Friday, December 07 4:12 am

    December it is, then...  Yay, Christmas, yay.  Obviously, I hate Christmas...  But not because I'm some "humbug" or for pseudo-intellectual reasons (It's all commercial! ...Well, it is... But that's not why I hate it).  It's because of memories.  Memories of when I was a kid and we'd all get together at Grandma's house for a great big feast, and the "tin game", where we would all purchase small gifts, enclose them in tins, then pass them around in a circle to music.  Then when the music stops, we got to open up the tin to see what was inside, or we could opt to trade our tin for someone else's...  Heh...  But...  Those days are gone.  Everyone in the family hates each other now.  I have this paranoid delusion that it's all because of me...  That somehow my mere presence is responsible for it all.  Rationally, I know this to be completely fucking ludicrous...  But it's just the way I feel...  The family seems to treat me as if I were responsible, in any case.  My Grandmother just sent me an email with an "inspirational quote" that said, "If you cannot be a good example, then serve as a horrible warning instead."  That's me...  The horrible warning.
    Even when my family crumbled, I still have happy memories of Christmas.  Around this time, I always think back to my first love...  In a world that was swirling chaos, where everything was collapsing around me... She was my anchor...  But I don't want to talk about it anymore...  It makes me angry to no end that I still feel like this...  It's so easy to say "get over it"...  But for me, it's so much harder to do.
    These days, it's not unusual to see me walking about with a perpetual scowl...  Glaring furiously at anything that dares to whisper of the holidays.  Though what everyone doesn't realize is that I don't hate the season itself...  I hate the fact that when I look inside myself, nothing is there.  When I was young...  Heh...  It makes me a little embarassed to remember how I used to be...  But really...  I would trade everything to be that way again...  I used to get so excited...  The idea of giving just really clicked in my head somehow.  I remember wanting to do ridiculous things...  Like the time I pleaded with my parents to drive me and my sister around the neighborhood while we sung Christmas carols.  In retrospect, I think it was for the best they said no...  Given our trailer park "neighborhood", we would probably have been shot or something.
    So today...  Whenever I go out, and I see everyone's faces smeared with holiday cheer, I can do nothing but scowl, and glare, and sneer.  Because when I see them going about their happy lives, it rouses aching memories within me...  And it is as if I were staring into a snowglobe, never being able to touch what was within...
    Well...  News has come down the grapevine (or, more specifically, the mailing list) that my once cherished... And I do mean "once"(sorry, couldn't resist the pun)... Has had a child.  Really, I would so love to give her my best wishes...  But I know she does not want them from me...  I don't like admitting it, but that hurts me.  I think I was a mistake she would rather forget...  Not that I blame her...  When I look back on everything...  I don't know...  All of it was just so wrong...  But I really feel responsible for it.  I KNEW, for fuck's sakes...  I KNEW what would happen.  I just didn't care...  In my crass pursuit of "love", I didn't care.  If nothing else, I learned something important from all of it..  Chasing love will only end up get you falling from cliffsides.  I've been so eager to fall in love I never stop to consider anything.
    My sister...  And her husband...  Are really starting to piss me off.  My mother, who is poor enough as it fucking is, has given them a total of $1000 since they have been married.  Yet they just don't seem to care... Like it's something owed to them... Like some fucking government dole.  My mother gives them money, but they turn around and criticize her for not being able to pay her bills...  Never mind the fucking fact that they are stealing food from my sibling's mouths, and now they will likely not be getting much for Christmas, rather all the money will go to my damned sister.  My little brothers and sisters have literally been starving, while they have been stuffing themselves on take out.  My house has literally been completely bare of food for a week now.  For this reason, I haven't eaten but three meals in the past week, leaving what little was left for the kids who would need it.  I'm fucking fat enough as it is anyway...  And so is my sister, at that...  She just seems to keep getting bigger and bigger...  I know she's pregnant, I know it... And it infuriates me...
    I think I must be a considerable drain to those people I choose to talk to...  My friends' lives change around me, for the better...  And I just keep getting worse...  I just don't think I have a place in their lives anymore.  I don't think I deserve one.  People have their own issues...  They don't need mine.  It really troubles me...  When I hear someone tell me that their problems seem miniscule to mine...  I've never had anyone put it to me in those words before.  I get mixed feelings when I think about it...  But mostly it's really shock...  I can't really describe it properly...  But it is very disconcerting...  I don't think I should talk about my problems anymore...  Well, aside from here...  Here I can inflict them on a non-feeling medium.  It's just not right for me to tell anyone else about them.  It's selfish.  Selfish.  It's no fucking wonder everyone avoids me like the damnable plague...  I guess that's all for the better though....

Thursday, December 13 8:52 am

    Augh...  People disgust me...  A former "friend" of mine sent me an email talking about "Slimy Greeks and Lebonese", with a bunch of racial jokes following suit.  If I ever meet this guy, I think I'm going to smile, shake his hand, then drop kick his ass.
    Dave was over again...  Wanted me to scrounge up some change so we could go see a bargain movie.  I told him, in all honesty, that there was not 50 cents to be found in my entire home.  What did he have to say about this?  "That's weak".  That's great.  My family lives in poverty, and all he has to say about it is "That's weak".  Well, if I ever come across him lying in a ditch, I'll just look at him and say "That's weak".
    I went and saw Rush Hour 2 last night... It's strange...  But when they showed the scenes with the buildings exploding, I couldn't help but flinch...  I was rather surprised at myself.
    The Olympics are fast approaching...  No good can possibly come out of it, as far as I'm concerned.  I halfway expect the entire Salt Lake valley to go up in a giant mushroom-shaped plume of smoke.  This is the new paranoia.  The new America.  Where anyone and everyone can be a terrorist.  Where people wear rubber gloves and gas masks when they open their mail, but still don't put on their seatbelts when they drive.  *sigh*  A new age of panic and paranoia is upon us.  We are going to be living in a society where neighbors spy on neighbors...  Where agencies like the CIA will have official passes to destroy lives without remorse.  I'm tired of this world.
    Christmas is ever closer...  I can't wait for it to be over.  I get a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I think about it...  So I'll just dispense with the usual laments...
    Anyway...  That's enough for now.

Saturday, December 15 8:52 am

    Well...  A captial idea that was...  Yes indeedy... *sigh*  Just what on earth do I speak of?  Well, my latest misadventure, of course.
    "It doesn't even smell!"  He said... Riiiiight.  ...Perhaps I should explain?  Right, well...  Dave (who else?) bought a little contraption that is meant to vaporize marijuana...  And he decided to use it in his room.  "You can't even smell it, huh?"  Pfft...  Well, it didn't take long for his family to start screaming at us.  Was Dave concerned?  Gee...  No.  "Whatever we were doing, we aren't doing it anymore!"  and "When I move out, I'm gonna be doing this aaalll the time!".  What the fuck is that?  Is he -purposefully- trying to ruin my life?  Seriously!  That's all he could think of saying?!
    So his mom kicks us out of the house...  And we stand outside in a raging blizzard for about half an hour.  I was telling him how fuct I was now, because I knew his family would go and tell my grandparents.  And I remember what happened last time they did that...  I had my entire family (falsely) accusing me of worshipping demons.  Then my grandparents were sending missionaries to talk to me for two years afterward.  "But you -enjoy- messing with missionaries!" is what he said, and, "Dude, yer paranoid!  My family doesn't give a shit!"...  Riiiight.
    So after awhile, I had him go back inside and grab a movie I had left in his room.  He took about 15 minutes just to do that, leaving me freezing in the snow.  Then we stood there for another 15 minutes...  And then he wanted to go back in his room for something.  He told me to go wait in front of my house... So I did.  And by the time he got done with that, I was a veritable snow man.  So we went inside, despite all my protests of it being a completely bad idea, and we sat around for another 30 min.  He then told me that he wanted me to help him movie tomorrow (which is now today) of all things!  After all that, he still expects me to help him move...  Right...  Of course I said I would...  Why?  No fucking idea...  Because I just happen to enjoy being a human welcome mat, I guess.
    I don't even know...  Who is stupider?  Dave for the way he acts, or me for associating with him?  I tend to think the latter...  I really hope he doesn't have me help him move.  I think I'd much rather enjoy gouging out my own eyes.  But I know he will...  Where all his other friends say "no", I always say "yes".  And yet he acts as if I embarass him, and that he is doing me some great service to tolerate my presence...
    "Who needs enemies when you have friends such as these?"  I guess the old saying goes...  The only friends I have left are enemies...  This is how I choose to live my life...

Sunday, December 16 11:24 pm

    What a fool I am.  What a damnable fool...  I am the single largest drama queen I have ever known.  Maybe I just never realized it until now.  I just can never shut my fucking hole...  No matter the situation, I always seem to twist it around to be about me.  Always...  I'm always complaining.  Every single fucking time I get the chance to talk with someone, I complain about this or that.  I just can't seem to avoid depressing every single person I talk to...  I'm always saying the wrong things...
    What the fuck am I talking about?!  I don't ever "SAY" anything!  I only do this...  I type...  It's just so much easier, isn't it?  So much easier to type what you feel...  You don't have to worry about the other person.  You don't have to see the look on their face as they react to your words.  To see their looks...  Sadness...  Pity...  Disgust.  It's so much easier to mend a heart that's been broken electronically, isn't it?  So much easier to steel yourself against blows that are made only from words...
    I've done so little actual talking... That much to my complete horror... I've found that I've developed a speech impediment.  I am so used to being able to type nearly as fast as I can think...  That I find it immensely difficult to translate my thoughts into speech...  What I want to say swirls around in my head too fast as it is...  Coupled with the battle against my anxiety every single fucking time I say anything to anyone, more often than not, what I say doesn't sound at all what I was thinking.  I was once a very capable speaker...  Was asked to join the debate team once.  I would seem completely ridiculous now, wouldn't I?  Saying "her" when I meant to say "him".  Saying things in broken sentences like I were some sort of fucking neanderthal...  *sigh*
    It's no wonder I have no friends.  The only reason Dave has bothered with me this long is because I have never told him anything.  All these years we've known each other...  And he has no clue as to who I am.  Surely, if he were to know, he wouldn't tolerate me anymore.  I guess I've been wrong to complain about him.  No wonder he acts irritated to have me around... For fuck's sake, that's more than anyone has been able to bear.  It doesn't matter now...  He's moved...  I'll see him now and then, but...  He gave me the general impression that he was cutting off the weight that's been dragging him down in his life.  His family...  His home...  And me along with that I suppose.  All this time I've been calling him an ass...  It's me who's been the ass...
    Everytime I get online to talk to someone, the only thing in my head is, "God, I need to talk to someone".  I never have anything else on my mind...  Always it's about me and how I need to tell someone all my fucking bullshit...  Christ!  Everyone gets this image of me... This funny, spontaneous, fat jolly fucking all-around fun fucking guy.  They think I would be fun to be around.  They think I would be a blast at parties.  They think I'm "funny" and a "riot"...  Fuck...  Could they ever be more wrong?  Then they start to get to know me...  And then I hear things like, "You're a lot different in person", and "It's surprising to see how you are in person after reading your emails, the contrast is interesting".  Yes, "interesting".  Though the term "creepy" seems a bit more fitting to me.  Of all the blazing things, a girl actually came to meet me!  I tried telling her...  But no one can really understand unless you've met me in person...  The thing about that is that YOU HAVE TO MEET ME IN PERSON.  Not a desirable thing.  God...  I am such a fool...  If only I could have seen things for the way they were back then...  I feel so stupid...  I should thank her for not turning around and driving back the first night...
    Everyone that I've ever been angry or upset with...  It's really all my fault...  How can I expect anyone to treat me like I want to be treated when I act like such a damned lunatic?!
    What can be done, then?  Should I just give up?  Throw away all this shit I've been doing?  These clothes...  My fucking "art", my "writing", my music?  Why do I even like any of it?  Do I just unconsciously choose these things out of some twisted narcissistic impulse?  Should I start dressing in an acceptable way?  Create acceptable art?  Write acceptable poems?  Listen to acceptable music?  I ask myself this question:  Why the fuck not?  What import does any of this really have?  I know it would make so many people happy...  My mother...  No matter how much she tells me that she respects... and even -likes- my "individuality"...  I know she would be elated...  To have the good son that she thought she would never know.  My God, how wretched of a failure I must seem to her...  All the hopes she had for me...  My gifted classes...  Hopes of seeing me go on to college...  To make something of myself...  Someone to be proud of.  Someone she could talk to her family about without feeling ashamed...  And look at me...  I'm disgusting.  College?  I couldn't even graduate high school for fuck's sakes...  What sort of example am I for my siblings?  Never leaving the house...  Doing nothing but typing away on the damned computer...  Leading no functional life what-so-ever...  What the hell have I been thinking?  They haven't had a father for all these years.  I've been the only real male influence...  And look at what I've become...
    How then?  How am I to change?  I know I'm not strong enough...  Not alone...  Do I make the sacrifice?  Do I break that promise that I've made to myself?  I don't know...  They're just pills aren't they?  I mean...  If they prescribe so many of them...  They can't be all as bad as I've made myself believe?  To be honest...  To know that I am even considering it makes the bile rise in my throat...  But what else can I do?
    I have to do something...  I'm destroying people's lives being the way I am...  If I can't change... Then I would be better off dead...  Well...  Everyone else would be better off with me dead...  Is there an afterlife?  Considering the damage I've done here...  In this life...  I suppose there would only be one place for me to go...  I suppose it doesn't really matter...  If I can't fucking change...  I don't know what else can be done...

Friday, December 21 4:26 am

    I don't know what I was thinking...  To force myself to integrate into a society that disgusts me...  *sigh*  So many things...  Recently here in Utah, 300 Mexican immigrants lost their jobs and 69 were arrested and are likely to be deported.  Nevermind the families that will be destroyed in the wake.  All in the name of our "Homeland Security".  It is true that they broke the law by falsifying documents to gain employment...  Though who can really blame them?  Add this to the fact that these were -airport- employees and you have hundreds of people being demonized just for trying to make it in this failing world.  Nevermind that the airport that -hired- them -knew- about it all belong.  But when you are in a society where the only thing that talks is money, and you have none, you are tossed aside in the dirt without even a voice to cry out against the injustice.  It should be the -airport- that should be held accountable!  They've been hiring migrant illegal workers for YEARS now!  Had they even bothered to take 5 minutes of time to actually look at the "documents" it would be clearly evident they were faked.  They KNEW they were faked!  But like gays in the military, it seems they have adopted a "don't ask - don't tell" policy...  And the poor are once again tread upon by the heels of American "justice"...
    I am becoming increasingly disgusted with today's "pop culture".  I used to try and tell myself that every generation has it's pop phase, but this is much more insiduous than that.  Children in our society today are being brainwashed.  They listen to shoddy "music" engineered by conglomorates.  They are being sexualized.  They are being enslaved, and their innocence and intelligence raped and stolen.  Somehow, it is now "cool" to be a walking billboard for the companies that control you.  These kids are going to grow up in an increasingly materialistic society where nearly all morals are replaced by the Almighty Dollar and any morals that are left are plastic and serve only to further the goals of the corporate overlords.  I feel so sick...  So sick when I look at my young siblings.  Already do I see the glint of materialism in the eyes of Jake and Tanya.  My little brother Jake is embarrassed by his family because we are poor.  He treats the rest of us like we disgust him!  I plead with my mother!  I beg her!  I yell!  I scream!  Do something NOW!  She is ALLOWING this to happen!  I do not understand WHY!  I scream at her that if something is not done now, her children will be lost to her forever.  She acknowledges this fact!  And yet she does NOTHING!  Why?!  I cannot stand by and watch it...  But everytime I attempt to establish some sort of sense of order, it is -I- that is looked down upon!  It is -I- that is treated like some out of control -beast-!  I can't even take it anymore!  Everyday I have to watch as my little brother calls my mother a bitch, and watch as my little sister screams orders at her like she were some -slave-!  And I can do -nothing-!  It drains the very life out of me to see it...
    A few nights ago, I had a most horrifying experience...  I found myself suddenly awake in the predawn hours...  For no reason that I could comprehend.  It was just as if I slipped from deep sleep automatically into a fully awake state.  I stared into the darkness of my room for what was only a few moments...  And then I had a peculiar sensation...  Like a numbing wave of warmth washing over me...  And it was suddenly then that I felt as if I were being -forced- back into sleep.  My eyes began to droop of their own accord, but I fought the feeling off and reawoke myself.  It was then that I was greatly horrified to find that I was nearly completely paralyzed.  And as if that weren't bad enough... I could here this...  Terrible noise...  But it seemed to be coming from inside my head.  My head felt as if it were vibrating.  The noise...  I can only describe as something akin to a mix of high pitched metallic scratching and electiric zapping.  I tried to move my arms and legs, but it was as if I had no such extremeties.  The only sensation I could feel at all was a mild cold, which was off because I had felt so warm just moments earlier.  I tried moving my mouth, and found that I had full mobility of my jaw with only slight hinderance.  I tried moving my body once again to no avail.  I then began to start to panic.  I remember breathing very heavily, very loudly.  Before I could lose myself in panic, however, I steeled myself and squeezed shut my eyes and began to muster all my will.  I pictured myself forming a ball of molten silver forming inside me, and then expanding outwards to surround me like an egg.  And...  Much to my amazement...  If found that I suddenly had full motor control again.  I looked around my room again, and noticed that the hallway light was on and it's light was pouring in through the cracks in my door...  But this was too odd...  Because while I was paralyzed, I was -certain- it was -completely- dark in my room.  There was no light there before.  I didn't know what to make of any of it...  Needless to say, I had much trouble finding my way back to sleep...  Actually...  I've had great trouble getting to sleep (even more than usual) ever since then...  A few similar instances have happened to me before in years past...  And it is not a pleasant experience by any means...  I haven't told anyone about this one, though...  I just feel embarassed by it, really...  Were I to tell someone this, they would likely think I'd gone loony...  And really, how could you not?
    I got an email from Huw recently...  Just about everything he mentioned in the email cemented for me my resolve for my earlier descision...  He is moving along in life now...  For him, it's the future..  Me...  I'm still dwelling in the past.  It's just counteractive to have someone around like me...  *sigh*  He's such a brilliant person, and he has a brilliant wife.  To me, it seems, they are going to reach very great heights together...  But I continue on downward...  It's just impossible...  He said he sent me a card, though I haven't seen any sign of such as of yet.  I still have his other one tucked away in my drawer...  Next to the card Kate sent me for Christmas nearly two years ago...  Yet another person who I cared too much about and alienated with my stupidity...  I really hate Christmas...

Tuesday, Decemeber 25 4:37 am

    Well, it's that time of year again, isn't it?  I was visited by the ghosts of Christmas past last night...  I reflected a lot on past Christmases...  Especially the one I spent with Magen.  Even reading that name is hard to do...  I know I shouldn't feel that way...  But I don't know what can be done about it.  I thought about how things would be today if it had gone differently...  If we were still together.  Then I berated myself for it, because she's been long gone from my life, and I can't be doing this to myself anymore.  It's ridiculous.  I was just a kid...  We both were.  Just a childhood fling...  I'm sure she saw that way, anyway.  I don't know why I should have felt differently...  I was just a stupid kid...  Thinking I was in love...  It doesn't matter anymore.
    The presents are all under the tree...  When I saw them, I was prompted to think back to the tree at Dave's house.  Man, our pile is so so miniscule in comparison.  Not even half the size of theirs.  I don't know why...  But it makes me angry.  I guess maybe I think that my family is more deserving...  But then I'm not even sure of that...  I mean, they had to work for all those presents.  Whereas no one works in my family...  I've yet to even get a job for fuck's sakes.  I have been helping to raise the kids while their father pursues his own ends and while their stepfather is out of state...  But if I were to have a job, I could help out much more...  All the time I rationalize it...  Deny that it's my anxiety that keeps me from getting one.  I don't know...  I just keep thinking that I won't get hired anyway, and that even if I do, I'll get fired...  I dunno...  Just being selfish...
    I have to go to my father's house today...  I don't know what if anything he has planned.  I sincerely hope he doesn't have any plans.  I want to be there for as short of a time as possible.  Just thinking about it makes the bile rise in my throat...  I don't look forward to this...
    I saw a picture of my uncle today...  With him and his wife and his two kids.  His son has gotten so huge since I last saw him!  He himself looks decidedly more robust than when I last saw him.  In fact, his overall appearance has changed so much that I hardly recognize him.  I think he let Missouri seep into his mind...  He traded in his customary flannel shirts and cowboy hat for t-shirts and a baseball cap.  He looks like a typical backwater redneck.  He even cut his hair...  And he's -never- cut his hair since he was a kid.  I tried to convince him not to go down there...  Tried to tell him that he should fight for custody of the kids...  I mean, his wife pretty much kidnapped them by moving like that.  I mean... She did -tell- him she was going, but he was too weak to do anything about it.  I don't know...  But maybe it was for the best?  They all looked happy in the photo, anyway...  He hasn't talked to me much ever since he left, even though he used to talk to me all the time...  We were pretty good friends, really.  Those days seem far off now, though...  He's like a stranger to me now...  It may be that he stole $50 bucks from me and has yet to pay me back and feels guilty...  But I feel like that he must feel that I tried to break up his family.  That wasn't my intent...  It just seemed to me that he and his wife were destined to separate anyway...  And that it would be best to do it while the kids were too young to understand.  The time before my mother and father were divorced was hell...  It forever ruined the lives of my siblings.  They used to be so different...  My mother vehemently denies that they ever used to be any different than they are now..  But I know she does this because she knows she is largely responsible for how they are now, by letting them walk all over her...  I don't know...  I guess it's all futile...
 

All works, including artwork and writing are copyright Jed J. Casper (Draconis) and may not be used unless expressed permission is given to do so.  (c) 2000