Whatever helps me blog about it.

Before getting to the main writing I want to specify something; I believe I will be putting a lot of my writings (book chapters, essays, etc.) in my "Larry the Owl" profile, so if you're interested in reading those, I suggest subscribing to that; I will only post writings or essays here if I feel they have some sort of significance or if I am exceptionally proud of that work. Otherwise, the entries on this profile are going to be more personal and whatnot. If anyone thinks this is a bad idea, get at me; just trying to save some folks who are subscribed to both a little time and whatnot.
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I've been thinking a lot about where I want to be in the future and how I am now. I caught a glimpse of hope, while being medicated for roughly a month, and I can safely say that the medication didn't turn me into a mindless zombie, into something I didn't want to be; quite the contrary, it took me from who I am to who I wanted to be, or at the very least, started me down the path towards who I wanted to be.

I had moments of clarity, I wasn't the arrogant jerk I've become over the past few years, I was simply me. What I wanted to be. I'm not going to write about medication right now, but I've got something on that for later. Rather, I want to analyze how it helped me and how I can become that person without the help of medication. I'm doing this for my own good, I suppose, and there may not be any 'wonderful message,' thought provoking, or humor. Just another rant to the outside world, I suppose. But hey, it's just another reason to blog and be a whiny little emo kid, isn't it?

I felt good about going home over break. During that time, I didn't feel alienated by my parents. We had our differences, but I accepted it. We talked. Do I dare say I felt cared for? I may have. Whatever it was, I felt different. I felt good, for once. And when it came time to return to school... I didn't want to. I know that come Tuesday night I won't want to come back to school either. I felt regret when I came back; it was hard not show any emotion when I was back in my room, but I kept it hidden from my roommate or his girlfriend. I guess I keep a lot of emotion hidden when I'm around others; I noticed that too, when I was on break. Maybe he's just inattentive, I've cut with him there and I don't think he's noticed, but I don't think its that. Off topic though. The most important thing that happened to me while being medicated... I felt human again. I felt.

Where am I now, nearly a month later, without any medication? Back to who I was, worse off, since for a time I was on the path to who I wanted to be. I feel like every time I make a little progress, I'm always made worse off because of it. For those that don't know, during break the office where I went to for help went bankrupt due to medicaid complications; the medication that helped me so greatly cannot be refilled. I found a new place, about a week ago, but they don't hand out prescriptions.

Everything feels so overwhelming again. I know what I want, I've known it all along, but I picked up a few other things as well when I felt normal. As I've always said, I want to feel loved and cared about; don't confuse this with not being loved or cared about. I know people care, I just do not feel it. But I want that more than anything, I think.

I've grown distant from my closest friends, and this frustrates me to no end. I don't even understand how it has occurred in some situations, only that is has and I cannot undo. I certainly have a larger group of friends, sure, but I'm not close with anyone at college anymore. I'd try to analyze this, but I'm sure it'd only create more problems and unintentionally bring more anger, something I've never aimed to do. Regardless, I will say that I am going to start writing entries more often to express what I feel; I stopped doing this, after someone said all I did was rant, and I think paying attention to those words hurt me. If that person reads, or if anyone else cares to take a potshot at me by calling me an emo kid or makes fun of me for expressing myself, I'm better than you. At least I'm trying to help myself in some way rather than crawling into the bottom of a bottle or pushing my feelings down until I explode. That's what caused this apathy so much to begin with, I think, by simply pushing things down instead of expressing them.

And that brings me to the point of apathy. I've returned to that. I don't care about anything, and that frustrates me because I know I SHOULD care about things. I thought about quitting school again; out of my time here, I've only learned from one class. School has kept me from writing, rather than helping me. I know I'll probably stay, even though surmounting the debt it's going to put me in causes an untold amount of stress.

I care about staying out of debt, I don't want to waste my life, and I yearn so greatly for something more from life, to feel loved, etc. But how I drown in apathy. I don't care about anyone, I realized. Or at least, I don't think I care like I should. People are in my life, but they come and go. They distract me from the void I feel, they bring humor, drama, sadness, and anger. Let me rephrase what I said; I know that I care about them, but I don't feel that I care for them. If something happened to one of them, I'd care. This is why I feel so terrible that two of my oldest, closest friends at school are quickly falling away from me.

I know that I need to overcome my apathy because of the medication I took, because of the changes it invoked. I need to be less controlling, more forgiving. People come and go, I know this but I simply do not want it to be true about some. I can't change it though and i need to accept this. I need to be more forgiving towards those who have hurt me, whether intentionally or not, and I still need to seek forgiveness from what I've done to others (though at least I have started this, I feel).

But I think I'm done now. I know I need help, but I don't know where to turn to. I need people to be close to, and they're slipping away; this may be my doing, and if those parties feel it's so, I beg them to get in touch with me so our situations can be solved before anymore damage is done. I need to remove this block I feel that keeps me from feeling anything involving faith, but that is again something for another day. I need to get my life in order.

Isn't it amazing how one little pill can make me realize all of this?

Reality's Dream (ver. 1.0)

This is a short story I've been thinking about for quite some time. It's going to be a novel, eventually, but I wanted to do something with it now while the thought was fresh in my mind. Keep in mind, this is the very first draft, names may be changed, and I plan on altering things once I get feedback. I just wanted to get it out there and get a general impression. So, I present to you the ending to one of my books, tentatively titled, "Reality's Dream."



Maryiah stirred in her sleep as she felt her husband gently kissed her brow. She opened her eyes, let him take in her features completely. She pulled her petite body up closer to him and felt surprised when he stopped her. She brushed her golden hair back and studied his face with her deep gray eyes as he sat up. He looked at her, face contorted into a painful, worried expression.

"What is it, Alan?" She asked, suddenly worried as well. Her head began to slowly throb, a telltale sign of of hardship to come for her. Maryiah, at only nineteen years of age, had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic five years ago. She knew the symptoms of her disorder well; soon she'd be hearing at least one voice and hallucinating. Despite being on medications, Maryiah still could not completely claim to have moved on past her situation.

Alan stared at her for several long minutes in silence. As she waited for an answer, Maryiah began to feel pressure building up in her head. He looked ready to speak twice before shaking his head, almost as though talking with himself. When he finally did begin to speak, his voice was shaky, uncertain, and fearful.

"You know that I love you, more than anything else," he said slowly. Dread spread across his face very plainly. "But there's something I have to tell you."

He paused again, carefully taking in Maryiah's subtly beautiful features as though he were not ever going to see them again. He kissed her a second time, now on the cheek. She began to feel more distant from him, less attached to the world in general.

"He's going to tell you what I've been saying all along," Maryiah heard one of her familiar voices echo in her head. "You know it is true." Maryiah dismissed the female voice that identified herself as Rachel.

"What is it?" She asked. She saw a worry in his eyes far stronger than anything in the past. It made her feel truly afraid. Maryiah never saw Alan this distraught in her years of knowing him. "I love you too, whatever it is –"

"It's going to be what I've said all along," Rachel murmured. "Fool."

"Shut up!" Maryiah screamed as she clutched at her head. She sprang up in bed, fully awake, and saw Alan's surprised expression. When the voice in her head fell silent, Maryiah slowly shook her head. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She shook her head again, a sudden exhaustion overtaking her.

"Which one?" Alan asked, aware of his wife's condition. Neither spoke of it happily, or often, though both took it very seriously. His face changed from anxiety to caution.

"Rachel," Maryiah answered while rubbing her head again. "I do not see why it matters though." She turned away from him, upset at her momentary outbreak. She pulled the sheets up around her, drew her legs up to her chest, and began to cry.

"It would be her," Alan mumbled to himself. He placed his hand on Maryiah's shoulder, gently cupped her chin in his hands. She stared into his eyes, completely fixated on the rare greenish-gray vibrance that so rarely shone.

Alan looked away from her. "You remember the story of Tidus, don't you?"

Maryiah thought of it carefully. She tried bringing herself closer to her husband again, though he again refused to let her get close. "Why won't you let me get close to you?

"It doesn't matter," Alan said almost silently. He glanced up, for just a second, as tears slid down his face. "In his story, Tidus came from nothing... he fell in love, he helped to save everyone...."

"And yet, he was nothing more than a dream," Maryiah stated, reciting the well known tale between the two of them. "Alan, why are you bringing this up? What does it have to do with what you want to tell me?"

"You already know," Rachel's voice echoed. "I already told you...."

"Maryiah, you know I love you more than anything.... Anything... but..."

She stared at him, eyes wide and disbelieving as her world suddenly shrank. Her mouth hung open as she analyzed his words. She heard Rachel laugh and began to hallucinate. She no longer sat in her bed with Alan but stood in an endless, eternal abyss of white. Tears streamed down her cheeks as everything came together for her.

"You aren't real, are you?" Maryiah asked with certainty. She tried not to show her heart breaking. "You're just another one of the voices I hear, just another hallucination, aren't you?" She felt helpless, utterly defenseless. Her body screamed for some form of escape from this horrible news. She cursed the God she didn't believe in; all Maryiah wanted was to love, to feel loved... and her heart plunged into despair at the sudden dawning that most of her life was nothing more than a schizophrenic lie.

"No, Maryiah," Alan said as he reached for her hands from across the void. He held them carefully, brought them to his lips. Instead of kissing them, he merely kept them enclosed in his hands, not looking at her but rather past her into the infinite white.

"It isn't like that at all," Alan said, voice barely above a whisper. "You're not real," he said while looking into her eyes. Maryiah began to feel her conscious thought disappear. Anger pulsed through her, seared her bones, but she could not do anything about it. She heard Rachel murmur something but dismissed it in rage.

"I'm not real?!" Maryiah restated his words bitterly. She watched as Alan ever so slowly shook his head.

"While you are schizophrenic, I have alter personalities. I am sorry Maryiah, I should have told you sooner.... I never should have let this happen in the first place...." His voice, genuinely filled with mourning, trembled while he spoke. Alan bit back acrid tears as he struggled to continue. "The voices you hear, from you think of as being schizophrenic... they're nothing more than the other alters."

"This can't be true," Maryiah said. She felt on the verge of insanity now as the hallucinatory world around them continually shifted. She saw places from her past, from his as well, and refused to believe what he and Rachel told her. "I have memories though, I feel things, I MUST be real!" As the words escaped her mouth, however, her mind plunged into maddening thoughts.

"Nothing more than my memories, changed to suit your needs," Alan told her quietly. "I'm sorry it has to be this way.... I truly am...."

"No," Maryiah said in disbelief. She began to feel less solid, however. Less a part of the world. Hatred entered her heart at that moment, when she allowed the possibility of his words being truth. "You're no better than a common rat, you're worse than –"

Alan raised a hand and she fell silent. The form of another female began to materialize beside him; Maryiah recognized it as Rachel from her hallucinations. Maryiah cried out in frustration, in rage and pain, before falling to her knees.

"It's all just a hallucination!" She cried to herself. "It has to be...." Maryiah began to feel her conscious thought lessen to almost nothing. She fought to feel real, to be a part of the world, for just a moment longer.

She came to her feet again, looked Alan straight into the eyes. The image of Rachel disappeared, though Maryiah gave it little care. She hated the voice more than anything at that moment.

"If what you say is true," she whispered, her voice filled with malice, "then their truly never was a God for me. If I am fake, as you say... at least I may take comfort in being right on that, in the end."

She heard Alan's voice, floating through the nothingness, calling out to her. Maryiah felt alive for a second more as tears poured down her cheeks. "I loved you," she whispered. "No matter what...." His voice came to her once more, though she ignored it.

She knew not who was real or imaginary at that moment. She cared not. Her heart broken, Maryiah disappeared, either into the darkness of unconsciousness or into the realm of subconscious thought, uncaring if she ever returned to awareness.

Podunk

Getting ready to go home for Christmas break, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I have a history of being pessimistic when it comes to going home, and my thinking was no different at first.

With that said, I'm glad to announce that break was actually good. I didn't write too much, I didn't read often, and yet, I wouldn't have had it happen any other way. I got to see my two best friends a lot, and for that I'm thankful. Good times abounded.

There were so many good quotes and times, from the first week of wandering Columbus and finding random junk to making fun of Scott tripping over the chairs repeatedly at White Castle, I knew this break was going to be different. I wasn't an asshole, most of the time, and I think my schedule every day was "wake up, hang out with friends, eat, hang out with friends," and sleep. I debated with the 'rents, had fun with that, and ultimately didn't get into anything with them.

I just don't understand it though -- nothing major happened, and yet this was definitely the greatest break I've had in a long, long time.

There was the cat boxing, which happened when one day I went to find Kris at his grandma's and their ginormous cat "Sammy" started attacking me. So, I did the only thing I could do; boxed him. That cat was strong, but I think I won despite the five cuts he got on me. He got really pissed when I poked him in the belly. Sammy is a 20lb cat of pure terror. He wasn't fat, and maybe he isn't really 20lbs, but he's heavy and big.... and strong.... and did I mention the pure terror? In the end though, I won because he ran away.

The highlight was without a doubt New Year's Eve, but it was great just to be random and even though the daily Wal-Mart trips got a little redundant, I still had a blast playing "find the worst video game."

"Bratz: Diamondz Forever" is like an instant win. I honestly don't think there was a worse game to be found, other than something about Cheetah Girls. Playing with all of the "Try me!" toys must've annoyed everyone within hearing distance, but eh, what're you gonna do really? The highlight of this was finding one of those kiddie toys where you press a letter and it makes a noise that corressponds. So flashback a few days, and I'm sitting there talking with Kris. For whatever reason, he says his ejaculatory sound (I'm sorry, I don't know how this conversation came up) is (essentially) a fanfare. Fast forward to the kiddie toys... Scott presses the "K," and it makes a triumphant fanfare noise. I was a little distrubed O.o

I bought huge chocolate bars for scott for christmas, and so he used the wrapping for a grill. ...and he claims he isn't a whigger.

So Greensburg got the Honda plant that's coming, i suppose that's great or whatever. These are the lights at night, taken from my back yard. That's in walking distance, and that's not even the "close" area of the plant!

So let's move on to New Year's Eve. By then, I'm addicted to Guitar Hero, so I tell Kris to bring it over. Dustin brings over a bit of scotch, we go to eat at pizza king, and then we go back to the trailer. We start playing Risk, and somehow the idea of "sober dialing" people is brought up. Still sober, Dustin calls me. I take it a step further and sober dial my roommate.

Me: (Talking drunkely) "Hey man, I'm so SOBER right now! I- I just thought I'd call and say hey, man..."

Kurtis: "Somehow I don't believe that."

I randomly say other things, and then hang up. I really was sober at this point, and everyone there can verify that for me. Of course, time passes, and we start to, ah, celebrate. Kris is the first to feel it, and since he's a lightweight he provides the most fun I think.


Kris: "Guys, who's winning? Who's green? Scott's green? Ooh, he's green, he can't get any!"

He's really trusting, when he's drunk.... I still love making fun of the "It's ok, the snakes are sleeping!" Moment. Good times.

So he rolls his people instead of the dice, Dustin says, "you were attacking Scott, and swore to kill him," so Kris listens (even though he was supposed to attack Dustin) and generally just says the most random things.

Poor guy, I'm glad we didn't let him out of the trailer. I honestly think he couldn't go from one end of town to the other without getting tricked into a van and raped when he's drunk.

Anyhoo, time to call Kurtis again:

"Hey man, can you send me a cannon? I'm losing the war, and I really need one. Or a horse, something. I'm on this whale, fighting the compass, and I really don't wanna lose." (I left a voicemail saying similiar things."

Also, not my proudest moment:

"Hey, everybody here says since I have long hair I have a vagina.... But I don't, do I? I mean, I room with you... and since you're a guy, i figure the person that puts ppl in rooms must know I'm a guy since i'm rooming with a guy... so i must have a penis..."

I call him again, I know, but can't remember what I said. I called Nicci twice, and "Lindsay-bizzle" twice, left Norcross a voicemail, and then some really funny things happened as I got a little more tipsy.

Firstly, I remember talking with Dustin.

Me: "I have to pee!"

Dustin: "Then go pee. I'll go after you."

Me: "No, if you have to go, then go, I'll wait."

Dustin: "No, go ahead."

Me: "Dustin, I can wait longer! I'll pee my pants before I pee in the toilet!"

....

And so sometime during the night, one of my drunken friends kissed another guy. I definitely spent the next 15 hrs making fun of him, making dumb homosexual jokes. It was funny at the time...... Really funny for me.

Kris proved either he has really good guitar hero skills or that he was sobering up, by beating "Freebird" on expert. I, meanwhile, sucked worse at guitar hero as the night progressed.

Sometime during the night it became tradition to dance to a Heiniken commercial... and when the ball dropped, we all drunkenly sang that one song....about....umm....new year's....

Good times, all in all. Now for some more pics:

Apparently, Dustin IS a guitar hero.

That's what you get for....

I have no idea what I was trying to do in this pic.

That's just creepy.

No idea what was going on, but apparently it was funny.

Again, no idea. I don't remember getting punched in that area though.

Why yes, Kris is a camera whore =P

Scott hiding himself in shame behind an alien mask?

Scott found this hillarious, for some reason.

The closest he'll ever get to a donkey show (there was a great deal of making fun of that part in Clerks II over break)

And finally, another great part over break was making fun of Honda and coming up with the "they're actually just trying to get the town hooked on cocaine" conspiracy. Because those mounds are lime, they're cocaine. And they disperse it through the air. And then Greensburg druggies get even more hooked. And then Honda will sell all the junkies their fix.

Anyhoo though, break was a blast and for once I was actually sad to return to school. I learned a few things about myself that'll help for the future, I realized that I've got a long way to go but I am slowly sorting things out and setting things right, but I fell a bit. Dexedrine is a wonderful medication that's helped me so much, with things I didn't even realize were problems, but I'm out after today and I don't want to run out. I may be slightly addicted, not good. I definitely want to get more, but the dr. I go to went bankrupt to events out of his control. hmm.

Greensburg is a podunk little craphole, but despite all of that, despite what I thought I'd feel towards being back home, break was great. I'm sad that its over, but hopefully I'll be able to see everyone again soon. (So, people from home, that means get up here and visit me *nudge nudge*) I can actually say I had fun, and that for a little while, I was happy. Hopefully there'll be even great times in the future!

So many great things happened, but I'll only give the top 5 greatest memories/quotes:

Greatest Memory:
5: Playing "find the worst game" at Wal Mart
4: Roaming Wal-Mart, trying all the kiddie toys
3: Debating with the parents on the way back (Oops, you're racist!)
2: Wandering Columbus with Kris and Scott
1: New Year's Eve

Greatest Dumb Quote, Imo:
5: "You're drunk! ...There's a really good pick up line that works with that phrase, but I can't remember what it is..... (You're sexy!)" -- Kris
4: "I'll pee my pants before peeing in the toilet!" -- Me
3: "Kris doesn't care what color his strap is!" One of Kris' friends, referring to his guitar strap.... I was the only one that laughed for five minutes.
2: "If you think you might be gay, then you're gay, *clap clap*" --Scott, in the car after that certain New Year's Eve incident.
1: (Scott:) "Just because I wear shiny things that doesn't make me a whigger, does it?" (Kris' friend:) "No. You're a whigger because you're a juggalo." (I thought this was great because of the look on his face/how casually he was burned by a fourteen yr old girl... omg so great...)


My apologies to everyone I sober and drunk dialed, and I hope everyone's break went at least as well as mine! Apologies to everyone that talked to my drunken friends too, when they took my phone....Let's hope this doesn't become a habit!