Can I please get another person who's excited that the health care bill just passed?

Judging by the news feed on my Facebook home page, even in a solidly blue county in a blue state I'm surrounded by conservatives. Show the bill some love, people.

Because every time I'm up too late I always think of things to do that I can't.

"oh, I should probably get in touch with Dr. Kent about lessons this semester oh hey wait it's 4 AM that'd be kind of weird when she checks the e-mail"

Man, you know what they need? And, by "they," I mean Microsoft.

They need a page on xbox.com where you can look at a list of every achievement you've gotten, in the order you've got them. Like, with them separated by game, and the games listed in the order you played them, it's not hard to figure out, but a nice long list of all of them, the day you got them, the Gamerscore that achievement brought you to overall... it'd be nice, all I'm sayin'.

Man, I dunno why killing things in a video game feels so good, but it's so great for takin' your mind off things.

It turns out Gears of War is a better game than I first gave it credit for.

I feel more and more pathetic these days.

It just seems like everything I try to do either backfires or just doesn't work for me. Nothing appears to be heading in a positive direction for me. Trying to fix old problems just makes them worse, and trying to avoid new problems brings on more than I was attempting to dodge. Then they just tend to snowball, and nothing will go right.

Even in places or activities I scoff at, and make fun of, I find myself failing where so many around me succeed.

I just can't see how things all fell apart for me.

I promise I'm not angry. Just... sad, I guess. Or maybe disappointed.

But I feel like nobody understands where I'm coming from when I do get upset on this issue, so I just need to throw this out there.

Because I'm still at HCC, I've got maybe one or two friends left in Columbia, and none of whom I would consider particularly close. Not for lack of having friends, just everybody's out of town. So, when I make plans with somebody at another school, it's because in Columbia I've got nothing to do. So, when the plans I make fall through, the friends at other schools I make plans with have roommates/floormates/dormmates/classmates/schoolmates/etc. that they can just call up to say "hey, let's hang" and nothing happens. But for me, when those plans fall through, I get to be at home alone watching TV or something. And because kids aren't particularly consistent, this happening with any sort of regularity adds up rather quickly.

And that is why I get so frustrated every time plans fall through. And I feel like the people I make plans with don't notice, because they can make backup plans on a moment's notice.

Not a pointed jab at anyone, I promise. I just feel like this needed to be said.

Man, you guys all fail at being college students when I need you to. Why am I always the only one online at 3 45 in the morning? :P

Anyway, some crazy shit just went down in my head, but in a really good way. If you want the whole story, IM me or something, I decided I'm tired and don't want to type it up.

Basically, work was a bitch, and I was just like, "I need a goddamn drink right now." So I told Cory to get me some booze. He didn't. I went down to CP. Before I could get to a frat party, some friends of mine thought it was gonna get busted, so they left. So, we went to another one. They ran out of beer literally five minutes after we got there. But even so, I had a pretty great time. And on the way home, I put on some Elton John because I was looking for some mellow music for the drive home. And then Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters came on, and my life at present clicked into place.

I've been acting like the biggest bitch for two months now. I mean, I acknowledge that my relationship with Amanda was pretty great, but so what? It turns out a girl that I liked wasn't right for me. Why should I care? In the grand scheme of things, what the fuck does that even matter? This has been in the back of my head for the longest time, and tonight it finally came to the forefront. Like, even the big stuff in my life. My Dad let something slip earlier this month about money being tight, in reference to my schooling. If that's the case, I take a semester off and work to make some money. My teacher told me otherwise, but I was afraid of failing this english course. So what? If I did, I take it again. The important thing in life is to pick your battles, and in the ones that matter, never give up, come hell or high water.

And the main point I realized is that I've been taking my friends for granted. I'm surrounded by some of the best people I've ever met, and even when I'm being a huge whiny bitch and ignoring them except when I want to bitch about my problems, they're right by my side, wishing me the best. And I haven't seen how valuable that is until tonight. And I mean, look at how things are with Amanda. Amidst me being a whiny bitch, I found the time to yell at her time and time again. And still, she's not against the idea of us being friends! So why the fuck am I so concerned that our relationship didn't work out? She's a great girl, and I should be so lucky to have her as a friend. So why am I so concerned about a relationship? In short, I don't know. But now, I don't give a damn.

tl;dr I'm finally getting over Amanda, and I'm actually happy when I think about the future.

and I thank the Lord for the people I have found...

ADD is an awful thing. Like, I have little to no motivation anymore, and my life is pretty based on instant gratification. I need to save up money, because I have so little of it at the moment, yet I find myself going out to lunch with brooks several times a week. I need to pass all of my classes so I can transfer for the fall, yet I find it increasingly difficult to sit down and get my work done. Things of that nature. Most recently it's the songs I was planning on writing. I put in a solid few hours of work the night I wrote that last entry, and got a decent amount of my first song done... and haven't touched it since. Like, a lot of the time I'm sitting in my basement- right now, for instance- in the back of my mind there are several ideas being bounced around as to what I should be doing with my time, and one of the most prominent is usually "you should go work on those songs of yours!" But I never do, because I'm not motivated to do so, and I lack the focus that would help in that department.

I'm talking to Dr. Wells a lot about it these days, and I brought up drugs last session, so I may find myself on Ritalin or Aderol or something sometime soon. If I do hopefully I can get writing again and show off my work.

If anybody was hoping to hear some songs it'll be a while. Sorry. ><

In other news, I only have three more closing shifts to work this weekend. woooooooooooooo working until 1 in the morning

So, I don't know if anybody actually reads this ol' LJ o' mine anymore, but it's wonderful self-therapy, so I'ma keep at it. And write this post for posterity's sake.

I'm finding it hard to get over Amanda. I've never done so before. The rush of emotions hitting me these days is the most confusing thing I've ever been faced with. And all this time I thought I was just looking for some comfort from somebody, something I haven't gotten too much of since we broke up, but good ol' Tini comes through in the clutch yet again.

She was telling me about this cathartic exercise she knows of, where you make a music playlist that kinda goes through the emotions of the relationship in order, and then the last few songs are about what you want to feel next, and it's supposed to help push you towards that goal. I took her advice and did so, and realized this is the perfect opportunity to get back into guitar playing; and, going above and beyond, the perfect opportunity to finally hone my songwriting.

So, over the next however long it takes while I have time, I'm writing and hopefully recording an entire album. I have a mic for my computers, so after I've written at least half of the album, say, I'm going to look into getting myself Logic or MusicMaker or something, so that I can make mp3's of all of these songs. It's a work in progress, so don't expect much, but when I finish with some songs I'll probably post them here for whoever wants to see them. If you drop by my place, or if we're hanging out and there's nothing better to do, feel free to see what I've got so far or even, if I've done enough, hear a song or two. It'd be great to get some feedback on how I'm doing. Hopefully I can get the songwriting done before I'm off to JMU, but that's probably wishful thinking.

Wish me luck, guys. I want to see this through to the end, so try to keep me on task, ok?