A free writing

A sea of roses

A rose of thorns

A thorn of crowns

A crown of crows

A crow of thrones

A throne of knives

A knife of jade

A jade of night

A night of death

A death of souls

A soul of seas

I'm fine

I'm Fine.

I'm Fine.

You know something is wrong

I can't hide it anymore.

I'm Fine.

What do I tell you?

I don't know whats wrong.

I'm Fine.

She says its the keyword 

for something isn't right.

I'm Fine.

I feel like my brain is bursting

and won't stop churning.

My hand is like a velociraptor

violently clawing  the words and thoughts

viciously onto the page

as if desperately clawing out

a cave to weather the coming meteor storm.

I drive faster as if my little

Civic can somehow escape these

uncomfortable, manic feelings

of what must be borderline insanity.

Scratch, scratch, scratch,

little raptor claws.

Am I not Fine?

Certainly nothing is wrong but my swirling thoughts

and shaky hands saw otherwise.

something feels wrong

and I am desperate to feel fine.

I don't care if its the blue pill

or the red pill morpheus

just make it stop.

Hummingbirds and Sunlight

The cool brass against my bare skin is relaxing like a soft breeze on a hot day.
The little sun pendent bouncing off my chest in tune with my stride, catching the light and reflecting it back out and away, as if it really was its own brilliant star.

I find myself caressing it between two fingers, deep in thought. Ironically in my head I am caressing something as well, but something very different, something warm.

The clink and clamber of life snaps me back to reality, and I let the pendent slip back into the depths my shirt.

Desire is a powerful thing. It controls you, shapes you, defines you. A hummingbird will starve to death if it doesn't find nectar every few hours. Are we all just hummingbirds flitting around the flowerbeds?

Make your choices for you.

I always find myself debating my "talents" and if they are of any use in an actual career.

For the longest time in my life, I was convinced I was not talented at anything. These are the fears that come from growing up as a shy home schooled boy, with little to zero self esteem.

Now I find myself being a half decent writer, a solid editor. I now not only feel comfortable analyzing things, I enjoy it. I find myself applying logic to every topic I encounter. My mind is continuing to add to my catalog of "random information." I want to be able to answer everyone's question; "Why?"

I still believe I could be an excellent psychologist, but it is a path I do not wish to take. Being paid to know the answers to question that we just simply do not know yet is very intimidating, and as much as I like to pretend that I am always ready for any situation, always prepared with the right words to say, a clever example or metaphor... Its really all bullshit isn't it?

Just believe in what you say, you might be surprised how strongly someone else will believe it too.

The most pointless emotion

Jealousy.

Does it serve any purpose?

Most emotions have an underlining positive purpose.

Is Jealousy really only there to hurt us for reasons we shouldn't care about?

It is something I could do without.

So I get pretty into this game...

I am currently King Stannis III the great, king of ireland, wales, and england.
To my first wife I have two sons, my heir apparent Fáelbe, and his younger brother Loris.

Then my first wife tried to kill me so I threw her in the dungeon to rot. After that I remarried and had my first daughter Silla, and three more sons; Derek, Renly, and Robert. But my wife fell ill and died soon after, and I was forced to remarry a third time.

To my third wife I quickly had three more sons and a daughter. My sixth son, Brandon, and first child to my third wife died after only ten days (one has to wonder if a certain king slayer named jamie pushed him out a window) so the Seventh son was named Branden in his memory, followed by Patrick, who is apparently gay, and finally my tenth child, Linda.

My heir has been absolutely nothing but trouble. He has hated me for years, and even revolted against me. In  the following war, I brought the might of the rest of my family against Fáelbe and won, but at a heavy cost. In  the battle of Lancaster, my son Robert, Duke of York, took the field in my name against Fáelbe's forces. His  strategic prowess won the day, but he was struck down from behind in the melee by his traitorous half-brother. Fáelbe was then captured and thrown in prison, commonly now called "The kinslayer."

For once I will write a happy post :)

I thought it would be fitting to show a picture of prince woodmere, my happy idiot chocolate lab puppy, as today I feel almost as happy as he always seems to be.

There are very few feelings that can match the one you get when the fog of depression lifts. The sun comes out and everything is warm and fuzzy, I feel like a giddy 12 year old. Ironic that this moment would come while sitting and watching an absolutely crazy thunderstorm from my front step with a friend.

Yesterday I finally found "a game of thrones the board game" after looking under every rock for a week. I love the smell of a new board game. Hopefully tonight I will get some friends together to have a lovely round of screwing each over and lots of shouting and scheming.

Another special surprise came the other day in the form of a package. I ordered a small pendent with saint George the dragon slayer on it, which is identical to the one that my grandfather wears. I found it slightly silly that I am now wearing a heavily catholic / christian symbol, but I enjoy the mythology of the character and the idea of not letting your fear and doubt hold you back is something I can get behind.

Anyways, in conclusion; happy happy happy, happy, happy. Now I'm off to dream of Celtic trees. 

A rock and a Hard place

Friends. It is hard to keep the ones you enjoy, and even harder to get rid of the ones you hate.

I have always found the disparity between high school friends and college friends to be staggering. Your pre-college friends tend to be people you grew up with, you live near, you know each other's families, and have an intricate web of friendships and acquaintances. They may have changed since college, they may be complete assholes now, but it is hard to break such strong ties. You will put up with things from these people that you wouldn't let family get away with, you will lose your trust in them, and you will lose your respect for them, but even if you hate them you can't get away from them.

On the opposite, the friendships I have made in college have generally been created based on the character of the other person, and how well we connect. They are fragile friendships though. They do not have the web of connected friendships to keep communication tight. They are easily broken through small misunderstandings, things that wouldn't even  phase your friendship with the asshole from back home. You wish you could trade them, but you can't. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Why can't the people who make my smile simply with their presence have the time to see me on a regular basis. Why are the people I am around most often, the ones that put me down and make me depressed.

I wonder if I make anyone smile with my presence...

She makes me feel like it is raining outside

Something I realized today. When I am meeting a new person, I will use a different tone of voice depending on the person's gender.

If I am talking to a male, I will let my voice be its natural, deeper tone. If I am talking to a female, I will subconsciously throw my voice slightly, making it sound softer and higher pitched.

In general I dislike talking to guys. I feel like I put on a mask and just go with the flow. I am not true to myself, just to avoid being singled out.

There are many unwritten laws within guy culture.
You cannot cry.
You cannot talk about your feelings.
You cannot be sad.
You cannot show weakness.
You cannot feel pain.
You cannot show deep feelings of love.
You cannot fail.

If you are sensitive, then you are gay. If you cry or act sad, you are a pussy. If you do nice things for a girl that you aren't fucking, you are stupid.

I hate it.

I do not want to be an emotionless robot. I want to feel like it is okay for me to have feelings. I want to be able to tell happy stories about girls I'm crushing on, without being interrupted with, "so did you fuck her yet?" The moment can be wonderful without sex. I do not want people to act like I am weird when I say I wouldn't have sex with someone I just met.

I want to be able to write mushy love poems, and cute romance scenes without ridicule. I want to be able to tell awkward stories about my failed attempts at flirting and have us all just laugh with me, instead of at me.

I want to be able to talk about our problems, and feel like we all actually care. We all hurt, we all bleed, we all have rough sleepless nights, we don't have to tackle them alone.

I want to walk out into the rain and sing Blink 182 to the clouds.

To truly be brave, is to be yourself.

Finally building the Tau guys I bought way down in Virginia

        While walking around the quiet town of Stauton, Virginia with my three lovely ladies, I stumbled upon a gaming store that was hidden only a block away from our hotel. We went into the Dragon's Hoard at my request, while I was focused on the Warhammer model kits, the girls were surprisingly interested in the store. They loved the Lord of the Rings models, the fake vampire blood, zombie cookies, and tons of other silly nerd items that I can't even remember. I ended up getting a set of Tau stealth suits, feeling odd about the whole situation, who would have thought that my love of miniatures would be rekindled on a trip to the American Shakespeare Center.

So I went climbing today

First time I had climbed in around four years, and even then I barely tried as I am simply terrified of falling even in completely illogical situations. I felt a lot better on the wall this time around, but there was still moments where I could feel the fear seeping in.


My arms actually don't hurt yet, it would be more correct to say that my forearms and fingers simply aren't functioning. Hopefully over the summer my trips to the gym will make this less of an issue, and also make me not quite as complete suck at climbing.


I didn't make it up any of the walls and I even completely ignored the routes, but to be honest I don't care. I am proud of even the small distance I covered, maybe because I tried something outside my comfort zone, or maybe cause I know how much it took to be able to ignore the fear and step up to the challenge.


                                                                                                                  


Some days you realize just what you are up against. The world is filled with beautiful people, if you don't stack up, do you really stand a chance? Some days it is painfully obviously to see why you get overlooked.

Looking back at the past

The things we used to do in the past always seem a bit odd from the present.


I find myself wondering if people run through so many causal friends as I do. I wonder what happened to them, are their lives going well?


I remember for awhile I was friends with two lesbian that would "Sneak" (I say sneak because it wasn't like I was forbidden from having people over late, but because at 2pm you tend to not want to wake up your parents regardless)  into my house, almost every other night. We would drink, and talk, and drink, and play video games, and drink. Once they even convinced me to take them to a strip club, man was that shit awkward.


I don't talk to them anymore, I remember I got angry cause I felt like they were using me.


Maybe this is just what happens when you are at this age, life is a mess of school, and work, and homework. Everyone is so desperately focused on preparing for the future that they neglect the present.


Many of, "the people that I used to know" simply moved to a different school. No conflict ending the friendship, just a discontinuation. Out of sight out of mind.


I remember this one Asian girl, one of the first friends I made at my new school. We used to hang out and text all the time. I remember the (as of this day) most awkward kiss we shared on the floor of her apartment, and then I remember how we both moved past it like it had never happened. I wonder if she even remembers that night? I know I didn't when I first started remembering our times together.


So this is how I remember these friends of past ages, The lesbians, the Asian, the girl from south Africa. Randomly, and surprisingly often I think of them.


Who do they remember me as? The moody boy from Lancaster? The boy with the curly blonde hair? That annoying guy?


Or do they not remember me at all?

Deffcopter, 1 finished

Hours of careful effort later.

Before and After.

Ork Deffcopter painting progress

An Ork in a one man helicopter with rocket launchers on the front. Always a good idea. Still getting used to how to mix the paint up, luckily with my new tiny ass brushes everything is a lot easier. Plus it is just the base coat.

The uncensored window into my thoughts that you never wanted

Today my mother told me that my opinion of beauty is warped because all of the chicks I hang out with are drop dead gorgeous.

She is right, about them being gorgeous at least. She said it after I told her that none of the girls at the bar last night were good looking. Maybe she thinks I am becoming vain.

To be fair I only exaggerated slightly, there was one pretty girl.

I am slowly coming to the realization that I am actually a really charismatic male. To think that a mere four years ago I was tripping over my words attempting to talk to the girl next to me in calc. Now I don't think there is a single attractive girl in my classes that I haven't, at a bare minimum, talked to. In fact, most of them I am now close friends with.

How times change, and yet how they stay the same.

I think perhaps my mom has a point. With the levels of physical and mental beauty my friends contain, will I be able to accept anything less as a girlfriend? Perhaps I've hit a crossroads, one that I couldn't have seen coming four years ago.

Can you settle for less than what is in front of you? And if you can, should you?

Or do you deserve only the best.