I still feel like shit. The flu. But thank you, so much, to everyone who wished me a "get better soon" thing. Oh ... and I'd like to extend a hearty hello to Erin from diary x9slick9x. She's very spiffy. This is going to be a long-ass entry. Toy Soldiers - by Martika Step by step, heart to heart left right left, we all fall down like toy soldiers. It wasn't my intention to mislead you It never should have been this way What can I say? It's true I did extend the invitation I never knew how long you'd stay When you hear temptation call It's your heart that takes, takes the fall Won't you come out and play with me? Step by step, heart to heart Left right left, we all fall down like toy soldiers. Bit by bit, torn apart, We never win but the battle wages on for toy soldiers. It's getting hard to wake up in the morning My head is spinning constantly How can it be? How could I be so blind to this addiction? If I don't stop the next one's gonna be me Only emptiness remains It replaces all, all the pain. Won't you come out and play with me? Step by step, heart to heart Left right left, we all fall down like toy soldiers. Bit by bit, torn apart We never win, but the battle wages on for toy soldiers ... I heard this song on the radio coming home last night ... I hadn't heard it since I was ... little little. Like ... in the 90's. Early 90's. I remember singing it, too, in the back seat of my Mom's car, on the way to school ... I had an interesting class last night. In Developmental Psych, we've finally reached adolescence. Yes, that means middle school and high school. We had a few fascinating discussions; the women talked about at what age they were allowed to date (the majority of them said sixteen - one said 25 ... poor girl). I noticed that no one asked the boys. But to be honest, I was never told when the appropriate age was for me to date. Considering that once I was actually -interested- in dating, my parents were gone. Plus, I really didn't have a want to date through high school - I was a very busy guy, and I had my own world, with my own things to do, my own friends - and I doubted that I would find a high school girl mature enough to accept that. Or even, for that matter, be tolerant of Wicca. There weren't but a few Wiccan girls at my high school - and none of them, I would have dated. I know for a fact that two of them were just saying they were Wiccan so they could be "cool." Which brings me to another discussion we had about adolescence. Acting phony. Yes, this is a real thing. It's not just your high school, it's all over the place - it's an actual psychological thing that teenagers go through. The book SAYS so, okay? It's a peer pressure thing - people want so badly to fit in - so they "act phony" ... it's an actual term. It's listed under Self-esteem - and of course it's the fault of the parents, peers, and community. It says in the book, and I quote: When support from adults or peers is conditional (withheld unless the young person meets overly high standards), teenagers frequently engage in behaviors they consider "false" - not representative of their true self. Adolescents who often "act phony" to protect themselves from disapproval suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and pessimism about the future. End quote. And then, there are those people who do it just because they want to be accepted by others - but you know, once they get caught in it - it just hurts them worse, you know? So why not try to be yourself? Take a prime example. Kim was a girl I knew in high school. She was two years ahead of me. You know how I was in high school - I knew who I was, I just wanted to be left alone, with my friends - I was shy and withdrawn. I still am a bit. But apparently, to Kim, I was a God ... or something, because she was always following me around. In fact, she was obsessed - she stalked me. She changed her religion from Christian to Wiccan just because she wanted to get close to me. She followed me not just at school, but in stores, too. She followed me home. She called me constantly to the point of me asking my grandparents to please change the number and keep it unlisted. She, who had before been a very avid country fan, then pitched all of her country stuff in the trash and started listening to the things I did - and pretended to have known about them for a long time ... and ... well ... to put it mildly, she was just an obsessive poser. I don't know why she was like that - she came from a very loving, Christian family ... supported and sheltered - and yet she turned out like that. She even tried to put a love spell on me. She tried to start a coven. She tried to initiate me into said coven by putting a knife to my throat - just like they did in the Craft. In fact, everything she did looked like it was from that movie. And I would tell her, over and over again, that it wasn't Wicca that she was doing. To stop if she didn't truly believe in it. But she kept up with it anyway. I haven't seen her since she graduated. And that's a good thing. She was a fucktard. (LOOK! I USED THE WORD OF THE WEEK!!!) And she was also just an all-around bitch, poser, and not-nice person. I don't need people like that in my life, rubbing their bad karma off on me. Not good. Bad chi. Anyway ... I have some dreams from last night. First Dream: I was mad, and I was tired. I'm going into this room - where there are these chains - and -HE- is there, and Matthew is there ... I don't like Matthew, he's supposed to stay away from me, he and knows it. I'm pissed off, but I'm oh so tired. I see these chains, and I'm pissed off. They're attached to something. This pisses me off. I turn to -him- ... he sends Matthew away. Then, I just stare at -him- for a minute ... and I slap him. I slap him HARD. He raises his hand to his cheek, and just looks at me ... hurt. It pains him to know that I'm not happy with him. Next thing I remember is breaking all of these chains ... just breaking them all. I can't remember what I was thinking, just that I had to break them all. Next thing I remember is being on a bed, with this girl - I didn't see her head. She was on her stomach, and I was straddled over her legs. I was touching her back, these holes in her back, and I was just touching them, because I could make them close up. I know she wanted to talk, but I kept thinking to myself that she shouldn't talk, that I don't want her to talk ... that she shouldn't be talking. And I'm too tired to say anything at all, but there I am, feeling part of me draining out - color is draining from my sight - as I'm healing the holes in her back. Until I finally just ... fall over onto my side and think, over and over again "sleep, sleep, please sleep." But it's her voice I'm hearing, in my head, telling me to sleep, to rest, that I should be resting. Next thing I know, I'm sittingo nthe edge of the bed, clutching my head - and she's wearing something different. I hear her voice in my head again, saying something about how I keep spacing out, blacking out, or having a seizure or something like that ... I can't explain it. She pulls me back down on the bed, makes me lay down. I curl the fingers of my left hand around her arm ... and that's all I remember. Last dream: I was the third eye me again - there, but not there. Invisible. Seeing things that I couldn't explain. I remember very little about this dream - just random images, quotes. I remember a girl and a boy were running away together, faking their own deaths, and the girl was asking "will they find anything?" And the guy said "Just our suicide notes." I remember something about a teacher talking to these students about suicide, and how there were different categories of it. I remember the quote, "suicide is in a category all its own." I remember being in these woods, trying to get back home ... yes, I was trying to go home ... and I had a red-tailed hawk with me ... a magical hawk. I don't know what exactly was magical about it, though. But there was a dog, too ... a white labrador retriever. She wasn't mine, but I felt obligated to protect her. And then suddenly, this wolf comes out of nowhere, and tries to attack me. But I'm so tired ... so so tired. I keep throwing these weak, mind-blasts at it, keeps knocking it back a little more and little more as I climb up into this tree. They're orbs of this ... lavender/purple light - weak orbs, flying at the thing, knocking it back. The wolf wants to kill me. Maul me. The dog goes after it, to stop it. I know there's a bigger fight going on - that the wolf is just there to keep me away, to keep me from discovering what's really going on ... a distraction. I look to my hawk, and it suddenly flies off - and I know it's going off to warn "the others" of what's going on ... whoever "the others" are ... And that's all I remember. Okay ... that's enough. I'm going now. Blessed be. ... me ... dead ... that's how I feel. Dying.