Purchases

I've ordered all of my stuff which I've decided to buy (obviously). I'm totally psyched about it. Everything together cost $739.79. But I think it's a fucking value considering what I'm getting:



Sony PlayStation 3 Slim



PS3 Remote



Killzone 2



Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots



Samsung P3



P3 Case




Altec Lansing Backbeat 906 Bluetooth Headphones


Everything should be here by the end of the week, or the first week of September at the latest. The PS3 Slim is due to be released on September 1st. When I originally placed my order for it on Amazon, they said that it was out of stock and that it would be delivered sometime between August 29th and October 5th. However, I received an email about 30 minutes ago saying that it would be delivered on September 1st. I'm so fucking stoked. The P3 is estimated to get here tomorrow. I feel like it's the best Christmas early!

My friend Apron downloaded Third Eye Blind's new album, Ursa Major, and uploaded it to his online hard drive. I was able to download it yesterday at the library, and I'm in love with it. As with their previous albums, it's damn brilliant. I'm completely obsessed with the song "Dao of St. Paul".

My mom, sister, and I went to northern Virginia today for a dentist appointment for us, and an orthodontist appointment for my sister. After the dentist visit (which went better than usual, haha), we stopped at a neat thrift store called The Bargain Loft, where my mom and sister got a few things. We also stopped at what we called, "The Bread Store" in Herndon, where we used to live. It's really called Great Harvest Bread Co. The bread is fucking amazing. It was strange driving through Herndon, though. We've been through the town countless times since we left, but we went through some parts we don't usually travel by, today, and it started to affect me.

After we stopped at The Bread Store and The Bargain Loft, we went to my sister's orthodontist. As we pulled into the parking lot, I said, "I have a feeling we're going to run into someone we know." We never did, at the orthodontist's office. We went to K-Mart, afterwards, though, and I saw a guy that used to control the starter and PA system at our swim meets. So, I guess I was kind of right. We did somewhat know him. Or at least recognized him.

Spending and Getting Friendly

Well, I'm getting a PlayStation 3, baby! Sony recently unveiled their new "slim" version of the PS3, with a starting price of $300. Oh, and it comes with a 120GB hard drive. Sweet, yeah? I'd say so. I decided to go ahead and buy it, along with two games: Killzone 2, and Metal Gear Solid 4. I'm so damn excited for it. But I'm in misery waiting. See, when my mom finally told me no to the laptop, I decided to just let it go. But, I also need a new mp3 player, which I was going to buy with the laptop. So I asked her if I could at least get the mp3 player. Her and my dad talked it over and said I could. It's a touchscreen Samsung P3 with bluetooth. So naturally, I'm getting some sweet bluetooth headphones with it, which also double as a headset for if I ever get a phone with bluetooth.

The P3 and headphones, along with a decent leather case for the P3, is about $300, exactly. So I transferred $365 (extra in case I decided to do rushed shipping) from my savings to my parents' bank account on Wednesday. On Thursday night, I found out about the PS3. I debated over it for hours, finally deciding that I would buy it. So, along with the games, everything comes out to $700. I had to transfer another $365 that night (bringing the total to $720), but it takes five days for the transfers to complete. Three days to transfer to an external bank, and two for the external bank to initiate a hold on the funds and confirm that the money is genuine. I won't have all the money until Tuesday, and I wish so bad I could just preorder the PS3 and the mp3 player and stop worrying about it, haha. But the PS3 doesn't ship until September 1, so I have plenty of time. It's just nerve-wracking sitting around waiting, haha. I have no idea how my family will respond to the PS3 showing up at the front door, but oh well!

I'm so excited, I even built a little shelf that's attached to our TV stand that can hold my Wii, PS2, and eventually the PS3. It also has a little cubby to hold my last five played games. It's going to be sweet. <3

Some other news is that me and Brandon made up, haha. Also on Thursday night, as it turns out. Our mutual friend, Kevin (kind of, since I don't really talk to him a lot), offered to help us talk it all out, haha. I agreed, and then waiting for Brandon to download and install MSN. I was so nervous, haha. I was shaking and got really cold. When he finally got in the chatroom, it all just kind of drifted away slowly. It was actually easier than I thought it would be. We both decided to just put it all behind us and start fresh. It feels awesome having Brandon back in my life again.

I would like to talk to Carolyn and patch things up there, but I don't quite know why she is so disliking of me at the moment. One night when I know I won't be forced to get off the internet abruptly, I'll be sure to IM her and try to work things out. I miss Carolyn, too.

Realization of Death

I don't know even where to begin this one. I don't fully know what I need to write down, even. But I need to let some of my thoughts and emotions out, because I feel like I might burst any minute with anger and sadness.

I wonder sometimes why I tell people the things I do. Not that I lie, or tell half-truths, or anything like that. What I mean is: I wonder if I tell people things just to get some pity and attention? I feel like everything that comes out of my mouth to friends is just a story with an ulterior motive for compassion. I find myself questioning everything I say, now. Because of it, though, I hardly ever elaborate on what's bothering me because I feel like I'm just seeking attention, hence the bottling of emotions.

Not that there's much anyone could do for me even if I did talk about my problems. And I'm not saying my friends are unreliable or useless. Far from it. It's just that there's only so much they can do from across the country or an entire ocean. Or maybe I'm just a stubborn son of a bitch and refuse to let someone help. Iunno.

The main thing that's had me in the slum lately is Athena's death. My friend, Allie, and I were talking about it a couple nights ago for a brief time. She told me how Ross (Athena's fiance, last I heard) has been a real wreck this past year. It just kind of started getting to me, thinking of how miserable he must be. And it suddenly dawned on me that Athena really is gone. I haven't been able to get that damn thought out of my head for two solid fucking days. No more crazed conversations about sex; no more computer-term euphemisms; no more sweet and random letters arriving in my mailbox from San Francisco. It's so hard to have an inescapable thought swirl around in your head: I feel like I could destroy this whole house out of the pain. It's so tough. I wish I could just have someone's shoulder to cry on, or at least talk to in person, to sit there and watch them listening intently.

The thing that angers me the most is how you can't turn back terrible things that have happened. It's so difficult to imagine her gone. It's like... She was here not long ago, and now it's like she disappeared without a trace. I guess that's why I wasn't affected by the news of her death right away. I just thought, "Oh, she's just taking a break from getting online. She's still there."

I can hardly do anything without being reminded of her. It's like when you break up with someone and you just see things of them everywhere you look.

I wish I could talk to someone that knew her. I debated whether or not to get in touch with Ross to offer support or my condolences. I even asked Allie what she thought, and eventually I decided against it. He has his own support people, he said, and that he wanted to keep it all on the DL. So I think one more person contacting him about it would be wrong. I began to think, then, if I really wanted to offer help, or if I wanted to use him as somebody I could use for support. I don't fucking know.

I miss her so much. I want her back.

Liar

I'm so pissed off right now. A few nights ago, me and my mom were sitting on the futon on our den, and I asked, "Hey, since I'm 18, can't I legally use my savings money if I want to?" She replied, "If you want to go spend $3000, go right ahead." I couldn't believe it. I thought it was permission to use my money how I see fit. But I wasn't sure, so the next night I asked her again, if that's what she really meant, and she said yes. Sweet Jesus!

So I began looking up laptops again, since the custom model I had chosen before was discontinued. I eventually settled on a Dell Studio 17 with a shitload of add-ons that make it a beast, but still a pretty decent price. It's a good all-around laptop, maybe even slightly on the gaming side. However, it doesn't come with a dial-up modem, so I did some searching and found a good one, a TrendNET USB modem, for about $30 from Amazon.

Altogether, the laptop, the USB modem, along with a laptop messenger bag and an 8GB flashdrive, the cost comes out to $1356.96. Not a terribly bad price for everything I get, in my opinion. Relatively cheap, actually.

But for the last few days, my mom's been trying to deny she even said I could spend my money. Everytime I bring it up about buying the laptop, she says we need to talk about it, or that I flatout can't spend the money. And everytime I bring up the fact that she said I could. But, again, every single time she denies it or tries to change her wording around so that she can say I possibly misinterpreted what she said. Bullshit.

I brought it up again tonight, because I'm fucking tired of waiting and putting this off. The same things happened again, and we started to get into an argument when I just stopped, because I wasn't getting anywhere. She then said, "This is why I didn't want to talk about it." Because she knows what she said and she can't deny it. Always, ALWAYS she tries to remind me how in the beginning she told me I had to be just about in school before I could get a laptop. Fuck that, because then I say that she said TWICE that I could spend my money, the latter time with my dad right in front of us. And I know he heard. I don't think he really cares which way it goes, but he definitely doesn't want to cross my mom.

I mean, fuck, I'm going to be getting a laptop eventually. I want to get it now while I'm still able to get it with all of my customizations. And there's also a promotion going on for free 3-5 day shipping on most orders, which mine qualifies for. It'd be cheaper to get it now than to wait and have the price go up even higher.

If you haven't noticed yet, me and my mom don't quite get along.

Nina v. Sweet Krissy

So, the laptop's back. And the speed of my posts has sort of dropped off, haha. I guess since it's been back, and since I still only have a couple hours a day on it, I try to get as much as I can get done. Unfortunately, I've pushed this blog near the bottom of the list.

So what's been going on? I really didn't think that much, but now that I dwell on the past few days, I suppose a decent amount of things have happened. Especially if we're judging by the thoughts and emotions going through me. Let's take this chronologically from oldest to newest events.

Brandon and Carolyn, of course, and what our mutual friend Apron told me a few days ago. Apparently, he was in a conversation with Brandon and Carolyn in which Brandon said, "Hey, you should call Josh." Apron said it was like he kind of felt bad about what happened, so he wanted to call and make amends. Apron asked what I would do if they called, and I said, "I dunno, I haven't decided. But the way I'm feeling right now, I'd probably say, 'Fuck off.'" I didn't really feel that way, at least not completely. I was actually debating whether I would let them back into my life or not. So the next night, I asked Apron more about it, starting with what the context of the conversation was. I don't remember what he said, but it wasn't anything big. He also mentioned that Carolyn said she didn't wanna talk to me, in a cold sort of way. It was odd, like both of them had switched places. At first, Carolyn was okay, and Brandon was the one acting all angry. I wasn't even aware I did a any-fucking-thing to Carolyn.

I can't believe I actually debated what to do. For the next few days I was on edge everytime the phone rang, constantly yelling, "If it's for me, I'm not here!" What a coward I am. I still prefer that they not call, but if they do, I know what to say.

I guess the next thing would be... Nina! Baha. Nina's the second of my two English friends (even though technically she's Australian -.-). We've become quite the flirtatious friends since I've gotten the laptop back. Well, honestly, we flirted a bit before, but we were having fun! But then, she also had a boyfriend then. Now things are a little more... risky, I guess is the word. Or serious. Whatever, haha. It's still flirting and teasing, and I absolutely love it! It has me slightly worried, though. I do love Nina, a lot, and I'm completely enamored with her, haha. But I'm not exactly sure what our status is. And I'm afraid to get too involved with someone who I can't physically see and touch.

Nonetheless, you can't stop emotions, so I'll just follow it wherever it goes. :)

Another thing on my mind about Nina is that, at this moment, I miss her. Christ, the last time I talked to her was the day before yesterday, but I just enjoy talking to her that much. Still, I can't help but think sooner or later my super emotionally-driven clingy side is going to show itself. Personally, I can't stand that side of me, but I also can't help it. Should anything with Nina (or any other girl for that matter) go any further, I'm pretty confident that part of me will come off as so damn unattractive and ugly that it'll kind of ruin what chances I have. Ah well. Like I said, follow it wherever it goes.

I think the next thing would be Sweet Krissy. Oh God, what a strange and complex mind-fuck this is. She's a pornstar. And for some reason, I'm completely obsessed with her. It's normal to be aroused by pornstars, of course. But it's hard for me to look at her and not stare at her whole body to find that beauty floods every part of it. I have more photos of her than any other category or pornstar in my 'collection', and I have a pretty big cache of porn on the computer. I don't quite know why, though. I just find her so beautiful, and it's to the point that after I masturbate to her, I actually just lay there staring at one of her pictures, imagining myself holding her after sex, smelling her hair, caressing her skin.

Like I asked Sammy earlier today: Have you been alone too long when you start being completely enamored with a pornstar? Iunno. She says not. I'm still considering, baha.

Here's a couple of my favorite pictures of her, because I need to find an excuse to look at them again:




I still can't quite put my finger on why she looks so amazing. I know one of the most attractive things in these pictures is her hair. It looks absolutely incredible.

College Troubles

I've decided against Boston University. It's a great college, and I'm sure I would've been happy there, but it was an extreme longshot to get in. Also, they have no Spring semester, and I couldn't stand staying here another year waiting for the Fall 2010 semester. So I began looking at other schools, mostly ones in San Francisco. I narrowed it down to two: San Francisco University, and San Francisco State University. SFU is a Jesuit school, and I'd rather not go to a university with a religious affiliation.

I was just looking at SFSU, and got some depressing news. Because of the California financial crisis, the school is unable to accept applications for the Spring semester. Fuckers, haha. But I'm really liking the school, so I may just go to LFCC for a year, then transfer to SFSU. Another possibility is going to France for working abroad. I've always wanted to go to Europe, and it's a pretty damn cheap way to see it (a part of it, anyway). Nonetheless, it's still quite a substantial amount of money to do it, so I'll need to look into any possible financial aid.

Another concern is whether I'm doing this more to see a couple friends I have in England more than for my own personal growth and experience. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends. But like I've said before, I need to start doing things for myself.

Oh, also, we got a replacement hard drive for our laptop, so that's back. I'm actually typing this blog at home, haha. Yay! It's a little weird having the computer back after not having it to use for so many months. I've even noticed that I'm not always trying to get online. Or at least, not as passionately, haha.