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This is where I will tell my stories. There are many. Some of them are funny.

I am twenty years old today. Today is a Tuesday--January 22, for those keeping track--which should have tipped me off to the horrors that were about to come. I have long held the theory that nothing good ever has come out of a Tuesday in my life. The Oklahoma City bombings, the Columbine school shootings, and the attack by people with and without beards on September 11th are testaments to this theory. That, and Tuesdays are relatively lacking in zest anyhow. Everyone expects you to be at full speed, but it is not quite the hump day. I picture Tuesdays in the same mindframe as people's pictures of Communist Russia.

If Stalin were going to purge me, it would inevitably be on a Tuesday.

The chain of events here do not start on a Tuesday. They start on a Thursday. The previous Thursday is when I caught influenza. Influenza is a disease that makes people feel like dying. People have died from influenza, particularly in the World War One timeframe of American history. They later came up with treatments and cures, to the disappointment of a number of war veterans who came home to find their children reduced to worm food. They were likely shouting, "Big freakin' whoop! Now go find a cure for DEATH." What they needed was Jesus. (Jesus will play a part in this story later.)

I told my girlfriend, Colleen, that I was getting sick. She told me to tell myself not to. Alas, my will is weak, apparently; I got sick anyway. She mothered me in admirable fashion, which was and is greatly appreciated. However, I still had to go to work, because they would not let me call out at Wawa, Inc. Everyone's hours had been slashed as punishment for an audit which revealed $15,000 in profits to be missing. I had nothing to do with this. I just push buttons and make snide remarks. My hours were slashed anyway. I waved goodbye to the fat paycheck, and went into work, sick as a dog.

At work, I did not feel better. In fact, I was so discombobulated that I dropped a twelve-pack of Miller Lite beer. Have you ever seen twelve bottles of beer break at once? Let me describe it for you: picture a rock being dropped into a lake. Now remove the lake. Now picture all the ripples coming from the rock.

That was one of the less-gratifying moments of my life. My shoes still smell like beer. I felt like a drunkard, and I did not even get to drink any beer.

Anyhow, I decided enough was enough on Saturday night. I went to a 24-hour grocery store to obtain some medicine. The 24-hour grocery store was trying to be closed due to inclement weather. The sign "OPEN 24 HOURS" was still lit, however, so I was rather put out. I banged on the door and waved my fist in righteous indignation. They let me in, looking annoyed that they had to tell the truth. This was rather annoying; I intend not to deal with Harris Teeter, Inc. in the future. The store is run by jerks!

I bought Maximum Strength Contac, due to the combination of a coupon and the endorsement of the stuff by Mike Lavieri, who is not an expert on cold/flu medication, but tends to have decent advice. Contac was supposed to remove the symptoms of influenza and make me sleepy. What followed was the most awful thirteen hours I had been through in some time. I was wired. I could not sleep. My limbs and extremities had all gone numb, prompting me to shout "I CAN'T FEEL MY NUTS!" in the chatroom, which prompted Jim Neist, a hunter from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to volunteer to try. I politely declined.

The Contac was so bad that I was actually hallucinating. I have hallucinated before, having tried lysergic acid, or LSD. That, however, was somewhat controllable, and kind of interesting. This, on the other hand, was the polar opposite. I thought I was being chased by demons! And then--get this--I found Jesus. More precisely, Jesus found me. Even more precisely, Jesus drove up in a '64 Oldsmobile and told me to get in so we could make our escape. Two minutes later, he hit a flagpole and died on impact. I survived, of course. I felt relatively awful about the whole situation. "Jesus died for my flu, too?" I thought. This may or may not have some serious philisophical ramifications that I will need to consider at a later time.

At about eight in the morning on Sunday, I gave up attempting to sleep and called Wawa, Inc. I told my manager that I had not slept in three days, "because that would be too long." (Mitch Hedberg jokes are the best.) I gave her the rundown of the sickness, omitting the Jesus story, since I figured that should probably not be told to people you are trying to convince that you are employable and sane. She understood, figuring passing out at the register would bring the "This Wawa has been injury free for _____ days!" plaque back down from one hundred and twenty-eight days to one. The pizza party earned at one hundred and eighty days is simply too precious to risk on Sick Boy.

I watched the football games throughout the day, unable to move from my bed. I had a bet with my friend, Trevor Lilly, regarding the Pittsburgh Steelers / Baltimore Ravens football game. If the Steelers won, Trevor would have to take ten shots of Bacardi 151 in a thirty-minute time span. If the Ravens won, I would have to drink the aforementioned shots. I will see Trevor tonight at ten o'clock, and if he has a bottle with him, it will be fun watching him cradle into a ball and attempt to die.

Drinking Bacardi 151 by the shot is like hitting yourself in the face with a brick. However, once you can handle the awful taste, shots of anything else, no matter how cheap, somehow does not seem so bad anymore. I can now drink cheap vodka without fear.

I have not slept particularly well since Thursday. In fact, I am writing this at three o'clock in the morning, since I cannot sleep anyhow. The one time I have slept well, however, I had a dream I never want to have again. It involved my ex-girlfriend, Jessica, finding my house and going on a rampage. She was stealing my Oatmeal Cream Pies. Why did I have Oatmeal Cream Pies? Then my girlfriend showed up and asked her who she was. They introduced themselves, and I considered extreme violence. Then I woke up. Get out of my head, woman.

On Monday morning, I decided the situation was positively ridiculous, and went to the urgent care center down the way from campus. I went in thinking the flu was being caused by my wisdom teeth coming in, which would also account for my massively swollen gums. (When I brushed my teeth, it looked like I had been hit in the face with a brick. The Bacardi 151 would have been infinitely more tolerable.) The doctor told me that my wisdom teeth were not coming in, but that, in fact, I had contracted gingivitis from fatigue! I did not know this was a cause of gingivitis. Neither did anyone else I know. Anyhow, my gums were swollen due to that, so he gave me an antibiotic and something called "Magic Mouthwash." That is the official medical term for a combination of Mylanta and two other chemicals, one of which starts with "nice." I was pleased. It makes my mouth numb.

Anyhow, that brings me to now, the first day of the spring semester, my birthday, and a Tuesday. I have a flu, I have cold sores on both lips, I have gingivitis from not sleeping, I still cannot sleep, and life pretty much sucks in general. Happy birthday to me. Fuck life.

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In a capitalist society, all problems are supposedly fixed by hard work. I live in a capitalist society. Am I disrespecting capitalism? Probably. The alternatives are almost certainly worse, but at least I could be part of a cool youth movement if this were a communist country. Germans got to tear down a wall and become a part of history. If I tore down a wall, I would be arrested. This seems brutally unfair.

To earn myself some cash, I picked up a job with a corporate entity known as Wawa, Inc. Wawa is a convenience store that doubles as a food market and a gas station. Think of 7-Eleven with better coffee and a built-in Subway, and you have Wawa. They pay me seven dollars for one hour of my time. Actually, they do not pay by the hour, but in forty-second intervals. As such, I am paid eleven cents per minute, or around seven cents per forty seconds. Taken out of context and misread, I can easily fool people into thinking that I live in Indonesia and work for a large shoe company.

Most of the time, I run the register at Wawa, because working with food is the bane of my existence. That is an exaggeration. Jessica is the bane of my existence. Food is just annoying. As such, I am a clerk. Kevin Smiths portrayal of convenience store clerks is inaccurate, but funny. I am much more good-humored about customers; in fact, I consider it a fun little exercise in human interaction. I deal with roughly three to five hundred people per day, who all come in with the preconception that I am going to be nice to them. I am offering a service, so why should they dislike me? I have thirty seconds to leave an impression. I like to think I do so, because I say stupid things to keep myself entertained. Here are some stories from my travails at Wawa, Inc.

- Gasoline vapors are a fire hazard, and sometimes, people seem unable to comprehend this. Never has this been more evident than the day that someone tried to jump their friends car next to a gas pump. For those not in the know, jumping a car can cause sparks. Sparks can cause fire. Sparks plus gasoline vapors can equal certain doom. When we radioed outside to demand that they stop immediately and move their cars, the man said, "It'll only take a second!" I quickly replied, "That's all it takes! Do the words 'You, me and a city block' mean ANYTHING to you?"

- When a person at the register needs some help, there is a little buzzer under the table to push. It makes an annoying buzz that everyone in the store hears. One girl went looking for the buzzer, but was unable to find it. Then she saw a big red button, and decided that this would be it. Now, history would teach us that big red buttons are not to be pushed. They are meant for catastrophe only. This big red button, in particular, is referred to as the E-Stop, or Emergency Stop. This stops the gasoline from flowing if there is a giant spill, fire, or what have you for fifteen minutes. Instead of buzzing for a manager, this girl stopped the gas for fifteen minutes. Needless to say, there were quite a few upset people for that half hour. I gave her the lecture about the big red button, also pointing to the signs around it that said "EMERGENCY ONLY." The state of mind one has to be in is one that I cannot comprehend, not even with drugs.

- Wawa has yellow charity stars, much like the Children's Miracle Network balloons, only the charity focuses on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This made me sad at first, because my favorite way to tell someone I disliked them at the time was to tell them that I hoped they contracted SIDS. One more dream vanished. Anyhow, a large black lady came in one day and bought a Rosie magazine. This automatically rules her out for anything remotely resembling good things. She stopped reading the magazine. She looked at the yellow stars. She scowled at the stars. She looked at me. I smiled! She scowled. "Is there a problem, ma'am?" I asked. She asked me if I knew what these stars meant. I told her about the SIDS charity. She said that this wasn't what the stars were about. "The Nazis made the JEWS wear these during the HOLOCAUST!" she cried.

For a moment, everything sort of came to a screeching halt. She was standing firm and indignant; everyone else around her was in disbelief. Nobody could believe it, and because of her voice, everyone heard it. So they see an indignant, fat black woman on one side, and they see me sputtering as my brain exploded. For reference, this is the sort of star we are talking about:

I informed her of the different between a five-pointed star and the Star of David, and the fact that our charity star did not say "Juden" on it. Suddenly, she changed tune completely. Everything was okay now! So now she gets all chatty, talking about how she had been watching this World War Two documentary with her husband on television. Television is a device that tells us things we could find out in books, and also provides random entertainment, including professional wrestling, round-the-clock news, and pornographic images. Television has rotted this woman's brain. She says to me, "And I watched the whole thing about the Hollycaust, and I says to my husband, 'You know, that was baaaaaaaaaaad!'"

Truly, the most concise and overwhelmingly powerful statement I had ever heard about the Second World War. It was all I could do to restrain myself from strangling her to death with the broken piece of the air machine.

- When you see a sign on the air machine that says free air, do you laugh as much as I do?

- I like the night shift. I like the night shift because it involves drunken people. This is part of the reason that I like the register; people are generally nice to me, since I am providing a service that they want/need, and as such, have no reason to be unreasonable. With drunkards, they may or may not be entirely sure where they are. I love them so. Especially the type who, while complaining about the price of a grilled chicken sub, will cry out, "I'M WRITING MY DAMN CONGRESSMAN!" I replied, "You do that. If he responds, give me a ring."

Also, drunken catfights. Those are always fun. Especially when you know the girls in question, and think it to be a positively delightful idea to call the cops on them. That was a good night.

If there are more, I will post them. This should hold for the moment.

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Being out of money is an awful feeling. The only thing more awful is thinking that you have money, and then the bank tell you that you are a liar. This is what happened to me over the course of this past week (the week before Christmas 2001, for the sake of posterity).

I have been living hand-to-mouth since September. This is not entirely true. It was not like I was homeless or anything of that sort; rather, I was in college. When I live on campus, the idea of having a job does not seem to compute. This is extremely bad, because I spend money at college. I spend money on entertainment, pizza, and women. This adds up after awhile, and then one realizes that one's summer savings were not really that much. This registered in my head around Halloween, roughly.

Thankfully, two streams of revenue were created. ("Streams of revenue" is a jab at Justin Shapiro, a Jewish man from Pennsylvania who owns a cat and a bowl-cut.) One of which came from the college radio station, WGMU, where I was already the assistant music director. That title is somewhat meaningless, considering it was part of the class, not to mention the utter lack of remuneration. However, I get to put it on a resume, and it sounds professional. I am professional. WGMU needed someone to engineer men's basketball games, which was a paying position. I quickly applied for this job. They gave me the job. They also gave two others the job as well. So while the pay is decent, I only got to work once every week and a half for three hours. This would not fund my escapades.

The other stream of revenue came from my parents. My brother is autistic, if you recall, and somebody must watch him during the day. This used to be my job for most of my teenage years, where the pay was comparable to minimum wage at 40 hours a week, but only involved me staying home and using my computer. This job contributed to the gaping vacuum that was my life for about four or five years, since I could not leave the house. They hired me back for Fridays at fifty dollars per day. For tax-free money, I will not complain.

I still needed money, however. The money from WGMU has yet to appear in my bank account, and fifty dollars per week will not get you particularly far. I still needed to buy Christmas presents, so I ended up using my book money. This made me sad, because book money seems holy in a way, sort of like those tax rebate checks everyone got over the summer. By "everyone" I mean "nobody that I know." Dependency has it's drawbacks.

I deposited my book money, which was cash, into my bank account. I then bought my Christmas presents. I saw a movie the next day. A few days later, my bank mailed me two letters. The first had a photocopy of the envelope into which I had deposited my money. Above the photocopy, there was a large number of words that boiled down to this: "The envelope is empty. You are a liar. The fifty dollars we said was in your bank account due to the empty letter has been deducted. Suck my oil." The second letter was an overdraft notice. Since the money I had deposited no longer existed, the money I had charged later that day could not be paid. I am charged thirty dollars.

As you could guess, I was rather put out. More precisely, I wanted to shoot the bank in the face. The logistics of this desire could wait; I was ANGRY.

To remedy my money problems further, I decided to "join the press gang," as I described it to my friends. There is a company that litters college campuses with large quantities of flyers. These flyers advertise "WINTER WORK FOR $18.25!" Since nobody else was hiring at that time, I decided to sign up. They interviewed me, and I was hired. Then I found out what the company was.

Apparently, everybody but myself has a friend who has gone through these people. If not, let me be your friend for a moment. A long time ago, there was an aluminum company called Alcoa. I knew this because Alcoa was a featured stock in a stock market game I used to play as a child. (I am a nerd to my very core.) Alcoa eventually merged with a company called Case Knives, forming some other company that I cannot recall offhand. That company, in turn, formed a company called Vector Marketing. They were created for one purpose, and one purpose alone: the selling of Cutco brand cutlery.

Unwittingly, I had signed on to become a knife salesman.

As the specifics of the job went on, I was partially intrigued. It involved going to other people's houses and performing 30-minute presentations of the knives, which are, in fact, rather impressive. The scissors can cut a penny into a corkscrew. I know this because the manager did it in front of me. I was impressed, but concerned about whether the federal government knew about this blatant violation of the law.

In short, Vector would pay me $18.25 to go to one house and perform one presentation. On the surface, this seemed rather interesting, because I like to think that I have a disposition that would lend well to salesmanship. I would become a car dealer, but I do not own a suit. After conferring with numerous others, I found out that many people either had been with this company, or had a friend who had been with them. The word "scam" was prominent among all their descriptions.

Discouraged, I went looking for yet another job, cursing the economy and wishing I could afford a late-night meal. Then I went to my local convenience store, Wawa. They were hiring for night shifts. I used to work at Wawa, a story that I will get around to telling next time. In fact, I used to work the night shift in a different store. Considering this some sort of karmic Christmas gift (which is probably a paradox unto itself, but I let it pass), I filled out the application and, almost assuredly, got the job. Later that day (today, Christmas Eve), I called up Vector Marketing, and told them I was no longer going to need training, because I was no longer going to be working for them. They asked why, and I told them that I found a better job, so they could shove their knives up their asses. That is not what I told them. Shoving knives in one's ass would likely require more surgery than the Christmas Spirit would be willing to handle, so I only told them the part about the better job. They understood.

All in all, I just wanted to know where my fifty dollars ran off to.

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Now this is a story for the ages.

This is a story that I don't tell often. This is mostly because anyone who knows me on a day-to-day basis, be it digital or otherwise, knows the basics behind it. But it is late at night, and I have a need at the moment to purge this from my system once and for all, with as much detail added as possible. This is a story of two people. There are more than two people involved, with many other bit parts to play, but there are only two people that ultimately matter in this story. This story is from my perspective. It will be told my way.

I, of course, am the first person in this story. I will be played by me. Well, in a larger sense, someone else is probably playing me. This is a story that spans four years, after all, and those years happen to be my teenage years. As such, you could say there are a few different people in my stead. Whether or not the character is evolving is your own decision, after all.

The second person in this story is a girl. Her name changes a few times, somewhere between two and three. One person can play her part. Though it would seem that there are multiple changes, it is all the very same person, and this is an important key to it all.

The story begins in 1998 A.D. We'll use the time that everyone in America would likely use, since Muslim calculations would really throw a wrench into the works, especially considering Muslims have almost no effect at all on this story. The story begins in high school. The story begins in an English class.

Her name was Jessica. She told me to call her Cat. I refused. I liked her given name better. She told me to call her Cat because other people called her Cat. Other people called her Cat because she acted like a cat. When I say this, I mean she took on a great number of feline aspects, including purring, meowing at random things, hissing at people she did not like, curling up into a ball while she slept, and climbing up on the roof of her house. She did not grow a tail, although this story would take a turn for the perverse if she had.

We met in English class and ignored the teacher. We ignored the teacher because we were super-geniuses. That last sentence is false. We ignored the teacher because we were busy talking to each other, and we had a basic knowledge of anything he would talk about at the time. High school English is boring, whether you know the material or not. Now Jessica, on the other hand, was a different story. She was odd, odder than anyone I had met before, and intriguing all the same. She did things that seemed to have no rational explanation except in her own mind. She read a lot of books. She had an interest in fantasy worlds.

That last sentence in the previous paragraph was powerful for me at the time. I had an interest in fantasy worlds. I did not like the real world. The real world involved people I was forced to spend thirty-five hours a week around, a brother who was autistic and unable to have conversation with me, and a best friend who had stolen my bicycle, pawned it, and used the money to buy a video game. The real world could suck it. Bring on the fairy folk!

I was not well liked by my peers at this juncture. Neither was she. Hissing at people tends not to make one friends, after all. And I, of course, am myself. Much more introverted than I am now, less versed with the English language, but still me. That is to say, I was an absolute loon. Most people were convinced that I was legitimately psychotic and in need of therapy. As an aside, the day after Columbine gave me a marked hatred of society that still lingers here and there. This mostly stems from the fact that everybody asked me when I was going to shoot up my own high school, as the boys from Colorado had done. "Will you tell me when youre going to do it, so I can stay home?" they asked. I scowled and replied, "I was going to before, but you know..."

They might be right. I might need therapy after all.

Anyhow, back to Jessica. She seemed like a nice enough girl. In all honesty, she was exactly that. We got along well with each other, because we enjoyed spouting nonsense to each other, comparing musical tastes, literary tastes, and our inner demons. After a few weeks, I decided that this girl should be my girlfriend. After consulting my friend Nick, who thought it was a good idea, I summoned a moderate amount of chutzpah and asked her out on a date; specifically, a movie date. She accepted. I rejoiced.

We saw The Man in the Iron Mask. People might tell you that this movie is bad. This is untrue. Leonardo DiCaprio aside, the movie is just fine. I enjoyed it more in her company, of course. I gave her a kiss at the end of the date. Not a passionate kiss, but a polite kiss on the lips. A few weeks later, I was told that she considered it a stolen kiss. I objected, but in a way, she was correct; I had not asked. She had issues. She had issues with personal affection. At least she did in my situation.

Did I mention she was a Mormon? She was. I will amend that: she still IS. A devout one, in fact. Follows most of the rules strictly. For those not in the know, that includes not drinking caffeine, an idea that seemed unfathomable to me at the time. This also included other things that are not relevant yet.

We broke up over the summer. She wanted time to herself. I found that odd, considering that we only had one date in all of ten weeks or so. Also, she was not supposed to date until she was sixteen. She was fifteen at the time. Her parents gave her this rule. I did not like her parents. She did not like her parents, either. She did not like it when I insulted her parents.

She turned sixteen, and we resumed dating. We did not date while we were dating. We merely talked via phone and Instant Message. We were supposed to have a date at one point, but she no-showed. During the first week of school, I followed her around a lot. I enjoyed spending time with her, and between periods seemed ideal, especially since I could not see her after school. I could not see her after school because I had to watch my brother. My brother did not really need to be watched. My brother was too busy watching TV.

She declared that I was smothering her. Again, I thought that odd, since I figured one had to see a person for more than fifteen minutes a day to even consider the idea of smothering. Regardless, we broke up for the second time. I figured this one was final. She found a new boyfriend. His name was Brad, and I did not like him one bit. Something about his attitude, I think. Also, the fact that he supposedly threw people he did not like into dumpsters, had disassociative identity disorder (better known as multiple-personality syndrome), and got Jessica to consider her dark side to be a separate entity. I considered the same theory, actually, but eventually realized that every side of me is valid, and does not need separate names.

That took a few years, but I got over it. I was a very pretentious teenager.

Moving on with life, I found a new girlfriend in the fall of 1999. I found a new girlfriend by turning off my headlights while driving down an unlit road at midnight. Because I turned off my headlights, I was pulled over for reckless driving. The cop was absolutely furious. "Why would you do that?" he asked. I answered honestly, which was a horrible idea. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," I said. I am sure that he considered discharging his weapon in my forehead at this juncture. I was sent to court, and the judge called me, and I quote, "Goofy! Goofy, goofy, GOOFY!" If I had not had an autistic brother, who I had to drive to school, he would have pulled my license without a second thought. However, he had an autistic son, and understood my family's issues. So I was sent to driving school. My parents, however, took away my license for a month.

Since I had to do that, I had to walk everywhere I went. Since I had to walk everywhere I went, I ended up running into an old friend who had graduated, and was also driving somewhere. That old friend was Yvonne. Yvonne had graduated the year before. The last time I had seen her, she was pregnant by her boyfriend. Now, she was no longer pregnant, and also carting the product of said pregnancy about in the form of one Autumn. She was a cute kid. So was Yvonne. Her boyfriend had become her fiance. We caught up on lives up until then over coffee, and found out that my friends brother was her co-worker. As such, a few weeks later, she popped up at a Halloween party my friend Nick was throwing.

We decided to hang out more often. She wanted a friend. I wanted a female friend. We ended up kissing. Now, this was a bad thing. However, given other facts, it turned out that what I was doing was, in fact, a good thing. Her fiance was abusive. That was unacceptable. I convinced her, too, that this was unacceptable. She ended up taking my virginity.

That is a very important point, but I would rather not dwell on it. People congratulate others who lose their virginity; I do not. This section of the story is why.

Her fiance found out about her, and more importantly, about me. He came to my house with a knife. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to talk to me! He called her names. She laughed. Why was she laughing? He told her to get in his truck. She did, laughing all the while. He told me not to ever go near Yvonne again. I told him not to come to my house with a knife again, because that was damned rude. I rewrote that part of the story for other friends, saying that it would be "ham time" if he ever came back. I said that because ham time is absolutely hysterical in context. However, nobody would have thought it was funny but the friends from the "ham time" fiasco and myself. As such, they did not find it funny, and rather stupid. Win some, lose some.

They broke off the engagement. Soon after, the fiance's grandparents sued for custody of her child. They won easily, because she was spending all her time with me and leaving the child with them. Since the child was the only reason Yvonnes parents let her stay in their house, she was kicked out. I could not house her, for I was still living with MY parents. Besides that, my parents disliked Yvonne. If your son were dating a single mother while still in high school, you probably would disapprove too. In my own defense, she was a nice girl when she was not being a bleeding psychopath. Also, at the time, I had a deep inner need to help everyone I knew. I thought that by being there for her, by getting her away from the abusive fianc, I was doing the right thing. I was getting my own personal gratification from the situation by means of having a girlfriend, but that does not sound nearly as noble, does it?

She needed a place to stay, so she stayed with a co-worker of hers. They slept together within a week of the situation. I was not crushed, surprisingly; in fact, I almost saw it coming. I had a contingency plan, however, and that contingency plan was none other than Jessica. She had broken up with Brad, and needed a date to the senior prom. She saw what was going to happen as clearly as I did. The important part of that equation was that Yvonne and the co-worker had been spotted at a Filter concert snuggling. Also, considering that she had cheated on her fiance with me, what was to stop her from cheating on me with him? I suppose I was hoping I had changed her.

Oh, right. The contingency plan.

The contingency plan went thusly: if Yvonne and I were not a couple by the time of the prom, Jessica would be my date. Yvonne and I were not a couple by the time of the prom. I told Nick's brother to make Yvonne call me from work. She did. I asked her if she had slept with her co-worker. She had. Game over.

In retrospect, Yvonne was the best break-up I have had. She had the common courtesy to go away when I asked her to. Nobody else seemed to do that, save for Sarah, who eventually wound up in a mental institute. That amuses me far more than it should.

Anyhow, Jessica and I were now dating for the third time in the spring of 2000. We were older now, and wiser. I knew what I was saying when I said it, and she had grown out of her contact issues, having had a few kisses with Brad. I soon had kisses of my own. I considered the first one to be the culmination of everything that was right and proper with the world. I still had my own issues, however; I thought of her highly, as I do any girl I claim as a girlfriend, and I did not want to hurt her. I did not want to do things that involved wrecking her moral structure. That sentence is false. I did! I did not want to hurt her, but I wanted her. She had her head on her shoulders, somewhat, so it was not a threat so much as a minor talking point from time to time. We went to the prom together, and we had a hell of a time. She probably treasured it as much as I did.

After we graduated, her family was to move to Colorado. The weeks before said move involved every male who had ever known Jessica crawling out of the woodwork to declare his undying love for her. This annoyed me to no end, which is unsurprising; after all, I had claimed this first! We had said our I-love-yous on the second stint of dating. It is written on a folder somewhere. I wonder if I still have it. Regardless, she thought she could head off any fights over her by breaking up with me and cutting the whole swarm of males off. I told her she was wrong. My friend Nick called her a coward. I demanded a logical reason, and she could not provide one.

She moved to Colorado, and I was angry. I still loved her, but I was angry.

She went to college. I went to college. She went to college in northern Utah. I went to college in northern Virginia. She met a man whose name I cannot recall. I met a girl named Sarah, who is now in a mental institution, to the best of my knowledge. A few months later, Jessica decided that she was going to get engaged to...David? I believe his name was David. I will call him David for the rest of this story, just for continuity. When she decided she was going to be engaged, I was in shock. Not five months ago, she had declared her undying love for me, and suddenly she thought she had found her life mate?

I did not take this news well. In fact, I went to the bathroom to vomit. There was a communal radio in our bathroom, and the radio was playing Radiohead's "Optimistic" while I considered vomiting. The combination of the news and the song ended up creating what I am pretty sure was a nervous breakdown. I do not remember most of the next few minutes afterwards, but I do remember standing on the toilet in a praying-mantis position after the song was over and shaking violently. "That's no good," I thought to myself. Then I went to bed.

I thought she was kidding. She had to be. Nobody gets engaged in three months unless they are on drugs or a famous celebrity, right? As 2000 became 2001, and Sarah plummeted into dementia, dating my friend Nick in the process (leading to us not speaking to one another for a few months, but that is another story), it became apparent that she was not bluffing. She was actually going to go through with this.

I sent my friend Red in to investigate. Red is one of my dearest friends, and tends to have a great deal of insight into other people. Also, Red is a female. Red could have girl talk with Jessica. I could not. Discussions turned up nothing that I did not already know at that point.

Continued conversation with her became more bizarre by the day. We had always had an open line of communication throughout this entire span, whether dating or not, and we knew each other better than anyone. She was changing, however. Her dark side was becoming a bigger topic of conversation. In fact, she had decided that her dark side was also bisexual. This is the exact point where it started to go downhill. Jessica is a Mormon. Her beliefs are not going to let her act on her desires. As most studies will show, a higher level of conservative belief also means a higher interest in things mainstream America would consider twisted. I was seeing one of those situations here. I was also realizing that her desire to get married was linked directly to her own desire to have sex.

She told me I was right. That made me angrier.

After everyone had given their own reasons for believing marriage was a horrible idea, I carefully wrote down every single reason I thought she should not marry David. I thought it was one of the better persuasive things I had written in my life. If I had put as much energy into my studies that I did into understanding Jessica, I would not be in northern Virginia taking college classes. I would be in Oxford. After she read my miniature essay, she replied, "I've thought about what you've said, and I've decided that you're wrong."

"Well, gee, thanks," I said to my computer. The computer did not care. My roommate looked confused because I was talking to inanimate objects, so I gave him a severely clipped version of the story above. I even skipped over the Yvonne chapter. That was another story for another night.

I had decided that there was only one course of action left. If she would not listen to reason through electronic mediums, I would have to take a direct hand. As such, I considered a course of action that I dubbed The Quest to my online friends. The course of action was to drive out to Logan, Utah, and make one last-ditch effort to talk her out of it. If necessary, I would ask her to marry me. It all seemed quite romantic at the time; to others, it still may. A few of my friends said to do it, and others said not to. My friend Henry thought it was the most romantic thing he had ever heard, to the point where he was willing to personally fund my expedition.

I should have known right then that this was a bad idea. When Henry tells me that I have a good idea, I should change my course of action immediately. History has proven this; ask about the Phoenix fiasco sometime, or as my friend Mike put it, the Dark Phoenix Saga.

A few days after I had decided on this course of action, I had a conversation where I had informed Jessica that one of my friends was bisexual. A few hours later, she started hitting on the girl in question. The conversation was logged and sent to me, and it finally dawned on me: all Jessica had ever wanted from me was her attention. All of her problems, all of her inner wrangling, all of it was designed specifically to make others come to her rescue. She enjoyed being a damsel in distress, and if I were to undertake The Quest as planned, it would be the ultimate gratification. I had realized that I was being used. I had realized that the girl that I had loved for years was not the girl who was about to get married. This was foolish.

I cut off contact with her soon after. I blocked her Instant Message screen names, and also those of her friends. I was not to be played any longer.

She eventually married David. She then went on a campaign of using at least six different screen names in order to contact me. I refused to reply. She wanted to know why I cut her off. The catalyst of the situation was that for about two weeks, I removed my entire block list, and when I suddenly popped back onto her screen, her interest was piqued. So I blocked her again, but she did not stop. Finally, she went through my friend Henry to contact me. "A certain someone wants to know why you won't talk to her," he said. That did not go over well. After a short conversation, I told him, "If you're not with me, you're with the terrorists," and blocked him.

She later messaged my friend Nick. "Why won't he talk to me?" she asked. "Because he hates you," he replied. She has not bothered me since. That is the end of the story at this juncture.

I write about this now because I want the story to end. She still haunts my dreams, and she still makes me angry. I wanted to know where the girl I loved had gone, but to ask would be to start the whole cycle over again. I could not move on, because inevitably, somebody would ask about her, be it one of our mutual friends, someone from Utah with an alternate screen name, or some other medium. Somebody would drag me back, and I would remember exactly why I hate her.

I do not hate her because she married someone else. That was inevitable. She is a Mormon, and she was going to marry a Mormon. I hate her because after all is said and done, I do not have an ending. The girl I loved disappeared without a trace, and still comes back every few months to stir up things. Everyone else I came to hate went away. The boy who stole my bicycle moved away; Yvonne disappeared, never to be seen again; Sarah was locked in a mental institute; Nick and I are on speaking terms again. All my stories can be ended. All of them, except one.

If she is not reading this now, she will read this soon. I have the distinct feeling that there is a seventh screen name that she uses to spy on me. My AIM profiles, after all, are widely read, mostly because they entertain people, but partially because they tended to be snippets of what I was thinking or feeling at the time. The AIM profile became this website. My AIM profile contains a link to this website. She is reading this right now.

Hello!

Now that I have your attention, dear, I have a request to make of you. Go away. Go away and never come back. Tell your friends not to mention your name to me. I want you to be erased from my head. The past is what makes us who we are, and I think that through this entire story, I have grown into a greater person. And yet, somehow, the story does not end. Why do you refuse to disappear into the night, half a country away, supposedly happily married and with other friends to watch your song and dance? Why do you have to be the final untied end?

Nick told you that I hate you, and this is entirely true. I do hate you. I have had dreams where you showed up out of nowhere, and I punched you. Imagine that! I am happier now. I have a girlfriend, as you probably know from the rest of this site. You are gone. And yet you are not. You always find new ways of pestering me. And I have to ask you to stop.

I am going to type two more words after this paragraph, and I want this to be the last thought that the two of us ever exchange. You may not have the last word, but you do not need it. You still have your fans, and as such, you can complain to them about what an asshole I am. I could not care less. I only care about whether or not the two words below this paragraph are actually true.

The End.

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I have a habit of reading the newspapers. I do this because people are insane, and there is always a reporter near an insane person. Insane people make for excellent reading, for it is my experience that there is nothing that even the greatest literary mind can invent which cannot be topped by some random wacko who stopped caring about the bounds of reason.

Today, I was reading the online version of the Washington Post, because, as I have stated earlier, I am a poor man. In the Washington Post, there are two wonderful articles. One involves the dissolution of the R&B group Destiny's Child. Destiny's Child is a musical act that sings and dances, flaunting the power of their hindquarters. If one were to believe the song "Bootylicious," said hindquarters could probably cause the tides to reverse and bring forth Neptune himself to bring down the funk music. This article did not amuse me because of the band's dissolution; rather, it amused me because one of the members compared the breakup to the Beatles' split. The member, Kelly Rowlands, said this: "You know how the Beatles broke off-they all did their solo projects and they came back together and they were even stronger."

For the record, the only time the Beatles have come back together was for two songs on the "Anthology" records, over fifteen years after the death of John Lennon, making Kelly Rowlands not only mistaken, but stupid as well. Her solo career will fail.

There is another article in the Sports section concerning Peter Blake. Peter Blake sailed boats in the America's Cup for New Zealand. He was successful. He was also knighted, becoming Sir Peter Blake. He was sailing down the Amazon River, where he was attacked by pirates. The pirates shot him, and Sir Peter Blake died.

Sir Peter Blake was killed by pirates in the year 2001 AD. I only wish I were making this up. This may be sad, but by God, someone was killed by pirates! This is nothing short of ludicrous! I want to be killed by pirates. There is a certain romanticism about it. I hope the pirates had cannons.

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Generally, I am a poor man. I am a poor man because I do not have a job. I do not have a job because I live on campus, and as such, I pretend that I study and further my education. The truth is, like most other college students, I waste my time in front of a computer screen, listening to music, and in my case, working on piddling websites.

However, this means I have little money. In fact, the money that keeps me in college is rapidly dwindling. As such, I filled out a Federal Aid form. This form is sent to the government, and then the government decides whether my family's income, my race and my life situation is worth their granting me money.

They wrote back about a month after I applied, sending me an application for a student loan. This is not federal aid, you see; this means I have to pay the money back, and furthermore, that I am not important to them. Their reasoning is that my parents make enough money to send them to college. Unbeknownst to them, however, that money that would theoretically put me through college is actually being spent on fat black women in nurse's uniforms who sit in my house and watch soap operas.

These fat black women are supposedly watching my brother, who has autism and cannot take care of himself. Autism was made famous by the movie "Rainman." As such, Dustin Hoffman made my life easier by giving me a pop culture reference to compare my situation to. The big difference is that I am not rich, nor am I Tom Cruise. I am definitely glad I am not Tom Cruise, because he is Short and left his wife for no good reason. Also, pictures of Tom Cruise are published in the Enquirer under the heading of homosexual orgies. I do not participate in homosexual orgies. I do not want to be Tom Cruise.

My brother does not want to be Dustin Hoffman, either.

We pay fat black women lots of money to watch my brother. In fact, it takes up the entirety of my mother's paycheck. That paycheck, however, is counted in my parents' total income on the Federal Aid form. As such, fat black women are ruining my life.

The letter the Financial Aid board sent me was very polite, but the politeness was masking the actual statement. The actual statement was, "You can shove your financial aid request up your ass, rich white male. If you want money, take a loan or rob a liquor store." The liquor store part was only implied in my head. However, it does seem rather appealing at the moment. Not only would I have lots of money, I would also have liquor. Then I could be inebriated and not have to worry about money for a few hours.

That same argument fuels heroin users the world over.