I figured I would update on here. I have been ignoring this journal.... I actually ignore most of my journals, sadly...

But since I don't actually have any followers I can post want I want.

I am tired of feeling upset that people don't want me in my life. I made a decision earlier this week to take some people out of my phone. Yet, I end up still adding them.

I constantly keep checking for one person online... I am not sure if I will see him online for awhile. I keep wondering what I did wrong. Why would he act like he wanted to start a friendship if that is what he wants to do... I want to both tell him to fuck off, and also to give him another chance.

It makes me feel even more lonely though... Sadly, there are other people I can try to contact if I wanted someone not to answer me. And the people I want to ask advice from I can't... then I feel bad because I am having to go to other people for advice.

I am afraid if I actually do meet him at work. I will end up bursting into tears... more because I hate myself for letting someone else break my heart again... I keep feeling that I am going to be lonely my whole life. I was trying to get rid of my other crush, then this guy started to talk to me

I didn't even know him that long, yet I feel incredibly rejected. I am sure it may not be so bad if it didn't seem that a lot of people I thought were important in my life seem to have time for others, but not me... me texts, comments, etc go unanswered but they easily answer other people's stuff...

I feel like finding a cave, and just curling into a ball, and hoping the world just passes me by.

I am tired of being a ghost in people's lives though, leaving brief wisp in someone's lives. I want to be a vampire, asserting my authority and my power... but maybe I don't really have any power...

Day 21: draft

I am not sure what I want to talk about today. I am so frustrated by a mirage of things, that I honestly want to go home. But I won't be able till midnight. At least I am off tomorrow.

So, this is going to be posted in segments... Until I decide I am done. It is hard to do it at work since we have been so busy.

I remember when I was little there was a huge oak tree in our yard. I am not sure how old it was, but it was really tall... I want to say at least 15 feet, but obviously I could be wrong since when you are little, everything appears taller than it should be.

I remember taking the acrons and throwing them at people. Mainly my sister

I think once I tried to plant an acorn thinking another huge oak would just sprout up. It is possible that a little tree grew there, but I honestly doubt it. I am sure some squirel was watching was I was doing, and dug up the acorn to eat, or hide.

Once I was walking around barefoot under the oak tree, and stepped on a fork. That hurt. I honestly think now, that probably we were the one who brought it out, and left it by the tree, but I thought at the time that some wandering person had left it there.

I remember there was a long walkway by the tree... Mainly a dirt path, and it seemed like our driveway was really long, so it was a bit of a walk to get out to the road. It was a nice walk though... Oh course I may be wrong... I could have sworn we had a dirt drive way.

I remember a neighbor lived near us. She was the landlord's sister, and my sister tried to convince me she was a witch. I know that she would yell at us occasionally if we were too loud and near her house.

I do remember going in her house a few times. I am not sure why. But usually we weren't allowed near her house.

I think when we went trick or treating she gave us random things like fruit.

For awhile there was a trailer behind our house, and someone lived in it. I think. Maybe someone always live in it, but i remember one of the people had a chihuahua.

As I think about this, I wonder how much I remember and how much is actually things i imagined. It is hard to tell.... It is weird to think something happened 20 years ago, or longer, and how your memory can shift and change in that amount of time.

Things can happen last week, and they seem like an eternity. Memory is such a strange thing. I think this is such an interesting challenge, because I think no matter what memory we write about, we can't always be 100% certain that things happened the way we thought. It is interesting to see two sides to an event, and I think that somewhere inbetween is actually the real story, and that maybe both sides are missing something.

Day 19: draft

I should actually update my journal with more than memories... Maybe I will later.

Anyway, my memory today is about my grandmother.

I remember she used to make this wonderful cheesecake, and she also made these biscuits from scratch. Nothing taste like the ones she used to make. Or I wonder if the memory of it is what makes it seems like it was a lot more epic than anything else you can find.

I remember one time her letting me and elizabeth help her make the biscuits, and the cheesecake. I remember she always used to let us help in the kitchen. Probably not do a lot, but she always let us when we could especially as we got older.

I remember the kitchen where she used to live. It wasn't a huge kitchen, but it wasn't the size of my kitchen now, which is almost a closet... Her kitchen always felt warm and open.

I remember in the summer we would stay at her house for a week, I think on some summers, it wasn't the same week.

I remember watching soap operas with her, and no matter how long I was away, they still seemed to be on the same storyline.

I remember she liked to play bingo. She would try to go whenever she could. I know the older she got the less she was able to go especially after she was banned from driving. She was a bit of a speed demon, and I can think of at least three times she was in a car wreck. I think only one major one she was hurt.

She used to have this old white car, it was an Oldsmobile. I think for years, she would get similiar looking cars. I know once she got a sport little red car, but that car didn't last very long.

I remember once when she lived with my aunt, we got locked out. Me and elizabeth and her had taken a little walk, or gone out to do some gardening. I don't remember which. Nana had left her key inside. So, I remember Abi shimmy into the house and unlock the door. Oh course, once she crawled into the window, the alarm started blaring, so she had to get to the door quickly so Nana could turn it off. While we were opening the window, one of the palmetto leaves from the saw palmetto cut Nana, and I remember her dripping blood from her head.

I do remember the last years where she didn't seem to remember who we were, and that was a little sad, but I like to dwell on the happy memories, where it seemed we always had fun and she was always happy to see us.

Day 12: draft

I am going to start this off by saying sorry the pictures are so blurry... I took a picture with my camera of some old pictures, and I am a sucky photographer.

i started on this a day early because I have a feeling that it is going to be a longer post than a lot of the other ones so I want to get a bit of a draft down.

I was going to try to write memories of this person earlier. I was debating about doing it on the anniversary of their death, but also thought that it might be a little awkward. Since other memories have presented them before this day, I figure it is better than I just go ahead and post it on the anniversary

This is probably going to be a longer memory than the rest, there seems to be so much that I want to include. I am not even sure where to start. I could just make this disjointed and list things i remember, but I will try to start some order. I guess... At least I will give you a place to start from. I am going to start from the end, and then put memories in as best order as I can.

So... The start of the memory is September 12th, 2000. My dad had taken me to school. I didn't want to go, I had been tempted of pretending to be sick, but I had a test in Physics the next day and figured I should go to the review session. ( I never actually made it though, but I will explain that later)

I went to first period, which for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Second period I had writing with Miss Masch. She was a cool teacher, and we had a lot of interesting writing assignments. I am not sure the exact project we were working on, but I remember that Miss Masch was talking about how she had an edited copy of Titanic...which basically was all of the Billy Zane scenes (She had a huge crush on him, and probably still does)

So, fifteen minutes before the end of the period, the phone rang. After Miss masch hung up the phone, she told me I was needed in Mrs. Ferrante's office. I gathered my stuff. She signed my passbook so I could be in the hall between classes.

I had no idea what was going on because I am not the type of person who gets called into the dean's office. Actually I only barely knew who Mrs. Ferrante was. (I knew her husband though as I had taken several classes with him.)

When I got to Mrs. Ferrante's office, I found my grandmother sitting in the one of the chairs, and she was crying.

The first words she said was "Dad was dead." it hit me as a bit of a shock... I remember thinking she was talking about my grandfather for a minute. I don't think I was crying yet, I was trying to process it.

She seemed to sense I didn't understand completely what was going on, so she said "Mandy your dad died."

My grandmother explained how he had gone home after dropping me off, and had dropped dead in the bathroom. I know Mrs. Ferrante probably said something to me, but I had started sobbing at the time, and I don't remember what it was.

When we got to the apartment complex, my mum and my sister were standing outside. They were waiting for the ambulance to take my dad out of the building.

The stairway was pretty narrow, and my dad was not a light man, so they struggled with it. My mum reminded me in church today when she was reading over the start of this, that for a brief second admist the grief we had found ourselves laughing as they struggled with the gurney. I think if he wasn't in the bodybag, it might not have been funny. It was so easy, to not think that it was my father they were taking away.

I remember bits and pieces of the day that followed, but for a long time after that everything seemed a blur. I know the next day I went to school so I could take the Physics test. My teacher was actually surprised to see me, and said I could wait if I wanted to... I didn't want to have to worry about it later on top of everything else.

I don't even remember the grade I got on it. I remember taking it like an angry robot.

I regret a little the decision of going back to school the next day, and later when the day after my grandfather died I went back to work (several years later) . I thought it made me seem callous... But I needed to go back to normal, I think part of it was to pretend that the whole thing was not true, or not to appear weak... I am not sure the exact reason I felt the need to continue as normal after the two deaths... I was hurt though, and upset. I really do miss both my dad and my grandfather sometimes.

I don't want to dwell on the time after his death though. I just want to dwell on the memories I have of him... First I am going to tie the post in with another post... remember I am the master of story thievery... or something

Here are three memories of my dad's he and other people told me more than once that I liked to repeat to people.

-My dad was in the Navy when he was younger. He was on two ships, the enterprise, and the saratoga. On one of the them.. I think when it was the enterprise... they were in Austraila for a bit. There was 4000 members on the ship, for morning roll call only 1/3 of them showed up. At the time the population of women to men was 10 to 1 so all the sailors decided to bail. Actually my dad was on his way to pick up civilians clothes when he was brought back to the ship.

-The other one... Let me preface this by saying that my family like to joke around. One of my uncles favorite hobbies is to insult my grandmother. My uncle and my dad were standing at one end of the kitchen... their kitchen was kind of narrow, and the middle was a large table.. so, they were standing at one end of the table and my grandmother was at the other... from what it seems they both were making wisecracks to my grandmother.

She told them if either one of them said one more thing she was going to throw a knife at them. By her was a dishcloth and a butcher's knife.

One of them made another comment, and then they almost hit the ceiling as something flew towards them.

My grandmother had picked up the dishcloth and threw it at them.

-My dad was against unions. We don't really have them here in Florida, which actually probably has advantages and disadvantages. After going to the Navy he decided to go to Vegas and get a job there.

He hitchhiked across country, only to find out the day before he got there that the job he was going to get was unionized. So, he hitchhiked back home.

I remember a lot of other things about my dad. He was a bit of a dreamer. He always had big plans to better himself. I think he wanted the best for us kids, though you have read from my sister how he mentioned her dream of being a parapsychologist would not make her much money. He had dropped out of high school to join the Navy when he was 17, and I think he wanted better for us.

He didn't want us to have to struggle paycheck to paycheck like he and mum constantly had to do. Though, I know part of it was that he was so quick to quit a job. Like I said he was a dreamer, and he always longed for big things. I remember him when he could attending those seminars about big riches, or investing in programs like that.

He liked to try new things and held many different jobs through out his life. He was a dishwasher, mystery shopper, he was a supply pastor, he delivered pizzas, he drove cabs, he used to work at the post office, he took pictures of foreclosed property, he tried to sell things on ebay and some other things which I can't think of.

While he didn't graduate he did get his GED in the Navy. He also went to Baptist college later in life he went only a year and didn't finish. He also went to school to become a radio announcer but didn't finish.

When he was little he had moved a lot when he was a kid. (Some of the stories sound like almost every month when the rent was due but I may be mixing up my dad's childhood with my maternal grandmother's as she moved a lot) Because of this he always longed for new places, and I think I mentioned before that in my life i have moved more times than my age... or maybe at this point they are about even. It is hard to tell as I feel far older than I am.

I know I get stir crazy sometimes staying in the same place too long, and wish I could move or change jobs... but I can't. I also have a sense of wanting to find a place of my own, and knowing to get that I have to work at building it.

I remember once he got this serious of memory tapes... hmm wonder if we still had them. I remember him listening to them to try to improve his memory. I don't remember much about the tapes, but I remember one of the suggestion was for a list of words to memorize try to make a story about it, and one of the lists had something about a donkey and a wheel-barrel.

He was friendly to every one he met. It seemed he had all kind of courage talking to people randomly about anything. He would remember things about people's lives and ask them stuff. Sometimes if we went to visit a friend or we were out and about and he ran into someone he knew, while he said we would be leaving in ten minutes, I would know it meant longer than that, since they would still be talking an hour later.

When he was little it seemed everything was different. He and his friends would steal hubcaps when they were older, but they never really got in trouble. As I said he had many jobs, and most of them he just walked in and applied and was giving the job. (I wish you could do that now)

He both liked new things, but seemed to also crave things from his past. He would constantly watch older tv shows, and listen to oldies music (which is how I came to appreciate a lot of older things, and actually one of my first fanfics was about Adam-12...which we will maybe discuss later in another post)

He and my mum were married twenty years. Before his death in May on around their anniversary, my mum had vacation time, and for some reason instead of wanting to go, me and my sister sent them off by themselves. They went to Miami for a few days... I am not sure what we did. I am not sure if it was general not wanting to be stuck with the rents, or if we sensed something... I don't remember sensing that it was the last vacation they would have together.

I don't remember many fights. I never remember him hitting mum. I know they did argue a lot about money, and I think I am realizing more and more that they probably did have disagreements, but they tried to not let us see them. That didn't always work though.

When we were little I remember at one point that after awhile he didn't have to spank us when we were bad, he just had to go for his belt.

I mainly have good memories of my dad. I do realize now that maybe not everything he did was the best. He was quick sometimes to discourage us from stuff for whatever reason, like I remember being told I was forbidden to ride motorcycles because he and his friends use to do it when they were younger, and he knew how dangerous it could be.

I think he and my mum tried their best to raise us, but they each had their own issues to deal with . i think when we are little it is easier to think our parents are superheroes, but as you get older, you realize that they are more and more human. It is also easier and easier to see their flaws, and not generally be happy about them. You can see exactly why their experiences shaped you in the way they you are in part, because they tried to correct what they thought was their parents mistakes.

I love both my parents. I miss my dad terribly sometimes... though honestly, especially now living with my mum where it is just me and her... I wonder sometimes if I would be friends with her in real life. I love her because she is my mum, but she can get on my nerves.

I also see where my dad was not right in everything he did. While he told more than once that we could be whatever we wanted, I also remember trying to discourage us from things that may have seem flighty. But maybe if he had been more encouraging we would have been able to succeed.

I thought when I was little that I was my dad's favorite. I remember reading a post my sister made after my dad's death where she said she thought the same thing. Maybe he didn't have a favorite but tried to spend as much time with us as he could. it is hard to tell, and obviously I can't ask him.

Sometimes it feels like he just died yesterday, and sometimes it really feels that at this point he hasn't been involved in the last 1/3 of my life which is sad.

I am not sure where i was going with this... It started getting rambling... There are so many memories and emotions tied with him, I guess it is hard not to get rambling...

Anyway, I am going to end this with a picture of me, my sister and my dad from a long time ago

My mind plays tricks on me

So, I decided to put my picture back up at facebook... I am not sure how long it will last. I have always convinced myself that people are going to run and hide if they actually see what I look like.

I have always felt ugly, and worthless.

My mind convinces me that I am the reason people have problems, as before I was in there lives, or the brief periods I wasn't there for whatever reason that they had better lives.

I was going to write up this long rant that I might use for a memory on remember yourself, but I am not up to it. I am going to go to bed... One day I will stop censoring myself and actually write what I feel.. right now it is not the time. I think sometimes when I actually tell my true feelings, I just make things worse for myself.

It is hard to explain to people how my mind tells me that I deserve all the unhappiness in my life. That I am a loser, and an idiot, especially since a lot of people don't see me that way. I wish sometimes I didn't hate myself so much, then maybe I could be content with my life. Maybe this dark cloud wouldn't seem to haunt me.

I am sure I need to go to therapy and go back on antidepressants, and I wish I could afford to. I know part of the reason I can't is because I have called out of work lately, which puts me behind since all my money goes to bills... then I am frustrated that I put all these hours in a job I hate to just pay bills and not get to do anything fun... So, it starts a vicious cycle.

It is good I have no friends list on here... The more I write the more ridiculous and stupid I am sure I sound

Hiding in the shadows

I could post my picture, but I won't. If you are smart you will realize that the user icon I use is in no way me. i am very uncomfortable about posting my picture. i have for a long time.

I have never thought that I was pretty. I have always been a little overweight. Also, the fact that I have depression doesn't really help things. i have joked with people that I hide in the shadows, the fact is it seems that.

There are days I can go without talking to people, since whenever I try to join a conversation I am talked over. Sometimes even on days when I have room to talk no one listens to me.

It is kind of annoying at time... There was something else I was going to try to describe in detail, but it doesn't make sense.... words are not coming easily like they should.

Maybe I will try to make a decent post later

Crush is a 4 letter word

(This is a draft for day 5 for Remember Yourself.... plus technically it is my journal I could write what I would like, even if it totally jumps in the middle of something, as I am evil...)

I don't remember when I first started to be attracted to other people. I know I had celebrity crushes before, remembering putting up those tiger beat posters of people like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Brad Renfro. I am sure as a teenage we all do that.

I do remember my crushes have always been random. There is a mix of good qualities in some of the people, despite their bad behavior, and sometimes I overlooked bad behavior because I was in love with someone. Sometimes I have been lucky though, my crushes were actually nice people who treated me well, I just never was the girl for them. I actually wish most of my crushes happiness... There is actually maybe one that I actually basically told him to fuck off, but that is probably a story unto itself, but it may work in this entry or not.

The first crush I remember having of someone I actually knew was this boy, cm, in my english class. I had a dream about him once... since I may be talking about random people I am just going to use intials or code names where possible. I had a dream we were sitting at a desk, and someone was standing over us, which actually looked like a cross between a catholic priest and the grim reaper. Anyway this creature asked me if I would marry him. Not sure what CM actually answered but I realized from that moment on I started to think about him all the time.

I know in High school I was a bit of a mess, some days I wouldn't brush my hair, I was socially awkward, and I know I didn't always take a shower every day. I am sure there was other reasons. I never really belong to one specific group of people... I wasn't a band kid, we didn't have the money, I wasn't an anime kid, or a science nerd, or anything like that. Actually most of my friends through high school were a wide group of people, a lot from different groups, and some of them were also likes me on the fringes of several different groups.

Instead of actually asking him straight on a date, I have never been that straight forward. I am not sure I will ever be that forward. What I did do is try to become his friend. I would talk to him more in class, ask him questions about his interest.

As I think back, i think he was probably considered one of the popular kids. He also played in the band, and the band was a big deal at the junior high and the high school. We actually had very talented musicians for the most part, and a lot of the students in the band were some of the brightest as well. If not one of the higher popular kids (I am sure I don't need to explain the hierarchy of a high school, it is all very clique-like) he was definitely a lot more popular than me.

Though I am sure I wasn't at all popular in school, I had friends yes, I was friendly to most people, but I didn't have a lot of close friends, just a small group. So, I am sure having more than a small group of close friends would probably seem like a huge gap in popularity to me.

I tried to do whatever I could to make him like me. I would remember his birthday. I would write random notes in the summer. I would go see the band play. Just a lot of little random things...I know once for his birthday I sang him a random song by his locker.

I like to be nice to a lot of people as I have said before. I have always tried to give people random gifts. One of my crushes at work, I would actually leave random stuff for him to find when he worked in the money room. I just thought it would be funny.

Since we are talking about him. I am actually still sort of friends with him, even though I don't work there anymore. I was randomly texting him the other day as I was bored at work, and he was answering me back as if I saw him the other day and not a few months ago. His intials are mf, which I always thought was funny. ( I would text my friends that mf was doing such, and such...even funnier after my crush was over, and we were talking about him as a manager, especially when they would randomly text me things about mf. They had adopted the art of calling him that)

I met him the first day when I went for my interview at the dog track. He was randomly coming into the office to make copies of something. He greeted me with a smile, and asked if I needed help. (Actually note to self, just because a boy is nice to you does not mean you need to instantly crush on him...though it happens)

I thought he was cute, and didn't think anything of it at the time. He sort of worked in accounting, which isn't the same department. I realized a few weeks later that he also helped in our money room one day a week, and also sometimes upstairs in the poker room.

I think for awhile, I would just say hi to him, we wouldn't necessarily have any real conversations. Just friendly chatter like how is your day, how is work...etc...nothing major (Though later we became closer friends)

I am not sure how long into the crush I realized that he had a fiance. (They are actually married now) One thing I have never been for is a person to want to break up relationships...well not entirely. (I did sort of want to see one of my crushes and his current girlfriend break up, not because I wanted to get with him, this was several months after my crush was over, and they had been dating awhile. It was like he was a different person when he started dating her, and part of the reason I wanted to help someone break them up was so he could see the person she really was. She is a very fake person. Maybe I will talk about him some other day. If I do his initals are JC)

At that moment when he knew he had a fiancee. I felt bad about the crush... though, that didn't stop me from when I started leaving him random messages. I was doing it to become his friend more, and also because I thought it would be something fun to liven his Tuesdays in the money room. it wasn't anything spectacular... I would randomly leave him circus peanuts, as he liked them, or random cards, and random snacks. Just something I thought he would like.

I think that is actually something I do with a lot of my crushes. I try to find out things they may like, and leave them small little presents... I do leave other people random presents, but I know that there have been times I have gone out of my way to find something for them, like an awesome star wars poster, or a sketch pad. Just random things they like.

One thing i also realize i do with all my crushes is I started to develop some of their likes. Not on purpose. I actually get most of my likes from other people. Someone mentions something that sounds interesting like an actor, or a hobby like magic, and it gets me interested in it. I think some of the things I had an interest in before, but it may make me take up the interest again. Like one of my crushes liked computers (or let me rephrase at least three of my crushes have been computer guys) but this one specific one, FP, and we had gotten in a discussion on coding, and html. Then, I started randomly trying to learn CSS (which i never actually managed to learn) He actually had a beginner's guide to HTML that he had given away a few weeks before I had decided to try to learn code again... which i hadn't even thought of at the time.. He had offered it to me, but I didn't have much room for books (which is actually sad... as i am sure if you are on the remember yourself project about my love for books)

Speaking of interests, I do notice that some of my crushes share the same interest. More than one guy I had a crush on liked magic, one was a decent magician, the other one I never saw a trick for but I actually am sure he is a better magician. At least three of them liked computers. About three of them were into acting... Actually I have thought it before, but maybe if I find someone with some of these interests I should instantly bolt... Just kidding some of my crushes are still my friend, or I hope they are.

This turned into a lot longer than I thought, and I could probably go on and on about the mistakes I have made with my crushes, or things i discovered afterwards.... but maybe I will save that for another day