Higher Ground

Maybe I should stop being a self-important asshole. Perhaps I should stop trying to care so much, trying to insert myself into your well being. I don't know whats going on, and likely never will. To that end, I should stop trying to find out. I should back off. We're consistently on different terms, whether I think you perceive it or not. I'm pretty sure I do. You, as usual, are being elusive and practicing dogmatic exclusion, which of course you're completely entitled to. But please, I don't want to be lied to. I'm only trying to be friendly. I care about you, you know.

Or maybe, maybe I'm too analytical. As usual. Too meticulous in my thinking, not pragmatic enough to think clearly. Letting preconceived notions of "emotional attachment" cloud decision making. There's nothing wrong, the only wrong I perceive is exactly that: fabricated by an overactive, over-methodical approach to trying to befriend you. You said things wouldn't be any different, but I can't help but feel that everything is. The worst part is, I can't confront. I'm too afraid, I'm too big of a pussy to talk about it. Right off the bat, I interpreted that you wouldn't want to talk about it anymore, to simply sweep it under the doormat, and pretend as if this ugly little piece of shit never existed. And for awhile, I obliged. But that isn't flying anymore.

I'm much too anxious for that.

The Engine Driver

I wrote this to a dear friend earlier this week.

"I'm not a very eloquent person, and you know that. My passion for words exists only within the realm of the text book, not the free-flowing world of verbal communication. So too, you also know that I'm the last one you'd expect reveal the happenings of a psyche and reveal true emotion.

That's why I spent the day being a social recluse, eschewing conversation and encompassing myself in the dank, deep recesses of my mind formulating some sort of end-all-be-all manifesto of my feelings. To pen the severe self-destruction of my mind, my heart and my self-esteem. To show my true colors as an asshole with ulterior motives. All of which is fueled by stimuli revolving around you.

For you see, I hold the most embarrassingly self-perpetuating, overbearing and onerous affection for you. I like you _a lot_.

And it makes me feel stupid. Very, very stupid. Stupid for falling for my bestfriend. Stupid for never telling anyone. Stupid for denying it all the time. Stupid for being obsequious to someone that will never return my feelings.

I feel so dumb, following you everywhere, attempting to know you inside and out. Deep down I know this will never be requited. But I stay steadfast because it keeps me sane, gives me some form of self-worth, but most of all because it makes me happy. It's as if I'm tending to a wretched sapling that will never bear fruit, and whose consistency is but of mere glass.

It throws me into mood swings. It keeps me awake at night. It seeps into my lonely treks back and forth from school and from hangout to hangout, and anytime where I have nothing at my disposal to ignore and drown it out.

All of this is only amplified when I get a dose of reality: you and your ex (or boyfriend? or friend? I honestly don't know...), xxxxx, that xxxxx and all of your other potential suitors. I get so up-in-arms and inundated with an overwhelming sense of inane jealousy. I look at myself and wonder why I, a fat and socially inept asshole, had fallen into this trap, and why I was doing nothing to get out of it. I feel so ashamed, to hold this in. It makes me feel so inadequate. I pity myself because it. I have bouts of melancholy and dejection all too frequently because of it.

And for what? Absolutely nothing. And even with that statement and this message taken into consideration, I don't know what will become of me, you or even us. I don't even know how you'll react to this. Will this solve any of my aforementioned problems? No. But I just felt I needed to tell you. I couldn't hold it in any longer, not any more. You did ask what I was thinking about, when I had suddenly went silent earlier today, right? Well, now you know.

I'm not asking for your sympathy or your affection. All I ask is that you can still hold your trust in me and still look to me as your friend, for as the great Charlie Brown once said,

'Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.'

-Matt"

I kinda felt it should be here.






It doesn't feel the same anymore.

You're not alone

So, she went onto bigger, better things. She's got ambitions, shes got aspirations, and she's got her shit together. I figured I'd just step aside (Not that I was even initializing anything, nor were there many implications!). To put it simply, I folded; My desires weren't in the cards, and even if I still decided to play my hand, it likely wouldn't come out pretty. My social ineptitude is mostly to blame, but hey, its alright, its all good, its all there.

On another note, it's a new year! New semester! A clean slate for all of us to polish or deface. Personally, I'm quite happy with my new schedule. A kick ass 1-3 block day that I really have no other choice but to praise. Here's my typical block day:

1st period: Chemistry 1 with Ms. Fresquez

• Enviroment: Awkward, silent. No body EVER talks. PERFECT way to start off a day.
• Friends in class: Aside from Liiz and that one guy Joseph, I've got no one to talk to, which is okay since no one fucking talks anyway.

2nd period: English AC with Mrs. Bshara

• Enviroment: Fun, spontaneous. We are sooooooo fucking loud in that class, all we do is talk and insult each other ("Hi my names Jon and I'm a complete FRUHTCAYKE.")
• Friends: No shortage here. I've got Joe, GJ, Josh, Patrick, Louie and Alex to talk to. And Judith, Danielle and Allyson. Aside from them, its a complete sausage fest.

3rd period: PE with Coach Tropp

• Enviroment: Pretty cool. We're outside (duh) and I've got friends abound.
• Friends: DREAM TEAM! Haha. With John Mina, Daniel, Oscar, Ralph, Paolo and Brandon in this class, it couldn't get any better.

So, basically all of my classes are fun filled, hilarious and totally worthwhile. 4-6 block days are a different story. I don't even wanna go there. Ginang, then Geometry. Those are usually downers. Mr. Smith is cool and all, but that doesn't hide the fact that math is still gay. 6th period Cronin is usually my ONLY highlight of the day. It's usually hilarious, Cronin going off on students, idiotic people, me and Josh cracking jokes left and right. It cheers me up before I head home.

I have high hopes for this year. I really do. I'm aiming high, I've got my chin up and I'm not taking and I'm not going to take any BS. I'm going to be all business.

k, I can't write no more. I give up.

P.D.A. (Or the lack therof.)

Back in business once again. I got lazy, I hate WoW, honestly. After a rather interesting day, I guess I have to man up. It really pains me to say that yeah, I've been crushing for the past few months. My emotions something I really need to come to terms with. I've come to realize that I've suppressed them for too long. I've lied to you guys, yeah, I've been interested in a lot of people, but my inwardness is inhibiting. I suppose its fear of embarrassment. Yeah, I don't know how to spit game, yeah, I don't know how to sweet talk girls. Up to this point I never put much thought or stress on it. Sometimes I wish they offered a "Dating 101"

Off on a tangent, I'm really disturbed by the fact that I'm not in the emotional flurry that I expected myself to be about 10 mins before I started to compose this. In fact, I'm VERY irritated by the fact that a discussion earlier this evening with my dad and my friends spurred me to write this article.

Back on topic, I find it interesting how fast feelings for someone can die by not talking to them for a day or more. Small talk can go a long way. I also find it interesting how I almost always go on AIM just to talk to her. But in real life I find it hard to strike up conversation. I'm such a loser (<3 Self-pity). I find it interesting how jealous I can be when other people guys to her. Honestly, I hate that. I feel so...so...envious when people do that. As I'm now just starting to learn, "Love" is complicated.

I contemplate about this a lot. She leaks into my thought processes on the daily. She, anonymous as she'll remain on here, is I consider to be one of the coolest, down to earth people I know. She's real easy to talk to, and a few of our conversations have dragged on for hours. I'm infatuated, truly. But, she's too good for me. And she's too pretty, too talented, too good a person for someone like me. Alas, enigmatic she remains, despite a long friendship.

I don't deserve her, and even still I'm jumping the gun there.

Horrible way to announce who I like? Nope, because, I never explicitly did. Rather, I think this is another exploration of my emotions.

I leave you with this, a video of a extremely hard hit on part of Antwan Barnes of the Baltimore Ravens. This Sav Rocca guy gets BLASTED beyond belief.

Dream Machine

This one will be a little more angsty, ranty and whiny. Sorry.

To kick things off today, I think I'll start off with a rant! Now, few people know of my hatred of PETA. PETA hasn't done anything [recently] to spur this rant, but my hatred of them is strong regardless of what they do and do not do. With that aside, I would just like to state that I hate PETA and everything they (think) stand for. I also hate their crusade to convert people to the altruistic lifestyle of Veganism. Of course I think animal cruelty is bad and just plain wrong, but the fact that that goes on doesn't change my mind about eating meat. As long as they kill it quickly, I couldn't care less as to what they do to it, just so long as it tastes good. Because when it comes down to it, Meat tastes good, and I guess that's just something PETA doesn't get. Now, on the topic of Vegans, I hate them just as much. At least the ones that think that they're better than you because they don't eat meat. Because seriously, that's really annoying. I could understand becoming a vegan or vegetarian due to health reasons or perhaps religion, but to become one on the sole reason of being against Animal cruelty is ridiculous.

Alright, enough of that.

One thing that has really been disturbing me lately is my perceived detachedness from my friends. For some reason, I'm just really, really inward about my emotions, at least, that's what I perceive. It really troubles me. For example, I'm not very close to anyone in terms of emotional connection (Not a relationship, per se.) I don't necessarily see or feel the same connection that I see between my guy friends and other girls. I guess you could say I desire something of that sort, but my inwardness and I guess you would say, social awkwardness kind of nullifies that. Perhaps you could also say that I've repressed such feelings in fear of embarrassment? I think there's something left over from 4th grade that makes me nervous around girls that I barely know, but perhaps others are the same? But that would seem highly improbable considering I had a strong relationship with a girl around that time.

*Sigh.*

The same inwardness has prevented me from being outward about my opinions on girls (And to a much greater extent, prevented me from having a girlfriend). Of course, I'm not as inward about this as maybe 7th or 8th grade, where I was supremely tight-lipped about the subject. It wasn't 'til about this time of year last year during summer break did I begin to form strong opinions on girls, attractiveness or otherwise. I still am pretty tight-lipped about who I like. Dare I say almost to the point of degrading it to an elementary school crush, which greatly disturbs me. The fact that that disturbs me doesn't mean I'll start spewing about who I like, because, frankly, just imagining me doing that disturbs me more than being like a closed vault about it.

My lack of a girlfriend often positions me at the butt end of my friends jokes, or, at least at the butt end of 1 or 2 of my friends, whom seem to express absolutely no sympathy on the matter. There 2 factors that I think put me into this position, one of them being my inwardness. The other being my insecurities that say that I'm not worthy of someone, or, that I think that no one finds me attractive, given that I'm overweight, possess no chin, nerdy as a motha*****, and I'm obnoxious. (Many of my friends will get a kick out of the chin bit) I know I've said to myself on multiple occasions that I would try to get a girlfriend freshman year, all of those never fully materialized. Now, here I am, Sophomore year, and I haven't gotten a girlfriend.

Now, many of you will say that the above paragraphs are nothing but a plead to girls to start to date me. You're free to believe so. I'm not going to stop you, or argue the opposite. Because I know what this is. It's an identification of what's wrong with me. Identifying the problem is the first step to finding the solution. Sure, maybe it was a little late of me to start all of this. But now at least I have something to blame my tardiness.

With that aside, I bring you to another one of my dilemmas. I love paintball. I seriously love it. The sport, the lifestyle, the community. All of it is awesome. From the numerous forums I visit to talk about it, to the sites I visit to fantasize about the equipment, and the videos I watch to improve my technique and style and just watch to appreciate the sport. Now, there was little thing I omitted from that little list. Actually playing the sport. Now, don't get me wrong, the I love the sport and everything it stands for and stands for in me. But this sport, paintball, is probably the most expensive sport that exists to man. Get this, it's 25 dollars in get into a paintball park. You get admission and all day air. That's not that bad. Now, if you're me and you own a mid range gun you'll be shooting a case and a half maybe to 2 cases a day. This is where it gets really troublesome. The price of a case of 2000 paintballs averages out at about 40 dollars. All of that money coming out the end of your barrel. For pros, who are sponsored by big corporations, they shoot a case and half, maybe 3 PER GAME. That's 120 dollars spent in a matter of minutes. And all in the name of fun. I can't afford that, not by a long shot. In short, I want money. I want money so I can play this sport. I'll just leave it at that.

I'll leave you guys with this: A video of Mario and Luigi, HxC dancing. It's thoroughly entertaining!