The Following Journal has been rated M for Mature, for strong language, pessimism, self-loathing, contradicting thoughts, and lashing out at those I care about.

Thought #1: I Hate My Life
I understand that this statement is going a bit over the top, but to say any less than this would be to not get my full meaning across. I'm not in High School, and I would prefer to think I'm not always jumping to the worst possible version of events, but there comes a point where all the weight coming down upon you cannot come to any other knee-jerk reaction that to say that your entire life sucks.

I know my entire life has not sucked. It's had it's ups and it's downs... arguably more downs than ups, but that's realism, not pessimism. While other people's lives have most assuredly been worse than my own, mine has been pretty shitty, at least to me, overall. Everything must be taken in perspective, and with a grain of salt, but overall, there you are.

I cannot escape the feelings that my friends think less and less of me as days go by... that my roommate, a friend I've only made in recent years, thinks of me like a freeloader. I don't even always sleep at home now because of the possibility that we'll have to interact and I'll hear something like "Well, I pay the powerbill, so that's really what the problem is" when I'm talking about her boyfriend leaving the television on for 12+ hours straight with GAM (Games Screen Setting) burning into it when they left to go to Greenville this weekend. It was a total Jeff moment.

Thought #2: I Need My Damn Car
Though my previous Journal Entry took all the blame of what's gone on in my life and left it squarely on my shoulders, this one is not nearly as happy, nor as logical. This is me venting and attempting to feel better or worse by the time this Journal is over. So, for the moment, let's assume that things going wrong in my life haven't been entirely my fault.

Last year, at my annual party (ES11) in June, my Car stopped working. It's been that long. Throughout that time, my Step-Dad Jeff (you'll see his name in the previous thought) has decided to try and use his own time to fix my car. This has happened before, and I should have gone with my first instinct and ignored his words on the matter. Instead, I sit here typing a depressing journal entry for no one to care about.

Basic idea goes like this: My Car breaks. It will cost such and such amount for the mechanic to fix it. Sometimes I have a job for this part. I did when it happened this time. Jeff insists that him and his brother Doug can fix my car and save me hundreds of dollars. This is true, and I know it, so I end up agreeing. Fast forward, and they have to do it all in their spare time. Who knows when that might be? And, most importantly, my car does not like to work. It's not called the Kobayashi Maru for nothing (Wiki it if you don't know).

So, months pass, and instead of saving me hundreds of dollars, it has (in a way) cost me my job. I had to rely on others to get me to and from work, and while I'm appreciative of that, it also meant getting there and back was not entirely up to me and my need to get to work. It is, partially, the reason I no longer have a job. However, having taken all the blame unto myself already, I'm mostly past that point by now. Now, I'm sick of myself and my life, and my joblessness, and I need my fucking car if I'm going to be able to find a new job. It's been running for about a week plus now, and I'm supposed to pick it up this weekend...

Now, I get an E-Mail telling me Jeff would like to get a new Muffler for it. What? It runs, I'll get one later. I don't give a shit if it makes noise, it moves the hell around doesn't it? Fuck all, I'll figure it out later. I need to be able to get a job, Holy Shit...

Thought #3: I'm Going to be Homeless, One Way or Another
Recently engaged Sarah Short, my roomie, is not happy with me. I know this. I also can't make her happy with me. She wont watch movies with me, she doesn't talk to me, or when she does, she makes references to how I'm not contributing any money... the same girl who—a month ago—said that things would be OK... even when I warned her about my innability to get a job, and how it was Christmas and all that... that she could expect that I wouldn't have an income until sometime in February. This, at the time, came from the all-caring Sarah as being A-OK.

Supposedly, I'd done so much for her, and she was repaying me. I didn't think that I'd done so much I'd done for her, and I was shocked that she was cool with paying the rent for two people for that long... and I felt really horrible anyway... but she'd made me feel better, and now that's all gone. Now, it's like she hates me... as much as Sarah could actually hate someone. I don't know all of what's happened, but I'm obviously more of a screw-up that I originally thought.

On the one hand, now, Sarah might be going with Crunchy onto base when he goes into the Navy. I don't see that happening, and never did... they have rules and such regarding that, and it usually comes down to seniority and age and all that, and the two of them aren't even married yet. On the other hand, I have Sarah letting the lease run out, and either getting a One Bedroom, or going back to Seneca... that happens in March. The major point here being... I can (if I'm going to try and be optimistic somewhere in here) get my old job back in February. Do I try and go for it? That's hard to say, now isn't it...

On one side, again, I have no place to live here if Sarah leaves me high and dry (a term I'm only allowed to use because she said this would be cool. If she hadn't said this, then I'd have no place to talk). I might as well just go back to the upstate where the trip to LARP is shorter, even though most of the friends who will talk to me are all down here. Either way, I can't move back in with Robert, John, and William. Sarah doesn't seem to want me around, and I really don't want to go back "home". So, therefore, I will be homeless.

Why can't Sarah give me as long as she said? I wouldn't even still be here like this if she hadn't. I'd been in the upstate where I know that if I still can't find a job, I have a place to stay. If I can will it, I can make my job come back to me...

Thought #4: I'll Never Get Another Job
I've had no luck with jobs since my first ones. Early on, from 1992 until about 2002, I did some letterhead and newsletters and such for my mom. Home Business: The Goodlife Company. I didn't really get paid for it, but it was a job. My second, and first paycheck job, was in 2000, doing Computer Tech Support for Clemson University. This was a Summer Job, it ran out in October that year. Then I did some work for Town of Ithaca, as a webpage designer, and Winn-Dixie as a bagger, and so on and so on. In 3 years, I had 9 jobs, including Grant Money jobs from Clemson...

In time, Robert and John let me move in with them, the first time... and during my whole time with them, I never really had a another job... This was during Bush's Second Term, after he'd still never made one Net Job in this country. When John lost his job, they both ended up with their dad her in Columbia. Eventually, Robert got a job at a place called CallTech (my old job) and informed me it would be real easy to get the job for myself. I'd need a place to stay at first, and one again, they were kind enough to go with it.

If I can say one positive thing in this Journal, it would be this: I would not be where I am today (Um.. in the grand scheme, not in the negative "I am so fucked" scheme) were it not for the kindness of others. It has continually restored my faith in humanity as a culture, and further reinforced that the world is in such a shitty way right now because of a select few dickheads who have desided to screw it up for everyone else.

Having said that, and getting to the point, I got a job. Even after Robert lost his, I helped get it back for him (though he would partially belittle it later). When I had my job for nearly a year, I was feeling pretty good. Great even. Sarah and I got an apartment, and she was happier than I'd seen her, ever...

Then I got fired. December First. Way to make a Merry Christmas. As if going home for the holidays wasn't painful enough, now I had to deal with it with family. It wasn't so bad, knowing I'd go back to Columbia and hang with Sarah while I looked for another job.

Then her and Crunchy left me in the Upstate.

It was at this point things were going down hill for me. You see, while I can be a very optimistic person, I can't be that way about having a job. The longest I've ever held a job would be this one I just lost. Every other job has either run out of money, or just run out. Part Time, Temp Service, or someone threating to bring a gun to work and shoot me... whatever the case, I've had 12 jobs in 6 years, and was jobless for 2 and a half. You do the logic. By that experience, how can I expect to have a job anytime soon? I can't. It wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't line up with past experience.

Thought #5: This is All My Fault
No matter how I phrase all of this, I can't get past the fact that I believe in being control over my own destiny. I believe that every choice I make has a cause and effect, and that nothing is set in stone. If I believe that, then I just acknowledge that every fuckin' thing that's gone wrong in my life has been, on the majority, all my fault.

I'd have a car right now if I'd just told Jeff to shove it, that I needed the thing, and that I'd pay a mechanic. I'd have a happy roommate, and a friend who would talk to me, if I still had a job. I would have a job if I both had a car, and hadn't missed so many days, sick or not. I'd not have been sick so bad if I hadn't been stressing over my Points at work and my car. I'd never even be in this mess if I'd saved and gotten a new car. I wouldn't not be able to move in with Robert and John again if I hadn't pissed off John too much, and told William CallTech was an easy job (because he's still living with them, and I can't move back to increase the population in the apartment up to 4 again). Robert and John might never have had to move down here to Columbia if I had found a job in the upstate during those two and a half years with them the first time. I'd never have moved out if I hadn't made my life so unlivable because of bad grades and relations with my family. I'd never have gotten bad grades if it hadn't been for stress at home. I wouldn't have had stress at home if I could have somehow managed to get along with Jeff. Hell, none of this would be all this bad if I'd never even been born...

Or would it?

This is the point where I'm supposed to ramble off the good things I've done in my life, and how I shouldn't feel so bad, so pessimistic... but no matter what good I might do, it's always overshadowed by bad. Hell, no matter what I might do, no matter how good I can feel about it, someone or something will always turn it over on it's head, exposing it for the half-hearted, meaningless effort, mockery of a good deed that it really is.. and that's the burn. Robert hates it when I say it, but: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished."

Thought #6: I Want To Cry
Flashback Humor... I still can't think of anything. I've rambled for this whole journal, and I haven't made myself feel any better. Worse, maybe, but not better. My computer doesn't work, my car doesn't work, my relationships with friends and family don't work... my life doesn't work. I feel like shit, on the inside, and I'm treated like shit on the outside. What's the point?

See you in the Ongoing Plight of Existence...
—The First and Last, The One and Only: Huntermun

P.S.: No, I am not thinking about Suicide.