To whom it may concern,

To the girl that I have pursued:

I am done, I give up, you win.

That is to say that I am done chasing you. Though I am a runner, I cannot catch you. Though I am whole, you have broken me. Though I am gorgeous, it was not enough.

You have run too long, just out of grasp. I gave you everything I had, and you turned it down. I carried you home, I sent you to bed, and yet you see not what I am.

You never gave me the satisfaction I desire. You never gave me the time of day. You never looked at me as more than a friend. For this, I am hurt.

However, I am not saying that I will stop wanting you. If you read this, I encourage you to turn around. I encourage you to walk back to me. I encourage you to allow me to catch you.

Until that day comes, I will sit here and wait for you.

With love,
The ill-made knight

You Want Cliches? I've Got Twenty

Ok, so this may sound like one of those 'So I have this friend, lets call him George...' where the friend is usually the one telling the story, but it is not.

So I have this friend, lets call him George. Well he is more of a cousin than a friend. No wait, he is my cousin. He is a senior in high school and seems to have the all too familiar cliche of a story going for him. See, he fell for his best friend. I know right. However, the case isn't that she doesn't see him that way, well he believes that see likes him too. But his problem is that she doesn't want the relationship, or at least broadcast the vibe to him all the time. This in turn discourages him and he then moves on to find another girl that is willing, all the while keeping this secret...lust for her alive. He then tells me that every time he thinks about committing himself to another girl, his best friend does something, says something that makes him forget about the other girl.

This is where George came to me. He wants to know whether or not he should wait for his friend. He wants me to tell him whether or not this girl will ever see him the same way and commit to it. He wants to move on to scene two in this horrible cliche of a teen movie.

I am at a loss. From what he tells me, this girl is amazing. She is funny, intelligent, thought provoking and extra-ordinarily pretty.
But he wants her now and she doesn't seem to want to make up her mind.

So what would you do, in George's position? Let me know and I will add you to the credits when this story is made into a movie. I think I will title it, Fucking Teenagers and Their Cliched Lives.

The New, The Old, and The Cactus

So I lied, I did not write this a week ago as I planned. Sue me. Well please don't actually, because I am a poor college student.

I have been back a week now. Straight off, it is not what I hyped it to be. I looked forward to meeting new people, seeing the old, striking out on my own again. Yeah, not really so much.

Meeting people is hard for me. I am not the go out there and get them kind of guy. I am the sit back and have them come to me, kiss my ring, ask a favor of me kind of guy. Another part to my problem is that everyone has only been moved in for three days now, and I had to skip the house meeting because of work. Less than expected opprotunity. The final piece to my dilemma is that my friends, the old ones, don't seem to want to mingle and meet news ones as much as I do or in the same ways. For the record I made an attempt last night, the first of hopefully many. I went out by myself to a new student welcome thing. Not the same had I gone with people but nevertheless, I went out.

Seeing the old, this may have been the most hyped of all the things that I looked forward too. However, I don't think the old was all it was ever cracked up to be. I have found that my friends are malicious, back-stabbing, and betrayers of each other. I have friends that talk ill of another when that one is not in the room. I don't like it. I am also saddened that one of my best friends this summer, seems to have drifted away from that position in a matter of days. Come back.

I have not had much of a chance to strike out on my own again. It has only been a week. Time will only tell how well I can handle it.

I bought myself a plant today. A cactus. I named him Carl. I do not think I have much of a green thumb, so I hope I do not kill him. A cactus is not a big commitment, just the kind of thing I need. Wish me luck.

Mediocre

Well, it is August 12th. Which for most of us means that school starts in about a half a month. I, personally, move back in two weeks from today. In fact, if all goes well, I should be writing another blog sitting in my cave of a computer space.

So I have two weeks left of this so called summer. Big whoop. Quick side note, how come no one says big whoop as much as they used to? I wish I could say that I had an amazing summer and I enjoyed every second of it and I am dreading to see it end, but if I did then I would be lying. This chevalier does not lie.

It is true that this was not the perfect summer. I do not believe that I have had the perfect summer yet. This summer was spent working to pay for may things. I made a good chunk of change, but I went into summer having already spent it. What did not pay for my motorcycle, is going towards school. It kinda puts a damper on working because I do not even get to spend the money however I wish.

I do not want you to think that I spent every waking minute of my summer working. I try to be too laid back to even consider something of the sort. No, I had my outings. My day trips. My weekend getaways.

Summer started out with me going to Six Flags. That trip was fun, but ended in finding out I had more work once school started.
The end of June was marked on my calendar as a reunion with friends from school. We got together to spend a day and watch the fireworks. One of the highlights no doubt.
July flew by until the last weekend when I ventured three hours on my bike to visit some friends up north.
The following weekend I went the other direction north to see my sister and another good friend. This is the weekend I think I would mark as the best one.

And now I am here. Typing. Rested for the first time in three weeks. Looking back at everything that happened. I met some new people. All of which, as far as my mind can remember, were enjoyable in some way or another. I discovered the work of a businessman. It made me want to postpone full time work for a few extra years if possible. I found out that two of my good friends split. I am curious as to how this will affect the coming year. Only time will tell. But most of all, I became closer to one of my already close friends.

There were somethings that I learned this summer that I am not sure I wanted to hear. I found out what some of my friends think of each other. It was weird spending time alone with them, what they told me seemed to be on their mind for a while now and it kind of burst out of them. It was almost insulting to hear them say it. As though they thought I felt the same way about it. But alas, these were only minor parts of my summer and I feel that I humored them without betraying the friends that they spoke of.

My thoughts are scattered now, as you may have picked out. It is summer, and that is my excuse. I look forward to the coming school year which I will chronicle for you. I look forward to the next summer, which I hope will be a little more perfect.

My World

I was sitting at my desk a few minutes ago, labeling parts by the cavity number that they were molded in. I was pulling multiple shots from each cavity and was using the numbering scheme of 'cavity number-shot number'. After doing a few of these, my mind was running '7-1, 7-2, 7-3,...etc.' A few parts later my mind was running 'World 8-1, World 8-2, World 8-3, World 8-4...wait was there a world 8-4?' I was trying to remember whether or not Super Mario Bros. had 3 or four levels within each world. It is sad how my mind functions, sad but the truth.

If you know much about me you would have known that I did not play many video games growing up. Do not get me wrong, I think I played more than your average kid growing up in the nineties, but still not much based on today's standards. My parents always told us that we didn't need a Nintendo. Naturally we did need one. They didn't want us playing video games all the time. I think part of it was that they couldn't afford one. But alas, they finally broke down and found us not one, but two of them used, but cheap. We had our Nintendo.

My parents, sticking with their notions that we did not need to play it all the time limited us to a couple hours a day. This was fine by me. Back in those days I was covered in mud and grass stains and I was red and bleeding from mosquito bites. I was an outdoor kid. Our neighborhood had a fair share of us nighttime wanderers. That I believe was good for us.

So now I wonder, how is it that my mind reverts back to Mario, when I had far more hours clocked playing outside? I never beat Super Mario Bros. and neither did my brother or sister. The only person I truly know to have beaten it while it was on a NES was my father. He did it in one long spree, no save points back in those days. I wonder if his mind ever reverts itself back to NES gaming mode?

As I grew older, my video game time increased. I had computer games that I would waste hours upon hours on. At friends houses we would widdle away sunny days indoors playing the SNES and Playstation. I still was an outdoor kid. I loved to run and be free. But my surroundings were growing smaller as I grew bigger, and I escaped to digital worlds.

I feel as though my childhood was wasted sitting and playing these silly games. All I got out of them was a poor set of eyes and some pop-culture references. But it worries me, if I played few video games, gradually working my way into more as I grew older, what then will our current generation turn into? My four and six year old cousins have a Wii to play with. My uncle bought it for himself, but they play just as much as I did, if not more. Those two also have been playing games on the computer ever since they could hold their head up and press a button. This worries me. It truly does. I have seen my friends, ones who I grew up with, turn into nothingness. My neighbor, a fellow nighttime wanderer, sits in his basement by the glow of his computer screen each night until four in the morning. My dad sees him as he leaves for work. I rarely see him leave the house on his own accord, when he does he is hauling his computer with him over to some LAN party where he will, no doubt, sit and play more games.

I know the horrors of video game addiction. It was only this past year when I could be found sitting by my computer questing in an MMORPG. I left Breseis, my level 52 Night Elf Druid, in a state of dormancy. Yes dormancy, merely asleep. I know that the urge to take her out questing will come again, she only waits for my to click the button to login. But, thankfully for now that time is not ripe.

So now, I will declare for all the world to see. My kids will play less video games than my cousins. Less video games than my neighbor. Less video games than I myself ever played. I want then to be active. I want them to be able to distinguish between a sunburn and a tan. They will be athletic, but not jocks (I cannot stand jocks). So if my future wife is out there reading this, be warned of how our kids will grow...and give me a call so I can stop looking for you.

But for now I must get back to work. My World 7-2 cavities await. But when I get home I will run into the night like I just double tapped right on the D-Pad.

As Clean as Paper...Before the Poem

Oh no, it happened again...She's cool, she's hot, she's my friend.

Way back when I started this blog, I wrote me a post telling all of you what I wanted in life. It, to me, seemed simple. I wanted the house, and the wife and I do not believe too much else. I think, because this dream, this wish, this desire is so simple; my mind is set to find it easily. And now I have come to realize that I fall in love to easily.

Take for example, Friday. I recieved a call from a high school friend, a crush, one of my easy loves. We were very good friends, our personalities just fit. I had one of the biggest crushes on her, and I do believe that if she had asked, I would have dumped my girlfriend on the spot for her. If I had a girlfriend now, I wouldn't doubt I would do the same thing.

But anyway, she called me on Friday and we had a good chat (seeing as how we had not talked since I called her to wish her a happy birthday). In the midst of our conversation she made one litte comment about how she was worried about living with her boyfriend next year, incase something went wrong. She feared she would be the one that would get screwed. But this thought started a fire in me.

All this past weekend I caught myself wishing, willing her and her boyfriend to break up. Is it wrong to wish ill upon a friend for your own happiness? Because I thought about it, and I truly wish them to split. It would give me an opprotunity that I have not had in a long time. I would take my knowledge aquired from this past year, knowlegde telling my to move on instinct, and I would move.

But alas, they have not broken up, at least not that I have heard. Though I did receive a missed call from her yesterday while I was working, though I doubt that it was to inform me of a break-up. Come to think of it though, she did say I was one of her few friends she still talks to. No, Chevalier, put the thought out of your mind.

Alas, I ask, what do you think? Have you found yourself in a similar situation?

I was born...to be wild.

I bought myself a motorcycle.

It is nice to see that in writing. It is true. Two weeks ago I became the owner of a brand new Nighthawk. I needed something a little more reliable than my car seeing as how that thing is in its 17th year. I also wanted something that will get my money's worth at the pump, and at 80 miles to the gallon I think I made a good choice.

I had for about a year now wanted to get a motorcycle. I have always been a fan of riding bikes, though I had never been on a motorcylce. I toyed with the idea last summer and looked around. Everything seemed out of my price range and my ability. However, when I got to school things changed. Everytime I walked to and from my Sociology class with a fellow classmate, I saw the bike sitting there. I became obsessed with it. We also joked that it was the property of our professor, which if you had known him it would have been a little funny.

The obsession grew into me pricing one of these bikes, brand new. Yet again, it grew when I found out that the bike was within my price range. Around the beginning of this calendar year i decided that I was going to own this bike, brand new. Only two obstacles stood in my way.

Obstacle Number 1
My parents. For years I had mentioned getting a motorcycle. I am not sure how serious they took me. But they always told me that as long as I was living in their house, a bike was off limits. Well now I was in college and only living with them a fourth of the year. But I also needed to persuade them to co-sign a loan for me. Which they agreed to after I made my grown up case.

Obstacle Number 2
I had never ridden a bike before. I did not know how to ride. My first thought was to have a friend teach me. When i first contacted him he agreed to this. However, a month later on a follow up I found out that he had sold his bike, apparently he had joined the military and bikes were not allowed on bases so he sold. This almost crushed my plans. But I heard about a training course you can take through the DMV. I signed myself up for the class. It took three days. I learned to ride and got my license later that week. The day after, I went and picked up my bike.

Now I have a bike. Every time I get on it, I am scared to death. There is something about being on a vehicle with nothing surrounding you while going sixty miles an hour that scares you. That along with my visions of me crashing with every vehicle that passes me. I worry and worry all throughout my trips. I honestly do not know if I will ever get used to the feeling.

Oh, I always wear my helmet.