Leap Day Leap Day Leap Day :D

"You’re arguing that the fragile, rare thing is beautiful simply because it is fragile and rare."

-Hazel Grace, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I love Leap Day. I really have no reason other than the fact that it only comes every four years. Also, have you ever seen Leap Year? It was an amazing movie for me. A chick flick that took place in Ireland: Best thing ever! 

On the topic of Leap Year... so there's this Irish tradition that the movie is based on. It's rumored that a long time ago, St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick that the men of Ireland were complete wusses who wouldn't propose and that it wasn't fair to make the ladies of Ireland wait for them to acquire balls (I'm sure that's not how she put it, but it's the way I think of it). St. Patrick eventually gave in and said once every four years (Leap Day, specifically), women could propose to men. According to the movie, the guy couldn't say no. According to the real legend, the guy either had to say yes, give the lady twelve pairs of gloves, or give the lady a silk gown and a kiss. 

I'll tell anyone who'll listen that I'm more Irish than anything else. And my friend Neil who I've liked since our freshman year is also Irish. So I figured I'd tweak the tradition a little bit and tell him I liked him. I meant to do it in person, but I was too sick to go to school today. So as soon as school let out, I started texting him. After the intial "how are you?" and "anything of importance happen today?" texts, I told him I had something to tell him. 

-I like you. 

(a few minutes later) But if you don't like me, that's totally okay. 

-Actually, I was going to ask you out on a date next time I saw you in person. 

Song of the Day:

Dating Rules from my Future Self

Usually around the time I get sick (by the way, for the past three days I've been mostly bedridden) I have a night or two where I just don't sleep. It's not that I'm tired and I can't fall asleep, but that I don't feel like sleeping when there's so much else I could be doing. Most of the time I'll eventually fall asleep, but not until around five am. Usually this leads to me discovering something totally unknown to my brain. These overnight discoveries have included AVEN, transposing music, anime, the Vlogbrothers, and The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee. As you can see, the internet influences a lot of my discoveries :P And it sure did this time. I just watched all nine episodes of a webseries called Dating Rules from my Future Self, and I have to say, it was worth my time. 

So imagine you could send texts to your past self and keep yourself from making what you now know is the biggest mistake of your life. That's what Lucy gets to do- or, at least, her ten-years-in-the-future self does. At the beginning of the series, Present Lucy is still dating the guy she has been for the past four years, who just asked her to marry him. She begins to receive texts from Future Lucy telling her not to do it. She slowly begins to trust herself, both Present and Future, and starts taking control of her life more and becomes the person she wants to be. 

I loved the series. The writing wasn't very well done in my opinion. It was very predictable (though there were a couple of scenes that I should've seen coming but didn't). The overall theme was something done so many times that it literally made me groan. However, I still greatly enjoyed it. The guys were very nice to look at. It was funny. It was cute and happy. It reminded me of the Love Inspired books I used to read like my life depended on it. You know how the story's going to end (in the books, the two main characters will have a fallout about fifty pages from the end, they'll both realize it was a huge misunderstanding usually with the help of a third party, whichever character wasn't originally a devout Christian will become one, and the characters would get engaged and then get married in the epilogue), but you still love reading it because it's dependable and it makes you warm and fuzzy inside. 

I'm hoping that the ninth episode wasn't the end because I'd like to see Lucy blossom more (also Taylor Kinney's super cute). Unfortunately from the looks of it, it was. So I'd have to give the entire series an 8/10 because it could have used a few more twists. But that's just me :D

I Freaking Love My Friends

Last week, I came to the conclusion that my relationship with Ron was one of those "one-way-street" deals that I'm trying to get rid of, especially when he stopped showing up to places he said he would. Because of this, I was in a bad mood at lunch on Friday. I sat down on the couch with Matt and Moxi. Matt picked up on it within a minute. He and Mox worked to cheer me up, and they indulged me and my childish behavior, but they did not pressure me to tell them what was wrong. Joey came super late, but he still came. He sat next to me on the couch and rubbed my back right below the neck where it always hurts. I got tons of hugs from him. I left the library feeling much better.

Saturday was my birthday party. Ron was supposed to come, but he texted me at 4:58 that afternoon: "Hey i dont think ill be able to go now :( mii and my mother had another argument ( which happends a lot ). N she wont let mii go anywhere now. Im sorry... :'(" I texted back "Alright. See you on Tuesday." He never responded.

I decided not to let it bother me. Selby, Neil, and George were all super early, so the four of us hung out together. Raved about things like our love of countries like Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, etc., as well as Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, and our dislike of France and Teddy Roosevelt, and our pity for Russia. Played with the puppy. Stuff like that.

Then Moxi's group arrived. It was her, and her boyfriend Alex, and Joey and his girlfriend Avalon who is Moxi's godsister. Matt arrived a little later. Then Adam's gang arrived. It was him, his girlfriend Brenna, our friend Paul who I'll get to in a separate post because this will be very long anyway, and Jake. My friend Brittany pulled up at the same time. We showed Joey and Paul how much they look alike, and then the two groups kind of split for the majority of the rest of the night. They don't like each other much because of some drama that happened between Adam and Moxi. But they coexisted for me.

The party was just... it was great. I felt loved and wanted. People were happy. My mom and Molly (things are going great with her, by the way) kinda just stayed upstairs the whole time, but that was okay. I took a bunch of pictures, but was constantly leaving my camera places. We confiscated the cheeseballs from Paul and Adam because they couldn't stop eating them. I got some pretty awesome presents which you can see here, as well as a gift certificate to my favorite store from Neil (which isn't pictured because I'm not quite sure where I put it after showing my mom...).

Near the end of the party, I got super-emotional. It was pretty bad. When Adam said he needed to take Brenna and Paul home (I'd given them Benadryl earlier and they both chose the dosage that I warned always knocked me out, and they were asleep in my hallway), I got very close to tears. I hugged Paul like three times, and begged him to be my older brother. He responded "I've always wanted a sister" but his words were super-slurred so everyone told me to ask him again later :P (I ended up asking him again last night. "You're already like a little sister to me! I've told everyone that. xD")

Then it was just me, Matt, Neil, Moxi, and Alex. We hung out in my green room, and I started crying. They all ignored it, but it wasn't the bad ignore. It was the "we realize you're hurting, and we're kinda confused, but you're trying to hide it so we won't make a big deal of it" ignore again. I love that type of ignore. Mox, Alex, and Matt sat on the love seat, and Neil and I both laid down on the floor using my giant stuffed husky as a pillow. We cracked jokes and poked fun and overall just acted like the great group of friends we've become. Alex and Matt have always been tight, and Moxi's dating Alex and they are so in love it's adorable, and Moxi introduced me to them and I dragged Neil along with me. All we were missing was Zach, who is Matt's best friend after Alex. I have more to say about them, but I'll get to that another time.

Eventually Matt pointed out the time and offered Neil a ride home (Moxi and Alex had already arranged to get a ride from him). Matt asked if I wanted him to take Neil. I told him that I didn't want any of them to leave, but if any of them had to leave I wanted them all to leave at once, like ripping off a band-aid. I got hugs from everyone, and they left. And I started sobbing.

It took me a little while to figure out why I was crying so hard. At first I didn't think it was tears of joy, because they don't leave me sobbing. One thing I've noticed about me, though: when I'm depressed, and someone compliments me or show they care, I get teary-eyed. I just got out of a depression that day, and I was still feeling the after-effects. Then I went through... seven hours of people showing that they cared, and I kinda just exploded.

On Sunday, I got to thinking. I have amazing friends. They are absolutely wonderful. I texted Moxi when I had calmed down enough to see.
"Are you guys all still in the same car?"
"Yes <3"
"Can you make everyone promise to not leave me permanently?"
"Matt says he can do that. Alex says of course. Luke" (they call Neil Luke because it bugs me) "says yes. And I say herp derp. <3"
I believe them. And I know Mary will never leave me, and Selby says I'm not allowed to abandon her so it should go both ways, and I've got all these other friends who I don't think are going to leave me alone anytime soon. So what if some people don't want to be my friends? So what if people leave me? So what if people use me? I still have my friends. And if some of them end up being those people who leave, it's okay. I'll make more. So many people come in and out of my life. Even in the past few days I think I've made a new friend on AVEN. So if I'm left by a few, I'll still have others. And even if all my friends leave, I'll still have my family. I won't be alone. I don't need to desperately cling to relationships that aren't healthy for one party or the other. That's a really comforting realization. And for the first time in a long time, I can honestly say I've gone six days being completely content. I hope they continue. 

Song of the Day: "I Can Walk on Water" by Basshunter

Also. Birthdagh.

Today's my birthday! It was so much better than the last two were. My fifteenth birthday made me want to kill myself. Literally. But I've already talked about that. And last year's sucked, too. But overall today was pretty amazing.

Pissed. Off.

There are a couple of nice, happy cheerful blog posts coming up. This is not one of them. 

So I had this friend, who turned out not to be such a great friend after all. I first met him on AVEN. I befriended him even though I suspected from the start that he was close minded, because the first post I ever saw from him was asking how a gray-ace (one that is between asexual and sexual) could possibly exist. Now, I can understand his question. It was the way he worded it. It wasn't "how does this work?" It was "You're all wrong. You're either sexual or asexual. There is no middle ground." It was small-minded and hurtful to me as a gray-ace. But I still became friends with him, because I knew from other posts he made later that he needed a friend. 

It turned out to be a huge mistake. I introduced him to Mary, and that was a mistake as well. He turned out to be not that good of a friend. In fact, honestly, he turned out to be a horrible friend. If he needed to talk to someone, we had to immediately drop everything and tend to him. If we went more than a day without starting a conversation with him, or if we were too busy to get back to him when he sent us a message, he accused us of being selfish and not caring about him. If we needed some time to ourselves, suddenly we're "shutting him off." He constantly would tell us that he's giving up, and then delete his Facebook and stop going on AVEN. He'd post a blog post about how no one cared about him, and people would feel bad for him and let him wallow some more. Then a week later, he'd come crawling back, apologizing for being a terrible person and telling us that if we never want to talk to him again, he'd understand. And we'd take him back. Me because I felt guilty. Her because she's a good person and she cared about him. 

But tonight, I am done. 

Ron and I broke up today, and I'm not talking to this "friend" anymore. I am just done. I'm done with people expecting me to do everything for them, and I'm done with being accused of doing wrong just because my internet's acting up again or I'm too depressed to get out of bed. Because you know what? Shit happens, okay? You can't expect everyone to be there for you every second of the day. I'm done wondering if I've lost him for good. I'm done with the emotional rollercoaster. I'm done feeling guilty. 

I understand needing people. Hell, I need Mary so bad sometimes I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't hear from her. But what he doesn't seem to understand is that other people have lives and problems too. Friendships are two-way streets. I help you, you help me. It goes both ways. I know not all relationships are fifty/fifty. I've been in a lot that are more like seventy/thirty. But it should never be one hundred/zero. That's not friendship, that's counselling, and that requires payment. So I guess even that's not one hundred/zero. (Math Joke: 100/0 isn't possible anyway, you can't divide by zero). When it comes time for the giver to take, the taker should be understanding and willing to pay back their debts. That's just the way it works. At least in my mind. 

/rant

Song of the Day: "Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet" by Fall Out Boy (keeps getting stuck in my head)

Molly

When my mom was just a bit older than me, she got involved with this guy named Bill. He was abusive, physically, emotionally, and sexually. She ended up having two kids with him and giving both up for adoption for fear of what he'd do to them if she brought them home. One was a girl, and one was a boy. My sister, Molly, found us when she was seventeen and I was...eleven? We went up to South Dakota to see her, and then she came down to where we were living at the time to see us. I actually sprained my ankle when we went to see her. I think we have a picture somewhere of me being pushed around the zoo in a stroller >.<

Anyways, we haven't seen her in over five years, and she's currently on a plane to stay with us for a week and a half. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I am beyond excited. I mean, she's my sister, and I love her, and I haven't seen her in forever. But on the other hand... First off, I am a momma's girl. Actually, no. I just love attention. And I know I'm going to get a lot less while my sister's here. It's understandable. But it seems like I haven't been getting attention from the people I really desire it from lately, and it's going to suck to add my mom to that list. Also, the fact that she's coming is kind of bittersweet, because she's going to leave next weekend. It's hard to look forward to something that's going to end. At least for me. And then my mom's going to be sad, and probably take it out on me, and ugh.

But we'll see. I'm currently trying to focus on just the excitement part.

Yikes. I am 46% Furry.

[x] you meow/bark to get attention (only to people I'm comfortable with)
[x] you find pets toys amusing (OH MY GOD SQUEAKY TOYS ARE THE BEST THING EVER)
[ ] you get hyper by the smell of catnip
[x] you growl/hiss when someone gets too close to your food
[x] you growl/hiss when someone you dislike is too close to you
[ ] you purr/shake your leg when someone shows you affection
[ ] if someone tosses a ball, you chase it and bring it back
Total: 4

[ ] you love to be scratched behind the ear
[x] you love fish/meat (meat.)
[ ] you like to stick your head out through the window of a moving car.
[x] you like when people pet your head
[ ] people can make you stop doing stuff by hitting you on the nose with a newspaper
[x] you think feathers are fun to play with
Total: 7

[x] you sleep a lot during daytime (take ALL the naps)
[x] you enjoy scaring birds (Especially seagulls)
[ ] you lick peoples faces to show you like them
[ ] you bite people if they annoy you (occasionally.)
[ ] you tend to steal food from your friends/family's plate when you have eaten all of yours (I never eat all of mine)
[ ] milk or water is your favorite drink
Total: 9

[ ] you own a collar and you enjoy wearing it (eeeeyup. DEAL WITH IT. -puts on shades.-)
[ ] you own a leash and enjoy wearing it
[ ] you own animal ears/tail/paws or a fursuit
[x] you enjoy long walks in the park
[ ] you meow/bark when you see something you want
Total: 10

[ ] you call your hands and feet "paws"
[x] you tilt your head when you do not understand what someone is talking about
[ ] you run to the door when someone mentions a walk
[x] you really enjoy cuddling
[x] you stretch your body and whimper a bit every morning when you wake up (I would call it whimpering. I would call them noises that you can't tell what the fuck they are.)
[ ] you can wake up and go back to sleep right away after looking around
Total: 12

[x]you have your favorite spot besides your bed where you like to sleep (the floor.)
[ ] you meow or bark very often
[x] you hide when you get scared (mostly it's under my table lD)
[ ] you run to the door to see who it is every time someone comes in to the house
[x] you like to chase flying insects and try to catch them with your bare hand
[ ] you tend to chew on stuff a lot
[ ] you like to do tricks to get a treat
Total: 15

[ ] you own a wearable item/tag with your name on it (not gonna say what.)
[x] you refer to yourself as an animal
[x] your username has something to do with animals
[x] your e-mail has something to do with animals
[x] if you get a bleeding wound, you lick it to make it feel better
[ ] you look for edible stuff often
Total: 19

[x] you often find yourself looking through the window for a long time
[ ] you like to say hi to strangers
[x] you like to be petted when you have done something good
[x] people think you act like a pet
[x] you growl/hiss at stuff you do not like
[ ] you like to eat grass
[ ] if you get wet, you shake to get rid of the water
Total: 23

Final total: 23

Take your score and multiply it by 2
Put your title as "I'm _% Furry"

HEY!

HEY!!!!

Hi!

I just spent my evening learning how to make animations with gimp. I'm really enjoying it. Doing stuff like this 

(lyric from "A Favor House Atlantic" by Coheed and Cambria) takes way too long. I'd like to share the first one I made, but that's a Valentine's Day present for my older sister, so it'll have to wait. But yeah, I've been having a lot of fun. 

Friday night I spent my afternoon with my friend Neil. We had a serious heart-to-heart on I believe Wednesday. He said he'd finally listened to my favorite song and wanted to know if I was okay (it's about a guy begging a girl not to kill herself). Friday we hung out and drove around before our high school's improv show. The show was great. Much funnier than last time. There were a couple times where I was dying. It was just a great night out until George accidentally grabbed my boob. But more on all that later, I have a puppy to play with. 

Friend Feature #1: Selby

It's February. Which means I don't have to blog every day. TAKE THAT!

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Selby. I've known her since freshman year because she was in Cambridge with me. The only memory I have of her from that year was the Cambridge Secret Santa. One of the guys got her this adorable stuffed penguin that she loved until she realized it sang and danced. She totally freaked, calling it demonic and possessed. I'm pretty sure she made him take it back. I'll have to check :D 

We became friends sometime during sophomore year. I don't remember ever thinking "Now we are friends" like I can with a lot of my friends. The memory that sticks out to me from that year was the Monopoly tournament. Selby and I had AP GoPo together. After the exam, we learned about economics. One day we played Monopoly in groups, and the top five winners played it again the next class while the rest of us were across the hall playing the lemonade stand game on the computers. Selby was in the winners' group, and so were a couple of jerks that make fun of her a lot. The rest of us went in there one by one to vote on the computer for some student government thing. When I went in there, she squealed my name, ran over to me, gave me a hug, buried her head in my shoulder, and cried about how mean they were being to her. I stayed in there with her until my teacher got angry and called me back. Later, someone came back from voting and said "Um, Mr. Freccia? You might want to go in there. Selby's hiding under a desk." I felt so useless because I could see and hear her agony from my seat across the hall, but I couldn't do anything about it. 

This year, we are in advisory together. She really has become my best friend. (When I say this, I'm not counting Mary. She's a given. She's more than my best friend, she's my sister) Honestly, I feel like she's almost exactly like I would be if I had no inhibitions. She dances and sings. She hates stupid people and ugly people and people who do bad things and people who are fake, and she wants to send them all to Antarctica. The only way any of them would be allowed back would be if they sent her Poptarts. We share this stuffed rabbit named BunBun, also known as Usa-chan. 

He's from an anime called Ouran High School Host Club. My mom bought him for me for Christmas sophomore year. Selby kidnapped him a lot last year. This year we decided that he was my child, but her godchild. She gets custody of him during advisory and Chem class. She took him to Spain for a week last fall. 

Selby doodles a lot. Sometimes, if I'm feeling down, she'll give me her doodles. Monday she made me a whole page of doodles because our teacher moved my seat so I'm not right in front of her anymore. I'm not going to post the whole page, but here are some highlights. 

I told her that I was looking at Marlboro College up in Vermont. The next day, she told me she looked there and said it wasn't for her, but VMU was only two hours away from it and it looked awesome. That's the first time someone like her has ever expressed wanting to continue friendship past high school. It was pretty cool. I looked up VMU and now I want to go there to. Last week I said "So I looked at VMU, and-" and she interrupted me by shouting "GO THERE WITH ME!"

Selby highly amuses me. She's so freaking adorable sometimes. I have to say I feel more protective of her than I do anyone else. I would willingly lay down my life to keep her safe and happy. I can talk to her about anything. I've mentioned so much stuff to her in passing that she picks up on and gives just the right amount of attention to. She gives the right amount of sympathy to my mental health issues, and is constantly telling me that I'm strong. We share pretty much the same views on everything. We both feel strongly about the same issues. Advisory was lengthened for about a week and a half a few weeks ago, and the last day of that we sat there for ninety minutes, ranting about social injustices and homophobes and idiots. 

Sample Selby quotes:

• "I'd write my satire on how I should rule the world, but that wouldn't be a satire." 
• "I'm just going to go into some store and replace all the blue powerades with anti-freeze. Because smart people sniff drinks they realize have been opened before taking a sip. That way, I can get rid of all the stupid people."
• "I would name all my pokemon Buttface Magee."
• "My pants are full of cake."
• "Social problems? Selby will fix!"

Yes I'm Still Alive

It just hurts to type. My arm's healing more quickly than usual, though. Perhaps because it's bandaged so I can't interfere with it.

There is a legit blog post coming your way soon. I'm just having difficulty typing for a long period of time, so it'll take a while. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am fine :P Also, shameless plug. I finally started listening to stuff by my friend's band and I really like them even though it's totally not what I usually listen to. Go check them out. "Gougin' Out Them Eyes" is my favorite.

Breaking Down

You're lying on your bed, sobbing, and you don't quite know why. You just know that you can't stop. You can't breathe. You're trying to calm down, or at least quiet down so your mom doesn't come check on you, but you can't control yourself. You shove your knuckles in your mouth to muffle the sound. You bite down. It hurts, but it feels good. All of a sudden, the things on your bed, the stuffies and the pillows and the blankets, all of them are bothering you. You're desperate to get away from them. They can't touch you. You grab them and throw them across the room with a strangled cry, and then you realize that felt good, too. You hysterically grab everything within your reach and throw it at the wall. It feels good in the moment, but it doesn't help. Nothing helps. Your arm hurts from the dog biting it earlier. You start to scratch at it, first impassively, but it quickly develops into a frenzy. Your hand moves up and down so quickly that it becomes a blur. Your arm rapidly turns red, but you don't care. You want it to bleed. You aren't quite sure why. You expect it'll be satisfying. A small part of you wants whatever's in you that's making you snap to just get out, and that part thinks maybe this is the way. You're making noises that you aren't quite sure how to describe. The tears have slowed, at least, and you're breathing enough to keep from passing out. Your brain's moving so fast that you can't keep up with all of the thoughts. By the time one registers, you're onto the next. You want to die. You want to stop. You want someone to be there with you. You want to go back in time. The thoughts come faster and faster and faster and you can't stop them. You want your mom. You want to be left alone. You want someone to physically stop you. You want the cat to go away. You want to be five years old again. You want to hit somebody. And you keep scratching and scratching. 

And then your mom is calling you from downstairs. You hear your name once, twice, three times. It registers, but you aren't sure what you're supposed to do with that fact. Suddenly, you remember you're supposed to respond. You're supposed to go find her and see what she wants. You get up and walk downstairs. You can tell she's about to yell again, but something in your expression stops her. She asks to see where the dog bit you so she can clean/bandage it. You have no choice but to show her. By now, there are tiny purple dots where you've scratched. She remarks that it looks peculiar for a dog bite, and you tell her that you scratched it. "Oh, it's itching?" "No." She gives you a weird look, but doesn't ask. She washes it off and bandages it. She tells you to go put on long sleeves, and then gives you a hug. You compose yourself on your way upstairs, change, and then go back down. Besides the fact that you can't seem to form a coherent sentence, everything is normal. And you are grateful. 

Song of the Day: "What's Up?" by 4 Non Blondes (Selby keeps singing it to me, and I can't get it out of my head)