Trials of Chastity

[Yonphi]

Saying Goodbye

It's sad to say goodbye. I'm not good at it and I don't like doing it. I try not to.

Things are bad at Shit Job. I've been asked to work a 12 hour shift today and tomorrow. It sucks, but, Overtime? Time and a Half? Quit thanking me and you better pray that paycheck doesn't bounce. And I liked listen to my ex-boss try to get my current boss to agree to pay the overtime.
And I just realized that Student hasn't been sick, she's been pulled off site.
I am going to miss her terribly... and I told her so. Her replacement is so stiff and unfriendly and so direct to business someone is going to notice that I was spending much more time with Student during our consults than was actually needed. She didn't show up to the super-department meeting. I was planning to hug her and make everyone say goodbye properly. But that was no go.
I didn't say goodbye, though. I just gave her a "later" that pretty much said "we'd better meet up again, but I know we may not since now our schedules don't match in the slightest".

But other than that, I'm exhausted. The things I do for money. What I do the money. The Nature-Trip-To-Miami Do Over is 9 days away and I'm pleased that I at least have Shit Job with which I can afford it.

Witty posts to follow when my mind is less mushy with work stuff.

 

[Yonphi]

Are you sure?

If I could count the number of times I've done something stupid even with a confirmation "Are you sure?" window popping up, then I would have forgotten some other very large number.
Today it was ebay. I believe in deal bidding for things that might be neat. A hat with "HAT" written on the front. That rare copy of Rockman vs. Forte for the Super Famicom (although I don't think it ever was on a cartridge and instead was a "flash-in" where you bring a cartridge and you can buy another game, but I'm not sure). A cheap pack of IC-3 NiMH batteries (best rechargable battieries I've ever used, BTW... 15 minutes and DONE. They get really hot though, so you have to add about 15 minutes of cooling time before you put it in something important like a digital camera or something). Those G-Taste Zippos I've always wanted. I really am a packrat.
Deal bidding (I'll coin the term although it probably has a real name that I don't know because I tend to make up words as I go) is about looking for items that will end unsold. Sometimes they start at a good price but sometimes they get so overlooked due to featured auctions and stuff that they may close without so much a look. Sometimes they are misfiled under the wrong category. It's not something I look for specificly, I just happen across ebay every now and again and see what's what.
But a bidder on ebay gets TWO opportunites to bid. Input, then a confirmation. I click yes yes yes yes and boom, I've just been 10 times as much on something I shouldn't have. And before it closed, there was another bidder. For the way they were bidding, either they REALLY wanted that Game Boy SP or they knew I accidently overbid and were being a prick.

I was honorable, though. I didn't quickly create a fake id and outbid myself. Actually, I don't think you can do that anymore because new accounts require a credit card or something. Who knows. Although I did have a standby fake account somewhere, user id and password of which I forgot. I'm always pleased about all the things I've been grandfathered into by being on the internet since 1992. Ebay account without a credit card, Paypal without a bank account, Something Awful forums platinum account without spending $10 + $10... heh, a journal here in Off-Topic now that they can't be created anymore. These sort of things make me feel l33t.

For the record, I've also closed windows without saving even with the "are you sure?" window.

Today marks a dark day, though. I had to reorder checks. I wanted to reorder checks with a new address somewhere else with my good job and time it so that I won't have to shred any. Oh well. I've only been looking for work for a YEAR+.

Grr. Well, it's a job that has enabled me to not fall on my face with a snafu like that.

 

[Yonphi]

Weird Dream Post (part 1)

The most recent weird lucid dream I've had. But first, I havn't had lucid dreams in a while. I used to have them almost every night but not for the past few months. Had one last night. I'm sure it had something to do with that DDR tournament, but here goes.

The whole dream is of little circumstance, I just thought this little bit was funny. I was standing in line showing off my custom build of PogoShell to Groovy Girl. What we were in line for I do not know. Then some kid with a pale white face and blonde hair came up to me. He looked right at me but looked like he was staring off in the distance, with eyes glossed over and impossibly blue. He smiled with only his mouth and not the rest of his face. Kid looked a bit like a cross between Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies, Chao Tsu from Dragon Ball, and Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone.
The kid grabbed my arm, slashed it with a hidden knife, and then sprinkled, from the handle of the knife, cocaine on the wound. Then he patted it and smushed it in and ran off.

NPP thinks I'm nuts. I don't blame him.

If I were going to make that into a comic strip, I'd probably use sugar instead of cocaine. It's funnier and probably best explains why I am so hungry today and have been feeling so shitty this week thanks to a sugar-laden BBQ. Tsk tsk, I'm usually good at detecting sweetness, but I was assured it was sugar substitute and not actual sugar.

 

[Yonphi]

Revisions

Well, it's true. It didn't exactly happen this weekend, it happened a few days prior, but the break up is a factual thing. These things happen and this did not result in an orgy of cookies. Thank goodness.

Plat feels I should refer to this as BU1. And we had an exchange over the semantics on whether the last one should be counted and, if so, if it should be BU0 or if this should be BU2. I love discussing semantics.

This was probably the proper thing. We aren't in the same spiritual place, but it doesn't mean that someone is less valuable than before. It's best to look back on these short months as enjoyable and, sometimes, cutting things BEFORE they become too painful is a good idea. And this way there is no bad blood between myself and Nature, and that's absolutely a good idea. I can still enjoy a weekend with her. And this whole escapade has put an added depth to my being friends with women.
This whole experience has left me changed. A little more grown up? Absolutely. A better friend-boy? Perhaps. A better lover? Maybe. I just feel very loose-end-tied.

While my job is A-1 top priority, the next question is what next. What next? Well, whatever happens to be next is next. I'm not stressing about that. And That is perhaps the best thing to ever happen to me. As far as my love life is concerned, I will be OK, and for this faithless guy to say that is a true miracle. Now, if only I can be that confident in my job search. But I did get some good drills this weekend. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!

In other breakup news, NPP and Groovy Girl are apart. NPP and Other Girl have a date. Play knew about my breakup before all of you (my appologies, but, my avitar changed again so you should know better), and spent the weekend pulling Groovy Girl aside and "selling" me, and pulling NPP aside, and putting the idea in his head that she and I should be something. Groovy Girl has not said anything to me about it, but NPP has told me her plot. I wonder what Play is planning (beyond the obvious) and it makes me a little uncomfortable. I'll just continue to pretend I don't know what she's doing just to see where it pans out. NPP is afraid Groovy Girl will kill herself... I'm not sure if this means he knows her 2^nth power above how I know her, or if he's just full of himself. Either way it cannot be good.

I'm not really too focused on that now, actually. I'm very tired. I owe the beach an appology. My real beef is with the SUN and the UV index of 10 this weekend, despite the scattered showers. Cloudy time at beach and night time at the beach with Nature was quite enjoyable and I feel quite filtered.

Plus I checked out some short form. And that's a good thing. I've always been interested in taking classes, and this did not dissuade me. But I still need to figure out where my job leaves me before I make a committment of time.

Speaking of time, I need to make up for lost sleep and not call in sick tomorrow.

 

[Yonphi]

Cloudy Nights

I needed the stars badly yesterday night. I couldn't see any. I even went so far as to the place where I hadn't been in over a year. The place where Play and I ahemed.
It's kind of interesting how I avoided that area like the plauge. It's actually along a very useful road. There isn't anything useful ON it, but on point A - point B journeys in this town it's good to know it's there and where it goes. Impossible to live without? No, with the exception of a few nutty places most of the streets are perfectly perpendicular and well numbered so that many detours are possible. With the exception of mechanically programmed paths (like the way to Shit Job), most of the time I just take random streets towards the general direction of where I'm headed.
I guess I avoid it in the hopes that I don't accidentally drive by with Play in the car and have that conversation topic come up. In my head, it's dead and buried. But there are a few interesting notes. Ever now and then something comes up in idle conversation to make reference. Just playing Beatmaniathe other day and she was watching and when I was doing something very tricky and passing through with ease she whispered into my ear "you've got great dexterity" in a manner in which some may think would be inappropriate.

Play is still fighting hard to get me hooked up with Groovy Girl. At this point I'd rather she didn't. She and NPP are having a rough time of things. NPP dumped her (again) to try out Other Girl (again) and fell flat, and turned to her for some stress release but not to get back together. Groovy Girl, it turns out, has no friends other than NPP. I told her not to be a stranger, and even told NPP that I felt it would be good if HE helped encourage her to make friends. But he isn't. Instead I think he just wants to keep her around as an on-the-side girl. He thinks it's to protect her but I disagree. My personal policy of non-involvement is wearing thin. She is young and it's completely inappropriate that she is removing herself from society so that she can be available when NPP wants a fuck.
But one thing I learned is that once you go so far as to actually have sex with someone, barriers are broken and they don't have to be rebroken to have a little fun since you already have that kind of history. It's simply easier that way.
I don't necessarily want in on the oblong love polygon going on there, but I DO want Groovy Girl to be happy. Play is in the same boat in that respect. Although she wants her to be happy and me to have some fun simultaneously. So far it's just benign nudging on her part. And I won't say there is no attraction. Intellectually, I just know it'd be more complicated than I'd care to thrust myself into.
And for the record, there is Other Girl 1, Other Girl 2, and now, Other Girl 3. To that all I can do is shrug. It probably helps that he has a six-pack. While in the grand scheme of things, looks are what they are (looks). BUT, given a firm grasp on reality, good looks encourages others to take risks while not-so-good looks does not. There's more to it than that, of course, attitude, confidence, stuff like that. But I've have enough conversations with Student and her Dorky Out of State guy she Is Swooning Over (DOSISO) and how cute she thinks he is, hearing Play tell her husband that she thinks NPP's abdomen is sexy and his declaration that he will have one in one year to know that nobody ignores it.

I looked in the mirror and felt I was average. Not average as in normal, but average as C on a scale of F through A, a 70%. I don't dislike the way I look, but I don't see how anyone can find me attractive. I tend to shy away from pictures of myself the same way that I don't take pictures of your average streetsign: why bother? And, as a result, last night I felt like a bit of a leper.

I needed to find stars and feel like there is something good in my future. The whole virginity thing was really just a symptom of some greater deficiency: I really don't meet people very well. I clam up around strangers and it takes a lot to get me to warm up. And I know I probably come off as unfriendly or just dumb with nothing to say. That's me I guess.
But when I entered the area I had been avoiding for so long, everything was quiet. It felt like my engine shut off and the road noise was gone. Not so much as a bug bugging around.

In Final Fantasy X, the teammates coming near the end of their pilgrimage pass a point overlooking a ruined city. They set up a camp there and they feel it is their last night together. It's a touching scene. In Final Fantasy X-2 (the ONE offshoot sequel in the series), the main character comes back to that area to find it's a tourist trap. That's how I feel about my private places being swarmed with other people which no longer makes them mine.

But this area was in some kind of level 2 Cleric's Silence spell. I pulled the shade back from over the moonroof and parked and looked. Nothing. I sat there for a while hoping it would clear, but it didn't.

If I were a writing-a-book kind of guy, I would use that to foreshadow how the worst is yet to come, that, "if you thought THAT was bad and lonely and upsetting, brother, you ain't seen nothing yet."

So, I kind of hope I'm not just some character in a book.

 

[Yonphi]

When Things Go Right

It's going to be a little hard writing this post, with what's going on with Minou. But I'll try anyway.
As a child I begged for a Domino Rally playset. I didn't get it when I wanted it. As a child I always took "no" as the final answer and never argued or whined or anything like that. My father told me that when he told me no I would make the saddest face and walk away to try to find something else more permissive.
But one Christmas I did get it. It was a surprise and I was pleased.
The neat thing about dominoes is that they very nicely represent conservation of energy, although it's kind of a trick because each domino it's own potential energy and it's just the slight lateral nudge from the previous domino that translates into the next domino releasing it's potential. The trick is that the nudge needed doesn't necessarily have to come from a domino. I spent about 8 hours trying to set up the kit like they did in the commerical: each and every domino in the box MUST be used, I reasoned. And I was irritated that they didn't provide equal amounts of all colors because I couldn't get that neato shifting color gradients they do on tv. I kept knocking them over and they were cheap plastic dominoes: I can imagine setting up a row of nice heavy ceramic dominoes would have been less easy to accidently fire off.
And playing dominoes (the game, not the stuntground) is traditional pasttime within my bloodline. I hardly play it, but sometimes here you see old men in traditional old world garb outside cafeterias slamming dominoes loudly clacking against the table and cheering.

But I remember I did set it up. And, buddy, there was nothing greater that seeing it all work together. When things go right, there is magic. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And even today, I'll sit down at a C project, hammer out some really obscure code off the top of my head. The moment of truth comes when I build and link it and test it out. And when it works, right there, no tweaking or fixing or debugging or anything needed, it's the most satisfying feeling ever.

Today, everything went right. I'm going to be employed closer to my field than ever before (hooray) despite my retarded sell-out hair cut that I got yesterday night at the only place that was still open. With New Job I'll have enough to pay my car AND pay some rent. I got some advice on how to put the kaibash on this problem I'm having with getting my computer temperatures under control. And I recieved a part for my car and am now the proud owner of one which has VARIABLE intermittent wipers. It's irritated me to no end that my NEW car does have what my (now) 15 year old car had. And it was exceedingly easy to install.

And tonight my father comes home with a catalog of fine wines. I know a few someones that have got something nice coming to them. Shhh! Don't tell them!

 

[Yonphi]

Self Absorption in 10 Easy Steps

It's been pretty fast going. And I've been very missing. I've been someone else lately, and it's somewhat interesting albeit odd.
I'm an e-mail freak. My big move to web based e-mail for my primary e-mail is because I would just end up leaving the client software on and set it on 5 minute e-mail checks. And it would get me nervous. "What? No e-mail? Not even spam? It's been, like, two hours. Where is my message-board digest?" But I have literally not checked my e-mail in, well, 10 days.

First there was the aftermath at Shit Job. The director paid me a visit and made the motions with her hands as if she was comitting ritual Japanese samurai suicide. My partner (down from 5) threw hysterics during a meeting when they announced I will not be replaced. Positivity has been talking about Happy Hour since nearly that time. And I've been repeating the story of my good fortune over and over again.
Student hasn't wanted to really say anything. I don't see her much, but she just kind of goes silent. If I were writing a book, this would be because she is trying to say something that hasn't been said but should be. But it's probably because has nothing to say. Most of the time when I don't say anything it's because I have nothing to say, and I'll be rather unappologetic about it. I can't be clever all the time you know. (Believe me, if I could, I would.)

Then there was the trip. Father's Day became a celebration of manhood with a trip to the keys. Yay me. And practically taking a bath in sunblock is a good idea ALWAYS, regardless of how rediculous it looks.

Play is another thing. I'd been hanging out with her a lot. She's been having a rough time of living with her family. Well, it's not the family that's the trouble it's the "added to" family (in laws, in other words) that cause the problems. Hers, her sister's, etc. So I've been distracting her. Ultimately she said to hell with them and decided to go back to her home prematurely. No nothing happened. But we did go out to dinner her last night and she did have a lot to drink. Where we went to eat we shared a table with three other couples and she had insinuated that I was her husband and even referred to "my" being in the military, which brought me interesting looks from the women. Who would have thought?

No, nothing happened, I'll just cut to the chase. But she did volunteer to be a flirt buddy, which is being defined as someone to help me create and practice flirty language with. A skill I do not have, and one which will probably become important in the future. She has informed me that she is "next in line" to get a visit from me, and that if I got a place of my own she would like to live with me: she is going to have a whole year of being lonely. Honestly I would rather live by myself, but I have not excluded the possibility. I know when I was by myself it I was very much a cave hermit and it took bouts of desparation for me to go out and fail to find someone to connect with. And when Play is around I tend to be much more sociable.

Plat has announced that she is tired of waiting for me to visit her, on the other hand. After The Cookie Incident, I remember her saying "Oh good, now you can move here." But now she's just kind of resigned to it and will come to visit me "any day now."

Groovy Girl, NPP, and Other Girls 1 - 3 are a mess. NPP is frustrating me and my pact of non-involvement is wearing thin. They say the features we hate in others are those features which we most hate within ourselves. Well, true or not, I really want to just smack him on the head and say "Shit or get off the pot!" when it comes to Groovy Girl. I entertained the idea of asking Groovy Girl out simply to get a reaction out of him, but I don't think that I will. "Because he's single" is a bad reason, and "because I want to see what her ex will do" is just as bad. Plus I havn't hung out with Groovy Girl alone in the longest time.

I'm nervous about my upcoming new job. I'll be finally put to the test. I'm really nervous that I'll fuck up left and right and then realize I'm no good at this sort of thing. But I have to ignore it.

And, lastly, I've joined a race for tomorrow. Complete Random Twitch moment.

The moral of this story is: post more often and in a more timely manner, that way you can extract all that is deep and relevant that is possible instead of this Cliff's Notes type of thing.

 

[Yonphi]

Becoming a man

So here I stand. I am no longer a boy. I am a man. Well, not really a complete man. The last objective to cover would be moving out. So, I'm right now 2/3 a man. A "ma" if you will.
Ok ok, so I'm not really standing, either. Just sitting on my duff in front of Blue, my soon-to-be old computer. All computers I've built have colors for names, and the colors (right now) correspond to the colors of Magic. And when I configured my laptop (which is has been my father's laptop for quite some time now thanks to a generous donation) I called it Island (the type of land that generates blue mana) because it interfaced with Blue since it was very underpowered and I rathered it use Blue's firewall instead of installing one on it.
Next up is red. Blue is my favorite color, but the color which seems to best complement me is red for some reason. Everytime I wear red and I look in the mirror I think "hey, I look better than normal, which is still average, but, still." I don't know what it is.

Leaving Shit Job yesterday was sad, though. See, I worked in a department that works side-by-side with about 3 others, and while the only person I had contact with regularly was Student (with the exception of about a month or so ago), evidently EVERYONE knew me. I had no idea. I saw people leave with smiles and gift cards. Yet when I left I had NICE gifts and cards full of hand written wishes and boob-smushing hugs (which, while appreciated, weren't in any way necessary or, for that matter, appropriate) and calls from people I havn't even spoken with in years. I came to realize the truth of the matter. "This job would be great if it weren't for all the fucking customers."

Speaking of Student, we had another moment. She took time off so that she could say goodbye. She asked me to the conference room where we spent so much time there. We sat down across from each other on the narrow table and just stared at each other. I noticed she was feeling kind of giggly and blushy and I told her I noticed. And she told me how she noticed I noticed. She then threw a wad of paper at me and told me I suck with a smile. I hugged her and I thought she had gotten shorter but it just turns out she was hugging me tighter than ever. Our heads parted and I kissed her forehead and told her I was going to miss her most.
And then she told me I suck.

So, here I am. Ready to fall asleep and wake up at even more ungodly an hour than ever before.

 

[Yonphi]

Back to Zero

My energy is much like a rubber band on a round cardboard disc. There are a few dimensions in which I can exert energy. A little upwards, in a search for spirituality and a place in the world. A little to the left, a desire to write and embrase the muse, a little to the right, a drive to produce and build and construct, and a little downwards, to take care of myself. There are more, but I'll keep it simple.
All one would need to do with this model is put a few thumbtacks in line with the dimensions. Maybe a 3 up, 5 left, 7 right, 8 down. Then the rubber band gets stretched around it and the tacks hold it in place. Easy enough. But what if I try to overexert myself? I could mark 10's all over the place but the band will not stretch so far. It will break: I will break.
And there is a problem with keeping the stretch. If I devote my entire life to a search for spirituality, I'll tack it at ten and the others can be whatever so long as it doesn't cause the band to break. But, keeping a rubber band stretched for too long causes it to weaken and become brittle. So if I put everything at zero and stretch the band as far as it can in one direction, it better start producing results or else I'll be left with no energy left to spend AND unfulfilled.

Now those are very generalized examples. As always.

I've been hit with a terrible case of several dimensions of lonliness. Tremendously horrible. It's partially my fault, I havn't been very talkative. This journal is just another symptom... I've been rotten with updates because I havn't been very talkative. And right now NPP and Groovy Girl have been far more interesting and I wanted to avoid this from becoming about me to being about NPP.
But now that I long for attention I most certainly cannot ask for it. I'm not sure exactly how to describe why, you just have to trust me on this. But it doesn't really change the fact that I'm just a silent boy.

But this is more than just companionship. One thing I took for granted about Shit Job is that I knew everyone there. I was actively sought out because I fixed problems. That's what I did. You screwed up, I have the ability to fix it. And I was surrounded by women who approved of my existance. I guess I was getting attention that I just havn't noticed. Of course, the attention isn't the kind of attention that gets my blood stirring, but it was something.

And then there's my sex drive. It's really been out of control lately. If I had to guess why or else get shot in the head, well, I reckon I'd get shot in the head. It's never been more annoying. I'm very much in need someone to make feel good. Before Nomdeplume killed his journal out of respect for other's feelings (of which evidently I have none, then again, no one has discovered me and called me a dickhead for it, not saying that happened because I don't know much more than you all know, but if it were MY journal that someone, say Play discovers, I'm sure I'd get castrated. And then killed. And then sodomized with my own severed unit for good measure), I remember a post in which he found it annoying that once he found himself a nice girlfriend all these girls were coming out of the wine cellar saying how they were attracted to him and it was too bad he was taken.
I never got such gloating pleasure. All I got was a "she doesn't know what she's giving up" from Play when she learned Nature and I were on the rocks... and the opinions of a married woman in that respect is useless (after all, if I'm such a good guy why didn't you go out with me back then, and why won't you leave your husband for me now?). And I learned that from the other side, too. I went to a party with Play about a month ago and met her 13 year old cousin. Cutest little dimpled girl. (oh, and, NO, with a capital N and a capital O.) But I remember thinking that, if I were her age, she'd be the kind of girl I'd be gaga over. Play said that, if I were her cousin's age, I'd be crazy over her. Only she went ahead and said it right in front of her. She smiled and I stared at Play. She followed up with "and she wouldn't give you the time of day." Gee, thanks. But I thought it myself so... yeah. Smart kid, though. Smart ass, too. "I guess I'll see you in five years," she told me. Feh.

In any case, I've realized one of the things I havn't learned which should have been done already is how to meet girls. Oops. My bad. Right now my outbox has about 15 messages saved outgoing on personals sites trying to stumble onto some way to meet someone. While I've abandoned The List, I can't help but investigate to figure out if I've been rejected or not. I review the profile, check to see if they have logged in since I wrote them something, and, if they have, that means they read what I had to offer, they inspected my profile, and decided to pass. I can't blame them.

And the solution? You got me. I've been told that it's easy to get sex, it's the something more that's difficult. To that I ask what, pray tell, is easy?

Tell you what, though, all this is making me come to drastic measures. I intend to hit on Groovy Girl and steal her away from NPP. For her own protection, will be my public motivation. Privately, I just gotta lash out at every last little thing that would appear like a foothold to prevent the rubber band from disintegrating from being exerted so long without payout.

Then again, there's always five years from now.

 

[Yonphi]

What I Plan To Accomplish This Summer

1. Get a place to live that's nice. It doesn't have to be fantabulous. But I'd like it to be cheap enough so I can

2. build myself Red, a new computer that currently only exists on a Newegg wishlist. My computer is ok now, but some components currently on it right now date back to 1997. I would like to start fresh.

3. Make some friends. Right now I've been kind of schlumpy and giving myself projects to do in the 3 hours of free time I have a day (to be more when I don't have to drive 2 hours to and from work (each)). But I did get a cheer up last night which helped reduce the schlumptitude and I didn't say anything mean that I don't mean... which is one of the reasons why I try to stay away from folks when I'm not feeling on the up and up.

3a. Found the arcade nearest to where I work. I just need to get comfortable there. First time playing on a strange machine, and the next day I was asked "Oh, you were the guy who played DDR (a specific song on DDR extreme) on Oni (Of the 5 difficulty modes, usually the hardest with few exceptions, not available for all songs)?" There are two others that I have seen that are up there skillwise where I play. Has it been a year?

3b. I really do want to check out the local improv thing. I recieved a two-for-one thing to see a show so the main problem is, heh, finding the date. If you've read this far, you'll know how THIS will pan out. Now that I think about this one, I'll just have to ask if I can just use the coupon to pay half price on two shows.

4. Code some homebrew game for the Game Boy Advance. Played around with a devkit and it's easier than I thought. And potentially more relevant than anything I can do in DirectX all by my lonesome.

And that concludes my last assignment for English.

Oh, almost forgot the deliver the goods. Edit below:

So far the Groovy Girl assignment isn't going well. She is a very difficult gal to get ahold of. Well, difficult to get ahold of without NPP around. Play wants to call her and tell her that she and I had dated (and she would time shift that to before her marriage as Groovy Girl knows her and E5H) and that she was very satisfied. When I told her I appreciated her lying to help me out (as in referral sex), she wrote "who said I would be lying about you satisfying me?" a statement to which I blush.

She did tell me why she's pushing so hard, though. She says Groovy Girl remindes her of herself when she was younger. And she told me that she wished I would have taken risks and tried to steal her away from the guys she was always seeing.
I'm not sure how to interpret that. But anyway I can't find her. She yelled at me a bit to make sure I don't give up and I need to be aggressive. Play told me she can't hold my hand on flirting with her, I'm going to have to graduate to it on my own.

I got a scolding from Play about it, too. Friday the office went to have lunch to celebrate Argentina's independance day. When conversation went to how I don't speak Spanish, a female coworker (hell, it's tech, THE female coworker), who is hispanic, said all I need is a girlfriend who speaks it. The scolding came that I didn't say "are you available, then?"

Well, jeez, why not yell at a wheel for squeaking? I'm new at this, ok?

So,

5. Learn to flirt, preferably not like a dumbass.

 

[Yonphi]

Faulty by Design

An interesting thing about my current job is that I have to support a device that is faulty by design. It doesn't work well, I doubt whether it ever worked well, and, seeing how it's implemented, it probably won't ever work well.

And I want nothing more than to sic my little paws on it and MAKE IT WORK. This is part of the beauty of coding. I want to fix it and make it sing and dance and do what it was intended to do. Not trip over itself in clumbsiness.

Play thinks in 9 years I will be married and have a child. Married? I doubt it... I honestly do. Not because I wouldn't want to settle down, but...
And kids? Hell, even less likely. Although I would not be opposed to such a thing. But I think I have similar feelings in my heart for code as parents who wish and just want their children to grow onto their own and be good responsible people.

In a sense, this is also what I see in Groovy Girl. I havn't said much beyond the last thinly-veiled threat that I intend to steal her from NPP. How do I intend to do that?

*shrug*

But she opened up to me (well, not just to me) and gave me a link to her blog. And I read it and I felt so much for her. She was really in a dark evil twisted place and NPP brought her back from the brink of suicide... the third attempt. Which is good because third time's a charm, right?
Thing is, it isn't that NPP did anything particularly special. He just showed her something and it was SHE who believed it. He showed her the truth that there is a reason to live and all she had to do, which is EVERYTHING in my book, was understand it and believe it.

Which explains a few things... why she seems to be resistant to open up too too much to me. And why she excuses NPP's shenanigans. It doesn't explain why NPP wants to hurt her. Maybe he thinks by staying together with her in concept (not with his heart) he will prevent her from relapsing. But in the meantime he has a fuck and he's preventing her from finding someone who will be loyal to her.

The thing would be, then, for her to gain the confidence to know that he wasn't the one that kept her from killing herself, and he alone isn't the reason to keep yourself alive.

In a total bout of geekiness, I'm going to use the Ardra defense. Remember that Star Trek The Next Generation when there was this so-called demon that came back to a planet to claim ownership over it? The civilization was teetering on distruction 1000 years prior and, according to legend, the leaders sold the souls of the planet to the demon in order to clean things up and reclaim glory. Then Picard gave an interrogation of one of the leaders. Ardra saved your civilization? Paraphrasing, "So she oversaw the end of the warring factions?" "No, we did that." "So she cleaned up the pollution?" "No, we did that." "So clearly she must have given you information on how to technologically advance?" "No..." and, well, you get the idea.

Not a great episode, but I always liked that argument.

It wasn't NPP that watched over Groovy Girl 24/7, it was her that kept her willing to live.

I want to help her find what she needs. Her being cute and that we have a pretty good rapport have little to do with my desire to help her in that respect... but if she likes me and trusts me then it'll be easier.

I was telling Play of my plan and she wishes Groovy Girl was eavesdropping on the conversation because her heart would melt. She wanted to call me a pervert and a sicko but she really couldn't say it since there is at least some twinkle of actual good intentions.

But I'm working on it. So far the trick is to get her alone without NPP around to muck it up. I don't think he's going to give her up without a fight, despite how much he tells me he'll probably marry her even though she will make him miserable. I'm not going to pretend to know how the hell he got to that conclusion or even why he'll do it.

But, back to Play, I tried a few more flirting drills and she said I just came off as grouchy. Evidently I "don't got game." I am kind of offended that it's even referred to as a game. But, alas, that's what it is.

See, society sets these little procedures up. It's a lot like a programming function. You HAVE to give it the parameters it needs, and they have to be within predefined constraints. Then you get something good back. Garbage in, garbage out. But, if you give good data, you get good results. That is, if it's coded correctly.

So this game of "flirting" has a reward. You wind up having fun, maybe even hitting that lottery and finding someone fantastic who you wouldn't have otherwise. And, in order to get the said reward, you gotta do what you gotta do. Undefined parameters yeilds undefined results.

Which explains a lot. I quickly approach another Saturday night.

However, it's interesting to note that undefined states, when read multiple times, yeild differing results. At least if they truly are undefined and the spec-sheet is not just masking a secret undocumented feature. Checking the results, I think I get "0" so often that I must be putting well defined parameters into the function and the results are what they are for a reason.

Maybe, like Groovy Girl, I am faulty by design. It may not even be a bad thing. Maybe this is to protect myself from getting too attached to people. Maybe this is because I could very well be "the worst thing that's ever happened" to others. Maybe I'm designed to suck at this sort of thing because that's the way the natural order of the universe is supposed to work.

The effects of my being successful more often just might put an end to the world as we know it. Look at DNA^2. An anime where a loser guy gets shot up with a gene-altering bullet and he becomes the Mega Playboy who fathers over 100 children, and each of his children do the same, and so on, until there is massive overpopulation.

Um, okay.

There is nothing wrong with being flawed in and of itself. I am starting to get used to the quirks the equipment I service has. It's growing on me. You could say I care for it and want to fix it. Because it can't do it itself.

Groovy Girl is a bit flawed. But I want to help her be who she would like to be. She can't do it herself as is... I have to show her how.

I know for a fact that I'm flawed. And even like this I suppose it's possible someone can like me that way. My quirks can grow on people, I guess, eventually. I need someone to care for me enough to give me the power I need to fix myself.

Then again, on those nature shows they never interfere when the lion goes and kills the gazelle, because they'd be interviening with the natural order of things.

Sit idle and let things go as they do, or try to make things better? What an interesting, albeit not-at-all-unique, thought.

 

[Yonphi]

The Hourly Rejection

So I was raised Roman Catholic. This means that I took CCD classes, learned a half dozen prayers, confessed, communioned, confirmed, and all that stuff. I even was in Catholic school for a year... my theory is that it was because my mother didn't want to be one-upped by a friend of hers whose children went to private school, and then came to her senses that I was learning more about what I was interested on my own and it didn't make a difference who was teaching since if it didn't interest me it was just being temporarily learned for a test.

Back to that in a bit.

I have no legitimate reason to be depressed right now. Nothing legitmate anyway. I got paid from New Job (it's never quite enough to put a smile on my face that I can't wipe off... perhaps someday. I don't NEED a whole lot, just enough so I don't have to write numbers down and figure out what I can and cannot afford this month). I gained some weight, but that's because I havn't been eating right at all, trying to adjust to my new schedule, and, all in all, it's nothing that can't be fixed. I still felt too lazy to wash my car, but I payed the $7 to get it washed by machine. And if it really bothered me I'd have done it myself. Rent around where I work is lower than I thought, although I havn't called too many and asked for the exact address. Hell, Groovy Girl even accepted my coffee invitation and took it upon herself to call it a date! More on this once we figure out when it'll happen (so far it's after her road trip with NPP, so the word "date" seems to be used rather loosely). I should be quite pleased.

Ah, but there's always a catch, isn't there? Since Thursday, a lot has happened. Play has been very strange. She decided to call me and say that she and one of her friends (I'll call him Replacement) were talking and she told him that we had kissed. Now, Replacement? He is also in the military. He, in fact, worked with her husband. Brothers in arms, that type of deal.
I'm dead. That's it, folks, game over.
If that demotivational poster of "Fear" is correct ("Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea."), then I have just lost sight of shore.

I told her that she will now be partially responsible for having me killed. And, the funny part is, that she old said WE KISSED. As is I'm busted, any additional stuff they may discover only influences what will be done to me before I'm killed and what will become of my corpse.
She said that Replacement wouldn't say. Play went into this big dealie about how if he said anything to her husband, she would deny it and if he decided to believe Replacement over her she'd divorce him in a heartbeat, and even then she'll tell her husband she did something worse with Replacement, saving me in the process.

And she did, in fact, make it worse. She had asked me if I would be upset if she decided to have sex with Replacement. If *I* would be upset. Origin of the question? Because she didn't with me. That's two occurrances of "What The Fuck" in one conversation.

Now, one thing I need to mention about Play is that we have established a code. Instead of one presenting a question and the other answering and the original asking if that is the truth, the person asking attaches which version they want. Like, I could say, "Lie, when will I find love?" To which she would reply "Soon." Or I would ask "Truth, do you think I have a chance with [Groovy Girl]?" and she had replied "If you treat her like me, yes."
I never said this selector switch in front of a question removed anything complicated. That last one was a cause for another "WTF?", but that one wasn't expressed verbally.

So she gives me a "Truth, do you want to have sex with me?"
I do NOT screw around when it comes to being on the spot to tell the truth. I gave her a yes. I'm kind of embarassed about it.
"If I told you I wanted you NOW, would you come?"
And I thank my lucky stars that question didn't start with "truth". Or "lie" for that matter, since it's a yes or no answer. So it didn't get answered, I figured it was a prompt for the flirting drills that night. I gave "You would have to tell me where you'd want me to", which in retrospect is probably a few degrees too far removed to be a good response, but, that's why I'm in training after all.
(Which, incidently, is also perhaps a good reason for me to take improv lessons, to, you know, help me be clever on the fly.)

Then she threw a whopper at me. Words burned into my brain. "I'm so lonely without [husband]... and if you're not here to do me I'll just have to get it from [Replacement]."
Hence my dubbing him Replacement.
I wasn't sure if she was kidding or not. I didn't want to ask because at least this way there's some doubt. I thought this wouldn't go anywhere good so I asked her "Truth, after [Nature] and I broke up and I encouraged her to come down anyway, were you jealous?"
All of a sudden her smug voice changed. Burned Words++. "Yes."
"Truth, and that I spent the weekend with her instead of you?"
"Yes."
"TRUTH, why were you jealous if you have a HUSBAND?!"
And there was quiet. I was mad. I had put my next question on my lips, waiting for after her answer before I even interpreted it. The next one was going to be 'Truth, why did you not go for me instead of him?' which might have given me something I could use.
But there was quiet. And finally, I got a weak tearfelt "I don't know."

Poor Play. I don't know what's going on in her head, but I hope peace can be restored there. But, I probably shouldn't be allowed to know what's going on in there. I couldn't give her the next question.
I changed the subject altogether and asked her how she was doing with DDR. My next question became "Lie, how are you doing in DDR?" "I'm better than you, jerk."

I was ready to put it somewhat behind me. Hell, I didn't even post about it. But yesterday, the tables turned. She told me about how she had slept over Replacement's place. She was very quick to tell me nothing happened, as if it was attached to the sentence.
But you know what? Sonovagun, I can't believe it, but it happened. I felt jealous. Arg.
Beforehand, I always estimated that I would feel a more intimate connection with someone by sleeping with them than with sex alone. And, so far, I've been right. And I'm jealous of Replacement like a total dork. I was hoping that the stuff we did back then was because she did kind of like me, not just because I was around. But there she is, without me around, and I've been replaced. And, yes, that makes me jealous. There, are you happy? I'm jealous. There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there? I hope you enjoy this confession of mine.

I decided to save the interrogation later and just spit it out. I told her I was jealous. I figured it'd be a better good-faith action than getting it extracted out of me with a bunch of "truth" questions.
She said it was cute. And that she was just stopping by to give me a call but she'll be out with him this weekend. She said that he reminds her of me, and they have and will be hanging out together ALL the time, kind of like how we do. I tried to mask how jealous I was, for fear that she wouldn't want to tell me things because I would get jealous. This way she can tell all, so long as I can disguise disappointment.

Now, lets tie this all together.

I remember checking out Jack Chic's little comics whenever I found them. I always like hearing about religious arguments, despite my being currently agnostic. One of them was anti Roman Catholic. It spoke about communion during mass. That it's the devil's trick to getting us to celebrate the death of Christ instead of the glorious resurrection. And it's reenacted every hour everywhere on the earth, even though what happened 2000 years ago was supposed to be the LAST sacrifice. And it went into priests and monks and nuns and stuff and how they're not really in the bible, and that the pope is the antichrist. You know, real upbeat stuff.

I was rejected by Play before, way back then. Now I don't even know why... I always figured she just liked her husband better. She was jealous of me while things were going with Nature. The flirting training may have another meaning beyond teaching me how to dance the dance. And the test to see if I would get jealous tested positive. Someone has won her potential non-husband cheating affection.

And you know? Like communion, each time I check my e-mail it's like a celebration of that rejection so long ago.

It's a mudball flying in my face how I wasn't more aggressive. It's a flickering light telling me if I hadn't moved out things might have gone MUCH farther. And it's a tear-felt "I don't know" in my brain's sound board that suggests it's possible she might even have left her husband for me. Don't act surprised, I'm a mountain out of a molehill kind of guy so there thoughts are jumping all over the place.

Feh, like I need this kind of stress.

The ONLY redemption I have is Groovy Girl now. I really hope she lets me in so I can concentrate on HER. I've left a really polluted and pockmarked island with this whole Play and me thing. I'm looking forward to starting anew on another island. But aside from my romp on personals sites again, this is my only venue for some no-mind-fuckery-involved relationship.

If this doesn't pan out with Groovy Girl, I'm going to be in a lovelife mess. I can almost taste the bitterness again. And I'm not looking forward to it.

I don't remember any of my prayers anymore.

 

[Yonphi]

Scoring Points

Why is it that, even though I think I'm doing an adequate job (for someone who's been there for less than a month), I feel like I'm going to be fired any minute now? I'm just a nervous nervous guy. I just have to sit down and resign to the fact that, if I am fired, it will absolutely happen AFTER I move out and invest a lot in the infrastructure of my working where I work. Of course, the fact that I think I impressed one of the Taiwanese engineers with my "secret" programming knowledge (even getting asked why I was there doing tech support). I guess it'd be a bad time to look up T-Girl and ask for language lessons.

Last I heard from her she was getting married. Wow. Just picking a sampling of important people in my life and how marriage has affected them (yes I'm thinking about you, too), a very VERY small percentage have nice and good marriages that aren't shams. Two, actually. I can think of only two, and one is my parent's. The other is Plat. I'm going to make her blush but I had a feeling she'd be a great wife because she'd be easy to get along with. And, say what I will about WTF, deep down inside I know he's an alright guy. I just like pretending he's not for some reason.

I havn't shaved in a LONG time. Well, my face is ok, but you know what I mean. I guess I've resigned to another inevitability, too. Can you guess what it is? Chances are you won't have to guess, you'll KNOW.

Here's a thought, with things flying around about politics. I've always wondered why, if Election Day is so damned important, that we don't get a national holiday for it. And if it wasn't a presidential election, it wouldn't get too much more than a blip on the radar here. It's a damn shame.

Funny thing, everyone promises the same thing. Prosperity, health, good livin'. They all have different ways to do it, and who knows who is right (I'm not convinced anyone is 100% right on the complexities of the world). I don't recall any politician promising love. Well, today beer commericals often make things seem like good beer brings good friends and good relationships, compared to like 100 years ago when beer commercials were all about a good drink. So maybe in 100 years, politicians will promise they will not only love all the people under them, but promise that each will find their love. I could see it now, government sanctioned matchmaking service.

I wish I was just a little bit serious about saying that, but the humor kicked in that whole paragraph. I'm just a dork, you see.

The jig, with Groovy Girl, as it were, is up. But then again there have been times in which I thought it was up and it wasn't so hopefully this is another one of those occasions. NPP has quietly figured out what I'm doing and has taken his newly unemployed position to take her away on a road trip. It's funny, I see him often and we're friends but we really are enemies on this one. But it's nothing personal. It's kind of like a Solid Snake vs. Grey Fox thing... or a Kain vs. Cecil kind of thing... or a Tyler Durden vs. ... ahhh... hey, wait, Edward Norton's character isn't mentioned in Fight Club! And I thought I could get at least ONE non-game reference to this one.

But am I going to give up? Good question. I don't know if I'm the type that gives up too quickly or lets himself become so clouded with options that it just kind of mixes together and APPEARS like there is no solution. I'm barely competant at getting single girls (and even that is arguable since, as I remember it, I didn't pick up on any except the most OBVIOUS of signals), let alone gaining favor with someone who is unavailable.

Progress, you see, is important. If I don't witness progress, it's hard to know I'm on the right path. And if I don't think I'm on the right path, I suppose I'm the type to back off and try a slightly different one. Eventually I just enter a type of spin lock (you remember what that is, don't you?) and don't end up going anywhere. Kind of like... tic-tac-toe in War Games. Heh, finally a non-game reference. Well, kind of.

"Answer the question already."
Oh, hey, TORA. I thought the voices in my head were on vacation. In Tora Bora.
"Very funny. Answer the question."
I'm just gonna do the voo doo I do so well and that's it.
"So you're gonna waffle, huh?"
Look, I'm tired of you, just go away.
...
Good, now that we're alone-
"I havn't gone. You're a coward and you're just going to quit. Be bold."
Fine, maybe I will. That will be my Random Twitch.

On the other hand, I really need to make points with those who aren't taken. It's healthier (no dodging bullets from angry military husbands), has more potential for greater things (let's face it, nobody's gonna leave their mate for me unless there's a lot of liquor involved and a contract and perhaps changing the locks on their doors), and will help prevent a stent of 13 years of barren wasteland, based on when I started puberty and when I finally had some sex.

I took a trip to Will-Be-Local-Someday-Arcade on Tuesday and did something that Play thought was a "cute move." There was a girl playing Beatmania (she's earned points with that alone) and she lost. She kind of turned to me and gave a sheepish smile that screamed "well, I tried." I put my fist out as if I wanted to give her a gift. "Consolation prize," I said. She put out her hand and I gave her a candy I had in my pocket given to me earlier in the day. She looked in my eyes and I said "Come on, candy from a stranger. That has to be good." And she walked away laughing.

Yes, sir, I know you gave it to me, but I think that use of the candy is far better than me just eating it. Although I don't think you read this journal so it'll be ok.

But any points I earned with that were probably negated when she asked me for a dollar a few hours later and I gave it to her. But I did use the opportunity to make a little more small talk. So she got a candy AND a dollar. Well, hot damn, that most certainly was her lucky day.

Play had to make one small correction when I told her that, though. She said I should be thinking that her day wasn't lucky enough because we didn't hook up that night. I don't know if I can ever get my mindset in that tone.

Someday after I gain enough points I can exchange them for that kind of confidence.

 

[Yonphi]

Keepers of the Faith

I feel it again. I've felt it before. When I was ready to move out the first time, I had that feeling. I was alone, yes, but I had visions.

Visions of a swinging batchelor pad. I had my school-surplus dry-erase board which served to take down notes AND had an added bonus for some weird sex game the rules of which I no longer remember (all I remember is that it was probably "very fun"). I had a double bed, and thinking how cool it would be to play house with a girlfriend. I was IN LOVE with the idea of reflective lighting. And I wanted to string up flourescent bulbs all along the perimeter of each room, 18 inches from the ceiling, and then run a sleek rain gutter under them all around to get 100% reflected light. (it turned out this would not only be expensive, but I wasn't allowed to make the necessary modifications.) I remember having all this cute small appliances that my parents gave me... and how coveted they were by those I gave/sold them to by the scavengers, I mean, neighbors, that came by while I was moving out. So there is a good thing about having folks who have to be on the cutting edge of what's on the Home and Gardens channel.
I remember dreaming about fumbling with my keys trying to get my apartment door open while trying to kiss and slowly strip the clothes from my lover. I remember dreaming about her coming out of my bathroom in the morning, brushing her teeth, wearing one of my long sleeve shirts and nothing else. I remember dreaming about cooking a romantic dinner of scrambled eggs and waffles for us on Valentine's Day.

And wouldn't you know it? I've got it again. I have to say the time I spent living alone gave me a great feeling of independence. But, independence means my situation was completely in my control and thanks to my doing.
This amplified the disheartening feelings of being alone. I didn't get to blame my being alone because I was living at home with my parents. I didn't get to blame my being alone on my being a child. I didn't get to blame my being alone on curfews. I didn't get to blame my being alone on anything EXCEPT myself. And it just made things worse as I tried and I tried to sculpt a love life from what I've been given.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. So, what do you do when life gives you rocks? Make rockade? Can't get blood from a stone (unless you throw it hard enough, I guess). But that would be bloodade. And I'm just trying to split hairs in this case.

What I intend to do, actually, with getting snubbed by every and all targets of my interest (poor them), at this point, is grind these rocks into a fine powder. To that mixture I will add water, and then sculpt myself that winged angel I dreamt of about a year or so ago (I don't exactly remember when, but she and her face has been floating in and out of my dreams ever since) as a tangible record of the hope that someday I will be able to find what I'm looking for and it will work exactly like how I would like it to. And the best part is that it will be exactly how she would like it to, also.

And I must never let my faith falter so much that I would be tempted to destroy that sculpture in rage, as Moses broke the commandments.

Until then, I will refer to past and (if there is any justice in the world) future girlfriend(s) as Keepers of the Faith. Like a cult minus that whole Scientology jazz.

I say this a lot when I think about others. I hope they find what they are looking for.
I've never asked this of anyone before. EVER. But, reader, please do me a favor. Right now, out loud (but at any volume I guess), please say it.

"I hope Yonphi can find what he is looking for."

...

Thank you so much. I promise I won't make such demands on you often.

 

[Yonphi]

Be all that you can be

They tell children, while growing up, that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. Astronaut? Sure. Fireman? Yeah, whatever. Cartoonist? Rock on. Dinosaur? Hey, good luck with that one kid.

Today, I wanted to be something.

Then you grow up a little and then you start to get a glimmer of the truth behind it. Class president? Well, you can't both be president. Star in the school play? Ah, quit being such a ham and just stand there and look like a tree.

What I wanted to be I realized I can never be that.

Later on you realize that the entire world is routed that way. "You can work for Walmart and grow within the organization" is probably on a brochure, but you know you can't ALL become district managers. You can't be President, Senator, or Congressman unless you're a certain age. You only get an ipod from Song Airlines if you have three people flying on one itinerary.

I won't justify why I wanted to be it. It's not "natural" or "healthy". It isn't even necessarily "unnatural" or "unhealthy." It just is. And it will not be.

This sort of thing makes people cynical, I think. That we've been lied to, and it's the defacto standard. Santa exists, santa doesn't exist, santa does exist: as a marketing ploy to snooker children. Astronaut? The military gets priority. Fireman? You better have a body for it. Cartoonist? Can you say "starving artist?" Dinosaur? Kid, the soup kitchen is that way.

I wanted to be a ladies man. I travelled to a site where they installed one of the machines I service and I had an imaginary cloud around me. In my mind all that was circling was "I'm THE MAN. I'm a stud! unf!" I had an imaginary red cloud of power around me as I walked to location. I didn't want to be a boyfriend, I wanted to be the best lay any girl's ever had. I made eye contact. I had a subtle, barely noticable smile on. My back was straight. My stride was good.

The truth can imprison you or set you free. Isn't that how The Matrix goes? Unlike other movies, I hate drawing parallels between The Matrix and real life. It seems far lower on the scale than comparing, say, the Fifth Element.

I waltzed in there like I owned the place. I did my magic on the device. I closed it up and walked out. Walking out I realized the truth. The kind of girl who would just be casual about things and want to hook up with a guy will not see in that respect. All I can do it act it, I can't be it. I can't all of a sudden make up for all that sexually lost time. There have been some times with Nature that were really embarassing, to be quite honest. But we had a good laugh. An honest laugh.

I wanted to be a game programmer. But then again I havn't grown up completely, so I don't know if I'll learn, in time, that I've been excluded from that.

If I had to choose, I guess I'd choose it this way. I'd rather have a connection with someone and enjoy it than be this person that I'm not. Which is handy because I'm not that person. But it bothers me that I can't choose one or the other. I don't feel very powerful or influental at all over my sexual destiny.

Bad boys can eventually settle down and become good boys, but good boys can only tear off the tags from mattresses in retaliation at a cruel world that has lied to them.

 

[Yonphi]

Told you it was a Trap

I'm going to purposely ignore a directive I've placed on myself for the greater good. I'd promised I wouldn't presume to know what people are thinking. It would take effort, but it would be to prevent even guessing what people are thinking or intend to do. I have no mind reading abilities. Or maybe I do and they just show the truth so well that it's frightening and it gives provides a wealth of pessimism and why I try to not try.

You could say I won't ignore the Sense Motive feat, temporarily.

Remember when Play was coming down around Feb 2003 and I said to myself that it was a trap? Something wasn't legit about it? Well, it's about damn time the trap exposed itself.

I should have, instead, put some skill points into Sense Trap. And this will be the end of my nerdy D&D stuff for now.

I hereby declare my executive summary: Play has been playing me, to illicit response in an effort to elevate herself and thing more highly of herself as being someone "desirable".

Well, duh. But it hurts the extent to which it all went.

We know how the story goes until recently. I mentioned Replacement and her being inseparable from him. I suspected the effort was to make me jealous. And it finally worked, which is why it hurts.

She's been continually telling me the escalation between them. She's sleeping with him on a regular basis now (she tells me it's just sleeping, I don't know if she insists on saying that because she doesn't want me to think something that's not true, or that she doesn't want me to think something that is true, or is trying to plant additional seeds of jealousy in my head). The reason? Well, it's her place and she's alone and he reminds her of her husband and it sure beats not holding someone at night.

And there's more. They are going to do extasy together next week. And she just keeps up and going about how she "doesn't know what will happen" and that "anything could." I've never been into the drug culture, but I remember looking up a thing or two about MDMA almost 10 years ago. I told you I was a little research hound about anything that was even remotely attached to sex.

They want to run off to Vegas because "they've never been." Well, I've never been, it's never been so much as offerred to me. If it weren't for the fact that I'd already named him Replacement I'd be tempted to rename him to The Improved Model. Too bad, because TIM would be very catchy.

And he's going to do a tarot reading for her. Plus he's got tattoos, is part of an "alternative" religion (interpreted as not one of the major 3), and is "cute, after all."

Yesterday she tells me, officially, that he's part of her life and I'd better get used to it. Whenever he is mentioned in a conversation things just go south. I can't help but see him as a Replacement for me. All this stuff they are doing together is stuff that our relationship could have grown enough to do. I can't help that I don't like him. I don't trust him. As far as I'm concerned, if she is going to leave her husband for someone she's already suggested that it would be for me. This is part of the plot: seed planted. I should have known.

She likes to tell others that she's known me for double-digit years when in mixed company with people I know (likely in an attempt to highten herself at their expense), but never says anything of the sort when we're around people she knows. She's doing the old abridgement of service thing, though, assuming I've been her friend all the way through. I'd challenge her on it, but then she would insist I detail exactly where the lines fall it's a waste of time I'd rather not get into.

And now Play tells me she thinks her husband is cheating on her. Where am I? Here. Where is she? Over there. Where is Replacement? Over there also. They are already practically hooking up. And the next step will be for her to reason "well, if he's fucking around, so will I."

This bothers me more than I thought it would, more than it should, more than it has any right to. So I realized that, damnit, I'm jealous. I'm not supposed to be jealous. I'm not supposed to want her here when she gets the news he's cheating.

Why is this happening? Because it's all been carefully crafted. First kiss, pretending to be interested in me, the flirting training, the existance of Replacement. Hell, he might not even exist for all I know. She might not even really be suspecting that her husband it cheating on her. I realize that all I know is what she chooses to let me know, all carefully selected for maximum effect. My emotions have been milked with the expressed purpose of smashing them. I should have expected nothing else. And now I look towards other people I care about and wonder when they are going to betray me.

Fuck you, Play. You're the worst thing to ever happen to me.

 

[Yonphi]

To Be Rotten

You are safe, Groovy Girl. And so are you, NPP.

Play told me she was going to tell Replacement EVERYTHING about what we did. I yelled at her about it. She yelled back that it's her secret, too, and if she wants to ruin her marriage it's her business. I told her she's gonna get me killed. She states I'm being selfish and that I'm not allowed to make her choose between myself and Replacement. He's outgoing and fun, unlike me, she tells me. At this point it's just hostility for hostility's sake. I told her that I am going to make her make a choice: between having me in her life or not, and I leave it to her.

So far, she's choosing not. Aside from making me fancy her again I really genuinely enjoyed her friendship. It's hard being abandoned.

I told the story to NPP. Not the whole story (although I might as well since I'm going to get a death threat in a few days I'm sure) because I don't want to embarass her. I probably should, but I don't want to embarass her further. I guess no matter how much hatred I have in my veins right now I can't bring myself to do it. I guess that makes me stupid. I told him that she's either with me or against me, I don't need friends who use me to play games.

And this guy. This guy. Let me tell you. What did this man say?

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I and [Groovy Girl] will be here for you."

Well, fuck. And to think I was trying to steal your girl away from you. What the hell is wrong with me? How did I become such a monster?

I think about people. I think about Ms. Robinson, Science, Nature, Ms. BDSM, T-Girl, Plat, NPP, Groovy Girl, Student, Tease Girl, Positivity... people and relationships made that I don't add any upkeep to because I'm just self-absorbed. I used to post here daily, and now I just don't. And I bet I'm missing a few.

I realize I really am a rotten person. I'm selfish and unreasonable. I'm sad at what I have been becoming over the past year. I'm sad that I'm so antisocial that I don't naturally gravitate towards conversation. I feel alone and detached and just plain sad.

Whether or not I am a catch doesn't matter today. Whether or not anyone wants me doesn't matter today. All that matters is that I am not human. I am too cold, too calculating, too fatalistic. I can't blame anyone or anything. No one can get any more from me than my best no matter how insufficient my best is.

Back in the day, I was a virgin. Such a word implies purity, no matter how incorrect that is. And while the word no longer applies to me, I feel "pure." I feel like I'm the manifestation of pure unholy inhumanity.

I have never had so little faith in my value as a person as I do right now. I can't blame Play for not wanting to even be my friend. I wouldn't want to be my friend.

May God have mercy upon my soul.

 

[Yonphi]

Avenge My Death

I revised my death letter last night.

It's the letter in my drawer with explicit instructions on what to do upon my death. I keep lots of things hidden so I feel, when they start going through my stuff to see what they can sell to pay for my funeral (and I use the word "they" loosely... in this point in my life it would be my parents) they will find it and know what to do.

One thing you might find disappointing is that I took out the part where they would post here my complete bio information. Yes, it was there. Had someone decided to kill me within 8-12 months ago, you would have known who exactly I was. I even advised to please post the location of my grave as a stop in some kind of "virgin pilgrimage."

I got rid of that grave thing when things with Nature were just starting out. And today I got rid of the posting of the bio. Which means, if you think it's me, yes me, then you'll have to see to it that I'm not killed prematurely. Sorry.

Better get cracking, you know. I'm checking my mailbox and caller ID everyday for my death threat. Perhaps I'm only days away from an arrow being shot inches away from my head with a note attached reading "I missed, but I won't next time."

I have asked, however, that somone avenge my death in some kind of Beowulfian kind of exchange. I will write a virus and ask that it be unleashed on the computers of the world upon my death to exact my rage. It would be a benign virus except for one person. Remember that episode of the Jetsons when George got a robot masseuse fired, and they called a "code red" in which all computers and robots allied against him? Well, the name code red has been taken. I'd have to call it something completely original. Rode Ced or something.

Kidding, virii are more trouble than they're worth. They're big news for like a week and then they're just another signature in an antivirus update. Quite an unfitting end. I do, however, have 7 very old very crippling viruses under lockdown in my computer. Zipped .COM files, uuencoded, and zipped again with a password to avoid accidental opening. If I wanted to exact revenge, I could. Just call me a merciful master. Smash Brothers did, so it must be true.

But I am trying to do better. I've decided I'm not going to do anything rash for revenge. It's probably because I'm just a loser. "Living well is the best revenge" is clearly a loser saying. Now, I thought of lots of rotten things to do. There have been a lot of nasty messages dictated on my voice recorder. Things like "you're sick of my shit? Well you cheated on your husband with an asshole like me how does that make you feel?" and other things not intended to argue any point, just intended to hurt. But I know I'd get them back, too.

Sometimes war is just a war of attrition and is nothing but counterproductive for all parties involved.

I had complained that I was a bad friend. Of course, since I'm down in the dumps I feel bad breaking ice again. I don't like asking for help, or even looking like I'm asking for help. I will always go through extremes to avoid it. Reliance on others is not something I look towards and smile. I'd like to think it's there if I need it. Should I need it, I'd be offerred it.

Ask not, want not.

But I do want. I'm ready to strike out on my own... an interesting choice of words I'm sure. I'm going to my second anime convention today. Closer to home than the first. And I've got good company his time.

And I was promised the blue would wash out of my hair eventually.

 

[Yonphi]

Setting Myself Free

So I buy this card. I don't do the card thing. I just don't. It's not because I'm a rotten person, I just don't see the point. Words are words and if I want them written down I will write them and just because it's on a three dolar cutout of cardstock doesn't make it more important.

But I purchased and wrote on a card to completely cut my ties with Play. I wrote to her family. Since I knew her when I was younger, it's hard not to know the parents. They always seemed to like me. And I didn't want to deal with the hassle of telling them that the youngest daughter has betrayed me which is why I'm not her friend and they'll never see me again. No, instead I wrote a thank you. Very positive. A thank you for always being hospitible of me. I'd send a pineapple, but nah. I still have bottles of liquid I have to get around to packaging well and sending. I don't like making a lunch line at the post office. Not at all. At least in old job I could jet there before work. Nowadays I really can't.

So I guess it's a good thing nobody wanted to buy my old computer components, then.

I didn't ship it. I just drove up, taped it to a window like a ninja, and drove away. I felt stealthy. All I needed was a smoke capsule and a guitar to wail on and a pirate to flip the fuck out and kill.

Oh yeah, I was nervous. But, once it was over and I hung out with Groovy Girl and NPP during the convention, I felt a lot better. I feel as though something has been set free. Like I burden I put on myself from a year ago has been released. I know it doesn't make any sense. It isn't to make sense of: it's to enjoy. People enjoyed asprin long before they figured out how it worked.

That's one of the interesting things of old science. They discovered it worked and wondered why, but didn't really NEED why to make use of it. We have all sorts of dangerous inventions and things because of this gung-ho adventure spirit. Natural gas piped into homes, bleach, cars, etc. That's just not there anymore. Nothing world-altering gets released anymore unless it's studied and scrutenized by government agencies, and is created under multiple patents owned by a consortium of corporate entities. The days of the mad scientist in his basement cooking up something neat are over. It's a shame.

I had a good time, yes I did. Had fake sex with Groovy Girl. It's more strange than anything else. We dove under a few desks during a cancelled event and pretended to have sex in an exhibitionist fantasy manner. Nothing happened (and I do mean nothing). But I found it charming how we kind of play off each other's twisted ideas and then escalate them to the point where we do something completely abnormal. Diving behind desks, lifting legs up to demonstrate that we're doing it, making funny noises, and intentionally messing up our hair and glasses when we got up... I hate to say it, but she makes me feel like a nutty kid.

Speaking of being set free, I finally got a response to that personal ad I put up. Best part is that she couldn't be any more local: estimated distance (based on zip code) is 0 miles. This is precisely what I need. Nevermind I now work 50 miles away, and plan to move nearer to there than here, but that's not the point. It remains to be seen if anything arises from this. I havn't decided on a name for her yet. I'm sure I can be clever if and when I need to.

But I don't want to put any pressure on. I just need to learn to be a friend first. Any chemistry or fun I can have will surely follow if it is intended to be. But it absolutely won't happen if I don't make friends. I always have trouble making friends, I'm just too shy. So, in the past, I would always go straight for the gusto and strike out. Yet, modern events and happenings have taught me that the friends first thing really is the correct way to go.

So I'm feeling positive. I hope it can last. I don't WANT to feel sorry for myself, you see. I don't WANT to feel like the world has alienated me. I want to belong. I want to do so naturally, just being myself.

With the loss of one of my binds, I think I'll be ok for a while.

 

[Yonphi]

Rain Delay

Today's post has been cancelled on the count of something beautiful.

I feel like I understand something, but I don't. Kind of like that feeling when you finally understand square roots. That kind of "Oh!" moment when it all clicks and comes together and you just know it in your heart? Except I don't know what I've learned or understood but I feel something in my heart that is satisfied and pleased and it's about someone I know and her adventures.

Actually, a lot of things are happening to people I care about that are nice and it gives me a funny feeling in my tummy (a good one). Groovy Girl's boyfriend is being less of an asshole towards her and they are reaping the benefits. Good vibes are ALL OVER someone else I care about. Good adventures are opening up all towards someone else, too. And, even though I'm still mad at her for trying to make me mad by sending me a poisonous e-mail about how much sex Play's having with Replacement, in some twisted way (which may or may not be factual, it would not be an unheard of action), I'm pleased she's doing it. They're ALL doing IT. What is IT? IT is doing what is best for them.

(Oh, and if you're wondering why I only speak of Play and Groovy Girl by name, you will know by now that discretion is not just something I preach, but practice as well.)

Don't worry, you didn't miss much. I was just going to talk about how I wanted to get motivated to go to a gym and become an attractive man.