MY LIFE - MARCH

Thursday, March 8, 2001

It was a year ago that things changed in as big a way as they could. Last March, my mom, my sisters, and I moved from Brunswick up here to Cleveland to start things over and get away from the troubles of our past.

I would by lying if I said I didn't miss Brunswick. I do miss the city, even if it wasn't the easiest place to live when I grew up. I miss it despite the number of idiots living down there and I miss it despite how I thought I'd feel. When I moved, I didn't think I'd miss it. I didn't think the memories (well, the good ones) would linger as long as they did, but they have.

For all the bullshit I dealt with, from my dad to peers, to everything else, the city still sits inside of me because I did have a lot of fun, especially once I got to high school and was no longer the loser no one would talk to, just a semi-loser that people occasionally talked to.

I remember playing tag with friends, playing football with people larger than me, basketball with people who were tougher than me, and baseball with people who could hit harder than I could. I remember being just as good as anyone at any of these as well. I could get away from most people in tag. I could take a hit in football and bounce back up. I could get an open shot in basketball and drop it with ease. I could hit and play good defense in baseball. I never hit the ball especially far, but I always placed it well.

I remember playing video games with my best friend until the late hours in the morning when playing video games was the coolest thing you could do no matter how popular you were. I remember going out in the middle of the night and sitting up on the roof talk about shit that was going on. I remember going to Neura Park through the woods and just having fun.

I remember going to houses and meeting people that I normally wouldn't be around. People who were drinking, using drugs, all that shit, but not once did anyone ever try and get me to do something that I didn't want to do. Part of this was my best friend's presence and persistance that if anyone has anything to say to me, they say it to him. Part of it was the fact that they knew I wasn't going to be a problem.

I guess I miss Brunswick a lot because of how familiar I was with Brunswick and everything about it. If it was there, I could probably find it. I knew the city well and that's completely different from up here. Yes, I know a lot of shortcuts now and I'm learning new ones everyday, but I don't know exactly where something is like I did in Brunswick. It's weird, but that makes a difference to me.

Not that I don't like where I live now. I love it here. I have my own floor in this house and the neighbors seem to be decent aside from the hicks to our north who still haven't taken their Christmas decorations down from last fucking year. It's a nice place to live. It's just so weird because you go to the suburbs and the houses are just as big, but the yards are so much bigger. It's why I never like playing at my grandparents. There are no yards up here. It's not a big deal anymore, but if we had moved ten years ago, this would've been harder to stomach.

As it is now, I'm enjoying myself. I've become more outgoing since I moved. I haven't necessarily met more people, I've just become more comfortable. I hate to admit this, but I think I'm just now within the last year starting to get over all the shit I went through as a child and the emotional strain it had. I would like to think that's not the case, but given how much easier it's been to talk to people, I'd have to say that the shyness is slowly starting to wear off. Not completely, but a little.

In the meantime, I have some time to make up in my social life and will be seeking the assistance of the girl I met recently. As far as what goes on between the two of us, whether we become more than friends or anything like that, that's going to remain with me. I'll talk about what I feel is relevant, but I'm not going to go blabbing her name all over the place and get into any private details. This isn't the place for that and some things aren't meant to be shared.

She's a very funny girl who's somewhat weird like I am, which makes things very interesting. She has a very outgoing personality and isn't the kind of girl I'd ever expect to have any interest in me at all. So this is going to be an interesting experience, but I hope it's more than that. That's all I can really say on this though because it just wouldn't be right to go blabbing shit about what we talk about all over this site.

So in all fairness, that's not an area of my life that's going to be made all that public.

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Some miscellaneous notes (that could get long)...It's spring training and I'm impatiently waiting for the baseball season to start. I would really love to get tickets to an Indians' game this summer, but it all depends on how things go. I don't want to get tickets to a game where I have lousy seats and I don't want to have to settle for single seats (which is what a lot are going for right now). I have to see what's out there and then make a quick decision. Do I buy the tickets or do I pass and hope that maybe next year will be the year for me to go without having to rely on charitable friends?

If you go by meteorological terms, and I do, then it's spring, although you'd be fooled by what's going on outside right now. It isn't as bad as it was before, but there's still a lot of snow on the ground. It isn't as bad because yesterday and today, the temperature managed to get above freezing and melt some of the snow that had accumulated from Tuesday's freak snowstorm. Well, it's snowing again. The best part? It's supposed to rain by the first part of next week with temperatures in the mid fifties. I love this weather.

Yesterday sucked ass at the end. I didn't hear from the person I was hoping to hear from (but she had a very good excuse so everything's cool) and I got an e-mail that was less than what I wanted to ever read. I'm not going into details though since it's really no one's business but ours. Let's just say that I got the wrong message across to the wrong person and didn't not feel too good about it.

I couldn't sleep yesterday, but that couldn't have anything to do with me having a lot on my mind, as well as two cats sleeping next to me, causing me to shift into all sorts of uncomfortable positions, could it? I'm just taking a guess at this though. I went to bed at midnight, and fell asleep at 6 in the morning. Six fucking hours to fall asleep. I mean, I've had trouble falling asleep at night before, but this shit was ridiculous. In any event, I was very tired at first when I got work and nearly fell asleep at the store meeting (Sorry Bob!). I made it through the shift and had a pretty good evening.

Tomorrow's our truck day and we're down a person on the schedule, so this ought to be good. I have this feeling I'm going to spend most of my time on the register considering that Barbara couldn't get someone out of the store in a hurry if her life depended on it.

Tomorrow ought to be an interesting day.