Depression. The second.

I'm back, and probably going to be gif/meme-less until I feel comfortable posting "on the bright side" sort of things. The best thing I can say about the situation I currently find myself in is that I'm at least writing again. I'm just sad that I have to use this blog to get at my feelings. I'm going to be talking about depression, specifically my undiagnosed depression, that at this point, is self diagnosed, I know, for a fact, that I have clinical depression and that I need, and want, to see someone for it. I just can't deal with all of this shit anymore. Every day that I wake up, I ask myself why I even bothered waking up. I'll be discussing most of my issues while referring back to the "WebMD" page on "What is Depression?"

Most people have felt sad or depressed at times. Feeling depressed can be a normal reaction to loss, life's struggles, or an injured self-esteem.

But when feelings of intense sadness -- including feeling helpless, hopeless, and worthless -- last for many days to weeks and keep you from functioning normally, your depression may be something more than sadness. It may very well be clinical depression -- a treatable medical condition.

My girlfriend who is very much the love of my life has been away, back at her parents house on Long Island since December 21. Since then, I cannot say that I've felt like "myself." I can't even say that I know what I mean by that, but I can tell you that these "feelings" of being helpless, hopeless, and worthless, enter my fucking mind every damn day. I've been trying since August 2014 to find a job. I've had 3 interviews since then, at Walmart, GameStop, and Taco Bell. None of them called me back to offer a job, except Walmart, which I turned down because GameStop offered me an interview. This has since turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. All the while in between these interviews I've applied to every fucking place I can think of, you name it, I've likely submitted an application, either online or in person.

I stopped going out and doing them in person because I had no money for gas, and I had/have an eighth of a tank left. Today, my girlfriend was supposed to be coming home, but she couldn't because of weather. I also broke my phone's screen today throwing it against the wall in a sudden burst of emotion, upon being told that "I need to go back to normal." I then realized that I had to get out of the house, and to the nearest Verizon store to get my phone fixed/replaced, it still works but the screen is pitch black. However, upon entering my truck I find that the battery is dead, leaving me stranded here unable to leave to get any food. I have enough to last me for at least a few more days if I ration, but honestly, I don't feel like eating.

I'm hungry, and I know I'm hungry. I can feel it, I can hear it. But I just don't care. I eat one meal a day, and that's mainly just to prove to my girlfriend that I ate while she was gone, I feel, and look like I've lost about ten pounds in the past week. Today was the first day I changed out of elastic pajamas, and the pants that used to fit me the best, are now loose and starting to sag down.

According to the DSM-5, a manual used to diagnose mental disorders, depression occurs when you have at least five of the following symptoms at the same time:

• A depressed mood during most of the day, particularly in the morning
• Fatigue or loss of energy almost every day
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt almost every day
• Impaired concentration, indecisiveness
• Insomnia (an inability to sleep) or hypersomnia (excessive sleeping) almost every day
• Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activities nearly every day
• Recurring thoughts of death or suicide (not just fearing death)
• A sense of restlessness or being slowed down
• Significant weight loss or weight gain

So, in order to qualify, and be diagnosed with depression, I need to have at least five of those symptoms. I've already stated how I wake up, and I've argued where these feelings of worthlessness come from. I've mentioned potential weight loss, and I've also, at least somewhat, stated that I had no interest, until today, in doing anything. That only leaves one trait until I can justifiably self diagnose myself.

Insomnia (an inability to sleep) or hypersomnia (excessive sleeping) almost every day

I'm not sure what exactly constitutes either. If it's just trouble falling asleep, I could argue that I have insomnia, since I haven't been able to fall asleep until about 7 am for the past few days, and this is after several hours of trying, since about 2:30 last night for example. Now if hypersomnia is trouble staying awake, I only have that in the afternoons when I initially "wake-up." That is to say that I will remain lying down, and let myself continually fall asleep because I don't want to get up. Now this is only if that counts as either one. My inability to fall asleep could also constitute, indecisiveness, like my body can't decide what it wants to do. All I've really been doing is watching movies, applying to jobs, eating my small single meal, and sitting on the couch. Other than that, I'm having a late night, often brief, conversation with the girlfriend over Skype or by phone. Then I try to sleep for x number of hours until it happens.

The ones (yes, ones) I know that I also have but haven't discussed are the feelings of fatigue/lack of energy, and recurring thoughts of death or suicide. I've long since lost my fear of death, so the latter part of that bullet point doesn't really apply anyways. If thoughts of death can include thoughts about others dying, and I don't mean by murder, then I have that two-fold. I haven't necessarily thought about suicide everyday, but most of the days of the past week and a half, suicidal thoughts have been there. I haven't had an attempt, yet, unless you count an attempt at wrist cutting, but that was shortly after thanksgiving, and for entirely different reasons and under different circumstances. But these are what's needed to diagnose. I have most of the symptoms they list.

• Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
• Fatigue and decreased energy
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and/or helplessness
• Feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism
• Insomnia, early morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping
• Irritability, restlessness
• Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex
• Loss of pleasure in life
• Overeating or appetite loss
• Persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment
• Persistent sad, anxious, or "empty" feelings
• Thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts

All I don't have, is "Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions." And I think that's just because of the way I'm wired. I'm always focused on whatever I may be doing, and I can remember details about things that happened weeks ago still. Most decisions I've made are what movies to watch/not watch, but I've made decisions. So where does all of this leave me?

I can't professionally say that I have depression, that's something I need to see someone about, because I cannot keep living like this. With all that's happened today, and my student loans about to pile up and throw me into bankruptcy if I don't find a job soon, I can't really help but feel depressed. I'm not sure if I would feel this way if I had a job or if none of the crap that happened today happened. I know I've thought I've had depression for a long time, but I thought it was just mild, not requiring medication (see my previous blog entries for evidence of that 1, 2, 3, 4). But now, I'm almost certain that I do.

I feel like an idiot for breaking my phone, and I have no idea whether or not it will cost anything to fix, but a day or so away from it, won't bother me too much. I mainly just used it for internet stuffs, I can just use a computer for that.

All I can really hope for at this point, is that someone comes to help, either tomorrow or soon. I'm almost out of food, and I hear that's kind of important for human survival. I also hope that my girlfriend, if she so chooses to come back tomorrow, Wednesday, January 6, that she makes it here safely. Because I don't think the weather will be that great, or so the forecast on the internet will have me believe. At the very least, she should be returning by this coming Thursday when the weather is supposed to be somewhat better than it is forecast to be tomorrow. Regardless of when she chooses to come home, I just want her to get here safe. I urged her, that if she wasn't going to come tonight, which she isn't, to wait until Thursday unless she feels confident enough to make it tomorrow.

To go back to the main issue at heart here, I think the thing that is getting to me most is loneliness. I have literally been alone, by myself for eleven days. When my request for her to return by New Years Eve didn't come through, we settled on today, and when that didn't happen, I broke again. And the simplest way I can put it. For weeks, no months, since fucking August, I've let myself think that this next thing I put my mind to will end my troubles and will come through. But nothing has. Not one good thing has happened since August 2014. The last good thing that happened to me personally, was passing my last class for my bachelors, which proved to be a ton of help...

I honestly don't know if I have any friends any more. I feel like I do, but I don't know. I can talk with them from time to time. And when I went home for Christmas, from the 22nd to the 26th, at least one of them showed interest in hanging out, but didn't really act on that interest, and hasn't bothered to say a word to me since commenting "Um fuck yeah" on my Facebook status about being home. If he wanted me to instigate, I dropped the ball. But I never instigate, I honestly cannot remember the last time I have texted someone, other than my girlfriend, without that person having texted me first. I think the last time was to my friend Dylan, and that was really just to say that I got a free game for having purchased the season pass to Assassin's Creed: Unity. That game being Far Cry 4, which I've barely touched.

So it may be my fault that I feel so lonely. I should probably reach out to people. But I also live at least an hour away from any one of my friends. But is it really so much to ask, that I get some random text asking how I'm doing. Yes, I don't do that, so maybe I'll start once I get my phone fixed/replaced.

All I know for sure, is I can't blame anyone else but myself for any of this. I regret everything that I put my girlfriend through, making her feel guilty, bringing out her depressed thoughts, making her feel like I have been pressuring her to do what I want rather than what she wants. All I want to do in my life, is make her happy, and I feel as though I'm never going to be able to do that. Maybe that's where all of this is coming from. I've yelled at her, complained to her, cried over her telling me what I don't want to hear. I've broken my phone because of something she said, but didn't mean. Luckily, I can still answer my phone, though I don't know if it's charging or not because I cannot use my screen, so I can't get rid of the notification light to see the charging one. I can however use motion gestures, thankfully, allowing me to answer calls.

I guess what I have to do now, is hope that things work out in the long run. Hope that soon, things turn around. I stop feeling this way, I get help, and hopefully a job. Time will tell what will happen, I just hope that what ends up happening, isn't what I feel may happen.

I've Ran Out of Things To Talk About

Important things. (with Demetri Martin).

I have to preface this one, with the following message to all reader who have read my previous post entitled "Depression." I appreciate the few of you that have gotten in contact with me over Facebook via commenting on my status or by private message. I really do appreciate it. But let me explain something. While your intentions may have been pure, they do not come off that way to me. It has nothing to do with you, and I don't hold any grudges against you, as you were only trying to help, it does however have everything to do with the way I am wired. 

Whenever someone tells me I need help, psychological help, therapeutic help, whatever kind of help, and they aren't being sarcastic, I take it personally. I can't help it either. It's just how I work. So telling me I need a therapist, or that I should look into getting one to talk about my problems with someone, isn't good for me. it's actually detrimental. It makes me feel that you think I am inferior to you in some way, regardless of whether or not you actually do, and it actually makes me feel worse. In other words, I appreciate that you are trying to help, but please stop, because it isn't helping, it's making it worse.

I'm not suffering, so don't worry. One day in near a thousand day's where I break down in tears is not a sufferer make. It was much more common back in the day, but I have managed to get myself out of the funk, whatever funk I was in, am now a (somewhat) normal and functioning member of society. the day's on which I lose my emotions, which again isn't common in the slightest, has nothing to do with what has been going on in my life (i.e. stress, a break-up, or the death of a beloved character in a show, book, or movie), it's totally random and out of my control. And while yes, on some days - most days even - I don't want to get out of bed, and I literally have to roll myself out to get up, that's nothing that should be worried about either. Because who wants to get up in the morning anyways.

All that being said. I again, thank those who were worried enough to reach out to me, but please, stop.

By the way. These will likely be coming out slower, one to two a week at most - as opposed to two or three a week. I've realized that I have been pumping these out too fast, and i am slowly running out of things to talk about if I plan to keep this pace and blog length. so I'm just going to slow down the pace of blog posts and get these out when I get around to it and have more to talk about.

School is coming to an end. And that terrifies me for two reasons.

REASON ONE: I have to go live in the "real world" soon.

REASON TWO: I am getting old. I'll be 22 for Pete's sake. TWENTY TWO.

Despite my hatred of Taylor Swift and her music, I couldn't resist using this .GIF.

To backtrack a bit. Back to the depression stuff briefly. the only thing that kept running through my head, is how much do people actually know me. Do they just know who I am, as in, they just match the face to the name. Do they know my writing style, my voice (verbal, sonical, and prosal). Do the people that don't read this really know me?

It's a serious question. and I guess it doesn't just pertain to me either. It relates to anyone really. How much do the people you interact with daily, know about you, do they know the real you, or a projection? I'm getting all philosophical and I love it, because questions like this fuel my existence. I believe that maybe only twenty people know I'm a sufferer of "self-diagnosed mild depression" outside of this blog and its readers. I feel like we want to believe that we know the people around us. But do we really? I'd say three to five people know the "real me" while everyone else has this vague idea, and I don't think that's anyone's fault. It's just really difficult to actually know someone. You could easily think you know someone, through daily interaction. But, and be honest now, have you ever had one of those "I thought I knew that person" moments. I guess that's really where my question stems from. How much do we really know, the people we think we know. Think about it. Get back to me. We'll do a discussion in the comments section if you so wish. :Lets have some fun with it.

Back to college the stuff. My life as a college student is ending. My final semester starts at the end of January. My final semester. Final semester. Final. Semester. Sorry, blacked out there in a haze of my own sadness that I am no longer going to be going to Brockport. I grew up in a town similar to Brockport, so it sort of became a home away from home for me. I'm not sure what the town is like when all the college students go away, and frankly, I feel bad for the townspeople that have to deal with the majority of the student body that inhabits their town for roughly six months. 

The Pitch Perfect GIFs have begun, there's no stopping them now.

Pre-Registration week starts on November 4. This terrifies me, for two reasons.

REASON ONE + TWO: Redundancy.

In all seriousness though, I'm slowly coming to the realization that soon I will be leaving this little college town behind me and moving on to potentially better things. Like sitting in my home office behind a computer screen with writers block trying to finish the next great american novel and failing horribly. Or going to Chicago in a year or two for film school. Why Chicago you ask?

Pre-Registration means class registration. I need fifteen credits to graduate on time, and that means five classes at three credits each. I broke it down for those who aren't so good at the mathematics - no offense, or offense if you wanna fight. COME AT ME, BRO! 

I'll take you all on.

It's looking like I'm going to do three English courses, and two Film Studies courses. Children's Lit, Modern Myth, and Advanced Fiction Workshop for the former, Ecocinema and Film History part 2 for the latter. I believe, that actually works out to be like, four classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays with one class Mondays (M), Wednesdays (W), and Fridays (F). While five classes on Tuesdays (T) and Thursdays (R) would have been quite extreme, it would also mean that every week I get from Thursday night to Tuesday morning off from classes, and that alone would make it well worth it. Granted the one MWF class, with it being at like one fifteen, is pretty light too, I don't have to wake up super early. I do have to get up for class that is at like nine thirty on TR, But at least it isn't an eight o'clock class, I swore never again, and I have succeeded. eight o'clock classes are my own personal Hell. If there is a Hell, it's eight o'clock classes.

More on the scheduling for my final semester as it comes up. Also, dear girl who talks to me about Pokemon before my Modern Logic class.

That is all. Blog over. Have a video.

Depression.

This one is going to get serious.

Just because it's somewhat of a serious topic doesn't mean I can't add some humor into it. Especially when the humor isn't necessarily appropriate to the situation. Let me preface this blog post by saying that I haven't been clinically diagnosed as depressed. I do have however, through conversations with people who have been diagnosed, have similar symptoms to depression. I wake up days, and cannot will myself out of bed for sometimes hours, I break down and just cry for little to no reason, I hate being around people because I feel that they always pity me - even if they don't, and on some level I know they don't, I still have the feeling that they do - As mentioned in my first "official" post I have self diagnosed myself with "mild-depression." Though others may see it as more severe than I do.

Be warned, this is going to get dark. Quick. So first, unicorns and rainbows!

Jumping right in now. I tried to kill myself twice. Either I succeeded and am now a ghost, or I wasn't very good at it, and thankfully so I guess. I'm sure that's how other people see it, and more or less how I see it now, at least on most days. Today, for whatever reason wasn't a day where I felt this way.

My alarm went off at ten, and I shut it off. and lied in bed awake, until the second one, shut it off at 11:15. When the third one went off at 11:30 and I still hadn't moved my eyes from that spot on the ceiling right above my resting head, I knew this day was going to suck. By 12:15 I decided to roll myself out of my bed and onto my floor where I then managed to pick myself up and pull myself together. I then took a forty minute shower, thirty minutes of which was me crying, over absolutely nothing. Literally nothing. I just burst into tears standing there, and then curled up into a ball in the corner of the shower crying.

This was me, in the shower, if I had clothes on, and darker hair. And, you know, if I was David Tennant.

Confessions time. I have self harmed before - I've told people I haven't but that's a lie. Sorry to people I lied to about this, but I feel I need to actually set the record straight once and for all. I have two scars from direct self infliction on my right arm, they aren't long, no more than an inch each. The cross tattoo I have, covers them both up to the point where they are practically non-existent. they were never deep or good enough to leave a super visible scar. It's like any other minor cut scar any other person may get. It just kind of fades into your skin tone and nobody thinks anything is up. The reason nobody knows is because I was a sneaky little bastard, and managed to hide it well. LONG SLEEVES.

So that's out there now. Anybody who reads this will now know more about me than my own family and my closest friends. I have literally told no one about the self harm. I've avoided it, and denied it, but truth be told, I didn't do for attention. That is the one thing I hate about cutting. The negative "they're doing it for attention" connotation. A few weeks back we were watching Thirteen (if you haven't seen it, watch it, it's a great film about women coming to age in the lower class) for my Women in Film class, and the scenes where the main character self harms comes up, and someone mentions that she was doing it because she wasn't getting enough attention from her mother. Nobody groaned, or immediately objected. I was fucking shocked. I've never been so put off by how little people know about why people self harm.

It's not attention seeking, or it nearly never is. It's about being able to actually feel something. Depression makes you so numb to the world most days, that cutting just allows you to feel. Masochists also self harm, but they do it for an entirely different reason that I won't bother getting into. Pleasure, they get off on it; there I went into it, you happy?

So today has been rough. It's the first day where I've broken down in tears for no reason (Derek did it to me some number of weeks ago - that was the last "real" time I cried) in roughly three years. But the last time I cried on a personal level was when a friend of mine died. But I didn't cry for some time after it happened. In fact, it wasn't until I had gotten the memorial tattoo on the inside of my arm, he finished working on it, and I cried right there in the shop. The artist waited and gave me a consoling hug, and let me wait for a little while before I returned to the lobby where my friend who drove me there was waiting. It took about five or so minutes for it to not look like I had been crying - my face gets blotchy and my eyes go all bloodshot, it's very easy to tell if I've been crying - The artist was very supportive. He does amazing work by the way. Billy the Kid, at Amazing Grace Body Arts in Geneva, go, give that man some work.

The memorial piece. The RC Cola logo, with Birth & Death dates and "Never Forgotten"

The outside of the half sleeve, the last verse of William Blake's "The Tyger" and a Tiger. You can also see like half of my face... ladies.

I've been doing a lot of self reflexive writing in my poetry class. Working of pieces that are close and personal to me. I wrote a scrambled poem today - as if my day wasn't already hard enough - that drove me to tears. It was a scramble of Bob Hicok's "Cutting Edge." It's about him noticing his dog has gotten old, and that soon she will die and the poem is sort of his way for preparing. I couldn't possibly bring myself to change what the poem was about, and I kept a lot of the images the same. But by God, my version broke me down. 

Just me, sitting in my room, hunched over my laptop keyboard, bawling over the beautiful poem about an old dog, and a man about to be in mourning. Why do I subject myself to this stuff, I just write things, and then I cry. I lie down, curl up in a ball, and cry.

I haven't ever been driven to tears by anything other than my poetry. But this one broke me. I'm not broken easily, it takes things like Derek, which is the saddest show on the planet - Available on Netflix (shameless promotions!) - to break me. Sure I've cried over my writing before, but never hysterically. My poem almost made me not want to get a puppy, a husky puppy to be exact, when I get my own place. Almost. Because you know, it made me realize that puppy, that I will love with all my heart, will die, and will turn me into a sobbing broken mess of a man no longer able to function in society ever again. 

I'm also glad nobody heard me cry this morning. So you know, this didn't happen:

Except you know, a guy instead of Emma Stone. A guy. I feel like Emma Stone would console me though, then we would fall in love, get married, and make beautiful children together. I can dream Harold! (if you didn't get that last bit, watch the video at the end)

And I didn't have to explain that I was crying for no absolute reason. Crying because I wrote a terribly sad poem about a dog that is about to die is a bit more reasonable than crying because you happened to be awake and taking a shower. The second one isn't even a reason to be crying, and yet, I was.

Anyways, it's 12:37, I have class in like... ten hours... so I should stop writing this, so I can catch up on some shows and get some sleep. And hopefully I won't wake up tomorrow a slobbering mess. Thanks for reading about my mess of a day. Enjoy the video.

A Brief History of My Life - Part One

A few years ago, my Sophomore year of college, I wrote a personal essay all in stream of consciousness that briefly gave the story of my life up to that point. I wasn't sure what really to do with this blog when I first got the idea to start it, what I wanted it to be, how I wanted it to go. And when I decided to just make it a look into my life, I figured at some point I would have to do a basic re-write of that essay that is so poorly written. Then I went and looked at that essay, and I realized that there was so much that I left out, and still the thing was rather long. The longest personal essay I have written, and I'm kind of embarrassed by it. It reads like crap. I cannot believe that just two years ago I didn't know how to properly form a sentence. I still have tense issues, and I make the occasional mistake, but God this was horrid.

In the spirit of this blog, and what it means to me, I have decided to do the re-write of this "old" essay in three parts. My early years, up through Middle School will be recapped here in part one. The second post will tackle High School, and the final part will be up to where I am at now, my senior year of college. I wouldn't expect the final part until this semester is over mid December. Part Two may be posted by either the end of the month or in early November before the launch of the Play Station 4. So, let's get this bitch started.

I began the original essay by diving into my self diagnosed depression, I've never been medically diagnosed as depressed. But from all my readings on depression, and the fact that I have tried to kill myself quite a few times when I was younger, I feel as though I can safely say I was depressed. Actually I don't think it's fair to say I was, depression isn't something you get over, it's more like something you learn to live with. I still hate getting out of bed most days, and the only way I'm able to do so most times is by writing, reading, or watching some sort of visual media. Classes also tend to motivate me to get out of bed, but on the weekends, it's one of the former three.

I grew up without my father really being in my life. I do plan on one day heading down to Florida to meet the family we left behind twenty years ago, but that's a story for another time. I'd like to say there was a definitive cause for the depression. I wish I could pin it on something, so that I know exactly why I hated myself, and still kind of do. There was not real, traumatic cause, I wasn't beaten or raped, I was however constantly made fun of.

I was never the cool kid, I never fit in with that crowd. I was short, overweight, and weak. Hell, I still am. So needless to say I took my studies more seriously than the average kid my age, even more than my close network of friends, which really, until about high school was four people, and even now it's somewhere around six.

I spent my pre-grade school years in a town called corning, with no real friends that I can remember. The only real thing I can remember was that I broke both my left wrist (for the first time) and my collar bone during my time there. That, and that I was attacked by some bees, that was fun. I broke my wrist when I was around five years old by falling off the top of a slide. And my collar bone was broken when some older kid ran into me while he was playing basketball, I blacked out after he hit me, and woke up either in the hospital or nurses office being taken care of. As you can probably guess, my bones weren't (and probably still aren't) very strong.

Somewhere along the line, before I started the first grade even, my mom met a guy who lived in a town called Clifton Springs, which is where I now currently reside when I'm not in Brockport for college. I don't recall for how many years we lived in the trailer park with him. I want to say it was three or four years, possibly even up through the fifth grade, but he was my first real father figure. He was your a typical male, or at least that's how I remembered him, he seems different now whenever I see him, but I remember him as a much more masculine man. But perhaps that was just my childhood naivete and the fact that I was not a very masculine boy and wasn't used to a man in my life whatsoever.

Eventually, stuff happened that I have no real recollection of, I want to say that he apparently didn't want the responsibility of taking care of a kid any more and we moved out. We moved into an apartment complex near the outskirts of the town and there we stayed until I went off to college. It was here at this apartment complex where I met the man who I consider to be the closest thing to a father figure I've ever had. He was one of our neighbors and one of the nicest persons (is that how you say it? God, how do I still not know how to speak English perfectly) I've ever met.

I love and respect him to death, and whether or not he reads this I want it to be said. I'm not the best with starting conversations with people, or keeping in touch with them, the way I was treated in school by my peers has made me a socially awkward mess, incapable of starting a serious conversation with anyone. I am quite capable of doing the small talk thing, with anyone, but if anything "real" needs to be discussed,

Anyway, he has been planning a move out of state with his daughter and his fiancé for quite some time now. I just want it to be said, in hopes that he will read this some day, that he's been like a father to me. And despite the fact that I haven't seen him in forever, something like two years now, I will miss the shit out of him. Maybe some day, I'll learn how to talk to people, I'll get his address and go visit him.

So back to the school stuff. Honestly, I don't recall the bullying every getting physical aside from a few times. There was never a black eye, busted lip, or bloody nose. But definitely people would assert their obvious physical dominance over me. In other words, it was more verbal bullying. It made me hate myself, the way I looked, how tall I was, how smart I was, practically everything about myself, and once you hate yourself, you never won't. The thing is, I know I'm over weight (slightly mind you, about 15 pounds), and I hate that, but I have no ambition, literally no ambition to do something about it. I'm not sure why exactly I don't have the ambition, I believe it stems from the idea that I just really don't care anymore. But anyways, back to my youth.

The depression, or whatever it was, if you don't want to take my word for it, led me to have a short temper, that I have since groomed into a slightly larger temper. But that short fuse I used to have caused me to break my hand on another kids face in what I recall to be the seventh grade. Now I realize that I've skipped breaking my wrist for the second time in the fourth grade and shattering my elbow between fifth and sixth grade. Yep, I fell on a cement block located in the playground behind the apartment complex. My elbow looked something like this, after just a few minutes, the funny thing is that one of my neighbors said to just put ice on it.

That's a nice purse. I ended up needing surgery, and now I have a sexy scar. Okay, it's not that sexy, but it is a scar, so that's a plus.

So, that's the scar there, on my elbow. And yes ladies, that's my room. That X there on my forearm is part of my "xXx" tattoo referring to my straightedge lifestyle. I have more tattoo's, but those will be discussed in the coming parts. Back to me breaking my hand on another kids face. Yeah, that happened.

He took my glasses off, and threw them across the cafeteria. So in a blind rage I punched him, a lot, a broke my hand. Hurting me a lot more than I hurt him. And that was basically the only "fight" I was in. Wait no, there was this other time where one of my friends hit me with his backpack, and then I knocked him down and knee'd him while he was down a few times. But to be fair, I asked the back-pack attack. I keep getting ahead of myself, that one was in high school. 

Nothing more really happened in my middle school years, aside from getting my cat Smokey, and starting to fall out of a few strong friendships. A few of my friends got into drugs, nothing serious, just alcohol and marijuana. You know the drug that should be legal because it does less harm to your body than cigarettes, and certain strings of the plant can actually do more help than harm. That's neither here nor there, but it's funny when you think about it a straight edge pro the legalization of pot. Personally I still won't smoke it, but not only would it stimulate the economy, it'd make a lot of people more mellow and happy, or maybe a bit paranoid.

I still keep in touch with the majority of them, though one appears to have fallen off the face of the Earth. To back track once again so I can say where my love for movies came from. My mom used to work at a local video store in Clifton (actually it was in Phelps, which is right next to Clifton), and she would often take me to work with her. Now you know where the cinephile in me was born. She worked there until a few years into middle school if I remember correctly, after which the place went out of business and she took up a job at the Big M in Clifton, which is currently in the process of going out of business. Moral of the story, my mom runs places out of business.

That's about all I can tell you about those years. So here's a video to tie you over for a few days. Tomorrow night I'm watching Prisoners, because it is actually the midnight movie, I've already purchased my ticket, so there's no backing out now.

Welcome to My Some-What Ordinary Life

And so it begins, the first post of what I hope to be a long standing blog, that is entirely about me. You may have noticed that slight egotism. Believe me, I'm not egotistical in the slightest. If anything, I hate myself but love my writing. It's cathartic, I suffer from self diagnosed mild depression.

Some days, I'm chipper and ready to tackle the day, most every other day I just want to sit around and do nothing. Writing helps me escape from those days. Writing and Film.

Any form of cinematic experience really, from your everyday movie, to nearly every television show on the planet. No really, I watch that much television. If you haven't heard of the app I'm about to mention, and you watch a decent amount of shows, I highly recommend it. There's a free version, and a not so free version. the not so free version is worth it though, and you'll just have to take my word on that. Anyway, the app is SeriesGuide, SeriesGuide X for the not so free version. The app allows you to keep track of shows you are currently watching, and it lets you know when the next episode is going to air, or when shows are going to go into mid-season or just take a week or two off before coming back with another episode. The reason I brought up the app in the first place though was because it has this fancy "statistics" feature that tells you how many shows have an upcoming episode (or episodes that you haven't watched yet) that you're watching. It also tells you how many episodes of different shows you have managed to waste your life away watching and how much time that adds up to. And to prove my TV addiction, here is how the app reads out my statistics:

240 shows

98 With Next Episodes

134 Continuing

22565 Episodes

20223 Watched

542 days 13 hours 57 minutes

And that's just what it's currently at. After today, that watched total will go up by 11, and the total time in turn will increase. It's easy to say that I need an intervention of sorts, I mean, I am currently writing this during the season two premiere of Revolution AND OH MY GOD NO! okay, I lied, it wasn't during commercials and shit just went down. Not him, WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HIM! Sorry, they just killed off the best character in the show, and I am slightly upset. GAH.

I'm in denial that that just happened, this has to be a dream, I mean, there's 10 minutes left in the episode. This wasn't a cliffhanger where they save the character two minutes into the next episode. No, this was a chest getting slashed open with a machete, guy falling over, people trying to save him, body going stiff, and pulse check, with verbal "he's dead" confirmation. I refuse to accept this.

I... I... I don't want to watch this show anymore. He was the only reason I finished season one, and unless some science fiction miracle happens in the next minute of the show, I quit. I will, don't teHOLY SHIT. HE FUCKING WOKE UP. THIS WAS NOT PLANNED I SWEAR.

I promise you, I am not writing this after the fact of seeing the episode. That was pure anger turned to joy, in seconds, and you got to read it in real time. But now, Modern Family time. Two episodes. After that would be the penultimate episode of The Bridge. Talk about a show that is all over the place, it's probably the only FX show that I take issue with the writing. Granted I don't watch Justified to have enough of an opinion on it, and I probably should, because like everything else on FX it's more than likely fantastic. But I mean, when you are writing a television show, you just don't write it the way The Bridge is being written.

Go to any show, any show, and tell me if what I'm about to say is incorrect. Each season of a narrative drama tends to have a single overarching story line, it may have inner stories worked in that lead to things in the overarching plot. Anyway, the show consists of 13 episodes in total, and with episode 12 tonight, with the way episode 11 ended the show appears to be entering it's third, THIRD, main story line for the main two cops. Unless something fantastically stupid happens in the first five minutes of the episode that continues the plot started on episode 8 after the first overarching story ended.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Bridge. It's a great show, the writing isn't terrible, it's really just the way they have framed the story, and hopefully when season two comes along that will be fixed. Or am I just over reacting and my theory that there should only be one main story per season is just me being a know-nothing loser that doesn't know how to write good television.That may be the case, the only screen play I wrote was for the third Sherlock Holmes movie for a class. and that was around forty five pages, the typical length of an hour long television show (42 minutes) and I got a 95 on that. Not that that really means anything. Hell, it wasn't a 100, and I didn't bother to try and send it to some place so that it could be filmed, that wouldn't make much sense, I would need like another 60 to 70 pages for it to be the appropriate length of a feature film. And that's more than twice the length of what I had written.

Granted it only took me like, ten hours to write what I had. So if it only takes me a day, to write a somewhat decent script to a movie. I feel pretty good about myself. Especially considering screenwriting is one of the things I want to do with my life. The others would be to write terribly boring books no one in their right mind wants to read but would love to watch on television, and to grow old and die with someone I love. Lame right? That old cliche.

But in all seriousness, until recently I thought I had found that person. What's that you ask? More Cliches? You bet your ass there will be more cliches. Yeah basically it was your typical friends since grade school develop feelings for each other and date for a while. Only problem is, I'm a terrible boyfriend, or at least that's how it ended the first time. Yep, the first time. I have trouble relaying information to people. I know right, in this day and age, with the cell phones, and the Twitters, and the Facebooks, you would think It'd be easy for someone to tell another person something. Well that's not the case if you happen to be a some-what socially awkward anti-socialite. Some time after the initial "break-up" we decided to give it another "old college try" the problem this time, at least according to her, was the distance. Apparently living an hour apart, while neither party has a car is not a good relationship make. Who knew?

Now I'm not blaming anyone for the fact that our relationship ended, and because I know she is likely reading this, I just want to reaffirm that while yes my feelings were hurt, I'm over it, and I understand. I get why you ended it, I do, I just don't understand why it had to be the night of the day before I came home while I was writing my final project for a class (Which was the aforementioned screenplay for that Sherlock Holmes movie). Bee Tee Dubs, we totes need to talk about things girl, so give me a call or something, I'd prefer something, calls scare me. Now that this is incredibly awkward, how about we move on to a different subject.

Thanks for your approval Dr. Chase. I'm looking at the checklist of things I wanted to cover in the first one of these, and I've covered almost everything. So how about we discuss Atheism. There's a red word nobody ever wants to read or talk about for whatever reason. I'll admit that it has its negative connotations, some serious negative connotations. But I promise you I am not that type of atheist. I'm the good kind of atheist, you know, the one that doesn't give a crap about what you choose to be and what you choose to do as long as you can respect me enough to do the same. Yep, that kind of atheist. 

I've kind of grown out of the whole, talking about it, sort of thing. That is giving my reasons and feeling the need to explain myself. Nobody is asked, why they are a Christian, Muslim, or whatever, or at least I haven't seen that happen or experienced it when I was a Christian. Why does this need to be any different? Rhetorical question, please don't answer it.

I'm also a straight edge. Yep, remember when I said I don't fit into the norm? Or did I not say that? I don't fit into the norm. Remember when I said I don't fit into the norm, now? For those unaware as to what a Straight Edge individual is, and yes, I do quite commonly get asked what that means. Simply put, it's as follows: The philosophy/life-choice that humans should have strength, pride, dignity, honor, and self respect; that they shouldn't engage in activities that are a disgrace to their minds and bodies. Such as ingesting and/or becoming addicted to harmful substances for fun, lying and/or being two-faced, and sharing your body sexually with another person when there isn't even a true emotional bond there. And that's pretty much me. I don't drink, don't tobacco it up, and I don't participate in the use of potentially harmful substances like marijuana and cocaine. I also don't believe in having sex before a strong emotional connection is formed, I'm what most people would call a square.

I pretty much live in Squaresville. By the way, if you haven't seen the web series, here's a link to the playlist for season one. It's good stuff. click here for cookies.

Sorry, I lied about the cookies. There are no cookies.

While we're on the subject of YouTube and things on YouTube I'd like to bring up one channel in particular. CTFxC I assume I am quite late to the game on these guys, I only just recently this year started watching their videos. But I have watched all the big one's and for the past month and a half have watched all of their daily vlogs. The vlogs follow Charles and Allie Trippy in their everyday lives. They've been doing them for 1608 days straight as of today, and Charles just had brain surgery, so if you want a rather emotional roller coaster. Just click on that link to their channel and enjoy.

Lastly, I want to talk about movies. Mainly how many of them I have somehow managed to convince myself I have to watch before the year ends.The main reason I have so many is because I decided that for some reason I would be lazy over the summer and not really do anything but play old final fantasy games and watch HBO shows I haven't seen yet. I did so little this Summer it's almost insulting to how much I've managed to do so far in this semester with all of the work I have to do for classes on top of everything else. I didn't watch much movies over the summer, and in turn, didn't watch much over the course of the year either. But if you want to see a list of the summer movies I saw, here it is, and in no particular order:

1. The Wolverine

2. Star Trek: Into Darkness

3. Now You See Me

4. The Hangover Part III

5. Fast & Furious 6

6. This is the End

7. Man of Steel

8. World War Z

9. After Earth

10. The Lone Ranger

11. Kick Ass 2

Now some may see that list, and think, that that isn't a bad list. In fact it seems quite productive. Keep in mind that on average, I watch around one hundred movies a year. Progressively watching more and more each year. Right now, my to watch list, that I will begin to dig into once I finish American Horror Story: Asylum sits at 107 films, granted I probably won't watch all of them or won't even be able to watch some of them. But I do expect my total number of films count by the end of this year to be over 100. 

I seriously need help.

Here's a video to tie you over until my return in a few days: