"Truthfully, I don’t think I am ready for this world."

[zeroenthusiasm]

Awww. Thanks, Loren.<3
(Ask/say anything you'd like on my stupid Formspring!)

I'm still fucking sick. My cough has gotten significantly worse and that eventually makes it harder for me to breathe. My throat is sore and my head is in so much pain that if I sit still, I can feel my entire face pulsating. It's beautiful out right now, the second day in a row, and all I want to do is ride my bike or hold hands with someone in the park. But instead, I'm at my parents' house, writing a stupid journal entry because it's the most fun I can have sitting down on this couch. It has been a bad two weeks, I guess. A lot of stress, a lot of loneliness, a lot of physical ailment. And because this is nearly week three off of my meds, I've taken all of it ten times worse than I probably should be. But then again, that could just be me over-analyzing myself. It's weird when you know there's something wrong with you, but acknowledging it doesn't necessarily help you fix it. I can't tell if I'm depressed because I should be or if it's really just a huge, bipolar mess of lost, wandering chemicals in my brain making me exaggerate it all. The last week or so has been mostly forcing myself to do fun things in between sitting alone, listening to Eric Ayotte, and feeling like I should kill myself or run far, far, far away from this place the way I did all last summer.

The other day, I received an e-mail from someone named Tam. I don't know who they are or where they're from...
Hi Dave,

You have a gift for writing, and clearly have made appropriate life choices for you, for now, given what you have been through and what you can handle.
If you ever feel strong enough, I suggest that you travel to other parts of the country or world;
meet people who are different from those you hang with, including older people;
have new experiences;
take some writing classes;
join a writer's support group.

You have a very small world, and while that helps to keep you stable, it limits your writing to a very small world view.
Expanding your world and focusing on developing your writing skills will help you to expand the use of your gifts, if you wish to do that.

Good luck to you, and continue to develop your talents.
They have helped to take you out of your past, and will be your future.

Best wishes,
Tam Lin
It made me happy, I suppose. I haven't responded yet, but it should be pointed out that this is the first time I've received an e-mail regarding my blog.

A quick rant about how ugly I am. The last time I attended community service, when I was leaning against some cardboard boxes filled with bags and trying to catch my breath/relieve the pain in the bottom of my back and one of the scumbags there laughed at me and said, "So easy, a caveman can do it!" I was seriously about to fucking dash out and walk home. Not because I was angry, but because it was probably the hundredth time I've been victim to a Geico caveman reference since the winter of 2007 when I was first told I look like the Geico caveman by a table of so-called friends and laughed at. Aside from wanting to punch the compost-shoveler who said, "Who has the small dick now?!" I mostly just wanted to bury myself in that heap of dirt they bulldozed into that garage. I'm just so fucking sick of being in this skin. And I know this is a redundant and recurring theme at this point in this stupid blog, but that last moment felt like the final straw. It had been a while since a Geico caveman comment was made by anyone but myself. All I could think to myself was, 'I cannot possibly last another day looking like this.' I went into the bathroom for a moment and looked at myself in the mirror and was felt totally choked by the unfortunate reality that ugliness is something that you really can't change. I guess if you've got the money, you can always get plastic surgery, but I obviously can't do that. So I'm stuck in this flesh prison until I die and there will never again be a period in my life where I am someone socially accepted as 'attractive'. I'll never be able to feel any sort of contentment with my reflection; I'll never be able to be at a party and think for even a second that anyone there is looking at me and thinking, 'He's cute,'; talking to girls will never be as rewarding and even go anywhere past them telling me how great I am over AOL Instant Messenger and then never wanting to hang out with me in person; I'll always be an uncomfortable public eyesore that most people won't even make eye contact with unless they can't stop staring because I'm that gross thing you can't seem to turn away from. It's been days since then, obviously, but even now, it feels as though another minute in this body is going to compel me toward taking a knife and stabbing myself to death, hopefully managing enough physical energy after some blood loss to begin peeling my skin off. I would probably make a more aesthetically pleasing corpse posted on the Internet than anything I could be right now in my current physical state.

Entry begins.

Thursday, the 11th, I woke up feeling like death and with a lot of beard hair in my dried-up mouth. I was laying on my stomach, on my chin, pushing my beard forward and into my mouth, I guess. My mother had woken me up because, mothering me like a baby, she had called and set up a doctor's appointment for me. I drowsily got up, hacked up some thick, epoxy-colored mucous into the toilet, and got going to Ellis for the first time in half a year, if not longer than that. When I got to the waiting room, I laid on the floor and was trying to catch my breath, which was short and irregular, and rediscover the balance for my lightheaded skull from all the coughing. (I coughed as I typed the word 'cough'; is that like when you yawn after seeing the word?) A cute Indian woman with braces was my doctor and after fifteen minutes of me telling my mother I was too vegan and resilient to actually be sick and her insisting I had the flu, she told me all that was really wrong with me was a severe sinus infection. I knew it all along. I'm never actually sick. I never come down with head colds, or the flu, or Strep throat, or any of that shit, and I haven't in about seven years. So my sinuses had managed to fuck up several other facilities of my body; that's how bad it was. I was still cut off from my Medicaid for moving, so she prescribed me some generic medicine for it, Amoxicillin, which I could acquire over the counter at Wal*Mart for only $4. From there, my mother and I drove to the nearest Wal*Mart so we could pick that prescription up and so she could look for curtains for the new place. I was dizzy and lost while she put more thought into how well the curtains of her choice would match the color of the living room walls. Either way, I always have fun with my mother when we go run errands together. She's fucking hilarious. When we got back home and she tried the new curtains out, she was dissatisfied with the way it looked and totally freaked out about it like it was the end of the world. It was almost as funny as it was insane. So we set out for another Wal*Mart to look for new curtains. I joined in hopes of picking up a blacklight finally.

They painstakingly browsed curtains while I looked for a blacklight and a movie my little sister wanted. I found neither, but they found some new curtains that from what I could tell were the same color as the ones they had already bought. My mother was freaking out, almost starting arguments with my father, about these goddamn curtains. It was weird. I told her, "The curtains could be covered in dicks; as long as they're keeping the sun out, then they're good enough!" When we got back, we discovered a family we lived on the same block as ten or so years ago was now living on the same block as us again. I was sick and sick of being stagnant, so I called some people and made plans to go to Rotterdam Square Mall and buy things, so I could feel like I did and accomplished something. My mother dropped my sister and I off at the corner of State and Barrett and we met up with Kara, Tia, and Yoda. I had invited Bianca and TJ, but they weren't allowed to come (school night, duh!). While waiting for the bus, five gangsta kids, no older than eight, were suddenly running as fast as they could around the corner, ending up dropping a glass jar, sending it shattering all over the sidewalk as a skinny white dude chased behind. They had stolen the tip jar from Nico's Pizzeria. How could you possibly be intrigued into robbery at that age? When we got to the mall, we went straight to FYE and I blew some money on DVDs I wanted. Since films are the only material thing I can find justification in buying (since I really will watch them repeatedly), I figured it was the best means of cheering myself up about Z-Day in New York City selling out before we got our tickets. I had fun browsing their used/cheap DVD section and left with Inside Man, Toy Story (1 and 2 on one disc!), The Yes Men, I Think I Love My Wife, and Closer. I found out through the grapevine that my ex-BFF Tall Matt (who has been a lifelong wage slave to FYE, but wasn't working that day for me to confront him about this) had eaten an ice cream cake and insisted he was still vegan, "because he didn't buy it." Gross. I saw two thirty-somethings in goth apparel browsing the death metal section of CDs and was surprised that 1.) people continue listening to death metal at that age, and 2.) people still buy CDs, at all. From there, we went to Spencers Gifts so I could find a blacklight. I found on for $20, but I couldn't find glow-in-the-dark planets anywhere! It was the first time I had entered that particular shop in over a year. It's seriously the corniest place you'll ever see in a mall, even compared to Hot Topic. There were $25 shirts with lame references to your penis being big and St. Patrick's Day themed Slipknot and Insane Clown Posse shirts (with a banner above them exclaiming 'SHAM ROCK OUT!'), marijuana leaves on everything like it was a corporate logo, Twiztid pocketbooks, blow-up dolls. It was all so lame. On our way past Hot Topic, we saw a girl we knew, Serena, who a few days earlier had walked up to Yoda in Hannaford, thinking he was me. Yoda let her think it was and never corrected her. So we laughed a lot and I eventually went to talk to her, to let her know she had us confused and that she was naked on the Internet, where I shared with her a bit of advice: If you're going to give nude pictures of yourself to your boyfriend, you can never break up with them.

We all congregated in the food court and prepared to enjoy tons of greasy food from Orient Express, the best selection of mall Chinese food imaginable; it's seriously the only good thing about that mall. They were lacking on some vegan things, so we had them make us more. Their eggrolls and vegetable fried rice rule. And they're such a cute, old, persuasive couple, the owners. Tia got the last of the lo mein, screwing Kara out of getting some. When we asked if there was more lo mein, the old Chinese woman smiles like an infomercial spokeswoman and says, "You want fried rice?! It goooooood!" waving her hands over it like it was a brand new blender. A man working at a Greek food restaurant across from the table we were sitting at had been talking on his phone for an entire half hour. He hadn't gotten a single customer. It was sad to watch. Most of the people working there have been working there for years. They start as mallrats and become employees. Savahna showed up last-minute and gave me the best hug I'd received from anyone in the last month and a half. I was really happy to see her. She wasn't wearing any makeup, so she looked ten times prettier than she usually does. But we had to catch the bus, so I couldn't stand around and talk to her as much as I wanted to. We got the bus back to Schenectady. We pulled the thing to get off at the stop we needed and as we waited for the door to open, the disoriented Chinese busdriver who is infamous for passing by people and never knowing what he's doing (how he's kept his job so long is beyond me; I've called CDTA to complain about him before, even) kept riding pass the stop, despite 'STOP REQUESTED' in red letters flashing on the overhead LCD screen. A guy sitting down got him to stop further up as I loudly said, "Okay, Chinese man, just keep driving, I guess!" Yoda, Amber, and I waited for my mother to pick us up, as we watched a cop wearing a stupid cop hat bother a really attractive girl with big, bouncy boobs who was parked somewhere illegally. I stayed at my parents' place again, up all night online.

At 2AM, at a point where there wasn't any sound going on in my headphones, I heard my cellphone make its annoying text-received sound. I had two missed texts. I read the first one first, which I had missed when I got it at 11:16PM, I guess. It was from my roommate, David. **(Written word-for-word so as to be factually accurate, as always; typos are theirs, not mine.)** You have till the end of the month to get out, I'm so over this mess. I can't live in this filth. We are both done. The second one, sent at 1:46AM, said, Now you have 2 days to get out, don't ignore someone who is trying to talk! A surge of rage shot through my entire body right away. I started shaking and wasn't sure what to do with the situation. I was being evicted via text by someone who has never once said anything to my face about being discontent with living with me (it's not like he's ever home anyway). I had been gone from home for three days exactly, so I wasn't sure of what mess there could possibly be, but it had become apparent to me that David did once say to me, "The cats are fine as long as I never see or smell them." He wasn't kidding, I guess. I suppose any evidence that cats, ya know, defecate subsequent to digestion, offends him and 'embarrasses' him in front of his nightly lays. I eventually responded, trying to come off as calm and polite, saying, I've been very sick and at my parents' place in Schenectady since Tuesday, sorry. But I've been making sure it's spotless down there otherwise. And I had been. Like, I sweep and scoop literally every time I go downstairs to take a piss or whatever, since David made it very clear that he was a psychopath and a child the last time my cats' tendencies to, ya know, shit became a problem. I take very good care of my cats; they are taken care of better than I myself am. I even started making sure that turds weren't visible anymore so as not to offend his poor eyes! Plus, I know what my cats are capable of in three days... and no, it's not a mess, or filth, or anything to be concerned about. There are two giant litter boxes, after all. Plus, Adam told me a while ago that he didn't have a problem with helping scoop the litter when I'm out. I didn't believe David when he suggested Adam was also advocating my eviction; I mean, just on Monday night, he had told me how much he loves living with me. I also replied to his second text, saying, And I'm not going anywhere, actually. Can I have Adam's number? I felt it necessary to cockily assure him I wasn't afraid of his threats. And because of Monday night's heartfelt talk, I honestly did not believe Adam was in on this. Unfortunately, I didn't have his number. He replied, You are not on the lease, its funny you try and say that, then adding, And I'm with adam right now. I didn't want to feed my violent rage any further by talking to this apparently very immature person, so I just sent him, Tell him to call me, please, trying to maintain a position of politeness. He responded, He's getting a drink instead. That pissed me off even more and honestly made me even more confident that he wasn't actually with Adam. I told him, Well, when he's done, tell him to call me. Human beings should talk outside of text and Post-It notes.

Instead of being a decent person, he instead responded with, Done! You have till the end of the month. Albeit pissed the fuck off beyond belief, I still wasn't worried about being evicted, because it didn't seem realistic, nor did it seem like something Adam, who I thought to be a rational, polite, decent human being, would allow as the only other resident on lease and also the longest signature on the lease. I asked David, Is he refusing to call me, or are you just being a child? David replied, He's is done too! Dave it is so gross if you want to talk call me. So I immediately called him. When he answered, very obviously drunk and slurring his words in what sounded like a room full of people, I was so angry that my first attempt to eject words was a total failure. Nothing came out for ten seconds before I finally was able to very calmly and lightly said, "Hey, like I said, I'm really sorry, but I had community service on Monday and have been sick with basically the flu, so I've stayed at my parents' house--" he cut me off and proceeded to scream at me about how gross it is and repeating the word, "Done!" like a fucking idiot ten-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. He continued to yell and I'd try to politely talk to him every time there'd be a break in his whining, which he'd only get angry over and cut me off to tell me not to cut him off. It was unbearable. He told me one of the cats peed on his sheets and that a while back, they had eaten a battery charger wire and knocked over some irreplaceable glasses with his name engraved in them or something lame, to which I tried several times to apologize for that and ask why he never told me they did that. He kept cutting me off, but I eventually got both the apology and question out; neither were responded to. I continued to try and kill him with kindness, telling him I'd like to reimburse him for whatever the cats broke, but he said they were irreplaceable. I also tried to tell him that I shut his door whenever I see it wide open and that it wasn't my fault that it's broken and can't close. But that apparently didn't matter either. When trying to reiterate my situation to him (and even going as far as apologizing to the piece of shit), he told me, "That's not my problem!" I eventually had enough of being yelled at by a drunk guy. There is a certain way I don't allow people to talk to me and David was speaking to me in that way. If he had been doing it to my face, he would have been hit. Thankfully for him, he's too big a coward to say anything to anyone. I had called Laura earlier in hopes of getting Adam's number and she was ringing in just as I was begging David to put Adam on the phone to no avail. So I hung up and talked to Laura. I talked to her briefly about the crazy situation and she informed me that David was at a bar as he was texting/talking to me. So not only was he handling a serious situation such as telling someone they are going to be homeless in a month because their cats defecate while inebriated, but he was doing it at a fucking bar. I couldn't believe what I was dealing with. I called Adam and he didn't answer. I left him a message on his voice mail telling him I was freaking out and needed to know what was going on.

During that, I got two more texts from David. One just said, Done! and the other said, I think hanging up is more childish, to which I responded, I think refusing to ever say anything to my face and then drunkenly texting me from a bar at 2AM is more childish. :) He said back, I wasn't drunk and you're still gone. He was drunk. I was so angry that I was shivering and staring blankly at my laptop, just totally amazed at how life gets more and more ridiculous by the day when you least expect it. Nothing can just be purely good. I love living there and had no complaints; I thought it was just a rare case of pure decency in this otherwise shitty life. But no, why would it be that? Life just wants you to get comfortable enough to try and sit down so it can pull the seat out from under you and you can fall on your ass. I tried calling Adam again and he finally answered. We talked for about twenty minutes, but he did confirm everything David said. Granted, he said it a lot calmer and nicer and more articulately, but he was in fact with David. And he was in fact siding with David. And even though he told me Monday night that he loves being roommates and gave me a big, gay hug, he was now very clearly saying to me, "I mean, I like you as a person, I just don't really wanna live with you anymore." I was literally stunned by how fake and two-faced everyone in this world is. Like, I understand not saying anything to my face. However, I do not understand going out of your way to say the opposite of what you actually mean. I felt so fucking stupid for being confident that someone was being honest with me. When I asked him what his reasons were for wanting me gone, he told me, "The place is just always a mess." When I asked him how I was responsible for those messes, he said, "I don't wanna use all my minutes on this right now. We have to talk in person, the three of us." I expressed to him that we're all on different schedules and that it probably wouldn't ever happen, also saying that I'm being told I'm going to be homeless in a month and that it's pretty important that I find out where I stand as soon as possible. But I guess that doesn't matter. I couldn't stop thinking about what 'mess' I could possibly be responsible for. I almost wanted them to be justified in kicking me out, because I'd rather it actually be my fault than know that these two guys are two-faced and overall vile human beings. Especially Adam; I really liked him. I don't use any other room in that house but my own. And my room is fucking clean. I keep the litter station, which is downstairs in the basement by the bathroom, pristine almost always, unless I'm gone for a day or two, in which case I don't see the big deal anyway because my cats aren't very gross with their poops. Even Kara and my brother told me, "I've never smelled anything. I have no idea what they could be talking about." I do the dishes, even when they're not mine. I have a plastic, green plate from my old place that I use for all my food, so I don't even use their dishes. I bought $15 worth of toilet paper for the house the other day, just to be nice. They don't flush after they piss sometimes; they don't do the dishes for days at a time; Adam's art station is a wreck 24/7; the other night, the porch was covered in garbage, empty bottles of alcohol, and even a bottle of salad dressing, while a girl Adam didn't even know slept on our couch in the living room; there is a literal mountain of returnable bottles and cans in the kitchen that have not been touched since I moved in there at the beginning of December. I'm cleaner than these guys. The suggestion that I am at all responsible for any household messes is fucking insane. I waited until my mother woke up and talked to her about it. She was a little helpful, but I still wanted to cry and hurt people.

I never went to sleep. I mean, how could I? On top of needing to find a way out of community service, needing to somehow manage to get back on Medicaid soon before I ran out of my inhaler and/or killed someone from being off my meds, and being sick out of my mind, I was now being faced with needing to find a new place to live. I was paying $100 more for this place and only moved because I trusted these people. Once again, I just felt so stupid. In hopes of distracting myself, I watched two movies, Teeth (yes, the movie about the girl whose vagina has teeth) and Kidulthood, a really amazing British film about several teens who live dangerous, out-of-control lives and how their decisions wind up creating a lot of loss and damage for them all in the end. It was a fucked-up, brutally real film and I couldn't shake it off for a few hours after watching it. I slept deeply on the couch from 9AM until 9PM when my mother woke me up with a fresh dinner she had made me. It was so nice of her! I had a big plate of mashed potatoes, peas, and vegan chick'n strips with hot sauce! It was delicious and the perfect way to wake up. I was also feeling slightly better thanks to the Amoxicillin. I stayed up with the parents and we watched Zombieland together. It was an awesome fucking movie. Yoda said he'd come watch it with us, but he hardly ever does anything unless it involves a video game or the almighty Jason X, so he never wound up joining. I received over twenty Formspring questions in under an hour. That kept me busy. I got a text from David that really annoyed me, saying I'm a nicer person then I should be, you don't need to leave I'm looking for a new place, as if he was doing me some sort of service. He was schedule to move out next fall for school anyway! Fucking asshole. And if both of them wanted me out, why was he acting like it was all up to him? It pissed me off a lot and all I could do was fantasize about violence I wanted to commit on certain people in my life. I was up all night again, since I had just slept twelve hours straight. By sunrise, I watched a really good movie called Red that literally made me tense and angry while watching it. All I could think about was how fucking horrible the general majority of this world is.



I hung out with my mother for a few hours as she paced the house and did several things at once like a madwoman. I never wanted to return to my apartment in Albany again out of fear of an unbearable discomfort and what I would possibly do if David tried to say something to me. But I got on the bus home anyway, because I knew I needed to finally take a shower, do something about the cats' litter, and whatever. My mom chased a bus for me and let me off as it was picking people up. I was behind some bros and a bimbo adorned in preppy green clothing and corny St. Patrick's Day ornaments. I had almost forgot that the weekend before the actual St. Patrick's Day, Albany is a stomping ground for college students and other scumbags to waltz the streets publicly wasted. They got on and sat down with looks of lost puppies, like they had never ridden a bus before. They looked primitive as they grunted to one another, the one with his arm strongly wrapped around the neck of the lone girl there, to show off ownership, as they each took turns lightly spitting into their empty Pepsi and AriZona bottles and cans. Those people literally make me sick. When we reached the bus stop in Colonie that is at the corner of Fuller Rd., all I could see was a wild pack of sexually-repressed, drunk, ecstatic college students, dressed in ridiculous green garb and ornaments, waving their bottles or cans of alcohol in the air above their heads and screaming all at once. They all piled on at once and it was so loud, not even Slipknot or As Blood Runs Black could drown out the sounds of their vibrating masculinity and deep-throated chants. Everyone was so excited about, gasp, being able to spend the day and night drinking in Albany! As if that doesn't happen every single night anyway. I was having such a horrible panic attack and it made me think about how badly I need to be on my fucking pills. I even considered getting off right there and walking the rest of the way home. Luckily, they were gone ten or so minutes later. We had to reroute for the 'parade' (which was actually just a few blocks closed off for bagpipe players and young-adult alcoholics and date-rapists), so I ended up having to walk an extra couple of blocks to get home, with a plastic bag filled with bottles hanging from my bookbag and a blacklight under my arm. I could not stop listening to the Mighty Midgets album; it's my new obsession.

When I got home, I went downstairs to the litter boxes right away. They... weren't a mess, at all. I called Laura and asked her if she'd scoop them and feed the cats for me the day before, but I had just bought a new bag of litter and immediately went into pouring the boxes empty into a garbage bag, assuming they were a toxic waste dump sorta scenario. But there wasn't even pee in these boxes. It didn't smell bad. Nothing. I was amazed. I fuckin' knew my cats hadn't made a particularly brutal mess down there and it was just David exaggerating like he did the last time during the Post-It Note incidence. I continued emptying them anyway and then moved the two litter boxes into my bedroom where the other two residents would never see them again. No more offensive natural body processes again! Dana's plants were neglected and dry and it made me sad. I plugged in my laptop and... the adapter wasn't working anymore. I tried several outlets and lots fondling the wire, but the little green light wasn't even coming on. So somehow during the bus ride, my laptop adapter broke. It was devastating, but I didn't have time to want to kill myself over it yet. I wanted to take a shower, but remembered I still hadn't bought any soap for myself, so I got on my bike and rode over, through Lark St.'s population of puke and underage drinkers, to the headshop Roger works at to buy the organic soap I like. I talked to him for a few minutes and asked him if he wanted to go to a basement show with me later and he was totally down with it. I left and just as I was putting my key into the door, David was opening the door. I avoided eye contact, because I was afraid of what I'd do if any words were exchanged between us. I took a really long shower, then laid in bed and tried to find something to do so I wouldn't fall asleep. But nothing was there to do, so I just dozed off in the dark with my cats until Roger called me at 7:30. I met him at his place and we headed off to Lincoln Ave. on our bikes. The weather was perfect for riding bikes. The first real bike ride of the season. It was pretty awesome. Though I felt really pathetic lagging one to two blocks behind Roger on his expensive roadbike, which sent him flying ahead of me after about two rotations of the crank and pedals. It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the tiny house on a ghetto street. There was a little sign out front saying the show was around the back. Roger locked our bikes up at a lamppost while a crackwhore and her lover said argumentative things to each other.

The show was only $3; I paid for the both of us. The basement was small and cramped and Roger's head was less than an inch away from hitting the ceiling. I fund TJ, Tia, and Bianca right away and stood with them, while Unrestrained played their last two songs. Just in those two songs, I was witness to one of the angriest, most passionate performances from a band I'd ever seen. Their lead singer has such an angry scream, then talks in a lisp. I was bummed we missed pretty much their entire set. During their song about rape, we ended up shoved to the other side of the basement, in the corner, by a one-man mosh attempt. The Effort set up real quick and played a half-hour set. They were so fucking good, just like last time. Their vocalist is one of the geekiest lead-singers-for-a-hardcore-band I've ever seen. He is so passionate and explains what each song is about, which is cool if I couldn't help but suspect that he was preaching to deaf ears in that tiny crowd of scenesters. They were all Xed up, which is something I never see anymore, and it was too know I was in the presence of several real straightedge people. They played some new songs that I really, really liked; they've somehow upped the ante on their ability to mix melody with brute anger. They had a song about Matthew Shepard, a song about a racist they knew who joined the ARMY specifically to kill other races and wound up dead and considered a 'hero', a song about out generation; it was really cool. They played "Black Sheep", my favorite song by them, and it made people start moving to my surprise. He dedicated it to all the straightedge kids. Roger tried to dance a little and I swear he scared the shit out of everyone when he did. He was the biggest dude there and came storming in like a rabid grizzly bear. It was hilarious. They ended their set way too soon in my opinion, but it was still cool. I bought a shirt of theirs they had that mimicked the cover of the Minor Threat album, "Out of Step". After that, Roger and I rode our bikes another fifteen minutes away to Little Anthony's so we could get dinner. We ordered a twelve-cut vegan pizza, half meatball and half chick'n. Pat also hooked us up with two free bowls of vegan mac 'n' cheese because we'd never tried it. He's ridiculously nice to me all the time and I do not know why. I mean, I'm sure he knows plenty of vegans; I'm not exactly anyone special. We were there until closing, eating until it hurt. After we left, we went up on the tracks and took a stroll, looking at the graveyard of bad graffiti. Then we rode home, which was an excellent half-hour ride. Going up Central, a man in a car yelled to Roger, "Wanna race?!" When we got back to his house, we got drinks from Price Chopper, some Mountain Dew Throwback, and waited in line with a drunk person who overheard me saying something about pizza crust always cutting up the roof of my mouth and then comparing it to Cap'n Crunch. We started talking about how you trust Cap'n Crunch to love you, but then they just fuck you up, and the drunk guy called him Cap'n Dateraper. He was excited about the mashed potatoes he was buying and I said to him, "Those won't betray you," to which he said, "I can't wait to put my balls in these mashed potatoes!" As he swiped his debit card, he exclaimed, "I shouldn't be here right now. I shouldn't be in this country!" It was hilarious. Once back at the apartment, we put in Ong-Bak, a Thai action film Roger insisted I see. It was pretty bad-ass, despite he ridiculous English dub-over that didn't match the simplified subtitles. After that, I got going and was finally ready for some fucking sleep. I fell asleep with a pounding headache that I hoped would be gone when I woke up.



Roger's cat, Tom, somehow managing to find this position at the window comfortable.

I woke up and the headache was still there, so bad that I didn't want to open my eyes. I had slept from 3AM to 5:30PM. This headache was excruciating. I hadn't felt anything like it since my trip to Philly where I was taking a sinus medication that I was obviously allergic to. I guess the Amoxicillin was no different. Apparently, from what I can tell, I'm allergic to sinus medication and all it does it push all my sinus junk up into my forehead and brows. It felt like I had been bludgeoned with the butt of a gun or something. It was so bad. I knew right away that it had to be the sinus medicine I was taking, because I had never felt pain this intense before, other than that other time on the other sinus medicine while in Philly. I ate some food, did some small grocery shopping at the Price Chopper, and rolled around in bed, thinking about how I'd rather have a broken leg than that headache. I called my mother to practically cry about it and then got on the bus there at 7. While waiting for the bus, I was shaking from the unbearable pain shooting through my head with every heartbeat. I went into a convenience store and got six Motrin. When I sat down at the bench to wait for the bus, a drunk black man stumbled over to me. I looked up at him and he was grilling me pretty hard, getting a little closer. I took out my knife and started ripping open my Motrin. He glared at me and, after some other incoherent attempts at speaking, said, "Get up." I looked at him and angrily said, "Do you want something from me?" He said yeah and then mumbled some other things I could not understand. There was no way they were words, that's for sure. Then a whiteboy in a Lamb of God shirt sat next to me, looking suspiciously thrilled. I turned to him and asked, "Is your buddy okay?" He laughed and excitedly said, "I dunno, man!" It was really sketchy and I knew if given the opportunity, I would plunge my knife into someone right there, so I got up and crossed the street to wait for the bus. When I got off in Schenectady, I had to walk to my parents' place in the rain. Yoda, Kayla, and Sam had finally moved most of their belongings into the downstairs apartment. I went to their door first. Kayla cracked it open and wouldn't let me in. I said, "He told me to come here." She bitchily said, "He's not here. So he obviously didn't tell you to come in." She moved from the door eventually and I just slammed it shut and went upstairs, since I wasn't allowed in or something. Kayla does a lot of things that make me want to punch her in the face.

I bitched and bitched and bitched and bitched to my mother about my head and was seriously on the verge of giving myself a lobotomy in hopes of curing the pain in my head. And my adapter being broken was also deeply effecting my mood and ability to deal. Luckily, my mother found an extra adapter that worked. She saved the day! If my laptop didn't work, I probably would have killed myself or something. The Internet is the only luxury I really have in this shit life. Yoda finally got back and permitted me to enter his place. It was really spacious and nice. He had to get a few more things from his other apartment, so I went with him and helped him, while we exchanged our tales of mere existence. We went to Sunoco and there was a really frightening man there, sweating profusely. Yoda insisted he was about to shoot the place up. A little later, we went to Wal*Mart so he could get a new TV stand for his bedroom. I searched for a calendar, but all they had were Twilight ones. So I grabbed a giant dry-erase one for $4. I also picked up a card for sixty cellphone minutes, since I got a text from Tracfone saying if I bought one before the end of the month, I'd get double the minutes. I tried to steal the minutes, finally finding out what would happen if I just scratched off the cover and entered the minutes without buying them first. When I did, I got a text that told me I had to call such and such 1-800 number to 'complete the transaction'. Sounded like a trap to me. So I caved in and bought the card; it was worth a try. When we got back to the house, we spent two hours in Yoda's bedroom, while Kayla laid there sick, and I put together his precious TV stand for him. When we finally finished, we put in Arachnophobia, one of the scariest films ever because it revolves around fucking spiders. They both went to sleep after that and I just stayed up, sitting on Formspring, answering the 50+ questions I had asked on there. My severe headache eventually faded, because I didn't take anymore Amoxicillin. Around 9 or 10, I thought I heard my mother walking up the stairs to the apartment. So I tried to leave to catch her. But for some reason, whatever retard architect put this house together, there's a bolt lock on the inside; like, you have to use your key to unlock it from the inside to get out. I was locked inside, basically. Yoda had to let me out. And when I got out, I discovered my mother had actually gone downstairs and was on a ride with my father. I bitched for a few minutes and then she was nice enough to turn around and pick me up. It was nice of her, even though it just made me feel like a piece of shit for continuing to bother them with my own problems. When I got in, saying the eff word over and over again, I found my father on the phone, basically being told he has a weak form of diabetes.

I hung out with my parents and they gradually cheered me up. They took me to a nearby diner with them for breakfast/lunch. The diner was really authentic. Even the waitresses looked like they were culturally behind at a truck stop serving grits and eggs to fat men in plaid with beards covered in crumbs from the last week or two. I didn't think there'd be anything for me to eat. Because my mother is still really naive, she asked the waitress outright, "Is there anything vegan here?" The woman didn't even know what that meant. So she opened the menu for me and pointed out the turkey burger, saying we could take the cheddar cheese off of it for me. My mother said, "No, he doesn't eat anything that was alive." It's cute, but I hate when she does that. I try to avoid instigating conversation about veganism in public places because it usually turns into a really infuriating topic to talk about with idiots. I ended up ordering a lettuce and tomato sandwich on toasted wheat bread and a side of fries. My mother said something about how she's learned so much from us and, "is surprised when she finds out there's feathers in her food," referring to l-cysteine (which is actually animal hair) and the waitress responded, "Well, I just don't think about it, hahaha, and it helps me get through!" I exclaimed, "That is the American way!" which was met with an uncomfortable chuckle. The food, when it came, was really delicious. I hate tomatoes, but when they're in between heated bread, they totally rock. They brought me back home so I could rest and went out to pick more stuff up from storage with some friends. I tried to watch a documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church called Fall From Grace, but fell asleep during it until 5PM when my mother woke me up for dinner, which for me was just some homemade fries and a barbecue riblet. I was really fucking depressed and desperately needed to be around my best friend, who usually makes me feel better, so I called Kara and we made plans to meet downtown around 8 and stay at my place.

On the bus ride there, I was having a pretty bad panic attack. People were letting their ringtones play without answering them and it was driving me crazy. A man sitting next to me openly opened a beer and it pissed me off. I tried to talk to Kara, foolishly thinking I could, but she seemed mostly disinterested in me or my problems and then we got into an argument we always get into about violence, where she insists that we should give inhumane antagonists and bullies the same polite treatment as other humans. It's my firm belief that you disqualify yourself from that basic respect as soon as you harm someone without motivation or mercy. And since you don't feel emotions the same way most people do, you can't be dealt with in the same ways, leaving only a fist to your ugly fucking head as the only solution to bringing your ego and malice down a few notches. A drunk whore stepped onto the bus and fell face-first to the ground, then yelled, "Oh, my gawd, I'm so embarrassed right now!" You shouldn't drink poison that kills your motor skills, then, you dumb bitch. Kara wouldn't even make eye contact with me at one point, so her being around really just made me more depressed. When we got back to my house, we fell asleep in about an hour or two with nothing playing around us. I tried to wrap around her, but I wasn't allowed to because she had kissed TJ the day before or whatever. So I just... laid on my stomach and felt as alone as I did before she came over. I was happy she maybe found someone finally, but our friendship will change a lot when she does. And that was already a huge change. I woke up wrapped around her, so I guess someone in their sleep allowed it to happen. But every time I woke up, I let go out of respect, only to wake back up wrapped around her. I just needed to feel something with someone else I actually cared about. And I guess now I'm back down to no one at all. Not even someone I can hold in bed. Awesome. It was all really upsetting, though I knew it would happen eventually. I woke up to her leaving just before 10AM. She was tying up her boots when I asked her what she was doing. She said, "I'm leaving," like a bitch, so I just rolled over and tried not to be upset about it.

When I woke back up, I made a phone call to the doctor's. I told the nurse that they had prescribed me Amoxicillin and I was allergic to it. She told me she'd call back with a new medicine I could take. A few minutes later, she called back with something starting with a Z that would only take ten days to finish. But then I asked her how much it would cost me, informing her I was currently cut off from my Medicaid. She put me on hold to the sounds of seagulls by the shore. When she came back, she told me it would cost somewhere around $50. I asked if there was anything I could do to get around that and she told me there wasn't. So I asked her, "So I'm pretty much screwed, then?" And she in so many words told me I was. Cool. God bless America, the only industrialized nation where someone would have to deal with this bullshit! Then I had to call the 800 number Tracfone told me I had to call, because even after I paid for the sixty-minute card, my minutes never came through. So I called, had to press numbers to get through their options, and then had to talk to a guy for five minutes before getting my minutes. It was annoying. After that, I called a woman's number from Social Services that my mother had obtained for me the day before. Apparently, even though Medicaid is a huge government-run organization, they still rely on voicemail when you call them. And for the last day or two, "their mailbox was full." Nice and reliable, right? So if you're in my situation, where you have a weak version of the flu and can't afford the $50 pills, or are asthmatic and can't afford the $85 inhaler, or mentally unstable and can't afford the $115 pills... you're fucked until their mailbox isn't full anymore. I called the number and left a long, detailed message. It is two days later as I type this and she has still not called me back. I called my mother and she insisted I come back to Schenectady so she can help me better. She's had way more experience with these organizations' bullshit, so I'm better off with her, especially since she doesn't need meds to talk to them without going into a panic attack form of shock. It was beautiful out. It was so nice. The nicest it'd been since probably the last day of actual summer. I was even able to comfortably walk outside in just a t-shirt. It was awesome. I rode my bike to the bus stop and it felt magical. For a few moments, I even felt like I had instantaneously been revived just by being on my bike in nice weather. The bus ride was fine, sitting by an open window, writing down notes for this entry in my little yellow notebook.

I had completely forgotten that the clocks had been set ahead an hour. I texted Savahna, to see if she wanted to hang out and/or go to a movie later. I really enjoy her company; I wish I had it more often. She said she had rehearsal and probably wouldn't be able to, which sucked. I got off a mile or so before my stop just so I could ride my bike. The warm breeze in my face and the sun on my back felt great like a full-body massage. The burn in my calves felt like an injection of energy. I almost felt like I was going to be okay. But by the time I got home, I was having asthma difficulties and my throat was beginning to hurt pretty bad. My mother and I went out to buy some things and I got a Snapple and a Pepsi. I called Yoda and saw if he still wanted to go to the movies and he said he did. And then we all just waited for my mother to finish her dinner. She was all excited that she was finally making a dinner for everyone that everyone actually wanted: spaghetti. For some reason, she absolutely needs her daytime fake court shows while she makes dinner; she needs her Judge Joe Brown and her Judge Judy, even though both of their voices annoy the fuck out of everyone in the house and my mother and brother had actually lost a case about a broken video camera on Joe Brown's show once (true story: they flew them out to California and everything!). Those HD boxes the 'government' insists we have to use instead of regular bunny ear antennae never fucking work and make the shows skip like broken DVDs. So she spent a half hour trying to adjust it so it'd work, leading us to not eat any dinner until 7PM. It was good, though; spaghetti with organic sauce, giant pieces of Italian bread, and salad with balsamic vinaigrette. The next showing at Bow Tie for She's Out of My League wasn't until 9:25, so we had some time to kill. I called Tia and invited her to come and she was allowed to. On our way to the theater, a black guy in a football helmet hung out the window and said, "HEYYYYY!" I wasn't sure if they were a special ed student or just a normal Schenectady resident hanging out of a window in a football helmet. We all met at the theater lobby and got in just after the opening credits of the movie. It was fucking hilarious and honest, up until the inevitable happy ending. A lot about it hit close to home, so I got depressed even though it was a comedy. Yoda and I took a slow stroll home through some back-alley routes so as to avoid the murderers and drug dealers that live around there. I was up all night again, until about 5 or so in the morning, doing whatever. I slept really late on my parents' couch again, waking up to hack thick gobs of grossness from my lungs, snort pounds and pounds of snot up into my nose to spit it out, and grab for my inhaler because doing both makes it harder for me to breathe. I sat on that couch in one place for the entire day and night, moving maybe three times max, as the sun shone outside and I engaged in debate over my Facebook about how I didn't understand why so many people were inside, drinking and doing drugs, instead of enjoying the nice weather. In the entry posted after this is the bulk of the debate.

I started writing this entry yesterday after I woke up. I spent the entire day in one place with the laptop heating up my thighs, jealous that people were outside and I was not. But by midnight, I hadn't finished yet and literally passed out in front of my screen while listening to The Tallest Man On Earth. I kept distracting myself before that with weird things over Formspring where a man claiming to be a Nigerian psychic was attempting to prove his abilities by telling me things anyone can find out by reading my blog. It was very sad; funny for a little while, and then just sad. A kid I'm friends with on Facebook also came out and called me ugly, comparing me to the troll from Harry Potter. That pretty much made me want to die. And then I talked him into publicly sending me a picture of his dick. It was pretty hilarious. As of yesterday, Kara and TJ officially date and I know it will eventually lead to me losing her as a friend, or at least a lot of big things changing; I will become a second priority, she won't be allowed to stay overnight anymore, she'll forget about me entirely like Rain and Gemma and plenty of people in the past have. I tried to talk to her about this, but she took the spotlight and made me feel bad for feeling bad, so I just shut up about it. I woke up today at 10, still sick. I'm not getting better at all. Apparently, this is a rare occasion where my 'ignore it until it goes away' solution just won't work out for me. I left another message to the woman at Social Services, expressing the urgency, but I did that last time and it didn't get her to call me, so I doubt this will either. Tomorrow, I'm going to New Jersey with Roger, Heather, and Yoda to enjoy a house show/party with some awesome bands of several different genres and graffiti writers. I'm excited to get out of the state for the first time in a while.




Since you're given the opportunity to, you should mark military, alcohol, Coca-Cola, and other corrupt ads accordingly... I do, every time.

Thanks to anyone who read this and, again, sorry for the long wait to those who actually give a shit about my updates. Please comment with anything you'd like, especially if you read this entire thing.

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