Minutiæ: 2003

Shitness. I was in bed, trying to go to sleep, and then I had a thought hit me that I just had to write upon.

I think about her all the time, you know. I was thinking about when I saw her on Friday and stuff, and I was like "Yeah, get some sleep. Just remember what you're planning for the next few days--just remember what's important." What was that? I was thinking about the birthday present and just what I had planned.

Then another thought hit me--this is the one I'm expanding upon. Why was I so fixated on getting her a gift? Why did everything need to be perfect? What is it with me trying to make her happy all the time?

--Before my next move, let me quote this snippet, part from a chatlog part from a blog.

Chris: I'm gonna blog this convo, if you don't mind.
Me: Not a problem.
Chris: Because unlike some people, I try to consider how other people might feel if I did something like that.

Anyway, he has a blog as well and has this gay habit of frequently pasting what I IM him in his stupid entries, without even asking if I'm ok with it. This becomes a problem as I usually talk about personally stuff with him.

Sigh.

And now I continue my fine tradition of being open. Maybe I'll change my mind and remove it like the September 10 post. Or not. Right now, it's part of my point, and I'll keep it. If you read this sometime later, and find that this post isn't here, then you speak not a word--I've just changed my mind like I always do.

Megan: *I've been re-thinking the "love" thing
Megan: okay......this explaination is gonna be odd
Megan: don't take anything offensively
Megan: i'm not saying I'm in love with you, because I don't believe in love
Megan: but I can't think of any explaination for my girly girl, lets cuddle and talk about how much we adore each other, crap
Megan: its not something I do, I don't understand why I suddenly am
Megan: and I can't stop
Megan: //_-()
Megan: lol
Megan: I'd chalk it up to petty infatuation
Megan: but I'm kinda hoping its not just gonna be one of those things where we eventually just stop caring
Megan: I dunno.....I'm very anti-love...but I dunno what to think....lol

"But I can't think of any explanation". The question was "What is it with me trying to make her happy all the time?"

Love is like n/0 (divide by zero)--it's totally undefined, intangible, and impossible to grasp.

I find that I want to rant really badly right now, because I'm terribly bored.

You know, I swear. I've totally gotten over Glenn poking a little fun at me going out with Megan. Apparantly, Marcie hasn't. Then again, Glenn's really really full of it. XD

It goes like this. We're shopping for clothes and a birthday present for Megan. So I'm looking around, and Marcie sees this pair of black pants with a chain that she really wants. I'm like "Sure, it looks cute," but Glenn's like "Yeah, he's saying that because it reminds him of Megan." And then she leaves it and he keeps talking about "Yeah, it wouldn't look right on you anyways because it reminds him of Megan." At first I really hated it, but recently, I've gotten used to laughing along with it. Because really, I know that he knows it's bullshit, and that he's not totally serious.

Anyways. I got into like, mental block lock with myself trying to figure out what I was gonna get Megan for her birthday. I picked out some earrings with a necklace, but they were $30 and weren't really that good anyways. So I left it. I was looking for some sort of cute/punk/funny t-shirt that'd be cool to give her. So basically, I spent a few hours at Jamestown Mall (which is the total suck of all malls I've ever been to) and only wound up with nothing. I'm really leaning towards the t-shirt now. (Hah, knowing my luck, and Murphy's Law, you're probably reading this before Wednesday.)

Speaking of which, I'm still dead set on going down to Fenton on Wednesday. If I didn't already explain—Thursday's her birthday, and Wednesday, I get out of school two hours early. Glenn's completely fine with me goign down, provided I bring him and he gets a chance to go to SAFT or play some import DDR in her basement. I'm happy with that, because I'm dead paranoid driving by myself.

Um, yeah. I've become more and more impulsive as time goes on. I'm still terribly shy, though. But if I've stalled something for long enough and time is running out, I break it down and go for it. Seriously, let me go over the story from Homecoming night. Here's a snippet from that blog entry I wrote which had fictionalization and poetic license all over it.

It was the end of the night. Homecoming was over, we were coming back to my house after the small afterparty at Marie's. We walked out from my car, and proceeded to the house. I had my arm wrapped around her shoulder. We were halfway there, still in the middle of walking, when I turned her head and gave her a short kiss. Out of nowhere. We didn't even stop walking.

She admitted to wanting to kiss me while at homecoming, and as we were cheek-to-cheek dancing, she'd inch her lips closer to mine then change her mind and back off at the last minute. (I was totally oblivious to this.) I'd been wanting to kiss her for a long time, but haven't found the will to do so, just because there wasn't a right time or place for it.

Walking back to the house, I figured it was the last chance I had to be with her (practically) alone, and I did it out of sheer impulse. All explanation, thought, and logic will never tell you what was going on in my mind and how it seriously came out of almost nowhere. But I can explain why I think I'm acting like this now.

Regrets. Mistakes in the past have haunted me for days or weeks. I really really don't want to fall into a downer for missing an opportunity for something so small. Remember hearing about back in March or April when I met up with Holly in South Carolina? Well, the moment when we were going to leave the park where we were seeing her. When we walked past each other, staring at each other. We both knew we wanted a hug. But noooo, I just walked by, and regretted it for weeks. I think it's best to act on an impulse when you honestly don't know if the other person is gonna react good or bad—if it's not really anything big and they don't like it, you could just apologize and never do it again to them. The reprecussions of not having even tried have been far worse in the past, than what could've been if I did. I really have to thank Holly for that, though.

And thus, I'm thankful for mistakes I've made, and regrets I've had. Without, I wouldn't be the person I am now. I'm also thankful for having things like MSA—I've learned that there really are people out there that are open to unique individuals like myself. With that experience, I've become more open myself, and I've really let myself go in these past few months. I care less what strangers think about me—to define a "good person" is totally subjective. I'm perfectly okay with the way I am—could be better, but I'm alive right now and not totally insane or suicidal. I'm good. There's always something worse. That's one of my personal mantras.

I'm insane as always. And yes, I'm fully aware that I'm becoming more softcore as time goes on. (You heard me, Chris.) Being completely angsty was too depressing. XD

I'm too different from the way I was a month ago. I'm exponentially more different the farther back you go. Just read my blog, and you'll see how I've gotten less angsty. Thing is, I'm still just as rambly and insane, and I'm still contemplating the same things over and over. What's changing are the reasons, opinions, and the results of that contemplation.

Life is weird shit.

It's weird. I have to really think about blogging beforehand nowadays. I don't just randomly get on and start writing like I used to. I have to force my brain into a blogging thought pattern--you know, where it's all coherent, because I can't type when it isn't coherent.

Earlier today, I was getting mentally trapped in memories of yesterday afternoon. It was an unplanned trip, but it was all worth it. Every last moment, every detail that caught me--it's all playing in my head over and over and over..... Sitting, watching Berserk... (How could something like watching Berserk be a sappy moment? Why, the "all-purpose sappy music", that's how.) Playing DDR... Cuddling on the couch after playing DDR... Having to say goodbye...

See, I can't blog this as precisely as I want, because 1) I'm in such a sappy state of mind that it's not safe for me to come out to anyone in detail about it, and 2) because words can't describe it all.

I've been busy tinkering away with self-building my own Firebird build. Mozilla Firebird's a great browser, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's willing to give up IE for something a bit smoother. Compiling my own build makes it run a bit faster on my computer, and it makes sure I've got the most up-to-date stuff... But it's a bit tricky, since I've never even really touched C++ programming, ever. At least I don't really need to know the programming language. Anyways, I've optimized the browser with Pentium-4 stuffs that aren't even supposed to be possible with the compiler program I'm using. I found a workaroudn to the problems I was having, and whee... It's awesome. At least this is keeping my curiousity and attention span for a while. I bet in about 2 weeks, I won't be tinkering anymore, and it'll just be normal for me to automatically build my own builds--I'm already setting up an autobuild script, lol.

I do the most pointless things, I swear.

Anyways, I'm thinking of getting Megan... I dunno. I basically thought too hard about it and screwed every idea I had. So I'll probably end up with getting her a cool t-shirt from Hot Topic or Sam Goody or somewhere; Happy Bunny might work. I dunno. Well, I plan on seeing her on Wednesday already, even though it might not happen--oh well, I'm planning and dying to go anyways. I'll give her her gift and card then. (If not, then on Saturday.) I also plan to maybe, um, call her up on Thursday morning? I know I'm going all-out for this. This week's chock-full of reasons (*ahem* excuses) to go out of my way for her, and see her or stuff. So it's worth it. You know, the fact that making her happy and being around her makes me happy. So yeah.

I've been sidetracked by some fairly good conversation with Chris and Megan. So I'm done here.

Okay, for someone like me who has an overactive mind, with the voice in the head always talking, it's odd sometimes to get quiet moments. Yeah, I'm really big on thinking, but still--my mind goes blank sometimes.

When I cuddle with her, it's like that. You'd normally expect some sort of voice in my head saying some sort of cliche victorious comment like "Score!" or me yelling at myself in my head for every little mistake. But no. There's simply blankness when I'm in one of those moments. I think I'm too busy cherishing everything about it. That's gotta be it. Or, it's gotta do with how heavy emotional situations affect you more emotionally than your brain can logically interpret into normal words and thoughts. You know, you think in words, you think with a voice sorta. But when that voice in your head has a lack of words, you're left with the "feeling". Emotion. Or whatever it is that the brain does when logic and all our evolution boils down back into simplicity.

Um... Yeah. Anyways, blanking of mind sucks total ass, though, when you're really trying to get something done, or when you're just trying to converse.

Then again, when I am cuddling with her, I sometimes talk to myself a bit, but I don't exactly think with a train of thought. It's just conversational in my mind when I do that--"Should I reach out and hold her hand? Wrap my arm around her? Hm. Well, we're sitting here and there isn't anything else to do, and I'm sure she wouldn't mind...." Etc. Basic train of thought, plotting the next move as I go.

Literally, I don't ever plan what I'm gonna say or do really beforehand. It never works because I never remember it, or I change my mind. What I do is, I just plot it on the spot. Since I'm usually such a passive person, and such a perfectionist, acting on impulse shouldn't be natural for me. Well, I seem to pull it off well enough.

It was the end of the night. Homecoming was over, we were coming back to my house after the small afterparty at Marie's. We walked out from my car, and proceeded to the house. I had my arm wrapped around her shoulder. We were halfway there, still in the middle of walking, when I turned her head and gave her a short kiss. Out of nowhere. We didn't even stop walking.

I whispered, "Thanks for coming up and spending the evening with me."

She replied simply, "Thanks for having me."

"Anytime..."

It didn't really hit us until later, what happened. Aye, it caught both of us by surprise: her because she never saw it coming, me because I never thought about doing it until literally the moment I did it. We conversed over it some days later...

"A little longer next time?" she asks me. "So I can realize whats going on before I miss it?" She lets out a small laugh.

I responded, "Sure thing. We kinda were in the middle of walking..."

"Then stop, baka...." A grin.

"Next time, I swear." I smile, and the night continues.

Yeah. I'm in such a wishy-washy rambly mood. Like, I'm even alternating between several different writing styles that I frequently use. BTW--the above conversation is a dramatization of an online convo. Poetic license, I guess. I got bored and decided to do that, spur-of-the-moment.

You know, with all this business of me and Megan seeing each other and cuddling so much, you'd expect us to have our fill of warm moments (like cuddling) to tide us over until the next time we meet. But nooooo. Things don't work that way. I'm bothered even more by the absence of her near me, and I want to see her again even more. I'm guessing she feels the same way, too. We've been steadily seeing each other pretty much every two weeks (or less) since the beginning of August. It's still not fun to have to wait even a week. Time goes by so slowly when you're in anticipation--it's like a law of nature. At least we're fairly consistent with seeing each other; any inconsistencies only shorten the two weeks into a week or so.

Bleah. I really need some fucking sleep. I know it, everyone else in the world knows it.

I stared up at the sky, as I walked down the street. Not a cloud in sight. The stars were as plentiful as they could be in this bright suburban environment. My lucky stars were out tonight. I thanked them, as I turned to see the Jeep driving past, and then I waved goodbye. I quickened my pace and headed to the afterparty with a half-grin on my face.

I'm too tired to give a real good account of it all. I don't really even wanna bother. Just let it be known that I liked Homecoming because the dance ended up being better than I expected, and that I had a good night with Megan. (I hate dances--last one I went to was in 7th or 8th grade.) And let it be known, that prior to this point, I really didn't think it was possible to turn every single song (rap, techno, rap, rap, gangsta rap, and slow dancing music) into a slow dance song. That and the song Sandstorm isn't highly appreciated by the DJs anymore.

In the words of Celebrity Deathmatch, "Good Fight, Good Night."

Two balloons float up into a partly cloudy, starlit sky. I stare in wonder as they float away into forever. The night is done. Long day. I'm home. But looking up at the clouds and stars, I just can't help but think... It would've all been better with her around, wouldn't it? ...Silent, "stare up at the sky" moments like these are moments you have to share with someone special like that, I guess.

Being at the party tonight, it wasn't so bad... For a while. The slow sappy songs really got to me after a while, though. I really started to miss her...

-I'm writing in this dreamy, sappy style on purpose tonight. I feel like flushing my system of it before I sleep.-

Yesterday, I "napped" from like, 6 until 9:30... Then I proceeded to get myself ready for bed and slept from 10:15 until 6:30 in the morning.

Awakening, I could hear the rain, the thunder, the wind. It was gonna be a fun day. I love bad weather, provided it doesn't damage anything--it's so interesting and such a sight to behold. It's almost beautiful--actually to me, it is. It's like a night sky: to some it's dark, dreary, and scary, but to me it's tranquil, peaceful, beautiful, and humbling.

It started with me, rushing out the door to get to school, grabbing my backpack and an umbrella before heading out. My car sat out in the rain. The sunroof leaks. The windows were open. But again, I was rushing out. I made it soaked, all the way to school, before I realized that I hadn't grabbed something. My ID. It didn't make much of a difference except like 5 bucks that I'll pay the school some time later.

I had tests for my first three classes. I did nothing for the other three.

The Pep Assembly was decent. I sat in the senior class section, because I was sitting with some friends. I'll post pics of this, and maybe the party, later.

I came out, ranting to myself about how such an event--to celebrate Homecoming and rally the school behind our football team--was centered around building up tension, competition, and basically hatred between the classes. Heh.

Later, I helped out a bit with the party. Like, I had to run out in the pouring rain, help unload a ton of ice, bring down the cake, and then drive to the florist to buy flowers, and then drive to their house to look for the camera, drive back because I couldn't find it, drive back to the house because I was supposed to look for it, and then drive back without finding it again, only to learn that they had it there the whole time....

I saw a bunch of people I recognized from school, which shouldn't have surprised me, but did. Eh... I'll leave it with this.

Me: Dude.
Me: So I was at this party earlier today.
Me: And....yeah.
Chris: Uh huh.
Chris: Who's party.
Me: You know how like, those situations where you're friends with someone, and you're left with some of their friends?
Me: Oh, a friend of mine. We're practically cousins. Known her since forever.
Chris: Yeah.
Chris: Cool.
Me: Anyway, that akward situation was teh WHOLE party.
Me: I was acquainted with some of the people.
Me: But that only made it worse.
Chris: Why didn't you introduce yourself to them.
Chris: Then like make witty commentary on whatever they were talking about.
Me: It would've been smoother if I didn' tknow them in the first place.
Me: I did.
Chris: At parties where you don't really know anyone.
Chris: You have to be kinda obnoxious and outspoken.
Chris: More of the latter.
Me: lol
Me: Well, I kinda sorta knew some of the people.
Me: Which killed all spirit of doing the outspoken thing.
Chris: Oh whatever
Chris: You're shy by nature, aren't you?
Me: Yeah.
Me: Rediculously.

Tomorrow's Homecoming, much to my...happiness? I dunno. I've been going sorta insane for the past few, just because of it. At least it's here, and I'll be with her, and even though stuff can go wrong, it'll never ruin my inner drive, my inner focus.

"Baby, baby, baby, when all your love is gone, who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world? And maybe, maybe, maybe, you'll find something that's enough to keep you, but if the bright lights don't recieve you, you should turn yourself around and come on home..."
-"Bright Lights", by Matchbox Twenty

A bit from last night, regarding homecoming:

Me: Ther'es still a ton of things I haven't finalized for it yet...
Me: Like actually seeing when they'll give me my outsider ticket... (I'm worried, lol.) And then what to wear... And then dinner....
Me: lol
Me: ^_^
Me: lol, I have the rest of th week to figure it out.
Me: Hm... But a part of me tells me that I'll be saying that until Thursday.
Me: Heh.
Megan: lol, mike-chan, I swear, 1) don't bother with dinner at all 2) Burger King

This morning, I woke up a few minutes late, took a shower fast, and was sitting at the table eating breakfast. I stared at the calendar on the wall across the kitchen. Here's a basic step-by-step example train of thought:

1. Hm... Calendar.
2. Friday.
3. Saturday.
4. Homecoming.....
5. Shit, gotta dress fancy, gotta get everything together, outsider ticket, scheduling, dinner...
6. Dinner--"I swear, 1) don't bother with dinner at all 2) Burger King"
7. Burger king... lol... ^_^
8. *laugh*

For some reason, that random thought this morning put my day off to a good start, although I did wake up late and felt really really tired this morning for some reason. (I didn't sleep late at all.) I let out a chuckle, smiled to myself, and finished breakfast. Just a little thing like that one line, seemed to make the day--or at least the start of it.

Leading me to a current thought. Just a little blurb. You know, you have those nights where you lie in bed sleepless, and it's all dark and tranquil, nothing but the occasional sound of the wind or rain outside. And those mornings where it's all calm and bright, as everything starts to stir. Moments like those are lonely, simply because it's the only times of day I really seem to be cut off from the world, yet moments like those seem so...picturesque? Cliche? Beautiful? Well, so deep, that it's like those moments really have to be shared with someone to get something out of it.

I love it when the sun comes out amidst dark clouds and seems to light the ground up with an almost eerie light. I love sunset. I love the night sky and the stars. And I really seem to love thunderstorms and the dark gloomy clouds; there's something about them that's just awesome. (link: Sky Photos)

Like I said. Little things seem to make life better. Not all the time, but day-in and day-out, there's some human factor in us that makes little things motivate us.

Yay. I'm talking all profound and sappy again. Some days I'm a poet, some days I'm a bitchy pissed off madman, some days I'm just boring. It happens.

It's been forever since I've rambled, eh? Well, I don't seem to have much to say when I'm on the computer, 's all. I've got a ton of deep thoughts that I swear would be perfect for here, except I just don't have that train of thought when I'm here.

Saturday's Homecoming. 4 days. Heh... I'm so screwed. I think that's maybe the one guaranteed thing of this week. ^_^;;

Anyways... I was drawing a bit earlier today, and realized that fleshing out my characters was the thing I needed to write a story first off. So I'm going back to my story-writing, and seeing what that'll get me. It's continually on-going and stuff.

Well, I've been a slacker since.... Well, a few years. And it's been working, solely because my school doesn't seem to give the uber amounts of homework that should really be preparing me for college. Then again, I'm not so sure much of the school is serious about going to a serious academic college or such. Heh. And obviously, I can't do anything to help those in the complete inverse situation--too much work with teachers who absolutely don't care about how much you have.

Memories... I seem to recall old childhood memories in the third person. These are memories where I'm the kid with the ol' bowl cut and stuff. Like, back-in-the-day childhood. I not only see the friends or relatives I was around, but I see myself, through some sort of alternate point of view. Usually, it's some misc. floating point of view like a perfectly placed camera, a la the movies.

Excuse the breakage of train of thought. In the past 20 minutes (it's now 11:21p), I've basically gone back and forth between this and conversing with a bunch of people. Also, it doesn't help that I'm in a restless mood, but the words are really escaping me. I seem to have no short term memory--I can't really remember what I said, 5 seconds after it's typed. And due to the circumstances of conversations, my train of thought shifts VERY fast. Hence, you're getting pieces of various different rambles, all at once.

There appears to be a tradeoff between effort put into school work, and capacity of school work. Too much homework means you can't get enough sleep. The amount of sleep you get, I believe, directly affects your mind's capacity to work during waking hours. Too much effort with too little capacity may help you learn to deal with stress, but the situation itself is a problem. Too little effort also costs a bit down the road, because I believe stress isn't experienced well until later, and a later jump to a higher workload (in college or such) would hurt. Aye.

Tired... Testing out Dreamweaver for some easier WYSIWYG posting of the blog, just because sometimes I'm too lazy to go and do it by hand. Mmmhmm.

Blah. Off to nap for a few hours.

I seem to be living in my own world, apart from everyone else's. Not just in a mental/emotional sense, but in a much larger, profound sense.

Everyone lives and grows up differently. But I'm just now realizing how charmed my life's been in too many ways. I take too much for granted. What I complain about, some people would actually wish to have a piece of.

Take school for example. I complain that I can sleep in half my classes and pull straight A's, getting a weighted 4.167 GPA. I complain that my classes are so boring that that's why I fall asleep. I spoke of wanting more work, but I've heard from more than a handful of people (MSAers and random people I know online) that they wished they had more of my position.

I hate to admit it, but I always seem to never be in a position to complain. (As much as I do, it's hard to figure out.) Whenever I seem to, someone else always seems to make one little note about a problem of theirs that, in my eyes, massively out-does mine.

Posted on http://www.diabloii.net: (article link)

"It seems video games and their effects on the young is under scrutiny by Miami attorney Jack Thompson again, after two teenagers open fired on traffic with a rifle killing a man and badly injuring a woman. It's claimed they were acting out Rockstar's Action title Grand Theft Auto. GTA iss a fairly gory title, hence the Mature 17+ rating slapped on by ESRB. Interestingly, this news brings to light another case he appears to be preparing to fight. That of a 14 year old boy who stabbed his aunt to death just hours after playing Diablo. Mr Thompson feels that connection is 'hugely significant', even though it looks as if the child could have been sleepwalking at the time.

"You can follow Mr Thompson's efforts on his site, stopkill, here. Thanks to Mark Philip Rennie for the story alert."

Hah. I even went over to browse a bit of stopkill.com. "Its purpose now is to give you the means to contact Miami attorney Jack Thompson if you know of someone harmed by violent entertainment, including video games."

Aww, man. I think I need to turn in my dad's brother's daughter's boyfriend's uncle's 5 year old neice, who stabbed someone with scissors 10 minutes after playing "rock paper scissors".

That site's a bunch of beaurocratic bullshit. "Entertainment giant Sony has recently announced that it will not distribute these murder simulation games to Japanese children, but such games are "appropriate" for American and European kids. Isn't that nice?" Anyone ever think of "target audiences"? GTA was built to appeal to American audiences. Obviously, I have a bone to pick against Jack Thompson now. He's on my "list", as they say. Oh man, time to whip out the Halo to practice my sniping.

I'm rethinking the blog thing here. Gonna go back to that thing where I don't ramble so much and start writing about what's going on, because I mean, I have my thoughts written down, but I don't really have a record of the shit that's happening to me.

I said I wasn't gonna keep this thing anymore...and I really don't think I am...the whole concept is stupid really...broadcasting my thoughts and feelings on the internet, not like anyone reads them anyway.

Mmmm! I've thought like that, many a day. But I'm far too bored, and my mind races in random directions all the time. And I've actually developed a liking to write shit down. I can think in my head "shit shit shit, fuck blah blah" and when I type it down, it's even more insane and obnoxious. Also, there's those ramblings that do seem to make sense and logic and stuff.

I wrote a long rambling for 45 minutes, and then accidentally lost it. So I said "screw this" and I'll write about that later.

Fuck. I just now realized the implications of starting to post to blog again. I have to hold my thoughts back, yet again, because I'll end up angering people in the end. Or because there's something personal, not only about me, but about someone else, that they probably didn't want revealed to the rest of the world. Fuck fuck fuck... I don't want to go back and bother to edit posts again. Just a few quick edits.

If you find something in here that you didn't appreciate me mentioning, let me know. I hate it when other people talk behind my back as well. The intention of this blog isn't to talk behind people's backs or hurt them or reveal something secret about them. It's to show me and my faults, not theirs. If you see a problem with that, you know... ASAP.

Really, it's Sep.13 already. I'm writing this up as a late supplement.

I've not been blogging, because of a written journal I've started keeping. I'd love to end up uploading it, just not now. I've got a 60mb PDF file of it all scanned already. I don't feel like transcribing it all, though. Here's a couple good ones, though:

Sep.02.2003 10:54p

We know we're both thinking and sounding different now. It was weird when we both admitted it. We're not the love-ish romantic types, for sure.

Well, I've been under the weather with a little sore throat. Hoping to see the sun come out soon.

Still, to this moment, I'd rather be back there on Saturday. Right now, nothing to that point mattered as much, and not much after has. I think I've found a sort of significance to life.

It's gotten sooo old after telling everyone about Saturday. I almost forget the feeling. Then, I take a time out, imagine her in my arms, holding hands, talking in that dimly-lit gazebo.

It's so sappy it can't be me. You can't say it without sounding that way. It's like... At that moment, there was this comfortability and warmth all mixed with uncertainty and general shyiness or fear. At the Botanical Gardens--how much more romantic does it get?

Saturday, September 13. Septemberfest at my school. I already planned for it. Now I'm torn. We want to meet up with each other again.

Flipping through the MSA Notebook/Journal, I realized just now, how much I've written about love and why I write. Recap:

July 8, 10pm

• "It's less of a public log of "what I'm doing" as much as a public showing of a private journal. Kurt Cobain's journal, Hitler's Mein Kampf, etc... They're all quite popular. If I ever impact the world years from now, will it matter to people what I was thinking about some dark, dreary evening? I don't care. My dad has a terrible memory of stuff earlier in the week. I wanna keep thoughts for posterity."

July 10, 12:41a

• "(I've had 2 bottles of beer, and I should really be going to sleep right now.)

  "Love, I say, should be looked at vageuly. Not in solely the "love at first sight" sense or the romantic "true love" sense, but different levels of love, like caring for someone/something or being emotionally attached to someone/something."

July 12, 11pm

• "Once again, let me say: I'm a dreamer. Even on short 30min car trips, I find myself zoning out and contemplating deeper things. (Most obvious example: love.)

  "Haven't experienced it, haven't really seen "true love", but I think the world needs more of this thing called "love". Does it even exist? How is it defined?"

July 31, 8:49am

• "Anyway, love for me became these simple things. It's on a basic level, but I think it counts.
  1. Being comfortable around the person.
  2. Respect and a liking for the person.
  3. Mutual caring or commitment to each other. (i.e. the needs/services relationship system) Or, a wanting of each other. This caring is defined only by your own situation and yourselves. "Care" is defined by yourself--it's a terribly subjective word.
  4. The relationship isn't instant. It's harbored over time. If it's right, it gets better over time, like wine.
  "After figuring that, love doesn't seem so deep and mysterious, really. It's a lot of comfortability, confidence, respect, needs/wants/care, and personality..."

August 2, 2am

• "This comes from someone who hasn't had a real "boyfriend/girlfriend" relationship, ever. But I've observed enough, felt enough, heard enough, and thought enough about it, that I'm at least guessing. A bunch of my closest friends don't believe in love--zip, nada, zilch, zero, nothing. Some of them are even completely closing themselves off from even the chance that it exists. "It doesn't exist, I don't ever believe it'll happen, and I won't ever give into it (if it does)." On the other hand, I've got a friend who, over the summer whilst I was gone, found someone perfect for him, completely turning his life around. He's moving away pretty soon, and the thing just completey perfected his life...."

August 7, 3am

• From the movie, "Adaptation":
  • "You are what you love. Not what loves you."
  "It's so awesome, brilliant, simple, and right. Think about it for a while. You know the kind of thing where people keep apologizing for some mistake or shortcoming, a mistake or such that you didn't even notice until it was brought up? Or where you try your hardest to be helpful and friendly, but no one pays any attention to it, and then finally someone tells you that they like what you're doing? If you keep on going on doing what you like/love, and just follow your own path, someone, I believe, should be out there that will appreciate it..."

Pure irony, that the more I thought of it, the more I never believed I'd have something like it at this point in my life. Right now, I'm matching my definition of love, to what I've been thinking as of late, to Merriam-Webster's definition...

My Definition on July 31

1. Being comfortable around the person.
2. Respect and a liking for the person.
3. Mutual caring or commitment to each other. (i.e. the needs/services relationship system) Or, a wanting of each other. This caring is defined only by your own situation and yourselves. "Care" is defined by yourself--it's a terribly subjective word.
4. The relationship isn't instant. It's harbored over time. If it's right, it gets better over time, like wine.

Merriam-Webster's Definition (only related ones):

(as a noun)

1. (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties "maternal love for a child" (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests "love for his old schoolmates"
2. warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion "love of the sea"
3. the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration "baseball was his first love"
4. unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others

(as a verb)

1. to hold dear : CHERISH
2. a : to feel a lover's passion, devotion, or tenderness for b (1) : CARESS (2) : to fondle amorously (3) : to copulate with
3. to like or desire actively : take pleasure in "loved to play the violin"
4. to thrive in "the rose loves sunlight"

I haven't blogged or at least typed up thoughts in forever, so here's a chance to start something anew.

I can't sleep. I don't want to as long as I've got these thoughts in my head and an opportunity to do something with it.

I'm always concerned for her, because she's stressed and frustrated about school. I've got it so damn easy, that I also feel guilty that I can't say or do much to make her feel better, except for generalized statements or distractions from work. She's concerned for me because I'm the one that's driving, and it's all me and my family doing the work at the moment. She's guilty because she can't do anything about it at the moment, and she's concerned because of the risks involved with me driving down I-270 every weekend or so. And her parents won't drive her as often as my parents will.

She broke up with Andy, with little fanfare. (Except a little joking around from her friend Matt.) So we're kinda officially together now, I guess. I still can't believe that I'm the cause of this situation. Even though deep in my mind, I think I probably liked her first. Let's play upon that note.

Back at MSA, at the Alumni Day Dance, she was all excited to have Andy around and spend time with him. I let her have her time, and I was pretty contentious and respectful of them, I guess. Part of me was jealous or something. It's that part that envies someone who has something you want but can't have. Some sort of random thing struck my heart that night.

Later that week, we had the night under the rain, if I remember correctly. (Might have been the prior week.) Megan said she liked me kinda throughout MSA, but that was the one moment when it hit her, and she realized she liked me. I don't know when it hit me. But somehow, it only glazed the surface of me, and I avoided it as much as I could. I ended up liking her as a friend at the end of MSA, and we promised we'd keep in touch.

Boomba hey, a month and such later. Pre-reunion. I randomly brought up the idea that I could carpool some of us down to Columbia, because it'd be fun and conservative. Oh sure, we joked around about how she'd cuddle on my shoulder and whatnot. But that night, when she laid her head down on my shoulder and slept, and held my arm like a pillow of sorts.... Aye, that has to be probably the moment that it hit me that I liked her. She even recalls little things from that night, like how Kenny wanted to wake her up to call home because we were almost at the Zoo, and I was like "Nah, give her a little longer." She wasn't that asleep after all, eh? It's really odd because I didn't really think anything of it and forgot about it, until I spoke about that night with her. I really don't think anything of my politeness and caring kindness stuff; it's who I am, and I really don't notice, because on most occasions, I don't really go out of my way to do it.

The below two entries are a couple ramblings I posted on the MSA03 messageboards. I basically put them up when I didn't have a blog anymore. (Because the site was down.) It was completely random, and I regretted writing these up the day after I wrote them. But, I got a ton of positive feedback from them, which was really cool. That's all I've ever wanted from my blog. And I'm happy to say, the same effect was had through doing this over messageboard posts. A lot of reading is ahead. But already I can tell you that some people enjoyed these writings, so it may or may not be worth it.

Written August 10, on the MSA03 messageboard.

In my blog, I've written about this maybe once or twice. (My blog went offline a while ago, because the site went down. I don't have a permanent host so it's down, except for this little temporary setup.) It's been at the back of my head this entire year, though. Let's begin.

This is pretty personal, so some of you might not give a crap. Who cares? I feel like rambling. Some of you here might be exactly like me, some of you might be even less social, and some of you might be on the opposite end of the spectrum from me.

I'm not very social. Basically, I was traditionally one of those people that only talked to people that had a lot in common with me, or people I'd known for a long long time. Not really socializing with the rest, but interacting whenever I had to in class. Not a true "loner" in the sense of the word, but just isolating myself sorta.

Not many official extracirriculars. I mean, I did great schoolwork, but if I were to file a college application at the beginning of sophomore year, I dunno what the hell would be on it.

Never had a girlfriend in "official" terms. I mean, even at this point, the word for "friend" was sorta like, acquaintances I was comfortable with.

Well, I make it sound really bad because it's not my way of thinking anymore, so I can't really even relate to it. What I can say is that I was comfortable with it. Just kinda, empty, I guess. Told you I was a dreamer.

Anyway. My cousin and I were kinda in the same boat. We had a lot of _online_ friends, but we were damn sure that wasn't the same thing. I'd had some real good friends to back that up. Every time I was depressed, he'd somehow find some way his life was worse. Except for the fact that we were both non-social. Not "anti social"; that's two different things. Anti-social is being against it, and not wanting it completely. Non-social, to me, is being "kinda sorta, but not very much."

In pissed emails to me, my cousin always told me my life was better than his in every way. At one point I tricked myself into believing that. But there were some parts of my psyche that were depressed. Crap, I played video games, watched TV, and got on the computer 95% of my freetime.

Once again, that's exaggeration, because my memory's so darn crappy, and because I can't relate to my old ways of thinking. XD

My cousin. His life sucked. He was sorta depressed part of the time. We kept each other sane, but I didn't want to end up like him. I had to get my life into shape.

My coming out of the shell mostly started sophomore year--this past school year. Let me run through the fall-winter stuff:

• I got my hair spikey for the first time on September 11, 2002. This was the first time I'd ever had my hair different in my whole life. I'd had the bowl cut or sorta parted bowl cut since forever. My hair kinda got bouncy/fuzzy/curly though, in the past year before I did this.
• Started transitioning into my now-usual style of cargo pants and black, dark blue, or grey t-shirts. In September, I even wore various neckties "Avril Lavigne" style. Screw you all, Gwen Stefani was the first major artist to do it, and years ago, I might add.
• Started getting into some extracirriculars.

Anyway, in December, I was doing okay. I live the Fall and Winter months with the blues mostly, because it's just the mood of the weather. There's something about being dark, moody, and alone that helps you find yourself, I guess. In a trip to Atlanta, I met the daughter of a friend of my dad's. She was pretty outgoing-ish, I guess. Didn't get to know her very well, but we really clicked fast, and that's something I'd never had happen socially. But it was a feeling I liked. I'll run through this point again later.

New Years. My dad and I drove back from Atlanta on New Year's Eve. We didn't get home until 11:30pm. I was in the car, somewhere in Kentucky or Illinois, on the phone with cousins on the east coast when it went down there. 2003: I wanted to get my life straightened out socially, and get my future and goals sorted out.

Funny that in December, a really beautiful song struck me randomly. "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence. You've all heard it by now. But in December and January, they were really relatively unknown still. In more recent months, this song became my theme for this subject.

February-March, buy tickets to the Evanescence and Linkin Park concerts. I bring my best friend to the Evanescence concert. He's even less outgoing as me. Whereas I e-mail, post on messageboards, chat, and IM with people online, he's gaming. All the time. Very little interaction with actual people. I really thought I should drag him along because it'd be cool for the both of us. This was probably one of the bigger social things I've done at random.

I had the guts to apply for NHS and I got in. Also, whilst all this was happening (from December up until this point) I also applied for MSA. And I had the GPML Math Competitions I was doing. (I made it to state at the last regional meet by some miracle, and also got into NHS and MSA the same week as state. Miracles, dumb luck, or I'm really that smart and I don't know.) The GPML was one of less than a handful of extracirricular activities my school had that would be good for my intellectual-ness.

During Spring Break, my family went down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I got a chance to hook up with an online friend of mine. Yes indeed, I had the guts to meet someone I met online, in person. We'd known each other for about a year. She's about a year younger than me. Our families have too much in common. It was cool for us and our parents. My cousin was saying "I hope you just stand around, not talking, and have this akward moment like that." On leaving, there was this akward moment where we were on our way to our cars, and she and I kinda looked at each other, and walked past each other really slowly. It was one of those TERRIBLY CLICHE things in movies where you hear the mental voice over going "hug her" and she's going "hug him" and stuff. We didn't. We walked by, got into our cars, said final goodbyes, and left.

That feeling of having really clicked with someone. That's one of the feelings I learned to love. It feels like the idea of "soulmate" except taken down to a step of "good friend". Just having enough in common to get along quickly, or learning to get along quickly with each other. Part of that has to do with attitude, part of that has to do with how you think. Me being the person I am, I haven't had a lot of luck with that personally, at my school. I told you my school sucks. XD

At this point. My social life was a lot better. Two rock concerts, got to road trip to meet a friend from online, did a ton of stuff... Yeah, I think I was doing successful. My cousin on the other hand hadn't improved his life very much. My cousin blamed himself for me not hugging the friend, when I met her, even though he talked trash about an akward moment. He really envied the way I improved my life. Lemme quote this e-mail that's months old; he told me not to ever quote it, but he's forgiven me since anyway.

>The thing I hate about you most is your ability to completely change your life around.
>Your ability to commit to a singular task and follow through with it.
>Your ability to motivate yourself to accomplish your asinine goals.
>The fact that I'm the one who sparked this change in you.
>The fact that I'm the one who made you change your life for the better.
>The fact that everything's working out for you. In almost every sense.
etc.

Fine. I didn't want to end up like him, so I started changing my outwardness(?) or my something. (God, my train of thought sucks right now.) But what really inspired my change was that one person I'd met in Atlanta that I got along with quickly. Something like that. It almost felt like love, but I didn't know what love was.

Since that point, I've gone to MSA. I didn't talk to any other MSAers before then except for Amir from my school.

At MSA, everything went SO FAST. But, I realized my non-socialness was due to a fact that the majority of people around me were so ignorant of my positive attributes, and partially because I didn't do the same for them. Having a lot of people with a lot in common with you, and living pretty isolated from the outside world for a few weeks puts things into perspective.

Blah. I got sidetracked watching K-19, and IMing friends online whilst writing this. Well, I mentioned BMTL earlier, and I think I'll quote parts and verses that I think make it pefect as my theme for finding a new social foothold in the world.

"...Leading you down into my core
where I've become so numb without a soul
my spirit sleeping somewhere cold
until you find it there and lead it back home"

"wake me up inside
wake me up inside
call my name and save me from the dark
bid my blood to run
before I come undone
save me from the nothing I've become"

"all this time I can't believe I couldn't see
kept in the dark but you were there in front of me
i've been sleeping a thousand years it seems
got to open my eyes to everything
without a thought, without a voice, without a soul
don't let me die here
there must be something more
bring me to life"

Blah. I quote that too much. It used to be cooler when no one had heard of Evanescence or the song before.

Written on July 15, on the MSA03 messageboard.

For the past month or so, I've been keeping a journal, because I used to blog before MSA, but I've been at MSA and traveling recently. Um. Yeah.

Anyway, I wrote a little thing about love.

I know it's as debatable as religion. It's got the same flawed logic of blind faith. But it's my blind faith.

I'm not gonna quote that entire journal thing, just kinda make key points and sum it up. I kinda wrote it up one night after having a couple beers, and playing Diablo 2 for a while. Was in bed, bored, had nothing else to do, so I started writing, and eventually out came this pretty coherent thing. (Ramblings usually end up like that for me. Usually, not always.)

I say I'm a dreamer. A realistic thinker, who yet dreams of some other deeper thoughts.

In the journal, I say, "Love should be looked at vaguely. Not in solely the 'love at first sight' sense or the 'true love' sense, but love like caring for something/someone or being emotionally attached to something/someone."

1. "In any game or sport. If you get on the court/field or in the game, and in the course of the event, you suddenly act like a different person, full of rage, power, energy, vigor, or what have you, that is a general level of love for the game or the team or yourself."
2. "If there's an object that when you see it, some memory or thought of significance comes to mind, or that when you're supposed to, you can't bear to part with it, you have love for the object or the thing(s) you associate with it."
3. "People in the case of number 2. People who affect you so deeply that you would be deeply changed and troubled if something grave happened to them. For family or long time acquaintances, it's mainly grown from unconditional love."
4. "Groups of people in the #3 sense. You can love a group of people as a single entity. Like a sports team. A class. A group of friends. (Your house. MSA people in general. ^^)"

I kinda slept on it after that, and started up writing a couple days after.

"Haven't experienced true love. Haven't really seen it. I think we as a world need it. But does it even exist?

"I know I love my family. That's unconditional. I love the comedy and company of my friends. That's somewhat attributed to social need and appreciation.

"But it's weird when I look for that true relationship thing. I haven't even seen it exist with my own eyes. It's probably one of those impossibly hard to observe physical phenomena like black hole hawking radiation or something. ^^''''

"This is the teenage point where I'm not sure about my feelings for some people. But I'm contemplating it constantly, trying to make sense of things."

I'll cut it off there. Eh.... Damn. Now that I look back on it, writing out contemplations makes me sound WAYYY too scientific or something.

My best friend says he doesn't believe in love. But I dunno. He's way to scientific/logical/robotic or something. It's hard to explain. To me, he lacks "heart". His enthusiasm feels off. He's not very social for simply being social. He sleeps 3-6 hours a day, but seems to have more awakenness than everyone else. He uses almost all of his freetime on MUD channels around the net. He's way stubborn, and "whatever" is his main reply to a lot of criticism. He's trying to be an artist, and his drawings are great technical-wise, but the real human feel of it isn't there. (He won't ever show me a sketch, even though I tell him that in most cases, lines when you're sketching are smoother than drawing it straight out.)

He promised himself he'd never get married. Partly because he's going to be a neurosurgeon and spend a lot of time on that, but the other reason is that he "doesn't want to spend money on anyone else" and he says he'll use the extra cash on video and computer games. Wonderful.

I dunno. I want to do something significant with my life. Leave a mark somewhere in history, or touch some lives, or just go find myself some frontiers to explore. Or at least I want to feel like I've done _something_ rather than just be born->live->work->die, with nothing to show for a whole life. I'm rediculously woozy now, and it's 3:20am. I want something deeper. Is all.

My personal theme song for this year has been Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life", although the massive radio play makes me tire of the song. The general premise of the song still hasn't faded, though. I like the lyrics. I won't paste 'em all here, because 1) I'm tired, and 2) this is long enough. I associated my New Years Resolution of improving my life, particularly my social life, with that song. I associate songs with stuff. And it's still fitting perfectly.

Don't let me die here. There must be something more. Bring me to life.

Now I sleep. For like 15 hours.

Completely overhauled site code for ease of updating, ease of use, and for smaller filesizes. Uses a lot more CSS. Main page and the blog page are done, but the rest have some stuff to work out.

Um. Screw automated blogs for now. This is where it's gonna be at.

Notebook entries coming later. I'm lacking so much sleep right now to do this.

On the car trip home, I said that "no matter what you hear or see about it, you'll never really comprehend the academy in entirety." My part of this game is trying to bring that understanding and bring those lessons learned to my world.

Let me quote my AIM away message and Ayn's AIM away message to close this short thing out for now.

Mine:

I'm 3 weeks behind on sleep.
Leave me be. I'm 200 miles from those small dorms,
back to my own comfy bed, and what should be
considered normal.

Home is where the heart is. Part of me says I left it
200 miles away.

Ayn's:

Sleeping, dreaming of tiny dorm rooms, all the food you could ever want, and all the friends you could ever need. Don't wake me.

Eh? Over already? WTF happened to the time?

Pics here.

Beginning to type up my notebook entries. All entries between Jun16 and Jun29 are assumed to be notebook entries.

I'm sitting here, writing on my notebook, at a loss of words. Bleh. I have a ton of pics that'd tell a much better story. I think I'll call Marcie, who's with some relatives here in Columbia.

Have a bit of free time right now, so I'm just lounging around and chilling in my room for now. Group meeting's at 1:50.

I'll start by saying that this place makes you break from the norm. It's actually the best experience I've ever had in my life. We're the crowning joy of the Missoury Department of Education. I'll also say I already hate it for the sole reason it has to end, and I have to go back to my regular school when it's done.

I've met a lot of new people, made a ton of close friends, and re-kindled some old acquaintences. I'll start with the latter of the bunch.

I used to live in Columbia years ago. Went to an elementary school here in Columbia until the end of second grade, when I moved to STL. That was what--8 years ago? Well, a guy I knew a while ago as a best friend is here at MSA.

Bah. Time's been creeping up on me. I took a few video panorama shots of my room as a mini-tour of my dorm stuffs. And I got a good # of pics. I'll have 'em whenever I can upload 'em.

So I haven't gathered thoughts in a while. What now? MSA is one of the best experiences ever to change a person. I don't want to get into that right now, though. Well, not many details at least.

Monday morning, I'm walking to my minor for the first time, and I'm bitching about how I want to find people who play DDR. I'm obviously pissed, and I already swearing about it. This one girl, Megan, overhears me and tells me she plays DDR and such. Coincidentally, I later find out she's in my minor. Major irony of situation.

---end, incomplete (lights out; sleep)---

Don't have much to say. Well, rather, it's I have a ton of stuff to talk about, but don't have the time or don't feel like covering it all. Maybe I'll go and do that later. Here's some stuff.

Right now, I'm in the Engineering Building West (EBW), doing a Computer Club quick beginner lesson for Visual Basic. Sneaking in time to write in this in the middle of things, too.

Yeah. I've been horribly busy with crap, that it feels like I've been here for like 4 days. Not joking. And, I went yesterday and today with like 4 hours of sleep each. This place is run off of adrenaline and caffeine. And there's some pretty decent food. (plentiful, too.)

I know there's stuff I could be doing besides MSA, but for now, it's cool. I know there's at least 5 DDR players here. I'm planning to go to Brady whenever I'm not doing activities like this (the Computer Club thing) or doing anything at all.

I've lost track of time. I'm gonna close this up, and I'll probably put up some stuff like schedule information and pictures later. The schedules are different every day. It's so random. You don't know what activites take place until the night before, when they tell you. I love the element of surprise and stuff. Anyway, I'm outta here.

Naturally, I have the best of luck. Jon, of Avidgamers decided to finally update the Avidgamers2.0 Beta, which I run the blog under. Meaning to say, the entire site was rendered unusable in an instan. Meaning to say, I had to spend an entire night setting up a temporary plain-html version of the site for me to use as I please when I'm gone.

And obviously, it's bad timing as I leave in about 28 hours or so, for Columbia, when I'll be at the MSA and whatnot. I'm part stoked, part worried, part confused. lol. I haven't e-mailed my roommate, so it's all up to the element of surprise, as I've been saying. If you feel like keeping track of me while I'm gone, then feel free. It's easier just to skim the quick stats every once in a while, than to read up every single time. But, reading up gets you a much better picture. =)

I'm off to some party tomorrow afternoon, because I owe a couple people for putting their signatures on some papers that got me into NHS. And then finish double/triple checking my gear for packing. It's practically 3am now. Hell, and ironically I'm hearing that Matchbox Twenty song right now, because I happen to have that CD in. Later. Wish me luck. Godspeed. Auf wiedersehen. Goodbye. Later. I already said that.

How do you combine elements of Jhonen Vasquez, Professor Membrane, Terry from Batman Beyond, and Cale and Korso from Titan A.E.? I'll tell you when I find out.

Life's been good, just to let you know.

I've been very much busy since last update. Haven't had a regular weekend since before Spring Break. Been tired and busy and tired of being busy. This four-day weekend REALLY helped me get myself back together.

Just printed like 10 pages of images from Titan A.E., Batman Beyond, and Invader Zim (and other Jhonen Vasquez works) for some messing around with art.

I've got a new computer coming by the month's end. I'm looking for something to put the HyperThreading 3.06GHz P4 processor to use. More specifically, Photoshop with an actual need for power with badass art and whatnot.

This post's a quicky. I don't wanna post 10 pages today.

Busy with work, rather. Not work work, but things to do, actually. Yesh. I think I've got that cleared up nicely.

Haven't had a regular weekend since before Spring Break.

Let's see... When was last blog post? The 2nd? That was... Hm... Wednesday... So it's been a week.

I was out on Thursday also. I was gonna go to school, but decided it'd be better if I got all my make-up work done then, just to be on the safer side. And it worked. All ready Friday, and I'm all good.

Saturday... Was bleh. Spent the morning working at a soup kitchen in the ghetto for community service. Got lost on the way home, because the other group we were following decided to take a food stop. Well, not lost, but... We took the long long way, at least. Hey, at least I'm back.

Standardized testing this week and next.

I made Honor Society.

I made it into the Missour Scholar's Academy.

I've been on a roll. The worst part is, I'm starting to get exausted, partly. This weekend I'm heading to Columbia, Missouri, to Rock Bridge High School, for the GPML State Finals. (Yeah, I made state, too.) Rock Bridge... I'd be going there if I didn't move to St. Louis in '96. Or was that '95?

Anyway. Every time one of those good things happened to me, I could only remember one thing. Something CHris e-mailed to me. (He'll hate me for this one.) SOme angry shit about how I'm perfect and whatnot.

There was this one line that went something like "I hate how everything is going your way, in almost every sense."

All my life, I've never thought of myself as the best of the best. Sure I'm great, but I'm not at the top. There's tons better than me. But the longer I've gone on, the reasons have become more like excuses. I've been saying that I'm not really that good, and it's just because the rest of my school's stupid. The fact that I'm being compared to idiots. But seriously. It's been coming upon me that I might actually be as good as they say. Which means Chris is right. And that I'm starting to lose whatever clarity I have about myself.

I know I'm smart. (My IQ test in December said 134.) Mostly, that hasn't meant a lot to me. Until I realized how much smarter and faster than everyone else I was...

At least the future's gotten a bit more focused for me. I'm looking forward to some sort of spiffyness in my future years. I'm actually even hoping to join the Air Force Academy. The requirements are crazy. But I'm already halfway there. What I need now is to get myself fit as hell.

Actually, what I need right now is a good rest. I can't do it this weekend because of State. Maybe next. It's a 4-day Easter weekend anyway.

Holy shit. I'm going to state. I need to rest. I've already been overloaded with Math with this MAP (Missouri Assessment Program) standardized testing. Wish me luck. I'm probably not gonna update for another long while. (You know, until I find something else to rant about, or until I find that I haven't updated in a week.)

Stayed home sick yesterday and today. I've gotta do some make-up work, and my head's currently pounding, but at least I didn't have to go through school with this headache, and I got to sit here and work on personal projects (like this site) all day.

Did some updating on site, did some other stuff, watched some TV.

It's supposed to be 85 degrees outside today, at the peak of the afternoon. I don't like temperatures higher than 70. At all. I'm a cold weather person. 1, because my allergies turn on when Spring/Summer is around, and 2, because I simply like it better cold. And whatnot.

I think I'll lie down some today. And then get to that work I need to make up. Bleh.

Anyway. I'm loving the concept of this site. It's weird. When I know I'm supposed to be saying something cool, I can't. When I'm lying in bed, trying to sleep, or in the shower, standing half-awake, it's _then_ when I get those moments where I suddenly come up with something good to write about. And then I lose it by the time I wake up or by the time I'm all dried up. Go Figure.

Profile's currently being worked on. Also, I'm adding tons of articles from school, just to show you my inconsistent style. I'm lazy. I only do as much as needed to get across an A. I never really do anything cool unless it's free-form, or I can't think of anything that gets me a 100% with the least amount of work. And that's where the "Moi" writing came from. It's linked to from inside the profile page.

I'll come up with witty shit to say later. My birthday's March 7. I'm getting my license. I'm hopefully getting the Evanescence CD on March 4, when there's no school. And then hopefully going to their concert March 9. It's a REALLY sick week for me. ^^

One word:
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The former home of my blog, for 5 minutes. I still plan on putting up some old writings up on this thing. And then putting up writings as I make them. There's an idea.

I could rant like hell at the moment, if I wasn't so tired, if my hands didn't hurt, if my eyes didn't hurt, and if it wasn't past 3am.

The second day of the new semester. I'd been so high on life and anxious to get back into a social swing of things, that I'd forgotten why I'd considered myself a loner for such a time. No, no, I know, I need a better social life, and Chris and I both decided it was the lack of a "best friend" of sorts I had. I decided I'd work on a better social life for the new year, but already I'm finding myself being controlled and shaped by the shyiness and inhibition within me.

There's the matter of prejudice, which until now, I'd almost completely forgotten. It's the way I fucking look, or my social background, isn't it? There's this Justin character at my lunch shift this semester, who (even though it's been just two days) basically fucks around with myself and the others I hang with at lunch, by sarcastically talking about gaming, (in the nerdy fashion) and "let's be best friends," or some bullshit like that. It's in his voice: he's fucking with us, and he's mocking us. There's is no proof against it.

I'm far too self-concious. WHich could be good, considering, I didn't start a fight with that Justin just yet. But, I never speak my mind in the open, unless I have a mental game plan. I don't act like someone else really, I just hold the "real" me in. Chris considers this: if both of us had a comple glasses of wine, we'd both be loosned of our inhibitions and still be sober enough to stick around and be level-headed with our own opinions. I wish I could do this, because right now, I'm beginning to feel empty.

It's like I said: lack of best friend (or girlfriend, which I initially thought). Probably both. At my age, I'm already becoming more independent from my family. But that adds to the problem of me having been a family kid my whole life, and not getting really "out" for quite a bit in my life. I really need someone to spill my guts on. To simply talk about whatever I want to talk about. And there's that thing called love. I dunno. I just feel like I really don't have anyone who understands me or cares for me, at that. Right now, the lyrics of "My December" ring clear to my soul.

"And I'd give it all away // just to have somewhere to go to // give it all away // to have someone to come home to."

How do I know my inhibitions are killing me? Because I felt life without it. Met a friend I didn't feel inhibitions with. Nothing to fear from messing up, knowing I couldn't. As in Avril Lavigne's "Naked," "the walls just disappeared." We clicked so fast, and it was great. And that's why I was high on life. Before I came back.

IMO, school is harder than the real world. You have the same 2700+ other people around you for a few years. (My school's probably largest or second largest in the state. I figure about 900 people per grade. I don't figure graduations, however. It's still 2700 people technically.) You can't fuck up. Whereas in the outside world, you have strangers who you'll never see again, a hundred, maybe a few hundred or more who'll see you at least once a week, and then the small group you see or interact with all the time. Perhaps it's similar to school, but the "strangers" are the same people for 4 years; not a "I'll never see these people again, who cares" group. And people are stupider where I go to. That makes the difference, too, when you've got an IQ of 134, and you're damn sure that no one at your grade level at your school matches that. Damn sure.

After writing this far, I feel much better and less stressed than I used to. But I still miss that "one person who clicked with me" and the fact that regardless of my attitude, life must move on. I still hink I need that someone to talk to, that'll at least listen and try to understand. Rather than writing this here. I'd be so much cooler if I could just go speak my mind without thinking twice about it beforehand. Emotions swell within me. I just wish someone out there listens to me, or reads this, and sees where I'm coming from, and at least says something. I think I might be going insane.