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Friday, January 1. 2010
Happy New Years... Or Why I'm Glad The Decade Is Over
So, with 2009 drawing to an end, I’ve decided to recap the past 10 years of my life and the things that affected me. I also realize, heading into this entry, that the past ten years haven’t necessarily been the greatest of times. Granted, there are a number of things that qualify as good times, thinking back, I mostly recall numerous bad times. With that note, let’s just dive right in, shall we?
2000: In late 1999, Mom and I moved down to Delaware, and I absolutely hated it there, and acted out quite a bit. Mom had had enough of our fights and made me move back to New Jersey to live with my dad and sister, Lisa. So, the decade started out with me moving away from Mom, but back with Lisa.
Although I hated my 5th grade spent at North Smyrna Elementary School, I still regard 5th grade at Bobby’s Run School (Lumberton, NJ) as my favorite school grade ever. The teacher there was a Miss Barrett (later married, Mrs. Leonardi.) She would end up becoming a bit of a mentor, and a friend, someone that I would turn to a lot over the next few years.
That was the school year I received the Presidential Award for Educational Excellence, which, however proud a moment, would also become my most embarrassing school moment. Neither my mom nor my dad were able to attend the ceremony, though I really wanted them to do so. I couldn’t just accept the award and had to have some sort of acceptance speech, so I get up to the podium and start off, “I just want to thank my mom and dad who…” and boom, water works come, “unfortunately couldn’t be here today.” Now, in reality, I was just overly happy, but everyone else just assumed I was crying because my parents weren’t there. Kids, parents, and even teachers remembered me for years just because of this event.
Then in September, my brother Gary would die in a car accident in the middle of the night. I’d lost just one family member before, in ’97, my great-grandmother. I was pretty young then, and I suppose didn’t really understand the whole death and dying thing, but come ’00 I think I realized better. It was pretty difficult, although, I don’t think I really mourned his death until years later. For a while, I was more concerned with how Lisa was coping and mourning than I did with how I felt about it.
After his death, in 6th grade, I received my first non-A or B+ grade in school [despite making efforts otherwise.] Now, sure, in 5th grade in Delaware, I got a bunch of D’s, F’s and Incompletes, but I wasn’t even bothering to care down there. This C in 6th grade was a huge let down for me.
In this grade though, I met Gerald, who would be my best friend for the next few years.
This would be the first year I really got interested in politics. Of course, I’d been into environmental issues for a few years, which doe count as politics, in 2000 I was actually watching, listening, learning, and routing. I wanted Gore. We all know how that panned out.
2001: The first half of ’01 was so uneventful, that I can’t think of anything to mention.
September again brought a shocking event for me, which was, of course, the terror attack on September 11th. This was a pretty impactful event on me. I can still remember tiny details, and things that were said, things that were done that day. I remember right after the school had informed all of the teachers, and the teachers us, being in 4th period science class with Mr. Coon. By now, the news was replaying the towers falling, and Mr. Coon turned to us and said, “You’re all a part of history now. All of your history books are outdated today.” Like many people across the country, I went into a deep phase of patriotism. I had American flags all over my room and I said the Pledge of Allegiance more proudly and loudly at school each day, and even when not in school. This time of intense patriotism would eventually die down with disappointment in Bush within the following year. I think that this event helped to pull me in even further to politics and world events.
By the end of 2001, I was realizing my own sexuality more. This would see the last girlfriend of mine, Laura. Despite what she would think after we broke up, she didn’t “turn me gay,” although I still find that idea amusing.
I started playing guitar around the end of November, into December.
2002: I would come out this year, to friends, mainly. Some friends I found were untrustworthy, as, though I was still keeping it secret, they had told people and people told people. It really wasn’t long before every one in my grade new.
Found Rock N Roll this year. Ha. It all started with Nirvana. I had a long obsession with them. I still have the posters from my walls from then.
I started having problems sleeping this year. As well as letting my grades slip in school some. Can we blame this on the Rock N Roll? Haha. Just kidding.
I met Erin in the beginning of this year. Erin would be my best friend for many years to come and was someone who was always there for me, and I her. I should note though, that I thought she was so annoying when I first met her, but that was because she had an obsessive crush on me at that time. She wasn’t so bad once she got over that crush haha.
I would also lose Gerald as a friend, in the second half of the year. I think he was questioning his own sexuality, and I wasn’t the type of friend he needed during that in that I was gay and he wasn’t sure what he was. This hurt a lot, basically being the first friend I’d lose over my sexuality (though, not that last, of course.) I believe he’s straight or something now, though.
2003: Two things grew this year: my hatred of George Bush, and my friendship with Erin.
In the first half of the year, Bush would invade Iraq, something which I still to this day strongly disagree with. I lost nearly all of the patriotism I had found in 2001. Those American flags were no longer in my room, and anything related was packed away. I was disgusted with America, and I blame Bush for that.
Every Friday and Saturday was spent with Erin, and throughout the week we hung out. Whereas in 7th grade, we were just friends, by 8th grade, we were extremely close friends.
She would introduce me to my first boyfriend, Erik. We lasted maybe two or three months. He admitted to cheating on me, and though I had let that go, we ended up just fighting all the time.
Musically, I’d get into Ska this year.
I started high school at the end of the year and completely hated the school, Rancocas Valley Regional.
2004: I began seeing my sister’s psychiatrist, for my trouble sleeping. He would diagnose me with insomnia, and ADHD, and put me on Seroquel (sleep aid,) Ativan (tranquilizer) and Concerta in January.
In February, my sister gave birth to my niece, Jazmen.
On March 9th, after an argument with my mom about dropping out of school (as I wanted to so bad because I couldn’t stand the school any more) I started overdosing on the sleeping pills and tranquilizers the doctor had prescribed me. By March 11th, I was rushed to the hospital, nearly dead. I spent a week in the hospital, and then two weeks in a mental health facility, Carrier Clinic in Neptune, NJ. You can read a bit more about that in my blog post, “Happy 5 Years of Life to Me!”
The doctors would take me out of the physical school, and put me on home bound instruction with the school by April.
Routed for Kerry, got Bush again.
And that was it for ’04. Oh wait, forget to mention: had my first joint this year. Ha.
2005: In January, I got my first job, working as a cashier at Ace Hardware. I liked it there, although it was mostly boring.
I would start recognizing Erin’s dad as my own by this year. Without ever asking, he would show up at 7am to drive me to work, even though work was just a short walk away. He was always so cool and willing to help.
My poppop dies in March.
April 24th, my mom would be rushed to the hospital. She had really bad dizzy spells. The hospital would diagnose with vertigo (which is a symptom, but not a cause) but thought there may be an aneurysm in her brain. I remember my cousin, Jen, picking me up from work a few days later, and saying, “It’s your mom, they don’t think she’s going to make it.” I rushed out, and to see her. I just found out this year that my cousin GREATLY exaggerated the situation that day. May 5th, Mom would be back in the hospital, this time they were worried of an underlying tumor. They would end up talking about shy drager syndrome, which is terminal with a 7 year life expectancy. As far as we know this is still the diagnosis (though, she’s had numerous other diagnoses over the years.) Last time I asked Mom, she says the doctors don’t give her straight answers when she asked about whether she has shy drager or not.
The high school kicked me out of their school this year.
On May 20th, I was fired from Ace. Although I had asked to not be put on mornings any more, the manager never changed my hours, and as expected, I was late a lot. So, the manager fired me over it.
June 2nd, I’d start at my second job, Wawa Food Markets. I quit November 29th after being fed up with my coworkers not doing any work, and the manager not doing anything about it.
December 7th, I had a few friends, Mark, Ellie, and Steve-o over to celebrate my birthday. We had alcohol and we were all very drunk. Mark and I started making out and went to the bathroom for some privacy. On the way there, we knocked something over and it made a loud bang. My mom would come upstairs yelling and demanding I get out of the bathroom. I wouldn’t, and she sent my dad up to get me out. He broke into the door, told Mark to get the fuck out of “his” house, and then grabbed me by the throat and threw me up against the wall and started choking me. I kicked him back into the bathtub, and he came back at me and punched me a number of times, though I don’t know how many. He stopped, and I left. I went to live with Erin and her dad for two and a half weeks. I was so glad to have both of them then.
In the last week of December, I would meet someone named Scott off the website XY.com. Our first date was to see the movie “Fun with Dick and Jane.”
2006: The year began with me having pneumonia. That was the worst sick I’ve had EVER.
Scott and I get “official” on the 16th of January.
Around the end of January, I start having bad arguments with Erin. We end up not talking for a while.
On the 29th, I moved to Browns Mills when my parents got backed together. I mostly had no friends, wasn’t in school, and had no job. I only had Scott then, but the distance put a bit of a damper on our relationship. I was always bored, and that’s when I found the MySpace forums. I pretty much spent 98% of all waking moments in the forums.
Moved to Mount Holly April 14th.
Started talking to Erin again in May. Broke up with Scott in May, too
2007: In February, I get a job working at Hess, another gas station job.
A lot of my time outside of work is still spent in the MySpace forums, or with the friends I made from there, many of whom are still close friends today.
Met Ferfer, who would become my best friend, and still is to this day. I ♥ fer.
Erin’s dad would die in May. He had been sick for a while. It was a pretty hard loss for me. He had basically become a father to me. He was very important to me.
2008: Had a fight with Erin. We stop talking after that. I wished her happy birthday this year (2009) but that’s all we’ve really said to each other since.
My grandmom dies in February. My friends from MySpace pulled together and donated money to my family to help pay for her funeral costs.
MySpace made me a moderator for their forums, so I finally had an excuse for being online all the time ha.
I was pretty heavy in drugs in the second quarter of the year. Whenever I hung out with my friends, we were getting high on something. I became friends with one of the customers from Hess, and we were also getting high together, doing pot and coke.
July 19th I got fired from Hess. Some kid told his dad I sold him cigarettes, and the dad complained to the manager. The manager said she was going to investigate. The next day she left me a message telling me, “Hey Tim. Don’t bother coming into work today. Okay, bye.” I took it to mean I was fired. I applied for unemployment. The manager told unemployment that I had quit. The Dept. of Labor investigated and agreed with me that she had fired me “without cause.”
I got hired in September at Walmart. It was a temporary position and on December 20th I was laid off.
I re-enrolled in High School.
In October, my uncle tried to kill himself.
I was routing for Hillary Clinton for President. When she lost in the primaries, and Obama became the Democratic Nominee, I started routing for him. He won.
2009: Mostly spent being unemployed, and getting in debt.
I quit smoking after 11 years on March 21st.
In July, my unemployment insurance ran up and I stopped being able to pay the credit cards, so that debt kept growing.
In September I got hired at Kohl’s. Fucking hated it there.
My uncle tried to kill himself a few more times this year. In September DYFS removed his two kids from his home, and placed them in ours.
In October, I quit Kohl’s. I was hired a week later at Staples, as a cashier. In November, Staples moved me to the Copy Print Center.
In December, I turned 21 As far as I'm concerned, the last important birthday until I'm 60-whatever and able to retire. haha
And that brings us to now, moving into 2010. I have a pretty positive outlook on the future, but here’s hoping that 2010-2020 goes better than 2000-2010. Ha.
2000: In late 1999, Mom and I moved down to Delaware, and I absolutely hated it there, and acted out quite a bit. Mom had had enough of our fights and made me move back to New Jersey to live with my dad and sister, Lisa. So, the decade started out with me moving away from Mom, but back with Lisa.
Although I hated my 5th grade spent at North Smyrna Elementary School, I still regard 5th grade at Bobby’s Run School (Lumberton, NJ) as my favorite school grade ever. The teacher there was a Miss Barrett (later married, Mrs. Leonardi.) She would end up becoming a bit of a mentor, and a friend, someone that I would turn to a lot over the next few years.
That was the school year I received the Presidential Award for Educational Excellence, which, however proud a moment, would also become my most embarrassing school moment. Neither my mom nor my dad were able to attend the ceremony, though I really wanted them to do so. I couldn’t just accept the award and had to have some sort of acceptance speech, so I get up to the podium and start off, “I just want to thank my mom and dad who…” and boom, water works come, “unfortunately couldn’t be here today.” Now, in reality, I was just overly happy, but everyone else just assumed I was crying because my parents weren’t there. Kids, parents, and even teachers remembered me for years just because of this event.
Then in September, my brother Gary would die in a car accident in the middle of the night. I’d lost just one family member before, in ’97, my great-grandmother. I was pretty young then, and I suppose didn’t really understand the whole death and dying thing, but come ’00 I think I realized better. It was pretty difficult, although, I don’t think I really mourned his death until years later. For a while, I was more concerned with how Lisa was coping and mourning than I did with how I felt about it.
After his death, in 6th grade, I received my first non-A or B+ grade in school [despite making efforts otherwise.] Now, sure, in 5th grade in Delaware, I got a bunch of D’s, F’s and Incompletes, but I wasn’t even bothering to care down there. This C in 6th grade was a huge let down for me.
In this grade though, I met Gerald, who would be my best friend for the next few years.
This would be the first year I really got interested in politics. Of course, I’d been into environmental issues for a few years, which doe count as politics, in 2000 I was actually watching, listening, learning, and routing. I wanted Gore. We all know how that panned out.
2001: The first half of ’01 was so uneventful, that I can’t think of anything to mention.
September again brought a shocking event for me, which was, of course, the terror attack on September 11th. This was a pretty impactful event on me. I can still remember tiny details, and things that were said, things that were done that day. I remember right after the school had informed all of the teachers, and the teachers us, being in 4th period science class with Mr. Coon. By now, the news was replaying the towers falling, and Mr. Coon turned to us and said, “You’re all a part of history now. All of your history books are outdated today.” Like many people across the country, I went into a deep phase of patriotism. I had American flags all over my room and I said the Pledge of Allegiance more proudly and loudly at school each day, and even when not in school. This time of intense patriotism would eventually die down with disappointment in Bush within the following year. I think that this event helped to pull me in even further to politics and world events.
By the end of 2001, I was realizing my own sexuality more. This would see the last girlfriend of mine, Laura. Despite what she would think after we broke up, she didn’t “turn me gay,” although I still find that idea amusing.
I started playing guitar around the end of November, into December.
2002: I would come out this year, to friends, mainly. Some friends I found were untrustworthy, as, though I was still keeping it secret, they had told people and people told people. It really wasn’t long before every one in my grade new.
Found Rock N Roll this year. Ha. It all started with Nirvana. I had a long obsession with them. I still have the posters from my walls from then.
I started having problems sleeping this year. As well as letting my grades slip in school some. Can we blame this on the Rock N Roll? Haha. Just kidding.
I met Erin in the beginning of this year. Erin would be my best friend for many years to come and was someone who was always there for me, and I her. I should note though, that I thought she was so annoying when I first met her, but that was because she had an obsessive crush on me at that time. She wasn’t so bad once she got over that crush haha.
I would also lose Gerald as a friend, in the second half of the year. I think he was questioning his own sexuality, and I wasn’t the type of friend he needed during that in that I was gay and he wasn’t sure what he was. This hurt a lot, basically being the first friend I’d lose over my sexuality (though, not that last, of course.) I believe he’s straight or something now, though.
2003: Two things grew this year: my hatred of George Bush, and my friendship with Erin.
In the first half of the year, Bush would invade Iraq, something which I still to this day strongly disagree with. I lost nearly all of the patriotism I had found in 2001. Those American flags were no longer in my room, and anything related was packed away. I was disgusted with America, and I blame Bush for that.
Every Friday and Saturday was spent with Erin, and throughout the week we hung out. Whereas in 7th grade, we were just friends, by 8th grade, we were extremely close friends.
She would introduce me to my first boyfriend, Erik. We lasted maybe two or three months. He admitted to cheating on me, and though I had let that go, we ended up just fighting all the time.
Musically, I’d get into Ska this year.
I started high school at the end of the year and completely hated the school, Rancocas Valley Regional.
2004: I began seeing my sister’s psychiatrist, for my trouble sleeping. He would diagnose me with insomnia, and ADHD, and put me on Seroquel (sleep aid,) Ativan (tranquilizer) and Concerta in January.
In February, my sister gave birth to my niece, Jazmen.
On March 9th, after an argument with my mom about dropping out of school (as I wanted to so bad because I couldn’t stand the school any more) I started overdosing on the sleeping pills and tranquilizers the doctor had prescribed me. By March 11th, I was rushed to the hospital, nearly dead. I spent a week in the hospital, and then two weeks in a mental health facility, Carrier Clinic in Neptune, NJ. You can read a bit more about that in my blog post, “Happy 5 Years of Life to Me!”
The doctors would take me out of the physical school, and put me on home bound instruction with the school by April.
Routed for Kerry, got Bush again.
And that was it for ’04. Oh wait, forget to mention: had my first joint this year. Ha.
2005: In January, I got my first job, working as a cashier at Ace Hardware. I liked it there, although it was mostly boring.
I would start recognizing Erin’s dad as my own by this year. Without ever asking, he would show up at 7am to drive me to work, even though work was just a short walk away. He was always so cool and willing to help.
My poppop dies in March.
April 24th, my mom would be rushed to the hospital. She had really bad dizzy spells. The hospital would diagnose with vertigo (which is a symptom, but not a cause) but thought there may be an aneurysm in her brain. I remember my cousin, Jen, picking me up from work a few days later, and saying, “It’s your mom, they don’t think she’s going to make it.” I rushed out, and to see her. I just found out this year that my cousin GREATLY exaggerated the situation that day. May 5th, Mom would be back in the hospital, this time they were worried of an underlying tumor. They would end up talking about shy drager syndrome, which is terminal with a 7 year life expectancy. As far as we know this is still the diagnosis (though, she’s had numerous other diagnoses over the years.) Last time I asked Mom, she says the doctors don’t give her straight answers when she asked about whether she has shy drager or not.
The high school kicked me out of their school this year.
On May 20th, I was fired from Ace. Although I had asked to not be put on mornings any more, the manager never changed my hours, and as expected, I was late a lot. So, the manager fired me over it.
June 2nd, I’d start at my second job, Wawa Food Markets. I quit November 29th after being fed up with my coworkers not doing any work, and the manager not doing anything about it.
December 7th, I had a few friends, Mark, Ellie, and Steve-o over to celebrate my birthday. We had alcohol and we were all very drunk. Mark and I started making out and went to the bathroom for some privacy. On the way there, we knocked something over and it made a loud bang. My mom would come upstairs yelling and demanding I get out of the bathroom. I wouldn’t, and she sent my dad up to get me out. He broke into the door, told Mark to get the fuck out of “his” house, and then grabbed me by the throat and threw me up against the wall and started choking me. I kicked him back into the bathtub, and he came back at me and punched me a number of times, though I don’t know how many. He stopped, and I left. I went to live with Erin and her dad for two and a half weeks. I was so glad to have both of them then.
In the last week of December, I would meet someone named Scott off the website XY.com. Our first date was to see the movie “Fun with Dick and Jane.”
2006: The year began with me having pneumonia. That was the worst sick I’ve had EVER.
Scott and I get “official” on the 16th of January.
Around the end of January, I start having bad arguments with Erin. We end up not talking for a while.
On the 29th, I moved to Browns Mills when my parents got backed together. I mostly had no friends, wasn’t in school, and had no job. I only had Scott then, but the distance put a bit of a damper on our relationship. I was always bored, and that’s when I found the MySpace forums. I pretty much spent 98% of all waking moments in the forums.
Moved to Mount Holly April 14th.
Started talking to Erin again in May. Broke up with Scott in May, too
2007: In February, I get a job working at Hess, another gas station job.
A lot of my time outside of work is still spent in the MySpace forums, or with the friends I made from there, many of whom are still close friends today.
Met Ferfer, who would become my best friend, and still is to this day. I ♥ fer.
Erin’s dad would die in May. He had been sick for a while. It was a pretty hard loss for me. He had basically become a father to me. He was very important to me.
2008: Had a fight with Erin. We stop talking after that. I wished her happy birthday this year (2009) but that’s all we’ve really said to each other since.
My grandmom dies in February. My friends from MySpace pulled together and donated money to my family to help pay for her funeral costs.
MySpace made me a moderator for their forums, so I finally had an excuse for being online all the time ha.
I was pretty heavy in drugs in the second quarter of the year. Whenever I hung out with my friends, we were getting high on something. I became friends with one of the customers from Hess, and we were also getting high together, doing pot and coke.
July 19th I got fired from Hess. Some kid told his dad I sold him cigarettes, and the dad complained to the manager. The manager said she was going to investigate. The next day she left me a message telling me, “Hey Tim. Don’t bother coming into work today. Okay, bye.” I took it to mean I was fired. I applied for unemployment. The manager told unemployment that I had quit. The Dept. of Labor investigated and agreed with me that she had fired me “without cause.”
I got hired in September at Walmart. It was a temporary position and on December 20th I was laid off.
I re-enrolled in High School.
In October, my uncle tried to kill himself.
I was routing for Hillary Clinton for President. When she lost in the primaries, and Obama became the Democratic Nominee, I started routing for him. He won.
2009: Mostly spent being unemployed, and getting in debt.
I quit smoking after 11 years on March 21st.
In July, my unemployment insurance ran up and I stopped being able to pay the credit cards, so that debt kept growing.
In September I got hired at Kohl’s. Fucking hated it there.
My uncle tried to kill himself a few more times this year. In September DYFS removed his two kids from his home, and placed them in ours.
In October, I quit Kohl’s. I was hired a week later at Staples, as a cashier. In November, Staples moved me to the Copy Print Center.
In December, I turned 21
As far as I'm concerned, the last important birthday until I'm 60-whatever and able to retire. hahaAnd that brings us to now, moving into 2010. I have a pretty positive outlook on the future, but here’s hoping that 2010-2020 goes better than 2000-2010. Ha.
Saturday, October 24. 2009
New Beginning ... Or Why Good Things Come To Those Who Say Fuck This Shit
Sunday, September 20. 2009
Vroom vroom vroom... Or Why Certain Umbrellas Don't Fit The Weather
Monday, September 14. 2009