Taxi!!!

31 August 2006 - 4:02 AM

This could be the most random collection of thoughts ever to enter my blog, so bare with me... Also, if I offend anybody in this blog, especially toward the end, I'm sorry. I just need to vent somehow on what I've been feeling...

Sorry I haven't written in three weeks (Wow. That's probably a new high score for me). It's just that... whenever I write in my blog about any type of relationship that might be building between me and another, it angers the Heavens, and all seems to fall apart before anything good ever happens. I suppose I'm ready to reflect on things now.

An hour and a half after I last blogged, I went to the indoor rock-climbing center with Chris, Michelle, and Michelle's brother to meet up with my brother and sister. Overall, the experience was good for the guests I brought, at least as far as physical health goes. Right before closing, I decided to start tumbling, since the ground there is cushy, and I usually have more confidence to do so. Well, I got a roundoff and three consecutive back handsprings in, but on the fourth back handspring, I decided to go ahead and attempt the full flip without using my hands. That was a bad idea, to say the least. I ended up not having enough time, and when my body came down to the ground, it landed on my left hand, which ended up being bent back extremely far, thus spraining it. It was sore and swollen for a number of days, and since then, I've just been trying to regain the strength it once had. It's almost back to normal. I'm not sure if I'm going to try any handsprings anytime soon, though I'd really love to if I knew I could.

The day after all that nonsense, I went to the mall with Chris and Sexton to buy some new shoes... I should probably mention here that earlier in the day, Michelle called Chris while he was at my house and broke up with him. Don't ask me for all the details. It's not my deal. You can read Chris' or Michelle's blog if you want more details. Okay. Back to the mall story... I bought a new pair of black shoes, as I always get, and finally bought a pair of white shoes for the first time since when I was a kid and bought my shoes at Payless. While I was in the DC store trying on these shoes, I couldn't help but admire how cute one of the employees was. I thought about it even after I left and bought a pair of basketball shoes at the Nike store that I could use to jump at SkyMania. Finally, just before we left the mall, I mustered up the courage to go back in and ask her if she wanted to come to Mitch's party the next night. She said she worked 'til 10:00, but that she would try to stop by, so I gave her my number and Mitch's address on a piece of paper.

Yeah, it's probably true that she gets that kind of thing a lot from people who are much more confident than me, and she probably threw that piece of paper away within ten minutes, but the point was that I had never just gone up to a total stranger and asked them for a chance to get to know them better. I did happen to catch the girl's name, as the employees have to wear name tags, and it was easy to remember because it was a variation of Cecilee, and you should all know what kind of issues I've made for myself with that girl. Anyway, her name was Cecilia, and for me to be able to spell it really helped when I went on MySpace that night and searched for her. I searched within 50 miles of my zip code. Ten pages of results came up. I clicked on each page so I could start at the end and just hit the back button as I looked for her, but luckily, on the last page, one of the results had a DC image for her headline. Bam! First profile I click and it's her. So yeah. I sent a few messages to this girl who goes to Eldorado High School (doh!) and still thought I'd have any way of dating her. Soon enough, though, we stopped sending messages to each other, and that was pretty much the end of that.

There's one woman for you. Another would be Cecilee again, who I was told had broken up with her boyfriend. A blog or two on her MySpace make it seem like she's heartbroken, but she still has pictures of her and him up and her MySpace still says she's in a relationship, so I have no idea what's up with her. When you really think about it though, we live more than ten miles away, and I have no idea if another long-distance relationship would work out. Besides... I know how hard it is to get back into the game after a heartbreak.

I finally got the right people to read this blog, but that really didn't do what I thought it would. In my last blog, I was trying to say that I knew and accepted that Mitch and Sarah were probably going to go out again. After they both read my blog, though, they backed off each other so they wouldn't upset me. Dur, I'm a retard. I suppose things worked out for the best in that situation, because both Sarah and Mitch are involved with other people at the moment, and both seem to be happy about it, especially Mitch =)

"So where does that leave you, Vaniah?"

Well, apart from all those stories of failed attempts at emotion, there is one lone girl who I've actually been talking to for a couple weeks, and she actually goes to my school, which is pretty cool. She was one of those MySpace friends who I added just because I recognized her from a few functions at school, but she's pretty damn cute if you ask me. One day, I replied to one of her bulletins, and in response, she let me know that she thought I was hot. Well, what a coincidence, because I think the same of her ;-) Anyway, we've been talking a bit, and though the last couple of weeks haven't presented the opportunity for us to hang out, I think things may settle in the next few weeks, what with school starting and all, and she and I will eventually bond. The wording in that sentence doesn't quite set right with me, but the thought puts a smile on my face nonetheless =D Have you met Franchesca Rivera?

Whew! All that just to tell you about my situation with girls. Moving on...

Mitch and I got drunk the other day with some friends. It was his first time in eight months and my first time since the first day of summer, and we made the most of it by hanging out and laughing our asses off. Soon, I'll post pictures we tried to take that didn't turn out as well as we had planned, haha!

I wanted to go to Starbucks in the morning at least once this summer, and I was planning on telling some people to go two days before school started. Plans changed however, when Jessica took it upon herself to tell everyone to go just one day before school started, as she was under the impression that it was tradition to go the day before school started. It has never been tradition to do that. My friends and I just went sporadically during the summer, for the sake of getting out of the house and hanging out with each other. That was years ago though, and our old rituals have faded. So Jessica invited some people, and it turned out to be okay, I suppose. I hadn't slept the night before because I was up drinking with Mitch, so when we got back to my house, I crashed for the rest of the morning. Everybody was gone by the time I woke up, and Jessica had left a note on my computer telling me how she thought Starbucks was a success... Well dur. It's not like we were launching the first rover to Venus. I wouldn't say it was a success because it's not supposed to be a task to get your friends together and have a good time. I just think it was nice to see some people and to joke and laugh with them.

Let's see... other significant events... The first day of school was today, and I thought it went rather well. I have some classes with people who I met through Mitch, which is pretty cool. I have some other classes with friendly new faces, which I didn't think was possible after three years at the same place. Also, some people are in my classes who haven't been in a class with me for three or four years. It's pretty sweet. I still have a conflict with my schedule, as I might be dropping Tech to take a fine arts class such as Photography. We'll see how that works out. I'm gonna have to really consider my options this weekend.

After school, there was an actual tradition to be carried out, and that was that I go with my friends to Baja Fresh for lunch as I always do after the first and last day of each school year, ever since the last day of eighth grade.

Okay. Here's where the blog might get offensive to some people.

The title. There's a reason for my blog title. It fucking sucks being the taxi. The part that bothers me is not the fact that I have to give my friends rides. What does bother me is that I'm giving them rides because they don't have licenses. We're seniors. Most of the people I give rides to are older than me. I've had my license for over a year now. Why have these people not gotten their licenses yet? I always hear excuses about how time didn't permit them to go down to the DMV and get their permits early enough and blah blah blah. You know what? Those aren't reasons. My dad's pretty busy all the time, and my mom sleeps in the day. But do you know how nice it is to be able to drive yourself around as you please? Do you know how hard I fought to get my permit and later my license? I knew that a license would mean freedom, so I insisted my dad take me as soon as possible for my permit. It's not like it's a great strain on the parent. All they have to do is sit in the waiting room for an hour or two and sign the consent papers. Then when it came time to get my license... I scheduled an appointment myself, and went in to test. When I found that I couldn't test because I had a brake light out, I was pissed. I could either reschedule for an entire month later or come in on standby the next day. Well, guess which one I picked... We got the car fixed that very day and I went to the DMV the next day before the place even opened, and I was still eighth in line. But you know what? It was fucking worth it. I don't have to ask people for rides everytime I want to go somewhere, and I love it. If there's one thing I made sure to prepare for, it was the freedom to drive. Get off your ass and get your license as soon as possible.

...Meh. I just needed to get that one out. I was thinking about it earlier as I drove people home. I had just been woken up, so it made me a lot crankier, and allowed me to really think about how ridiculous it is that I have to drive these people everywhere.

Alright. I think I hit most of my major points. The next few things will be short and very random, but significant in some way...

I go to SkyMania all the time and never really hurt myself there, but it was last week when I was playing Twister with some friends that I dislocated my knee again. I was pissed. I really need to see the doctor about that MRI I took.

If my mom gets caught up on all her car payments, my brother David will give me his old truck so he can buy a new car. That'd be awesome because it's only a two-seater, and I won't be the taxi anymore. I'll also probably get way better gas mileage than 15 mpg, like the Explorer gets.

On the way out of Wal*Mart, there was a new pillow still in its packaging just sitting in front of the car next to me. I now have a new, fluffy pillow =P

I didn't want to go to Terrible's to get my car washed because it never gets all the bird shit off the top of the car, so I stayed home and washed the car myself. It took a couple hours because I was being meticulous about it. Two days before school starts and I've got a freshly washed car. What happens an hour later? Mitch and I get back from Arby's and he decides to throw his cup of soda in the middle of his street. It must've hit the fucking top of my car, because when I went outside later, all exposed sides of the fucking car were covered with the dried soda. Mitch gave me $10 to get a new car wash, but it'll probably cost me $15, not to mention I didn't have a clean car for the first day of school. Thanks, Mitch, for being a fucking retard about that drink.

^Okay. That one wasn't short. Just another long expression of rage^

And last but certainly not least...

... When I fall asleep wrapped around my body pillow, I'm thinking of Fran =) =P =D

Take it easy, but strike hard.
Vaniah Schwenoha

Just Friends

9 August 2006 - 6:07 PM

Did you guys ever see that movie? It was good... Funny, too...

I guess I thought more people read this thing than actually do. You see, last night, I had some people over to go swimming. One of those people was Sarah. "That's good," you might say - at least, if you've been reading these things - but after you found out that another one of those people was Mitch, you'd probably tell me I'm retarded.

I was never that great of a flirt. It may have something to do with me not getting into a relationship with someone until after 7th grade, but whatever. It was apparent, however, that I wasn't my normal self last night. Chris saw it because he reads my blogs when he knows there's a new one and Sexton could see it even without knowing about my blog entirely. I suppose it didn't catch Sarah's attention because she was flirting with Mitch all night.

I thought to myself that this couldn't really be happening between them again, first of all because whenever Mitch isn't around, Sarah appears to be disinterested in him, and second because Mitch has been hung up on this girl Stephanie for the past few days. Now, don't get me wrong here. I do think Mitch is a pretty cool person overall because he's fun to hang out with and all, but when it comes to women, after watching his past two relationships, I just don't see him settling down anytime soon.

That's the way it went, though. When Sarah fell for Mitch over eight months ago, she fell hard, and since then, she hasn't really moved on, regardless of how much she looks like she has. All doubts were written off when I looked back at Mitch's conversation with Sarah last night after we took her home. Consider that a note to all of you that if you talk to someone on AIM and want to keep the conversation between the two of you, either ask me to move it or delete it yourself... Sorry for being a sneaky asshole, but at least we skipped the confrontation step.

So, straight from Bruce Almighty, that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm sorry if you think that I shouldn't take this lying down, but to be honest, I've never understood the concept of fighting for a girl. If you're working extremely hard to win her over another, then you're trying too hard. You might want to ask me "What if she's the one?" Well, then she'd be able to see me for the loyal and caring man that I am - or at least try my best to be. A woman's choice between two men is hers alone, and she'll always pick the one that best fits her at the time.

Back to being the good friends we are.
Back to the drawing board.

I remember when I was a kid and my big brother was my influence. I remember when I played with action figures and Hot Wheels and such. I remember learning to ride a bike and how to rollerblade and how hard I thought it was going to be to swim in the deep end. I remember when the only love I knew was for my Sunday morning cartoons [because I remember never having gone to church as a child - that'd explain why I'm Agnostic, if you're wondering]. I remember when I didn't have girls on the mind all the time.

When can I love a woman like I loved my childhood?

It may sound odd to you, but before I go to sleep every night, I always end up wrapped around my body pillow. I always imagine myself falling asleep holding a girl. A lot of the time, it's not one girl in particular over and over again; just whoever is on my mind at the time. It's not until I take the time to write about it that I realize how many girls run through my mind. Meh, it's hard to explain.

I'm not depressed. I'm just bored with the single life.

Take it easy, but strike hard.
Vaniah Schwenoha

P.S. - Happy Birthday, Niki!

Clever lines to weave my web of thoughts

3 August 2006 - 11:27 AM

They say lightning never strikes twice in the same place...
Well, that myth certainly doesn't apply to car crashes. In the past two weeks, I've gone to pick up my mom from work in the morning and found that cars had collided on eastbound Flamingo just near The Rio. Two times, the accident was on Hotel Rio Drive and Flamingo and once it was a short distance behind on Valley View and Flamingo.

The worst drivers are Asians and women...
And that's why it's hysterical that the accident that involved three cars also involved two women and an Asian man.

Can't we all just get along?
Just because the accidents stopped doesn't mean there is no more tragedy in the world. I took my mom to the Gold Coast one morning to cash her paycheck, and while waiting outside for her, I watched three Asian men get into a fight. It seemed that they knew each other prior, but were very mad about something; I'll never know what because I just sat in the car and watched as casino security broke it up.

Do unto others...
Because I'd love it if my friend cooked me dinner and brought me and my girlfriend together. Of course, that would mean finding a girlfriend first. But, that's not what this section is supposed to discuss. I'll get to that later.

Chris Yi had a bad day about a week ago. His house got broken into and he spent the rest of the day at home because of it, thus making him feel unproductive. After hearing about it all, I thought it would be a good idea to do something to cheer him up. What better way to make a guy happy [without being gay] than food? So I went to the store, spent about $14 on two steaks, two potatoes, and a cheesecake, and stored it for the next day. Why enough food for two? Because my evil scheme also involved Chris's girlfriend, who apparently hadn't spent any time with Chris this summer. That part was a plus. Next was the issue of a table. As you may know, my house doesn't have a dining table. This is due to the fact that we don't have enough open space for a dining room. Meh. That meant that I'd have to go and borrow Chris Schroeder's dining table again, as I'd done it once to cook dinner for a girlfriend quite awhile back.

So as it went, I picked up Chris's girlfriend Michelle, had her keep me company as I prepared dinner, and set her up with everything ready in my brother's vacant room. Then I picked up an unsuspecting Chris, made idle conversation on the way over, and completely took him aback when I opened the door to my brother's room. The timing worked out perfectly for me to leave them alone, too, as Jessica had invited me to a movie that night. Of course, I forgot to tell them about the cheesecake in the freezer downstairs, but whatever. Needless to say, they were happy to spend time with each other again.

Ahh, yes... The apple tree scenario...
You'd only understand that if you'd ever read that analogy about how women are like apples on a tree and men are far too cowardice to work toward getting the best ones at the top. Now, I'm not saying that it's too much work for me to climb to the top [what with being a ninja and all, haha], but there does happen to be something obstructing my path: a gate. This is ironic because the same term will work in the analogy as in my actual situation. I've made many attempts at having Jasper hang out more, but either she truly is too busy on her own or she doesn't have any interest in me, so she makes herself busy in order not to have to tell me directly that I've got no chance. As for the gate, I'm talking about the one around her neighborhood that stops me from making random appearances in front of her house to spend time with her, since the only time she seems to ever have alone is at night. Anyway, the long and short of this is that it's too hard to try and keep up with someone's extremely busy summer vacation schedule. If she's going to keep giving me responses like 'maybe' when I ask her if I can take her to a movie sometime, then it's a bit hard to ever make plans for a date.

Secret Window
No, I never did see that movie. I just thought it was clever because you're staring at an application window right now [be it Internet Explorer or that cockface FireFox], and you're about to read on and discover what I've kept secret for quite a long time, at least in comparison to my entire life. What if I made this like a real journal? What if, instead of stumbling upon it under my bed, you found all thoughts and emotions right here on this page? And instead of having to sneak glances at it while I wasn't looking, you're able to read on and discover what really makes me tick just by being considerate enough to take time out and read this blog. The catch is that I'm going to ask you to be kind enough not to talk about what I write unless the person you're talking to has read it as well, and only of their own volition; not because you asked them to read it so you could both understand.

So now we're up to date. And the secret is this: Before I went out with Marlena, the choice in my mind was either her or... Sarah Fulco.

Surprised? If not, I'm sorry I'm so transparent.

Yeah, that's the shocker for today. After Marlena and I started going out, it wasn't long until Sarah started going out with Dallas, and I always wondered what would've happened if I had ever made a move on her instead of Marlena. Don't get me wrong; I was very happy with Marlena while we were going out, but after I was single again, I thought about it. And I think about it today. Meh. It's hard to describe how it's just a 'back of the mind' kind of thing.

Don't you love the 'what if's?

Alright. I think I'm done writing for now.

Take it easy, but strike hard.
Vaniah Schwenoha