Sometimes, once in awhile

Sometimes I'm really not as brave and confident as I pretend to be.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I'm really, really just need to be told that it's alright.
Once in awhile, I let everything I keep buried surface, and it turns me into this crazy depressed person that gets cranky and mean because it's really hard to handle all of that crazy without throwing it at somebody.
Once in awhile, I'm really scared.
Sometimes I wish I could scream and cry all these thoughts in my head and make them go away.
Sometimes I wish I didn't have to put on my face every day because I've stupidly put myself in place and life where people actually depend on me.
Once in awhile, I really want people to figure these things out on their own.
Once in awhile, I really want figure these things out on my own. It infuriates me that I can't.
Sometimes I want to just shrink away from everything because I don't feel like I can handle it all.
Sometimes I wonder how I got where I am now.
Once in awhile, I need a hug.
Once in awhile, I regret everything.
Sometimes I'm scared of myself.
Sometimes I'm scared of everyone else.
Once in awhile, I just want to run away from everything.
Once in awhile, I need a clean slate because I feel like everything just so dirty.

I'll always deny it.

Carpe Mortem

My mind grips at insubstantial notions.
It has memories that have never been experienced.
It knows people it has never met.
It spins these tales that linger within the confines of my mind, refusing to leave.
Distinguishing fantasy from reality becomes an ever burdensome task... right?
I've always thought that life should be as I want it to be. That's selfish.
Do I think that's selfish, or do the morals that I've been infused with believe that?
We do good things because we're told to? We do good things because they're good? We do good things because we receive psychological satisfaction from them?
Who am I to judge?
I'm the master of my goddamned universe, that's who. Who are YOU to judge ME?
For all I know, you could all be parts of my imagination, dancing to a tune you can't hear, doing my bidding without me even knowing it.
I hate people and I love people and I really wish everyone would just disappear but then I'd be very lonesome. Very lonesome indeed.
Impasse.
Stretch pass.
Password.
Word games.

Figure it out. If there's anything to figure out.

Every day

Every day I sit on the edge of the cliff with my feet dangling over the edge.
Every day I listen to the waves crashing; rhythmically and methodically.
Every day I lean forward, looking down towards what can only be my end; always wondering what it would feel like to just slide a few inches forward.
Every day I cower back, unable to take that next step.
Every day I get back up and walk back to the world that waits for me; but I always look back as I go.
Every day I loathe leaving my perch, my haven.
Every day I know I'll come back to sit, listen, lean, and cower.

"I don't know where you're going
but do you have room for one more trouble soul?" - Fall Out Boy, Alone Together

Pay attention when I'm talking to you.

June 18th, 2012
A contractor named Saeed Fashafsh, father of four, was killed in a terrorist attack along the border between Israel and Egypt.

July 18th, 2012
Iranians bomb an Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria. Seven people are killed; thirty-two are wounded.

November 15th, 2012
A rocket from Gaza hits an apartment building in Kiryat Malachi. Three people are killed; many more injured INCLUDING infants.

This small list is just the number of attacks on ONE ally country that included civilian deaths during a single year. During my search, I found many, MANY more that included injuries only and soldier casualties. That's one country. One little country in the middle of land that's in a constant state of chaos.

Every single day there are children who don't know if their parents are going to come home from work. There are parents who have no idea if their children's schools are going to be there when it's time to pick them up.

Nobody spares a second thought for these people. Nobody even knows that these atrocities happen. But God forbid it happens in our backyard. Suddenly we care, suddenly we're aware that these things happen again. Fuck you guys. Fuck all of you.

You should be ashamed of yourselves for your attitudes towards terrorism. It doesn't JUST happen in the United States.  Those injured aren't JUST Americans. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be mourning those lost. I'm not saying that this is excusable. What I -AM- saying is that we should all consider ourselves lucky to live in a place where you don't have to be scared of blowing up EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY.

I see it because I'm paying attention.
I see it because only one blind motherfucker could miss it.
I see it because I care for the entire world, not JUST MY OWN FUCKING BACKYARD YOU XENOPHOBIC FUCKERS.

I'll make all the puns and jokes I want, you sons of bitches.

Hoody. Out.

Isn't it though?

Warrgarble, my friends. Warrgarble! Also, if you don't like the word fuck you should stop reading. But you already knew that, didn't you?

4.6 billion years ago (or if you're a Christian, last April at your uncle's cookout) the universe spewed out from a point of singularity, setting into motion a chain of events that I can only think of as "Majestic Chaos." Lots of seemingly random events happened for a lot of mathematical reasons; most of which would've been pretty exciting to watch.

Over the course of the last 200,000 years(or, again, if you're a Christian, last Halloween) humans have been roaming on a rock that just conveniently has enough of everything to make us happy and prosper. Also, not so conveniently, that rock has more than enough of everything to kill us; ourselves included. We've built, we've destroyed and we've loved and hated and survived and died and done all sorts of things that SHOULD have killed us but didn't. That's a long time for your exact ancestors to have made it long enough for you to be born.

Neat.

"Good news, everyone!" - Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Futurama

That Awkward Moment When...

The disclaimer is fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck dicks.

Now that that's out of my system, I've been thinking about the past a lot lately; and the present. I guess overall I've been thinking of a few particular things I've seen and that I'm seeing around me. It brought me to remember something from a long time ago.

Smiles.

I don't know if I smile a lot. I know I didn't when I was younger. I know I smiled quite a bit at the beginning of my relationship with my current fiance. I think smiling was something I learned to do as I got older. I was too busy surviving when I was younger. But enough about me, I'd like to talk about the power of smiling and why we do it.

The most common reason to smile is when you're happy. Easy enough. Good things happen to you and you're happy and so you smile. You get a kind word from your crush, or you get an awesome role in the school musical, or you got accepted to the handbell choir you were SURE you weren't good enough for and had been agonizing about it for longer than was probably healthy(man, my sixth grade self was a real idiot). But yeah, those smiles are EASY. Anyone can manage them.

I remember for a long time in my life, things were so bad that I was falling apart. I didn't know how to be happy so I faked it. Things were just really shitty and I didn't know how to fix it. Everything I tried to do was either shot down or ignored. For a long time I kept smiling. I'd been asked how I could keep smiling through everything. I still don't know for sure, but my answer was always "If I wasn't laughing, I'd be crying." Since then, I've often returned to those days in my memory, looking for one thing or another. Something I found, even though I hadn't been looking for it, was an answer. I think there's a personal therapeutic quality to smiling. We psyche ourselves out. Maybe we're smiling for the wrong reasons, but the act of smiling has the ability to make us feel better. The world looks very different depending on the way our lips are bent, it seems.

Throughout our lives we face the most dire situations we've ever faced in our lives. That's because up until that moment we'd only faced things that we'd already overcome. But I think it's important to remember just that. To get where we are to face the WORST CIRCUMSTANCE EVER we had to have already overcome countless WORST CIRCUMSTANCES EVER. Let's face it, most of us are made of some pretty tough stuff. We're stubborn and hardworking and insightful and clever and TRICKSY LIKE HOBBITSES. Seriously, give yourself some credit. Even though the fight won't end until you do, just putting up your fist is impressive.

My advice to anyone going through the worst situation they've ever experienced is...

1) Laugh. It will change things, even if it's just you who changes.
2) Remember that somebody loves you and is willing to help you get through.
3) Don't forget who you are. It's easy to lose yourself in a crowd, but you're so much more than that.
4) Eat more bacon. Bitches love bacon.

I hope you're reading this. I love you and I'll always help you if you need me.

"Combining the picture and the quote: best lazy moment ever." - Hoody

Spare some change?

It's almost 3am. I tried sleeping. It keeps getting interrupted by something or another. I'm not going to push the issue. I'll just write a few things that come to mind and see where the road takes us.

The disclaimer - tl;dr version
If you don't like it, don't fucking read it.

Who are you? Seriously considering the question, we can all fairly easily produce a few good answers that are mostly accurate. We know ourselves, right? I know I don't like radishes. I know I enjoy video games. I find it very easy to get lost in a good book. Shitake mushrooms make me gag.

That's easy stuff. But all those little things make up the whole of us, right?

I'm not sure where I'm going with this so keep bearing with me.

All these minute parts of us are used to make up the whole. Occasionally, one of them changes; "because of a bad experience I had at an airport, I no longer like flying", or "I realized that my best friend worships a guy named 'Stan' so we can't be friends anymore", or even something so small as "Hey, that peanut butter actually tastes good."

So all these tiny changes happen, right? They don't majorly alter who we are. Not really, anyway. We're still the same person. We act mostly the same (unless someone offers us some peanut butter) and nobody really notices. How is it then, that we often find ourselves speaking of a former friend in terms of "Wow, XYZ has really changed. He's not the same person anymore." Were they possessed by something? Were they really just pretending to be someone else in order to fool us into befriending them?

Probably not. Most people aren't dicks like that.

Every experience we have ends up changing us just a little bit. Day by day tidbits of us are being replaced by new tidbits. They're mostly similar to the old ones, but after revising ourselves over and over, piece by piece, we end up someone totally different without feeling like we've changed at all.

I'm the same person I was when I graduated high school.

...Like hell.

Fundamentally, I'm the same person. I like video games and online chatting and dislike most television programs and sports are awful.

But, I also don't play as many video games as I used to and don't chat online nearly as much as I did then. I go out and interact with people in the real world. I play board games and card games and random games with people. I watch Family Guy and American Dad and almost anything on The History Channel. I'm also a huge Pittsburgh Penguins fan.

And yet when asked, I will still tell you that most television programs are crap. I'll also tell you that I identify as a gamer and online chatting is awesome. Also, sports suck.

I'm not lying, but I'm also not usually thinking about the changes of heart I've had.

I know who I am, and a TV watching sports fan isn't something I can identify with.

We'll often close ourselves off to anything that will damage our self-image in a manner that causes us to have to rethink our identity. Why? The answer to that one is simple; it's easy to be who we are than to become someone else. Even if we've already become that somebody, we need that previous identity to hang out with our friends, to wake up in the morning knowing that we are, deep down, someone we love.

We need to know who we fit in with and who we hate.

We're fragile. We break easily. We also repair easily. So don't be afraid to re-examine yourself or others.

Always ask yourself two questions when you find you no longer enjoy another person's company.

"Have they changed? Or have I?"

“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.” 
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing