we perceive we do.

“I think, therefore I am.”

As such, one can change their existence merely by altering their perception of their existence. If I can make a minute feel longer than the stopwatch insists it is, then why can’t I perceive my Existence to be far more significant than the Universe insists it is? Who ever set the Universe’s perception of Existence as the norm by which all shall be compared? And if our Existences are not affected by the perceived Existence of the Universe, then who can prove the Existence of the Universe at all? The only reason we think the Universe exists is because we need a context within which to place our own Existences.

Want context? Fine.

The Existence of the individual is dictated by the individual’s perception of that Existence.

Without the perception of Existence, there can be no Existence.

If the individual only exists because they agree to perceive that Existence as so, then they, in perceiving, and thus creating, their own Existence is their own Universe.

If Life is merely a collection of experiences and experience is a by-product of perceived Existence, then Life exists only because the individual perceives it to exist.

If Life is perceived, and thus created, by the Existence of the individual’s own perception of Existence, then each individual is responsible for creating Life as they perceive it.

If Life is created by the individual, and the individual perceives themselves as Living, then the individual is their own creator.

We are all our own God.

Furthermore, if Life exists only as a perception of the individual, then Death, being the assumed inverse of Life, only exists because the individual chooses to perceive Life as existing. Therefore, like the field mouse, if the individual does not perceive Life as an existing concept, then inversely they do not perceive Death as an existing concept. If the individual does not perceive Death as a concept of Existence, then, to that individual, Death does not. If Death does not exist, then one cannot die.
Now my question is…I’ve been taught to perceive Life and thus to perceive Death. Furthermore, I’ve been led to perceive Death as some sort of end. But is it?

Is it really? Because if Life and Death are only perceptions of the individual, then isn’t it up to the individual what happens when Life becomes Death? An agreed upon concept as proof is not a proof of concept. If so, then is the secret to Immortality as simple as merely negating one’s perception of Life and Death as existing?

Have humans become too smart to live forever?

Furthermore, are we too dumb to alter our own perceptions in order to alter our own existences?

Do we die merely as an after-effect of being in the evolutionary middle years?

If an individual can learn to successfully ignore the concept of Death and eventually forget that they ever perceived the existence of Death…can they die?

I’m sure I lack the capabilities to alter my perceptions enough to answer this query personally…but still the query remains: is the meaning of Life to merely learn to ignore the fact that one is alive and to instead exist without any personal perception of Existence in order to negate the perception of Life and as a result negate the concept of Death, thus negating the Reality of Life and Death at the same time?
Alongside that question, another question arises: Are any of us capable of this feat?

Cut to black after a lot of red

2009-03-31T06:24:00.000-07:00

You know...you have to wonder...wouldn't it just be easier being dead?

Echoes rustle in anticipation of the coming silence

2009-03-29T00:36:00.001-07:00

I think tonight I finally realized just how goddamned lonely I am...

I see a pretty flower.

2009-03-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

Should I be worried that it's now officially spring and I'm still having suicidal thoughts throughout the day?

Goddamned dicks

2009-03-03T21:47:00.000-08:00

Rachel got raped and I'm too far away to help...the only thing I could do was talker her through it, convince her to call the cops and get a couple friends to her.

I wish I could be there right now...I really do. I'm so worried about her and I just want to be there for her.

I hate guys. I really really really hate guys. And if I ever see Jesse, I will kill him. Rachel is too sweet a girl for some shit like this.

Claustraphobia...

2009-02-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

I can feel the world closing in. The pressure mounting and building. The world wants in.

I want out.

Maybe it's true

2009-02-27T22:43:00.000-08:00

That some days, days like these, I really do hate my life.

Idiocy

2009-02-25T04:54:00.000-08:00

I hit a dog on the way to work. I don't know if it's alive or dead. It limped off afterwards. My car's a little bit messed up. Front bumper's a little loose, udercover is broken, my left fog light is bent out of shape and my rear bumper is a little loose on the left side. Oh, and my tires are much balder now.

Could've been worse, though.

Also, I find it hilarious that the only singer who I can accurately mimic is Jimmy Urine. WTF?

I also do a halfway decent Die from D.E.G. How come the two hardest singers to emulate are the ones I can come really close to, but I can't sing Three Day's Grace on-pitch?

Though I sound damned good doing some Three Doors Down...just much heavier. .>>

Seasonal Affective Bi-Polar Disorder

2009-02-24T17:04:00.001-08:00

Yeah, this part of the year sucks for me. I'm sorry if I worried anybody with that last post. I'm better now.

Amazing what difference 5 hours of sleep can make. I have no idea how I'll be feeling in about 20 minutes. My moods catch me as off guard as they catch you.

Isn't the sky so big?

2009-02-24T05:00:00.001-08:00

Work went by quickly enough. They had me sweating in the back, cleaning out from behind the storage racks in Grocery Receiving. It was hard work, but in being so it made the hours go by quicker, as opposed to droning on as they usually do. However, there was still enough drag in time to give me lots of time to think. I was alone time, with only my thoughts and my cleaning supplies as company. I began to ponder about my managers. If I left right now and just walked out of the store...how long before anyone would notice?

Would they care? Would anyone there?

Then comes stage two of the same question: if I were gone tomorrow...who would notice or care? Aside from my father, just who, if anybody, would be touched by my death? Just how insignificant am I? I feel like I just blend in and while that's usually exactly what I want, sometimes there are situations where I would like to be noticed in a positive way; my existence noted and appreciated.

I generally hate people. I loathe them. I look at the massive majority of the social dregs that trundle into the store during the night and I usually feel either disgust or pity. But sometimes I envy them. They have friends. They have lovers. They have lives that encompass more than just their solitary existence. Mine? How far spread is my circle of influence? Is there any influence at all? Or am I just a whisper in a wind and when I'm gone will I only be 'that boy'? Even then, how long will that memory last? A decade? Half a decade? A year? A week?

Would there even be a funeral?

I've had these thoughts before, of course. Who hasn't at some point during their years of teenage pretension? But as opposed to being fueled by angst and depression, this time my questions are fueled by pure curiosity.

What impact has my life had on the world? What impact will my death have?

I guess I'm really questioning the futility of living in this modern age. Now, I understand that life in this age is more convenient than any other time before us, thansk to technology. But is it really worthwhile? Why in the world should I be excited to go to work in some homogenous office at some monotonous job for 9 hours a day, spend an hour commuting to and from home only to have 4 or 5 hours to myself, if I'm lucky, before I have to wake up and do it all over again? Oh, but the weekends are all mine, aye? So out of a 168-hour week I'm supposed to hate life for 63 of those ours stuck in a box, spend 7-10 hours stuck in a car, spend another 60 hours unconconscious and enjoy the remaining couple of dozen hours living in such a way to justify the abolute misery of the rest of the week? I'm going to spend 30% of my life asleep and 75% of my life working or driving to work and this is supposed to make me happy and excited?

What's the point? 'Oh, well, it's for your kids.' Right. So they can go through it too? And their kids? And their kids? And their tentacled, one-eyed flying-saucer-racing kids? I'm sorry, but I don't really see the payoff. 80% of life spent half-dead and half-awake? That's not fucking fair. Nor is it worth it. And as for family...yah, I need not apply. I hold no more hope of ever having a family. These past 5 years have made it plainly obvious that I am not one to be loved unconditionally. It's to difficult to love me. I'm too broken and convoluted. I respect those who've tried, but I also feel sorry for the effort they put into something that is ultimately futile. I will live the rest of my life companionless and alone. I will die a bachelor with no progeny and no love.

Oh, and don't forget: I'm probably die wearing a leas-I mean necktie. Boss (Douche-smoothy puppy-fucker).

I really don't mind being alone. Being an only child and growing up in the middle of nowhere, I'm use to isolation, both physical and social. I'm even adapting well to being single after 5 years of jumping form one relationship to the other. I'm tired of love. I'm tired of walking that fine line between love and a waste of my time. Every time I think love might be possible between myself and this her or that her, something about my essential self interrupts the possibility. My existence is counter-intuitive to love.

So fuck it. What ever made me think I should be anything but alone? What makes any of us yearn for another wreck alongside our own? I know that I'll just confuse and hurt anybody who tries to invest themselves in me so it's more of a public service than a tragedy that I remain alone and insignificant. Because that's exactly what I am. Alone and insignificant. I am another ant in a field full of anthills. When I am gone, there will be a note in the newspaper obituary and another lump of dirt in another overstuffed graveyard. My only hope is that my father isn't around to see the absolute lack of ripples my eventual death will bring.

It's not so bad, I guess, being alone and insignificant. I can see the stars. But they can't see me.

To sleep or to be somewhat happy?

2009-02-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

I think these Unisom sleeping pills have been making me moody and depressed. I guess my choice is to either take hours to fall asleep or to be in a crappy mood all the time.

Kharma loves anal.

2009-02-21T05:42:00.001-08:00

My wallet has been stolen. Wonderful.

Old habits die hard

2009-02-19T21:32:00.001-08:00

Something about late winter/early spring really brings out the masochist in me. Maybe this year I can stay out of the hospital.

My wallet has the Olsen Twins beat

2009-02-17T04:49:00.000-08:00

So I'm already too broke to afford groceries (my fridge is already empty, too) and I'll barely be able to have enough gas to get to work between now and payday. This is the 2nd month in a row funds have been this tight and I've still got car insurance and car repairs coming up.

Plus I'm in danger of getting laid off. I've got a meeting tomorrow night to determine if they're going to let me go or not. So yeah, Wal-Mart can suck my Grade-A Oregon Redwood and so can the economy in general.

You know what really sucks?

The yuppies across the street just bought a $5,000 television and paid for it in cash. Half that amount of money could end all of our financial issues at my house. So they can suck it too.

I hate money. Maybe it's because I so rarely have any or maybe it's because no matter how much I do have, it's never quite enough to make life easier. Money just gets me by and money keeps me drawing shorter and shorter breaths. I'm tired of it. I wish we'd just go to the barter system and let the economy finish dying. I have skills and trade knowledge that could make me a wealthy man in the barter system, but nope. In America you have to have this piece of paper and that piece of plastic and this many dozens of signatures all over the place and this company's logo branded into your left ass cheek in order to get a motherfucking sandwich.

I know the world economy as a whole sucks, but it just seems like America is too stubborn to try an alternative. We're ruled by the banks to the point where they over-power our goddamn congress. So what the hell is congress there for? Why not just have the Wachovia Triumvirate and change the nation's name to 'The Dependent Holdings of the Bank of American Tyranny'?

I'll probably get arrested once they track the IP address on this post. Our Goverment isn't a big fan of criticism....or truth. I wonder if Guantanamo Bay has XBox Live?

Because bloodletting can get you fired...

2009-02-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

I’d almost forgotten how quickly my mood can plummet. Pitfalls of being bi-polar, I suppose. Two days ago I was hyper and happy and overall very pleasant. And today…

It’s almost been an entire year since I last cut, but I can feel the urge creeping towards me like an oil spill; at my toes, sliding up my leg and rustling my clothes, until I taste the metallic tint staining its fingers as it slides into my mouth. It reached down my throat, choking me and coercing tears out through an emotional gag reflex. It’s so similar to the reverse action of bleeding through dozens of criss-crossing slivers dancing across my skin, welling up and painting the snow with red.

Whenever I used to cut…it allowed me to focus. I was able to focus on that exact moment, on that specific action and I was able to finally slow my thoughts down enough to where I could rebuild whatever walls had been torn down. It was never about the pain. It was about the moment: the moment hanging slow and weightless as I drew the edge down my arm and felt the slight sting of separation. I’m a slow bleeder and I think I began cutting initially due to my fascination with the delay between severing skin and the first red line to greet open air. 5-8 seconds, usually. Just watching something that was inside of my slowly creep out of my body, into the world was enough to make the rest of the world stand still. Every time I drew the razor blade across my skin, I was giving birth to another frozen moment in time. Another wall. Another degree of separation between myself and the thoughts that bombard me at Mach Infinity.

I haven’t cut in 11 months and 22 days. But right now…I’m struggling. There’s just so many thoughts and they’re going so fast. Instead of walking to my dresser where I keep my art supplies and ripping open a pack of X-acto blades, instead I opened up a new Word document and started typing. It’s not nearly as effective, but it’s probably a million times healthier. Writing is one of my only remaining methods of focusing my thoughts down to a single path.

Like herding worker bees down a drinking straw.

My mind is a hive and every bee is a thought. And right now, a group of kids is beating the hive with some very large, very significant sticks. Each stick is labeled.

Missouri.
Job.
Money.
College.
Friends.
Loneliness.
Restlessness.

Prospects of a way out...bashing my skull in. I promised her I wouldn’t cut. The bitch. I promised so many of my Winthrop friends that I’d no longer cut, but it’s her to whom I actually swore to. And now? She won’t even talk to me. Apparently I’ve got too many issues and too many problems and my very existence is too stressful for her. Stressful!? For her!? Honestly!? I wonder how long she’d last AS me.
The day I realized that not only did I no longer love her but WHY I no longer loved her, I felt the most immense surge of freedom I’d ever known. But there’s still one chain, one string, one goddamn shackle.
My promise.

I don’t break my promises. But for fuck’s sake, right now I wish I did.

On the other hand…this is temporary. I am bi-polar after all. Some time tonight or tomorrow or so, something, some random, unrelated thing will trigger a shift and I’ll be back to myself. But as always, smack dab in the middle of the months, I go through one of these 2 or 3 day spells of morose depression. This actually started yesterday…but somehow I was able to hold it at bay until about 30 minutes ago when I suddenly realized I don’t have a shoulder to lean on or an embrace to cry into.

Where have all the shoulders gone? I’m not talking that metaphorical bullshit that people refer to when they’re really only talking on the phone. I mean a real physical shoulder to lean on. I’m a very physically intimate, emotive person. I want somebody to hug me, to hold me. I want someone to not say single word but instead just lay with me and put their arms around me and just let the quiet embrace heal what a thousand razor blade designs can’t. A razor blade cannot cure the lonely. And right now, neither can I.

I won’t cut. I’ll keep my promise. But right now, I really wish I could. Maybe my loneliness will go away when I move to Missouri, but something tells me I need to go farther north. I have no idea where, but it’s snowing in my dreams and there are mountains. That leaves plenty of choices: all of Canada and a good third of America. I’m not bullshitting myself; I know that Missouri is just a waypoint, a place to stay for a few years to finish college before I finally go Home. HOME. Where the fuck I BELONG. Wherever the hell that is. I know it’s not here and I know it’s not Missouri. But at least in Missouri I have a least one real friend and a method of finishing school. Beth also knows people who know people and she can’t let me meet those people and maybe make a new set of friends. As much as I love and adore and cherish my online friends…right now, it’s just not enough. I’m lonely. Lonelier than I remember being in nearly a decade.

Right now, someone holding my hand would probably be enough.

Why the fuck am I such a girl? For all my physical strength and masculine skills and hobbies, I can’t relate to guys. I can’t think like them. I don’t even view sex like a guy. Apparently I think like a woman. I can understand women; they make sense to me. Maybe it’d be simpler if I were gay. But I’m not. I don’t think I’m allowed that kind of simplicity. I was born as a living, breathing testament to the universal Catch-22. I am the 22 year old Catch-22. Here’s a fucking autograph.

It all comes back to the fact that I want a hug. And I don’t know a single person within 50 miles who I feel comfortable hugging anymore. Maybe I’m being picky, but I can’t just let anybody across this drawbridge. And what kind of cosmic joke would it be if when I get to Missouri, I don’t feel comfortable hugging Beth? Then it’s 1,100 miles instead of 50. But I have to take that risk. I can’t live in the Deep South much longer. I’m stagnating here and I’m deathly afraid of it. Anywhere but here, yeah?

Fuck. I hate promises.

Because it's days like these...

2009-02-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

When I really hate being bi-polar...

Because I'm a fucking idiot

2009-02-12T18:10:00.000-08:00

Because, chances are, I'll never actually meet her...

2009-02-11T15:50:00.001-08:00

I like girls who are clumsy but can laugh it off. I like girls with unusual names. I like a girl who is free spirited and impulsive, sometimes to a fault. I like a girl who is faithful, but is just as afraid of commitment as I am. She likes bright color combinations, but doesn't like to wear them. A crooked, shy smile is beautiful. Does she wear funny socks? I hope so; I love them. Maybe those striped toe socks, with one of the toes missing. Maybe the pinky? That'd be really cute. She changes her hair way more often than normal. She's anything but normal. She laughs with her hands. When she smiles, her eyes get really squinty. She has beautiful eyes. When she cries, she reaches for me instead of turning away. When I cry, she feels awkward and calls me names because she doesn't know what else to say. She talks. A lot. So I don't always feel like I have to. But she knows when not to talk. Silence makes me nervous, but sometimes it's...slow...and soft. Just right. Like cocoa. With those tiny little marshmallows. Those are the little pecks on our cheeks to stir the silence. She can't ever decide between gloves and mittens. She lectures me about always cutting my clothes up, but she also finds it sexy. She plays videogames, but we have different tastes. She can hold her own in Halo, though I can't beat her at her games. I like girls who don't wear much makeup, but when they do, it's not to hide. I like girls who are celebrations of creativity and the unpredictable possibly of no guaranteed tomorrows. I like girls who cite random quotes from famous people. I can never remember quotes. Not even my own.

I have strange taste in movies. Hers is even stranger. Eclectic bonding at work. Paired eccentrics. I can't understand why she out-wrestles me, even when I try to win. I'm so much bigger, but somehow she's stronger when she's laughing. Sometimes on very, very rare occasions...she snorts when she laughs. She'll blush and cover her face and someone passing by might think she's crying. She's beautiful how awkward she is. She makes me feel capable. I'm not as embarrassed to be embarrassed around her. She speeds. She can drive a stick shift. She loves her music loud. Her driving scares me. Whenever I do ride with her, I want to kiss her at the stop light. Seeing her shift gears is so attractive to me. She can't mess with the radio and drive at the same time, but she tries anyway. Maybe this will be our last stoplight. Maybe that's why I keep kissing her.

She's not imaginary. She's out there. Somewhere. It's cold where she is. She loves snow. I hate it when my toes are cold. Her toes get cold too, but she wears toe socks, so it's ok. It gives her a reason, even though she doesn't need one. She hates Croc sandals as much as I do. We take turns making fun of people who wear them. Her fingernails aren't painted. Sometimes they are, but the paint never stays long. You can't cover her up. I can blend in with a crowd, unless she's there. She's her own crowd, but she only likes small groups. Sex with her is quiet and sweet and creative. She can't stop decorating her lamps and lampshades. She wears really long knit scarves. Most of the time, kissing her is a little awkward and quick, because she always smiles a little bit when we kiss. But when she doesn't, it's always long and slow and very engulfed in its own moment. She calls me on my shit, but she never makes me feel bad about it. She knows more about classic rock than I do, but she doesn't doubt my love for it. Her snow men and snow angels always wind up being obscene and vulgar. Don't trust her with pointy things. She'll poke you. Seriously; tell her to put the carrot down. You don't want to wind up like that snowman, do you?

She inspires me to keep a journal, even if only to write about her. But I don't. She somehow enables me to write about all the things I can never seem to get out of my head. Even the thought of her, the potential of her, allows me to express. Just like now. Her name is so different, but it suits her. But it's a real name. It's not an adjective or some nature-related noun or cosmic ideal like Faith or Serenity. Hers is a real name; it just isn't one you hear on girls very often. She's not found very often. She doesn't need to be. God created two universes; terra firma duality: hers and the rest of us. When I'm around her, hers is a universe of two. She draws me in. I'm wearing leather gloves. She's got one mitten, blue and pink squigglies, on her right hand, and a glove, wool too and covered with bright stripes green and blue, on her left. I guess they kind of match. Her scarf, socks, and gloves-slash-mittens, maybe her hat, too, are the only things she wears with bright color combinations. Maybe she does like to wear them after all. She just doesn't want to admit it. If you mention it, she gets pouty and says "Nuh uh" and furrows her brow. It's so adorable you can't help but laugh and hug her. She gives you a light punch on the shoulder and acts mad for a second more. Then she slips on the ice and drags you down with her. You just sit there, laughing, while the snow makes your pants all soggy.

She won't quit writing on her shoes. Of course, sometimes neither can I. I think that's one of the few oddities we have in common. I'm so weird, and she's so out there. Our conversations are games of cat and mouse, but the animals are blindfolded and cheese is everywhere. Who can keep up? I'm sorry if you even try. I don't. I just spit out whatever comes to mind because I'm confident she'll do the same, and somehow we'll understand. Everyone else will just raise an eyebrow, maybe two, and be baffled. It's ok. Her socks don't match. She's wearing two gloves today though. That's good. It's hard to hold hands the way I like when you're wearing mittens. I wish I could pull off earmuffs like she can. It wouldn't help, though. Even if they looked good on me, they'd get in the way of my big headphones. If my headphones are so big, why would I need earmuffs anyway? She brings this up more often than she knows, but it's ok. I think it's cute. She wears those little iPod ear-buds under her earmuffs. She swears by her iPod, but she respects the fact that I boycott Apple products. We both use PC's anyway. Her laptop's kind of old, at least by my standards. I think I might try and get her a new one for Christmas. Maybe it's not a good idea to buy Christmas gifts for a girl you've never met.

She thinks it's sweet how geeky I am. She doesn't know a whole lot about computers, but she never interrupts me when I start rambling about them. Her smile is subdued. I love it. I never want to change it. Her laugh, though, is amazing: clear and loud and disruptive in public places. I never want to change it either. Her hands can be kind of dangerous if she finds something really funny. She's going to bruise her thigh one of these days when I say something particularly stupid. I have that talent of saying things that are inappropriate, but extremely funny if your sense of humor is equally inappropriate. Hers is exactly that. Sometimes I can't believe the things she laughs at. She’s really smart. She loves to read. She reads a lot of books I never have, but we share a lot of favorites. We both agree Joel Olsteen is freakin’ creepy. Date-rape face is right.

Her temper is legendary. I love it when she gets pissed at other people. It’s an awesome sight. I could sell tickets. I make sure to keep on her good side. She's so small, but she eats more than me. It's really quite a sight to see. Her Taco Bell fix is going to bankrupt me. She has no piercings, but she thinks she wants a tattoo. Her ears are amazing. Sometimes I just have to kiss her earlobe. I can't help but laugh whenever I do. It's a small laugh, quiet and private. She looks at me like I'm crazy, but she always smiles while doing it. Her hair is originally brown, kind of a light brown. Her eyes aren't brown. I don't know what color they are, maybe green, but they're not brown. She is my editor. She likes proofreading the things I write, which is good because I am pathetic when it comes to proofreading my own writings. She's not a concept. She has problems, but she lets me in on them. That's more important to me than her gloves-slash-mittens, or the way she laughs at kids dropping their ice cream. She's just as open with me as I am with her. We take our time getting to know each other. There's no rush.

If we ever don't work out, we couldn't be friends. It just wouldn't work. I don't want kids, but she'd convince me to have them. She'd make such a wonderful mother. Maybe she'll make up for how awkward I feel around kids. She loves kids. They love her back. I sometimes feel a little jealous of how much attention she pays to kids, but I know it's really childish of me. It's ironic. I don't mention it to her. She knows how insecure I am about her guy friends. It's not that I don't trust her. I just don't trust my ability to keep her. She understands this. She can somehow always just wash those doubts and worries away with just a smile. I don't even see her mouth when she smiles up close like this. It's just her eyes. Her eyes tell me I have nothing to worry about. I'm worth keeping. She makes sure I know I'm worth keeping. She assures me that she won't abandon me. I get teary eyed and try to macho it away as she blushes and calls me a baby before hugging me and kissing the top of my head. She's really warm in that puffy jacket of hers. Her hair's a different color today. She's got a bruise on her knee where she slipped and bumped the toilet seat. When I look at that bruise, and remember how she pouted about it to me at dinner, I just close my eyes and feel happy. Happy.

Marshmallows.

I like girls who are clumsy and can laugh about it. I like girls who are different just because they don't fight their impulsive nature. I like girls that make me feel boring in comparison but never make me feel bored. She has a beauty mark on her cheek. It's small, but I love it.

Nibbling...

2009-02-11T12:54:00.001-08:00

They sat; both on a bench in the park, each fully understanding just how quaint the sight really was. For one hundred and twelve minutes, neither said a word. They opted instead to communicate through coffee sips and biscuit nibbles. She wore very pink high heels next to his brown leather loafers, sans pennies. Crumbs were everywhere.

The next morning, in the taxi and on the subway, separately, both decided they might like biscuits and coffee for lunch. He wore pennies today. Maybe she’ll find them funny in between sips and nibbles.

OMGWTFBBQ!?!?!

2009-02-10T04:24:00.001-08:00

I just had a dream where I was part of a 3-girl-1-guy Hentai orgy involving Sakake from 'Azumanga Daioh', Mikuru from 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Nurse Joy from 'Pokemon'...

Oh yeah, and Sakake and Nurse Joy were hermaphrodites. And the entire dream took place on a submarine which was also an underwater Co-Ed college. And I was not only a student but the guy who makes sure all the electrical systems are in running order.

Sakake wanted to stick it in my butt. Nurse Joy wanted seconds. My butt was not thrilled at the idea. I convinced them to turn on Mikuru and I filmed it with my cell phone and sold it to the Emperor of Japan, who gave me my own island full of supercomputers, HDTV's, gaming consoles, fellow otakus and anime booth babes.

...I think I've reached a new level of geekocity.

P.S. - I was also drawn in anime mode. Roflpocalypse.

Update and 25 reasons to elope to Rock Hill with your new phone

2009-02-06T06:20:00.000-08:00

So it’s been a short minute since I last updated. Ironically enough, most people delay updates because nothing interesting ever happens and they just post surveys or random crap. Me? I didn’t post because too much interesting stuff was happening in my life.

One of the biggest things sucking up my time is my new phone. A friend gave me his Sony Ericsson W580i media phone because he was getting a new phone with a new carrier. He only had this phone for about 3 months, so it’s almost in completely brand-new condition. I’d been looking at it for a long time, but I didn’t want to upgrade my contract in order to get it and buying the phone without the 2yr renewal would’ve cost around $250. So I think I really lucked out.

Now, this phone is leagues better than my old phone, for many reasons:

-It’s a slider, so the keypad won’t break on me like the old one did.

-It’s got a metal chassis, so it’s not nearly as fragile. My old Nokia would fall, break into 5 pieces and was easily put back together, but eventually things began breaking and snapping. This one drops and goes “clang!” and the ground goes “ow, muthafucka!”

-The screen is a lot larger than my old phone and it’s got a protective layer to keep dust out, so it won’t get all filmy and hard to read.

-It’s a music-centric phone, so it doubles as an MP3 player and has dedicated music buttons when in Walkman mode.

-I finally have a phone that has a camera! It’s only 2 megapixels, but the photos actually look very nice if the lighting is good. The video quality for the recordings leave a bit to be desired, but what can you expect out of a phone that fits in my change pocket? Plus, the videos look great on the screen, since the resolution is very high for the size of the screen.

-You can upload videos and music from your PC to the phone or record sounds to it. I’ve got around 500 songs and 5 or 6 videos and close to 700 pictures on it, with the help of a 2GB memory card. I still have 800mb free, so I’m pretty happy with that.

-If you crop a song down to less than 40seconds and save it on your PC and then import it to the phone, you can use that as a ringtone for yourself or anybody. I’ve got a nice suite of sound editing programs, so I now have separate ringtones for about 20 of my contacts. The time limit also applies to videos, so my friend Kelli’s ringtone is the actual opening to the anime ‘Lucky Star’. I love it when she calls because I look down at my phone and see the video playing…and don’t wanna answer, lol.

Here’s a list of who has what ringtones so far:

General ringtone – “I’m Not Jesus” by Apocalyptica

Mike Shea – ‘Afterlife’ by Avenged Sevenfold

Matt Croshaw – ‘Bad Luck to Say God Luck on Opening Night’ from the music ‘The Producers’

Michelle Boyce – ‘Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood and Burial)’ by Coheed and Cambria

Beth Propst – ‘Bad Girl’ by Cowboy Mouth

Jestin Henry – ‘The Little Things’ by Danny Elfman (or however you spell his name)

Rachel Huskey – ‘The Mouse and the Model’ by the Dresden Dolls

Joe Birmingham – ‘Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me’ from some internet video

Chad Lane – ‘Handlebars’ by Flobots

My Dad’s Cell # - ‘Touch of Grey’ by The Grateful Dead

My Dad’s Work # - ‘Truckin’ by The Grateful Dead

Lawson – ‘The Internet is for Porn’ from Avenue Q

Daniel Brown – ‘La Vie Boheme’ from RENT: The Movie Soundtrack

Kelli Hall – ‘Lucky Star’ intro video

Jeremy Morrow – ‘Ooh Wee’ from the Need for Speed: Most Wanted soundtrack

Morgan Jesse – ‘Smoke Two Joints’ by Sublime

Russell Felder – ‘Tonto (Jump On It)’ by the Sugar Hill Gang

Dave Collins – ‘American Pie’ by Don McClean

Brady Robles – ‘Sandstorm’ by Darude

Jugger – ‘I’m the Juggernaut, BITCH!’ sound clip

All other TKE’s currently have ‘They’re going to take me away’ by Dr. Demento as their ringtone.

*- I’m still working on more and taking requests.

-I finally have a phone worth buying ringbacks for. If you call me during the daytime, you’ll hear the guitar solo from ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zeppelin, since I figure that’s safe for potential employers to hear, and if you call me at night, you hear my ringtone: the chorus to “I’m Not Jesus”, by Apocalyptica.

-When I receive a text message, my phone plays Bruce Lee going ‘Wataa!” and when I get a voicemail, my phone says ‘Mail, Muthafucka!’

-I love the fact my phone has light effects. The phone literally does its own laser light show when I receive a call.

-I finally have a phone capable of instant messaging and internet browsing. Too bad I refuse to pay for internet, lol.

-I actually love the way the phone looks. It just oozes personality, unlike the super minimalistic conformist phones that are coming out now. iPhone, I’m looking at you.

-I can customize the GUI to insane lengths. I have a custom theme, custom wallpaper, custom screensaver, customer menus, the works.

-Reception is awesome.

-Sound quality from the speaker is really nice and surprisingly loud.

Things I Don’t Like:
-You can only use M2 memory cards
-No 3.5mm jack for headphones.
-All accessories are either proprietary through Sony or have to use the proprietary input.
-Battery life is meh.
-The actual earphone speaker is too quiet.
-Nothing else. This phone rocks!

Ok, enough about the phone. Now, as to the other reason I haven’t update in a while: I eloped to Rock Hill for 2 days without telling anyone, lol. I had only planned to go to Columbia to visit Mike and meet his girlfriend, which I did (She’s such a cutie, Mike! And so smart, too! Congrats!) but they couldn’t stay to hang out for very long, so I was left with a night off work and half a tank of gas and a huge restlessness within me. It was a 2-hour drive home and I wasn’t looking forward to it. It’s a 1-hour drive from Columbia to Rock Hill, where I hadn’t visited in nearly a year.

I got to Rock Hill in 35 minutes; spent 5 minutes having to go in the back way, though, since some ASSHOLE IN A HONDA ACCORD blocked me from getting onto the right exit ramp. Everyone was really surprised to see me, except for Meredith and Becca because Mike TOLD THEM I WAS COMING. Jerk. Just kidding, bro. I’m not mad. I told my dad I was crashing with Mike in Columbia, though. He still doesn’t know I went to Rock Hill.

But I had a lot of fun. I caught the flu from hanging out with Rachel while crashing at her place, lol. Luckily I’m already over. Sadly, she is not. *Hug for Rachel*. The first night and day were awesome. I got to hang out and meet a lot of people I’d missed a lot more than I knew, like Kelli, Meredith, Becca and Rachel. I missed my little sisters so much. Of course, Rachel’s hardly a little sister to me. I think she’d kicked me in the shin if I called her that, lol. I just think it’s a little odd to refer to your ex as your sister. I mean, I don’t live THAT far south. I just consider us super-amazing close friends, lol.

The only bad part was that I’d been nearly 30 hours without sleep by the time I crashed at Rachel’s place and for some reason, I had trouble sleeping. I just kind of dozed in and out and tossed around for the night. So upon the next day, I was hardly a bundle of energy. I spent most of the second day wandering around campus and hanging out with lots of my TKE brothers at the Wall. It was really good seeing them again. My last semester had left me pretty inactive and I’d forgotten just how much I’d missed being a TKE.

I got to hang out with Michelle and catch up on stuff. She’s engaged to Vick now. Not sure how I feel about that pairing, but whatever. If they’re happy, then I’m glad for them. I’m just glad that she and I were able to actually hang out and laugh a bit without it being too awkward. Don’t get me wrong, it was VERY awkward, and I still can’t stand how she just grunts along like a guy when you’re confiding in her, but once she told me about her and Vick, most of the tension was gone and we were able to just hang out and shoot the breeze. I think it was a very healthy thing for me to do. It gave me a sense of closure that I’d substituted with anger, mistrust and resentment.

I also got to hang out with Kelli for a good while. She’s probably my closest little sister from Winthrop. We even share the same last name, lol. But we’re always able to talk to each other about the most personal things no matter what, despite the fact we haven’t known each other for all that long. It really is strange how quickly that Big-Brother-Little-Sister bond formed. She confides in me and all I wanna do is protect her. As such, she was feeling down that day, so I decided to take her for a ride while I went to get Rachel some food form Sake Express since Rachel was too sick to drive. I’m really happy that I got to introduce Kelli to Maximum the Hormone. I can’t believe she didn’t know who they, but she did recognize the songs from the Death Note anime. She said she really likes them, which is awesome because I LOVE THEM!

Once we dropped off Rachel’s food and I decided to stay another night, I called my dad, told him, I was driving straight to work (I work nights) from ‘Columbia’ and not stopping by the house. I also called work and told them I had car trouble and was not going to make it in. So, yes, I skipped work and lied to my dad in order to spend the night in Rock Hill, hence the word ‘eloped’. I know, I’m going to hell and all that jazz.
Like I care.

After hanging out at Rachel’s for a bit, I took Kelli back to campus (in a much improved mood) and met up with the token TKE twins: Brett and Bryant. We hung out, had adventures drifting in the Wal-Mart parking lot and hunting down associates in Wal-Mart for phone accessories. I am sad to admit that the cashier played a trick on me. I swear to all that is odd and strange, though, that I would not have fallen for her trick if I was not low on sleep! Anyways, after Wal-Mart, we all got Taco Bell. Now, me, Meredith, Rachel and Becca had already gotten Taco Bell the night before and had WAY too much fun with the drive through girl and nearly exploding Rachel’s microwave, so I think I’m good on my Taco Bell quota for a couple months *pats stomach*.

Once the twins knew I was staying the night, they took me to the TKE Rock Band night. Suffice to say, it was very fun, but I regret the fact that, in my sleepless delirium, I actually got on the microphone instead of staying on the drums where I belong. Much shameful screaming ensued and I shall speak no more of it. Though I will say this: THAT TV SUCKED! Lol.

I stayed the night at Rachel’s again because I couldn’t get a hold of anyone else (Meredith why the hell don’t you EVER answer your goddamn phone!?) and when I awoke the next day, it was plain to me that I’d caught the flu, lol. As such, the drive home was not fun. But it WAS fast. I had to get home really fast because my dad thought I was down in Myrtle Beach fixing a friend’s PC and needed me to bring Joe and Mike some tools out of my car and they’d been trying to reach me all morning.

It’s a 3.5 hour drive if you take the interstate. I made it in 2.

I did 90mph all the way home. I literally smoked tires on the ramp that connects I-77 to I-20. By the time I got to the bottom, I was finishing the right hand turn by steering left…in a front-wheel drive car, lol. Thank God for stick-shifts!

I swear my car was sweating when I finally turned it off in the driveway. I mean, my car is pretty fast for a Saturn. I’ve taken it up to 125mph before, but it’s not made for doing 90mph on a trip from one end of the state to the other.
Once I made it home and skirted getting found out…I slept. Deeply.

I’m still kinda tired and I can feel the after-effects of my short bout with the flu, which is why this entry, as long as it is, doesn’t go as in-depth as my blogs usually do. But despite the flu, the lack of sleep, the lost wages from skipping work and narrowly escaping being found out, it was completely worth it. To all my friends in Rock Hill, I promise to make it up for a longer, more legitimate trip before I move to Missouri. And this time, I’ll be plenty rested and ready to party!

And, just because I was tagged close to 10 million times:

25 Random Facts About Me:

1 – I hate movies with happy endings. This pretty much excludes any inspirational sports movie from my list of movies to watch. Seeing a happy ending with no major consequences from the crisis just makes me ill.

2 – I listen to very little American music. Most of my favorite rock bands are either British or Japanese.

3 – I would gladly give up sex for a year if that meant free internet, Netflix, Gamefly and Xbox Live for that year.

4 – I am an extreme social liberal and a fiscal conservative.

5 – Boxer-briefs.

6 – My dream car is a Mini Cooper S, which only costs $30,000. Pathetic, I know.

7- I don’t want a peaceful death. That’s boring. I want an exciting, unusual death that will make headlines and be remembered for decades.

8 – I have a phobia of people touching my neck.

9 – I generally don’t like hanging out with guys. I get along with girls much better.

10 – I love cats. I can’t stand dogs.

11 – If I had any super power in the world, it would be Hiro Nakamura’s power from ‘Heroes’: the ability to manipulate time and space.

12 – I am 5’11”, which is extremely short for my family. I’m expected to hit one last growth spurt and finish up around 6’4”.

13 – It was snowing the night I was born has snowed every year of my life since I was born. No matter where I've lived, each winter it snows at least once. Even when I was living in Austin, Texas for 2 years, it snowed both winters: 6 inches the first winter and 8 the next.

14 – I get really nervous and anxious when I drive cars with automatic transmissions.

15 – My favorite books are the kind that make you sometimes put the book down and just sit there and think about what you just read.

16 – My life experiences have led me to have a really dark and twisted sense of humor that centers on the humor of irony.

17 – I had been 10 months and 14 days since I last cut myself.

18 – I get really serious about getting gifts for people. I make it a huge personal challenge to get each person a gift that is special to them. This makes me an awesome boyfriend around Valentine’s Day and a broke-as-fuck friend at Christmas time.

19 – I cut my own hair.

20 – I have been homeless and have lived on the street before.

21 – I believe in true love.

22 – I am extremely good at reading people. I can usually know exactly what kind of person someone is after only being around them for a couple of minutes. It’s getting to the point where I only have to see them in person, now, instead of having to see them and hear them talk.

23- I am an agnostic, but the closest approximation to what I believe is Wicca.

24 – I believe in magic, ghosts, auras, aliens, and other dimensions.

25- The one that that arouses me more than anything else in the word is a nice, long kiss.

'Cuts and Bruises'

2009-01-29T03:47:00.001-08:00

'Cuts and Bruises'

It really catches you off guard, how bright hospital lights are. When I woke up, I thought that only Heaven could be this bright and this white. In the silence, though, I hear my heart beat and I know that this couldn’t be Heaven. I’m still alive.

I close my eyes for some time more. I’ve apparently been asleep for a while, maybe a few days. I’m not able to fall back asleep and when I turn my head toward the noise in the hallway, I feel stubble scratching against the pillow. Or maybe it’s the pillow scratching the stubble. I’d shaved before, so that I could look good in the coffin. I’d heard that your hair continues to grow once you’re dead, but I wasn’t sure if that applied to facial hair. Or maybe I’d just hoped that whoever found me would understand that I wanted to leave without a five o’clock shadow. Swanky in Hell, that’d be me.

The stubble versus pillow dilemma was getting uncomfortable on my left cheek and the hallway is empty and dark. So I turn my head and lay on my right cheek. Still stubble. Still scratching. But for now, it doesn’t bother me as much. This new side of the room isn’t much different: white walls, white ceiling, white bed sheets, white pillow, white bandages around an off-white neck. Neck?

Blinking, I raised my hand to wipe away the sleep gunk from my eyes. My hands feel funny; weak. Paraplegic, maybe that’s a good word. As I rub my eyes, I feel something scratch the stubble on my chin. Did the pillow stick to me? No. My wrists were covered in bandages. Understandable, I guess. Just sort of slipped my mind.

The bandages on the other bed are wrapped around her neck. She has dark hair, maybe shoulder length, maybe a bit shorter. It’s straight, and a little jagged, like maybe she cuts it herself. I cut my own hair, too. She’s sleeping. Her breathing is so shallow I can’t even see her chest move. I can barely tell that she’s breathing at all. I watch for a few seconds, looking for her to move. She doesn’t.

“Hey…uh…you. Girl. Hello?” She doesn’t answer. Not even a flutter of her eyelids. “Hey! Are you dead?”

“Are you?” That sort of sarcasm usually turns me on in an odd, masochistic way. She opens her eyes and looks at me like I am a rotten tomato. A talking rotten tomato, laying in bed. Odd. Or maybe just stupid. I can’t imagine tomatoes being considered all that intelligent. She just kind of squints at me. Hospitals are pretty bright.

“Oh-um, no. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you or anything. I just couldn’t tell if you were breathing.” I still can’t tell. It’s a little freaky. Even when she’d spoken, her chest didn’t move. Or at least her stomach didn’t. I try to avoid looking at her chest. I don’t want her to think that I’m some sort of pervert. It didn’t look like she was wearing a bra under the hospital gown. Do hospitals give girls bras while they’re bedridden? Maybe I am a pervert.

“Your chest wasn’t moving.”

“Why are you looking? You some kind of pervert?”

Shit.

But she did smile when she said it. One of those small smiles that girls give when they know they’re making a guy uncomfortable, but whatever it was he was doing didn’t really bother them in the least. A good sign? I have no idea. I look at the bandages on her neck instead. I don’t really consider myself a pervert.

“Telephone cord. Rope tends to break too easily.” She scratches at the bandages.

I can’t think of a reply. I didn’t expect an answer, especially when I didn’t actually ask a question. She starts unwrapping the bandages to reveal a screw thread pattern of bruises around her neck, tightly wound around the base of her jaw. There are stretch marks. The whole scene reminds me of those African women with the stacks of necklaces that make their necks way too long. But these rings were blue and black instead of gold.

“I guess the ceiling fan broke. We live in a trailer. Cheap building materials, y’know.”

What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Just nod. That’s right. Nod and raise your eyebrows and don’t make eye contact. She still has that subtle little grin stuck to her chin. I look at the bruises on her neck, instead. She’s too pretty to be hanging herself. Especially with telephone cord. A silk scarf would’ve been more suitable. Of course, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know this girl. Maybe hanging herself with a noose made of condoms is more her style. You never know. Gutter-slut bungee jump.

“I’m sorry, my name is Renee.” And suddenly there’s this dainty little hand reaching across the chasm between our beds. The tiles at the bottom are actually speckled, not pure white like I’d thought at first. Her fingers are long and embarrassingly graceful. Pale enough to match the sheets. She has chipped fingernail paint on. Black on every finger except the thumb. Some say the thumb doesn’t count as a finger. Maybe she thinks that way and doesn’t paint it because painting a non-finger with fingernail polish is a ‘misappropriation of product intent’ or some jargon like that. But what about toes? I look. Her toes aren’t painted. She takes labels on bottles way too literally.

Her hand is still there and she’s looking at me looking at her fingers and her toes and her eyes don’t ask a single question. Amazing. I reach forward to return the handshake. She throttles the fish that my hand has become. I try as hard as I can to get a grip, but my fingers are nearly limp. I can feel them just fine. Her skin is really smooth. I just wish I could squeeze back.

Apparently the confusion I feel is visible, because she shifts her hand and touches the bandages on my wrist. “I hear, when you do it right, it severs most of the tendons in the wrist and lower forearm. Takes weeks or months to get your strength back.” She smiles a little bit wider, biting her lip slightly. “Looks like you’ve got a period of celibacy ahead of you,” she whispers and shows me that it is indeed possible to wink without actually closing an eye. It’s like a sparkle or a glint that goes along with a smirk.

I won’t lie. I don’t have a girlfriend. “I’ll be ok, I promise,” I reply, hopefully sounding less put off than I am. This girl with the strangled neck has caught me more off guard than the hospital brights ever could.

Feeling awkward, I try to pull my hand back as politely as possible, but she grabs a tighter hold and spins herself around to sit up on the edge of her bed. Her hospital gown hikes halfway up her thigh. I look away in an effort to be respectful, but I’m running out of places to look. She’s got freckles above her knee and they are enough to make me blush. She leans forward.

“Why did you do it?” Oh my God, a cat just died. She’s slaughtering felines left and right with that look in her eyes. She’s hungry to know. She starving for an answer, as though my motivation for punching out early is the answer to all her questions and problems in life; I am her suicidal messiah. If she bites her lip any harder, it’s going to bleed. I can’t believe her lips are that color naturally. No lipstick needed.

“I was…already alone.”

She smiles. I just look at the floor.

Leaning forward, she kisses me.

“Do you still want to die?”

Left 4 Rapture: Proposal for Bioshock Multiplayer Mode

2009-01-28T11:07:00.000-08:00

Many have called giving Bioshock or its successors a multiplayer mode either impossible or purely impractical. And in essence, they are right. Bioshock as a deathmatch would not work. However, I think if any game has shown the capabilities of creative multiplayer possibilities and presents a possible alternative to a Bioshock multiplayer feature, then that inspirational title is Left 4 Dead.

Yes. Left 4 Dead has taught me how to make Bioshock multiplayer. Of course, a certain suspension of disbelief must be maintained for the mode to work at all, but if laid out as a separate timeline to the original game or an amendment to the story of the sequel, it could actually work quite well. My specific citation of inspiration from Left 4 Dead is the 'Versus' multiplayer mode.

The basis: A small group of aquatic Divers hear of the plane crash and dive down to the depths of Rapture either during the events of the first game or immediately after in order to investigate this lost city. They enter through a different part of the city, thus allowing for a variety of new maps and level designs. Each player is given the choice of either uploading the profile and stats of their single-player character or they can design a new profile using a certain budget for plasmids and tonics, which can be earned as they play. These are persistent profiles and their level gains are permanent to the profile. As such, my player is maxed out and is generally tiered toward stealthy wrench-based attacks while another play may have focused their points into electricity and fire plasmids while another player may actually be a standard gun-toter. Either way, as you play, you gain points toward your budget to build you character, unless, like me, your character is already maxed, in which case you can create a new profile.

The backstory, given as an in-engine cutscene that is skippable, is that these divers arrive at Rapture and are forced to survive for 3 days before the players actually gain control of them. This gives ample opportunity for continuity to allow that they have gained weapons, plasmids, tonics and knowledge of the general denizens of Rapture. The standard group size is 3, but is scalable up to 6. To note; as with Diablo II, the more players you have, the more enemies you encounter and the stronger they will be. Another note: Because Tenenbaum is too busy with the main character and everything to hand out the formula for saving Little Sisters, the Diver's are unable to interact with Little Sisters. They are merely invulnerable, non-violent NPC's that spawn with some Big Daddies and not with others. A player who is a Big Daddy cannot have a Little Sister. Find a new motivation for your violence.

Where Left 4 Dead's co-operative Versus inspiration comes in as this: While standard 'Thuggish Splicers', 'Leadhead Splicers', 'Security Bots' and the occasional 'special' creature are controlled by the in-game AI, a second group of players plays opposite of the divers. These anti-heroes, called Splicers, play as 'Spider Splicers', 'Nitro Splicers', 'Houdini Splicers' and at random times one of the Splicer players is released from a Vita-Chamber as a Big Daddy, just being made into the Tank on Left 4 Dead, usually as a Bouncer but every once in a while a player is created as a Rosie. This is to help with range balancing, since Rosies are long range and have high health.

Just like in Left 4 Dead, creature appropriation is random. No player can choose what Splicer they spawn as, but they can choose their spawn location, unless they are a Big Daddy, in which one of a number of Vita-Chamber locations is used. The Vita-Chambers work just like the respawn closets in Left 4 Dead. In order to allow fairness and dissuade the chance of bad spawns, a player can never respawn within a certain radius of a Big Daddy and a Big Daddy can never spawn within sight of any player. Unlike the Tank, however, there is no damage meter dictating if a player can lose control of a Big Daddy. I feel this would disrupt the pacing. Do not forget, while Left 4 Dead serves as a great multiplayer model, the two games are built toward very different experiences and Bioshock lends itself to a slower, stealthier, more deliberately tense pace than Left 4 Dead.

In order to balance the Big Daddies, they have a lot of health but also take a lot of damage, especially if set on fire or shot with armor piercing rounds. The only way a Big Daddy can dampen the amount of damage they take is by regaining health by causing damage to the players. So, a Big Daddy with 2200HP (Player base is 100) takes 2x the amount of damage as the other Splicers do, and 3x the damage is on fire, 2.5x the standard damage if stunned by electricity and 4x the damage from armor piercing rounds. However, every hit that a Bouncer lands will gain that Bouncer 150% percent of the HP lost by the victim and every round landed by a Rosie will regain that Rosie 50% of the HP lost by the victim. Proximity mines thrown by a Rosie give back 90% of the damage caused. So, much like the Tank in Left 4 Dead, the only way to stay alive for a respectable amount of time as a Big Daddy is to wreak havoc and cause damage.

Now, just like in Left 4 Dead, each of the difference classes of Splicers has special abilities, as listed below:

Spider Splicer: This is the equivalent to the Hunter. Fast, agile, able to crawl on ceilings and climb walls (oh the FPS camera hell that could be...) and given the abilities to Dodge, in which they flip in the direction of the dodge, and Lunge, in which, like the Hunter, they pounce onto the enemy. However, unlike the Hunter, Spider Splicers do not pin the player to the ground, but instead latch on to the player's body and pummel them while the player is still standing. The player's vision is obscured, but they are still mobile. To balance this, the damage taken from Spider Splicer hooks is much more than that of a Hunter's claws and, like all the Splicers, the Spider Splicers take more than a couple shots to kill as opposed to the quickly dispatched Special Zombies in Left 4 Dead.

Nitro Splicer: Nitro Splicers actually have the fastest run speed in the game. They are given a box of infinite molotov cocktails or hand grenades, picked at random upon spawning. Hand grenades have a 2 second gap between throwing opportunities and molotovs have a 4 second refresh. Hand grenades are combustive in nature, with a blast radius of about 12ft. They cause a lot of splash damage and even heavier damage if they explode as a direct hit. If a hand grenade hits a target, they explode on impact. If it misses and hits part of the environment, they have a 1.5 second fuse after making the initial bounce. Molotiv cocktails explode in impact regardless of what they hit and they erupt in an area-of-effect flame that spreads to a radius of about 20ft. Anyone caught in the flames is caught in fire and is continually damaged until the flame burns out (about 6 seconds later). Molotov cocktails cause greater total damage than grenades if landed a direct hit. Nitro splicers are also immune to fire and resistant towards explosives, but have the least amount of health out of all the Splicers. Note: Fire will attract standard A.I. Splicers to the players, while explosives will alert any nearby turrets, camera, or active bots. Use the knowledge accordingly.

Houdini Splicer: If the Spider Splicer is the Hunter and the Nitro Splicer is the Boomer, then the Houdini Splicer is obviously the Smoker and serves a similar role. Except for one thing: Houdini Splicers have the most health of all the Splicers. This will be possibly be the most fun Splicer to play if one likes to disrupt teamwork. When playing as a Houdini Splicer, a player has three attacks, though only two cause damage. 'Fireball', like it sounds, is a small ball of flame that causes mild damage upon impact and does not cause procedural flame damage like a molotov. They merely impact and cause a default level of damage. However, being magical in nature, they have infinite range and do not run out. While slightly slow moving, catching a player from behind with a few shots can cause respectable damage. The second attack is 'Claw', in which the Houdini Splicer uses one hand to hold on to the player's clothing and uses the other hand to pummel them. During this, the Diver player has obscured vision and can only use melee attacks and close-range plasmids to defend themselves, but unlike Left 4 Dead, they CAN defend themselves, albeit in a weakened state. And this is why the third skill matters: 'Abduct' is a skill that is used in tandem with the Houdini's 'Teleport' ability.

To teleport, simply press the left trigger to open a body ghost of yourself and place is approximately where you wish to teleport, and then press the assigned Teleport face button. The game will instantly place you as close as possible to the place you selected. If you merely press the face button, the game will teleport you to the last place you Teleported from. In order to Abduct an enemy, use the Left Trigger to 'paint' that player with your ghost and press the Teleport button. You will Teleport behind that player and have a small window of opportunity to press 'Claw' and grab ahold of them. This is where it gets tricky, in order to balance this out. Once you grab ahold of them, they have the opportunity to break free of the hold by pressing their Jump button. You have to press the 'Teleport' button before they press the 'Jump' button in order to Teleport to your last location with them. If you do, you will automatically teleport to that location (by default of the system, it will be within line of sight of where they were) and will already have a hold on them to begin Clawing them. They have to try and defend themselves as you attack. They're attacks cause minimal damage but can interrupt your attacks if timed right. They cannot break free of the hold. The only way they can break free of the hold is if you let go or if a teammate rescues them from you by damaging you, shocking you, or freezing you.

The Divers: As explained earlier, your Divers are what you make of them. You save their profiles and keep them from game to game. In order to cater to a more conducive system for co-operative multiplayer, health and eve hypos are somewhat more plentiful, though still dictated by the game A.I. to some extent. If a player wishes, they can take up one Tonic Slot in both 'Combat Tonics' and 'Physical Tonics' each to gain the 'Regen' tonic. This tonic allows a slow regeneration of Health and Eve. If a player meets a certain criteria (as set by the developer), they can use up an 'Engineering Tonic' slot to upgrade the 'Regen' tonic to 'Medical Miracle' in which the rate of regeneration is increased. The cost of two or three slots for this skill will actually balance out any game-breaking advantage it might give to a player.

The game: Just like in Left 4 Dead, the point of the Bioshock multiplayer experience to is survive from checkpoint to checkpoint while an overseeing game A.I. procedurally generates A.I. Splicers, Bots, Turrets and Big Daddies, in addition to dealing with the other team in Versus mode. In Left 4 Dead, you have Safe Rooms and Safe Houses. In Bioshock, you have 'Hideaways' which are rooms that are stocked with Health, Ammo, Weapons, and Eve, much like the ammo tables and health chests found in check-stations in Left 4 Dead. Instead of an escape vehicle, the destination in Bioshock is a Bathysphere. Players much survive long enough to reach the Bathysphere to beat the level. At then end of each level, whether by Divercide, in which the Splicers kill all the Divers, or by Bathysphere escape, the total scores are tallied per team, after which the sides are switched and the level is played with the roles reversed before proceeding to the next level.

Unlike Left 4 Dead, the Bioshock multiplayer experience will involve a good bit of story and will have scripted, skippable cutscenes at key points, as well as the ability for players to find Audio Diaries, Ghost Memories, hidden Tonics and Plasmids (these are randomly hidden at the start of each game. No GameFAQ cheating for you!) as well as access vending machines and U-Invent stations and the ability to hack all the machinery present. It will be up to the procedural A.I. to up the challenge accordingly. Each of the 'Districts' of Rapture, which is what the levels are called, are actually linked together in a connected narrative, unlike the separate chapters of Left 4 Dead, and completing all the Districts in order will reveal the actual game story and provide a constant narrative. Once the story has been completed by a player once, if hosting a game they are given the option to 'Remove Story Elements', which disables cutscenes, Audio Diaries, and Ghost Memories. In order to skip a cutscene, all players must vote of skip it. This way, little Mikey who's never played it before, won't have all the vets deprive him of his story.

As a whole, the Bioshock multiplayer mode could be expanded into many directions if ever given the proper amount of care and thought put into, but this is my personal set of ideas of a plausible method of creating a valid and definable Bioshock-themed multiplayer experience, even if it is a complete rip-off of Left 4 Dead. Why is that? Because Left 4 Dead got it right! Complimentary flattery indeed.

The Dog is Bald

2009-01-27T11:37:00.001-08:00

It's my birthday. I celebrated last night/this morning since I have to work tonight. I just woke up and I'm still slightly drunk and I also have a hangover. Ugh. I think 14 beers may have been a bit much...

Oh, and my car needs a new starter. $130. I WAS going to use that money to get a MagnaFlow muffler and go up to Rock Hill to say goodbye to all my friends up there before I leave for good. But nope. Every time I set money aside to go to Rock Hill, some other financial emergency pops up.

Man, I need more sleep. I'm gonna try and fix that. Night, all.

always the hard worker

2009-01-25T07:37:00.001-08:00

Joseph Birmingham is my father's best friend. He is also a very good friend of mine.

Joe has cancer. Joe is dying.

Apologies around the pub!

2009-01-22T07:57:00.000-08:00

So I'm giving out a free round of apologies to the entire non-existent crowd and anxious readers I sometimes pretend to have. After dealing with all the absolute torture that was my last 6 months at Winthrop University, I had pretty much forgotten that this blog existed. I'm both too lazy and disinclined toward carpal-tunnel to actually recap the past six months. I'll summarize it with this:

Winthrop and Michelle both can go suck a big donkey turd.

I'm staying back at home with my dad, working part-time 3rd shift to help out with the bills.

I plan on moving to Missouri to live with Beth, Crystal and Noah and begin attending a new school up there. And I'll be moving....when I save up about $900. Yep. It's gonna take a little bit. Donations are greatly appreciated but hardly expected.

I guess my life right now feels...stagnant. And were it not for some of the absolutely amazing people I've met at the Hawty McBloggy forums, I'd probably be depressed or fat or anti-social or something along this lines. There is an absolute dearth of social activity and opportunity in this town, so an online social scene is really the best that I can hope for. And honestly...I seriously prefer it. Some of these people are so much easier to talk to than some of my real-life friends. Elpolloguapo, SonofMacPhisto, and Merde 'Sam' BrusselsSprouts in particular are just so easy to converse with and connect with. I get the feeling that they really do respect me for who I am and not who I am labeled as on-sight, as is so often the case with meeting people in person.

Not having the burden of appearance allows for ample opportunity for acceptance. It's not that us internet-addicts are anti-social; it's that we prefer a social life free of material and superstitious judgmentalism that so plagues all of the Western world. I don't have a perfect Hollywood smile, far from it, nor do I have six-pack abs and a flawless bronzed tan. Do Guapo or Merde care about that? Or anyone at HMB? No. And for that, I love them. With the financial troubles my father and I are going through right now, along with the stress of figuring out how to get back into college, sometimes it really feels like the community I've discovered there is really the only thing keeping me afloat.

I should be used to loneliness by now. I'm an only child and I've been relocated so many times that bonds and strong friendships are a luxury, not a right, for me. I've spent more of my life alone than I have asleep, to put it into perspective. I had thought that my 3 years at college would've made up for lost time, but 1 year and a half of that was spent in an even worse situation: emotionally alone on a campus of 9,000. A lot of that was self-inflicted and my junior year was an absolutely amazing improvement, excluding hurricane Michelle which rolled through my head and chest. But the social foundation I had begun to build there only makes this new isolation all the worse by comparison.

You see...when you're always alone, you don't realize you're lonely. It's just part of your everyday existence. But once you experience something besides loneliness, you come to see loneliness as it is and you loathe it and reject it and lament it instead of accepting and befriending it as you once did. I never yearned for a little brother until I was 11 years old and had both gain and lost my best friend in less than 2 years. And from 11 until the time I was nearly 20, I struggled and pined for that same commitment to loyalty that he and I had shared. I had briefly experienced the brother I was never given.

In college, Mike and I began to grow that sort of bond, but I let Michelle get between us just as Mike let Ferrari get between us. And Rachel showed me was a true relationship and truly accepting love really was. After she and I ended, it took me a while to realize just what I had experienced and how little I cherished it when I had the chance. I expect Michelle to be able to give me that some sense of security and comfort, but I was mistaken...and much to my own personal torment, at that. Looking back, I can't believe what I allowed Michelle to lead me to becoming. I can't even recognize who I was for those few months. I was so...broken. And after leaving Winthrop, I've had only silence and ample time to pick up those pieces and begin slathering on the rubber cement. I've still got a few holes and jagged edges, but I'm much closer to being the man I always knew I could be. I wish I could thank Rachel for the amazing patience and love she showed me and tell her how sorry I am for not listening to her warnings about Michelle. I wish I could get back to hanging out with Mike and sew that friendship we starting stitching between us.

As for Michelle...

For her, I hold only a furrowed brow and a tightly clamped tongue.

I guess all I can do right now is pinch my pennies and look to Missouri. At least it's not South Carolina. And though I'll never gain that brother I used to long so heavily for, I always held a smile and a hope for a little sister. Maybe Beth can be that for me. A sibling is a sibling, whether connected by blood or not. And love will always be love. It can't be anything else. I never had a mother to love. I never had a brother to love. At least maybe now, I'll gain a sibling sister to love.

Brother, I

By: Chris H.

This lack of a sibling

sister had long been a sustained

disappointment. To awake,

dazed, and turning and looking for

a friend each dawn. As yet, never

a brother has awoken here.

A friend there was, of course.

An old friend. Almost a kin of

a kind; a friend born

of storm clouds

and dandelion fluff

on days alone in the fields.

Pan’s shadow: always a ready

companion: ever-proverbial, an

all-weather friend

with unparalleled social skills.

A big toothy grin, It reaches out:

“May I have this dance?”

He has to decline. “There’s only

one warm pair of hands here,”

(We’re not even good

for a game of catch”).

A sustained disappointment.

This lack of a sibling sister has

endured to here. Look at all

the pristine white tiles..sanitary,

the maternity ward lobby becomes

a welcome suspense.

January 11th, 2008 - "Believe it or Not"

2008-01-12T00:59:00.000-08:00

I have yet to fall asleep, so yesterday is still today until my eyelids can no longer delay tomorrow.

I apologize, dear journal slash blog slash diary slash imaginary audience, for the lack of an entry for January 11th proper. I tend to do a lot of my writing in the wee hours of the morning, so maybe we should adjust my entry deadlines to some timezone nearer to the Marianas trench. The reason for this one being late for the GMT Eastern timezone is because today has been filled up with commuting and preparing for Sunday. And thinking without thought; a trend in labor.

The primary of today was spent in Florence getting all those techno goodies and school supplies that financial aid refunds tend to bring about. Being a Journalism is almost like reverting to the 4th grade: pens, pencils, notebook paper, a stack of colorful legal pads and lots and lots of erasers. Indeed, I could keep all the paper in a trapper keeper and tote the erasers in a Spider-Man plastic lunchbox with a broken snap and I could probably pass for the demographic.

But despite the busy scheduling and ripping out the innards of my computer all through today and this evening, I've not thought much about anything of consequence that didn't require batteries or a driver CD, which is a blessed occurrence- the lack of thinking, not the driver CD. Those are a pain. In fact, it is only just recently, while washing dishes by hand at 3:30am listening to some random Nickelback that I was absolutely shocked by something:

I'm okay. I'm not sad or lonely or frustrated or angry or terribly lovesick of distant. I'm actually quite at peace at this moment and I wish had a bottle of champaign to celebrate. While scrubbing some plate or another, I thought about my return to 'The Wu' and what all my return will entail, especially on the first day, and I'm fine with it. I'm actually a little happy with expectation and that only scares me a little. Just a little. A wee, not too much to worry over.

I think I'm just unfamiliar with feeling alright and okay. I think, also, that I'd like to become familiar with the feeling. So here's an imaginary crystal fluted toast to feeling "okay".

P.S. - "And also- cuz I don't need no numbers!" - Thanks Chad, for bringing out the idiot in me.

2008-01-11T00:13:00.000-08:00

I nearly forgot about posting a blog for the 10th. It's technically the 11th right now but since I haven't gone to sleep yet, I still consider right now "today" and tomorrow won't come until I wake up, no matter how far away that is. So, I'll make this entry short, since it would've been anyway. It's not that I'm unable to write, it's just that there are no burning issues at the moment I feel the need to vent about. Sorry journal, but you're not the biggest priority right now.

Today was about material things. That was my priority today. I got my Zune back, er...a Zune. They couldn't seem to fix the headphone jack, which I thought would've been a seemingly simple repair job, and instead sent me a replacement Halo 3 Limited Edition Zune to compensate for my own Halo 3 Limited Edition Zune + all my music and pics. Oh well, I still have the files so I can just resync them. But now I have two worries on my mind: there are pictures of me and my friends floating around Microsoft Corp. somewhere and also...just how limited is that model Zune if they can just throw replacements around like confetti. I say like confetti because all that needed to be fixed was a $2.00 headphone port.

Oh well, I have a Zune again and this one's new so there's no scratches on the the screen. Not that there were many on the other, since I take very good care of my electronics, but still, any scratch is a bad scratch...at least on electronics. That was my big moment for today, aside from buying a new video card for my computer, something I've been meaning to do for a long time. Since I can't upgrade my motherboard or CPU without getting a whole new setup, I decided to save $$$ and buy a midrange 512MB Radeon HD 26000 XT. I do more multimedia than gaming, so the limited gaming capacity is fine by me. What really sold me was the dual DVI-out as well as the HDMI out functionality. What this means is that I can hook it directly to my TV and have full 1080p signal and 5.1 audio from my PC.

The audio is only a boon due to the fact that I can have multi-source sound from my PC. I have a 7.1 hi-def XiFi sound card in that will soon be running to some Logitech z5300e's, so I can have music playing on one 5.1 setup while I watch TV or movies on the other 5.1 setup. Plus, if I ever want to get a second 22" monitor, the card can support dual displays just fine.

The biggest reason I looked at the card aside from the HDMI output is that it's designed for Vista, DirectX 10 and watching HD movies. And we all know how much I like streaming my HD rips from my PC to my TV. Hell, I just got a 750GB external HD drive because I was running out of room on my 320GB external that I'd been using solely for movies. So, I now have a 120GB Seagate FreeAgent Go, a 320GB Seagate FreeAgent Pro and a 750GB Seagate FreeAgent Pro. That's 1.19 terabytes of external storage, plus the onboard 160GB HDD that I use for OS, programs, and games. I shouldn't be low on space for at least a year.

However, with the recent news that HD-DVD has pretty much lost to Blu-Ray, due to Warner Brothers shifting over to Blu-Ray in May, I may be buying a Blu-Ray player this summer and backing up those discs in my computer, so I may in fact still eventually need more room. Oh just think of all the USB slots I'll need...

But a lot of that is in the future. Right now I have books to buy (and sell), fraternity dues to pay, a TV to pay off, a looming massive print quota fee...I've got a lot of financial obligations to look toward, so a Blu-Ray player and all that, as much as I lust after the idea, are just going to have to wait. The video card was a needed upgrade that I'd been planning for a while and holding out on until I saw someone put the card on clearance. And even that took some self persuasion. I kinda of had to decide between that and chipping in for Rock Band...but my anticipation of Rock Band waxes and wanes depending on how pissed off I am at Guitar Hero. And today it pissed me off. I got 5 stars on every song on the set list and bonus list on medium except Through the Fire and Flames.

Did I try and 5-star it? Once. And I got tired of hearing clanking and plinking, so I said "screw it, I'll start a new career track on Hard" and guess who kicked my ass. Just guess. Fucking Brett Michaels! Brett Michaels of all people! Ok, fine, technically Poison did, but Brett Michaels represents the band and I hate pretty much anything tainted by the over-indulging ego-maniacal self-worshiping cockbuckler that is Brett Michaels.

I was crestfallen and immediately turned the Xbox off and packed it up for the coming semester. I then went to the computer and said "Hey there, Mr. Video Card, are we on sale today? Why yes, we are! Oh, Rock Band? Pssh, what about Rock Band?" and then and there solidified a sudden and oddly significant change in priorities. Because I realized something...I don't really want Rock Band. I like the drums, yeah, but that's not enough allure for $170 (I only paid half that for the card) just to have a game that my friends will play more than I do. I've stooped pretty low in methods of alleviating my loneliness, but using a videogame to buy popularity is pretty much my limit.

Not that I'd mind playing it if Mike or someone else got it. But I tend to game alone or online and upon this logic...buying Rock Band just doesn't make any sense for me. Sure, I'm in a college dorm and a lot of my friends would want to come to my room and play it, but if they want to play it in my room so badly, they can chip in for the game. It's not a game I'd buy for myself, so I chose not to. The video card will probably last me longer and benefit me more in the long run.

So, yeah, the Xbox360 is packed away and all set to be lugged to Winthrop. I will be taking my computer apart and packing it too, once I record the sound clips for these scripts and send them off to G.J. Oh yeah, I don't know if I mentioned; I got cast as the (very cockney) voice of Sgt. Pipes in an upcoming Halo 3 machinima called 2152. I've gotten the scripts for the first two episodes and I need to record my lines and submit them for editing before I pack my computer up, so I'll probably be doing that tomorrow.

I may wait until Chad drops off the power supply, though. He's upgrading his PC and is giving me his old 500watt power supply (he got a new 1200W one), which saves me $80 because I was going to need a new PSU to run the video card on top of the sound card and external HDD's. I was going to use that money to buy gifts for Mike and Michelle and everyone, but they keep telling me to not buy them anything, so I guess I won't by them...much. I gotta get something, right? But I'll compromise and try and get gifts focused on sentimental value instead of dollar value, which is the point in the first place, right? Besides, I already bought them, so nothing they can do about it, right?

I'm very aware that my refund will only go so far. I still need to get a job and the silence on my cell phone is making it very known that Toys-R-Us apparently didn't find me suited for working in the electronics/gaming department, so I'll need to look elsewhere. Perhaps the RadioShack near campus if they're hiring. At the moment, I'm thinking about that damned TV and how much it costs a month and I'm also thinking of my prescription bills when the shrinks inevitably decide to put me back on meds (I don't like it...but it makes sense...) and I'm realizing that I'm going to have to take whatever job I can get if I don't want to ruin my credit. I mean, I bought the damned TV to build a credit score for fuck's sake. Wouldn't be very consistent of me to get it repo'd would it?

Plus, if they took my TV I'd probably cry...and cry...and cry some more. That TV is my red corvette. It is my mid-life crisis 2 decades early...I've gotta get a job if only to not lose it.

....wow...that's pathetic. I gain man-points for that, but I suffer the loss of an equal amount of self-respect points in return. Hell, I admit I'm addicted to technology, which in an of itself is not a bad thing....unless you're poor...which I am...and then it could be a bad thing...which it is. Aaaah goddamnit anyway. Thanks Mitch.

....Looking up, I question my definition of "short." Generally in the thesaurus, short is near to succinct, brief, terse and other such synonyms for abbreviated. Apparently my definition of "short" thinks all those words smell bad because it's an awfully far distance from them. I wonder if I could ever write an actual short blog if I tried. But unlike Journals and Diaries, Blog's aren't about trying, are they? They're about existing somewhere that's not real. About recreating a personal image of yourself that can't be rained on or punch in the nose. So the minute I actually try, this quits being a blog and begins to be a journal or diary and by default of definition I revert to an angsty high-schooler with a perpetual scowl and junior carpal tunnel.

All things aside, at least my Zune is here, the firmware upgrade is installed and it's nearly done synching. I really enjoy the new aesthetic of the firmware and the marketing of the Zune now. It's very creative and original; most unexpected adjectives to describe a Microsoft product. I'm looking forward to see what becomes of the Zune brand. Hopefully it can add some life and decidedly un-chic flavor to an equally overly-chic iPodified market. Because quite frankly, iMsick of iBalling and Hearing about goddamned iPods and iMacs that i'Dlove to shove up the iHole of half these blazer-wearing, goatee-sporting iTools.

And plus, now that I have my Zune, I can put my headphones on and ignore the real world as much as I want. And isn't that the entire point of technology?

January 9th, 2008 - Cabin Fever Keeps Out the Jitters

2008-01-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

I’m antsy. This house is just too much of the same for me to stand it much longer. I’m only here for a few days, but even so, I’m both anxious to leave and just as anxious about the coming semester. It’s got me feeling jittery whenever I think about the next few months. I screwed up so badly last semester that I guess I’m afraid that this semester will just be a continuation of that 4-month train wreck.

To tell you the truth, I am also looking a bit forward to it. I have a new room, a new roommate, and it’s a new year. Maybe…just maybe I can start fresh this time. True, I still have a couple major pieces of baggage on my shoulders, and as beautiful as some of that baggage is, it’s holding me back and holding me down. Not so much by existing, but by being so convenient for me to think about that I can’t stop dwelling. Because that’s what I do; I dwell and I regret and I’m ready to quit that. But I’ve also got to be careful I don’t lose myself in the process.

Certainly there are a few things to look forward to. My fully repaired Zune should be arriving, fully functional and free of charge, sometime tomorrow and Saturday I get to pack, which I always enjoy. I like packing; the feeling it gives of change and forward motion. It makes me feel as though I’m taking steps towards progress, even if I’m only returning to somewhere I’ve already been. But then again…a place is only a location. Winthrop…it’s an experience. Sometimes awful…sometimes, maybe sometime soon….hopefully not.

Then again, our room will probably be pretty damned popular. Not only are we going to have a whopping 3 TVs (11”, 19” and 40”) as well as the 360 and surround, but pretty soon we’ll be getting Rock Band to go with Guitar Hero 3. Chances are, that coupled with my knack for interior decorating, means we’ll probably be getting quite a bit of company during the semester- and quite a few noise violations in the process, I imagine.

On a sad note, I still have no car and with no car, the chances of a job are somewhere between zip and nada. Sure, there are jobs within walking distance, but I’m not dumb enough to think those aren’t already full. I don’t want to go back to being a Lab Op. I need better pay and more hours if I’m to pay my monthly bills as well as help my dad out. It’s a lot of pressure to be added on top of an entirely new major. Am I going to be good at Journalism? Or is it just another pipe dream I’m not cut out for? I guess, like theatre and art, where I had the skill but not the patience or passion, respectively, I’ll have to try it and see.

Along with a job and new major, I have to try and find a mental health center in Rock Hill who will work with a poor college student. Then I have to secure transportation so I can get re-evaluated and maybe get some academic accommodations through Winthrop and maybe, if there’s no other alternative, be put back on meds. But unlike elementary and middle school, this time I will have a say in the process this time. I will not be some lab rat or guinea pig. Hopefully I’ll be able to get something going, somehow, where I’ll be able to get away from myself long enough to enjoy life and all that it offers.

In the meantime, I’m trying to find new hobbies. I want to get back to working out on a regular basis again, maybe start a new jogging route. I know that being physically healthy leads to being healthier mentally as well along with improving personal body-image and confidence and that’s always been one of my weak points. I’ve always felt fat and unattractive with my shirt off and while some things can’t be helped, I think working towards bettering my physical fitness will go a long way towards making me feel better about myself. Hell, who knows, I may eventually get a shot at being in the UFC if I stay dedicated.

Along with this, I’ve been auditioning for a lot of voice-acting work for online machinima projects, primarily using Halo 3. I want to be involved in some kind of performance-oriented hobby and I’ve always felt my skill in vocal delivery is good for voice-acting. I love acting, directing and writing. I always have, don’t get me wrong. The reason I quit as a theatre major wasn’t a lack of love for the craft; it was a blatant fear and loathing of that “cult” in Johnson Hall comprised of theatre majors. I felt so unwanted and so unwelcome there that I just lost any desire I ever had to perform onstage there. As such, I’ve set my sights elsewhere, starting with a field that I’m more interested in. I’m still waiting for a reply from the project lead, so I’ll see how it turns out when I hear back from him.

When I logged on a little while ago, I knew I’d need to write something before the day’s end, even though I didn’t really have any issues I felt any burning need to discuss or vent about. So while this hasn’t really been a therapeutic entry, it has helped in that it’s teaching me to write even when I don’t feel like it; something I’ll need to do often if I want to make it in the field of journalism. So here’s to a guaranteed aspect of my future: working despite a loss of inspiration.

January 8th, 2008 - "Dissatisfaction"

2008-01-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Dissatisfaction. Do you remember a time when you were too small to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl when the word didn’t exist in your world? Not only because you hadn’t learned it yet, but because you’d never experienced it? At what point do we learn to want and never stop wanting? Is there a certain age when we become insatiable in our petty greed? A good, reliable car is never enough. Now we want a car with more room, a CD-changer and a hemi. Your computer does everything you need it to, yet you want one now with a dual-core processor and two video cards. Why? Why indeed because there’s no logical answer. Logic and greed have nothing in common.

I am greedy. Especially with two things: Technology and Love. I am always lusting after the latest tech gadgets, none of which I can afford. I have a huge TV, but now I want one with a higher contrast ratio just so I can feel satisfied it’s the best when in reality I probably have the best TV on campus. I want a new phone when really all I need is a bigger texting plan. I want Love and sometimes I get Love, and yet it never seems enough. I have this fear of infidelity, this fear that my love isn’t going to be quite good enough for her. I want Love plus security, which one person just can’t give. Security is gain through oneself, not through another’s actions and words. So why the hell do I expect to be given a sense of security everytime “I love you” is exchanged? Because I’m selfish, like everyone else.

What do I do about this? How do I gain a sense of security? Oh there’s all kinds of outlying contributors; self-esteem, confidence, trust, being hurt in the past, abandonment issues, etc, etc. And true, they all have a valid contribution to this Manhattan Shitstain that is my mind, but the truth is I’m still selfish. I’m selfish and greedy and the one thing I want more of is myself. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want more of me or my company. An overabundance of me is probably what got me in this hole in the first place. No, I’m greedy because I always expect more and more out of me than I can realistically provide.

I’m insecure because I don’t have realistic expectations of myself. I want to be thinner, stronger, prettier, smarter, more socially likeable, funnier, more talented, and overall more than I can realistically be. I have yet to accept me for who I am. The only thing I’d like to have a bit less of is my prowess under the sheets, which has gotten me into quite a bit of trouble the past couple of years. Other than that I am constantly, what? You guess it, dissatisfied. With who? With moi! Myself, of course. I’m always afraid she’s going to love someone else instead of me because I don’t understand why she loves me in the first place because I haven’t truly loved myself since I was 5 years old.

And here is where the argument of narcissism comes in. Narcissists love themselves and seem to have an issue of arrogance. I’ve been called arrogant and I’ve been called narcissistic before and for a long time, I conformed to these applied titles because I thought they were right. But they are not right at all. I’m not narcissistic. I don’t like myself enough to be a narcissist. I’m self-centered, yes, but not out of self-love. I’m centered on myself because I spent half my life alone in a house with me, myself, and my estranged company of I.

Having very few friends in addition to a single father who spent many nights working late taught me many things: self-sufficiency, cooking, cleaning, how to alleviate boredom, a strong imagination, and more of the like. What it did not teach me is that I am not alone. That I am the center of my universe, yes, but not so much the center of his or her universe because that spot’s already taken him him or her. When you grow up as your own closest and most constant human companion, it kind of imprints on you the skewed priority of your role in your most eschewed world.

So the fact is I’m self-centered because for the longest time I was all I knew. During late high school and now college, I’ve been exposed to more and more people who actually interact with me and it’s slowly, but surely, chipping away at that old programming. I’m no longer as alone; now I’m just paranoid. Wonderful. But hey, it’s a step, right? Crawl before you walk, walk before you crawl, wreck a racecar before you win with it, etc. I imagine that eventually, through roommates and friends, I’ll finally be a bit less of a psychological isolationist and come to terms with the tangibility of those around me who, and this still hasn’t hit home, also share this reality with me.

As for the arrogance? Hah. Nice try but that thing you think is arrogance is really my red Ferrari. Company CEOs buy red Ferraris to make up for their small penis and material lifestyle. Since I’m not a company CEO, I can’t afford a red Ferrari, and I don’t consider my penis insufficient in any way, I instead compensate for my internal shortcomings by trying to convince myself that I’m better than I am by convincing those around me that I’m better than I am. Reread it if you need to, the syntax works. Basically, I come across as arrogant to some because somewhere around my hypothalamus region I’m trying to convince myself I’m not such a failure. This comes across as me trying to convince you that I’m a success, because in my mind, success =/= failure. So if you’re talking to me and you think I’m being arrogant, I’m actually having another bout of average insecurity. Usually a hug helps.

As for Love…well, notice that I place capital L on the damned thing. I idolize Love. I endear towards it always. I am a hopeless romantic who’s become a bit bitter via a few too many stings. But who I am right now, at this very moment, as a man and as a human…I don’t feel deserving of Love. Maybe love, like that of friends and family, but not Love. I don’t deserve romance because I don’t think anybody in the world has sinned badly enough to deserve an attempt at romance with me. I discussed this yesterday and it’ll probably find some way to creepy into tomorrow’s entry because it’s constantly on my mind. I am not in any condition to be Loved. And when I Love and that Love is requited, well can you guess that my hopes get pretty high up?

But the plain and simple is that I’m not currently fit for romance. My mental state at college is such that I am more an exercise in crazysitting than actual romance right now. I’m instable, my bipolar is to the point where I not only have to deal with season persona shifts but now I am having a resurgence of irregular rapid-cycling bipolar. I’m impulsive, moody, unpredictable and prone to bouts of unexplainable severe depression and loneliness, regardless of the surrounding atmosphere of my life. I don’t think it’s fair to try and subject anyone to that and expect them to stick around for very long. It makes more sense to just stay single until I learn how to deal with my problems in a natural, intentional manner.

The problem is this: I’m in love with someone who was in love with me but has returned to the man she left for me. She says she loves me and that’s all well and good and I cherish her friendship, but I am dying. Because I know she is not in love with me while I am in love with her. My love is requited in all levels except the levels that give me breath. The problem here is not the fact that she is no longer in love with me, it’s that I’m still in love with her and I can’t move on to “just friends” until I find some way to fall out of love with her and you know what? Shakespeare didn’t write about falling out of love so I’m a bit in the dark here, y’know?

Because she’s so wonderful and such a beautiful person, inside and out, and I just don’t understand how in the hell I can convince myself to not be physically sick when I know she’s with him. I can’t be comfortable around her like this. It hurts to hear her voice and as such, for right now, I’ve cut my self off from her: my umbilical. But I return to school in a week and she lives in the room above me (oh God, to imagine what things I may hear that I’d rather not; that bastard) and her friends are mine and it would all be fine if I did not love her. Because then we could be friends and just friends, like it was probably all meant to be. So why can’t I stop breathing faster at her laugh? It would all be some much easier if I didn’t love her.

It would all be so much easier if I could just be satisfied with mere friendship. But there it is again: dissatisfaction.

Entry 2 - "Creepy"

2008-01-07T12:13:00.000-08:00

Question: am I creepy? I never mean to be, but a large majority of the people I've ever cared about at one time or another have called me creepy. In what way, they never specify, but it usually comes as a result of an action or series of actions I intended to be funny or sweet and apparently came across as creepy instead. So…how do I handle this? Should just cease the intention of being funny or sweet? Or should I cease contact with those I care about and just not risk it? I know neither answers are logical, but since when have I been logical? I'm as much a woman in my head as I am a man on the outside, so what obligations do I have to logic, hmm? None. Logic can jog on.

So…creepy. I guess that can be understood. I grew up an only child with only a handful of actual friends, and only a few of those were ever truly close to me. I have never really learned how to express myself to other people; my social skills are about as sharp as George Dubyah's wit. I understand this is why I'm innately self-centered and difficult to talk to, but it's so very frustrating nonetheless. Occasionally I'd like to be an understood individual; to be a little less mysterious and a little more accessible. Being an oddity doesn't exactly do much to alleviate loneliness.

And I am lonely. Even when I'm with my current group of friends and socialites, I'm still lonely. Because I understand that nobody there actually knows me and I can't blame them because I hardly know myself. I'm so emotionally unpredictable even I don't know what's coming up next. Like ever other spring, I imagine sometime within the next month I'll endeavor to get a handle on my emotions, but for some reason seeing me so reserved and so...passive…well, it drives people away even more than me being an impulsive nervous wreck. Maybe I should just stick to video game and never leave my room again. Ero Sennin, indeed, mon pei.

I've been toying with the idea of absolute isolation for a while now. The past year has proven one thing to me: I am unmatchable. I will never have a wife and I will never have a family. Not because there is nobody out there who is right for me, but instead because I am not right for anybody out there. If wouldn't force myself upon someone condemned to eternal damnation. I have never understood why anyone ever fell in love with me and the past year have made it clear that everyone who ever has was actually suffering from a severe bout of dementia often misconstrued for love. Oops.

The issue is once again of unpredictability. I am so scattered, so split between so many essential me's that dating me really should classified as polygamy. I can't expect anybody to be able to actually cope with my mental instabilities. I can't even do it, so why should you? I don't blame you for leaving at the first sign of a season personality shift. Welcome to the world of a seasonal bipolar Section 8 nutjob. Enjoy your stay; your hosts will alternate every 2-4 months at the convenience of nobody in particular.

Is it too much to ask for a little mental consistency?

And my general social life isn't exactly a theory of success either. I have friends, yes, but something tells me it's not really their idea of a good time to have me come over. It nags at me; wrenches with lobes and nodes and other bits and chunks of my brain, that perhaps they're only my friends because they're afraid of what would happen to me, what I would do to myself, if they weren't. People! I've been abandoned before and I will be abandoned again many times in my life. I can handle it. Don't be afraid to walk away. Otherwise you're making this awkward for everybody involved.

As for myself? I think maybe I'll decide to be an overachiever and hit my midlife crisis a couple decades early. Become a workaholic. Straight A's so my dad will get off my back and I won't be so full of guilt I piss sad sighing sounds and shit the letter G in the morning. Maybe graduate right into a nice desk job where I get paid a ridiculous amount of money for a job I don't really pay any attention to. Rent a nice studio apartment and fill it with hugely expensive electronics to compensate for the fact that I'm 30 and single with no real hope or intention of changing that.

Maybe I'll drive a really fast car with great trunk space so I can be safe knowing that, need be, I can make a speedy getaway when reality bites just a little too deep into my left flank and the office smells like rotting what-ifs. Or maybe just so I can know that when I do finally drive off that bridge at the end of my two weeks notice, I'll get some great hang time and people will ask "Who was that guy and why the hell did he wreck such a sweet ride?"

Yeah…becoming obsessed with my schoolwork and my job can't turn out TOO badly, can it? What's wrong with material success? I've never really experienced it, so maybe it's time to try something new: not being a complete failure. Oh dear, there goes my "self-defeating personality" again. Thanks for pointing out that bit, doc. Who would've thunk it that all these bruises on my psyche are self-inflicted if not for your divine wisdom? What a wonderful source of professional help you've been; so knowledgeable and resourceful. Aflak, motherfucker.

The truth is, in a couple days I'll have gotten over this and then a couple days after that I'll feel like this again. Rapid-cycling bi-polar disorder. Hell, if it weren't written down with someone else's bad handwriting, I'd think I was a hypochondriac. Who knows, maybe I am and we can add that to the list. If Santa passed out prescriptions, I'd be one happy hypo.

Actually, I still don't take meds. No, revise that: I still won't take meds. See, this is the point where hubris takes point and I grow a donkey's grin and sit back stubborn and shaking my head. Because meds means my mind lost. Not is lost, but HAS lost. It means my essential being, my self is not strong enough to overcome these afflictions and I must be assisted in my daily existence. that is not living. That is being stuck on mental life support while the real you, the inner you, gags on the rebreather and lays vegetative under the covers and fluorescent blue-white lights. I would rather live my entire life fighting a mental stalemate than submit to that kind of induced reality. I am stronger than that and someday I will prove it.

Yes, I am mentally unstable and I am hard to deal with and even harder to understand. My friends know this, but part of me wonders if they are capable of accepting it. That inability to accept, no matter what the will, is why 'She' after 'She' after 'She' is now just relegated to 'her' in the past tense. It's why so many "best friends" are just stories I tell when I'm drunk. It's why I'm here now, typing in an empty house ignoring my phone for calls that aren't even incoming. Thanks for wanting to be my friend, for wanting to help, but we're all only human.

Wanting to help, wanting to be there for me, doesn't mean you can. Some people…most people, can't. I'm just too much to handle. I don't blame you, any of you, for leaving. If I weren't bound by these ridiculous notions of honor and duty and obligation, I would too. But those notions, those ideals, are self-inflicted and not everyone is as mentally masochistic as me.

And on a side note: wow, I sound like a goddamned Senses Fail song. Fuck. "I'm an emo kid, nonconforming as can be. You can be nonconforming too if you're just like me." Ah fuck it. Who cares? Originality is just an illusion for artists and writers to get horny over.

Anyways, am I creepy? No. Not any more so than anyone else really is. I just lack the practice to hide it as well as everyone else. Creepy is when someone else expresses more of a specific emotion than we want or expect. It's an issue of control. We worry over those who lack that self-control; worry what they are capable of. It's not an actual fear of what they feel, because if they expressed it in a more controlled manner then it wouldn't be creepy, would it? No. Creepy comes when they're a bit too enthusiastic and unexpected in expressing how they feel.

And for this reason, I'm at a severe disadvantage. As socially unpracticed as I am, it's hard to for me control how I express myself, how I convey my emotions and intentions. They often come out unfiltered and pure. And pure emotion is sadly unacceptable in today's time. Even passion isn't pure anymore. Nothing is pure except the cold, intolerant bias against vulnerability. I don't care who knows it. I am very emotional vulnerable. Having not had my perception of my role as a male colored by a mother figure, I have no obsession with machismo. I am not concerned with appearing manly or macho. I am masculine because I am honest with who I am. And masculinity is what so many of my male peers lack.

However strong or fast I am physically, the real reason I am masculine is because I can admit that I am emotionally vulnerable; I can confront my flaws; something which few people can do and even fewer can be proud of. I am proud that I am flawed. Sometimes my pride is a flaw in and of itself, but I know that my negative pride and the hubris it brings are against me; against my own internal failings and my disappointments with myself. I really am my biggest critic and my biggest bully. More than anybody outside my door will ever hurt me or berate me, I've already done so dozens of times before leaving my room. I know what my flaws are and while I am not proud of them, I'm proud that I know them.

So am I proud that I've been called creepy? No. Hell no. That's stupid to be proud of something like that and if you thought I'd say Yes then you've watched too many Will Smith movies. But as disappointed as I am that I've merited the title of creepy, I'm more disappointed by the fact that 'She' and 'She' and 'She' couldn't get over it and move past it. In time, with practice and exposure to socialization, I'll eventually learn to build my mask and filter my expressions of emotions. But those emotions will still be there, even though I'll no longer be called creepy. Because the only reason I'm called creepy is because the world can't handle the unadulterated expression of emotion, whether it is mirth, sadness, love, anger, humor, mischief, compassion, hate, or loneliness.

I'm creepy because I know how to feel.

Entry 1: "Because he said so"

2008-01-06T12:10:00.000-08:00

So my therapist says that as a certified Section 8 I need a regular thought outlet that can also act as a disciplining agent in my daily life. He hinted that since I’m a Journalism major now, I might want to start journaling. Well Hell knows that writing longhand is just a bit too close to drawing for this ex-artist, so I think I’ll take the high-tech road and keep a digital journal….ie. a blog. Well fuck, since I’m writing a blog, I might as well resurrect my forgotten MySpace, DeviantArt and LiveJournal accounts and maybe open a Blogger so I can regain my place as one of about 8 people on the internet who don’t use either as a personal dating service for the inter-gender impaired.

Christmas sucks and if you think it doesn’t then you apparently have “never had the joy of a welfare Christmas” (thanks Everclear). My dad and didn’t bother even putting up lights and a tree this year. I’m sorry, but we don’t need to advertise our willingness to be sucked into the commercialistic free-for-all that is the A.S.S., or American Shopping Season. Even if we did put up a tree and lights, the tree would’ve been mighty lonely because we could not afford gifts this year. We decided to prioritize and buy food instead. Because groceries and an empty tree sure as hell beats looking like an anorexic as your play with your new gameboy.

It’s not that I so much hate Christmas, I just generally hate the people who love it. Or maybe I’ve just become jaded by the past semester of self-defeatism and romantic bloodletting and should be ignored like the old guy in a bath robe who spits expletives at the squirrels in his front yard.

Now New Years, there’s a holiday I can get into. I love the entire mentality of New Years: “Fuck the past, let’s blow shit up!” because that has been the American way for so long as I can remember. Why else would we still have war? And every year it’s the same: Jestin and myself head on up to Mark’s place, where we have a gathering where Jestin and I are the only sober ones as Mark breaks out about $1000 worth of fireworks and finds more and more extravagantly dangerous ways to make things sparkle and go boom, preferably at the same time. Guys + Alcohol + Explosives = a damned good time and maybe a missing toe or two. Me? I have all my toes but I did get a little burned.

As for Christmas Break overall? Well, if it weren’t for Jestin and Chad, I’d probably be even more stir-crazy than usual. They’re the only company outside of my father I ever really have back in Marion and that’s an issue of choice, to be honest. All we ever really do is play video games and go to the Best Buy in Florence to challenge the pair of asian kids that are always playing the Rock Band station. When Jestin and Chad aren’t around, my days are limited to the inside of my abode, cleaning and fixing things, cooking, and playing games.

Speaking of games, thanks to Chad and to Jestin’s family, I did have a bit of a Christmas. Jestin’s family was so nice to give me a brand-new printer they couldn’t seem to get working (the cartridges are duds and a copy of Call of Duty 4 they got for $30 with a gift card. Chad, however, went all out and got me Guitar Hero III, which means me and Mike are going to lose a lot of sleep this semester, especially if we get Rock Band, too.

And I was able to take my dad to see AVP:R for Christmas, albeit the following Sunday, but hey, it was Christmas enough for us. He understands how short I am on cash and we’re both big fans of the Aliens movies, so it seemed like a good chance to spend some time together. The only bad part is he had to drive, since my own car is still busted. Without a car, finding a job back at Winthrop is going to be a lot harder. I don’t want to suffer the dulldrum and awful pay of being a Lab Op again, but my choices are apparently very limited, so I’m pretty boned, it seems. I wish I did have some money, since I wasn’t able to go shopping for gifts for anybody except Michelle, and even her gift was not what I really wanted to get, but it’s all I could afford.

Well, my mood for writing is fast fading, so I’m going to end this and maybe write something later or tomorrow. I doubt anybody will read this, but I’m just following doctor’s orders anyway, so does it actually matter? Most likely it doesn’t and Freddy Mercury was right after all. Either way, I’m gonna end this before my rambling becomes completely incoherent. Bye.