"In Your Honor" - The Foo Fighters

This was written in your honor. The honor of all of those who wished to read it, and all of those who continued when they thought they wouldn’t be able to anymore. This book was written to document the life and times of someone who keeps trying to rid himself of life and times. Life’s a constantly changing thing, in an instant it can get better, or worse. I’d love for it to get better, yet, only time will tell. Somehow, I know that only a select few people will read this, but I will forever keep this to myself in case after my death, the world finds itself worthy to read my story. It’ll mark the one time that I think the world, and everyone in it, won’t be worthy of me, for once.

Thank you.

"The End" - The Beatles

As the Beatles song goes, “And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.” In my case, it seems to be that in the end, the love you make, is disproportionately sized to the amount of love that’s taken from me. In the end, when people surround my grave, I hope there are plenty of people there. More so, I hope that they can each think of something nice or fun-loving to say about me or their experience with me. When I think about the future, it never involves friends, it never involves fun; it’s always me, alone, in a house, sitting on a chair: an empty white room. What horrible posture I have, too. But I just hope that when my time is over, and I’m out for good, someone steps up and reminds the world, and the small populous of people I’ve had an effect on, just what made them drawn to me in the first place.

Simply, I wish the world to smile, and laugh.

"Old Man On The Back Porch" - Presidents Of The United States Of America

All I want in life is to get to the end of it. I know that life should be about the journey, about living the hardest you can, reaping as much of the benefits from our short trip here as possible, and then passing away, but that’s not what I want. I just want to know how my story ends. I want to know how I cope with my troubles, or if I can. I want to know if I get married, have kids, where I’ll live. The thought of growing old excites me, because it means that I’ll be far away from all the shit that I’ve gone through, and further away from the people that cause it.

I dress older than I should, talk older than I should, think older than I should, and date much younger than I should. You’d think that eventually, the fact that I’m 18 would be enough solace by now to make me grateful I’ve lived this long, but it’s untrue. I resent my life and most likely take for granted the good things in my life so better writhe about the bad things. All I want is to someday wake up, put on my boat shoes, look at myself in the mirror, and be 40. Until then, I’ve got quite a while to go, but I suppose in this case, I’ll be patient.

"Move Along" - The All-American Rejects

It seems another problem I have when it comes to love and women is moving on. When I was with Chelsie it never really mattered that she left because I’d grown tired of her existence. But then she wanted me back and I, trying to be a nice guy, let her try again. Thing is, years later, I’d still let her try again, out of no particular reasoning of my own. I’d do the same thing to my other ex’s… When Stephanie broke up with me, I gave her four or five other chances, each of which she took advantage of.

Misty did the same thing, only this is where my flaw as a lonely teen shows through. When I’ve grown to be alone too much or for too long, I go to whomever I think will accept me back. This means that I let Chelsie back into my life, I let Stephanie use me five more times, I begged Misty to come back after I left her, and now I broke down crying for Cliodhna to come back to me. It’s sad, I suppose, that I keep trying to rehash abusive, sad, and despicable relationships. But, I guess that loneliness is the price you pay for being unwanted by society and seemingly unloved by all others.

Unhealthy, yes. Unsavory, yes. Unprideful, most certainly. But then again, I could change this in an instant. I could get past the memories of my ex’s, and simply move on into different things and other people. Why I choose not to, I have no idea; it seems like the smart thing to do. Until I do, however, I guess I’m bound to keep re-dating the same pool of girls I’ve collected until someone better comes along and sweeps them all away.

"I Want To Know What Love Is" - Foreigner

I’ve always been one of those people trying to denounce the delusion of love. Even in that opening sentence there is an amazing anti-emotional bias. Realistically, I’d say that because of my grotesque appearance, I’d driven off any females I could have a relationship with, and because I’ve lacked relationships, I grow to spite all of those who do have one. It’s like petty jealousy, when someone else has something, you want it too, and hate those who have what you don’t.

From a young age and growing, I’ve had to witness many of my friends crash and burn through a briar patch of failed relationships. Each of them ending in a state much worse than when they’d began. My deduction from all of this was simply that love much be evil, and unworthy the time and effort of maintaining.

Eventually I stuck with these feelings, but in a completely hypocritically state, revoked them whenever I would enter a relationship.

Of course, because the base of the American population is being selectively hypocritical, any time I would get a girl of my own, I’d go against all my previous accusations of love and it being malicious and such. At least until we broke up, then it was right back into it being the worst thing on the planet.

"I Should Have Died" - The Uninvited

…Yet, I haven’t. I’m sure I touched enough on this when I was talking about mutilation and suicide before, but I can’t get over this one little fact. Each time I try to kill myself, I fail. First off, there’s nothing worse than trying to die and having it not work. I don’t care if it’s from puncturing veins, ingesting pills, drinking alcohol with pills, throwing myself from tall places, no matter what, if you can still live after that, you feel like an absolute failure.

And I’d assume that’s why I keep trying to kill myself, feeling like a failure. It’s ironic how the feeling like a failure makes me want to commit suicide, only to wind up being unsuccessful at it. It seems kind of redundant. I could easily just accept that I’m a failure and wallow in the pain of that, instead of proving to myself how much of a failure I am. But I don’t. I try to hurt myself; I take the pain and writhe in it in a very unhealthy way. Having felt no other emotion but apathy, pain, guilt, depression, I take the feeling I get when hurting myself, and use it as a reminder of how feelings can be powerful enough to control someone: Powerful enough to die for.

"Perfect Drug" - Nine Inch Nails

Turns out, there isn’t one.

I recently started taking an antidepressant, Lexapro. I was told it would make me feel happier; make me experience things I never could before due to my chronic depression and sadness. So far, I’d had prolonged headaches, a lack of sleep, an upset stomach, and still: depression. One day, though, I felt genuinely happy, which was nice.

I turned to these pills after an intensely hard few months, but ironically, things in my life seem to only be getting worse with the return and pain given to me by Cliodhna. I’m assuming that in a while, the pills are going to try to improve my mood, make me feel better and whatnot, while also destroying my mental abilities. Eventually my prescription is going to run out, my mom isn’t going to pay to renew it, and I’ll start suffering greatly from the withdrawal symptoms: feelings and side-effects short of (and including) death.

I’m hoping that this medication doesn’t destroy any friendships or anything that I’ve accumulated over the years, well, any more than graduating ever will. Only time will tell how things like this will work; and hopefully it works out for the best. If not, oh well.

"Lump" - Presidents of the United States of America

Sometimes I feel as though I’m not in my own head, like somehow I’m just not even close to knowing what’s going on around me. “Out of body, out of mind” seems too subtle to explain the feeling, as expected. It seems that most of these times are by my own doing, though; like I create my own realities to escape to when my current one fails me. And it does: boy how my reality fails me. It’s funny to think that whatever a nice guy does, it seems to all be in vain… that’s not what the comic books always told me. Comic books, movies, television shows, novels, all of them say that if you’re a good guy and do the right things for other people, you’re showered with love and kindness. As it turns out, they’re wrong.

Perhaps not all good people are showered with kindness. Maybe only those who deserve get all the attention, all the love, all the feeling of self-satisfaction. If that’s the case, then I’m truly unworthy. Then again, I’d always feel this way towards myself. I do all I can for my friends, for my family, for my lovers, and in the end, it’s like all I did was slap them in the face. Not all my friends, mind you; some of them are incredibly caring and patient. But parents and lovers seem to be the only people in the world who take the general uncaringness that most people exude for me, and intensify it by a million.

"Sharp Dressed Man" - ZZ Top

One thing almost immediately noticeable about me is my appearance. Aside from being tubby and sporting my pompadour, my style of clothing is an indicator as to what to expect when talking to me. A lot of people assume that my clothing choices are simply to imitate Charlie Sheen on the hit CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men,” but in reality, it goes much deeper than this.

The Shirts. This is the most recognizable thing about me clothing-wise. In my humble beginnings, I wore a lot of turtle-necks and striped shirts: obviously chosen by my mother. At a young age, I don’t think you have that much choice in the clothes you wear, or even have a “style” of your own at that point. In middle school, my gaining of weight became more apparent to myself and everyone around me; my father bribing me with pizza and soda to keep me from telling my mother about his latest love-interest, her sister, was taking a horrible toll on my health. This lead to the look I dawn today.

Almost. At first, I simply wore over-shirts; button-ups, mostly. I’d get them for Christmas, birthdays, and would ask for them instead of other school shirts. One year my father’s sister bought him a very nice looking shirt for Christmas that he never wore; it was made of silk, was brilliantly made, and had many vibrant colors. My interest was piqued. I tried it on, and loved how it fit. I’d eventually take that shirt and all his other shirts like it, and after people told me how they liked how it looked on me, it became my new style: the bowling shirt.

These were unconventional bowling shirts though, made of silk, and pure cotton; not very convincing. So in my high school career, I invested a lot of money into real and nice looking shirts of my own. Each bowling shirt, roughly $70-$80 each, set me back when it came to other things I really wanted, but I think appearance is the best way to make an impression on people.

Side Note: The point I made earlier about bowling shirts going deeper than “Two and a Half Men.” I hadn’t even noticed it, but in my life, I was surrounded by people I looked up to that wore bowling shirts. “Looked up to” is a broad term to me, since I don’t have heroes that I know personally, so I instead inflict heroics on people I wish to emulate. Michael Richards, who played Cosmo Kramer on “Seinfeld” wore bowling shirts and lounge shirts on almost every episode in the shows long run. Christopher Titus, the closest thing I have to a hero, wore bowling shirts and club shirts on his television show “Titus”, and his stand-up special “Norman Rockwell is Bleeding,” the first uncensored comedy special I’d ever seen. Then of course there’s Charlie Sheen, who wears bowling shirts and lounge shirts on his television show “Two and a Half Men.”

The pants I’ve wore over the past years have changed juristically as well. I used to wear jeans like it was nobody’s business. I used to do everything in jeans; play, work, frolic, hell, I used to sleep in my jeans on some nights. Eventually I switched to shorts, because pants became too constricting and such. Shortly after the switch to shorts, khakis became worn by me more and more, simply because they were lighter than jeans. The year after, I bought khaki pants to completely replace the jeans I used to wear exclusively. Ever since, I’ve worn only khaki pants, simply because I enjoy them much more.

Shoes; I love your shoes! My shoes, unlike the rest of my wardrobe, are completely irrelevant to the rest of my tastes. Because of school, I’d have to buy a pair of sneakers no matter what, and with wide feet, doing this is a terribly hard thing to do. For me, I couldn’t get a nice looking pair of shoes, and it always brought me down, though shoes were the least of my worries when it came to my apparel. Junior year though, I was able to get one pair of sneakers, and one pair of awesome shoes. They were Adidas replication bowling shoes, meaning they were to be worn like regular shoes, but looked identical to shoes you’d wear bowling. Senior year I, instead of recreating the bowler look, went to look more mature instead, and bought boat shoes. Mr. Petti would always comment on how I’d begun to look more and more like Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men,” but always said the one thing I lacked was a good pair of convincing shoes. The shoes I have now are the closest things I could get when it came to convincing shoes, so I think Mr. Petti would be satisfied with my wardrobe now.

Glasses: I use these to see.

"That Smell" - Lynyrd Skynard

It may sound funny, but sometimes different smells remind me of situations from times long sense past. This will be a fairly short section, but you’re reading it, so I don’t care. Sometimes the smell will just remind me of a previous time, times when things were different.

One day I went up into my room, and there was a mild mix of the muskiness coming from My stepdad and I’s rooms, and the smell of outside: flowers, fresh air, cut grass, etc. This reminded me of when the computer used to be in my stepdad’s room, and how I’d spend all my time at night talking to Ashley from the young age of 13 until age 17 (when the computer became mine.)

Another random sense I get is the smell of Speed Racer. That sounds incredibly bizarre, but about a year or two ago, I was really into the show “Speed Racer.” I watched the cartoons, went to see the movie, and bought the toys, everything. And I’m not sure how or why, but now on some days, I’ll go upstairs, or sit down to relax on the couch, and a smell enters my nose that reminds me of all the times I had collecting the toys and watching the shows. It’s funny, and silly, but all completely true.

Some smells also upset me. Stephanie had a very different smell from any girl I’d ever been with, and as it turns out, you can buy this smell from the stores. So now, whenever a girl crosses my path with her perfume/body spray on, at first I’m happy (always thinking of that one night we had together,) but then I’m angered to all end, because of the hate-filled ending she and I created.

Side Note: The Smell of Eggs and Teen Spirit make me sick.

"The Future Soon" - Jonathan Coulton

I have no idea what I’m going to do since next year starts college. I’m bound to never forget the impact Jessica had on my life, and I’ve promised teachers and students alike that I’ll be visiting for years to come in Barker Central. I may never convince Jessica into anything, and I’m sure that no one else will match up to her, or the ex I had before her, but seriously, I fear for my upcoming relationship status.

Love’s one of those things that can be awesome and retarded at the same time. No one “invented” love, so you’ve really got no one to blame for your own feelings but yourself. I can’t destroy my feelings for Jess, since she’s been the latest major part of my emotional life. Maybe in 11 years she’ll find me on Virtual-Reality Facebook 8.0 or whatever we’ll have by then, and ask for a nice walk or cup of coffee, if I’m still living, but who knows.

There’s always a possibility that maybe there’s a nice girl out there that doesn’t hate fat kids, bowling shirts, and suicide, and might somehow show an interest in me. I never think of this, since all girls like this end up simply using me and leaving me to bleed, but still. Also, she’d probably end up being blind, or mute… a nice Helen Keller type of girl, who has no recollection as to what makes me a bad person.

Who knows what’ll happen next. I’m sure by the time I’m through with college, I’ll be getting out of an abusive relationship, living with my best friend Matt, Jessie will be one of the biggest heartbreakers in Barker High, My ex’s will have all contracted over 3 forms of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and the world will continue on regardless of how we like it.

Enough about love, let’s get back on a different track.

"I Will Always Love You" - Whitney Houston

There’s one girl here… I didn’t want to bring up. Her name was April May Harris. I’m not going to write a lot, because the memory hurts me so. April’s one of the key reasons I believe in God and an afterlife…

I knew April five years growing up on the weekends at my dad’s in the trailer park. We grew to love each other, as friends, and later, as more.

Her mother had to relocate for work, and took April with her (obviously) all the way to North Dakota. We stayed in touch (in an era without internet), but in 2004 we moved into the technical times. As a couple by distance, we’d grown incredibly close. In 2005 I received a message from her saying that her mom was going to pay for a ticket that would fly her back to New York so we could spend some much needed time together after 4 years.

December 22, 2005, she was hit and killed by a drunk driver. Only three days before she was to be coming to see me. 11 Days after I’d gotten the message from her. I didn’t hear from her for months, until her brother called me crying on the 31^st of March, in disbelief that no one contacted me.

If anyone deserves a heaven, it’s April. She embodied innocence and perfection to me, and always will. And now, she’s basking in a land that was made for her. She will forever be missed. Forever.

"Savior" - Rise Against

There’s only one more person I’m going to discuss in this section, because out of all of them, this one deserves probably her own book, let alone her own mini-chapter. America Online’s Instant Messaging feature has gotten me into some pretty tight situations in the past; whether it be Misty hate-messaging me with a trillion different names after I’d blocked her on my list, to just simply losing friends in conversations that would only take place over instant messaging. But of all the things that have happened because of AIM, this is and will always be the greatest.

Ashley. That name alone is a word to me, synonymous with “Best friend,” “adorable,” and obviously, “love.” I’ve known this girl for about five years now, and it’s incredibly weird to think this, because when we met, that would make me 13, not even a freshman yet. Even stranger, this would make her about 9. Before you, the reader, starts drawing conclusions about me being a pedophile, let me trace back out meeting.

One random night online, I was talking to a friend of mine. I’d said something that she thought was awesome, so she copied and pasted it in her “About Me” section of her AIM profile, using my Screen name. A few days later, I got an Instant Message from someone, I didn’t know who they were, but I’m always interested in meeting people who have yet to hate me, so I began talking with them. She’d told me that my name had suddenly appeared on her Buddy List (a lie I’d later use with Misty) and that she just wanted to know who I was. I was more than willing to get to know her.

As time continued, I began to learn more about her; things I’d initially be horrified by, and then grow accustomed to, and later still be infatuated by. This is a girl, who at around 9 years old, was faced with horrible circumstances, some of which I also could relate to. She was a scared little girl, constantly in fear of her surroundings. Ashley faced sexual harassment, long walks home alone, and people around her that made her feel inadequate. Although I always offered to be there for her, she and I both knew that realistically there was nothing a 13 or 14 year old could do to aid her.

Age also played a part in our relationship, usually in a negative way, though. The first spurt of friendship we had ended after Ashley and her friend taunted me about having feelings for her, in which I, trying to salvage some pride, simply walked out of the friendship instead of taking ridicule. Because she was only 9 or 10 at the time, I truly couldn’t hold her behavior against her, regardless of how mature she was for her age. Our second attempt at friendship was thwarted when a double-standard between me and other guys grew apparent. With my feelings crushed, I again walked out of things before losing too much of what myself knew to be a good memory.

Our last attempt at friendship, however, is one sure to last as long as we need it to. Never on Earth have I realized how much I’d taken for granted in a friendship or relationship. There are certain things you feel when you have a friendship with someone, but as it turns out; this grows even more powerful after almost six years. Ashley had kept me from attempting suicide countless times, back when it was simply a hobby for me. I’d also like to think I kept her out of a bad situation or two, but in our attempts, I think she’d only completely relied on me this last attempt of friendship.

Now, it seems, we need each other. If it weren’t for Ashley, I’d probably be dead, whether physically or emotionally. I’d always called her my “Angel,” simply because she gave me a reason for living when no one or nothing else did. That’s still true even ‘til today; whenever things at home suck, when people are treating me unlike they should, when I feel as if there’s no reason to keep going, there’s Ashley. It’s a nice thing to know that when nothing else is going the right way, there’s always someone out there for you to relate with and share the pain.

Love. That’s played a major part in what Ashley and I have. It caused us to stop talking early in our friendship because of my being taunted for having feelings for Ashley, simply because I enjoyed her company. The second time, I’d quit talking to Ashley out of jealousy of her with other guys and things of the like. The third time though, I think both of us had a massive realization. By this time, we’d both been put through hell both family-wise and friend-wise. We were both social misfits, and both felt as though we were completely alone, even within our group of friends.

But, what we lacked with others, we made up for with each other. She’s the only girl I’ve told I loved multiple times and have meant it every time. Even more so, she’s the only girl I’ve ever been told I was loved by, aside from Cliodhna, who I believed. Ashley will always be my angel, because I’ll always need one. I fear a day that I lose Ashley for good, and hope it never comes. I depend on her for life, she’s one of the greatest things in this universe to me, and I always want her around. I’m sure Ashley feels the same way, mostly because she’s constantly trying to say she loves me more than I love her, which will always be false.

As it turns out, society hates this, though. Whenever two people love each other, society either wants them to say they’re in a relationship, or to shut the fuck up. Sadly, Ashley and I refuse to do both, and it’s not to mess with society. Our love is better than any relationship could amount to, and unfortunately for society, we truly don’t need the label. I asked Ashley to emotionally marry me, and she agreed, and it made me one of the happiest people on Earth. It’s silly, because we weren’t truly married, but it was fun to think that we were emotionally connected enough to think of such a thing, and brag to people about our love for each other.

Who knows where life will take either of us. I hope that no matter what, even if we separate again, that the universe somehow brings us together again after a while. I’ll always remember and love Ashley Agnew; as a friend, as family, and as a girl. No matter what, she’s now a part of my history, and no matter what, she’ll always be a part of my life. More accurately, Ashley’s always going to be a part of my heart.

Side Note: Yeah, we crashed and burned again. Ironic, but life happens like that. Hope and faith can only be stretched as far as reality.

"Jessica" - The Allman Brothers

Bless the Allman Brothers for naming their song that, because it makes the other choices I’d had for this section seem silly. While you’re reading this, you probably can’t understand why this is in here. As I stated before, this isn’t simply about girlfriends or lovers, but simply those girls in which I’d aimlessly fallen for.

Every girlfriend I’d ever had, I remember exactly how our history went. A phone call, an Instant Message, A chat room; Jessica on the other hand, I have no recollection as to how we began talking. She was the last of the three freshman girls who’s name I’d learn, yet the only one I’d take an emotional interest in. In the beginning, I had embitterment towards her smaller, more sporadic friend, but as soon as that passed, I was able to engage both the friend, and soon-there-after, Jessica, in conversation.

Well, slight conversation. Much like Gienene, Jessica and I never had any true conversations, or reasons in which we spoke. We certainly didn’t beat the hell out of each other (physically, at least,) but we did somehow maintain a friendship for a good 8 months of the school year. As the year continued, I learned a lot more about Jessica, and the inner-workings of her mind. Unfortunately for her, I grew more attached simply because she reminded me a hell of a lot of myself. This was a girl almost constantly tortured by her own mind, constantly struggling to please parents who seem to be unappeasable, and harboring destructive emotions towards herself in the worst ways.

Not all of our similarities come from negativity, though. Some of our similarities simply come from things in which can’t be explained, like hostility and cynicism. I have a keen and diluted sense of “happiness” and “fun,” meaning things like depression and thinking of suicide make me “happy.” Sometimes, the best part of living is looking down on people, and letting them know that no matter what, we’re better than them. I think I often shared this with Jessica, the joint effort of acknowledging someone who sucked, looking at each other, and understanding that we were better than them.

Music often brought us together, as well. We shared the same musical tastes; aside from those ridiculously queer songs she infected her iTouch with, like Taylor Swift and such. Normally when I look at girl’s iPods, I’m saddened to find horrible things like the Jonas Brothers, Justin Beiber, and Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana… this was not the case when it came to Jessica. Instead, I was treated to a playlist of amazing bands I also shared liking for; like the Foo Fighters, System of a Down, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and eventually, Me. She once told me that I made “Feeling This” momentarily her favorite song, which I saw as a compliment because blink-182 made it one of my favorite songs.

Aside from that, there’s really no other reason for me to be attached to this girl, perhaps aside from her looks. That’s another thing I never brought up when it came to Jessica, how much I enjoyed her looks. There was a reason for this, being every time I did try to compliment her in any way; it often led to an argument or awkward situation (made possible by her and her unwillingness to accept what I thought about her.)

But somehow, I am. I’d like to say “was” since this is going to be past tense from when all of this is taking place, but there’s no immediate future in which I feel myself not being infatuated by this girl. We’ve had our falling outs, our moments of silence, our downfalls, our points of breaking… but something always brought us back together. I lived perfectly fine without knowing Jessica Hefferon, but now that I do, I never want to imagine a world or life without her. It seems foolish to say, but I can’t remember a time I’m happier in the school day then when I’m sitting in my little corner in Yearbook class, and knowing that whenever I look to my right, Jessica is almost always sure to look back over.

There was certainly a lot in her head about me and my advances, most of them which brought her into a permanent defensive state. Perhaps I’d always came on too strong, slowly pushing her away the more I felt towards her, but it’s too late to go back and change anything now. This is the girl I bought flowers for, that I took the blame for plenty of times in yearbook, even in cases she never knew. This is the girl I spent nights working on CD’s for, and wrote hundreds of notes for, which all eventually all got tore up and thrown away. This is the girl who thought that no matter what, I was too awesome for her, and thought that my love for her depended on her love for me back. That was never true. Love has so many meanings, and I can’t say that there is no one more I cared about, and wished to bring happiness to, than little Jessica Hefferon.

I’ll always remember the night we almost stopped talking for good. I could never forget the pain in my chest that night, the overall terror in my mind that I could lose someone I’d brought myself to ultimately care about. We’d said our goodbyes, and I never really wanted to, and in a last-ditch effort, I hoped maybe she’d compromise with me… just so everything could go back to the way things were. I watched Twilight and New Moon for this damn girl, I wasn’t ready to lose everything. Luckily she agreed, and we’ve been happy with each other ever since. There was always one thing that was implied, but never said between us, which I made official that night. I told Jessica I loved her that night, and though she never had a response, I didn’t need one. The fact that she knew meant that there was truly nothing else I could do to make my affection more clear, and that everything was now in her court. Luckily, she remained okay with my feelings towards her, eventually coping and accepting that I wasn’t changing my mind any time soon.

Side Note: How the hell does somebody predict that someone’s going to bring cake, candles, and flowers into school on the last day as one final special event?! I mean, that’s freaking ridiculous. This is what she did, and now I’m at a loss as to how to make our last day together special. I’ve done everything I could, and now I have no more ways in which to say she’s special to me, and that I’ll always remember our time together… perhaps I’ll just stick with the guitar idea, or maybe a walk…

Side Note 2: Destruction.

"I Miss You" - blink-182

“Still the One” “Dammit” “I Miss You”

This section is going to make me incredibly sad to write. This part is dedicated to Cliodhna. I’ve seriously never met a girl that I’ve felt more emotion for in all my life. In my time, I’ve liked plenty of girls, I’ve had crushes, I’ve had relationships, but nothing was/is/probably will be like what I had with Clio. Pronounced “Kuh-lane-uh,” I met her on an iTouch application called “TapTapRevenge,” a music game like Guitar Hero that had a chat area.

One day, 5 days after my 17^th birthday, we met on the chat rooms to this iTouch game, I’d been talking about how I’d just got done playing guitar with a bunch of people at school. She started talking to me, talking about playing bass, and her favorite bands and such, and we eventually turned it into an everyday thing. One thing that always confused me was, if I got home late, or went on after a certain time, she would be nowhere to be found.

Turns out, Miss. Cliodhna lived in the United Kingdom, in Northern Ireland. Some time away from Belfast, she’d send me funny pictures of silly billboards posted around town and other places she’d been on “holiday,” or vacation. It sucked because for almost 2 weeks since we started talking, I’d only seen the back of her head in a picture. On April 1^st, we talked about, and started dating. This would turn out to be incredibly ironic, given our anniversary would be April 1^st, and our relationship turned out being nothing but a big joke; but I digress. It was comfortable, even though she lived on the other side of the world, and I got to learn a lot about a different country. My vocabulary also grew, and I learned and began saying things that those in the U.S. aren’t used to hearing often.

Perhaps one of my favorite things about Clio was how she always made it seem like she wanted me to remain happy. With all my other girlfriends, Cliodhna was the one who always took the time to make sure I was just as happy as she was when we talked. Whenever Jack Black or the Foo Fighters were on a television show (like Jonathan Ross, a British talk show,) she’d always ecstatically tell me about it, knowing how happy it’d make me to hear about it. Aside from television, whenever a band I liked was going on tour again, or was going to play a set anywhere near Belfast, I’d be the first to know because of her.

It’s not to say we didn’t have problems. Because I lived in New York and she lived in Ireland, there was a 7 hour time difference. This caused overwhelming problems at first, but we eventually learned to cope with them. Cliodhna went out shopping with her “mum” one day and managed to get a webcam, so I got to speak with her during vacation quite often. But it was strained, because when it was 1 PM here in the U.S., it was getting to be around 6 PM in the U.K. Other problems were things such as my paranoia: the constant fear that at any moment, she was going to leave me. Eventually, after 6 months, those fears became real. Although we were together 9 months, the last 3 were incredibly difficult. We hardly spoke, and I often feared what had happened to her. Eventually I spoke with her older cousin, and he said he’d seen her at a Green Day concert, and that she was okay.

Turns out, after her parents got divorced, she went to live with her mother and became jaded. She started taking from life everything she could with a new sense of self-entitlement. No longer was it necessary for me or any other person to commit themselves to making her happy, since she was going out and taking all the happiness she could for herself. After she ditched me without explanation, Cliodhna started cursing, and posting provocative things on Twitter, talking about drinking and disrespecting her family. Since she went to live with her mother, she’d left her father’s side in the dark. Her grandma, “grams,” hasn’t heard from her in months, and she’s grown to be very ill. Her cousin Sean and I cannot and may not ever think of why she’s doing this to any of us, but it’s her life and we can’t change this.

Since we never really had hardships, and I never got a true explanation as to why she left me alone with no warning, I could never grow to resent or dislike Cliodhna like my other ex’s. In fact, because of there being no explanation towards anything, I still harbor a bit of love for the girl from Belfast, Ireland. But, all this love is useless as it has no place to go, and no reason for remaining.

Side Note: I’ve since talked to Cliodhna. She explained to me that the reason for leaving me was… no reason. She simply left me and didn’t want to tell me about it. Cliodhna also went on to say that in the months that she’s been gone, she started dating a new guy. She then told me that she’d had sex with this kid, which absolutely destroyed me inside. Cliodhna: the 14 year old girl I’d fallen in love with, had not only left me on a whim, but had also started having sex… It’s my own fault for wanting answers from her; if I’d just gotten over her instead of demanding to know why she left, I’d never be this broken right now. I’m so saddened. So hurt.

Side Note 2: Since I’ve found out this information, instead of writhing on the past, I’ve grown to forgive Cliodhna. Although she has troubles forgiving herself, because she still claims I’m the greatest thing to ever happen to her, neither of us can let each other go. Even though the person I’ve been interested in lately is closer geographically, Clio and I have a history that can’t be forgotten. We recently expressed our lasting love for each other earlier, but where things go from here is out of my hands. Who knows? Life’s tricky like that.

"Psycho Killer" - Talking Heads

Sigh. The reason I hate life more than I previously ever could, aside from my family. Misty, a.k.a. “Satan”, is the third to last girlfriend I’d ever had. She was born June 6^th, 1993, which I remember as a 6/6/(19)9-3=6. Her birthday is 6/6/6. She will eventually become one of the most destructive people to ever enter my life. I try not using the word hate, but on a list of people I let myself say it to, I hate Misty.

We met online via AOL Instant Messenger. I’d logged on as my step-sister, scoping her Buddy List for interesting people to talk to. One of them, daddysxlilxgirlx, caught my eye, mostly from the excess use of the letter x, and the word “girl” in it. We began talking, and aside from our names, this is when her lies began.

She’d told me that she was incredibly into me, I was funny, etc. But the thing keeping her back from anything was that she was thinking about dating a friend of hers, Daniel. So I told her to choose, and I’d be cool with the answer, she eventually chose me. I later would learn she was dating him the whole time, and had known him since Middle school, they had sex often.

But I didn’t know that, so I kept going blindly into this relationship. She started using the word love, and since it’d been a while since anyone’s said it to me, I began repeating it. I used to beg my mother to let me use the telephone at night to talk to Misty, even though she lived in Michigan shortly after we began talking and it was expensive. I’d write Misty songs, play them for her, all sorts of random things I figured people who liked each other would do.

Then came with the trials. I found out during our final fight that all of the horrible things she would tell me about herself and such were all tests to see if I’d stay with her. She was practically betting that I wouldn’t stay with her if things began getting rough, not knowing how understanding and amazing I am. So she started small.

As small as a baby. She’d told me that she was impregnated when she was 12 or 13 by her boyfriend at the time. Misty sent me pictures of this baby, and I grew accustomed to the idea that the girl I was with had a baby. Then her lies grew stronger. She told me that she had a horrible medical condition in which skin inside her body was covering organs, which caused internal bleeding. She’d often lie to me, saying she couldn’t talk for so many days at a time because she was “in for treatment.”

Yeah, I was really stupid. But the lies didn’t stop there, one random night, she claimed to have been raped at school. It was one of the scariest things I’d ever heard (not knowing at the time that it was a lie) and I promised her I wouldn’t hang up that night until I knew she’d be ok. Well, 2 weeks later it grew into something bigger, she told me she’d been impregnated by her rapist. This went into a multi-month long argument over what should happen to the baby, being birth, adoption, or abortion. It was at this point (when I brought up how she’d now have two children around) that she told me she lied about having a previous baby, and that the pictures she’d sent were of her little sister, Robyn.

Then months continued, and another thing came up, she claimed that she’d lied about getting an abortion (another nerve wracking event in my life, not knowing I’d been lied to.) So now, it was the previous event all over again; the waiting and wondering and worrying about her safety in releasing herself of a miniature person inside her. Eventually, all the walls in which she built around our relationship came crumbing down.

My (at the time) best friend had gotten her number from me, I thought it would be cool if my best friend and girlfriend got along. Well, this was a bad move in my actions, since they got along better than they should have. Turns out for a month and so after I’d given him Misty’s number, they were cheating on me with each other. Worse of all, I had to learn about how they’d been having phone-sex, and all this other shit that made me want to tear my eyes and heart out.

It was at this point that I called it quits with her, I’d given her enough chances during all the emotional moments she went through, and this was it. I broke up with her, she and my former friend eventually faded apart, and now whenever my friends and I are bored, we text her phone saying nice things like “Go die in a fire.”

"Three Times A Lady" - Commodores

In this case, it was simply because I’d dated the same girl three times that I chose the title for this section. A girl who’d later grow up to be one of the most disgusting things to crawl through the halls of Barker High, I had before she was so repulsive. Chelsie. We first dated in Middle school, 6^th grade. She was fairly cool, very relaxed, and showed general interest in me. The more I look back on these experiences, the more it seems that all it takes for me to have an initial interest in somebody is a body-temperature somewhere in the mid-90’s.

We had almost nothing in common. She had a sister, at the time I was an only child. She was a whore, I most certainly was not. Our first time dating was not that long, nor was it that awesome. We’d go through our normal lives, doing everything we did before we were dating; only now we had a label. Turns out she started cheating on me, and eventually, after threats of her friends saying they’d tell me if she didn’t, she broke up with me. Two weeks later, the guy she was with didn’t work out for her, so she came crawling back to me. I, being the nice guy I am, gave her another chance. This time, the relationship lasted less time than the previous, ending with me being in a constant state of paranoia about her ability to cheat on me.

The third time took place in High school, 10^th grade. It… sucked, but I was lonely, and she was available. She was incredibly repulsive at this point; her breath smelled, she hardly shaved, and she was incredibly unintelligent. It couldn’t work, because after about a day, I learned that loneliness is no excuse to let go of your ideals and self-pride.

"Devil in Disguise" - Elvis Presley

Ha, one of the worst relationships I’d ever been in was with Stephanie. This, unlike the previous girls mentioned earlier, was an actual relationship. It was also one of the most troubling times I’d ever in with somebody.

Everything started when my step-sister had a friend of hers over. Unlike all her other friends, this one wasn’t 400 pounds, in fact, she was incredibly attractive. I’d later learn she was a cheerleader, but aesthetics have always played very little in my finding of a companion.

First time I saw her was in our pool, a tight, wet, blue, one-piece bathing suit. Once she changed out of it, she set her focus on me, much to the dismay of my sister, who grew jealous of every second of time Stephanie wasn’t around her. We’d spend that night lying with each other on my parent’s couch, me stoking her back until she fell asleep. I thought she genuinely liked me, it was an enjoyable feeling. Eventually we had to go to bed in our respective beds, but around 2am I woke up to her peering into my room. After I realized I couldn’t talk her out of it, she joined me in my bed. Aside from some other things, the most memorable moment in my emotional life came from this time, my first kiss. Granted, I was 14 or 15 and she was around 13 probably, but this was a pinnacle moment in my life. It was dark, she was lying around me, and she leaned forward, and kissed me… right on the nose. I laughed, simply because of how cute it was, and corrected her mistake.

2 weeks later, she starts messaging me, calling me fat, and that she hated me and a bunch of other things. At first it was simply a play for her friends, but it later turned into a hate-filled rant of my flaws and imperfections. All those awesome feelings were stripped from me in an instant. Unfortunately, I’m a great guy at heart, and I’m always willing to give someone a second chance, especially if they have a vagina, and Stephanie and I tried dating again, about 5 more times. Each time it would end the same, all complete bullshit excuses and reasons, and each time our screaming matches grew more and more hateful.

Our conversations now are nonexistent. We ended things in a profanity induced verbal battle in which there was no winner. I gained the trust and friendship of one of her friends since then, but she in turn exposed herself to be just like the friend I’d grown to hate.

"Love Hurts" - Nazareth

Another random interest I had was a girl who’d come from Newfane in or around 4^th or 5^th grade. Gienene: A horribly aggressive girl with a somewhat deformed face. No sure at all what drew me to this girl, it certainly wasn’t her bug-eyes or almost perpetually red nose. This wasn’t love, but a mere confusing crush. Don’t let the title “Love Hurts” fool you, there was no feelings involved, well… except…

Pain. There was so much pain between her and I. Not emotional pain, instead, an overwhelming amount of physical pain. She used to beat the absolute shit out of me, and I’d often return the pain. I’ll never be sure as to why we used to torture ourselves like that, and why on Earth I still felt compelled to keep myself around her, but I did.

We no longer talked after a saddening school assembly when I put my hand on her knee, which didn’t truly upset her, but instead led to a conversation about establishing our boundaries. This is the first and only time I’ve ever cried in front of and because of a girl and the emotional pain I felt because of her. This is still baffling to me because I truly had no feelings for her, yet I felt emotionally sound with her… “Curiouser and curiouser.”

"Dazed and Confused" - Led Zeppelin

My first crush in my life, aside from maybe a babysitter or two in my incredibly younger days, was Tanya in Kindergarten. It’s silly how I can still remember her name, yet I haven’t heard from her in over 12 years. She was everything a cute girl would be now: shy, pretty, and athletic, only she was all this as a 5 year old. Young Steve was incredibly into her, and even got into quite the bit of trouble vying for her attention.

One day on a school bus ride with a friend, the friend had announced his intention of also trying to gain the attention of this girl, which made Steve flood with anger, and Steve bit the kid as hard as he could in the shoulder. The bite left a bruise for over a week, and it was the only time ever that anyone saw him cry, but it certainly got him to back down on pursuing her.

Tanya reminds me of another girl I know today. It may just be simply because no matter how often I tried to get her attention and affection, it never truly worked for me. No matter what I did, it didn’t seem to be good enough, and surely never enough to get her to enjoy my company. It wasn’t my appearance back then to keep the connection from occurring, since I was skinny then, so it must be that apparently Kindergarteners aren’t equipped well to handle emotional baggage. Another similarity between the present girl I’ve found myself jumping through hoops for and Tanya, is that Tanya left school after Kindergarten and I never saw her again, and my leaving high school in the current year of 2010, and there runs a chance of me never being able to see her again.

"Don't You Want Somebody To Love" - Jefferson Airplane

This is an entirely different section of this memoir, yet it, too, will be separated into smaller sections, according to person. But as an introduction, I’d like to discuss love, and my perceptions of it. This section isn’t necessarily about love, but rather those I’ve had a feeling for, regardless of it being pure love, or simply a feeling of attraction. I feel I must make this statement apparent because after time, looking back at relationships I’ve had and lost, sometimes you find that the feelings you thought you’ve had for someone were really hardly anything at all.

Love is an innate feeling you have when you’re around somebody that makes your heart flutter. It’s a sensation in your heart and your mind that allows you to connect with somebody in a sense more than just typical friendship or persona. Love to me, is incredible. I enjoy hatred, a lot, but for me, nothing gives a better since of pride and empowerment than having somebody around that makes you feel like you’re truly one of a kind, and that you actually matter in the world. In a life of having people crush me to the ground, having a person doing the exact opposite is a nice thing.

"Wave of Mutilation" - The Pixies

One of my favorite subjects of all time: Suicide. This concept, the belief that at any point you wanted to, you could take the life given to you and take it all away, fascinates me like no other thought. Even for the religious, it’s the only true way you can say to God “You can’t fire me, I quit!” My life’s been riddled with suicidal tendencies and countless other thoughts of the such, and I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed all of them.

Sometimes thinking of death is truly a wonderful thing, and I think those people out there without these thoughts are really missing something. When you’re all by yourself, sitting on your bed on a cold, rainy night, you reflect upon your entire life. You think of how your mother’s always mistreated you and how your father never took enough time to care about your problems, and you wonder: “What if I wasn’t here right now?” In no time you’re reliving life events, and then contemplating the same situations without your existence.

I love this feeling. Imagine just taking all the sensations and hatred you’ve ever had, and using it against all the people that have ever done you wrong, it makes me smile. Now, I’m sure people care about my death, and it’s certainly not their fault that I’m delusional enough to destroy myself, but I’d like to think that all the people that didn’t put enough time into making me happy, and didn’t ensure that we had a memorable time with each other, I’d like to think those people’s sadness would outweigh the grief of those who loved me.

I had to live with a suicidal mother as well, so this concept isn’t particularly new to me, and this started when I was around 12 years old. After a lovely visit to my second therapist, my mother was told everything I’d said to the therapist over our whole time together, which included things critically against my mother and our living conditions. Instead of taking things as a sign for help or using it to better our relationship, my mother instead decided to scream and cry the whole way home, telling me that since I didn’t think she was perfect and that our house wasn’t ideal, she was going to kill herself because of me. This is a nice feeling for a 12 year old to have, the thought that because of you, your mother was going to die. This often continued as a trend in her desperation to make me feel bad, as she would often stay up late crying after an argument, telling me I don’t love her and that she wanted to put a gun barrel in her mouth.

Side note: My mother and I haven’t told each other that we love one another in almost 7 years. The feelings seem to be mutual that neither of us depend on one another, and neither is beneficial to the others life. My father often tries to say these things, but I usually end up laughing hysterically and changing the subject. There are few people I’ve said the words “I love you” to and meant it, including my grandparents, my Aunt on my father’s side, Cliodhna, Ashley Agnew, and someone else I’d met senior year.

"Brain Stew" - Green Day

Sitting up at night, in the dark and silence, has got to be one of my favorite and one of my most hated things to go in the history of my existence. Ever since I’d begun traveling deeper into the depths of my mind, I’ve noticed how frightening thinking to yourself can be. More so than friends, it's yourself that knows the most about your insides. This can be handy when thinking of things you'd like to wear for the next day of school, things you'll say to those annoying kids at youth group so they accept you won't be going that day, and things on your iPod you no longer enjoy listening to, but eventually it grows into a higher escalated debate with yourself. Eventually, it gains momentum and you're debating your own existence.

Why is it that you can keep more from yourself than you can, say, your friends, and your family? How is it that the human brain has the ability to suppress memories that vie to be unhappy or unsatisfactory?

More importantly, why is it we never realize these things until it's far too late and far too important to work on the issues. Sometimes it's easy to see yourself as your own worst enemy, no matter how small the offence to yourself could be. I find it quite easy to hate myself based on the past events in my life, strictly because they're mine and mine alone to deal with.

In our own way, our past, present and future is all determined by us in the way we handle the situations we're given. Yet, I’d always assume that no matter how someone deals with a problem, there's always to be a negative outcome in one way or another. For example, let’s say something horrible happens in someone’s life: your girlfriend/boyfriend dies. Given those circumstances, let's say that you're given the two extreme spectrums in coping with a problem: taking things optimistically and taking things pessimistically.

In the optimistic situation, the surviving lover moves on from his diseased, claiming that life and love moves forward, and that everything will be just fine. In this sense, he's trying too hard, too fast to get over the fact that someone he'd devoted his life to is gone, and fooling himself and others around him into thinking that everything's okay. The feeling in his heart and mind grow likewise faulty, and he grows a deepening sense of emotional instability.

On the other side of the spectrum, let's say the guy's girlfriend dies and he becomes completely destructive. Aside from his friends taking notice of his emotional angst, he's also become physically destructive; partaking in self-mutilation and resorting to intoxication in order to maintain what he believes to be a normal lifestyle. Although he isn't fooling himself into thinking things are okay, instead wearing his twisted emotions on his sleeve, he's instead crushing himself as a person, making it near impossible for people to want to help him.

"Sing A Song" - Sesame Street

The first song I ever played in front of a group of any kind was "Black Betty" by Ram Jam. This was out of request by a fellow classmate during my music/comedy project. I got nervous half way through by paying attention to the student singing the song and I myself began singing the wrong words. The bell then rang and I luckily got to get out of there with little pride taken from me, luckier, few people noticed the mistakes. My nervousness never really went away until my senior year. Before then, I never really felt comfortable with my guitar playing abilities. In 11th grade, my math teacher of 2 years, Mrs. Menz, brought in her guitar so I could play it, and so I could teach her. She optimistically learned the C-major chord and E-minor chord, but we eventually stopped the teaching process due to a lack of time on her part. The guitar's been in the school ever since, and I often bring it around with me and play it, aside from 6th period's jam sessions senior year.

Perhaps it wasn’t that I felt I’d gotten better in 12th grade (although I do), maybe it's just the evolution of who I am personally and mentally. It could be that maybe I’ve just grown up and stopped caring that there are people out there that'll hate my performances, and instead opted to embrace those of which who enjoy my playing. In 12th grade I played "RE: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton in English for a project for the topic "Suspense". Since then, I played what I’d like to be the most awesome rock session of my existence so far. On a random day during a random week, I dawned Lady Gaga attire and took a day off in Lattrator class to have a small jam session with a friend. We were simply playing for our own amusement, but during our/my rendition of "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga (who I was dressed as, so I thought it fit), I looked up in amazement to see Videos and Camera lights shining on us. This moment was then later immortalized forever in that year's Yearbook. We went on to play such songs as "I Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd and "In Too Deep" by Sum41, and it was one of the best moments in my life, being recognized as awesome by a group of my peers, even though a girl I cared very deeply for was crying due to a comment I had made before the guitar playing started.

On the last day of Yearbook class, I was to play a final farewell to the class, and more specifically the girl who'd garnered my attention the entire year. The set list is to include a group of songs meant to signify the importance of her in my life in the short time I’d known her, and to ensure her happiness on the last day of our seeing each other daily. Hopefully she'd taken notice and realized that I'm completely amazing and worth keeping around years after my leaving from Barker High, since I intended to visit often and text more often than that.

Although one of my final acts of musical prowess was to take place in that Yearbook class, it was also planned for I, and other friends to hold our own "farewell concert" of sorts outside Barker High as a tribute to how far we've come and where we're all now headed.

"Feeling This" - blink-182

In High school, however, everything seemed to change. In 9th grade, my friend and I met the likes of someone I’d never seen before. He was tall, listened to loud, scary music, played Pokémon, and spoke out against the teachers' religious beliefs. Day after day in our guided study, we'd sit there in awe and wonder as he stood there, pacing back and forth, talking about religion as a joke, a fairytale, and that human kinds only use in the world is procreation and life... that we're only here to get the best out of life, and make more little us's. My friend was the first to fall into this kid’s temptations, pronouncing his newly found Atheism, I for one wouldn’t be seduced by such a thing...

... And that would be the late, great Mr. Petti. Anthony Petti will always be the greatest man I ever have known. He was like a third father to me: The one who believed in God, love, and didn't drink. He showed a general interest in me, and showed me that teachers could become friends, people you can trust. Mr. Petti was the first person in my life to make it seem like if I put my mind towards something, I could accomplish it. We had to do our final projects, and I couldn't choose between playing guitar and stand-up comedy (a new-found love of mine.) He insisted, if I chose to, to do both: A hybrid performance of guitar playing and instruction, and a comedy routine. I thought it was a great idea, and never gave it another thought. The projects, preformed in front of the class, we to be around 3-5 minutes long: Mine was 30.

The class cried with laughter as I told them the correct and incorrect way to hold, play, and perform with a guitar, along with taking shots at fellow student members. Mr. Petti was practically howling with laughter, and it gave me a small sense of accomplishment.

That also opened up a little bit of self-confidence I was previously missing due to years of ridicule. At this point, people around me were dealing with the fact that I was fat, and later they were to deal with the fact that I had a mullet. I have no idea what made me think a mullet was cool, but then again, I also started wearing bowling shirts then too, and that hasn't stopped either. And with the society's acceptance of my grotesque appearance, I was then to try and open up myself to a crowd willing to listen. I began my stance as the "funny guy"; this began in Mr. Petti's class, and worked its way into other outlets. Because of Mr. Petti, kids in all other grades knew my name, who I was, and liked me because of Mr. Petti's knowing me. Later in 10th grade I would play a traditional Mexican song in Spanish II, with countless other teachers coming to see, I pulled it off with only a few errors, and a crackling voice from nervousness. In 11th grade, I’d play a Spanish version of "Hotel California" for my Spanish III class, and a recently recuperating Mr.Mucha: Who'd recently gotten into some form of accident. Again, I nervously preformed the song with few errors.

"Too Cool For School" - Fountains of Wayne

School was a terrible experience for me, at least up until 11th grade. The only good time I had in grade school was Art class. The art teacher inspired me to keep drawing and making creative pieces of work, especially when I and others thought I wasn't that good. The Music teacher, Mrs. Hammond(sp?) was a hack and I’d be happy to let her know this. The Music class consisted of musical conspiracies (like those involving the Beatles) and music projects making no sense (Music Mobiles.) At one point she asked me for some songs by Elvis Presley (since I was very much into Elvis due to my father being into Elvis) so I gave her a list of Elvis songs. Once I gave her these songs (which were to help people with their mobiles) she told me she'd never heard any of the songs, and refused my help.

Grade school in many other classes were equally as frustrating. I committed my first act of stealing (that I remember) in Kindergarten. Every time we got to play in that class, every boy would go to the little box of racecars, and pick out the coolest looking one of them all. He who had that car was the cool kid at that particular play time. I never got to play with it, I was always too slow to the box (fact: I was skinny in Kindergarten. My getting fat was because of my father around 2nd grade by bribing me with pizza to not tell my mother he was dating her sister.) So on the last day of school, after we'd had our play time, I went back into the racecar box, took that little Red, sparkly car with the number "8" painted on it, and shoved it into my pencil box.

In Third Grade I had Mrs. Jacka (sp), and she insisted I was a horrible child. Kid-like fun and innocence was not tolerated by her, so every time I (and other friends of mine) were "caught" acting like a child, we would be yelled at. She was the first teacher to every call my parent at home, and the first to be brought in to talk to the teacher in person. Fourth Grade was worse with Mrs. Kirchman, a lazy-eyed moron who had the same principals as Jacka. Unfortunately for her, and perhaps me, I’d stopped caring about school/teacher's authorities over the student. I openly talked back to her, and scoffed at her attempts to censor my speech and humour. Again, parents were brought into the situation, but my mother wouldn't take her seriously because she was constantly calling home just to complain about how much of a "deviant" I was, with no ground in which to base the claims on.

Middle School was fairly horrible. In fifth grade I started taking after my father, and in the worst way humanly possible. After something I'll touch on later, I started gaining mistrust in women, and instead grew an incredibly chauvinistic viewpoint of life. This included treating all women as lower than I (be them family, friends, teachers, girls at school, etc.) and this persisted for almost until my presence in High school. One girl in particular got the worst of my horrible behavior, with me constantly harassing her and saying sexually derogatory things about her and her bum. In the later years to come, she and I would patch things up in one of my moments of acceptance. (Note: Every year or two I have a moment of acceptance. This is simply me realizing that in order for me to be a better person; I have to stop doing one thing in particular, and make amends with all of those I hurt in the past because of my actions.)

One thing good did happen in Middle school though, and this continued into High school. English. I was first given my taste of creative freedom in 6th or 7th grade under Mrs. Buri. She thought very highly of my writing style and presentation, and pushed me to continue being and doing what it was I did with a pen and paper. It was in her class I won a poem writing contest, and another small contest in which I can't remember the details. Once in 8th grade, it was time for me to have Mrs. Haak, who I’d previously had in 5th grade. She hated the fact that I could write an amazing book report or paper without a rough draft. And she often told me that in higher grades and college rough drafts wouldn’t be needed; she often contradicted this praise by penalizing me for the lack of one, though she accepted I, myself, didn't truly need one.

This was the second year since 5th grade I also met Mr. Scofill (sp.) He and I often bickered about my problem with "Conventions", and to this day I still have no idea what that means, simply because I haven't heard about such problems since 9th grade. I assume with age, my creative writing ability also evolved into something greater.

"Drive My Car" - The Beatles

One big thing for me, being legally an adult now, is that I don't drive a car. I've gotten my permit, but I practically refuse to drive any automobile. There are many factors that go into play here. When I was younger (I’m going to assume somewhere in my early teens) I was in a car accident with my mother and her friends. It was an empty parking lot, and somehow, she and another vehicle managed to hit each other. Glass shattered all over me, the door was dented in, and I was scared quite rightly. I cried from shock, but wasn't truly hurt in any way.

Also, when I was around 14 or 15, I was almost hit by a van while riding a bicycle. It was due to my own negligence, but more so by my mother's bad parenting. My friend was biking to his house to get a videogame, and my mother insisted I went with him for exercise purposes, only thing is, I didn't have a bicycle. She persisted in my leaving, telling me to take her bike, which was about 2 feet to large for me to ride, but I tried. He got on his bike and rode off; I took a bit of time, trying to gain balance and momentum, but eventually took off. I was so focused on him being so much more ahead of me, that I didn't pay any attention to the traffic, I pedaled into the middle of the road, where first I was screamed at by my mother (diverting my attention from the road), and then hearing the honking of oncoming cars. I made a U-turn in the road and got off my mother’s bike in our front yard, as she yelled more, I just simply told her the bike was much too big for me, that I couldn’t control it enough to stop before the intersection.

Although that last story is the one in which I take to be the biggest problem in my prolonged uninterest to drive, there's also the simple fact that I fear too much. Due to years of my parents telling me that I’m the least important thing in the existence of life, being told I’d never amount to anything simply because I fail to appease them, I’ve grown to have an amazingly large absence of self-confidence. I'm basically drawn to believe that if I were to get behind the wheel of a car, I’m not really driving to somewhere, but instead putting the lives of those with me and those around me in present danger. But, I’m sure I’ll drive eventually, especially just for the simple fact that it would shut my mother up, who bitches about my lack of driving and a job, yet she won't let me have a job regardless. Parents...

"Feel Good Inc." - The Gorillaz

I'm not trying to make my parents out to be horrible people: They do that on their own. But I will say that I have particular memories of them attempting to be good parents. Most specifically, when the first

Pokémon movie came out, both opted to take me. While my father did take me, we were incredibly late, and missed much of it. Later, my mother took me (getting a speeding ticket in the process.)

Aside from Pokémon, but not so much, on one of my birthdays, my mom took me out to dinner with a friend of mine but she wanted to take me to Friendly's.

I'd never been there, and am usually suspicious of places in which I’ve yet to be, so I petitioned to go to Burger King, where I know I like food. After asking both of us where we wanted to go, we eventually did go to Burger King. Yet, on the way home, we passed Friendly's, and up on the sign said "Pokémon toys here", and I felt like the worst person ever. My mom had known that there were toys of something she knew I liked, and wanted to take me to dinner at the place to get them. This memory still haunts me to this day, since I accept that I’m an ungrateful bastard.

Unlike my mother, who has done great things for me that I’ve taken for granted, my father simply claims to have done such things whenever he finds my attitude to be unsavory to him. This is often attributed to, but not limited to: Me being sarcastic, me being right, me being liberal, me being a democrat, me being an Atheist, and me being rude to "his" family (his wife, his kids.) There is one thing he's done for me that I will always remember though. On the Christmas of 1994, I was at his house, and it was pretty lackluster. I got the regular stuff: Underwear, coloring books, Thomas the Tank Engine Trains, etc. Well, I’m assuming that one thing he'd wanted to get me wasn't available at the time, so the day we chose to take the tree down, a "hidden" present was in the tree. He gave it to me to open, and it was Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the SEGA Genesis. Not only is it still my favorite game to this day, that will always be my most memorable Christmas, simply due to the element of surprise that was implemented in receiving the gift.

"Check My Brain" - Alice in Chains

Another thing that I’ll never be able to explain is the constant memories I have that haven't seemed to happen, and if they have, I’ve never asked for confirmation on it. One particular memory I have that I’m not sure exists is of me, my grandfather, and my uncle Brian going fishing. In this thought, they're fishing while I mess around on some rocks. After being told to stay away from such rocks, I slipped off the highest one, plunging into the water, almost drowning. My grandpa eventually pulls me from the water, ensuring my life. The setting of this event is hazy, and often presented without a background, but I’ve since gained an extreme fear of water, and heights. Whether both fears are related or not, I’ll never know for sure, but I wouldn't rule it out.

Then again, there are other memories, though mentally scaring, that I cannot forget, leaving me worse off than I would be if I could convince myself they never happened. One night I was sleeping in my bed at our old apartment in Barker, when my mom had company over. My mom often had television and music on all night, embracing the youth she was slowly losing, so I rarely got a good night’s sleep. One night she had one or two of her Puerto Rican friends over from the place she used to work, and I can only assume they'd been drinking, or that they were simply stupid. My mom left them for a moment to go into the bathroom, and while she was gone, believing me to be her, or simply just to be a moron, one of them got into bed with me and when I turned around, his big, smiling, Puerto Rican face was in mine. I instantly screamed in terror, with there being a Puerto Rican man in bed with me, in his underwear, and my mom quickly came and dragged him out by his underwear. She yelled stuff and they eventually left, but after I sobbed to myself long enough, she told me to stop making so much noise.

Other memories like this include my aunt (later to be stepmother, Vicki) burning me with a sparkler, my dad's drunken driving and a particular commercial for "Kinder's Surprise" that scared me to death when I was younger. I recently looked the commercial up on YouTube, and it's still as horrifying to me now then when I was 4.

"How You Remind Me" - Nickelback

Speaking of early memories, we might as well revisit the one true earliest memory I have. Although I often claim to remember things such as my mom mixing Gerber baby foods for me and eating them, when I think about such memories, they often take place in third-person, leading me to believe that it's just my imagination trying to create a memory so I can further experience it, aside from simply hearing about it from other people.

But yes, my earliest memory, and how suiting for me that it be the most horrific thing that I may go through maybe in my whole life, and at least in my life so far. Before living with my grandparents (on my mother's side) in Appleton, we lived with the same grandparents in Newfane. When I was young (up until the time of my 8th birthday or so, my conception of time is diluted with my wanting to forget my past) the family had a series of dogs. One was a Beagle, one a Collie, a Pomeranian, and another in which I wasn't alive for. The dog responsible for much trauma in my life, however, was a moron. I mean, aside from being able to bounce a ball off its nose, and its ability to steal pizza crust from you while you're eating, this dog was practically worthless. When I was 2 or 3, my mother left me alone thinking that my Uncle (who is legally mentally retarded) was going to watch me. Well, Steve, being the rebel he is, decided to go for a walk. With the doors incredibly feeble, the screen door opened effortlessly, and I was soon out on the concrete porch. Well, the dog was soon to follow, and knocked me down a set of 4 concrete steps, destroying the teeth I had and crushing a series of other teeth inside my gums for another 11 years. Although I remember screaming in sheer agony, my next memory of this particular event was my dad's Ford truck speeding into the drive way, supposedly to take me to the hospital. That's all I remember about this piece of my history, and much of it is blacked out in my mind, whether due to lack of memory or physical suppression. Since them, I’m fairly certain we haven't had my brain or skull checked out, if we were, I’m not positive we wouldn't find anything.

"Here Comes Santa Claus" - Gene Autry

Despite the ability to take the title as blasphemous, this has nothing to do with trying the temper of those in religious faith. Also, any religious debate in the form of comments will be deleted, as this note is against stupidity, not religion. Aheh.

(I'll try breaking these thoughts into separate paragraphs as to not create walls of text, as it may deter you from reading further.)

The start of this note dates all the way back to last year. A girl I'm acquainted with wrote a post on Facebook (back when you could have more than 240 characters) about Christmas. Unlike most Christmas posts among this season, it wasn't the usual "I don't wanna wrap things", "I'm so happy/sad during this holiday", "Can we pretend the airplanes in..." kind of posts we're all used to. No, it was a developed, spiteful campaign written to say that Christmas was slowly becoming a pagan tradition, that Santa was an anagram for Satan, and how each year, in a fit of commercialism, the "Christ" in Christmas was slowly being taken away.

My grimace is slowly appearing as I await dissecting all of this part-by-part. And please do try to keep up, because maybe you believe this idiocy, in which, I'm more than willing to try and convert you back to the logical side of things. First off, the belief that Christmas is turning pagan. Now... it's easy to say that Halloween came from pagan tradition, because it did, and Christmas relates as well, but more on that later. But to say that something is turning pagan now? In a country that's about 80% Christian? ...

...Okay, you know that scene in "A Princess Bride" where the tiny man with the shrill voice yells "Inconceivable!" and Inigo Montoya chimes in to say "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means." That's what I'm feeling at this moment when this girl used the word "pagan." When in a discussion about Halloween, that word seems evil and mystical, so easily, when applying it to Christmas, and saying it's becoming pagan, it too should sound evil. Anyone with a brain knows that even by the two definitions (literal and religious) that ... it's almost impossible for this to happen to Christmas. Besides, as Jesus being born in the Spring shows, we, during the creation of the Christian calendar, took December 25th from the pagans, who celebrated the Winter solstice on that day as well. So all these years later, Christians won, as hardly any pagans in the US are out and about waving and shouting "Happy Winter Solstice" to folks across the street.

In the literal sense, Pagan describes a polytheistic (or animist, etc) religious tradition. In the religious sense, it simply means every religion that isn't Christianity, Judaism, and the other one we try not to remember is associated with the other two. So, as time goes by, apparently by this girls standards, we're all becoming... polytheistic? I'm actually not sure. I think people simply use scary words hoping that others haven't heard of them, and become scared themselves. And I'm not going to say or have someone imply that, like the word "Irony", that by years of mis-use, it's become a meaning different from itself. The implication was just... wrong.

I'm going to save the anagram part for last, because it contains a lot of Steve, and it's best saving the best for last. So instead, let's talk about commercialism. Every year when you watch Charlie Brown teetering on the edge of a suicidal spiral, you hear him monologue about how Christmas is turning into nothing but commercialism. You hear him explode in a fit of rage when he reads little Sally's Christmas letter to Santa only to find it pulled from the pages of any advertisement and commercial around.

Now, as I'm listening to my self-created Christmas DVD, which shows a 12-second loop of a record player repeated for an hour and a half, while my favorite Christmas classics are played for my enjoyment, I'm inclined to ask: Who is responsible for commercialism? It's easy to blame "commercialism" for the decline of spirit, but in the end, it's like your religion, or your favorite pizza topping. No one can (..should?) decide your religion for you, and I'd be dammed if someone told me my new favorite pizza topping was horse shit.

So, the next time you hear someone complain about commercialism in Christmas, take a minute to think about what they've bought. Are they complaining about commercialism, while on the other hand had just gotten back from every major sale in the business district? Did they just buy every single toy for their child, then tell you how advertisements are ruining the spirit of Christmas? In the end, only you encourage or hinder commercialism. It's like war: you can be against it all you want, but it still exists, and in the end, it's up to you whether you shelter yourself from it, or join.

Yeah, I know, kids see commercials on the television and want things... but that happens ALL YEAR 'ROUND. It's what being a kid's all about. You know what else being a kid's about? Innocence and obliviousness. They're told that if they're good, they'll be rewarded. If you take the time to raise them to understand that it isn't all about presents, but the spirit, and that they don't simply get everything they want as a stipulation, there's no way in Hell you're going to blame commercialism on your problems.

Lastly about commercialism, going with the Charlie Brown deal, any of you remember how that ends? Here's a recap: Charlie's feeling down about Christmas, much like Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life". Then, he reads his sisters Christmas list, and gets further down. After seeing his shrink, and getting crushed further, only his best friend keeps him with a bit of hope. As he tries conducting the school play, everyone dances, then tells him to get a Christmas tree. When he comes back with the sorriest looking tree in existence, they all chastise him, as he retreats in shame (as he thought the tree had character.) Linus then tells the story of Jesus Christ being born, and telling others that it isn't the gifts that matter, but those around, and honoring the birth of their Lord. Then his friends, seeing how Charlie was only doing his best to please everyone around him, all gather around the tree, their gain in Christmas spirit from him saves Charlie from a deep depression and a glimmer of hope that Christmas isn't just consumerism. See? If you break past your ideals, and simply live for the spirit, things like commercialism and consumerism won't/can't affect you.

And this is the part that gets me the most, saying that Santa's an anagram for Satan. First off, that's incredibly limited in both respects for their names. Santa himself has many names he's been called over the years: Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, and Father Christmas. Satan, as well, has his namesake, along with "Devil", and the names of any other embodiment of evil in other religions as well. As Satan is simply the wholesome figure of pure evil, there are many other figures akin to him that each have names for themselves as well. But in the end, that's only one demographic that "Santa" is being pitched to. In the East, he's called "Father Christmas", and in his Turkish origins, he's called Sinterklaas, in memoriam to SAINT Nicholas.

Now, I capitalized that "Saint"... because honestly... can you think of anything more evil and devilish than... a Saint? That sarcasm was so thick you could make a sandwich from it. You can make anagrams of almost anything, it doesn't mean you should, nor does it mean it proves that an entire holiday is full of sin and evil. Now, as The Beatles "All You Need Is Love" starts playing on iTunes, I feel forced to bring up what Santa is all about. The myth/tradition is, at least in the West (that's us...) that if you are good each year, you're rewarded for it. That seems a lot more wholesome than what the Devil seems to offer. I mean, sure, each year an old, jolly hipster breaks into your house, eats your pastries, drinks your milk, then leaves evidence all around your Christmas tree... but that's hardly the point.

Lastly, I want to bring up the "taking Christ out of Christmas" thing. Now, in this day and age, being someone of Christian faith, do you think it's humanly possible to take the Christ out of Christmas for these people? I mean, by God... it's Christ. If you overlook that guy, and the day to remember his birth, I don't think you can call yourself much of a holy person. You can't take the Christ out of Christmas. It's CALLED Christmas. Christ...mas. But I don't even know where these people get away saying these things. This holiday represents not only the things that Jesus would go on to promote to people (good spirit, love, compassion, sharing, flossing, etc.), and that deal with the wisemen baring gifts to their Lord.

But if you ask me, the Christmas Santa is the best things on Earth for Christians who want their children to grow up Christian. It only applies if you can do it right, but bare with me. The Christmas myth is kind of like religion for children. I mean, not every child can comprehend a guy dying for their sins, the whole Jesus deal, but they can totally understand getting toys and clothes and seeing daddy not beat mommy for Christmas. A jolly fat man in red and white is also more appealing to a 5 year old than a guy hanging on a cross, I'm assuming.

But stick with me on this. For Christmas, what were you always told? "If you're good all year, Santa will come and leave you many gifts, it might even be just what you ask for!"... and then you get older, and you start delving into (or are raised into) religion, and then what are you told? "If you're good all the rest of your life, this incredible man will give you all that you ever wanted and it'll be exactly what you want." See the connection? I've got a few more.

First off, God is said to be an all knowing, and all seeing God. Sound like anyone you know? "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake." Oh Steve, you silly pot, that could just be a coincidence. Aside from the fact that no one has seen God, and no one has seen Santa, yet they both bring happiness and spirit into the hearts of their respective demographic? Those who believe in Santa Claus are happy and spiritually awoken each December 25th, and those who love and believe in God have that same feeling. Each has a person widely known: Jesus and Santa, and each are known for baring gifts (of course, for Jesus it's miracles and dying for sins, and Santa gives presents of the unwrap-able kind.)

And my one favorite correlation between the two, Christianity and the Christmas myth, is this: Each year I listen to Bing Crosby sing my favorite Christmas songs... and each year, he says one lyric that fills me with pride and a self-worth, one of not just happiness, but a thankfulness for life. Bing spins on my record player, and says "The more you give at Christmas time, the more you get." As a person, the more you give, the more you care, the more you love, the more that's there in your life, the more you get, in the form of love and respect. And during Christmas, the more you give, the more you help, the more you spread the joy of Christmas, the better you feel from it, for the same reasons. Just like I say each Thanksgiving: You shouldn't stop being thankful after today, since there's still more to come the next day... the same goes for Christmas. Christmas shouldn't be the only time of the year that you take time out to visit family, or help someone in need, as the gift from doing that is just as good any time of the year.

Well, I'm out for now. To anyone with the will-power enough to read that: Congratulations! We can all go back to our normal, everyday lives now... that was just really bothering me.