Given my new desire to do this page, I've started reading other people's online journals. Just for the hell of it, I'm including an email I wrote one of them:

Hi. :) I've recently started a web journal of my own (but two entries, so its not really up yet) and because of that, I've been trying to read other peoples. I've been reading yours (duh) and I was going to wait until I got through it all before I emailed you, but I decided that I had to comment on this point first.

Its what you said about how changing the way you look makes you cooler, how it makes you
suddenly the center of attention. I know how that is. I was THE kid to pick on in elementary school. I had a reputation as a total geek in middle school (dating a fellow geek didn't help much) but by high school everyone left me alone. Read: ignored me. I got fucked over more than once. I had one true friend, and I had my online life. (I happen to love my online life.) Then came my senior year in high school. All my life I've let people step on me, use me, and abuse me, because I thought it would make them like me, even if it was just a little bit. I wanted someone I could call for the homework without them sounding like over the phone like I had no right to breathe their air, let alone DARE ask them for something like homework.

So, I changed the way I looked. I started wearing black clothes, but it felt wrong. Then I dyed my red-brown hair totally black, and all the black clothes felt RIGHT. I don't know, maybe it hid the real me, but it gave me courage. I started talking back to people who tried to abuse me. I became on the fringe of every single goddamn clique in the school. I cut my hair pretty short, around my chin, which is short cause the people who know me know I've NEVER even had it above my shoulders since second grade.

I think what the clothes do is not really change you, not even really hide you, just bring certian bits out to you. I'm in college now, a freshman, and I'm still wearing black, though I've mellowed to the point that some of my black clothes have some color, or if I run out of clean black I'll wear something light-colored until I do a wash. But, what no one else sees, is that the black is a part of me now. Its no longer an image. Its molded me into the loud-mouth, smart-ass, perverted bitch I am.

Or maybe I'm not like that. Who knows? There's one person in the world who's touched a part of me I didn't know existed - the soft spot. I thought I buried it when I made the resolution that no goddamn schoolkids would EVER make me cry again. I built up my mental armor, insisting I wouldn't let anyone in, until not letting people in has become a way of life. But this different part of me....the part of me thats gooey-eyed, sentimental, the part of me devoted to love - is THAT the real me? Which is? I have to wonder.

I'm sorry for totally changing the subject. But, hell, this was way introspective. I think I'll add this letter to MY journal. (Without your name or addy, of course, unless you want it there.) Email me back, if you want.

There's that part of my life. But thats not what I was thinking about most of the time today. Granted, most of my time today has been consumed with thinking about Tony, because he's flying in to visit me tomorrow (!!!). By this time tomorrow......I cant even really finish that, it gets me too mentally bouncy.

But because I was thinking about Tony so much, about how our own relationship has grown, it made me remember my first relationship, period. Mark. Ah, Mark. Can you really call someone you went to one movie with when you were 11 a boyfriend? I do. Well, ex-boyfriend now. Mark was nifty. He lived down the block, and we used to take the bus together, telling jokes, and he'd come over my house and I'd abuse him like all 11 year old girls abuse guys. Wrestling, throwing my stuffed animals at him, basic things. He gave me a ring though....*laughs*...A little silver-colored (I won't dare say real silver) adjustable ring with a glued-on amethyst. Hey, we weren't even teenagers yet. Damned if I know what happened to that ring.

But thinking on Mark made me think of my other boyfriends. About how, as I grew older, the deeper my relationships got. I know, I know, it happens to everyone, but I've NEVER been able to see the evoltion of my life as well as when I see how I compared with others.

Next was Scott Eckers. Technically, I started going out with him while I was still with Mark, but Mark and I hadn't spoken for weeks. Don't ask me why - we didn't fight or anything. It was more like we drifted apart and never officially broke up. I still felt really guilty about it - hell, I still do. I was just a 12 year old know-nothing, but I'd like to think I knew better than that. Anyway, back to Eckers. He was a geek. You know the type. Wore preppy sweaters, and slacks, and almost always dress shoes. We went on two real "dates" in the year we were 'together.' I look back on it now, and I don't see a relationship there, either. We kissed perhaps four times. It was a glorified friendship. It was the means we needed to get mentally close to each other. It wasn't a relationship.  He and I don't really talk now. He broke up with me about a week after our 'anniversary'. We still were close friends, but nothing more. I reserved the right to tease the hell out of him when he dated anyone - and I still do. Personally, I think he's a closet case. ( I know, he may one day read this, but this is a journal. Its supposed to be honest). He's grown up, and he's....effimate. His nails are always more perfectly manicured than mine, and I take good care of my nails. He has these....hands. Thin, graceful, a pianist's hands. He's heavily into theatre. Granted, that alone doesn't determine it, but the other 3 openly gay men at my school were involved in theatre too. One was a soprano in my chorus :)

Anyway, lets move on. After Eckers, I turned to the internet as my main source of men. I was still only 14. My first was a guy named Andy who lived in California. My cousin, Marcella, also liked him. I wasn't "with" him, but I wrote him RL letters every day since I didnt have net at that time. (We met at my uncle's).  Not much more to say about him. My interest slackened, I got maybe two letters from him, and I stopped writing.

Then there was Razi. By now, my father had installed the internet in our home computer, and most nights were spent on IRC, chatting to people. Razi was my first REAL internet romance. Frankly, I don't remember much about it. I spend my life in a fog. All I know is that he was sweet, quiet, and had eyes only for me. Or so I thought. Once in a chat room, this girl I vaguely knew started asking where he was. Being the instantly-jealous girl that I am, I wanted to know why. We compared notes, and found out he'd used the SAME EXACT LINES on both of us. When I look at it now, its funny. Then, it was devestating. I lured him into a private chat, where Kit (the Other Woman) was waiting and we verbally reamed him. Then we both dumped him. It was great!! Oh, as a side note....Kit has decided she's gay :) A gay Jew living in a Neo-Nazi-part of Atlanta. In a way, I pity her.

Next was Samir. He lived up in Canada. We got together at a mutual friend's internet wedding. Started 'dancing'. (Its called posing. You'll get used to it). And we just MAJORLY hit it off. He asked me to netly marry him. (Its kinda like going steady in RL. You dont date someone RL, and you don't go out with someone else on the net. Of course, some people argue that if you're 'dating' on the net, you're not dating at all, but I'll deal with that later). I agreed - only because I didn't want to hurt him. I was bored to tears in the relationship by then. It was a relief when he broke it off with me.

And what did I do? I jumped into another relationship. Not 72 hours after Samir broke up with me (and won the ostrocization of EVERYONE in our chat room - I'm popular there. Go fig.) I started going out with Robbie. Robbie encompasses one of the larger love-chapters of my life. I loved him very deeply. Frankly, I still do, but I'm not sure how anymore. He was the first person to get me to be mushy. He was the first to tell me I was beautiful and have me believe it. I think he was the first person I said "I love you" to and MEANT it. But, as I do in all things....I got bored after about 6 months. I think I was....16 by this point. I stopped connection, and I STILL feel like shit when I think about it. By the time I returned to online, a month after that, a rift had been formed that couldn't be fixed. We broke up. Describing my relationship with him now is more than confusing. Much, much more. For a long time, I got horribly jealous when he dated anyone else. I mean, I saw red. Literally. But I did what I could to help him work out his problems with the girls, honestly so. I can't blatantly lie like that. He gets hyper-jealous when I started dating again - and still is, though I've been with my boyfriend a year. He worries about me continuously, like an older brother. But we still flirt like we did when we were dating. (HAHAHA! Pear lotion! Pear lotion!) Um, I'm fine. We plan for what'll happen when he comes to visit me, though he knows if I'm attached, nothing will. He's as much as a fidelity freak as I am - hell, if I even thought about cheating on my boyfriend with him, he'd probably lose his respect for me. I think he's lost some already, when I told him I was going on Depo Provera (If you dont know what it is, and cant figure it out in context, you're too young to know. I'm not telling.) I still love him to little bits. He still loves me. But I saw, several months ago, when I was in low tide with Tony (I'll explain later) why he and I couldn't get back together. We don't TALK. We tease each other. We don't really talk. What we had would fall apart if we had to worry about monthly bills or real-life jealousies.

After Robbie and I broke up, I went into what I call my "Hell-Period." The League Of Bad Boyfriends. One mentally scarred me for life. The other just royally pissed me off. The first was Josh. A sixteen year old boy on one of my RPGs. Quiet, shy, incredibly intelligent, and he liked Animaniacs. How could I resist? He made me laugh. I'm used to making people laugh, but someone who makes me laugh is extraordinary. Things turned to shit quickly. He was an insanely jealous person. I mean, some jealousy is alright. Expected. But he was INSANE. I'm serious. While I was with him, I was writing stories. I told him one story of mine where the main character had a fiance she didn't really love, and ended up almost jumping this other guy she was falling for. He FREAKED. He said that charachters are extensions of the author, and if the character was willing to cheat on her fiance, I was willing to cheat on him. That just floored me. Who was I dating, Joshua Sako, or Sigmund Frued? Things went downhill from there. I'm the kind of person who clings to a relationship. I don't know, I don't feel whole unless I know someone loves me. So I stayed in this relationship, put up with his superior-attitude, everything, until I couldn't take it anymore, and broke it off. He threatened me with suicide. Well, actually, he said something like he'll never love anyone as he loved me, and as soon as he finishes a story and ties some loose ends....I tried to talk him out of it for an hour or more, then gave in and told him I didn't care and logged off. You dont even want to know how badly I was plagued with guilt for that. I actually searched Baltimore newspapers online for his obituary. Surprise, surprise, it never came. In a way, I hope he feels guitly for putting that scar on me, but I doubt he does. I'm a pebble in his past.

After him came Adam. Could I have chosen any way to screw myself over more? I doubt it. Adam is another legit nutball. A computer hacker. He's gotten people arrested for things they didn't do. But he goes to school in NYC, so we made a plan to meet RL. He never showed. Also, I found out recently, he was dating my cousin (Marcella - same one) at the same time he was with me. Due to the fact that I still hate his guts, I refuse to write any more about him.

Then came Tony. What can I say? My wrists hurt now. But things, right from the beginning, were different with Tony, different than any other relationship I've ever had. For one, we got to know each other before we got together. When we met, almost.....wow, 15 months ago....I was still getting over Josh and about to get fucked over by Adam, and he was with someone named Tina.I'd been talking to him about a week or two when I noticed he was acting weird one night, and he told me that Tina had tried to kill herself. I told him to get off the goddamn internet and CALL her. (That was a net relationship too). But, after that, she stopped showing up. He stopped seeing her. And he wasn't happy. I pointed all this out for him, I told him that if the relationship isn't making you happy, and hasn't been making you happy for some time, it probably never will again, and to get out of it. He did....and she tried the suicide thing, like Josh did to me. The only difference was, he knew she'd already tried it. He was talking to me at the same time, and I told him that he wasn't responsible for her happiness. I don't know where she is now. But Tony and I bonded after that. And we bonded more after Adam stood me up. It was so weird.....we had everything in common. Our hopes, our desires, even the same favorite shade of the same favorite color. We talked about getting together, but nothing was ever finalized. Then one day....we just decided we'd give it a shot. Not very romantic, but thats what happened. November 2. We've been inseperable since then. I'm not sure what else to say from here. There's so many things. We slowly began to realize that getting together was an excellent thing. As he put it, it took him only two tries at relationships to hit gold. I wish I had that track record :P. But we fit together....I hate to use the old cliche of puzzle pieces, but thats exactly what it is. We complete each other. He's quiet, shy (notice a pattern? I seem to go for the shy guys.), and a good listener. I'm loud, blunt, and I tend to dominate conversations. Given this, its hard for me to shut up, but I'm trying to do so to bring him out of his shell. I know, from the time I've spent RLly with him, that everything he doesn't say out loud is said in his body language, in the little things he does, but......he lives a thousand bloody miles away. I can't see that every day, as much as that fact pains me. But everything we do seems to fit. What I lack, he has. He's patient, I get pissed off if I can't do something right off. He's reasonable at math, I still count on my fingers (don't laugh. I'll hurt you.) Its hard to explain. I always thought that REAL love was for books and movies. But with the time I spent with him RL, I think I could do that forever. Come home from work, and see his face. The only thing that bothers me about this scenario is that I'M ONLY SEVENTEEN. I'm not supposed to have found Love yet! (Hell, thats what this is now - not just love, but Love). But then....a lot of kids think they Love at my age. Supposedly, you dont find a real relationship until your twenties. But Tony and I are both mature for our ages, I believe. Hell, maybe this is It. The One. I have no bloody idea. All I know is that what I feel....I've never felt before. I explained to him once my theory of the Time Bomb. In ALL my other relationships, I felt the time bomb at one point or another. Something ticking inside me that told me how long I had left in this relationship or that one. And I was always right. Always. I feel no time bomb here. And that, in and of itself, feels marvelous. The only problems in the relationship is the distance, the physical distance, between us. My parents like him - I think. Well, they didn't have anything bad to say about him. Hell, HIS parents like ME. That shocks the hell out of me. I always assumed that my boyfriends parents wouldn't like me. But his dad and I talk online like old friends sometimes. And rarely about Tony. Anyway, the other Big Factor that makes me think this relationship has got at least another year or so, is that I've stopped looking at other guys. Oh, don't get me wrong, I LOOK. A hot smile, nice eyes, a cute ass, whatever. I look. But I've stopped looking at them in a relationship-sense. There's not a single person here that I've thought of dating. Not one. Is this a forever-thing with Tony? Again....I don't know. I'm not sure I want to, just yet. All I know now is that all I have to do is look at his picture on my desk and I'll smile. I'd be devestated if it was over. I need him. Often when I go through my day, I'll think, "I must remember to tell Tony this or that or this other thing."  I've never needed anyone other than my parents in my life. To quote Sense and Sensibility (the movie) "It is bewitching to think one's happiness resting entirely in the hands of one person." Mine's not entirely in his hands, but....its damn close.

Anyway, my wrists hurt. I've been writing for over an hour. Time for me to go nappy-bye. Well, try to. Hell, tomorrow he's flying in and we'll be celebrating our one-year anniversary. Could you sleep?

Mail me if you want.