Cyber Love?

Someone asked me suddenly the other day if I thought it was possible to have feelings for someone whom you have never met in person. I didn't really answer the question, it was two thirty in the morning and I was having feelings for bed...strong ones. Other times I have been called crazy for getting so involved in the lives of people whom I have never really met or for worrying about them when they have trouble.

But the thing is that I have some friends online that I knew before I knew most of you who will read this, people I have talked to through phones and long emails, whom I spent rainy days IMing and chatting with. People who taught me to write, who read my first stuff, the really bad stuff, people who have been emotional support and who I hope I have provided some comfort to.

After all, I fell in love with a girl I only met once, and then talked to over the net for months after that. I cared for her more than I have any other single human being in my entire life and we just talked through emails for the longest time. Our communication came once a day and yet when it came and I knew it was on the way, I couldn't wait. There are few feelings in the world like getting an e-mail from another person, not a myspace message or a facebook wall post, but an honest to God e-mail. When she used to write them to me I would be so excited, I'd curl up in front of my boxy old monitor and hold my face close to the screen to read it.

I might read the thing over and over again before I would place it back in my inbox to rest, and I have several of them still saved even now.

Because she was telling me intimate details of her life and I was telling her some from mine, when we finally met up again in person, I felt close to her. I felt so close that I told her I loved her, because she was everything that I had ever wanted in another person and still is.

So to answer your question, I think that love can bloom anywhere, even in cyberspace. Here was a girl I liked bu I had no idea the substance of, until I talked to her online. Love is a strong thing, it has bloomed on the battle field and in dank hospital rooms. Even if we are to accept that the Internet is a cruel place, I believe that Love can still transcend that cruelty

Picky?

Allow me to be a little introverted here, something I normally don't do on this blog but I think that for what I am talking about the idea is appropriate. This time the focus is on me and the subject is one of preference, or taste rather. All of this is in response to a recent allegation that I am picky. I have to admit the idea of me being picky kind of caught me off guard. I don't think I have ever been called that.

Here are just a few things I have to say on the subject of my taste in women, I know many things I like aren't the norms; like how I love legs or girls with beautiful hair. At the same time I don't know why I like some of the things I like; like how I have this strange love for redheads. These things are just like that some of the time and we have to accept it.

Now all of the things above aren't factors for me not to be able to date a girl, but there are some things that a girl cannot have or do if I am going to date her. I think that everyone is like that because realistically you have to have some standards. For instance I wouldn't date a girl who took it upon me to bad mouth my religion. Basically you don't have to be Catholic or even Christian, but respect that I am and that its not some fairytale.

Now I think that this is totally acceptable, as are the rest of the things I look for in a person as signs not to date them. Why is that? Well simple, because I don't believe in dating someone just to date them. If I date someone its because I want to get married to them, otherwise I don't see a point in us wasting our time on each other. That might sound harsh, but its the truth.

I don't see it as a problem that I won't date someone who drinks too heavily or who isn't at least a little assertive, these are just things that I need to have in another person to be with them. If I know I can't spend the rest of my life with a person why should I go through the trouble of dating them. Dating isn't supposed to be for you to get more ass and rack up booty points, its a screening process for marriage. And if you try to argue with me otherwise I'll lay you out cold on with a retort.

I think that is the problem people have understanding me when I say certain things like how I would break up with a girl for asking for a threesome. You're damn right I would, and don't call me cruel. She was basically looking for a roundabout way to cheat on me. I'm not a picky asshole, really. I just have strength to stand up for what I believe I should have in another person.

My Kind of Trouble

It's not hard to find trouble, everywhere you look its there. Trouble is one of those things that no matter how much you want it to go away its always going to be just around the corner. Trouble is discouraging to us, it makes us just not want to do things. Depending upon the severity, things will be more and more effected. September 12, 2001 I just couldn't bring myself to draw. I didn't pick up the pencil for about six months after that. I don't know how that's connected, but drawing just didn't seem right. I had been drawing when I found out about the attacks.

My point here is that trouble is all around us. But at the same time trouble isn't the same for everyone. There's an opposite side of the coin, when things are head for one person or group, they might be tails for another. There's lots of good examples for trouble. Case in point, Jesus for the Romans. He was trouble, but the kind of trouble that brought them out of their period of excessiveness. In the same way, the United States was trouble for Hitler, but we stopped his tryanical reign. I think with just those two examples.

Well I am going to say this in the most awkward way I have heard it said. I actually saw it on this t-shirt. We need to strive to be the trouble we want to see in the world no revolution ever got started and was successful without creating a stir. A little trouble can be good for someone else. Taking the moral high ground doesn't have to mean that you get walked on, it doesn't have to mean you can lay down and let wrong be done.

Stand up and speak out when you see something wrong happening. Most of the trouble in the world that we don't want is furthered because no one speaks out. But it doesn't have to be the big things. If you see some jocks picking on the nerd, get in there and tell them its wrong. Tell someone what they are doing to someone else is wrong if it truly is.

People who know me know that most of the time in most situations I am good for speaking my mind, or just speaking without fail and unstoppably. When I take up a cause I think is right and know is right in my heart of hearts, I don't lay down easily and I might not do for myself, but I can do for others. Maybe that's what I am meant for. Boondock Saints as a movie is a good example of how we need to stand up for the right thing, even if the methods are taboo.

Go out there and be the trouble you want to see in the world, rattle cages, and tell people the truth. Most of all just because someone doesn't agree doesn't make you wrong, even if most people disagree, doesn't mean they are right. It seems more and more that most people don't do the right thing anyway.

Taste

Here's something that I have been thinking about every since I mentioned it to Rickey last weekend when I was staying with him. He made the claim that he and I have bad luck with women and that women have bad taste in men. I corrected him that there are women out there with good taste in men. But he and I have a problem with our tastes. We have a preference for women who happen to have bad taste in men.

The thing is that sometimes the girls I like seem to have some good sense and be very sweet people, I can think of one right now. Other times I can get hung up on some girls I never should have liked in the first place. I don't know what my problem is. I think I might need to change my tastes for the most part, but how do you go about doing that.

Has anyone else noticed...but me=clueless.

...until August

My brother opened his eyes today for the second time all of the way, that's a big improvement. Shows how much my mom knows when she talks about all of her negative stuff. Today I was emotionally drained, I don't know what it is that's taking the toll on me or even if its anyone thing.

I manage to remain my usual self in the face of, well, everything. I can't say much about, well anything. I feel like I had my energy sapped right out of me, I slept from six this evening til eight and I still feel so tired. My arms can barely move, so I guess that this is the first sign I need a break. A real one. But it won't come any time soon.

But last night I started to think, its almost July, and then comes August. In August there's that glimmer of hope. And I pray that I am not stupid for waiting on someone to return. I've fought so hard to remain who I was before she went away. And when she comes back, I wonder if she will notice a change. Thanks to her, I realized I was worth more than what I thought, and thanks to her, I was able to cut the cords from some people who would sooner hurt me than help me.

Summer is in full force but I have something to look forward to. People think of Winter as symbolizing death but I disagree, winter is my most lively time. Winter is when I am at my best. I await the new school year...the cool winds, the rain and an old friend.

Don't Knock It Till You Try It

As many of you might already know, I am no stranger to arguing. If you've been in an argument with me then you know how I usually do it. I don't always win but a lot of the time I get some good ideas out there. One of the things I hate the most in arguments got pulled on me today and to be honest this kind of argument pisses me off.

I mean of course the argument of Don't knock it till you try it, this is not a valid argument. More often than not its used when in conjunction with sexual discussion. Let me throw the scene out there for you. I was talking about something with someone on a forum and the subject of threesomes came up. I simply said that this is not something that I would ever want to do because I don't have a desire to be with more than one person at a time and even if I did when you think about it, in a relationship if someone is looking to have sex with others doesn't that bring up questions about the relationship itself.

My main argument against the don't knock it till you try it mentality is that it can be used to defend anything. Let's say for instance that I am an avid member of NAMBLA, if someone were to tell me that sex with little boys was wrong I could easily say "Don't knock it till you try it."

Another good example is drugs, we're always told not to try things like drugs and cigarettes. But hey if we employ the don't knock it till you try it mentality then we should all give drugs a fair shot? Right.

Why not just give everything a fair shot, let's all try rape...or incest maybe, how about we kill a person, or burn down a small house...hey don't knock it until you try it. We can't jump on Hitler because how many of us here have gassed Jews or committeed mass genocide?

Hey, don't knock it till you try it right?

I hope we can see how this argument is utterly silly and its the dumbest way to argue anything except taste in food...

She's Got A Good Hold On Me

Been trying to write blogs that were a little bit more short and sweet lately. I guess I have more to say but I don't want to say it all mostly because I am trying to sort things out right now and there has been a lot going on. I was riding in my car earlier and I came across a CD I hadn't listened to in over a year probably.

When I popped it in the player I was shocked to find one of my favorite old Dashboard Confessional songs on there, its called Hold On and just everything about it makes me smile. But at the same time it makes me sad. Now I'm sure as a lot of you know I am a sucker for acoustic music, but the song itself is so poetic that I can't help but love it. Lines like "I never saw her leading me once, she never felt me beside her," just strike a cord with me. I don't know, there's a little joy to be had in finding and old CD and hearing a song you nearly forgot about. And for just a little bit of time, you can forget all of your troubles and slip into a happier time.

How Many Times Can You Say?

I feel horrible, I might have taken something out on the wrong person, someone I really cared about. I can't take seeing others that I care for get hurt and I can't stand to see them go through a lot of pain and get constantly hurt like that. It has an effect on me and I don't mean for it to. But pain in another person is easier to ignore if you don't know that person. I feel terrible now for the things I said.

Social Revolution

I don't think I have ever made a bigger mistake than letting people back into my life when they chose themselves to walk out. I shouldn't be so willing to accept them. Whether they call me up needing advice or I just bump into them, when I let someone back in who openly walked out on me after all my attempts to call out to them, what I do is easy to describe, I end up getting walked on.

You see I am not so good at saying no to someone. But you can rest assured that I am working on that. Like I think I have said before, my first mistake was caring too much, letting people back into my life falls under that. I work so hard to get the attention of the people who want me least and I am sure I am not the only one. I've stopped caring about honor, respect from others and who's toes I step on. I am seeing now that the more you walk on eggshells, the more your own values get broken.

We can't be afraid to step on toes, to be counter cultural and throw a wrench in the works. By appealing to the masses for how to act socially we have lost the ability to strike out. I think we should make it back to where people want to tell the truth, want to be good to others, maybe it just takes something a little bit more evil than the good its being done in the name of? "We have our share of Ghandis. We need a General Patton." I'm not going to be afraid to tell someone I know they're wrong for doing this or that to me, I'm not going to be afraid to step on their toes or get rid of friends who can't seem to stop taking and give once in a while.

I've got this feeling that this is the start of a large storm, that socially this country is about to turn over on itself and force its way back to a more conservative value system. I think this country is about ready for the fruits of its own labor to come bite it in the ass. I couldn't agree more that there's a social revolution coming. Our war shall be a war of words. The battlefield will be the hearts and minds of everyone here. The weapons shall be ideals and morals, vlaues and belief systems that are fair to more.

I watch the news and I see people becoming fed up, I feel like this could be the start of something very big.

I feel the way bank robbers must feel just before they go out on that last big job that ends up getting them all killed.

That is to say, optimistic.

All At Once

There are certain people you just keep coming back to

She is right in front of you

You begin to wonder could you find a better one

Compared to her now she's in question



And all at once the crowd begins to sing

Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same




Maybe you want her, maybe you need her

Maybe you started to compare to someone not there



Looking for the right one you line up the world to find

Where no questions cross your mind

But she won't keep on waiting for you without a doubt

Much longer for you to sort it out



And all at once the crowd begins to sing


Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same



Maybe you want her, maybe you need her

Maybe you started to compare to someone not there

Maybe you want it, maybe you need it

Maybe it's all you're running from

Perfection will not come



And all at once the crowd begins to sing

Sometimes


We'd never know what's wrong without the pain

Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same



Maybe you want her, maybe you need her

Maybe you've started to compare to someone not there

Maybe you want it, maybe you need it

Maybe it's all you're running from

Perfection will not come



Maybe you want her, maybe you need her


Maybe you had her, maybe you lost her to another

To another

Season Finale

It would appear one of the problems has taken care of itself before the end of the season(see my last note/blog), which is usually the way with the sweeps type things. I just wanted to say that, my missing friend was found only a day after she went missing, alive but in the hospital.

Other things are still there, all of the time, other problems that are still yet to be resolved. But in time I guess.

Sweeps

For those of you who either don't watch television much or who haven't worked the a television website like me, sweeps is the time of year when all of the shows start pressing their plots and squeezing all of the juice out. Trying to bleed out all they can in the ratings. Basically this is the last three or four weeks of the season of the show when everything comes to a head.

This might mean like in Supernatural that Sam is going to die and Dean needs to think of something to do, or in the case of Smallville the bad guy faces off with Clark and the other characters are caught in the midst of battles themselves, you could take Buffy's example and this could mean that the Apocalypse is coming and the big bad is rearing its ugly head.

The basic idea of sweeps is that almost no one is safe, characters die, get married, have kids, get injured horribly, or make startling revelations. The idea is to draw everyone into the show, make the watchers who record or sort of just skim the episodes stick and really watch. This also makes people watch the next season to see the overall outcome of the things that happened, a lot of times Sweeps ends on a cliff hanger.

Right now, my life feels like its going through sweeps, and its almost the right time of year too. My brother is still in a coma, with two women fighting over him I might add, I got punched, got in an argument with a person over a girl, one of my friends is missing and no one is sure where she went, my depression seems to be getting worse and school isn't really going easy for me either.

What gets me is that just like in the shows, I feel like this is the start of it. I feel like there's a storm coming and its going to be bad. I feel like its time to batten down the hatches and pray for the best. What would the best be? Well August and September is when most shows start back up, the best would be Persephanie and I talking again, me getting help, and my friend who ran off too, my brother waking up after the women fighting over him cool off, school working out in the end and me learning how to handle the stress. Hmm, and maybe a summer romance...

After all, no matter the loses, Dean brings Sam back, Clark beats the bad guy, and Buffy overcomes the Apocalypse. My hope is that we'll all come through this, no losses. With that, I need to get off here, got stuff to do. And if you are out there Jess reading this, I'm gunning for you, for the best thing for you.

As back in old times, I'll say it like I used to on my LJ:

_{See you, space cowboy}

Fickle

It's true that people are fickle, they make it no secret that their loyalties only last as long as you're some good to them or popular. This is apparent in all forms of media; music, television, movies and even books. People only remember who you are as long as you are on the best seller list or in the big block buster. Any one of us could be like those stars, a few years down the road from being a pop trivia question or a VH1 special.

Not surprisingly enough, the Internet is one of the best places to see this, with things like myspace, facebook, instant messengers and even forums; people form these bonds on them as if they are together in real life, they do many of the things real life friends do without the element of actually being there. Sometimes those bonds grow into something more than a friendship...

But all too often those bonds aren't built to last, one or both of the parties don't take things as seriously as they would with a real friend. And the Internet is a breeding ground for phony people. People who can pretend to be what they're not. People who can stab you in the back from a world away and never have to own up to it because there's never any way for you to look them in the eye, there's always that block button...

A programmer would tell you that time matters very little to data, that as long as the container the data is stored in whether it be a hard drive or CD remains safe, the data will not degrade or corrupt from age alone. But on the Internet, a system made entirely of bits of data, time seems to be all that matters. Not just time in the ebay auction sense, but time as in how long you have talked to someone.

A "friend" you have talked to for years might suddenly forget you if you don't see them online for a month, not answering an email or message fast enough might mean you get deleted from a "friend's" contact list and address book; a myspace friend you added less than a week ago can delete you because you haven't spoken to them since the day of the add. If anyone here thinks I am joking, I have had both of these happen to me. If a person who is too far away to even drive in a day can receive and open and message within seconds after you sending, why shouldn't it be that the same person when replying can't think bad things of you when you don't reply to the same message in seconds.

If there's one thing you can be sure about people, its that you can't trust them, most of them are out to get something. A lot of them lie or are two faced, I know people right now who I can tell and prove are two faced or act other than they want to appear to others. For every kind hearted action on the Internet, there seems to be three evil ones.

Growth?

I had something unexpected and new happen to me the other day, and this little story might sound a little odd. But I was getting my car inspected the other day and just as they finished this really pretty girl came in. I don't know why...it was odd but I just kept looking at her.

I would have talked to her I thought, but my car was done and I had no reason to be there. Well when I got out side they told me sure enough that I would have to come back because the parking brake on my car was out. I just kind of shrugged it off and paid, then I left.

Here's the part where things get odd. I got about half way up the street and I just decided to go back and make something up, a reason to be there. I decided I would say I was calling my Dad for something about the car. I don't know what made me do it, but I just did.

Well I went back inside of the place and I sat talking to her and this other lady, she told me her name, that she was twenty seven, that she was a teacher and we talked about writing and just things like that. It felt weird to do this, it felt odd and just a little bit forced at first, but then I felt more comfortable.

The excuse I gave could only last for a short time, so I had to go. Before I did I asked for her number, well she just said that she didn't really know me and she didn't feel comfortable do it. Which I understand, I know its not safe for a girl to do that. The odd thing was, I didn't really care. I didn't even take it personally, maybe I have grown a little?

The Great Disappointment

I want to start off by asking that you keep my very good friend Jessica in your prayers. I can't say much more about it than that. But I'd be glad if you prayed for her.

Two thousand seven has thus far been a terrible year, most of the people that mattered to me most are stripped away. I've been sick pretty often, I wrecked my car and on a scale of things happening globally, there's more wars going on than I can count. Some just think that we're undergoing growing pains and that the world will come out of it shortly. I am under the impression that all of these things are actually a death rattle.

Every year seems to get progressively worse, every event that I see seems to be worse than the thing like it that it follows. Anything good or nice gets squashed as soon as it appears. The world has been a rotten place to an awful lot of people. Most of the time these are the people who never deserved it, who never saw it coming.

This world is a mess, created by God and yet thrown so far from where it should be. Not reflecting what he intended at all, and he must have known it would be this way, he is after all God.

What's the great lesson here? Everything good is so rare, its so unique and when you find something good, hold onto it? I can't ever seem to do that last part. The good things usually only last me a few weeks at best. A good feeling is something I can hardly remember now. Not feeling lonely is something that I haven't known in almost a year. And I am beginning to think no one loves. When you love someone you don't leave them. You don't ignore them or not talk to them. You are willing to fight for them.

Love seems more and more like an abstract concept invented to just keep people happy, give them an unreachable standard to live up to. If you believe God is perfect, and God is love, therefore love is perfect. If you also believe no one person can be perfect, no one person has the ability to love. And I'm betting the chances don't look to good for two people either.

For a long time I thought that I could come and help everyone rid themselves of their problems. Help people feel better and whatever else. I'm done doing that, I find most people aren't worth the time I wasted trying to help them, I can think of a few right off the top of my head but I won't name names.

As for Jessica, I will wait and try to help her, because she was the last person I remember making me feel any kind of good. She was the only one recently who talked to me and made things just a little better. I could actually smile with her. A few others of you out there I think deserve help. But to those who don't...you'll know that I've given up on you.

The Only Way To Make It Through With Hearts And Wrists In Tact...

I don't know what to say about this world, this world it seems like its taken another person from us. Another good person. I don't know what to say. Except I hope she's okay and I love her.

Do It For Me Now

My body is filled with...well I don't know what. I looked back at something I haven't touched since the day I last spoke to you. You were eighteen years old and one day. It was the saddest day I've had since...well since a long time ago and I haven't been whole since then. But right when I was thinking of doing the wrong thing, the stupid thing. You saved me again, you've always been there to pull me out, even when you weren't really there.

What follows is your words, untouched by pencil or cursor. Words that struck me so hard that I know what I need to do.

Hey. Things are actually not going good at all...and it concerns us. When I came home from school with your presents, my parents kind of freaked because they don't know who you are and wonder if we have been secretly hanging out, which led to "do you talk to him online?" thing. They found out that I talk to you on myspace, and they feel really uncomfortable with me talking to an older guy that they don't even know. So, they are making me do the same thing I had to do with Heather. I don't really understand myself, and so I bet you won't either, and that's ok. And yes, i'm 18, an adult, but I still live under my parents rules until I leave for college. This is incredibly hard for me to do since it is going against my own will and desires. Justin, you are an amazing guy! You truly are! And I don't want this friendship to end...but I have to do this or I'll get in so much more in trouble. Please, please, do this for me, and soon we'll be able to get back to talking again. I have to sadly delete you from my friends. That's why I cannot have you on facebook. Please forgive me! I hope that when I leave for college and that I am finally free, I am able to speak to you again without ambivalent attitudes from my parents. I know this is hard, i mean, it's hard for me too! I'm so sorry. I want you to know something though: to thine own self be true. Justin, there will be many obstacles ahead, and I'm sad because I won't be there to help you when you need it! But please remember to be yourself, night to day, every single moment of the day! Cause being you is why I cherish this friendship! Please promise me to do that, and I promise you that I will come back to you once I am on my own! I hope that day will come soon! Thanks for everything..for you have truly been a wonderful, fantastic, marvelous friend!

If I don't shape up, and get back on track, who will she find when she comes back? Well I'm not going to even humor that question. There you have it, hon, you're boys back on track. I think for the first time in months, I'm back. After all, its what you wanted.

God blessed me with a wit, with attitude enough to stand up to others, against moral wrongs, to strike out where I saw tyranny even in the smallest degree. And that's what she admired. I seem to have gotten that back today. I've read just one thing and found the strength to carry on through all that's happening. I have to say sorry to Kara, I promised her a blog today about how evil men are, rest assured she'll have it soon. It might be worse now that I am back like this.

Hook Ups

Since the day I left Junior High it has seemed like things were changing too fast. I remember when kissing someone was a big deal. My first year of high school I heard from the younger sibling of a friend that three girls at our school had gotten caught having sex.

Back when I was there it was rare to even hear about someone going as far as to get fingered.

Now in college people talk about hooking up as if its something completely normal and even therapeutic. I used to see examples of it everyday. I still see guys that make out with girls, interchangeably in groups, and girls who make out with each other for a guys entertainment. I have to stop and ask, what happened to you women?

The women from a newspaper, Laura Sessions Stepp has written this book called Unhooked about the decline of love and its replacement by hookups in college and high school life. If I didn't see it for myself I wouldn't have believed it at first. In my high school people were so close knit that there wasn't much hooking up in the open, everyone knew everyone.

But when I got to college things changed severely and I could see the stuff that was going on all around me. One girl I knew personally got passed around like a doobie among hippies. Guys would get together and discuss her performance and even rate her on how well she did individual things.

Stories cropped up about different crazy acts she had taken part in, one of the most notorious was her allowing a guy to use the vibrate function on his phone for purposes other than it was intended for, needless to say the phone broke. But the point here is this, hook ups, for the most part, are degrading to women and they harm the guy on the other end of the thing too.

The problem really stems from Feminism, now I know I am going to get a lot of hate speech over this, but I think the second that women led themselves to believe that sexuality was the way for them to become more independent, they left themselves open to be used in a new way. Being outlandishly sexual doesn't empower you. All of the guys and girls I know that get the most crazy sex are the most unhappy people.

I read an article that Laura Stepp wrote on Valentines Day and it amazed me how much I thought the same way she did. She wrote about how many women didn't want anything to do with long term relationships because there wasn't any time for them. Stepp states in her article:

A national survey of 18-to-29-year-olds by the Pew Research Center reported that almost 60 percent were not in committed relationships and the majority of those were not interested in being committed. Young women even have phrases for couples, frequently spoken with a touch of derision: They're 'joined at the hip,' or 'married.'

But I can tell you right now that part of the problem lies in our parents. I had a friend who had a mother who had been divorced several times, and this friend told me that "I don't see the big deal with marriage, its just a short term commitment". Believe it or not the reluctance for people to seek divorce ruins the minds of the children involved.

What I can't do is offer much help. Guys I know think they are happy to be this way, to seek out these things and only these things. And occasionally making out with someone at a party isn't going to damage your mind forever, but going about looking for this as if its going to lead you to eventually meet someone you love is a dumb idea. If the other person only sees you as a hook-up that's all you'll ever be. Even if you marry that person, expect to get divorced, or have major problems. You weren't what they had in mind, just what was convenient.

A link to the original article can be found here: myspace

And That's The Last We'll Speak of It...

So what its been about two days since the shooting thing in Virginia and already we have Rosie O'Donnell putting her foot in her mouth with stupid statements such as her saying that The NRA is the biggest lobbyist in the US. I don't know how many people out there want to tell her she's fucking wrong, because obviously she's never heard of a little thing called OIL.

This is what launches the major problem with this kind of thing, the media turns into into a circus to fulfill their own personal wants. Some of them, like Rosie over here, will want to get rid of illegal guns as she called them. Well too bad the guns the guy used were legal. If you are going to start stating things, state the facts. Then you have those who just want ratings, who are playing this over and over, twenty-four hours a day, with breaks in between for more news about...the shooting.

The news has been adamant about pushing this in our faces, when they really have so little information to give us, they have so little that is new to give us. The people killed need to be remembered, but I am sure they don't want to be slathered with some kind of political button and paraded around for some political agenda. I don't even think that the heroes in this story, the teacher who died to save his students and the senior who barricaded the door; I get the idea that these people are just being used to get more ratings. I mean if you did something like this and saved someone, you would probably just want to be left alone. I know this because I don't think praise is what we always want!

The news is determined not to give us time to heal, just like they did with September eleventh for that week it happened, and Andrea Yates, and now this. It's like the line from Fight Club about the scratch in your mouth that would only heal if you could stop tonguing it. That's what the news makes these things into.

I also want to say that when this happened everyone thought this guy was white, everyone thought he was American born and raised, thought that he played violent video games, listened to violent music and that he was a certain type of person. They drew all of these conclusions hours before they even released a name for this guy, he turned out to be an Asian Immigrant, not that it matters. But what I want to say is that we need to stop blaming violent video games, music, and movies for this kind of shit. I have heard Tarantino's name come up more times when they talk about this guy than the actual guy. Tarantino didn't walk onto the campus and shoot those people. He makes movies, that's it.

Music and movies don't define us. I listen to a lot of kinds of music and I never commit crimes because of any of it. When did people stop being crazy and have to have a reason to be messed up in the head? No one is blaming the shooter for the shooting, no one is blaming the fact that he might have just been born wrong. Maybe his parents aren't at fault, maybe he was just a loony. His parents ran a dry cleaning shop in Virginia, do you know that they are hospitalized because shock? Well you see this crime isn't something that someone caused him to do. He was crazy and no one could have helped him if he didn't want to be helped, obviously he didn't want to be helped.

On a day when I think eighty percent of the blogs in the world are writing about this, I want to say something I bet many of them are not. We need to pray for his parents, his family, and we need to be less worried about warning signs and stop there from having to be warning signs. I knew a lot of people that were this crazy, but all of them had friends and maybe that's what keeps them from going over the edge. Family isn't enough, there's just things they can't provide, and even criminals have friends. So from now on when you see that quiet kid in the hall, don't walk by them or wait for them to say hi, just say hi to them. Stop and talk to them, it might make them feel like someone important. It might even make them open up. And it could just someday save a life...there's or someone else's.

Ockham's Razor

How many times have you witnessed someone telling you that they wanted to change things in their life? And then the next day they go right back to doing the same thing that they always do? If the thing that you are doing is not working and you have done it several times before, then the simple explanation is to do something different.

It's the principal of Ockham's Razor, the simplest explanation is often the right one.

Every girl that I know always says this, that this is the last time they are going to date 'a guy like that' and then they always run back to the same type of guy, sometimes the same guy. I know what you are all saying, that this is their own preference. But the problem is that by the time they are ready to try something new they are so put off by what they have been trying.

Women need to realize that they're just making themselves more bitter when they stay around with guys that mistreat them. And that there is usually at least one guy they know, who would date them, who they are ignoring. Now I am not going to tell you its fate or destiny. I don't believe in those things. I believe we do shit, sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong.

For any of you that believe in fate why do you do anything at all? I mean what's going to happen is going to happen...and it is much simpler to think that we are all effecting each other while the environment effects us than to think there is some grand plan and the placement of every molecule was planned out billions of years ago. Again Ockham's Razor.

And all of this goes back to what I started off saying, fate is not real, its not going to help you. If a guy treats you bad then you need to get off your ass and get out of there. What's more when you meet the person you fit with right, there might not be some spark or sign, you might not even take an immediate liking to each other. Instead of sticking what you know is wrong, why not try what very well might be right?