It's a rainy, cool day.  Not too bad at all really but certainly not a "nice" day.  Regardless, I thought I would throw in my two cents on everything that's been happening on here.

Eh, I find myself not really caring what happens.  If Xanga is still around in a month some, great, but I'm not paying for something that was free for this long.  They can do what they have to do, business is business and time is money but all I ever really used this for was a personal journal and I can simply use a word processor and save it on my hard drive.  I've made a few friends over the years but looking at my friends list of a whopping 30 people I see that all but a handful of them aren't even on here anymore.  If this was the bitter end who would I even say goodbye to and would anyone really care?  I mean what's the point of social networking if the social aspect is pretty much non-existent?

As far as using another site, why?  Why would I want to start all over when the main reason I've used this for so long is because I've had it for over ten years?  I don't even write that much anymore because I really don't have a whole lot to say and again, I can achieve just as much without even needing the internet. I finally wrote my Spring poem like a week ago but no views or comments, so what's the point?

This isn't meant to be a poor me type thing, just the facts I come to when I really analyze what purpose this has served for me over the past and the last couple years especially.  There are a lot of memories stored in these pages but a great deal of them are things I'd be happier not remembering.  I used it because it was there and if it's no longer there will it be that big of a loss?  I think not...

There was a time when I used this a lot and knew many people that were on here but known personally or not one by one they all dropped off, shut down their sites or simply stopped posting.  Of course, plenty of people do that without even using Xanga. I found out the other day from a friend of mine that several people we used to hang out with on a regular basis had either moved away or gotten married.  Maybe I'm wrong but I would think someone who called you friend might mention something like that at some point.  I realize that happens, on here and IRL but it gets old after awhile.

I know I shouldn't take it as a personal affront but so often it feels like no one really cares about anyone except themselves.  I don't mean everyone but most people certainly.  That's probably the biggest reason I never tried to make a lot of friends on here.  Well that and how most people are in a relationship or married yet still want to post pictures of themselves to show off how sexy they are and brag about how great their sex is or something along those lines.  For single people that's fine but when you're already taken you just come off as a tease.  It's just me being jealous but well, whatever. I digress and it really is overall a great community of people on here and I liked being able to say what I wanted and have a few people say something about it. Going through the last few years and the rare comment here and there I know that most of the time I wrote here for myself, to have a focal point of a day or certain time that I would otherwise forget as it became blended with the rest of them.  When I did write for an audience it was never very long lasting and if they don't miss it, why should I?

So overall I'm saying there's no way I'm spending money so I can write on a webstite that next to no one reads or cares about.  Were it to remain free I might not anyway.  That's the fence I'm on right now and it seems regardless of outcome the end result is the same.  I'm not on facebook or any other sites and I don't care to be.  I may go elsewhere at some point but I feel I've wasted enough time on the internet trying to be cool.  Everyone has other things to do and I'm no exception.  There's awhile left before the shit hits the fan so I'm sure I'll write at least once or twice more but it seems to have served its purpose and we all know that a tool without a purpose is useless indeed.

Not spam the canned meat, I'm talking about e-mail spam.  At this point I've lost billions of dollars from random lotteries, mysterious benefactors and people on their death bed.  It amazes me that people still try that same old worn out scam trying to get your information or to follow a link because your e-mail account has been deactivated.  Strange, but if the account was actually shut down, how would an e-mail be received to reactivate it in the first place?

I suppose with the small effort it takes to put something like that together enough people must be dumb enough to actually fall for it.  E-mail has been around for about twenty years now, I guess I'm just surprised that those kinds of things still exist, that there are people out there that actually think some random person in Europe or Africa needs a US citizen's bank account to launder their funds through.

I have a wedding to go to tomorrow, a cousin of mine.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for her and I hope for many great years ahead, but I barely know the girl much less the guy she is marrying.  I see that side of the family a few times a year and she's hardly ever been around and I honestly couldn't say the last time I said more than hello.  Not to be selfish but I really hope it's not a dry affair otherwise I will be bored out of my skull.  It's different when friends get married because at least then you know there will be a lot of people you know but aside from relatives it will probably be a lot of their friends and at this point there's a rather large generational gap there.  It's actually my mother's sister's daughter's daughter so I dunno.  If I had a guest to bring that would be different but I'm not about to ask one of my guy friends to come with and seeing as I have no female friends, well you get the picture.  I'm sure it will be all right but truth be told I'd rather have a bonfire.  I'm not making up my mind that it won't be a good time but I've never been a big fan of family weddings, or weddings in general really because it's something I'll probably never do myself so, whatever.

I've stated before how I've never actually dated someone I felt I could spend my life with, in fact there have been all of two women I really got to know that I thought I could be that deeply involved with and we were never more than friends.  It's just so much easier to be single, no drama, no expectations, no getting yelled at even if it was deserved...it's just too much damn trouble.  Sure, it gets lonely and who likes not getting laid but I still prefer that over the many crazy relationships I've had and all those I wanted to have but never had the chance.  The only way I would even consider being in another relationship would be at least some assurance that it wouldn't be a huge waste of time like the other ten women I've gotten close to or the dozens I tried to get close to and failed.  Maybe I'm just bitter or maybe I'm just tired of losing people I care about.  Either way, life is complicated enough, why willingly add to it?

Anyway, I know it's not about me, it's about those other two people who are joining in matrimony or whatever but I know no one really cares if I'm there or not and if I wasn't part of the family I wouldn't be there in the first place so I just don't want to be there wishing I was elsewhere and waiting for a good time to leave so I'm not being rude.

At least poker is tonight, that's still fun even when I lose.  There's some stuff going on Sunday too so one way or another I'll be able to glean some goodness from the weekend.  After dreaming about winter and snow I'm just glad that it's a beautiful warm day.

This started as a post elsewhere but it started to get pretty long so I decided just to blog about it instead.

Deceit in any form is bad.  Honesty really is the best policy and I know I never liked being lied to, even when the truth was maybe something I didn't want to hear but I would say it's definitely an indicator of a larger problem.  The reasons people lie can vary but it's important to know why people are dishonest.  Most of the time it's probably to cover up something they shouldn't have done, which amounts to guilt/shame and they'd rather pretend otherwise than fess up to it but sometimes people lie because others simply can't handle the truth well.

I can't say I've never lied to someone and I had a relationship that had many trust issues because of it.  Trust is paramount, without it you'll never get anywhere.  I never felt I lied about anything really important, mostly things just so I wouldn't get yelled at.  It was still wrong and you should never have to lie to someone so they won't be mad at you, even if you can't seem to do anything without causing them to be angry.  If she had been a more understanding person or able to deal with not getting her way all the time, I never would have lied in the first place. 

"Why didn't you call me last night?"  "Oh, I fell asleep."  I lied because if I had told her I didn't call her because I was busy with my friends that I only saw here and there while I was dating her she would have blown a fuse.  That would have led to me getting yelled at, which would have either led to me yelling back or telling her to call me when she calmed down and hanging up, which would have simply made the situation worse.  "Gee, I'm 23, I don't want to spend every waking moment with you."  Another argument.  You see the pattern?  Oh, I would have loved to have been able to hang out with her and my friends but that got me in hot water too.

I remember inviting her to a huge party with probably thirty people or more and I went around and talked to people and socialized, you know, what normal people do at a party.  That got me yelled at.  Is it my fault she just sat there the whole time?  I told her I was going to go mingle and pretty much invited her to come with me but she didn't seem to want to so I left her there with her friend and went off and had that silly crazy thing called FUN.  I wasn't going to sit there all night and Light forbid I actually went up to people I didn't know and introduced myself and made new friends.

Another time I had my own party and it was pretty much the same thing.  As a good host I went around circle to circle of people laughing and talking and said how good it was to see them, etc.  I ended up being the bad guy because I wanted to spend time with friends I had invited over and didn't see very often.  I think she had a social anxiety disorder because I swear I was like the only person in her life she ever spent time with and she couldn't understand that I had a lot of friends and wanted to a lot more things than sit in my room and watch movies or go out to eat once or twice a week.  She really didn't seem to have much of an identity and no independence at all and I really think I helped her out with that but, of course I'd never get a thank you, even when I went out of my way.  Speaking of...

Once I called off work so we could spend the day together.  We ended up at the mall and I saw something I had been wanting for a very long time, a game I had loved as a kid that they had remade for PSX and I just about shit myself because I didn't even realize they had done such a thing.  After my purchase as I'm practically jumping up and down with excitement we came back to my house and I sat at the table and looked through the book that came with it.  She decided to sit in the living room in front of the TV instead.  This only went on for maybe twenty minutes but sure enough, later on when she was about to leave she started bitching again about how I 'left her in the room' even though it was maybe twenty feet away in plain sight.  Finally I stood up for myself and told her it was fine if she wanted to be pissed at me for yet something else.  I told her it was fine, I would never call off work to spend a day with her again since she gave no thanks or appreciation that I went out of my way to do something nice for her, lost pay and yet in the end STILL got yelled at.  She shut up after that.

No one likes being treated like a bad dog.  I can't say I was anywhere near perfect (even though she actually told me that one time) and I by no means abstain myself from any wrong doing but I was always willing to discuss any problems, not yell and scream like a spoiled bitch.  If I wanted to be yelled at all the time I would have enlisted in the Army and at least gotten paid.  You remember Varuka Salt from the original Willy Wonka?  "Daddy, I want a golden goose and if I don't get one I'll scream! (and cry and whine)"  That was pretty much it.

Anyway, those are the reasons I felt I had to lie to her sometimes.  I loved her but damn, there are limits to what one person can endure.  It's no shocker that we broke up at least half a dozen times.  When I was being a good little puppy we got along great but I've never known someone to get so pissed over the stupidest things.  It was a caustic relationship and we never seemed to mesh together very well, even her best friend said she never saw us being together, we were two completely different people.  We had some good times but overall it was more trouble that it was worth.

I learned my lesson though.  One is to be more tactful but most of all to never put myself in a situation where I feel lying is the best solution.  I doubt anyone is completely truthful 100% of the time but I've made it a point these days to be forthcoming and straightforward about things and above all to be honest and direct.

"I want the TRUTH!"

"You can't HANDLE the truth!"

Also, this quote I heard the other day because I'm throwing away the piece of paper it was written on and I don't want to forget it.

Betrayal, it's the one unforgivable sin, especially when it's committed by someone you trusted so implicitly.