chapter twenty: poetic device/instrument of the flesh

everyone has their own demons to carry, thats for sure, having been unemployed for six months ive had my hands tied up in looking for jobs and running myself ragged, as well as being completely swept up in a relationship drama of every sort. My friends have been having growing pains of their own, im still waiting for blake to post so i can put together the final episode of lipsynch lullabyes together before we start filming the first season of episodes, and get the cast together which poses another issue of itself but i digress. over the past few months, ive been wrestling with many things, including a secret relapse of alcoholism to the point where to get any sleep at all i was drinking every night, even going so far as to steal a little bit of my brothers extensive stash of booze. ive been completely ripped open over the fact that i had such a terrible relationship with matt someone who i thought at first i had a really good connection with but ended up being broke up with by him twice.After that i finally had the brains to not take him back for this indignity, but when i tried to be civil because its the type of person i am he spat it back in my face we ended up getting into a gunslinging war of insults over text message and i got chewed over by his new boyfriend whom ive never met dont care to and  frankly feel a little sorry for just because hes ignorant both to the story and history between HIS boyfreind and the person hes attempting a confrontation with , as well as because i know he will end up being hurt by matt like i was because he seems to have developed feelings for him which is a dangerous avenue to persue because i know how honestly afraid matt is. a part of me bleeds for this poor soul whos so caught up he cant see hes about to be ripped apart by a tiger shark whos incapable of talking beyond simple words without getting pissed off at the other person having an opinion different or otherwise. What hurts most though is that this all has dredged up the pain and memories i buried deep in my subconscious..the memories o my first love brian with whom i still have yet to speak with since defriending him over a year ago. ive been through a lot of soul searching, there were times that i doubted the existence of god at all in these past few years, my faith has been tested and im finally reconcilled my religious leaps of faith, with both my own inner struggles and the things i know all too well to be absolutely true no guessing or faith required. i had spent my time in recent years cursing god but with my job interview coming up soon and my inner strength and virtue and general light returning i feel more at peace with my creator. ive been through a complete makeover of the soul and found out that i wasnt over half of the stuff i thought i was and that i should learn to grieve instead of repress.its been a growing exercise in my life recently. who can say if ive been changed for the better , i think so , i like to believe so, but i know for certain ive been changed for the good, and recently learned that ive been a great influence on some people but with some need to step up my role, ive stopped thinking of myself as a person in personal terms but in a less selfish incarnation of what a person can be, i have learned to think of myself in terms of an activist or icon . i have learned to think of myself as....thats it . i have learned to think of myself, i thinks thats what in therapy they call a break through

Chapter nineteen: slam bam thank ya mam

i thought something good was coming, i thought it was gonna be great i thought, heres my fairy tale
FUCK NO, it was going good until i got dumped then got recycled and then dumped again, never again, i think im supposed to have the life of a whore or else i would have at least had a long term relationship by now, im not asking for marriage here but for someone to have interest in me for at least a month is that so damn hard, i just dont know why i try anymore, i could have done so much better but no i thought personality must be underneath but turns out the personality underneath was a douchebag, ive been unemployed, for about six months now, i am going crazy ive been writing a lot, and planning life, but i keep ending up to this place where theres no way out and i feel as though im going to be in this state for a while, first im broke now im such a free loader because im 18 and have no job, although the economy is bad im supposed to have jobs even though there arent any im supposed to have about twelve, because im apparantly god and can make something out of nothing, im glad to find that out instead of a pond out back im going to have a big ass hole full of wine now, when i figure out how that trick works it seems like everything is somehow my fault and i dont know how it got this way, but i keep trying, i spent the entire trip to carowinds with my family hating the world , i think its myself i hate a little bit more because i know that most of what they say has some bearing of truth , and i despise myself for it

Chapter eighteen: the L word

for the longest time i didnt believe in fairy tales
that is until last sunday.
i went to green street a club in greensboro not far from where i live
it was my first time clubbing since i turned 18
i went with my older brother primarily because i was his designated driver.
the first few minutes were awkward and a little bit intimidating like being a fresh peice of meat in a lions den
and a little overwhelming being in a room with so many gay people a feeling i hadnt felt since my first party at my friend chris's house. i was introduced to a lot of new people and started to find my groove for the night i decided to step back and take a smoke break next to the bar when a blonde girl walks up to me and introduces herself. " hi im Ashley" she said i told her my name in return and she replied with my friend the one who just walked that way thinks your really cute, she took me over and introduced me and within a few minutes we were dancing which was very nice considering h was a really good dancer. a few minutes later we were off the dance floor dying from the heat and decided to sit down and get to know each other, we talked for the rest of the night until my brother came to tell me he was ready for me to ferry his gin soaked ass home. we exchanged numbers before i left and before i knew it we were texting non stop. whats wierd about that is that we had so much in common it was astounding. i dont want to say it but im quite certain this boy could be husband material, the more and more i talk to him the more i find he has the qualities im looking for in a signifigant other but im so afraid that this one will be perfect and my bad luck or big mouth will fuck it all up. all i know is hes asked me out on a date tomorrow and NOTHING will stop me from going, perhaps this is my moment after all the absolute bullshit and good karma ive built up the universe or god or whatever it is that controls fate, has finally decided ive suffered enough and prooved myself enough to finally have th happiness ive been searching for perhaps this could be the first meaningful relationship ever ......dare i say it perhaps it could be the start of .....love .... one thing is for sure its definitely the start of a good start to something good :)

Chapter 17: funny the way it is

inspiration... it can strike at any moment, and leave when you need it most. My muse has been good to me over the years, and when im not hearing her in my ear its usually because shes telling me i need to find inspiration by fixing my old work. as i grow more and more as a writer ive been maturing but the one thing remains the same. i write from the heart, alone at two or three am when the world is asleep and im feverishly typing away at whatever computer i happen to have access to. as ive grown ive kept elements lost elements, and always continued to change and innovate but never losing my style and never compromising gthe integrity of characters for the purpose of the plot. its a passion and i know it has always been a love of mine, ever since i started writing in first grade when i would piece together little short children stories. Writing has always been a voice when i felt i had none, and it never stopped to improve over the years i learned that i suck at writing books, but i have a true talent at writing scripts because i simply see the story in my mind and write it out , work on it , develope the dialogue and carefully craft my way from one point to another with a rather unique style. and as my inspiration comes and goes i become more and more invested in finding it once again, and the only way i know to find anything is to expand my view, and look within myself for the things i cannot find externally. in doing this i have moved from being the little child making miniscule storybooks , to the dorky kid writing fantasy sci fi books, to the script writer who was a punk teenager with mortality and bloodshed on the mind, just trying to understand his nightmares, and starting out writing movies and theatre inadvertantly by starting out writing by simply making a script based on what i would have done differently in the movie scream which i thought was the most inventive story in modern horror when i was in middle school and quite uncool. Eventually i became invested in writing storys instead of circumstances with a few lines, i learned to craft a character that was true and real and that people could care about. I eventualy grew out of my shyness and began to open up about my writing both by writing characters that each carried a piece of me and as well as being able to let people read what i had written. in the end i think it was actually my writing that helped me come out all those years ago when i was in ninth grade and had just started to do real writing or the first time. and eventually moved from being the horror writer to being the dramatic horror writer to being the trageic dramatic thriller writer to being the tragedy/love/drama/horror/happyness/triumph and pretty much all facets of life writer that i am today . and as i was watching videos on youtube, i stumbled across one i hadnt seen in a long while but i distinctly remember it capturing my attention when i first saw it back in 2007 on daytime tv when i was skipping school to be away from the world of the shallow people i was forced to be educated with. it was a phenominon. and it took until 2007 for it to happen on daytime but it was the first kiss of luke and noah on as the world turns which i remember watching biting my nails heart pounding hungry for more, then i remembered how i had never really started watching before then but then got really sad when it all ended in 2010 but stumbling across the old nuke vid made me inspired to write a soap opera about some version of the truth of what i remember experiencing and witnessing in highschool and im going to share it with the world

Chapter ...Oh fuck i forgot

so .... its been months since i last blogged but for the record nothing much has changed. Life still continues to make me its bitch. no strike that people still manage to fuck with my life , namely people i havent even met yet. I know i have some rather whorish tendancies but even i take no joy in getting fucked over by people who ive never met or harmed or done anything to. The purpose of this ranting is not to have a woe is me moment but to proffess how much i thoroughly despise the way the education system where i live works. 17 years, ive given SEVENTEEN FUCKING YEARS to being a good person and taking what im given and working around it and being a good sport when i plan around shit and then watch those plans be ruined at the last second by someone or having everything be changed or just completely nullified. I am a thespian , acting is quite literally in my blood, i love theatre with a passion, its the highest form of art, immediately under it is my third love in life music, ( the second love of course being men [ hot ones that think im attractive not the ugly ones that are living proof that sterilization of some people is a good thing]) the thing i love about theatre is its all encompassing , everything you learn from all walks of life, literally everything i have ever learned in any classroom, is both applicable and conversely is enhanced by theatre. as well there are also a lot of things i have learned from theatre that i would have never learned anywhere else, it is in fact a seperate world that effects the rest of the world and is effected by the rest of the world but yet amazingly still maintains its own individualism , in short it is just like me as a person. is it any wonder that theatre is the subject i chose to do my senior project on. ; a project that is supposed to teach us about organization ( theatre is also well organized) but as it turns out this project is the most disorganized hot mess of a thing i have ever seen and has gone from seeminly easy to fucking impossible in the blink of an eye for me. My product, which is the second biggest part of your grade on the project right after the research paper, was a show, write the script, cast it , direct it do the lighting plots for it build the sets obtain or create the props, ( i opted to help my fellow thespian friend blake by lettin her do the makeup and costuming for it) as well as arranging the publicites booking the stage, organizing rehearsals, etc. the list goes on and on because to accurately take part in all the aspects of a theatrical production, or at least all the technical aspects, you find you have no more space in your hat drawer when your done dabbling in them all. The first snag in the damn thing was getting a mentor , which i am still unable to do the second was scripting because at the time of scripting my now ex friend barb was supposed to be the choreographer and producer althought she ended up backing out and had no fucking clue what a producer does, nor did she ever ave the ability to pull her head out of her boyfriends lap to take the time to do any of those duties , yet another hat i had to add to my vast collection. after scripting it she of course wanted to cast it and as the director you must take a particular interest in who is cast , that is to say your the one who casts it , well as it turns out she didnt tell anyone about the casting but rather was going to rely on some of the flightiest people who she for some undetermined reason idolizes even thought they arent exactly hot shit and talk about her as if she were a huge joke, after careful examination of our friendship after it had run its course, i came to the conclusion that indeed she is one, and a manipulative backstabbing ship jumping , pretensious, two faced, harlottesq, one at that. when she did not manage to break the production i had the arduous task of making up for all the time she squandored while making empty promises and lies that she had actually done what she was supposed to , aka pulling her end of the duties. starting with the booking of the auditorium, and casting the show. i had gotten that done after what amounts to pulling teeth, and had amassed myself a schedule that provided a full week for building set, and then another two for rehaersals and getting the music and rigging the lights, that would need to be brought from my personal collection at home because they didnt come standard in our system. but then last week , i learned that they moved the date up to four days after the spring musical ... which i was already splitting my time with because im in that as well as being the god like figure captaining this show. the date for the presentations of the whole damned thing was now moved to may 11th , MY damn ship has been sunk . i may not graduate now because i have nothing prepared, simply because i now have no time because they moved things to a date that is a full month ahead of when it was originally all to be due, i was already going to be cutting it close because of the fact that i have been job searching rehearsing, trying to simply keep myself alive, and get all my classwork done and this , now i learn that they move the damn date up to before the only time i was able to get the auditorium, and i now have no product no mentor only two meetings with my advisor ,.... basically meaning the portfolio portion of the grade is completely gone and im going to have to pull something out of my ass or fail my last year of high school because of some stupid guinea pig program they instituted recently thats going to be the deciding factor as to wether or not you get a diploma the whole time we were working on it theyve been changing the guidlines and ive been struggling to work around it but now i have literally no time. to do any of the things i had planned and i will probably not have actors because they all have lives, and arent going to give up the only time i would now have to get in a single rehearsal which i would have to film to prove we actually did something. The only thing the school system where i live has ever tried to do is to churn out future medical students future teahcers and future ass kissing assistants to future ceos. But if you want to have a life that has any substance or meaning im sorry but your going to have to do all this without a diploma good luck getting the part time job you need to keep your happy as off the streets and fed because thats no longer happening because weve decided to fuck you over one last time before your finally free, we saved the best for last, and the best part is you could have either dropped out or graduated early last year, and been fine because you would have ended up in the same fucking place but now your future is ruined and weve wasted your present hahahahahahahah. to this i say FUCK YOU ALAMANCE BURLINGTON SCHOOL SYSTEM AND FUCK FUCK FUCK < MURDER< AND FUCK YOUR CORPSE WITH A TWO FOOT DISEASED MAGGOT COVER DICK whoever inveted the graduation project, i swear to god i may fucking have 20 pounds left from starvation by the time i get that bare foot of mine in the door but when im on top , i swear im going to use my hard earned influence to get kids to drop out and when they do noone will pay your checks and you will all know the struggles im now going to have to face. ..... so if there was ever any doubt this is why i smoke like a freight train, and drink so much , and am probably destined to have a crippling bout with alcoholism, EDUCATION HAS BEEN A COMPLETE WASTE OF MY FUCKING TIME NOW ALL THINKS TO A FEW JACKASSES WHO MAKE TOO FUCKING MUCH MONEY AND HAVE LOST ALL TOUCH WITH REALITY AND FEEL LIKE PLAYING GOD WELLL SINCERELY FUCK YOU ALL

Chapter Fifteen: the emancipation of a generation

I turned 18 recently , finally legal, and already life tastes a little sweeter, but it doesnt completely lack the bite of bitter events, one of which is soon i will be thrown out into the world all on my own and im just starting to tap into a higher more mature part of my artistic soul. But its seeming as though either its happening to slow, or im going to have more than i bargained for as far as struggling to achieve my dreams goes. But as they say luck favors the drunk and the foolish and i find myself often being both. the truth is i know a lot, but i dont know everything and lately the stress has caused me to not be able to articulate what im trying to say into word and poetry as is usual. and just when i started to get into making my music, but none the less i shall eventually get back to that purity its just a matter of time, ie learned if i take a few poems that are about the same subject and take whats most powerful from each and add in the little bits of lines and rythms that will make them connect cohesively it makes for the best music the most honest and undilluted and focused music. which is good because lately writting my song lyrics ive found myself becoming add. maybe its a sign that either i need to revisit my older works and expand improve and polish, or work on my script writting again, the creative juices are flowing but the stress is taking its toll, perhaps i will do both who knows, all i know is im accquiring the skills to survive on my own , and im going to find a way to survive but for the first time in my life i feel completely confident that i can be independant and for the first time in a long time it seems like the only dillema ( aside from lack of a partner) is that i have to coose what road to travel down first, graduation is coming up fast, after that im on my own, provided i can find a job and support myself im going to be allright and im going to be able to focus solely on my art while i make ends meet and live life and experience everything i can the future is bulletproof the aftermath is secondary. and i have a hollowpoint smile just waiting to detonate

Chapter Fourteen: OH YOU FANCY HUH?

its a strange release leting go of a parasite thats been sucking you dry. No im not talking about a tapeworm or a ringworm or leech or anything, im talking about a person. This particular person was supposedly my friend. Her name Barb, her specialty : DRAMA, with a degree in instigating it, she has a rare talent from starting bullshit out of thin air. Im a very compassionate person, a very caring very trusting person. I became friends with this person but somehow fell under the illusions thrown in my face. after a grand total of a year, ive been through more bullshit because of her than because of anyone else. She used to ditch me here and there but we'd eventually hang out sometime during the week so i overlooked it ...foolishly but thats me always giving the benefit of the doubt. Eventually barb had moved herself into my life, without an invitation i might add, but i didnt mind because im not an exclusive person i dont disclude anyone without reason. during the summertime after musical was over, she had stopped hanging out with me and started hanging out with heaven, someone who i didnt have a problem with. I was low on gas one day when barb called me at 11:00 on a saturday to come help out heaven because she didnt know how to change a tire. I hopped in my hoopty being a good samaritan , and by the time i got there she was sitting in the driveway with her spare on, and turned around and said in a rather obnoxious rude tone " what are you doing here". I looked at barb and she said yeah i forgot to call you and tell you she got it on herself. they then without another word left and there i am car on E and i have to go to work in two hours and they just left not a thanks anyway nothing. Later during the week on my day off i called up barb to see if she wanted to hang out. " well im hanging out with heaven today" she told me , to which i replied thats chill can we all three not hang out, " were with heavans grandma" barb said ( probably a lie but i have no proof) over the phone i heard heaven say " i dont want to hang out with that loser". Now lets examine this here because this was my first redflag. why would you continue to hang out with someone , without setting them straight after they ditched your bestfriend?, particularly a bestfriend that you let someone call a loser, although apparantly i wasnt too big a loser for her to call me when she didnt know how to change a tire, but i digress. weeks went by eventually their relationship kind of went the way of the birds and once again i was the guy to call. after a while of hanging with my gay friend chris, who went to middle college with barb before she transferred back to western ( to be in musical of course ), who was asking me how i could stand her, and informed me that she had talked crap about me behind my back. i dismissed it as maybe miscommunication but i still held on to my suspiscion. Later during the year barb got a boyfriend and was always busy with him never having time for anyone else. One night at 1am i get a call , i answer to a hysterical barb asking if i could come pick her up, ( this had not been the first time i had gotten a "can you come pick me up" call at such a late hour but it was the first time it had the hysterical crying with it. "im at my house my aunts are kicking me out" she blubbered through her sobs. I went a picked her up and brought her back to my house. I arranged for my friend blake to house her.  after which , i never saw her for a solid few months , in fact outside of our classes i barely saw her at all, neither did blake because all her time was spent at her boyfriends house. well eventually she moved back in with her aunts , after a ton of drama she started in the little bits of time she wasnt with her boyfriend. second semester had begun, and we all had english together, blake barb and myself. I had told barb last year how i wanted to do a show for my senior project. I sat down at our table and barb said "DUSTIN im doing a show for my senior prject and i want you and balke to help me with it" i said what? she said" no im serious im gonna choreograph and produce you can do all the tech and blake will get the makeup and costumes" i said okay because i knew it wouldnt interfere with my directing and i hadnt really started on the product portion yet so it was all good as i was concerned and i assumed she had begun seeing about booking the auditorium and setting up an audtion date , she hadnt. It took forever to get her to sit down and have a meeting with me abotu the song selection so i could write the script around it. we finally got them all and the script was written within two days. I asked to have another meeting to discuss auditioning and the fine points of everything else. She kept dodging. Wednesday we had a meeting set up for right after third period not long just about five to thirty minutes. we both had early release so it wouldnt get in the way of anything. I got to second period and she stopped me and said " i cant make the meeting today because my aunts say i have to go immediately home". her aunts were strict but she had used that line before when it turned out she had just something else she wanted to do more going on or simply didnt want to do it. later that sme day i was texting her explaining the importance of the next meeting and told her we had to get together soon, and that the time for procrastinating was up we had to get things moving. we had set up the meeting for either or the next day thursday , or friday the day after. I didnt go to school on thursday so i texted her at 12:30, she gets out at 1:30 , and asked her where she wanted to meet me at school at her house or somewhere else to be determined, because it didnt make a fuck to me. she never texted back i texted her two more times during the day . The next day in first period , she didnt say a word to me, didnt say a word when i passed her on the way to second. Then she walked into my third period which she isnt in and began talking to everyone but me . I stopped her. " so are we having our meeting today then because you never texted me back" i said " you werent at school yesterday".she replied to which i said " i texted you at 12:30 you never texted back and i texted you two times after that" " you never texted me" she said to which i said " bullshit" she covered and said i mean you didnt text at twelve thirty . I said " do you want to see time sent on the message because i have it" she changed her tone and said " ive been thinking and talking to our english teacher and maybe we should just do seperate shows because i dont like the way this is going nothing is getting done" to which i said " EXCUSE ME!! , nothings getting done, ive been busting my ass doing every bit of work , my ducks are in a row the only worl not getting done is yours which i was going to do anyway but you sdid no its my job dont get in the way of my work it will look bad on me, so ive been fighting your ass to get anything done" i waited for a reply but she was speechless so i said " do your own show good luck but im booking the auditorium as we speak, dont even think about using my script or any of the songs that go with it because they are mine". sat down and talked to someone for a while then left after which i shouted bitch very loudly after her. i explained to her via text after that it was the final straw and she could call someone else to pick her up at 1 am when she needs it because i wouldnt be there im timred of being used and how she only knows my name when she needs something for me i said to her she could take her bullshit and stuff it. ........its funny how since letting out those words and removing this parasite of a person from my life i feel so much better still resentful a little but so much better , i wonder why that is?

Chapter thirteen: Ending a chapter and starting anew

ive been dealing with the onset of a depression lately. Im the most self critical person i know. I hide it with confidence, and false smiles so my hurt doesnt show. But inside im not really sure if im all people see in me. People tell me im beautiful but all i see is ugly. People say im talented, but i only see the things i did wrong. Lately ive been disappointed in myself, and my health has been down. im not sure if i can make it out in the big bad world, and it makes me think of death. Ive never been afraid of death, but im terrified of saying goodbye to my memories and closing chapters, i hope to live my life in a panorama where every moment that was positive will collide. Ive had a lot of happy in my life, a great deal my fair share id say. Its hard to know that when you see its surrounded in misery torment and heart ache. Most of the happiest times in my life where surrounded by unforseeable terrible events. One year sticks out in my mind. 9th grade, my mom finally divorced my little brothers dad who was a tyrant. I finally had made it out of middle school and made a ton of new friends, and i had gotten a lead role for my first year in musical. In the midst of all of this exubberance, was a thick , pendulous cloud of strife. I had encountered homophobia and opposition that year as i had just recently came out. My mom threatened to send me to military school when she heard it , thankfully over the years shes come to be accepting of it as it is a part of my life that i cant change. My grades were good except for math which i nearly failed thanks to one jerk of a teacher, and in the middle of the high times, the unthinkable , my dad passed away just days after i had turned 15. Ill be turning 18 in just a few days and its hard to believe its been 3 years since then. Ill be giving my final performance on my highschool stage that i have come to think of as a second home, and im thinking back on all the memories and realizing that through all of this sadness in my life my one safe haven has been the stage, the place that you think of to be the most intimidating and most vulnerable, your on display when your onstage. . . And thats the beauty of it all, Its where you can be free and where everyone onstage with you, is there by choice , not simply because they have to be or else they will get their parents in trouble for not making them go to school. I think back on all the speeces at the final curtains of several shows and think about all the friends i have grown close to and had to say goodbye to, and yet this year, im the one thats gonna be saying goodbye. ive been thinking about what i would say when they hand me that microphone to honor the seniors. and i think i wonder if everyone feels this way about it, because this is something i want to do all of my life because its the one thing im most passionate about, i truely know what it is to be a starving actor as i have dedicated my time to it reguardless of how it affects other aspects in my life. Ive iven my blood sweat and tears, litteraly and although i havent seen a single physical shred of proof that it was worth while , i have the feeling that it is because no matter what there is nothing that performing doesnt alleviate for me, in fact all te stress and pain and emotional scars in life, have made me better as a performer and there will never be a drug that can compare to the high i feel when im on stage performing. I remember all the backstage antics and all the relationships that were formed ..and staged , ( ive been married seven times in our fantasy world ) all the games of spades and ratscrew that i lost, hiding on the sets that i helped create and move. the times i ran lights for little shows. The times we all gathered around a key board or piano and sang show tunes and songs from the radio. and although all of my friends that arent from theatre dont understand it. I get a urge to cry and laugh and a tingle up my spine simultaneously whenever i hear a song from rent or wicked or chicago or practically any musical. And it reminds me of the large family i have accumulated through the years. In 2008 my father died. In 2008 i gained a new famly all together.

Chapter twelve: grinding gears, and trampling nerve endings

with each passing day i feel more and more overwhelmed, most times for no reason, whats wierd is ive actually been sleeping lately. As a life long insomniac thats always been a struggle but oddly enough ive managed to be asleep at a decent hour for about a week now, unfortunately i come home and pass out recently, as if my insomnia has now taken a switch and given me narcolepsy. Maybe its the stress but the odd thing is i dont really have much stress on my plate but rather am overwhelmed by the stress from the people i encounter and i can feel every bit of stress they feel even if they try to hide it. Not to say my life is serene right now because make no mistake it isnt but theres not the usual amount of insanity, and yet....with each passing day i begin to slip further and further into a mild opaque depression, and further and further into my addictions to self distruction. For some reason i cant focus on anything in school. And i have the innate stress of having too many things lined up in the future that although dont directly affect me are plaguing my thoughts, For starters, im trying to find a job just so i can survive, but i have to be honest in interviews, and thusly have to tell them i am in spring musical and we have rehearsals almost every day during the week in friday. Im not sure how im going to find time to work in any ways of completing the product portion of my graduation project. And whats worse is that during all of this my two close friends who are working with me on it have split and dissociated themselves from each other. Miraculously i was able to reign in the flightiest one of them but the one thats supposed to be level headed is not herself anymore. After getting an underage drinking ticket she has gone off and become a completely different person than the one i have known so well for all these years. I have completed the script for the show we are doing, while finding the time to catch up on all the missing work from english and latin, and go to musical rehearsal and search for a job, but i cant get my friend who was the one bugging me to complete it hastily, ( my hands were tied at the time because it was a colaboration and i had to have a list of songs for which to write around so that they would be relevant to the scene) and now i cant get her to respond to me at all or get it to her to read it. My latin class still is like a hell but ive found that i have a new will power in my apathy to let it all go because im far too distracted with the melodrama and worry that i might not make it through the year to care about the immature homophobes using my head as a target. I had a britney spears moment while cutting my hair, i became distracted and thisly had to bizz my whole head, it looks alright which is wierd because i havent had short hair in upwards of 8 years, and im glad it happened because the huge change has brought a new sense of things as well and taken my mind off of things that have gone wrong. I had my second interview for a job in mebane so hopefully it goes well because i need some good news. But theres still the worry, whats worse is im not sure why but my mind has ben going crazy because of all the guys sending me signals lately that i know are just all in good fun, or intended to look that way, and i cnat bring myself to advance on them because i dont want to put them in an awkward position especially knowing that my highschool experience has been hellacious because everyone knows im gay and perhaps it is best for some to stay in the closet until after its over. Besides that im sure they would not come out anyway because most of them are involved in sports or have girlfriends, although for show they may be i cant in good conscience act upon these urges of mine to attack the problem head on. Meanwhile my attenintion is pulled in another direction as my previous ex the one i told about in previous chapters has stopped talking and responding to me for some unknown reason and it drives me crazy which makes me realize, i do actually have feelings for him although we never met in real life , i still have the feeling that if only we were both older and lived a little nearer that maybe we would be together, because he does possess most if not all of the qualities i search for. I think im completely mad for the sheer fact that everyday recently scenarios are playing in my head and i keep daydreaming and losing focus on what im doing the stress is rising , the tension is nail biting and im quickly discovering that perhaps in a few days when i turn 18 nothing will change for me, which frightens me because that was supposed to be my safety goal where i could finally get some footing and quit sliding through life without any ability to navigate or manuever. Do they make a rehab for people like me, im not even sure but it seems all im really in dire need of is someone to talk to and although everyone around me is not busy and supposed to be my friend it seems like i keep talking and calling out for help, like a person with mortal wounds screaming in a crowded cafe for attention from someone who will summon help, but noone seems to notice, it feels as if im losing my voice as the sanity abandons me. Everyone around me's got problems and the worst part is i feel all of it and it compounds the situations i experience and would normally be able to handle with a great deal of grace but its all slipping for me, and for some undetermined reason ive become an outcast and havent even done anything to evoke this. im in a plethora of confusion and yet noone can seem to find thirty minutes in their daily life to set aside and talk to me in my our of need, but im supposed to be there for them everytime something goes slightly awry for them, im always there when everyone elses world is crashing down but noones there to catch me when im being pushed from the cliff of sanity and hurled into the pit of my own madness. what is this world coming to?

Chapter eleven: the rights of passage

can be truely said im not your average person, and i have either an amazing capacity for forgivness and empathy or an incredible capacity for stupidity. In fact im worse at holding grudges , than i am at holding a steady relationship. Sometimes thats a good thing but im not really sure. Like for instance i had an ex bf named nathaniel, who was not really a bf persay as to say i pretty much agreed to date him on the premise that (A. I was quite certain he would be one of those many people who makes all these grand plans to meet up and hang out with me and go on a date but ends up never following through. and (B. I pretty much figured if i said yes to this kid he would quit mac-ing on me every time i got on facebook. This was a nice guy and i didnt want to hurt his feelings but he was far to young for me. That is to say three almost four years younger than i. But eventually all the talk wore me down into saying yes based on the premises listed previously. After a while he started texting me every day, always with the sweetest things you would want to hear, and he was comletely sincere about them, which was to say shocking. As a person who has often been the one that gets played and therefore never really had a serious date aside from hook ups that are meaningless to the people involved but mean something to me on some level. Eventually after steady conversation into the wee hours of the night for upwards of a month, i somewere along the line started to develop feelings toward this person. But then as always something goes wrong as it always does. I looked on facebook ( seems to be a common reccuring pattern i think theres a convention i swear all the guys ive ever had anythign going with must all know each other in some six degrees of kevin bacon way and consort on ways to drive me insane) , i looked on facebook and he had changed his relationship status to in a relationship....with our mutual ex. I had no idea, he hadnt told me, and was still texting me as if we were still talking. I texted him when i saw it and asked about it, he came clean  but then gave me the we can still be friends line. I went a little overboard about it but then we got in a fight and some words were said that shouldnt have been from both of us. Either way i was hurt and had held a grudge for quite some time. Until a couple of months ago when i re friended him on facebook. And the bridge is still strong between us, i will probably never date him or resume talking ( as they call it) but we can still be friends. And after spencers whole issue occured, he was there to counsel me. and told me something that amazed me. I was having my usual spiral , that all the men ive ever been with think of me as a whore, and are only in it and only tell me things that i want to hear, because they think they can get what they want, after they get it , or get tired of waiting theyre gone. I had convinced myself that everyone of them was full of bs. and i told him this. I wasnt he said, i was completely honest about everything with you, i was seriously serious about wanting a relationship with you, he said to me. and i thought to myself maybe its not all in vain that im so forgiven , somepeople will never change, but some people no matter how dispicable what they do to you is , deserve a second chance. thats my thought for right now. The senior project i have to do is really plaguing me at the moment. I had originally back last year set my project up as being theatre, i was planning to do a show. Then my friend barb asked me and blake to be part of her recently topic changed project, and now theres issues of stepping on toes and its just a big mess. I have a fan that im not sure who it is, i keep thinking to myself, how amazing it is that someone read my work , how greatful i am that they only had nice things to say. And lastly , who is it because the names are anonomous, And how bizzarre would it be if it turned out to be someone i knew. These thoughts plague me. so now i have a mystery on my hands to distrat me from my furry towards one of my friends who is procrastinating and therefore making me either decide to exclude her from the decisions process and make her deal with it , or possibly fail by being polite and waiting for possibly eternity for her to get me a list of songs around which to write the show. im still not sure what i should do. but the time for dicking around has come to an end and its time to work, i dont know how it will turn out but its going to be dramatic im sure, it always is.

Chapter ten: Dear Mr. President, your no hero for the common people

Its amazing how far weve come as a society. We have gone from living in huts and living off of berries and small animals, to living in buildings made of steele that reach up thousands of feet into the air. Weve gone from nudists who had to eat things raw to being flashy fashionistas who fly about in airplanes bigger than they need to be. Weve gone from being a world that is ruled by white land owning men that depend on the labor of enslaved africans to being a society where anyone over the age of 18 can have a say in how the country is run. Weve gone from knights fighting over religious control in jerusalem to being corporate leaders fighting over economic domination and stocks. Weve come far as people but some things never change. Still in this country we are overly abundant in ignorance. We still go around quoting a book that was written thousands of years ago and translated so many times its no longer the same. We go around dictating and jusging people based on words in this book, where it also says , that man is not fit to judge another man and thusly is the biggest sinner of all when they do so. Yet still we live in a society where someone is demeaned , harrassed, abused , bullied , murdered, and treated as second class citizens simply because they are attracted to members of the same sex. My faith in humanity is severly low. As a gay guy in highschool in north carolina , i can tell you first hand that , things havent changed. Everyday i get called the word faggot, the most demeaning term in the english language, by people who dont even know me, and are afraid to say it to my face. In my second period class last semester and my third period this semester im forced to be in an enviroment with some of the most ignorant closed minded hypocritical people it has ever been my displeasure to meet. I hear them in the back of class mumbling slurs like faggot under their breath directed at me. I feel the erasers and crayon peices and trash and other various projectiles that they throw at me slap the back of my neck with the burn of the hatred that was invocked upon throwing it. I dont understand how people that dont know me or anything about me, people who i dont say anything to or in any way try to infuriate would want to intentionally cause me pain simply because im gay as if my sexual orientation had the slightest bit of signifigance to their lives. Im forced to be in class with these people, and its not all the people in the class, i dont disturb class i dont bother anyone i mind my own business and do my own work. Yet day after day i have to endure being humiliated and harrassed. Im not one to swallow my pride, in fact ive had a history of violence. During my middle school years i was in and out of the principles office, my peak was three times in one week. I had a lot of fights, i never started any of them but i always got suspended. I was teased and humiliated for not only being short , but gay. And i was particularly hesitant to come out of the closet because of the bullying i experienced in my middle school years. One particular fight that is still talked about amongst members of my senior class is my fight with a kid named aaron who had called me faggot and shoved me into a desk. I lost all of my cool at that moment and leaped upon his back and put him in a tight choke hold, I was going to kill him literally and truely. Luckily before he was to the point of passing out my teacher walked in and we were both hauled into the principals office where i once again was suspended. Ive come a long way since then i have learned a lot of self control since then and since 8th grade have not gotten into a fight at school. Like i said its hard for me to walk away and let things go especially malicious things like this , things like this are the cause for events like columbine. Today was the worst day, its only six or so days into the new semester, and ive been harrassed up to my boiling point. In fact today i thought i was going to go to jail for murder because i did not think my self control was going to last. I sat minding my business and continually was bombarded with things thrown at my back while im just trying to take my test. At one point i turned around and shouted to the corner of the room from whence the things were coming and shouted very loudly. " Whoever is throwing shit at me over there, the next thing that hits me is the last straw im going to take the broom in the corner over there and knock you out with it knock it the fuck off!" as soon as i turned around another thing hit me in the neck. My hands tightened as i squeezed my pencil and heard it snap in my grasp. Unfortunately for me im in a precarious position, the administration staff does not look out for us gay students ( the whole three of us). If i get harrassed it goes unnoticed if i complain all ive done is give the harrassers a reason to escalate the situation into violence, but if i fight back im going to get suspended. If i get suspended it goes on my record and no college will accept me because of it. I have spent three years enduring hell and dealt with it well, i have bit my tongue so many times it practically has holes in it. And if i didnt need latin 2 to graduate i would drop the class. After the bell rang i went to lunch to vent to my good friends, and after lunc ws over i got in class first and had a conversation with my teacher who said he'd talk to them and tell them to knock it off. The final bell rang and clss was back in session once again the back of my head was a bullseye. I nearly lost my cool when the bell finally rang and i could go home and smoke a cigarette to calm me down. Im to the breaking point with being harrassed and not quite sure i can take any more of it. Its a shame that so much has changed and yet gay people are still harassed and treated as if we were slaves. Its a subservient society we live in and we are far from where we should be, some of the most talented influential people in history were part of the minority that still today is denied the right to marry and its legally permissable to treat us like we have no civil rights at all, school especially is a battleground everyday i myself worry about wether or not one of the homophobic people i go to school with is going to commit an act of violence against me that i wont see coming and get away with it. I have to fear for my life because the media and the parents and american society in general has taught generation after generation to fear and hate and debase gay people, they are taught its okay even "the right thing to do" they are taught to hate. why is it this way and why is it that i no longer feel safe to walk around. It shouldnt be like that for anyone living in america, especially now that everyone else has their rights in full, Its now worht a three day suspension to say the word " nigger" but yet i get called a faggot at least four times a day and noone seems to bat an eyelash. Its a fucked up world we live in

Chapter Nine: everday is an adventure

Today has been one of those days, the average for me what others call extraordinary. I dont exactly lead the humdrum life. it started out with my usual routine , although i seemed to wake up later than usual, im normally awake by 5:30 lying idle in bed at 6:00 and up an'at em' by 7:00 , and leaving by 7:10. Today however i awoke with a jolt and looked at my phone which i for the first time in a while had actually put on full volume instead of the recently normal vibrate setting. I gazed blurry eyed at the screen and saw that it was now 7:20. and i had to be at school and should have been on the road ten minutes ago and i wasnt yet dressed or in any way ready. I leapt out of bed seized the pair of pants in my drawer and a shirt ( thank god it matched i was so late i didnt even care). I rushed up stairs washed my hair and brushed my teeth simultaneously without getting any spit or foam in my hair. got dressedgoing down the stairs, grabbed my phone and my jacket. I rifled through my burea and retrieved the lone cigarette i had hidden in my video case where i put the nasty basic ultra light 100's i steal from my mom when im running low on cigarettes and have no money. - the night before i had gotten my w2 from target and my last pay check in the mail, ( incidentally my horoscope for that day stated "youll be coming into some money today")-. Grabbed the check and the w2 slipped on my shoes and hustled out to my car. It started the first time much to my surprise. I kicked it into reverse backed up the hill put it into first and lit out of the dirt road driveway like a bat out of hell. I got on the mainroad and proceeded toward school on my usual path at about 80mph. not even sweating when the cops passed me by. lighting my cigarette while driving with my knee-cap and changing the radio station. after a little whil i had made it to school the time had now advanced to 7:45 miraculously i was not late ( its miraculous because going the speed limit my house is half an hour away from the school ). I saw my friend amber who had been dropped off because her car was borrowed by her mom whilst her moms car was in the shop. She asked me if i could give her a ride after school i replied yes. Then asked what she was doing during the early release gap between then and when we had to come back for rehearsal she said nothing. She asked if it would be chill for her to roll with me i said yeah which was beneficial because amber is 18 and has an id. After a long class day, lots of fun in first, learning i had won the senior superlative of "most likely to quote a movie in conversation" in homeroom, leg pain like having a dentist drill attacking my tibia and fibula in second, and rolling blackouts in third, i got out of school and met amber in the commons. We zipped out of the parking lot and proceeded to the bank to cash my check. after going through the bank equivalent of airport security i got my whole $27.37 from my last week of work at target and spent five of it on a pack of marlboro menthols ( they were on sale so i decided for them as apposed to my usual L&M's). We went to rehearsal after a breif luncheon at smcakdonalds ( as i call it) . Rehearsal was full of laughter and playful banter as well as choregraphy improvs that would make anyone laugh, it was a theatrical day for me, i played characters and worked in my rather unorthadox way to discover what i was to bring to my role of sir evelyn oakly in anything goes. Afte rehearsal i took amber and aubrey ( aubz) home which wasnt too awful far from the school. after taking a long wrong turn i eventually ended up on university drive and followed my way down to target to sort out my tax ordeal with my flawwed w2. I got back in my car got gas two minutes after my gas light made its unwanted debut once again on my instrument panel. I decided while i was in the neighborhood to go to my previous first place of employment to see if my w2 from there was in and if not talk to holly about it. I got there and got my w2 and reviewed it with my friend lauren who hadnt heard that i got terminated , so i explained the story to her while we sat there after shooting the breeze on our sex lives for a brief minute. During my explaination one of the guys from swim team approached the counter which was what he usually did. he held out a dollar to me as if to ask for something from the snack bar, i started to take it because it had been outstretched toward me for about a minute, i started to think it was a tip. Lauren grabbed the bill before i could get it and said he dont work here anymore fool. The guy asked why not. i explained briefly that it was just a thing of my employment there had run its course. He didnt seem to understand so i resorted to using an analogy. "its sort of like on facebook when your webpage times out" i said. I dont have a facebook he replied. What! i could not believe this kid had no idea about facebook. Lauren looked at me and said hes a youngin. this was a tall guy. I asked him how old he was he replied 14. Thats nothing i said kids your age are all over the map, i once got hit on by a 14 year old. he looked distonished. He thought for a moment i was talking about him,. no no i explained i was just saying 14 is a pretty mature age as far as mentality and behavior goes , your well old enough to know about and even have a facebook. he breathed a sigh of relief and said i thought you were calling me gay. I said no he said good because i get in fights with people when they call me gay. Lauren and i looked at each other then back at him, then in unison said WHY? He explained that he didnt like gay people, i explained in return that i was gay. He looked both embarassed and a little wierded out, i said do you not like me. NO i mean i dont have anything against gays they just wierd me out i wont get within a foot of a gay person he said. in defiance i got in his bubble . he retreated and i was like oh your serious , he goes yeah and then explained an experience he had had with a wierd person in general who just happened to be gay. i explained to him that not all gay people are like that . and we got into a debate over why he should change his views and be more open minded and accepting of people and how just because someone is gay doesnt mean they want to jump your bones or are going to rape you when you let your guard down ( although in my experience emotionally this is true with all people in the world). I told him, just because someone is gay doesnt mean theyre attracted to EVRYTHING that has a penis. At this time my friend Anna walked in and asked what'd i miss. Lauren motioned toward this guy and said to anna " ol boy here is secretly having a little freak out because he just learned that dustin is gay" to which anna looked at him with a serious look on her face like she often gets when about to share words of wisdom and said Why?. The guy responded, i just dont like gay people. Why? anna asked again a little more assertively. Then he replied that gay people creep him out to which anna sat up and began her speech. " your gonna go nowhere in life with that kind of attitude honey. youve got to learn to accept people as they come because in the real world you have to deal with all tpyes of people. and they all deserve respect and they are all equal and you should treat them as such. just because someone likes guys doesnt mean theyre a threat to you. and you shouldnt dislike gay people gay people are some of the coolest people in the world you will ever meet you should be lucky to have met one its not as if they wake up one morning and say im gonna be gay today or anything you dont choose your prefferences you should respect all people the same way". To this the guy had no retort and slinked away like a dog with his tail between his legs. Lauren and i applauded anna and her spot on speech i had never had as much respect for a person both for being completely honest and factual and for delivering a verbal bitch slap to someone without using one insult. after some time had passed and we continued to discuss random things i decided to leave after saying goodbye to everyone. I got home and immediately was asked by my mom to go to the grocery store to get some drink and such. Once again i saddled up the hoopty and scurried down the driveway/dirtroad toward greenlevels foodlion. I got there parked and locked my car. I proceeded towards the door a lady was walking to her car with a cellular device in hand , at first i thought she was talkin either on her phone or to herself. But then i realized she was addressing me and figured maybe i might have left my lights on or something. Hey she said to which i hesitantly replied ...hi? Where did you drop mark off she said . i was confused and said who is mark. she got attitude in her voice and posture and looked at me like i was playing dumb and said :"the guy that was in the back of your car.... where did you drop him off?". " lady there was noone in the back of my car , noone would fit in the back of my car" i explained hoping this obviously confused woman might realize she had a case of mistaken identity going on. But more irritated this soccer mom looking 35 ish lady replied in a more irrate tone " dont play with me where did you drop mark off" then muttered under her breaht something garbeled out of which i only registered " im not afraid to call the cops dont mess with me im not playin". I sized this woman up in my mind a little bit and realized she obviously thoguht she was bad a normal person would have been severly mond fucked and scared at the moment, but i however had lived with my dad off and on when i was a child, i was raised in the trap aka franklin street in downtown greensboro, nothing scared me anymore. I looked this woman straight in the eyes and in just the same tone she used towards me i reciprocated " Lady i dont know you , im pretty damn sure you dont know me, i dont know who the hell mark is nor do i give a fuck where he was or wasnt dropped off but you dont know me good day". pissed off she stamped her feet in a cocky entitled manner and Said loudly "Whatever" and stomped off to her car angrily. I sat there thinking wanting eagerly to call after this woman and say " lady i want you to know marijauna is illegal and i suggest you stop smoking it because its effects are obviously too much for you to handle" but i didnt instead i sauntered into the store to get what i came for. As i recounted the story of the events of my day to my friends online and via text, i thought to myself. This kind of day is normal for me, most people have boring days, but for me everyone is an advnture. I always learn something improtant everyday , a "normal day" is very uncommon for me. Im always getting into some shennanigan or something be it comedic dramatic tragic or just plain absurd. My life is a very different and i march to the beat of my own drummer and groove to the vibes of a trippy guitar. I dont know another person in all of history or the current world today jesus included that could or would be willing to walk in my platforms. And i wouldnt change it for anything, Being this different as i certainly am , instills me with a strong belief that im special and being special im going to go places be they  good or bad depending on how i am and how i handle myself and my mind set, i have a positive mind set so maybe its not crazy that i could be famous. Maybe its not crazy that im going to be remembered in years to come after im gone, its amazing to be who i am today, and im no longer ashamed of that .

Chapter eight: behind the music ( lyrics)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Relat-(ion)-sinking-ships

"the past is the past
or so they say
but i cant help bringing it up
in these social outings
and my oh my, isnt it astounding
how people never change
your still the same
and hes the lucky one
so why do you keep
dialing my number all the time
just to feed me the same old tired lines"

i cut my hair and dyed my bangs
change my earrings and my name
and somehow i still fall for your type
and after everyone of them is gone
i still see your face
oh isnt he the lucky one
but does he know the secrets your hiding
and how you just cant
keep my name out of your mouth
maybe its time you figure this out

" the past is the past
or so they say
but i just cant help
brining it up in these social outings
and my oh my isnt it astounding
how people never change
your still the same
isnt he the lucky one
so why do you keep dialing
my number all the time
just to feed me
the same old tired lines"

i gave you my time for free
and kept your sullied memory
you didnt want to keep me
good to know im only worth fucking
and they wonder why im low on self esteem

"the past is the past or so they say
but i cant help bringing it up
in these social outings
and my oh my isnt it astounding
how people never change
your still the same
and hes the lucky one
so why do you keep dialing
my number all the time
just to feed me
the same tired lines"

arent these the places
and the faces
we still treasure mutually
you seem distressed
but your the one thats haunting me
and lately ive been thinking

"the past is the past or so they say
but i just cant help bringing it up
in these social outings
and my oh my isnt it astounding
how people never change
your still the same
and hes the lucky one
so why do you keep dialing
my number all the time
just to give me
the same tired lines"

well maybe im too good for you
but why are we both still longing
your friends could never mean anything
but yet you choose pretty faces and accuainting
over love and extacy

"the past is the past or so they say
but i cant help bringing it up
in these social outings
and my oh my isnt it astounding
how people never change
your still the same
and hes the lucky one
so why do you keep dialing
my number all the time
to give me the same tired lines"

well when you get back to your
charades and poker
remember that for a moment you let
your guard recede for me
pardon me for being upset
when i thought that meant something
keep trying to forget
and crawl back to your closet

The past is the past or so they say
but i cant help bringing it up
in these social outings
i express what you try to repress
but why are you so ashamed and why are you hiding
tag your it because im done with counting
if you want me again well good luck finding
love once lost cant be reclaimed
yet i still fall for your type
the same pretty faces to whom i am nothing
more than just a fling

i wrote this song because i was looking through my yearbook and couldnt help noticing the face of the first true love, again, and then it reminded me of how all my relationships kind fo ended the same way , the only difference is that , they actually had more of a degree of honesty considering that my other ....suitors.. had come out of their closets at least to some degree and it was openly discussed and not a beat around the bush kind of code like thing to them , and unlike those other relationships , i was deeply attatched because up until 11th grade i had been hanging on to the hope that maybe in some sense of some way he ould eventually be in my life in some facett even as a friend because i really would rather have had to endure the pain of watching him living a lie , dating girls and cutting holes in my heart every day than to have to go on life without him in it at all , i would rather be in agony over him but with a tiny ray of hope if it meant that he even noticed me and could recall my name and even play along as if i existd to him as more than just some random face in our highschool population. i was looking through the year book because were doing senior superlatives and i had to figure out who ( a male and a female ) to put for best looking and best hair because they were as of yet unclaimed on my list which is due today. It got me thinking why is it that all my relationships have the same routine crash course. is there some kind of meeting house all these guys go to and meet with the first guy i had sex with and converse and go amongst themselves asking how do i emotionally break this kind trusting person, but get some sexual favors out of it in the process. and then come up with the blueprint of . Introduce yourself. Like everything i like and be very interesting , Particularly the ones that arent so hot. And say all the right things. play around a little bit to keep me thinking they actually might be right for me in some sense by "contemplating via some me time" how to work out the distance thing for those that live out of the county or city which is a great percentage. And for the coupe de gras either string me along for a month and set up date after date that they break or actually meet me and get their fill. and then completely cut me out of their life as if i dont matter whatsoever move on to the guy theyve had waiting on side the entire time. But then after a while work their way so that they are like a ghost that i have to somehow encounter everytime i go online or everytime i walk through the hallway at school silently driving me mad. Even after i remove them from my friends list i somehow still have to see their name pop up on my news feed. Its gotten to the point that i have no idea where im going in my relationships why cant i meet someone who is both gay and an honest to god real person.  it seems as though im either going through this tragic series of events to fuel my creative passions and make me a better writer or to give me something to talk about amongst my friends or the worst of all the possibilities, and i shudder to think this because i enjoy being an optimist , Maybe im destined to be alone or to be a perpetual slut that is continualy duped by guy after guy after guy into giving up the key to the goody jar and not making them leave a deposit as collateral. what is going to become of me later on in life will i grow up to be one of those cat ladys that only has stories wisdom and other things of that nature that amount to nothing but memories and advice for the younger gay generation that seek guidance from their elders, maybe i will end up being the male fag hag, thats far too past their prime to get any action at the clubs in the underground scene btu that everyone still likes to take out buy drinks and listen to the soapbox rants and watch get inebriated and act like a fool. Maybe thats my future, i hope not but one has to wonder. Pray for me that it isnt so and that i meet at least a few guys that think of me as more than just a hard to get one night stand that they will write off later after conquering , like the wild animals that once bagged tagged , turned into a rug is just throw down on the floor of the back room to grace the dust. i dont know what the future holds but hopefully things will improve for me soon because i dont think i have the strength to live that kind of life

Chapter seven: the light that turned the world black

its midnight , and im sitting under s tree in my yard belting at the top of my lungs the lyrics to the song coming out of my mp3 player. And life is good. Even though im unemployed and therefore broke. even though my life has taken a turn for the difficult im breathing. im surviving. and tomorrow im going to get another pack of cigarettes which is gonna help me cope with the situations in my life that are both , impossible to handle by myself, and out of my control completely. i wont stop the sun from rising, i wont stop the clock from running out, all i can do is continue through and try to find a way to brace myself. The best way of which i know how is to focus on the positive, and find new reasons not to pull the proverbial trigger.
Im sure your wondering what does all this have to do with anything and where is the pizazz. Well rest assured there are plenty of details that lead to this state of mind where i am neither euphoric nor depressed nor even apathetic because i care tremendously. It might have something to do with the fact that i finally finished that last little bit of my two year old cough syrup that i got when i had bronchitis , it just so happens to contain hydrocodene which is to be honest amazing. or maybe its because even as the pieces of what has passed before have fallen away , im okay with it because im noticing the parts of me and my life that were most important, although some may see least practical, have remained i have a ton of new ideas for scripts but i cant really start writing them because i have nowhere to put them that i can be satisfied with that its preserved. It relates because last night i was looking through my old works and noticing how i really have grown as a writer since i first started out with writing scripts and song lyrics , back in sixth grade. I noticed that even in my early works ,while repulsive and unrefined to my now evolved sensibilities, i had a quality to it that was both entertaining and cool because i always have said what i felt needed to be said . i masterfully crafted metaphores that explained everything in a relation. and i learned as i wrote. thats all i could ask of myself, and im so glad that back when i was suicidal little preteen me in sixth grade, that i found what i needed to cope and what i needed most which was a reason for living. and as i got older and entered into theatre i found my calling and my compliment. I have found reasons . i have formed families , i have watched friends come and go each of them having enriched me in some way and in return i enriched them. and i learned that religion and foolish things we are indoctrinated into when we are infants dont define us when we grow up. In a few months ill be looking for a new job and a new place to live. i will be struggling to find a way to produce my haunted house that will produce my show that i wrote and find a new way to make my big dreams bigger than life reality. Alll the while creating and exploring the possibilities and growing both emotionally and in wisdom. All the while becoming a new version of that sweet blue eyed child that was oh so charming , that had to hide who e was and somehow found the strength through art and writing to establish himself and say without using any words that " i am who i am and i am unafraid and i wont be changed ". Although change has occurred my appearance is different that secret ingredient is still there and i still wake up every morning feeling like myself. And no hater , no lover , no teacher , no economic situation , drug, job, occupation , or even dream is going to take that away. Im just a new batch of the same original recipee that was born into this world on march 4 of 93 , and i dont think it will ever change, and i pray that it doesnt because i couldnt be happier even as the world around me becomes more and more foreign.

Chapter six: stairway to heaven

For the past few years its seemed as if my world was at odds with itself. Although then again i guess it always kind of will be otherwise it would never be progressing. Ive reevaluated a lot of things in my life lately , particularly my love life, and ive figured out that maybe im just better off living out fantasies and fettishes than i am waiting on mr. right , and just make do with mr. right now. Maybe its just not meant to be that i will find the perfect guy without transitioning. And plus it seems like every guy i find that has at least most of the qualities that im looking for in a partner has no intentions of being with me. But at the same time what am i doing with my life thats going to hold me through the dreaded waiting period. You know what i mean, the time where your sitting by yourself , alone , with noone else , on saturday nights all your friends occupied with their signifigant other, and all your eternally single friends inexplicably are unreachable. it seems as though whenever i get pummelled into pieces , figuratively of course, it intensifies by the pain of knowing that my friends are always too busy for me. I used to channel that energy into focusing my attention on my job. Unfortunately thats no longer possible considering i got fired on friday. yes fired as in the dreaded donald trump statement you never want to hear. i managed to go from being happy and content and double employed in november, to being unemployed broken hearted disenchanted and lonely in january. let me tell you how it started.
It started when i got suspended after missing a meeting with my boss and performing rather poorly in an inservice staff meeting. My swimming skills were never good when it came to doing laps simply because i never learned the flipturn and my sides always hurt doing laps of anykind, like the time i vommited in gym class after doing 7 suicides , but i ran the quickest mile in my class the same week. Anyway , during my hiatus , i began to feel the strain of financial deficiency. And began the routine of filling out job applications and waiting , and waiting, and waiting. One day miraculously my insomnia payed off for me however. In the form off i went into a body relapse that put me in a deep sleep after about a full month of physical exhaustion and running on an hour of sleep or less a night. I didnt wake for school and got up at around ten thirty , at ten thirty five the phone rang. The number was restricted and i knew it wouldnt be a redialable number if i didnt answer it then. I answered and spoke with the HR person for target one of the many places i had applied , they asked me down for an interview at one o clock . I went to the interview and recieved a seasonal job offer. After a few months of working and being happy and grateful for a job the time came to an end. I went down to my first job which i was then still employed yet and asked when i could go back on the schedule. SHe told me i could go back on when i proved that i was still fit to go back on a lifeguard stand. so i made an appointment to do so and then finally that day came. I went in and began with a warm up 100 meter , i chose to do with brast stroke. i breezed through it fairly simply. Immediatley after i was told i had to do a 300 meter freestyle without stopping. I struggled to breath and i felt my lungs grow sore and every muscle hurt to move i struggled and struggled through it as my sides ached and i felt my lunch come up into my throat. Finally i had completed my task , i then had to swim another 100 meter breast stroke. it hurt to do it the entire way . but at least i could breath although, my muscles were fatigued and i knew the whole way through i was going to vomit. I was dehydrated and out of shape i had miraculously finished my 500 meters of hell and then sat there waiting while holly my boss retrieved the diving brick for my next and final task. The brick swim, a relieving thing considering i was actually good at it, i excelled at doing things in deep water, the only thing i struggled with ever was swimming in laps, my deep water backboarding even something most had trouble with was top notch. the brick was thrown and i had a minute and fourty seconds to retrieve it , i swam to it as fast as i could i dove down like a champ and retrieved it now was the hard part. I had to keep the brick and myself above water by kicking my legs. normally it wasnt a challenge but today it inexplicably was , i couldnt keep my balance and i could not keep my ears from the water , in my failed attempts to correct it , i slipped under and had to kick off of the bottom. I finally got to the edge and got myself and the brick out of the water in one minute and fifteen seconds, but it was not a success. i had touched the bottom twice. I was flailing in the water and couldnt keep my ears above the water. As i listened to holly tell me about how horrible i did i began to trail off, and could barely hold my head up to answer questions, i crawled to the drain beside me and all the conents of my stomach ( which was mainly acid) began a mass exodus out of my mouth. I felt my sides clench up and my throat felt like it was on fire. and i could not seize control of my body as i heaved. I finished throwing up my insides, and i got my towel got water and went inside where i once again vomited but this time in a trash can. Holly told me that i would be eligable for rehire but could no longer be on payroll because i was unfit to go back in the stand, my employment as of yet had officially been terminated.
I drove home and was once again unable to piece together what i was going to do , and what the first step to getting back on track was going to be. Perhaps ill never know

Chapter five : village of the lost

once again i found myself at the beginning of a new end. first semester is over, and creative writing is done, but so has my block, blocker. It sems having the most bizzarre and sometimes just outrageous work today was perfect distractions for me to become a more cathartic and more focused writer in everything but my creative writing writings. and i started to thinking to myself. amidst all of the ending of classes, this is my senior year, and i havent hooked up with a single guy that goes to school with me, ive survived highschool, without any relationship drama i had to live down later. but its kind of sad in a way because there are so many people i had feelings for that i went to school with, and im wondering will i ever look back with regret. Should i have given obvious signs and just throw my already damaged self at people, it sems to work perfectly for my friend kaitlyn and she has had no regrets in her highschool experience, but then again shes not a minority. im not really sure whts been plaguing me about this. Maybe its that i feel like i havent inspired anyone, i have friends that are like littel high school celebrities. friends that are in bands, friends that are actually looked up to and i keep thinking why isnt that me. im talented. i write poetry everyday, in the form of song lyrics, a lot of them are good. i never was able to form a band even though i sing quite well. and i act but yet all three of the high years, i ended up with a supporting lead, but not the star role. and i have a story to tell i have messages to spread and i believe that i could inspire people. Im one of two brave brave guys in my senior class to be out of the closet, i feel as though i should have inspired someone i know at my schoo to come out, there are quite a few i know that are standing there with the door of the proverbial closet wide open styling their party dresses and yet wont take the steps out there into the light. there are many things on my mind at the moment, but the one that rings clear is , this town is too small, and everyone knows my name, but they either fear me ir dont want to give me a chance because i know if given the opportunity i have so much to offer and would be even better if only someone would give me the break i need to make something of myself, something i can respect my reflection for, be it as a symbol of hope to closet cases or a muscial hero that people would praise as the next kurt cobain or gerrard way. or just as the leading man i always should have been . but for now i formulate my entry into the big bad world from which ive tasted more of the bitter parts, and are therefore more prepared than anyone i know. i play the supporting leads, and stand out among the idiots given a spotlight even thought they end up messing it up, and making me feel more and more annoyed with my lack of appreciation, by spurning my wisdom and advice acting as if they have been around for eons even though they know nothing and wind up missing ques , and forcing me to carry the sceneeither way they are going to get the praise becasue i wont let the show be bad, and i wont look like an idiot for letting it all go to shit by not picking up the slack, and the audience is none the wiser. hopefully when i get out into a more mature place, or a new surrounding where they dont know me or my brother whos shadow i cant live in because im far too individual and have different stories to tell characters to portray and never enough ways to express my unique brand of bliss and pain daquiri. so i write my lyrics and poetry , and all the scripts and storys and i hope one day i will find love, i will inspire someone and one day someone will listen and find value, in what i have to say and make the music with me, and i can have my moment of hometown fame that i have been craving ever since i was small and my siblings shadowed and steifelled my acclaim, thank god i still have frineds to help me meet these goals , or at least i hope that illusion is really so

Chapter four: Soul searching

lately ive been looking for answers to these questions i cant possibly answer and doing a lot of soul searching. In a second im going to tell you stories that have seemingly absolutely nothing to deal with this statement , and hopefully by the end of this reading you will get it. So Final exams are this week and we had to haul our asses out of the comfort of our beds to take second block exams on a saturday. Second block my friends and i all have Discrete math , which with our teacher is like being in purgatory for 90 minutes a day, only on exam day it was longer. What made it worse was there was still tension in the air from where i had cussed out my teacher the previous friday and this had been the first day back. The exam was easy but the waiting was terrible. Two hours later the bell rang and we exited the room , my friends and i decided to go out to a celebratory lunch , and my friend had asked me to pick her up a pack of smokes while i was getting a pack for myself, so i did, and i couldnt help but shake the wondering of why such an out of character request. She never did tell me the reasons why but did endulge the secret she had been keeping, that her ex boyfriend had been back in her life in some sense , and meanwhile two other guys had been toying with her emotions, and i thought to myself that is the exact situation i have been in for the entirity of my life since about sixth grade.

Ever since sixth grade i have been in love with a guy, well, not in love at first, in fact at first i found him completely fucking annoying and could not believe he was part of the popular crowd. It just goes to show you how sports can lead to instant acceptance by the shallowest of people. He played soccer and had the most beautiful eyes i had ever seen. I tried my best to keep my distance from him but we had every class together for all three years of junior high. I didnt realize how rapidly i descended into the mad world of love until 8th grade where we would have movies every other day in one class or another. And of course when there were movies playing we would always ( as a class i mean) lay down in the floor and pretty much do everything other than watch the movie. About the second time we watched a movie in class i had found myself lying next to him, and over the course of the period slowly gravitated closer and closer. By the end of the class when the lights were turned on i was lying with my head on his chest his hands were running through my hair. it continued this way for a while in fact all the way up until the last day of school, i knew about the fifth time that i was hooked. I also knew pretty early on that i wasnt the only one of us to be attracted to the other. I knew this because of two reasons one was the early sing of i made the mistake of showing him my magic hands ( im very good at massage) when he had a head ache and i spent the class period massaging his temples. From that moment on , until the end of the year he never stopped asking me to massage him, often in the stragest places, one of which was his hands, which of course i did and soon enough , when we were watching movies he began holding my hand, while i massaged them, eventually the massaging part stopped but we continued to hold hands. i also knew that the attraction was mutual because one day i looked down during one of our movie days and noticed that , well lets just say there were no rabbits in his pocket but something was jumping. I almost kissed him once. But unfortunately the bell had to ring , the lights came on and there was no way to do it discretely , and although he never said it out loud and neither did i, in the dark we were content with just each other. when the lights came on however he was all about appearances.

Middle School ended and we entered into highschool, and we never had classes with each other again, although we saw each other in the hallway and he would always look at me smile and then turn away in shame when he thought people were watching. I had come out of the closet in ninth grade although i find it hard to believe that it was really a shock to anyone who knew me in middle school , it was less taboo and far less dangerous, and i had been in enough fights in middle school without giving people information with which to tease me with. Eventually i had moved on to other prospects but never gave up hope that someday he too would come out of the closet , at least to someone other than himself. And hopefully we might end up together, although i had lost my virginity when i was 8 i had still never managed to have been kissed. And i was saving my lips for him. all the way up to junior year i had still held on to hope and not been with anyone else, or emotionally been attached to anyone i was talking to. Which was hard for me because i had met on myspace a guy that was both sweet interesting , and a smoking hot italian abercrombie and fitch model who i could not believe was interested in me. But i kept myself alone and waited for him, and then an amazing thing happened he got a facebook and i had been one of the first five people he had friended. I of course accepted and was filled with joy because he hadnt forgotten that i existed. which made it okay again that i still pined for him through all of the pain i felt tearing myself apart , it was the worst when i saw him dating a ninth grade girl that same year and i had to hide my jealousy and anger. But we got to talking again, i never pressured him or flirted out right , i did flirt a little but very coyly. Then after a while he stopped talking and i couldnt seem to get a response, at lunch i sat at a table across from the soccer players who he hung out with , ( he had a different lunch period) and every day consistently they would mutter slurs at me under their breath and throw things at me and pretend like they were oblivious to the actions they had just done when i turned around in response to whatever had been thrown at me. I realized that these douchebags opinions mattered more to him than i ever could and i realized that he would be one of tose guys that grows up gets married and has children with some dumb broad and then pulls an elton john and gets caught cheating with a guy and then comes out of the closet. But i still tried every day for three months to talk to him and every day no response but i knew he was online because every so often he would comment someone on my friends list, or post a status, but couldnt talk to me, which meant he was ignoring me , i sent him three different messages so i could know he got it , telling him he had twenty minutes to respond and talk to me or i would delete him , an hour later i begged for him to say something and twenty minutes later , i told him he had hurt me with his silence more than any physical abuse i had ever felt , and i have truely had a hard life. then i told him i never wanted to see or speak to him again, and that i sincerely was not his friend seeing as he couldnt be friends with me without feeling ashamed, i then deleted him. When i did it felt like my heart had exploded within my chest and a bomb had gone off in my brain, it was the most masochistic experience i had ever felt. Later that year, after i had mostly moved on emotionally from the trauma , and had been hurt ( ironicly mostly in the same manner) by a slew of different guys. My friend Jeri and i had gone to watch the fourth of july fireworks at the city park, we had met our friend cody there and decided to chill with him since he had noone there to chill with, and of course eing in a small town when any kind of event happens everyone you know seems to be in the same place. He walked up and of course, being with the group of people he was My friend cody had to invite them all to roll with us, they declined but still asked us to lead them to a good spot to view the fire works from. I dont know the girl he was with that night, nor do i care, but i felt both angry toward her, jealous toward her , and sorry for her, because she didnt know she was dating a guy who was living a lie. The entire way we were leading them, i could hear the two of them whispering about me behind me , and everytime i looked behind they would snicker amongst themselves and look away, and i could feel the dagger like stares piercing my back , every moment since then the brief encounters have been the same. and yet i still for some reason have something inside of me that feels attached to him.

During all this though , i had, had numerous encounters on the side that i had going, during the time after the fight , and yet, now when i see him one on one in class ( mainly theatre class i go in there all the time and he is there because hes actually part of the class, although inmy opinion he shouldnt be but then again i am sort of entitled to have rage towards him and theatre has been since starting high school my area) he smiles at me and acts like nothings wrong, and i think for a second that there might still be hope , and then i remember , and then i am filled with rage again because hes just smiling at me to mess with my emotions, a lot like cohen did. Leading me on with no intentions of ever actually going any further than a few words here and there and then completely driving me insane by not speaking to me for no apparant reason.

I cant help but think how small the world is getting when my friend and i have such similar problems, and how my problems all seem to intertwine with themselves and how all of the men in my life that have fucked me over, find some way to keep themselves in my life, and to top themselves all of them seem to link up after individually screwing up a part of my life and making me regret ever being born with a heart and emotions.
how could my ffiend and i have such similar problems, and both have the presence of mind to turn to nicotene, and keep ourselves from slipping into a total eclipsing depression, and once more, how do the worst intentioned guys seem to find nice people with turbulent pasts like us, and how do they know the ways to get away with hurting us, and why do they want to . this makes me wonder, two things, where is god during all of this, i would ask this question but i already have my answer, i would share it but , im not about to be explaining my religion, or rather spirituality, the second thing i wonder is Is there a decent guy out there for me, and will i ever find him, if so when where and will i survive long enough to see that happy day?

Chapter three :Navigating the minefield

Ive had many numerous moments in my life where being in love , or rather being 'in like' with someone meant you had to be a mind reader. The problem is, being able to read people also has its drawbacks too. For instance in some cases knowing when someones up to something thats not in your favor and you call them on it, they become pissed off at you and wonder why you dont trust them. Like Cohen, we had a breif online thing, we never met in person because everytime i would ask he would never seem to set a date for meeting me, which was pathetic because he only lived one county over 15 minutes by highway. We met over facebook after he spent a day hanging out with my friend whitney. Whitney texted me to come hang out with her. I of course could not because i had musical rehearsals, but she told me to look him up on facebook because he was interested in me. It sounded sketch at first but after he accepted my request i began to operate under the assumtion that it was legit. We talked for a little bit ( a little bit here being about two weeks) through text messages. until he asked how fit i was and i replied that i had a six pack and he said he didnt believe it, so i sent him a picture of them and asked if he liked what he saw. ( I know im sounding like a complete whore here but you must remember, im a fool when it comes to love and im not uptight about anything really and i sincerely thought this guy was going to be "husband material"). Too which he replied , " it kind of made me uncomfortable because i have a boyfriend". I felt absolutely godsmacked i was filled with a combination of butane nicotene and rage i had been had again. After two weeks had passed his relationship ended and he resumed texting me, and once again i began buying into the lies again over sharing small talk. When he found someone hed stop texting me the moment that it ended it was back to texting me again until all hours of the night and so it went for a few months, then it kind of got to the point where i thought for once he might be taking me seriously, and aside from him being off and on more than the lights in a motel six i really liked this guy from the conversations we had shared. It finally got to the most serious point it would get to when he texted me one night while jacking off. He asked for me to send him pictures for inspiration, i was very hesitant, and he decided he didnt want a full nude but rather a suggestive pic that left things to his imagination. I felt that that was not beneath my dignity so i sent him one ( in which i must say i looked very nice). After that night , i began to live under the false hope that maybe he was interested in me on a serious level. After a while he quit texting and was once again on to another guy and the back and forth continued. It all culminated to a head when his ex friended me on facebook and then began to immediately hit on me after i accepted his request. At first i wanted nothing to do with this fourteen year old guy who was all about wanting to " treat me how i should be treated" and " be a real man for me". After a while the persistance payed off and i told him i would give him a shot ( primarily because i didnt think he was serious and i thought at the very least he would be less annoying). I actually grew in some ways emotionally attached to this guy who was very sweet and treated me with respect and complimented me , and made me feel as if i actually mattered to him which was something i had never felt before from a guy. After a week or two he was continuing to text me on a daily basis , and then i saw on facebook he was back with our mutual ex cohen to which i had to confront him for, we got in a huge fight. ( we eventually mended our friendship quite recently actually). Cohen on the other hand i could not forgive because during one of our all out textual warfare on each other, he said the worst thing he could have possibly said " i was never really interested in you at all". This moment made me feel the cheapest and the most hurt that ive felt since my first love ( who ill probably tell you about soon). It left my head reeling and me wondering many things two most important , One of which is then why would you lead me on like that and ASK my friend for ME to look YOU up. the second part of the first part being was this just something he said out of spite to hurt me . And lastly  why would someone do something so maliciously , either way it turned out it was a losing situation , each of the two scenarios meant that he was deliberately trying to hurt my feelings. And it made me wonder why is it that i keep finding these guys that want to hurt my feelings, and why is it that i cant seem to find an honest one to save my life , or at least an honest one thats: single , interested, Not completely busted, and of at least consenting age. It made me think that love is like navigating a minefield , your going to get hurt, your going to take missteps but hopefully ,( or so the theory goes) once you navigate through the field if you dont die on the way your perfect one or at least one that you can make it work with will be on the other side.

Chapter two : is that even a question

being a gay man , most of my friends are either female , or gay guys. in fact i have a whole group of friends that i see every day in school and hang out wih on a regular basis. one of which is my friend barb. Barb was different from most of my friends in that she did not entire my life until last year. We shared similar interest the most important one being our love of theatre and in fact we spent a great deal of time bonding during the spring musical. she and i became fast friends and soon we were spending lots of time together. She went to middle college at the start of this school year where she became friends with my friend chris who had been sort of estranged for some time, incidentally she was responsible for bringing us back together after a few years of not talking to each other. Barb left middle college and came back to school with me after a few month. Not long after i got a call from her in the middle of the night asking me to pick her up. Being the good friend i am i did , and listened to her sobingly tell me how she was kicked out once again by her aunts only this time she was not going to go back when they came to their senses. She moved in with my friend blake and soon after got a boyfriend and so the drama begins.
Barb had become estranged from us and spent all her time with her boyfriend and the wedge between all of us widened. soon after there were rumors going around between us and the whole thing became one big exaggeratted mess. last week we all sat down and had an intervention which has seemed to work. Today was the first time in many many months that all of us went to lunch as a group. and i can honestly say i had more fun than i had in a long time.
leaving the lunch i spent a little time at barnes and noble with blake and brittany before going back to my car and leaving for home. on the way home i decided to stop by my work. ( i had to tell you the story above for this story to be relevant you'll see why in a minute just stick with me). on the way down the hill i hit a huge ice patch . i was only going about 15 mph but i still began to slide it wasnt anything dramatic except that i came within inches of a medium from which a gate is positioned, and from that gate is a long pole that sticks out at about head level with me from the perspective of the car. i came about six inches from death. and i sat there thinking , now after all of the drama has finally simmered down ( aside from the men in my life of course but thats nothing new and i doubt drama will ever completely extracate itself from that part of my life) and i was thinking to myself wouldnt it suck if i had died after all that.
After running a few errands and insuring i would survive financially to my 18th birthday (after which i can always sell my dignity for folded singles in the nightclubs to pay the bills). I headed home. On the news i was watching and saw all these stories about kids that had died as a result of the winterry weather and i kept thinking that could have easily been me today. It was after that , that i realized i have goals and ideas of how to achieve them , but nothing in my life is set so far and i dont want to die without having achieved my dreams, god knows i dont want to see the so called golden years, but i want to see my dreams fullfilled. After my underly dramatic near death experience, which after having quite a few they dont seem to shake me up anymore, i thought is it anygood to even make a plan? Or is it better to just float along making ends meet meanwhile hustling your way towards your goals, Do you need to go to college and get a specified degree and try your best to enter whatever field youve set your sights too, and what do you do if you do all that and you cant get your foot in the door after that how do you go about achieiving your dreams and ambitions. And is there a plan for everyone, its things like this that we should be exploring in high school but noone ever seems to take the time because theyre too busy trying to get us to make up our minds about which school to apply to and which sorrorities or frats to pledge and which high interest loans to take or what scolarship to hope for after exhausting yourself doing the projects that merrit the sholarship. I have to wonder is this what were meant for. It seems to me the only safe plan is to not have a plan. But at the same time you cant always rely on guile and a smile while living on mom and dads money. Least of all for me because my mom doesnt have any money to spare between my three siblings and i and my dad cant exactly care for me financially from the grave. And so im stuck questioning, where does it go from here and i know the steps in the middle i need to take but what step needs to be the first step and how do i get to that first step and what do you do if you fall from the path?