new year's eve.

your innocence is not forgotten
i hope you know that where you are, i wish you well
i hope you sleep in a perfect memory

...

yesterday just took me hostage
yesterday locked me away from any truth
and now tomorrow's here without you
i know it's hard
i've tried but i could never say goodbye

i'm trying so hard not to associate new year's eve with krystel's death, but the fact of the matter is that it will be one year tomorrow. i've spent the last three days on the verge of tears and i'm dreading having to wake up in the morning. part of me is hoping that i'm overreacting and tomorrow won't be so bad.



this has been the best and worst year ever. i didn't know it was possible. everything that happened this year taught me a lesson, made me stronger and helped me grow. there was not a second of this year where i thought to myself, "this is easy." and in a way, i'm thankful for that. in a way, i'm thankful that it's almost over.

i'm excited for what 2009 has to offer.

december

no matter how hard i try not to, i think i'm always going to hate this month.

chemists cursed me imbalanced.

this year has been insane. it has gone by so fast, yet so much has happened that january feels like lifetimes ago.

more and more the past few days i've found myself missing a home i don't even have, missing people who don't even exist. it doesn't make sense. but i've always said that december makes me crazy.

don't take this the wrong way. i'm not sad. i'm restless. i want a place i love to call home. i want something new, anything different. and maybe a change of pace as well.

i want to get out of here for a little while. and i want the new year, now.

from my phone

earlier toinght, my mom mentioned that i have plenty of family in michigan and therefore could move there. i said i didn't think it was a good idea but the more i think about it, the more i'm thinking that maybe it is.

not the walking dead.

now you try too hard for the simple things
that are never out of reach
grew up too fast, gave up on dreams and you're stuck

i've been listening to this band called fireworks pretty much non stop for the past week and this one song in particular is making me believe in the dreams i had for three years. i never meant to give up on them. i didn't mean to become an old man over night just because of this stupid civilian job i have. there is so much more to life than just getting through the day, the night, the week, whatever.

this past year has been rough and maybe that has been part of why i lost sight of what i love about the music and the words and the meaning and freedom of it all. i know it might sound silly, but i'm ready to get back into it. it might just be a dream forever, but i think i'd rather have that dream and never get to do it than not even have anything to work toward at all.

don't say a word.

hey internet, i'm going to stop coming around if you keep bringing me bad news.

2*sweet is breaking up and i'm terribly upset about this. they're a fantastic pop punk band from chicago. i never got a chance to see them. a little over a year ago, they played a show a couple miles down the street from my house and i couldn't make it. such garbage.

living up to promises.

something i try to avoid on blogs is the topic of friendship. mostly because i believe if you have something to say to someone, it should be kept between you and that person. but there's no easy way to tell someone that they're being a shitty friend.

i'll be honest, i have let some friendships slip away too easily. but i don't really see the point in trying to force someone to be my friend if they've lost interest. it's better to just let it go than to be surrounded by people who don't care, who aren't willing to put forth any effort.

at the same time, i have put more time and heart into some friendships than i have ever gotten in return. i have reached out more times than i count to some people only to have my hand slapped away or, at times, completely ignored. it's draining.

when i've said that i would be there any time, day or night, i lived up to that promise. i've answered phone calls and text messages at three in the morning when i had to be up early for something important. when i've said that i'll be honest, i was. when i've said i wouldn't judge, i didn't.

i kept those promises and more. i'm tired of this vicious cyle. i'm better than just being the "back up" friend.

"this is only a test."

i don't know what's going on right now.

my head is fuzzy. some days i want to just avoid everyone. stay in bed and sleep off whatever is bugging me.

the purpose of this blog is completely lost on me. talk about my day. talk about my feelings. talk about the world. talk about people. talk about crazy ideas. talk about the past. i don't know. livejournal? blogspot? livejournal? myspace? blogspot? blogspot? blogspot?


i miss the city.

living like life's going out of style.

i went to a show last night. it's been awhile since i was truly stoked on seeing any band and i had a lot of fun. it made me remember why i started going to shows in the first place, why i fell in love with all of it.

i forgot what it was like to discover a band at a show. i forgot what it felt like to sing so hard and so loud that it hurt. i forgot the feeling of being beat from simply having a good time. i forgot about waking up in the morning and wanting to talk about the night before.

and i didn't know that i missed it so much.

new month.

about time for an update, i suppose.

my piece of shit (wireless card) is working when it feels like it. i suppose it's better than not working at all. but i figure i should just save up for a new laptop.

i've been trying to think of ways to keep busy but the truth of the matter is simply that i am lazy. i could make up excuses why i don't go for walks. or why i don't do this or that but i might as well just be honest about it.

i don't really know what else to say. i'm mostly just feeling indifferent about everything. i want something exciting or even just out of the ordinary to happen.

this is a pretty pointless post.

lost cause vs. still swinging.

since last i posted about my recent lack of productivity, my laptop appears to have decided once and for all that it doesn't believe it has a network card, even though it does. the cheap solution to this would be to get a usb adapter, but after reading people's reviews on those, they don't work well. and i don't want to waste $30 on something that's going to die in a week or a month or who knows when.

it's a blessing, in a way, because i don't think i can really afford the $80 it costs to get a new card to put in my computer. even if i could, the part is currently not in stock in hp's store so i don't even know when i would get it.

we currently have one working desktop computer (mine) and one functioning computer that spazzes often (dad's). however, there's almost always someone on my computer so i rarely get the chance to use it. which means that i'm forced to find other things to do with my spare time.

so far, i haven't been doing a very good job at that, but it's partly because i was half dead (low iron) for most of last week. and now that i'm starting to feel more alive, i think my allergies are just about ready to knock me on my ass. it's not going to be fun.

but once i'm past that, i'll have more time for reading and maybe some writing, if i feel inspired. the weather is finally cooling down some, so maybe i'll go on some evening walks and possibly buy some roller blades and get active.

i think it's time to remember what life was like before the internet.

another wasted day.

i've been terribly unproductive.

i keep thinking about how i want to write and never do it. i'm currently reading two books, but they both just end up sitting there collecting dust most of the time. i could've cleaned my room, but i didn't. i could've gone for a walk or something but no. i always seem to choose to just sit around and waste my time.

i need to get out of this funk i've been in lately. because all i'm doing is wasting my life away.

banking 101.

if you're my friend livejournal, you've either read this already, or you will the next time you visit my livejournal. just a head's up.

let me just give everyone a few tips. it's not the bank's fault if you overdraw your account. it is not a teller's job or a manager's job to monitor your account. that's up to you. so don't come in, all pissed off, demanding all fees be reversed and threatening to close all your accounts. take a little responsibility. write everything down. save receipts if you don't have your checkbook with you. if don't do online banking, actually balance your checkbook. if multiple items are clearing on the same day, most banks pay the items in order of largest to smallest, as the large items will tend to be a house payment, or a loan payment of some sort. yes, you will probably be charged for each item that is paid once you're overdrawn. some banks will even charge a fee for each day you are overdrawn. please keep in mind that banks are not nonprofit, and they are, in fact, businesses. the tellers are not volunteers which means they have to be paid somehow.

now, i understand that everyone makes mistakes, banks included. so if that's the case, and it really does happen to be the bank's fault that your account is overdrawn, then call customer service or a branch or even go into a branch and explain the situation as calmly as possible and politely ask if the fees can be reversed.

also, don't try to sneak shit through the atm. credit card checks will probably have holds placed on them because they can come back for up to six months. and banks are not required to call the customer and inform them. they may be required to notify the customer by mail. so you may not know for a couple days. so pay attention to your account. and if any check is payable to someone who is not on the account you are depositing it into, don't put it in the atm, even if it's signed over to the owner of the account.

honestly, i could go on. but i'll just leave it here for now.

regroup.

sometimes the biggest hearts are found in the smallest people.

i've been feeling a little lost (for lack of a better term) lately. between stress at work and stress at home, a lack of ever going anywhere outside of either of those places and feeling like i'm drifting away from everyone, i wasn't really feeling like myself. i couldn't even really remember what "myself" felt like.

this past weekend, i went up to nevada city and got away from the stress of life for a couple days. at first, i felt like i was in that awkward stage between being a kid and being an adult; the youngest adult being thirteen years older than me and the oldest kid being seven years younger than me.

then a little girl showed me that it's not about how young or old you are. i can't say what the defining moment was exactly, but somewhere between the shopping and her insistance on me going swimming with her, it just clicked. when i said to her on saturday, "good things come in small packages, like you," i didn't know just how right i was.

yesterday, an eight year old girl became my hero.

Invisble Monsters.

"Don't you see? Because we're so trained to do life the right way. To not make mistakes. I figure, the bigger the mistake looks, the better chance I'll have to break out and live a real life."

i think part of why i love this book so much is that it really makes you think. it makes you see things from a different point of view. and that's something i'm always looking for. a new perspective.

life is all about experiences. and if you don't mess up every once in awhile, how can you ever learn anything? perhaps a huge mistake is something everyone should look into.

maybe what we all need is the opposite of a miracle.

counterproductivity vs productivity.

my wireless stopped working. i don't know why. chris tried to fix it, but to no avail. tony will be here sunday to look at it and see what he might be able to do. until it is fixed, i probably won't be around the internet very much because i have to plug it in to get online and i'm not really down with that. so i suppose that means finding another way to get ahold of me, should anyone want to communicate.

this is good though. i need to find better ways to occupy my time.

busy busy bee.

i only work three days this week. pretty stoked about that. beyond that, my weekends are looking pretty booked for the next month and a half.

july 16: acoustic matches show?
july 17-20: reno. amy's wedding on the 19th.
july 26: work; cute is what we aim for show?
july 27: baby shower luau.
august 1: twice til tuesday show.
august 2: work; two left feet show.
august 8-10: nevada city?
august 15: twice til tuesday show.
august 16: warped tour marysville.
august 23: work.
august 30-september 1: southern california?

i'm okay with being busy. it's better than being idle.

kill.

i'm so over today. it's been one annoyance after another. could something else please turn up missing or irritate me a little more. please could people keep giving me attitude. please. obviously i like it. obviously i appreciate it.

i would shoot myself in the foot just to go home, if i had a gun.


reno in less than a week. i can't fucking wait to get the hell out of here for a few days.

update.

my sunburn is almost gone. just a few more days of peeling and i'll be back to normal. well, as normal as i get.
i work monday, tuesday wednesday and saturday this week. kind of sucks but that's life. next week i work monday through saturday. insane and not really in a good way.
reno in eighteen days. i have no idea how i'm going to be able to afford it.
i'm bummed that certain things i wanted to do are being put on hold. i hate feeling like i let people down.

i'm just waiting for something exciting to happen.

question.

does anyone read this? i'm pretty sure i allow anonymous comments, so let me know.
i'm not looking for validation or anything. i just figure if no one's reading it, there's not much point in keeping it.

scorecard.

death count: 0.
close calls: 2.
break down-
      betsey: 1.
      random dude with dog: 1.

since i've been driving, i have discovered a whole new breed of stupid. i don't know how to explain it, but honestly, who tries to jaywalk across a four lane street during afternoon traffic when there's a crosswalk fifteen yards away? don't get me wrong, i know i'm supposed to pay attention, but i'm also supposed to look over my shoulder before i change lanes. it's just a lack of commone sense.

my close call was totally my fault. i take most of the responsibility and put some of the blame on the bay bridge only having three cash tolls open, all on one side of the bridge.

you didn't know... oh didn't you know?

i've got it figured out.

it's about the shifting of information.
everything else is simply a formality.

the more information you have, the more powerful you are.

we lose our grip.

there's so much i want to say but i don't know where to start.
and most of it probably shouldn't be put where anyone can see it.

quite frankly, i'm just tired of everything.

who knows?

maybe love isn't meant to last forever. maybe what people who have been together for years see as being "in love" is really just "comfort." and we all like to be comfortable. we all like familiarity.

maybe we're meant to love a person for now. and then when that fades, we're meant to find someone else who we can love until that fades. and so on. maybe we aren't supposed to have only one real true great love. maybe we're meant to have many.

maybe marriage and the idea of eternal love are just boundries set by religions. maybe it's a form of self discipline.

or maybe it depends on the person. maybe some people just simply don't have the capacity to love only one person. but maybe some people can and do fall in love once and stay there forever.

i suppose the big question is, if we really are only meant to have one love, how do we know if the person we spend our whole lives with is the person we're supposed to be with? how do we know we aren't cheating ourselves or someone else out of their great love?

how do we ever really know?

it seems i forgot how to smile.

call this a mask, call me strong
call me a mess, call me wrong
'cause sick hearts do fine with wasting their time

sigh.

i didn't have the greatest morning.
i don't really want to have to interact with people.
i would much rather be home sleeping.
that's all.

and everything just falls apart.

lately everything has been seeming like a challenge. getting out of bed. showering. getting dressed. going to work during the week, being awake on the weekend. feeling alive. smiling. opening my eyes. standing. sitting. not going crazy.

things are just crumbling.

i said it on my livejournal and i guess i'll say it here: i've been feeling detached. i don't know why. i'm not entirely sure when it started and i don't have a clue when it will end. i'm not very certain of anything right now.

all i really know at this very moment is that i can't wait until this heat goes away and i would absolutely love to have someone to just waste time with.

another day.

we're so dead at work. i can't take this kind of boredom.

last night i found a ton of old cds. in my excitement, i brought them to work and we've been rocking backstreet boys, n*sync and now 7 for most of the day. it's pretty awesome because who would ever expect to walk in a bank and hear late 90s pop? i need to find my spice girls cd.

words cannot describe how funny i find this.

i'm not gonna lie...

i actually really like the new cute is what we aim for song.

D:

i was just in the middle of writing (typing) something and all of the sudden my computer was like HAY WANNA SAVE? so i said yes and then everything disappeared and my computer restarted and now i can't find it.

son of a bitch.

sigh.

i'm kind of disappointed with today but i don't feel like i have any right to be.

your subtleties, they strangle me.

a falling star, least i fall alone
i can't explain what you can't explain
you're finding things that you didn't know
i look at you with such disdain

the walls start breathing, my mind's unweaving
maybe it's best you leave me alone
a weight is lifted on this evening
i give the final blow

when darkness turns to light
it ends tonight, it ends tonight
just a litle insight won't make this right
it's too late to fight
it ends tonight, it ends tonight

now i'm on my own side
it's better than being on your side

you're gonna burn in hell.

fucking liar.

it's always something.

it's late/early. this used to be completely normal for me. now it feels so foreign.

i've been thinking about how things used to be. certain people. it so weird how things can change so much over even just the course of a year. some friendships will never be the same. decisions were made and actions will always speak louder than words. it's hard to accept though. i keep thinking that maybe something will change for the better, but if i'm the only one trying then it makes no difference.

i thought to myself earlier, 'i give up' never sounded so much like a beginning. but this is me, and i've never been terribly good at giving up and letting go.

i always want to fix everything, but i'm no hero.

so...

i figured it was about time for a change.
and green just so happens to be my favorite color at the moment.

"there's too much green to feel blue."

you ever catch a lyric in a song you've heard a hundred times and it just hits home? i think sometimes there are songs i know by heart that i don't completely get until i'm not really paying attention when they're on. it's weird how that works.

i just... don't know.

everything about the beginning of this year is wearing on me so badly. first it was sara getting fired and all the changes that came with that at work. then it was hearing about krystel's death. all the stress and sadness, respectively, from those things were enough to make me want to give up on anything and everything and just sleep through the rest of 2008. and just when i'm starting to feel better, max tells me he's having health problems.

god, when i read that, i almost started bawling. i automatically started thinking the worst 'what if' scenarios. and i'm not trying to make this all about me. obviously it's hard on him. it's worse for him to be going through it than for me to read the words he types on a screen. but it just scares me.

as much as this isn't about me, i feel like i just can't catch a break. how fucking terrible of me is that?


"nothing great is ever easy."
so far the beginning of this year has been just about unbearable.
there better be some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.
it better end up being fucking amazing.
i don't want all of this to be for nothing.

2008

this year hasn't started off so great. i'm not going to go into detail though. i think most everyone knows what's been going on.

i'm going to try to be positive. i know, that's weird for me, right? well, i need something to get me through each day and negativity on top of stress isn't going to cut it. so here's hoping that things can only get better.

i think i'm going to seriously start looking for another job. it's not that i hate my job. it's that i know it's not right for me. at this point, i'm not really sure i'm going to find something that's perfect for me, but i need something that's a little closer than what i've got.

there's not really much else to say.

i love michelle because she calls me on my shit.