On the shores of Neverland



4:15 in the morning. Got caught up in pictures again instead of sleeping and keep coming back to this one. I put a different song and lyrics  on flickr, but was struggling with the right title. So for those of you reading this, THIS was the original title I had for this photo. The poem just kind of happened. Not uncommon at this time of day, especially after catching a cold and eating an entire family sized can of campells chicken noodle soup with Red Robin seasoning all over it, with pizza flavor-blasted gold fish crackers and a plain bagel to dip in the broth. Nonetheless, it's my first poem since age 15. Enjoy

On the shores of Neverland

   

Carried away in the arms of a dream

The journey neverending it seems

'Til finally I am washed ashore

To a place I've never been before

Though vaguely familiar, my memory askew

Imagination soaring as I breathe anew

My past, my present, all but forgotten

I embrace this new future, a path not foretrodden

Against the brilliant skies dance colors of fire and water

The sun sets, burning the clouds hotter and hotter

In the distance a small voice draws my attention

Color and sound fades, my thoughts caught in suspension

And just as I close my eyes for a second

My feet start forward as my heart now is beckoned

I open my eyes as she takes my hand

As we take our first steps towards neverland

That's what she said...

And of course, the title has nothing to do with anything. Take that cliche expectations!!!!

So what have I been doing all week? Simple. Wake up, do a bunch of stuff, go back to sleep. And just for the record, the weekend was a BLAST! Momo came over and watched some movies with me saturday, then sunday I made it to church an hour late and somehow managed to pull off all the projection duties without missing a beat, even after the band skipped a song and changed the order. With four hours sleep I felt so on top of things! And then sunday night I went to Rosalie's house with 10 other people to play a game called Curses. I won, not by choice though.

So if you haven't played any of those quirky social ice-breaker games like cranium or shout or whatever, then here is a really funny one that you have to have a video camera handy to catch the idiocy in real time. Trust me, you won't soon forget it.

The basic breakdown is that everyone is an actor in the game. There is a deck of "challenge" cards. Everyone takes turns picking up challenge cards and doing exactly what it says, then the other plays have to vote on whether or not the act was convincing. If the majority votes no, then the failed actor mus draw a card from the curses deck and do exactly what the card says. And if at any moment during the game that player is caught not following their curse, any other player can ring the bell and call them on it, and they get a strike. 3 strikes and you are out. And you must obey ALL curses, no matter how many you draw, which makes things interesting if you have one that says to cross all your fingers while another one says to  scratch your back every time you read a card (as if picking a card from the deck isn't hard enough with the crossed fingers)

So a quick example of the first 2 hours of our night? Well, at the table, To my right was Aubree, To her right was Krista, Steven on my left, Candice Rose and her daughter and Krista's brother Zack were across on the other side of the table. Here's how the shinanigans went down.: Krista drew a challenge card that said something like "You are a Vet. Demonstrate to the other players how to rescue a hamster suffering a heart attack." She started acting like a surgeon, asking someone to hand her a scalpel and and knife. For fear of future hamster-hack-n-slash horror film scenarios, we gave her a unanimous thumbs down. She drew a curse card that read: "Any time you speak you must pinch your nose." And so Krista had a hard time breathing and laughing without popping her ears the rest of the game, and she sounded ridiculous. Next aubree failed her challenge and got a curse that she had to pretend she was being attacked by deadly mosquitos every time she spoke and had to swat them away.... Try to imagine someone flailing their arms around their face every time they talked... it was like watching a live enactment of TIMMA!!!! from southpark. Maybe. I had some interesting challenges. I had to explain to Steven why I wouldn't marry him. Basically told him he had a weiner and I wasn't interested.  Then I had to ask him to the prom... and then break the news to him that he was pregnant... WHY DID THE ONLY TWO GUYS IN THE ROOM GET ALL THE WEIRD ONES?!?!?! Oh well, I failed one and had to be cursed with the rock star curse. Every time I spoke I had to strum an imaginary guitar... Looked more like I had some kind of twitching disease. Near the end of the game, to sum it up, Every time Krista read a card, Aubree had to bark like a rabid dog while swatting away mosquitos, And every time anyone made an animal noise, Rose had to be really itchy and scratch, at the same time any time someone named a food Rose had to clap her hands. Then any time anyone clapped their hands, Steven had to stand up and take a bow, While candice had to sneeze and make an animal noise every time she spoke while pretending her wrists were superglued to her forehead (watching her try to eat was histerical until someone had to help her out). Eventually every time anyone did anything, everyone else at the table had to react like an idiot or risk losing the game. It was hilarious.

Ok, so back to Monday... yucky work day! After stayin up all night playin games and watchin The Princess bride with the gang, and talkin to Momo after she woke up feeling unwell, I finally got home around 4 am, edited some pictures until about 6:30, then crashed. The sunrise, I might add, was INCREDIBLE! Anyways.  slow day at work, I got lifted up in a little basket with the forklift and had to clean pipes on the ceiling of the 3-story-tall overhang. Total yawn-fest until I got my ipod out of my car and just let the time pass as the world dissappeared and I cleaned the same pipes at least three times. Finally got home and got around to uploading my latest picture to flickr. Check it out!
Just remember to click the picture link and see the description, as there are lyrics and encouragement along with the imagery. =D



Then while editing the picture my old friend Jessica decides to randomly start talking to me again and takes a sudden interest in my personal issues and my so-called love life. I fill her in, catch up with her a bit, then make the mistake of mentioning that I found someone who could be worth the effort and BAM, she's all over me, just buggin' the crap out of me until I agree to give her some info so she can go do what girls do best and talk behind my back about me. Lucky me. But then again, life is finally getting interesting again after a mediocre routine-driven relationship with someone else not worth naming. So hey, why not let things hit the fan once in awhile? It could be a mess worth cleaning up after =P

So finally, I'm all caght up with the weekend and am about ready to settle down and have some me time. What am I going to do? not sure. Probably go to CVS and get a 10 dollar desk heater so my room might actually reach above 45 degrees tonight. This house is alright, but it is broken and has no insulation at all, the window doesn't even close properly, so the three blankets I use at night only do so much good against the 36 degree morning dew. I'm thinking 10 dollars is worth it as opposed to the money I'd throw away on cold remedies and possible doctor bills as a result.

But don't get me mixed up here, not tryin to complain by any means. I learned some scary facts about where my dad was in Kenya and the amount of suffering most people my age would never dream of and here these kids over there live it every day. Random scary tribal tradition: In order for a widowed woman to prove that she was loyal to her husband during his life, she has to sleep with her husband's corpse or face public humiliation and/or death for being unfaithful to her marriage. No joke...America has way too many things to take for granted, makes information like that just send shivers down my spine thinking about the differences in cultures and traditions. Here's a photo my dad took of a boy no older than I am. He admitted that most of the teens and men his age have to inhale chemicals and get high in order to numb the pain in their stomaches caused by starvation. Most of them know that they won't live to see thirty, if they're lucky enough to see twenty. Now I feel stupid for ever complaining about my tummy growling at work.

So tomorrow, hopefully, will bring some good news and answered prayers. If not, then I'll just have to make the most of it and keep up the good attitude. Hope everyone else out there is having a great week, whoever you are! Get well soon Momo!

~sw23


(Update: I ended up at dennys around 2:19 a.m. by myself after getting my 10 dollar heater from cvs. It was delicious, but I caught a cold)  

Collaborative free-write Chapter 5

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4
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Chapter 5

In the darkness I heard voices. One seemed like a low raspy male voice, while the other was familiar, but too far in the distance to recognize one way or another. "-know about his real parents. He turned seventeen and is going to want to know what's going on." the raspy man's voice became quieter, "He doesn't have much time."

"He has no more time than the rest of us had," the familiar voice finally became clear and as the darkness began to fade from my eyes. Topanga was speaking, and for the first time that I can recall, she was frustrated. "We can't be discussing this here, he's coming awake."

"That's exactly why we must discuss this now," The man's voice grew increasingly stern and irritated, "he is awakening too fast and may not realize the danger he is in if he cannot control it."

"No," Topanga corrected herself, "I mean look. He's actually waking up."

As I opened my eyes fully and finally shook the blurr from my eyes I saw what looked to be the school nurse's office. I could see Topanga and my Chemistry teacher, Mr. Quinton huddled over in the corner of the room, both of them staring intently at me. "What happened? Why am I in the nurse's office? Or rather, why are you two here with me?"

Topanga, with a look of what could have been surprise or even relief, took the lead as Mr. Quinton folded his hands on the table and poured his gaze into his palms. "You don't remember what you did back there on the bus?"

"Remeber what? The last thing I remember is getting on the bus and talking with you about something personal," I glanced back at Mr. Quinton to see if he was taking the hint that this was personal and he needed to leave. No dice. "And then the bus came to a really hard stop and all my stuff was on the ground, and the next thing I know is that I'm sitting here in the nurse's office." I thought about my own words for a second. "Oh my God, did we get in an accident? Are the other kids ok? That would explain why my wrist hurts so bad! But hey, wait a minute, why would I be in the nurse's office and not the hospital? What's going on here?"

"Calm down Jaden," Topanga giggled a little bit with a sigh of relief. "You obviously don't remember so I'll tell you. The stupid bus driver got freaked out when an old man went J-walking and slammed on his brakes. And apparently you couldn't handle the motion because you fainted. Luckily no one else was hurt and no one saw you kic-" She almost ghasped as Mr. Quinton's hand suddenly clamped her shoulder. "-And no one saw you kicking the floor with your face, so don't worry. I just told everyone that you stayed up the night before doing a project and forgot to eat breakfast this morning, so we brought you to the nurse and she got you some food and blankets." She pointed at the other side of the fold-up rolling bed where a tray of cafeteria food lay next to my belongings.

I didn't quite understand what she was getting at, my head was still a little fuzzy and I didn't feel like thinking too hard. I wasn't sure if I should believe her or not, but for now all I knew was my wrist and head hurt, and I felt as if I had just run a twenty mile marathon. "Then why is Mr. Quinton here?"

Finally, his expression changed, but his tone of voice remained low and bored as ever. His eyes still staring into his hands. "The nurse called your parents. Your mom was histerical and insisted that you come home. I happened to be in the room for other business and heard the conversation. Your mom has such a loud voice, you know! Anyways I told your mom that you were fine and that you were going to flunk my class if you didn't take the exam today, and told her I would personaly see to it that you get better and return to class by the time my class starts."

The story continued to get more and more confusing so I put my hands up and said, "Okay, fine. I get it. You're really a cruel teacher but thanks for sparing me from my mom's obsessive babying ritual. The last thing I want is to go home and be told not to leave my bed for a week. I'm feeling better, can I please get going?"

Mr. Quinton stood up and nodded his head. As he turned for the door, he leaned toward Topanga and whispered just loud enough for me to make out the last part of his sentence, "-him the truth or I will." Topanga lowered her head deep in thought, waiting for the teacher to make his exit, then turned to me with a smile.

"Truth about what?" I insisted

"Nothing." She replied. "He wants me to tell you something but after today I think its better that I tell you some other time, you've had enough drama for one day. Nothing important, just some B.S. about our grades and stuff that he wants me to help you with. Now come on, get your stuff we're going to be late to second period. You don't want to flunk Quinton's exams after he stood up for you on the phone do you?"

As she started for the door, I reached for my bag, forgetting about the food laying next to it. My arm brushed the cup of juice and nearly knocked it over. To the best of my reflexes I retracted my arm in a jolt and instead of the cup, my bag came toppling over. For the second time today its contents spilled out onto the floor, with the exception of one thing I don't recall seeing on the floor of the bus. I reached down and grabbed the small red book, and the moment my fingers touched it I caught a vision of myself being seemingly thrown at some dark figure, and in a rage my fist made contact with what looked like its head, but the motion was so fast I couldn't quite make out what my body was doing. The vision dissappeared as I threw the book back onto the floor. My wrist suddenly hurt ten times worse than a few minutes ago. I looked over at Topanga, half-expecting her to run to my side and ask if it hurt. But instead she just stood there, mouth slightly open as she searched desperately for the right words.

"I totally forgot about that book. You remember what happened on the bus don't you?

"No," I winced, "actually I don't remember anything. But for some reason I just had a dream in which I beat the living hell outta some monster faster than my imagination could keep up with."

"Well you wanted me to teach you how to fend for yourself right?"

"Yeah, why?

"The reason I haven't helped you yet is because you already know. Or rather, the other you knows."

"Other me?" I could no longer disguise the histeria in my voice. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

Her face became pained and worried. She was clearly hiding something about what happened, and by now my mind was racing, searching my memory for what might have happened. She checked the office to make sure the nurse was still on break, then closed the door, locked it and came toward me. "Sit back down. We're going to talk."

Chapter 3

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A response to Chapter 2 by Morgan
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Chapter 3:

 "You can't ignore me forever, Jaden." She leaned in closer as if to imply that if I wasn't going to speak then she may as well try to hear my thoughts.

"I'm not ignoring you." I spoke the words firmly, though not really believing them myself. "I just need to be left alone for-" I paused suddenly, considering the appropriate suffix. 'for a few months?' 'for a few years?' 'forever?' I tried to think of a nicer way to let her know, but the words 'left alone' were already lingering for too long.

"I can't leave you alone, Jaden. I still haven't kept up my end of the promise. You said no matter what happens, as long as I teach you how to fend for yourself, you promise never to leave my side. So even if you want to ignore me, you can't leave my side. I'm afraid of what those jerks will do to you if they see you alone again!"

"Why? What do people like that even want form me?! I'm a nobady with nothing of value! Topanga, I just can't do this anymore. Ever since I met you, you've been helping me and fighting my battles for me. Now everyone thinks that I'm incapable of doing anything but run and cry to you when I'm in trouble, and that just isn't right."

The bus came to an abrupt stop and the doors swung open as Leum started for the front. As he waved goodbye and hopped down the steps I watched with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia as he was engulfed in the sea of faces turning into a river with laughter and screams of excitement flowing into the halls of his school. Oh, how I longed to be just another face again. No more friends, no more enemies, no more friends of enemies becoming enemies of my friends. The bus raced down the street again, with another 6 miles or so before we reached our destination. I returned my attention to Topanga, who apparently had not taken her gaze off of me at all while I was staring out the window. "Aren't you tired of being a nobody?" Her words seemed more like an honest question than a simple taunt. "Don't you get tired of never knowing what else you could be meant for?"

"No, I actually loved every minute of it. And now everyone seems to be out to get me all because of-"

"Because I kept you alive," She interrupted. "Are you really going to try to blame me for what happened that night? Jaden, those men were looking for someone else and thought it was you. They were ready to hurt, maybe even kill you! You should consider yourself lucky to have a friend like me who knows what I'm doing in a situation like that."

As she went on about herself and all the ways I should be thankful, I began to relive that night in my mind and I thought about what might have happened had she not found me pinned against the ground with three men yelling at me in some weird language. I remember the man with the switchblade standing over me, pointing at the sky and then waiting for me to responde, as the other two men snickered and cheered the other on. But suddenly the man was on the floor, followed by the other two within seconds. To this day I still don't know what happened in the confusion of the moment, nor do I recall seeing how she managed such an insane feat of physical dominance. All I remember is looking up a few seconds later to see Topanga standing over the three men with a dissatisfied grin on her face. She said something to the effect of "He's not yours to hunt." and then I blacked out. Or for all I know I may have dreamed the whole thing up and blacking out was just my brain telling me the dream was too much to process. All I can say is that Topanga was anything but normal, and ever since that day I see everyone around me in a  completely different light. A man walking down the street is now a potential threat instead of someone who might know the time. I just wanted to go back to a life of homework and video games. A life without fear or danger. The life to which I belonged. Or so I thought.

The more I thought about it, the more lost I became, creating more questions than answers every time I replayed the scenario. There were so many questions I had. But all that matters now is that she shows me this un-human power that allowed her to so easily cast a shadow on every aspect of my life, not to mention take out 3 armed thugs in less than 10 seconds. Maybe then she would trust me on my own and leave me alone! But my thoughts were soon interrupted again by the sharp screech of the brakes as the bus came to a much more abrupt and violent halt. Bags flipped every which way as books and belongings tumbled and scattered all over the isle and floor. A hush fell over the bus as everyone regained their composure and looked onward to the front of the bus, looking for the cause of the driver's unreasonably harsh actions. A tall dark figure in a black trenchcoat stood before us in the middle of the street, peering into the bus. Though his eyes were hidden by sunglasses, I noticed a smirk forming as his peering suddenly stopped dead in its tracks. My heart sank into my stomache as I came to grips with what I feared to be the inevitable truth; I recognized his posture and his smile, and it seemed the recognition was mutual as I gathered enough of my shaking voice together to whisper, "He's looking right at me."

My heart began to race as the man walked toward the doors. Dispite the driver's verbal protests and attempts to operate the mechanisms, the doors flew open and would not budge otherwise. And as he came closer I could see more details about his clothing and size. It was him; the man that tried to kill me a few months before. Only this time I noticed he had no knife, or visible weapon drawn, nor was he accompanied by anyone else. The only thing in his right hand was a small red book no larger in size than the hand that carried it. Knowing there were only seconds left before I would be trapped on the bus with this maniac, I felt the urge to make a move, but my body refused to listen. The only movement I could manage was the shaking and quivering of my knees and lips. And in my desparation I looked to the seat next to me to ask Topanga what to do now, but there was no response. She was nowhere to be seen.



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Chapter 4: To be written by Momo. Link will be available when complete
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Collaborative free-write. Chapter one.

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 For no particular reason other than a random thought to inspire creativity and cooperation, I proposed that Morgan and I play a blog-version of one of my favorite "finish the sentence" games. The rules are simple: One of us will write a chapter of a story, and the other must write the next chapter based on the first chapter, but no matter what each writer comes up with, the other must follow along and continue the story. So if I throw a crazy twist and kill off a main character that she just got done introducing, she has to continue the story wherever I leave it, and vise versa. Look forward to seeing the finished story and seeing how it turns out! (Mind you, I'm not a good writer, nor have I attempted to write anything in the last 7 years. So bear with me, I'll do my best to give morgan something to work with, but ultimately I am counting on her to save me, haha) Here goes!
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Chapter one.

It started out like any other day; the warming light from the sun bouncing off the walls and lighting up the room as a cool breeze penetrated the comfort of my sheets. I'm sure that at some point during the morning my alarm went off only to be pummeled by my half-conscious fist, but that didn't matter much to me. I had no desire to leave the haven of linen that envoloped my body in warmth. But just like every other day, before I even had the chance to properly adjust my eyes to the daylight, in came my little brother, Leum, with that maniacal grin on his face as he plotted his ritualistic morning attack on the pile of pillows covering my face.

"Wake up Jaden! Wake up!" He spoke softly, assuming I was still asleep until I rolled over and clamped the pillows over my ears as he placed his knees around my waist and tried to pry the pillows away, now yelling, "Daddy and Mommy said wake up or they're taking away your birthday and Christmas! Daddy means it for serious this time!"

"Really, Leum?" I feigned disbelief. "Really? Dad can make it so I was never born? What are you going to do if I skip school and stay here when Christmas rolls around, huh?" I tried to confuse him enough to loosen his grip on my barricade so I could adjust my feet to throw him off the bed, but I realized how impossible it is to win a psychological war with a five year old, as his grip only tightened and his knees dug into my chest. "Okay, okay! I'm up! Now get off before I take away holloween and eat all the candy for myself."
And to no one's surprise, the room once again fell silent as the intruder escaped down the stairs whining to my parents about me being a candy stealer.

Five year olds can be cute sometimes, but when the sound of my father's heavy duty combat boots come pounding up the hardwood stairs towards my room, all that is cute and laugh-worthy in my world fades as I make a quick retreat to the bathroom, abandoning my heated fortress for the sake of avoiding my dad's yawn-fest speach about being mean to my brother. The noise of his yelling faded as the shower burst to life and for the next twenty minutes It was bliss again.

Amidst the peaceful chaos of running water I thought about how unamusing and sometimes even irritating my life had become after turning seventeen a few months ago. I had always been fairly average and unnoticeable my whole life, which I found contentment in. I woke up, went to school, did what I was expected to and interacted with my family as any other nearly independant teen would. But as I finished my morning routine and grabbed my things as well as my brother to leave for the bus stop it dawned on me that everything would have stayed just as normal as it should be if it weren't for her. And as I dwelled on the thought of all the ways she disrupted my life, I found a seat at the bus stop with my brother still in-tow. And just as luck would have it, while I was wasting away in my own world of thoughts and concerns, the very cause of my discomforting state of mind came running over and makes an equally discomforting entrance as she finds a seat on the bench. Right next to me.

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Chapter 2: continued by Momo.
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Poetry Corner

WOW, So I dug through one of my old sites from when I was, I don't know, 13? I found all kinds of art and poetry that I thought was good, only to find how terrible I really am at writing haha. But I figured it would be amusing to post them and share them, as some of them even today hold true and mean something to me. some of them were written for specific people in my life at the time, and some were fictional scenarios I couldn't stop thinking about. Here goes...

Her last breath, my last goodbye

The wind blows softly in my ear

Soft sweet sorrow that I may hear

This lovely song brings me to tears

As I wish more than ever that you were here

Yet no longer will your presence last

Your time on this earth has come and passed

The life you lived was much too fast

You have no future now, only a past

My heart begins to ache and burn

As I sit and wait for your return

Those soothing words for which I yearn

I’ll never hear as I now have learned

So now ill lay here on this hill

Your voice whispers through the wind so still

The sound of it gives my soul a chill

I want to stop missing you, but I never will

So I fall to my grass stained knees and cry

As I beg my God and ask Him "why?"

Look up into His majestic sky

And say to you my last goodbye.

Soothing Words

Many have said it’s far too late

The burden I bear, oh how it gains weight

My choice has now become my fate

I’m stuck in this unsettling mental state

Up ‘til now I’ve done okay

I’ve gained and I’ve lost along the way

And now I ask in much dismay

Is this growing burden here to stay?

Those words you sing, they comfort me

I am hypnotized. It’s plain to see

The answer now is clear to me

The path I choose: eternity

Those words. Your words, they are so true

Could my fate be bound to you?

What is it that I must do

To conquer the things I must go through?

I have no choice for you sing to me

A song of a soothing melody

I follow you now in empathy

For my heart is locked and you hold the key

When your song is finally through

I could leave if I wanted to

But I just want to be here with you

Those words. Your words, they are so true

If I had one last thing to say

I wouldn’t have it any other way

I ask. I beg for you to stay

Here with me ‘til the end of my days

This next one actually was written before I ever had a girlfriend or even interest in girls in high school, yet here I am at age 23 and thinking of someone named Courtney that I wrote this specific poem for in future-tense... rock on!

Heartbreaker

 I must admit you had me fooled

The way you played me for the fool

The way you used me like a tool

Using my heart as a stepping stool

I wish I never let you in

I wish you didn’t make me sin

You ignited a fire that’s deep within

Then left my heart cold and empty as tin

It’s not that easy to let you know

How great I feel to see you go

‘Cause right now this is all I know

I’m tired of acting like some reality show

You left me with that bitter taste

That taste of letting love go to waste

And now the feelings that I chased

Have suddenly turned on me and changed their pace

This love that I once had for you

Was that of only a love that is true

But you couldn’t see this through

And now you don’t know what to do

 But everyone knows how just how you feel

The way you search for another heart to steal

To make some poor boy’s heart your meal

To feed the huger with which you cannot deal

But I’ll be ok without you here

Just don’t make me shed one more tear

For the next time that we meet I fear

That I will want to hold you near

And then the process will start a new

And I will end up hating you

And this song will be proven true

As you make my heart into a heartbreak stew

But I will learn better after long

And I wont have to re-write this song

For all the things that we did wrong

Will become better once you are gone

So please don’t expect my love anymore

Cause the first time you threw it out the door

And now you will get what’s in store

For all those hearts you stepped on before

You’re an earth shaker, a soul taker, a sorrow maker, a tear faker.

But most of all in everyone’s minds, you will always be known as the heartbreaker.

There are a few others, but I think Ill stop there for now. Can't think of anything normal to say or talk about tonight so I'm going to leave it at that.

Where to begin...

Well, may as well throw the bad news out there first so we can end on a good note eh?
But first, random picture!

My uncle's '56 Chevy. Don't let the "56" fool you, the front end nearly lifted off the ground while he literally hit the floor with the pedal going down Las Posas. And if you follow the link and view the original size you can see the reflection of me John and my dad all taking pics of it. Obviously this is my version. Check my dad's stream to see his. :)


 So here goes!

If you don't care about the bad news, feel free to follow down halfway to the good news. Only a fair warning, I'm going to be completely honest and talk about what its like to find out I spent 8 months with a slut only to realize I wasn't the one being cheated on, I was actually the one she was cheating on someone else with... so, you've been warned....

Friday night I get an email from courtney's sister via facebook saying she has bad news about courtney. For anyone left in the dark so far, I dated courtney since february of this year up until 4 days ago, and she said that it was because I was too controlling because I saw her phone bill and noticed she was making calls to her ex on an hourly basis every day for hours on end for 2 months straight. I said the breakup is mutual because if she didn't dump me now, I would have dumped her tomorrow because she was cheating. She said no, she was talking to Jim's son, Kyle, and that she would never go back to Jim, she is certain with all her heart she hates him and will never be with someone like him. Again for those of you left in the dark, Jim is her ex, he raped her when she was 14, and she was living with him for 3 years since she was 16. Oh yeah and Jim is around 40 or 46 years old going after a girl younger than his own son. Not to mention we got a restraining order on Jim when we found him stalking her at work and leaving things in her car when she left it unlocked between pizza deliveries.  Kyle, the son, is in jouvenile hall. So obviously... there is no way in hell Courtney was talking to a kid with a 15 minute phone privilage every other hour for 25-45 minutes each call. The phone company doesnt lie.
So ANYWAYS, back on track, I finally get the beans spilled that not even 3 days after dumping me, she is, no exageration, MARRIED to Jim. Turns out her entire relationship with me wasn't a rebound after dumping Jim, it was more like an affair while she was still WITH Jim. I took a real hit to my self esteem and realized just how worthless it is to be cheated on by 3 girls in a row. I can't hold it in anymore. I have no intention of retaliating or lashing out but I did send her an honest comment on her facebook as follows: "

you're a disgrace... when jim beats the hell out of you dont come running back, i dont wish bad things on you, but your walking into the very thing i tried to protect you from, and as hard as it is to see you ruin your life over a guy like ...jim, i can only be honest and say... i will not attend your funeral, nor will i mourn any loss when you reap the benefits of marriage to a guy who stalked you for 3 years. you are dead to me and i have nothing but emptiness in a place that i once held in my heart specially for you. you run and marry jim not even 3 days after dumping me... and here i thought i did something wrong, but truth comes out in the open and we all find out what a tramp you are... the next time you cheat on jim, it wont be with me thank God, but more importantly, you will learn the hard way what it means to be and adult and live up to the decisions you make... have a nice life, i hope its short for your sake because you are walking into nothing but suffering and any retard other than you can see that. good riddance"

And to think i considered marriage in the future with that... thing. but I'm honestly glad to find out she is the one ruining her life and not me. Yeah, it really hurts and I thought I was in love, but with all the things I've been through in the last few years I've learned to just accept things at face value and realize that my life is a joke. The irony of it is that I'm the only one that seems to have missed the que for laughter. After throwing up and calling her to tell her that her stuff is in the trash and that the world is in fact full circle, so this whole thing she is pulling on me is only going to bring about her own pain in the end and that I tried to show her true love but she only wanted sex and a house to live in away form her parents. bah. She is in fact dead to me and I have every intention of moving passed all this as soon as possible, but for future relationships I have learned that my judgement is flawed to the worst possible degree. Every girl I have ever asked out cheated on me and the one that didn't cheat on me ended in tragedy. If its some kind of joke where I'm meant to live my life single, then so be it. I'm done making first moves. When I find the right girl, I will not be looking for her, she will have to be up front out in the open and in plain sight with no secrets or weird stalker ex's and 100% NO long distance! Yeah... I'm pretty much done talking about that now

So now the good news. still with me? Doubt it, but maybe I got lucky and you just skipped the bad news and came straight to this paragraph...

last night i spent the night at Rose's house (I had to get out of my room before I did something I would regret. I'm not safe alone in my room when I realize my entire life is a series of tragedies false hope) watching a movie that I regret entirely...Solitairy man... she said it was a comedy, the whole movie was about cheating and fooling around with guys and girls, and the opening song was solitary man by Johny Cash. If you don't know the lyrics, well.. here is the first 15 seconds of the song.

"was mine 'til the time that I found her
Holdin' Jim
And lovin' him

Don't know that I will but until I can find me
A girl who'll stay and won't play games behind me
I'll be what I am
A solitary man"

So yeah... not Rose's fault, she never knew what the movie was about, it said comedy on netflix so we tried it. epic fail. but once again, the irony of my (joke)life continues to play jokes even in my lowest times.

But then today I woke up, went home, showered and shaved, finally got Courtney to pick up the phone so I could call her a tramp and hang up on her for the last time, then went to oxnard to pick up MOMO and took her to Oxnard High School to watch the band competition. I'm not quite the band geek that she prides herself as, but I will admitt I can keep up with the drumline and would have taken it seriously if I didn't already take up my time with work and sports in school. But it was actually really fun, and a few of the schools did an incredible job! I watched the DCI tournament a few years back and it was amazing. And while these high schoolers really knocked my socks off today, I'll still be honest and say I favor the blue devils, or the USMC drum and bugle corps, or especially the silent drill platoon. But still, it was awesome. And to make things better, Morgan and I went back to my place and watched Team America, Superbad, Yes Man, and Kung Pow. I'm proud to say I finally have a friend who shares the same taste in... pretty much everything I do. Movies especially! And as we were watching the movies, I realized something that I had long forgotten back when I was still single in high school: Having good friends to laugh, cry, be random idiots with, tell war stories and embarrassing truths to, and just cuddle up and watch a movie with, is far more important than getting married.

 It dawned on me that back in high school when I was still considered popular and had a fairly large group of friends, that is exactly what we did on the daily basis. And ever since I discovered one on one relationships with women, I've completely lost sight of what it means to  have a life. I spent so much of my effort and time trying to find a girl who understands true love and committment that I forgot the promise I made my friends in high school that if I ever settled down with someone it would be with my best friend. And so today was a good experience as I re-learned the most fundamental rules of relationships. Sex jeapordizes a friendship,  but dating outside of your circle of friends is just stupid. And I don't mean limit your options to people you already hang with, I simply mean every marriage is at risk if you don't establish firm friendship first. Courtney and I... we were never friends. I allowed lust empty promises blind me to who she really was. Even as I read the messages between her and her playmate, I continued to fool myself into believing that I could just forgive her and she would want to change for our sake, but I ended up having to forgive her on a weekly basis and it came to a point where we had to just admitt that we went too far too fast and never got to know eachothers' bad sides, boy was I in for a surprise! haha.

Well, that's about it for my rant today. Now on to other pressing issues.

There is a jumping spider somewhere in my room that Momo and I failed to eliminate, and now I'm worried about waking up with yet ANOTHER spider in my covers with me tomorrow morning. It really isn't a good thing to wake up to, believe me. So the Raid and the big shoe are by my bedside just in case I need to make a late night aracnissassination run. That spider's gonna get a BOOT TO THE HEAD!

Oh and in further news, I just learned that all this time I've been playing MW2 and black ops, I could have been using my bluetooth with my PS3. So after finally setting it up, I also found that there is a voice changer option to make my voice chipmunk-ish or really deep like the guy from Saw. So now as people cry and complain about finding 50 Cal rounds lodged between their teeth, I simply laugh in a squeaky chipmunk voice and then tell them in an evil Saw voice that the infidels came out to play, so you may as well turn the game off and hide under the bed til I'm done. And, as expected from the wide range of 11-13 year olds dominating the online war games, they always try to convince everyone that I'm either a really ugly chick or a pedafile who has strange fits of michael-jackson-related vocal problems. Makes me wonder what schools are teaching these teens these days now that the internet social networking sites have replaced block parties and boys-n-girls clubs, it seems everyone just assumes the worst about everyone else online... in which case they deserve to get shot repeatedly and camped until they get so fed up that they turn the game off and go outside and act their age. See? my over-aggressive gaming is an act of reaching out to anti-social teens!... or something like that. :)

My overly manly job for the day: Raking leaves with a flamethrower

Have you ever woke up and wondered "where did my favorite snorkel go?!"
Well neither have I. But I DID wake up this morning and wonder why I was dreaming about the crucible. I actually walked up to Drill Sergeant and asked if we could go again for 72 hours next time... it wasn't a bad dream, but after considering what I was asking, it may as well have been a nightmare!

Well, that aside, here is the picture I just finished editing and uploading to my flickr.


I had another "interesting" day at work, but I'm not even going to try to talk about it. I'm finally in a good mood, don't need to replay the memories of my jerk-off bosses ruining my good day, so I'll just stick to the good stuff.

Today I had a great escape from all that crap after work. I went down the pch with my guitar and blanket after work and hid out in my secret spot and just jammed. It was incredible! There must have been close to 10,000 stars that were completely visible and clearly shining in the clear chilled night. I had nothing better to say other than texting Morgan that it was INSANELY BEAUTIFUL or something like that. I know I call it my "secret" spot, but honestly, anyone who takes time to get to know me gets to see the spot eventually, and thus it is not much of a secret. But nonetheless it is a very good getaway when the stress becomes too much to go home with.

I chipped my tooth this morning. The one in the back that I do ALL of my chewing with... this sucks, I don't want to go back to a soup and water diet, but it hurts so freakin bad to chew anything, EVEN BREAD! =( Bah.

Oh but I do have some really good news! this saturday I get to hang with the Captain again and see a full on band competition through my camera lenses. hopefully I get some good shots, but ultimately I'm just happy I will have someone to keep me company and hang out with, not to mention the hilarious movie I'm going to subject her to after the competition. Totally looking forward to it!

Rant over.

~sw23

Laggin' it!!!

I really am lagging on this blog. It's been almost a week and I've only managed 1 1/2 posts not including this one. Though I am proud to say I finally found out where to edit the pages and went ahead and made an "about me" page. Head on over and check it out so you can get links to my website. :)

A little preview of the photo I posted today :)

Hmmmm, today was a bit of an interesting day. moreover this week has been very awkward and stressful. In fact scratch all that. My entire life has been stressful and awkward. Hey, I've had some good times, but ultimately when I look back I realize that I have never really taken advantage of anything i had in my life. Instead I took it all for granted. Last week my (ex) girlfriend broke up with me, and now it finally dawns on me that it was mutual. I couldn't love her, I didn't even KNOW her! I was too wrapped up in the idea of someone loving me for who I am that I blinded myself to the obvious unfaithful acts she was committing. And as I sat in the living room of my parents' house and watched my mom breathe her last breath I held her hand and promised to take advantage of the opportunities I ruined and took for granted while she was alive: to love people on purpose and never stop loving them; To take care of and be apart of my ever-growing family and to be more social; And most importantly, to live in a manner that would make her proud, as even as she was coming to her last days she was still giving me kind and loving reminders that I was doing things that made her sad and disappointed. What a fool I've been! But to roundabout back to my point, today was very interesting.

I got to work at the usual time and started doing the usual things, until my princess (we call him princess because someone asked where my apprentice was and I heard it totally wrong and said I don't have a princess.) showed up and declared that he was in the worst of moods. He says he struggles with anger problems, but today was a bit more intense, because my attempts at just being random and joking got him laughing, but even through his laughter he had an uncontrollable anger welling up in his eyes and I just soon accepted that today wasn't a day to clown around.

So the day continued on without incedent up until my boss returned from his training across the street to tell me to get on the forklift and put the bins of peppers into the other cold room to make room for the market cardboard boxes on the 100+ pallets sitting outside. So my princess and I began moving the bins and then Veto (another driver) showed up and told us that he called Sergio (the boss) and that Serg said to put the bins in a different room. I protested very firmly that I refuse to do anything without the boss saying so himself, because I know how angry Serg gets when things don't go his way. But as time passed and things weren't going the way they should have, it made more sense that perhaps Sergio did want the bins moved to another room, so we started  putting them back into the other room that Veto suggested. Then all hell broke loose! Sergio walked in and started yelling words I couldn't make out. Then he finally walked over to me and said "What are you thinking? what did I tell you to do mister?" I explained that his number 2 guy told us that he himself gave the order to change direction, and Sergio, as I clearly called it, said "And who is the boss Cameron? Veto or me? You know what, forget it, since you don't do what I tell you, just put the bins in this room and we will have to put the market in the other room now." He then continued over to Jon (princess) and chewed him out a little. I was eventually told to just get off the forklift and go home while the two guys who set me up stayed and got overtime finishing the job Sergio gave to me specifically. [Enter maniacal scream here] seriously?!

But oh well, just another bs filled day at work with a bunch of racist latino cut-throats. (no seriously, I'm the only white guy there, I could win a descrimination case in court if it came down to it, but I speak enough spanish to just cuss them out and tell them to their faces that I'm not giving up my job over wannabe homies that drive golf-carts mixed with tractors for a living.) Am I ranting? Ah crap I'm sorry!

So anyways, on the way home I decided to get what I like to consider comfort food. A chocolate shake from Del Taco. And what would be so comforting about an ice-cream-based drink in 47 degree weather you ask? Simple: the girl that works there wednsday nights is always cheerful and happy to see me and we chit chat while I pay and wait for my food. It's not a crush or anything, I am just trying to be more social like I promised and she has a really big personality and is willing to stop and ask how my day was, even though I always say "fine." But then I got home and had the pleasure of not only a warm shower, but also the thought of Morgan coming over and keeping me company watching a movie this weekend. YAY! And even though Morgan is currently the only reader I have, just in case anyone comes across this post in the future when hopefully I have a reader or two, please feel free to click that link and check out her stuff, she is an amazing, beautiful, talented and energetic young individual. I've only known her for a week or so now, but I'm already finding that we have literally YEARS worth of things to do as we have pretty much everything in common. Thank you craigslist for leading me to the most random head-booting person I've met besides myself. :)

In closing, I'd like to just say that today (yesterday, now that I see its passed 3:00 a.m.) has been interesting. When I say interesting, it means that it was at one point a very bad day, and at other points so good i couldnt remember the bad parts. And so interesting is the happy median that serves as proof that today was't the best, but it wasn't so bad after all either.

So what will I blog about next? I have no idea. I wish I had some sort of social networking or fan-base or something like that so I could take suggestions. But for now I will just hope that I can provide a more entertaining and uplifting post next time.

Ja ne!

Questions. Not exactly looking for answers but if you answer them all I'll give you something random

how do i get a song out of my head if i been singing it for 3 days straight? why are sugar cookies so good? why do girls go to the bathroom at the same time? where do animals go if they have no souls? where do children go if they die before they know right from wrong? why do girls anylize evaluate and criticize other girls that they dont know? what came first the chicken or the egg? why do people enjoy hurting others? why does it hurt me to see other's suffer? why do they put braile at drive-thru atm machines? why do people cheat on other people? why am i still awake? whats your favorite color? why am i so ashamed of myself when i havent done anything yet? why do bad things happen to good people? if cheaters never prosper, why do so many of them win? if the number pi goes on forever, why does it matter how many decimals you can count to...? why does the "land of the free" have so many restrictions on your freedoms when other "unlawful" countries have people killing and bombing so freely? where the hell did all the emo's come from and how do we get rid of them? i have a giant can of raid willl that work? whats up with girl's "clothing sizes"? i can see a girl who is 5'5'' wear a size 11 stand next to a woman who's 5'11'' and wears a size 5... you expect me to figure that out? and WTF is a size 0....? if i died tonight, would anyone miss me? if they really would miss me, why havent they tried to talk to me in all these years? are they waiting for the dramatic pause so they can say "i never realised how much i had til he was gone" or some bs like that? why cant i stop listning to this damned song?!?! and why are cats so prissy? i hate cats! if i played a blank tape at full blast on my radio, do you think the mime next door will complain about the noise? why does our government control whats allowed in our freedom of speech? why do rich people put money away in banks for retirement knowing that they will never live to see half of it put to use? where did my favorite rings go? why did sara cheat on me  for 9 months and say that she got "frisky" with her best friend when her other friend showed me a text about how she got to be on top in the front seat of that jewish bastard's car? why are jewish people so sensetive to the word jew? what else am i supposed to call them? and why are black people allowed to say nigger and white people cant when it was originally a word meant to put them down below whites? and why do mexicans come to america to escape their own country's government, then make public protests claiming mexican pride, waving mexican flags, and demanding the american anthem be sung in their native mexican language? are you retarded? do i go to mexico and demand that the locals grow me a field of berries and cook me burgers all day, then sit around and complain that no one in mexico speaks enough english to cater to me and run around mexico city claiming white power? seriously get a clue... i read and write spanish better than half of the people i work with and i respect them very much and enjoy their company, i dont see them bitching about how unfair it is that i dont speak enough spanish, they are actually trying to learn ENGLISH because they want to survive in an english speaking workplace... theres an  idea...and why do so many other races complain that the WHITE people are racist against other colors, when white's are the minority? if it were a colors war, brown would win, because 80% of "blacks" are mixed with other races and are actually really dark brown,  not truly black, and thus they can't claim black pride or anything because they are just dark brown, along with lots of other brown related races. and furthermore why do white people just accept that white is even a race? if brownies get offended and say "im LATINO" and blacks say "african american" and pacific islander and asian or whatever, why has no one taken the time to recognise that i am not white? IM CANADIAN-IRISH-SIOUX INDIAN and 100% AMERICAN like the rest of you fools! and why do men have nipples? why does cingular and at&t wireless keep buying eachother out and changing names? has it occurred to them that their face value and overall stock has declined more than 65% since they were just two seperate companies? and why does every commercial for any medical or dental thing say "number one doctor recomended" when the commercial 15 minutes before it said the same thing? do the doctors all have a giant "number one list" that they take product names attatched to darts and just throw them around? why do people who are so beautiful have to say they are ugly? why is self confidence so beautiful even when an "ugly" girl knows how to carry herself through? and why do people care what everyone else thinks of them when ultimately they are the ones who criticize themself the hardest? why does my selective hearing turn on at the worst parts of side conversations at work? why am i asking so many stupid pointless questions? is anyone going to read them? if anyones THAT bored, did you read every one of them? do you feel any smarter now? can you answer all of them? ya right. want a cookie? why havent i finished my sugar cookie yet? nvm mmmm that was good. why is there a freakin chocolate chip cookie in my bag? why do girls who never met me tell me they love me while girls who are in love with another man constantly flirt with me? am i like a danger magnet? why do i keep hitting the play button on this frikkin song?!?!?! why are you still reading this?... i wonder what the random reward might be for wasting everyone's time answering the questions that are wasting everyone's time? are you confunsed yet? would you be surprised if i said i wouldn't be surprised if you said you weren't? can we agree that 5:06 in the morning is a bad time to be spouting out random crap? good, then im going to bed!....er.... im going to... bed?

Into the depths of internet randomness....

Alright, so this is my first real entry to any kind of Blog site, so I'm not too sure about what I'm going to write about yet. for now I just wanted to have something up on the post so I can at least look at it and know what looks good/bad and what would need to change whenever I do start taking this seriously. So for now, relax and enjoy my other artistic outlet on my flickr page. If you dig deep enough into the photos and take the time to read the descriptions below them you may be surprised to find that most of my life's struggles and triumphs for the past few years has been captured and shared through my camera lenses. That should be a good start, so for now I'm off to bed. 5:20 a.m. and I gotta get up for work soon. Ja ne!