So, uh, kinda lied about that internet access - I thought Ron and John and their AOL account were staying with us, but no. So currently I'm on my brother's friend's old AOL account, on the slowest dial-up connection EVAR. Which means that this'll probably be one my one time online before I get home Sunday night - just checking my e-mail and LJ and crap.

Trip down was massively boring - I spent most of the trip listening to music and reading C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, which was very shiny. I <3 Gerald Tarrant, I think.

Family reunion was alright, too. Food was good, I got the usual comments about how much taller I was, etc. I brought a book and let everybody else do the talking. We went out on the lake Sunday, which involved a lot of my mom getting lost, and minor arguments over who got to use the jetski. We went over the mountain house that night, and I got irritated at 3:30 am by the boys in the hot tub outside my window ><

Monday and Tuesday we didn't do much - a little shopping, sat around and read book, ate. We went to the movies, too - my mom and I saw Batman Begins, which was quite good, although, this is coming from someone who's experience with the franchise is the Batman Beyond cartoon series. There was also a DDR machine, and I managed to pass Cartoon Heros and End of Century right after each other, which is an accomplishment for me.

Yesterday, we went whitewater rafting, which was a ton of fun, but left me very sunburnt - both my legs look like they have some sort of strange skin rash, and it hurts like hell. Today was mostly just more shopping - we rented a movie to watch tonight.

...And I give up on this shitty connection. See you all on the third.

Leaving for just over a week in North Carolina tomorrow, and as I don't know when we're leaving exactly, I figured I should probably post this tonight. I will probably have some internet access - enough to check my e-mail and LJ and stuff on a daily basis. I probably won't have AIM, or at least not for any length of time, and I won't have access to any of my files or programs on this computer. Bringing my cellphone with me, although I don't know what reception will be like - I've got my address book, though, so I'll call people from there, and possibly do some letter-writing. I think that's about it - see you all at the begining of July ^^

(Claudia, I'm sorry I didn't call - was busy, and now I'm afraid I'm going to wake up your parents if I call now, as I don't know if you're up ^^; I'll call tomorrow afternoon/evening from Baltimore?)

Yes, finally, my first 'I'm bored' post of the summer. Mostly because everybody that I usually talk to is busy or not online or whatever, and I'm trying to save the two books I checked out for my massively long trip on Thursday and Friday.

So...book recs? Music recs? Fic recs? And any good old-and-thus-cheap-used game recs? I'm bringing the PSOne with me to North Carolina, and I probably won't have any internet access, so I'm not going to have much else to do - bringing FF8 and FF9, although FF8 is really only getting played because people have sworn to me that there is in fact something resembling plot later, and Squall develops more personality than a rock, although I'm skeptical, which is why I haven't touched it since last summer.

I think I've reached a whole new level of upset, where I'd like most of the world to stop existing, or at the very least, leave me the fuck alone. The part of me that always gets upset when everybody else is off doing their own thing without me is still upset, but for the most part, I don't want to go out. I've spent most of the week down here by myself, and I'm going to spend most of next week doing the same, and then a third week, doing the same thing in somebody else's house, although possibly with video games, hiding from my brother and his friends and the rest of my family. Fuck my cousins, they're not my friends and they'd hate me if they knew I was gay anyway.

I don't want sympathies, I don't want people around, I don't even want to be talked to, except by a very select few, who I think are all busy anyway. I don't want to be touched. I just want to be left alone, and for everything to be alright, although I've no real hope of that happening.

...I miss her, still. This is pathetic. I'm going back to my book now.

EDIT: Alright, the book and some food put me in a better mood, even if if the ending to said book made me want to cry. I'm such a sucker for sappy endings, I think. And I still miss her.

Was listening to my Cranberries CD today, and thought I might as well share a few tracks. Kinda angsty Irish rock with an awesome female lead singer.
The Cranberries - I Can't Be With You : Kind of my state of mind today, I think, except the bit about the kid. I don't want to have anyone's kid, at all.
The Cranberries - Zombie : My favorite track from the CD, if only because I really love the melody.

I had a dream last, that I was on the ground begging forgiveness from her, and she seemed to accept, and then left anyway. I hate my sub-consciousness sometimes. I also agreed to work a five hour shift tomorrow, which I now regret, even though I need the money. Such is life.

I do have marshmallows and black stripy fabric which is mildly nice.

New layout, finally! Featuring Tseng of the Turks, because the Turks are awesome. Also, for the first time, this page has both valid HTML and valid CSS, which I am incredibly proud of.

I WINZ XD;

So, sitting around in a pretty good mood, listening to music, relaxing - and then Winamp pulls up the one song pretty much guaranteed to make me upset again right no - Accidently In Love. Switched it ASAP, but I think I've lost the mood.

In slightly brighter news, I have muffins, The Diamond Age is bizarre but good, and I think I've got this layout almost finished.

Meme! Stolen from Clare and Mara.

Read More?

Otakon is still officially iffy - I need to find out how many hours I'm going to be working to see if I can afford it. However, I'm definately dropping Alexis if I do go, for two reasons - I don't want to die of heat stroke again this year, and I'm not going to have the money. So, another con, I guess.

Also, I'm contemplating putting together an FF7 group for sometime next year, possibly at Anime Boston - I'd like to do Sephiroth. I'm interested in having pretty much any FF7 characters, although in particular I'm looking for a Cloud. I had one, but due to recent events, I sense that's not happening, so I may as well see if there's interest.

Because I don't know when to shut up. I assume people who don't want to hear it are skipping all these entries anyway at this point, so I suppose it's alright.

In short - I still do love her, and I want everything to work out and to be happy again. However, I'm being to increasingly face the reality of the situtation, which is that I'm not sure it can, not without some major changes.

She asked, or more correctly, ordered me to delete the last entry I made on this subject. When I more or less refused, she blocked me again. She's probably angry at me for saying she did this, even. However, this is one of the few morals I won't cross - a commitment to letting the truth of the matter be known, and of standing by what I've said. I've never deleted an entry from my journal, even the ones that I knew in retrospect I probably should, and I'm not going to now - besides, I feel that there are definately some mixed signals going on here - first she's angry that people don't know the truth, now she's angry that they do.

So, this is where I stand right now. Your move, Claudia.

So, after the conclusion of part one of my adventures, I pretty much sat around and listened to music and painted my Yuna-obi until Mara came home. We had a late lunch, after which we decided we were going to get some dessert somewhere. So, we walked three miles, only to discover the place we were going to had been closed for half an hour. We began walking the three miles back, at which point it started pouring rain - it was actually rather nice, because it was warm enough out that we weren't freezing, and we both love the feel and smell of rain. We ended up taking Mara's car to the farther away ice cream place, where I had a death-by-peanut-butter sundae - peanut butter icecream with peanut butter cups in it, Reese's Pieces on top, warm peanut butter sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry. It was wonderful. We went back to Mara's house, and sat around and talked for a couple of hours before deciding to watch Phantom at one am in the morning.

This...was a lot of crack XD We made bad jokes and commentary and sang along to the songs. Some highlights:
-Phantom^TM brand cake mix. And muffin mix, and brownie mix.
-Fanboy!Phantom, both of Christine and Darth Vader
-Phantom/Raoul rope bondage porn XD
...There are more I'm not remembering, ask Mara XD;;

Monday we got up early (for me, anyway), and took the train into Boston. We started out with an early lunch at Legal Seafoods, where I had their wonderfully delicous clam chowder, and we split an order of excellent apple crisp. We also browsed through a few stationary stores in the Prudential Center. From there, we went to the Boston Public Library, which a brief peek into the Fairmont, which is absolutely gorgeous. The library is rather nice too, and we spent a while there, looking at the pretty rooms and the tons and tons of books. We made kind of a spontaneous stop in the Old South Church after that, and again admired all the pretty architechture. Next, we went to Keezer's and spent a while trying on suits and tailcoats and tophats, and discovering Kaori Yuki is on slightly less crack than previously thought. Unable to enter Keezer's without coming out with something new, I bought a nice dark silver tie. Then, we decided to do something that was in retrospect, not the brightest idea - walk from Central Square to Harvard on a hot summer day with huge backpacks. We actually made it alright, with a stop into an art store and another stationary shop. We didn't have much time in Harvard before we had to leave - Mara almost missed her train, while mine left half an hour late.

Over all, the weekend was fun, if kind of tiring. It was nice to get out for a while, though.

(There will - unfortunately for the rest of you - more boring moody current-situation shit in a bit. It is unending, it seems -.-)

I am, as you may have noticed from the last post, feeling a lot better. Still kind of upset, but a more managable sort - talking with Skuld and Mara helped a lot, as did everybody's nice comments - you guys are great, I hope I can repay it someday <3 However, unfortunately, this mess is not finished.

As Certain Parties (ie, Claudia) feel I have grossly misrepresented the truth, here is the short version of how things fell apart. I'd like to give the long version, but that would be me putting a month's worth of AIM chat logs online, which, while I don't mind, as I know when I did something wrong, and can handle people pointing that out, I'm not sure she'd feel the same way, and I can't really ask for permission as she's not speaking to anyone right now.

For the last month or so, we've been fighting a lot, kind of on and off, usually about stupid little things (isn't it always the little things? Ah, life.). It usually followed the pattern of me being in a bad mood, and making some moody comment, usually not directed at her, but I will admit, sometimes. She'd get annoyed about it, then I would get annoyed about _that_, and it would escalate until she would stalk off and either go away, sign off, or block me, usually for a day or two at a time. Many times this would just make me more frustrated, and left me in a bad mood, which would cause everything to start over again when she came back. There was at least one or two instances, though, of me saying something, in a good mood, totally off-hand, and her getting annoyed about it and storming off, leaving me to go 'WTF?' and try to figure out what was wrong.

In short, it was a mess made by two people, and I was one of them. However, I do feel that pretty much all of this is being blamed on me, when it seems to me like it wasn't. But that's up to the observer to judge, I guess, which is why I'm writing this.

And a more personal message, to Claudia, if you're still reading this - don't be angry at both your and my friends, because they're being decent people - they had no part in this, and it's not fair to them. And don't be angry at me and Mara for doing something we planned far before this happened, invited you to, and you encouraged me to do. It makes you look immature, which I doubt is the impression you were going for.

On the Next Episode of Cocoa's Blog: My weekend adventure, Part the Second (probably tomorrow, I've been running around all day and I'm tired =.=)

*waves* At Mara's house currently - she's at work for a couple of hours, so I'm lazing around her room and checking internet stuff. Anyway. Managed to get to see Skuld Friday night before she left, although I missed the 5:40 train in and thus all of the actual party. Met her at her place, though, and we sat around with a few other people and played Mario Party and Mario Kart Doubledash, which was fun. I then helped her finish packing, and in the process wound up with a new backpack full of random food and fabric bits and books, that she was getting rid of. We then made ourselves some cups of tea, and sat around on the front steps and talked for a while, which was good - I think I kind of needed it after the last couple of days. She left by taxi for the airport, and I crashed in a spare room in the basement.

Saturday I woke up far too early for my tastes, had a bad cup of tea, and headed to the trains. Got up to Haverhill alright, and met Mara in the very hot weather - 87F. Because there were a bunch of people at her house, we opted to wander around the antique stores there for a bit, and then head to Exeter, where we did some more browsing, I had a wonderful bacon tomato sandwich - that was less than five dollars, too - and then, finally, we headed back to her house. We played some DDR, and went swimming in a brief summer shower, and then went to see Madagascar, which I had seen already, but didn't mind seeing again. We did some shopping before-hand - I picked up Vienna Teng's album Warm Strangers, and we bought cheese and crackers that we then proceded to sneak into the movie theatre. After that, we went back to her house, which was again full of people, played a little bit more DDR, and watched Blade. Then we went to sleep, and now she's at work, and I'm going to read Shoebox Project.

Love to all, thank you guys <3

...And I haven't done anything stupid yet. Not even thrown anything, although this is the wrong type of feeling for that. I wish I could be angry. Angry is always easier - throw a few things, punch a few walls, yell at my brother, and then I calm down, and everything is fine again. But I can't manage angry. Can't live with her, it seems - or more accurately, she can't live with me - but I can't live without her, either. I'm hopeless. Worthless. I fail at relationships. For some reason, I keep trying anyway. It's both a blessing and a curse, I think - I can keep moving through everything life throws at me, because I keep believing, hoping that things will get better, even though they never really seem to. *sigh* Optimism has it's virtues, but pessimism hurts less.

Everything's fallen apart, again, and I don't think I can put it back together. Not well enough, anyway. I've been through this before, and it only makes things worse, never better, distances me from people, shatters trust, relationships. Hell, Rose still pretends I don't exist, and it still hurts.

I don't know if the fact that she'll probably never read this is comforting or not. Not, I think, because I want her to know. I had things to share, and I'm left with nobody to share them with any more. I'll probably mail back the books I borrowed on Monday - I can't look at them without crying. Kind of a pity, my library doesn't have them. Suppose I can request from other libraries, although that's a pain and I end up owing libraries I don't go to three dollars in overdue fines. But it would hurt less than this does.

Six hours, and I miss her already. I don't know how I'm going to live, except I know that I will, somehow. I always pull through. Not going to sleep well tonight, having had nightmares just come true. I'd add 'if I sleep at all', but I know if nothing else, pure exhaustion will claim me by eight or nine am. When I fall asleep is more likely to depend on when I finally tear myself away from being masochistic and reading old journal entries.

(Also, anyone who's thinking of complaining about me being melodramatic and that I should just shut up and get over it? Say it if you like, I don't give a fuck, but it won't change anything other than making me not like you, because I don't tell you what to write about in your journal. You don't have to read it.)

...I've just been dumped.

God I hate my life.

One of the most emotionally hurtful things I personally have experienced is knowing that someone you care about is doing their best to actively pretend you don't exist, and there's nothing you can do about it. Don't do it, kids. Well, unless you want to make me absolutely miserable.

I have three deep, large blisters rapidly forming on the palm of my right hand. On the plus side, our living room is now a rather nice shade of yellow, and that says something coming from me.

I was going to finish writing letters, but I don't think I have the mental energy to pretend to be interesting for three pages right now. I did get your letter, Yuumei, thank you <3

Neil Gaiman blogging about tea made me decide it was time for a tea-post myself, because tea keeps me sane - I usually have at least one cup of tea a day, if not more. He linked two little interesting bits, which I thought worth sharing - the BBC on ho w to make a perfect cup of tea, and an essay by George Orwell on the same subject, although with less pictures. I personally subscribe to the strong tea with lots of sugar school of thought, although I made my tea by the mug in the microwave, because I am a Bad Person, although sometimes I'll use the electric kettle we have. We do own a teapot (which lives up to Orwell's requirements) but it's rare that I'm making that much tea at once.

My personal favorites are Earl Grey - it's my 'morning' tea, and I'm currently wandering through different brands to decide which I like the best - Bigelow's Plantation Mint, and Celestial Seasoning's Sleepytime and Country Peach Passion. I have about six or seven other types of tea, too, most of which I like as well ^^

Also, this is something tasty to do with Earl Grey, and yes, you can do it with bagged tea too - I haven't quite moved up to loose-leaf tea yet (although I have some loose-leaf green), so all I have is bags.

Thoughts on tea, anyone ^^?

EDIT: Just realized this is an appropriate entry to give a salute to the worst cup of tea I've had in my life XD Anime Evolution last summer - we made ourselves a (cooking) pot of tea, to have some caffiene for our costuming all-nighter. The pot was suspect, Vancouver tap water (Northwest water in general, actually) has this awful mineral taste, the only tea bags we had were some Lipton ones that we found laying around (or someone brought? Can't recall), and we had to sweeten it with Marina and Elisha's lemon drops, because there was no sugar. It was awful, but did serve it's purpose.

It would appear that I am somewhat special in some respects - mostly that when people say that they'll do something, it means a lot to me that they actually do so. My memory is kind of wierd in what it does and does not remember, and one of the things that I do tend to remember is things people have said they'll do. And when they don't, which happens far too often, it makes me feel like I can't trust that person as much, which is not a happy feeling.

I do my absolute best to not promise anything I can't be positive I can deliver. Please, do me the favor of giving me the same thing.

(Real life post coming at some point, along with movie reviews, but I'm too upset right now, so I'm going to go play video games instead for a bit.)

1) Please, don't try to talk to me about colleges. No, really - I'd like to enjoy vacation without worries for a while, and I'd like to think you all would enjoy me not having a nervous breakdown. Thank you.

2) I'm re-reading A Long, Hard Road. So, uh, if I'm scarce the next week or so online...I'll see you when it spits me out the other side XD;? (Damn you, Skuld, this is all your fault. And you're probably laughing maniaclly about it, too.)