everything except himself

I wonder what made me think I had a chance. Even now, I guess I still haven’t given up yet, but, truth be told, it’s like chasing after a mirage sometimes. You know it’s something that you want; you’re dreaming it up after all, but that also means that it isn’t real. Whatever imagination you associate with that physical body isn’t what that person really is, and you have made a grave error in believing that it was. Perhaps this girl is the only one I haven’t mistaken; I think that is easily attributed to the fact that I want to get to know her, but Distance is my enemy. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, so Travel now becomes my confidant. I love him as I love myself. Through darkness, we yet persevere until our way is illuminated by so graceful a sun.

Like a wanderer, I take up my staff and tread onward. Nineteen passes, and I think I have found what I want. Alas, I continue to walk, my heart not satisfied with being stationary. I look back to see that mist-image fading with the night. The farther I go, the more I want to turn back, but my companion, Travel, is now taking me indefinitely from what very well may be happiness. My ally is my enemy, and the bonds of war yet tear us apart all the quicker. Indeed, Distance is my great enemy and has used Travel to its advantage.

Well, it was another boring day in class today, so what’d I do? I drew stuff. I was just goofing off, until some guy says, “Hey, man, what’re you drawing?” I wasn’t drawing anything specific, just playing with lines, so I reply that I don’t know. He turns away for a bit, and he asks the question again in like 30 minutes. “It’s a shrimp,” I say, proceeding to run my finger across the drawing. “Man, why ain’t you in art school?” “That takes creativity.” (this was in a programming class) “Man, that’s creative. What are you talking about?”

“The Shrimp”: link. Tell me what you think, but I wasn’t being serious with the drawing at all. I mean, it’s drawn on notebook paper, after all.

Well, I could write about a lot of things right now. I could write about how someone set some trash on fire in the elevator and set the dorm’s fire alarm off at 11pm a few nights ago. I could write about how I almost got to see this really fat cop face plant into the cement when he tried to jump over a guard rail and missed. I could write about how I [almost] got lost in Marietta last week, or I could speculate about whether or not someone likes me. I think the last three sentences pretty much sum it all up, though, so I’m not going to do that.

I like road trips. I like wandering aimlessly. I like ambling on to something new and different, something that I haven’t seen before. I’m convinced that I love adventure, but, even more so than that, I love companionship, having someone that walks beside you on such a journey. It makes it more fun, sharing the experience with another person. As much as no one really understands what I write, it’s a welcome change to be able to relate, even if in a remote way, to someone else. In such a case as this, it’s that both people are participating in the same adventure, pointing things out to one another.

I got the opportunity to drive this girl I like home. She lives a good way away, though. She had a ride planned, but something came up. I couldn’t have just left her there, right? I mean, it was 1 AM in the morning. Calling someone to pick her up would have at least taken an hour. I mean, it would have just been plainly despicable of me to leave her there, so I made the ~32-mile round trip to Temple. It would have been perfect if I wasn’t taking someone else home, as well. I don’t know. I guess I’m just being greedy. I don’t even know if she really likes me like that. She’s the same one that wants to marry me if neither of us are married in our thirties. You’d think that would be a dead give-a-way, right? She also wants to meet my mom to have tea. By the way, she’s half Japanese on her mother’s side, so I think that that explains the tea bit. I just really don’t want to end up making a mistake or becoming wrapped around someone’s finger. It’s not that I’m afraid of heart ache; it’s really that I don’t want to waste my time. I guess that with me I would prefer that people were more open with me, though I do realize that that’s a pretty selfish wish. Oh, well.

Have you ever wondered when you overhear someone talking about how much they like or dislike other people about how much they like or dislike you? I mean, it’s not that you like this person romantically. You’re just curious. Then you start to wonder whether or not you’d be the disliked. You compare yourself to the people that are mentioned, and you make a guess. Something like that happened to me, but I guessed wrong. Sometimes we’re better off in ignorance, to say the least…

Anyway, I’ve decided to take a different route for my do-over speech. I’ve incorporated a theme instead of doing the violence thing I mentioned in my last entry. The theme is “Consumerism.” The speech starts out with a circuitous route regarding sharing which leads to the topic stated plainly this time (i.e. “Americans can’t listen anymore.”) I’ve already planned to throw things like “These people just can’t pay you the attention that you require.” Genius, no? Will it get thrown back in my face like the last one? Probably, so one’s own words must be wholesome enough to eat, should that be necessary. Looks like I’ve some work to do on that one.

Whether you know it or not, I had a Calc test on Monday and had to give a speech today. It’s been kind of hectic. I really think I did well on the test, but apparently my speech wasn’t so hot. Now I have to do it over again differently. I really thought that it was good though. I’m not angry; it’s just that doing it over differently isn’t the way I would have done it had I really been giving the speech to a real audience. Granted, we don’t have grades in that class, so I’m obligated to do it. He said be blunt, so I’m going to be quite clear in the revision of my speech…

Our assignment was to write a speech about something we believe in strongly. My thesis statement was “I believe Americans don’t listen to anyone anymore, and I believe we need to do something about it.” The main points were that Americans are brought up to be isolated (primarily because of TV), are impatient (TV again), and ultimately violent because they can’t find a way to relate to other people. We had to use two quotes from authority, which I did. We also had to use a story, which I used as an opener. I closed by saying that it is the job of America’s parents to prevent their kids from an isolated, impatient, and violent lifestyle. I even threw in examples in a parallel construction throughout the conclusion…

What do I have now? I have the task of “fine-tuning” something I was proud of doing. I think this time I’m going to emphasize violence more. I think I’ll open with rhetorical questions this time. I’ll use biting words, like “explode” and “destroy,” oh, or “failure.” I won’t start out with isolation, since that in and of itself is tame. I’ll start out with violence this time, and I’ll qualify it with isolation and impatience. I’ll be blunt: people don’t care about what you have to say, because they can’t understand you. I think I’m going to blame the audience to keep their attention. Something like, “We all point fingers when things go wrong, but we should really be pointing to ourself. Somewhere along the line, our children have been failed.” Yeah, then I’ll add in a quote from the Columbine catastrophe. Stick to the point, and be very clear; that’s what I’ll do.

I got involved in a relationship that I didn’t want to be in from the get go. “Why?” You may ask. At that time I liked a different girl than the one I asked out, but the reason was because of another girl, who wouldn’t leave me alone about asking this girl out. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot. You know before you do it that it’s going to hurt you, but you don’t know just how much it will until you’ve done it. Now I walk with a limp when certain people are around. It was a mistake.

Apparently, for all my fallacy, I’m a “good” guy. The situation is awkward, though. I don’t want to make it sound childish, but sometimes love is. You see, there are these two girls at my job that I’m friends with. They’re both very fun people to be around, and, to be honest with you, they’re the reason why I look forward to my weekends. I overheard one of them talking about me, though, and now I’m distraught. It wasn’t bad, except that she was frustrated that she can’t have me because of the other one. This one girl is really beautiful, according to the girl I overheard, and and it’s because of her that I’m unavailable… or am I? (she was talking under her breath) Am I just some goal in a rivalry bout or is it honest affection? This girl already has a boyfriend, so I’m leaning toward the rivalry bit, though I’m not sure how much of a goal I would be anyway.

So, here’s my question: “Do you think it’s possible for a girl to really like a guy when she is involved with a different one?” (or) “From 1 to 10, how bizarre is this situation?”