I Wonder If I'll Get My Internet Privileges Taken Away Again Because I Mentioned Your Girlfriend's Name.

I think it's funny how many times I've started a blog post about my dad, then had no idea where to go with it and ended it before it began. I think that's a good assumption of my father's character, now that I think about it. I don't know, whatever gets his attention, as it seems nothing else will.

Thanksgiving break was a time my sister and I had to spend with our dad, a time my sister and I came back from still shook up from the long encounter. Our dad was abusing his dog, my sister said to my mother and I when we sat down in the living room, and watching her cry is always one of the most painful things I can witness. I would've hugged her, but alas, she was sick, as she always seems to be whenever she comes back from our weekends with dad.

Yesterday I came to a revelation, one that struck me all throughout today, preventing me from being in the proper state of mind to do homework which the district assumes we'll do with a clear head: It's not about us anymore. My sister and I aren't the focus of his life anymore.

Our dad always corrects us, never his girlfriend's kids, even though he claims we're part of a "big happy family", which anyone with eyes could see isn't true, even when it comes to him. He always makes sure we stay in line, but he lacks the passion any semi-decent parent would have to make sure their children end up prosperous and successful in life. He simply does what he always has done, not because he wants to, but because he has to. How else would he seem the perfect dad?

He chastises us for poor grades, yet fails to provide anything worthy of a homework-doing environment. TV's always on, whether anyone's there to watch or not, just showing how dysfunctional a household he lives in. The TVs are loud, the conversation is lacking (it was a bit of a shock how isolated I didn't feel when my sister and I got back to our mom's), and my sister and I have to cling to each other to survive in a place where no intelligent life seems to flourish.

Dad, I have one question for you: Are you happy now, living in the bliss that is your ignorance? I know you're not stupid, so why do you turn a blind eye towards your own children in favor of another's? Surely we actually matter to you. If we do, then why is it that you're but a sociopath towards our affairs?

And yet, despite all my words, I know what you'll do. This blog post is nothing but an attack on you, because you're the victim, and Rebecca and I are dead set on bringing you down for absolutely no reason at all. Isn't that the case? It usually seems to be. In your world, there is no such thing as a villain with human qualities. I'm left wondering exactly when, in your mind, my sister and I ceased to be human.

Dad, I have one question for you: Are you happy now?

Sadly, I need to do a project on this book. I hate English.

Books that make me depressed are books that everyone should read.

Today I finally finished A Clockwork Orange, despite my deadline last week. I'm supposed to do a big research project on it now, and yet I hesitated, not wanting to read it for a grade. The moment I started reading it, I knew this wasn't a book I wanted to rush or sparknotes. Let's face it, everyone sparknotes' the books we're supposed to read in English.

Some of the things I like about stuff like this is that the focus isn't a part of the new wave feminism. There's not a single named female character apart from possibly Alex's mom, and yet if a book like this was published today, people would be crying and screaming about how there's no strong female characters. A book like this doesn't focus on feminism, which is how everyone else should regard the issue. Stop giving a shit who's a guy or girl and just treat them like people.

A Clockwork Orange was a book that took my soul somewhere, enough to make me write a blog post about it when I still need to get my sources sheet together (if you don't understand what I mean by that, know that neither do I). So why did I start a blog post about it, music and all? I've only written two paragraphs at this point, so what else can I write? (EDIT: apparently a lot)

A Clockwork Orange is apparently one of the top 100 books of all time. I would've preferred to reread Hitchhikers Guide, but my partner didn't want to do that one, leading to me reading a truly amazing book, on levels The Stranger was on for me in sophomore year. For some reason, I feel like life somehow knew of my emotional troubles, the troubles I keep silent, the stressors I never bring up, and decided to give me a book to solve it. Sophomore year I was struggling with my identity, and trying to grow through a crack in the sidewalk like a random flower that could easily be stepped on. Since then, I've made my way with it, and adapted my attitude to suit my environment, kinda.

My recent issues are to do with who I am beyond the identity I've inherently adapted myself to, my choices. Should I do A or B in order to have the most fun? Should I say this or that to be liked more? I've spent so much time analyzing the cool people at school, seeing how they act, how they get the amount of friends they do, without being the backup friend that I always seem to be. How? How do I be loved for something other than my passive demeanor? How do I be loved for something I myself have done?

At the end of sophomore year, I had the revelation that I didn't want to be who society/school wanted me to be, and I wanted to be me. I think now, after reading A Clockwork Orange, I finally know what I've been missing. My passive demeanor I care nothing for, finding myself over the hurdle of anxiety when it comes to things I inherently do. Tossing stuff into trash cans from afar, getting up to use the bathroom, even dancing around for no reason (despite my dislike for my dance teacher, I do love the class).

I can't just be me, I need to BE me, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

I need to take risks, I need to dance around, I need to make active decisions as to who I am. I've started to do it unconsciously ever since I started reading A Clockwork Orange, and I've gained friends, friends who make me feel like I'm not just the backup friend, not just some guy you can count on for a laugh, friends who make me feel like even though I'm set apart from all the rest, I'm not an outcast.

In my fanfiction, the massive continuous fanfiction that's spanned several composition notebooks, I couldn't help but characterize someone like I characterize myself. Jeremy Lambert, a master of none, who feels continuously undervalued because everyone else gets chosen for the special tasks and appears more valued than him, while he seems nothing more than the Administrator's assistant. In the end, the Administrator dies, and while everyone else grieves, he can't seem to care, blaming him for his undervaluedness. However, an "if you're watching this I'm dead" video is shown to him, and it turns out the Administrator had chosen him to be the next one. Jeremy Lambert is the Xander Harris archetype, the normal unspecial person who ends up being the most special of them all.

They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary. 

It's hard being the one who isn't chosen, the one who's always around, but nobody makes a distinct effort to talk to, the one who always has to look around when a group project comes up in class, the one who always has to back away on the sidewalk when it becomes too narrow. It's hard knowing you're not special, but it's even harder thinking it.

A Clockwork Orange helped me further along my journey, into the next chapter of my story, a better chapter, I feel. In the end, Alex finds a way to overcome his own psychopathy, find his own reason to live, find a passion other than the escape he craves in Beethoven's 9th and other classical music. A man who lives without choice becomes no longer a man. I need to make choices, I need to be me.

After all, if I won't be me, who will be?

I already knew the answer, but now I finally understand the question.

Jesus fucking christ is my heart racing. It's opening night for a Midsummer Night's Dream, I in the role of Theseus, king duke of Athens. Naturally, anyone reading this expects me to be nervous as hell with the prospect of going onstage, and it doesn't help that I'm the first dude onstage.

Now let me tell anyone who thinks that that they are wrong.

Reading this blog, at least for the people who've been there since the beginning, knowing me as the sarcastic teenager with a penchant for speaking my mind, one assumes my writing is amazing and that I'm simply logging the amount of stress I go through. While that's right, it's not just my coping method, not just a way to help me to survive life's pain and suffering that seems to be focused all on me. It's more than that, it's my light at the end of the tunnel, the hope that by exhaling the darkness of my life out onto here, that there will be less for me to deal with in real life.

Tonight before the show, we spent some time in darkness. We laid down on the stage while the lights went down with us, our vision blacking out and leaving us alone with our thoughts and my theatre teacher's voice of encouraging tones to rev us up for the show. The darkness is in all of us, it is us, it is what we fear and what we crave, it is where we go to cry, where we go to yell, it is us. The goal of the show, she said, was to allow the people in the audience to forget the darkness, if only for a short while, to forget our stress, forget grades, assignments, friends, family, drama, peace, and simply lose ourselves in a story.

Naturally, this blog post is about me, not just everyone else. It's nothing selfish, it's that every human being is entitled to one thing: their story. This is my story, and so I will tell it. This is the story of a boy who never had as many friends as everyone else, who never knew who he was, who always wandered in doubt in response to society's expectations. We say women are victims of society's expectations, which is only partly true. We are all victims, and we must all find our way out. I was expected to be someone, simply because I wanted to be recognized. I am the one who must be a one man band to entertain the rest, attempting to placate everyone. I am the one who is never who he wants to be, because he never knows what he wants.

Tonight that changed. Tonight, I found myself in the darkness. I am the jack of all trades, the one who is master of none. I am a wanderer, a thinker, an adventurer, an actor, a scholar, a lover. I am the one with a family of three. I am the one with a girlfriend in Missouri, unknown to everyone who knows me out of fear that it might not last (no longer, I say). I am the one with a girlfriend in Missouri I would hold with words when too far away to comfort. I am the one who's never gone through a year of LASA without an emotional quandary of some kind. I am the one who's always desired and hated solitude. I am the one who makes horrible jokes to challenge the security of those around me. I am the one who makes a joke out of everything so as to get a huge laugh. I am the one who loves in silence to those around me. I am the one whose anxiety cripples and encourages him. I am the one who laughs at the slightest.

Tonight is the night. Tonight is when I lose my character at the same time I find it. In discarding myself to find Theseus, I know who I am by what I have lost.

Words cannot contain the exhilaration I feel, nor would I have time for me to type or for you to read, so I'll condense it right here.

Tonight is when I become...when I became me.

Elon Musk Can Have My Signature, But I Think He'd Rather Take My Soul. He'll Be Disappointed.

Have you ever felt like there's nothing to do, that everything there usually is to do you either can't do or you don't want to do, but you still wanna do something?

That's pretty much how I feel right now.

I'd say the hardest part about this blog post is deciding on a song to listen to repeatedly while writing it. Depending on the song I choose, this blog post can be different, impossibly different, so different it'd seem like a completely different writer. If I listen to Starset's "Dark On Me", it'll be a sad and pessimistic one, while Shinedown's "Cut The Cord" will create an air of rebelliousness/defiance. Thing is, I'm not sure what song to listen to, what to determine the mood of this post as. Maybe, for once, there shouldn't be any. Maybe I should just write. After all, how many people actually listened to it anyways?

I've got so much to say, and when I try to say all of it, I end up failing and forgetting about it. Even though I have an entire class period of creative writing this year, I still never have written a blog post in there. My primary focus has been my Person Of Interest/Agents Of Shield crossover, which takes up most of my free time, except the time I don't want to write. In the time I don't write, I walk around, listen to music, organize my thoughts, but I don't do anything. I want to write all these thoughts down, and I do my best with these blog posts, but sometimes all the words don't come out.

People say all the time, "oh, that thing about people going to Mars and never coming back is so controversial!" and here I am, off to the side, nervously looking around as I fake a nod. Confession time: I want to go to Mars. My family saw the Martian this past weekend, and it was amazing. Matt Damon's performance as astronaut Mark Watney, trapped on Mars with next to no hope of getting back to Earth, was a masterpiece through and through. Everyone enjoyed the movie for multiple reasons, but I took an interesting aspect of it away from the experience. Mars, the new frontier of human development. No matter if Mark Watney lived or died, no matter if the crew failed to rescue him and died in the process, they would've gone down in history. Even though I've accepted that I'm probably never going to be world famous for my maple syrup company or my (future) lightsaber duel with Jennifer Lawrence, the idea that going to Mars would make me world famous kinda stuck in my mind, I'll admit.

I started to wonder if Elon Musk had indeed funded the Martian's production to serve as a sort of ad for his idea of going to Mars. Either way, I was kinda convinced, especially after I had AP government the day after and our teacher told us how fucked up the world is going to be when we're finally in power. There's a heartless lack of responsibility in leaving everything behind, but I don't think it would be an unpopular suggestion to leave all the politicians who fucked everything up back on Earth. Everyone else can move, if the politicians wanna own the world, they can do just that.

Well at least there's some opportunity on Mars.

Another aspect of the movie that appealed to me was, quite honestly, the peacefulness of Mars and the life Mark Watney must've lived. Had he not been alone, it wouldn't be as horrible in terms of going insane (although he doesn't actually go insane), but even so, he got stuff done, as I believe I would were I in the same situation (and also if I were a botanist). When something isn't key to our immediate survival (*cough cough* college), we don't feel a need to do it. The only reason I did the college essay assignment this morning was to get my english grade up from a 43. I know my English teacher probably won't see this, but in my defense, I was so Donne with Hamlet.

The fact is, one of the things that's most stressful about life on Earth is the bureaucracy, the paperwork, the capitalism, the large-scale stuff that comes from a nation of 380 million. The thing about Mars is the relative peace. Living to survive? There is no paperwork. There's just work, there's just the stuff you need to do that's required for you to survive. There's no polluted atmosphere, plenty of scenery, and a silence that would make a man think. More importantly, there's a silence that would make a man write. I want to write, I want to not have a life of meaningless bureaucratic distraction. College, job opportunities, large-scale politics and economy, it all just takes away from how beautiful life can be, because it can be beautiful, if I had the chance to look and see it. Sadly no, as college comes first.

My valedictorian speech will start off with "I am pretty much the greatest college grad on this planet"

I want to go away, I want to be the first, I want to find my own enlightenment in the wonder of another world. Other people are gonna tear holes in my idea, particularly my mother, who's going to laugh at it, but so what if I want a change in scenery? So what if I want to boldly go? At least I'll be alive, both now and forever with the human race's memory.

I'm Rick Riordan's Competition for Coming Up With Weird Titles

So I haven't done one of these in a while, which should be a good thing, as I'm not so emotionally deprived as to write one of these out of pain, but not this time. Not this time.

As I said, it's been a while since I've done one of these. Senior year's been busy, though not as stressful. Every night I get a certain amount of sleep, and if anyone doesn't already know, I'm actually in a play this year, acting as Theseus in a Midsummer Night's Dream. I was told it wasn't a big part, but when I saw the script and how many lines he had, I was thoroughly convinced my theatre teacher had lied to me. Hippollyta isn't a big part, you know why? She barely says shit. Thankfully I've forced myself into getting off-book a week late, so I'm good, for the moment.

My anxiety? Gone. I'm more socially active than any other time in my high school life. Best I can figure is that in the wake of my dear friend's suicide (I did write a shadow-post about it a week or two ago), I'm more eager to self-harm, but instead of desiring physical harm, I seek out the pain of anxiety. In doing so, I've unwittingly forced myself out of it. I still need some work, but I feel better than ever. I can talk to people, smile in the halls, and I feel like I'm myself for once. I only considered myself as actually being a character in my personality during sophomore year, where I undertook the rite of Mal-sharan, allowing myself to fall to the edge of death in order to find myself. It wasn't a willing journey, but I undertook it nonetheless, succeeding where so many others fail day after day.

I'm writing so much more, if not for my blog. Senior year I decided to replace Latin with creative writing, deciding to take a year for myself rather than the pride of being awesome in Latin. It feels good to be awesome in Latin, you feel like you're smarter than everyone else who's taking a language. They chose the wrong language, now we can finally get a conscripted army together and enslave the other language clubs. Guess they should've learned their history.

Next, we're gonna add a hot tub to the roof of the Latin portable and get Teo a decent meterstick

Anyways, I've been insanely writing like a maniac these past few days, working on a single Person Of Interest/Agents Of Shield crossover. If you're about to wonder whether or not this is any normal fanfiction, I've nearly filled up an entire composition notebook. It's driven me to my wit's end as I've found a plot that fits perfectly together and is awesome overall. I'm wondering if I can turn it in as a final project for the class.

SPOILERS: these two become a thing :)

There were times in my life I felt absolutely shit, like I was the bottom of the barrel, that I had no friends, and there are still times I feel like that. Every time the teacher says "find a partner", I glance around to my friends and find they've all partnered up with each other (with the exception of this awesome girl who asked me if I wanted to work with her on our latest english project. That was a lift to my self-esteem). It's times like that when I realize I don't have any best friends. Everyone notices me when I'm there, but I do wonder if they notice me when I'm gone. As a defiant, rebellious teenager, my simple solution is to prove that I don't need friends, do something to make them notice I'm gone, and the way to do that is to forget my need for a friend in particular.

Friends are important, nobody can deny, but so many people focus on becoming good enough for their friends that they completely forget about becoming good enough for themselves, going to insane lengths to fit in. I learned a long time ago that I never wanted to just fit in, I wanted to be myself.

Now, for the first time in my life, I feel like myself, and I feel alive.

This morning, I heard that a friend of mine from the internet had killed herself, and I couldn't do a damn thing.

The title is self-explanatory. I spent nearly the entirety of dance thinking of how I would word this post. This grief for someone I knew but didn't know, to society's standards, still gnaws at my stomach. Unlike all my other blog posts, I won't be sharing this with everyone by notification. If you're reading this, you've seen it on my feed or were browsing my blog one day and came across this blog post you never knew existed. Right now I have something from AP government to work on that might very well take all my time in the first place, but I don't care (I had already asked for an extension and was declined, and having 'forgotten' to mention this event as my excuse, mentioning it afterwards would just seem desperate). For the first time this year, I'll get a bad grade on an assignment, and I won't care. The memory of a self-silenced person is worth more than the judicial branch any day.

Her name was Emilia, and all I can say is that she was my friend.

Her best friend Noah contacted me this morning from her phone, and the words that killed me the most were "she finally did it. She's dead", especially when put into context. At first, jokingly, I thought she had killed her bitch mother, but my dark mirth turned quickly to melancholy as someone other than Emilia answered the chat. Something one can always assume of a teenager is their possessiveness over their phone.

After a brief talk with Noah, the most prominent emotion I felt was survivor's guilt. Crafting a convincing argument for someone to forego the idea of killing themselves for a night is something I can do. The problem is that people don't want a convincing argument, someone who's overcome with emotion doesn't want reason. A person who's leaning closer to the razor blade or bottle of bleach on the counter doesn't want to hear the words, "oh it'll be alright", "you'll be fine", or anything along those lines, because according to them, none of that is true. A suicidal person will more often than not always see the negative, and will always feel alone. You can't just tell someone that their life will improve, because if it was that fucking easy, they wouldn't be depressed.

The problem with consoling a suicidal person on the internet is that in the end, you'll be words on a screen. You can put meaning behind those words, and most of the time, that meaning will be understood on the other side, but for someone who is at that point where they're ready to go, you can't be there for them. You're forced to watch as they do it and yours words fall on deaf ears, but at the very least you're doing something. When you find out it's been done without your knowledge, no chance to save your friend.

The worst part is how lonely she must've felt. As someone who goes to a high school full of enlightened, decent people, I have no shortage of friends. Everyone is friendly, unlike when one goes to a normal high school, a distinct apathy hovering over the heads of all those normal students. Not everyone is friendly to everyone. There one must truly find out who are real friends.

All I can say is, I found one in her.

Rob McKenna is Love. Rob McKenna is Life.

I've had a great week, but only so far.

For those of you who've read my blog for a long while, there is an entity that exists that I dub the Rain god. His true name could be Rob McKenna, but I'll never know. What's important is that he's important, however much we hate him. Everyone hates the rain. It's natural, almost instinctive, but it's necessary.

That being said, I had a great week, up until today. Wednesday I had a small epiphany about how awesome I was, and thus began to live with increased confidence. Thursday I had an awesome day in regards to Wednesday's events, and on top of that, my theatre teacher simply gave me a role in the upcoming Midsummers play as Theseus. I found it extremely strange that Shakespeare would manipulate Greek mythology to the point where Hipollyta, the supposed bride of Heracles, ended up with Theseus after somehow coming back to life from when Hera caused her death. The internet says the two were cousins, but I still can't see this shit happening, could you? The first rehearsal is supposed to be after school today, but alas, Rob wants to capitalize on this.

See, it took two periods to realize I felt well and truly sick. When it comes to illness, I'm known in my family as never being one to feign it. I could have my hand chopped off and I'd still go to school, but only if it was my left hand. To hell with this, I'm still going to school!

My sister gets sick fairly easily, I've found. However, whenever my mom hears me say that I feel sick, it's normally because I've felt sick for a while and I'm only now admitting it. In a way, I'm really stubborn. I'll keep going, with my soul shattered, on my force of will alone. Now, unfortunately, it's my body that feels weak and feverish. It's gotten to the point where if I even mildly feel like I'm sick, I know I am. I'm not sick often, but when I am, you can bet your ass I'm sick. t's surprising, considering I hardly ever am, but that lends wonders to believabilily. I'm not lying about it, mind you, but if that boy hardly ever cries wolf, you can assume that there's a wolf nearby when he does.

Without my sickness, the day was fairly depressing regardless. My off period I couldn't bring myself to do anything short of calculus homework, in Dance we did some shitty bookwork (which is kinda like asking an engineer to write about his feelings) which I didn't bother to finish once I had done the minimum requirement. Finally, we read W;t in English (pretend the semicolon is an "i" and you've got it down. In writing this, I've also inadvertently realized the meaning of the title), which is about a woman with stage 4 ovarian cancer who toootaly doesn't die at all. In a way, kinda cuts close to home with a sick person who's sometimes a hypochondriac when it comes to the Death Triangle of the Face.


In hindsight, I wasn't sick. I wrote this Friday of last week, now I'm writing this today. In my defense, the symptoms really did make me think I was sick. My sinuses got fucked up to hell, I kinda skimped on breakfast, and I apparently got less sleep the night before. As a result, I got a pretty convincing sell. I'm never sick, so when I feel like it, I usually assume the possibility that I'm sick.

However, half a week later and I still feel perfectly able to write about the topic I envisioned on Friday. For creative writing, I have to collect inspiration for a certain topic to write about for our final grade for the six weeks. I originally was going to do my crossover fanfiction of Agents of Shield and Person Of Interest, but last minute (yesterday) I decided on something else: the rain god. My teacher told us to not draft before tomorrow, but this isn't a draft. This is my way of collecting information about my topic. I usually prefer to write fiction in my creative writing class, as my personal thoughts and emotions are reserved for here.

My week so far is pretty damn similar to last week, emotionally. All of a sudden, my life improved last week, and hasn't dropped in quality. Today, I feel as great as I did one week ago, with no particular reason. I no longer have crappy days, only crappy moments. The rain god, it seems, has shone me his favor. The rain god, for those who don't know him, is the god of really crappy things. Everyone can hate that, right? The good thing, however, is how much greater those crappy moments can make our normal moments. When everything goes horrible, if something goes neutrally, neither good nor bad, it seems like something amazing.

I can name a dozen good things that have happened. Getting a role in Midsummers, being able to write recreationally (not just for the sake of a blog post), staying on top of my homework, all of these are amazing things, but I can't attribute any of them to my newfound happiness and passion. I'm kinda suspicious of the last one, however. If it is the last one, it would explain something for the American school system.

There are some things, of course, that go somewhat less well than expected, but they don't dim the good stuff. The contrast of life allows one to easily see the good and the bad and focus on whichever matters (hopefully the good).

There are still some bad things, however, as there naturally would be. Why should I expect everything to go perfectly? My life hasn't become perfect, but it has become a lot better. My self-esteem may be up, but the bad things that keep happening remind me of what makes it do so. My social anxiety is insanely lessened, though prevalent. I feel like I am someone now, someone who has gained the right to say hello to whoever they desire, do whatever they desire without being judged openly. Among teenagers today, that 'right' is more of a privilege. My former crush still intimidates me, but I'm finding myself more apt to looking at her again, this time as a possible friend rather than potential romantic affiliation. I've still given up on the front of love for now. Maybe once I get over her, my heart will lock onto another girl and the same will commence, but maybe not. I've learned my history, it would be dire to repeat it.

As I wrap up, I notice the distinct lack of images in this post. There's one image, surely, but that's a requirement for every blog post so that when I post it, you don't see the shitty resolution of my profile picture when expanded to be huge. Fuck it, this is captivating. I may be a bit vain, and compensate in kind (positively, mind you), but even I can tell when I've written a great work. This has passion behind it, like so every other post in this blog. Every single one isn't based on rationality, but emotion. I incorporate rationality into it, but that's so I don't just give you a page or two of teenage angst and daddy issues.

And even though it may be fun to read/watch, since when is that a masterpiece?

Yes, Supernatural fandom. Shots fired. If anyone's even mildly offended, go watch Person Of Interest.