Tonight
Well today was a pretty good day. Kim and I went to GVSU to buy books. I never saw a purpose in it, but since her mother was freakin' because they sent us a discount card, Kim went to get hers, so I figured I'd get some of mine. The three non-text book books for my Michigan History class pretty much tell what the class is about. First we go looking at Lake Superior Copper mines, then to Henry Ford and the second industrial revolution, then to the urban riots in Detroit and Flint in the 60's and 70's. To say, I am throughly disgusted that so many people love to ignore our side of the state. I'm not sure why, they just do. My Latin American Politics class will feature much of the same reading that she gave us for our politics in Developing Countries course. I will be very sick of Skidmore and Smith by the end of the semester. I got some Spanish books too. Not that I really understand what they say.

Then we went to work where Kim asked for her job back. I'm not quite sure how I fell about that. Then we went to lunch and back to my house. We spent a little tome wrasslin' around. Then she started laughing uncontrollably, and wanted to sleep. So we laid down on the floor and fell asleep together. It was so nice. It's so nice to know that someone you care about feels safe enough with you to sleep. While she was sleeping she started dreaming and she tends to have violent dreams, like she's running from something or fighting something. When I felt her heart rate go up I just told her the she was asafe and didn't have to worry and she immeadiately calmed down. It was nice. Then I had to wake her up.

That's where my night really went bad. She had to get up so she could go over to Jeanne's to go with her to Bible study. Well, Jeanne was suppossed to go to church with us Sunday, but she never showed up at work so I could take her. So Kim leaves and I've got like 1.5 hours before I have to be to work. I show up at work like ten minutes before my shift starts, right in the middle of when the Bible study is suppossed to be going on, and they are there. Kim and Jeanne and Matt. I was so mad. Jeanne said she didn't know where the pastor's house was, but she'd been there before. Plus she was in talking to Denise when I went back and she told Denise that she didn't feel like going to Bible study. I've just had enough. I understand there are cetain things that she can't control, but it still doesn't change the fact that sometimes I want to put her into a headlock and run her face first into a wall!!! And I'm not even a violent person. I've had it with her and the runors she spreads and the selfishness and what she has been doing to Kim lately. I gave up on her, but I can't get Kim to. So I think I'm going to go talk to her when she gets out of work tomorrow. I don't know how it's going to go, but I guarantee you that in two or three days, she will want me to be her friend again, or our enitre conversation will be whittled down to one little insignificant point about something stupid. hear we come brick wall.

Of course I was feeling all of theis during the first part of my shift. Robin did a lot to cheer me up. I stayed with her and helped her finish paperwork. So many new people at work. Now would be the perfect time to get a new job.

Contentment; things get in the way when feelings that should be on the surface are not
I feel it again. That dissettling feeling (is that even a word?) that there is something we need to talk about. To be sure there are things that I want to say, but I won't say them. Mostly, not out of fear for losing her, but for fear of myself. The way I feel about those things leads me to be very passionate. I really cannot tell if I'm being paranoid or not. There are little, subtle signs that I'm not sure I'm reading correctly. Little signs, some of them I cannot even interpret correctly. One inparticular plays on an insecurity of mine that has me flying back to the days where I believe that I am not good enough for anyone. Besides, I cannot tell if this is intentional, if it's me being paranoid, or if it's just an unspoken problem that niether of us is willing, or able to talk about.

If I seem whiny, it's because I am. This schedule has taken a real toll on me. I'm going non-stop, practically for a week now. There is nothing that I would like right now than to just forget about the world, ofrget about everything. Screw it all. I can't wait to get back to school. Everything will be better then. I'll feel like I'm actually doing something with my life. I don't know if this is me losing control again. I don't know if this is me hitting my adult mood cycle. I really don't know about anything anymore. All i know is that she came over today, and it didn't cheer me up. It didn't even come close. Not that I want to be dependent on her for that, but I'm too tired, too emotional barren and distracted right now. Plus I have to go to work and start my 4-day 30 hour work experience.

Girls
Tonight is just one of those nights. One of those nights where I know exactly why I am crying, but I won’t tell her. I won’t tell any of you directly. You’ll just have to guess, good luck.

It’s been such a hard day. From seeing someone I didn’t want to see. Well, not that I didn’t want to see, but someone who brings back some bad memories that I wished hadn’t happened. And then seeing someone I really wanted to see, only to be disappointed by the entire endeavor. Why is it always females? No, I’m not going on some raving post about how I don’t understand women, nor how much I hate women. It’s just a decent human problem that I seem only to have with females, and today reminded me of that.

Boy do I want to just let it all loose now. This pain, and yes it is real pain, that I am feeling in my chest and the heaviness of my eyes just wants me to let loose. Why won’t I? Is it because I won’t let myself? I am allowed to be weak. I think it’s one of my greatest assets. That I can be weak, that I can show that to people.

First, the person that I did not really want to see again. Mostly I’ll talk about this because it’s what brings up most of my problems that I can think of with girls. Only because it involves three of them, with two conspiring against me to basically ruin my life because of my feelings for the third. Why does it have to be so awkward? So what is the big deal? I had a crush on her. Good for me. The other two blew that for me by 1. Writing a note informing her of that crush, 2. By being a willing delivery person playing games with my life, which you thought was fine. Well, okay. So you didn’t mess up that bad. Except for the fact that she is a nice person who I wouldn’t really mind having a friendship with, but now all that chance that ever existed is gone because of one stupid moment in my senior year of high school, that had, in reality, very little to do with me being stupid. So part one of my sorrow does not really inform parts two or three, but it does tell you that I had a rough day with all the thoughts above coming before noon today.

Second was actually born out of one and three but I’ll make it second anyway. Where the hell did you all come from? Where the hell were you when I was lonely? Where were you when I was afraid that I had no hope with the female persuasion? Where were you when I had no confidence in myself? Please tell me where. Now that I have a girlfriend, all of you are like, “I had a crush on you” or “I love you” (no offense to the two of you whom I am actually quoting, I like the sentiment, just resent the timing, besides, you are not the only ones). After that date I had at the end of my freshman year of college, I did not notice it for what it was. I was too wrapped up in her feeling for me to really look deeper and realize that I may be desirable to females. That all that time I spent in high school waiting for girls to grow up and get a clue, that it’s not about image, that that time had come. I missed it I guess. Or I’m living in it now.

Third, and the biggest reason of them all, is her. And none of it matters because I love her. And I really cannot say anything about this because it hurts so much. It’s just when it happens it leads to so much disappointment. I know it really shouldn’t but it does. It’s not my life, it’s hers. And it’s hers to do what she wants with it. I just feel like she’s trying to run away. That’s what happened the first time. She tried to run because she didn’t want to face it. Now I’m afraid that’s what she’s doing again. Setting herself up to run. It hurts so much to say that there is nothing I can do for her but when it comes down to it, I really can’t. There’s times where the feelings I get are just so out there and off the wall that I can’t understand the things coming out of my head. I can’t make her change. I can’t even attempt to make her change, not that I would if I could. It was just such a big disappointment. I don’t want her to know that. That’s why after she told me I wouldn’t let her look into my eyes. No matter what she says about not being able to communicate through each other’s eyes, it was so apparent in mine tonight. I know she could see that and that’s why she tried what she could. But it didn’t work. It’s not working now. So many things I want to say. So many things I want to scream, but I never will. I’ll just linger here in silence. Alone, waiting for the next disappointment to fall. That’s what she says, and maybe she’s right. Why should I expect anything? Life just leads to disappointment.

Today has been so strange
Well I talked to some chick on the phone today. Her name was Amanda. It was really weird because she was telemarketer. And she asked for me by name. Not by my usual given name that most telemarketers ask for me by, but by Charlie. So it was kind of weird. She sounded nice so I decided to placate her for awhile. She was very obviously reading from a script and was kind of rushing through it. So I let her give her speil, then I just told her the truth. "You must be misinformed, I don't have a mortgage," I said.
"I think you just invented a new way of saying your not interested," she responded. "You know, alot of people just say that to get rid of us."
"I'm telling you the truth. I'm 20 years old and I still live with my parents," I explained.
"So it's your parents I should be talking to," she said, obviously puzzled by having the wrong information.
"No, they have their mortgage paid off."
"So do you want a mortgage so you can get out of there?"
"No, no thank you."
--- CLICK ---

Something and something more
When I first got home tonight I wanted to do one of those "what is this world coming to" updates but I decided against it. It's cool outside. No wind whatsoever and all the stars are covered by the clouds. It does allow me to see the glow of the now mighty town known as Cedar Springs.

I don't know where my many paths are taking me. Right now I don't feel they are all taking me toward one inevitable end, but niether are they traversing each other and getting so far away as such that I cannot keep a foot in them all. I really wonder where music is taking me now. Something that seemed so dead for so long has suddenly burst to life again. I have so many ideas and such a creative feeling that I don't want it to end. I feel I can lend so much to Ashley as a song writer and the band as a whole.

Other things are going smoothly too. After beating myself up two weeks ago I have really learned to accept this feeling that I have. And while much of it doesn't matter, there are still unresolved issues that I have in my own mind. Mostly because so much of my previous romance was spent IN love. I don't know why I draw such a distinction hear but I do. Perhaps it's an after effect of growing older. You don't feel IN love but you still love and are capable of loving. It's all very confusing to me this late at night.

No dramatic turns here
So, after yesterday's ultimate and patheticly depressing encounter, I was determined to make today better. And it was. I'm not sure how much, and I don't know how far the things I said today are going to affect the future. Or if they're even remembered. The things I feel inside are so strange. I told her yesterday that the things I feel now for her I have never felt for anyone else. I love her, that is true, I have felt that before. It's just a different recipe. There is a lot more affection and tenderness. And a true respect for the person she is.

I did resolve however, to be content. Happiness has been getting to me. Really, I'm not sure if anyone would understand why I would reject happiness for contentment, but it is very simple. It's the simple fact that contentment is balanced, not too extreme. Happiness is very extreme and therefore uncontrollable. Whick then leads you to driving in the afternoon on a perfectly beautiful day balling your eyes out for no apparent reason, with this feeling of extreme sorrow. Or maybe I'm just really stressed out and it's been a long week.

I have to go back and look, but I don't remember all these entries that I am making about my love life being present before. BUt of course they were, they were about how lonely I was. It's just a result of pure resolve that I can be as strange and as seemingly happy as I am.

I think my mom thinks Kim and I are being, um, intimate. She said something about Kim being over at the house when no one is around. No. That does not automatically assume anything. I learned. I won't be coersed out of it this time. It is my firm belief that with my state of mind on the subject that that kind of stuff is a fatal gun shot wound to a relationship.

Oh well time to go to bed. Have to be to work in less than nine hours and I need sleep. Good night all.

Emotions
Many of you have known me for years. Some for a few, others for awhile. Now though, inside, I don't recognize me. I don't recognize this old man inside of myself. I don't recognize that I may have wisdom. I don't recognize that my dreams are slowly coming together. I can't see past the trees to the forest.

No one at work has ever known me like this. Known me to be this emotional. Mostly because right now I am. And I don't know what it is. I haven't been like this before. I hate losing control of my feelings. I think back and all the time at work I've only lost control once. Once in nearly three years. But now it's.... well I don't know what it is. The middle of the day today I just wanted to cry. Not tears of joy or of saddness, but just tears. My heart got heavy, my throat tight and I wanted to cry. It's to the point that it's scary. I have let go of that control, but I thought I could do it selectively. I thought I could let my joy shine through. I thought I could let that go and keep the other stuff under control. But no, I can't. And it scares me because it is within me, it is me, and I can't control it. I can't control myself. That is the scariest thought of all to me. And right when I'm at the point of all this happiness, I don't want to be the one, nor the reason that it is all ruined.

Politics
If you are not politically inclined you may just want to ignore this post altogether. Unfortunately it will reveal much of my bewilderment even at this point in my much decided, but very young political life.

I keep watching and hearing people yell back and forth at each other. Liberals yelling about conservatives and conservatives yelling at liberals. Mostly generally yelling inconsistencies and obscene half-truths and even downright lies. What really bothers me more than anything else is that all these people are denying those who don't have firm political stance, the chance to make up their mind based on real fact and not fanatical rhetoric. Should it matter that Kerry voted for allowing the President freedom to mobilize troops for Iraq, but then after consideration, changed his mind. What matters beyond that point. At that point that is what he felt was best for the country, now it's not. judge him on whether you agree with that position, not on the fact that he changed his mind. I'd much rather support a person who is willing to admit what they think are mistakes when they make them. Really this is about the Presidential election. Sure, I keep telling myself that Bush is the President, he's my President. But there is something about me that makes the emotion I feel towards him unsettling. Do I want to make an emotional choice? No, not really. I want to make a responsible choice. BUt it's funny that my vote only counts as much as someone who registers and votes and doesn't know the difference between the two of them. Doesn't understand the ramifications of the election. And doesn't have any idea, or even give a damn what becomes of the future of this country.

Secondly, the Michigan Constitutional Amendment officially banning same sex marriage is going to be on the ballot. Let's amend the state constitution and let that be the end of it. Please.

Tonight, tomorrow; The future, the past. As days flow together life seems more complete
Well. I was just on my profile page and I didn't even realize it was mine. I didn't recognize the picture. In fact I was thinking to myself what a dumb picture it was. Not really dumb, but it seems grainy and a little too intellectual.

This has been a great weekend. Starting with Thursday and running right through to now. If anyone doesn't know how my weekend started out, I'm going to tell you right now.

I guess we've made a big step on to the local scene. I almost feel badly for the fact that we don't work as hard on our stuff as some other people do. It almost feels like cheating and sometimes I feel like my musicianship doesn't matter, that I'm just hiding behind Ashley's voice. No, Thursday night Ashley, Zach, and H20 (me and Aaron)won the Battle of the Bands in Sand Lake. Fuzzy Logic took third. They were better than Ill Machine.

So Thursday I saw a bunch of people I haven't seen in awhile. It really is great because you feel like the center of attention sometimes. I'm not used to being the guy up there outfront like that. I really do think that the book that I saw about how to be a loner is true. Really, I don't like people. I don't like large groups of people, I don't like individual people. Maybe it's just the fact that I am mostly a social mosfit and do not interpret a "good time" like most other people do.

So, I can't really remember Friday. Oh, wait. Yes I do. I went with Sherry (Zach and Ashley's mom (isn't wierd that her name comes first in the name of our band, but whenever I talk about the two fo them I put his name first)) to Muskegon. If you can follow that last sentence, congrats. It was fun, mostly because she didn't know how to get to Muskegon and she worries about everything. We had to drop our tape off to WMUS to get entered in the Colgate Country Showdown. Of course, I don't know where WMUS is. So, I got her to Muskegon, via M46, but then we ended up nearly all the way to Grand Haven because neither of us knew how to get to the radio station. It was fun. Then I spent nearly an hour waiting for Kim to get out of work. We watched Goldmember. I so want a Dr. Evil sub. Before that I saw Brianna. She wished me a good weekend. I did have a good weekend, so thank you.

Saturday we didn't get out of work until 3:15 when we were suppossed to be out at 1:30. I hate my job and I should call the Mobil tomorrow to see if there is a job there. We went to Connie's uncle's house and watched fireworks. Kim went swimming, but I didn't. It was too cold even though it was like 78. I prefer it to be a little warmer with a nice breeze and overcast, besides, I didn't feel like it. Then we went into Sand Lake. To the fair. Which, in hindsight I should have vehemently oppossed. And of course, Shari is the first person that Connie picks out of the crowd. See, now I've spent the last two days explaining to Kim why this is bothering me so much. She seems to think that I haven't dealt with the issues that her and I have (Shari, not Kim). But I have and I am fine with that. Everything except for that damned guilt that was one of the biggest reasons we broke up to begin with. It was not a proud moment of my life, and that is something that I did not want her to see. Oh, and I spent one dollar to support the Tri-County pom team. Yes, I know. You would never expect that out of me. It did however give me a chance to dunk Sheila. And see how Kim throws. I gave her and Connie the first two shots at the dunk tank and then I went myself and nailed it straight on.

So, we got through that, and like I said in my last post, it doesn't matter because she loves me.

Sunday. Work, again. With Mona. Much slower than Saturday. Still didn't get out until 3pm, again, supposed to be out at 1:30. Sped down to Kim's dad's so we could make it to church by 6pm. I'm not sure if I was really in tune with what Matt was talking about. Mostly because he over illustrated most of his points. It's like after the first two examples of someone being crippled, I understood what he was talking about. But he continued with like five or six other examples. It did lead me to this conclusion though: Freedom is not the ability to do what you want, but the lack of restraint placed upon your actions. Then we were going to watch fireworks, come home to see if we could find out if they were cancelled or not due to the rain. That was 10pm. Of course I can't explain why my car was still at her dad's house, and we were at my house in her car, but hey. That's what leads to me drving through the S-curve at 2am sipping on a Coke to keep me awake. In the intervening period she taught me some things that I didn't know. But then again, that happens everyday. I'm not sure why she was wishing I was normal, but maybe for a second she did. Mostly because I knew what was going on, I just tried to act hard headed. It works it really does. To be so silly when she just wanted me to act normal. But we talked. It was good. And I let myself go. Yeah.

Love, Self-loathing, and self-hatred
Many of you may wonder how I keep myself going. How exactly does he keep himself so busy? How exactly could he care about the things he cares about? Well, simply stated, it's because I hate myself. I hate what I am, what I will become, and the things I do. That's me, that's how I keep going. Of course if you do a little investigation you'll see that it is a pattern going back for the entrie existence of this journal. In fact it goes back to the time when I was four years old and I was mad at myself because I could not read a chapter book. That's the earliest memory I have of hatred of myself. And last night I was just waiting to get away from her so I didn't lose it. I didn't want to lose it in front of her. I just kept telling myself that I just had to make it home. Then I could let loose and really bash myself. That's all I had to do. But thank God for her. Thank God that I can talk to her. Thank God for the peace of mind that I had to be able to talk about it without losing myself. And Thank God that she loves me, even when I don't think I love myself.

To happy to find the words
Maybe it's time to write again. It's time to start writing things that are lyrical again. Maybe I could even write an entire song this time.

It's just that I am so happy right now and I want to capture that. That and I really can't express what I'm feeling in simple words. I mean we can't even make eye contact with each other for more than two seconds before we start smiling like idiots, then we have to turn away because we are laughing so hard. I've never quite experienced that before. She keeps telling me that I'm the one that needs to decide what we're going to do when we're together. I just tell her that it doesn't matter as long as we're together. It really doesn't. It's to the point where this is almost like an addiction and I think I've lost control.