Simple and clean is the way you're making me feel tonight; it's hard to let it go

Super quick, short recap: So, I went in to work at 6, opened with Tracy. Pretty standard. We usually have a blast opening together, since we're the same age, similar experience, etc. We understand each other enough that the morning goes by really, really fast. We both got *really* tired at lunch, too. Fun times. Came home, went to sleep. I had talked to Rose about going to see Elektra that night, since it was fifty cent movie night, but when she called, I was asleep. I answered the phone, but I have no recollection of our conversation. That usually happens when I try to talk on the phone when I'm asleep. Didn't do much else last night, or today.

Urg, 'net connection just went down.

Okay, fixed.

Started a Tauren Druid. Seems okay so far. I'm about halfway to lvl 10, which is when I get shapeshifting. Had an... interesting conversation with Shelley earlier, but I'm not allowed to talk about it.

So, where does that leave me? Well... I'm getting better. Tuesday morning, I felt almost normal again, though I'm pretty sure it was just a combination of being fully occupied, shit-faced tired, and riding solely on adrenaline. Let's see... I've accepted the fact we're not together, and I can say we're not going to get back together without a need to hedge it. One of the main things I seem to be having problems with is picturing her with other guys, but that's nothing new to me. That became a lot easier, though, when I realize that if that's what makes her happy, then that's the optimal solution. It's slowly migrating from a sharp, biting pain to a dull sense of loss. Of course, that may just be my mind doing what it takes to get what I want. That, of course, being hanging out with Lilie again. This is starting to sound a little weird - overdoing it a bit, 'cept there's NOTHING else going on in my life; usually isn't. Eh, at least it's something to write about. I just wish she would tell me she doesn't like me anymore. That would make things easier.

Actually, no, it wouldn't, and I'm glad she didn't. Unless she doesn't.

Or something like that.

So, back to my life story, as told by the bizarre set of relationships I've been through. So, we left off with Mary.

Terri

This is the first of the really complicated ones (there're three). We went out a total of... four times? Five? I lost count. I don't remember when we went out throughout Freshmen, Sophomore, and Junior year. I'm pretty sure one time was between November and April of Junior year, but other than that, no idea. All I really have is assorted memories. There was one time I went with her to Alkek to work on some research thing, and we were in this private study room thing. Nothing happened, though not for lack of effort on her part. I was still... kinda shy around her at that point. I remember when we went on a field trip to some art museum in Houston (I think) for AcaDec; David went too. There was some disagreement about who she was going to sit with or something, she ended up sitting with David on the way there, and me on the way back. I think that was *right* before we went out another time. And then on the actual AcaDec trip, her hotel room was right next to mine. Ours - there were some other guys in there, of course. Anyway, it was late (dark, past lights-out). There were doors adjoining each pair of rooms, but you had to open them from each side. (If you think you know where this is going, you're wrong.) So it was known that I don't sleep in beds in hotels; I usually end up sleeping on the floor somewhere, when I do go to sleep. So these fingers start appearing underneath the door between our rooms; it's her. Apparently, I was supposed to open the door... who knows. But I didn't. (Told you.) So there was just a lot of weirdness like that during the early years of high school.

Terri was a very... sexual girl. Horny may be a better word. Like this one time we were talking on the phone kinda late at night, over at Jarrod's. Kinda hot stuff going on. When I hung up (we'd been playing Twisted Metal as well), he told me, "Wow. I didn't know you did phone sex." I didn't either, but apparently, we had just had some light phone sex. I remember another time when we were talking on the phone (similiar to last time), and she started... making some odd noises. First time I'd heard those in person. I was... a little surprised. I asked her about it, and she confirmed it. Fun times.

We did kiss, eventually. Actually caused a major fight between Mindy and I, since we (Mindy and I) were going out at the time. Though I don't try to justify it, there were extenuating circumstances. So, Terri and I were good friends since... seventh grade? I know we've known each other for a long, long time. We'd been through a lot, and there was a lot of romantic tension between us, since we both had feelings for each other throughout most of high school. She decided to graduate a semester early, in December. After that, she was moving to Canada to go to Preacher school. I don't understand it either. Anyway, we were hanging out one last time before she moved to another country. I can't stress that one enough. It was very much, "I don't know when I'll see you again." We were sitting in my truck, in the parking lot between Italian Garden and (now) Murphy's Deli, across from Taco Bell. No real reason, we had just been driving around. We sat there talking for a while, and things got quiet. We both knew she had to get home soon. And, things just kind of happened. Our heads got closer and closer, until our lips collided. It was a full-on, open mouth making out with plenty of toungue. This wasn't the first time I'd made out with a girl, courtesy of Mindy, but not with this kind of... I don't know how to put it. It's almost passion, because we didn't know when we were going to see each other again, and this was something that should have happened between us a *long* time ago.

I told Mindy about what happened, and she got (quite understandably so) upset at me. Don't blame her one bit. Got through that one okay, though one time when we were, um, going at it, she made some comment about me imagining her as Terri. I really didn't know what to say to that one, and told her that it was really offensive.

Anyway.

So Terri moved to Canada. Went to Germany to work with a church there, while her family moved to North Carolina. She came back to the states and moved to NC as well. That's when we started talking again. That summer, the summer of '02, after my first year of college, I actually drove out there to see her. It's... um, 26 hours or so. Didn't stop, except for gas. Got there at like 4 in the morning. Fun times. I remember that night really well. Her parents had this really big RV thing, with a little extra room/tent looking thing, and I slept there. All in all, it was a pretty fun vacation. We kissed a fair amount while I was down there, but nothing more. The one weird thing, though, was that she started talking about how in love with me she still was. That... kinda freaked me out. I mean, we hadn't seen each other in like, a year and a half? Didn't say anything about that before I left. Sometime later, but not that much later, I think a few weeks, she was in town. I was still really freaked out, so I didn't return her calls or anything. Yeah, bad idea on my part.

Flash foward about ten months foward. That was when Rose and I started talking a lot online, and somehow, she relayed to Terri how sorry I was, and Terri and I started talking again. And sure enough, I drove to North Carolina *again* that summer. This trip was a little easier, since I had discovered DDR that November, and my physical stamina was much greater, so I had no problem staying awake (as I did the first time I drove there). And Terri really, really pissed me off while I was down there. When I had first mentioned the idea of coming down there again, she mentioned that she had moved out, and had her own apartment now. However, when I got there, she had neglected to mention one little detail - her family had moved in with her. Now, I like her family (for the most part), but I was looking foward to not having to deal with ANYONE the entire time. I just wish she would have mentioned that before I got there. Secondly, well, this one requires some backstory. I *hate* driving. I mean, anything more than like half an hour, hate it. That is, of course, the main reason I haven't already graduated from UT, and transferred to SWT. I especially hate driving by myself. That's why whenever Lilie asked me to go get her some food or something, I'd usually make a half-hearted request for her to come with me.

Anyway.

So the day after I get there, after making this 26~ hr drive, Terri decides we're going to this little town two hours away. Of course, I'm driving. She knows how much I hate driving - the topic came up several times while we were talking about me coming down there again. And to top it all off, this little town thing we went to... was a stupid little artsy-crafty tourist walk-around-and-look-at-all-the-cute-little-shops place. OMFG!! It really, really upset me. I mean, normally, I don't mind that kind of thing, and am more than happy to walk around for a few hours in such a situation. But this was the first day of my vacation, following a twenty-six hour drive. Um, no. She didn't even tell me where we were going until we got there. I suppose I could cut her some slack; she was probably trying to be nice. But if so, she could have put a little more thought into it. Anyway. So I tried telling her how I felt, and she got very, very upset. Some... other stuff happened too, and I ended up spending most of my vacation at the arcade, playing DDR. That's where I met Carrie, briefly.

So visit number two ended badly as well. I left... three days early? It was funny, because I had the time off that I had requested, so I went in and wrote on the schedule that I was back in town and available to pick up shifts as needed. That being the middle of summer, I think I ended up picking up shifts all three days I was supposed to be off. Fun times, all in all.

But the story doesn't end there. Nope.

One day, some time later (I don't really remember when, though if I felt motivated enough, I could probably dig it up in here. Possibly.), they told me someone was asking for me out on 31. I look out, and sure enough, it's Rose, Joy, and TERRI. Fun times. So we were in the middle of this major rush, so I had to just have Bonelle go out and give them my cell phone number and told them to call it some time after six or so. They did. Terri and I ended up driving around a while, and things happened, and we ended up in a hotel room for the night. Almost had sex. I remember that we were both topless, but that's about as far as things got. Turns out she was allergic to latex, and that wasn't a path I wanted to tread. Anyway, we spent the night together, and she went back home, and that was that. That's more or less the last time I saw her, except for a brief stint where she was online with a webcam in New Mexico (I'll come to that later; the only reason I mention it here is that she flashed me. I had forgotten about it, until not too long ago when I was cleaning out my computer and came across a series of webcam captures from that incident. Fun times.)

Crystal

I almost forgot to add this one in. I was actually typing about Mindy when it occured to me that I had forgotten to put in Crystal. She came up to me and asked me out one day, and I was like, 'Um, okay.' We went out for... a month? I don't really remember that much about dating Crystal... I think she liked to write *really* long notes, and tended to over-dramaticize things, including how close we were. I went with her to her church youth group meeting one time... that was kinda weird. And I drove her home after that. No, wait. I dropped her off over by Crockett somewhere. Was she staying with a friend? Maybe I gave her a ride *to* the church. No, 'cause it has a definite 'end of the evening' feel to it. She wanted me to kiss her. I know that now, though at the time, I was woefully oblivious. And she broke up with me not that much later, for that reason. Recurring pattern, it would seem.

Kenni

So that one kind of went on for a while, in terms of chronology. I'm backing up a bit, to Junior year. Crystal and Terri were it during sophomore year, and I remember by the time summer came around, I had been single for a while. We had this pool party near the end of the summer; we being Janelle and myself, with each of us inviting, I think, eight people. One of the people I invited was Kristina. She said she couldn't come unless she brought her little sister. Or just asked if she could. I don't really remember. I told her sure, that'd be fine. That was the first time I met Kendall. That's what she goes by now, at least. I've always, and probably always will, call her Kenni. It is sort of annoying, though, when people think I mean another Kenni - during high school, Kenny Leeper, and now recently, Kenny McCreight.

Anyway.

So we talked a little during the pool party (remember, this is way before I had major social problems; I was very outgoing at the time). Didn't think anything of it, though.

Silly me.

When school started, Kenni was a freshmen, and I was a Junior. Every morning, she would find me no matter where I was - cafeteria, where I usually was, chess club, only on Wednesday mornings, or helping someone in some class, and give me a big hug and tell me good morning. It was... really nice. So finally, I got around to thinking about her in that way. I remember, I wasn't the only one. I seem to recall about the same time David taking an interest in her as well. I think. I could be wrong on this one, but I distinctly remember a conversation I had during 1st period American History with Kristina about if she thought Kenni should go out with David, and if she thought I had a chance with her. The only problem was, Kenni wasn't allowed to date until she turned 16 - some rule her mom had. It was either that, or she wasn't allowed to go on '1-on-1' dates until then. Something like that. However, I had known her mom for a while through Kristina - we carpooled to summer band one year, among other things - so I called her up and talked to her about it. I recall saying "I'm seeking your permission to court your daughter."

Yeah, I know.

Quit laughing.

Anyway.

She repeated that out loud, really loud, and was laughing. Fun times. Anyway, long story short, she had known me for a while, and trusted me, so she gave me her approval. In fact, she even let us go out by ourselves, despite Kenni not being 16 yet. She would turn 16 in about... two or three months. I forget the exact date. That we started going out, I mean. I still know her birthday. She was born a week before me. Well, a week and two years.

Anyway.

So we went out, and things were great. Had a lot of fun. I don't have any chronological memories, though I do remember one time when we went to help move some wood for the band barbarque. It was her mom's cousin, or brother, or something, that had it out on his property, so we were driving out there to meet him, load it up, then bring it back and unload it at the band hall (or something like that). It was a fairly long trip out there - like two hours or something. The actual loading up went rather smoothly, though her mom was tossing pieces of wood over to the trailer, and one hit me in the head. Fairly hard. I was bleeding a lot, and the guy dumped this ice cold water out of the water cooler on my head. I made some joke about 'Ya know, if you don't want me to date your daughter, there are much easier ways to express your dissapproval' or something along those lines. That evening, Kristina drove her mom's car-mini SUV-thing to the store, with Brandy (her best friend) in the passenger seat, and Kenni and I in the back. We were clinging to each other the whole way there and back. Not in a romantic way, but in an oh-my-god-I-don't-want-to-die way, 'cause Kristina barely know how to drive a stick. So that was fun. That night, we - Kenni and I - went down the pool, just the two of us. Had a lot of fun. All strictly innocent, for those of you with dirty minds. We didn't even kiss, though that was soon enough.

Went to Homecoming together. She wore this gorgeous burgundy dress. Lots of fun. That night, I had my first kiss. (Yes, my first kiss was Homecoming night, my junior year. Deal with it. It was her first kiss too) I walked her to her door, as my mom has drilled into my head since my very first date, and went to hug her good night, and she interrupted me with a good night kiss.

We kissed a lot after that. I have one very distinct memory of the two of us sitting in the band hall after school, watching the percussion sectionals, sitting on top of the trombone cubies, and stealing kisses when the director wasn't looking. They were all close-mouthed, for those of you who might get the wrong idea. So yeah, we had a lot of fun together.

Then, one Wednesday, I want to say about two months after we started going out, her friend Melissa Roundy came into the chess club meeting. She walked up to me, and I don't quite recall what she said. The general gist was that Kenni didn't feel safe around me anymore, and was breaking up with me. I caught a brief glimpse of her (Kenni) crying as the two of them left. I would later - much later - find out there was... an incident with her mother's boyfriend the night before. So I didn't talk to her for a while, but we're still good friends.

Mindy

Ah, Mindy. Dear sweet Mindy. This was, I think, my first real relationship. Of course, it was still a little high school thing, but definitely a real relationship. To put things in context, we broke up a total of nine times. That means we got back together eight times. She was two and a half years younger than me. No, wait. Three and a half years. Fourteen and seventeen, when we started going out (8th and 11th grade. Fun times.)

So, we've got a lot of material to get through, so let's just start at the beginning. Um, Crystal Todd (yes, the Crystal that I dated earlier in the story) told me that she had this friend that wanted a boyfriend in high school, and she was a really sweet girl, and she thought the two of us would get along really well, and asked me if I'd be interested. My judgment has never been terribly great, so I said sure. Couple days later, I get a note from a random hand sticking out of a school bus. It's from Mindy. We talked on the phone not too much later, for like four hours. We went to the skating rink together, with Crystal as well, fairly soon after that. We had a lot of fun, getting to know each other, asking questions, that kind of thing. We hit it off really well right from the start, had a good connection.

We started going out on April 7th. Not quite sure why I remember that, though I usually remember things like that (I still know her address and both phone numbers, as well as her old Yahoo sn/e-mail). I have a few scattered memories of the early days. She really liked 'The Thong Song' by Sisqo, I remember requesting it and dedicating it to her one time; she really liked that. I remember one time (all of this was at the skating rink; we went there often on Friday nights) she had me lead her around the skating rink for like two laps, with her eyes closed, as a trust thing. Worked out well, though she did stumble right at the end. I remember one time during 'Genie in a Bottle' when Christina says "You gotta rub me the right way", I came up behind her and ran my hands down her sides. She loved that.

The next memory I have, besides the rampant note exchanging, was going on a triple-date to the bowling alley. We had a blast. It was Mom + Jerry, Bam + Greg, Mindy and me, plus Brennan and Janelle (there were the odd-two out). For some odd reason, I remember she had her hair up in pigtails - she did that often, during the early days - and she looked *so* cute when she did. Anyway, I had to take her over to the skating rink after that - she was riding home with Crystal (oh yeah, they were like *best* friends at this time. They also lived next door to each other). Anyway, we were sitting outside, in the skating rink parking lot, when she mentioned that I owed her a kiss. This was a month or two, I think. Maybe it was during the summer. Not quite sure. I do remember we started kissing early on, and often. Anyway. Actually, come to think of it, this may have been our first kiss. Maybe not. Anyway, we had some thing going on - I think it was a trivia game or something, and she was ahead, so she decided I had to kiss her that evening. I leaned over her, and kissed her on the lips, but still very short, very close-mouthed. She looked at me kind of funny, said something like "Not like that" and leaned over to me.

And that was the first time I made out with a girl. We made out a lot after that. We were... a very affectionate couple. You know those people you get annoyed at 'cause they're making out in front of you at the movies? That was us. At least, until we got smart and started sitting in the back. That was until we found a make-out spot. My mom worked in this building that had a litte spot right next to it that was basically completely hidden from anywhere; you could only see it if you were right there. So that was fun.

That summer, she went to Colorado with her church group. I ended up going too. Oh, yeah, I sort of also had this neo-Christian phase. Not entirely because of her, though she played a major role. So we went to Colorado together. Lots of fun. I also remember I arranged things to ride her bus home one day near the end of the school year. I had to sit out on the patio in front of the cafeteria for like four hours, though, since we got out at noon, and the buses were still running at their normal times (this was during finals). So I rode the bus home with her, and had to walk like half an hour from the closest stop. Fun times. Wait. The kiss happened after this. I'm sure of that. In fact, come to think of it, it probably happened after the Colorado trip as well. Not entirely sure, and it's not entirely germane.

Anyway.

So school started back up, and it was really, really cool, 'cause she was there on campus too. I'm pretty sure we got warnings more than once for PDAs. Not kissing, though - holding hands, that kind of thing. Not that we didn't kiss.

Anyway.

So I got my truck somewhere in here - late October, if I remember correctly. Before that, I had been driving my mom's car. We went to homecoming in Mom's car - she still had this... white car that looked like a fish. She wore this... blue spaghetti-strap dress, very shiny. Fun times. So I came out of Math club one day, and found that Mindy had done my truck windows up like Homecoming, with shoe polish everywhere, cause she didn't have the chance to do so earlier. Let's see... what else?

The next memory I have is breaking up with her. I was wearing some green shirt with an Irish thing on it that Bambi gave me. We were standing out by my truck. I... think it was the end of the day.

And that's definitely enough for today. I started writing this five and a half hours ago, though I certainly haven't been writing constantly.