I'm also extending a challenge. One i stole from angad19, but still. He robbed it from someone else, so i don't really care. Anyone who sees this blog can ask me anything they want. I mean it. Any possible question anyone can think of, i will answer with full honesty. In comment form, email form, any form whatsoever, i will answer honestly. On any topic, feel free to ask anything you want. I'm a very hard person to offend, and if somehow you manage that feat, you're given a free pass.
In the words of Lucy Liu, as O-Ren Ishii:
"Except, of course, the subject that was just under discussion. The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is... I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here. Now... if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say... NOW'S THE FUCKING TIME!
I didn't think so."
Except here, there is no taboo subject. Ask away.
Okay. I'm in the car on the way to Galway right now. 15.44, Monday. This has been a long year for me. A long, long year. The amount of things that have happened is insane. Events, realisations, personal strife. This year has turned my life upside down. Completely changed everything about me. Made me realise so many great things about myself and so many not so great things. But it's cleared up a lot of the fog in my life. Even some of the fog from my shattered memory has cleared. I've gotten pieces of my self back that i thought were lost for good. Contrary to what i believed, i'm still capable of interacting with a community. I was positive that i'd lost all the faculties i had for interacting with people. Gone the way of the dodo. I was wrong. Thankfully, i was wrong. I know that i've begun to re-learn the skills i have lost over the past decade. I vividly remember things i thought i had forgotten.
15.57, Monday. The fields on the way to Galway are covered in frost and snow. I love winter so much. I love the white tinge everything has. This is one of the most beautiful sights i've had the pleasure of seeing. Impossible to describe how it's making me feel. I just love it. The dark green and brown irish countryside with white covering it. I love the winter. I love the way it makes my breath fog. It's like an ancient Norse countryside. Warm pubs with hearty food and generous helpings of beer. Like the backdrop to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. A wintery paradise. Cold fingers, cold toes and warming up afterwards. I've dreamt of sharing a scene like this with someone for as long as i can remember. Maybe some day i will, you never know. I digress, but i'm still keeping it in.
16.09, Monday. Yes. Things i remember. As many of you may know, i have a considerable gap in my memory. Almost 4 years. Ranging from when i was 13 to 16. I've started to fill some of this gap in. And most of it isn't pleasant. The clearest thing i can remember now, is New Years Eve 1999. I was 11. For the past year i had been thinking about the millenium. How big a step it was. 2000 years. I was convinced that something would happen.
I was convinced that i wouldn't make it past the twentieth century. And i was ok with that. I figured that this was a good run, and i couldn't complain. When new years eve came around i put my best clothes on. I was thrilled at staying up late. I was tired. I was glad i wouldn't have to worry after that night anymore.
I was happy that night. I was playing with our dog, Maxi, before she ran away in 2002 and my mam noticed how happy i was. Said it was good. 11.58 rolled around and i asked for a drink of Fanta Exotic. Sweet, but very nice. 11.59 I wandered back into the sitting room to stand beside my mam and sister, this was while i could still walk. I took a few sips then told my parents, brother and sister that i loved them. They gave me a weird look but i just looked away at the television programme. Jools Holland was on, can't remember who was performing. 11.59.49 I took one last gulp and closed my eyes. Bit too sweet, this. Doesn't matter now. At midnight i breathed out and heard a bang off to my left. And i felt relaxed. I knew it was going to happen and i was fine. Turned out to be a party popper. And my neighbour celebrating with too much enthusiasm. My mam had let off the party popper close to my ear.
My depression isn't recent and it has shown up before. What 11 year old dreams of dying? Believes with all their heart that their end has come? I remembered this earlier today while scratching my itchy, healing left arm. I've come full circle again. Having similar thoughts now, except i know what they are this time. I'm in a better place this time. I've lost so much since then. So many abilities. So much of my memory. So much time. Sometimes, i think, my sanity. But as i've learned recently, it's not all lost. I've regained my interpersonal skills, to some extent. I've regained some of my memory. I've gained friends and people i can confide in. I've gained a respect and perspective for the life i have. I've regained my sense of humour. A bit of it anyway. I'm not a humourless mass of cells anymore
In the past year, hell, the last few months i've gained all these. This year has been long. So very, very long. In January i lost a great friend, Robert, who i'd known since i was seven, to illness. My illness. He suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 20. I'd been drinking with him three months earlier and he was great. Downed 6 double vodkas in under an hour, and made an ass of himself. He was a mad bastard. But he got a chest infection in November of last year. And his pulmonary system collapsed. His heart eventually gave out in January. And nobody told me until three days before his removal. I went to that but couldn't face the funeral. He was the last of the friends i knew from childhood with my condition. The rest, and several more besides have also died. Before him and after him.
This is what was the big change for me. The major upset that, eventually, made me reevaluate my life, and find a new direction. A stress-free existence that i enjoy. In May i finished my second year, second semester exams and shut down for the summer. Stopped thinking for two months. Played computer games, watched films i hadn't seen before, expanded my musical horizons deeper into metal. When July came around again i started dealing with the prospect of another year of college and all the good feelings i'd had over the summer slowly started to fade. Back to the stress. Back to the grindstone. Back to all the miserable shit again. No friends. Weird looks. Cliques that i couldn't fit in with. Not that i was given a chance. I was still optimistic though. I was transferring to a new course and i hoped that the workload would be different. That it was just the fact that the original course i had picked was too hard. And then came August.
The month i joined SG. I joined around the start of the month, after i finally worked up the nerve. I'd heard of the site from an episode of CSI a few years ago. Scoped it out and immediately shrugged it off. No way i could fit in with that crowd. I'd contemplated joining a few times after that, but came up to the same blockage. How could i fit in with people as cool as this? As sexually advanced? As full of ridiculously attractive people? Until i came across Wil Wheaton's article on Arnie's greatest cheesy films. While he was asking his son for tips. I think i put a link to it in my first blog. WIL FUCKING WHEATON. "Shut UP, Wesley". So i started thinking on this. If nerds can fit in, then hey. Maybe i might have a chance. I still had cold feet though. What would people say if i joined a site like this? Until i saw Riae Suicide, haha. I shut my doubts off pretty quickly
So i joined. I decided to go for a year's membership, since it worked out to be the cheapest and let's face it... i'm a cheapskate. I was completely unprepared for the site. Completely taken aback by what i found. For the first day or two i checked out the site. Had a look at some of the groups, boards and started getting a bit sucked in. When my first blog got two or three comments i sent my first emails and made my first two or three friends. And i started putting more time and effort into my profile. Started writing longer blogs. Spending time on them. And i started to make more friends. Met the best friends i've ever had.
Tuesday, 15.56. Haha. I'm on my way home from Galway again. We had to cut our trip a week short because the weather was too bad. I was freezing in chat last night. I really mean that. I think my parents are finally starting to get it. That i've found my place. I haven't told them a whole lot. They noticed i was working on letters. They noticed that i've become better at talking about things. Talking in general. Not having to subject my thoughts to the continuing scorn of either society or my overactive, guilty brain. My thinking has been warped these past few years. I've been afraid of my opinions based on a misguided sense of obligation to "fit in" with the world around me. I've become the 2nd person in my family's history to call themselves an atheist. Regardless of how many people have felt that way, that's the level of comfort and acceptance i've found with the people here. I can finally trust my own judgment. I can admit that my thoughts are just as valid as the next persons. My opinion holds just as much water as anyone else's.
The urge to not rock the societal boat has overshadowed everything i've done my whole life. From what i remember, anyway. Religion is my main conclusive deduction. I haven't come to end of that path yet, but i've consolidated my feelings on that subject. Considerably. But religion's not the only thing. I've found my spot on the sexuality spectrum. I've learned an immeasurable amount about how i feel regarding a vast array of things, mostly associated with friendship, sex and love.
If anyone remembers from one of my giant blogs, i talked about how hard a time a had separating these three things. I still have a hard time, but it's constantly changing. Every day, every breakdown, every cut, every tear. All the bitter heartache and all the chestwarming elation. Every action has an equal and opposite action. Both are sides of the same coin and must be experienced to find a stable equilibrium. This is a moment of equilibrium for me. I can clearly see both sides of what must happen without emotional attachment to either, 16.26. This is temporary and shortlived, i know that. In a short while i'll have plunged myself back into the lukewarm pool of human feeling, the cold outweighing the hot, at the minute. I'm relating my entire life to a simple karmic thermodynamics problem, or karmodynamics, if you will.
That's trademarked by the way... But what i'm saying is that i'm not afraid to be myself at the minute. Why should i censor my true opinions and beliefs to conform to someone else's comfort? I shouldn't. And now i know that. That in itself is worth my $48. It's worth more than a hundred times that. The people i know here just keep giving. Giving their time, their effort, their patience, their support and their genuine caring to someone like me. I'd use the word humbling but it doesn't quite seem like enough. Enough to express how deeply i've been touched by all my friends here (insert obvious, euphemistic "that's what she said" line).
Thinking back on what my life was like before now just makes me sad. How could i have gone on so long the way i was? I was in the eye of a depression storm for 2 years. I was better because i didn't perturb my existence. Risk not, want not. I got into a rut and stayed there. I climbed into the cellar and cemented the wall shut behind me. I cut out the bad things by not trying for good things. Since i've joined here i've tried for good things and failed in some attempts. I've experienced devastating lows as a result and even delved back into my old self-harm ways. But i've changed too. I've made huge jumps in light of these setbacks.
Wednesday, 14:18 I'm going to try and get back to the point at hand. I've been rambling for quite a while. I'm going to make changes this year. I will. Proper, big changes. I've promised myself this every year i can remember, but this time i mean it. In the words of He-Man: "I. Have. The POWER". I'm going to try and change from my Prince Adam into my He-Man. Amalgamate my two sides. My online personality here and my shy, miserable real-life self. And i think it's possible. I'm going to try my hand at a 365 Project. Taking a photo of myself every day for a year. Just to show myself that i can stick with something. That my resolve can be strong if i want it to be. And maybe i can make some stories for myself.
I hear of people having wild adventures, wild sexual encounters, wild fun times every day. And it just gets me down. I don't have any of those. I don't have any stories to tell. Or to regale people with. My life has been completely uneventful and boring. For the past few years, anyway. I want to have stories to tell. I want to meet random people and have fun with them. Without my head convincing me otherwise. Mentally downtrodden. That's what i've been. Shy, introverted and miserable. I need to fuck some shit up at some stage
I'm delighted to say that my first letters, that i sent this year, went down brilliantly. Everyone who received one has been so kind with their praise; I worked hard on them and i was very nervous posting them out. The feedback i've gotten has been all excellent, so i'm breathing a sigh of relief. I think i'm going to show off all i got for xmas this year. My family noticed the shift in my mood, in my priorities, and the excellent presents i received are evidence. They noticed that i've taken an interest in letter-writing and journal keeping. They really are great:
Leonardo daVinci Journal/Sketchpad and Japanese Pen
Terry Brooks Compendia
Letter Writing Set
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics
And just today, December 30th, i received the two presents i bought for myself:
A steampunk necklace from Serene Suicide. Not to wear, i just love the design
A poetry book written by one of my friends here. I won't name them, just in case they don't want it to be known.
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When i was 16, this book changed my life. Battle Royale. One of the best books i've ever read. It marked a huge turnaround in my life. It's the first memory i have after the blank period. It caused me to start thinking again. Feeling again. People might not understand what i mean, but it had a huge, huge effect on me. The ups and downs of that book reawakened my brain. It was the 1.21 Gigawatts i needed to jump-start my flux capacitor. If i hadn't read that book i would still be in a dull haze of unfeeling, uncaring apathy. And this is the song from the very end. The last lines of the book.
I've put this in because i've reached another turning point now. That's how big a change i'm planning on making. Letters are the only real way i've found of accurately telling people how i really feel about things. They allow me to express the creativity i need to express. Thank all of you for giving me the chance to do that.
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September came and i started going to classes again. Very, very tough work. I was fairing ok, but wasn't really too into it. I put the work in begrudgingly, but i got it done. Until the middle of September. Two events happened in rapid succession. The first involved a young boy i knew named Kevin. He was 16 years old. Since the time he was 13 he had been in and out of hospital with various ailments. For long stretches at a time. Pneumonia, chest infections. He got another one of these, and never came back out of hospital. Two weeks later he died. Surrounded by his brother and two parents. I couldn't go to his funeral. I just couldn't face it. I vowed to never go near a church again.
Another young boy i knew, Sen, was found dead one morning. 16 years old, he had died in his sleep. This little boy, or young man, i should say, was a huge fan of horror films. He went to see Saw with his mother one day and she was terrified and disgusted the whole time. He spent the entire film almost pissing himself with laughter. He was a mad bastard really. In the best sense of the term. One morning his parents came into his room to wake him up for school. But he wouldn't wake up. I found out this news half-way through a Stellar Astrophysics assignment and i couldn't continue. That was the last real work i did for college. If these two guys had died so young and without notice, why was i wasting my life being miserable and unaccepted at college? What was the whole point of anything? So i've been diverting my life. Slowly but surely. Changing the course of the river. I am done with academia. It's all about relationships now. You never know when you'll meet the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the sky.
I've managed to find another four letter recipients now, so i'm going to work on them. I hope to have them finished by the middle of January, and posted out soon after. I finally think i might have found purpose. Or something leading to that end. And with purpose comes happiness, i hope anyway. I suppose i'm just one of those hopeless romantics you hear so much about. My way of doing things might make me a lot of friends, rather than romantic interests, but i'm not going to change that. I'm going to continue my barrage of compliments, respect, patience and understanding and see where it leads me. I'm not going to shirk my angle of subtlety and friendship. That's not me. Pressure is for assholes. Which i know i'm not one of.
I've started to read again. As seen from the Terry Brooks pressies i got. I just read two HP Lovecraft stories and i'm really getting into the reading mood again. I read the Call of Cthulu last night and i loved the whole dark, evil horror of it. I really am getting some of it back. Some of what i originally had. Joining it with the new i'm starting to develop
Remember the immortal, chilling words, hailing the Great One:
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"
I think i'll put in some of the music i've been into recently. I just started listening to Flogging Molly. And i absolutely love them. I love the heavy Irish trad ceol influence and Dave King's voice. Dubliner accent all the way. But i've been in a bit of a music slump lately so this is all the new stuff i can come up with
And this leads me to the closing point of my New Years blog. I hope you've read this far and i hope you haven't had the shite bored out of you, haha.
My doggie is now cone free and very happy about it, and apart from a pretty epic scar seems as good as new (the other doggies at the park must think she's well 'ard).
Wishing you all the best that 2010 can bring!
I could go with the classic: what-are-your-penis-dimensions or what-is-your-wildest-sex-fantasy question, but I shan't bore you with such banalities.
Instead... what is your favourite flavour of gummy bears and why? What was the first video game you fell in love with? On a scale of 1-10, how's life after the changes?