...

nobody loves me {like i want to be loved}... it's all a lie. coming to terms with it.

a charlie brown story

i meant for this to go in the last post but i conveniently forgot when it came time to write it. lately its felt as though life were a lot like a charlie brown story. ignored or mistreated by nearly everyone - however true or untrue that may be - but quietly floating on. i have more hair, at least. not only that, but i'm in love with a red-haired girl. she doesn't know i exist and i'm ok with that. it's enough for me just to see her around. i first caught sight of her at a frisbee party out off polo road one night, all dressed up in blue for a keg race. i was standing quietly with a group of friends when she came in with some of hers, all smiles and ready for a good drunk. deep red hair with a nice curl and a lillywhite face. i don't think i spoke to her, that night or since. she was in the pit a couple nights ago in a green top and white skirt covered in yellow printed flowers. she moved with such grace and reserve, not bubbly but perfectly content and confident. she sat alone but i knew she wouldn't be that way for long. maybe someday i'll speak to her but right now i just don't have the urge. i've had beautiful girls and lost them {tongue-in-cheek i guess} and i'm content to let her continue on unscarred for a while. probably forever if she's lucky ;)

for now i'm hanging out in some random strip mall sports bar off stratford, having made a quick exit from a freeroll poker tournament i got talked into attending. the other 3/4 of the group is still in. better them, i guess... i have work to do. this is interesting, as i don't hang out in bars much. really no use to when you're underaged, though. it's one of those places with alcoholic neon signs hanging all over the walls, smoky but not unpleasant. i don't mind a little smoke, though. miller and coors light banners traverse the middle of the room, hanging from the rafters. ther's no ceiling, really, just an aluminum roof a foot-and-a-half above the crisscrossing rafters, wires, plumbing, and lights. the room is pretty much quartered into a bar, two pool tables, a kareoke floor, and poker tables/dart boards. i can just sit to one side, under five consecutive teleivisions and smell the smoke while i write. it's nice actually. in fact, there are three exit signs i can see from where i'm sitting, one with part of the 'e' busted out. how lovely. this is a happy bar. not like i've seen a lot, but there's loud pop-rock music playing in one corner, people playing poker, playing pool, no drunks or winos, no depressants or lonelies that i can see, just people hanging out smoking and drinking and one fool on the side writing it all down to make words.

what a place to write about homosexuality... a bar in which i would bet sit at least ten or fifteen homophobes. i have always been sensitive to peoples' intolerances, whether about race, religion, sexual preference, whatever. i try and avoid making jokes about it, although i'm probably as guilty as the next guy. truth is, i wouldn't classify myself as anything but classically straight but i have no problem with anyone who isn't. i feel guilty about automatically prefacing this by saying i'm not gay because, to me, it doesn't matter. it's just that to a lot of people, it does. maybe i should take on the seinfeld philosophy of the matter: i'm not gay... not that there's anything wrong with that. no, i'm guilty of it too sometimes, if only in thought and not in practice. i'll wonder, every now and then, what it would be like. ther's a part of me that wouldn't mind it much. my art teacher told our class once, in 8th grade, that 99% of guys will have at least one homosexual experience in their lifetime. i never knew quite what she meant by that. must have been a mental thing, because i know there's not a great percentage of practicing homosexuals. throughout high school, i had a gay friend or two. there was at least one guy who used to kid me, freshman or sophomore year, that he thought i was gay because i didn't have a girlfriend. that used to hurt a little bit, i remember. i've been to concerts and made half-joking comments about there being guys in the band i would go gay for. this is usually met with much flack and me wondering what they were thinking about me. truth is, i probably would go at least bisexual for a night in the unlikely event that one of them was attracted to me. don't think i could handle the gay thing though, love the girls too much. i could end this by restating just how not-gay i actually am... i just don't think it should matter.

oh yeah, i happened across a facebook group today called "homophobes are so gay." it made me laugh ;) i guess all this homo-friendliness falls under the banner of hippie liberal pinko commie anyway. i'd just like to see how many god-fearing conservatives are turned on by the sight of two hot {presumably} bisexual girls making out... i mean, who isn't?

the bottom

there is no good way to start writing this. i used to wonder who would cry, if i died. find out who really cared. but i've been to those funerals and seen all those people and prefer not to think about that anymore. still, a lot of the time, i get the deep impression that people just don't give a damn about me. of course my family cares but they aren't here, just these other cruel teenagers. in fact, the only one that openly says she does, i can't bring myself to fully trust. the only one i really believe does, i don't speak to or spend much time with.

i don't even think people hear me, a lot of the time, or even care. my goddamned roommate {who i have grown to detest over the course of the year} continues to keep me up all night long and sleep all day. this is one of those ongoing things that eats away at me every single day and reminding me of how long it is until summer. i was talking to wipp in the mag room yesterday about the new t-shirt i was wearing, that my parents picked up in the bahamas on a cruise they just returned from. i was in the middle of telling her where they went on the cruise when i look down to see her facing the other direction talking to jrod about something. i'm in the middle of a sentence but what is there to do, really? i just stop talking, keep walking. nobody notices.

i was sitting in the lounge later, studying and exclaimed out loud how bad i thought i would fail this test. usually, i would make some sort of comment or question just to make conversation, just so the person would know i heard them. she didn't even look up... but maybe she didn't hear me. my roommate walks in and they start talking about her ex-boyfriend and her issues with him. we used to talk about that stuff, she used to confide in me - at least i thought so. she used to be the one asking about how things were going with me and the girl, although she doesn't anymore. they are sitting no more than five feet away from me and when the subject comes up, they lower their voices so i can't hear. i just stare at the page of notes, not reading anything. they agree to talk later and he leaves. that and she takes walks with other guys, talking etc. i can't help but be jealous. not because i want her, but because i want someone to care about me again.

it seems like the most individually thoughtful people out there are not the ones i know but the ones that hold the door for me when i'm walking behind them.

there are those that can't help it and i can't really blame them for it. i im'ed an old friend of mine just because i needed someone to talk to, just someone i knew gave a shit. i tried explaining how much of a mess i was but she left to go study for some odd exam. and i know i can't afford to feel bad about it or blame her for leaving but the timing was just awful. everybody leaves. and it may be inappropriate to wish oneself into a coma but if i could rise above my own body for a while to see who felt what...

i joke about suicide but am never serious about it. those are people who really believe, i guess, that nobody cares. i've had friends who have tried and i've had friends who have succeeded and i've been to the funerals and waited hours at wakes just to see the families. maybe they just weren't paying attention. it's easy to imagine ugly people, fat people, disfigured or depressed, having to live with the life they have been given. i can feel how hard it must be, to be given one life and have it go to shit. and i know plenty of unappealing people who enjoy life fine and plenty of people whose lives have fallen apart around them... it happens in different ways. how many of them would trade everything they have if they thought they could have another chance in another body... being born again? i wouldn't. nah, i have too much invested in this life so far, but that's a tic of mine in itself. just a thought.

i was sitting in a chem lab review session yesterday afternoon and noticed two legs of the two chairs next to me were intertwined. they were staggered and curved, so that one sat just around below the other one. and both chairs sat there and looked ahead to the t.a. in front of the class but there was this contact, below the surface, that was so immediately familiar to me. because i know exactly what it is they are doing, talking on a cell phone before a concert while holding hands. it was really sweet to see.

subtle as the wind is grey

i don't draw away from things happening, and i certainly think a lot, but often, i never really want to write about it. so, as this past week was certainly something to me... it's not really going to appear here. there aren't any good words, right now, for the things that went down. maybe i will save it for a story someday.

i am at home, for once, and it's nice. although the trend seems to be that i come home to do yardwork instead of sleeping in - something i hate rabidly - it is still nice at night. when everybody else is asleep and i can sit alone and count lights in the family room... {not counting the tv or laptop, the lights nearly cancel out. there is a clock with red digital numbers reading 12:25 - the colon doesn't blink - and a green clock on the dvr also reading 12:25... except the colon blinks. theres a red power light on the dvd, a green one on the dvr, and a red one on the tv. so the reds win, naturally.}

im wondering how drunk everyone is at the beach right now, kind of wishing i was there too, but just for a little while. the television's been muted, and all i can hear - aside from the tapping of the keys - is the fan from the computer and the two big fans on the ceiling, their motors thrum to a quick beat, just behind the rhythmic scraping of some hanging chain on something else, quiet little scratching. the breeze is making the lamp on the table beside me rock back and forth on its uneven base. makes me nervous, as that lamp has always been my mother's favorite... we were never allowed to touch it as kids, had to keep balls away from it.

i had a daydream, before sleeping, a couple nights ago about life inside a milk carton. it would be a bit more than half full, and sitting inside our refrigerator. i would be swimming in it, maybe an inch tall, and can barely see out. when the door closes, everything goes dark. i get the same feeling from being in a lost corner of the library on campus. i am convinced that some books there may not have moved in fifty years. thats quite a static lifestyle. i can close my eyes for ten seconds and be bored. imagine fifty years of no one speaking, not being touched, the same friction with all surfaces, not moving a centimeter, the lights go off and on, the world happens around you but doesn't change that one aisle. it hurts my head to think like that, hurts for some random book. i get the same impression from a closed refrigerator door, although not nearly as painful. the milk, although i had to tread it, didn't seem too malicious. i figured i would have to drink it all to suvive and was semi-comfortable with the idea - i'm not sure why - although, looking back, assuming no matter ever actually left the carton, i would have a difficult time with rearranging it for my survival. oh well, i will just have to look out for half-filled milk cartons to drown in.

i am looking forward to summer, although i don't know quite what to expect. i don't have an official job or anything, although i need some money. i don't know who i will end up speaking to and who will just fade into the background without being constantly in the foreground. i am looking forward to spending a good three weeks at the beach, what with a gym that isn't crowded and plenty of things to read. i'm so boring. meh. i'm apathetic about the being boring. is that worse? odd thing about being at such a school is that most of the people you become close to are from out-of-state. should be wierd anyway. actually i really need to get back in touch with some of you charter kids. maybe get some pizza at lily's and there's at least one of you i need to spend more than a couple hours in starbucks with. you know who you are. i miss you.

i was told earlier tonight that it was strange for me, a self-declared partial depressant, to be so optimistic and even wise. i never really think about it, i'm a thousand things at any one time. it's just that, tonight, i'm pretty content. i feel sick to my stomach and i'm tired but content. plus, i like being able to listen to and give advice to people that mean a lot to me. makes me feel needed, i guess. i don't really know, though, whether i like to do things for people because i am a good person, or because i want people to think i'm a good person. and this just raises more philisophical issues like, is being a good person defined by people labeling you as such? i guess it has more to do with some definite truth i can't explain. i mean, do i do things because i like being so supportive or do i like people to picture me as being such a nice guy? if i enjoy being a nice guy, am i doing it for my own pleasure or because my actions are good? i could go on forever like this, but it wouldn't do any good. i've tried to convince myself before that good actions can be done for no self-serving purpose but it's never worked out. oh well. i just want people to like me ;)

also, i have been playing acoustic music for too long. i have a lovely blue hw.1 strat and new red leather epiphone amp {fucking gorgeous, the two of them} and i can't ever think of anything good and electric to play. i guess i have been spending too much time with big country at school for my own good. would be a shame to waste all this lovely equipment. oh, i've decided i need to write a song too. maybe in the bright eyes style. that doesn't seem too terribly difficult. i feel like i can't use standard chords because all of them have been used before. in some postmodern way, i know that whatever combination i come up with has been used a hundred times before. doesn't necessarily matter, though, i guess, since new songs are created every day with the same old stuff and none of them really sound the same. so i won't worry about it. probably save it till the summer, though, and keep coming up with cool little sounding things at school. shit, who am i trying to fool? i've never written a decent lyric or lick in my life. it's a nice thought though, eh?

life has been odd lately. up and down, in and out, it's crazy. i'm finding, i think, that i don't really have to be with somebody as much as i thought i did. it's nice, to be sure, to share a bed with somebody that {hopefully} finds you special. hell, i enjoy it even if i don't sleep. i think i'm just a whore for feeling like people love me. and i can be a friend, maybe that's all i can be. who knows? i hold out a small hope that these things can be revisited in the future, even if nobody else does, because no matter how i have been treated i absolutely can't let people go. even if they are shit to me, if they meant a lot at some point in time, i want to keep them around. also why this summer should be interesting. seems like possibly the one person i'm used to seeing that i would choose to remain in steady contact with more than the rest, i might not speak to much at all. and it's really quite hard to say that, because there are others whom i love dearly too, i guess i'm just thinking of this situation right now. ah well, we will see.

i think i should stop. i've reached the point where my perspective has changed. i don't mean emotionally but mentally... i think. my eyes are connected to my brain in such a way that it suddenly feels like i am looking down on the screen instead of across to it. like my brain is telling my body that i'm looking down when i'm looking ahead. aside from that, i have trouble keeping touch with gravity when i close my eyes. it's fun this way, i guess, to space out every time you blink, just not conducive to writing. so goodnight, good luck, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

3am

this is not a glamorous post

its nearly three in the morning and im still awake. this would be no big thing except that i tried to go to sleep half an hour ago. life's been pretty much a battle since then. see, i had the brilliant idea to go eat cherrios and read hemingway before going to bed. this doesn't sound so bad, i know, but with a little bit of unluck, it can turn out that way. one of those damned cherrios wouldn't follow the others... wound up, far as i can tell, up in my nasal cavity. just sitting there, a sticky, damp, soft little cherrio bit. just fucking... sitting there. just so i could feel it.

i'm sick as it is, so i cough a lot and clear my throat a lot and such but it does not much good. try and lay in bed and not pay attention to it but i can't. can't go to sleep, can't think of much else, tell you the truth. and i gave all my sleeping pills away... laying there still, if i refrained from hacking, i could track its little movements. sliding slowly down; i would try and swallow. usually wouldn't work. cough some, clear some, swallow some... no such luck. finally i just let it settle some, then snort like im going to hock a loogie {i don't hock loogies} and swallow. figure it catches the little booger and drags it down my throat. well i get it a little bit down and keep swallowing and it keeps moving a little farther down, just so i can feel it every time i repeat.

so i jump out of bed and go to my fridge, take my half-gallon of milk, and start drinking it. just to initiate some progress. well im standing up straight and swallowing but i can still feel it there, deep down. ""come on, esaphagus, do your thing," i probably said out loud. so i tapped a little on my throat and walked around some and went back to bed.

i had just seen "the exorcist" so i wasn't surprised when this certain cherrio appeared to be from hell. because as soon as i lay back down, it started coming back up. i know, i know, how can a cherrio climb back up one's throat. can't really answer that one, but it did. little bastard. and what can i do? i swallow upon swallow but in the downtime between swallows {and i'm running out of spit} it continues climbing. i try sucking it into my mouth, but to no avail. eventually its back in the same damn nasal cavity it started in, like the golfball in happy gilmore finding its way home. i'm both amazed, sickened, and really pissed off. so i cough and hack and swallow and snort until it is back on the bottom of my throat again, jump out of bed and grab a water and fucking chug it. i'm talking, finished a marathon chugging water. no room to breathe. if that doesn't do away with it, i don't know what will.

so i climb back into bed, readjust all the pillows, and continue with the trying to sleep. but it's still there, somewhere. and i cough a lot... and i notice that some of the particularly violent coughs make me feel sick. ahhh, a plan is hatched. so i jump out of bed and go to the bathroom.

first i went to the mirror to see if i could see it... of course not. then i slowly walk to the right stall {my favorite} and stood there, staring at the seat-up toilet. these aren't the cleanest bathrooms in the world, but they are passable. still, i wasn't going to touch anything. i try tensing certain muscles in my stomach, as that forced bile up into my throat, but never actually accomplished anything. so i tried coughing really hard. this forced coughing, if done correctly, would leave one bent over, out of breath but still pushing for more to come out, essentially, forcing a little stomach action.

i tried it once but managed a dry-heave. in fact, it hurt quite bad. stayed hung over the toilet but couldn't force anything else. just spit running from my mouth. stood up. thought about using my finger but didn't want to seem too much like a bulimic and decided that should probably be a last resort. coughed again, bent double, and got nothing. decided to try it once more before resorting to the contingency plan. coughed again, hard this time, bent double, and managed to actually force some sickness. nothing much, but something. i stayed bent over, just looking at it floating there in the bowl, and noticed a tear had rolled down my cheek and was perched precariously on the tip of my nose. stayed bent over and another wave came over me, this time powerfully, and i vomited once for real, cherrios and milk gone. i thought this might be enough, and stood up, turned around, and walked out. saw the tear still hanging on and splashed a little water on my face. came home.

had a long drag of milk when i got back into my room but i don't think it helped. i feel sick anyway. and, as a cherrio from hell would, i think it's still there. i think i'm going to go die.

warm where you lay

wouldnt reccommend reading this over breakfast

i've upon a situation. one that tends to make me feel doomed but much more like the luckiest guy i know. see, i can compare, and say to myself... take those two. i wouldn't be paid to take what they have, but i... have something more. i mean, i have something less, in the coldly official kind of way. but something more, still, a less childish something... it means a lot to me. but i hold back and i know - i know in my head it's a good thing... i just don't want to. but i can't right now, for disastrous consequences - musn't fuck things up - musn't set myself up to be let down, always dangerous. oh to be reserved, guarded, but only to a point. always honest and open, just not openly forward. and communicate. communicate your feelings but not all the time, only to a point... jesus. is this right? doesn't feel right. it feels right, just not the conservative games we play. there are times - whether i like it or not - when phrases like... "god, i love you {right now}" just try and burst forth but i keep it inside. not smart, there. not too good a thing to let loose, that {though i might be now, take with salt}. i don't mean it. i mean, i don't know what i am talking about. i just speak of happiness and comfort and hope. and love is heartbreak anyway, no use in that. save it for later, wrap it up in a little box of pandora's for another day.

and that you question me, makes me question me, and i will never get around it. so i just don't worry about it. love the girl, love the situation, love the idea... fuck it. i love happiness, and the way my brain works right now, i associate nearly any situation with the girl, with us, with happiness. good times and bad, s'long as we can have each other to make it better. that's happiness to me. and so what if it is true that there is more than one person in the world that could fill that void? i am not desperate. i just enjoy feeling the way i do, and i choose you. that is all. i could wrestle with myself night and day over the enjoyment i get but it does not matter so much in the end. i am not in love, so it does not matter for now. maybe i'm just a simpler being, who the hell knows?

but trust. problem. i can't bring myself to trust. not everything. not sometimes. sometimes all i see is a game, pour vous, a game with your mind. a game of playing for the boy just to see where it leads. sometimes i can't trust what you say, what you do, because i can't see the end game. problem is, i can see every movement as a plan, because you know what makes me comfortable. and i can see the final days, when you apologize for using me as your fiddle, and i... what would i say? "damn... well played..." and be hurt forever and a day. i don't trust because i don't feel like i have the whole story to begin with. i don't... really know you that well at all. i have known girls so open and easy with me that both of us knew exactly what the other was thinking {although we like to ask anyway...} and if she wanted to hold my hand, well that's fine because i get it. but with you... not so much. i hate to think all this, to believe all this, because i label myself paranoid and trouble-causing and difficult. still it bothers me that when we leave, you will not miss me like i will you.

i do not wish to be misunderstood. pay attention to all i write here but remember how you know me. i am in this, whatever this is, with you. only you. and though i try and keep myself from falling too far into the deeper in - its only that i see plenty of room to fall. you still interest me like no one else, even when you are {apparently} not even trying. i still fear you will tire of spending time close-by even when every night on a random couch would be perfectly fine with me. the only reason i find i should hold myself tight {inside, mind you} is that i find you so easy to lose myself in. i want to trust you like i do myself, i want to believe you, i want to be there to help you figure out things for yourself. i know we aren't the best at communicating but we can be. so take all this to heart but remember - only a couple hours ago i looked down at your closed eyes and head on my leg and could not believe the beautiful you were sharing that time with me.

{god natt, aslkling}