The Color Of Infinity Inside An Empty Glass

I think it'd be neat if everyone who knows me would take a part in both of these links.

"http://kevan.org/johari?name=Stephen+G." and "http://kevan.org/nohari?name=Stephen+G."

The first link describes how you perceive me positively, the second how you perceive me negatively.

If you participate, please be honest. Especially about the negative.

Stephen

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: The Fortunes - Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again

I said that I'd take a while to appropriately rename my journal. It took a little longer than I was expecting, though. I've been kind of depressed lately, depressed and tired. But yes... The Color Of Infinity Inside An Empty Glass. And I've already broken one of my resolutions. Easy to let go of Erin, easy to let go of Robin (surprisingly enough), but I'll be goddamned if I can stop thinking about Malissa. I try so hard to think about things that won't bring my train of thought there and it's just not happening.

This morning on the bus, I closed my eyes and my mind was immediately swallowed by a dream of finding Malissa again and making up with her. I wonder if I'll ever let her go. Free to be out of my hair, my memories, my life. Right now, it seems as though I can't do anything.

For the first time in my life, I wish I had a counselor.

Tired of being alone.

Stephen

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Regine Velasquez - I'll Never Love This Way Again

Another new year, and I've got things on my mind. Now is the perfect time for me to start writing here in my journal again.

For a long time, for like... only heaven knows how long at this point, I've made it perfectly clear that no one in this world is truly beneath my contempt. And share my contempt for the world and the people in it, I have. But I think that the time has come for that to end. I think all the hate and the anger that I hold inside is poisoning me. It's sucking the very life out of me, and I find it very hard to find things to be happy about. And when I find moments where I can be happy, the feeling is fleeting.

It never used to be this way. There's a different me inside that is trying to claw it's way out and as it continues to emerge, I feel like I'm losing more and more of who I used to be. In my dreams, there is an outdoor swimming pool that is surrounded by four apartment buildings in a representation of the place I lived when I was 8 years old. In my dreams, my father comes to get me so that I can come live with him, just like he did when I was eight years old. But he's not my father in my dreams. He's a raging, monstrous thing that devours me, only when it devours me, I'm watching from a balcony across the way. I watch myself get eaten and I look down, and I'm clad in armor that's made entirely of crystal, and I'm holding this large broadsword in my left hand, and the blade is crystal as well. It all glows blue, and when I wear it, I feel like I feel when I watch my Sailormoon. Like nothing can stop me, and that this is the destiny that I have been waiting all my life for. And I wage war with this monstrous thing, and as I fight it, my sword begins to be deflected by another weapon, and I look up, and the monstrous thing is me. In hideous plate mail, covered in blood and gore, and the blade is darker than black, and it drips blood. And I know that this is my moment, that I have to fight with all my strength, and I do. And it's not enough. And I look up, and I see this dark sword in my hand, and my body is clad in the hideous plate mail, and the sword is plunged through the body that I was in just the moment before. I look up into my own face and I see despair, regret, and pain.

It feels so incredibly real and I know that I fight constantly against the person that I am becoming and that I am losing, and before too long, I will not care anymore and willingly sacrifice any righteous, pure, and good aspect of me and be rid of my morality just to feel an end to the despair, regret, and pain. I refuse to believe that is all that is left for me.

It's time to leave the past behind. Instead of trying so hard to recreate the happy past that I remember and cherish so deeply, I will create a happy future.

Goodbye, Malissa. You'll never know how much I loved you, how much I needed you, how I cursed my own life after I cast you out of it. I gave you my heart and I left it with you for years afterward, but you cannot have it anymore. I'll find a new love when the time comes for me to have it, and I will make things up to you by never repeating the mistakes I made with you with her. You'll be a part of me forever, but you're gone now and I can't live my life wishing you were in it anymore.

Goodbye, Erin. For the longest time, I believed I'd never love again after we parted, and I reinforced my own guilt in relationship after relationship after we went our separate ways. At one time, I believed that you were the one chance I'd have at a soulmate, but now I know the truth. You destroyed me emotionally, you used me, and you left me without love to plant once more and share the flower of my soul with someone else. But I will not hate you anymore. I cannot bear to bear the weight of my own hatred anymore. Peace be with you, my beloved.

Goodbye, Robin. You were the first real friend that I ever had, and because of how close we were, there was no limit to my anger and hate over the way that things ended between you and I the first time. You taught me how to hate, and you taught me how to nurture that hatred and to let it take root in my soul. You have a life now, and I tried vainly to re-enter that life, to make amends for what transpired in the past. But as I told you, the greatest gift I could ever give you is a life without me in it. When we are around each other, I am not who I am now, I am who I used to be. There is no room for that in either of our lives. Peace be with you, my friend.

For the longest time, this diary has been entitled "What A Fool Believes".

No longer. I will find a new expression for the record of my feelings and experiences. I will spend this week thinking of a new title for my journal.

My world will no longer be perceived through the tainted glasses I have worn for so long. I will take them, remove them, and see the world anew. Such is the path of ascension.

Every new day is the first day of the rest of your life. I want a better life. That life begins today.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Avril Lavigne - "Anything But Ordinary"

Friends

What is friendship?
It is borne of the earth itself, forever supportive. It is reliable.
It is forged through fire, refined to purity. It is righteous.
It spans the very water, beautiful and serene. It knows no depth.
It rides on wings like the eagle, swift and ready. It knows no distance.
It is the foundation of love, true and everlasting. It is comfort.
It defies the passage of time, yet adapts to change. It is eternal.
It trembles not in the face of death, it knows no end. It is almighty.
It is everything.

You are more than a friend to me.

You’ve been there for me, no matter what the cost.
My best friend when I believed that all was lost.
You have always stood beside me, and I want to let you know.
I’ll be the one who hears your prayers.
You don’t have to ask me… I’ll be there.
I’ll be the friend you’ll never have to do without.

When you have nothing at all,
you’ll still have nothing to worry about.

Current Mood: contemplative

I think of all the things done.
        Ideas of ideas remade fill my days.
                Decisions made differently.
                        I can only count the ways.

I remember when you cried.
        When I couldn’t give your first kiss.
                I did not appreciate your love.
                        But now, it’s your heart that I miss.

Do you remember the words I wrote for you?
        No… I did not have the heart to show.
                Just more words remain unspoken.
                        A memory of love that only I know.

I want to say the things that I really mean.
        I want to share my heart with you now.
                It wasn’t that I didn’t want to before.
                        It’s just that I didn’t know how.

I remember when I screamed in pain.
        When the heart that adored you turned black.
                My soul dreamed of holding you close.
                        I’d give everything to take it all back.

Do you remember the times we were together?
        There was nothing aside from you and me.
                Realizations of needs achieved.
                        I had to have nothing so I could see.

I remember why I loved you so.
        Do you remember what you felt for me?
                My mind won’t let me forget.
                        You are everything that I see.

Yet I do not see you.
        I cling to my childish fantasy.
                A dream of kisses and love.
                        When none mattered but you and me.

My mind won’t let me go.
        My heart will never forgive.
                I need you to know these things.
                        I’ll love you as long as I live.

Let me make it up to you.
        Allow me to repay you for every mistake.
                I am now the man you wanted of me.
                        I’ll keep trying, as long as it takes.

It's not easy to find the joy in being alive anymore.

I know that I'm depressed. I know that I need help. I know I probably need medication.

But if I need medication to find joy, wouldn't I just be living a lie?

Maybe one day, I can let go of my tight grip on 14 years of rage and just let it take me to my destruction. Maybe.

I dreamed recently that I went to my high school reunion, and Malissa was there. I went up to her and begged her for forgiveness for what I had done, and she smiled and hugged me... and at that moment, I knew I was dreaming. I've become so used to not being happy, I can even tell when I'm dreaming. And I would have sold my eternal soul to have stayed asleep.

Maybe my friend will realize that he'll know what self-hatred is when his wife is no longer around to cry. Maybe.

I wish I was married. Maybe.

Nothing starts the way you want it to, nothing ends the way that you plan.

Another sleepless night.

Happy September 11th, world. Rejoice in the thousands who no longer carry the burden of our world. Hopefully, a better place awaited them.

Hell awaits me. It looms before my eyes every morning when I wake up, wondering why I couldn't have suffocated in my sleep.

Stephen

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: The Cacophonic Trembling Of An Overworked Fan

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Kelly Clarkson - Since You've Been Gone (Club Remix)

I haven't updated in a little over a month. Ah, yes... to start off the entry with the perfectly obvious. This will be a long one. Sorry, all you people who watch me over a friends list. All two of you at this point, perhaps.

I am slowly losing everything and I am slowly becoming loath to do anything about it.

I have a landline and two cellular phones thru Qwest, and the two cellular phones are currently suspended because my mother decided to use all the shared daytime minutes and more for three straight months. Even when I asked her to stop. So now I owe the phone company over $1000. I'll never see my phone service again. I liked my phone number, too. Did I mention that I have to fight for any time on the land line itself? My mother, who insists that Qwest is charging us incorrectly, continues to use the phone endlessly. And the phone is cordless, so the only time she is not on the phone is when the phone actually runs out of power. So I still don't get to use the phone.

This complicates things. Fool that I am, of course, I have gone and met someone who lives in Brighton and I would love to be able to talk to her. But I can't. How attractive can a woman find a man who constantly has to provide the excuse that his mother won't let him use his phone? Ah, well then go drive over there and see her, you say! No no no.

The night of July 4th, some bitch in a Toyota Solara forced herself into my lane while I was driving and I hit her in the rear tire. No. Not the back end. The rear tire. I have my license, the car was insured, it was all good... but the car is totaled and was taken by the insurance company to try and sell off to recover some of the settlement. Which, of course, went to the car company that sold my mom the car. We were SUPPOSED to get over $1000 back, but now we're going to have to sue them because they think we're stupid and forgot how much we were financed for.

I got charged with following too closely, and now I have to go fight the ticket at trial on September 28th. If I plead guilty, then I have no recourse to sue the woman who hit me, her insurance company, or the officer who was too busy looking at her shapely ass to notice that I didn't hit the rear end of her car who ticketed me for following too closely.

No car = no work. No work = no $$$. No $$$ = A Life Filled With Hate.

Robin and I finally made amends and are being friends again, and the times that I spend over at him and Ben's is the only sanity I have, and I'm clinging to it like a precious jewel. I dread going home. I'd hang out with Erik more... but getting to his house costs money. Don't have any. Probably won't for a while.

I've resorted to looking for menial work outside of my temp agency. There's a 7-11 two blocks away from the house... and a Subway, as well. I could work either of those. I could definitely work the Subway. I've done that before. I'd be eating more than just hot dogs and ramen with that. I feel like crying now, but what's the point? I haven't even gotten halfway through this entry.

My friendship with Ben is waning over stupid shit with his girlfriend. I made some sort of stupid, idealistic goal that I would stop letting people walk all over me, which conflicts with Mandy's desire to emulate Ben's mother, of course. So when I asked for an apology, she walks away and then later, blames this whole entire thing on a 'misunderstanding'. Misunderstanding? I'M AN ENGLISH MAJOR. WHEN I ASK FOR AN APOLOGY, I DON'T MUMBLE AND USE SOME SORT OF HAZY REFERENCE. I'M THE LOUD ONE IN THE GROUP, AND IF I ASK FOR AN APOLOGY, IS IT TOO MUCH TO SAY THAT YOU'RE SORRY? Of course it is. I forgot. Let myself get too confident.

They say, "But Steve, you have an insulting sense of humor. When she told you to shut up, she was just going along with you.". Sounds plausible, right? Yeah, they're right. I have an insulting sense of humor. What can I do when I have sealed so much unresolved anger and hate inside myself that it has tainted me irrevocably. That it comes out as a little inner voice? A little conscience that rationalizes everything that horrifies me to think about? WHAT WOULD YOUR HUMOR BE LIKE IF YOU HAD A VOICE INSIDE YOUR HEAD TELLING YOU TO BURY A KNIFE IN SOMEONE'S CHEST BECAUSE YOU'RE CURIOUS AS TO THE SOUND IT'D MAKE GOING IN?

YOU PEOPLE THINK YOU'VE SEEN ME HATE? I fantasize about hurting people all the time, and not in the "God, I wish he would just die and leave me alone." way. No. In the "Wouldn't it be nice if I could just..." way. Don't tell me about my insulting sense of humor. Be glad that I don't tell you what I *TRULY* feel about you. At least in my way, we can still be friends. What few I have left.

I'm done for now. The rage has gone away and left me in my pool of indifference.

The next best thing has to be not caring.

Current Mood: hateful
Current Music: Ayumi Hamasaki - Two of Us (HAL's Mix)

I would like anyone and everyone who reads this, to post in here, something you'd like to do with me someday. Then post this in your journal to find out what I want to do with you.

It's been a while since my last post. I'm back in Denver now, and life is back on a hectic pace. Such as it is with the big city.

I've become a total Buffy-maniac. Erik let me borrow the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I finally got to see Once More With Feeling instead of just listening to the music from it.

Am I happy? I have my moments. It's comfortable to sit in hatred and judgment of other people, but it's not really living. So I take my spots here and there. I'm working, I'm making a fair amount of money. It's a good thing.

Not much to say...

I thought about Malissa the other night. I really wish I hadn't fucked it up with her. She might have just been my best shot at a happy relationship. Who knows?

Let's end it for now with something quirky and fun.

"Why'd you run away? Don't you like my style?
Why don't you come and play? I guarantee a great big smile.
I come from the imagination, and I'm here strictly by your invocation.
So, what do you say? Why don't we dance a while?

I'm the hottest Swing, I'm the Twist N' Shout.
When you've gotta sing, when you've gotta let it out...
You call me and I come a'running.
I turn the music on. I bring the fun in.
Now we're partyin'... that's what it's all about.

Cuz' I know what you feel, girl... I know just what you feel, girl...
All these melodies, they go on too long...
Then that energy starts to come on way too strong.
All those hearts lay open... that must sting.
Plus some customers just start combusting...
That's the penalty when life is but a song...

You brought me down and doomed this town, so when we blow this scene,
back we will go to my kingdom below, and you will be my Queen.
Cuz' I know what you feel, girl... I'll make it real, girl...
I can bring whole cities to ruin and still have time to get a soft-shoe in.
Something's cooking, I'm at the griddle! I bought Nero his very first fiddle!

Now we're partyin'... that's what it's all about.

What a lot of fun... you guys have been real swell...
And there's not a one that can say this ended well.
All those secrets you've been concealing...
Say you're happy now, once more with feeling!
Now I've gotta run, see you all in Hell!"

~~ Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "Once More With Feeling"

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "Once More With Feeling"

"Time can never mend the careless whisper of a good friend.
To the heart and mind, ignorance is kind.
But there's no comfort in the truth.
Pain is all you'll find."

Perhaps there is no comfort in the truth, but perhaps peace comes in the aftermath of the revelation. Earlier today, I felt my rage and the rage of everything around me swell to the surface of my mind and when I reached for my headphone to drown out the thoughts that occupy me when I'm upset, the anger and hatred seemed to absorb the power of my music and for the first time in such a long time, I sat and lost myself in the fantasies of everything that I've been holding back for fifteen years.

My soul is at peace now. The idea was never to lose myself to the hatred I've been saving up for so long. The hatred is, and has always been mine. The time has come me to release it into the world.

"Tonight, the music seems so loud. I wish that we could lose this crowd.
But maybe it's better this way, we'd hurt each other with the things we want to say.
We could have been so good together, we could have lived this dance forever.
But no one's going to dance with me."

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Tamia - "Never Gonna Dance Again"

If your life was a hot gay porn movie... LiveJournal Username Top/Bottom/Flexible? TopBottomMiddleFlexibleAmbidexterous! Gender? MaleFemaleOtherI'm morally opposed to answering this. Length of your foot, in inches Big name porn star, hung but aging leannefraley Drag queen director/producer tunoddenrub Hot young twink who gets double-fucked leannefraley Other big name porn star, less hung but HOT jaster_nietros Extra who plays voyeuristic passer-by jaster_nietros Number of people who buy your movie 65,188,316 Your pimp... uh... I mean agent tunoddenrub Money you make after your agent takes their cut $2 Quiz created by Jen at Blog Quiz

Mwahahahaha!!! Oh lord.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Hate Hate Hate ^_^

You know, one of the things that would make this so much easier to write would be some totally fucking hateful song to keep my fingers moving, ne? :) Life just doesn't work like that for me.

One of the more defining aspects that people know about me is that I cling to my hatred like a warm blanket. It feels good sometimes. In fact, I was talking with my mother the other day while we were heading back from her clinic appointment about the Hispanic population, and I started myself off with, "Well, you know, I don't really consider myself racist, but...", and then just went off on Mexican people, whether they had come to America legally or not. I figure that we should ship all of them back where they came from and bomb the fucker right off the map. So I finish this FORTY FIVE minute diatribe on the failings of the Hispanic race and I sit quietly for a moment afterward and I'm like, "Didn't I start that off with 'I'm not racist or anything, but'??".

So I guess I am racist.

I think, honestly, I am also a really horrible person. People tell me about the shitty things that happen in their life, I find out about it in some way or another and it makes me feel better. Some girl cries over the boy who doesn't love her, and I laugh. Some guy anguishes over not knowing what to do with his life and I chuckle inwardly while trying to offer some sort of advice which has NO root in my heart. Because I don't care anymore.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the world, please come to accept the truth as I have come to see it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Rianna looks to Naota. "Embrace the warmth of pure hate and let it sink slowly into your heart. You'll wake up one morning afterward and know the truth. Life sucks and you die, and the only reason that other people exist for you should be as resources to despoil and squander before moving on to the next unlucky victim. Over and over again in an endlessly vicious spiral until your soul departs your body."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hate will always remain. Friends arrive, some stay a while. They only want to use you for who you are. Love arrives, sometimes it stays, too.

However, love is only there to suck you dry. To turn you into a lifeless husk of the person you used to be. Look at me. I wasn't always this way.

The warmth is there. Like the frigid pool that you jump into that shocks every part of your body until all the warmth left in you has been stolen away and finally... there is the warmth there. Because in the end, it's always colder once you want to leave. Your body is used to it.

Do I want to die? Not especially. Does the thought of not waking up in the morning bother me? Not especially.

*shrugs* It's depressing truth, but in the end, it is the truth. I have my special memories of when my life was worth something. Not even the hate that warms me now can take those away. But alas, they are and always will be memories. Cheers! The world I loved is dead.

Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: Self - What A Fool Believes

I don't even really know what to say.

Let's see. I got fired from ICT for sleeping at my desk. Ugh.
I'm thinking about Luna in that certain way again. I wish I could give up lust for Lent.

However, at least I've been offered three jobs that'll earn me over two thousand a month up in Denver. Just waiting to see where I'm going to stay. Ben says that he wants to get an actual house, which is fine. I just wish I weren't hanging in limbo. I wonder how many people here in the Springs will actually notice that I've left. Or if any of them will care.

I probably won't see any of them again until ICC and then after that... who knows? The tabletop venue here in NC is pretty much non-existent and nobody wants to be a part of it.

Hey, I've gone for like a month without sex! Let the slowly winding road back to celibacy begin. Not that it's all that hard. Whenever I'm sitting around nowadays, it's all I can do to stay awake. Wouldn't it be cool if I really DID happen to fall asleep and not wake up?? :)

Stephen

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: Hate

I met someone named Jessica on Match.com, and she and I went out on a first date tonight.

It was a real first date. I only knew what I knew from her profile and what limited information I dared ask before we got together. I was nervous... excited... terrified. When is it that I never know the right thing to say? That's my bag... always knowing the right thing to say to get the response that I desire.

We ate Red Robin, and played DDR. We shared cola-flavored gummies and tried to watch High Fidelity. Tried... I kept falling asleep.

And we'll do it again soon. Not tomorrow. It's a good thing, I think.

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Queen - I'm Going Slightly Mad

I wish it weren't so hard to breathe...

...not that I can't breathe...

...I just don't want to.

What a fool believes he sees, no wise man man has the power to reason away. What seems to be is always better than nothing, yet it's nothing at all that keeps bringing him back. If love can come, and love can go, why can't love come back?

You were right, Erin. You were so right. I'll never be happy with another woman for as long as I live. I should have left my heart with you and been done with it.

Current Mood: depressed

In the world of the Camarilla, I was just appointed to the position of...

North Central Assistant Regional Storyteller - Tabletop. Let's see that one more time in SUPER SLO MO!!!

~~~~~
Stephen Grigsby, US2003102444
North Central Assistant Regional Storyteller - Tabletop
Assistant Chapter Coordinator - Knights of Rage
Assistant Venue Storyteller - Mage - Narration
~~~~~

That is my official Camarilla title. Ain't that absolutely impressive?

It'd be much more exciting if I weren't single again. *sigh*

More some other time.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Captain Jack - Only You