What I Learned Today

1. People get annoyed when you go a month without updating your blog.
2. Fruit, despite being generally cheaper than meat, adds up in price if you buy a lot. Which I did.
3. My luck with women is at an all-time low. Liz blew me off, Mercedes (the Olympic chick) denied me, and Carolyn (the redhead) told me today that she was interested in another one of her male friends.
4. One eats starfruit by just taking great big bites out of it. I thought you had to peel it or core it or something.
5. The character creation system in Scion is ridiculously complicated, to the point where even Matt, our endlessly indulgent GM, shrinks at the thought of going through it for a whole group.
6. Prune juice tastes decent while you're drinking it (sort of like apple juice, but more sour), but it has a horrible aftertaste.
7. Drinking an entire half-gallon jug of prune juice in one sitting is generally a bad idea.
8. Scratch that, it's a terrible idea.
9. I mean, seriously. Dang.
10. I actually went down a size of pants. I have a 32 waist now. Not even freaking joking here.
11. I need to buy a belt.

Lissette Elizabeth Escariz

Is the name of the girl I am currently...well, perhaps I could describe her as...er, it's only been just over a week, so...

I have gone out with her twice. And I am currently absolutely flippin' obsessed with her.

I mean it. I've never felt this way about a girl before. We connect on every level. Emotional, mental, physical (Eventually? So far, all we've shared is a goodnight kiss on the cheek), everything. She's easily my match in terms of intelligence, if not my superior, she has a fiery independent streak that I can't help but respect, she can listen as well as talk (and she's teaching me how to listen as opposed to just waiting for a gap so I can begin to talk again), and whenever she takes down her hair out of the ponytail she traditionally wears it in and shoof-shoofs it around her head, I lose track of everything I am currently saying and/or thinking.

I, of course, am no mind reader. I don't know how she feels about me. But from the conversations we've had and what we've shared, if I am any judge of character at all...well, I can hope really hard, anyway. And I believe my hope has some merit.

In any case, my week has gone sort of up-down-up-down. Saturday, I went out with Liz for the first time, and in case it wasn't already blaringly obvious, that went extraordinarily well.

(I knew, KNEW that the ballistic approach to dating - ask every girl that piques my interest and rely on the law of averages to ensure I'd find a suitable match - would work. I'm just stunned that any method worked well enough to bring Liz to me.)

I met her on the bus, in case you're wondering. I was headed home from Publix, which I went to on a whim with Zak. There were no seats, so I remained standing. I noticed I was sort of standing directly over this cute girl (who had her shirt on inside-out, that's the sort of detail that lodges itself in the mind), so I apologized for looming. She said it was no trouble. A few minutes later, I asked her about her Gator Growl necklace-thing, and we began talking. By the time she got off the bus, she had given me her phone number. We met on Saturday. Went to a sushi restaurant, where I decided to eat something new and had a raw quail egg. Not bad, but I'll certainly not have another. Serendipity itself, the bus ride, I think - had I not decided randomly to go to Publix with Zak, we would never have met, and I would still be as lonely as I was two weeks ago today.

I've just realized that I'm sort of going about this the wrong way. I'm thinking about her as if I have finally scored some important goal - that I've reached some objective, gained a MacGuffin. And that's not it at all. I have certainly reached my personal goal of finding a girl with whom I can connect, but it's not as if I beat a level in a video game and got a prize for it. I've gotta break out of that way of thinking.

Ill-formed line of thought aside, I gotta continue with my story. Sunday was down, for the downstairs toilet exploded. Not burst into pieces, but...was overwhelmed, let's say. Yes, it might have been my fault. Yes, I should eat more fiber. That is so far from the point that you can't see the point from it on a clear day. A lot of mopping and swearing ensued, and I gotta thank Mike for this one, for knowing how to deal with a mess such as I have never encountered. So...thanks, Mike. Our squabbles aside, you do know a lot of things I don't. (Now I just gotta hope you read this, it would be way too self-aggrandizing to mention it.)

Monday was up again. I got 25 points of extra credit in a class in which I had recently scored a 76 on a test, so that promoted my C to an A+. I like that. Tuesday...Tuesday, my landlord called me to tell me that the people who own the place directly downstairs from us complained that their roof was leaking. So that was down, because technically that might have been my fault. He said probably not, but he'd have to see.

Interesting things happened on Wednesday. I saw Liz again, we went out to lunch, and enjoyed each others' company some more. I really do enjoy spending time with her. (Details are sparse, yes, but I'm not entirely sure how comfortable she is with my relating any sort of details on this blog, so until I get a solid opinion from her one way or the other, they shall remain sparse.) So that was up. Also, game club, which is endlessly entertaining.

I believe I have successfully reached a low point today, given that work was an endless tedium of sorting games and putting games away, and I might, might just have to pay for the water damage downstairs. Hopefully not, probably not...but might. Oh, I voted today, but I'm not saying for whom I voted. No matter what answer I give, I'm going to piss half of the people around me, so I'm just clamming up. (A conversation with my mother, unfortunately, indicates that this will just instantly cause people to assume I voted for the person they didn't want to win, so it's sort of rendering me worse off than I would otherwise be, but a man's gotta have principles.)

If the past is any indication, tomorrow will be up. Which is fortunate, because tomorrow is Halloween, and I fully intend to don a badly put together ninja costume (I love my badly put together ninja costume) and gorge myself on candy at various parties. Hell's bells, I don't drink any more and I'm cutting down on fast food, I have to have some kind of vice.

If there was anything that amazing that happened between last Friday and my last blog post, it has escaped me. It probably wasn't that worth mentioning.

I'm still raving about Liz to anyone who will listen, though. I'm presenting a calm face to her, and my ravings aside, I'm really not all that jazzed up - excited, yes, but not manic - but I have literally never felt this way for a girl before. I take the lamest of excuses to talk for hours, why not take an excellent one?

(Intriguing, isn't it, that every paragraph in this blog post - except one - has begun with the letter I? Excluding punctuation? I noticed that for the first few, and just started to run with it.)

...

...

I see what you did there. You went back up and looked for the one that didn't start with I, didn't you. And if you didn't then, you're probably either going to do it now or are going to refuse to do it just to spite me. Since I can only assume that if you're still reading this far without knowledge of which paragraph it was, it's the spite option, I'll just go out and say it - the tenth paragraph began with "Monday".

I'm sorry if this post is a little more "meta" than mine usually tend to be, I just finished reading a comic strip called 1/0, which is the most interesting experiment in metafiction I've ever seen. Read it at http://www.undefined.net/1/0/ but immediately hit the "First" button if you don't want to see the last comic first. It's not a big spoiler, by the time you get to it you'll already know what's going to happen...but first things should come first.

I'll see y'all later.

(Heh, finished on an I.

...

Dammit.)

I Missed My 100th Post, Damn It To Hell

It was two posts ago. I should have mentioned something. Oh well.

The week was fairly eventful. Well, during the week wasn't that grand, but some cool stuff happened. I met a girl in my Reporting lectures who seems quite nice. Her name is Jarahlee, which is a bit odd, but certainly interesting. (Spelled like that and everything.)

We were given a BS little quiz thing that the professor gives out to ensure attendance. The questions:

1. Do you have any tattoos?
2. If so, where and what? If not, why not? Are you boring?
3. Do you have any piercings?
4. If so, where? If not...why do you suck so much? (Maybe.)

Jarahlee (she described it as "Like Sarah Lee, except one word and with a J") mentioned that she did, in fact, have a tattoo. I asked about it. She said that it was angel wings, between her shoulder-blades. That is very neat, and I said so. We talked for a bit, and we've been sitting next to each other last few classes.

I realized recently that there is only one thing that people care about less than hearing about role-playing game sessions that they weren't at and don't know anything about, and that is hearing about other peoples' dreams. So I'll keep the descriptions of the various sessions to a minimum. To wit:

Friday's Vampire session: We tracked down and killed the conspirators who murdered Julius Caesar. (It's set in Roman times.) Gave their bodies to Cleopatra, who was a little insane and had them converted into massive puppets and sent back to Rome, to general rejoicing. Sat around for fifty years and grew in power. I developed a messianic cult. My character is making a play to become Emperor of Rome.

Saturday's session that I ran: Those blasted players took what I was building up to be an effective and deadly villain, truly evil and horrible, and jumped ahead in the plot and set up a situation in which he was made completely ridiculous. Now they'll never take him seriously. Even when I had him threaten the party with certain death and loom large, they were complimenting me on how he "wasn't really that evil, just sort of a rival" and "interesting portrayal of a villain who isn't that villainous." I hate them.

Sunday's session: Despite being overpowered gestalt characters with two classes each and recharge spellcasting, we proved that our distinguishing characteristics as a party are:
1. Crushing incompetence, and
2. Boiling hatred for each other.
This would normally be bad, but it's shaping up to be one of the funniest dungeons I've ever played through. Upon leveling a bit, we got past incompetence and are now stampeding headlong towards grotesquely overpowered. Fun times.

Right, that's over with. Friday night, after Vampire, I went with Steven and his female friends to see a hip-hop dance competition. Normally, when one tells me about a hip-hop dance competition taking place, you can usually find me leaving to go play pool, but his friends were hot, and so I went.

Oh, right, just remembered. Before this, Steven and I played the most ridiculous set of games of pool I've ever seen. Probability and physics had no place at this table. We were both making and missing shots neither of us had any right to do so with. He would hit in three balls in one shot, then miss at a range of six inches. I ran the table on him from the break until I only had one ball left before the 8, then chased that around the table for the rest of the game while he sunk all his and won.

The first nine games of 8-ball we played ended with Steven sinking the 8...but he only won about half of those. Every game, he sunk the 8, but sometimes he did it before the rest of his balls were sunk, sometimes he scratched on the sink, sometimes he put it in the wrong pocket. On one memorable occasion, he scratched on the sinking and put it in the wrong pocket. Fun times.

Hip-hop dance was a bit of a misnomer. It was mostly breakdancing, which I like. Some of these people...are absolutely insane. One guy in particular didn't seem to have any bones. He was made out of rubber, and could bend and twist any which way, leaping and jumping and spinning in place until we all just gave up and handed over all of our worldly possessions. I would have, except then this tubby guy got on the floor with a shirt saying "I AM hip-hop." And he was. Dear God, he was. Name a part of the human body, and this guy could spin or twirl on it. Palms of his hands, shoulders, knees, top of his head, anything. He was hip-hop.

He was overshadowed only by the last group we saw, which forsook general breakdancing and such in favor of a choreographed routine, led by this shirtless guy who was so built, he could not possibly have been born. He was constructed. Out of muscle and awesome. Not ugly-huge like you see bodybuilders like, just perfectly muscular and flexible as hell. His dancing was art, sheer and simple. (On a side note, it appears that I am gay now. Huh.)

I reasserted my heterosexuality afterwards by chatting up one of Steven's hot friends, a girl named Ali, and getting her phone number. In addition to being attractive, she plays Halo 2 and reads comic books, so I figure, match made in heaven. I'll see her again tomorrow at Juggling Club, which she attends every week. We've talked on the phone a bit in the interim. She's quite nice.

Monday...ah, Monday. I had a test in Geography on Wednesday, and arrived at Monday's class about twenty minutes early, through sheer happenstance. I noticed everyone was studying furiously, paging through their notes.

Oh shit, a little voice said.

I sat down next to a guy and asked what was the deal with everyone. Was there some review today, before Wednesday's test?

He looked at me funny and told me that the test wasn't on Wednesday, it was today. A panicked glance to the guy nodding on the other side of me confirmed this fact.

Oh shit.

Not to worry, though, I've attended class and I have good notes on my computer, I thought. So what if I can't look over the official notes? I can bluff through most of it, and I have notes here, so...

...my hard drive chose that point to detach, and my computer would not boot, a condition I could not possibly fix without a screwdriver.

OH SHIT.

Fortunately, a pair of thinly veiled deus ex machinas were on hand to save my worthless hide. A guy sitting outside had this massive, ridiculously well-written packet of notes which he let me page through at thought-blurring speed, and the girl I sat next to in the test room proper let me go through her fat stack of notecards in the ten minutes or so I had before the test began.

Flush with recently acquired/remembered information, I received the test, only to discover that the test was about a tenth as difficult as the first rough one was, and I demolished it. So, good news there.

Tomorrow I go to see Michelle Obama give a speech in favor of her husband (I can only assume, I kinda doubt she'd suddenly come out in favor of McCain at this point). I don't want to, but it's the biggest news event this week and I have to have a good story for Reporting. So off I go. It's gonna be boring, but whatever. Anything to pass the damn class.

That's more or less it. This personal trainer is kicking my ass, but since I'm paying him to do that, it's working out well. I set it up so I go to the gym on Mondays (when I see him), Thursdays, and Saturdays, and go running Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Wednesdays are my off days. If this doesn't get me results, I am terminally out of shape and might as well just forget doing anything. (I'll give it a couple months to see results, of course. I'm not dumb enough to think that a single week of exercise will change anything whatsoever.)

Oh yeah, today I went to Tatu, a sushi place I'd never even heard of, with Henry and his friends. Again, didn't really feel like, but hot female friends (sadly, both with boyfriends), so off I went. Their salmon rolls are awesome, and I tried their fried tofu steak.

I now know for certain: I don't like tofu.

Philosophical Ramblings (Hey, Callback Title)

I’m on the bus home. I read Ender’s Game just now. It was extremely good. I almost say “surprisingly,” but from all I’ve heard about it, there’s nothing surprising about it. It is, after all, one of the classics of science-fiction, written by one of the SF greats. I learned a couple of things from reading it. A couple of important things, I think.

Here’s the first thing. There are two kinds of power – mental power and physical power. Physical power is the stuff that intrigues and thrills me, why I read comic books and play D&D and bang away at video games, whether I’m a stout warrior slicing down a foe a hundred times his size, a powerful wizard blasting away at legions of enemies with fire and lightning, or a battleship defeating a fleet a thousand times its size.

Physical power is what fills my fantasies and my dreams. When I walk to class, when I walk to the store, when I walk just to go out and have a walk, my head is filled with thoughts of might and magic. Bizarre anime-like plots like the one I described, with legendary heroes performing fantastic feats. Or different, thinking of my own self, doing crazy things I’d never be capable of, playing the hero, rescuing the innocent, protecting those weaker or disadvantaged, showing my strength.

I dream like this because physical power is something unattainable to me. At least, in any significant amount. I can train my body and become fit and toned and muscular, but the most I’ll ever be able to hope for is to hold my own in a fight against worse odds, or perform impressive feats undoable by those in worse shape. I’ll never be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, never be able to dodge bullets, never be able to throw a train or project searing beams of energy from my hands.

I’ll never be able to do any of it. So that’s what I dream of. Physical power is the unreachable star, what I’ll always want and never have. But there is another kind of power which I will have, which I do have, and that is mental power.

This was demonstrated in Ender’s Game, very well. Ender was not very physically adept. He defeated opponents physically superior to him through tactics and trickery. He led a fleet against an impossible foe and won, not because of a massive planet-destroying weapon (though it helped), but because of his invulnerable skill at strategy and command.

Mental power is something I do have. I’m no Ender – I couldn’t lead a group of starships to victory against a foe that outnumbered them a hundred to one – but I do fancy myself to be quick in a tight spot and pretty good at coming up with ideas. This, I can sharpen. If I focus on training my mind like I’m going to be training my body, I can eventually do amazing, marvelous things – far more amazing than I ever could with biceps that could bend steel or glowing eyes that could burn a hole through concrete.

That was the first thing that the book taught me. If you were to pit mental power against physical power, assuming equal circumstances and equal skill, the mental power is heavily favored to win. Take the strongest man in the world, hunting down a weakling in a warehouse. Cut the lights, all of a sudden his strength means nothing. He can’t punch what he can’t see. Mental power can trump physical power because it can go around it, or circumvent it, or put it in a situation where it is useless. And since I have, or can have, mental power, that favors me in situations where I would otherwise be in difficulty.

That was one thing. That was important. That may fundamentally change things. But more was changed than just that. Something very important occurred to me. My philosophy of life is wrong...again.

For the longest time, I thought the most important thing to a person was happiness. To be happy, or content, that was the acme of a person’s life. What more could one want? And I was happy, or content, in my idle pleasures and simple things. But I was bored, and I knew it. I craved more. That’s why I constantly manifest such odd fantasies in my head – because my mind was (is) being so underused that it is (was) forced to craft its own scenarios in which something, anything, interesting happened to me.

Then I spoke with Henry, experienced the epiphany I’ve shared with all around me, knew for a fact that I was living my life wrong – and I was. I still believe this, absolutely. Talking to Henry and coming to the realization that I did was the best thing I’ve done for myself in years. I resolved that no more would I merely be content to loaf around and do nothing, I would be social, I would go out and talk and experience new things.

I thought that the most important thing to a person was excitement. Firework moments, Henry called them. Crash, boom, bang, colored lights and explosions and bang, pow, kaboom, something fun’s happening, now it’s over and there’s nothing left but a wisp of smoke and the dying echoes. But the memory persists, blazes as brightly as the fire it conjures forth in the mind.

Having thought more thoroughly about it, I came to the conclusion that this too was wrong. That’s a fun way to live, certainly more interesting and entertaining than the way I was living previously, but it’s unsustainable. A person can’t live expecting a constant stream of excitement. It’s impossible to expect, because it won’t happen. On the odd circumstance that constant excitement does occur, it’s a temporary and transient thing, and when it leaves it leaves you hungry and drained, tired from the fun but wanting more, but more won’t come, because the only thing a life full of explosions can lead to is disappointment when they stop – or nothing at all, because a particularly large bang can be the last one you ever hear.

I still plan to seek excitement. I’m young, I’m in college, I’m ideally placed for fun things to happen and to seek new and entertaining possibilities. But that isn’t the basis of my life. It’ll be fun, but it won’t be everything. I realized, now, what the most important thing to a person is:

Other people.

Humans are social creatures by nature. We want to associate ourselves with others, because other people are the only thing that can provide the variety we crave – the companionship we seek – the emotions we live for.

Not that a man should define himself by the company he keeps. I’m certainly the last person to start hanging out with a given crowd just because it’s the “in” thing to do, because I seek credibility or approval. But it’s because I made a similar inventory of myself as I did when I had my epiphany over a month ago.

Back then, I looked back through my life, and I couldn’t identify any periods of strong emotion, any periods of serious excitement. I resolved to change, and so I have, slowly. But I have looked over my life, and I have made the terrifying realization that there’s nobody left who I feel really close to.

At home? My friends...I’m drifting away from them. Jake, Matt, Nolan, James, Daniel, they’re all fun people, but they’re starting to feel farther and farther away. Dan, seems more of a kindred spirit, but he’s different from me in too many fundamental ways for me to really connect with him. Kait, closer than home, but somehow a million miles away. Travis, used to be my best friend, what can I call him now? We annoy each other too much to enjoy the intimacy (platonic, mind) we once had. We’ve drifted like icebergs.

At the university? All fun and good people. I’ll not say a word against any of them. But they’re friends in the transitory state. I certainly enjoy their company and want to hang out with them and do things with them, but when I think of who I’ll know in ten years and quickly run through everyone I know in Gainesville for possible candidates, not a single name pops up as likely.

Of course, there is my family. My parents, hopefully, will be around for years to come. I’ll always feel close to them. My sister, in recent years, we’ve become much closer than we were. For almost a decade, we were too far apart, too different, in worlds that were too distant for us ever to connect. Now we’re friends, more than friends, we’re true siblings again, like we used to be when we were both children.

A girl, too young yet to have a personality attached to her name, who stares at me with wide and uncomprehending eyes. She doesn’t know me, except as the weird guy who holds her while her mother ducks outside for a cigarette break or a ten-minute reprieve. I don’t know her, except as someone who can only communicate through cries and can already almost crawl at only two weeks old. Who will she be in ten years? I cannot say. There are none who can. I can only hope I’ll know her as she grows up, that my interaction with her won’t be limited to the occasional phone call and Christmases where I pinch her cheek and proclaim about how much she’s grown. (I will do this, though. There are certain ways in which an uncle is expected to act, after all.)

...Will she ever know my name? Will she ever know me beyond "that weird uncle I see on holidays"? Michelle's and my lifestyles will inevitably drive us apart. Will I see her grow up?

But beyond them...nobody.

Nobody.

...

I need a girlfriend.

This is not a sex thing. Trust me. If a mysterious stranger were to approach me tomorrow and promise that I would meet a girl with whom I could truly connect to on an emotional level, who could know me better than anyone and I her, with whom I could share my hopes and fears and dreams and pour out my soul, and the price for this was that I could never do anything sexual with her – or even kiss her – I would agree before he finished speaking.

I need a girlfriend.

(But sex wouldn’t hurt.)

And Another Thing...

I do peculiar things. People who know me will vouch for this. Sometimes I do them for seemingly no reason at all, sometimes I actually have a decent reason for the junk that I pull.

One of these things is a concept that I can barely put a name to, since I never think of it as a concept and I’ve never heard of it outside of when I, personally, do it. If I had to put a label to it, I would call it...reverse plagiarism.

Plagiarism, as you know, is when someone passes off someone else’s work as their own, stealing credit for an idea. What I do is more or less the opposite of that. I take ideas of my own and pass them off as those of other people. I’ll do this several ways, such as if I think of some plot or something that I for whatever arcane reason don’t want to take credit for, I’ll say “I saw this TV show where...” or “I was reading this book, and in it...”

Basically, if you’ve ever heard me describing some fantastic and ridiculous plot from a book or TV show or anime or some such, but I mysteriously couldn’t remember the name of the show or the names of any of the characters, or any specifics beyond the fragment of plot I share with you, the odds are decent that I was actually the one who came up with it, and just chose not to take credit for it.

Why do I do this? Because most of the time when I come up with something that I’ll do this to, it’s a completely insane, fantastic, mindless, bizarre concept that sounds crazy even to think about, but I just think it’s cool. Chalk it up to a lifetime of too much anime and video games.

I realize that if I just tell people my idea for a story fragment, nobody will take me seriously. Years ago, when I shared all my ideas with everybody, people would give me looks like “Luke, whatever medication you’re not on, you need to find it and get on it, posthaste.” Now, when I tell them my bizarre tale but say it was from this one anime that has a long Japanese name that I don’t remember, they nod their heads and agree on how cool it is.

I suppose that if people think it’s from an outside source, they’re free to shake their heads with disbelief at how crazy the unknown author was while still being able to appreciate the story fragment itself. If they thought it was from me, their incredulity at the plot outweighs their sense of thinking it’s interesting. (Or not. This is also a way to shield myself from taking flak for bad ideas, because if what I’m saying tanks horribly and nobody likes it, I can just shrug and never mention it again.)

Let me give you an example of the sort of thing I’m talking about. This has been drifting through my head for the last few days, starting when I heard “The Night” and “Perfect Insanity” by Disturbed, off their new album Indestructible.

A callow youth trains to be a swordsman, and everyone expects great things from him because he is the descendant twenty generations down the line from a legendary hero swordsman who was fantastically skilled and extremely powerful. Upon completing his formal training, he’s granted his ancestor’s blade and given a sudden realization – the “inheritance” is more than a weapon, the legendary swordsman’s personality has actually survived through the generations and emerges as a separate personality inside the hero’s head.

Normally, this would be a good thing, as the legendary swordsman can take over the body in times of great need when the hero is completely outclassed and defeated. And he really is legendary, being skilled and generally badass enough to do things like catch enemy blades (in his open palm, between two fingertips, in his teeth) or deflect bullets with his sword...from a machine-gun. (When this switch occurs, his eyes go all crazy-red and such.)

Unfortunately for the hero, the legendary swordsman is also homicidally insane and prefers to slaughter his opponents, the friends of his opponents, and anybody who happened to be nearby while he was butchering one of the first two groups. So the hero and the legendary swordsman start to bicker and battle for control of the hero’s body. (The hero, being a swordsman himself, is certainly skilled and no stranger to killing, but there’s a difference between killing your opponent in an honorable way and indiscriminate murder, which is what the legendary swordsman prefers.)

This all comes to a head when the hero is in a climactic battle against many foes, which he just can’t win alone. The legendary swordsman figures this is the perfect time to rise up and gain control, so the two of them battle it out while the hero’s body, controlled by one personality or the other, fights the group of swordsmen.

Whenever the enemies are about to score a killing blow, the legendary swordsmen pushes his way forward and asserts control, as he really doesn’t want to see his last descendant die without an heir, and with his skill he starts smacking around the entire group. Whenever the legendary swordsman is about to kill one of his enemies, the hero, who wants to stop the legendary swordsman from killing everyone he meets, manages to retake control, and he fumbles the blow.

Eventually, the hero, in a burst of heroic willpower and resolve, manages to win the battle for control, but resigns himself to dying at the hands of his enemies, as he lacks the skill alone to win. His opponents, though, are so completely freaked out by his constant switching from “strong, but outclassed” to “clearly able to win disarmed and blindfolded” and back again, that they panic, assume he’s just toying with them, and flee before he decides to get serious and rip them all to pieces. The hero is left standing alone, wondering what just really happened.

See? That sounds like the plot of an anime, and I presented it to one of my friends in just such a fashion. He liked the idea. But were I to have told him it was my idea, he probably wouldn't have listened through the whole thing, dismissing it as just some random byproduct of my craziness.

Yes, technically I could be making this up, but why? It seems like a whole lot of unnecessary effort and talking to convince you of a lie that nobody remembers any specifics of. So that's that, really.

I guess...that's it.

Stuff Happens

I missed what has been coming to be my traditional Monday update. I lost all Monday. I slept in, missed my classes, and spent the whole day indoors. I consider the day completely wasted, with absolutely nothing useful coming from it except for the fact that I got my laundry done. (The dryers at my apartment complex suck completely and require two cycles, at $1.50 per dryer per cycle, to dry my clothes. I’m just going to bag them up next time and take them to my friend’s place at Lakeside or Hume, it’s cheaper.)

So Monday was a blowout. Tuesday was somewhat better, though. Made it to my class, and I set up a couple of interviews for today with two professors of economics that I’m hoping I can turn into some kind of story on the economic crisis we’re going through. Here’s hoping I don’t completely demonstrate my ignorance on the subject in front of these scholarly men. Though I doubt I can successfully bluff to high-ranking professors.

Last weekend was pretty interesting. Saturday I spent at the Reitz Union, setting up a game of D&D with a couple of guys I met last Wednesday, Brett and Harold. I’m running the campaign, and I wanted to oversee their character creation and set up a world with them.

They took different approaches. Brett made a bard, a singer and storyteller, and exploited every trick he could find in the rulebook to increase his Perform ability, which allowed him to fascinate people with story and song. One particular instance concerned his desire for a device called a songblade, a musical sword that would make his performing better, but only when he was wielding it:

Him: Can I use it?
Me: Sure. Don’t you play a two-handed instrument, the lute?
Him: Er...I could grip the blade in my teeth.
Me: ...Okay, but then how are you going to talk to people once you’ve got them fascinated?
Him: ...
Harold: Why don’t you pick up a one-handed instrument?
Him: Like what?
Me: A harmonica?
Him: *glares* No, how about...storytelling. That doesn’t require either hand.
Me: True. But then you don’t get the bonus for a masterwork instrument. And don’t even try to convince me that masterwork dentures count, or something.
Him: All right, but then...
Me: ...How about this.
Him: What?
Me: Masterwork puppet pals.

I successfully convinced him that he could use all of his bonuses if he had a puppet on one hand and used it to help his storytelling. I did not quite mention how silly this would make him look, but I figure the NPCs will act appropriately. The things people will do for a +2 circumstance bonus.

Harold was more subtle. He didn’t go for the “overpowered twink” concept, preferring instead to build a mechanically inferior but flavor-aligned character – a creeping crawling rogue who climbs and jumps. He showed me several neat items that I’d never seen before, like finder’s chalk (fades from view after a minute, but can be seen hours later with a special finder’s lens) and finger-blades (used to cut purse-strings and open pockets more easily). I do have this terrible feeling that he’ll suddenly reveal this incredibly overpowered character that he’s quietly been constructing with innocuous items. Sigh.

But the fun part came when I wanted to design the city that the campaign would be taking place in. I decided one thing about this city that would set the tone for, basically, everything:

The city is 300 miles wide and long. Roughly.

Though it has been pointed out to me that at this point it is less a city and more a dense, walled country, I don’t care. I like the idea of a city stretching hundreds of miles in every direction, because of the sheer number of things that it can contain. Between me and two friends, we brainstormed the following concepts:

- The Mountain District. This is an actual mountain that was in the path of the city’s expansion, and rather than go around it, they built over it. And through it. It’s covered and honeycombed with passages, buildings, and homes.
- The clear idea that there could be people who were born, lived their whole lives, and died within the city without ever knowing there was anything outside. Obviously, these wouldn’t be the people who lived near the walls or the docks.
- The Forest District. This is a massive forest, cultivated by the city’s druids who demanded an area within the city that was set aside for nature. It’s about twenty-five miles on a side. We further wondered – could there be people who were born, lived their whole lives, and died in the forest without ever knowing it was in a city?
- The Street of Cunning Artificers. It’s all clockwork. You can’t see the sky for the smoke and the freakishly tall buildings, and cogs and gears litter the streets. This place will be a lot of fun.
- The Mages’ Guild, also a college, which has served as the basis for more and more interesting senior pranks on the part of its students over the years. One year, the entire Guild went invisible, and stayed that way for the better part of a decade.
- The Upside-Down District, a place a few blocks on a side that is upside down, the buildings resting on a patch of sky about eighty feet up and stretching down to the ground. This is also the result of a senior prank from the mages, but the people living there got used to it and put big piles of cushions at the gates in and out of the district so they can enter and leave without splattering on the cobblestones. This just goes to show that people can really get used to anything.
- How does a city this big get food, we asked? Clerics casting “create food and water” and magical ever-full cauldrons of stew would only go so far, so Matthew decided that there was an army of mages who only cast “stone to flesh” constantly, and that there would be: meat mines. Turn the stone to meat, mine it, process it, sell it. The Mountain District used to be the Mountain Range District, but the other mountains were finally mined out a couple centuries ago.

There’s more, but you get the idea. The only thing I haven’t thought of for this massive, epic city is one thing: a name. I am really, really bad with names, and it occurs to me that a city like this deserves an amazing name. I don’t want to just reuse a name from some other work of fiction, don’t want to call it Ankh-Morpork or Mechanus or Gondor, this city deserves better than that.

And yet I have nothing. Anyone gots a suggestion that they came up with themselves (or at least didn’t crib from somewhere written down, if someone else said it I guess that’s okay), then I want to hear it. Comment with one. Call me. Email me. I need a blasted name for this blasted blasted city.

It’s weird. Since I talked to Mike and Victoria told me she read what I’d wrote, we all agreed that limiting our contact was truly for the best, as our personalities just clashed on several levels. Since then, our contact has been much more tranquil and pleasant than usual, what little there has been of it. I suppose whatever works, works.

Last night, Anne-Flore’s (my roommate) friend Anna had her 25th birthday, so I cooked her and Anne dinner. Technically, her birthday was Monday, but she’s celebrating all week, so this worked. It’s the first time I’ve ever made a meal with more than one course. I made:

A shrimp cocktail, which I did by the supremely complex route of boiling shrimp (a little too much, I fear) and putting them in a bowl with ice, and opening a bottle of cocktail sauce
A salad, by which I mean I bought a bag of “European” salad greens and some random vegetables (olives, grape tomatoes, broccoli at Anne’s request) and mixed them all into a bowl
Those good frozen yeast rolls, which actually turned out really nicely
And I tried a new recipe with some tilapia, Tilapia in Garlic Butter, which was a little tricky

It was well-received. Mincing garlic is hard without a mincer, and I think I got a little too into it, shredding it with a knife into miniscule bits that I could hardly see. Also, I resent buying bottles of three different spices just to use “a dash” or “a pinch” of one or the other. It’s expensive.

Honestly, as far as how it tasted, I more or less had to take their word for it. This is my problem, and why I’ll never be a good cook – I can barely taste. I know I like those yeast rolls, and shrimp is shrimp, but the fish, I had to believe what they told me. It didn’t taste like anything much to me, but they assured me that it was good. This could have been them being charitable, but I don’t really have a reason to doubt them.

Meh.

What I Look Like

Why I Look Like It

Viral conjunctivitis, also known as pinkeye, is currently plaguing me. I am not to look at TV or computer screens, or even read small print. At least, with my afflicted eye.

So, the eyepatch. More of a headband, really. I have a mandatory meeting tonight for my TV class, and I found a solution. Inelegant, but it works. Hopefully the conjunctivitis will be gone by tomorrow or the next day, as the doctor predicted it would, especially if I keep my eye half-closed constantly with this device here.

Huh.

Amendment

People have made the point that I should attempt to talk things out before making unilateral decisions. And, well, they're right. It's just that I'm so, so, so disillusioned with sitting down and calmly discussing my problems. Why? Victoria. We have sat down, talked out all our problems, and agreed not to fight anymore...I don't know how many times now. And it never, ever works. But I was wrong not to talk to Mike about it.

So I did. It appears that the majority of the problem was my enthusiastic new approach towards life, and with it my rejection of my old lifestyle, was seen by him as an attack on his lifestyle - the very one I was rejecting. This is far from true, but it's easy to see how he could see this. So we talked it out, and agreed not to fight.

It remains to be seen how this will work. I could not say one way or the other, yet.

As for Victoria? We haven't spoken in days, and it's probably for the best. We simply do not like each other any more. And as I have noted, sitting down and talking things out will have as likely a success rate as would a similar talk between the Israelis and the Palestinians. All the good intentions in the world aren't gonna make it happen, so screw it. We're both better off without each other.

Oh, yeah, my sister finally gave birth a week ago. Jasmyne was the kid's name. Healthy as a horse. My sister put up a billion - or maybe nine - pictures of her, on her blog, here: http://michelleldub.blogspot.com/ So check it out. My new baby niece. I'm an uncle.

I feel like I should buy a sweater-vest.

A Week In Study, Also, Interpersonal Relationships

The week was good. Thursday I went out with Dana, and we've spoken since then once or twice. Oddly, after I got back from dinner on Thursday, I fell asleep - at 7:30 p.m. Didn't wake up until the next morning. I don't quite understand that, since I hadn't been lacking sleep, but oh well. I've had worse happen to me than losing an evening to sleep.

Friday was entertaining. We went out for Mike's birthday party. We went to a restaurant called Rolls and Bowls, a sushi and such place. I tried cucumber for the first time, and by God it tastes like nothing at all. I could eat a barrel of these things. Though I am slightly bitter that when they say "steamed shrimp" for one of the ingredients, they mean "we throw on two shrimp." Two. I'm hungrier than that.

Then we went to see Kung Fu Panda, which I hadn't seen before, and which is surprisingly good. It messes around with a lot of the established kung-fu movie tropes, and has a good story. Even if I can follow the narrative arc easily of "beginning, establishing characters, ascending action, preview of villainy, fun times as the story unfolds, villain attacks, low point as characters are demoralized, upswing, final battle," that's not necessarily a bad thing, since most movies are like that. I really enjoyed it. Even if Matt did deliberately laugh during inappropriate times, because he's a misanthrope like that.

Then pool. Not much to say here, I lost. Kevin managed not to finish by sinking his own ball this time, like he did against Mike and me earlier in the week. I...honestly don't remember who won. Doesn't really matter, we played like fifteen games.

Saturday, I went with Rachel and some of her friends to Lake Wauburg, to which I have never been. I got there first and explored, finding a 55-foot-tall rock wall that I had originally planned to climb, but quailed and left. Not entirely my fault, though, as none of the girls wanted to climb it either except Rachel, and she demurred on account of nobody else was going to and there was a big line.

So we went to the other side of the lake and borrowed some kayaks. I've never kayaked before, but it was surprisingly easy. I managed not to roll the boat and drown myself, which is a plus. I went swimming, met a bunch of girls in the water, suffered once again from the Paradox of the Glasses-Wearer, made a new friend named Julie.

When I got home, nobody had moved in the time I was gone. I played a bit of WoW, then went downstairs and watched Die Hard with everyone. This was the result of an argument between me and the others over which was the rotten Die Hard movie, #2 or #3. I maintained #3 sucked, they maintained #2 sucked. I suggested we compromise and watch #1. We agreed. It was as good as it ever was.

I was dismayed to hear that at the end of the movie, everyone was packing it in. In summary, my friends, after a long and hard day of sitting around the house, punctuated by a grueling expedition to Publix to buy some food, decided to call it a night at ten o'clock p.m. on a Saturday. This...annoyed me. So I went out and visited Henry, then eventually resigned myself to the fact that nothing was going to happen and returned home. But I tried, dammit, I tried.

But whatever. On Sunday, I started the new D&D campaign with Chuck DMing and Steven, Matt, and Victoria with me. It's this weird variant called "gestalt" where we all play two character classes at once, very overpowered, but interesting. It allows for a changeable style of gameplay.

At the end of the session, we heard that Megacomics, the local comics/games/Magic card shop, was closing its doors for the very last time that day, so we all piled into Chuck's car and took advantage of the "Everything is 50% or 75% off" sale. Though there is a silver lining - the shop may soon open up again under a new owner.

But interacting with the others this week has taught me a valuable lesson about two people I regularly interact with, those being Mike and Victoria.

They...don't like me. This is the only conclusion I can draw. Despite apparently being my friends and hanging out where I hang out, they seem to take every opportunity to call me out, to put me down, to just generally crap in my casserole. I have a couple of theories as to why this is true.

On Mike's part, he and I have very similar personalities, except for a few key differences. Both of us act in a way that annoys the other, insofar as we both think we're right about everything and are similarly loath to admit we're wrong. Whenever a clash of facts occurs, one or the other of us races to the Internet to prove the point, with the person proved wrong dismissing the argument or just giving the point up, claiming that he is no longer interested. Both of us do this. I am realizing the futility of the whole thing.

As for me relating to him, I see a lot in him that was once in me...and a lot about him that I still have within me, and I don't like it. I see a lot in him that is also in myself, and it makes me angry, like I'm looking at a backsliding version of myself. Bluntly, there's a lot in him I see in myself that I no longer want to. So I guess I sort of resent him. Not the fairest thing in the world, but there we are.

Victoria? Ex-girlfriend, plus she's a little bit psycho. Her admission. So no real surprises there.

My new plan is this: I'll simply limit my contact with these two to the absolute bare minimum that is required for things like getting work done around the house, interacting with each other in a group context, all that sort of thing. Talking to them when unnecessary doesn't really do me or anyone else any good - people tell me that it annoys them when Mike and I snipe at each other, and I can't imagine my squabbles with Victoria endear me any more to the people around me, so I say, fuck it and good riddance.

Some might wonder how I'll avoid contact with a person who lives with me. To those people, I refer them to my fourth roommate, Anne-Flore, who hardly says a word to Mike or Zack, despite living with them. They just have nothing to do with her, and she with them. I can pull that off if she can.

I know he'll read this. Mike. Victoria will either read it on her own or be referred to it by Mike. I don't really care. Them knowing about this change will only make it easier, unless either of them makes the perplexing move of deliberately confronting me about my isolationism at every opportunity. Unless they actually derive some sick pleasure from cutting me down (which I don't really think they do, I'm just a convenient target when I'm around), I can't see this happening. So them knowing won't alter the plan at all.

This really came to a head a few days ago, when I decided I would put two columns on a bit of paper I carry in my pocket, one each for Mike and Victoria, and every time one of them said something hurtful, rude, hostile, or just generally mean-spirited to me without provocation (obviously, we go back and forth a lot, exchanging volleys of barbs, I mean the instances wherein I would merely walk into the room or say something like "What's this music you're listening to?" and get blasted for it), I would put a little tick mark underneath the column appropriate. After only two days, I was...distressed, let's say, at the rate at which the little tick marks accumulated. Seeing concrete evidence like that was really what convinced me to make this change.

Michelle said he and the others are holding me back, and cautioned me about spending time around Victoria. Chuck and Henry both identify Mike as "the ultimate cock-block," both of them using those exact words without knowing the other did so, and both have told me I'm a fool for maintaining ties with Victoria after our history. I listen very closely to what these people tell me about my life, since a lot of the time they're right. (Michelle is my sister and knows more about interpersonal relationships than anyone else I know, I've listened closely to Henry since his advice changed my life, and Chuck is generally knowledgeable, despite kind of being a jackass a lot of the time.)

So whatever. Hello and farewell, say I, I know a lotta people and two less ain't gonna kill me. Especially two less people who take every opportunity to belittle me. And while some contact is inevitable, I'll just swallow their words and not respond unless absolutely necessary to the plot.

k. That's a plan. Now to see if I can follow through with it.

The Law of Narrative Causality

I am indomitable. No setback can stop me, I can only be slightly delayed on my path to glory.

Mere hours after Cristina called me with her fateful news, I headed over to the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) meeting, only to discover when I got to the building that I didn't know where the hell the room was where the meeting was in. It was a very convoluted building, for someone who's never really been in it before.

While loping around the stairs with the vain hope of finding a clue, I encountered a girl who asked me where "Room E221" was. Of course, that was the same room I was looking for, so we set off in search together. As we looked, we introduced ourselves. Her name was - is - Dana, and she's a third-year journalism student, same as me.

When we finally found the room where the meeting was being held, we deposited our application forms and I gave them my $10 local fee for joining. (This in addition to the $36 national fee. This had better be worth it.) I heard Dana rummaging around behind me, to which I paid little attention. (Do you normally pay attention to what random people around you do?)

"Oh no...I don't have the money," she said.

And just like that, I could see the Law's manifestation.

A moment to explain, to those I have not already spoken to on this subject. I believe in a concept I call the Law of Narrative Causality, which goes as follows:

"Things happen, generally, because it would be funny, dramatic, or otherwise interesting for them to happen."

I don't know about other people, but this seems to apply fairly steadily to my life. To those wondering about all the boring times I've had and wondering why nothing interesting happened to me, it's because nothing happened to me. What did happen was usually pretty interesting, though.

It's sort of a Truman Show system, except it isn't one guy in a dome controlling everything, but some undefined force or concept. We're all autonomous characters, but events that aren't under our control happen for a reason - because it would make a good story. This story isn't to anyone's benefit, like some cosmic Audience, but rather simply because a story can exist in and of itself as a pure art form and contributions to it are only natural.

Do I really believe this is true? Maybe. I don't know. What I do believe, firmly, is that there are a lot of things that I don't understand, and this is the best explanation I can come up with to a lot of the stuff that happens to me. As I've advanced as a writer, I find myself able to pluck plot elements out of my life, like deus ex machinas (example, Victor appearing to me randomly and giving me a great story idea when I had none for my Reporting class), themes, plot twists, reveals, etc.

It probably isn't much of a logical leap to imagine God as the cosmic Author, but I can't see God endorsing a lot of the stuff that's happened to me, so that's that theory scrapped.

Anyway. After but a moment's hesitation, I pulled out a $20. "I'll cover you," I said smoothly. "You can pay me back later." As can probably be realized, this has two benefits to it:

1. I'm doing her a favor - it endears her towards me, and it shows that I'm a trusting person for being willing to lend her $10.
2. It virtually guarantees that she and I will meet again, and it's a convenient pretext for a date. If she stiffs me on the $10, well, I wouldn't want to be friends with her anyway.

It worked. She was all smiles through the meeting, and I got her phone number at the end as I walked her to her car. We have a lunch date set for Thursday.

As previously referenced, I am a dynamo. Mere hours after I had my hopes crushed, I rose again to the occasion. And I never would have had the courage or conviction to do so without Henry's philosophy galvanizing me into retooling my life. I may never be able to thank him enough.

Short version: Lost a girl, got a girl, fuck yeah.

Of Course

Cristina just called me to inform me that she's getting together with her ex-boyfriend.

...Sigh.

What Else Is Going On

So this weekend didn't quite go the way I wanted it to. For one thing, I never made it to the nightclub like I wanted to go to. One by one, my friends all came up with some reason for not going. "I don't have money." "I just don't want to, man. What'll we do?" What'll we do, they ask. There are only three things to do at a nightclub, and those would be 1. drink 2. mingle 3. dance. Lacking the first, we could try going out and being social with those outside our peer group for once, but I guess not. I didn't think it would be the most fun thing ever, but it would be different, and that's really what I'm looking for. Something different.

Instead, we played Fury of Dracula, which is different for them but the same for me. I was Dracula. I would have won easily (they thought I was in Italy, when I was in fact freebooting around in Spain) if I hadn't made an error and been forced to reveal my location and lose health points, which ended up costing me the game. No matter. It was still interesting.

Meh. I just wanted to do something different. Which I did end up doing Sunday morning, actually, when I made crepes for my parents and sister and grandparents. I felt like a short-order cook. About every forty-five seconds, I would finish a crepe, and as soon as it was done, someone would snatch it up. And everyone wanted theirs differently.

"Burn mine a little bit."
"Make mine thicker than usual."
"Don't cook it too much on that side."

It was all I could do to eke out a few for myself. It's my cooking, I wanted a few, which I got. It was then that I discovered that putting honey in them rocks, as does powdered sugar, as does melting a few slices of cheese into one (though I suspect that would have gone rather better if I had made "dinner" crepes as opposed to "dessert" crepes). So that was entertaining, and new, I've never really cooked breakfast/lunch for a bunch of people before. Not the biggest and most world-shattering experience, mind, but anything new. I feel I'm grasping at straws, yet, it doesn't seem to matter.

I'm wearing my hat now. Even to class. My black fedora, which I keep at home and keep forgetting to bring back. I wore it on the bus ride back, and have now decided that it's my lucky hat. Exactly why this is I will enumerate shortly.

I've actually become rather decent at pool, because of all the times I go to the Union and play pool with any combination of Mike, Zack, Kevin, Steven, Chris, Rachel, and John. Maybe someone else I'm forgetting...no, I think that's it. My new pool catchphrase, whenever I sink a shot that's even mildly difficult, is "Yes! I'm a genius!" Which I'm actually getting to say every so often, as I'm learning how to sink shots.

My sister did not yet have her baby. It's at full health, though, in fact healthier than a normal baby at this point. We feared her drug use that ravaged her body would have caused some mental or physical defect; to all scans, the baby is perfectly healthy. We feared that her methadone use (legal) would cause the baby to go into withdrawal; bizarrely, there is absolutely no methadone in the baby's bloodstream. Somehow. We feared her smoking would stunt the baby's birth weight, the baby weighs over eight pounds.

I am continually baffled by this turn of events. My sister believes that this is God's reward for her giving up heroin and various other sinful habits, that He is protecting her unborn child. I don't know about that, but as I am wont to say, I believe that there are a lot of things that I don't understand. For now, I'm just thankful that the sins of the mother have not been visited upon the child.

I may have to go down again next weekend when the baby is finally born, but honestly I'm going to ask my sister if I can come down a few weeks from now. I can't afford to come down weekend after weekend, it's taxing on my limited funds, and frankly newborn babies are...I don't want to say ugly, because obviously they're amazing and beautiful miracles of nature (that's my story and I'm stickin' to it), but they're a bit undeveloped. All I would really be able to do would be to ooh and aah, I wouldn't trust myself holding a near-newborn. Plus, I got plans this weekend, and while I can abandon them if my sister desires me to be around, I would prefer not to.

I'm not doing very well, physically, at the moment. For one thing, I'm on two hours of sleep, on account of I stayed up way late last night as a result of not managing to read my book (which I had to write a paper on last night) or study my notes for today's test on the way home on the bus, so I had to stay up way too late. So late, it was, in fact, early. Energy drinks helped. Are helping.

Plus, I may have a cold. More on this in a bit.

The reason I didn't get a chance to read my book or study on the way home was because I spent the entire trip talking to a very friendly girl named Cristina, whom I sat next to. I slept the initial period, but after we stopped for dinner, the entire rest of the trip, three hours plus, was spent in conversation with her.

She's a senior, majoring in economics (she started in pharmacy but hated the science courses), is slightly uncertain of her future, but is doing well in her classes. She likes to talk, but she also likes to listen. More specifically, she likes to listen to me talk, though I know enough now to constantly guard my rambling against subjects that I know a person doesn't care about, like in-depth discussions of video games or comic books or all that sort of thing. And yes, before you ask, I know the difference between someone actually paying attention and being interested and someone with the glazed-eyes look of "Dear God, why won't he shut the hell up?" I occasionally inspire the latter, but this was all about the former.

I told her about my new philosophy of life, to find new and interesting things to do. She expressed a similar interest to become "less boring." I told her I was starting to work out. She mentioned she was thinking of getting into that as well, so I invited her to come running with me, which she said she would like. (I'm going to hire a personal trainer, not exactly something on which I can bring along someone who doesn't have my specific goals, but I want to train my body to be something other than the inathletic lump of gristle that it is.)

She said she had a cold, and hoped I wouldn't get it. I mentioned how I get colds and literally don't even notice, on account of I constantly sneeze and blow my nose due to allergies, and a slight increase is nothing to write home about, so it wasn't a big issue.

My hat was never directly mentioned, but I get the feeling that it was well-received. I like this hat. I'm going to wear it often from now on. Just this morning, it kept a light morning drizzle from getting my glasses wet, which I always hate when that happens.

We arrived, I helped her carry a big box to her car, she gave me a ride home. We arrived at my place, still talking. I asked for her phone number, which she gave me. I leaned over and we kissed. I expressed my thanks for the ride, and wished her a good evening. She smiled and wished me the same. I leaned over and we kissed again. Then some more. I apologized mildly for not being very good at it, to which she giggled and said it was okay. I realized that we both had things to do that evening (she needed to study as well), so I bid her good evening again and went to gather my things. I even tipped my hat. I like this hat.

When I got home, I was confronted by Mike, who berated me for leaving dirty dishes in my room and leaving dishes in the sink, which he informed me I had to do. Normally, I would have been irate, for I hadn't even had an opportunity to put down my bags, but I was in such a good mood that I cheerfully accepted. I put down my bags and Mike followed me downstairs and talked to me while I worked my way through the huge pile of dishes. It took me about an hour fifteen to do them all. Normally I would have been upset at all the work, but all I could feel at the end was a sense of accomplishment for having finished all the work. Then I went for a walk.

I called Henry and spoke to him of the evening's events. He told me that he too had lots of studying to do, and expressed what I thought was an irritatingly large amount of surprise that I had managed to attract a girl when he was still without female attention. We promised to speak more about it in the morning. Being as he was more or less the inspiration of my personality shift, which is what caused me to gain enough confidence and fire to speak to random people (girls, specifically, he helped me learn how to speak to women, as I have previously noted), I figured I'd give him a status report, which he seems to be okay with. I picked up some energy drinks, came back, studied a lot, read the book, wrote the paper, went to sleep.

Woke up two hours later. Went to class. (I'm in class now, actually, but this is a nonsense lecture class that I really don't have to pay that much active attention to. I'm taking notes, trust me. This class is easy.) And yet, though my hands are shaking due to all the coffee I drank this morning, I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. Sure, I may have a cold now, but I'll just pop Sudafed and feel fine. I read somewhere once that positive emotion resulting from interaction with the opposite sex can boost one's immune system temporarily, allowing one to shrug off minor infections like colds (let's just say that if Cristina in fact had a cold, so do I), but even if not, that's all right.

I'm feeling pretty good, now. Better than I have in a while. We're scheduled to meet again on Wednesday for lunch, but I'll see if we can't meet today instead. I want to see her again. I can only hope she feels likewise.

Yeah.

More on Life

Did you know? Once the red light to cross 13th Street turns green, I always make it exactly nine steps along the crosswalk before it starts blinking red again. Unless, of course, I'm behind someone, or get a late start. But if I'm unimpeded, it's always precisely nine steps.

I've been backsliding recently. I haven't gone running in a few days. I spent hours yesterday doing nothing but staring into the computer. Huh. Had trouble finding other things to do. What's there to do on a Sunday when a lotta your friends are out of town, and the rest are studying for various things? Sure, I could have done something constructive, but I haven't been exactly in a constructive mood for the last few days. I've been flickering randomly between rampant fervor and an unaccountable haze that prevents me from doing anything much.

Valiant attempts have been made, however. On Saturday, I annoyed both my roommates until they both finally got off their computers and accompanied me outside, to get some lunch and play pool at the Reitz Union. After that, I called one of my friends to give Henry (and myself and my roommate) a ride to Publix, seeing as he needed to buy antibiotics for his terrible throat virus. We got to the pharmacy literally minutes before the gate came down and it closed, and I'm not entirely sure if it would have been open on Sundays. Even if it was, it'd have been darn inconvenient. So, lucky us.

...This should probably come later, but who is Schroedinger? I mean, not the classical Schroedinger, the one who commented. I'm a bit puzzled as to this person's identity. I mean, I know this much about the person:

1. I see him/her on Wednesdays. This probably narrows it down to someone I see on Game Night, as I don't have any other Wednesday-specific events. But this doesn't narrow it down at all, seeing as about thirty people go there.
2. It's someone who knows me well enough to know that I have a blog, and where to find it. Again, normally this would narrow it down more, but a few of my Gainesville friends know about the blog, and any one of them could have told anyone else in the group.
3. It's someone who cares enough about me that they would give a tinker's damn if my personality changed significantly. Here, I am absolutely at a loss. Barring a few people who have already denied being this commenter, I can't really think of anyone at Game Night who I would put above the level of "friend," and only six or seven above "acquaintance I see once a week." Generally, I'd think a person would have to be slightly more familiar than this to worry about me drastically changing the way I act. (Besides, I was under the opinion that a lot of people found my exuberance and frivolousness slightly irritating.)

So I'm completely lost. If'n you want to reveal yourself, mystery commenter, good on yer. If not...I wish you would, this is seriously starting to pick at my brain.

But as to addressing his/her comments, don't fear of any terrible change in the way I act. I'm not going to throw my computer out the window, burn my Magic cards, and forswear all involvement in the silly nerdly activities I regularly partake in. I just plan to change the way I look at life, and reduce greatly my reliance on said activities for being the only things I do.

More to the point, I can't imagine that this change could be taken as anything but good. I plan to do more exciting things and be more social. ...Oh no. Let's hit the general alarm. I plan to *gasp* go out and talk to people more often. This is not a change to be wary about, sir/madam. I'm not going to abandon my old friends, I'm just going to go out and make a lotta more new ones.

And as for generally being happy, I can't really deny that, but I would submit to your attention the sharp distinction between being "happy" and being "content." I am almost always content. But truly happy? Not so often. True happiness is not easy to attain, it's true, but it's much more difficult to do so when I'm more or less lobotomizing myself for hours every day by giving up the greater part of my personality, expenditures, and mental processes in favor of blandly browsing the Internet. Seeking adventure is a better bet than waiting for adventure to come to me.

On that note, when I come home next Friday night, I'm not going to sit around and play video games Friday night. I'm gathering all my 18+ friends to me, and we're gonna go out and go downtown, and go to a nightclub. Not because nightclubs have anything especially fun or amazing about them (some may, I don't really know), but because it's different, it's weird (for us), and we haven't done it before.

There's a card in Magic called Sensation Gorger. It's a goblin. Gameplay-wise, it triggers the whole "discard your hand and draw a bunch of cards" mechanic that red is all about in the game. Being as a player's hand can be thought to represent their current state of mind, this can be seen as abandoning all current plans to hurry up and try a new plan. Its flavor text is simply "More, more, more!"

I don't gorge myself on sensations, of course. Not to the degree of goblins, who are known to wound themselves near-fatally to experience a new and interesting kind of pain. But the concept of abandoning (or lessening) my previous locked-in thought processes and trying something new and different is an appealing one to me, at the moment.

Huh. Yesterday, besides just spending a lot of time on the computer, I went and played pool. I originally went to practice by myself, but I called some friends who came and showed up. I made an impossible bank + trick ricochet shot, which was dimissed by the others by being just luck-based. (It was. But shut up.) Steven, however, topped everything everyone did when he hit a ball with such force that it:

- Smacked into the bank and flew into the air
- Bounced off another ball
- And still rolled into the pocket.

Even though it was one of Kevin's balls that just got sunk (we were playing Cut-throat), he felt the need to applaud that shot. So did I. It was really something to see.

And...that's the point, isn't it? I may not have done much yesterday, but I at least have that memory to distinguish that day above the others in my mind. If I had spent all day indoors, I wouldn't have any specific memories to treasure, or anything at all to write about. This is one of the reasons I stopped updating my blog previously, because nothing friggin' happened to me. I did the same thing all day - go to class, study, play on the computer, go to bed really late. I didn't go out except for Wednesdays or the rare event when I met someone on campus, which didn't happen often since I was always racing back home to play on the computer.

But now...now, I may be backsliding and only making small successes and struggling against my entire entrenched mind-set, maybe futilely, I don't know...but I'm trying. I'm trying, I'm changing some, I'm making successes, small though they are, and I'm having interesting experiences that I can then turn around and write down.

My last few blog posts in the spring, I had to squeeze my brain to think of something even remotely writable. Now that I'm doing things...things are happening. The distinction is simple, but it might be more important than anything else I've ever done.

Life

Did you know that the echidna is one of only two types of egg-laying mammals (known as monotremes) in the entire world? The other is the duck-billed platypus, well-known for its oddities. The echidna is a burrowing animal with quills like a porcupine. Between its nocturnal nature and its digging habits, it is rarely spotted in the wild.

(who am I?)

I've reinvented myself. I haven't done this since the seventh grade, and even then that was a spark compared to the blaze I feel now. I feel different. I feel alive. I haven't felt this way in...ever.

I'm using the computer much less. I'm spending much less time on the Internet. I'm using this time in other ways. Talking to people. Going out. Spending time on campus. Signing up for clubs (maybe). Being social. Learning new things. (who am I?) Being outgoing, and not spending my life sitting in front of a glowing screen.

I'll still use the computer, still play video games, still do all the nerdly things I've always done. But less. Much less. I want to make them part of my life, as opposed to...my life. They were my life. I would literally spend an entire day not leaving my building, barely leaving my room. Never again. Never again. Unless I'm sick or something. Never again by choice.

(who...)

I had a talk with my friend Henry one week ago today. Just about one week ago by time, because I met him at 1:00 a.m. and it's 3:30 a.m. now. No...six days ago, it was a Saturday night. This is a Friday night. (...am I?)

He told me about his philosophy of life. He seeks what he calls "firework moments," moments of intense emotion that flood his whole system with adrenaline, moments (hours, days, weeks) that make him truly feel glad to be alive. Up, down, emotional turmoil, going both ways, he wants them both. He wants everything. He wants to feel alive.

He met a girl. Fell in love with her instantly. Began a whirlwind romance. Dated her for...I don't know how long, a month, maybe two. Had a lot of fun. A lot of sex. Started to have problems. She had personal issues. Their style couldn't last forever. They drifted apart. Henry brooded, and sunk back down. He felt as down as he had felt up. He showed me what he had written on the subject. Called her his drug. (who am I?)

And yet even down, he was doing better than me. I dismissed that claim. Said that high emotions, peaks and valleys, weren't all that. Started to cite times in my life when I had similarly peaked and valleyed. (Valleyed? Whatever.) Thought. Realized...I had none. I've drifted through life. I've never blazed. I've lived life as though a slow-burning fuse, maybe with a few sparks, nothing dangerous, nothing exciting, nothing dramatic, nothing that other people didn't bring to me.

Oh, I've had fun. Lots of fun. I've traveled the world. Had friends. Did things. Met people. Went out. Went to theme parks and been on roller coasters and seen exotic sights. I've had lots of fun. I can't deny it. Lots and lots and lots of fun. I'll never deny that.

But what could I have done? What could I have been doing? (who am I?) What opportunities did I miss because I was staring into billions of pixels instead of a real human face?

I joke now that I realized the problem, when it hit me. I realized that all the time I spent playing World of WarCraft, I could have been out having sex with girls. I say this, people laugh, I laugh with them. It's not true. I was an awkward nerd then, I'm an awkward nerd now. Am I? I was. But I could have been dealing with real people instead of virtual avatars. Instead of dwarf warriors and undead priests. Instead of a billion faceless faces, instead of a billion billion people I'll never know exist but for a few lines of text.

(who am I?)

I've been more active. I've sworn to work my body. Been running. I've been able to consistently make it two and a half miles without stopping. My whole body feels like it's on fire. My lungs are heavy. My legs are aching. My torso is cramping. Sweat is pouring down my brow. Stinging my eyes. I wipe it away with one hand. Wipe it on my shirt. It doesn't matter. The shirt's already dripping with sweat. I see the path ahead. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. It's all I can do. My breathing is heavy. My mouth is dry. I swallow. Choke for air. Have to keep my breathing off the rhythm of my footsteps. If I sync them up, I get a wicked cramp in my side. Gotta focus on breaking the rhythm. It's not easy, all those years I spent in marching band, learning to focus my whole body to the rhythm. It's not easy breaking old habits.

I've never, not even once, failed to finish a run I started. I've never fallen halfway and had to walk instead of running. I'm very proud of that. What else can I be proud of? What do I do? I'm very proud of myself. No matter the pain, I keep going. Pain is just weakness leaving the body.

When I see the end, I'm twenty, thirty yards away, I break into a sprint. As much of a sprint as I am capable of. My footfalls land like thunderclaps. My heart is in my throat. Choking me. My breath rushes around it. In and out, in and out. I breathe every time my foot hits the ground. I don't care anymore. Not going to cramp up in the last five seconds. I see my goal. I see my goal. I touch the door. I rebound away and begin walking. Panting. Gasping. Choking. Spitting off to one side, behind a tree so people don't see. Waving to people that walk past. Strike up a conversation with a few girls standing nearby. I'm at the entrance to the gym, that's my endpoint. I can only say one or two words at a time before I have to breathe in. They look at me a little strange, who is this guy, why is he talking to us, (who am I?) who is he? But it becomes clear I'm just trying to be friendly. Smiles break out. We talk. I slowly regain my breath. I go inside to get a drink, I bid them a good evening. They smile and wave as I leave. I feel like I've accomplished something.

I feel alive. My body is burning. I feel alive. I feel like I'm living. I gulp the lukewarm water out of the fountain. Switch to the next fountain. Ah, ice-cold. I gulp water until my throat freezes and my stomach lurches. I wander away. Into the bathroom. I needed to pee for the last half a mile. I relieve myself. Is it relief I feel? What is this new feeling?

My Reporting teacher tells us that nobody likes to write, they just like to have written. He speaks of news writing. Recreational writing, he implies, is its own devil. Writing, he says, is a grueling, difficult process. He likens it to running. Nobody likes to run, he says. Running is hard. Running is painful. But the feeling of I have run, the feeling of exhiliration, that's why people do it, he says. It's like writing. I have to agree. Writing this, I'm feeling better already.

I went to the gym. There are twice-a-week sessions, Group Fitness for Males sessions, that promise Extreme Abs and Core. I need ab work. I don't have any definition on my stomach. Hopefully, the running will reduce the fat. But I need muscle. I was taunted by one of my friends whom I invited to the session, he sneered at the idea of a group fitness for males session, called it "gay." Turns out it's just open to males, not exclusively males. It's me, two other guys, and fifty girls. I talk to one of them. She gives me helpful advice. I set up my mat next to hers, and we talk until it begins.

Holy shit. This is hard work. Exercise. Crunches. Weird things I've never done before. Bicycle kicks. Just holding a certain pose, we're told, is exercise in and of itself. I hold it. I struggle and strain. Some of them, I fall behind. I don't do as well. They give us, maybe, five seconds between workouts. Sometimes we get no break, just crunches for a few seconds while we set up for the next. If anyone had ever told me that doing basic crunches could be considered restful, I would have called them insane. But they're a reprieve, from the other stuff.

Holding a pose. I'm in pain. Lots of pain. My arm hurts, I'm holding myself up. My side hurts, I'm flexing it taut. I see another girl behind me. I meet her eyes. She smiles briefly. I cannot smile, my teeth are bared. I nod quickly. The music is playing in the background. It's "Paralyzer" by Finger Eleven, a weird fast version I've never heard. Probably just for exercising. We're working to the beat. To keep my mind from the pain, I mouth the words to the song. I know it by heart. I love that song.

The twenty minutes are over. It's an hour or two of workouts packed into twenty excruciating minutes. I stagger around, return my mat, return my big red exercise ball. Thank the girl who spoke to me. Express my desire to see her again next week. She expresses the same. Express my awe at the difficulty of the class to the instructor. She frowns slightly. I assure her I'll be back. I want to excel, I say. I want to do as well as I possibly can. The frown dissolves. She smiles. She's glad to hear it.

I go home. I take a shower. I dress up and go downstairs. Anne-Flore, my French foreign exchange roommate, is throwing a party for all her friends in the apartment block. There are twenty or so people here. She's made quiches, five or six of them. Another friend of hers has made banana bread. There's a bowl of chips. Some bottles of wine. The French have a very relaxed attitude about wine. Anne's 24, anyway. Almost all of her friends are overage. The few that aren't aren't drinking. I think. (who am I?)

I converse. I socialize. I meet new people, tell stories, get some laughs. My roommates aren't there. Anne is disappointed, she says she invited them, she doesn't know why they're not here, she wonders why they don't socialize. I call them. One's playing Dungeons & Dragons, and claims he was never told. Maybe not. He hardly ever emerges from his room. Maybe Anne missed him. The other one is hanging posters. I don't know for what. Some organization that I'm not even sure he's a part of, he's doing it with Victoria. All these people are attractive. Men, women, everyone. I'm not attracted to the men, but I can see how attractive they are. I can measure beauty, male or female. One guy walks in with a couple of blonde goddesses flanking him. He looks like he's stepped out of the pages of GQ. He has the perfect hair, the perfect skin, a chiseled jaw that looks like it was carved from marble. How am I supposed to compete with such a man? He's very nice. We are introduced. His name is Michael. He's a very nice person.

Around midnight, we decide that we want to go swimming. We go swimming. There's a pool at the center of our apartment complex. I run, once again, into the Paradox of the Glasses-Wearer. Whenever girls run around in tiny swimsuits, and a man with glasses wishes to join them, it's because they're going swimming, or something. You can't go swimming with glasses on. If I want to join the girls in the water, I have to remove my glasses. Seven or eight girls in bikinis with varying degrees of coverage, and I can't see a blasted blasted thing. I see blobs.

We play water volleyball. Girls vs. guys, originally. Someone who was using the pool before took a rope and tied two water noodles, big foam noodles, across two deck chairs, made a makeshift net. Stretched it across the pool. Someone produces a ball. We hit it back and forth. I keep missing because I can't see.

One guy, a Finnish guy, is in a big floating raft. He effortlessly knocks the ball away. He is chastised by the girls for cheating by being in a big floating raft. I declare that I am claiming the raft in the name of the great United States of America. I wrestle him off the raft and lay my body on it. I too am chastised, but not much because I still can't see enough to hit the ball. Eventually, someone dumps me out of it as well.

Tonight, I went to a bar. 1982. It's the weirdest bar I've ever seen. Four TVs behind the bar, but instead of television channels, they're tuned to video game systems. Bubble Bobble, Donkey Kong Country, Rampage, Sonic 3. The controllers are under the bar. I watch people play. I went to the bar because a musical group called Wait Wait is playing. I ran into a couple of them while they were chalking an ad for their group on the ground outside Weimer Hall. One of them recognizes me. Said we had a class together last semester. I don't recognize him, but I play along. He exhorts me to come. Says his band is very good. I ask what they play. He says that if science-fiction had theme music, his band would be it. That's good enough for me. I accept.

I ask people to come with me. Everyone has an excuse. A lot of my friends are going to a role-playing game session put on by another friend. Some people are going to Tallahassee. Henry wants to come, but has had a sore throat all day. He looked into his throat with a bike light and a mirror. It was a horrible color. He called me and asked where the hospital was. I thought maybe he should call 911. He said that the infirmary was closed for the weekend, and he wanted antibiotics. Thinks it's strep throat. I ask if he's all right. He says he's fine, he just wants to get this cleared up. Says he'll take a few days to (who am I?) rest, maybe the weekend. I wish him good health. Ask him to call me back when something happens. He hasn't yet. I'll call him tomorrow. Later today, technically.

A few other musicians come on the stage. A girl who sits alone and reads guitar music and lyrics from sheet music as she plays. Her voice cracks as it hits high notes. She's still pretty good. I applaud along with the others. I see a cute girl standing next to me. Think of how to initiate conversation. I forget how I did it. Probably a comment about the bar. There's another TV, not behind the bar, with Mario Kart 64 hooked up to it. When I arrived, I saw people playing, and asked to play when they were done. A guy named Chris offered to play against me. He beat me three times in a row. I don't mind. I hadn't played the 64 version in years. He knew exactly what he was doing.

A guy arrives. Stands next to the girl, between me and her. I worry. Is this her boyfriend? The way they interact could mean anything. He doesn't hold her hand. Doesn't put his arm over her shoulders or around her waist. They don't kiss. It could mean anything. We, the three of us, have some small talk. His name is Matthew. Her name is Casey. With a C. I guess that it was a K, I am informed that I guessed wrong. I apologize. She laughs and says it doesn't matter. I tell them that I'm bad with names, but I'll try my very best to remember. She informs me that she'll ask me her name in a couple of hours, to make sure I remember. I commit it to memory, both of them, hers and his. I visualize it in my head. Her name carved out of massive letters of stone. Her name traced in the air before me. Her name, shining bright, spelled out in the stars. Visualization helps. I do not forget. The whole evening, I remember her name, I remember his name.

He's next on stage. She goes to the bathroom. I am about to ask him if the two of them are going out, but he leaves to get his guitar ready. He goes up on stage. Brings another girl with him. They sing a few duets. Casey is watching with rapt attention. This could be bad, I think. This could mean the two of them are an item. I work it into small talk. Ask her between songs. Are you going out with him? I ask. No, no, she says. They're just friends. (who am I?) I breathe a silent sigh of relief. Talk with her some more. When I first started talking to her, she mentioned that she used to be very good at Sonic the Hedgehog. I am suitably impressed. Not many girls played old-school games like that. She's a sophomore. Majoring in speech therapy, I believe, communications disorders. I mention that I'm in another form of communication, in journalism. She nods approvingly. We talk. I offer to buy her something, she questions what I could buy her that's non-alcoholic. I have no answer. She goes and gets a cup of water from a big cooler on the side of the room.

I have realized a fundamental flaw I have in dealing with women. Previously, I paid too much attention. I listened too raptly, complimented too freely. Emoted too much. Showed too much interest. I was like an eager puppy, hanging on their words. It's no wonder. I showed desperation. Or over-eagerness. Either way. I realize that even though that's normally how I act, that's no way to act. I have to ratchet it down. Keep it cool. Henry told me that I would have to seem slightly disinterested, or else I would seem disingenuous. I keep a calm demeanor. A level voice. A level expression. It seems to have worked. I got her phone number. She expressed a desire to meet. Not exactly. I asked her if we could meet up sometime. Told her I would like that. She said that that could be arranged.

The band I've been waiting for comes on. Their first two songs are great. They're rockin'. Their next few songs fail to captivate me. They play on. I think they're good, but not great. They played their best stuff first. Should have saved a silver bullet for the end. They had two encores. Not particularly amazed by either one. The last one is okay. Better than the others have been. (who am I?) I get Casey's phone number. Go down the street. Walk home. Talk to some people. See my first bearded elderly man sleeping in a doorway. Never seen that before. Tonight is full of firsts. Never been to a bar and watched local musicians play. Tonight is full of firsts.

I had a semi-girlfriend. I almost never talk about her. I don't think anyone in Gainesville knew she ever existed. Maybe to Victoria. This was before Victoria. Maybe my parents will remember. They read this blog, after all. I'll ask them if they remember.

I used to volunteer at the hospital. Pediatrics. I encountered a girl named Summer. Summer Thomas, I believe. She had intestinal troubles. Had to have surgery. I enjoyed her company. I did rounds, I came back to see her. We talked for a while. I left for the day. I came back. She was still there. We kept talking. We got to know each other. I kissed her on the cheek. The cheek? The cheek, yes. We became good friends. Kissing? Friends. Was it?

One particular day, I lay in bed next to her and watched a movie. The Lion King 1 1/2. I didn't think it was going to be at all good. It was surprisingly good. I lay in bed next to her. I was maybe fourteen. She was my age. We lay in bed, her under the covers, me above them, and watched the movie. After it was over, I kissed her on the lips. Did I? Was it during? It may have been. The lips? Yes. We did that a few times. I told her that I liked her. Liked. Liked. I did like her. Maybe I was fifteen? I don't remember the timeline. She was my age. We lay in bed together and watched the movie. After it was over, I left.

It was the happiest I've ever been in my entire life.

Writing that sentence hit me like a blow. I paused for several seconds, I panted for breath. Was it true? Yes. I think I loved her. I may have done. She left eventually. Gave me her phone number. I kept forgetting to call. Some months later, she came back. Had changed by then. Was more distant than before. She didn't want to be kissed. We had drifted. I was all right. No, I was upset. I became all right. I had moved on.

The Japanese have a term for the subject. Mono no aware. It means, roughly, the beauty of transient things. I had not heretofore appreciated this beauty. I told Henry, that night, that I didn't see the point in short, furious relationships, because then they were over and you felt terrible. He said that was part of it. Every up comes with a down. Extreme emotion. That's what he said. Extremes. Fireworks. Fireworks. It sizzles, it sparks, it throws off colored lights, what a bang, what a flash! Boom! Pow! Takes three fingers off at the knuckle if you're not careful! But what a show! What a show! And it's over. (who am I?) It's over, but the memory of its beauty remains. Its transient beauty.

He said that I needed to meet a girl, fall madly in love with her, be in a tumultuous relationship with her for maybe three or four weeks, do a lot together, have a lot of sex, break up, and brood about it for a month. He said it was what I needed, to shake me up. I agree with him. Not for the depression, not for the elation, but for the power. The majesty. The...those are the wrong words. For the fury. The fire. The heat. The passion. Even cold embers still hold within them the memory of flame. Even gray ash still flickers in the mind with last night's blaze.

Fire represents passion. No wonder. It's a furious thing. It consumes and consumes, it's hot, it can create cooked food or destroy entire cities. It eats fuel. It burns out. It's a hell of a show.

I may have loved Summer. Maybe. I don't think I loved Victoria. Not ever really loved. I fell in love with an idea. With what she could have been, what I thought she should have been. I fell in love with the idea of falling in love. I fell in love because it seemed like the right time to do so. These words aren't easy to write. But they demand to be written. I'm sorry this is so long. I've had words buzzing around in my head for some time. I'm not done yet. I still have a couple of things left to say.

We dated for two and a half years. Did we? Did we really? We saw each other on and off, once every couple weeks. We talked on the telephone most of the time. I dated a phone. I dated a phone, and every so often managed to meet a person. I was in love with love. I was in love with an idea. Our differences were too great. I told myself how lucky I was to have her while we fought every day. I told myself that she was the best thing that ever happened to me while the sight of her on the caller ID of my cell phone filled me with strange apprehension. What was she mad at me about now? I wondered. What was today's problem? Did I do it? Did she imagine it? Was there a difference? (who am I?)

She told me going in that she was crazy. Her words. You should know what to expect, she said. Maybe I shouldn't be writing this for all the world to see. I don't care. I don't care. Just writing it down isn't enough. The words have been flowing nonstop. I've been writing for an hour, and I've stopped exactly twice. Once when I told you before, and once just now. Never more than a few seconds. My fingers are hurting from the constant typing. Pain is weakness leaving the body.

She said we'd have problems. We did. I said we'd work through them. We didn't. I was in love with a concept. When we finally moved near each other last fall, it did not go well. We couldn't stand each other, most of the time. It dragged on. I was in love with having a relationship. It finally crumbled to pieces. Ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Faded away, not burned out. We cried a bit. I cried a bit. We went out to dinner that night. Promised to still be friends. Spent the next six months constantly sniping at each other. This semester, she promises things will be different. So far, mostly, they have. I hope they do. I could use another friend. I could use the perspective. I could use the ability to know things that hanging around another person that knows me intimately (knows who I am? how can she, even I don't know that) gives me.

I wore my jeans tonight. They have a button fly. It's a little tricky to get used to. I only own the one pair of jeans. I don't like the way denim feels on my skin. I don't like the tiny pockets. I wore my American Eagle collared shirt. I bought it to go with the jeans. It seems to have worked. Casey gave me her number. When I asked, she laughed a little, and told me. Was it laughing at me? Was it laughing from nerves? Did she just think of something funny? I don't know. She seemed to like me. I'm accentuating the positive. I'm going to go with the best interpretation. I'm going to assume that it was nerves at being asked her number by a guy she clearly had a thing for. It usually works out for me, assuming the best-case scenario. When it doesn't, I don't like to dwell on that. I hope it works out.

...Who am I?

A man is defined by the things that he does, not the person that he is. What do I do? Am I a writer? I hardly write these days. I have writer's block. I wrote a couple of sample pieces for the local newspaper, which weren't accepted. I write for class, which gets me the grades I need. Am I a writer? Not unless I write. I'm writing now. I guess I'm a writer.

What do I do? I sit around and play on the computer. No! I get out, I go out, I do social things, I socialize with people, I talk and try new experiences. Maybe I'll go to New York this semester. Anne said she might be able to make it. I hope she can. She's good company. What do I do? What do I want to do?

What do I want to do?

What do I want to do?

I feel at war with myself. A million fragments of myself all warring for the coveted title of personality. Who will win? What do I want to do? (who am I?) What do I want to become? How can I make myself become that which I am not? I guess I'll have to try. What do I want to do?

I want to help. (I want to hurt.) I want to aid. (I want to destroy.) I want to create. (I want to smash.) I want to heal. (I want to harm.)

I want to give life. (I want to kill.) I want to succeed. (I want to fail.) I want to soar. (I want to sink.) I want to enjoy. (I want to curse.)

I want to hope. (I want to despair.)

I want to live. (I want to die.) I want to live. (I want to die.) I want to live. (I want to die.) I want to live. (I want to die.) I want to live. (I want to die.)

I want to live. (I want to di-)

I want to live. (I want to d...)

I want to live. (I...)

I want to live. (...)

I want to live. (...)

I want to live. (...I want to...)

I want to live. (I want to di-no, dammit! I want to live!)

I want to live. (I want to live)

I want to live.

I want to live.

Not just to survive. Not just to drift through life on a mean, with no highs or lows. Not just to drift along, flatlining at life. I want to have fun, have highs, have lows, be driven to the greatest ecstasy and the darkest sorrow, not just float along on a haze of contentment caused by the Internet.

I want to live...

God help me...

I want to live.

I want to (who am I?) live.

I want to live.

I want to live.

I want to live.

I want to live.