Part of a letter I wrote to Anna today:

It's amazing how sometimes, when I think back to what it was like last year, I can sort sort of get back into that mindset, and almost forget everything that has happened since, almost be that person again.

How many times last year did I think about somebody, 'Wow, we're getting along well, I wonder if this could go somewhere...'? I thought it about you, too, of course, but for whatever reason, the answer was always 'Nah, that would never work'. But the whole time, we were becoming closer as friends, flirting without even realising we were doing it, moving towards that amazing conclusion, when we realised we were a couple, we were in a relationship, we had someone.

And now, when I come back from momentarily being that person again, and the memories come flooding back, the memories of how we got together, and how we've been getting so much closer over the past year, and more recently, the incredible time we had in your bedroom yesterday *grins*, I can't help but break out in a huge grin, and enjoy the tingles that run through my body, and say out loud the only word that can describe it: 'Wow.'

I love you.




I had an incredible weekend. Anna sent me an amazing letter after reading my daylog from Friday, telling me that she was distracted on Thursday night as well, and making me realise how beautiful it is that we even share the same mood swings now, a lot of the time. And after that, I got to spend most of the weekend with her, watching videos at her house, and sleeping as close to her as possible (we were on a couch, so if we didn't she'd fall off). *grins*

We watched Drop Dead Fred on Friday night, a movie I hadn't seen since I was a kid, and which takes on a whole new meaning when you watch it as an adult, especially when you watch it with somebody who's nearly finished their psychology degree. I'd write a node for The Parallels between Drop Dead Fred and Fight Club, but I don't have the skill. I can do facts, and I can do daylogs, but argumentative perspective nodes I can't do.

We went bowling on Saturday night, with Janine, which was cool (I won, just), then played a game of Dance Dance Revolution, hehe (I won, by far)... our legs were extremely tired after that though. Funny game, although I wouldn't play it if there were actually other people around that could see me, hehehe.

Anna had somebody else look at her car, hopefully they'll be able to get it fixed for a lot less than was previously quoted; they'll have to find a lot of second hand parts first though, so it still might take a while. I hope she can get it back on the road soon, firstly because it'll make her happy, and secondly so she can come over more, which will make me happy. :o)

Halloween on Wednesday, we don't usually do much here in Australia, but we're going to get dressed up in black (I think Anna is going to paint my nails black too) and go rollerskating with some friends, so that should be very cool. And then I get to sleep on the couch at Anna's again, so even better.

Even work has been OK today, I haven't been bugged too much, and I've actually been motivated to make some progress on the application I'm meant to be writing.

And the only bad thing about today now, is that I don't get to see Anna tonight. :o/

back to October 26, 2001 | on to October 31, 2001

It's been five days now. Five days since I decided I couldn't continue to kill myself...slowly...one cigarette at a time. I'm doing okay. So far I haven't bent - I still have my last packet, seven cigarettes remaining - untouched. I've thought about throwing the remainder away, about giving them away. I don't think I will...I think I want to keep them, to remind me. That in the face of temptation, I was strong enough to say no. I'm not doing this because my last packet has run out. I'm doing this because I've had enough...and fuck it, it makes no difference whether the means are there or not - I've said enough, and I mean it.

I have learnt at least one thing, that I feel the need to share though. It's something I haven't really heard connected to giving up, something no-one really mentions.


If you are planning on quitting, try to plan ahead, and get some shares in a pharmaceutical company!

In my bag right now, i have Bronchitis mixture, Nurofen, Sudafed, Strepsils anaesthetic throat lozenges, kava relaxation formula, and dry cough mixture!

It's the ultimate irony, that taking a step that should add years to my life expectancy, has caused me to feel totally awful. i guess I shouldn't be surprised though, after all this time pumping smoke into my throat, my lungs...toxic smoke that would destroy everything, including germs that normally cause sickness, and infection. But now the smoke's stopped...and I guess my immune system's a little under prepared for the sudden free-for-all my body's become. So now I suffer - punishment, I suppose, for the stress I've put my body through up until now. I'll endure the coughing attacks, the headaches, the pain in my chest. Because I know that after this passes, things will be better.

I'm not the only one facing a change in life though... I can't help but feel the total insignificance of events going on in my life, when Paul, a friend of mine, walks into my work office today, to tell me and my flatmate that he's just proposed to his girlfriend, and she's said yes. Wow. It's finally happening...my friends are starting to get engaged. That's the second one now. I can just imagine, a couple of years down the track, when they're starting to have families. It seems so strange to even consider now - but I know it'll happen. It really feels strange to think about going along to their wedding - up until now, I've only ever really been to weddings for family - cousins and the like. Seeing someone I've been drunk with, laughed with, given a whole heap of shit to (in a friendly way of course!), walking down the isle... Committing his life to another. Focusing his life on being with her...


I promised myself I wouldn't be sad....

Another daylog in the life of a substitute teacher. This morning as I was laying in bed, dreading the phone call that would awaken me and force me to get moving, I actually hoped that I would not get the phone call. However, when I got the phone call, I seriously thought about telling her no. I should have because today I have become the Wandering Substitute. Thats right I am a sub without a room, without a place to hang my hat, coat and bag of tricks for the day and call my own, shared around the school at the whim of the school office.

It would be one thing if the classes were somewhat alike but no they are all totally diffrent. First hour is being a paraproffesional in an EI classroom, Second Hour is a thing called Advisory and right now I don't knwo what the rest of the day will be.

On another note I bought my new computer almost 3 months off an auction on Ebay. Well everything was going great until my motherboard blew and I could not use it, but no fears I have a year long warrenty all I have to do is contact the company and get in all sent in. Well... to make a long story short, its been two weeks at the company and I'm still waiting on it. Note to self, never buy from them again.

Something about fall in upstate New York. One gets all reflective, as though there's no particular substance beneath a shiny surface... it's not about me for a few minutes or days, its about everyone else, and I see myself in other people and vice versa. Then you have to ask yourself really hard questions: Who am I? Where've I been? What am I doing? Where's my wife and family? What if I die here? The answers are in other people before they're in you. Maybe I get so reflective because my birthday is this season. I turned 20 on the 24th, (or the 23rd), my father turned 55 on the 25th, and my brother turned 27 on the 28th. My poor mother had to put up with us 3 scorpios all our lives, and her birthday isn't until March.

At church last saturday the priest said that they were going to start incorporating more silence into the service -- that if it was quiet for a bit after the gospel reading we shouldn't fidget and wonder if anyone lost their place because there was supposed to be a reflective pause after the gospel reading so that its meaning could sort of sink in to the congregation. The priest said this pause was sort of lost in our speeded-up world, but that we needed it to put the meaning of the words in perspective. I thought that that was really the whole purpose of fall, at least where I am. Its the meaningful pause right before death to let the full meaning of the passing year sink in. And I feel like I'm surrounded by silence, even if I am blasting the dropkick murphys or a mixed CD made by an awesome young man, no matter how loud the environment gets, its still quiet inside me while I listen to everything die, and find out what the year was about.

Well, this weekend is finally over. There are but a few noders still snoozing at my house, but I think only one will still be there when I get home from work. My mind is tired but I smile a lot when I think back on the last 3 days. I was the denmother the entire time, but people didn't seem to mind that they were being fawned over.

It makes me happy when something I do can make others happy, even if it's as simple as giving them all a place to crash for a weekend out of town. I think we all just really need that now and then, and I think we need it more frequently, like once a month. I didn't get to talk to many people that came one on one, but I think it's safe to say that we need these times because we don't always know what we want, how to get it and where we're going in life.

This weekend I spent talking to other people, making sure they were having a good time, that no one got lost or left behind. It felt good to have people around me, but as always after they're all gone I feel empty and sad for a few days. I want these people to be around more, but then there's that worry that if it weren't for obstacles we undertake to see one another, we may not have anything to talk about. We are so spread out and far apart, yet linked with an irony of closeness here.

One question has been running through my mind, one that I don't like asking: Is this all there is? I've been asking myself that for years, it seems, and I long so badly to have something happen that makes me not ask this question any more. If I were a camera capturing the world through my eyes, it would be zooming in and out on what's in front of it that people in the theater would get motion sickness and stomp out, demanding a refund. I don't know what it is, if it's because of something done to me by my environment, or something I did to myself that I didn't expect, or if it's something far simpler than it seems. I feel like I need to step out into lonleiness, out into real isolation, something.

I do not know where any of this is going.

I swear I'm going to get myself a portable MP3 CD player.

I went to the gym this morning, as I have been for the last few weeks. Normally the radio is playing a decent mix of pop, classic rock and DJ interludes (with things like "the song of the day", having kids call in with their best jokes, etc). It's quite good to work out to as there are high energy moments and low energy moments. This morning however, some genius decided to turn it to some talk radio station! Myself and the guys I work out with listened for an hour to a discussion with the following topic:

"Should my four year old be allowed to get platform shoes?"

This annoyed me not only because there was no music, but because a topic that was potentially interesting and a cadidate for good discussion was completely wasted. All you had were soccer moms calling in and rehashing the same points over and over. "Is it sexual?" "If she wants to wear something let her." "You're her mom, you can tell her what she can and can't wear."

If the discussion had branched out into other topics such as why the child wanted to wear them, was it to try to be a sexual being or was it just because her friends (or her mom) wore platform shoes? If the child wants to learn how to earn money and buy the shoes (or whatever else she wants), should you let her? There was so much potential there for something interesting to be talked about that wasn't it was crushing. Well, not really, cause I just wanted to listen to some U2 and Stones.

Just in case this new radio station is going to be a permenant change, I'm going to get myself a nice MP3-CD player that can be strapped to me somehow so I can listen to whatever I want while pumping iron.

"The bitch I hate and I want her to die"

About a month ago, I began dating this really great guy. For privacy sake, we will call him Fred. Fred is an amazing individual. He has this unique sense of humor, good looks, all a chick could ask for in a boyfriend. All except the psycho bitch from hell ex-girlfriend. Yep ladies, all the "keepers" have this problem.

Since the beginning of our relationship, she (we will call her Jennifer) has caused us problems. First she says she is happy we have found each other. Ten minutes later, she is calling me a whore, a bitch, and I am sure she has used a few other choice words. God KNOWS I have used some for her.

Today, the problems all exploded in my face. She has gotten others involved, and everything was a mess. Basically, she is acting like a two-year-old, I have taken her "toy" ("toy" being "Fred"), and she will throw a pissy-fit untill she gets it back. Well, I've got news for you "Jennifer"......OVER MY DEAD BODY.

I had sex today and of all the things that happened to me this is the most deserving of comment

Everytime after I have sex I have to have a retrospective moment in which the same deduction always arises. Is this what I fantasize multiple times everyday? I mean don't get me wrong, sex is great! I thoroughly enjoy it everytime I get a chance to partake of it, but really is it all THAT good? Is it worth the many works of art that have been contributed to it? Does it merit the hype so many people give it? My immediate answer is always no. But then 10 minutes later I'm scoping some hot babe and wishing I could have sex with her.

I end up just being very confused and very tired.

Anyway school was decent today and I was able once again to have a successful flirt session with cute chick in my psychology class (read above for the irony in this). Other then that though everything was grey. as grey as these damn walls...

The great thing about still being in school is that I can really look forward to short, meaningless holidays, such as our mid-term break that's just past. Because I'm a boarder (yes, so pity me) I get ten days. Yes, ten, with which to do what I please. And it just so happened that my parents were going off to Hong Kong for a few days. Strictly business though. I managed to persuade them to get me a ticket too. I stayed on a while longer than they did. Strictly pleasure.

The reason I wanted to go back to Hong Kong is because I used to live there. And about a week before we moved back to Britain, I finally went out with this amazing girl on whom I had been crushing heavily for quite a while. It didn't really go anywhere, but we have spent the past three years sending letters every single week. This is quite an amount of communication. Then in January I stopped in HK for three days on the way back from Bali. (Yes, I get great holidays. So sue me.) Guess who I decided to meet?

It got better and better. She was coming to England for a while in summer. But it was during term time, and so we were reduced to phone calls, and then, when she carried on to Belgium, text messaging. We steadily got more and more intense over the summer, just as another almost-relationship of mine fizzled out. Then this. This was another step above. This week was some of the most amazing time I have ever spent with anyone.

It wasn't all mad passion. Some was. But not all. There was enough just taking moonlit walks and holding hands. We spent so much time together that her family got jealous. We did all the things that I had always wanted to do with her: we went out for a really nice dinner together, we took a boat out and rowed into a little beach, and we even waterskied. We took dinner at her house and I was very polite to her parents. And we also spent a ridiculous amount of time just entwined in each others arms.

jane returns

but only for a moment...i had some 25 writeups nuked while i was gone. among them, some very touching commentary about my brothers. doesn't matter, really. no one wants to know.

niall is leaving for las cruces on wednesday. again, nothing i can say, nothing i can do. i sit, i watch... "From here, you'll watch the world go by, and doesn't it look sad..."

yes. it looks very sad. too bad i can't feel it. i almost wish i could take part in the seeping grey sadness that has infected this part of reality lately. but i can't...i can't care. i try, and nothing happens. i've been told i'm brave, been told i'm cold...it's really neither. i'm just...no, numb implies some sort of shock to the system...empty implies some sense of loss. i guess it's not what i am, it's what i'm not, and right now, even that is hard to hold on to.

i remember being sick. i remember being angry. i don't remember why. i'm certain it's quite irrelevant...or maybe it isn't. maybe if i could understand it, i could feel something. i suppose i am feeling something, though, to be honest. it's a wild sense of wonder...everything is so random, so unconnected to anything else, and yet it's all related if i take the time to look...but why look too long? the world is spinning in some last dance of manic glee before it collapses into the usual heap. i can see it, and i can know it, but i can't join it.

i wish i were on drugs so i could stop taking them.

i'm very sick, and i don't understand what's wrong. if i could make the body well, perhaps i could think properly again.

i'm tired. very tired. i'm tired of the terrorists, too. i think i would like to talk to them, to make them understand how good it is to be alive and to feel...having lost it, i can speak well of the presence of uncontrollable mental and physical response to external stimulus. i burned myself today. an accident, bt one it took a few moments to register. yes, i would like to teach them what it is like here, inside this sensory-deprivation flesh. praise allah, indeed, sir. you can feel pain. you can fervently desire. i could kill an enemy and take no joy in it, feel no remorse, or even a sense of job well done. be glad you can still enjoy what you do.

yes. i have become something else. i have become apathetic. i remember reading about the grey waste in the planescape books...i suddenly understand.

i am in no position to have an opinion at this time.

Right after work at 1300 hours, I went to the mens' room of the Library Café to wash my hands. I came back, and the co-workers behind the front desk told me Lisa was in the ladies' room and was looking for me. I waited, and she signed in for a computer. I wanted to go to the campus anime club meeting today, but I dashed that off when pulled a chair and sat next to her when she was typing a paper.

Lisa was finishing a draft of her midterm paper, and I helped her correct and rephrase a few sentences. She wasn't very good with typing, so I asked to switch seats so I can type while she thinks up of corrections. We had a bit of a time breaking down the idea of intellectual and moral virtues from Aristotle, but I had enough of a mind to make things read better.

After wrapping up the typing work, we went off to the city through the subway. . . We had to transfer a couple of stations to go to midtown Manhattan, but I didn't mind. We talked a little about the shows we watched as much as talking about ourselves. Mixed with a cupful of silence, and we were cool. Lisa took a nap next to me, and I had to give her a wake-up call when the train stopped in 14th Street (Union Square), and we took another train up to 33rd St. - Arci's Place territory.

We parted ways, and I took the train upwards to the Grand Central Terminal, where I was walking and contemplating going to The (Probably) First-Ever Double Noder Birthday Bash Supreme with Cherries. I don't have a very good first impression of the birthday girls because they found each other extremely easier than me trying to find Ms. Right, but I can relent.

"It does not matter. It hardly matters."

I am listening to Mates of State trying to make myself feel better. Here I am, in my college years, the best years of my life. And I don't know what to do to make myself feel better.

I tried going to the gym. I just felt weak and out of shape. It used to make me feel so much better. Food used to make me feel better. Reading used to make me feel better. And taking showers, and writing stories, and listening to music. A lot of things used to pull me right out of these moods.

I guess I am just your typical whiney Liberal Arts college student. Now I just wait for my boyfriend to call me. So I can talk to him. Poor kid is off taking a physics final right now though. All my friends are refusing to let me drink because I have the flu. So I guess I'll have to find something else.

On another note, long distance relationships are harder than you think they will be. I thought it would be ok. But its much harder than I thought. How can you be on the other side of the world (or atleast the country) while the person you care most about is stressed out and there is nothing you can say. Its much harder to miss someone when you know how long you have to miss them for. Its easy to miss them, I mean, its just hard on you.

If these are the best years of my life I give up.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.