"You have no idea what you do to me, or what I'll do to you."

I really really need to write in this more. It's sort of fallen by the wayside while I deal with all my stresses as of late. Let me recap what's been going on:

Bio -- I'm failing. Woo! I'm working on it though, and since we're no longer going over chemical stuff I think I can recover.

Comm -- makes me want to cry. Why is this my minor again?

Theater -- this is just my senior project. It's going. Not as well as I'd hoped, but it is definitely progressing. Slowly. I almost have a cast!

Finances -- I'm drowning terribly. The job hunt is not going well, I think I'm going to have to go back to Abercrombie -- but I can't make the interviews because I have class then. Agh! Time to see if one of my former managers can pull some strings.
Oh! Did I mention our bills and things? This "real life" shit blows. I never saw the appeal of staying in college and living on campus for forever before, but I'm starting to get it. A little too late, I might add.

In other news, Chris and I went to Out at Night at Six Flags: Great Adventure in New Jersey. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun. Ridiculous amounts. We met up with some of my friends from NYC and had a great time. Chris actually got me to go on Batman -- of course, my eyes were shut for almost all of it. Beside the point, I still went on it.

I went home this past weekend to celebrate my mom's birthday. I think I really needed to be not in PA too. I was way more relaxed, even though I don't have my own room anymore. I stayed with Chris though so it worked out pretty well. :)

The drive back to PA though! OMG! First we missed the Tappan Zee Bridge because a bus was in the way, so there we are skirting around Manhattan to get to the New Jersey Turnpike (ew! Even Jersey fans have to admit, not the prettiest part of the state!) Of course while we're on the turnpike....the worst weather I have ever driven in sprung up around us from nowhere. We thought it was that hurricane, but apparently the hurricane was in Maine? I'm sorry, if that wasn't a hurricane, it should have been called one.

Today we had a group presentation in bio and I think it went well! So, that's a step in the right direction....

On the Highway to Hell!

Okay...so, last Saturday I had planned to go to Dark Lady and then head to Mirabar. But, as they say, the best laid plans....

So I went to meet up with Grace and Ryan at the Providence Place Mall and then we were going to go over there together. Grace was still with her two younger cousins, so we went to take them home -- of course stopping at Newport Creamery for food and ice cream on the way -- and then we headed to the Dark Lady.

It was PACKED. We were late, but it was still early for it to be that crowded. Matt was over at Mirabar, and he had to leave early, so I saw him for about thirty seconds out on the sidewalk (sad face!) And inside....wowza mcwowza! TONS of people! It was thoroughly exciting and tons of fun.

And the big triumph of the night? There's a guy in Providence, who shall remain unnamed, but I've had lustbunnies for him for like two year now, and he actually flirted with me! I'm pretty much feeling like the sexiest thing ever right now.

So we never actually left to go to Mirabar, but we had a total blast.

So I got up the next morning, went to the Easter Sunday service with my family. We had an Easter dinner, just the family no extended family, around 2 pm. That was all the Easter we did, which was more than fine with me. I never used to get sick (before they put me on immunosupressants) but for some reason I was always sick at Easter. I can remember maybe twice being sick when it wasn't Easter in my whole life, so it's not my favorite holiday.
I did enjoy the couple of hours I spent at Trixx that night though!
We road tripped back from Pennsylvania, and it was quite an adventure. Meghan, Dara, Amanda, and I. Oooh boy! That was an adventure -- and I'm not even talking about the guy that Amanda and I saw peeing at the gas station. Ewwwwwwww. Meghan and I left my house and headed into Connecticutt, up to Massachusetts to grab Dara and Amanda. We switched off driving each time we stopped, so each of us (except Dara) drove once for three or four hours. It was a much longer trip than the usual six hour drive I have when I go it alone. Not sure how or why that happens. We did go a totally different route though, we got on 84 in Massachusetts and took that all the way to Scranton, PA, where we got on 81 and took that down to 83.
At one point we got off to find a McDonald's for lunch. Rhonda was giving us directions to the nearest McDonald's, but she left out a little teeny tiny turn we had to do. Amanda was driving, and in perfect Amanda-style she pulled a double u-turn -- effectively a three quarter circle -- in the middle of the road to get us back on track. That was maybe my favorite moment.

My least favorite moment? We stopped by the mall I work at along the way, since we were going by and I had a paycheck there.
Or thought I had a paycheck there but apparently several hours of work I did have either gone missing, or the check is being mailed to me. Since I'm not getting hours except for the once-a-month overnight, I'm livid. I need the money!! I don't know how I'm scraping together enough for all of the bills this month, but I'm betting I'm calling Grandma for help again this month. And the job hunt isn't going well because I'm seriously busy -- which makes me wonder, could I even work another job? If it's not late at night, I don't know.
Anyways, that's neither here nor there.The best part was discovering that if we photographed cars that were moving slowly in the high speed lane, they would speed up.

PS Since I know that the saga of Katie's foot is becoming epic, I wanted to share with you the latest update: she went to physical therapy and the therapist told her that her foot was not sprain but was in fact broke. Shocked? I'm not. So she's going to see -- surprise, surprise -- another doctor! But she's getting a second opinion and hopefully this doctor won't be so...much like the last one.

And in answer to the question people keep asking me -- yes, I'm still very bitter. :P

(Pictures in this post courtesy of Ryan, Amanda!) (And thanks to Rhonda, below, for the directions and adventures...)

"Just give it time, kid, I come to one and all"

Okay. Wow, that's really all I can say. Wow.

Thursday...let me explain Thursday. Katie called me from work and informed me that her doctor had called and determined -- a week later -- that there was actually a fracture on her foot in the x-rays. She was informed that it was urgent for her to see an orthopedic doctor immediately.
So, after my 12:30 class, I took Katie to her appointment with the orthopedic doctor who is coincidentally the same one I am seeing on March 31st about my elbow.
So she filled out her paperwork, and we waited. We got brought to a room. And we wait. Fifty-six minutes we waited -- which is lucky for him, because after an hour I go look for the doctor. (Yeah, I'm one of those guys.) He breezes in, barely introducing himself, feels Katie's foot and says "I didn't see a fracture on the x-rays" and makes like he's going to leave. Without so much as looking at the x-rays with her.
Katie gets upset -- this is the fifth doctor she's seen, and she keeps being tossed back and forth between "it's broken" and "it's just a sprain". The doctor tells his technician to call her family doctor and ask about this supposed fracture. Then, he walks out of the room. The technician makes the five minute phone call and then we spend a half an hour waiting for this doctor to return. When he did, he insisted that even if there was a fracture, it wasn't causing the pain and therefore it wasn't important and he would not be treating it. He diagnosed Katie with a "perrenial tendon sprain", and told her to do physical therapy, and sent her out to the check out.
At the check out desk, they got confused by the lack of a follow up appointment, which confused Katie, so she ended up crying again. The doctor had her brought into a room so he could "try to help her understand" so she wouldn't be upset -- and by that, he meant explain what he'd already explained only this time in a more condescending tone.
All in all, we spent two hours there and saw the doctor for a total of seven minutes.

Then, we had to rush because Katie's relatives were meeting us at our apartment that night for dinner, and I had to pick up my road trip comrades from campus before six o'clock. We sent Ty, Amanda, and Dara in my car to the diner and we ate dinner with Russ, Mandy, and the three little tykes....who, despite was Katie assured me would happen, immediately adopted me (rather than avoiding me). They're fun and good kids but it was still miserable in that I don't like little children sort of way.

Thursday night was a riot. We all went to Club XS (even Katie because that horrible doctor said she could) and almost everyone was there, it was crazy fun! We came back to my apartment and had a slumber party there -- Katie gave up her bed and she and I crashed on my futon.

The next morning, we all left for New England. Well, not as early as we'd intended. We picked up an extra passenger -- my friend Meghan who decided she didn't want to take the train (I've road tripped with her before). Then we stopped for breakfast. So we didn't really leave til like 11 am.
Then there was construction. And traffic. And then a truck blocked our view of a vital road sign and because of this we ended up having to drive through New York City -- fortunately, the navigation on my phone (who we've named Rhonda) saved us. It also got us up through Connecticutt into Massachusetts to Amanada's house, down to Meghan's in RI.
All in all, it was a nine hour drive. Fortunately, the company was good and we switched off drivers.

After just a couple hours home, I set off to work at the Dark Lady's beach party. There were tons of new faces, as well as plenty of familiar ones. It was a great time. I also kinda met a guy. Yeah, I might talk about that later...but at the same time, meeting guys in RI does me how much good? Pretty much none.

Today has been fairly relax. I got coffee with Matt -- the guy from last night -- and then we went and got my car inspected and then I've been chilling at home and running errands but pretty soon I'll be heading out again.

"It's Gay-Ja-Vu"

Oh. Migod.

Lemme fill you guys in. Because, for serious, I have such news for you! You will laugh, you'll cry, you'll dance and sing! Don't touch that remote!

Okay, enough intro. Here's what happened........

After James came to visit me in Rhode Island this summer, he continued northeast and went to Maine. While there, he met a lad named Jon. They hung out, went out, and summer loving had them a blast.

Despite myself, I was furiously jealous. But I told myself it was okay because, hey, I'll never meet this guy. He's in Maine. Right? Of course right.

The world is too damn small.
I'm partying in Providence, and my friend Joe (who is a skanky mcslutterson, and he won't mind me saying that either :P) is trying to hook up with these two kids: Francis, from RI, and his friend Jon who is visiting from out of state.
I run into Francis and Jon a couple of times and then it comes out: Jon is from Maine.
I'm afraid to ask, but I figure....there's got to be a ton of Jons in Maine, right? No way is this the same one.
So I ask......"Do you know a James from Pennsylvania?"
"Tall guy?"
"Yeah."
"Ohmigod, I LOVE him!"
So not what I wanted to hear. I left the conversation, ranted to Rob (my boss at the Dark Lady who is also one of the few people in Providence who I think really knows the depth and breadth of this crush) about what had just happened and then tried to hate Jon.
It's not frikkin' possible. He's just nice. I can't hate on him, and I won't.

But of course, I can't keep my mouth shut. Jon says "Tell James I said hi!" So I did.
Next thing I know, James is on his way to Providence and he's gonna stay at my parents house. With me. NOT IN MY BED. He said things were over between him and Jon, but he had vacation time and he was going to Vermont anyways and he'd been planning on swinging by this place in New Hampshire that Jon goes and surprising him.....so he was gonna stop in Providence and see both of us instead.
I'm freaking out. First of all, there's that jealousy and the fact that Jon is unhateable at war with each other. Then there's the fact that Joe totally wants to hook up with Jon. All I can see is the drama I'm afraid is going to happen.

James shows up and watches The Illusionist with my mom, my grandmother, and I. Then we went out. I had to work at Dark Lady that night, but James went over to Mirabar. He came back, mildly intoxicated (he's cute when he's drunk, I have to say) when the night was ending. Some guy would not leave him alone, and ended up taking James outside with him when Dark Lady closed....I went over to Rob and was like "A guy just took James outside" and Rob hands me money and goes "GO!" Love that man so much. Like, really, it's ridiculous. If he weren't my boss and weren't taken and if there was any chemistry there at all...:-P

Anyways...next day, I have to help take down decorations with mom. Obviously, James should not be enlisted to help....so, I was good, and encouraged him to spend the day with Jon. My mom was proud of me, and you should be too. :P
I was also supposed to have a date that night...didn't end up happening, so I took James to the coffee shop it was supposed to be at. He'd never had tiramisu, so he had it. He offered to pay for me too, but I didn't let him because that totally wouldn't have been fair. Also, would have been very date-esque...and while I would've loved that, at the same time it didn't seem right.

So we went to the Dark Lady, where I was a little depressed to find that two of the guys there who've been single the whole time I've known them both came with boys attached that night. That's okay, I showed up with James...different sort of attached, but whatever.
We went to Mirabar. Jon and Francis (and Joe) were all there, along with a million other people I had to say good-bye too before I left the state (we'll get to that later, it's less important :P). I'm pleased to say that James danced with me most of the night. We didn't flirt much that I noticed, but he did do a lot of flirting. Because of that...things that were yet to come were quite shocking for me!

In the parking lot where we'd parked, we ran into Kevin who DJs at Dark Lady some time and he invited us to Bickfords with him and some of his friends. We accepted.
Anyways, through the course of the meal, as had been happening all weekend, many many people assumed we were either dating or hooking up. Kevin seriously wanted to know why I wasn't going to have sex with James that night, so I dragged him outside, explained the situation as best as I could (especially the part where James tells me about all the boys he likes and is talking to) and he gave me a sound fist-to-the-chest and a flick on the forehead to knock some sense into me.
That worked well.
Anyways, thankfully Kevin has some degree of tact and did his best to put a stop to the questions about James and I. This, however, opened the door for Brendan -- one of the pillars of Providence's gay community and also the most tactless queer I ever met (although I do love him most of the time) -- to proceed to mercilessly hit on James. We get it, he's hot. Not every guy in the world needs to express this all the time.

So James and I got home around 3:30 am. I had been planning on waking up at 10 am and leaving at 11 am. This would have worked if mom had remembered to finish the laundry. So I went to bed at 5 am.
Early in the expanse of laundrying, I noticed James still getting texts -- presumably from Devin, one of my friends who is a shot boy at Mirabar, who'd been texting him since we left the club. If it weren't Devin I'd probably be jealous too, but Devin is just so friendly it's even possible (albeit unlikely, but I'm telling myself this is what's going on) that Devin is just texting his new friend. Anyways, I teased him about how late he was still getting texts and how popular he was. He sent me a text that said "Shut up biotch" and I replied "Whatever. Either go to sleep or help keep me awake, bitch :P". His reply said something along the lines of "I'd invite you to sleep with me but I think it'd be awkward for your parents in the morning".
Whoooooooooaaaaaaaaa.
I said "I'd accept but for the same reason."
And thus that bout of flirting ended as James went to sleep and I did laundry.

The next morning, James left for Vermont and I, in turn, headed in the opposite direction, back to Pennsylvania, to collect my car and return my rental to Enterprise. One week before classes start.

I want to reiterate that there was no sex during the course of this past weekend. There has been no sex since...well, Thanksgiving break. I'm okay with that.

So, in comparison to Rhode Island, even in the winter, I've determined that central Pennsylvania? Boooooooooooring. I'm bored bored bored. So I've been IMing basically everyone who is on the buddy list of my new screenname (ps, yeah, I got a new one) except Jonathan Vargas cause I'm totally nervous to IM him. :P
That includes James.
Who, yesterday, randomly...well, here's an excerpt from our conversation:

Me (11:48:15 PM):	I'm so bored, I think I might be hungry just for something to do.
Monday, January 07, 2008
James (12:08:11 AM):	:-*
Me (12:08:55 AM):	:-) what's that for?
James (12:09:01 AM):	i dunno
Me (12:09:21 AM):	Yeah, okay. :-P
Me (12:12:27 AM):	Well :-* back atcha. :-)
Me (12:13:32 AM):	And maybe you can get a real one next time I see you ;-)
James (12:13:43 AM):	ok

Yeah, I got a little flustered and I think I ruined it. Oh well.

Umm...so, today I got my car back and returned the rental. I really need to clean my car, that's the plan for tomorrow. Well, today now....

Oh. My. God. You will never believe what happened to me.

See, I was going Christmas shopping and I got this gift for my grandmother and this car -- mall security believe it or not -- came tearing around the corner and slammed into me. So, that's it. I'm dead. Mowed down by mall security!

No, I'm kidding. I thought Sue would appreciate it though. :-P

Anyways, to start off with my life since Thanksgiving.....
I got back and immediately started hardcore prepping for tech week for my short play that I was directing. Tech week came and went and my show was good, if I do say so myself. It hit a few bumps in the road on the way there, but it was good.

One of those bumps in the road, however, was a bump in the road for all areas of my life.
You see, it snowed and iced in the middle of tech week. And driving home from school, I slid off the road and into a speed limit sign. Ironically enough, I wasn't going as fast as the sign said.

The car won't even begun being worked on until January. As you can imagine this has caused several headaches. How was I gonna get home for Christmas and New Year's??? We worked it out though! I have this rental (we have rental on our insurance!), and I am taking that home to Rhode Island!!!! I'm going home!!!!
Tomorrow, actually.

Anyways, it's been a nightmare trying to get this sorted out. But all's well that ends well, right? Right!

I hate PA!

To start with, I need to give a shout out to my friend Genevieve who has confessed to me -- although there may have been alcohol involved :P -- that she is an addict of my blog. She calls it her "new Pink is the New Blog".

I've been inspired now, actually. Kat, Genevieve...our Pink is the New Blog picture could say "Pink is the New Grahambling"...even though Pink is the New Blog was around first...

I decided, the shitty luck I've been having? It's all because of Pennsylvania. Kick in the ass from God: you don't belong here. Move.

Because I had shitty luck in Pennsylvania all the way until I hit New Jersey on the road trip yesterday.
And I had shitty luck trying to take a rest in Connecticutt too but I don't think that was at all connected to anything. :-P

Anyways, here's what's been going on since my last post....I cast my one act, er "short play". They're great.

Gint is over. It was phenomenal and guess what? My dad snuck down to PA to see it!!

My computer's hard drive died. It got replaced but it's taken me a week since then to get my computer operational again since I'm dumb. I got home, and poof, figured it out. PA clouds my brain, I think.

Because my computer wasn't working though, I am now in danger of failing almost all of my classes and my schedule for next semester is TOTALLY screwed the fuck up.

As far as those issues with the other dancer went....well, nothing's really changed. I'm pretty much ignoring that as a problem. I have enough other issues to deal with than the fact that I make less money than the other dancer. And that certain people who are friends of mine start conversations with me by asking "Where's Will?" or don't talk to me at all because they're so focused on him now....
I know, not his fault. And I'm still being friendly to all of these people. But it doesn't make me happy. Because like, now? Now would be a time when having friends would be nice but even the ones who aren't ditching me don't seem to have time for me. All I need is a good movie-and-ice-cream night, am I asking too much?

I am working on getting hotter still, but the progress is slow going. Partly because I'm exhausted all of the time from this feeling of "What's gonna go wrong next?" because something always does.

Oh? As far as the love life goes? So, I was talking to a few guys (other than James, because as we know, hopeless). And I start going on a few dates (two, to be exact) one of them -- Jeremy. (Too many J names, I know!) He even came to see my show, and awkwardly met my dad despite my best efforts, and things seemed to be going pretty good. I did not, however, allow myself to jinx it by thinking the "b" word ("boyfriend", I mean).
So I must've jinxed it some other way, because he's moved the hell on from me. To a high schooler. Now, I know I'm an age-is-just-a-number sort of guy, but a high schooler over me? I cannot fathom that a high schooler has more to offer. But he says he's "happier now than he's ever been", and who am I to stand in the way of a timeless week-old love? It's not like I can compete with singing "Bubbly" over the phone. Maybe because I haven't made the effort to learn the words because I think that it's a little ridiculous to learn something someone else wrote and use it as a way of conveying my emotions? Sorry if I think it'd be more romantic if that sort of a thing were conveyed in something, I don't know, original?
Anyways, I told him my feelings for him in a way-out-of-left-field spilling of heart and soul (something I have never ever done before in my entire life). And when he found out I'd never done that before he said "Oh" which leads me to my latest conclusion:
I've always been doing the right thing by shutting the hell up.
My friends keep saying that when he realizes that a high schooler, no matter how mature, is incapable of having a serious relationship because of the structure of their life and the changes they're about to go through with starting college and all, he's going to come crawling back to me. Question is -- if my friends are right that he'll come back, am I gonna take him back? I've never been much of one for second chances and I've been right before....

Anyways, to sum it all up: men suck, I'm still chronically single, depressed, and am right that spilling your guts is a totally worthless action. (Unless, apparently, you're spilling your guts through someone else's words.)

Ooooooh, but I have a new keyboard! And it's fun to type on because all the keys are there and none of them stick!

And Katie and I went to DC last weekend (when the whole Jeremy thing went down) and visited our friend Ashley and we went to Apex and it was a phenomenal blast!

Now I'm in RI and I need to hop offline so I can go shower because I'm working at the Dark Lady's Thanksgiving Eve party!!

Oooh, I also forgot about this:

Watch More Videos Uploaded by bebo.com/acrowleyorder

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

"You can't leave footprints in the sands of time by sitting on your butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?"

That's probably my new favorite quote. And it leads to the questions we should ask ourselves every night: "Was today a footprint day, or was today a buttprint day?" If you ever answer "Buttprint", you have to hope to do better the next day.

I did not have a buttprint day yesterday or today. I'm not sure it was particularly footprinty, but I was sure busy and definitely covered a lot of distance.
After just an hour and a half of sleep (I was having insomnia somethin' awful!) I woke up at 8:00, finished packing and prepping, and then...Meghan arrived! An hour later we were off and running. The road trip had begun!

We only stopped once, three hours in, two eat and switch drivers. I worked in an hour "nap", but it was one of those naps when you're still kind of aware of what's going on so it didn't really help. Then I drove for the next while til we got to Meghan's boyfriend's house. He, his parents, and some of his friends were there. We stopped for a few hours, went out to dinner, and just sort of chilled. We even got to see the tail end of Cinderella Man on TV, which made a surprising amount of sense even though we only caught ten minutes of it. I left there at 8 pm.

10:30 saw me finally getting off of the horrendously paved Pennsylvania Turnpike (yes, the road even has a frikkin' website, but they won't pave it!), and in a foul mood (mostly due to the paving, plus it's an awful long drive to do when you're exhausted and by yourself.)
Still, I pulled up to the window and cheerfully said "Hi." to the guy in there as I passed him my ticket. There wasn't much traffic, I thought he was probably bored and a friendly face is never bad, right?
Wrong. I received a scowl in return and then a very disgruntled "That's $7.25."
I checked my wallet. Three bucks. Fuck. "I, uh, don't have that much. What should I do?"
"How do you drive on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and not have that much?"
"Well, I stopped to eat!" And I didn't think it would be that expensive since you clearly don't make enough to spend on PAVING YOUR GOD DAMN ROAD.
"Pull over into the parking lot. I will be right back with your-" he paused, glared at me, and almost spat the word "Paperwork."
Five minutes later, I'm in the parking lot (I've just been on the phone and I'm sure I was looking like I was the damsel in distress, I even called people so I could flip a shit about this). He comes over to my window and demands "Sign the line." I did, quickly as I could, and handed it back to him. He hands me a copy. "You have to mail it within ten days. The address is here." He starts to walk away.
"Thank you!" I call. No answer. He's a crotchety old guy, and honestly, I would have been perfectly happy running him over about then. Instead, I glanced at the paper.
It said I owed $8.25. (Which I'm sure is true, that wasn't him being a dick but it still pissed me off.)
He was right behind my car. It was so tempting. I revved my engine, still in park. He moved a hell of a lot faster and got back in his booth. Yeah, that's right fucker, don't piss off the person with the CAR when you're not in your safe little box.

Anyways, so I got to York about 10:30ish, and called my friend Josh in a panic. My hair wasn't done. So I stopped by his house, borrowed his shower, had him do my hair (he's amazing with my hair...not so much with other people's, but mine he does good with!).
We made it to the club, took the very last parking spot, and rushed inside. Well, I rushed. Josh waited in the line that went out the door. Yeah, the club was FILLED, and I worked it hard. I danced, I wore these sexy new booty shorts that I got, I worked the crowd...and I made about $70. I thought I'd only made $65, but it turned out that (skimpy as they were!) some of my money I'd missed until I was going to go to sleep that night. I might've made more and lost it, as I was dropping money all over the place (no time between tips to give them anyone, so I had way too much money in way too little clothing. :P)
Anywho, continuing this tale of travel...
I was spending the night at my friend Brendan's house.
In Towson. Maryland. So we drove down to Towson! I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow in his more-than-accomodating guest bedroom. I meant to wake up at 11 so I could beat the rush back to school today, but I didn't stay awake long enough to turn the alarm on after I set it. I woke up at 1 and rushed up to school.

But I have to say, it is GREAT to be back.
(My entire route is pictured below. Although, Mapquest's directions were totally wrong and these are totally forced to match up with what I actually did.)So, maybe I didn't make footprints exactly...but I sure left some tire tracks!

PS, I'm trying to narrow down the labels I use on my posts, so you'll be seeing fewer on my entries and much more general labels.