Well, by some stroke of blind luck I managed to crunch my time yesterday and between classes today to get the paper and paper proposal done that were both due today. I also managed to read all of a short book for my American Lit class for next week and a bit over half of the novel we'll be discussing all of next week in Gay & Lesbian Lit. The next week and a half is going to be crazy busy, and I only hope I can make it.

Yesterday and today have been a big struggle to keep my cool - I've got emotions all over the place, and I'm still getting some pretty regular anxiety attacks that are just knocking me out. I'm putting forth a lot of willpower to block things out and get stuff done for school, but then it hits me like a tidal wave when I finally let go. Last night it took me over an hour to go to sleep even though I was really tired because my mind just wouldn't stop thinking about ... everything.

And during a couple classes today, as well as while I was in the computer lab between classes, I almost burst into tears. Sounds ridiculous? Well, sometimes something in me just snaps and all of the loneliness and fear and emptiness just hit me all at once because of something I saw or heard or read. At least this time I have been somewhat in control - last year about this time, I just couldn't stop the tears for the life of me. Of course, in all fairness, that was more like about a year from a week and a half from now. Hey, I still have a chance to be equally pathetic - I just have to be a basket case in a week and a half. Great.

Tomorrow is March. Well, technically it's March now since it's almost 1AM. March should be a happy month for me since it's my birth month. But it's not. March is probably the very worst month of the year for me emotionally. A lot of terrible things have happened to me in Marches past, and while I try to put the past behind me, the pain and loss from those events never goes away.

I've been dreading this. I don't want to think about these things. But I haven't been able to stop thinking about them for the last three weeks, so what makes me think that I can push them aside so easily now? Just one day at a time, I guess.

I really wish someone were here to hold. Or to hold me. I need it. I feel like I just don't have enough air without it. Oh well. It's not like I've had it practically at all in my entire life anyhow. You'd think I'd be used to it by now.

Posted at 12:56 AM

February 27, 2001

Do you remember the dancing Fig Newton ads? You know, the guy in the cheap fig costume and tights that pranced around in the Fig Newton ads in the '70's? No, probably not.

One of the guys in my Gay & Lesbian Lit class today (his name is Jeff. He's cute in an energetic, handsome, youthful sort of way (short dark hair, deep brown eyes...). Anyhow, I'm almost positive he's straight - I have no idea why he's in this class ...), well Jeff always comes to this class with a bottle of spring water and some snack. Today he had a pack of Fig Newtons and he said something about them as he was munching in. The image immediately came to my mind of the ridiculous guy in costume from the old ads, so I said, "Hey, do you remember those old ads with the dancing fig guy?" Jeff has this blank look that says he has no idea what I'm talking about, so I add, "You know, those Fig Newton ads from the '70's?" Jeff again looks at me blankly and says, "I wasn't even alive in the '70's."

<Sigh>

How dumb am I for not ever remembering that I'm 15 years older than most of the people in my classes? It's hard enough to see all of these guys looking so gorgeous and young and energetic and ... well ... not jaded and cynical from having worked for a living yet. But then I have to get these timely reminders that these people can't relate to me. It doesn't matter that I might like the same music or movies or books or tv or whatever. It doesn't matter that I really connect with what they say and do. In the end, I'm always an outsider because I'm old - at least in their eyes. Usually I don't feel like my age makes me any different than anyone else, but days like today just make me feel old. Old like I might as well be the same age as their parents. Or my parents.

I really feel like shit today. This old guy stuff isn't helping. Maybe I am old, because I just ache all over. I know it's the anxiety and depression, but it doesn't really make much difference. I still feel like hell.

Posted at 12:02 AM

February 26, 2001

I'm in trouble.

I'm having all sorts of anxiety attacks, I'm not sleeping well, and whenever I try to write papers for school or read an assignment I can't concentrate and just end up crying or being unable to move. At this point, I am probably screwed since I have a big paper due Wednesday and a paper proposal also due Wednesday (plus a big exam Friday, which until this morning was supposed to be for Wednesday as well). If I can hold myself together tomorrow, I might be able to eke out the two papers, but even if I can do it they will not probably be very good - they'll just be too rushed.

Part of me is panicked and knows all of the ramifications of things falling apart like this. But another part of me really just doesn't care. I guess it's the logical me versus the emotional me. Realistically, if I start screwing up now, I might just end up completely falling apart like last year. Even if it doesn't get that far, I will definitely screw up my grades. If the grades are really bad (like if I fail one or more classes, which isn't likely unless it all falls apart), I will very possibly lose my financial aid at which point college life would be over. Even knowing that, however, the emotional side of me still really doesn't care. College just isn't any different than anything else, and nothing really matters.

I'm pretty much taking this just one day at a time now and trying my best not to freak out. I'm having some weird thoughts that are disturbing even to me who isn't generally phased by much of anything, and I really don't know what's going to happen now. I really feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, and eventually whatever part of my brain is fighting to go on will just give up as well. It's just a matter of time.

But will that be a day, a week, a year, or ten years? I doubt it will be as short as a day or as long as ten years, but that doesn't help.

In a way, I just want to give up now. I'm tired - physically, mentally, and emotionally. What's the difference really if I give up now rather than in a couple of weeks or during the summer or even next fall? Nothing will be any different, so what's it matter? It doesn't.

But just like suicide, regardless of how right it seems, I still can't just completely give up. I have all sorts of reasons why I should and no reasons why I shouldn't, but I still just can't. I wish I knew why that is. Maybe if I knew that, I could make a solid decision one way or the other, but right now that's just one more thing out of a million that I just don't know.

Posted at 11:44 PM

February 25, 2001

I woke up at about 7AM this morning, but I didn't get out of bed 'til almost 1:30. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't get up. I couldn't care. I actually spent a little of the time wondering why I didn't just kill myself. I couldn't come up with an answer. But I didn't start thinking about how I could go about killing myself either, so I guess I'm not on the suicide track (I've read that it's only really serious when you start planning how to do it - and having been to that stage at other points in my life, I guess I'm not that serious about it. I couldn't tell you why ... that's just how it is.).

So anyhow, I don't know what was different about 1:30 that I finally managed to pull myself together enough to get up, but I did. I'm not sure that I gained anything in the process - I mean, I read some of my Brit Lit stuff, but I didn't work at all on either of the papers I should have been working on, and I never had a point today that I felt like there had been any point in getting out of bed. Actually, I'm having trouble understanding why I should get up any day.

This is how things started last year at about this time. It just got worse and worse, and eventually I just couldn't fight it anymore. There are some painful anniversaries coming up, and I don't know if I can deal with them. Each year just seems to be worse, and this year I have nothing in my life that seems positive. I really don't know why I try. I'm just not strong enough to handle all of this, and each day I feel like my whole chest is going to explode. I think they're just anxiety attacks, but it's still a physical manifestation of what my mind and emotions are dealing with. I just end up going from feeling empty to feeling pain.

Wow. Isn't that what everyone gets out of bed for in the morning? Sadness, hopelessness, emptiness, and pain? I mean, what else does the world have to offer, anyway?

Apparently nothing.

Posted at 10:39 PM

February 24, 2001

It's all pointless. It doesn't matter how I look at things, there is no way to make life have any value. Do I have something unique to give the world? No. Do I have people depending on me? No. Do I have things in my life to look back on and think were exceptional? No. Am I happy? No. Is there some way I could be happy? Yes. Is it possible to overcome the problems that keep me from that happiness? No. Not in any way that I can see. Is there any point in living if you don't improve society and aren't happy? No. So what's the point?

I hate this life. I hate it.

Just make it stop ...

Posted at 11:12 PM

February 23, 2001

Chalk another one up for suicidal depression. Today has gone from mediocre to bad to worse to quite horrible on the emotional roller coaster as the events of the day have simply built upon each other. Nothing incredibly horrible or tragic happened. On the contrary, it was just the fact, repeated over and over again, that nothing would go right in my life, I would forever be alone, and I would be forced to see everything I want and need possessed by everyone around me, wherever I might turn. Somehow, it really sounds pathetic and stupid when it's written down, but for me it is my version of hell.

I don't dream often. In fact, I almost never dream (or at least I should say I never remember my dreams). The most recent dream I had (a number of months ago) was very upsetting.

I was in a beautiful park, huge trees all around and the vivid colors of early summer wherever you turned; a calm, soft breeze full of flowery fragrances drifting by; and the wonderful sound of young boys laughing and cheering mixed with the cheers of others (some older, some male, some female, ... just a happy crowd). Amidst all of this was a soccer field with two teams of teenage boys waging a powerful challenge to each other.

One beautiful boy stood out - my whole consciousness was focused upon him, and I was filled with boundless love and joy. He might be an adopted son or even lover (or both), but I wasn't certain which. He was one of those things, though. That much was clear from the love I felt for him and the loving looks he gave me as he passed by.

He was perfect, the day was perfect, and it seemed that life was perfect - everything I had ever hoped and dreamed for ...

And then it froze. In a split second, I realized I was waking up while the dream was still perfectly clear in my mind. Within that same split second, I realized that this was nothing but a dream, a wonderful but horrible dream that would never come true. This perfect vision, this aspect of all I have ever wanted, this beautiful simple longing - I would never have that.

And then I was awake, and I cried and cried - rivers of tears. I cried for what I would never have. I cried for the ability to have seen it so clearly but know it would never be. I cried as I mourned the death of all of my dreams. I cried in my bed for almost an hour until I was weak and empty.

And while the dream never returns, I still remember it over and over again. And I cry inside as I long for that perfect day that will never come.

Posted at 1:04 AM

February 22, 2001

It snowed some today. I wish I had had the time to enjoy it, but the crush of stuff to read and papers to write has been tremendous. As I was getting into my car this morning, though, I had just a moment to enjoy one of my favorite things about snowy days - silence.

If you've never noticed, the world transforms after a snowfall, particularly if the snow fell before sunrise and the snow is fresh in the morning. The world has a magical dusting of snow making everything seem gleaming and clean, the snow hasn't melted yet or been soiled by tromping feet or moving cars, the air is crisp but usually not too cold (snow doesn't fall below a certain temperature range, so unless there's wind the temperature is just crisp but not chilly), and the most wonderful part is the tranquil quietness of everything.

I don't know if it's an effect of the snow acting as a sound-absorbant material or if it's just that the animals stay in their burrows after a snowfall, but the world in the morning after a snowfall is perfectly hushed and still, as though for that brief moment in time nothing is going wrong anywhere and you have been allowed a moment to simply appreciate the natural beauty around you.

It's at times like that when I really like to go to the Metroparks. The beauty and peacefulness lasts longer there since there are less people walking through (and nobody driving on the trails or in the open woods). There is just something perfect and right about being in the woods after a fresh snowfall. I feel the same way during the Fall when all of the leaves have changed color and are just falling from the trees, and I feel the same in Spring once the flowers are opening and the trees have begun to show leaves. These are always magical times for me, and they always make me feel very at ease and clear-headed.

When I freaked out last March, pretty much the only time I spent away from the Collingwood Arts Center (where I live) was to go to my favorite Metropark (Wildwood Metropark) and walk around for 2 or 3 or 4 hours, sometimes every day of the week. I think that's the only reason that I maintained my sanity - I was able to relax and work through my thoughts in the peacefulness of the woods. There are definitely times now that I want/need to go, but if I slack off on reading and writing for school I'll get behind too much to catch up. Fortunately things calm down a bit after I get back from Spring Break (at least for a few weeks). Right now it's the big crush of Midterm papers and exams that hit before Break that I have to keep up with.

But I'm looking forward to some time in the Metroparks during break. Maybe I can get some time to relax and think clearly and solve some of these troubling issues that keep running through my brain. That would be nice.

We'll just have to see.

Posted at 11:55 PM

February 21, 2001

So it occurs to me that some of my readers (all zero of you - at least I assume no one is reading this since I get no feedback) - it occurs to me that you might wonder after yesterday's Journal entry what difference I see in a loving relationship (like with a boyfriend) and in friendship. I mean, some of you might have been insightful enough to have seen that my needs are almost the same in both cases and also that I am willing to give completely of myself to support either a friend or lover.

Well, the observation would be a good one. In fact, there is very little difference in what I see as a friend and a lover. I would love and cherish a friend like a lover, and I would want my lover to be my best friend. I guess the difference comes from the degree of contact.

Now hold on before you jump to conclusions. Yes, a lover would receive all I had to offer and that would include hugging, kissing, fondling, ... all aspects of sexual contact. But that would not be the defining difference. In fact, I could still consider someone my lover if I never had sex with them. If I found the right guy and he was HIV+ and unwilling to risk anything, I could live with that - the loving bond would be enough.

So what difference would there be between a friend and lover, you might ask. Well, besides the fact that I would never have sex with a friend, there is the matter of contact. By this I don't just mean sex or touching, I mean how often I would be together with that person and how much I would miss that person when they were away. A friend would be great to have around a lot, but not constantly every day - it would just get stale and annoying. A lover, on the other hand, I would never tire of having around.

I'm not a clingy person. In fact, I need my space to some extent. Part of me will always want a lover that would be by my side every second of every day for the rest of my life, but another part of me would freak out - I need time in each day to be alone, just briefly, to be able to process my thoughts and clear my head. My mind tends to dwell on every event of the day, replaying things over and over again. That's why I have such a strong memory. One of the downsides of this is that I need to take a little time every day to let my brain catch up, finish replaying the events of the day without having anything significant to consider while putting those thoughts to rest. With a person I love, I would always want to remember every moment we were together, so there would be times I would have to be apart from them so that I could clear my mind. I know that sounds pretty crazy, having just reread this to myself, but that's just the way my mind works.

Anyhow, with the exception of a little down time alone each day, I would want to share every day of my life with my lover. Just talking about our days, chatting about current events of what's new with our friends or our lives, having time to comfort each other when we need it or to congratulate one another when we deserved it, spending a little time for just simple contact that would show our love (holding hands, back rubs, lying together on the couch, sneaking up from behind for a little loving tickling...), and a million other things that would just make living each day worthwhile because there was someone to share it all with you.

Maybe this doesn't really make things any clearer. I suppose a friend might be able to do those things, too, but I just don't see them doing it every day, month after month. If a friend were to share that closeness, that contact for such an extended period of time then they would become a lover.

One of my biggest problems in the past has been drawing that line myself. I have found myself on two separate occasions falling in love with a long-term roommate who didn't feel the same about me (one was hopelessly straight and one liked younger boys (much, much, much, much younger boys)). I wasn't wrong about how much I loved them - I know how much they meant to me, and I was willing to do anything for them - but a loving relationship has to be two way. Eventually I just ended up feeling hurt. Not because of anything they had done but because I knew that what I wanted was something that I couldn't have.

Damn, is that the story of my life or what? Do I always have to desperately want only things that I can never have? Hmmmm ....

Well, anyhow ... hopefully that helps clear up the lover/friend idea. At this point I really want and need a lover, but a good friend would certainly not be turned away.

Posted at 11:19 PM

February 20, 2001

I just finished reading the final chapter, Chapter 50, of "The Quarry" by Driver Nine (on the Nifty Archive and the Gay Writers' Guild). It has been a very good story, largely because it has looked at relationships and people and has not simply been a story of sex and how guys deal with problems in their lives. I will miss reading further chapters of this story.

One line from this chapter stood out for me. It says something I have always felt but never been able to articulate. Any of you that have been reading my Journal will realize that there are a number of people I have been calling "friends" (emphasis on the fact that it's in quotes) who I used to think of as friends. I have felt used and abandoned by these people, but I have too much of a history with them to just stop calling them friends. I didn't know what other name to use - 'acquaintances' sounds like someone I just met or barely know, and nothing else really fit. So anyhow, along comes this quote:

"Pals hang around with you to have fun. Friends stick with you when it's not fun anymore, even when it turns ugly."

So now I have a name for all of those people - pals (in fact for some of them, that may even be a generous term since I still fully believe that some of them just acted like friends to use me, not even because they enjoyed my company). These people certainly didn't stick by me when things weren't fun anymore. They certainly have been very absent in the past year when I've really needed them. I have learned second hand that many of them have in fact been talking shit about me since I'm not around to hear it. It would have been bad enough to simply have been forgotten so easily, but now I'm mocked or scorned.

I shouldn't be so shocked; this sort of thing has happened before. When I have moved to new cities, people in the old cities that I had thought were my friends have spread unfounded rumors about me. They have denied it when confronted, but too many people have sworn to have heard them say such things to doubt it. But I always managed to excuse whatever they might have said in order to maintain the friendship.

The last time I moved away from Toledo I was outed by someone I had considered my friend. It wasn't a lie - I was gay - but I had really only just come to accept it myself a short time before I moved, and I had never discussed it with this friend. Yet as soon as I was out of town he spread his assumptions around town until everyone seemed to know.

I didn't find out about this until I returned for a visit to Toledo a short while later, when a number of my "friends" turned on me because they could not accept me being gay. In fact, I lost my two best friends to that bitterness. As usual, I tried to maintain the friendships, and I managed to do so with a number of people, even getting back one of those former best friends after three years of bitter conflict. But the price was high - I was asked not to talk about being gay or about gay issues or let anyone see me looking at guys. On rare occasions when I brought gay friends with me to share time with these straight friends, my gay friends were jeered or teased, or I was teased or ridiculed about them.

In one case I had brought my friend Chip (who I've mentioned before - he got divorced last summer, is quite straight, and is my very best friend). Chip and I were going to go to Cedar Point Amusement Park the following day, and I decided to take him to a Saturday night get together of a group of "friends." At the time, Chip was just 18, struggling to live on his own, and I had hired him for the Kinko's I managed. He was small and a bit undernourished and had a very youthful, boyish look, but Chip was very intelligent and having lived on his own for two years had made him quite mature. Despite that, the disapproving looks of my friends and the comments of, "He's a little young, isn't he?" and "Where'd you pick him up?" made very clear what conclusions everyone had made, even in the face of my strenuous assertions that Chip was straight and just a good friend.

I have always valued friendship as just about the most important thing anyone can have. I have believed that a true friend would do anything for another friend, and I have given of myself to support friends even when they haven't asked - giving money, paying car payments and rent, buying meals, buying clothes, giving moral support, helping with repairs or projects, working in a friend's business for free (or for virtually nothing), caring for sick and drunk friends, lying to protect friends, taking blame for a friend's errors, and even going to jail to help a friend.

But no matter what I did, I have generally been turned down by "friends" when I have asked them for help, and I have almost never been offered help unless I've clearly asked. I've always tried to justify to myself that I was expecting too much or that these "friends" just didn't understand that I needed help, but it has become quite clear to me now that those people never were friends at all - they were just pals that welcomed me when I could add to their fun. If at any point I wasn't fun (specifically what they considered fun), even just briefly not fun, they wanted nothing to do with me. Not just to the extent of avoiding me, but to the point of ridiculing me or speaking hatefully of me.

I still believe that people can be true friends. I still, in fact, have true friends - very few, sadly, but people that each mean more to me than a million pals could ever mean. I have opened my eyes in the last year to realize that I have a lot of pals but far less friends than I used to believe.

It hurts. I feel like I have been a fool and wasted time, money, effort, and love on people who have just been using me. I feel very alone without all of the people I used to call friends, but I feel better in a way because I know who my friends really are, and I know enough not to be hurt so easily by someone who pretends to be my friend but is really just a pal.

I just wish I'd learned all of this a lot earlier. So much has been lost to my ignorance ...

Posted at 11:50 PM

February 19, 2001

Darkness.

Only darkness. A darkness of pain, loneliness, and hopelessness.

I finished reading The Well of Loneliness today for my Gay & Lesbian Lit. class. Very well written. Very poignant. Very upsetting. All too comparable to my own life. I need to write a paper on this book, but I couldn't do it tonight. I was too disturbed.

Then I read story updates on the gay romances I follow on the net. Most of the chapters to various stories were happy, uncomplicated episodes, but reading about gay couples happily enjoying a long-term companionship makes me sad. I don't begrudge them their happiness - in my own way, I am happy for them - but every happy gay couple I see or hear about is simply a painful reminder of how alone I am and have so often been. Reading these various chapters after finishing that book has left me very down. Very alone.

Do you realize that this has nothing to do with sex? Can you understand that? I just need someone to hold and to hold me. I need someone that really wants to know my troubles and help me overcome them. I need someone that I can trust. Someone who won't laugh at me or belittle my fears and pains. Someone who won't hurt me, and someone who won't leave me.

I would give everything for someone like that. All that I am, all I own, all my dreams, all my love, all my trust, all my mind, my body, my soul, my life - all that they might ever desire or need or hope for; no need would be too much; no risk would be too great; no price would be too high to pay.

But none of that matters.

No one will ever know.

No one cares.

All of my love lies with me in darkness.

Posted at 11:32 PM

February 18, 2001

I have no more strength for this. No more fortitude. No more stamina.

It hurts, and I want someone to hold me while I cry - cry out a life of loneliness and sorrow - cry out the loss of all of my hopes and dreams - cry out the desperate longings that will never be answered. I have passed fear and now only know infinite sadness, a sadness without measure and without end. A sadness that knows only solutions which can never be.

I was visited today briefly both by my mother and Nathan, each meaning well in their own way and believing that they are helping me, yet each so distant and unconnected to me that they only make me realize how completely alone and inconsolable I am and how incapable of providing compassion to me that they are. I am not angry with them. I do not blame them. But I feel nothing but sadness with the knowledge that even they who are well-intentioned will never be able to help me.

There is no one to help. I am alone. Destitute. Empty. Soulless.

Why can't the end come now?

Posted at 11:22 PM

February 17, 2001

Yum!

My nose has been running like a faucet all day, mostly back into my throat but for whatever reason my throat has actually been much better today. The downside has been that my sinuses are overflowing, and my head feels stuffed. That in itself wouldn't be so bad, but I've been reading all day for classes (except for writing one short paper). So between the stuffed head and the strained eyes I've had a wicked headache.

And tomorrow may well be much of the same. I still have a lot of reading left and one more paper to write before the end of the day. A little relaxation time over the weekend would have been nice (particularly with this cold), but it's not going to happen.

Posted at 11:29 PM

February 16, 2001

I have some sort of annoying cold/sickness thing going on, and it is quite bothersome. I am a person who rarely gets sick. I have in fact been known to go without any cold or sickness for a few years at a time, and even when I develop some symptoms, they usually are short-lived and not very serious.

Today I have a postnasal drip that is irritating my throat and causing me to cough (further irritating my throat). I felt the warning signs in my body two days ago, and yesterday I started getting a slight tickle in my throat.

I also lost my balance a couple of times - this is a sure sign for me that some sickness is coming on. You see, I had severe ear infections as a child, and my sense of balance (which you may know has some basis in the inner ear) has always been a little weak. When I get a cold or infection, particularly in my nose or throat, it will often mess up my inner ear and cause me to occasionally lose my balance. In rare instances, when I have been really sick with the flu, I have been completely unable to stand on my own without falling down again, not from weakness but from a complete loss of balance.

The stuff I'm going through today is like what I get every few years - I'm not tired or sick to my stomach or fevery or phlegmy or anything other than the drainage of my nose down my throat. Sure, I will likely wake up with some congestion and buildup in my nose and throat the next few mornings, but the steam of a warm shower will looser that up and clear me out. I imagine that I'll be completely over this by the middle of next week if not by the end of the weekend, but it's annoying just the same.

The sad thing is that I think I brought this on myself by being so worked up on Valentine's Day and the day before. I got myself not only emotionally drained, but weakened by the psychosomatic effects that left my whole body aching and throbbing. How cliché - I've been so upset that I've made myself sick. Somehow I fail to appreciate the humor in this situation.

The only strange side effect of this cold that I don't understand is that I've woken up at 6AM each of the last three days when I normally only get up as early as 7AM when the alarm rings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for early classes. That means I've generally only gotten about 5 hours of sleep each night (which is actually a decent amount for me as a minimum), and I wake up not being tired at all. Sort of strange. But then again, so is most every aspect of life in general.

Posted at 11:42 PM

February 15, 2001

I'm hitting that point where the amount of work at school (reading, papers, exams, projects, etc.) is getting to a point of being too much. At the same time I have these fucked up emotional situations, sometimes (like today) I just want to have time to walk around in the Metroparks and think, and sometimes I'm just so upset I can't do anything. Neither of these is very helpful to my schoolwork even at the best of times, but with the big crunch coming in these last three weeks before Spring Break, it is already proving rough.

I think that this was part of the problem when I lost it last spring. Granted, things came to a head in such a way that I'm not sure I wouldn't have gone to pieces under any circumstances, but the work definitely came at the wrong time. Now I'm in just about the same situation, but I think I should be able to hold things together.

I really want to spend my time writing now. Poetry and stories are busting to get out, and I have no time to think them through, let alone type them out. The whole reason I have been getting the degrees has been to open up more ideas into my writing and to push me to write in ways that I wouldn't do so on my own. Most of the time, though, it just comes down to me wanting to write.

It's not like the degree will get me a job as an author - the only way to get paid as an author is to have a written work and get it published. Whether you have a degree or not won't mean anything to a publisher. And while I think I would really enjoy teaching Creative Writing, the chances of getting such a job are slim for me. Few universities have Creative Writing programs, those that do have a program don't have many professors for that department, and getting a writing position usually requires being a published author. It's sort of a vicious circle.

For now I'll continue to tough it out. I actually do enjoy all of my classes. I just regret not having time to write. And to some extent, it's a matter of money. I can't afford to take a year writing a novel without having to work as well, and I know that the distraction of a job would break up my writing. I know that probably sounds lame, but when I write I need to be able to have a flexible schedule. Sometimes when I'm inspired, it will hit me right before I go to bed and I'll end up staying up writing for 12 hours. Or sometimes I'll wake up and be inspired to write. Sometimes I'll get something worked out in my head word for word while I'm driving, and then I have to write it all down once I stop the car. This happened last semester when I wrote (A)live. I had been driving from Toledo to Bowling Green for an evening class (5:30) and the whole poem came to me, almost exactly as you see it posted in my Poems section.

My point is that having a job always has interfered with my writing because I always get interrupted at the beginning or end of the time I am inspired to write. Besides that, I'm usually mentally drained by work and it screws up my ability to write. In fact, I write the best and the most when I am on vacations or breaks from school or on long weekends. So writing and working don't always go hand in hand.

Anyhow, I guess I shouldn't complain about my situation. I do enjoy college. I have gotten a lot of new ideas for what to write and how to write and some stylistic ideas, and I have gotten a lot better exposure to a wide variety of authors than I ever had before. And I know that my writing skills will be pushed in directions I wouldn't have gone on my own. So in the long run, all of this will be worth while.

I just want so much to write! Hopefully I can get some time for myself during Spring Break. At least that's the plan ...

Posted at 11:08 PM

February 14, 2001

Happy National Condom Day!

Well it is! This is the 11th Anniversary of National Condom Day, and it should hold a special place in every guy's ... uhhh ... heart ...

But of course you were expecting me to say Happy Valentine's Day. Well, too bad. I find little to celebrate on Valentine's Day. There have been so few Valentine's Days where I have actually had someone to celebrate with that it seems more like a holiday designed to laugh at me and every other loser like me than something happy. But I'm not bitter! (much)

On Valentine's Day I always remember being in grade school when everyone would get lots of Valentines. Except me. Sure, I got them in like 1st through 3rd grade, but it was almost required that you made Valentine's cards for every member of the opposite sex in your class. After that I was like Charlie Brown, checking the mailbox in vain for even a single card. Don't get me wrong, there were a few years in High School where I was involved and actually got cards. And in all fairness I did always get two cards every year - from my mother and grandmother. Gee, that's swell.

In fact I got cards from my mother and grandmother even this year. I'm almost 34 - does this make me sound as much like a loser as I feel? Right, that's what I thought.

So anyhow, this year has been particularly annoying. For the last two weeks I have gone to campus every day and been harangued by some guy or girl trying to get me to buy a Valentine to help support their lame fraternity or sorority. "Hey, come buy a Valentine." No thanks. "Come on, they're personalized." No, that's okay. "Hey, your girlfriend will love it." <grrrr...*@^&#/*> So then I end up walking away pissed. I scream inside my head and decide I should go back and tell this asshole what I think, somewhat along the lines of: 'I'm gay, you asshole, so I wouldn't have a girlfriend, you narrow minded fuck! And I don't have a boyfriend either, so thank you so much for rubbing it in! Why don't you go fuck your airhead (Barbie-clone girlfriend or Abercrombie trophy boyfriend, choose whichever is appropriate) and give them a fucking personalized Valentine from me by shoving it ... '

Well, you get the picture. The anger doesn't last, though. It disappears almost immediately and is replaced by a sense of deep sorrow and emptiness. Then I go through my day with that sorrow, sometimes getting better as the day goes on, and sometimes just staring at cute guys and feeling more alone and hopeless than I can stand.

The past few days have been like that - just falling deeper into sadness. I know that a lot of it is the holiday, but it doesn't make things any easier to handle.

I guess when you think about it I don't have any reason to celebrate National Condom Day either, but not having a condom to share with someone doesn't depress me as much as not having someone to love.

Posted at 11:09 PM

February 13, 2001

What do you do when you feel like there's no hope left, nothing better coming along, no future but one filled with sadness and pain? What do you do when your sorrow and fear is so strong that hot and cold flashed wash over your body, every part of your body throbs and aches, your head pulses with a dull humm, and your stomach burns ulcerously? What do you do when you feel yourself spiralling into a dark hole of torment, unable to stop your fall and certain that no one is to blame but yourself?

Maybe you would make yourself so busy that you wouldn't have time to think about it. I was like that once; that was all my life was about for a while - working so hard and so many hours that I didn't have time to let anything come to the surface. I can't do that anymore, though. There's too much to hold back, and now that it has been flowing for a while it won't be denied any longer.

Maybe you would confront your demons and your fears and decide what you needed to defeat them. I've tried that, but the things I need can't be had ... not most of them anyhow. And the few things I might have a chance to get are not mine to take but for others to grant, and there is no one to offer these things.

Maybe you would turn to someone for solace. A compassionate friend, a caring family member, or a deeply beloved companion. I have never had those things. My friends will never reach out that much, take that much of a chance. My family has no idea how to care or show affection (they never have), and they would not be able to honestly support or accept the person I am, nor would they understand or commiserate with the issues I deal with. And I have no beloved companion. Even those few who were once close to me are inaccessible. They are all dead or gone without any desire to be troubled with my life again.

Maybe you would seek professional help, a psychologist or psychiatrist. Perhaps you think you could talk it out or that someone else would be able to show you solutions. I've tried this route also. Talking will just reemphasize everything in my mind, so that will be of little help. In fact, the "I understand" and "How does that make you feel" attitude of most mental health professionals is so indicative of their real lack of interest in my problems that it is pathetic. Saying, "That happens to everyone" or "You're not alone" does not help either - Why should I be happy to be told that other people are suffering just as much as I am? Psychotherapists that actually want to help are incredibly rare, and what can they do anyhow? Can they change the world? No. And that is what it would take. I don't need things explained to me or need to understand the root problems - I know what those things are. Without being able to get through to me with talk would inspire most of them to want to drug me up - Prozac or some such thing to "fix my chemical imbalance" or "dull your emotions so you can deal with this better." I don't want drugs, I want something to live for ... something good ... something positive. Drugs would just be a way of hiding, delaying the suffering for a while until the drugs ran out. And I'm not sure the drugs would help anyhow. My fears and problems are so ingrained in the logical part of my brain that has been trying to work things out that silencing the emotional side of my brain just wouldn't be enough to change things.

Maybe you would just end it - suicide sure seems better than what looks like a constant future of pain and suffering and hopelessness. Yes, I've been here, too. I can remember clearly each plan from every time I was ready to end it, from the first time when I was nine to the more serious plans in high school to early college and beyond. I'll admit that I have a very real death wish (I welcome death - being hit by a bus, getting killed in a gas explosion, being a drive-by victim, whatever), but even with that I haven't been thinking of ways to kill myself. I really don't know why, and that actually bothers me. I know that I have no idea of what there is to live for, but I can't actually see what there is to gain from death either. I mean, I'm in hell now, and I'll probably be in hell later - what's the difference?

Maybe you would pray. I can't. I did for a while, but I can't. If there is a God, he gave up on me a long time ago, and I really doubt he was ever on my side to begin with. If there is a God and I have had this fucked up of a life, why should I think that God will ever do anything differently in the future?

Maybe you would turn that pain onto the outside world, hurt those who have carelessly hurt you. I've thought about it, I really have. But I can't. All of the pain and hurt I receive, all of the anger and fear I develop - everything gets turned inward. I know deep down that all of my pain is, because of this, my own fault to some extent. I can't bear the alternative, though. I fear hurting anyone (possibly more than anything else) because it would mean I had turned into my father. All of the mental, physical, emotional, and even sexual pain and fear that I felt as a child should never be felt by anyone else, and I can't bear to even consider that I might inflict that. It eats me alive inside, but hurting someone else would make the pain a thousand times worse for me.

Maybe ... Maybe you would die inside a little bit more each day, becoming empty and beyond redemption, destitute and disenfranchised. This is all I know now. I wish for someone to help, but wishes are vain, childish fantasies. There is no great hero. There is no white knight. There is no fair prince. There is no savior. And noone will ever come to save me ... or kill me. I will simply be left to suffer.

What do I do when I feel like there's no hope left, nothing better coming along, no future but one filled with sadness and pain?

Posted at 11:42 PM

February 12, 2001

I have been thinking a lot about the story I want to write and post on this site called Hope, Need, & Fear. I have a pretty clear idea of how I want the story to develop, how the characters will be introduced and developed, and what sort of general flow will play through the first dozen chapters. Yes, I said the first dozen - I already have a pretty clear idea of what the flow of plot twists and various developments will be, and I can easily see what I want to write covering at least twelve chapters and still leaving a lot of possibilities for development after that.

The problem is that I haven't written a thing. In some ways it is better this way - I write much better when the ideas are developed in my head and busting to get out. In fact, my writing usually suffers if I try to force it, so I am glad in some ways that I have time to develop the story in my mind. But I do hate not having something tangible to hold in my hands. I can say that I have all of these great ideas, but if I don't write anything, what does that mean to you? Well, nothing.

Unfortunately, college classes with lots of writing and reading are not conducive to allowing extra time for writing my personal stuff. It always seems like this, and I sometimes wish I could just stop everything else to write what I want. I always end up realizing that it's better to just stick it out and finish the degree first, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to write my own stuff.

My hope is that I will have some freedom over Spring Break to work on the story and perhaps even get a first chapter put together and posted. I won't make any promises, but it does look like I won't have to do any papers or any extra reading over break, and the few little projects I want to do shouldn't take up too much of my time (including a big expansion of the content on the web site). And I definitely know that I'm not going anywhere for Break - I have no available cash and nobody to go anywhere with. I'm actually hoping to spend some quality time with Nathan and maybe Christiana. That would be nice.

Well, we'll see how it all goes when the time comes in early March (about three and a half more weeks, Yea!). In the meantime I'll be slaving over coursework. Lucky me! Ummm ... Yeah ...

Posted at 11:28 PM

February 11, 2001

So what do you think about the picture on my main web page? You know, the sleeping young boy, looking content and serene while lying on a couch during a midday nap. Do you think it's funny, considering that it is my web site? Do you think it's lewd? Do you think it's pornographic? Well those are the responses I have gotten from the few (very few, in fact) friends that I have given my web address to.

I chose that picture specifically for what I felt was a perfect depiction of theDreamworld: a serene, innocent young man involved in a pleasant dream of a world so much better than the waking world. Did I choose it for some pornographic reason? No. Is it erotic? Well, I guess if it turns you on, then it's erotic, but to me the boy is simply beautiful and enviable for how peaceful he seems. What kind of message am I sending to people who view my site? Well, a lot of things, but if the message that they are getting is that I'm some perverted sexual predator, then hopefully they will decide to leave theDreamworld and never come back, because theDreamworld is a place of tolerance and compassion, and I'm not sure that I have the ability to change people's minds about such accusatory impressions.

It's really disturbing to me that I should get these kinds of responses. I mean, it wasn't necessary for these people to even say anything at all, yet they felt a compulsion to do so. The sad thing is that if the picture had been something I would have considered pornographic, it wouldn't have caused a peep from these same people. With the person who thought it was "funny that it was me," he would have been completely at ease if the picture had been of a young girl of the same age clothed as much (or less) and posing sexually. He wouldn't have made any comment at all, he would have just taken it in and enjoyed it or thought little of it. With the person who thought it was "lewd," she would have been quite comfortable with some nude, erect muscle stud in some suggestive pose. She wouldn't have said a thing. And the person who thought it was "pornographic" would have been completely unfazed if the picture had been of a bondage slave in full regalia, chained to a bed. But the fact that it was this simple, innocent picture of a young boy obviously means I must be a monster. I mean hell, I'm gay right? That means I'm automatically a child molester, right? Wrong.

I never cease to be disappointed in humanity, but I find myself particularly upset when people I consider my friends let me down by being judgmental and, let's face it, somewhat discriminatory. I try my utmost to always accept that everyone is welcome to their own opinion, and I further try not to judge people by one thing I might dislike about them. In fact, when a friend says or does something I don't agree with/approve of I try to understand things from their point of view. I don't expect everyone else to put that much energy into a relationship with me, but I have to wonder why someone feels the need to say something to me that they know I don't want to hear.

Is it fun to upset me? Make me feel bad? Make me angry? Is that some sadistic fun that I don't get because I'm always the target? I have actually been told by some of my 'friends,' in exactly these words, that it's "fun to get you mad" or "it's fun to get you upset." Am I just a spoiled sport, unable to take a joke? I used to think that, but when someone keeps going until you scream and punch a wall, or until you yell "Stop it!" and run away, it should be obvious to anyone that this is not simply playing around.

But then what do I expect? Maybe this is the only useful thing people get from me, to be their whipping boy. Well, this is why I hate this world so much. No compassion, no respect - just pain.

I want ... no, I need theDreamworld so much, but it seems as if none of it can ever be real ... and that scares me. Without anything that theDreamworld represents, how am I supposed to live? And why? What's the point if there's no hope?

Posted at 11:02 PM

February 10, 2001

<Yawn>

It's been a long day. I spent most of the day reading stuff for next weeks classes. I wanted to finish up my Lit. Theory paper that I started yesterday and work on the Gay/Lesbian Lit. paper I still need to do, but there were too many bands playing in the rooms around me to concentrate (this room is in a wing of the building that is used mostly by musicians - rock bands, alternative bands, guys that mix dance music, a couple blues guitarists, a drummer (not part of a band), and some brass players). Usually just one group is playing and I can tune it out, but there were way too many groups and they were all pushing their amps like it was some competition. So I just went to my room in the next wing (my bedroom) and read stuff. It's okay - I really wasn't too psyched about working on the papers anyhow. Unfortunately, I'll have to get the papers written tomorrow.

Anyhow, at 5 PM I stopped to eat dinner and watch 'Andromeda', that new sci-fi show with the guy that used to play Hercules. It's fairly well done, and I enjoy it. This was a new episode, and it was relaxing to just sit back and watch.

After the show was over I read some more for school. Then I got on the internet and checked for updates on all of the sites I keep current with. The most disturbing thing was my friend Chip's site.

Two days ago, Chip had posted that he had been in a bad car accident, a hit and run that totaled his car. I was concerned, but I figured he must be alright if he was posting about it the following day. Well, today his site was updated with more detail about the accident, his trip to the hospital, and pictures of the car. It is really a miracle that he's alive, and the fact that he is only bruised and banged up but not broken up is even more amazing.

The whole thing just got me really upset. Chip means a lot to me, and it freaked me out to come this close to losing him. I lost someone else in a fatal car wreck and I live with the pain of that every day ... I can't write about that, though. Not right now anyway. Maybe later ...

Anyhow, I was still dazed by the whole thing when Nathan called and asked me to pick him up and bring him back here to watch a movie from my collection. It was probably a good thing for me that he called or I might still be stuck in my "What if's" and worrying.

So Nathan wanted to see 'The Grifters.' A good movie, even if it is a bit disturbing at the end. We chatted around watching the movie, and Nathan left for home. I read a couple updates to the stories I follow on the internet, and now I'm here finishing up this Journal entry.

It probably seems like a pretty simple day, but I'm whipped. The emotional strain is probably a lot of it, but I am really achingly tired, so this will be the extent of today's Journal entry. I have a couple things I want to write about in the Journal, but they will have to wait for future opportunities.

Posted at 1:47 AM

February 9, 2001

Nathan took me out to dinner tonight at Loma Linda's (Mexican restaurant). We had planned on a movie, but we didn't get out of dinner until after 11 PM, and nothing we were interested in had any show times that late. We figured that maybe we would go later this weekend.

Nathan was great fun to be with tonight - funny, talkative, and warm. I also realized tonight (although I have been thinking this pretty clearly for a while) that Nathan will never become anything more than a good friend. Nathan is decidedly straight and, even more important, I just have no interest in Nathan that way. I think I might someday come to love Nathan, but as a brother and nothing more.

In a way, I'm comfortable with that because it simplifies my relationship with Nathan, but it is also a bit of a downer because I really want someone to hold and be held by- someone to love. The upside is that I at least have proven to myself with Nathan that I won't simply latch on to some guy in desperation to fulfill my needs and desires. The downside, of course, is that I just feel as alone as ever and feel I have nowhere to turn for a shoulder to cry upon.

I don't want to diminish what Nathan has represented to my life because I know he has somehow managed to break through my depression on a number of occasions. But the reality is that I still need much more than I can expect from Nathan to bring myself to some level of emotional balance. I realize that I am probably pretty weak to be so decidedly dependent upon someone else (someone I don't even know for that matter), but I just can't break out of my sorrow no matter what I do. I am willing to admit that I can't do some things alone, and this is one. I need help to find balance.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to get that help.

Posted at 1:17 AM

February 8, 2001

The world we live in is an evil, horrible place full of hateful, stupid people.

Most of the time, I can try to believe that there is at least some good in the world to compensate for all of the bad, but today I can't. I have seen too much senseless violence, hatred, and pain today to believe that there is enough good to make up for it. And this is just one day ...

On days like today it is impossible to believe that any aspect of theDreamworld will ever transcend being simply a dream and enter the real world. Absolute truth in the real world? I can't see it, even for a brief moment. Endless compassion in the real world? Are you serious? Is there any compassion in the world at all? Unconditional love in the real world? No. There are always conditions, always "standards" of acceptability, always selfish motives, always divisiveness from all directions, always "politically correct" aspects in consideration, always peer pressure effects, and always fear and distrust on all sides. How can I ever hope that even a shadow of theDreamworld can ever exist in the real world.

On days like today I can't stop asking myself what there is to live for. I don't expect a world of perfection - I know better than that. But if all that I can expect for myself an everyone else is constant hate and pain, what is the point in going on? If happiness can only exist in rare fleeting instances with no assurance of ever happening again, why should I make the effort to live? If I don't have truth or compassion or love from any source, and if I have only the example of the same lonely despair I've lived most of my life as a suggestion of the future, how can I survive?

I can't. I just can't. I need hope - I can't exist without it - but I don't know where to look any more.

What a miserable world. The real world is Hell. The real world is a nightmare. And theDreamworld, as much as I might want it to exist, is simply a dream.

Posted at 12:10 AM

February 7, 2001

I cried in class today. I doubt anyone saw me since I was hunched over in a desk at the back corner of the room, but I just couldn't stop it. I know where this is all coming from, but that doesn't lessen the pain. I should probably write about this stuff that runs through my mind, but I just can't right now. I'm too fucked up right now to relive the memories without completely breaking down.

And that's what I'm worried about. It was about this time last year that I started getting really depressed, and it wasn't clear to me then that it was anything more than one of the mood swings I tend to go through. By the end of February, though, I was getting really depressed. Getting out of bed was an effort of will every day. And I was crying alot. Prior to that, crying wasn't something I did - I had forced myself to learn not to cry as a kid to avoid my father screaming at me or beating me for "crying like a girl."

The beginning of March was Spring Break. I had no money to go anywhere (and I hadn't heard from most any of my friends for almost two months at that point), and I planned to catch up on reading and papers for school. I was a little bit behind, and I thought maybe I could get caught up and even ahead over the week's vacation. But instead, I struggled to read at all, and brainstorming for the papers just opened up my mind to things I had forced myself not to think about for years. By the end of break, it was like a damn had burst in my mind and there was no way to stop the flow.

I tried to go back to classes after break, but it was obvious by the end of that first break that it was pointless. I wasn't getting the readings done, I was late for two papers, I couldn't pay attention in class, and I was crying at the drop of a hat. Anything could set me off: a commercial, sitting on the toilet, waking up and thinking about what was ahead for me, seeing someone I liked at school, hearing a song, ... anything. Memories were flooding my mind as well, completely at random and dredged up from points throughout my life. At a certain point, I just couldn't do anything but cry and shake in my bed, and I stopped going to classes.

I blew that semester, all five classes. I sank deeper and deeper into depression and saw more and more memories until, at one point, everything started piecing together. Things that I had repressed for years were finally being relived, and I found a lot of connections I had never allowed myself to realize before. These realizations didn't make me feel any better, in fact they made me feel even more hopeless and alone, but it was as though something inside me had changed and I was finally seeing the world for what it really was. I was finally starting to see all that had gone wrong or had been missed in my life and how those things had affected other things. It wasn't that I was reliving my past - I was seeing why I couldn't ever win doing things the ways I had. Not to say that I had any epiphanies about what the right way to do things was, but the wrongs ways seemed so much more obvious. In the end, everything I had ever wanted or hoped for became encapsulated in theDreamworld. And reality had nothing in common with theDreamworld, past, present, or future. What do you do without hope? Well, for me the answer was to sink deeper and deeper into depression and self-hate.

I would probably have gone insane if it wasn't for Chip & Shannon having problems and getting a divorce. My sense of obligation as a friend drove me to pull myself together enough to go to Indiana to be with them as they dealt with it. I'm not sure if it would have been better to have continued working through my pain as I had been or if being called away to Indiana saved me from completely losing it, but I still feel like I did the right thing by being there.

But here I am a year later, not only still feeling depressed, hopeless, and alone, but getting worse by the day and fearing that I'll get to a point where it's too much again and I'll give up on everything (including school). A large part of me wants to already. It just hurts so much, and everything seems so pointless. I'm forcing myself to go to class and get homework done, but if my mind doesn't ease up a bit sometime soon, I don't know if I'll have the will to fight it anymore.

I'm all alone. The only people who could really make a difference are all gone. And other than contact with Nathan and Christiana, and irregular e.mails and phone calls from Shannon, Chip and Shannon (yes, two Shannons, one here in Toledo and one in Indiana) - other than those people, I haven't heard hardly a peep from anyone else anywhere else. Yes, they all have their own lives to lead and their own problems to face, but this has been over a year that the only time I've seen a handful of these people at all was at a wedding in May. Most of the people who weren't at the wedding I haven't seen or heard from for over a year and a half. I have no real value of self-worth right now, and to be abandoned without a thought like this by people I thought were my friends just reinforces my feelings of worthlessness. And maybe that was just the way it always was and I'm just now seeing things for what they really are.

I don't know. I definitely don't understand things. I just know I feel so sad that it hurts. And I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

Posted at 1:24 AM

February 6, 2001

I'm thinking about getting rid of my phone - not just the phone itself, but the phone service all together. I realized today that outside of dialing into the internet, I only use the phone for probably less than a dozen outgoing calls a month. Those are just local calls - I decided a while ago not to even have long-distance service since I didn't use it very much and the phone companies charge a monthly basic fee for long-distance whether you use it or not, so I just don't have any long-distance setup at all. I get a vast number of calls from telemarketers but from very few other people. In fact, if it wasn't for Nathan's regular calling, I would probably have less than a dozen calls received per month. I've kept the phone service very basic since I need to keep the costs down (my life as a full-time college student allows me few luxuries), but it's beginning to seem like a waste.

If it wasn't for my need of the phone for my daily internet fix, I would probably have considered this sooner, but it occurred to me today that between the $20+ per month for the phone and the $18 per month for my service provider, I could pretty much spend the same amount and get internet cable and basic cable TV services in the package the local cable company offers. I might pay as much as $5 more per month, but I would get uninterrupted internet service with tremendously faster speeds, plus I'd have basic cable rather than my antenna (sure, I get 13 channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, WB, PBS - two of each (from Toledo and Detroit)), but I would get perfect reception of those channels and not have to screw around with my antenna). The only downside would be losing my internet provider - I have had the same provider and e.mail address for seven years, and since my provider is worldwide I have been able to dial in whenever I travel just by having access to a phone line.

Even though I make and receive so few calls a month, I still want some way to make phone calls when I need to. When I first moved into the Collingwood Arts Center, I went without a phone for a while and simply carried a pager and used the pay phone in the building when necessary. But that was a pain in the ass, and I still had a monthly cost for the pager, even if it wasn't very much.

I have thought about a cell phone, but the regular deals are way too expensive. Even the cheapest plans cost more than my regular phone service, and simply swapping costs on the phone doesn't help the overall cost issue. I am leaning toward getting a prepaid cell phone where you pay to get a cheap cell phone, pay for a certain amount of prepaid calling time, use the time whenever you want and then pay as you want to add more prepaid time to the phone. This would be good for a number of reasons: I would only use the phone when needed, so the costs would be pretty small; I would have a phone on the road and in Bowling Green (or further out, if I was traveling) so that I could call on the way to or at school; and I would be able to make long-distance calls (if I wanted to) for the same per minute cost as any other call.

The prepaid cell phone has a lot to offer, but it is not perfect. People calling would burn off prepaid time, and while I would definitely want to talk to people, it would throw any sense of budgeting out the window, and I can't afford to be unsure what my phone costs per month would be. This probably shouldn't be a worry since there are only a couple of people who call me regularly and they only call once every two or three weeks. Nathan calls an average of once a day, so that could be a problem, but I think I might have a solution for the Nathan phone problem ...

I don't know what to do, really. I know what I'd like to do, but I have very limited funds to work with, so most of the things I might like are impossible. I'd like a cell phone, but I'd like to use it when I want and not feel like I need to only use it as a last resort or feel like I'm getting screwed by per minute charges if people call me. I'd like to have a DSL connection, although Cable internet would work. I'd like to have full cable TV (although I wonder if I could get anything done for school with full cable available). But I'd also like to know that I could pay for those things and still have money to eat.

It's funny how I took things like phone service, internet service, an cable TV completely for granted when I was pulling in good money from my job. I guess I shouldn't even be thinking of this - I don't have any absolute need for faster internet service or for cable tv or even for a cell phone. To some extent, they're just toys, and I can get by with what I have. But if I could find a way to make everything work (mostly if I could just find a phone solution), I could get all of these better services (toys) for the same amount of money I'm paying now. And besides, doesn't everybody want more toys?

Posted at 11:45 PM

February 5, 2001

I can't think of anything to write today. All I can think about is how sad I feel - how much it hurts.

It's been another bad day, and I can't express how sad I am. Everything I see makes me more sad. And I just can't stand it. I think I'm going insane.

But rather than make another lengthy Journal entry about how pathetic I am, I'm just going to end it at this. Hopefully tomorrow I will have something worthwhile to write.

Posted at 11:19 PM

February 4, 2001

Nathan stopped by today. We had planned to go visit Phil in BG, but that didn't work out. Nathan visited for a while, but it was a simple, uneventful visit.

I got all three papers finished for my classes that I wanted done before Monday. Yesterday I spent pretty much the whole day reading a novel for one of my classes. Between reading and writing, I lost most of my weekend and had pretty much no time to do anything for me.

I had hoped to rest and think a little, but I also wanted to do a little expansion on the website. I don't know when I'm going to get to these things, but I still want to expand the links page to cover more things than just the stories links, and I also want to expand the Bio page a great deal. If nothing else, I have to get a counter that works. I have an invisible counter built into the site, but since I have had no recorded traffic at all in the three weeks I've had this up, I don't really believe that it is working. And all of those updates would just be fluff - the real stuff I want to get to is more poetry and the beginning of the story. Hopefully soon ...

Besides all of that, the weekend has been pretty fucking rotten. This morning it took me almost three hours to get out of bed. I had already slept for eight hours, and I wasn't tired. I just didn't want to get up. Ever. I just couldn't see any point in it. Eventually I decided I had no way to avoid living my life in hell, whether I lived it laying in bed or sitting/standing up elsewhere.

I know what you're thinking - "Some day you're going to look back on this and laugh." Yeah, well fuck you. I want to die. How the hell am I ever going to look back on this and laugh?

Posted at 10:36 PM

February 3, 2001

Today has been a struggle not to give up. Not to give up trying to eat rationally. Not to give up refraining from caffeine and sugar. Not to give up caring about anything. Not to give up seeing any point in finishing school. Not to give up thinking that the world doesn't deserve to be blown up. Not to give up trusting people. Not to give up hope that I'll ever find somebody to love. Not to give up thinking there might be some chance I might ever be happy.

How long can I keep going like this? Something has to change.

Maybe I'm just too tired. Maybe it's just the winter blahs. Maybe it's the press of reading so much and writing so many papers. Maybe it's just seeing so many people happy around me and feeling left out. Maybe it's just the way things are.

It would be so nice to just go to sleep and never wake up again. <sigh>

Posted at 12:04 AM

February 2, 2001

Today I made a bank deposit with the last of the money I had been waiting for from Christiana. Last night I went over the last details of what Christiana owed me for furniture, dishes, a car stereo, and other things she has bought from me. For the first time in about two years we are all taken care of and owe each other nothing (well, Christiana is still borrowing a mattress and box springs from me, but that is borrowing - not buying). A great amount of frustration can now be put behind me.

You see, Christiana is a constant friend. We have been friends for just short of ten years, and we have kept in contact even while I moved from Toledo to Lafayette, Indiana, to Chicago and back to Toledo, and while Christiana has moved from Toledo to Dallas to Toledo to Dallas to Toledo to Spain to Toledo to Chile to Venezuela to Dallas and back to Toledo again. Confused? Well, we have a complicated relationship, so just take my word for it and continue on with your reading ...

Anyhow, when I moved back to Toledo in late 1997, Christiana moved back from Dallas at just about the same time. We ended up spending a lot of time together, going to the zoo, the park, outdoor concerts, lunch, dinner, movies, plays, shopping, ... whatever. We both were pretty short on cash, so I scouted out free events and scored tickets to plays and concerts from friends and business contacts and we went. Other times we would balance out costs (i.e.. I would drive somewhere and Christiana would fix a picnic lunch; Christiana would pay for a movie and I would rent videos a few days later, etc.). Sometimes, it would seem that Christiana was paying for my meals or a movie more than I was putting in my share, but then I would help out with moving furniture at her dad's place or getting her dad's van cleaned up for sale. Somehow or other we balanced each other out and provided for the other when they had nothing left and needed a break.

Life situations have been similar for both of us. Christiana jumped into college at the University of Toledo to get her degree at about the same time I returned to BG. Christiana moved into the Collingwood Arts Center after I had been living here for less than a year. And we both fit the mold of poor college students. But while I had set myself up comfortably to do school and not work, Christiana had to set herself up from scratch and consequently worked (on and off over the course of time) to make enough money to meet bills and get some extras. Considering she went to Spain for a summer Studies Abroad program, and to Chile for last Spring semester, and then to Venezuela for a visit for the summer, she has done amazing things with the money she has gathered.

In order to reduce clutter (particularly when I moved the remainder of my belongings to the Arts Center from my storage area) and to have a little better cash cushion, I have pretty much been selling a lot of my belongings continuously since the fall of '98. Keep in mind that I had a house-worth of furniture and collected stuff, including extra bedroom suites, extra living room furniture (enough for a family room), and I also had stuff that I had originally intended for use in my store (including full-sized custom office desks, other furniture, lots of computer equipment, display shelving, small equipment, and a weird variety of all sorts of other stuff). I sold stuff to friends in town, friends in Lafayette, friends in Chicago, people on the internet (who were all over the place), people who saw my ads in the newspaper, and people who attended one of the four garage sales we had over the course of time. I still have things to sell - some are occasionally posted on internet classifieds, some will sell in the garage sale we will run in the spring, and sometimes I hear someone say they need to get something or another and I just happen to have it to sell to them.

Among the people I have sold things to is Christiana. When she moved back to Toledo, she came with just some boxes of books and clothes, having given away her furniture and such in Dallas before returning. I had all of the stuff she might need and wanted to sell it, so it was a good match. Additionally, I actually had some savings still when I first started back to college and Christiana was strapped for cash. So I loaned her money, I let her have furniture with the agreement to pay me back by such-and-such a time, and I gave her some things or helped her set some things up/fix them. I didn't mind, that's what friends do.

On a regular basis, however, Christiana would let me down. An agreed upon date to repay me would come up and Christiana would have to delay. Some new expense would come up and Christiana would delay. A great opportunity to study abroad would come up and Christiana would need money to pay for it or she'd lose the opportunity. I'm an easygoing guy. Even when it hurt me financially not to get the money when I had needed it, I would work with Christiana to try to make sure she could do things the way she needed to.

Last month, Christiana was supposed to pay me out of part of her financial aid check/paychecks from her new job. There were delays on her financial aid check which were not her problem, but when the check finally arrived, she immediately went about paying for various things (lapsed insurance, payback for a loan from her mother, food, rent, ... you know, logical stuff). However, Christiana also decided to buy a new computer, new clothes, new bedding, perfume, and all sorts of other enjoyable frills. During this spending spree I raised the topic of my balance due, having even given Christiana a printout of what was owed some time earlier. Christiana's comment was, "Well, I have to look at how much I have left and what I still have to pay off ..." To me this was a slap in the face. Not only had Christiana: 1) paid off her mother for money she had borrowed less than a month earlier (while she had owed me at least some amount of money continuously for a couple of years, never fully paying me off), 2) bought herself all sorts of toys and nonessentials before paying me, and 3) put me off in the same way she had done countless times before (in fact, Christiana had at some points, when I had been desperate to get what she owed me because I really needed money, had told me I should "get a job" if I needed money so much - well, I wouldn't need a job if I didn't have to keep fucking around with her screwing me over). Not only had she done all of these things, but she had the audacity to tell me that she would pay me off if she decided she had enough money to do so.

Trying to be a good friend (or an idiot, I don't know ... maybe I'm both), I said nothing and waited. Two days later I asked again and Christiana gave me 2/3 of what she owed me, claiming that "it was the last money she had" and she would pay me the rest when she got paid the following Wednesday. This also angered me, but I again remained silent - yelling would have solved nothing and would have simply made an ugly scene.

Christiana did not go to work Wednesday due to sickness, but when she got home Thursday I asked for the rest I was due. She pulled together some cash and said, "That's the right amount, right?" It was about $100 short by my estimation and I told her so. She had misplaced the printout I had made for her, so I had to get the information to bring back to her to verify the amount. I did so, got the last $100, and said nothing more about it, just being thankful that I was finally completely paid off.

But I have been frustrated still because I feel very used, unappreciated, and taken advantage of. Just the delays of payment would have been one thing, but the comments and the looks that seemed to say, "God, how dare you suggest I pay you anything?" have been very demeaning.

I have tried to pass this off because it is over and Christiana has been just about the only person who hasn't just disappeared from my life during the last year. But I still can't help but question her actions. I let Thor (and others) screw me over because I trusted them too much and allowed things to go too far simply because I considered them my friends, and look how much those people fucked me over. It's just aggravating. And depressing.

Christiana is like the best friend I have at the moment and this is how she treats me. What exactly does this say about me? Am I pathetic or what?

Posted at 12:42 AM

February 1, 2001

I started a diet last Friday afternoon, and had planned to look upon today as a great celebration of weight loss. I did very well through the weekend, weaning myself off of my caffeine addiction (more Pepsi and tea than you would believe), cutting down portions in a big way, and eating very healthy foods only.

By the time I got back from school late Monday afternoon, my anxiety was so high from school, combined with a bit of hunger after having only had an orange none hours earlier, that I broke down and ate way too much. Tuesday was much the same and saw me go back to Pepsi. Wednesday got worse, and today I pretty much realized that I have completely lost the diet.

I lost eight pounds by Monday morning - not bad for two and a half days of dieting. Fortunately, I have leveled out at that amount and not gained anything back, but I could very easily have lost more. I tell you, my daily emotional roller coaster takes its toll like this all of the time.

I'm very angry at myself for not holding better to the diet, but I'm also pretty hopeless about it. I don't know what I really expect, anyhow. Even though I know I look better and younger and feel happier and more energetic when my weight is lower, the truth is that I don't get treated any differently when I'm at a decent weight. Nobody seems interested. In fact, I feel that people treat me just the same at any weight (they either act like I'm not even there or they look at me like I'm beneath them). At least I get some enjoyment out of eating, so why should I deny myself?

But I really want to lose weight. I want to think that I might look good enough for someone to consider approaching me. But at the same time, I have to wonder how I would react if someone got interested in me at a lower weight - Would they have avoided me if I had weighed more? Is their interest in me based on whether I look slim or blocky? I know, I know, ... why even worry about this sort of thing? It's not like I even have an interested person whose motives I can question ...

So I think I'll try to return to the diet again this weekend. Maybe I can lose another five or eight pounds like this past week, even if I can't hold strictly to the diet for the whole week. If I could just keep losing a decent amount each week, I could still get back down to a decent weight pretty quickly. I would really like to be back to the 180-190 range by my birthday in a month and a half. I'd love to weigh even less than that, but I'm realistic, and getting lower than that always takes a lot of effort on my part.

I guess I shouldn't obsess about it and just try to stop drinking Pepsi and tea and simply eat better with smaller portions. I do tend to push myself too far when I diet, and that's probably why I give up so easily as soon as I get stressed and want that calming feeling that comes after eating. So the new plan is to drop Pepsi and tea and just not overdo it otherwise.

But I think I'll wait 'til Saturday to start ...

Posted at 12:18 AM