September 15, 2002

So I wonder... how long can i go on fooling myself like this?

I see him and I whisper to Amy "He drives me nuts. He's so annoying. I just try to avoid him..." but do I? I mean I say that I can't stand to be around him but sometimes I realize I'm just fooling myself here...

I saw him on my way out of the building and he probably had places to go and things to do but I told myself "wow good thing I'm on my way to work so I don’t have to deal with him now..." but I find myself walking so slowly. Taking each step drastically slower than I normally would in hopes that he'll catch up to me.

in hopes that he'll say "hey how are you??!"

in hopes that he'll really want to know how I am

in hopes that he'll ask where I'm going, say, "Oh to work? Can I come too? Can I follow you around? Can I drop everything I'm doing just for you?

it used to bother me that he was that desperate... that enthusiastic about me... but now I just pray I wasn't making it all up

it's sick but what could be more delightful than knowing a guy is that willing to do anything just for you?

and i doubt it's because he likes me on a physical level... it never was this way before I really got to know him better

But there are other factors that come into play here

I'm greedy and selfish but there's no trying to fool myself into thinking i could be different

I got silly-goofy on rum and diet coke. I played with amber and Neil sang sweet things to me and quoted Blue Velvet to me in a way that was so intensely creepy and yet so amazingly exciting and flattering. I laughed and played and had fun and did no harm to anyone (that I know of) and when the silly buzz was wearing down I (with the help of Dave) walked amber home. Dave and I walked back to the coffee house holding hands. I was still pretty tipsy and I needed someone to hold on to. Dave is so perfect for that.

It was very late. I mean, the house closes to customers at 2am and Neil was kicking people out so I decided Amber should get home before it got much too late, and so by the time Dave and I got back it was probably 2:15-2:30. However, neither of us were tired and we ended up staying up till 5 am doing various things, but mostly talking.

He showed off his fine piano skills by playing an E flat. I wasn't sure how to go about tuning my guitar so I could play some song from my Weezer - Blue Album guitar book... but I wasn't eager to adjust my strings just so I could practice some power chords anyway... but Dave was kind and showed me the difference between E sharp and E flat.

Then we woke up Neil so we had to restrain our activity to quietly chatting. We talked a lot ... and mostly it was Dave pouring his heart out to me about his mother and all I could do was sympathize. I like to think I'm good at offering up advice but I had no clue what would make him feel better. He, on the other hand, made me feel better by telling me he could enjoy my company with out having to be talking. It's such a nice thought to know he enjoys my company! Anyway, I gained a huge respect for this kind boy and realize now his full capacity to care for others is outstanding.

Now if only he could care so much for me... Oh I don't deserve that at all but wouldn't it be divine? If only I could pour my heart out to him about how I truly feel... First I'd have to gain the self confidence needed to put your heart in someone's hands. Then I'd have to find a way to make it less awkward if things went wrong... you know... having to live in the same house with him for the rest of the year and all. I'm just not sure about that. You never know how people are going to react to things, especially the truth.

He went to bed ... and now he may very well be fast asleep in the room next to me, but honestly I doubt it.

Stay hard for 45 minutes or more!
Stay young!
I'm Candy and me and my girlfriends are naked 24 hours a day!
Doctor approved!
Hello, friend. I am Professor John Mimbuto...
Get out of debt!

If my faith in Mankind is tested daily, then SPAM mail is my personal pop-quiz.

To the best of my knowledge, I have been a very hard person to track down and yet SPAM mail finds me wherever I go. I can run from the IRS, I can disappear from my family's radar without a second thought, I can hide from the cops at a moment's notice... even the FBI, CIA and NSA might find me a difficult person to track... but SPAM is like a shadow which trails me night and day, impossible to shake and often noticed at the most awkward of times.

I have had:

25 different mailing addresses (3 in Los Angeles, 1 in Del Mar, 1 in Solanas Beach, 7 in Hendersonville, 5 in Nashville, 1 in Portland, 2 in Bowling Green, 1 in Hemmingway, 3 in Dallas and 1 in Winston-Salem).

20 different phone numbers.

3 different names.

2 different Social Security numbers.

3 different driver's licenses.

If I was to, somehow, wake up with amnesia, then I suspect that I would end up spending a very long time indeed looking for myself.

But SPAM mail can nail me right between the eyes on any day of the week.

Yes, I know that most SPAMMERS are arbitrary, completely unaware of who actually gets their messages.

I'm just annoyed.

Welcome to another issue of Life in the Swedish Army, the weekly dump of entries from my diary, being written as I go through national service in the armed forces of Sweden. See my wu in this node if this is the first of the LitSA rants you've seen. It contains some background info which will be expanded later when I get to writing a proper LitSA metanode.

For those of you who wonder how all of the former "Life in the Swedish Army" nodes suddenly became daylog entries, that's due to the actions of a certain e2 god who decided my rantings weren't important enough to have nodes of their own. Sigh. Anyway, the wu's still link to each other through the next/previous links at the bottom, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. The first one is at June 21, 2002.

Another two weeks have passed. I got transferred, I went to take an EKG test, and I've played with telecom systems worth more than I'll make in a lifetime of hard work (well, almost). After being transferred to the geek platoon I've found that being more of a techie and less of Rambo isn't that bad after all. In fact, I'd be mildly upset if they decided to move me back again. Anyway, on to the diary entries:

September 3, 2002 - 13:41
Lo and behold, I'm out on a field exercise again, but not with my usual platoon - I've been transferred! The people from way up decided to split my previous platoon up, and one half (including myself) were to be spread out across other platoons who were in need of soldiers to fill vacant positions. In short, I went from being a fearsome warrior (insert appropriate Rambo-style visuals here) to being part of a group in charge of getting the army's telecommunications systems in touch with the nation's main grid. More fun than it sounds, fortunately. I'll be working in a group of three, consisting of myself and two others from my old platoon. We'll be commendeering one large all-terrain vehicle filled with expensive equipment. More about this later...

September 4, 2002 - 13:09
Lunch break. This day and yesterday has so far been spent on combat exercises, with me in charge of one group (8 soldiers). One of the funniest things we've done so far. The new platoon is proving to be quite a nice place to be.

(Noted): Remember the axiom: There's no such thing as justice.

September 4, 2002 - 17:13
Wheeew. Combat all day. That Counter-Strike feeling I mentioned several weeks ago is coming back. Wonderful to get so many adrenaline spikes in just one short afternoon! Though I'm practically sweating my clothes off in this heat. It's time to go take a bath.

September 5, 2002 - 09:36
And so, it is time for - you guessed it - more combat exercises. I've just filled three magazines with 30 rounds each. The tax payers must be crying (we'll be spending more than SEK 100 000 worthj of ammo today) but whoever owns the ammo factory is probably laughing all the way to the bank. We each receive 90 rounds for each exercise, and we do 3-6 exercises each day. Wonderful. At the risk of sounding like I think war is a good thing, the feeling you get when you go out into the forest, rifle in hand, is very .. special. It's nothing like what you feel when playing a computer game or somesuch. Still, I'm glad it's just an exercise...

September 5, 2002 - 14:55
The first battle of the day is concluded. Result: VICTORY!
Rounds fired by self: 77 x 5.56 mm
Friendly casualties: 0 (none)
Enemies slain: Lots
Time spent in active combat: 30-40 minutes
Sweating: Massively
Men on own team: 8
Enemies total: 16+

I didn't write anything else during the rest of the field week. Suffice to say we fought some more, kicked lots of enemy ass (and got shot ourselves a few times), and then went home. I forgot to bring my notebook home during the weekend and so were unable to node last week's entries until now. And so, it became next week.

September 11, 2002 - 13:11
Wow. September 11th. Nothing special has happened apart from the fact that every TV channel is filled with stuff related to you-know-what. Seriously, I'm getting tired of hearing about it, I already know all I need to about the WTC, Usama bin Laden, terrorism and everything that happened this time last year. Sigh. Anyway, after spending last week in the field we now have about 7 weeks of telecom systems training to look forward to, which is great. Today I've been in Näsbypark (Stockholm) to do what is known as an EKG exam, in order to find out how my body reacts under extreme pressure, to make sure that I am up to the tasks ahead of me - mast climbing, for example. I passed the test with a very good result (350 W, 9 minutes 39 seconds), top of my group. Now we're in the army's Volvo 240 on our way back.

And that's all for this week. Nothing too special, really. I've managed to get totally hooked on the anime series Saishu Heiki Kanojo (Ultimate Weapon Girlfriend). If you're into anime, check it out. See ya next week.

<-- day 57-70 | day 85-98 -->

I didn't go to church today. I usually go with my friend Dale and his wife. They are good people but sometimes they are a little too fake in the way they act towards people I know they don't care for. For example there is this couple at church that is a young couple and the woman has a pierced tongue. Dale thinks it is a horrible thing and that people with pierced tongues pierce their tongues so they can have multiple sex partner parties. There are probably people on this website who know more about pierced tongues than Dale and could set him straight I bet. I don't know where he gets that idea but he went on about it when we are on the car ride to the hospital after my knee injury. He seems to believe in that it is a signal to others in the underground that this person is willing to engage in group sex and I think he's crazy. Today I told Dale I was under the weather and was going to miss out on church today. I don't really know why I go to a Lutheran church anyway because I was raised Catholic and I mostly go for socialization and I've had trouble talking to the single ladies recently.

Although I was up later at night than usual working on some writing for Everything2 last night I woke up a 6 this morning and was making coffee and English muffins with marmalade by 6:20. I then put a record on so I could listen to "The White Cliffs of Dover" because for some reason it was stuck in my head. I imagined being a fighter pilot in England during WWII which I was born during and therfore wasn't old enough to be in but I wouldn't have been an English fighter pilot anyway because my father was born in Turkey and my mother was born in Italy. Both of my grandfathers were fighting on the losing side in WWI. However the stigma of that isn't as big as having been on the losing side in WWII and when my father moved to Germany after that war it was because of a offer to help with some project of some nature I am not aware of. I do remember when I was little and he took me to the Berlin Wall. He told me to be glad we weren't on the other side of it. He didn't like communists at all and now he's dead.

I've always had a dream of being a hero and getting a medal but it seems like I'm always identified with the bad guys. My grandparents started it I guess and then my father was involved in suspicious activities in Germany before the Americans arranged to have us move here. I guess it was because my father was doing something for him but I have no idea why he ended up working in sales when he came here instead of as a spy or something. It was very suspicious. Now because I am dark skinned and look Middle Eastern in nature people look at me like I might be a terrorist even though I have a smooth bald head and no facial hair and wear a suit instead of Arabic tunic. If I could be an English fighter pilot in WWII people would probably like me better and women would want to date me a lot just to hear my heroic tales.

Because I am so clumsy it would be difficult to be a hero I think. Clumsy people have been heroes and I think Winston Churchill was a pretty powerful hero who wasn't squeaky clean. He drank a lot and was fat but he was a great man so how come now all our heroes are supposed to be perfect good looking thin guys with lots of hair and perfect manners? I blame this on the movies. All the heroes in the movies are good looking except in smaller films but everyone sees the big movies. I saw the "Pearl Harbor" movie when it came out and I kept wondering how all of these pilots could be so good looking. Why couldn't one of them be really freaky looking with bugged out eyes and a lot of acne on his face. Then if he became a hero we would really have something good. Instead we get people who aren't as good looking as Cary Grant getting told they have to mop the floors while the pretty people get all the medals. I want a medal to. But I can't do anything to merit one so I think I'll have some brandy.

I have been on a diet for a really long time. It has not been successful for the duration, but for the past month or two it has accomplished more than I had ever hoped or wanted. It all started with the end of my freshman year of college, when I tipped the scales at an enormous one hundred fifty pounds upon my return home from living in the dorms. But the fact is, no one knew I was heavier -- my clothes still fit, a little snuggly but not in the tight manner of hoochiness; a steady size 6, perhaps pushing towards an 8. I looked more or less the same, and actually received compliments from several relatives who were accustomed to seeing me as "Tall Skinny," the bony pale girl who wondered around at reunions keeping mostly to herself. At my cousin second wedding in 1997, I was in much the same situation... months of dieting with minimal results, on the verge of delving into the shadowy world of obsession and other scary unmentionables. And now I find myself at that gate, once again, one week before that same cousin's sister's first wedding, which is to take place on September 21.

The only difference is that I am conscious of my decisions and their consequences this time. I know my hair will start falling out any day now if I push myself further than I already have, my beautiful long hair that I worked so hard to grow back after the first time around. The bones have returned, the inability to sit on hard surfaces without bruising horribly, my spine digs into every chair back no matter how I sit. And yet these drawbacks do not, in fact, draw me back to safety.

I am now a size three in jeans. I have shed thirty three pounds since May, fourteen of them since the last days of August. I went shopping yesterday and discovered that a dress size of 1/2 in the junior department is too large. What am I going to wear to the wedding? All of my dresses hang from my frame and mock what I have worked so hard to become. I am thin, I can see that in the mirror. The only thing that scares me is the little hollow right where my ribs begin to separate, the dent that I fear lies right above my heart with nothing in between, no padding to stop a quick punch to the solar plexus from killing me.

And yet this is not as thin as I used to be; I am still well over twenty five pounds above where I know I am capable of going. The only difference is I can still walk at this weight, still ride my bike to class and climb three flights of stairs with only a few breaks on the way up. I have come to rely on elevators more and more, and standing for more than two hours is impossible. I get dizzy a lot. But I am thin.

But, as always, not thin enough.

There seem to be a lot of numbers floating around my head, as a way to focus. Some of you may have noticed my homenode and the records I have been keeping there, the overabundance of numerical data with no significance whatsoever besides the calming effect on my nerves. Here is what I am talking about:

---

FOOD DIARY

---

I am keeping a food journal here to prove to myself that I do not eat as much as my mind makes me believe.

Some numbers for perspective:

• I was a TEN POUND baby
  
• I've weighed 128 pounds for most of my 5'11" life (since 7th grade)
  
• My lowest adult weight ever was somewhere around 85 pounds
  
• I was 150 when I finished my freshman year of college
  
• Most doctors agree my target weight is 137
  
• My goal weight is 107 pounds
  
• I am at 116 as of the latest post.

(September 15, 2002):

1. most of an apple (75)
2. coconut cream pie yogurt (120)
3. fruit cup (60)
4. cereal (60)
5. bread (400)

• TOTAL : 715 calories

(September 14, 2002):

1. fuji apple (90)
2. poppy seed something (70?)
3. bread (40)
4. tomato (50?)
5. yogurt (120)
6. 39 saltines (468)

• TOTAL : 840 calories?

(September 13, 2002):

1. fuji apple (90)
2. green beans (70)
3. bread (80)
4. miso soup (?)
5. salad w/ lumpy orange dressing (?)
6. lots of chicken

• TOTAL : 1240 calories?

(September 12, 2002):

1. half a cantaloupe (100)
2. mint chocolate pie yogurt (120)
3. cereal (60)

• TOTAL : 280 calories

(September 11, 2002):

1. fuji apple (90)
2. black cherry yogurt (120)
3. cereal (60)

• TOTAL : 270 calories

(September 10, 2002):

1. fuji apple (90)
2. half a cantalope (100?)
3. little tomato (40?)
4. green beans (70)
5. chocolate chip thing (120?)
6. bread (200)
7. cereal (60)
8. banana cream pie yogurt (120)

• TOTAL : 800 calories?

(September 9, 2002):

1. maple and brown sugar oatmeal (160)
2. beans (200)
3. peaches and pears fruit cup (60)
4. fuji apple (90)
5. coconut cream pie yogurt (120)

• TOTAL : 630 calories

(September 8, 2002):

1. 1/4 pear (30)
2. fruit cup (100)
3. 39 saltines (468)
4. fruit crisp (70?)
5. oatmeal (150)
6. biscuit (100?)

• TOTAL : about 918 calories

(September 7, 2002):

1. one and a half turkey sandwiches (500?)
2. fruit cup (60)
3. seven pieces of dried apricots (200?)
4. three bites of strawberry oatmeal crisp stuff (50?)

• TOTAL : about 810 calories

(September 6, 2002):

1. can of veggie soup (165)
2. tuna (200)
3. salad (120)

• TOTAL : 485 calories

(September 5, 2002):

1. popcorn (240)
2. crackers (480)
3. beans (300)
4. salad (100)
5. fruit (60)

• TOTAL : 1180 calories

(September 4, 2002):

1. forgot

• TOTAL : about 900 calories

(September 3, 2002):

1. forgot

• TOTAL : about 600 calories

(September 2, 2002):

1. tuna (200)
2. toast (75)
3. Sweedish fish (?)
4. banana bread (250?)
5. Oreos (can't even imagine)
6. chicken (215)
7. cucumber and tomato (20)
8. a few purple peanut M&Ms (60)

• TOTAL : about 2300 calories?

(September 1, 2002):

1. nothing

• TOTAL : 0

(August 31, 2002):

1. lots of watermelon, melon, grapes and pickles
2. pretzels
3. a ton of Willy Wonka candy, i.e. Laffy Taffy, Nerds, Bottle Caps and Gobstoppers

• TOTAL : no idea (2000?)

(August 30, 2002):

1. plain oatmeal (75)
2. toast (75)
3. 4 pieces Laffy Taffy (150?)

• TOTAL : 300 calories?

(August 29, 2002):

1. can of Chicken and Rice soup (160)
2. Miso soup (?)
3. salad w/ orange dressing (?)
4. "Free Range Chicken" from Gadaiko restaurant (?)
5. some tamago (?)

• TOTAL : 1600? calories

(August 28, 2002):

1. pineapple
2. tuna
3. oatmeal
4. beans
5. biscuit (100)

• TOTAL : 840 calories

(August 27, 2002):

1. beans (300)
2. lots of saltine crackers (420)

• TOTAL : 760 calories

(August 26, 2002):

1. 2 Fuji apples (200)
2. tuna (200)
3. Melba toast (75)
4. carrots (100)

• TOTAL : at least 575 calories

(August 25, 2002):

1. nothing

• TOTAL : 0 calories

(August 24, 2002):

1. no idea

• TOTAL : 2000 calories?

(August 23, 2002):

1. Cocoa Puffs w/ 2% milk (200)
2. Special K w/ 2% milk (100)
3. Rice Chex w/ 2% milk (170)
4. Lean Cuisine (210)
5. baked beans (150)
6. Subway sandwich (350)

• TOTAL : 1280 calories

(August 23, 2002):

1. Cocoa Puffs w/ 2% milk (900)
2. Sun Chips (600)
3. frozen chocolate thing (120)
4. 2 diet Mountain Dew Code Reds (0)

• TOTAL : 1620 calories

(August 22, 2002):

1. strawberries (100)
2. chicken (200)
3. broccoli and peas (100)
4. baked beans (300)
5. Sunchips (600)
6. cucumber (30)

• TOTAL : 1330 calories

(August 21, 2002):

1. stuff

• TOTAL : about 2000 calories?

(August 20, 2002):

1. two bowls special K red berries (400)
2. two Yoplait whipped yogurts, one cherry one orange (280)
3. bread from Carrabba's (?)
4. shrimp and scallop salad from Carrabba's (?)

• TOTAL : about 1680 calories?

(August 19, 2002):

1. four slices of apple (50)
2. Egg Beaters (120)
3. Cheerios w/ 2% milk (250)
4. Lean Cuisine (250)
5. Popsicle chocolate fudge thing (120)
6. Sunchips (250)

• TOTAL : 1040 calories

(August 18, 2002):

1. one apples (100)
2. Egg Beaters (120)
3. salad w/ fat free ranch dressing (about 180?)
4. misc. random food from other peoples' plates (about 350?)
5. Yoplait whipped yogurt, Orange Cream flavor (140)
6. one peach (about 100?)

• TOTAL: about 990 calories?

(August 17, 2002):

1. one apple (100)
2. bowl of Special K w/ red berries, 2% milk (about 200)
3. chicken with stuffing, prepackaged and cooked by me! amazing (about 320)

• TOTAL: about 620 calories

(August 16, 2002):

1. two apples (200)
2. some carrots w/ fat free caesar dressing (90)
3. cooked broccoli (60)
4. corn on the cob (85)
5. 3 ounces of chicken (110)
6. one biscuit (about 250?)

• TOTAL: 795 calories

(August 14 and 15, 2002):

1. went to chicago and ate a lot

• TOTAL: who knows

(August 13, 2002):

1. half a pear (60)
2. two apples (180)
3. some carrots (40)
4. saltine crackers (300)
5. chedder cheese rice cakes (150)
6. tin of tuna (300)
7. cherry Yoplait yogurt (140)
8. fat free popcorn (200)
9. diet Barq's (0)

• TOTAL: 1370 calories

(August 12, 2002):

1. a 6" Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Terryoki sub (374)
2. a mini bag of original Sunchips (210)
3. diet Pepsi (0)
4. a salad with carrots, no dressing (40)
5. three quarters of a package of chicken flavored Ramen noodles (285)
6. about two cups of orange sherbert (480)

• TOTAL : 1389 calories

(August 11, 2002):

1. nothing (0)

• TOTAL: 0

---

That is everything I have eaten for more than a month. More explicitly, it outlines the lack of what I have eaten for over a month. Of course there are exceptions, most of which were unavoidable and easily fixed by restricting further in the time that followed. I didn't mean to go as far as I did -- my goal weight has changed from 130 to 125 to 120 to 117 as I kept losing without a care in the world beyond what the numbers said. And finally, my goal shrank to 107 pounds. 107 pounds at almost six feet tall. What am I thinking?

So I have consumed roughly 38,137 calories over the past 36 days. That averages out to 1,059 calories a day for over a month, which is less than half of what someone my height is supposed to eat. So this means I avoided 41,063 calories, which at one pound being equal to 3500 calories should amount to a loss of 11 pounds in one month and five days. According to another record I've kept, since August 25 of this year I have lost fifteen pounds. So at least I know my metabolism is still working, however short-lived it will be.

I am going to a support group for eating disorders on Wednesday.

/me is a fucking idiot.

A first class heel.

Guess what I did today.

I was putting my receipts and checks and sundry withdrawals into my checkbook register and compared it with my online banking institution, when I realized that I was off by a fair margin - then I made some adjustments, and realized that I was $50.00 overdrawn.

Then I flipped out.

I was snapping at my kids, I was yelling at the woman I love. I was being a royal horse's ass. Ordinarily, I wouldn't feel remorse for reacting like this. I make a decent income, yet, it seems I'm constantly unable to afford things that I should be easily able to afford without even thinking about it. I've been trying to get my family to spend less money, so that we can actually save some, and maybe buy something nice once in a while, but it never seems to work. Then I realized that not only did I have no money, but I owe the bank money. Why should I be sorry for getting angry about this?

"How can a man who makes, X dollars a year be broke? Where the hell is this money going? It's going to be a sad Christmas this year, if things don't change right now!", are only a small sample of some of the things I wish I hadn't said.

So after about twenty minutes of me stomping around the house being a general prick, my fiance hands me a receipt and says, "We can get some money back. I'll return this. I'm sorry."

"What the hell is this?" I ask, continuing with my idiot asshole modus operandi for the day.

"Oh, that's your birthday present. I put it on layaway. I thought we had more money. I'm sorry."

"..."

I'm such a dickhead sometimes, I make myself sick.

 

 

No, babe. I am sorry.

This girl I once knew.
she was my best friend.
we did everything together...

eventually (as was bound to happen) I fell in love with her.
I made the mistake of telling her that I had.

Then she met some guy. treated her like shit and manipulated the fuck out of her.
she started to treat me like shit.
I decided to cut my losses and move on with my life.

I got over her.
I was happy.

Now she emails me and says
"I felt the same way the whole time. I was just afraid of what it meant"
"I tried to deny it to myself because we were like siblings"

She hurt me a lot.
I want to hurt her back.
But I don't, really.

I don't feel the same way about her anymore.
She wants things like they used to be.

Not gonna happen.

I am sick.

I can't imagine how I became ill, but I started to feel it on Saturday afternoon. Immeadiately I took the reccomended supplements, sprays, and fluids. I made sure to get ample sleep on Saturday night, despite not getting into bed until around 2:30AM (Sunday morning). I slept in on Sunday.

I had plans with Jennifer for Sunday. We were going out to lunch, and then to the movies to see Star Wars EP II. I had already seen it several times, but she had not, and I enjoy it enough to see it many more times over. We were a few minutes late for the movie, but we did not miss too much (the intro text and the explosion of Padme's ship). The movie was, of course, great. I was with Jennifer, after all.

When the film was over, we went outside - INTO THE RAIN. Finally, it was raining, hard. In the part of PA that I live in, we haven't had rain in a long time - weeks at least. I was quite happy to walk through the rain, even though it will more than likely result in my being more sick. She warmed me up.

We went into the mall for a few minutes to find a kite for her, but to our dismay the mall was closed (Sunday hours!). We headed back to my place. A road was closed. Detour! She took me to an ice cream shop.

I think this is where I lost it.

My sickness had me feeling a mess already, but I was mostly cheered up after going to the movies with Jenninfer. I ordered a strawberry sundae. She ordered a cookie dough blizzard with chocolate ice cream. Our order comes. Her ice cream was not chocolate. The look on her face was enough to make me melt into a puddle. We climbed in her car. She didn't touch her food. I was sad. She didn't get her kite. She couldn't enjoy her ice cream, and I felt helpless to do anything about it. It, along with my sickness, and the pain in my side made me very sad. Sad because I couldn't do much of anything to help. I felt weak. I felt helpless and vulnerable. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to find her the best tasting chcolate iced cream, I wanted to buy her a shiny new kite that would never tear, and I didn't want to die.

Unfortunately, all I could do was cry. When we got back to my place, she sat down in my recliner and held her outstretched arms to me. I climbed onto her and she held me. I held her. I cried into her pretty nest of wonderful hair. She sat me down on the ground and held me as I sobbed for the better part of an hour. I was angry and sad - not at her - but at the greater forces of the universe. So many things, if they turned out differently, would make the world such a better place. Why don't they? Why can't pretty girls get their kites and their ice cream? Why do young men have to die? Why does anyone have to die? I don't want to die. I want Jennifer to have her kite and her iced cream. I want things to be better.