Uuuuuuuuugh

You ever have one of those fantastic days when you are in a great mood for no reason? I mean, you are "Walkin' on Sunshine" all freaking day any you have no clue why. There is nothing good that has happened to you, but for some reason you are acting like you are on mood elevators. You know the kind of day I mean?

Well, I had one of those yesterday. It was great. I was in an amazing mood (anyone who talked to me throughout the day can attest to that). I was on cloud nine for no reason and nothing was bringing me down.

Then, at about 11:30 or so, I crashed and crashed hard. Once again, I have no clue why my mood changed the way it did. (For the smartasses among my readership [aka all of you], no I am not bipolar. These mood shifts are neither long enough not severe enough to qualify for Bipolar Disorder or Cyclothymic Disorder.) But, yeah, I went from giddy as a kid who has just been told he won a shopping spree in a candy store to an adult being told that the shopping spree was now null and void, and I had to pay for all the candy the kid took in his hour long raid.

Eh, I just wanted to let that out. Now I am sick and throwing up all over the place (well, dry heaving all over the place because I haven't eaten anything in the past 16 hours now). Later all.


P.S. My dad is actually going for 13 trees now (14 if he puts the one in my room). Now, these trees vary in size from 1.5 feet tall to 7.5 feet tall. Most of them fall in the 3-5 foot range, but that is still way too many Christmas trees. . . and there are going to be a couple rooms in my house that have more than one tree in them. . . . *Sigh*

GRAH!!!!!!

This morning was one of those mornings that I am glad my Narsil is a blunt prop piece and not a fully sharpened sword capable of maiming someone. . . because if it was I might be heading for jail at the moment.

So my parents get home this morning at 5am, and are they quiet? Not even the slightest bit. Hell, they called me at 4:15 to tell me they would be home in 45 minutes. I think the conversation went a little like this:

*Ring* *Ring*

*Sleeping George wakes up, grumbles, and starts fumbling for his cell phone.*

George: "Wha?"

Dad: "Hey George, I know we told you we would call a couple hours before we got home, but we are in Champaign. Be home in an hour or so."

George: "Huh? I thought you were stopping at a motel."

Dad: "Eh, we changed our mind because we couldn't find a non-smoking room. Bye."

George: "Bye."

Somehow I managed to fall back asleep. I was an hour and a half into my night's slumber and I was shooting for my five hours. . . Didn't happen. Half an hour after I fell asleep I hear my parents come in the house and start making noise as they start playing with the dogs and ushering my brother to bed. Groggy and annoyed, I roll over and pretend I can't hear them for a while, but half an hour later I am up and there is no going back to sleep.

I stumble downstairs and greet them. Of course I am immediately roped into helping unpack things, but that is fine because I fully expected it. They are jabbering on about the things they did in Florida and how my brother was so well behaved. Then they start talking about how it is as warm here as it was there most of the week . . . well you get the picture.

This inanity continued for around half an hour before the topic turned to me. I thought I was ready for the "So why didn't you come to Florida" conversation. I thought I had come up with every possible question they could ask me about it, but I was wrong. First thing my dad says, "So, why did you stay up here all week? Wanted to visit your girlfriend over break? Don't want us to know about her? How is the love life going?"

*Snap*

I almost lost it. Of all the questions he could have asked. He could have asked what I did over the week. He could have commented on my haircut. He could have made some comment about the mountain of dishes in the kitchen (I was planning on them getting home this afternoon, not at 5am. I didn't have time to clean the place up). But did he ask about any of that? No, he jumped straight to the relationship questions.

Luckily I am good at improvising and I just made a joke out of the whole thing. I think I said something to the effect of "You caught me, Dad. I wanted my five girlfriends to come over so we could have a wild orgy on your bed while you guys were gone. Unfortunately they all brought friends and, well, even I can only do so much at a time. In fact, I think two of them are still waiting up in your room for me, so if you will excuse me" and walked away.

By now I have calmed down, and we have talked about other things like what I did over the week. My dad keeps trying to steer the conversation back towards my love life and I am sick of it. What is it with my parents? Do they intrinsically know when I don't want to have that type of a conversation? Because one of them always seems to bring it up when I don't want to talk about it. Last year when I got home for summer break it was the first thing my mom talked about, and anyone who knows about the end of the year knows that is the last thing I wanted to talk about.

Oh well, I guess that is what parents are for. They are here to annoy the crap out of us when we don't want to talk about something and bring up the awkward conversation topics around people we don't want them brought up around. C'est la vie. . . . or maybe just c'est mon vie. Either way, I should be used to it by now and I shouldn't let the little things get me down.

On the up side they brought up a whole lot of Florida produce, so I should be chowing down on delicious delicious oranges for a while. Mmmmm. Couple that with the fact that I am going to bring several chocolate truffles (and hopefully a pie or two) back with me and all is well in the world (well not all, but enough that I can ignore the rest).

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go begin the Christmasing of my house. . . My dad is probably going to shoot for 11 trees throughout the house this year, but I am going to try to make sure it stays 10. I refuse to have a Christmas tree in my room at home. I will have one in my dorm room, but not at home!

Hmmm

This post has been six days in coming. I started typing it the first time on Friday night, and now here it is Thursday morning and I am writing it again.

Each time I have sat down to write, I have known what I wanted to write about. It hasn't been the same topics every time. In fact the topic of this post has changed in each of the incarnations of it I have had in my head. It has gone from why I needed George time (which I have gotten plenty of this past week), to some of the crazy things that have been going on in my head (which I decided not to subject anyone to), to my recent bout with uber-insomnia (so much worse than normal that it isn't funny at all). Now, I think I will write about dreams and how much I hate them.

Some of you may have read my earlier post about my dreams. I don't usually dream, and when I do they tend to be meaningful. Yeah, so in that post, the second dream was about my future wife giving birth. When I wrote that post, I could have sworn I included a description. In fact, I have had two or three people say that they thought there was something about her appearance there, but there is nothing there about it. Quite eerie really.

Well, I have been having that same dream. . . well not the same. It has been slightly different. First off, my wife's face hasn't changed. In fact the first three times this week I had the dream I didn't see her face at all. Of course, then I talked to people about it and her face started being clear to me. It is the same face as the first time I had the dream . . . which some of you know the description of. By now, part of me is ready to just give in to the Freudian explanation of the whole situation and believe that it is all being caused by thoughts buried in my unconscious mind (and those who know my thoughts on psychology know how much I normally loathe the idea of Freud being right about anything other than defense mechanisms). As I said, a part of me wants to give in and believe that. Most of me keeps pointing out that my dreams have meant something in the past and this dream must mean something too.

Oddly enough, this isn't the only dream I have been having. I have been having it every night, but then I have also been having other dreams. Some of them are about past events. Others are about things that haven't happened with the same people as in the past event dreams. I don't know if my brain is just stuck on certain topics lately, but I am getting sick and tired of the few hours of sleep I have been getting the past couple days being plagued with dreams. I want my sleep to go back to normal. No more 8 hour nights of sleep (Friday and Saturday) and no more 2 hour nights of sleep (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) full of dreams. I want to go back to my 4-5 hour nights of sleep with no dreams (ok, very very infrequent dreams).

On an unrelated note, I am going to my Grandmother's for Thanksgiving. . . Lunch this afternoon. Hopefully I don't get food poisoning this year like I did last year. Couple the horrid food with the fact that I am going to be the only person there under the age of 65, and things should be rather fun. Wish me luck. I just hope I don't feel obligated to stay there too terribly long and not get home in time to enjoy my delicious steak. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get the pie I just baked out of the oven and let it cool for a while before putting it in the fridge and going to bed.


Eh, I guess I should throw in a quote or two. Both of these have been brought up or shared with people I have chatted with the past few days, so I guess I will just share them with everyone.

"We are all a little weird, and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." - Anon

"That's the nature of women not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not." - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Birthday List

Sitting here in my room at 2am on my birthday has gotten me in a wistful mood, so I am writing up a little Birthday Wish List.

1. A Million Dollars (I would settle for less, but why not shoot for the stars)
2. A kiss from a beautiful woman (Hey, a guy has got to want something purely for himself)
3. Hugs from my friends
4. Smiles on the faces of my friends (Far too many people have been far too stressed out lately)
5. A Wii
6. An Alienware Computer (Sorry Bob, I love you man, but c'mon Alienware)
7. A Monkey
8. A copy of "The History of the World Part 1" on DVD. . . I have been hankering for it ever since someone mentioned it two weeks ago and the file on my computer is corrupt.
9. Someone to finish my Abnormal Psych paper for me.
10. A nice long back massage.

That is about all I can think of right now. Remember multiples on any/all of the gifts will be accepted (although I don't know what I would do with multiple DVD's).

More Rantings

I have had several comments on my last post (none actually posted online though). Most of them told me that they liked it but were expecting a longer post. To be honest, the post was going to be quite a bit longer, but I kept getting distracted while writing it. By the time I really got into it, Senior Karaoke rolled around, so I decided to put it off and write up a second portion.

This is that second portion.

----------------------------

My name is George White, and I am a nice guy. I say this not out of some conceited notion of knowing what does and does not constitute a nice guy, but I say this because I have been told this by innumerable people. I am the “nice guy”, the “good guy”, the “guy who is a great friend”, the guy women know “will always be there when they need a shoulder to cry on”, and (my personal favorite) the guy whose friendship is just “too close to ruin by dating”.

I am the kind of guy who loves being in a relationship because it gives me an excuse to do all the little things I love to do to make people feel better, but seem odd when done by someone you aren’t in a relationship with.

I am the kind of guy who will call in the morning just to say “Good Morning”. I am the guy who can’t help but smile when he sees his girlfriend, just because she is who she is. I am the guy who surprises his girlfriend with a rose for no reason other than to make her smile. I am the kind of guy who holds people when they are crying, not because I think I will get something out of it, but because I hate seeing people hurt. I am the kind of guy who people call when the rest of the world has let them down, just so they know that there is someone out there who still cares about them and smiles when he hears their voice. I’m the guy who listens when people talk, and tells them what they need to hear, not just what they want to hear. I’m the guy who accepts people for who they are and doesn’t try to force them into molds they don’t fit in. I am the guy who thinks a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt can be sexier than a mini-skirt and low-cut top. I am the guy who finds women beautiful when they are the way nature intended – not just when they are surgically altered and covered with makeup. I am the guy who knows that you can’t always get what/who you want. I am the guy who appreciates the women in my life for what they are, even if I want them to be more. I am the guy who doesn’t stare at attractive women while I am out with a woman. I am the guy who will tell someone she is beautiful, not because I am hitting on her, but because she is beautiful. I am the guy who will tell you the truth instead of lying to get into your pants. I am the guy who won’t get jealous when you talk to your male friends, because I know that you aren’t flirting with or hitting on every guy you talk to. I am the guy who doesn’t see put downs as the only way to have fun and look cool, although I may make the occasional put down myself in jest. I am the guy who can normally get the little hints and suggestions, even if I don’t immediately act on them. I am the guy who treats his girlfriend the same when I am with my friends as I do when we are alone. I am the guy who will be there for the people who matter to him, through thick and thin, good times and bad, and I will do everything in my power to make them happy and try not to hurt them.

I am not trying to say that I am perfect. Hell, I am far from perfect. I am overweight. I tend to be a procrastinator, and I am nice to the extent of sometimes being a pushover. I am an intellectual snob, a smarmy smart-ass, and overly hesitant when it comes to expressing my feelings (for good reason I think).

Over the past few days I have been trying to decide why, when so many women tell me that I am such a great guy and then turn around and tell me that I am not “boyfriend material”. Well, I had an idea that was later brought up by two different friends as I was writing this (thanks ladies). The reason I am not “boyfriend material” right now is because we are in college. I am the safe choice right now. I am the stable guy who won’t cheat on my girlfriend or do anything to hurt them. I’m not the crazy wild Adonis who makes women drool when they look at me. I am the shoulder women come crying to when the bad boy has broken their hearts. I was actually told tonight that the reason I am always relegated to the “Friend Zone” is because I am marriage material. She then pointed me in the direction of the movie “Wet Hot American Summer” for a good quote:

Listen, Coop. Last night was really great. You were incredibly romantic and heroic, no doubt about it. And that's great. But I've thought about it, and my thing is this. Andy is really hot. And don't get me wrong, you're cute too, but Andy is like, cut. From marble. He's gorgeous. He has this beautiful face and this incredible body, and I genuinely don't care that he's kinda lame. I don't even care that he cheats on me. And I like you more than I like Andy, Coop, but I'm 16. And maybe it'll be a different story when I'm ready to get married, but right now, I am entirely about sex. I just wanna get laid. I just wanna take him and grab him and fuck his brains out, ya know? So that's where my priorities are right now. Sex. Specifically with Andy and not with you.

Unfortunately that kind of behavior doesn’t end at 16. Far too many women in college still feel that way. Some of them smarten up early and stop going after the bad boys. Unfortunately, these wonderful women are few and far between at this point in life. Hopefully I will one day soon join the ranks of the lucky guys who have found their woman, but till then I will just be content being me.

Writing this post has made me think of a few quotes:

“Every woman needs one man in her life who is strong and responsible. Given this security, she can proceed to do what she really wants to do-fall in love with men who are weak and irresponsible.” – Richard J. Needham

“A true man does not need to romance a different girl every night, a true man romances the same girl for the rest of her life” – Ana Alas

“The most human thing we have to do in life is to learn to speak our honest convictions and feelings and live with the consequences. This is the first requirement of love, and it makes us vulnerable to other people who may ridicule us. But our vulnerability is the only thing we can give to other people.” – Leo F. Buscaglia

“Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have you.... The one who turns to his friends and says, 'that's her.'” – Anonymous

A Tirade

Alright… You up there in the cosmic vapor. God, Yahweh, Allah, Odin, Ra, Ganesh, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, Ishtar, Marduk, or whatever else people call you. What do I have to do? Actually, is it more appropriate for me to ask what did I do?

Is it not enough that I seem to be eternally single, but you have to rub it in by having assholes come to me for relationship advice? Is a homophobic moron whose favorite mode of communication is calling people "gay" what women really want in a man? If not, then WTF mate?

I have been single for far longer than I care to remember, and things just seem to be going downhill. This summer it was multiple females informing me, before I even thinking about making a move, that I am "a great friend who is always there to listen to them, but just not boyfriend material" (Oh how I love that sentence when I have done nothing to elicit it.) Then there was the capstone of the summer… the “Oh I got engaged this morning, and I think you need to know that before we go out on a date”.

Now… well now you decided to take a new tact. You decided to raise my hopes before slamming me down. Is there some kind of sick “how many times can I make George slam his head against the wall before he just gives up” game that I don’t know about?

Once upon a time, I wrote up a nice post regarding my views on Nice Guys and the Friend Zone. Unfortunately, viewpoints change, people change, and most importantly I have changed. When I wrote that I believe it wholeheartedly. I held myself responsible for everything that had happened in my love life (even those things I logically know I had no control over). I beat myself up over each and every one of the failures in the past. I blamed my own hesitant nature. I told myself that somehow it was some flaw in my nature that was causing these failures.

Heh, I am done with that. It isn't my fault. There isn't anything wrong with me. Being a Nice Guy isn't a problem . . . regardless of how many times Bob wants to play "Nice Guys Finish Last" today.

*Comes back after attacking the computer for a few minutes.*

Smug asshole is lucky I don't have a baseball bat in my room...

Now where was I? Oh yes, Nice Guys. As a friend and I decided yesterday, it isn't so much that Nice Guys finish last. It is more like there is a sniper making sure the Nice Guys don't even leave the starting gate. Sadly this time he was a little slow and I got a few feet out of the gate before the shot hit. I think it is worse this way. I guess the Divine realized that the same old "telling him that they are just gonna be friends before he can get his hopes too high" ploy wouldn't be as effective this time.

Well, he/she/it got me good this time. I actually let my natural cynicism fall. My normal walls keeping my hopeless romanticism away from my own love life were lowered and I allowed myself to think maybe, just maybe. But no. I think that currently my emotions run along with the emotions of the character Dave from a webcomic I read. The comic is "College Roommates from Hell" by Maritza Campos. (Click the image to enlarge it)

So, this is all I have to say right now... Women, know what you want before you lead a guy on. Guys, can I get a hell yeah to a quote from Dr. Gregory House - "To women. Can't live with 'em, and you can't kill them and tell the neighbors that they are stripping in Atlantic City."

Now, I will finish this little rant with a quote from Neil Gaiman.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Quotes

This post is going to be short and somewhat pointless, but I have had quite a few quotes running through my head recently. These quotes aren't all about the same situation. In fact there are tons of situations involved in the various quotes but oh well. I just need to put them all together somewhere and think on them.

First off, “Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.” - Ray Charles

That being said, it is hard to find any quotes about how you feel for someone that don't include the word love. Apparently if you are attracted to someone, but you aren't in love yet, you are screwed. You don't get to tell anyone how you feel unless you love them. . . Bah.

“I don't pretend to know what love is for everyone, but I can tell you what it is for me; love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person, love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room and smile at you.”

"You know that you're in love when you freeze up for the first time in your life--my feet were frozen to the elevator floor, but my heart was screaming to take one step closer and give her a kiss."

"I would be lying if I said you stepped out of my dreams and into my life... My dreams were never this wonderful!"

"If I could spend every minute of every day with you I would. I think about you all the time. I think of you when I go to bed, and you're the first thing I think about when I wake up. I can't go through one day without wanting to see you, needing to see you. You're addictive, I don't get it ... what is it about you?"

"You look in the mirror and you don't like what you see? Don't believe it. Look into my eyes; I'm the only mirror you'll ever need."

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” – Neil Gaiman

"There's a lot to be said for self-delusionment when it comes to matters of the heart."

. . . Nothing really to say about that section of quotes.

"A true friend is someone who will always be there when the whole world left you, he always cheers you up when the whole world has turned you down and he never asks you to act like an angel but he becomes your angel."

"Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same."

"It's a lot like nature. You only have as many animals as the ecosystem can support and you only have as many friends as you can tolerate the bitching of." – Randy K. Milholland

"Sometimes the measure of friendship isn't your ability to not harm but your capacity to forgive the things done to you and ask forgiveness for your own mistakes." – Randy K. Milholland

“There are three types of friends: those like food, without which you can't live; those like medicine, which you need occasionally; and those like an illness, which you never want.”

“If you're alone, I'll be your shadow. If you want to cry, I'll be your shoulder. If you want a hug, I'll be your pillow. If you need to be happy, I'll be your smile. But anytime you need a friend, I'll just be me”

"A true friend is like the sound of your footsteps; always with you, through light and dark, in silence when there is no one else, and in a crowd even when you can’t hear them. When things are soft and comfortable you may not notice the sound of your footsteps, but when things get hard, that is when you notice that the sound of your footsteps is always there keeping time with you.” – George White

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

This section encompasses several situations recently. From the people who I like to think I have helped with their problems, the people who have helped me, and those friends who knew that the walls I was putting up were meant to be torn down. I thank all of you for giving me the kicks in the rump when I needed them, the friendly ear when I needed to vent, and the helpful words when I needed advice. Truly without you I don't know what I would do.

"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglass Adams

Sounds like a plan to me Doug.