Walking into a room full of people you know is usually easy for most people. I find this task difficult most of the time. I�ve always been this shy type of person, insecure, whatever you want to call it. For some reason I remembered Matt Spencer tonight. Matt Spencer was my best friend in junior high school. Looking back, what a strange situation his �situation� was. I was a bit more na�ve back then (I was only 13-14), but this is what I remember most: Matt lived in a house with his mother who was never homes, his older sister Sue, who was probably 17 or 18. To me she seemed like she was 30 years old. I had a huge crush on her. She had long red hair, a great body; she loved rock and roll and getting fucked up just like us. Her boyfriend, Chuck Nichols was this guy with long hair with a tattoo of that guy with the lantern from Led Zeppelin 4, the word �Ozzy� on his wrist, among other �skulls�, and cool shit. Chuck and Sue would get us stoned, buy us alcohol, and do all sorts of things older sisters shouldn�t be doing for their next of kin. I remember staying over there on weekends all the time and catching glimpses of Sue in her bathrobe. This white bathrobe I can still remember to this day. Matts� mother would come home and he would give her the rest of a joint that we smoked earlier in the evening. She was a lawyer for Gillette from what I remember. His father lived in St. Croix. The mother had these two friends that would come by on Sunday mornings. One guy, Tom was this really old guy, probably in his late 50�s. Sort of looked like a younger William S. Burroughs and then this younger, presumably gay man whose name escapes me at the moment. I say �presumably gay�, because I remember him as this little guy with a moustache that was an interior decorator with a lisp. Nice guy and I hate to stereotype, but�you know. Matt and I would hang out with our friends Dave Simons, Joe Feldman, Ryan Fitzpatrick among other �burnout�s� as we were so fondly labeled. I remember my first girlfriend, Jennifer Gookin. I�ve written about her in here before. At one point in the relationship she told me she wanted to see other people. I said I was okay with this. This was the first time I experienced heartbreak, jealousy, and all of that good stuff that comes with relationships. She was seeing Ryan and me at the same time. She liked him better though. He was the good-looking kid from Marblehead. I can still remember going over her house with him and her telling me to wait in the living room while they went in the bedroom for an hour. Like a little sucker I of course said �okay�sure�. I don�t think I ever got past kissing her and going under her shirt. I don�t think anyone did back then as far as I know. She was a piece of work though. She eventually broke up with me and went steady for a long time with this guy Dave who once beat me up when I was a little kid. Bastard, he beat me up, and then years later stole my woman. I�ll get revenge, you wait and see. So Matt Spencer. He lived on this hill in Swampscott, right above a liquor store. He had a whole basement to himself; we got to write all over the walls. Things like �Iron Maiden�, �Led Zeppelin�, �DIO�, �smoke pot�, etc. Anyway to get to the point, and I do have one, Matt had a party every so often. I mean, we were always partying. But we would have a big group of people over there every once and a while passed out on the three couches he had spread around this filthy old room of his. Beer cans, makeshift ashtrays everywhere, graffiti. 1983 baby. So one night we had this big party and I was late. I walked in and all the seats were taken pretty much. Me and my long hair and Black Sabbath- Mob Rules T-shirt walk in all insecure for the first time in my life because everyone is paying attention to me for some reason. I�m the �late kid�. I was the kid not yet fucked up. I was the shy quiet kid who didn�t really know all these freaks in my best friend�s basement. Matt was my best friend, who did all these kids think they were. Terri Miller came to my rescue though. Terri. I was in love with her. She had feathered back brown hair, wore those striped Izod shirts, white corduroys, and had nice tits. She came into the other room with me and hung out for the rest of the night. So the only reason I really thought of this tonight was, the other night when I showed up at the bar. I think it was Friday night. Everyone was already there, drunk already, I was having a pretty uneventful evening, wasn�t in the mood for drinking. Eyes looking at me. Questions being thrown at me, all of that overwhelms me from time to time. Showing up late. It kills me every time. I get self-conscious. I get nervous. All of that shit comes back. This has happened over and over throughout the years. I don�t know what it is really though. It�s not like people are talking about me. �Shhhh there he is�, or maybe they are. I doubt it, that�s my job. Anyway, a few minutes into my experience on Friday night I kept my eye on this group of people standing near a doorway and waited until they would block any view of my 40 yard walk from the bar and sort of got up and snuck my ass out of there before I had to relive the same thing as the entrance. I get antsy with the goodbyes and the hellos and the hand shakes and the hugs and all of that. I get feeling like I need to escape as quickly as possible. It�s nobody�s fault but mine. My own little eccentricities I need to deal with from time to time. The next evening I arrived early, got my seat, got drunk, and people sort of disappeared at the end of the night, leaving me with a few people, and then one person, and I was happy.

I talk too much shit. Well, let me back up a little. I used to talk way too much shit. I have slowed down considerably. Aside from vague references to people I write about in here, I can�t name names anymore. Sometimes I can�t just keep my mouth shut. There�s no real good reason for anyone to be talking shit in a negative manner. A while back I was reading and studying a lot of Eastern Philosophy, and I did take a lot of it in. But I have fallen way behind. I never absorbed it. I haven�t been mindful in years now. I know reading books isn�t going to change anything, but�Regardless, I�ve said things in the past, and so hasn�t everyone I know. Nobody is perfect. You know a large amount of people, folks are bound to talk. It can be good, and it can be bad. Either way, I have been trying to put it all behind me. It�s not the true me. It�s not what I want to come across as. I�m making a promise to just keep my opinons, when negative, to myself. This was brought to light today when I was sort of called on something I said a long time ago, that I don�t even think I made up. I know there are devils advocates I hang with, and they bring it out of me, but I�m not blaming others, fuck that. I am going to do my best to just tell them to shut up from now on if words start meaning harm. Even the innocent person I don�t know doesn�t deserve my comments, or from anyone, i.e. �Look at that asshole�. I have no judging qualities, especially when I look back at some of my mistakes and downfalls. Not that there is anything in this diary thing that would completely insult someone, but I felt that needed to come out of me at some time. Nobody I know sucks really. Nobody is below me. Nobody is deserving of back-stabbing. Thanks friend, for pointing this out to me today. I am going to try everything in my power to get rid of this trait that has significantly dropped in the past six months anyway.

It�s so fucking easy to get sucked back into those feelings. Those strong feelings you get with someone. Those feelings that are good most of the time. The feelings that make a man fall to his knees. Sure it�s all nothing right now, but it�s so easy for me. I am a baby with this stuff. I go slow. I try and go slow I try not to run into walls. I try not to get ropes tied. I try not to get caught in the web. Again though, they all do it. They overpower me. All of them. Every single fucking one of them. I am longing for not going to bed like I�m going to bed right when I end this. I�m longing for going to bed following a phone call, or followed by a goodbye. Not going to bed with a question mark spinning above me. Not going to bed with myself again tonight. Not going to sleep having not said anything to anyone in the past few hours. Not going to bed with short term memories. I have them. Vague weekend memories. Vague visions. Vague sounds, and scents. I go to bed like this. I�ve been going to bed like this for three years now. I can�t say how much I miss it. I can�t say enough how much going to bed like this is boring me. Killing me. I can�t say I�m depressed about it, as that would be moving backwards. I don�t want to move backwards. But all the attempts from the past couple years have been a series of let downs on my part, or someone else. I can�t believe I would have the audacity to do some of the things I�ve done for myself in the past few years. Playing games. Getting laid. Ha, what a fucking joke that is. Just this random fucking person I know nothing about. What did you say your name was? Letting people fall for me when I knew the minute I met them I would never fall in love with them. So I have guilt, what�s the big deal? The big deal is, I have no right. Now I expect things to go my way. I expect things to run smoothly. Go both ways. For me, and someone else. I could never pull someone in again. I can barely pull myself together, how am I going to pull someone in to get to know me? Who is going to want to come in and see how it is over here? I feel good right now. I feel content (there we go with that word again). I am happy, yes. I just hope I can maintain. I can�t maintain this balance of being me, and being�me. That makes sense to me. The me here, and the me there. The guy that I want to show to someone. Someone I do feel good around. Well, someone I don�t really know. Someone I want to know. I don�t want to make her know me though. I don�t want to make her do anything. I have confidence. I have some respect for myself now, more so than before anyway. I feel I make the right decisions. I feel I make good calls now. I can�t make the same calls I made before. I can do things the right way and the wrong way. I just don�t want to make anyone pressured. I don�t want to be pressured. I want things to roll like the ball over there on the floor. I want the smiles to be mutual between us. I want the news reports from outside sources to stop. This is all my story, and nobody gets to know a thing. Her. I�ll let her in on a secret when I get the time.

before & after