"Are you strong enough to toe the line?
Are you gonna make me yours
Or do I make you mine?
I'm in and out I'm up and down
Wonder if I'm lost or found,
But I need your hands on me now.

But you don't need my pictures on your wall
You say you need no one.
And you don't need my secret midnight call
I guess you need no one.
Is anybody waiting at home for you?
Cause it's time that will tell if it's heaven if it's hell or if it's
Anybody waiting at home for you?
Cause it's time that will tell this tale

I hopelessly, helplessly, wonder why
Everything gotta change."

Kudos to Mark for making me download this. For a while, it didn't do much for me, but now....yeah. I get it.

So my mom's got me going through all my old papers looking for shit to recycle, and I've just come across one of the many letters that I wrote but never sent, this one to Chuck S., while he was living in georgia my sophomore year. It was a few days after the homecoming dance which, not surprisingly, was awful for me...so many of them were. Most of it is just bullshit bitching, but one paragraph...while technically still just bullshit bitching, really sorta...makes me think. About how much things never changed for me, I guess. I don't know.

"I know the world has just too many men for all of them not to be attracted to me, but why can't any of the ones that are be within a thousand mile radius??? This just isn't fair. I need to feel needed, or at the very least wanted. Hell, I'd settle for thought about in a benign way every once in a while. This is of no interest to you AT ALL, but I don't have anyone else to write to. You know what I want? I want a guy who will pick a flower for me on his way to school. I want someone who would, just maybe, attempt to write a poetic analogy about my face that didn't involve the phrase "taxidermy exhibit". I want a guy who could hold my body and touch, but listen when I told him to stop and not need any more. I want someone who would come to my house after school when I was sick with books from the library he'd taken out just for me and read me Byron or excerpts from "The Princess Bride" in bed. I don't even need all that. But I just can't be left in my little corner during the slow dances anymore, you know what I mean? I can't pass one more couple kissing in the hall with the knowledge that I've never been kissed that way, or at all, by a guy. And I can't take feeling ugly anymore."

There's universal truth in that, I think. And aside from having been kissed, and realizing how obnoxious it is to use more than one question mark in a row, how much of that has really changed for me? Okay, so I don't sit out slow dances anymore.....but I don't think anyone ever really gets over sitting out as many as I did. Being in the bathroom at dances, playing the crying game, being it's master. (I use the phrase "the crying game" often enough so that I should invest in finding out what the hell it is....perhaps I should rent the video, or read the book, whichever it is.)


And then I think back and regret how much of that I've had and lost. Mark and his artistic appreciation of me, Andrew and the dandelions he gave me, Jeff bringing me tic tacs and a rose and "The People Versus Larry Flint"- okay, so it wasn't the Princess Bride. The effort was there.

And no, Jeff and I haven't broken up or anything. But, in general, things tend to wane in life. And I'm left hopelessly, helplessly wondering why
Everything gotta change.


And maybe now certain people need my pictures on there wall. Maybe now certain people need my secret midnight call. But I need hands on me now...and who's going to be waiting at home for me?

Do I still need no one?

I still can't take feeling ugly anymore.

On with it.