[ note: while no mood is set, this is due to the lack of a "thoughtful" or "pensive" emote. ]
wow. so here i am. on deviantart. no talent. no way of inputing hand-"drawn" ( more like hand-"murdered" ) images of mine. no talent to speak of. in south korea as a bradley mechanic for the army. alone.

i'd like to draw the holes in my heart from being so alone, but the outline of the girls i'd be with are as cerainly solid in my grasp as water. i'd like to make some eloquent, well-worded poem that lifts the spirits and glazes the eyes in a dreamily deep stare into a cold emotionless screen, but the act of merely speaking my communicative "skills" can get you in trouble with any literature professor. i'd like to express all of what i feel, but most governments look down on such acts. it is because i have only words to type, and a page for them to be left on, that i first and finally perform any manner of worth-while deviation as this site defines.

in the four years i've been a member here, i've seen many things. in my internet history lay sites many of you haven't heard of, some of you can't remember, and others wish they could forget. i've logged years of time spent physically and actively surfing the internet, taking each wave of phenomena and cultural shifts as easily as i miander without destination through a fabric of collected and gathered thoughts. not to forget the ups as well as the downs of my journeys, the drives i've crashed and lamented over, the joys of a 28.8 kbps when internet itself is as hard to come-by as your next meal. the desolate landscape of dumpster-built computer hard-disk drives. finally, the epochs defined by systemic data-loss entrenched deep into the psyche with a utter lack of meaningful backups.

there isn't a single person that will ever read this who can appreciate raid1 and off-site backups more then myself. i believe with every last fiber of my being.

i'm twenty-two years old. a virgin, and proudly so. christian, but not one of those overly righteous types that condemns and converts. i understand that anime isn't a "phase", but a debilitating social disorder cured only by the spread thereof. ( sorry to disappoint you, mom. ) admittedly, i've called trailer parks and salvation army's "home" from time-to-time as a child. even the clothes i have now scream at passers-by; "my family's poor and my single mother dresses me!" my family doesn't have much to be proud of, or so most would say. i would have those that happen by and read this know i lived richly and found comfort in what others wouldn't notice if they were looking for it.

"basic training was the most relaxing time i've had in a long time," i tell those who inquire about my view of the army. "i joined te army because working nights at mcdonald's was too stressful and i was heading into a financially pressed situation" is how i tend to summarize my reason for serving. this isn't how i wanted it to go, ironically, this is the most absurd and out-of-character thing i could have done. i've made the best of the worst situations, and while i have my regrets, looking back only gives me wisdom to see a better future for myself, and those i surround myself with.

in a few days i'll be a full year from my entry date. an ominous begining, my "day 0" of reception into basic training was 06 june 2006. i now have a collection of gadgets and gizmos and doodads that most would be content with, though not i. a 10.1 megapixel camera? the images could be clearer… a notebook computer too hot for a lap and game-worthy to-boot? but i wonder why it lags so harshly… several hundreds of dollars worth of some of the best logitech peripherals put out so far? now my desk seems cluttered and inconvenient to use… not to say "it's not enough", rather "why did i bother, when this isn't making me happy?"

"downrange," the little town just outside the gates to camp casey as its called by we soldiers, is home to some odd three-hundred clubs, staffed by what could be upwards of a good thousand "drinky girls" to spend some overly affectionate and attentave time at your side, for the measely price of quadruple what you paid for your drink, every thirty minutes. hearing that "you wont leave korea a virgin" and "you'll be married in six months, i'd bet money on it" might embolster others to ever-spend on alcohol in the hopes of finding "mrs. perfect," but remember that it's a job for them, and all romance leaks away akin to a da vinci shedding paint after an acid wash. the curious smile and listless nothings whispered give way to the reality of your position as the player in this real-life dating sim game. it may seem real. she may really nag you and seem to become jealous, even asking your friends if you're at another club, talking with another girl, but you know the truth. at the end of the night she's lost no sleep over you, and has drained your bankroll for the next two weeks.

learning from others' mistakes before i make them tends to save me most of the time, it did with the drinkies. i've bought girls their share of drinks, had my money's worth in terms of "girls in my lap at one time." with no lasting effects, i can't say i'd do it again. the memories are as false as the way the girls acted, and i'd rather have a long-term love then a one-night "game." a side effect of being alone so long, or perhaps living in the moment… wouldn't surprise me either way. i sport the events more out of "can you believe this?" then "look at what i did!" the strange thing about that night being the spontaneity of it all. we only went out to sebtle a debt, and wound up being surrounded by girls. on to other things though, shall we?

not that i couldn't change topics more tactfully, rather you don't want to read another paragraph that merely changes the topic. those who spend their time trying to understand even a single sentence i utter during any given length of time ( and do so on a regular basis ) would promptly agree. my intent is not to confound or distraught the common passerby, eavesdropping an earful for a chuckle… the way i think being hard-to-follow as-is merely becomes profoundly exacerbated as a rambling string of nonsensical gibberish most hardcore geeks and fans take several minutes aside to fully understand. most of what happens does so socially due to this wealth found in ventrilo and the lan faction. i'm a black sheep of sorts, even within the longest standing group of friends i've known and some of the closest matches in personality, interests, and tastes in humor a group of people can ask for.

we're a gaming group, our name coming from red faction, a first person shooter taking place on mars where the story mode has you… we don't really do story modes, to be quite honest. the official date the faction was founded has ubiquitously been set some time in november 2004, with no ( current ) mention of me beyond my computer and a contact detail. regretably, my lack of presence on the official site is due to my unique nature and the entirety of the group becoming fed-up with my… "personality." several months after a particularly painful shunning, i made a reappearance under an assumed name to test the waters. some things never change, other fluctuate wildly. the focus of the groups ( more then one place shunned me at once ) shift vastly from hour-to-hour, and my incessant insanity kept things interesting. they missed me.

i say "shun" and not "ban" due to the particular nature this period of time took. i left for work one night, groggy having just woken up, and complained about things… perhaps more then i should have, and too often for their taste. i come back from work and after an exhausting night, i'm just looking forward to getting online and trying to enjoy the company of my friends and gaming buddies, which had shortly before created a site i felt to be lacking and made our existence known. "our." myself included. i instead find that in every existing medium of communication, everyone has blocked, ignored, or banned me. no reason noted. no "goodbye" to speak of. every method of contact was simply shutdown. when i realized my internet was fine and the transgressions of the groups, i felt as though earth itself became a desolate wasteland. i only continued living because because death is too much trouble. i slumped about, pounding lethal doses of caffeine just to stay "up" and not have to carry about tired and depressed feeling.

i felt nothing. i had a wealth of free-time i couldn't find a single use for. i had recently forced my sister out as a roommate, leaving me alone and in the middle of nowhere with a low paying job and ultra high rent and bills. i was going so far into the hole i could feel the air crushing me. two of my friends, both in the faction, recently joned the air force. "huh, that's not such a bad idea… it beats the heck out of this." the recruiting station for the air force wasn't open. i saw some "army dudes" taking a smoke break and asked them "where are these dudes at?" we got to talking, and a few months later i was off to fort knox for an intense six ( turned out to be seven ) months of training for a job i didn't know anything about on a vehicle i didn't really know existed.

you could say the army kept me out of jail, or a casket, but that's not really it. i just couldn't see any future at all during that time. my entire life was absorbed by lan faction and what we did together. i'd tell other people about our exploits and daily drivel as if legends from greek myth. when i was suddenly cold turkey on "life"… it's like nothing was really happening anymore. like watching someone else play an rpg you're not particularly interested in: you just don't feel anything. nothing is real. i went day-to-day in a caffeine induced consciousness that even my managers started to worry about. it hurts ( physically ) just thinking about what it was like back then. if i was ever going to cry from being sad, that was it. i don't care how "uncool" or "emasculating" it may seem to talk about emotions, being a guy and all. this is the reality of truth: it sucks. there really isn't another way to put it, it just sucks.

i have felt two great losses in my life. both hurt more then i could imagine, the second worse then the first. i can't even put words on it. the death of a close family member would be about the only other thing i have left to feel the way i felt these things. a soul-crushing loss, the way you contemplate life as a paraplegic listening to the "pull the cord" discussion between your loved ones. completely at their mercy, you can't accept either choice, you just want them to shut up and choose. i'll choose for you: i want to live. you keep me alive as long as you can. trust me, i'm there. and let me watch my anime and leave ventrilo on for me. i'm just happy to be alive with such truely amazing people.