| This was the first ever paragraph written on a site update. Just the basic introduction paragraph but I think it set the tone for the website. Dated 3/20/02. Hey. What's Happening? Well the whole reason I started this page was because of what's been up as of lately and my feelings the last few weeks. Let's just say that these last few weeks have tested my will to live more than any ever before. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to commit suicide, I'm too lazy for that. I'm just saying that I don't really give a shit about anythign anymore and wouldn't mind if says, lightning struck me down. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The next little clip is from the second site update. With the first site update more people than I ever thought viewed it and I got mostly positive reaction. In fact I only got one negative reaction. This was my reply to it. And yes, we did almost get in a fight over what I wrote. Funyn looking back on it. By the way the person who gave the negative reaction, Josh. We hated each other in high school. Dated 4/5/02. I have to wonder why somebody would be an asshole and ask me this question: "Why do you have a site about your life because you don't have one?" That's easy. Since I don't have a life I have plenty of time on my hands to do other things. At least I didn't wreck my car (I'll probably regret saying that but I'm pissed thinking about it so fuck it). _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Next up is from the 3rd update. I was in Ohio when I wrote this site update. Basically self-explanitory. Not much intro needed for this. Dated 4/17/02. Well most of you know why I'm in Ohio but for those who don't I'll let you know. My grandpa on my dad's side passed away on April 12 at the age of 83. The official cause of death was dehydration but basically it was becasue he just didn't want to suffer anymore so he didn't drink anything given to him. So all of my family (my dad, mom, sister, & me) flew out on Saturday for the services. On Sunday was the wake (viewing) and was a very long day. Although I wasn't close to my grandpa at all, I still cried. I don't know if I cried because he was dead because it was actally a good thing because he wasn't suffering anymore, I think the fact is because all my family was crying and I can't stand it when family & friends around me cry because it makes me want to cry. The weird thing about the whole thing was that out of the 100 or more people that were there at the two sessions I only knew my family, my aunt & uncle who we were staying with and 5 other people. Everybody else I didn't know. My Grandma said it was ok becasue she didn't even know them either. On Sunday was the funeral which was the mass & then the burial. I ended up having to be a paulbearer even though I really didn't want to be one. I never told my dad that because how do you tell your dad that you don't want to be a paulbearer for his dad. So I just did it without a word although that wasn't good enough for one of my friends. They said that I was dick for not wanting to and conseded and that I was disrespecting my grandfather. Whatever. The reason I didn't want to do it was because I wanted to be close to my cousin Brittany. But everyone is entitled to their own opinon so that was they're opinon. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Ste update #4 was all about prom and Julie (my date). Tragic really. Weird looking back on it now because she is now engaged to be married. Like wow.........my prom date is going to be married before I've had a girlfriend. Little choices (like her rejecting me) cause big differences sometimes. Dated 5/20/02. Well I don't know if I've ever been so nervous in my life before prom. I had starting falling for Julie and I really didn't want to screw anything up. I also had spent a lot of money ($510 to be exact) and I wanted the night to be great. It was. It wasn't the night so much that was great becasue there was some fighting in the limo between Ruth Ann and the whole rest of the limo. The great thing was just looking at Julie and Julie looking back at me and smiling. I can't describe to you what that did to me, everytime she flashed that smile of hers. Needless to say that was probably the best night of my entire life. The next day I did something I never thought I'd do. I went to chruch, willingly. Not just any church, MORMON CHURCH. Anybody who knows me knows that I have called Mormonism a cult and I make fun of Jeremy for going to it but he offered me this explanation that actually made sense. If it makes Hallie happier that I go, I'll go. I took that reference and put that towards Julie. So I went and it really wasn't that bad (due to my lack of attention). Afterwards I went over to their house and I hung out there for about 4 hours. I wasn't even with Julie most of the time becasue she went to be and was sleeping for about two of the hours I was there but I was hanging out with her family. Her whole family is great and I was playing card games with her younger brother Brain and her Grandma. So that would have to be the best weekend of my life. (It's not the best weekend of my life anymore, I've had a lot better weekends since) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From the 5th site update I picked the rejection of me by Julie (the first, but certainly not the last time I detailed a rejction by a girl on my page) because it included my first two poems, my last week of high school (which was one hell of a good week) and then the week after when I really did nothing. I just put it in there because it was the first time I ever mentioned Nicole by name or the "friend zone" plus I just thought it was funny. Dated 7/11/02. Last update I wrote about the incident with Julie at her church and how depressed it made me. Well not much happened to change my depression about her. On her birthday I felt that it was time for me to tell her how I felt about her, if only for my friends� sanity. I think they were all getting sick of me debating wither or not I should tell her. Well I gave her a pair of Giants tickets (she said that she wanted to go to Pac Bell Park before she moved to BYU), a note, and the poem I wrote before Prom (Read the poem). I told her to call me and we�d talk if she wanted to and if she didn�t, well have a good summer and good luck in the future. Needless to say when the phone didn�t ring by 10PM I was getting kinda depressed. Then I got a popup on AOL IM saying I had an email and I was half joking with Happy on the phone that maybe its from her. Well it was. She said she had lost my number and had been trying to find it and even tried looking for my name in the phonebook, which was good for me because that meant she cared. She also said that she didn�t like the other Adam in that way but they were best friends and that he knows that she�s not into high school relationships. Then she said the words that I�ve heard way too much yet I know I�m not done hearing. This is a direct quote: "anyways.... um.... well to be totally honest, i'm not really interested in you like that. i think you're a really nice person, prom was way fun, and being just friends is dandy for me. i�m not really looking for a relationship right now." Well besides the prom part it�s just her saying what other girls have said before her and probably what many more will in the future. So I was kinda depressed for the rest of the week and some of the week after. I wrote a poem about it (wrote it in 4th period) and you can read it here. I didn�t have too much time to be depressed though because my last two weeks of high school were upon me and I was busy with the senior activities. The first thing was the senior breakfast/picnic, which was fun, but the best part was that we got our yearbooks at the breakfast. Of course that led to Mark, Eric, Grant and the rest of them finding out who �The Beast� was (inside joke) but oh well. At the picnic all we did was basically play sports. I played football, softball (4-5, 3HR for me), volleyball and then there was swimming & a BBQ. Two days later was the baccalaureate, which was way too long, but it was ok. All of Finals week was basically just a time for me to get my yearbook signed. I actually had a bunch of messages that I liked and I put some of the best ones up here. Four days later came the day that some people (like my parents) thought they would never see, my high school graduation. It seemed to go by fast and was all right. I got a lot of money from my family (some of them I�ve never heard about) and a digital camera from my parents. The night of graduation I went to Grad Night, which was held at Club Sport this year. I was looking forward to playing basketball for hours but was disappointed when we weren�t allowed to play basketball because they had a DJ on the court for dancing (which no one did). But instead I played racquetball for hours. It was fun but my arm hurt for the next couple days. The best part of the night was just hanging with people I knew I wouldn�t see too much after that night. The people I enjoyed staying around for the night were Kristy Laird & Terri Huynh. For some reason it seems like you never realize how many friends you actually have until your last few days of high school when you realize more people like you than you think and that even the people that you weren�t best friends with you are still cool with. These two fall under this category. Kristy and I had a joking relationship since freshman year but Terri I had only known for this year but it was so good spending one last night with them and all the other people like Chrissy, Big Z and Angelita. So for the first time in my life, I wished that I could just have one more year of school. (It's funny as the thing I remember most about grad night is waking up inthe morning from the couch with my right arm killing me and stubling to my bed with no shirt on, a fake tattoo on my right arm and a number in a fat sharpie on my other arm. It was good times. Also glad to say that I still off and on talk to all the people mentioned in the paragraph.) My first week out of high school was kinda boring because I was supposed to clean my room. And I mean a DEEP clean. All drawers, all shelves and everything else you can think of had to be cleaned. Well that�s too boring so I spent most of my time on the computer instead. That wasn�t necessarily a good thing either. I realized a couple things when I was on my computer. One was I still had feelings for Nicole even though I really don�t want to because my chances with her are as a good as finding leftovers at a Weight Watchers convention. The second thing I realized is that I am cursed. I�ve always suspected that I had a curse but I finally realized that I do. I am cursed with the �friend zone� curse. That is the curse were no matter how hard you try and what you do, you will always end up being the girls� friend instead of their boyfriend. I realized this when Nicole told me I was like an older brother to her. Now guys, be honest, doesn�t that suck. Don�t get me wrong, I�m glad that I met Nicole and that we are as close as we are but still. No guy wants to be called an older brother by the girl she likes. But I did realize that I am lucky to have friends that I am extremely close to and can talk about anything to them. But still�(I still feel the same way. Glad to have her in my life but damn) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This next site update was the most talked about site update I've ever had. I think it was the most viewed (well maybe the December one beat it) and it was damn sure the longest one. Nicknamed "The Novel Update" it was 37 pages on Microsoft Word and ended up being over 25.000 words long. Damn. So yeah there were some sections I liked. The first part are the things I hate in life (which I've added things to), some story I heard in health class, a bit about Tony (a kid who died and how it effected me), and then the most important thing I've ever written, the history of my depression. I added on to that as well. Yeah good times. Dated 8/24/02. The Things in Life I Hate Ok here is the short section in where I�m just listing the things in life that I can�t stand and why I can�t stand them. 1) People who are fake � I can probably trace this feeling back to middle school. People would be fake to me all the time. When they were around a group of people they felt as if they had to make fun or me and treat me bad but when it was just me 1-on-1 with them, they were more than happy to talk to me and be civil. I wasn�t sure if they were being fake when they were being hateful toward me because they didn�t want to show anyone that they didn�t hate me or they were being fake to me when they were being nice because they had no one to talk to. I hated myself for everything with Julie because I look back on it and I was so fake with her. I mean I wasn�t myself around her. I was this quiet, well dressed, GULP, Mormon. All my friends know that if they had to use 50 words to describe me, none of them would use quiet, well dressed or Mormon, unless of course they were joking. 2) People who are pretty and skinny and think they are fat and ugly � Hell it seems like all the girls around me that are hot and skinny think they are the opposite. It started with Shannon and now I have to deal with Kat & Nicole. Now if you can find someone to tell me honestly that Kat & Nicole are both ugly and fat, I will give you some money. 3) People who are fat & ugly and think they are skinny and pretty � I�m ugly, I know it. (I'd like to think I'm marginal now) I�m fat (or I was but now I�m like borderline fat & normal) and I never tried to pass myself off as skinny. You won�t ever see me on the soccer field with my shirt off. I hate people who got the rolls of fat pouring out of they�re shirts that expose their mid-drift. Maybe I shouldn�t be so hard on people trying to make themselves feel good but dammit, I don�t so no one else should : ). 4) People who betray trust � Now I�m not making this up to try and get at Happy but I honestly hate it. I feel that trust is one of the most valuable things in life that you can be given. It�s also not something that can be easily replaced. Trust should be the basis of any friendship or relationship because if you can�t trust somebody how happy can you be worrying about if the person will be true or not. 5) Drugees � This is an easy one for me to trace. I haven�t seen 2 of my aunts in 10 years because of their drug problems (along with alcohol). It has deeply impacted my cousins� lives and its hard for me to be around them (especially Katie) and not hate my aunts. They have caused my cousins so much pain and have made them deal with more shit than a kid should have to deal with. I�m not talking about weed either. I honestly don�t see too much wrong with weed. When I see it having a bigger impact on people�s lives besides helping them relax and forget about their troubles and pain, I�ll let you know. 6) People who hate me, but don�t know me � I have enough people hating me because of how I act and shit like that, I don�t like strangers not liking me. That�s why when people don�t like me who really don�t know me (like Nicole�s Parents), I want to talk to them to see why they hate me and to see if I can change their opinions of me. So if you don�t like me but never really have talked to me, talk to me and tell me why you hate me, so maybe I can make you understand who I am. 7) Girls who put sense of humor on top of their want list � Stop lying. If that was true Angelina Jolie wouldn�t have been banging Billy Bob Thorton, she would have been with Drew Carey. And hell girls think I�m funny, but I am not getting shit. 8) Needles � Screw all you who think I�m a pussy for this one. I hate needles with a passion. The only tattoo I�d ever get would have my wife & kids� names on it. And piercings, yeah, sure, I�ll get one of those�wait no. Only if someone close to me really wanted me to get one and it wasn�t anywhere like my tongue. (ok a tattoo, maybe but a piecering......fuck that. I don't care who you are, I'm nto getting one) 9) People who make fun of how I dress & look � Screw you guys. I�m a white t-shirt, blue jeans kind of guy. I will wear what I feel is comfortable and nothing else (besides special occasions). I will wear the same 3 or 4 sweaters if those are comfortable. I will not wake up 5 minutes early to comb my hair unless I feel there�s a reason. (I've given in, I do my hair a majority of the time now)That�s why god invented hats. Oh and screw you and your comments about my face. I know I have acne; you don�t have to point it out to me assholes. Ok I�m done venting. 10) People who let other people influence their oinons about me - I asked a certain somebody why they started acting mean to me a few months agao and was told that because not too many other people liked me. I was like WOW! Why would what other people tink about me change the way you felt about me? So ridiculous. I mean my friends influence me as far as what I do in life but they certainly don't control who I like in life so it's like ROAR. 11) The "friend zone" - If you have to ask then you are retarded. So close yet always so far away. My first thing learned in college Ok well my first day of school fell on my birthday. I had an hour of health and 3 hours of soccer (I�ve been cut since than). But I learned something in health that has really made me think a lot and how it relates to me and my situation. Here�s the story (condensed of course). There were these two monks and they came upon a river and they saw a women who couldn't get to the other side. So the one monk picked her up and carried her across since it was on their way. 10 min later the second monk says, "You touched a women, you aren't allowed to do that, what are we going to tell the abbot?" Another hour passes and again he says, "I can't believe you did that, the abbot will not like it." Right before they get to the temple the 2nd monk says, "We got to think of a story to tell the abbot, we have to think of a lie." The 1st monk then says, "I stopped carrying the women at the river, you've been carrying her all day." So basically I�m thinking of it and it relates a lot to me right now. Just substitute the 1st monk for Happy and the 2nd Monk for me. Happy made the mistake. He thought it was right at the time (I guess) but he realized afterwards that it wasn�t. I, didn�t do anything wrong but by not letting it go it�s like I�m just carrying on the bad deed. I didn�t drop it at the river and I�ve been �carrying� the weight around with me and its been affecting me. At least that�s how I break it down. But of course in the story the 2nd monk didn�t get really really pissed at the 1st monk. (I was dropped from that class, oops) Tony Let me start off with the truth: I didn�t know Tony Bonnell. I knew who he was but I didn�t know him. I knew that he sounded like a good guy and all that but I never knew him. But yet in death, he had a bigger impact on me than he ever could have in life. First, I think we need a little background information for those who don�t know what happened. Tony was in the car with his friend, Paul DiVittorio, when Paul fell asleep at the wheel while driving on a highway. The car went off the road and slammed into multiple mailboxes and then hit a utility pole. Apparently Tony wasn�t wearing a seat belt and although I don�t know for sure, I think he hit his chest extremely hard on the dashboard because he died from damage to the main artery of his heart. To say the least it shook the foundation of the youth of Dublin. Our high school has about 1000 people in it but by the time somebody is going to be a senior (like Tony was) just about everyone from one or two grades beneath you and one or two grades ahead of you know who you are. I didn�t know a lot of the people who knew me but they did. That�s just how Dublin High is. That�s one of the reasons I�m going to miss it. I�m going to miss the fact that everybody knew who I was and I had a lot of people I could hang with. The day after Tony died, I found out about it from Mike Wolfe. But if he hadn�t told me, I would have found out about it from about five other people as it seemed a lot of people already knew. But it was the next day on my way to soccer that I really thought about it and it impacted me life. This was only a week after everything with Happy. I was already well into the site update and had been thinking of it all because I had been writing about it. Now I know I have probably said some harsh words about Happy and I�ll probably say more before I�m done but it got me thinking. Now I know I�ve said that I�ve got stabbed in the back and that I�ve lost a friend. I honestly think that I have but I thank God (or whoever is up there) that I didn�t really LOSE a friend. I know that I can still call Happy, Kat or Nicole and they�ll be the to pick up the phone. Well unless they check Caller ID first. But the fact is they aren�t dead. They are still walking the earth and aren�t lying in a casket. It also makes me think that no matter how bad my shit is, it could be worse. I mean think of Tony�s close friends. They�re 16, 17, 18 years old and their best friend is dead. Sure I had a lot of drama and bad shit happen to me and my life will never be the same because of it, but everybody�s still here. They haven�t gone anywhere. They are still all there for each other and I still can know that they are all right. It just helped me put everything in perspective. It has also got me thinking about some other things. I mean only a week before I was trying to end my life by driving crazy (a lot more on that in the section below). What would have happened if I did lose control? What would people think of it? Would people even care? Would people even cry? Would people show up at my funeral? Or would people have just said, �That�s too bad,� and kept reading the newspaper. I�ll never know. Well that�s all about Tony that I can think of. He�ll be missed, even by people who never knew him. RIP Tony Bonnell 1985-2002 I still feel that same exact way, just sometimes I lose focus of the fact that shit can be worse. My Depression (so maybe you�ll understand where I�m coming from) Like I said before while Kevin (my only friend) moving (my 6th friend in 5 years to move) helped start my depression, there was also the 8th grade dance that helped it start and if I had to point to one day that signified the start of my depression, it would be this day. The 8th grade dance started it because, like a lot of middle school kids, I thought I was cooler and more popular than I was. Don�t act like you didn�t feel the same way. Of course some of us don�t grow out of that stage (COUGH Josh COUGH). (I don't care who you are, that's funny.....he has changed.....a little) I went alone (most people had dates like this was homecoming or prom or something) but I still thought I would dance with some girls and even ask girls I had liked for all of middle school (like Stevie). Ultimately I ended up alone for the entire night. Most of it was my fault that I didn�t have the balls to ask any girls to dance, even though they were standing like 3 feet away from me. Hell I�ve only asked one girl in 7 years to dance and that was in 6th grade (technically I didn�t have to ask Julie to dance @ prom and I didn�t dance with anyone at homecoming). So yeah that night was the first night I remember ever crying about my life and actually cried myself to sleep. I guess I finally realized I was a loser. The next two years of my life were the most trying years of my life. I was close to suicide more times than I can count. See some of the problems stemmed from all my friends moving. I was reluctant to let anybody into my life and trust people again. I think I was afraid of being hurt again. I also didn�t play high school soccer my first two years so I didn�t have something to distract me. I think all of that contributed to me not caring about school, which caused my problems at home, which made my depression worse than it already was. I can honestly say that probably the only reason I didn�t kill myself is that I always thought of suicide as being selfish. I always thought that it wasn�t my right to do it; it wasn�t my right to cause the 5 or 6 people that cared about me to hurt. I just never felt that it would be right. Also I kept thinking (falsely) that maybe the girl I liked would realize that I wasn�t a bad guy and not care about the fact that she was the most popular girl and I was one of the �lower class� guys at our school. Yes I liked Stevie Bauer from 8th grade to probably around the end of 10th grade. The fact that I liked her probably depressed me more than anything. I mean I knew in my heart that she would never give me a look and that our talking would be nothing more than a quick hello in passing or some talking online. I can probably easily tell you why I liked her. First she�s cute and she�s blonde (I�m a sucker for blondes, especially with blue eyes). Second, she actually treated me like a human being. That wasn�t something to easily find back than. And last, I was friends with her mom and would go down to the elementary school to talk to her on occasion and for some reason I thought that maybe that would help somehow (although I talked to Mrs. Bauer because she was basically one of my only friends, even if she was a parent to a classmate). Another thing that hurt me was the people I hung out with. I wasn�t welcome at lunch with them but for over 2 years I hung out with them. It seemed as if everyday Josh & I would get in a fight. And I�m not saying he�s the only one. But its funny, as much as I was at odds with most of them back then, I�m friends with them all now. (Funnier when you tihnk that Josh & I couldn't stay around each otehr at all back in the day and now we hang around each other a lot......Josh, I think we need some space *inside joke*) Then something happened. I got friends. Toward the last months of 10th grade and the whole summer I got some friends. Three to be exact. Mark, Happy, Jeremy & I would call each other up almost everyday and play games all day long. Yeah its weird but without the computer, Starcraft & Counter-Strike, I could still have no real friends and be more depressed or maybe even dead. It sucks to think about but that�s basically how I feel about it. During junior year I also starting becoming close with Hallie but had some problems with Mark. I also got over Stevie and now I liked Darcie. But the difference was, Darcie I talked to everyday. Everyday I walked with her from 1st to 2nd period and from 3rd to 4th period. The main problem was: she was single I think about 3 days for the whole time I�ve liked her. And that was only because she was waiting for the guy to ask her out. But she didn�t get me near as depressed as Stevie did because I could honestly call Darcie a friend and I think she considered me a friend. I also started playing high school soccer and was able to prove to Robert, Josh & Grant that I didn�t suck and while I was on varsity, we actually got along good. But when the other keepers were done serving their suspensions, I was sent back down and Josh & I started fighting again. Grant & Mark kinda were at odds with me for a lot of the year. The problem was, we had a lot of classes together including one on another campus in which either Grant or Mark had to drive Happy & me. So basically it was Mark & Grant doing their thing and Happy & I were doing our thing and we didn�t get along too well with each other. They also started a rumor around the group, which spread to the school that almost had us coming to blows because they knew it wasn�t true and I had even told them to stop it but they didn�t. But toward the end of the year Happy & I got a job @ Toys R Us (because Jeremy worked there). Mark followed shortly there after. So the four of us went back to being friends again. Right after school got out Hallie & Jeremy finally started going out. I really didn�t have too many problems and had more friends in Cole & Kenny to hang out with. Kenny followed me to Toys R Us and we hung out all the time. I think about three or four nights a week I would either be at his house or he would be at mine. But he eventually did something that destroyed my trust in him and him and I haven�t been as close as we were (also known as stealing over $1000 from my family). Then school started and I got some more friends. First was Brandi. She was a cool girl I would hang out with when me, Cole & Kenny would wrestle. I mean her and I had instant chemistry as far as joking around. We could just play off each other for days. And she genuinely seemed happy to see me every time she did. She would always give me a huge hug and would flash a big smile. But then that incident happened with Cole and that kind of put me down. I hurt Cole�s trust in me and we haven�t been as close as we were before but we can still chill. Also I had to tell Brandi that I liked her. She was cool with it but basically ignored how I felt and it hurt me. Also I got a new friend in Tammy because her and I became aides and when everything happened I told her and she was a good listener and seemed concerned. She even asked me later how I was doing and what happened between me & Brandi and all that. She earned my trust that day and would continue to keep it till this day. Also I went from great friends with Jeremy to as close as I was with anybody (till Nicole). I told him about the whole past and suicide and depression and shit. Than I got DEEPLY depressed after homecoming because, again, I went with no one and danced with no one. I know I could have probably but I didn�t ask anybody again and I really got depressed. Then came soccer. I was told before tryouts even started by the coach that I wasn�t going to be the starter and that he didn�t know who it was going to be but he HEARD that the other two were good. It pissed me off because I wasn�t given a chance and because he hadn�t even seen the other two goalies play yet. And during the only scrimmage of the year, I sat the whole time. I was the only person not to play, and this was a game that didn�t mean anything. So that put me into as deep of a depression as I had been in for a long, long time. During the end of the season I got a break when the other goalie messed up and I got a chance to finally play. Of course it was the 4th to last game of the regular season. But the next game I started my first game of the season and I played the 2nd half of the game after that. Than came my single best game of my life and it was one of the top 10 events of my life. It was the senior game so we had our biggest crowd of the year to date and I knew before the game that I was going to play the whole game. We were playing the 2nd place team Acalanes (who we lost to 1-0 earlier in the year) and although we were almost guaranteed a playoff spot, we wanted to get a point to guarantee us a spot. I did OK the first half and didn�t allow a score but I wasn�t really challenged at all. The second half something just clicked. I mean I was doing all sorts of things I hadn�t done before. I basically turned from my back, pushed myself up with my hands and landed on my feet. I dove and stretched out as far as my body would let me to stop the balls. Eventually we got a score in and we held them off and won what was, at least my point of view, as good of a game as you�re going to see on a high school level. I of course was mobbed for my 20-something saves. But the reason it was such an important day for me is because, for once, I showed the school and I proved to myself that I could do something right, that I was good at something, that I wasn�t a complete fuck up. I played only the first half of our quarterfinal playoff game and again didn�t allow a goal but was replaced by Joey for the second half. They scored two on him but we still hung on to win 3-2 and to upset the #2 seeded team (we were a #7 seed). Between that game and the next probably one of the most important things of my life happened and would change my life forever, but I�ll write about that in the next paragraph. Then came our semifinal rematch with Acalanes. Again, I didn�t� allow a goal the first half. I was worried that I was going to be replaced by Joey again but coach stuck with me. I mean I don�t think he had too much of a choice. I had allowed only one goal over the last 340 minutes of game time, and that was when my own team scored on me. But then, at the 78-minute mark of the game and after around 15-20 saves, they scored on me. We tried as best as we could to score over the next 2 minutes but we ran out of time (only 80 minutes in a game) and we lost 1-0. So yeah I got a little depressed about the outcome and the fact that (I thought) my competitive soccer career was over. But it felt good knowing that I had done all I could and even better the next day at school when people who I hadn�t really gotten along with, like Bo, came up to me and said I had one hell of a game. But the day after the game resulted in me first talking to the one who would drastically alter my life. Yeah I know it may seem weird that I refer to my first time really speaking to Nicole in person as a life-changing event but it almost was. It would lead me to my depression coming back up. Oh it wasn�t her fault, not in the least. But sometime between the time we talked and the finals for the girls on Saturday, I started liking her. And by the time Monday rolled around, I really liked her. I had Grant give her my screen name to see if she would message me. She did. I can honestly say that I was more nervous that night on the computer, then I had been my entire life. Little did I know only a week later my world, and my hopes, would come crashing down in a blaze that was anything but glorious and would end up sending me toward my depression. I had known her for a week and over that week we talked just about everyday online. I also became sick. I couldn�t eat anything but bagels, as I wasn�t hungry. And for 4 straight nights I woke up between 4:30-6 and the first thing that I thought of was Nicole. I was honestly scared. I mean she�s good looking but I had seen other good-looking people before and hadn�t thought of them this much. She was fun to talk with, but I never felt this way about anybody else who was fun to talk with. Something inside me just made me like her. But then the weekend came and I made 3 mistakes in 3 days. Those mistakes, 1 was a misjudgment, 1 was a huge assumption by her parents that was totally wrong, and the other one was just a dumbass mistake on my part. Ok on Saturday I had this stupid fake baby (which I had all weekend) and I was having cabin fever. So I decided to go to her house to talk to her. Apparently, she didn�t know that I knew where she lived. I mean she waved back at me when she was at her house and I was in Mark�s truck so I assumed that she knew. She didn�t. We talked for around an hour and it was good times. But I would find out later that it scared her. The next day I couldn�t take it anymore so I was going over there to tell her that I liked her and to just see what was going to happen. IO went up to her door and she wasn�t home. I got into my car and then her parents drove up with her. I got out, talked to her about 2 minutes (yeah I chickened out and didn�t tell her I liked her) and then left. She messaged me about 15 minutes later asking how long I was waiting outside her house. I got all upset and was like I wasn�t waiting outside. I was just pulling away. I guess her parents thought that I was waiting for her to come home and I don�t think they were convinced otherwise even though she was convinced I was telling the truth (I honestly was). Ok the next night would prove to me that her and I had no chance and would start pushing me toward my depression once again. She was out learning to drive and I had to go out to get some things for a CHEE project due the next day. I didn�t know where she was but I guessed she was in the DHS parking lot. So instead of going straight to the library I went by the school on the way. I saw the blue truck in the parking lot, which proved I was right. But here�s were I went wrong. A normal person would have just honked on their way by. No, not me. I went in and drove by her, stopped, waved and then left. Oh dear god that was a bad thing to do. So I went home after I got my shit and she came back and she said what the hell where you doing there? She then said that she was getting scared of me and that she thought I was hell of cool as a friend but that I was being a little too weird. In typical Nicole fashion she ended up apologizing about 50 times for making me feel bad but it was my fault for doing some things stupid. But I wasn�t done. I would make her feel even worse, before things got better and throw myself back into a full blown depression. Prom was about 2 months away at the time and I made it clear to some people that I wanted her to go to prom with me. I think I had told Grant & Jeremy and I was talking to Grant about it. He asked if I was going to prom and I said no, since Nicole probably doesn�t want to go with me. Well he ended up telling Nicole about that and she got all upset about it. See just a week earlier I had told her that she would regret every dance she missed in high school because I was trying to get her to ask the guy she liked to Sadies. But she threw that in my face so bad. I couldn�t say that it wasn�t a big deal to her because a) it was & b) she would bring that up. So then anytime I mentioned prom in a conversation she got feeling all bad. This is when Kat entered the picture telling me to leave Nicole alone and that I�m hurting her. I think this is when I finally realized that I was really hurting Nicole and that I should stop talking to her. That lasted about one day. But thankfully she found it in her heart to forgive me and we were able to become friends (even with her knowing of my true feelings for her). So my depression was back. It went away around prom because I was focused on Julie (although when I was with her I was somebody else and was thinking of Nicole sometimes). Then after Julie said she just wanted to be friends, I went right back into the depression. I don�t think I ever left it, just forgot about it for a few weeks. Then I realized I still liked Nicole. I had never stopped talking to her and I just realized that I still liked her, even more than before. Well I knew she didn�t like me so nothing too much was happening with that. Then I said what I said to her and everything happened with Happy and I honestly wanted to die for the first time since I could remember. The pain was just so much that I didn�t know how to handle it. I think the main reason I didn�t do anything to myself was that I was thinking of Nicole. If I would have done something she would have blamed herself and then maybe have her herself. Then maybe Happy would have hurt himself. I don�t know though. But then when I found out about Happy asking Nicole out it just seemed like life was trying to tell me something. Life was telling me that I should give up, that I should just submit and leave. So that�s what I was trying to do on Crow Canyon Rd that night. I was going 75MPH around 30MPH turns with no seatbelt on. I was hoping that I lost control of the car and crashed. I wasn�t going to just let go of the wheel though, that would be too easy. I wanted to fight it but not be able to handle it. One problem though: I was so used to driving crazy and taking turns too fast that I took everyone perfectly. Never once went in the other lane or towards the barrier. Thankfully my last mention of suicide came a week after this update was posted. You'll be able to read about taht in the next section. My depression kinda floats in and out of the picture but I am about as mentally healthy now as I've been in the last decade. I'm not saying I don't have problems and shit but I know how to deal with them better now. No more keeping it in. Problem is since my friends know about my history with the depression they all overreact to things and when I write my poetry they think that I'm actually going to do things. I can guarentee you one thing, when I do get put 6-feet deep it won't be because I intentionally put myself there. I�ve been asked, �Why would you want to kill yourself, you have so much to live for?� What people don�t get is when you are depressed you don�t see that. All you see is the negative side of things. You think that all life has to offer is pain and suffering and you don�t really want to deal with it anymore. You�re a pessimist. I�ve always tried to be an optimist because I hate how my dad always thinks the worst is going to happen. And for the most part I am. I always think the best is going to happen with my friends. But with me I always think the worst, it�s just how I am. That�s why I�m never hesitant to make fun of myself to get the laughs. I also tried to hide the depression for the longest time. I hid it by always appearing to have fun and I was obnoxious and I loved to make people laugh. That has been one of my only joys in life, comedy. I feel that if I can make someone laugh and/or smile, then I have a purpose for being here. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Well the 7th incarnation of a site update was about as emotional as you can get as it basically speaks a lot of my one suicidal night, the last time I've mentioned it as a serious alternative to life. I also included what, at the time, was my greatest compliment I've ever recieved. It may still be but I don't know. Dated 11/1/02. Now some of you have heard about my near-death experience from my away message. About 10 people in this world know what happened. Now everyone who wants to know can and will know. This is the honest run down of the night that made me almost end it all and my feelings about the events and people that were involved in the night. Now it may seem that I'm going down too hard on some people and too soft on others but this is what I feel and don't tell me why I should feel different because I won't. Well Sunday started off just like any other day. I had posted "the novel" site update the night before so I was just waiting for the hits to my website to start piling up (it reached 18, second highest single day total for me). Everything was cool till the nighttime. First, Nicole got a little pissed off because as she was reading, she was noticing that she came up a lot and didn't want to be in it that much. She also felt that I told too many of her secrets in the update. I just took that criticism in stride because I knew Nicole would probably be pissed at some things I had to say in the update, which is why I made her promise me that she would still talk to me after the update was posted. I kind of felt like a little bit of a hypocrite though because I was bitching about Happy betraying my trust and how I hate people betraying my trust while somewhat betraying Nicole's trust by putting a lot of her life and personal shit on my site. So I felt a little like an asshole. OK, A LOT like an asshole. But I was on the phone with Jeremy & Mike and I noticed that Happy was offline (a rarity. kind of like me offline). I asked Jeremy where Happy was at and he said Happy was out driving because he was upset about stuff in my update. I asked Jer what he was upset about and he said that Happy was upset about the part with Mari and that Happy thinks that I did push Nicole away from him and basically blaming the reason that they didn't get together on me. Well he eventually got home and got online. I was not emotionally ready for the words that were about to appear on my computer screen and I went from having a good day and playing games with my friends, to probably the single lowest point in my life. I still think it was the lowest point of my life and I didn't talk to Happy for about 6 month because of it. He started out saying that I have hurt Nicole so much and that she is fucking pissed at me and blah blah blah. I already knew she was upset at me but I can tell the difference between her being pissed and her being upset. If she were pissed, I would have gotten yelled at so much more. So I really just brushed that off. But it would be impossible to brush off his next comment and was one of the two comments he would make that would permanently end our friendship. He said that he had made no mistakes with everything and that I made all the mistakes. This differed from earlier and basically told me that he thinks he should be guilt-free and everything he did was right. Well that means that he thinks jeopardizing our friendship was right. I asked him next, "So you were willing to take a chance with our relationship for Nicole?" His words flat out hurt me more than any other in my entire life. His reply was: "i did it, didn�t I?" That said to me that our friendship, the 2 years or more that we had been friends, was nothing more than a convince to him, and that in the big scheme of things, didn't mean too much to him and was less important to him than a girl. But no matter what those words did to me, I had no right to do what I was about to do next. What I was about to do is probably the most irrational thing I could do at the time and really was fucking stupid and not called for. I put a lot of people in bad position with my words and I feel bad for my actions. I am being punished for it, don't worry I am. After those words I kind of started to say that I didn't want to live and that I was going to act on that on those feelings. In truth, I think maybe there was a 5% chance at most that I was going to act on those impulses. I've always considered suicide a selfish thing and the act of a weak human being but at that point I was at my weakest. In retrospect I should have just kept to myself and laid in bed with my thoughts. But no, not me. I started saying what I was feeling. Actually I was only saying it to Nicole & Happy but soon enough about 5 people knew as Grant was told by Happy, Mike kind of sensed it on the phone and Jeremy was urged by both Nicole & Happy to talk to me because I wasn't responding to them. In reality anything that Happy said meant nothing to men because i had lost all respect for him. He could have said everything that i needed to be told but it wouldn't have mattered to me. Nicole on the other hand really had an impact on me. Tears come to my eyes thinking about the love coming from her words and in reality, I couldn't have done a damn thing after talking with her, just wouldn't be right. So that 5% went way down, but yet I still was talking negatively. This was really bothering Nicole (as she was crying) & Jeremy. Jeremy basically forced me to go out with him & Hallie. They took me to Denny's and all I had was a Sprite. Then we drove around for like an hour. I got home and put up the away message that I had wrote before I left with Jeremy and climbed into bed to think about all my shit and maybe, just maybe, fall asleep. Well I was about half asleep around 2:30 when all of the sudden I hear this tapping at my window. I get up and who was it? Well it was Grant and Jeremy. I guess they had seen my away message and it bothered them (looking at the away message, I see how they would be bothered). Well my dad then comes into my room and Jeremy & Grant duck. My dad starts asking who�s there and I tell him no one. He then leaves my room and goes into his room (to get the gun and investigate of course. Right as he closes the door I told them to book it. They get over the fence and drive away just in time. All my dad saw was the back of Jeremy (didn't recognize him) and his car (I told him Jer drives a silver Honda but my dad says it wasn't Jer). I then went to bed, knowing that the next day could be better... *Here's a copy of that away message I wrote on AOL* Don't know if morning will come for me. If it doesn't, I have some last things to say. Jeremy- Thanks for always being a true friend. You are the best thing that happened to me in high school Hallie - I love you with all my heart, even if you are a member of the cult. Nicole - Please keep fighting and I know you'll be in Eugene in no time. Happy - Well, you are the Llama King now. Don't disgrace the position like I did. Grant - Take care of Becca. Give her a big hug for me. Z - Sorry to disrupt your life in Zona, just send your spirit, not your body. Mark - Thanks for always being there and trying to cheer me up. Don't stop until you find your Kerrigan. Kaylee - I luv you sweetie. I just wish I could have seen you. Yeah pretty crappy, eh? The Greatest Compliment *PERSON*: *NAME* should forget him, and go out with you Dah2325: ok like that is going to happen *PERSON*: well it should Dah2325: tell her that *PERSON*: well you got the good heart What is above has got to be the greatest compliment I have ever received. I mean me, a good heart? And deserving of her? Now maybe I thought that I should but that was just hopeless optimism that was telling me that. He (it was a he who said it) just said it out of the blue and honestly, I thought he was joking at first but he was serious. This was extra special to me because a few months back he would have never said it but with my actions, I have proved to him, and a few other people (probably), that I do have a good heart and I never had a bad intention. Does this matter in the long run? No. But sometimes the small compliments in life help sort out reasons for living life. I didn't put the complimentor�s name or "her" name because that's not the important part. He knows who he is and he just deserved the recognition for being a great friend. Ok the complimentor was Grant....give the man his props, even if it's 18 months late. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Woohoo, finally a site update that doesn't deal with death or any of that suicide shit. This update wasn't that long at all as I didn't have much to write about. I just included Jeremy leaving, the impact of that and then the basic recap that covers everything in the update. Dated 2/8/03. Well first off is Jeremy leaving. Now I know I mentioned that he was gone in the last update but I wrote a majority of it before he left knowing that he would be gone by the time that I finished the update. It was really hard the first day he left, let me tell you that. See he wasn't supposed to leave till the night but when I went over there in the morning he told me he had to be at the recruiters by 1 so that right there sucked. I went with his mom & Hallie to drop him off. Not an easy time. That whole day was hard. I kinda just sat a home trying to play game and keep my mind off him. For the most part it worked but when I was writing my site update it didn't. Kind of just broke down. But since then I've had no breakdowns whatsoever. But since Jeremy has been gone that's left me with Hallie duty. Hallie duty? Yes, Hallie duty. Jeremy's gone so the person that Hallie & I hang out with 95% of the time is gone. So what have we been doing? You guessed it (unless you're a fucking retard), I've been hanging out with Halle. Sometimes it's not easy being around her when she has bad days but hell, I owe to her & Jeremy to be with her through the good days and the bad, just as they were to me. Now I don't even have Hallie duty.....who wants Adam duty? So to recap: Girls Suck, Work Sucks, Nicole's Mom Sucks, Missing People Sucks, The Buckeyes, Browns & 49ers do NOT suck, Kentucky Sucks, the Army sucks, college sucks & my luck sucks. Damn I'm a positive person. Oh well. Good Times I guess. Until next time. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The next update's selections are a funny, irrelevant story, my issues with companionship that still hold true and my thoughts about having the website for a year. Dated 3/22/03 Ok lets take a break from that deep crap to tell you a little story that I was told and I thought was great. There was this conversation between an Irish kid and the girl (this whole story is true). Somehow "blue balls" got brought up and he didn't know what they were. She explained it to him and he asked if she had ever done that before. She said yes. He replied with what is probably the funniest thing I've heard for hella long. His reply "You know what that would be like? It'd be like if I were to show you this cute little puppy and be playing with it in front of you and right as I was about to give it you, I SNAPPED it's neck." That's AWESOME!!!! Ok the last deep part of the update, I promise. I recently found out what I'm missing in my life and why I miss Nicole so much. I miss the companionship. There was just a connection with her that made me happy when I was around her. I mean I hang out with Brandi & Hallie but it�s just not the same. I don't have that same feeling of companionship. That's why I think I was so attracted to her. I mean her & I could just kick it on her porch talking for hours and I would consider it a good day because for some reason, that made me happy. And I really miss that companionship, just somebody to kick it with that makes me forget all my problems. I don't think she understands that. I mean every time I want to kick it with her I just get a no. It hurts a little bit every time she says no. I mean the connection that I have with her is so damn strong that when she called me one time (which is a rarity) that it like made my night. But I guess she doesn't understand that I just love having that connection to her as a friend. I just want someone (doesn't have to be Nicole) that I can just have that connection with; whither it's as a friend or more than a friend. Someone who I could be driving with and just be happy. Just sitting on the coach watching TV with that person would be a great night. I think theline below taken from SImple Plan's song: When I'm With You kinda sums up what I'm trying to say. I wanna feel the way you make me feel when I'm with you. (I still miss the companionship I had when she was a more active person in my life.....the girls I have now fill the hole pretty well though.) I had planned to post this site update on the 20th because a year ago on that date, I started this page. Now a whole shitload of things have changed since that day but some things haven't. I would like to thank all of you who read this page and make me actually feel good that some people care about what I write and what I think. I never expected that this site would have 895 hits on it in a year; hell I didn't even know that I would have the site for a year. But yeah, thanks for coming and reading every time I decide to vent about life and other shit. Hope you all have a good couple months and I should be back around May with yet another site update and maybe a poem or two. Late. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Site update #10 came 5 months after #9 so it was a bit long but it didn't really include that much memorable stuff. What I did include was the death of a co-worker, a random thought that I thought was good and oh yes, my thoughts on sex. >sigh< good times. Dated 8/10/03. A few paragraphs back I mentioned a guy named Ray at my work that I was talking to about Dubravka and Cancun. He was a cool guy and we talked a lot before that day and we talked for a fucking long time that day. He was a laid back guy who was hella funny. But on that Saturday night that everything bad happened with Dubravka, Ray was involved in a single car accident and was killed. I was off work from Sunday-Tuesday so I didn�t find out till Wednesday and when I was told I thought people were fucking with me. I wish they had been. That Sunday we had a scheduled store meeting and it was brought up. My store director couldn�t talk about it because it was making him choke up and I saw other co-workers crying. It was weird because that�s the first person my age that I was cool with to die. I still miss talking to him and I wish that he were still here with us. Everybody knows the expression �I�d take a bullet for you� But what good does that do if the shooter has more than one bullet. Now both of you are dead. I�m not taking a bullet for anyone�.I�m diving to the ground, pretending I�m hit and hoping to god they don�t check. Screw sex. That�s right you heard me. Coming from the man who would hit on a nun I am officially saying screw sex. Talking with a friend for two hours in my car while driving around made me realize that getting laid wouldn�t settle a damn bit of my problems. It all goes back to what I said in my last update, I need companionship. Although I wasn�t believed, I was dead serious when I told this girl that if she came over and said I will do WHATEVER you want, that I would just want to hold her and watch a movie. Nothing more. And you know what, that would probably be one of the greatest nights I�ve had in a while. Although that might sound gay to some people, that I would rather cuddle or whatever you call it than fuck, I really don�t care. As my glowing sense of humor put it, �You never know how long sex is going to last, could be 5 minutes could be 20" (I�m thinking the lower end). You also can�t guarantee that it�s going to be good but you can never go wrong with an evening with a girl you care about being snuggled in your arms.� Now I ain�t swearing off sex, saying that I�ll be V-clubbing it for life, I�m just saying that what I need is a girl to hang out with and that will make me feel what I haven�t for the last 12+ months. And it doesn�t even have to be a girlfriend (although that would be a welcome surprise), just somebody that makes me feel good to be alive and to be who I am. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ And here comes site update #11. Nothing much to take from this but I had to so what I took from this was my birthday, my Chico trip, the orgins or the word "marginal," and Jeremy being in Iraq. Dated 12/27/03 Well let's just start our little journey through MarginalLand with my birthday. August 19, 2003: My Golden Birthday (apparently it's golden when you turn 19 on the 19th). It was the first day of my Tuesday/Thursday classes so I was up bright and early at 7AM. I CALL BULLSHIT! Well I went and I saw Grant but that was about all I remember from that class. Then of course I went home and slept. A few phone calls from family members kept waking me up but then I got the call I was waiting for, my friend Calisse. So I drove out to Walnut Creek and went to lunch with her (AND I DIDN'T PAY!!! I didn't think that was possible for me to do that). It was nice and then I drove home with an "unscheduled stop" in between (you guys know what I'm talking about) and went and saw Hallie and then went to my night classes. Only good thing was seeing Dubravka. Sat through some blah blah blah and then went off to hang out with the guys @ Darryl�s. I spent a good hour on the phone with Nicole and saw her, from a distance of course (DAMN MOM!) but it was good to talk with her. So yeah it was a pretty decent birthday. I didn't see everybody I wanted to but what can you do? So far the only big mistake I made was just a bad judgment call about a week after my birthday. Not going into details because it's not that big of a deal and because I used better judgment and avoided making the same mistake twice two days later. In fact I used great judgment and went to lunch with a great girl who was starting to garner my affections (HI SARAH!) and then went off to Chico with Adam, Josh & Jon. Adam hung out with this one girl all night long and then I followed drunk and drunker around Chico in their endless quest for females. There were a shitload of parties and hella fights, and this was a Thursday night. I think we went to like 7 parties, all broken up by police. Oh well, such is Chico. I got like 3 bad hours of sleep on the floor of some chicks that I didn�t know but I guess Adam did and then drove home tired as hell and then worked for about 8 hours. Good times though. Between Sarah and Chico, that has to be the best day of my "golden year" so far. You can also thank that night and Jon for the word that is now in mine and all of my friends� vocabulary. Yes it was Jon that started the word marginal. Basically it means (to us) average, as in she's marginal, nothing special. It has since been expanded and here is my definition for it. Marginal - Average; Nothing special; blah. It now applies not only to girls, but everything else as well. Between that and ROAR, I have one hell of a vocabulary. Now to some negative shit. Well as you all know (or should know), Jeremy is the Army and is currently stationed in Iraq. He works on Chinook helicopters and when they fly missions, he generally goes along for the ride, usually as a door gunner. Well with that background here comes the shit hitting the fan. My homepage is yahoo.com and every time I open explorer it comes on my screen. On the right side of the screen they always have the top 5 or 6 headlines for the day. I always glance at them and one day I saw something about a helicopter being shot down. I saw it and meant to click on it but I think I forgot to because I was distracted (imagine that.....me, distracted). Well the next night my dad was in his "office" and I was in my room and he yelled through the door asking what kind of helicopters Jeremy flies in. I told him and then that sparked my memory about the helicopter crashing. I checked the past headlines and sure enough the helicopter that crashed was a Chinook. I can't describe to you how I felt. I instantly looked around for the casualty list and I found that 16 people had died and they only had announced 9 of them. I looked all over the military website to see if I could find any more names but alas, only 9 could be found. Now this was Monday afternoon. Of course it was announced on Saturday that the helicopters went down but for once, my laziness saved me. Had I known Sunday that it was his type of helicopter that went down, it might have been harder. Also luckily I always keep my computer on and AIM on as well. That night (Monday) I was about to go to sleep but my AIM went off so I climbed off my bed and went to see who it was. Low and behold, it was Jeremy himself. He told me that he was ok but his internet kept going down (since he's in Iraq and they're ghey like that) so he told me to email Hallie because he wasn't sure if his emails were going to go through or not. We shooted the shit for a little while and then he had to go and I went off to go get Jack in the Box because I was hungry. It was then that it hit me about it all. I mean I actually feared that my best friend might be dead....dead at 19. Then the next day I was @ Carl's Jr Jeremy's mom (Debbie) was there because she's like a regional manager. I was talking to her and I could see she was kinda shaken up by the whole thing and it was like, WHOA, because she is one of the strongest people I know. I've never seen her show any signs of weakness whatsoever, not even when she sent Jeremy off to the army. It just got me thinking, damn, what must thousands of military families be going through having to deal with this stress day in and day out. I just can't imagine it. It just kinda gives you a whole new level of respect of all those out there fighting for us; even if not all of us agree with why they're over there (I'm mixed). It's just something to think about. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Well thanks for accompanying me for this trip down marginal.....I'm mean memory lane. Hopefully over the years to come you'll be able to read about more positive things on the site but until then just sit back, read my shit and laugh at the indignities of my life. Until Further Notice, Adam |
| Best Of Nagslife |
| This is the so-called Best Of Nagslife........also known as better than the worst parts of the last 2 years. Included are bits and pieces from the last 11 site updates from the first one in March of 2002 to Deceber of 2003. I just grabed paragraphs and bits and pieces that either I personally liked, thought were important or just the most talked about (ok so I left out THE most talked about segment because it was retarded. Just like when I wrote it, I would like it if most of you read the "My Depression" sub-heading because I think it's the most important thing I've ever written. I have an intro for each updates selections in bold and generally just recognize that anything in bold was stuff I added (unless it's a headline). |