For all of those people who read this I warn you that it is filled with boring facts and figures that only someone who was close to me or went through would find enjoyable to read. If all you want to get out of this is a tragedy story - start at paragraph four. (Monday....) I did this for me and I don’t care what reputation it gets.


Emily - The Ambulance - The Unanswered Questions?

No matter what facts, thoughts, or other feelings I have for Emily in this entry, I think I still care for her. I think I still feel for her too, but those feelings I am sure will stay confused for a while. It is December 21, 2004 with the time being 2:41pm at the start of this entry. In the past six weeks I met a girl that was better for me than any other girl before. I met her at a debate tournament, Wasatch. This bus ride home is where I got my beginning with her. We went to a play called Susical (Dr. Seuss play), a musical by the high school she attends, on the Saturday before I kissed her. In those weeks we grew close fast, within two weeks I kissed her on November 23rd. This same night she arrived home at 2am. This was the start of her lying I believe, or at least when I became part of it. She told her parents she wasn’t with me but what rather at a movie (they went to the theater and didn't see her car, the parking lot was deserted) - and within the same week I called and talked to her parents about it. It was a Friday night following the 23rd when I punched my little brother Ben in the face, nearly breaking his nose. I was emotional at that point and badly wanted to speak with Emily. I was denied this opportunity and didn’t speak with her till the following Sunday.

Emily hid many things about herself. Things she didn’t want me to know about. She told me she had "Never felt this way about a person before” referring to me as her boyfriend. She claimed she hadn't had no other boyfriends before save Eric, who I learned to be a pathetic uncontrolled attachment to Emily. The situation with Andrew, (where she was probably together with him) was horrid on her. Andrew claimed to be in relationship with her though she told me she did not feel the same way even though everyone thought they were together because of Andrew’s running mouth. She lost many friends at her school because of this. They officially went their own ways only but a week ago! I searched for who she was and meddled a little too much. I spoke with Matt - Andrew’s “best friend” and he told Andrew about me. I think Emily was going to hide me from her friends, even keeping allowing Andrew as another boyfriend till she had to break it. I don’t know, I also don’t care. My mom told me, "You can’t love someone you can’t trust or respect." I want to trust and respect Emily - I feel like I can but I don’t know if I can. I want to go to Emily and make everything okay. This experience I had with her was hard though, I still think good things can turn out.

I got into her emails and read her whole inbox up-to-date about a week and a half ago. I logged as a curious and an overprotective boyfriend, important facts and quotes that I thought brought out some of Emily’s secrets. I thought she had originally gave me her password purposely but then supposed that that justification was ludicrous. I violated her. I told her last Sunday the 19th during our evening phone call conversation these things. I apologized for something I felt ashamed of. I think she forgave me. I don’t think the events of last night had anything to do with my snooping.

Monday before she had to go to work at 3:30 we met up at Target in Centerville. We talked for a while finally going up to a park north of there. She wanted to get out of work to see me and that was very against my desires - but she talked me into it. How could I not want to see the girl I loved? She called in at 3:00pm and we then went up to my house. We kissed and I "Turned her on more than that she has ever been turned on before.” I do believe that too. I had a chess lesson at 4:45 that she tagged along for. Probably not the best decision I made last night but by far not the worst. An hour later we went back to my house. My mom was leaving for the Hermanson get together when we returned. Two of my mom's aunts and uncles passed away this last weekend and more family was in town that was originally planned for. Emily and I decided to take my car, a blue 1993 eclipse, to drive to West Jordan (her car was at the Target parking lot) and we left running late. I had to go back up the hill to get Mike and Jenny their pictures from the Christmas dance at my school. This delayed us another twenty minutes. Finally we left at 6:25 on the freeway and arrived just about 6:45 for the call time for the entertainment which I was apart of the Madrigals. The Madrigals were a group of 30 singers, the best and top of our school, which I played Base II in. The party was at the Golden Corral. I was stressed at this point already, having not eaten dinner and also with time pressure and family issues. I attempted warming up with the Madrigals a bit - didn’t help much. Emily went to the restroom for a while, I suppose she had made herself sick too over stress. We Madrigals sang for my family and that was probably one of the best sounding performances we ever had. We had to cram into a small part of the building in an L shape (normally we are double rows). We left the performance and dinner after we ate a little bit. We arrived at my house at 8:30 pm.

At my house between 8:30pm and 9:10 we had the longest makeout session of my life. It was a never ending forty minute kiss. Through this passionate kissing, which occurred in my room, things started progressing. I had never felt like that before. It was a good and bad feeling. The Spirit left me, but I felt so belonging in her arms. Though smoothly this began, it ended abruptly. She asked, “What are we doing?” We stopped and just sat there for a couple of minutes. By 9:20pm she stood with her hand to her chin and eyes closed as if she was praying - I speculate she was not. I got her to sit down because she was wobbling about. The talking was very little. I needed to hear from her, she wouldn’t talk. 9:35pm my mother got home and by 9:40 I got her into my car and we were on the way to get her home. Down the hill she started having convulsions. She looked in extreme pain, looked like she was going into shock, and going in and out of consciousness. I stopped the car many times to try to get her to talk to me - to get her out of that passive state. I opened her eyes and made light go into them, they did dilate. Her breathing was very shallow and her heart rate was racing. She had vitals. When I got her to Target where her car was I parked next to it and just tried to think about what to do. I prayed to God out loud and asked but received no answer for the first time in my life. I was crying beyond and sobs I had ever had in my whole life. She came to for a bit and wiped away my tears looking at me kind of. She must have been in a lot of emotional pain, probably the climax of her pain being right there. She told me to take her to the park. I ignored this for a while. This was the last thing I remember her saying till she left in the ambulance.

I decided between a couple of scenarios I could have chosen. First I could have driven her home in my car, or secondly I could have driven her home in her car. In either case her mom would find out she didn’t go to work. I was worried about her health more though. She asked to go to the park where we were earlier in the day and I finally obliged. I drove towards the park because I was so emotionally distraught and not knowing what to do being told what to do was something. It felt right. Driving towards the park I almost passed Becky’s street, but I turned onto it. At her home I brought her in where she became unresponsive for the rest of the night and even today this morning to her mother. Talking it over with Becky and her mom and the nurse they called suggested to me 911. I did not think that best but we did. After that police officers arrived and paramedics with an ambulance. They all asked the stupid same questions over and over as new people arrived. Alcohol, drugs, sexual intercourse, any of these things was she or you involved in? No I replied to all of them, and I had been with her since 3pm. I told them what I had seen concerning Emily. The paramedics took her heart rate and messed with her breathing, hands, and other “tests” they did administer. I understood when they looked at each other and in their paramedic lingo that they thought she was faking it! They put her in the ambulance any way, and took her to the hospital. The officer who was investigating everything was the last to leave and spoke to me personally. He didn’t write anything down though. He asked me the same stupid questions again, but then got more personal with me about what happened with me and her that evening. I told the officer about the makeout and any other details that I thought necessary. He told me that he was going to arrest her for faking it. A misdemeanor, but she was 17, and her record would be swiped clean at age 18 and only the courts would be allowed access to that information. I am sure my being involved will not affect me negatively other than the emotional stress. I also don’t think she was faking it - why the heck would she scare the crap out of me like that?

If she did fake it - I don’t know why she did what she did it for. I wish I knew, I wish I knew how to help her. I don’t. The officer advised me to let Emily and her parents contact me first and not the other way around. 9:10am today her mom called my second line. I spoke with her, told her about having Emily’s keys and she desired to come pick them up. She did and I had my dad come out with me when she arrived. We spoke briefly but planned on having both of our parents speak more. Emily’s mom told me it wasn’t my fault and that she knew Emily had been lying to even me too. I told Emily about this conversation among other things later in the day. I felt relieved and at the same time heart broken. I want to call her now, but I know I can’t. I want to see her and comfort her and make things right, but I don’t think that will help.


Addition added at 5pm: I spoke with Becky’s mom and she said that she didn’t think Emily would fake it. I agree with that. I don’t see why she would ever fake it to get attention. Also Emily spoke to me and claimed she had a “pseudo seizure” and also a cist burst. She remembers very little of last night. She told me on the phone she remembered wiping away my tears. She has my sweatshirt and told me it smelled like me. I miss her and don’t know what to think. I’m scared.


Addition added at 9pm: I spoke with her cousin Rachael who told me that her parents were there when Emily’s mother arrived just before the ambulance left Becky’s house. She also told me briefly about what happened at the hospital, saying that the doctor examined her for three hours. She said she heard from her parents that he claimed she was faking it and that she was awake during all that time. I do take into consideration that all of this was double hearsay. Emily told me she felt the doctor almost breaking her thumb. Rachael’s mom drove Emily’s mom to pick up the keys - that did check out among other things she told me. The cops also spoke to Rachael’s parents saying the same “faking” concept.


I would like to thank SlackinWhileSleepin for his encouragement of this post. I don’t know what this story will do for my life. I have never been more scared, never been so humiliated, and never has my prideful egotistical personality been bashed - beaten - and destroyed. I may be meeting with my parents and her and her parents either tomorrow or the next day. I may post a follow up though for sure I’ll write in my own diary about it. The feeling of helplessness is not the favorite feeling of the masses, this I am sure of. As for anything else who knows, but I did learn anxiety can’t kill you if you don’t let it.

I wanna be a writer so I should keep a journal, they say. They say, keep a pen and paper by your bed for when inspiration strikes!

Who are these "they"? What the hell is wrong with "them"?

Last night while my mind danced merrily along on a cocktail of Benedryl, Robitussin CF, and Sudafed, followed down with a Nyquil chaser, a totally magnificent idea occurred to me. I decided I was the Raoul Duke of cold medication. The Hunter S. Thompson of the rhinovirus kingdom. If I'm going to be waylaid by alien RNA, if my cells were being pressed into service, creating a veritable army of genetic Orcs lining up to detonate my living being from the inside out, then I was going to create a legendary piece of writing while it happened.

After all, if Hunter Thompson could become famous for being beat up by Hell's Angels and eating more drugs than McDonald's has fries, there was a shot for me.

How many over-the-counter cold medications can one individual take before his liver explodes? What are the combined effects of all the cold remedies available in my house, taken at adult dosage? Will anything make me stop coughing? Will anything relieve the pain of my infection-blistered ear drum? Will I ever stop producing enough sputum to drown myself?

The brilliant idea that came to me was to explore story titles containing the concept of loathing while answering those questions. The quality of being loathsome. Worthy of being loathed. To loathe. To drink half a bottle of children's Robitussin and while hacking and admiring the cigarette-burn like quality of the pain in my tonsils, settle in for a little game of mental cat-and-mouse. Oh where oh where have I left my brain?

The problem with the word "loathe" is that it's too round. If you are not inured to the term, "loathe" may as well mean "to slather with saliva foam." Therefore "loathing" might be what happens to someone who is gravitationally downwind of a rabid dog, or pinned by Brent Marlowe's big sister.

Note to self.Brent Marlowe's big sister -- write about seeing her tits during a game of "truth or dare".

I was so confident my story idea would net me consideration by the Pulitzer committee that I wrote down this idea, for fear I would lose it. Again, at the time I was afraid I'd forget this. Actually afraid I would fail to recall this crystalline gem of a critical concept, destined to alter the life force of human society for all eternity.

What I learned in the broad light of sober daytime is that there is a perfectly good reason I don't usually sleep with a notebook next to my bed. Because when I have such a notebook, it is usually filled with nonsense like:

"Write about loathing. It will be great."

"Caribou. Remember."

"The boy and the place with the big building and the hole in the ground with the empty slippers."

"Tuna Piano! As in you can't tuna fish, but you can."



Apparently, some inspiration should be left in the corner to dry up and blow away.







We each say goodbye to our father.

No matter how hard you try, there comes the time you depart and never see him again.

I will never forget the last time I saw him alive, and no matter how much I write it, it won't go away. He was sitting in a wheelchair in the bedroom that had been mine when I was in high school. The shuttle had come to take me to the airport. I was planning to return to New Jersey in several weeks to see him again and I told him so. He said something like, "well, only one of us will be here," and I told him to stop talking like that.

Kissed him goodbye.

He was dead before the wheels of my plane touched down in San Francisco. I turned around and got on the red eye back to Newark.

These days, I think about him a lot. Rarely a day goes by where I don't recall something he said to me, good or bad, days I hated his guts and days he was my best friend, times we absolutely didn't understand each other and refused to.

There are a couple things I believe, and one is that death is nothing more than a transition to something else, someplace else. Maybe it's like sinking through the rotating black hole on a Penrose diagram, and you pass through a space-like distance to an untouchable part of reality, an alternate universe where you can only communicate through the gaps Bell showed there were in the statistics of quanta.

It makes me feel that occasionally, my father tries to get in touch with me. It's that feeling you get when you're riding in a car and something makes you turn your head and look out the window to see someone in the car next to you, staring.

When I'm driving alone, and I feel that way, I mutter to myself, "Hi Dad," just in case. I can't stand talking to myself. But I squirt out a few words when I have to. Prayer doesn't work unless you say the words. Incantations don't work if they're conceived but not born.

Last week I was coming back from Henry's house, cruising at 70MPH down the long straight road from Berkeley to Los Gatos. Some guy was on the radio talking about dogs. About how dogs are not people and how lots of doggie problems are caused by treating them like children and denying them their essential doggyness--and my radio went slightly on the fritz. And I had that feeling my Dad was watching me, so I said, "Hi Dad."

And at that point, the volume on the radio decreased to zero, and then back up to where I had it.

It had never happened before, and has not happened since.

And I suspect, with all things like that, they mean exactly what you want. At that moment some radio interference hit me and ate NPR. One of life's numerous coincidences that are simply the physics of common everything. Occurrences that lacking a mind to perceive them would be otherwise unremarkable.

I prefer to think it was my dead father talking to me. I prefer it, because I want to believe it, and I simply refuse to accept an explanation that makes me feel less happy than that one.

Perhaps God will give me bonus points for my being conscious of my own belief processes.





There is a power in prayers, I think. Some would say it may depend on to whom you pray. I think all that matters is that you do it.

Bill Moyers did a whole documentary called "The Power of Prayer". Because he's Bill, he got lots of scientists and clerics involved, and the bottom line on the whole Prayer thing is that if you get enough people to focus their minds on something, they can influence the outcome of reality. Sick people, prayed for, get better more frequently and more rapidly than people for whom no one is paying attention.

Granted, this is all statistical. Some people who got lots of prayers died painful deaths, anyway. Some people nobody prayed for got up and walked away.

God is stochastic.

I also think prayer is bi-directional, full-duplex communication. When you talk, you get an answer. Why wouldn't you? You think nobody's there? Everybody's there.

Some days I wonder why I worry about anything. And some days it seems my world is ending. But so far, nothing has ever been as bad as I thought it was going to be. I say these things to the people I pray to and for.

What comes to my mind when I think about all of it, lying in a spinning bed, my head filled with different antihistimines and phedrines and whateverines--what my Dad says, and his father and his and all the fathers who have ever been left behind in the history of us--

my hallucinogenic dead father says to me: "Son, you will never have anything you want, but you will always get it, almost. You will work and fail. Over and over. And you have to believe me

that if you never accomplish anything at all, it will still have been worth it."


And then he laughs and says, "Merry Christmas, Ebernezer. There's still time."

Then my dad said to me, a prayer from dead fathers to their sons:

"It would turn all those tears to gold
It would slake all that thirst
You would never be hungry again
You could come up zero forever
Eternally second place
If you'd only remember
That I am on your side."




Crazy shit you find in notebooks.

Sometimes things just suck...

It was sort of snowing (think nothing at all if you live outside the southwest) and I enjoy riding my bike during inclement weather. So I decided I was going to ride to the local grocery store and pick up 2 free pints of Ben and Jerry's I had coupons for. It's about a 2 mile round trip, which was thoroughly enjoyable with the cold and the light precipitation. The streets still held a good amount of heat from the sunny hours of the day so there really wasn't anything sticking to the ground but it did create a nice fog. I arrived at the store locked my bike up went inside grabbed my 2 flavors and went to go checkout. Things were sailing smoothly as I handed over the ice cream. My purchase was rung up I had handed the cashier the coupons and put the ice cream pints into my backpack when she uttered the phrase that ruined the evening "37 cents". I looked at her in disbelief, "you have to pay the tax" well shit... I shuffled around in my pockets and backpack searching for change I knew wasn't there. My ploy for pity failed however. This cold and cagey late night grocer was too jaded to fall for that one. I acted surprised when I couldn't locate the 37 cents needed to complete the transaction and handed her back the ice cream I had attempted to purchase. I had a very sad ride home, accentuated by the fact that it was snowing again, but none of it was sticking...

I'm in a really shitty mood right now. I spent all last night playing World of Warcraft and didn't get to bed until 5am (it's Christmas break, cut me some slack, eh?). I awoke this morning at 8am to the sounds of my Dad having jovially loud phone calls (several actually) to various people. Upon actually getting out of bed and telling him to shut the fuck up ("Dad, you need to work on not having loud conversations in the next room while other people are sleeping; I was quiet all last night while you were sleeping"), he told me to go to hell ("Sorry sweetie, but I've got too much going on").

Now all the problems with him seem to be crashing down around me. We bought a 3 piece leather furniture set yesterday. My little brother and I have been sitting on the same shitty couch for the past 5 years - not because we have some sort of weird sentimental attachment, but because it was that or the floor that was wet and had mushrooms growing out of it. Now we have a 3 piece leather furniture set. Why? Well. I suppose our family room could use some furniture, but I think it has more to do with this new girl he's seeing, Yvette (eh-vet). She lives in Texas, she's an obstetrician, and her parents royally fucked her up - how cute. He told me she rescues cats as a hobby and has, oh, about 50 running around her house. They've known each other for maybe a month (at least that I've known about), and he's pushing her to move in with us. As with most kids (22 years old or not) who have been through a divorce, she's just another woman in a long line who have come to ruin my holidays. There was Maria: the obnoxious Peurto Rican who bathed in perfume and couldn't speak below a shout, Mimms: the chiropractor from... well it didn't last long enough for me to find out, Sharon: the quiet nurse in the next town over, and now there's Yvette and the cats. She'll be here Christmas day.

My father's been acting increasingly strange. So much so that my brother and I have actually talked about it. "Maybe it's a midlife crisis," we say in hushed voices as he calls Yvette for the 5th time that day. "No, couldn't be. He's way past that. 55 even." But there is something. He's buying things, he's overly manic sometimes, he asks weird questions (Does life seem to be moving faster for you?), and now there's the 3 piece leather set.

He's a good father, I'm just running on 4 hours of sleep and have a place to vent. Maybe I'm just a whiny rich kid, I dunno. You mess with a gal's sleep, you mess with her entire day.

And now he came down and rubbed my back. Damn, now I can't be mad at him all day. Hrmph.

The Christmas Mail

O come, all ye mailmen
Burdened with your mail
O come ye, o come ye,
In sleet and gale
Come with your postcards,
Packages and letters
O come let us deliver,
O come let us deliver,
O come let us deliver
The Christmas mail!

-to the tune of Adeste Fideles

So much for that learning opportunity

Yesterday a man came into the store where I work with his young (3 or 4) son. While the man was talking to me, the kid grabbed one of the ten-cent suckers, pulled the wrapper off, threw the wrapper on the floor, and stuck the sucker in his mouth.

Now, this would be a perfect opportunity for a parent to tell his child, in no uncertain terms, that you don't open items in a store, that you don't litter, that you don't steal, and that you never ever open up something in a drug store and put it in your mouth unless a parent tells you it's safe to eat.

Did the man tell the kid any of these things? Nope. He chuckled (Oh, they're so cute when they steal) then he asked how much the sucker cost. To his credit, he at least picked up the wrapper, but he should have made the kid clean up his own mess.

After he left, one of my coworkers who has two kids the same age said, "If my kids did that I'd be kickin' their ass." (figuratively of course). You're never too young to be told stealing is wrong and littering isn't cute.

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