What's going on with me?

4-30-05 - I'm a little upset that I haven't written in almost a week. Oh, well. It's all good.

I had such a good day today! I slept 8 1/2 hours and was actually somewhat rested when I woke up. That was nice. I then talked to Carrie on the phone for an hour and that was fun.

Next, I called Brent to see if he wanted to go to Hardee's. This needs a bit of setting up. Me and Brent have been planning to get something to eat since the beginning of last semester and that just never happened. Well, I was talking to him online a couple days ago and he said something about how Stacey, an old friend I haven't seen in at least two years, was going to be coming up to visit him. I laughed, I cried, I nearly crapped my pants! I told him that Melissa was coming to visit me on Friday, so we were all gonna hang out. Well, it turned out that Melissa meant next Friday and then he told me at the same time that Stacey wasn't gonna be coming up, and I was very upset. Well, we both had Hardee's on the brain, so we were gonna go today. I called him at around 3 and he told me that Stacey was here!!!! I instantly got very excited! Well, they came and got me and we went to New Window Cliff, which is a bit south of Cookeville. We waded through a decently-sized creek (not that deep, so I guess it wasn't wading...but the current was somewhat fast), then went up some muddy and kinda steep hills and got to some rocks that were like 100 feet up in the air. I wish I had my camera with me. I left everything in the car because Brent knew there would be that creek, so we didn't want anything to be ruined. It was awesome standing on those rocks, cuz we were way high up and in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and we saw a creek waaaay down on both sides of us. Many great pictures were missed. Anyway, when Brent and Stacey decided to go on some really slippery, high up, steep slopes to get to other areas, that's where I and Casey (Stacey's roommate) drew the line. We just sat and waited for them. That was so exciting, because it's something I'd never done before. And I had fun chatting with Stacey. I love that gal!

Afterwards, we did make it to Hardee's and it was yummy. I don't know what's so hard for Hardee's employees to understand about the words "Number 6 combo." The past two times I've ordered that (including today), I've ended up with the $6 burger combo instead of the sourdough combo, which I wanted. Grrr.

At 8pm, I went to see Servant with Two Masters at the Backdoor Playhouse, by the Tech Players. That's the fourth play I've seen there. I love their plays, always so entertaining. The play got done at 11:35pm. Wow. Looooooong play, but incredibly entertaining. There's just no way to explain how great the Tech Players performances are. They're like nothing I've ever seen. They're incredibly informal and the ad libbing was quite evident. They break the fourth wall like you wouldn't believe. I love it! At one point, I motioned for a dude that had some chewed bread in his hand to throw it at me. He did and it was coming right for me, but it bounced off a stage light and veered off in a different direction. It's probably for the better, though, because I was gonna take a bite out of it. I told him afterwards and he kinda laughed. Also, while there, I told this girl Emily that I have thoroughly enjoyed her performances. She was in each of the four plays I saw there and she's great. I think she was quite flattered. I said something about graduating and she said she was gonna be there for her husband and she said she'd cheer for me, even though she's not supposed to. She won't (cuz I'm sure she forgot my name already, even though I gave her a good way to remember it), but it was nice of her anyway. I wish Sean would've been in the play, cuz he was in the other three plays I saw and he's awesome, as well, and I never told him. Oh, well.

Other things that have happened recently:
--Over the course of 20 hours a few days ago, I spent between 10 and 12 on a stupid paper. Bleh.
--I ordered DDR pads that will work.
--I succeeded in repeatedly being very upset about the fact that Carrie's moving soon. This wouldn't be so bad if the little time we have left wasn't interrupted by her trip to New York followed by my trip to Denver. It sucks that they don't overlap. We've only recently become friends, but I love her dearly. She's a great kid.

I'm still very excited about moving to Knoxville. It turns out that I'll know one more person up there. Kurt, someone that's in all my classes, is gonna be working at ORNL and will be living about half a mile from me. That'll be cool. Jasmine (waitress girl from the 10th or 12th post from this page, I think) has expressed interest in auditioning for a play with me at some point in time. I hope there's a good one going on and that we both get good parts in it. That would be so awesome!

David told me that while at the Macaroni Grill (all sorts of cool things happen at Macaroni Grills!) in Franklin, he was sitting just a few feet from Charlie Chase, the very man that called me a bastard in the whole clownfish thing. I asked if he said anything to Mr. Chase about how he lived with me for two years, but David said no. He also said that Charlie looked very drunk. Hahahaha!

Hmmm...I think that might be all for now.

4-24-05 - Today kinda sucked. I knew I had a lot to do today, and I knew it would take a lot of time and effort to pull it all off, but I managed. It really wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had expected it to be, but it still really sucked. I'm this much closer to being done with all of my projects for this semester, though!

So I was about to go to the computer lab after having been there for a couple hours earlier today. I got down the stairs and I was almost to the lobby of the dorm when I realized that I forgot to do something. I needed to take pictures of something from one of my books so I could include them in a PowerPoint presentation. I could've just grabbed my camera and gone to the lab and done the deed there, but I decided to take the pictures and transfer them to my jump drive in my dorm room and as I was getting increasingly warmer from my thick winter jacket, I was wishing I'd gone to the lab and done it. As soon as I stepped outside, I was glad I suffered through the mild warmth. A couple days ago, I was thinking about a few people that I didn't think I'd ever see again and how I wished I could, even if only briefly. These are people I never spent much time with or even talked to very much. In fact, there was quite a bit of anticipatory nervousness prior to meeting them, but they all took a shining to me. Anyway, I walked outisde to see these four people getting out of their van. I stopped and talked to them for only about 20 seconds, but that was enough to make my day. They seemed happy to see me and I was happy to see them, so it was just great :-)

I know what a "bodaggit" is, thanks to Carrie Nackle.

As I was driving home on Friday, I saw a guy driving in a convertable. He had a vanity plate that said "IV PLAY". I thought "I've play"? "Ivy play"? And then I realized it was "foreplay." I tried to get a picture of it, but he got away too quickly. Jerk.

When I was driving back up here last night, I heard "Lady Madonna" by The Beatles for the first time. It surprised me how similar the melody of the verse to that song and the melody of the verse to "What I Got" by Subline are. 'Twas cuh-RAZY!

4-22-05 - Yay for problems. This is the least of my worries, but the stupid GeoCities site making thingy has gone gay and I hope it's just an error or something, but I don't know. I know this makes no sense to anyone who can't see how gay it is, but trust me. It's really gay.

Project stress is really bothering me, but I can handle a few more days of it and then it's smooth sailing until graduation.

So yeah, I was gonna wait until I returned for the weekend (which looks like it's gonna be lots of fun!) to post anything on here, but I decided it would be better to do it now, in light of recent information. I just got really upsetting news from my mom about my little sister. Among other things, which I find it in bad taste to post on here, she's apparently wanting to move out of the house and live with a friend of hers in Mt. Pleasant. Her friend's mom has already ok-ed it without asking my sister or my parents why. She sites her reasoning as constant fights with my mom, but it's nothing my mom does wrong. She's just out of control. Hmmm, that's a bit dramatic. Makes it sound like she needs to go on Maury and go to boot camp. It's nothing that bad. She's just stubborn. I think I might be able to talk some sense into her (not enough to change her mind, but maybe to get her thinking if she even does think) if given the chance, but that's assuming she's willing to listen.

In other news:

My three laws:
1st: There's no such thing as bisexual. Once you're halfway there, you round up.
2nd: Any song with a key change is automatically a country song.
3rd (which I made up and put on a big test on Wednesday): Flooding = bad
I've yet to receive the graded test.

I'll be making $1200/yr more than I thought I would when I start work. Yay me.

Ian was my thefacebook.com (which TTU is now FINALLY on) boyfriend for a few seconds the other day. I then e-dumped him.

4-18-05 - My legs are exhausted. I need to take a DDR break.

I'm very excited about the next couple months. I think good things are gonna happen. I get to go home this weekend and I know for sure I'm gonna see Kate, Sarah, Wrenn, and Carrie. I'll probably see Lenny, Jen, and Mike. This'll be fun. I haven't been home in a little over two weeks. After that weekend, it's only two weeks til graduation. I'm going to Denver mid-May, then moving to Knoxville at the end of May. I'll get to hang out with Jasmine and Anna and start making new friends. I think this whole ordeal is gonna be great.

I've gotten so much less stressed over the past few days and that's so nice. I think I passed the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam. It's supposed to be really hard, but it was really surprisingly easy. Yay for me! And many thanks to Lauren for letting me borrow her calculator.

Over the past few days, I've had very little alone time. It's been nice. It seems that people up here are trying to spend time with me before I leave and I like the company. I'm gonna miss all my people up here :-(

Well, I have just under three weeks to be proven wrong and I know it's not gonna happen. We can't always get what we want. Oh, well. I'm living quite a happy life.

I'm kinda getting sick of being single. I'm in no hurry to get married or anything, but I'd definitely like to start into the relationship that'll lead to that. Maybe I'll find someone within my first year in Knoxville. Here's hoping.

4-14-05 - I'm only talking about one thing on this post cuz I know that there were a lot of questions about it and a lot of people wondering things and what not, so it's all gonna be discussed here:

I called the woman in charge and told her that I am going to graduation. I don't know why I decided against it at first, so don't ask why cuz I don't have a real, good answer for it. All I know is that Sarah told me "it's more for people who care about you than it is for you," which is the truth. Several said that I'd probably like to regret it, which is probably true. I do dumb things sometimes and this was one of them. I'm glad I was able to correct it. I don't expect anyone to come, but it's at 10am on Saturday, May 7th at the Hooper-Eblen Center on campus.

4-11-05 - I meant to put this in yesterday's post, but I forgot about it because of my super hectic weekend filled with Drama stuffs: Friday's lunch was great. Well, that's a lie. I ate at the cafeteria, so the lunch itself was mediocre. The lunch experience, though, was quite nice. I went with Liz, and that was the first time we'd really talked in a good month and a half, for reasons I don't quite understand. It had great potential to be awkward, but I knew it wouldn't be. I know how I am and I know how she is and I knew that we would be able to look past any junk that might've been floating around and just have a good time. And that's what we did. I just wish I hadn't had to go to my stupid meeting. Oh, well. It really is amazing how incredibly happy her little bit of effort made me :-)

Holy crap, about two hours ago, JT asked me if I wanted to go to Dairy Queen with him and his roommate Kenny, and I decided I would. Well, those jerks closed at 10 and we got there at 10:05, so we went to Jack in the Box and got shakes. Anyway, when they came to pick me up, Cole (my roommate from last semester) was sitting outside playing stupid songs on Ian's recorder. Cole's current roommate Dave was talking to Kenny while they were waiting for me. I got in the car and told Dave to go slap Cole, which he did...after he told Cole to take off his glasses because he was going to slap him because I told him to.

When we returned, Cole, Dave, and the few people that were out there when we left were still out there and Cole was still playing gay little songs on Ian's recorder. I walked up and slapped him and I was going to run inside, but I didn't for some reason. I'm really glad I didn't, too, because what later happened was pure gold:

I don't have any earthly idea how it got to this point (and I was there during the whole development of it), but what ended up happening was any time anyone (whether we knew them or not) was walking into or out of the building, we'd be standing there all nonchalantly and then Cole would start playing a wood nymph-esque song on the recorder. That was our (the people in front of the steps) cue to prance around the people walking through us. Some of the people just stood there in shock, so we'd just dance circles around them. When the people would then get to the door, two people who were standing there opened the doors and bowed, and one of us would shout "Thank you for visiting Murphy Hall," and then we'd just wait for the next person and do it all over again.

Some people were dumb and just walked through without acknowledging any of us, but some just busted out laughing and seemed to enjoy it. The best reaction of the night, though, was when Jason walked outside (we knew it would be funny) while we were doing the whole thing to someone else and he just walked out of the door, looked at us, and said "Oh, hell no!" and walked off to the side.

We did that whole thing for a good 30 or 45 minutes. I'd like to do it again some time.

I have videos from almost all of the skits from the Drama Troupe performance on my computer. If anyone would like a copy of anything, let me know. There's some good stuff in there.

Man, I ended up staying awake until 6 this morning talking to a friend. I had no intention of staying up anywhere near that late, but I figured "Why not?" I then got up at 8:40 for my class at 9. I almost fell asleep in that class and then again in the 3:30 one. I was fine at the 10 class. I knew I'd be fine in that one and drowsy in the others. Those two are so boring, usually. Oh, well. I managed to stay awake.

4-10-05 - The other two nights of the Drama Troupe performances went quite splendidly. Kimmie's boyfriend took video of me doing the "Torn" thing on Friday night, which happens to be the night we had the best crowd. As soon as I obtain the video from him, it will be going on my Videos page. It's great :-)

Last night, we played DDR at the cast party for a few hours. I ended up getting a rating of AA on Tsugaru on standard. This means nothing to no one, but it was awesome!

It's so nice to be able to have free time again. I mean I still have all kinds of projects and crap to do, but I'm getting back a fwe hours a night. I have fewer than 4 weeks left til I'm done with school!

Speaking of which, I decided against going to the graduation ceremony. I'll be coming home as soon as exams are finished as opposed to waiting up here for a couple days by myself in the dorm with nothing to do. This way, I'll be able to spend some time with my friends before I have to go to Knoxville a few weeks later.

4-7-05 - Holy crap, am I going crazy? Seriously. Life has its ups and downs, yes. It's a given. Having as many as I did in one day, however, can't possibly be healthy. And what shocks me even more, though, is that they didn't even encompass the entire day - everything happened within a few hours. I'm a wreck. I think I'm past it all, I think I'm fine, I think I can go on living my life happily, and I'm wrong.

I was so excited about the Drama Troupe performance today. Tuesday's had its little issues, but nothing major. People came up to me afterwards and told me that they absolutely loved the "Torn" thing that I did, along with the "I am your father" scene in the Star Wars skit. Those, along with my part in the "Belle" thing not only comprise half of my stage time, but they're what I absolutely love about this show.

Tonight, we did "Belle" and I did my part fine. I was happy. Next was "Torn." Holy crap, that was a train wreck. I'm glad it wasn't my fault. Rich, I don't know if you read this, and Kris, I know you do (hmmm, I oughtta add you to the front page as a viewer...while I'm thinking about it, if you look at my site and wanan be in the random picture list, let me know)...I just want you guys to know I'm not pissed about it at all. What happened was funny, to me. Sometimes it's fun to be put on the spot and though I kinda half-jokingly acted like a jerk about it, I honestly don't care. It's all good :-)

Once the song was audible, I did the thing on par with my standards and I was happy about it. The next thing I was in was the "Tyler's Brain" skit. Lordy, I just felt like I did a crappy job in it. Next was "Hypnotist" - same thing there. Then was "Star Wars." No matter how nerdy it makes me look, I absolutely love performing it. I hate rehearsing it, but I love performing it. After "Star Wars" was the "Phantom of the Opera" one. I'm not in that one and while it was going on, I realized a few things:

1.) I sucked terribly in the two aforementioned skits. Things happen so quickly for me backstage that I don't have time to think of anything but what I'm supposed to do until I'm done. That really upset me :-( Was it the worst performance I've EVER given? Probably not, but I think it was on par with my first onstage experience ever. That wasn't pretty. Trust me. I saw a video like 3 days after it happened and even then I thought it sucked. I have such high standards for myself and when I don't meet them, even if others tell me that I did well, I beat myself up over it.

2.) I finally cracked onstage...three freaking times. Actually, in all honesty, I'm sure I've done it before, but tonight was the first time that any could have been perceived by the onlookers. Luckily, only one of them could've been noticed. I'm kinda happy about it, though. When I talked about never having broken character onstage in the past week or so, the cast took it as a challenge, though I wasn't really issuing one. Well, Kris always tries (so it seems) to get me to laugh, but I know his sense of humor so it never works. Chris, on the other hand, is just unpredictable. In an intended lull in the "Tyler's Brain" skit, he took the plastic monkey and then took a doughnut and he drove the monkey's face into it. That's not what made me laugh. It's when he got done...he took the stupid monkey and sat it right in front of me, so the chocolate-covered simian was staring me right in the face with a huge, goofy grin on its face. I barely cracked a smile, but I did it. Someone told me that it was unnoticeable since my hand was in front of my face. I assumed my hand was far enough away to reveal it. Oh, well. I don't care. It was only for a split second.

The second time happened when pillows posing as rocks are supposed to be thrown onstage. Lauren was throwing them and one somehow hit me as I was lying "injured" on the stage and Chris said "Take that, Anakin!" Hahaha, goofy guy. That's not what got me, though. It's when freakin' Mr. Tutors got thrown out and landed right in front of me. I just smiled really big as my arm was covering my face, so no harm there.

The third was when I, as Vader, finally die. My line is "The Emperor's force lightning stopped my heart." I, however, managed to say "The Emperor's force lightning destroyed my heart." After I said it, while it was still my line, I thought about my heart being in bits in pieces in my chest, but I was still somehow able to talk. It thoroughly cracked me up. Luckily, I got my line out without too much trouble.

Holy crap...after the performance, I = anger + sadness + regret + happiness + confusion + who knows what else. It wasn't pretty. Different Lauren said she could quite easily tell that something was wrong...and she was right. There were a couple times tonight that I about wanted to cry. One was from an instant message that I got when I returned back here. It was from the last person I expected it to be from. Well, I guess the last person would be like Saddam Hussein, but the last person that I know. My fingers are crossed. Heh...I got that message an hour ago, almost, and it's still really affecting me. Who knows what's gonna happen next? :-/ Here's hoping that I can control what's going on inside my crazy head for the rest of this semester...

And hmmm...I'm sure I read into things way too much. It's odd how something as simple as someone putting up an away message can adversely affect my mood as much as it did just now. Am I this desperate to become friends with these two people all over again? Probably. Sometimes people just really mean a lot to you and you have no idea why.

Melissa said she might come to the Friday night performance. I hope she does. I like hanging out with her. I got to hang out with Michelle a bit tonight. She always cheers me up. I think I get on her nerves a bit, though. Maybe not, I can't tell. I know she thinks I'm funny, but I think she sees me as somewhat of an idiot, too. Oh, well...who knows.

Kris, thanks for putting up with my long story tonight. I know it would've been better had it been funny or happy and not me just whining and pining. You're a good guy.

4-5-05 - Hmmm...(referring to yesterday's post) I think it's even harder to convince myself of the genuineness of the interactions and claims after today. Also, I've noticed that I'm apparently a lot better at holding my tongue than I thought I was. If I wasn't, I probably would've said something like "Well, that's only because of [C.A.]" or something like that. I'm smart enough to realize that...but then I'm dumb for typing what I wasn't gonna say. Hmmm, I don't make sense. Maybe I'm just an idiot.

I like nice people. Sometimes, I'm happy when I'm wrong. I was standing in line at Wal-Mart on Sunday and some big, mean-looking biker guy was coming at me and then in a voice so completely uncharacteristic of his look, he politely said "Excuse me" as he walked by me. That just made me smile. I wasn't going off any kind of stereotype in thinking that he wouldn't be a nice person because of the way he looked (I simply expected him to sound different), I was just assuming he'd shove through me because the general population seems to be rude. Sometimes I just wanna be proven wrong.

I like seeing good parents. Now I know it's impossible to tell how good a person is as a parent without actually seeing what they do without their knowledge, but you can just assume. Not long after the biker guy passed me, I saw a big burly guy with a bald head and sunglasses and a goatee waiting to pay for his groceries. I didn't think anything of it and just kept standing there. Then I heard a little kid (maybe 2 years old) laugh and his dad smiled at him and the kid laughed some more and said "Hi, daddy!" and waved and the kid's dad just waved back. That made me smile. It's little things like that that make me anxious about getting married and starting a family.

I hate when people are in a hurry. There's a difference between being in a hurry and doing things quickly. I do things quickly and I'm not usually in a hurry (this also makes me get quite irritated with slow, inconsiderate people that block your way when you're trying to walk past them). I know that whenever I see someone in a hurry, it could just be a one-time thing, but it still gets to me sometimes. I guess it just depends on how the person carries and presents himself during the course of his actions. Just because you're in a hurry doesn't mean you have to be rude about it. Sometimes I think people fail to realize this.

I just thought about this when I typed the sentence about there being a difference in one thing and another. I was talking with someone the other day and she asked me if I had high standards. I said "No, I just have a lot of them." She tried to tell me that they were the same thing, but it's really not. If I had high standards and I could never find anyone that met them, then I'd feel like I was settling. Having a lot of standards, though, is different because when you ease up on those, it simply means that you recognize that people have faults. I have faults, why can't someone else? I'm not sure that I'm expressing this in the best way possible, but that's how it is.

4-4-05 - So the other day I was watching the movie Kingpin while it was muted, because I was in the mood to listen to music. Well, around the time the big tournament scene started, I was listening to "What!" by Dollybraid. In that song, there's a part where there's a brief silence and then the singer says, very deliberately, "Take my hand!" and that part occurred exactly when Roy Munson's hand gets yanked off by the bowling ball. I thought it was quite the neat.

Well, the Drama performance starts tomorrow night. I don't know what to think about it yet. I know I'm ready, and I'm sure just about everyone else is ready for the most part, but I don't know that we're completely ready as a group. My fingers are crossed. I'm excited about a couple things in it, but the rest I don't care about. I'm all bumpy and bruised and sore from rehearsals. I can't wait until after this weekend because then I can heal...and also relax a bit.

I hate the fact that I'm just now starting to become friends with Carrie right before she's about to move away. I know I'm moving too, but I'm at least staying in the state :-(

I don't know what to think about some things any more. I can't for the life of me determine if someone is being serious with me or not. I really wanna say that what little I'm being fed is genuine, but I can't convince myself that it is. Resisting the urge to say "no big loss"...

Ok. This is why I don't need to be writing these things at 3 in the morning, especially while listening to Mitch Hedberg, that crazy dead guy.

I need some interesting things to happen in my life. I wanna write and update my site more often, but there's never anything to write about and I keep ending up with posts like this. Sorry, kids.