Damaged.

According to the Free online Dictionary (which I only consulted because I don't consider Mirrian-Webster to be a REAL dictionary, and the Oxford website is typically indecipherable), Damaged is the past tense form of the noun Damage. Or, 1. Harm or injury to property or a person, resulting in loss of value or the impairment of usefulness.
Emotionally damaged is harder to track down a definition to. Mostly because it's dependant on the person's mental state and what they are capable of sustaining before breaking.
So, it's going on two years since I moved out. Since I gave up on that situation and willingly took on temporary homelessness before rebuilding a life. In that time I've taken a chance and had one relationship fail horribly, while suffering through a crippling depression that I was only able to escape by a monumental increase in alcohol consumption.
I've also figured out a few things. I fall hard for some people, and am utterly incapable of acting on this.
I recently expressed the sentiment "I can't have what I really want, but I can get whatever I don't really need" to a trusted friend.
I used this phrase to describe the fact that I can have companionship pretty much whenever I want it. Physical companionship is easy. I then went on to say something to the effect wanting to be admired, trusted, relied upon and wanting to be able to express that to someone in return. My friend said I was describing a relationship past the "getting to know you phase and into that comfortable stage that in a good relationship leads to those cute old couples that have been together since they were old."
She's very perceptive, this friend of mine.
I don't know, though. I just don't think I can do this any more, and I should really see if there is some kind of medication that can turn off these feelings, this desire, this god awful need to feel drawn to someone.
I just wish I could tell her why I didn't want her to come over that night.

BTW..

Fuck YOU, Toys R Us..

I am NOT a fan of Heroes. In fact, it put me to sleep. 

Yet today, when i saw a rack of Heroes action figures on clearance for 4.98 apiece, I jumped on that shit. Why? Claude. 

Claude is played by Christopher Eccleston. In a ratty leather coat. So essentially, Claude is the Ninth Doctor, with a beard. PERFECT for post-Time War fun.

But NOOO..

Despite the rack that I read, it's only the "injured Claire" figures that are 4.98. Everything else is 14.99. Which is way too much for an action figure, unless it's one of those new ginchy Watchmen figures, or a fuck-off huge Transformer. 

Fuck you, TRU. 

Trust

Trust is a tricky thing. 

Experience has taught me not to trust people.  I'm not sure if I've ever blogged about my past experiences, but recent events and conversation have brought a few painful memories and patterns to the surface again. 

There are people I don't trust. This applies to about 99.9999% of the people/entities that I know. Not including myself. I can't trust myself to say no to something that feels good, such as heavy petting or a strong drink. I've come to terms with that. I'm very easily tempted, if the temptation is right in front of me. This is probably why I am such a solitary person. When left to my own devices, another drink or smoke is the worst I can do to myself. In fact, I'm quite fuzzy as of right now, due to events I may or may not discuss.

 

My very nature, crafted to perfection by events and people in my life, is to not trust people. I trust things. I trust my cellphone to make a call or text message when I tell it to. I trust my laptop to work until I cause a thermal shutdown (thanks, Iron Man PC Game..). I trust my cane to keep me vertical. Canes are easily the most trustworthy beings ever crafted. Tangents are trustworthy too, as they allow you to avoid the actual point of what you began typing about. 

People are notoriously untrustworthy. Whether it's screwing people on the couch you helped put together, secreting control over you one little step at a time, or betraying your image of them, people are experts at letting you down. Humanity, indomitable as they may be, capable of splitting the atom and feeding the hungry, are experts at screwing each other over. Whether it's betraying a sacred trust you put in them, performing below standards they claim to, or just simply not caring, they will never cease to let you down. 

So why is it that I'm considering trusting someone. This really hurts. It stings at a primal level. 

Hearkening back to a previous post, I've spent a good six years with constant reminders why I shouldn't try to be a good person. Why I should have stayed in Mobile, performing placebo home cleansings to yuppies and exorcising people's personal demons. Yes, there's a hostile spirit in your picture-perfect home. Yes, there's a demon that keeps bringing you back to the bottle. I'll help you with that, for a fair fee. 

But she's terrifying me. She actually makes me think it might be ok to trust people again. Why does she have to do this to me? She's leaving in a few months, but god damn it, she's never put any pressure on me. She's never asked anything of me. She's been there for me when I needed a shoulder to sob pitifully on, and when I needed a warm body to press against mine in the middle of the night, and if you think I'm just stating this for effect, I just went through two completely seperate emotional and physical states in under a minute typing that. 

She asked me recently.. "Did you do something to me..?" 

DO SOMETHING? TO YOU?? Oh wow. That one struck home. Trust me, beautiful straw-haired one, I COULD have done something horrible and unspeakable to you. You've left enough materials behind and lingered far long enough for me to do something unspeakably immoral, but I didn't...

I didn't. I really didn't, and I could have. And now I'm in the position of questioning, is it worth it to clutch on to this self-reliance, this lone wolf nonsense, just for a few fleeting months before she leaves?

The scales are balanced. I have to decide something, or it'll be decided for me. Do I give in, and have a few months with her, that promise to be the best thing I can possibly hope for before she leaves, or do I cling desperately to the loneliness that I've come to adore? 

This is by far the hardest thing I have ever had to decide. This was harder than leaving my wife and child. At least then, I had the option of shutting off my emotions and carrying on, despite the pain I could ignore. 

Why did she have to be so good...

"Sometimes when you reach below the practised self-portrait of a man, what you find is...nothing."

     -Bob Kelso, on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, on killing nanites. 

Walmart Shootings. OMFG, Srsly, people?

...wait, what? This is seriously no different than little Timmy who needs a liver transplant and will get one if you forward this email 5000000 times, or that Bill Gates is tracking your email and will award you with money the more people you send it to.

Or, more accurately, that imaginary horse tranquilizer drug that was so easy to get a hold of that people were spiking drinks with (or not) a few months back.

No one is getting shot at the Walmart on Memorial in Port Arthur, TX. Or if they do, it's because some jackass got this text message 16 times today and decided to make it come true[not me, I only received it 8 times].

Seriously.
http:​/​/​urbanlegends.​about.​com/​b/​2009/​03/​18/​police-​walmart-​gang-​initation-​rumors-​are-​false.​htm

http:​/​/​www.​wctv.​tv/​home/​headlines/​41402677.​html

http:​/​/​www.​selmatimesjourn​al.​com/​news/​2009/​mar/​17/​dont-​fuel-​rumors-​through-​belief/​

http:​/​/​www.​sun-​sentinel.​com/​news/​local/​palmbeach/​sfl-​031809-​gang-​hoax,​0,​6556136.​story

http:​/​/​www.​palmbeachpost.​com/​localnews/​content/​local_​news/​epaper/​2009/​03/​18/​0318walmart.​html

For a more local take..

http:​/​/​www.​panews.​com/​breakingnews/​local_​story_​077173110.​html

And finally, most damning..

http:​/​/​www.​snopes.​com/​crime/​gangs/​walmart.​asp -- SINCE 2005, PEOPLE, SERIOUSLY!

EDIT: Ok, Blogger has gone horribly stunted, and I can't get the links to work. Copy and paste, please. Long story short, this BS text message is old news. Don't believe it.

That's it. I quit.

I used to be a not particularly nice person. I hurt people. Made what most people would consider mistakes. Was a bit selfish. Why do I bring this up?

It ties into the theme the title brings. A few years ago, I decided I would try to do good things. Be on the side of the angels for once. Six years, starting with helping out a friend who had a fiance walk out on her, literally in the middle of the night, because she wouldn't terminate a pregnancy.

Since then, I've spent six years on my knees. Avoiding temptation, nose the the grindstone, doing the right thing. Getting shot down every time I try to open up and be a good person.

No more. I'm sick and tired of trying to be one of the good guys. I just don't have it in me any more.

I've got a friend who is hell-bent on world domination. Forget that. Show me the little red button that must not under any circumstances be pressed. I'll press it. I find a way of destroying the world, existence, and I am there. Being a good person has just made me tired. Time to turn on my poker face, fall to the dark side, etc.

I'll still be here, you just probably won't wish I was..

ps - Doctor, if you're out there, I'm sorry. I tried.

The little plastic things, they make me happy..

So, my emotional life has about as much depth as the kiddy wading pool at your local YMCA, this is no secret. I get little accomplishment out of a job well done. I have no meaningful relations with members of the opposite sex, and can count on one hand (with spare change) the number of people I can trust. 

What makes me happy? The little plastic things. Now, don't go getting perverted on me. I get a small wave of relief every time I get one of these things 

home and open the package, setting aside a place on the shelf for it. 

I'll show you a brief glimpse of my sanctuary, and its accoutrements..

Here we have the greatest thing to hit toys since the original Transformers, the Classics / Universe Classics 2.0 line. They have a shelf to themselves, since I have a metric buttloadof them, in sizes ranging from Deluxe to Ultra. 

Next shelf down, we have the Mighty Muggs Snake Eyes, Soundwave, and Storm Shadow [not pictured, Optimus Prime. He's on my desk at work]. Also on this shelf, a badly damaged G1 Soundwave and a Lego Indiana Jones set.

Yep, those are Watchmen toys. Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II, and Leanin' Rorschach. In the back, you can just make out Shaun and Ed from Shaun of the Dead, and Shaun's newest girlfriend, Marley Shelton's character from Planet Terror. And off to the left there, Q from Star Trek. On either side, only slightly visible, are a Buddhist frog and a jade Buddha. 

Here we have Random Shelf #1, with a Simpsons diorama, Captain America Armoured Iron Man, random skull, Joker statue, Madball, X-Men motorcycle [with Marvel Legends figures in the back], and a Superman Returns figure I picked up from Toys R Us for $0.90. 

This shelf started out as just GI Joe Ninjas, but I picked up enough of them it expanded onto another shelf. Here we have two Baronesses, Destro, Cobra Commander, Wraith, and several Storm Shadows. 

This shelf holds a small collection of Snake Eyes figures, the premiere GI Joe Ninja, plus his on-again, off-again girlfriend in paratrooper togs, Scarlett. Must make for some interesting nights..

..and here we have what gives me right to claim nerd cred over any shelf full of Voltron or Star Wars figures, a shelf of Doctor Who toys, including a classic Dapol Seventh Doctor figure, two each Ood and Clockwork Robot, two Tenth Doctors, Ninth Doctor hiding in the Electronic Flight Control [it does lots of crazy stuff] TARDIS, a Dalek [specifically Sec from the Cult of Skaro], new Cyberman, and companion Martha Jones. Oh, and to you Star Wars fans out there, two of my Doctors have Sonic Screwdrivers harvested from General Grievous's many lightsabers. 
Big Lots knockoffs of Beast Wars Optimal Optimus and Transmetal II Megatron, ie "Optimus Primate and Magnatron" of the "Transtech Beast Fighters," with Movie line Jazz, Bumblebee, Barricade, Landmine, and Blackout. The shelf below holds the entire collection of McDonalds Lego Batman toys. 

Above top shelf is my collection of Transformers Animated toys, and below is Random Shelf #2, even more random, with Superhero Squad Deadpool, Thor, and Loki, Indiana Jones and Dr Henry Jones, The Undertaker, Rita from Flushed Away, a Dead Like Me bobble-head, a pair of Chinese balls, a Cyberslammers Barricade, Joe-scale Batman and Joker, and several other small cheap toys. 

And finally, my collection of mini-transformers. Far, far too many to name, but the lines include Heroes of Cybertron, Titanium Series, Robot Heroes, Movie keychains, and the very top are the Legends class toys of various Transformers line. 

Not pictured is my blue box of toys, including a 12-inch Emporer Palpatine, Jesus action figure [with basket of bread and fish and inexplicable young boy], knock-off Devastator, Art Asylum Captain Archer from Enterprise, and various other random toys. 

These things.. they give me a sense of peace, looking over them..