Here I am, sitting at my lonely computer at 9:00 on Monday night. I've had kinda a rough start to the week. See, last weekend I drove down to Florence, Oregon for a little Boy Scout Order of the Arrow shindig where they teach us how to be better leaders and we go over the lodge's plans for the year. I brought along a stereo with six D-Cell batteries in it and plopped it in the passenger seat so that when my car's tape deck speakers short out (which they always do after about fifteen minutes on the road) I could listen to a CD or something. Funny thing is, the speakers never died, and the mix tape I had in there was actually long enough to last the entire 100 minute drive from Monroe to Florence. 
	So there I was, totally unexcited about spending the weekend in a rain drenched tent. The actual, boring, sit-and-talk-and-learn part wasn't that bad. Actually it was remarkabley educational. Plus, there was no rain AND I didn't have to sleep in a tent. I got to sleep in the cabins down the hill instead. Thing is, I was in a cabin with four other guys. Two of them, Cameron Miller and Javid Richardson, I knew pretty well and got along with. The other two, "Kenny" and "Kunkle", I didn't know too well, but had never gotten along unreasonabley with. They seemed like homely enough guys, so I didn't worry about it.
	Stupid me. I got three hours of sleep, and that was after threatening them both with a three foot length of pipe if they didn't shut up. I shit you not. Course, by the time I got some silence, all the religious speculation Cameron and I had discussed earlier in the evening creeped back into my head and I still couldn't sleep. Next morning went okay, but I ducked out of the conference early so that I could be sure to be home in time to shower before I had to go and help Monroe's LOCAL boyscouts do a flag ceremony for the Christmas pageant and a light parade float.
	I called Sara when I got home and asked if she wanted to watch the light parade. She replied that, though she had missed me and wanted to do something with me, it was time for her family's annual trip to Costco, and that's something very important to her. Me on the other hand, I was stuck with a bunch of silly little kids, very tired, very lonesome, and very cold. Still, I somehow mustered up the strength to scream "Merry Christmas" to every person fool enough to wave to me on the float. No caroling, though.
	The next day, Sunday, Yesterday, I called up Sara again, because she had told me that she wasn't up to anything on Sunday and she really wanted to see me. Naturally, after a fairly bogus weekend I wanted to see her too. Actually, I want to see her pretty much all the time... Anyway I call her up and she says that she can't talk long because her mom (who doesn't live with her) is coming over and should be calling soon. She says she'll call me later, and we hang up. I feel like shit for the rest of the day, while my mom makes me hang up christmas lights for her and makes fun of me for being grumpy. At about 5 or 6 that evening, Sara calls me back, wandering why I never showed up at her house.
	Just having had a conversation the previous day about how much real quality family time is important to her, I assumed that she wanted the day to herself and her mom. Damn it, I spent the whole day pissing and moaning and missing her and I didn't even have to. Her mom didn't even show up until 2 in the afternoon or something anyway. I'm in a nice little haze of unhappiness at this point. 
	You've heard that opposites attract, right? Me and Sara are like that. She's quasi vegetarian, I'm carniverous. She values family time, I've got way too much. She's cute and bipolar, I'm not-cute and somewhat balanced. I guess I was so unhappy sounding, though, that when I conversationally tried to point out that even though we are so different, we're still made for each other, it came out like I was trying to think of reasons to break up with her or something. When she said so, I just about cried. This was too much. My sucko weekend was topped off with me making Sara sad. If there's anything I hate more than anything else, it's when I make Sara sad. I mean, this girl, you make her smile, and you've got a life. You've got a purpose. All I seem to be good at anymore is dissapointing her.

	Monday morning, I go to school and I talk to Sara, and she seems to be doing fine, and I hold myself back from kissing and holding her and telling her I'm sorry for all the stupid things I've done, because she hates it when I love her around other people. So I quietly stand by and talk to her and the day goes by. She says to me before I go home that I should come over to her house, after my work release and after school gets out. She's got this really good movie she wants me to watch with her called Thirteen, she says at some parts it's like a biography of her at age 12. I'm always in the mood for a good movie, and she wants me to see it, so I agree. I bring her the flowers I bought on the way home from Florence, now that my room adequately smells like roses.
	Thirteen is a movie about a girl who falls into a cyclone of drugs and partying and stealing and wrist cutting in an endless quest for acceptance. I wasn't entirely expecting it. It's one of those movies where when it's over, you just keep watching the credits because you're still thinking about how deep and thought provoking the movie was. I didn't realize, however, how important it was that I make the direct analogy between the movie and Sara's life until it was over and she was depressed and I wasn't. After reading her myspace blog illustrating what the analogy was, I felt like I had let her down. Like I should have figured this out and been riveted to that movie and cried with her. I figured that must have been what she wanted me to do, why we watched this movie together instead of talking or fooling around or going for a walk or any number of pleasant things not involving pain and drugs and sadness.
	Another thing revealed to me was that it really bothers her when I offer to pick up a little around her house. I'm sorry, but it bugs me when halloween pumpkins sit on a porch rotting for an extra month. It bugs me when dishes sit piling up in the sink. It bugs me when I can't sit anywhere near the table on account of all the boxes and random crap stacked underneath and around and beside it. Just like it bugs Sara when I snuggle up to her while she's trying to dig things out of her locker, these things JUST BUG ME. I guess apparantly her mother shares this quirk, and when we both mentioned it to her, she decided that it meant she wasn't doing her responsibility, or some other such nonsence. Shit, what have I done? I'm SORRY Sara. I'm sorry that your little brother doesn't pick up after himself, and I'm sorry that your dad can't pitch in on account of the long hours he works. I'm sorry that you have to take my offer of help as a personal affront on your ability to keep an entire house clean all by yourself.
	I hate this. I hate not being able to cheer her up. I hate that I'm so fucking useless to her. I hate that when she comes over and sees me that it perks me right up, out of the deepest depression, but I seem to drive her further down into pain. I desperately miss those simple summer days when we would go bike riding and fall on each other out in the wheat fields and laugh and joke with each other. Now, deep into a stressful Junior year, it takes little more than a badly placed joke or a stupid mistake to make her cry. I hate myself. I hate that I'm not good enough, that I don't know enough about her to realize what and what not to say to make her happy. Sara is my happy place, but I'm not hers. Maybe I used to be, but not anymore it seems.
	Is this guy-thinking? That I want to fix everything, and can't stand to dissapoint? The person in my life who I can think of on rainy days and have my spirit lifted, can't I help her be cheery? If I say the right things, do the right things, can I take her back to that less stressful mindset? Doesn't she realize that all this stress is killing her (and me) faster than any drug could? I don't know anymore. It doesn't matter. I love Sara. No matter what. Besides, just because you know about stress doesn't make it any easier to deal with it. Especially if you've got a goofy boyfriend that JUST WON'T SHUT UP. The worst part is, when I try to tell her these things and how she's been really out of it lately, it seems like that just makes it worse. Like a person who suspects that they are crazy gets the final verdict from a judge that they're crazy. I don't want to say it but it's true - she's depressed and it's dragging me down too. I feel terrible for writing this. By the time I post this she'll probably be in a good mood and she'll read this and I'll have fucked it all up again.

	If I don't stop writing like this I'm going to cry myself to sleep. I can't wait until winter break. I pray that somehow all of this will go away if we can just get away from school and responsibilities for a while. Oh Sara... Please cheer up. I love you more than anything else in my life.

Truthfully, sweet dreams.

James Crockett
But Shaw will do.

P.S. I'm working on a new website inbetween bouts of feeling emo. ( http://www.geocities.com/muffinforsite ) If you're interested, check it out. And think happy thoughts. Like orange juice.