Come over right now with Cool Ranch Doritos and juice, and you'll be my best friend, whoever you are. I'll conk out from exhaustion shortly after devouring them, though, so you might want to beat a quick path out. Unless you want to snuggle with me all night, 'cause I'm craving that, too.

I'll go guzzle some water from the fridge outside my door, and crash into bed now. A busy day of showering and scripting awaits me tomorrow. If I'm lucky, I may even have some time to play Diablo.

Joel's sister angers me. I'm sure she's not a bad person, but she is quite accustomed to being a spoiled brat, and queen of her household. She spends hours and hours and hours on the phone, relentless, but when Joel and I talk for an hour, she crabs at him every two minutes to "hurry up" and "get off," because "other people need the phone." Need - ha. Need it to call the same losers she talks to at school all day? I once saw her literally come home from school, kick off her shoes, pick up the phone, and take it upstairs. Practically every time I see her, it is glued to the side of her head. Yet, when Joel and I are talking for maybe fifteen minutes for the first time in three weeks, she has the audacity to pick up the phone, bark into it, "Other people need the phone! GET OFF!" and hang up snippily.

I hate bratty teenagers, who, like, think Mom and Dad should sooo totally pay for their $540 cell-phone bill, 'cause it is sooo not fair that they should have to juggle a job, school, and a social life, like, all at the same time. Worse, I hate their pushover parents for letting them get away with this tripe.

My cat just farted, and it's bloody nasty.

Fights, vomit, unsafe sex, alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, addiction, pressure, unpredictability... okay, so these are things I think of when I think of drinking parties. That's enough to keep me away from them. I understand if you want to make a different choice. I respect your right to make your own decision. That doesn't mean I have to clap you on the back for it, or kill my feelings of fear and disappointment.

Don't be offended that I can't fully believe your words... you say you won't go overboard, but I once told Adam I would never cheat on him. A taste became an addiction, and I got sucked in. That sort of thing has a way of happening to people without them realizing the depths to which they've plunged.

I try to prove that I worry not because I don't trust you, but because I care, perhaps more about you than you do about yourself. You've told me you're willing to settle for less than what you want. I'm thinking of women, of love, in particular, though it has nothing to do with this example. You want commitment, you want a relationship, but would snag most anything that would satisfy your hunger, you said. What if your hunger changes? What if your mouth begins watering for a feeling of acceptance from people who do the things you say you won't? For popularity, for attention... to, just once, be the guy who is congratulated all night for downing the most shots? Any of these hungers may seem easily sated by cracking open a bottle.

You're dipping in a foot, and my hopes conflict. My logic, as always, knows it should win. It says that you're right, I'm assuming, I'm overreacting. But do you know that that just makes me feel worse, for feeling the rest of what I do? Ashamed, of how I feel? Ashamed that I even dream of explaining my beliefs in the hopes that those listening will choose to share them with me.

So my logic hopes you find the water warm and pleasant. But some stupid, selfish part of me hopes the water is icy cold to you, and makes you go away. Scares you away, so I don't have to feel this way anymore.

It hurts me that you think your life is boring. I'm boring. School is boring. Thursdays are boring. You want out? Is this your way? What am I afraid of? Two roads diverge in the wood, and I'm afraid you'll travel down the unfavourable one, and have a hard time returning, or worse, have no desire to. I'm afraid you'll change, I'm afraid you may already have, I'm afraid I won't feel that I know you anymore. I'm afraid I'll watch you sink, choose not to swim, and smile as your lungs fill - lacking the courage to, and being told by my logic not to, turn my eyes away.

Me and drinking do not mix. You see it as good fun; I see it as self-harm. How would you expect me to react to news that you were cutting yourself? Like this, perhaps, and so I do now. I know that you're not doing it now, but one rush might be all it takes. What if you like it? I just love the way my mind wanders. Forget it, everyone will fucking misunderstand this entry. My love will think it means I love another, and the other will think I mean to preach, to guilt him, to change his mind. Whatever. Fuck having feelings, what good are they anyway when I can't even express them without being misunderstood, criticized, and told not to have them. Without being wrong. Without being told by everyone, including myself, that the best thing for everyone is if I just shut the fuck up.

My ear is bleeding. So are my eyes. I'm fucking done with this. And I'm not sorry that I swore. I'm sorry for everything. Ever. Sorry to feel. Sorry to make you feel. Sorry to worry, sorry to mention it, sorry to put you on the defensive. Sorry to care, sorry to have admitted it, sorry to have opened my heart to such a degree - because there was no point, was there. Sorry to Adam, because he'll take your side, and wonder why I give such a shit, and refuse to believe anything but his own misguided conclusion. And I'm sorry to anyone I'll ever do this to again. But mostly, I'm sorry that I don't keep my damn mouth shut until my logic makes my feelings go away.

Hello. I have not been here in awhile.

Adam and I ate too many Skittles earlier.

I found a note on his online journal from one of our friends, saying something like, "Don't worry, you and Emily are just going through a rough patch." It worries me - had he been talking with her about being unhappy with me? We have been fighting a lot lately... but, I tend to forget that fact when things are well again. Earlier tonight, he mentioned that we don't have much in common.... Movies, books, music, though. Those things don't matter to me. Our minds are on the same track when it comes to issues that are important to us. No matter how much a person likes Matthew Good, I won't think they're cool if they're homophobic, you know?

(sigh) Anyway. Moving on.

Joel seemed upset last night, so I sent him an e-card, a lame symbol of the fact that I care, and wish him happy. Taking in his recent sadness causes the same feeling in me. One rant, in particular, seems to crap all over himself, admitting that he's a nice guy, but what's the point, since he isn't being rewarded for it with love. I hope he realizes that he is perfect as who he is, and does not need to change. Joel is an absolute gem. (smiles) Besides, changing to gain people's attentions only works as long as you keep up the façade of the person you are acting as. Once you drop the act, anyone who was initially attracted to it is likely to miss the person you "were," and leave in search of another like that.

Eh, well.... Adam is playing a videogame right now, I'm going to plunk myself in front of it. Adios.

HAPPY (belated) 20th BIRTHDAY, WILLIE....

I write from Joey's! It's been a long time since I used a non-laptop keyboard and a real mouse, so forgive any typos or anything of the sort.

I called Adam's house last night at 12:30 (hadn't realized it had gotten so late!), but nobody answered, and I was afraid to let it ring more than four times in case it woke anyone up. So, I went to sleep pouting 'cause I missed my nuggle-bear. It's funny how we have problems, and spending a night without him makes me forget them.

Joey's roommate + a girl were having sex a lot last night. We were still hearing them at five a.m. Seemed they would stop for awhile, then start up all over again. I don't know what it is with Joey, must be a keen sense, but every place he moves into contains at least one horny jackrabbit.

The amount of junk + clutter he keeps in his place amazes me. And it's just all over the place. Movie ticket stubs, Q-tips, sales receipts from cartons of juice he bought months ago, dirty plates, loose change, booklets from video games, pens, pencils, open packages of gum.... Sometimes, the floor is a sea, the bottom invisible.

He's been playing Final Fantasy X, and I've been alternating between enjoying watching and being reminded of plot points I've forgotten, and swiping the controller to save him from battles or blitzball games he's badly losing.

Otep = O-Town.

Me go away now.

A pic a friend sent me. That's me at the top, and friends Michelle, the blonde, and Melissa, the redhead. I'm putting it here as a reminder to put it in my next entry at OpenDiary.

This is really neat. It's a remix of a song from Final Fantasy X-2, '1000 Words,' in which the English version is layered over the Japanese.

I inflated my gymnastics ball this evening, and did some little exercises on it while watching Velocity. It looks fun on the fitness shows, but I can feel it, it's a real workout. My stomach and thighs were strained. Yech. Oh, well, perhaps I can learn a back-bridge again.

Adam's satellite is all installed, and he called earlier in the midst of watching tons of shows + cartoons I do not get. He's nervous about tomorrow - my first time alone with Joel since... the painful stuff. I wish there were some miracle way to ease his mind, to make him realize that I'm all his, that he can trust me. What I did hurt us both. Perhaps cruelly, I compared it to a child sticking a fork in a toaster. When he's shocked, burned, and injured, he learns that that was a bad thing to have done, and knows better than to do it anymore. Though he knew better to do it in the first place, something compelled him to do it anyway, and he learned the hard way why the wiser had always advised against it.

Enough of that. I finally uploaded my website's new layout. It's nothing much, but it's different.

His birthday is sneaking up - January 29. He'll be twenty! It astounds me that my boyfriend will be twenty years old, a landmark age. I was similarly shocked when he turned nineteen. Meanwhile, I'm stuck in the teens until the first week of August. Not that I mind that - I'm in no hurry to escape the era, but I feel puny and immature around people whose age is rounded up before mine. (Not really - I am not that insecure. Just in a fake, joking-mopems sort of way.)

Anyway, tonight, I thought of good gifts to get him. I like that he + I wear the same size in a lot of clothing styles. Though, my feet are a tad bigger than his, and predictably, he doesn't wear women's tops.

Blast, it's 3:30 a.m. I had intended to hit the PS2 for awhile before I resign to bed, but it's late to start it up. My sister is still here, sleeping in the next room. This is her last night here, though. My older brother showed me a photo today of him + me when I was two and a half. He took me for his sixth-grade child-care module's final project - a mini-day care, for which every classmate had to bring a young child. I'm playing with something on a table, and he's leaning over me, watching. It made me smile.

I'm getting tired, so off I log.