I had a nice day in the city, aside from aching feet and a pulled groin. On the train ride back I noticed something plastic and shining on the floor. It didn't look like anything substantial, just a laminated piece of paper really. On the paper was the following message:

In Loving Memory of
Michael Giacomo Bertolino
January 3, 1978
December 24, 2003

After Glow

I'd like the memory of me to be a happy one,
I'd Like to leave and afterglow of smiles when the day is done.
I'd like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways,
Of happy times and laughing times and bright sunny days.
I'd like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun
Of happy memories that I leave behind when day is done.




That's what it was, a mass card for a man who died too young. I couldn't find anything about him online, and his life and cause of death remain a mystery. He could have been a saint, he could have been a sinner, but he is dead now, and I foud his card, the shiny plastic card. St. Michael the Archangel is on the flip side of it, striking a blow to satan and casting him into the depths of hell. Is that where he is? If you believe that stuff. Who knows. It is very odd that I found this card, very strange indeed.

I'm feeling incredibly empty and spiteful right now. Haven't felt this way since high school. This might mean that I will start writing plays again, to deal, but that would be a stretch. I can't believe that I'm single. Single. 1. Not two. Not me and the Shannon bear, nope, just me, alone, with nothing else to do. Great. My balance is thrown and I fall. It's like a shoulder throw. Once they grab your arm, you know what's going to happen. All you can do is break the fall and try to work from there, try to roll out of any holds and take the blows, but it's futile. They have your arm. They control you. It's like that. I am so attatched to her that I'm just here, flopping around and flailing, trying to break free, but I cannot. She's still got a hold of me, even if she doesn't realize it. I didn't realize it until it was gone. It's like I need to break my arm to get away, gnaw it off to the stump and yank hard to sever it. This is going to hurt a lot. It does. It's that pain of neccesity, of learning what everyone else was going through when you were giving them advice, of recognizing where you are in the sequence, and wanting it to go faster, but it's not going any faster. It's a slow thing. Like slugs. You want the salt to burn it away, but that would be too easy. It's just another day, another way to play, so to say, but why anyway? What does it matter to be there, alone, in place with people, laughing and singing, when you are alone in spite of your best intentions, your wishes and dreams, and yet you can't save her, you can't save us, the we, all you can do is see it go, down the drain, never to be seen again. That fire from below blows your mind. You see it all coming back to you again, the good the bad and the better, the worst is left out in hindsight, where everything is golden and gleaming, perfect in your eyes, but you see the flaws, the diamond is not worth what you think it thought it costs, and you look away again, never looking it in the eyes, for that might be too much, too soon, to do. You're done, for a while, and you need to get going and get gone. See ya, saw ya, have a nice day. Tschuss.


Hate this shit.

Happier tomorrow, during the day. Right now is the unhappy hour. Train tomorrow at 10 to the city for walking and singing. Wonder if they card? Bah, doesn't matter anyway. I just want to have a little fun, with my friends, with the joss and blythe, with chaz's crew. I want to have fun with her, as she facilitated most of my fun, but fuck it, i'm screwed, and there are so many better people that she will be with, eventually. I've lost my shine. I got comfortable, and thus stagnated, thus became worthless. The novelty wore off. People don't think i write anymore, and while i don't write like i used to, I still write. It still sucks, but it's something.

Oh yeah! Forgot to say that I played hockey tonight, and I didn't die, though I have some scratches from my equipment...when you leave leather for 2 years, it gets hard and scratchy, and my gloves are leather. THat was fun, but seriously, the hockey was a lot of fun. I was winded after the warmup, but lasted a good 40 minutes in dire shape. My technique was sloppy, and I let in numerous bad goals, but that's ok. I played, it was fun, and I'm going to be playing every sunday until I go back to school, maybe even during the week.

HOLIDAY PLANS!

1) DEC. 30: Got to the city with my brother and friends; sing karaoke, which will be strange, as i will most likely be the only sober one at the party. That means one thing though: I'm driving.
2) New Years
A) Go to mike's house in New Jersey and sit around while other people get drunk.
B) Hang out with my borther and his friends, play RISK with them while they get drunk.
C) Fenagle something with Sarah


Ok, for New Years: Options B and C are looking the best. I like my friends, but they are not terribly chill people. They like to destroy things when they get drunk. I like to create, not destroy, wantonly. I like my brother's friends. Very smart people, not that my other friends aren't, but these guys are the kind of people that you can talk philosophy with while at the same time making fun of a bad Godzilla movie. THat and I haven't seen the Right Reverend Hoagie Choi in a long, long time, and it would be good to see him. I like him a lot. I like all my friends a lot. THat's why they are friends. I would love to go up to see Sarah then, but I have the feeling that it's probably not going to happen. I would love to do things with her though, but it will take some planning, and i have a plan. I would like to get a bunch of folks together and just have a shindig. See Sarah, see people from school, a bit of a road trip. It's looking up.

Wow, my ass really hurts from hockey. Must've gotten hit with a puck or something, but I am a goalie, so it makes sense.

Ok, to sleep now.

I am coming to an odd realization that I am, in fact, just like verybody else. I'm having trouble with the whole breaking up thing, but only during the hours of 12.30 am-8am. Other than that, I think I'm ok with it, though the hours are flexible. It really sucks sleeping alone, especially in a very large bed that was ghetto-rigged for the specific purpose of allowing 2 people, maybe even 3, to sleep comfortably on it. Depressing, yes, but I am learning a lot about the stock market!

I hope I get an email from someone, or a phone call. Ever since the breakup I've felt so very unpopular.

Groove is in the heart.

Movies that you should see:

1) WINGED MIGRATION
A terribly awesom film that will leave you slack jawed at its visual beauty. I'm a big mark for bird documentaries (my big dark secret), and this film left me breathless. You will be wondering how they got most of the shots, as none of them are done with special effects. None. There are special effects in the movie, but none of the bird footage is computer generated or altered, and if it is, when it is, it is very obvious and intentional. Nature is beautiful, and it is ironic that seeing a movie made me remember this fact. Just stunning on so many levels.

2) BIG FISH
Tim Burton's best, hands down. It will leave you with a warm, sad feeling in your heart. It embodies the emotions of "The Sandlot" and "The Royal Tennenbaums", however it is great in its own right. Everything is perfect, and thus this is an excellent film. Anyone who says otherwise is nitpicking. The only, THE ONLY film that has ever brought me close to tears in the theater. That's right. The cynical bastard had a warm fuzzy feeling and almost cried. Go see it. You'll be bawling too.

3) WHALERIDER
Another awesome movie concerning a little girl and her grapples with coming to age in New Zealand. Predictable, but like many great films, it plays with its own predictable nature and makes something new and great out of it, just like "Bend it Like Beckham". The girl tries to find herself, whales, and amazing acting in the film, and actually finds all 3. This is a movie where one performance is great, and then the others are even better. Where did they find so many great actors? New Zealand of course. Duh.

Saw "Winged Migration" today, and the other 2 in theatres. Go see all of them now, and thank me later. You won't be sorry, not a bit. Until later, when I get depressed, toodles.

Still feel sick to my stomach, still nervous about who i am going to be, and where it is all heading.

i'm going to become a stock trader this summer. I'm reading books and everything. I'm surprisingly excited about the prospect.
I want to sign up for a german language intensive for the first part of the summer. I want to speak it like a Kraut, so to speak.
This summer is going to be interesting. The big question is: what about the next few months?

That's what freaks me out. Where do i go from here? I still have feelings that have not gone away, and grow stronger as the distance does. damn that lack bringing a need. Need to figure this all out. I think i'm getting down to a normal sleep schedule. I hope things work out, I really do. I don't want to be depressed or down this whole break. I want to see the people i want to see, regardless of personal bullshit. Eyes on the prize. Why waste time with feelings and failings, enjoy it while you can. Too much bad shit's been going on recently, i need to live it up while i can, while i am here. The amount of injuries going around is making me feel shockingly mortal, and thinking that a day wasted is a day lost, forever, and i will never get that day back, so i have to live for the moment, and enjoy it, otherwise i'm wasting something really beautiful and important. I can't do that, i can't let that happen, so i need to live a little bit. Maybe i'll take a drive somewhere, see something new, and meet some new people, maybe some old ones, maybe the young too. I just need to do something now, to fill that gap. I want to fill that gap; I want to be complete again.

Until the next depressing post...

I have a very empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, and i cannot tell if it is because i am hungry, or because I am realizing that i'm not going to have mail from shannon in the morning. it's settling in that i am alone. i lack my other half. I am beginning to miss her, which is a good thing in the sense that is cathartic, but bad as it starts to crack my shell of invulnerability. She was and is my weakness. You get attatched and you take the chance of getting hurt. I got really attatched, and even though we both decided on this, I feel that hurt. I am living with the consequences of my actions. I am not above it all. I like to distance myself from petty things, or things that I say are petty. I like to be very zen and laid back about the world, or at least my life. I like to be that way, but it can never last forever. I am going to miss her greatly. There will always be a part of me that loves her the way i did when i walked into that classroom, or when we were in the car, staing at the stars at 4.30 am the day that i was to leave for school. I miss that sort of love, and i miss her already. Goddamn me for it, for the clarity that action brings, for making that choice. Goddamn it dall to hell. My eyes starts to tear up at her, at the love that we used to share, the love of yesteryear. That was a passionate love. We were deeply in love then, but like the leaves on trees, the love withered, but it did not fade. We got too used to it, and then it started to disapper. When I think of how it used to be, first love, and how it was in the past month or two, I am sad. I'm sad that I ever stopped loving her that much, I'm sad that I ever let her feel neglected. I tried not too, but I failed at that. I should have made her everything, I tried to make her everything. 1 tear so far. Life's not fair, and we all need to see that. Things don't always go your way. People die, relationships change. You can't live on the regret. My mind wants me to cry right now, but my body won't oblige. I can't live like that, looking back on what i should have, could have done. I used to do that in High School, and i have the current mindset to prove it. I keep occupied to avoid the pain of life, that sort of pain that depressed teenagers in high school talk about. I don't want to mope, to drag it all down. I want that old sort of love again. I want a warm, loving body in my bed next to me, to wake up next to. To eat breakfast with. To look at the flowers and the stars with. I miss that. The tears come more freely when i look at the romantic aspect of it. When i think of the fights and hardships, the stress and the pain of it all, they slow, but not by much. It is coming to me that I have lost my bear, the one thing really and wholly dear to me, and I cannot change that. I can't go back in time. I faught for her affection in the past, I was strong for her, and now i feel weakened like i never have before. I feel hot. I just want that old feeling again. Cherry Blossoms in bloom, each one good not bad. The cold wind when we used to go to the horses, seeing her on Pickquik, the pickle pony. Things will never be the same. I saw my future with her, and I saw fighting. We had some basic flaws that never worked out. We're great when we talk to each other, we're great like that, but we have our differences, and they are huge. She's afraid that if we are together so early on, for so long that we will not grow as individuals, and i can't blame her. her parents have many problems, and she sees that, and she's afraid of possibility, and so am i. I feel like i'm not the same person that she knew, but i know that i'm, wrong, and that i am, and always have been the same person. The one that used to look at her, wishingly, the one who broke down and told her he loved her after she showed him the beaver den by the road. She once said that I should never feel bad because somewhere there are mosquitos fucking. She's right. The world is full of so much happiness, and so much love, and that love should erase all of the evil, but it can't. There is always that grain, that kernel of horror in our lives. We just need to distract ourselves long enough so that by the time we see it, we're dead. "the horror, the horror" said Kurtz in the novel, and now i'm seeing that horror, in a melodramatic way. My eyes are crying, and i taste the salt, but my mind is on the page. I'm disconeccted from it. I feel as if two people are here. One is feeling it, but then there is my mind, which is detatched, thinking, writing. That's how life is for me a lot of the time. I see the actions going on, and i am somewhere else, thinking in my own way. I see it differently, just like everyone. I would love to say that I am something special, but i really amn't. None of us are. We're the all singing all dancing crap of the world. We need to become something, to make ourselves into something good, to forget that badness. We need to. Everything. Or else it will all come crashing down.

I miss my bear, the warm days of summer when we held each other. I miss the feeling when she would fall asleep in my arms, and i miss, i miss, it all. The good. That feeling, and i have the sudden realization that i haven't had that feeling in a long time, and that i would hold her and still feel it. No matter how mad she made me, how worried i got, i loved her. I could have killed her so many times, i was that mad, but i love her. I still do in that needy sort of way. I am still that teenager writing about the angst, and i will never forget it. there are no other bears out there, none of them. I'm not a bear anymore, not connected to it. I hope it all works out, because suddenly my future, the one that i had tucked away in the back of my mind is fuzzy and unclear, and nothing really seems certain. I just don't want to be alone. I don't want to have typed that sentence, but it's there, and though i can change that, I won't. It seems as if i have found my angst again, and i should probably start writing again. Life is funny that way, and it always has and always will be. It's fucking hilarious.

at least i didn't do all my christmas shopping left, though i did save her a praleen.

i love you all, i think.

So I am single again, after 2.5 years. It was expected by me, so it really isn't hitting as hard as it should be. It was kind of a mutual thing. We both saw the end coming, and we accepted it. We hope to be friends, after a month or so apart. Safer that way.

Going to see the Last Samurai tonight at 10...should be good.
I met Paul's 34 year old japanese girlfriend, or womanfriend. She's nice. It's very funny, as she tries to keep up with the conversation, and then when she looks lost Paul translates to her. It also helps that Paul, Colin, and my Charles (my brother) are pretty much fluent. An example:

me: so what did you think of the Matrix?
Colin: It sucked.
Paul: It was ok.
(Shizumi looks confused)
Paul: Matrix-oo
Shizumi: Ahhhhh!

Pretty much a night of that, but it was fun. We watched a lot of things on the internet, funny things, which was, well, funny and fun.

Ok, here's the injury report for people I know:
Mom- broken arm
Erica (cousin) - muscle injuries due to car accident
Shannon - Friction burn and bruises from car accident
Paul's Family - dead old people
Trevor's family - dead family friend

THe last two aren't injuries, per se, but they do add something. You can also add my breaking up with shannon to that list, my cousin Franks new (used) 3000GT dying, and ummm...something else. There was something else, but I've forgotten it. Oh well.

HAPPY! (just for you Sarah!)

So I might go to Japan, and I am going to Westwood at somepoint. Scheduling is a lot easier without a girlfriend, so times are flexible. One way or the other, I will go somewhere over break.

I want to ride a horse...they're really cute in the winter. They get all shaggy. Dusty too, but it looks very cool.

All better!

fucking motherfucking cocksucking asslicker whore of a motherfucking cocksucking asslicking son of a bitch cum guzzling gutter slut of a bastard fuckhead who fucked a fucking fuckfaced fucker in the asshole fucking motherfucker!

Just wanted to see what that would look like posted.
I'm tired; strung out; dulled edge.
Feel like things aren't going as well as they should be at this moment in the scheme of my life, but what the hey.
My brother gets back in 11 hours, and I'm meeting him at Newark.
I hate New Jersey.
I love explodingdog.com, I have for a while, and just remembered.
I wonder if they censor sites like these for language?
Sleep's a waste of time and life.
I want to be playing poker, No Peek, high stakes, like Hawaii.
I want to go to Hawaii more than anything right now, find my favorite spot on Kauai, where the waves break 30 ft out and the water's 6 ft deep, full of fish; calm.
I want to feel calm, not restless.
Go away, someplace new NOW
But that's not going to happen just yet. I've never felt so far removed from my own home. Think the time is coming to start looking for a place to live, perhaps?
That would be a big step, a very big step.
I'll look into it.
I'm not good with responsibility.

What about you?

La da da da da da da da da...Zak and Sara

I really like that song a lot.
So now that I am not at school I will be updating this fairly often. I'm really down right now, thanks to the whole coming home thing. It's odd. I love my home, my family, my friends, etc, but I miss the everyday life of school. It's so relaxing to me. It's so much fun. Now I'm removed from it.It usually takes a few weeks for me to start feeling down, but I'm surprised. It's already happening. Day one. Well, it may be because I've slept not nearly enough in the past few days, but I do really feel out of it.
I haven't actually spoke to Shannon all week, and I feel horribly detatched.
I had a nice ride back, stopped at the Cracker Barrel with Tim before we parted ways.

Me mem emmeemememmemememememememe, because blogs are all about me. God, how self indulgent. I can't stand it, and yet i'm compelled to write here. I can't get over that. I know that I am self centered, and i feel that all people inherently are, to a degree. This thing just doesn't feel totally right, somehow. It'll be better in the future hopefully. everything will be.

Blackstone is like my second home. I've lived there for three years, almost, and I just feel comfortable there. I don't think of it as being at school anymore. I think of school as my life, and the classes just sort of happen. I like everyone there a lot. The new people I am getting to know are interesting and cool, and I can't wait for the old crew to come back from parts unknown.

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody, I got some money because I just got paid, and how I wish I had someone to talk to, I'm in an awful way"
That used to almost make me cry in high school, and now it makes me feel low again. I know that people are out there, but it is too late, there is no time, but all the time. I just want to be occupied. I cannot just stand around doing nothing. I need a distraction of some sort, perhaps something shiny, or a good book. I have 3 to read, to finish, and then i can start a new book, for fun. That would make me happy.

Raindrops keep falling on my head, but that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red, crying's not for me...

OK, it's been 2 months or so...so the latest in my life

1) semester is just about over, passed everything, so thinks me, with low flying low blow colours.
2) Return of the Viggo came out...seeing it soon!
3) I rock.
4) I suck
5) I delay doing work until the last minute, like a real man. A real lazy man! HAHAHAHA!
6) I need a real hobby
7) Last Thursday is filmed, after an ardous 7 month pre-production
8) I am not sure how I feel about myself, I fear that I have changed, possibly for the worse. Who knows really. You? Didn't think so. Everything is so up in the air to me. What's going on? Who do I know these days? WIll I know everything about everything, ever? NO. That's something I do know, but I feel that i should know more about me. It's like I'm a stranger to myself. I do feel better about myself though, regardless of what numbers 4 and 8 say...
9) 24 is a good show
10) I really like salads, with chicken and egg in them...odd that

more updates whenever i get bored and remember the site!

shannon passed the test, driving that is...