Beauty

Beauty



A Novel By Master Mound

Dedicated to Evelyn Aster

Chapter 1

            The hills roll on forever, not stopping to touch the face of any passer by, but often people stop to touch the face of the hills. Few people can look at these hills and see their true beauty. Maybe it is foolish to think that anyone can, and at the same time, how foolish to think that it is not everyone that does. I wonder what most people think when they see the hills; I see feeling. I can't describe it, hell I can't describe most things. The reason people don't prostrate themselves in front of me is by virtue of this reality. I can't explain things to them. What I know compels me to live a certain way, but I can't articulate what I know. I don't know if anyone else is like me. I want to be the only one. It eases the pain. It makes it easier for me to continue; but my own insecurities about having any at all must be universal. Who am I to say? I am only a speck of dust in a vast and unforgiving spectrum; nevertheless, I can't shake the feeling that I am different. I feel that what I know in my heart so liberates me. Why is it then that no one else looks liberated in the way that I do? No one else speaks of the things I do. I feel angry if someone hints to doing so. I defend my ideas as if they were mine, I cling to my enlightenment, or rather so-called enlightenment. And the fact that no-one else knows of it is a lie that elates me. "Lie that elates." Shit; I stole that from English class. How do I expect to change the world if I can't even come up with my own fucking phrases? Maybe I am too hard on myself. I feel so highly of myself at the same time though. Maybe I am not smart like I say I am, but rather simply a genius. I probably stole that too. A lot of people steal things though. I wonder if maybe all the ideas in the world have been thought of and if maybe humanity is just a cycle of repetition of previous ideas newly applied. Maybe this feeling I can't describe is all the ideas in the world, and I just can't articulate them. Maybe we are born knowing everything. Maybe we only become stupider by believing that we are becoming smarter. It seems that at some point we all have to deny beauty, and receive monotony and the system. I think that the process of growing up is the process of killing our sense of feeling. Maybe growing to adulthood is the process of growing a sense of "what really matters." What really matters to me is beauty. Not that I have a clue as to what the hell beauty is, but I know the hills hold beauty. They roll, they ebb and flow. They themselves are beautiful, and so is every small aspect of them. It is the small things about them that make them beautiful, only not all the small things are what most people call beautiful. I find their beauty is in their existence. But I still know not what beauty is. Maybe this is the meaning of life, to find beauty. If that is true then I am truly blind, but the rest of the worlds is very much more so. I at least see light, and I run towards it. They see nothing but darkness, relying on their own momentum to guide them.

Chapter 2

"...And I am moving out." There are no worse words in the world coming from your father. I recant, the phrase "I am gay, and am leaving your mother to run off with your gym teacher" is a hell of a lot worse, but then again they both involve abandonment. It was shattering, and I felt completely numb. I knew not what the hell to do with my life. I was so out of my mind, I could have pissed down my leg, and not known it, had I had to pee, I wouldn't have known what to do. He almost made it sound like he was getting kicked out of the house by my mother. He certainly was a real jackass, and did treat me like crap on a regular basis. It didn't sound that far fetched to me. I had a peculiar relationship with him, and he was a stranger to me at times. I would look at him sometimes, and he would just look so strange to me. Complete strangers would look more familiar to me then him. He was a cliché, the father who was never home, never there for me because he was always working. He was never at my basketball games, he was never at my baseball games. I have no memories of him before I was six. It was strange, as I remember his existence, but not him. I remember talking with my mom about having to be good because "daddy is coming home" I had to shut up because she was on the phone with him. I remember seeing him and wondering who the hell he was. I remember asking who he was one time. I remember his cars a lot more than I remember him. It seems like most of my memories of him are memories of waiting for him. Waiting for him to get home. Waiting for him to stop working so we could play basketball, or baseball. Waiting for him to take me somewhere, waiting in the hotel in Disney world for three hours because he had to make phone calls. My memories of him are like Swiss cheese, all I remember is the waiting. It seems like as soon as his car pulled into the driveway, or his hand extended to open the door, the memory stopped. I don't know if I love him. Personally I find it hard to feel anything for another man. This is a good thing, as I doubt I enjoy anal stimulation. My bitterness shows.

Sometimes I think he is gay, now I truly wonder. Right now I think of my gym teacher; I laugh as I think of when I said his wife looked like a man. I feel bad though. His wife has ALS, she might die soon. I wish I wouldn't have said such things.

My father worries me at times. He is always so sharply dressed, so meticulous. Some would call what he does "anal." He spends hours trying to make things perfect, like fretting over a letter label because it was not perfectly centered. He is like that, so damn hard on himself.

The gay theory leaves my mind, but not before I remember a story my mother told me. Evidently my father was the object of desire for a lot of gay men. Men she would work with, men on the street. One time when he got a Valentine from another guy at the office, he simply flashed his wedding ring. My thoughts drift to my mother. I feel intense sadness for her. I know she always saw him as her knight in shining armor. Now he simply glistens weekly around the eyes as he explains to me what went wrong. He says he wants to be a better father. I meet him with indifference, but I feel distant, subconscious hope. I don't know what I want from him. I don't realize what is happening, it doesn't set in. I sit frozen in front of my computer staring at my fathers feet shuffle away through our basement fireplace. There was a spare piece, I could see the top of it, and onto the other side. It separates one side of the basement from the other. As I saw him shuffle away, I knew he was going on to tell my little brother. I ached for him, I knew he would take it harder than I would. Soft, sad, yet strangely beautiful music seemed to just emanate from the walls. It clashed and became more moving as I heard my brother crying, begging, pleading, and asking why. I didn't cry, I didn't like the guy. He had recently thrown my computer on the floor because he thought I was going to be late for school. He was always on me for not being on time. Now time stopped. I had to remind myself to breathe. My brother ran past me and into the bathroom. My dad chases slowly, the sadness is evident in his face. Our eyes met, what we saw in each others eyes was indescribable. He looked like his heart had been pumped with Novocain. I don't know if he stopped walking when our eyes meet. It seemed like we were staring into each-others eyes for five minutes. When the contact was broken, he started to walk towards the bathroom. My brother sobbed, the music soared. Never has there been a more awkward situation. My father gave up and walked up the stairs, broken and holding back tears. My brother finally came out of the bathroom, still sobbing. I had not moved, time had become completely distorted and immaterial. The music started to wind down as my brother ran up the stairs to his bedroom. I went back to playing video games, I had to get out of the situation. The music continued softly, beautifully to wind on. There was beauty in the situation. Immense beauty, and yet in its wake was such great sadness. It was beautiful.

Chapter 3

I walked through the cold and the rain one day. It was strange, but I didn't feel cold. It didn't get to me, it didn't get inside me. A lot of things that should chill me to the bone only go skin deep; it simply stings. I see it for what it is, and I don't bleed.

As I walk down the stairway to the door, I can feel its grip two flights away. I have brought no coat; my security blanket is not there. I am vulnerable to it, the cold and rain have nothing to stop it from attacking me. The wind blows my medium length curly blond hair, and whistles past my ears. My lungs burn as I take my first breath of freezing air; I watch as my breath becomes visible and drifts off. I keep walking. Other people in heavy coats shiver. Even a security blanket like a leather jacket cannot protect them from the cold; when the cold meets them, it meets an easy victim. I stand tall and let the wind beat me. I stand rigid, hands in my pockets and let my eyes wander. My eyes settle on a boy in a short sleeve shirt. He doesn't shiver. He is portly though. His skin is thick, he wears a permanent security blanket. I turn and look into the horizon. I watch a cloud drift across the sky. I had forgotten how slowly and gracefully clouds move. I stopped to revile in the unusual moment I was having. I was staring into space, literally. I had put my life aside, and was standing, motionless, and letting the world move past me. I had to do nothing, nothing but watch it; I had to do nothing, nothing but watch history unfold. I forget the cold completely. Someone breaks my somber moment by inquiring about my lack of coat. I tell him the cold didn't bother me. I like the cold. To me that phrase is beautiful, but I don't know why. The cold taught me more about the world around me that day then I currently can digest. I tend think of the cold almost romantically. I can't describe it, but there is something about walking in the cold that gets to me. A car horn sounds - euphoria is over, time to go home.

It doesn't end there. As soon as I get home, I have the urge to play basketball. I was thinking about it during the day, as it is just one of the things I think about during the day that helps me though it. School has no beauty, but rather it is the anti-beauty because it makes me too busy for me to fully experience life. It tells me that beauty is idleness. It is right in a way. Beauty is idleness, but only in the sense that at times beauty can be found in idleness. It wants me to pay attention, I really don't give a damn. I spend computer class modifying clip art to look like the teacher, and then modifying other clip art to make slide shows of the teacher taking it up the ass. I find it hilarious. When that gets old, I will try to hack the system. Eventually, I will find the password and try to get the teacher in trouble. What a day that will be.

I get out of the car. It seems to have gotten colder. I grab an old basketball which skin is rough, and is visibly cracking. It spirals though the crisp winter air and then stops unexpectedly. The net has frozen. It was that cold, and still I wore only an undershirt and a button down dress shirt. I stop and stare at the frozen net, and it amuses me. Most people, I would imagine, would go inside. I, however, stick it out, for I do not mind the cold. I start missing, mostly because I don't want to have to climb the ladder again to get the ball out of the hoop. I finally make one. It stays in the hoop, and I have to get it. I work it out with my hands. I try to widen the net, but it does not yield. I continue to work it, continue to work the ball out of the net.   The net loosens slightly, and starts to sway when I work it with my hands, but it still moves as a unit. I must break it down, soften it up. I must make it yield to me, I will not yield to it, I refuse. I get down off the ladder and begin to play again. The ball still gets stuck in the net at times, but not nearly as often, and I no longer have to go get it, but rather just put another ball in the hoop, the weight of the balls makes them both fall though. It still does not yield though, and neither do I. It slowly loosens up. My shots catch the net even less often. They stop laboring though it, and simply start falling to the ground with ease. The net is still rigid, but it can no longer hold on to the ball. I am now the only one who holds on to the ball. The ball warms in my hands, and the ball in turn warms the net. I have defeated it. It still moves as a unit, so very rigidly, but man can never eradicate his foes, although he can always impose his will. I imposed my will on the cold, and on the net. They both wanted me to yield, but in the end, it was they who yielded. It was beautiful.

Chapter 4

I go to an all boys school. There are four female teachers, only one of which any of the guys here would ever want to bone. This leaves us to salivate over that which was not there. It is funny when a girl will show up for some reason. It doesn't seem to matter what she looks like, every guy in attendance with the exception of a few fags salivates. It is hard to imagine my reaction to being surrounded by girls in every class. I fear that I would go damn near insane. By the third day of school, at the latest, I would have a penile aneurysm from the amount of "grade A booty" that would surround me. I think a day at a coed school would have the same effect on me as a bottle of viagra and a playboy. I fear I might die of the omnipotence of girls in tight shirts. Enough about my problems with bursting blood vessels, let us move off this tangent and on to my original point, my problems with all things female. I feel embarrassed to divulge the following, it shames me to bring it into consideration, but up until recently, I had never had a real girlfriend. I ran the gamete of screwed up situations. I think the closest I ever got ended when the bitch ran off with 20 bucks and a few valuable stuffed animals. Hopefully my current relationship is slightly more fruitful. Hell it better be, because I deserve it after the hell I have been through, the wonderful year I have barely survived. Things had gotten to the point where I was taking the following viewpoint

"...I think it would take selling my soul to ever again be able to actually feel true joy. To quote the Jason Biggs character in the movie 'loser' 'She lost a lot of weight, so she is dating more now, ya know how it is.' That is damn near how I see my life going, in a direction where the only people I can date are fat pigs, who will dump me when they finally get on the freaking Jenny Craig diet, until they loose enough weight that the monkeys at the zoo cease to point and laugh when they see her."

On that note, I sometimes question who is the smarter animal; us or monkeys. Really, they can scratch whenever they want, don't have to wear pants, and can do what comes naturally when a big breasted girl in a white shirt bends over, and she will probably think it is cute, hell, she might even give him a hand if she can. Sorry for providing that wonderful visual image.

I feel my problems all started in the fourth grade. I had a fetish of sorts for girls doing pushups, a big one. I was also embroiled in conflict with a few people. Fighting was some sort of Zen for me. I dunno. I was in Karate at the time. I had actually gotten decently far, but that is beyond the point. I had this thing where I would literally seek out girls and try to make them work out with me, and fight me. I dunno. I just really liked seeing girls do pushups. I would understand if this asphyxiation had occurred in 7th grade when real boobs started to "pop up" but in 4th grade a person could not be distinguished as male or female simply by taking their shirts off. I remember I used to dream of having an obedient group of girls I trained. I dreamed of disciplining them when they didn't work out hard enough, or whatever other sin I could have considered so horrible at the time. I remember one in particular, in which I stuck needles through the mammarys of one girl because she had dropped to her knees while doing pushups. Call me a sicko, but I was in 4th grade, so I am gonna use my age as an excuse. I still have a fetish of sorts for girls doing pushups, but now my reasons are simple: I like looking straight down the shirts of big breasted fitness models. Hopefully my previously mentioned disposition to sexual masochism was simply childish curiosity, and not a sign of the sicko I am to become. The main object of my previously mentioned pushup fetish was a girl named Brittany. She was a pale Irish girl who lived around the street from me. She had extremely blonde hair, almost platinum. She was a real tomboy, a wrestling fan like myself. We road the same bus, but we barely ever sat together. I vividly remember her hat. I have not the slightest clue as to what the hell was on the hat, I just remember there was a hat, and she wore it often, and she looked damn good in it, well to other fourth graders at least. I remember seeing great beauty in her. She eventually came to know that I liked her; the entire school eventually came to know that I liked her. We were in a play together. One exceptionally hot day she fainted during practice. As I said it was exceptionally hot day, and people were dropping like flies. When she dropped, I felt worried, but when she got up, and walked to the nurses' office, I cracked a joke about it. "There goes my date for Saturday night." The whole school knew that I liked her, so why not make the joke. I had told her I was gonna bring her flowers earlier in the day. I did. Her fainting gave me a decent excuse for me to bring them to her. I remember giving them to her, but damn near nothing else. Memory is funny that way. It was the first time I had delivered flowers, it was the beginning of an ugly cycle. I remember her hands for some reason, they were so cold. Her entire body seemed cold, and when she peered back at me, I felt the cold. She politely thanked me, and went inside.

About a week later, it was raining, so we were inside for recess. As the rain beat against the window, I watched her body rise and fall, she was on her knees. I imagine her wearing tight blue bike-shorts, but I doubt she was, but I wanted her to. As she slowly rocked back and fourth on her hands, I was in ecstasy. She was doing pushups, but she might as well have been doing what I imagined as I watched her. This is my fondest memory of her, but it was consequently also my last. Maybe because it is my fondest, and after you watch someone doing push-ups, all other things just kinda seem lame.



I did not deliver any flowers for a while. I didn't need to, I didn't have an excuse to. I did fall for another girl though. Her name was Nina, and if the word bitch may be applied anywhere it applies here. I spent my 5th grade year chasing after her. I thought I had her that summer. I remember walking around the block with her, chasing after her. Of course, nothing happened, I don't think we even hugged. The closet thing I ever got was playing fetch with her and her dog. The dog ran around our legs, catching the leash around us. We fell to the ground. Her on top of me. My heart raced, she laughed. I saw her head go downward. I closed my eyes and readied myself. Her head fell into my shoulder, and a handful of her hair struck my puckered lips. AS her hands mobbed to my chest, my heart raced once again. She got up and brushed herself off, stepping on my balls on the way up. This would be the last time "Philburt" would see a female for two years. The walk home was a painful one. I was in huge disappointment, and was experiencing some major swelling. For a kid my age though, the swelling gave me new self-confidence.

She dumped me on September 15, I remember the date only because it was the day before a concert that she wanted to go to. She asked me for the money to go to it, she said she was going to buy two tickets. Even though I hated the band, it would be a date of sorts. I anticipated going to it for this reason. and so I gave her the money. As I gave her the money, I realized what I dope I was. This was confirmed as she stuffed the twenty-dollar-bill in her bra.

"That is an expensive bra stuffer it is" I lightly retorted. I knew I had screwed up. She confirmed this fear.

"I am goin out with Ben now, but thanks for the money, he doesn't have any. Sorry, I just didn't think ya would give me the money if I told ya before hand"

I went home and cried my eyes out. It was the last time I cried over a girl.

My life post Nina was a reasonably happy one. I became consumed with getting back at her, my life took on the purpose of vengeance against the girl that had so wronged me. I had some strange polygamy thing going on in my mind as well. My thoughts twist to believe that every girl has a list of guys she wants to date, and when she dumps one, she goes out with the next one on the list. The precursor to this was my meeting of Emmy and Byron. They were the most popular people in the school. I had always been lowly, and now I was becoming a part of the elite. It was like living in a dream. Hell, it was a dream. I started to fall for Emmy. She was the first girl I ever really talked to. She wrote on my binder(she wrote stuff, symbols, band names, a sign of friendship, and a way of branding someone to a certain group),and wrote me notes. She was in damn near all of my classes, and was constantly there for me though my girl troubles. It is strange, because at my most popular, I was at my most lonely, mainly because I knew what others had. Emmy was always telling me about her boyfriends. It was ok for a while, but then I just started to become insanely jealous. My crush on Emmy became more intense. I wanted her more, I needed her more. She couldn't be what I needed her to be, my soul-mate. I don't think that anyone under 20 can be a soul-mate. I didn't understand this, I still don't understand this. Emmy did help me out a lot, and gave me the best year of my life.

Equally instrumental was Byron. He protected me, molded me. We skipped class together. He was my partner in crime. We even looked alike. He was all over the girls though, and I just wasn't. It was from the fact that he always seemed to be all over girls that I got the idea of polygamy, and the list. He had a list, but I failed to realize what his list really was, and the fact that no girl thinks in such a way. He basically had a list of the people he would most like to fuck, and even though it was "Well, if I can't screw her, then I could always screw her." I just doubt many girls think in such a way. Things with me and Byron also went sour. When he took 20 bucks from me and decided he didn't want to give it back. It hurt. It was like Nina all over again. It was the beginning of the end for him and me. We eventually met up with each-other in the bathroom at lunch, and I called him out on not giving me my money back. As he walked out, or at least tried to, I pushed him back. I wanted my money back. He angrily threw a wild right hand at me, it grazed my chin, sending me sprawling. He threw a few downward combinations trying to get me down. I moved to the wall, planning on supporting myself. Instead, as I tried to get up, I saw a hard right hand, and ducked out of the way, he hit his hand hard against the wall, time for him to take some pain. I threw a barrage of punches, lefts, and rights all over his body. I attempted to kick him in the stomach and then drop an elbow on his neck, but it was not to be. He caught my leg. I jumped up and tried to kick him. I missed, but did knock him into the opposing wall. I was bleeding, and so was he. Me from my mouth and eyebrows, him from his nose, and mouth, the result of hard right hands on both of our parts. We sat across from each other, crying, and bleeding, staring at each other. It was like the most heart wrenching that ever happened to me, but at the same time, it really wasn't. I saw the strangest thing as I looked into Byron's eyes; beauty. I saw immense beauty for the first time through pain. For the first time, I realized that the greatest beauty in the world spawned from that which seemed to have such little. This was when I heard the music for the first time. It took me by surprise. To me it was violin music, and it was so soft, so slow, and yet so moving. It didn't make you tap your foot, it made your heart stop. It didn't have a beat that pumped, it had a melody which ebbed. As I tasted my own blood, and he tasted his, and I tasted his, and he mine, the music soared. It was beautiful.

Chapter 5

The pain of keeping a secret can, at times, be the greatest one. Especially when that secret is well known. In 7th grade I was assaulted in a bathroom of a temple. It was the most horrid thing that has ever happened to me. As he pushed me into the stall I screamed at the top of my lungs, but it was to no avail. The light glistened off of a pendant he was wearing. My hands flailed at him. As he grabbed my wrists, my heart pounded in my chest, and my screaming for help turned to pleading for a reprieve. I was cornered, I couldn't get out, he was too big. As hard as I pushed away from him, I could not get through him, and out to safety. He started slapping me, hitting me, demanding that I shut up. As he continued to defile me, I knew there was only one way out; it was one I wish I hadn't thought of. My head was buzzing with confusion and pain, fear and shame. As I got myself into position, I felt amazingly scared. I feared I would be off target. My aim was true, and I left him crying on the ground as I ran out.

I didn't use a public restroom for month after the incident.

I ran back into the temple, back into a different world. The Bat Mitzvah of a friend of mine. I saw my assaulter limp back into the Temple out of the corner of my eye. My muscles clenched. He was in very evident pain, but it was not as great as the pain I was suffering. I wake up ever morning knowing I have been defiled. It haunts me. I had trouble sleeping for a while. I had a lot of questions I had to answer about myself, they were all ugly ones. I questioned my manhood, I questioned who I was. The last thing a 7th grader needs is a questioning of who they are. The night of my assault, at the party, I clung to Emmy. We had grown apart in a way. We had few classes together, but my obsession with her best friend had freaked her out, and had kinda alienated me from her. Nevertheless, she still helped me through it, and I don't know what I would have done without her. There was only one problem; she knew my assaulter, and he was singing a different tune about what happened, he made it sound like I tried to force myself upon him, and when I tried to tell people about it, looking for help, he made it sound like I was bragging about it. Furthermore, he stated that the fact that I was supposedly bragging was evidence that it was my idea.

Emmy's response to my problem was "I don't care who you fall for, I accept you for who you are. It is ok to be who you are, you really don't have to hide it."

I wasn't that way though, I had just been assaulted damn't! It was to no avail though, there were no words that would convince her that I hadn't just had a fling with some guy in a Temple bathroom.

This was our final break. We never really spoke again as friends, but rather as people who wholly knew each other. I knew what made her tick, she thought she knew what made me. I remember the last time we spoke. It was to ask for the phone number of her friend, and that was it. I wish I could call her now, but who shall I call to get her number?

What my assault did bring me though was Kaitlyn. She was my first real girlfriend, sort of. It was strange though, because what we had always seemed to be secretive, and never spoken. Only in the end did we tell each other how we really felt.

I remember sitting in math class talking to her on the first day of 7th grade. We got talking about my assault, and how horrible it was, and from here we moved on to other things, quite a way to get to know a girl, on the premise of an assault. What really sticks out in my mind about the moment was what she was wearing though. Her jeans were baggy, and a swampy green color which came to her ankles. The pants draped over pink sandals, which stood her high above the ground, they could almost be called platforms. They were just thong sandals (if you can call them that) but they showcased her feet in such a way that they enthralled me. They somehow beckoned me to cradle them in my hands. Her black hair was highlighted with orangish blonde streaks that complimented her bronze tan. She was so beautiful to me, and to sit and talk to her was an absolute joy. A joy I had taken for granted with Emmy. I secretly fell for her, and unbeknownst to me, she was falling for me at the same time.

Chapter 6

We always sat together in math class, we always talked instead of learning. I take that back it was through talking to each other that we learned. Math class was simply our stage for learning life lessons; it was through our pain that we grew closer. One time in particular quickly comes to mind. One pain stands out. They day we both got turned down at a dance, and in our pain, turned towards each other. It was one of those experiences that prove so much, and mean so much, while saying so little. It meant comfort to me. Hell, it meant the world to me.

As I approached the girl of my current affection, and infatuation at that fall dance (I think her name was Allison) I took a big breath, and hoped for the best. At the time I really hadn't grasped the idea of friendship before romance, so I would plunge myself blindly into infatuation with girls I barely knew. Allison, who I had spoken to with before maybe 5 times, still didn't really know me, and I really didn't know her. I approach

"Hey Allison"

I receive a weak "Hi" from her as she tries to avoid eye contact.

"You... eh... enjoying yourself?"

She turned her head away from me, and asphyxiated her gaze on her right sneaker. "Yea" she squeaked back.

"So you wanna dance then?"

Her head snapped up, staring me in the face so smartly, and stiffly that it startled me, and muttered out of the side of her mouth "As long as my dad is standing there" she pointed with her eyes to a man leaning against a wall with his hands in his pockets in blue jeans and a polo shirt, "and as long as we waltz."

And so we waltzed; for about 30 seconds. Then her father, who had been watching her left.

The way in which the dance ended was quite brutal. Some guy came out of nowhere, and grabbed her by her ass, leading her away in anticipation of dry-humping on the dance-floor. This was done as she laughed at me, and basically told me what an ass I was. When hump boy ran out of juice, I asked her to dance again, hoping that she might change her mind about her talented hip thruster of a humping buddy, and dance with me. She stared at me blankly, and proceeded to rip my heart out of my chest, stomp on it vigorously, and roughly shove it in a blender on the lowest, most heart ripping setting.

"...Your ugly, I mean really fucking ugly. You have no muscles, have no athletic ability, you... you... dress horribly, and dance like a frickin dumbass. Your weird, and your soooooooo damn geeaky. I barely even know you, you must be outside of your mind."

To call the tongue lashing I took "heart wrenching" would be an understatement.

On the way to the bathroom to cry my eyes out, I heard crying, I didn't see the person crying though, because my face was damn near on the ground. I had hung my head so low I had the illusion that I could see behind me. When I heard crying I looked up, and a girl with a bronzish, blond orange head of hair hung to the ground. I knew it was Kaitlyn from the second I saw her, even though she had died her hair and I was looking at the dye-job for the first time. I sat down beside her on the ground in a corner, and leaning against the wall, barely inside the door. I looked outside and I could see Allison being pumped like an oil well. I was in a deep pit of despair, and was feeling very unloved. It was at this point that something heavy rested itself on my shoulder. I slowly turned to Kaitlyn, and realized it to be her head. She sobbed. I slowly put my arm around her, doing it for lack of knowledge of what else to do. It felt so strangely right, it just seemed to fit around her, like my arm was made to rest around her. We sat there for what seemed like hours. In reality it was 2 dances. It was at this point where she first spoke.

"so what have you been crying about?" her speech startled me.

I felt outside of myself in some way. I subconsciously answered "got rejected" without hardly knowing it. I felt so at peace.

She yawned "Me too" and readjusted herself against me.

"What do you mean 'Me too?' I was sure Chase liked you. I have seen the guy staring at you in Math class." I said with obvious and real sorrow in my voice, I hated to see her in pain. Deep down though, I was happy. Happy that she was single, and that we were in the position that we were in.

"I thought so too. He came up with his crazy ass reason for why he looking at me. He said he was thinking...." Her voice trails off as she stands up. "Wanna dance? Hell, I figure we both need something to remember he night by besides rejection."

I obliged and added in "...and after the dance, we can come back her and have hot monkey sex."

She laughed. "Alright, get up and shut up before I change my mind."

I heed her warning. Ironically the song that was playing at the time we got to the floor was about misery.

You make me come,

you make me complete

you make me completely miserable.

It was a rock song, but it was a "slow dance" I felt a little nervous about slow dancing with Kaitlyn. I have no idea why though, we were obviously close friends, but still I had butterflies. That and the fact that like all other 7th graders who had not had a little outside help, I was clueless as to what to do with my hands. She was not as skinny as the other girls, but she was by no means fat. She once again fit nicely into my arms. We sang along. We wiped away each other's tears. As the music on the floor stops playing, the music in my head once again begins. Me and Kaitlyn turn to see Chase making out in the corner with some girl named Shannon. Kaitlyn began crying again. I had an idea to cheer her up, but I didn't act on it, and how sad I am that I didn't. I wanted to kiss her so badly that words could never do it justice. I didn't though, and instead I saw Allison again. As the strobe light bounced off of her, a small stain made itself evident on the shoulder of her black shirt. As I think of it now, Allison kinda looked like Monica Lewinski at that point, and was evidently into the same fad of not cleaning the pecker tracks off her clothing. I began to cry. Kaitlyn wanted to leave at that point. She grabbed my hand, and began walking, I was too numb to resist. We walked, arm in arm crying the 6 blocks home. Neither of us minded the walk, for we both saw beauty in our pain, and we both saw even greater beauty in each-other, beauty which neither of us were ready to admit. It was beautiful.

Chapter 7

After that fall dance, things between me and Kaitlyn became more interesting. I was spending more time with her, heck, she only lived around the block from me, so it was the obvious choice for boring Saturday afternoons. All of the clues she was giving me, or at least trying to give me, were falling on deaf ears, for I realized not what was happening in the slightest.

One time in particular stands out in my mind. We were sitting on he couch watching T.V. Her T.V. viewing choices reflected a fascination with romance. Missed clue number 1) If the girl keeps switching channels so that there can be constant dry humping, your in luck if your there alone with her, because no matter what the reason for her fascination, you have to green light to go in for the kill. Her sister suddenly left the room, after a certain hand signal from Kaitlyn. Missed clue number 2) If they make someone else leave the room so you can be alone, then you might as well just take off your pants, because that is probably next on her agenda. I really should have known enough to realize what she was trying to do. I was too nervous to try anything, but God knows I wanted to.

As we cuddled on her rustic orenge couch, she suddenly looked at me quizzically and asked "If you could be in a burrito with 1 person who would it be?"

We were watching "MTV Spring Break" and a 19 year old blond in a tight red Thong-ini who had herself put in a giant rug with a "beef-cake" as Kaitlyn would say. It was a show where peoples dreams would be fulfilled on air. Only these were the dreams of a bunch of horny ass college kids. Back on Kaitlyn's couch, I faltered. Her eyes, which perfectly complimented the couch, peered back at me.

"Get you eyes off the girls boobs and answer the freaking question."

I began to stair at the screen in a much more asphyxiated fashion, and commenced salivation.

She laughs and gingerly rolls off of the couch. She stands in front of the T.V. I cease to salivate. my eyes started to water, and I suck in my to lip, and jut out my bottom lip, giving her the sad puppy face. I get no response. She crossed her arms across her chest, and jutted out her right hip, straightening her left leg, and turning her right leg out, bent at the knee. "your a horndog" she says to me, grinning from ear to ear.

"Naw, I'm just breast man" I said, smiling equally as wide.

Her hand slid down the TV, and brushed past the power button with just enough force to make the TV flicker off. The image imploded on itself, and the screen went blank. Her arms unfolded "Your a breast-man are you?" she said moving her hands now to her waist. I nodded my head stupidly. She slowly grabbed the bottom of her shirt, and began to pull up, slowly. She started to spin around, turning her back to me, gyrating her hips slightly. "Contain yourself" she said in a breathy, seductive, Marilyn Monroeish voice. She was up to the middle of her back which was obviously bare. She pulled down the shoulders of her shirt "I aint wearing a bra, I hope you know" Her bare shoulders seemed to confirm this fact. She quickly turned on her heels, and jerked the shirt up to her neck. I gasped. I was in complete and utter disbelief. She had tricked me. As I looked at the undershirt which she had cleverly arranged to creatively cover her bosom. She started laughing hysterically. I started to stamp my feet.

"I want boobies!" her head was still covered in her shirt, so I got off the couch and grabbed her around the waist, and dragged her to the couch.

"Thor thirsty. Thor like milk from cave-ladies boobies, Thor want to squeeze cave ladies boobies like ripe melons, and have a refreshing glass of ice cold 2 percent cave lady milk." I said this as I moved down her torso, and positioned myself so that I might get the milk in question. As she took the shirt off her head, laughing hysterically, I quickly got my head under that shirt.

"What the holy hell are you doing?" she asked, between heaves of laughter.

"Thor looking for boobies, Thor thinks he made a wrong turn." I said as I wildly moved my head from side to side. As if I were really searching for the mammarys that were covered by a blue lace bra, and was currently the place where I fixed my gaze. "Thor gonna suck and see what spurts"

I lowered my mouth directly over her belly button. "ugh, Thor feels like he just licked the lint collector from a cloths drier. Cave lady need to think about washing that out."

She started to laugh even more hysterically. "I think your two far south"

"Thor goes north then. cave lady got a compos?" I was growing nervous. I was first off without a clue as to what the hell I was doing, and secondly, I wasn't sure if she was just kidding, or she really meant it. I was also just a nervous little seventh grader who hadn't really mastered what the hell to do with himself, forget the opposite sex. I had not yet realized the existence of a natural indicator which will simply be referred to as "relative female humidity" so I knew no way to slyly see if she was serious. I came out the top of her shirt, and when I looked at her she just laughed harder still. I was starting to fear she was going to have a heart attack, or suffocate, or hyperventilate, or God knows what else, she was just laughing to damn hard. I took this as a little bit of an insult. I decided that she was kidding. She would have stopped laughing at me if she meant it, or at least that was what I felt at the time. I made an excuse to leave, I felt extremely hurt.

"Thor would love to stay and get shot by cave ladies dad, but Thor need to get home for dinner at 6. Thor says he meets cave lady at the watering hole at 8." I would meet her at the pool at 8, by then the tension would be over, my chance with her would be over. The biggest missed clue of `em all; when a girl plays along with you going under her shirt to "look for milk" chances are, she probably likes you, or is just a freaking slut, either way, I say it is time to take advantage of the situation.

I got home and was in a daze, I couldn't stop thinking of the situation I had jut passed up. I walked around in a daze, bumping into things, dropping things. I went to pour myself a glass of orange juice, and by the time I came out of my daze, the glass was filled over the brim, and the rest of the carton was on the table, and rapidly dripping onto the ground. It was 6:00, I had 2 hours to be at the pool. I hoped I didn't slip into a daze and miss the rest of the weekend, and having only two hours to get myself together felt damn near impossible. I raced up the stairs en route to the shower. An image of her bra, and that which was hidden under it raced through my mind, and I bonked into the doorway to my room. It was at that point which I understood why the called it "head over heals in love"   You tend to fall down a lot. I had to carefully maneuver myself into the shower. I knew a fall here could cost me the ability to move the right side of my body, or other bad results of slamming my head into a ceramic bathtub. As I turned on the water, things felt different. I first thought it was euphoria, broke out the shampoo, and vigorously washed my hair 3 times. I needed to small damn clean, for it was that night that I would ask her out. It was at this point where I reached for the soap, and as I did I felt something brush against my chin. As I looked down to see what it was, I realized something, I hadn't taken off my cloths. This. was a problem. I quickly ripped them off and resumed "operation hard scrub" I got into rhythm and fell deep into thought about her. It was when I realized the bar which had once been in my hands had disintegrated that I stopped.

When I got out of the shower I looked at the clock apprehensively. I was in horror of what I saw. 7:40. It was too late to ask for a ride, I would have to bike the 4 miles to the pool. I threw on a bathing suit, and my favorite t-shirt (an Elmo shirt) and ran out the door to mount my bike. I peddled my heart out, I was in a trance. I had to get there at 8, not a minute later. I got there just in time, and I as I sighed in relief I went to get off of my bike. My feet hit the pavement, and stung so my I fell to the ground. I looked and then and realized I was bleeding profusely from them. I had forgotten to wear shoes, and the peddles on my bike had torn my feet up. I spotted Kaitlyn, and a chill went down my spine, what would she think of this? She saw me and came over with some older guy, who I figured to be her older brother.

"What happened?" She asked with genuine concern in her voice.

"I lost my shoes on the road, they were in the middle of the road, and so I couldn't go get them. They got run over a bunch of times, so I had to bike the rest of the way here." I then looked up at the hulking guy standing next to her. "I don't think we have met" I extended my hand to him, half to help me up off the ground, half to shake his hand. "what is your relation to Kaitlyn?" I asked expecting to find out it was her cousin or something.

Instead I got "um, my(her) boyfriend"

I don't think I need to go on. I was devastated. I told Kaitlyn good-bye, and pretended to call my mom. Kaitlyn hugged my goodbye. I couldn't grab her ass like I always did, her boyfriend was staring straight at me. I wanted to tell her how I felt, but I knew I couldn't. A real "Thor" was in the way.

As soon as Kaitlyn went into the pool, I got off the phone, or at least hung it up to stop the operator from asking me what the hell I wanted. I felt the urge to walk home, and I did. It was 4 miles uphill, I left the bike there. I chained it up, and left it. As I walked up the hills, tears rolling down my eyes, I hear the music again. I was not crying over Kaitlyn, I wasn't crying because of my feet. I cried for a reason I knew not of at the time. As I reached the top of the hill, the long hill that went from 2 miles from my house to the pool; I looked down. My feet had left blood stains all over the concrete. I could also vaguely see puddles of tears. I sat down and fainted from blood loss, looking into the sky. My last memory of the day was my mom finding me. Kaitlyn's mother, who was at the pool with Kaitlyn, had called my mom about the state of my feet. My mom found me on the sidewalk. I remember her helping me up, and being limp on my feet as my right arm was sprawled over her shoulder, her trying to help me to walk into the car. I looked down the hill again, at my bloody footprints. It was beautiful.

Chapter 8

It was the first dance of my 7th grade year. I had not yet become real friends with Kaitlyn, I had only knew her for 2 weeks at the time. Earlier that day I had heard a rumor that she had a crush on me. I was ecstatic. I had been thinking of her a lot lately, and this was the kinda thing I could only dream about. I had never really had a real girlfriend before. I had been friends with popular girls, danced with them, and confided in them, but I had never really had a relationship based on love with a girl. Sure there was Nina, but she meant nothing to me, mostly because I came to realize that I meant nothing to her. So I fazed out, and reminisced, and dreamed about the future all day. I dreamed about her professing love for me, something no one had ever done. I dreamed about her. being. I dunno how to describe it. Just the entity that was her, her aurora, everything about her. I dreamed of long make out sessions and playing around. I didn't eat that day. Instead, at lunch I just sat and stared at her, and her at me. I felt as if this was the one, she would be the one to liberate me from myself. She would be the one to save me from the pit that was utter loneliness. She would help a boy who wanted so badly to be different, who was so passionate about his individuality, fit in.

When our eyes met for the first time, the butterflies made themselves present in my stomach. I think that all people feel a certain degree of butterflies when someone they find beautiful just stares at them. It is a complement of sorts, it validates them. It shows them that they are worth something, it shows them that someone cares. That is what love is, at least to me. Love is nothing more than showing that you care, and to the extent of that caring. Love is like a security blanket, in a world that tries so hard to bring us down, love tries with all it's might to help us back up. My eyes shifted downward as a result of the butterflies that fluttered in my stomach, hers momentarily shifted downward as well. It took a lot of courage for me to look up. I looked up first. She took longer to overcome her fear. Her delay caused me to be overcome again. My eyes once again dropped to my shoes. Hers slowly raised to look at me, but the fact that I was looking at my shoes caused her to in turn look back down at hers'. We both took a deep breath and looked up. The music that had played before was playing again. As I breathed, it started in sharply, yet beautifully. It seemed to roll in like a thick fog, stealthily, and you never noticed yourself getting enveloped by it, until you were completely trapped and swallowed up in it. When our eyes met again, the music crescendo, and we still breathed in unison. I felt as if I was spinning; I felt like me and Kaitlyn were moving, but the rest of the cafeteria wasn't. I was in ecstasy, and as I leaned back, I narrowed my eyes and lightly bit my lower lip. Some would say I looked stoned, well I was. I was high on the validation and love that Kaitlyn was giving me. I lost myself in it. I lost myself in her eyes. I lost myself in the music. I lost myself, and found her.

At the dance itself we stood across the floor from each other. Now real music played. The effect was the same. Nervous anticipation of that which was about to come. We spoke no words. I danced near her, and she was receptive. We were both smiling so widely, and dancing so hard, and laughing so loudly. She didn't want to slow dance the first dance, saying that she really had to pee. I accepted it, I didn't care. She could have said she was going to kick me in the balls for fun over and over again, or that she was going to fuck my mother, the euphoria I was in was all consuming. She didn't come out of the bathroom for another 15 minutes, I gave up and went back to dancing. She would find me, she loved me after all. When she didn't find me, I realized I had to find her. She hid behind her friends, they urged her to dance with me, she just weakly said she didn't want to. I had to give up eventually. I did an hour later, 2 slow dances later, hundreds of missed attempts later. I walked home. It was 9 o clock, and so it was dark. It was a cool summer night. The music followed, the music which ebbed and flowed, and the music that put me in a daze. I got home and took off my shoes and went up into my room to change. I lay on my bed for a while, not even thinking, just kinda zoning, but I was zoning into her. I dunno, I was in a trancelike state, and she was in my mind, but I was too engrossed to be thinking. I was brought back to reality by the phone's ring. I was startled by the voice of the friend of Kaitlyn. I was to come over to her house immediately. I ran out the door without shoes, without a shirt. I wore only very baggy, very dark, blue jeans. The sidewalk was rocky, a dog chased me, and my feet bleed from the gravel path I walked. Kaitlyn and her friend stood in her driveway. I greeted them both. Kaitlyn apologized for her cold shoulder. Her friend urged me to kiss her. I tried to work up the nerve. I looked into her eyes again, but they did not stare back this time. As she went to go into her house, I grabbed her by the hand, and planned to kiss her. I might have, I dunno. Before I had a chance, her sister came out, and pretended to be drunk. I quickly kissed Kaitlyn on the cheek, (which as far as I am currently concerned, not really kissing someone) and ran. My bloody feet leaving their mark. I got home and was still confused. When I finally finished my undressing, I noticed something about one of the bloodstains I had inadvertently left on the floor. It looked, well, different. It looked like Kaitlyn. I cried tears of joy onto that stain. Through my tears, my bloodstain of Kaitlyn came to have eyes. It was beautiful.

Chapter 9

We grew apart after she found a boyfriend. I would never again go to her house. She would move at the end of the summer, and I never got to say good-bye. I just found out one day. The day she was leaving. I biked past her house, and she asked me to come in, but in a weird way. For a reason I will never understand, I didn't go inside. I wanted to, but for some reason I didn't. She was almost pleading, she looked at me sadly when she asked, but I didn't understand, I couldn't understand. I would never understand until much later. So she left, and I never said goodbye, and it haunts me. It haunted me. It haunted her. I would not talk to her for three years. But I would think of her constantly, I think of her right now. She was beautiful.

The first time I saw her in three years, she was very happy to see me. She was back visiting old friends, I was reminiscing about old times. We talked about how things had changed, and where life had taken us. She spoke first. Her life had gone on like anyone else. She had loved and lost. She tried hard to please all people, and she tried to forget what had gone wrong, she tried to forget her failures. When she asked me what I had been doing for the last 3 years, I looked at her with tears in my eyes and answered "wishing I could see you just one more time so I could tell you all the things I should have told you earlier"

She was shocked. She also started to cry. "I have things I wanted to tell you as well, but I never got the guts to"

I hugged her, and she kissed me. It was a kiss of desperation, and fear, and sorrow, and hope, and love, and lust, and memory, and reminiscence, and the 4 years of pent up emotion. It was wildly powerful. I had no choice but to pour my soul our to her.

As I had gone for the hug that triggered the kiss to rival the one from titanic, I grabbed her and held on to her like a man holds on to his most prized possession. She was that to me in a way, only we no longer belonged to each other. We belonged to other people. I balled as I fell back into the couch with her in my arms.

"I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I would sell everything I had, I would give everything I had, everything I will ever have just to be with you" I cried out, in tears, in screams, in bawls, from a place so deep in my heart that I didn't even know it was there. It was then that she savagely kissed me. Forcing her lips over mine. She did not try to kiss me, she tried to suck the life out of me. She tried to suck me out of the body which I inhabited and take me home with her. I kissed her with the same intentions. I never wanted to stop. I should have done this so long ago, and yet I hadn't. All those nights I had dreamed about it, all those times I wanted to, but didn't. All those days on her couch with her. All those times we were both hurting, all those times we were so asphyxiated on each other. It was all released in that kiss. It was not soft, it was savage. It was hard, brutal, and yet so utterly satisfying. We both focused on taking what we needed, but it was through taking so much from each other that we got what we needed. What we needed was the love we had never gotten. Our embrace ended when we both ran out of air, and broke away from it, gasping. We then fell back into each other's arms. Crying like little schoolgirls. It was beautiful.

Chapter 10

It is sometimes strange how life rolls by. It is hard to understand what you hate about it and what you love about it. I mean, you know there are things that make you happy and things that make you sad. A lot of people think they know what they want. In reality, very few have a clue. Some think cars will make them happy, my father included. He thought a corvette would make him happy; a year and a half later he leaves my mom, blaming his unhappiness on her. The truth is people don't know what they want, and when they get what they think they want, it almost never makes them happy for very long. I am not going to make some religiously laden bullshit speech about finding God as the only true happiness, but in a way it is true, there are not a lot of unhappy holy people, but the reason for their happiness is debatable. Maybe doing the will of their God really does elate them, or maybe they are just so brainwashed they don't know any better. I don't pretend to know which it is, so I will let you decide for yourself. What religion causes is a lot of very confused, very disgruntled, very dangerous people. Religion is a slippery slope, but hell, this is my reminiscing, so what the fuck, let us continue with the bashing of the institution. Religion does the job that society can't, give people an appreciation for what they have, and a hope for the future. It is obviously ingenious, no other form of mind control has ever been so powerful. It is obviously mind control, but the question is, is it of divine origin. God is all powerful, right, so how do we knew he didn't just look at the first things he created, realize that they were depressed, and create a nice little system that sheltered them from their own shortcomings, and vicious cycles of self derogation. Maybe man created it though, created it as a way of making useless people of little real importance important, feared and revered. Maybe it was the brainchild of an old Israelite man who realized that he had amounted to nothing, and needed a way to validate himself. Maybe this guy was having a midlife crisis, and saw this as the way out of it, maybe the entire origin of religion is some guy having a midlife crisis. Maybe the only true cure for a midlife crisis is a God that doesn't exist. Maybe we are all constantly having a midlife crisis. What is a midlife crisis anyway? I believe the dictionary says something to the effect of "questioning ones own worth due to a life spent in relative un fulfillment. Usually followed by a rush for fulfillment, constituted of drastic changes in their lives" Hell, aren't we all in a perpetual midlife crisis then. Are we not all looking at our lives with a lack of satisfaction? Are we not all constantly changing so that people may like us better? I am sure as hell changing to be more liked. That is the story of my life. It is the story of every life. It is the story of every being that has prodded it's feet, legs, hooves, tentacles, fins, or any other appendage for the use of motion you can think of across this great earth. We all struggle to find the acceptance that we do not see, but is always there. Sometimes they are really not there though. Sometimes they just never show, and they leave you, waiting for them, sitting in the rain. It's already been established that I don't mind the rain, but what is it that is so damn sad about sitting in the rain alone waiting for someone who will never come. What makes me cry to think about sitting on my front stoop, waiting for a guy that will never show. Sitting with my legs crossed in front of the window until 4 in the mourning waiting for a car which I know will not come, and is most defiantly home right now. Having a taste of the life you know should be good, and is and isn't at the same time. The exhilaration and the disappointment all rolled into one. The hardship of having to watch people having the fun you only wish you could have. Watching as the girl you love goes out with a whole troop of guys that you know will take her away from you. You have never even seen her though, because you have never gotten around to meeting her. Instead you sit in you basement, and bitch and moan about it. You are in love with the idea of being in love with someone, and because she thinks you're a cool guy, you take that to mean she likes you, or that you have a chance with her or something. You don't though, and you know it. You dream about her, but you don't know what she looks like, so what you're really dreaming about is you and her lips. Once again you have never seen her, so then what you are really dreaming about is you and validation. For that is all a kiss is, validation when you receive it, and a sign of love when you give it. Anyone that says that one can't fuck someone without loving them is wrong. For maybe you don't care all that much, or so you think, but when it comes down to it, you would do anything for that which you fuck and pretend not to care about. You fuck because they are beautiful in your eyes. I don't care how screwed up, that is love. I sat outside that night. I sat outside that window for the rest of the early to middle to late mourning. I sat hoping, just hoping that I would get to see her. I had a hard time finding beauty in this. Until I realized the power of love. I realized what I had done. I had given up sleep, and other fun, because I didn't want to give up, I just wanted to love her. I saw how much I loved a girl I had never met, and realized what it was. I had the intense need to share my life with someone else. Everyone does. I looked at that intense need and smiled. It was beautiful.

Chapter 11

It is sometimes strange how life rolls by. It is hard to understand what you hate about it and what you love about it. I mean, you know there are things that make you happy and things that make you sad. A lot of people think they know what they want. In reality, very few have a clue. Some think cars will make them happy, my father included. He doesn't seem happy though, as the hills pass him. He seems to want to speed over them. He likes to really floor it on the way up, and then he hits the top of the hill, and for one brief instant, you sometimes feel like your flying. I do, I can't imagine what it is like for him to drive in such conditions. I mean, I know what it like to drive my own car over the hills, everyone knows what their own car is like, and at the same time really have never taken the time, or had the opportunity to see what is really going on in the car. What it can do, what is its limits. What do people really think of it? Does it matter? He thinks he has driven my car because he once had one that was similar to it. He doesn't know how to drive it the way I do. He doesn't know the way I really drive it when I get out without him. Sometimes I notice that he is not so much driving as letting himself be driven. Sometimes he drives in ways he doesn't understand. He does things, the car does things, that he can't comprehend. Sometimes inertia becomes a crippling force. Sometimes he notices himself rolling down the hill, and overcompensates by pushing the pedal down to hard. He always comes unglued at the top. It is always because of what he did to get him to the top that he sails up and over it, and he is going down the hill before he knows it. It is scary when we fly over the top of the hill, but we never actually leave the ground. We might feel like we can fly, but we are still mortal, and are always on the ground we try so hard to leave. The only time we ever want to stay on the ground is at the top. We can never stay at the top long though. At least he can't. I am still climbing. Not everyone has a little red sports car to drive. Some people have foreign cars, old cars, just plain pieces of shit. I don't know what I drive, because I have not one car to drive, but a million. Sometimes I will be driving one, and then space off, and find myself in another. He drives two cars as well. He drives one with himself and occasionally one other person, and he rides the other when he is with the ones he cares with. He cares for too few people. Instead he drives his little red sports car with me through the hills. I feel as if I am now driving to. Only I am driving forwards into reverse. I am headed one way, and going the other. My car is not in reverse, but rather I am in the same car. Only he insists on driving it. The road drives him, and I sit back and drive myself. Into the sunrise into the night, into the sunset, and into the endless abyss that is hindsight. It was beautiful.

Chapter 12

I walk home, and it is cold. I am not though. I am warm. The embers of love crushed, loved forgotten, love lost, and love unrealized glow inside, and they keep me from feeling that which is outside. It is not great warmth, but it is something to lighten the fight I must engage in with the cold again. It wants me to give up. It wants me to throw in the towel and give up. It wants me to lay down and die. I have made it this far, there is no way in hell I am going to stop now. I am not calling for help. I have gotten myself into it, and I shall get myself out. I run down the dark street. Blindly forging ahead in a search for somewhere to lay my weary head.

Shit, there I go stealing shit again. I can barely go fucking 20 pages without stealing shit. But then again who the fuck can ramble on for 20 fucking pages? I consider myself somewhat lucky in that respect. Why am I lucky though. As I sit here and pour out my soul some things come out, and I am in disbelief of them. I see myself as some twenty year old yuppie in a black cotton shirt. I don't even know where the fuck I got it from , but I can tell you I probably stole it. I am sitting in the dark, but my breath somehow illuminates myself, like a man puffing into the air in the middle of the winter on PCP. I seem so relaxed about it, but I at the same time I am so asphyxiated with my breath. I am 20 something, and simultaneously think of myself as looking like a huge fucking queer and really cool and at peace at the same time. I dunno. Reminds me of some guy from a "GAP" commercial, only, I am not doing a dance number in tight pants. I dunno. I just kinda see myself like that right now as I tell it. I for some reason see myself as having large arms. I dunno where the hell this is coming from it, so I am not accountable for it. But yea, I have large arms. I don't know why I am attaching this image with my bitching, but I do. I must have fallen asleep at the wheel one day. Must have been driving through life, and fallen asleep and driven through something that would change me forever, and woken up afterward. Maybe I was in a crash, and maybe through that crash I learned something that I don't want to know. Maybe it was that crash, which was so violent, and so horrible that enlightened me. I don't want to know what is coming out now. I don't want to come out. I want to stay in.

What the fuck was that, I let myself go a little there, and I damn near make myself sound like a queer with a thing for college guys in tight black shirts and big arms who is struggling to come out of the closet. Only God knows what the fuck I meant about the entire crash. I am confused. I must have stolen it. I must have, there is no way I could have possibly have come up with that bullshit by myself. Then again maybe I did. I mean, maybe it really is through a crash that I learned something. Maybe the reason I see myself in that black shirt, and with big arms, maybe that is who I think I am. Maybe I think that is the car I drive, or at least one day might drive. I don't know if it is a personification of myself or a demented hope for myself. Then I realize. I am walking down a pitch black street, and my breath is the only thing I can see besides the moon. I think I see myself as that person because it is what I am, it is not so much a personification of what I like, but what I am like. I am an intellectual, I guess. Fuck, for all I know I am just a crazy ass angry kid with a bad temper and the ability to ramble on for God knows how long about nothing but his own personal search for something he doesn't know how describe.   I then see my Dad wearing a tight black shirt, and I understand.

The arms signify the strength I have. No matter what it is that I am, or that I try to do. Whatever it is that I try to find, it is a battle which I must put myself through to reach the end of.     I am weak now. No, I am not. I am not as strong as most, but I will never again be weak. It will be through my test that I grow, it will be through my test that my arms grow. I just hope I don't have to wear the shirt. The shirt I do not want. For what the shirt signifies is something I have sworn that I never want to bear. It signifies becoming my father There is a hole in the road. It is barely avoided, it almost spelled my end, now it spells the end of a beginning and the beginning of a new end.

I continue to run through the dark. I suddenly find myself bathed in a flood of light. It blinds me, takes me completely by surprise, and astounds me. I find myself so far from home, and yet I have found a place to lay my head of such weariness. I catch him before he walks in the door. He says I can't spend the night in his car, but that there is a blanket over a grill in his backyard I can fall asleep under. It was a strange sensation. I had never spent a night under the stars before. Hell I was a sheltered suburbanite stupid ass white boy. They were all so beautiful. So many of them. As I looked up into the sky, one of the millions twinkled. I had never seen it before, and I never saw it again. I looked into the sky, and saw a grand image of myself looking up into the sky, looking at the stars. His stars were different though. I was revolving around one of the stars he was looking at, and he was revolving around one of the stars I was looking at. I curled up under the grill cover, and noticed dew on the grass. The music played, and as I kept looking up into the sky, I saw something new, rain. I threw the blanket off. I then curled up into a ball, and let the rain pour down on me, and the music ebb through my head. I sighed, closed my eyes, and as the water streamed down my face, I smiled. It was beautiful.

Chapter 13

I remember the first time I saw Jamie, she was the new girl, and being the horny and advantageous little guy I was, the first thoughts that crossed through my mind were "I can show her around, and she will like me for it, ah the perfect plan."

Sadly, this really didn't work all the well, considering the fact that she already had someone showing her around. A guy had beat me to the punch. This was in 6th grade, when I was quite possibly the horniest kid alive. I could think of 2 things and nothing else at the time: Playing video games, and how I was going to find myself a girlfriend. I was slightly more successful with the previous, as I didn't get a date for almost a year afterward, and then survived a horribly dry spell that spanned 2 years, which I have(thankfully)broken. Back to Jamie, it was another 2 years before I rekindled my interest in her. She had taken to short shorts and other things that showed off her oh so nicely shaped legs. When my crotch got wind of her "hot legs" it took over and decided that it was time to resume hot pursuit. It then turned to my heart and asked it if it could maybe pump out a poem or two so that I wouldn't appear to be a complete prick. Ah, my crotch made the mistake of giving my heart ground, because as soon as it was in the picture, itself then took over. I poured my soul out on paper, and damn't it felt good. I had an outlet, a place to express myself in a way that I never knew was possible. I could tell the entire world exactly how I felt, and they would never get angry with me for it. I could tell people off, mention the fact that I could barely control myself when Jamie wore knee high leather boots and a really short skirt. I could profess undying and unbridled love, and no one would laugh at me, I would never be turned down, I would never have to feel like I wasn't any good. This eventually led to narcissism, but that didn't come `till much later down the line. I was ecstatic. I wrote how I needed her, how I wanted her, how It was only when we becoming close that we would be ripped apart. It was all of a melancholy tone, all voicing my sadness of her leaving, but my joy for the memories. It was the end of 8th grade, and emotion was flowing through me. Ok, ok, I just thought it should have, so in turn thought it was, but at the time I thought it was real. Fuck that, it was real, I did feel it, and it might have been childish, but I really felt like my life was ending. I would never see these people again, and in my mind, this was a very important time in my life, and in reality it actually was. The feelings I had then might only have been digested recently, but I knew what I was in, remotely, at the time. So my poems reflected a desperateness to find something I could grab onto and hold onto to save me from the oblivion that was having to say goodbye.

One day in Spanish class, I gave her a couple. They were vague, and it was not my intention for her to realize that the girl I spoke of was her. She loved them. I couldn't have felt better about myself, and for the first time in a long time, I had hope that I would find love in her. I couldn't control myself 3 weeks before school ended, and made one of my usual flower runs. I had made quite a few flower runs in my years. I had made 12 between Emmy and her friend and therefore had become a bit of an expert at biking in order to deliver flowers, and had become a regular at the supermarket flower shop. I pulled up to her house on my green mountain bike wearing frayed green shorts and a plain white t-shirt and scrawled a simple "The poems were for you, and let these flowers brighten your day as you do mine every day" I left them on her doorstep, rang the bell, and got the hell out of there. I didn't want to be seen for some stupid ass reason. I biked home and dwelled on what I had just done. I knew I was putting my heart on the line, but I did it anyway. It is amazing what people will do for love. I was willing to bike 6 miles, and leave myself open to a horrible rejection, all in the hope that I might, just might be loved in the way that I previously could have only dreamed of.

Instead of an outpouring of love, I got a "that was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me" which was not exactly what I wanted, but for some strange reason it really made me melt. I realized that that which I was looking for was not so much physical love as I was looking for validation.

My dad looks at me in a funny way as he pilots the previously mentioned Corvette though the Mountains of Colorado.

"What are you writing?"

"ah, nothing"

"If that is nothing then what exactly would you call something? You have an entire Legal Pad full of chicken scratch."

"Ah, tell you what, when I finish writing it, I will give it to ya. Right now, I just wanna get some stuff cleared up, and get it out on paper"

"Ok, I just want you to know that I think the fact that you write

is really amazing. Tom (My uncle, who is a writer) wasn't writing books at your age, so I would say your on the right track" he momentarily took his eyes off the road "I guess what I am trying to say is that I find it really, uh, cool."

I had the validation of my father. I still didn't have his time, but now I at least knew I had his admiration. As we drove past I saw a butterfly perched on a stalk of tall grass, and for one second, the whole world slowed down, and the car seemed to stop and for one second, there was nothing in the world but me and that butterfly, and then the world started up again. Neither of us really wanted to leave the other. We had shared such a great speck in time, but it was then time to move on. What we shared could never be duplicated, never replicated. No one would ever have exactly what we did. I felt special. I didn't need to be in love. The music soared, only this time instead of beautiful classical music, it was Muddy Waters, and he was telling me how he was a mannish boy, I was a mannish boy. I had been forced to be a man way to soon, but I was still a boy. As we rode off into the sunset I set down my pen, it was beautiful.

Chapter 14

Since Kaitlyn left, I have been without a serious relationship. That was a long ass time ago, then something amazing happened, I met someone that was damn near exactly like I. She was crazy like me, she could understand the eccentric shit that I did that others just thought of as me being a crazy ass cracker. She could see though it to find what was really there, humor. Not the kind of humor most people are used to, but rather humor that stems from a deeper understanding of the way things are, a satire played out though everyday life.

I have just made love sound as if is was purely validation, and that validation is all we really seek. While that is true, love is to, well, abstract to be given a concrete definition. Love is strong emotion, love is embedded in every day life. Love is everything, love is nothing. What love is is what you make of it. Love is patient, love is kind; love is impatient, love is mean. Love is blissful, love is true, love is mournful, love is fake. Love is alive, love is kicking, love is dead, and so is the world. Love is everything, love is nothing, and so am I. Love is stupid, and finds you in all the wrong places, love is genius, and gives you the world, yes the entire damn world at your fingertips. Where there is love, there is hope, and where there is love, there is almost always sorrow. Even love is not pure. Or is love the only thing that is pure, and everything else is that which is impure. Because only through love can you do what your heart tells you to do, but your mind tells you not to. Only through love can you have the courage to do things that you want to do, but are too afraid to. Only through love do you throw yourself in front of a car, rush into a burning building, or risk getting caught with your pants off in someone else's basement.

Yea you heard me, getting caught with your pants off. One day after work we went back to her house. I was wearing a Periwinkle blue shirt, a button-down periwinkle blue shirt. We weren't really dating, hell, we hadn't actually even inferred that we actually gave a damn about each other. 2 other people from work were there, and wouldn't you know it was a guy and a girl. We all quickly found the coach, and began a conversation that was harder to follow then the paragraph I am currently writing, and the book as a whole(don't worry, everything will be explained.). Suddenly, out of nowhere, one of the best phrases a girl can say came out of the girl whom I had a thing for's mouth

"No John, you may not fuck me as well"

Mind you John was the other guy. And what the hell is this "as well stuff" this infers that someone is gonna be getting some action. My questions were answered as she started to slowly unbutton the periwinkle shirt.

John saw this and was in shock; the other girl looked at me with an "I am happy for you, but um, why the hell isn't someone getting on me? What, are you both gonna do her, and leave me to watch?" kinda look.

John whined "Oh come on, why not? I mean, I'll get the back"

"No!, I am sorry but I am picky like that"

I was smiling like a Cheshire Cat.

"Can I at least watch?"

"No!, I already told you. I am picky about who I screw"

I smiled wider when I realized the fact that she was running out of buttons on my shirt and the one on my pants was becoming the obvious choice for the next thing she would undo, and the fact that I wasn't the one whining about why I wasn't getting any, but rather I was now the guy getting groped while the girl tried to explain the goofy kid with curly hair why he couldn't get any.

This led to approximately an hour of screwing around(not in a literal sense) which were in fact the preliminaries to wild monkey sex. Ok I joke. It was much more like crazy dog sex. Nah. It started with some dancing, which luckily for me included unforeseen radio play of a song that was basically about dry humping, which lead to you guessed it, me getting her back on the couch and taking the blue thong she was wearing off via the slits in her pants. Then came the dry humping. Ok, not really. I actually then just picked her up and took her outside with me. We sat on her deck and talked with the other 2, groping each other all the while. Running my hands up and down her thighs, I felt at ease. I would think I would be sweating bullets considering the fact that I am not exactly a "playa'." I worked myself up, and my hands became a little more adventurous. Ok, a lot more adventurous. I took her off my lap partly because I didn't want her to know the loss of control of my facilities I was currently exhibiting, and second to take her back inside. We all worried about the fact that the parents were upstairs and could come down at any second, so we got adventurous in such a way that both our backs faced the stairs, which would mean if they came down, both our backs would be facing them, and there would be almost no difficulty in getting my hand away in time. And so I let my fingers do the, erm, walking. This soon got old, and the four of us made our way to the basement. As we lit candles and put some mosh pit type music on, I knew I not only had her, I had her damn near begging. When I finished dwelling and gloating on this fact, two songs had past and I was on the ground. Damn that was a thought, a girl, begging for me. For some people this isn't much, but for me, it is so crazy, I could barely believe it. To tell you the truth, I was in a state of total shock and disbelief. It was in this disbelief that we got back on the couch. There was now but 1 candle illuminating the room. I got up, and blew it out. I then jumped back onto the coach and found her lips. The rest is pretty much up to your imagination, I think I have gone into more than enough detail already. Put it this way. I had to wash my hands afterward, 3 times. As for the hygenial measures she probably took... I would say it took a thorough scrubbing of her upper torso and a good tube of toothpaste to remedy...whatever that a girl might need to remedy by doing such things. Take that for what you think it means.

As I was about to leave, I hugged the other girl, and then my newfound mattress-mambo partner. I got my trademark handful of ass, but this time it had a purpose, I had to give her back her blue thong.

As I lay awake and contemplated what I had just gotten away with I came to an amazing realization, or rather an amazing series of realizations. First off that was the first time I got any without having to significantly liquor up the girl beforehand, and it was the first time I had gotten any without being significantly drunk myself, as well as the first time I had worked completely under the cover of darkness.

I thought about why this was so different then the stuff I did (or at least attempted to) every Friday night. I then started to really think about it. What I did on Fridays' was to fulfill a physical need, it was more or less to alleviate certain stresses, and otherwise, while what I had done that night was a genuine act of love. I had done it to profess love, because I genuinely cared. Then what need was I fulfilling? If it wasn't physical, then was it that I needed to be validated? I sure didn't think so, it was much more abstract. Then it came to me, and the music started to play. It was because I had shared something with someone else. A moment un-replicable. A butterfly landed on my nose, the light from her house went out, and I pulled the blanket she gave me over my head. It was beautiful.

Chapter 15

I remember that when I was a little kid, everything and anything amazed me. Everything was new and beautiful to me. I could look at a flower, and be in awe. I would sit on my front porch, and just watch the sunset. I would watch the grass grow. Well Bamboo actually. See Bamboo grows of rates up to 3 feet a day, so technically, you could really watch the stuff grow. It just fascinated me that things grew. I still can't explain it, but it fascinated me. I used to have thoughts of re-incarnation, and what it would be like to be someone else. What it would be like to look through their eyes. This still fascinates me. Even though I no longer spend long hours contemplating what it would be like, it still utterly fascinates me. What would it be like to see the world though your mothers eyes? Your brothers? What would it be like for someone to look through your eyes. As a kid I knew what beauty was. Everything. Then I grew up, and things started looking ugly. Things would no longer sparkle, they would no longer gleam. I lived in a world where everything was explained. There was no mystery, no awe, just cold scientific fact. Some of these facts are beautiful in themselves though. 93 million miles we are from our sun. 93 MILlION miles! It takes 8 minutes for light to reach us from the sun. It takes millions of years for us to see the other stars. You can look into space, and you can see the light from the creation of the universe. Words can not describe the awe that inspires. We are so small and so insignificant in the scheme of things, and yet we are all so self centered. I can't tell you if this is a good or a bad thing. Ideologically though, I do believe it to be bad. There is no common beauty, and a selfish act is way too common. What makes a kind act so special is the fact that it is so rare. What makes love so special is the fact that it is rare. Sure, everyone finds it eventually. The problem is the fact that loved is missed about a million times for every time it is found. So I see love, not lust or desperateness for a mate, as a rare and very beautiful act.

In my long single stretch I had a lot of time to sit alone at home and think. I first drew up my perfect mate. She would be funny, and crazy like I. The latter was mostly because I would not find love among any but those who could deal with, and learn to appreciate my antics. So thus she had to be crazy, or at least be able to find my craziness as an endearing quality. She had to be funny, and not just any kind of funny, she had to be funny in the same way I was. She had to be smart therefore, because she had to be able to look at the world and find humor in it, and not is afraid to use herself as the fall for a joke or two. She had to be a character. In this, I would hope that she would use big words like I. She would be an overgrown child, because only an overgrown child could relate with me. She also had to be into the same music I was, because sitting in my basement I tended to write a lot of songs, and hell, I didn't meet many people, so I figured anyone I befriended better help me on my goal of recording some of the shit I wrote. I do not use the phrase "shit" lightly. Then I went into the "describing my favorite supermodel" phase of it for my dream girls looks. I dunno why I am telling you this, but I have a huge thing for legs. The weirdest thing about it is the fact that they do nothing for me when they are not covered up until a certain point. Like girl a bikini, disinterest. Girl in really short shorts, slobbering. If they are too short though, disinterest as well. Maybe it is the way it shows it off. Maybe it is the way that it veils what you supposedly really want to see, but shows off what leads to it. Maybe it is the fact that they are trying to veil, but your seeing more than you should. So anyway, I had a huge thing for legs, so a prerequisite was long, thin legs. This would of course lead to the fact that I wanted her to be skinny, I mean, when was the last time you saw a fat person with skinny legs? Strangely enough my physical demands ended there. I now surprise myself to think that I never made a single mammary demand. What is usually at the very top of the male list of female physical requirements was conspicuous by its absence. I guess that is another thing that makes me special; I am not a breast man. Ok who the fuck am I kidding, it was just the fact that boobs seemed to be pretty uniform at the time which I made up the list, I seemed to be dealing with 32 b's across the board. Ah, had to fix that, I mean I was going to pretend to be a guy uninterested in boobs, but then again, if ya don't like boobs then you must like to suck on the other kind of round objects that come in pairs.

After I had my perfect girl, I decided on coming up with ideas for the perfect date, good romantic situations, and ways to spike the girls drinks without her knowing, which actually entailed a lot of liquor testing to see what mixes were least noticeable. My test yielded two things related to Kaluah; a realization that the stuff could be used as a substitute for chocolate in the making of chocolate milk, and a personal addiction to the stuff. For some reason, even though my other illegal habits were eating more of my funds then Kaluah, it was Kaluah that I would do anything for. Other problems stemming from the addiction was the loss of the ability to drink like a real man, as beer now utterly repulsed me, and the fact that I was going through 2 bottles a week. I don't care how big your parents liquor cabinet is, I don't care if they bought freaking Madagascar and paved the streets with bottles of Kaluah, and called it their liqor cabinat, your gonna get caught eventually. This led to another problem during my attempted recovery. There is just something about buying liquor and then having to put it in the liquor cabinet and knowing that you can't drink it that really gets to you. I think this all leads back to the scientific principal that when you have something you always want more. Man is never content until he tells himself he is. See this is the problem with being such a culture of self centered mother fuckers, we can never satisfy our own need to glorify and please ourselves. I come to school drunk once, and I am calm, I feel, well, like I think everyone else feels. I have a "normal day" someone comments that they like the way I am acting. There is no denying it, every human being alive is a whore for complements and praise. There is a dog in everyone that just relishes in having our head patted and our belly scratched. So I came into school drunk the next day. Eventually I went into finals drunk and shitted my way through them. I don't remember a lot of them, but considering the fact that I got almost all C's on them, I would say I was pretty damn drunk. Problem 1 million about my discovery of Kaluah was the fact that they shit tasted so damn good. I wasn't exactly an expert at metering the amount of liquor which reached my stomach. Someday I would mix it really thick, others rather thin. Personally I dunno what the hell mixing it thick or thin means, but one of them probably means more liquor and the other probably means less liquor, so by virtue of the fact that they are used in a pair, I think you can make the connection with one equating to some really drunk days, and some really not so drunk days. The thing was, I was either too drunk, or too sober, I was never just right like I was those first 2 days. I have since broken my addiction to Kaluah; when I realized that Baileys came in much bigger bottles and was cheaper. Actually one day, I broke the streak of singality, and when I woke up in the mourning, I just didn't feel the need. What I did feel the need to do was repeat the actions of the night before that resulted in my breaking of the streak. The strange thing was, when I had the chance to repeat the actions of the night before with Hannah, I balked. I had this weird feeling swoop down over me, and I realized that I was simply searching for my own fulfillment. It hit me in the chest like a brick. I realized why all my kind actions had been in vein; I had done them for myself, and not for the persons I did them for. So instead of having Hannah over to my house for a quickie I met her for coffee and a 3 hour conversation at a bakery.

I thought I would open her eyes, but instead, she opened mine. Yes, Hannah was indeed the dream girl I had fantasized about during my 8th grade summer. She was smart, and funny, and crazy, and used big words, and liked the same type of music I did, and she played drums, and she had nice shapely legs, and yes she was well endowed. She taught me fulfillment is in the past and future, because at the time, you can never understand what is going on. She also taught me not be... uh.. sexually greedy. We spent a half hour on the finer points of pretending that you don't want it so that you might get it. It was the first time I had ever met someone who could level with me on such deep philosophical and psychological ideas and principals. The outcome we came to that actually mattered to my quest for beauty was the fact that when you seek to get something, you act so that you may get it, which is a selfish approach. When you simply want to make someone else happy, the thing that makes them happy very often makes you happy in turn. When you stop looking for fulfillment, and simply start relaxing and letting take life take you where it wants to, the outcome is always a good one, because life deals no bad cards, but people often do the wrong things with those cards.

I had been looking so hard for my perfect girl for almost 10 years, and she had probably been looking for her perfect guy for 8, and neither of had found anything. Then one day when neither of us were looking for love, and we somehow got into a talk on drinking. We had never spoken before, and had no intention of doing so, but then destiny took a hand in our actions, and two people seeminly distinguishable and different from each other only by the sex they were had found each other. Oh, one last thing I forgot to mention about my perfect girl I had never even realized, she had to be a drinker, and she had to be a liquor drinker. So our love sprung from the fact that we agreed that beer drinking was inferior to vodka drinking because (we said the following in sync with each-other) who wants to drink all that liquid? A word to all those against underage drinking and say nothing good has ever come out of it: Hell, it got me laid YEARS before I would have gotten otherwise. Ok, in reality it was our common drinking habits that opened the door for me and Hannah to find out how much we had in common. Latter, me and Hannah sat outside in a field, and let the butterflies flutter on to each other. As we drove through the road that was our life, we didn't need to rush up the hill, and instead we chose to drive slowly barely even touching the accelerator, almost letting the wind carry us. We would never reach the top, but we were already there in a sense, `fore we were going at a rate slow enough that we may have the time to take all the sights and smells in. She was beautiful.

Chap 16

Something sad happened today. I found myself in love with my ideals more than a person. I pride myself on not being a prick interested only in ownership of a girl. I am a free love kinda guy, only without the sloppy drug use. I mean, shit I am a cheep prick, and if I pay 50 bucks for something, I aint gonna be giving it to other people and letting it spill all over the floor. This thought somehow strangely makes me realize something about myself: I am a hypocrite. I am a person very interested in ownership of a girl. This then leads to another question which a lot of people do not want to hear: what the hell is the point of screwing anyway? On one hand, it can be look upon in a very manly "ugh(my attempt at articulating a manly "I'm flexing my muscles" growl), I fucked her, ugh(this is a different kind of growl, this is a "I got her drunk, and I am proud of it" kind of growl")I was horny, so I got her drunk, ugh( a mixture between the last two growls). Then there is the really romantic ideology which I express way to often, and is pretty much what the hell what the book your reading is about. I think I am a hopeless romantic, but I find myself lusting, which is a deadly sin for a reason evidently. Hell evidently, some of the shit we are told at our respective religious establishments has some relation to intelligent decision making. See, evidently the Bible was not made for shallow people. Lust is a deadly sin only when you realize that it causes you to act so that you can bone her instead of acting so that you might actually share something with her, something other then a kid neither of you want, or a cold abortion clinic. ( Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those "Right to life" fanatics who are going to burn your house down because you don't agree with me, and in no way against using your, well...um.. Put it this way, I have no way against "making your naughty parts tingle"[as a certain church lady would say.] but rather fully aware of possible consequences) or sex that is meaningless to you and the girl, but has a hell of a lot of meaning to your buddies. When you act not in lust, but in love, your actions will result in the sharing of life, which is, forgive me for being too sappy, a much better thing to share.

My love story with Hannah was not going to be fairytale one, as if anything can go wrong, it will, and in such a fucked up way there is no way to comprehend. My friend, Andy, decided it was a good idea to fall for Hannah while I was wooing her, or at least trying to woo her, and really screwed things up. He was so aggressive about taking her away from me, and I was angry. Now looking back I was actually just afraid. I had found the person I, in my teenage immaturity, thought I wanted to spend my life with. He comes around, and starts hitting on her, and starts making shit up, and making me look bad, and instead of just accepting it, and trying to be the best person I can, I got angry, because I was afraid he would take her away from me. So instead of just sitting there and just letting things take their course, I tried to take action, tried to push him out of the picture. I didn't understand how horribly jealous I was until I got home that night. I hadn't spoken to her almost at all until the end of the night, and it was only at the end of the night that I was able to act at least half my age, and through a deeply philosophical conversation, save my ass. As I sat in front of my computer working on a previous attempt at a novel that I realized how badly I had screwed up. I had spent the entire night trying to scheme how I was going to get rid of him, and just basically bitching like a little girl about the fact that he was getting more attention than I was. What kind of baby was I? He was getting more attention than I, so I decided to bitch like a girl? What the hell was I thinking? I'll tell you, I was thinking that I would see my perfect girl go running off with Andy, and have to see my dreams crumble like a sand-dollar. I had had my heart broken before, and was not in a hurry to let it happen again. So I did my bitch thing, and it damn near ruined the night. I stopped working on the book and started working on my asinine way of handling a guy going after a girl I (would) like (to bang). I thought of what it was that got me out of the hole. What the hell had it been that had saved my ass? It hit me like a Mike Tyson left hook, or a Don King bill, hard, and it felt as if it was in the balls. I had been my own fucking self!!!!

Why the hell do we pretend to be people we are not? I pretended to be crazy, pretended to be sane, I pretended to be a drunk(I no longer have to pretend, as I am starting to mix writing and drinking like Edger Alan Poe. I have had to cut back though ever since I started this book in my present company), I pretended to be a stoner. I pretended to be one hell of a lot of things; and it got me nowhere. I started being myself with Hannah, and that was where I found acceptance. Sometimes I can't help it. I seem to be looking for some charm that isn't there, but all the while it is, I am just to consumed with trying to be who I think people want me to be to actually be who I really am. I feel weird sometimes. I dunno why.

" I fall in love for real sometimes even when I am high."

That is her line. I now know what she means. She surprises me, she is so deep it is almost incomprehensible. I am as well. That is not an attempt to pat myself on the back excessively, but rather an attempt to prove how much we have in common. I guess it would help to mention that I have never had the courage to get serious with her. I mean, it is always lighthearted with us, never do we actually open up. I ramble too much, she is not given enough opportunity to speak. Instead I am trying to hard. I now understand what that means; I am to obsessed with being who I want myself to be and not obsessed enough with being the person that I am. That is what jealousy is, wishing that you're someone else. So I went to bed happy with myself. Happy with the fact that weed and a newfound sense of self worth had helped me figure out why I had acted like an asshole. I would call Hannah the next day and tell her exactly how I felt, and wouldn't you know it, she agreed, and thought what I thought was really cool. Guess what that means, she actually got a thought out! In the arms of the future she lies. It will most definitely be beautiful.

Chapter 17

Some things sneak out of no where and surprise the hell out of you, but they are so profound, and make so many points, and you learn so much from them that you can never truly understand what they mean. What you do realize is what it means to you. That happened one night with me and Hannah and her friend Megan. What she said sent my ass into orbit. It just hit me so hard, and made me realize something so profound that I looked into the beautiful summer sky and realize what I was looking at, life. I was looking at the life I would have, and I was looking at the life I was going to leave behind, but not before I took one last ride so that I may have to run after some girls car while she waved my shirt around.

"Ya know what, I am not dating anymore, because all dating seems to be is an invitation to sex."

Profound words from Hannah's mouth. Two thoughts simultaneously crossed my mind: "Isn't that all dating is, a guaranteed lay when ya can't get it elsewhere?" and "you know what? I am being a schmuck, and I need to start enjoying Hannah the person and stop trying to enjoy Hannah the hard-bodied play toy." I had said it before, felt it before, but now when I really had a chance to live by my words, I didn't. So I walked around for the rest of the night and knew I was being an ass, but didn't care. I just told her that what she had said had hit me hard, and she understood. I felt awkward, so I tried to be cool. What I should have done was tell her how I felt. I bid her goodbye when some hot females drove up and told me to take my shirt off. Hell, I don't care how serious the situation, or how beautiful the buildup to it, damn't girls wanted me to get in their car and take my shirt off, I could only imagine what this would lead to. What it lead to was a confirmation of the fact that I had acted and thought like a shmuck.

The next night, I called Hannah, and decided to have our first conversation about us, as two people whose lives were very much intertwined. What she told me shocked me. It was, like most things in life, bittersweet. She didn't profess her undying love to me, she never told me how much I meant to her, she simply told me that she was too confused to tell me decisively. I was comforted by her answer to an extent, but I was also left strangely dissatisfied.

"To tell you the truth, I really don't know how I feel. I mean, it is just one of those questions that I would need a night to think about..I mean. uhhh. I jus. (sigh) I just don't know. I can tell you this though; you are the only person I can be totally honest with. Like with most people I have to pretend to be someone that I really am not, but with you. I can just be me. Ya know, (laughs) me. No charades, no bullshit. I feel like I could tell you anything, and I could say it the exact way it comes out of my head, and I feel like you would understand it, and you wouldn't just me for it. Fuck, I could tell you I was a necrophilic, and you probably wouldn't think twice about it.. You would then be interested in what I have to say about it as if I were talking about titts and ass.

Powerful words. On one hand I am being told that she has no clue what she thinks of me, which is really comforting considering the fact that I was expecting some big decisive answer. On the other hand though, she was telling me that she actually gave a damn, that we shared something that she had never shared before in her life -honesty. Pure honesty. I was to stupid to realize it at the time, but what she was trying to tell me was the fact that she cared. That she really didn't know what to think about me, that she was not sure if she really loved me. I was to scared to come out and say it, and that was why instead of giving the overly dramatic "I love you, and I always will" speech, I asked her what she thought of me. I was indirectly asking her if she loved me, and she directly answered that she didn't know. She told me that she cared about me though. She make it clear that she really gave a damn. She made it clear most off all thought that she really wanted to be around me, and that she really enjoyed me. It hits me now, like many things now hit me, just how inept I am to the state of the world, to the state of love. There are many other things that I seem to be inept to realize - oblivious to the signs of - but now, in this personal search for beauty, I find out about my own ineptness in relation to finding love. I have flirted with it, but now I have come to realize that the tip of the iceberg is love. Once one finds love, one finds beauty. This is still not what I am looking for though.

Back to Hannah's quote. There are still other feelings that I had when I heard her words. The most prominent one was fear. I was starting to be afraid that what me and Hannah had was not real. I was starting to become debilitated by the thought that she might be just teasing me. It seemed like every time I was going to really buckle down and ask her what she thought of me, or more directly ask her if she loved me, she would say something, and it would seem to confirm in my mind that she loved me, and I would therefore not ask the question, or rather be satisfied and not press any farther. I was underestimating Hannah at the same time as I was overestimating her. I was confusing true feeling for true genius. She seemed to know just what I wanted to hear. Ok, maybe not just what I wanted to hear, but she seemed to know how to make me glow, she could just make me melt. Hetro guys aren't supposed to melt, but damn't when she told me that I was the only person she could be completely honest with, I melted like a popsicle on the Fourth of July. I was wondering if this was just part of a plan, a conspiracy theory if you will. Was she just toying with me? Playing with my emotions for a laugh? I couldn't figure it out, but my pessimistic mind told me that it was the worst, and the way I acted when I was around her was probably a joke that the entire world was in on except me. Ok, my paranoia never became that bad, but it might as well have been. The phone call I had made in an attempt to make things black and white with me and Hannah had simply caused things to morph into a more neutral shade of gray. There was then this thought that crossed my head, and then it was gone. It made me smile, but I really didn't know why. I think it was the fact that sex drugs and Rock and roll are not vices but the only things worth living for. It could have been anything, but it made me smile. That type of thing happens to me somewhat often. Those thoughts always seem to come to me when those things I am caught up in are bringing me down. Sometimes suffering is beautiful. Yea, I guess the reason I love the rain is because I am looking into the pain, and it is not phasing me. I forget about it and I laugh. Yea, that is beautiful.

Chapter 18

I am no Romeo. As far as romance goes I am more like Woody Alan. I don't pretend to come up with dazzling lines that take your breath away, I tend to stick that being my honest self, which is pretty much a bumbling idiot. A loveable bumbling idiot at that, though. So what I really consider a very special moment in my life came in one of the weirdest situations possible. It wasn't a fairy tale story that was pure and heart warming. In the words of a friend of mine "yea, that is some ghetto shit right there, but God knows it is real, and that is what makes it so great"

It was a Sunday night, and my parents weren't home. I wanted Hannah(my girlfriend) to be over at my house, because we had never previously been alone together, that and the fact that I was infatuated beyond belief. There was only one problem, there was a million and a half things that said she couldn't get to my house. First off how far she lived from me, second off the fact that her mother couldn't drive her, thirdly, her sister wasn't around, so she couldn't get a ride with her. I had 2 choices, forget it and give up, or call a cab pay God knows what to get her over to my house. I called the cab. I waited 20 minutes and she showed up at my front door with an Armenian who wanted 30 bucks. I thus paid $30, a weeks pay just to get her to my house. Being the crazy guy that I am, I had a joke waiting for her; A box of condoms and a tub of Vaseline put on display on the kitchen counter, so the first thing she would see when she walked into the house was the profilactives and the lubrication.

"I just paid 30 bucks, so the sex better be damn good"

Ok, maybe it wasn't a joke as much as it was my way of subtly saying "I just paid 30 bucks, so the sex better be damn good"

She laughed weakly, and I nervously gave her the grand tour of the house. I was hyper as hell, and was pretty much bouncing off the walls. After I finished, we went back into the kitchen and I broke out the vodka. She wanted it strait up, I chose to mix mine with orange juice. So we took our drinks and went down to the couches on the basement. I popped in a sweet love story and we began drinking. 5 minutes in, my parents got home, so I had to finish off both vodkas, as she was feeling a bit pukey after half of hers, and obviously couldnt handle the other half. We paused the movie, and my mom came down. I did my best job of answering all her questions and not falling on my face and passing out. Hannah had had about 4 ounces of vodka, while I had consumed close to 10. We both have Irish blood, but when she weighs 105 pounds, and I weigh 160, the chances of it being well handled are a bit slim. Neither of us puked, but we were just a bit tipsy. My mom, being in denial, didn't pick up on it though. The movie never came back on. At that point my brother also got home, and went straight to his video games.

I guess I should fill you in on the fact that there are 3 rooms in my basement, 2 of them have TVs in them. Those two rooms are right next to each other, and are only separated by a fireplace. There is never any firewood in the fireplace, which has two sides. You can see from one room to another by looking through the glass doors of the fireplace There is no door between the rooms, so you can see from one room to another by looking to the right of the fireplace, and in each room, you can clearly see the other rooms TV. My bro was in the other room playing video games.

Anyway, back to the effects of me and Hannah's drunkenness, Hannah wanted to be a skater, so when he popped in a skating game, she got off the couch and went into the other room to watch. I was screwed up out of my mind, so I can't remember the next 15 minutes.

We then started arguing about what was going on in the relationship. So we have this drunken fight right, and shit is coming out, stuff we would never bring up usually. She just starts unloading on me about all these things I am doing that are wrong. She didn't like the condom and Vaseline, because it makes her feel like I am just using her. I find out that she has this huge problem with physical intimacy, that it means nothing to her.

When I heard this, my blood alcohol content dropped about 5 points, and I came to in a big way. See, she had been used so many times that the things that meant so much to me meant nothing to her. I was in shock. I asked her about that night in my friends basement, the best night of my life up to that point, and she told me that it meant something only because I made it mean something. Basicly it wasn't the actions themselves but what the actions told her that meant something. By doing what I did, it told her that I was interested. I was once again shocked, never before had she even hinted that she really gave a damn. Now it was just flowing out of her. It was at this point that I realized a distant, almost fleeting music. It was the music I had heard so many times before. It sneaked up on me, and my drunkenness helped me get lost in her eyes, and the music. I had also been paranoid that she was playing with me, in other words, she really didn't care, and because of it had been going after other girls, and had actually asked her permission to screw them. This evidently made her very angry. She didn't want me fucking other people. Frankly, I didn't want to be. It was then time for dinner, as my mom had taken the liberty of cooking for us, so we both went upstairs, and as my mom was setting the table in the other room, and I was getting something out of the refrigerator, and she was getting the bread out of the breadbasket, something amazing happened, she said the three words that make all men melt in ways that we will never admit - want a blowjob? No not those three, I almost feel ashamed for ruining such a great scene with a stupid joke like that, but I would just like to subtly make fun of the male half of the human race for being a horny bunch of schmucks. As I came out of the fridge with a carton milk, I closed the door, and there she was, standing there, as pristinely as one can stand with a basket of bread on ones hands, and for real this time, said those three words - I love you. I was swept off my feet, and if I hadn't been so damn drunk, I think I would have cried. I saw the events of that night that led up to this, the events of my entire life that led up to this, and I really felt as if this moment was destined to happen. I came up with the wrong answer though. "Thanks, I needed that." "Thanks I needed that?" What the hell was I thinking, well I dunno, but I have a feeling it falls under that "everything happens for a reason category." Dinner was amazing, or so I have been told, because I don't remember a damn thing. After dinner we got back on the couch downstairs, and she started playing, and wasn't doing very well. She gave me the controller, and unperciveably put her head on my shoulder. It just felt so damn right. I leaned mine on hers, and I played on. It was ten a clock next thing I knew, and she had to be home. My mom drove her home, and on walking her to the door, I opened my heart to her

"Hannah, I know you not big on guys telling you that they love you(because she didn't believe them) so I will just tell you this; tonight was the best night of my life because tonight I found out that you really do have feelings for me" Just then the porch light came on, so with a mixture of real fear, and the want to make her laugh, I told her "well there comes the porch light, and I don't want you dad shooting me, so I will run away quickly now."

So I made self discovery in a drunken lustful state and found out that I was completely loved for the first time. I was to drunk to savor it at the time though. I had great comfort that night that we were both in bed, and we were thinking about the same thing, and it gave me unspeakable joy to know that that thing was each other. We are beautiful, and it is the hills that we have climbed that allow us to be so. Yes, life is beautiful.

Chapter 19

I have run a gauntlet with girls throughout the years as you can tell. I have chased everything under the sun, but now as I sit under the noon-day sun I come to realize that I might have found an end. The girl I am with right now is all I have ever wanted, and all I have ever needed. I don't pretend that I believe that any of the absolute bullshit I say about how I know I am going to spend the rest of my life with her is anything but, but on the same token, I just might. I dunno. I think that at some point everyone finds someone that is their soul-mate. I think I found mine at a very young age. I think that my soul-mate is very special considering the soul I have.

I don't mean to blow smoke up my own ass, but I am an awesome person, and I won't hesitate to tell you about it. Me and Hannah have been through some serious stuff. I mean, we have made many revelations in relation to each other. In a phone convo I had a week after the drunken love revelation, I think we both realized just how much we cared for each other. We were talking about why she wasn't happy with people in general, and somehow we got into what we wanted out of life.

I want to be happy. ya know? just be myself, find myself and find acceptance for it. I wanna find one person that I can really level with. ya know some one I can just be myself with, someone that really understands me. Someone I can just be myself with.

I have screwed up her words, and feel like I took away something that made it ever so much more beautiful, but the essence is there, she had named what I wanted from her. I too was looking for someone I could be myself with. I had found it in her, and I knew she had found it in me. At least I hoped.

The conversation ended, and we both agreed to write a long letter to each other late that night. I sat down at 1:30 am and poured my heart out on paper.

To my Dearest -

I don't know why I started that off that way. I just have a thing for crap like that. "My dearest" what kinda way is that to say hello. Whatever happened to "hey" or "hi" hopefully I never become so tripped up that I feel the necessity to use such words on a regular basis. Anyway to the facts at hand. First of all it is 1:30, and I am writing in fit of insomnia as I know you are doing also. I find this to be an interesting connection we have. You are the best "person" I think that I have ever had. Hell, you are pretty much the only "person" I have ever had. hell I have had girlfriends before, but you seem to be the first "person" I have ever had. I like that word. "Person" so pure it is, it implies no ownership, which I believe to be a bad thing, I think the concept that man can own the one he loves to be a very hypocritical one. The one you love, should be loved by you and cherished by you. You must also keep in mind that they love you as well, and it is in your power to make them stop loving you. Back to the connection we share. I have been thinking about the conversation we had today, it, like a lot of the stuff you say, really made me reach into the core of myself. The core of myself frankly has two goals, you love, and you admiration. Maybe it is the night, or maybe it is the music I am listening to while I write this, but I am finally growing the set I need to tell you that I love you. The thing is I don't just love you, I worship you. You are everything I want from life. The time I spend with you I cherish. Maybe I am not quite as amazing for you, but you are that "person that understands me" that you want in life. As you have noticed, I feel perfectly comfortable with you. I feel like I could tell you anything, and I have confidence that you will listen, no matter how rambleus it is. I hope I am that for you. I felt that your description of that one person you wanted in life was a blow by blow description of what I had previously wanted to be for you. All I frankly want to do is be with you. I might not make sense in the following and previous, but I don't care, this is how my feelings come out, and there is no filter between my heart and my fingertips. I just want to be with you. Every waking moment, and frankly, the better part of those unwaking moments. You told me I would have to learn to just enjoy your company. It was a lesson I learned a long time ago, and you will never have to teach me. I take that back, you taught it to me when you first opened your mouth. With every word I realized how much we had in common, and realized how lucky I was to be around you. Your simple presence is enough to bring a smile to my lips most days. Hell sometimes all I need is an "I love you" to make anything that befalls me effortless and painless. When I am assured that you care, I can walk through a valley in the shadow of death, and I will fear no man, for I know that you are with me. You say you change yourself to make other people happy. I beg you, stay the way you are, for the way you are now is perfect, and brings more joy to my life then I can ever express in words. Even the silver-tongued words on this page, in all their eloquence hath not scratched the surface of the infatuation I have for you. 'Tis like a million moths fluttering toward the opening to my small intestine, like a million Chinese acrobats trying to force their way out of my rib-cage. My chest pounds, my heart almost hurts. I can not describe it because it is beyond words. I just want to hold you. I don't know if that goes into the sexual element we have talked of. I hope it doesn't because it is the one thing that I look for selfishly, you. I want you in my arms, because frankly I want you to never go away. My life is nothing but happiness when you are around, and so parting is so horrible. I know you are probably writing randomness, or what you want to buy with your money, or something lighter than I do. Maybe you are also professing you undying love. How the hell am I supposed to know. I mean, I might be able to tell when you wake up(I had a habbit of calling her right after she woke up from one of her late afternoon naps), but what your thinking, that I can't do. I know you are through with dating and etc, but I hope that doesn't mean you have stopped loving. I need you to love me. I hope you can accept the love I have for you. It is like the Hoover Dam, well managed, but massive and mind boggling, yet not one drop gets through the Dam itself unless it is planned and scheduled to. I can not sleep, like you, because I have too much on my mind. You are too much. The simple thought that someone as amazing as you would want anything to do with a shmuck like me boggles my mind. At the same time you are so much like I, so by simple association I must be amazing if I can be compared to you. I don't get mushy often, but now I am freaking whip cream. I am melting for you. I have no control. Damn't you make me close the blinds(at the time, every time I was on the phone with her, I would start subconsciously closing the blinds)! I want to hold you close to me, so that I might feel the comfort that you love provides. Maybe I am coming on too strong, but then again, is it possible to be obsessive when you know that the other person gives a damn to the extent that you do? I also want to share my life with you. You are so smart, you can understand me, and you can level with me when I talk about philosophical stuff. You love to write. I wish we would explore that faucet of our existence a little more deeply. We barely ever talk about your writing. Always about mine. You have had a hard life, allow me to make it easier. Let me kiss away the tears, logic away the confusion and laugh off the pain. Let us walk through the freezing rain together. Let us hold hands and skip through the dreary and the sad. Let us shut out all pain from our world. Let us live in a place where there is no judgment. Let me live in a place where I no longer have to worry if you truly love me, and in a place where you no longer have to worry if any guy loves you for the person that you are, not the body you have. I want to kiss your soul. I want to caress your personality. I... lu lu lu luuuhahh, love you. (inside joke) Hannah, I love you. I don't see how I could stop. I will stop breathing when it happens. Hopefully this will mean that we will die together at an old age happy. I want to write about something else, but the love I have for you is what keeps me up at night. I may now sleep. Wonder what keeps you awake. God I hope it is me.

I read it over and realized I had reached a milestone of sorts. I had finally gotten the balls to tell someone how I felt, and not only did I tell them, I told them exactly how I felt. I had bore my soul to someone else. When Hannah received it, she loved it. She told me it had made her cry, that it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. Gee, wonder where I heard that one before. She lit up when I asked he about it, her cheeks became rosy and her eyes twinkled. Okay, maybe her cheeks didn't become rosy, and she just kinda looked at me with "embarrassed but not really, consider it more bashfully happy" eyes. The feeling I got from seeing her this happy was addicting. Half naturally, half a result of this feeling, 5 days later, I wrote her another.

My Dearest Hannah

For one reason or another I can't sleep again. Holy shit, your name is a Palindrome! You know, it is spelled the same way frontwards and backwards. I know that I haven't gotten your letter on how you feel about me and to an extent I totally understand. It is soo hard to just sit down and write it, and to an extent how one feels is pretty confusing. Shit, this is starting to sound like a mother fucking "birds and the bees" lecture. Anyway, I know that it is hard to annunciate what it is you feel in your heart. I am writing again because I feel that to an extent, there are still things in my heart that need to come out. If I don't get a letter from you at the time I get this one, then let this one be an example, a template for getting feelings that don't come out easily on paper and into annunciation. Just so you know, I am typing this with my eyes closed, that way I don't judge myself, but rather let my fingers do the walking for myself. Basicly so ther is no filter between my heart and the paper. I was watching this movie with Melisa Joan Heart and some guy who I thought was "muy, muy caliente. Les pantalones infuegaba. Y mis pantalones tambien. Tiene chulo(ass) muy bien"(um... if you don't understand spanish, forget it, if you do, what I said was part of an ongoing joke, and I didn't really mean it) and I dunno, I skipped in on this part of the movie where she was just looking at her boyfriend from afar, and she saw him talking to this girl. She of course walks up to him, and after a breif hello, proceedes to attept to suck his face in. I imediatly think of the movie "But, I am a Cheerleader" and then of you. I dunno why I think of that movie and you in the same line of thought so often, but I am guesing that it has something to do with the fact that it is the sweetest love story I have ever born witness to. For some reason I feel it is neccesary to clarify that the reason I relate the 2 moves together is because there is a simmilar scene in the movie. Basicly the main charecter falls for Gram, and another girl who has a crush comes outside to see them making out. Yea. My parents are asking about you constantly. You should be indiffernt to the fact that my mother loves you, and my father thinks you remind him of a girl he saw a lot when he was a yuppie. He nudged me on the arm a lot when he said "saw" so I am guessing she was probably his first wife, which died of a cocine overdose when he was 24. Yea, she was a french stripper. Sorry that you have been put in such company. Back to the stuff you actually give a dam about, I borught that up because you are becoming the focas of every faucit of my life. Obsessed, yea. Do I need counlsing? No. I think I just need to spend less time with my father. I guess I should mention that I am writing this on my dads new comp. I am still at his house, it is about 2:30 on sunday morning. We washed his vette,. and organized his apartment this mourning. Then he lectured me on his old girlfirends for an hour, and basicly told me that I needed to be more of a shmuck because I was being too nice, and girls don't like guys who are too nice. Oh, ok. Shit, to think, all these years, I was just not being enought of a jackass. To an extent I agree though, I mean, I don't like a good girl, I like a bad girl, but then again that is just the fact that I like to be submissive. Left handed compliment # 1-I love you for being my bad little vixen. Which leads to right handed compliement # 1-I am listnening to my favorite song right now, which is called vixen, and reminds me of you. With the line "call you up, close to 5 am, wake you up again around 7, and all I wanted you to know, is that I miss you bad, yea I miss you bad, yea I miss you bad, it's not over baby it's not ending, with you now my heart is mending" I dunno, once again, the fact that you told me that you felt like you wanted to kill yourself damn near kills me. You mean the world to me, if you were to kill yourself, I would most certainly kill myself as well. Ok, it is VERY FUCKING MELODRAMATIC but it is true, there is nothing that means more to me. (taking a break from the sappy crap that is my true feelings of infatuation for you, I would just like to give myself some very mad props for pulling off a turning the caps lock on as well as bold WTH MY EYES CLOSED!!) I want you to call me sometime, in the middle of the night, around 3 am, or whenever your up and actually think about me, which I hope to God is half you waking moments considering the fact that I really hope you care half as much about me as I care about you. once agian, my personal line is 685-1023... call me on it sometime... no one calls it but Ari, and yea... he is an asshole... (yea..I openened my eys to bold the phone number... I cheated... damn me I am a misserable human being...) I personaly hope I give you something to live for, because you sure as hell give me somthing to live for. I dunno, I might not be as well documented as you have, but I am suicidal at times just as you are. I might be damn near the goofiest human being alive, and outwardly seem to be the happiest human being alive, I am not. I recant, I am now, but previously was not. As the Black Sabbath song goes "been so happy since I met this girl, hear me tellin you that she's just out of this world.." of course those are not the exact lyrics, but they are close enough. I now also think of a song I remember from 6th grade... my first kiss... sort of.. but back to the song... I forget the lyrics.. but I remember the feeling. They gave me goosebumps. Ah, what a horrible word for the feeling it is...your heart leeps through your chest... but anyway... it did. You don't quite give me goosebumps, but that is because I feel so utterly comfortable with you. I have problems with getting my true feelings out in words, and yet with you, they flow decently freely. I eman, it sitll aint my writing, but I think I can annuciate my feelings quite well with you. Speaking of my feelings and what I think is special. I have come to realize something... sex means nothing to you, and it means quite a lot to me. It is not what I am in the relationship for, but hell, it is still something I enjoy. Kind of like the quality of the gum at the center of a blow pop... I mean you don't buy the blow pop for the gum inside... you buy it for the candy outside, but hell, your not complaining about the gum. The gum is a nice little gift. I am not asking for the fricking Karma Suitra here, just maybe spending next tuesdays(I have a field trip on wendsay) break on a couch. I mean, never underestimate the power of a long drawn out kiss. Do it for me, as a gift, alright... I mean... I'll give you cd's, you give me your tounsels. I am not looking at this as if we owe each other anything, but rather as we both do nice things for each other... ya know... non obligitory favors. Another favor you might do me would be to go to that Lit undernight with me. I will absorb any cost accociated with it, but I really want to do that with you... think of it as a sponsored event that i would like to partake in anyway... going to a comedy show.... hell if it sucks it's dark and decenly loud... you could sit on my lap................ and................... we............. could..................................... have....................................................................................... a decent enough conversation on 12th century Polish Politics. I dunno. I am about to conk out here, and am nowhere near the direction I intended on starting out twards, so let me finish with the final truth on how I feel about you... you are the only person I have ever been able to be myself, my whole self, and have fun exactly in the way I feel most comforable having it. You are the only girl that isn't freaked out by the fact that I care, and care so much that I am willing to become a panzy and tell you exactl how i feel. shit I am getting tired now, and my typing is probably going, I love you Hannah, I havbe problems saying it but I sure as hell mean it from the bottom of my heart, I hope this letter brings as much joy as the last one brouht, now I must say goodnight...

I looked at my second creation and came to realize that it contained more of what she liked in me, humor. I realized that I was more myself in the second letter, but at the same time it was just as sweet, to an extent. Thankfully I am not a creampuff through and through, and therefore being a sap is just not me. Hell just being yourself is really cool, and now as I look back at it, being able to let myself be that bare was as well. And yea, it was beautiful.

Chapter 20

I rub my eyes and crack my knuckles, I have done one hell of a lot of thinking about my life. It is now 1:30 in the afternoon, day two of my journey though my self. It has been quite the ride so far. A quest had begun yesterday, and it is starting to bear fruit now. I am starting to see things for the good that they are. I am starting to analyze things not in a worrisome, paranoid way, but in an open and philosophical way. I am starting to look upon things in new lights, and finding the light in new ways. I am learning to express old ideas in new ways and new ideas in old ways. I am basicly beginning to make my own words trite, a thing I defiantly do not want to be doing. I am starting to also realize what a shitty writer I am. I have all the things in the world to write about and one hell of a good idea, a stroke of brilliant inspiration, and I find a way to screw it up, and pervert the words and ideas that are so ingenious. A story I attempt to write on inner struggle is becoming one. The saddest part of it is the fact that you have to listen to it. If you don't listen though, who does? I don't even know who the fuck you are, but let me introduce myself. I am your son, your friend, your mother, your grandson. I am the thoughts of what the hell is goin on inside the heads of millions. I am rebellion, I am hope, I am confusion, I am clarity, damn't I am the human condition; and guess what, I am beautiful.

Chapter 21

i

s

t

h

i

s

t

h

e

e

n

d

?

Chapter 22

I can't let this end this way, for the journey is not yet over. I feel as if I have climbed the hill. I have reached the peak of it. I'm sure as hell not just going to fly back down now. I am gonna stay up her for a while. I am gonna dwell a little on the fat of the land. I still know not what the hell beauty is though. I am getting closer though. I mean, I am finding so many beautiful things in life, only I can't find anything that binds them together. It seems like the only thing they have in common is the fact they are parts of life. I mean, unless I am going to make some blanket statement like "the process of life is beautiful" and expect people to buy into such abstract bullshit, then I am a long way away from the core of what beauty is. Let me continue though on the path of things that are beautiful. Let me continue down the path to the discovery of what the hell beauty is, and let me take you with me.

I am bleeding. It is so strange. I was picking at a wart on my hand, and I pulled out a piece of skin, and it starts to ooze. I look down at my hand in amazement. I just sit there and watch the blood flow. It has a strange allure to it. It slowly emanates from my hand, and runs onto it. The path it takes as it works its' way down my hand is so astounding, but I have not the slightest clue why. It just kinda is. It follows the lines of my hands and falls into a "T" shape. It strikes me that I am bleeding, and yet I do not feel it. I am bleeding, and yet my own blood does not disgust me, or scare me, or freak me out. I just sit there and stare at the growing puddle in my hand. I, like any normal human being, would usually try to stop the bleeding and go wash my hands, but not this time. I simply let the pool continually but steadily grow. I slowly tilt my hand, and euphorically watch the light get caught by the crimson liquid in many different ways. The flow starts to slow down as it clots. I then do something that seems so benignly poetic, I lick the blood off my hand, I lap it off like a cat. This leaves a pattern on my hand. A pattern of blood once there in a puddle but now in my gut. When I get back to my car, I pull down the sunvisor and take a look at myself in a mirror. The blood has left a stain around the edges of my mouth. I look so strange, so evil. What about blood makes it evil. Who ever said blood had to be evil? Why can't blood be beautiful. Personally I think blood is infinatly beautiful. Blood is the result of pain and suffering, and to me, pain and suffering is beautiful, not because it in itself is beautiful, but because the fact that one has survived it, looked it int he eye and laughed at it, gets a feeling out of me. One of those feelings I can't describe. Who says you have to describe everything though. What happened to just being, just seeing. Nothing, that is what beauty is to an extent, I think... Oh who the fuck cares. Blood is beautiful, capiche? Yea, it is beautiful.

Chapter 23

Strange things bring even stranger joys. As walked in the darkness again one night, I find it strange how beautiful it is. I mean, walking in the dark ain't exactly the freaking circus. Whoop-dee fricken doo! To me though, it means something. I stop to inhale the cool night air. It smells strangely different. Nothing utterly or obviously different, but you know it aint the same. What about it makes it special. I feel kinda like I been here before, but at the same time, I still haven't gotten the fuck where I started going in the first place, so I guess I will re-travel the same road again, and see if maybe I can maybe find the thing I was looking for, whatever that is. If ya don't like it get out of my head and go read some other teenagers rambling about how he is not sure if he should masturbate with both hands. Personally I find this slightly more enlightening and refreshing. I have an opinion, and it is actually worth the paper it is printed on, so sit the fuck back old man and let me write my God damn book, you want to leave my mother, go right ahead, but don't expect me to be happy about it. You go drive you new dick replacement of a car, and I will just sit here, wishing things were different.

Anyway, back to self discovery, or whatever the hell I am going to call it in my current rage; I want to get back onto the road of what is so great about walking at night, and away from the rambling that has been the turmoil stemming from an argument of what my dad thinks I should do with my life. So I am walking, I had just gotten back from some kind of party at work. See, I am a shmuck with a sensitive and cuddly side, so I spend my summer taking care of over pampered Jewish Kids, and yea, I don't get paid very well. I think what I get paid is the minimum wage in Guadalupe. So my dick of an employer, and the cool guy that I actually work for felt obligated to do something to make up for the fact that we get paid like 6 year old sweatshop garment makers. So, he took everyone with my position to some improv. show. I had been planning it as a night where I would get laid, and when I didn't I was slightly upset. The thing was, we took 2 vans there, but Hannah decided to sit in a different row than me while I was fucking assaulted by some guys who claim that I am gay, and make shit about it, but at the same time one of them jerks off a little to feverently, and wants me to help him make his balls stop hurting. It is just me, or does the life of a 14-17 year old male revolve around his hand and his dick? Oh, hold on, I am right, because that is what my life is about, and I would consider myself surprisingly un-interested in the knuckle shuffle, white water wristing, plucking the shmuck, pounding the Spam, and whatever other metaphor ya want to come up with for burping the nephew, choking the chicken, popping the purple pimple, or just plain seeing Rosie Palm and her 5 friends for a nice little game of hide the salami.

Enough of why the dickheads with the testicular problems behind were making me wanna pull a 9, and more on what was going on with Hannah. So she sat in a different row, and I became once again scared that she would leave me. Maybe she was just playing with me after all, maybe things are getting stale, maybe I am too horny, maybe I am not horny enough for her. Maybe she is never all over me is because I never make very many moves. Maybe what she really wants is me to just grab her like I would grab a blow up doll, and play a rough little game of entrench the salami. Maybe I need to take a little advice from a Dead Rock God, and "Rape me my friend, rape me again" I mean, I am a pathetically sentimental shmuck, so it would probably end up like Woody Alan trying to rape someone, or Al Snow trying to put on a good match(I should take time out now to say that I am not going to let Mick have all the fun, and that his books, and writing style have helped me a lot through this journey of 5 legal pads so far. For all those who understood that, pat yourself on the back, for those who didn't understand the Al snow part, solemnize yourself with a drill bit, and for all those who understood the Al Snow Joke, but missed half the subtle clues I have been dropping as to what the holy hell is the point of all this, keep reading, and therefore allow yourself to understand) it would start off right but then the loveable idiot would screw something obvious up. I dunno, I am just not like that, I am a sap, and I dunno what I am supposed to do. I am just so worried, because frankly I know she has complete control of the relationship, I like it, but I am not sure she does. She seems to, but maybe she doesn't. Maybe the stock market is going to crash tomorrow. Who cares, what difference does it make. I love Hannah, she seems to love me. I am being paranoid. (note to the editor that will never come... um... I know things are out of tense... leave it.... I like it that way... it has a purpose... it denotes the inner struggle) I really don't know, but as far as I am concerned, life is good, living sucks. No, I think I have completely missed the point there. It is the living that is so great, I mean. Maybe that is why I love the damn night so much. I mean, living. There is no one around and I can think, just clear my mind, get my thoughts out, get shit said. Put things in order. By the time I get home, I forget it, but I always feel better. God I wish I remember what I was thinking. I mean, I know I was thinking about Hannah, and I remember some of the main points of what I was thinking, but I can't remember what it was that brought resolution to it. What was it that made me smile? I dunno, file it under those fleeting enlightenments that you never comprehend, but you have recognize as truth when they come, kinda like that bullshit any organized religion will try to ram down you thought. I am not saying that we should all become atheists, but please, one has to admit that we all (religions) have some pretty pagan practices.

So anyway, I was walking home, and I was thinking about shit. Now as I think of it again I remember the precursor to this book of sorts; my first thought about hills, and how they relate to the mountains we must climb to get to them. Don't understand? To bad, sit back feel sad, and listen to me make everything clear though the use of this ball point pen which is running out and a legal pad.

See, before there was a search for beauty, there was a search for love. Love was beauty, only not really because I hadn't found it yet. Before Hannah, I honestly thought that animal noises and suggestive tongue gestures was an effective form of pick up line. Ok, I wasn't that lost, but I still had no clue what the hell I was doing, or even what I wanted, besides to be happy. So my young life I stumbled though numerous failed attempts at finding what it what it was that I was so desperately looking for and to be honest, for the most part, it was a kiss. One soft caress I could thrive off of, really live off of, I dunno I just saw it as the milestone that someone actually gave a damn about me. That was a huge thing for me. I remember sitting in English class and telling Emmy that was gonna kill myself within the month if I didn't find a woman. I didn't know it then, but she mocked me in her repeating the "a woman" part. She thought I was just being a normal 12 year old was using everything but the kitchen sink to get inside her pants. The reality was the fact that I was just reaching out for help. I just wanted her to comfort me. Tell me that she cared. I just wanted to hear "matt, it doesn't matter if you have a woman or not, I love you, just not in the way you want." I had actually stayed up thinking of exactly what she would say, or at least what I wanted her to say, and how I would respond. Instead I got a mocking tone which inferred "not in a million years buddy." It really hurt. When it hit me, like my fathers disgust for who I was and who I was about to become, just right now, it hurt even worse. I could have killed myself because I was a depressed sentimental, and fragile kid then, and she cared more about the fact that I was trying to get in her pants. So I went looking for love in all the wrong places and found myself blasted with adversity. See, back then, I was looking for love in the same way I was looking for beauty only a short while ago, in the great things that happened. See, I thought that everything great in my life would be grand and overstated events. I overdramatized my dreams, my hopes and everything else. I was looking for the big things, and not for the small things. I thought dwelling on the small shit meant I was pathetic, that I was sadly unsuccessful with woman. But the thing was I wasn't dealing with woman, I was dealing with girls who were just as, if not a hell of a lot more unstable than I. I wanted someone who could help me lick the salt from my wounds, I wanted someone who could make everything great, and that the small shit would be a blur because of how much fun we would have in general. What I hadn't realized was the fact that Emmy put up with my shit, and did her best to help me. I forget about the fact that she included me in everything, helped me be accepted, and generally made me feel great. I didn't realize that the games of grab-ass were keeping me moderately content. All I could see was the fact that I had never been kissed. It consumed me. I believe if I had stopped being so damn jealous and had just been the great guy that I am, and just focused on having fun, then I would have done much better. If I was not so worried about the fact that I thought I couldn't get laid that I never thought about immersing myself in the amazing practice known as flirting. I never tried to get those small things, or as time progressed, nicely sized things in my grasp as to make life just that much easier. I failed to realize that Emily and Kerri were not my freaking parents, and that they were insecure too. Maybe they needed a little validation. There were not pillars. They might have looked like it, but they were anything but. So I went though that, and I met Kaitlyn, and I did things to my chances there that I will never understand, I am just happy that I got my act together, even for just one fleeting moment. That was after a lot of development though. By the time I had figured shit out with Kaitlyn, I had figured shit out with the fact that life lies in the small things, and I started to see people for who they really were instead of just impenetrable castles with pillars of good health, good love, good sex, and good bodies. Evidently everything looks bad from the top, but we you look up at your own body, it don't look that bad. Take that for it's literal and figurative meanings. So I was walking home one day, the same walk, on the same day I mentioned at the beginning of this subdivision that I like to call a chapter, I started thinking about hills, and what they really meant. I noticed that I was going uphill, but I was doing so while going downhill one hell of a lot. It was then that I realized what the fuck I needed to do with my life, what it was that I was searching for. When I saw a car crash happen in front of me. The glass shattered, the tires squealed. Metal bent, and the smell of burnt rubber and burnt brake fluid wafted towards me. I stood in awe. I didn't know what I was looking at, but I knew it was really cool. Not because it was "macho" It wasn't the fact that it was violent, and seemed like a guy thing. It was because I realized the fact that I had just came to the bottom of a small hill, then the car crash happened. And after I was through digesting it, and I had started walking again, I looked ahead of me and saw that I had to climb steeply uphill. It just hit me so hard. This was what shit was about, this is what I need to explore. I didn't know It yet, but I had found beauty. Not in the way I am desperately trying to do right now, but rather in a much vaguer sense, this was the beginning of my journey up the mountain. God I am happy I am still climbing, because it is the small things about climbing that make it so great.

I got to the top of the hill and realized something about the night. While me and Hannah hadn't made any little Hannah's, I did have an interesting experience with another. On the way back from that little event, the girl I was sitting next to, who was not exactly ugly by any standards, was tired, and started laying on me. The entire time me and this girl were pretty much cuddling, I was staring at Hannah. I wanted it to be her I was laying with. Then I looked to the back of the bus and saw that another two were making out back there. I looked back at Hannah, and became discontent with what was going on. I was unbelievably jealous. And ya know what she was thinking the same thing. Or maybe not, or who cares. This girl was validating me, and wither she was Hannah or not she was beautiful. So I just said to myself, I should take what I get and be happy. Love is not the cut and dry thing it is made out to be. It is what you make it. I decided to make it beautiful. I should have decided to fall asleep in the same way the girl had fallen asleep in my arms. But life aint perfect, and that is why it is beautiful. Hell, what is a hill if it don't got a bottom. I crossed the street, called my mom, she picked me up, I went home, and couldn't sleep because the night was keeping me up. I fell asleep to the remembrance of the girls arms. It was beautiful.

Chapter 24

That gets me thinking about something, what is a hill without a bottom anyway? Every hill must have a bottom, it is by this virtue that it has a top. See, the hill is all about your perception, and only through change, only when you perceive a change in altitude, do you perceive the hill as a hill. What if all things were uphill? What if the entire world was a mountain top? would you find any beauty in it then? If you lived in vail your entire life, and knew of no other landscape, would you think the mountain peaks to be beautiful? I would bet you anything that the first time you saw the most plain field of Kansas Prairie that you would find it ever so much more beautiful than you mountain peak. For some strange reason, humans tend to love things that they don't have. I think it partially links back to the fact that we are all searching for something. A lot of us feel empty and are constantly searching for that thing that will fill us up; fulfill our wants and needs, make us content. Most of us never find it though, because most people don't look for happiness in those things that are attainable and bring everyday joy, but rather they continue to look for those one in a lifetime opportunities. they look for that snowy mountain peak. People all seem to want to be great, but they want to do it the "normal" way. They want to do it like the other people, they want the easy way. They never want to enjoy the way up to the peak though. Everyone wants to be an overnight success, and then think that they will be content, and will go back to their normal lives, but now they will have had fame, and will be content for the rest of their lives. They don't understand what the hill is, they don't understand what makes a mountain; a series of hills. In that way I come to realize that what I realized at 1:30 to be utter bullshit. I have reached the top of a large hill, not the peak of a mountain.

Sometimes you gotta go down to go up. The problem is, when people see that they have to go down almost as far/as far/even farther from where they started in order to go back up again, after they have slaved to get up as high as they are, or realize that they are going to have to go down to depths that will take enormous amounts of sacrifice and effort, they just turn around and give up. In case you have not noticed, I aint one of those people who are afraid of loosing everything now so that I may have everything and more in the future. And another thing, I know that it is the difficulty of the climb that gauges the reward of reaching the peak, and it is the climb that has meaning. The peak is empty unless there is a climb to look back on. The peak is what you make it, and so is the climb. The peak is where you make it, and so are the highlights of your life.

My relationship with Hannah was becoming a little rocky. No matter how many "I love you's" were exchanged, I was still paranoid that she didn't love me. No matter what we did in trains, planes, and automobiles(ok, so we never fucked in trains or planes, but hell it sounded good) I just couldn't find that for which I was searching. I had professed my love so blatantly and poetically, and still she had yet to tell me exactly how she felt about me. We had shared some great moments, but I hadn't gotten what I wanted that night, the grand ole' good time with Hannah which involved copulation. Listening to bad advice, and being desperate, I wrote Hannah another letter. This one was quite different though.

Dear Hannah,

I do what I must, and this I must do again, write to you. As in previous letters, I write to you because it is late, and I know not what else to do, unlike other letters, this one is not to tell you how much I love you. It will contain such passages, and that is essentially why I write but that is not what it is about. What it is about is whatever comes off my fingertips. Hannah, I need you, your too perfect for me to let go. Last time I asked for permission if I could screw other people I later found it hurt you, I dont want to hurt you. That is the last thing in the world I would ever want to do. So tonight, when given the chance I balked. I didnt even go for girls my age, I went for fricken 13 year olds, and that aint because I like that age, it was because it fit what I wanted to do, or rather really didnt want to do, fill the void. See I am deathly afraid of how you feel about me. I tell you to write the letter, I ask about it because I need to know. I mean, I fell like I am worth shit. I aint gonna kill myself or any bullshit like that, but without you to assure me, I feel inadequate. I just want you to kiss away the tears or some romantic bullshit like that. I dunno, I expected something sparkling and great, but instead it is just mediocre. Hannah, in your attempt not to loose me, your loosing me. Take my advice here, the quickest way to my heart is though yours. I dont like the bad girl, the seductive girl, the girl that is hard to get. I see no fun in it. I dunno. I guess I just want things to be easy, to fall into place. I want you to act as you feel, and just be who you are. I guess I am calling for an end to all bullshit. I dont like fun and games when I dont know that both teams will win in the end. Let me rephrase. I AM SCARED THAT YOU REALLLY DONT LOVE ME. YOU TELL ME YOU LOVE ME, BUT I DONT KNOW IF YOU MEAN IT. IT SCARES ME THAT YOU TOLD ME TO SEE OTHER GIRLS. I WANT YOU TO TELL ME NOT TO. PERSONALLY I DONT MIND IF YOU SEE OTHER PEOPLE AS LONG AS I KNOW I WILL HAVE YOU TO COME HOME TO(so to say). We have such a weird arrangement, I mean, we havent kissed since Morgans basement. Maybe it means nothing to you, but it means the world to me. It is part because I am a male animal with overactive hormones that can best be summed up in mini me As a male I have 2 thoughts: Hump and eat. On the other hand I am immensely sappy. Maybe too sappy. I dont know. I am not smooth like other guys, I dont act like other guys, and my results with woman prove it. As scared as you are of screwing things up, I am much more paranoid. I mean, you have backups, I dont. Your good looking, I am not. If things dont work out for you, you move on. For me, I mope for 5 months and write a book about what a shmuck I am. You fail to understand how perfect you are. I worship the ground you walk on, because I know how special you are. You havent been as chronically single as I. You have never sat up at night and thought you would die a lonely virgin. Maybe you have, how the fuck am I supposed to know. As I tried to put into words earlier, I know I would do anything for you, and my fear is the fact that I am no fun. I mean, getting me isnt a challenge. You play with me a lot, or so I overanalyze, I wonder if you want me to do the same. Frankly I think we should open up the lines of communication on what we want from each other. I am not getting what I want or need, but that is my fault. Unlike my father, I would never blame you for what is wrong with my own happiness. I havent told you, I havent been assertive enough. I think we both need to stop being so afraid of loosing the other and start being honest about what the hell is going on. I dont need the letter, I need you to tell me how you feel. There is no excuse why you wouldnt be able to tell me. Tell me what it is you feel.. If how you feel changes, tell me how you feel now. If it aint pleasant, tell me so I can fix it before shit crashes and burns. Another element of it is the fact that I dont feel like you could love me. If you dont tell me, and I dont believe it, than I will continue to believe that you are just playing with me, because frankly I dont see how you could love me. I see you being a lot like me, but you have a lot of qualities I dont. I see it kinda like anything I can do, you can do better So I take the role of the submissive. Partly because I dont know what the holy fuck what I am doing. I have also fucked everything up in the past, so I would much rather let you lead. Do you want me to take the lead more often? Do you want me to be more aggressive in my contact with you? I mean, would you like it if I treated you a little more lustfully. Would it be ok if I took a little initiative in the way things go. The only time I have ever really taken initiative with a girl was that night in Morgans basement. If that is what you want, then that is what you will get, because frankly that is what I am dieing to do. It is what I have been wanting to do, because once again, I have to prove to myself that you give a damn. Damnt I tried to lie to myself and say I was nothing like him, but I am exactly like him, a scared, scrawny kid, with a father who makes him feel like shit, and damnt I have a huge inferiority complex. I wont allow myself to hurt people like he did. I know you are as nice as I can be when I am not scared shitless that I am going to be taken advantage of, and I know you would never hurt me intentionally, but once again, I am just scared shitless that you are falling out of love with me. I think you also need my validation. I want both of us to stop worrying so much. So I have an idea. Let us both promise that we will never hurt each other, and that we will do whatever we can to make each others lives better. I am going to take a lot of shit. I will try to keep my end out of it. Dont tell me to cheat. I couldnt do it if I tried. Even if the most gorgeous, big breasted girl in the entire world was hot for me, I would be able to do so much as look at her without feeling bad. There is nothing I love, or want more than you. The best way to keep me loving you is to love me in return. Whatever you feel for me, I aint feeling it. Another thing about how you feel about me. This entire thing where ya have so many loves I makes me feel like a number. Allow me to set my first official I can where pants too, ya know statement to be that you may have me, Sean, and Hally(or however you spell her name). I dont see any need for anyone else. You may have more when you can explain to me why you would need more. If it is a validation issure, allow me to open my mouth, and I think I can solve it. If it is a problem that you dont trust me, or that you dont trust that I fell the way I claim to. Give me the choice between banging all your friends, or helping you do laundry and let my choice answer any question of the degree of truth with which I write. If you are ashamed of your house, or whatever, I really dont care. Let me sum things up with that seemingly un-annunciateable subject. I dont care where you come from, or who you think you should be, or what you wish you were. I fell in love with you not because you were rich, or the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, but because of who you are. If that includes having things you are not proud of, then so be it. I have a feeling your ashamed, or uncomfortable with something. Whatever it is, I really dont care, I dont judge remember. I am going to New York soon. It will be the hardest week and a half of my life. I want to see you this week out of camp. I dont care what we do. But I have an idea. Let us figure stuff out, and make each other feel good about ourselves. I just want to hold you. Tell me what you want let me make it happen. Ya know what else I really want? To not have to write anymore letters. I want to be able to tell you. I want you to tell me exactly how you feel like I reputedly tell me. I want you to stop putting crap off, I want you to put as much effort into this as I do. Or at least let me know about it, because It hurts me not to know that you love me as much as I love you. Tell me the absolute truth, let me go from there. I would rather find out you didnt like me so much, and at least know what to do with myself then continue to believe only to find out it was a lie. Stay after camp a little on Tuesday we shall do whatever I just want to be with you. Your time is the thing I cherish more than anything else in the world. Oh, and one last thing I have changed my mind on that entire cheating thing I just thought of this one girl in Barney Goodman if you need more than one person to tell you your special, and I am not good enough, then let me find someone to help me feel good about myself. Dont worry though, you can stop it from happening. You can love me. I have a sneaking feeling that all both of our problems would float away on cloud nine at such a time. One last time, more clear than last time, or any time: I want you to love me, but it is not possible to love more than one person with all your heart. I dont necessarily need you to pick, but I need you help me make it special. You wouldnt like it if I had numerous girlfriends and a boyfriend, so dont expect me to be great with it. I will put up with it for time but, I expect you to make up your mind eventually. I will allow you to sort your feelings, I wont allow you to have many loves because that is the way you want it. If you want this to last then I will have to become #1 at some point. I would give you my own heart and lungs if ya needed em, but I at least expect something, a relationship namely, that is special. This isnt an ultimatum. This is a warning. If you can put up with Seans shit, then ya can put up with mine. But I love you more then I believe you understand. Welcome to my head. Weather you like it or not, I am visiting yours soon. I am not being held back by our compound fears any more. I am going to figure shit out between us, and going to help the process of you making up yours. I dont care what decision you make, but personally I think it would be a shame if we didnt spend one hell of a long time together. We are just to perfect for each other. I aint gonna find anything better, and frankly, neither are you.

As I look back at this, I really come off as a dickhead. Keep in mind the fact that I love you, and dont want to hurt you. I just want you to know exactly how I feel, and frankly I felt like someone had to take a stand. Feel free to take your own. I am just doing everything in my power to make you love me. You have an equal amount of work in convincing me that you really do love me, because frankly, right now, I dont believe it. Goodnight, I wish I could kiss your soul right now damn it would put me at rest.

See, the problem was I came off as a prick which I was pretty much being. She chewed my ass out, as I rightfully deserved. What I didn't get was the fact I was just being paranoid about the fact that I had competition, something which usually brings out the best in people. I was sweating blood over a minor hill. A cloud rolled in, and when I reach the top of the hill I could not see ahead of me, and all I could see was a down. It was a deep ravine. This cloud blocked my view of the bridge that was right in front of me. Whatever happened to my theory of taking lemons and making lemonade. Instead I took a much more illogical approach, the previously mentioned letter.

She told me she didn't know how she felt again. She also told me that I should just be myself, and if she loved me then cool beans, and if she doesn't it won't be the end of the world. I was finally reminded that I was being overly paranoid, which I utterly agreed to. I had went up to a mountain of utter majesty, and while on the way up, got freaked when I saw a bump, and obstacle. It was only a pebble, but I was convinced it was a boulder, and rigged it up with dynamite. I almost killed myself in my attempt to rid myself of the obstacle, and more importantly, almost killed the majesty that was the mountain.

I stood at the bottom of the hill and looked upward. There was a whole lot of mountain ahead of me, and by God I was going to let my legs carry me to the top of it. I was going to close my eyes though. See, strange things happen when your eyes are open, you start seeing things and start thinking about things, worrying about things. See, your eyes can sometimes tell you more than you need to know. You start relying on them too much and you end up fucking your life up because you have not done what you are meant to do, but rather what you think you are supposed to. So I close my eyes, and I feel like a mentally defective jerk off for quoting scripture, but "The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." If I fall off this mountain, and die, then so be it. Maybe this is not my mountain. There will be others. I refuse to screw with fate, because it can't lead to anything good. Slowly, but surly I climbed that mountain. I did it as who I was, not who I wanted to be.

I met Hannah on Thursday, and we were going to go see a movie. Instead of seeing a movie though, I had to wait an hour for her to get off work. Ass munch the letter writer would have been angry at her for not telling him she had to work late, the guy who tried to make her choose and had given her an ultimatum would have been fuming, I was indifferent. I entertained her younger siblings who were waiting for her to get off as well. I don't remember why, it would ruin things if I explained it anyway. I love her younger siblings because they are so much like her. So when she got off, we went to a shopping center across the street from where we worked and just let loose on each-other. Let loose humor, and love, and admiration. We just acted like ourselves. We spent 2 hours in a clothing store, and we were just so damn goofy. So many times I would say something, and she would just look at me so adorningly, and since I am not big on eye contact, I never noticed this before. It was all in her eyes. They peered back at me in such a way that it forced me to smile, and in turn so would she. We would then just stand there, peering into each-other's eyes, into each-other's souls for a second or two, and one of would chirp in with a stupid remark - like for example, I kept saying things about how i liked the girls cloths more then the guys cloths, and we had one of those little moments, and she smiled a little wider, and said "that is just because you want to get in my pants" - and then we would go back to shopping. Her eyes though, I am telling you they just glowed.

After shopping, we went to a coffee shop and I bought her some citrusy tea thing, well actually we were supposed to share it, but I fear she had about 3/4th's of it, but that is beyond the point, after I got the 5 dollar cup'a tea, we decided to walk home. We had so much fun in that hour. Walking home hand in hand we came to an intersection, and I stopped to look back behind me. What I saw was hills that started high and then dove down, only to peak again. All in all, I realized that I was right back where I started altitude wise. There were just so many small hills though. So many little peaks and valleys. I had just came up a hill, and Hannah was out of breath, while I was just peachy. This can be attributed to the fact that I walk a lot more then she does, it was boiling hot, and I walk excruciatingly fast. The latter is just yet another thing I picked up from the dickhead that presently is driving in the seat next to me. "The bank" as I love to call him due to the fact that he is pretty much worthless as far as all non monetary elements of parenting go. He has fucked me up so omnisciently. I told Hannah this as she leaned her head on my shoulder and threw her arms tiredly and lethargically around my waist while she complained about the pace at which I walked. I look ahead of me and see a large hill in front of me. I can only see an upward climb in front of me, and with an object of love held so close to me, I really dont care what is behind me. It is beautiful.

Chapter 25

Just when you think that things are set in stone, and that you have found exactly what it is you are looking for, when you least expect it, something just comes way the hell out of left field and surprises and delights the hell out of you. This happened to me when I was on vacation in New York. My Christmas vacation had me in New York, and this meant a week and a half away from Hannah. I was utterly distressed with our time apart, partially because I was scared shitless of what Hannah would do in my absence, and part because I am one sappy motha' who was going to legitimately miss her every moment he was away. From the time I got off in New York, I had two very strong and omniscient thoughts :"I miss Hannah", and "Damn I am happy to be back home." I guess this would be a good time to tell you that I was born in New York. I have been back a lot, but this time I was really into being back, I dunno, maybe it is because I am a weak white guy, and I kinda felt like a badass walking the streets with the legitimate badasses. I was going around, working on getting back the accent, because where I live, the accent is stupid and Hickish. It isn't fake though, I really do speak like that to an extent, I used to talk like that, It is just, It fades. I also was taking a lot of pictures of the neighborhood I was staying in. Either my grandmothers neighborhood had become a lot more ghetto, or I just wasn't used to it anymore. I would tend to think it is the latter, though. I took almost one hundred pictures of the stores and stuff with my dig cam, and it could only hold about 100, and it took a while to get all those shots. They were some great shots too, I mean, artzy and shit. I called Hannah as often as I was allowed, but her friend was over, so talking to her was kinda difficult. I never really got her undivided attention. I missed her so bad though, that just talking to her made me radiate a glow of short-term fulfillment. I went to sleep every night waiting for it to be morning so I could call her again.

That was the first 3 days. Day 4 brought something that both delighted me and threw me into so serious inner struggle. This problem came in a low cut green package and it wore clogs. It's name was Evelyn, and she was almost exactly like my girlfriend, only, she seemed better in some way. They were the same age, they liked the same bands, they even had the same quirky phrases. It scared the shit out of me. It forced me to rethink if I was really made to spend my life with Hannah as I had foolishly thought previously. I dunno, I thought Evelyn was prettier, but Hannah had shown me things about her personality, and she still had those eyes, and that smile. Besides the fact that that I had a girlfriend that I adored, and I was basically pussy whipped, the girl is the friend of a friend of mines younger sister. You think that is bad, I have not yet begun to lay the framework for a situation that is wrong, awkward, and otherwise shouldn't have happened. I could only see her twice, the time I met her, and then 2 days later at my friends house. Basically I would have to ignore my friend and try to woo her. Ignore my friend and try to woo his younger sister's friend. It didn't matter to me though, because she was so much like my girlfriend, and I was in a different state, let alone different area code, and I am sure there is some other loop hole. Hell I will let you be the judge, I have already made my decision, and what has happened has already happened, so there is nothing I can do about it. Wanna find out the outcome, read the following chapters you impatient bastard. If you wanna know what the hell actually made me feel the way I am currently expressing, read the book in sequence like a normal person and all will be explained.

During day 4, I sat around the house, watched tv, and was otherwise a oaf. I went out to dinner with my mom, and thought it was just going to be us, but when I got there I found out a friend of my moms was bringing her daughter and a friend. The last time I had seen this woman's kid, she was a little girl, and didn't realize that she was the same age as my girlfriend. I figured that they would talk amongst themselves mostly, I would make some polite conversation, and that would be the end of that, As soon as they walked in I realized my assumptions to be ass backward. Kelly, my friends younger sister, had changed quite to my delight, She was wearing a tight yellow shirt, her hair, which used to be platinum, was now a nice color of blond, and she had tipped her hair red. Daddy like. She was the kinda girl I could get into, and I might have if two things were against it. For God's sake, she was my friends sister! Secondly, there was a girl next to me who evidently wrote like I did, oh, and did I mention the fact the fact that she was beautiful? Well she was. When they walked in though, I had no clue just how beautiful Evelyn was. The three of us started our friendly before dinner conversation about you guessed it, Buddhism, and Kelly knew quite a lot about it, as did I. Evelyn's strongest subject wasn't the roots of Buddhism, as she didn't add very much to the conversation, but I had Kelly interested. Never underestimate the power of jealousy. Somehow we got off the subject of religions, and onto the religion Kelly and Evelyn wanted to create. My mind immediately went to Hannah and her friend Luz, and when they told me about the religion they wanted to start. As I listened to her explain it so spiritedly, I found myself falling for the girl. This was the beginning of the end for me, as the comparisons between Hannah and Evelyn had just begun. The more I listened to Evelyn the more I started picking up on patterns of speech. They talked about how they wanted to start by getting their own tv show. Right there, something random, and seemingly out of left field. I think I am starting to like things that come out of left field. I think I will make it the subtitle of this book. So they wanted their own tv show, and they would subliminally control people, and eventually they would take over the world. They called it deviational sublimination. She used big words. Wonder who else I know that uses big words... no not Don King or Al Sharpton, and certainly not George W. Bush... yes Hannah. So we talked about her little religion, and I peered into her eyes. I felt like a five year old who has found a playboy in his sleeping fathers hands. I liked looking at it, but my mother had told me it was wrong. I turned away, pretended to get a glass of water while I delegated whither or not I should go back. I give into my urges and I use my famous "what is your favorite color, and flavor, because I probably got it in latex in my wallet" pickup line and bang her right there. Yea, wouldn't that make your naughty parts tingle to hear about. Put it this way, there was tingling of the naughty parts to my knowledge that night. No, instead I turned and I continued to peer into her eyes. Evidently that hill I talked about looking up at just a second ago just crumpled and I now had two possible paths to the summit. I could take the one which involved not looking into Evelyn's eyes, and being faithful to Hannah, even though I knew she was with other people. The other involved indulging myself and getting lost in Evelyn's eyes and seemed to be paved with gold. You could say it was a yellow brick road of sorts. See the thing is, everyone knows what happened to the last fine persons who went down a yellow brick road. I think everyone will agree that some pretty wicked shit happened to them. I didn't know which path led to the higher summit. I took my own advice, sort of. I would have closed my eyes and let my feet take me up the mountain as it would, but see, that would involve finding myself and getting Evelyn's eyes, and I really wasn't in a hurry to do that. She looked at me in the same way Hannah looked at me. Holy gee willikers Batman, I think she was starting to make me forget about Hannah. Well not really. I mean, the thing that got me was how much she was like Hannah. Slowly but surly though, Hannah was being pushed into the back of my mind. Then she did the one thing that let me know that life had just thrown me a fricken bone, she said my word, Hannah's word, our word. She said "Indeed." Why did she have to go saying that shit. I called her on it, and told her how much she reminded me of my girlfriend. So I started asking her questions. Every time she put her head in her hands, turned away slightly and laughed, I knew more and more that I would be trying to get this girl into some kind of embrace.

"Do you say 'you rock my socks off, upside down and sometimes inside out?'"

Nod, buries head in hands, laughs.

Shit

"Do you say 'cool beans'"?

Nod, buries head in hands, laughs.

Shit.

Do you find men who speak Spanish 'berry zexy?

Nod, buries head in hands, laughs.

Cacas.

A new dimension was coming into the situation, the fact that I think she was really into me. I thought it was wishful thinking. Then she starts talking about her book a little, and I realize how much it is like mine. We talk about my girlfriend a little, how I met her, how the first words that came out of my mouth with relation to her was "yea, beer is inferior to Vodka" She heard about it all, well some of it. Only that part really. Anyway, I told her she could read all about it in my book, and then when we were listening to my mother and my mothers friend talk I leaned back, she did it in unison with me. I looked at her, I caught her looking at me. Just then my motherly voice started making a desperate effort to bring me back to my catholic morals, but I was beyond help. I was beyond reason. I was infatuated with Evelyn. As we walked out of the restaurant together, I asked for her e-mail. It went a little something like this.

"Do you have an e-mail?"

"Indeed I do. You?"

"Indeed I do. Now what is yours?"

I am telling you, this girl was either playing with me, or was as infatuated with me as I was with her.

She got my e-mail. I couldn't remember hers. I guess the real test will be if she remembers mine. Mine was easier to remember than hers, and so therefore I had hope. I then did something that was crazy, and just so me, I asked if I could get a pic of her. She obliged. Damn she was beautiful. I didn't know if she was as amazing as Hannah was though, all indications pointed towards "yes" though. She got in the car with Kelly, and Kelly's mother, My mom's friend pretty much told me that Evelyn was hitting on me. A girl, hitting on me, what a thought. I had to wait a day to see her again. I would call Hannah the next day and tell her about it. Or maybe I wouldn't. I think I would, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't. I went to bed that night, and I knew for sure that Evelyn was thinking of me. I had found 2 different people that were utterly perfect for me, and they loved me. It was beautiful.

Chapter 26

Two days is a long time when you are infatuated. Hell, any amount of time is a long time when you are infatuated. I spent them dreaming, reminiscing, and trying to convince myself that it was ok that I felt the way I did. It was weird, because I felt myself falling for this girl so much harder then I had fallen for Hannah, I was head over heels for Hannah, but with Evelyn, all appendages have been broken off and rammed into my ears. I mean, words could never do justice to the way I felt for those 2 days. In retrospect though, it is nothing like the way I felt after I saw her again, like the way I still feel about her right now. That reminds me, before I go blind and get carpal tunnel syndrome from writing so much, I think I will call her, the sexual elements of the convo will cause my father to become quite perturbed. I'll be right back after I ask her if it is socially acceptable to shave my ass.

45 minutes, a very embarrassed father, and a permission to shave my ass later, I am back, and am back to remising about my life. I would talk to my father, but... ugh.... he aint exactly a rousing good time to talk to. He is so damn proper. Instead, I sit here, and try to figure out what the hell is the point of this life that I bumble through. There are so many answers to the famous "meaning of life" question. I tend to like the simple ones like "drink beer, the rest takes care of it self" How true it is, but the thing is, the best two nights of my life happened when I was sober. No, my meaning of life is to find beauty. I am getting there. Evelyn and Hannah are helping. I constantly have to stop myself from just saying that love is beautiful. It seems to fit, but there is just so much more. I have figured that out now. When I saw Evelyn for the second time though, I was pretty much sure of the fact that the purpose of my life was to be with her. She said something strange, and yet so prophetic to me that night.

"...close your eyes and pretend it's Hannah? Try when your with Hannah, close your eyes and pretend it is me."

When she said it I thought she was kidding. She was very persuasive in changing my mind.

So I spend 47 hours waiting to see her again, during which I had to take sleeping pills to get myself to sleep, just thinking of her would make my heart race, and with her in my mind there was no sleeping. I would just lie there, staring at the ceiling, heart racing thinking about everything that made her so great. Hannah was almost perfect for me, but it seemed like Evelyn had those little things that I wished Hannah had. She was a writer like I, and no matter how much I loved Hannah, there was Evelyn now, and no matter how wrong I knew it was, I had to have her. It was so strange though, because what it was that was going through my head, and what I was feeling was completely indescribable. I would just lie there, and just thinking of her would bring such a serene joy. The day after I met her was pretty easy, I mean, I couldn't sleep, but I accepted the fact that I wouldn't see her, and I hadn't heard what she had said about me to Kelly. "What did she say to Kelly" you ask? If ya stopped asking so many damn questions and just kept reading maybe you would find out quicker. The day itself was easy therefore, as I accepted the day off. That night I met my rich friend Peter, his family and Kellys family minus her brother, my friend, Brian. We listened to some great music, I got to hear Peter and Kelly play some great music and oh, we smoked about a quarter between us, but it was pretty much a time filler. Thank God for the Pot, because for about 3 hours, I forgot about Evelyn, well, stopped obsessing about her at least. Back in Peters room with a box of Pop-tarts and a bad case of the munchies, Me and Kelly started talking about Evelyn. What I heard delighted me most utterly. Evelyn evidently cared for me as much as I cared for her, and was talking about trying to steal me from my girlfriend. Mind you, I had only moments before learned that she had a boyfriend, and while I was told she wanted to steal me from Hannah, I was planning on how I was going to steal her from her from her boyfriend. One phrase really sticks out in my mind, something she allegedly said that sounds like something I would say "... well if he is not to attached to his girlfriend... maybe I could talk him into having a fling." The scariest part of that is the fact that it sounds like something I would say because it was something I said. It was my plans for her. As I said to Kelly when the full power of that revelation hit me "this is too easy."

That was the hardest night of my life, the getting to sleep part specifically. How can you go to sleep when you know that you are going to see the girl of your dreams, who is really into you the next day? Most options are either painful, illegal, or both. It took 2 sleeping pills and lay down in my bed, imagining how it would be. The plan was to see Evelyn at Kellys, since my mom was going to go to dinner with Kelly's mother among others, and Evelyn would come over. I would be dropped off at Kelly's, and things would go from there. So as I imagined it, I would meet and then we would go down to the basement, I would read some poetry about her, she would see that I was as into her as she was into me, and then we would have some idle conversation while I tried to work up the balls to actually do anything. It would be the most grand and spiffy make-out session in the history of the world, we would cuddle on the couch, she would go home and that would be the end of that. With those thoughts floating though my head, I knew there would be no sleep if I didn't up the dosage of sleeping pills in a hurry. I took two more. I was out like Pee-wee Hermans... um...Pee-wee at a male sex show in about 5 minutes. As I fell asleep, her simile danced though my mind. It was beautiful.

Chapter 27

I woke up the next morning and was essentially inconsolable. There was nothing in the entire world that could make waiting for my neat little plan to unfurl bearable - 1 song. That song about "if you want it, you can have it, but you gotta reach up there and grab it." There was a distant thought in my mind, one that I didn't want to have to embrace, the fact that it was a possibility that Evelyn wouldn't be at Kelly's that night. I pushed it to the back of my mind, because that would be just so damn wrong that it wasn't even worth thinking of. I believe in God, if she wasn't there, that would change. The day was so damn long, it seemed to be in slow motion, there was not a second that went by that I didn't wish that I was with her, that the day would end so that I would see her. It ended, and I went back to my grandma's, where I was staying, and took one of the most thorough showers of my life. I washed my hair about 20 times, and ran out the door. as I got into the car to go, I started having doubts about the euphoria I was in, and the thought that she might not be there started to creep into my head. I still couldn't really comprehend it though, the thought of it was too evil, to sinister, to utterly wrong to even begin to understand. The drive there was actually a rush to get the most inspirational and "pep talkish" music I could into my head. As my mom pulled up into the driveway (I wasn't driving then) the final song ended. It was that 1 song I had listened to so many times that day before. I had saved it for last. I took a big breath and got out of the car, and for the first time in like 3 months, I did the sign of the cross on myself. I was about to embark on what I hoped to be one of the best nights of my life.

I walked into the house and said my hellos, almost instantly I noticed that Kelly was there, but Evelyn didn't seem to be. I was scared shitless, and my stomach felt like it had been converted into a beehive, while my heart felt like it was being put through a meat-grinder. When I was about to become a Buddhist monk, she walked up the stairs, and I swear, I heard the angels in heaven singing. Personally, I think that God has a sense of humor, because I swear he was toying with me there. I was relieved, and completely overjoyed. I got one of those smiles from her, the kind Hannah gives me when there are adults around and we have just done something we know we shouldn't. I was so pleasantly surprised to see that there was a God, and that my plan had a chance in hell. Check numero uno off on my list. Everything so far was going as planned, as she started going down to basement, my heart skipped a beat. I swear. It just stopped, for a second, my head got really light, and then I was walking down to the basement with her. I then had an entertaining thought "what if everything goes exactly as planned" Sadly it didn't. I wouldn't say this was a bad thing though, and I don't think you will either.

So getting down to the basement, I asked her if she wanted to hear some poetry I had written. Me an Evelyn shared all the interests me and Hannah, shared, plus my second love, writing. As I rambled off about how much I loved a certain someone, an undying love, I could see her face light up. I read another, and then another. After I was finished, she complimented me on the skill with which I wrote. She then fell into a well planed trap. The poems never mentioned any names, and I didn't either. I intentionally made them vague, and hopped she would think they were about Hannah. When she asked if they were about Hannah, and I told her no, a smile came across each other's faces. She knew that it was about her, and I knew that she knew that it was about her, and she knew that I knew that she knew that it was about her. We then shared one of those moments. Staring into each others eyes. What a power it had. We then moseyed on down to the couch, and sat down. We knew that we wanted each other. We actually started talking about it, which was kind of strange. It lasted about 5 minutes before one of us made a move. It was she, and it was putting her head on my shoulder. Yes, we were slow moving folk, but we didn't care. When you really think about the situation, it was actually quite cute. Neither of us had the guts to start anything, and we were talking about it. We were discussing the fact that we wanted to be making out, but couldn't gather up the courage to do it. As we gradually worked our way to the common goal, we spoke about who, in any relationship should make the first move. We both expressed that our sex was very pressured to make the first move, and how difficult it was. I moved my hand to her thigh. I then asked her if she had ever missed. Her hand moved to mine.

"Missed? What the hell are you talking about?"

I started running my hand up and down the inside of her thighs.

"you know, have you ever gone to kiss anyone and ended up just knocking noses?"

She returned the favor.

"Yea the first time I tried, in like 5th grade."

I started running my hand along the seam of her pants.

"I have actually been quite lucky, taking a 90 degree angle of attack solves that problem"

Philburt got some much needed attention.

I looked down at my crotch and made a comment "um, I think your scaring him, I swear, I think I think he is trying to hide. He is like 'wait a second, that isn't MASTER MOUND'S hand, what the hell is going on here?"

She laughed, looked at it, and said "Come on philburt, it isn't all that scary. Philburt, meet my hand, philburt, my hand"

Philburt came out of hiding, and became comfortable with the situation. Kelly's father got home and came down the stairs, we instinctively got untangled. Evidently he just wanted to let us know he was home. As he got up the stairs, I looked at Evelyn and told her "I have found the safest time to do something is when the parents have just gone up the stairs, because God knows they are not coming right back down."

"Ok" she got off the couch, and got on the floor in front of it. I followed suit. We grabbed each other around the waist with one hand, and leaned on the other. I still didn't have the balls, and told her so.

"well grow some!" she barked as our eyes met once again.

"ok, MASTER MOUND grows balls in 3, 2, 1" I turned to her, and I went for it. The music that had played when my father had left me, and when I had fought Byron, and when I had done things that I had found such beauty in played then, and it soured. From the top of the world, I metaphorically sang then. Never before had I felt such joy. Things had went exactly as planned. I had had a glorious day. We went at it for an hour like that, stopping to put on better music, or to say something cute, or hell, just gasp for air, but it defiantly was, as planned, the grandest, most spiffy make-out session in the history of mankind. After one such gasp for air, I asked her breathily "is it just me, or do you find cuddling a lot better then this? Oh, and lets face it, things are getting a little repetitive, I don't think Don Juan could come up with enough variety to fill an hour and a half. So we got back on the couch, and realized that Kelly had left us, but neither of us had any clue as to when. We had been so engrossed in each other that neither of us paid any notice to fact that Kelly had never came down to the basement with us. And so we cuddled, and came to 2 realizations - we were absolutely perfect for each other. I mean there was not a thing we disagreed on, not an interest we didn't share, not an experience level unbalanced, and an immense physical attraction. Oh, and we secondly realized that we might never see each other again. This was a problem, a large one. We just lay there, cuddling, and I realized that I had reached the paramount of melancholy irony. I had met my perfect girl, and I might never see her again. When she had 5 minutes left before she would have to leave, I turned to her, put on a sad puppy face, and asked for "one for the road." I got it, naturally. And then she had to leave. I thought I might never see her again, but then realized that there was always next break. I kissed her one last time, no tongue this time and I thought she had walked out of my life. The tears ran down my face. Things had not gone as planned. I had not planned to fall for the girl so hard that I wanted to dump Hannah, and do whatever it took to see Evelyn as often as possible. A tear fell to the ground and exploded. Love might not be fair, but it is beautiful.

Chapter 28

Love is not the only faucet of beauty though, so much more there is to it. While love might be what a lot of people find beauty in, it is not the all inclusive definition that I search for, that I now know there is. What about the great hills in our lives? What about those little things we take for granted, but we couldnt live without? What about breathing for God's sake?

I breathe deeply and clear mindedly. Never have I taken time to think of such things before. It seems like every breath I take brings in new things to my life, and every time I exhale, a new chapter of my life begins. Every breath a microcosm for my life. Breathing seems only natural, but if I didn't breath, I couldn't live. I couldn't sustain myself, I would just slowly melt away, I would watch my life become stale and die. We breathe to bring new air, new life to our lungs. Air only lasts so long, though. Sometimes you take a huge gulp of air and you feel like you could live forever. You can't though. You need new air, new life. People can live without new air for a little while, but eventually they must take another healthy gulp of new air. I suck in a deep breath and hold it. It invigorates me and brings about new life in me. I look to my father. He is driving my dream car, and yet he still looks like something has crawled up his ass and died. There is almost no joy in his face. As you can see, this guy seriously disturbed, as anyone that can drive a red Corvette with the top down, and not have a wild smile on their face is damn near catatonic. I lift my right cheek off the beige bucket seat and let one rip. He takes a big gulp of air and a disgusted look comes across his face. He chastises me for "doing such a discussing and animalaec" thing in his presence. I think I am going to call animal control about that small family of wombats that currently inhabit his anus. I swear, if the guy wasn't worth more to me alive then dead I would have killed him a long time ago.

Some people don't know good air from bad. They don't know what the hell air actually is, and hold their breath consciously until their brain goes "What da hell is up wit 'chu ya cracker? Take a damn breath already" That is exactly what happened. It took him 18 years. By that time, he was so thirsty he couldnt live with just one gulp. No, he needed about 20 or 30 of them, all at once. He tried to stop it, but his gasping took over his soul. He could do nothing but gasp, and no matter what he knew in his heart, his impulses were in control of his mind. Gasp number one, the Corvette from which I currently write. When that didn't quite his souls appetite for new air, he moved on; changing everything about his life, one thing at a time until that involved leaving my mother. His urges progressed, while his sanity simultaneously digressed, and before he could do anything about it, he was buying the vacuum cleaner and stereo system he had always wanted. Basically, he was suffering the effects of doing nothing with his life but working. I hate to say it, and while it is a joke, it is still true and valid "If my father hadn't stopped smoking pot, this would have never happened." Had he only slowed down and took a breath and done something he wanted once in a while, none of this would have been necessary.

The problem is the fact that what he now gulps is not air at all, but rather freezing sea water. He still works all the time, and only when he gets his head above water, only when he stops working, and comes to the surface may he get the air he so desperately needs. Meanwhile, I inhale slowly, surely and constantly. The air may get stale, but when it does, I just look for a new source of fresh air. I almost never have to find it though, it always seems to find me. However, nothing is going to breath for me, so I must open my own my mouth, and inhale with my own lungs if I want to bring new life into them. I didn't want my father to go, but there is nothing I can do about it but make sure that I keep breathing. I let out the breath I forgive my father internally. It is beautiful.

Chapter 29

"Dad, I forgive you"

He is startled and turns his head inquisitively towards me "For what?"

"leaving me and breaking every promise you have ever made and never being there when I needed you. For telling me that I am worthless, for always making my life so damn hard, for making me do things your way, for not letting me live life my way."

He was shocked at what I had just said. A blank face told me of extreme sadness and knowledge that he had done a miserable job of raising me. He was speechless and couldn't look at me.

"I, I, I...(sigh) I did what I did because I, I... I wanted to be a better father" His eyes welled up with tears "and I..."

I interrupted him "...But, but, I thank you for leaving, because I no longer hate you, and you can no longer hurt me. I am stronger now than I ever was before, and hell, I have a book now, and ya know what, I tell everyone what a miserable fucking bastard you are. It doesn't matter anymore though, because what you did helped me more than it hurt me, and I know that you did the best job you could, and no matter how deplorable it was, it was the best you could do, and therefore I can ask no more of you."

He was thunderstruck. I no longer had a grudge against him. I took a deep breath. It was beautiful.

Chapter 30

I continue to let the new life in and the old out as I watch the road pass by. I look back to see so many small hills, and yet I see my self ascending the greatest hill known. A butterfly fights it's way into the car and lands on me. It is beautiful. I see a car broken down at the side of the road, a husband and wife argue. It is beautiful. I find a chapter in my book that is about how much I hate my father, I throw it out the window. It flutters out of the car and into the past, because that what it is to me, the past. As it drifts off on a breeze, I see that chapter of my life float away as well. It is beautiful. I think about that night in my friends basement with Evelyn again. It is beautiful. The sun sets in our faces and my dad makes a comment how about how stupid the people in front of us are. "What the hell is wrong with these people?" He grunts grumpily "'Duh, duh, it's da sun, Cletus. Well I'll be. Shit, golly gee willikers, ca'nsay I did saw that befores' Holy shit! Lets move it people! It's the sun, now get your foot off the freaking brake, and lets move it already." He is so ignorant, but I must admit the entire situation is pretty funny. It is beautiful. I call Hannah. We talk about lime Jell-O for 20 minutes. She doesn't care about Evelyn. She is beautiful. I think about that time in my friends basement with Hannah. It is beautiful. I think about the time me and Evelyn took Cosmo's sex survey, and then we ended up talking on the phone almost all night. She is beautiful. I think about the time I watched the clouds roll by. I tilt my head back and do so right now. It is beautiful. I think about the day my father left me. Believe it or not, it is beautiful. I think about the day me and Byron got in a fight and we stayed in the bathroom for three hours sitting on the handlebars in the Handicap bathroom-stall right next to the lunchroom because we were too bloody to go back to class. We had just sat there, staring at each other, for three hours. It was beautiful. I remember the time I walked home after Kaitlyn showed me her new boyfriend, and I cut my feet up badly, and had looked down a giant hill to see my bloody footprints marking the accent. It was beautiful. I remember the time I walked through the rain, and fought a frozen basketball hoop. It was beautiful. I remember the day that a man forced me into a bathroom stall. Even that is beautiful, because it brought me Kaitlyn, and she was so very beautiful. I think about the time I slept outside my friends house, because I couldn't get a ride home. It was beautiful. I remember the time I stayed up half the night fantasizing about how things would go between me and Evelyn, and then it went almost exactly as planned. It was beautiful. I remember the first time that I realized that my relationship with Evelyn was so much more than the fling I planned it to be. I remember the day I forgave my father. It was beautiful. I remember the day I told Kaitlyn I loved her, and she told me what I already knew, and 3 years of pent up emotions came out in one kiss. It was beautiful. I remember the day that Nina kneeled on my balls, when I thought she was going to kiss me. It was beautiful. I remember the day she unceremoniously dumped me by taking a 20 dollar bill I had just given her, and stuffing it in her bra while she told me she was seeing other people. I cried my eyes out that day. It was beautiful. I remember giving Jamie those poems, and her face lighting up. It was beautiful. I remember the day Evelyn sent me pictures of her doing pushups in biker shorts and a sports bra. It was beautiful. I cease reminiscing and just look at the tall grass that blows in the wind. It is beautiful. Everything around me is beautiful. I have hit an epiphany. At that instant the music plays, loud and clear. That music that played all those times before, when my father left me, when me and Byron sat there across from each other in that bathroom stall, and all those other times before. I then realize that I am home. I now must believe that everything happens for a reason. How perfectly self discovery fit into a car ride home. The butterfly flutters away, and so my father, afraid of the harsh reality that is his life, also tries to do.

"I love you Dad" I tell him before he can scurry into the house. The tears well up in his eyes, and he can barely speak.

"I love you too son"

It was the first time I had ever told my father I loved him. As I hugged him, I knew there was nothing left to do. I had found beauty. Yes this was beautiful.

Chapter 31

As I begin transcribing the behemoth manuscript that I have in front of me, I feel the greatest feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment. This is not the end. What would the point of me finding beauty if I didn't tell anyone about it. It was at this point that I realized that this was much more than a little pet project to help me deal with my life, but rather this was something to show the world or otherwise anyone who would listen. It was at this point that I learned that the title should not be "Mien Komph 2002" as this was not about my struggle in the year 2002, but rather this was about beauty, and it should so aptly be named accordingly. This was now the story of how I found beauty in my life, and how they could find beauty in theirs. Some people might consider this their bible. I would be honored, but I don't deserve the disgrace of forcing people to live their lives like mine. Don't send me money, dont find out where I live and pray in it's general direction, and in the name of everything that is Holy, don't hijack an Airplane, and ram it into my house claiming that I am an infidel. Trust me, there aint gonna be 77 dark haired virgins waiting for you when you die. Rumor has it that was a misinterpretation. If youre lucky you will get 77 crystal clear raisins. If your unlucky, there will be 77 very pissed off Virginians. That is all beside the point anyway though, I aint worth it. I am just a 15 year old kid who has been blessed enough to know what the hell his life is gonna look like at a young age. That is all. Stop calling, stop praying, for the love of God don't even think of Hijacking an airplane, but it is your personal choice if you want to send me money.

Chapter 32

I know the previous 31 chapters have been confusing as hell, so let me clear some stuff up here. Maybe what I have to say will change your life, that is my intent. It is not my intent, however to have what I saw made into something that you follow like a lamb being led to slaughter. This is just a handy little handbook to surviving the peaks and valleys of life.

Ok, lets start from the top. I am not sure if you know yet, or if it matters, but I was born in New York, and moved to Kansas when I was 9. My father left my mother only days before my 15th birthday. I met Hannah that summer, I met Evelyn over Christmas vacation that same year. Me and my family go back to New York every summer and Christmas. Hannah lives in Kansas, Evelyn lives in New York. Over spring break, me and my father went skiing in Vail. On the car trip, I wrote this book. I wrote in on the way back because me and my father have nothing real to talk about, just worthless information about history and machinery. It took two days to drive home, it took two days to write this book. Now I am explaining it. The conclusion I came to in my search for beauty is the following. Everything is beautiful, life is meant to be enjoyed, not fretted over. Learn to look at everything two ways, how it feels and what it means in the greater scheme of things. Slow down relax. Smell the roses, roll in the grass. Don't listen to what anyone tells you, do what you want. Don't worry about how much money you have, life is a process not an event. Don't ever be alone with a priest of the Catholic Church, and laws are meant to be broken. Don't judge people, take your vitamins, a penny earned is a penny the government wants to get their hands on, say no to cigarettes, say yes to medicinal marijuana. If it feels good, it is probably good by you, and not good by the Catholic Church, and finally, when anyone in your life tells you that you need to find God in your life more than twice in a sentence, hit them on my behalf. There is no secret to life, only bullshit lies that come on after midnight and are called "infomercials" by polite society. The simple fact is we spend way too much time worrying and trying to force ourselves into a happier state and not enough time enjoying all the little things in life. Read about the universe some time and then for the rest of your life, be in awe of your natural surroundings. Think of everything that happens in your life metaphorically, as I do believe in fate, but not in wasted stellar motion, once again everything happens for a reason, and the more time you spend following your heart and taking every event in your life as a lesson, the happier you are going to be. Pain is beautiful, you learned that earlier, but I guess that would also fall under the category of everything, because you just learned that everything is beautiful. You don't have to find beauty it will find you, you just have to open your eyes, get off the beaten path, and stop the momentum that the force of you going blindly through your life. When you see it, you will recognize it, and it will take you someplace that people could only dream of dreaming of; the life you were meant to lead. It will not be easy, but you will be happy, an

d it will be beautiful.