And… It’s done.  The novel is done.  Editing needs to commence, but not for plot, only for typos and things of that nature.

Steven Garone.

Chapters 15 and 16 are now up.  Chapter 15 has some sexiness to it, but it’s tasteful.  Chapter 16 should answer a lot of questions.  Frankly, I like how 16 turned out.

–Steven Garone.

ChapterS 13 & 14 of Pi Squad ARE  up.  I know!  THEY’RE only like… several months overdue!  For those who read, enjoy it!

–Steven Garone.

It seems that I only seem to post here when I’m upset.  So, to the casual observer, it must seem like I’m upset all the time.  I mean, come on.  Each entry for the past several months has been about one thing and one thing alone… The depression I go through because of my current romantic situation.

Really, though, I should be talking about happier things in my life.  I should be.  But this is a blog.  Blogs aren’t supposed to be about the best moments of our lives, at least not from what Live Journal has taught me.  Besides, who wants to sit around and read or listen to someone talking about everything being great in life?  And who wants to sit down and talk about what’s great in life?  It’s all about varying levels of being upset with things.

Take any story, whoever starts out happy will end up losing everything that made them happy and be forced to start again with nothing.  Is that what I’m destined to be?  Am I to give up what is making me happy so my story will progress?  I don’t know.  I don’t know what this will bring for me in the future.  All I do know is that every day that goes by is a day where I learn more and lose more hope.  I’m not supposed to talk like that, though.  I’m supposed to keep an optimimistic view on things.  I’m supposed to be sitting here and being happy while I wait around for things to fall into place for me.  I’m supposed to do a lot of things.  So, I wait, and I wait, and I be patient as I can be.  It is imparative that I be patient.  It’s what is best for her.  If I try to take it another way, try to force things to be better, then I’ll lose her all together.

It really is the same blog post, over and over again.  For years, it’s been the same post over and over again.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know how to handle it.  I have to wait.  I have to wait and see.  If God shines upon me, hurray.  Most likely, I’ll be here, just here.  I’ll be doing what I always do.  I’ll be waiting.

Steven Garone.

Right now, it may seem as though I’m alright. Hell, I’ll even go so far to pretend that I’m alright. The fact remains that I am not alright. I have lost, for an unknown length of time, what put a spark of sunshine into my normally dull day. I have lost the little happiness that I had… But, I suppose no one really knows that. No one really understands the pain I’m in. So, you make jokes. You laugh at the pain I feel because you don’t understand it. What am I supposed to do? I can’t come out and say how much it hurts. I can’t tell everyone that I’m in agony. I have to stay strong and ride it out. I have to pretend I’m not in pain. So, here I am, lying to the world. Have your laughs. I suppose it’s good that someone enjoy the pain.

–Steven Garone.

It’s tough.  I can’t stand it.  I don’t know what to do.

How do you live this way?  Why can’t you do what you know you need to do to make things better?  God damn it!

I need to do something for my life.  I need to find a way to make this work, or make it not work.  I can’t take the limbo anymore.  It’s eating me alive.  Every day, every fucking day, I have to sit here and wait.  It’s just too much waiting.  I want to break something.  I want to take something here and throw it out of the God damned window.  I want to just clear off my desk with one sweep of my arms and collapse to the floor.

I don’t know if it’s the pressure or the pills that have gotten the better of me, but I can’t handle it.

I need to get out of here.  I need to do something.  I need to do… something!  God!  Why can’t you guide me here?  Why am I on my own and drowning?  Why can’t I do anything?!

Why can’t something fucking good happen?!  Why does it keep going from bad to worse?  Why can’t I have ONE thing go right?

God… Please, God… Just… something.

Steven Garone.

I’m going to the doctors on Monday to talk about my anxiety issues.  I don’t know what will become of it, but I need to get a handle on this.  I’ve put it off for the last… half a decade?

I’m on an emotional rollercoaster because of a certain Pennsylvanian.  I have all the tools anyone would ever need to fix the situation, but I’m just not evil enough to do it. I’m not using the tools that I have to destroy this man causing so many problems and, yet, I’m the manipulative bastard.

I’m kind of worried about getting help with my anxiety.   I’ve always feared that the only thing keeping me from going completely evil is my anxiety getting the better of me and stopping me from doing all the things my mind comes up with.  Too afraid to find out what will happen, I back away and do nothing.  But, without that anxiety, do I do those things?  Do I become the evil jerk that I’ve seen so often?  I really don’t know at this point.

–Steven Garone.

me: Oh, hello
Guest: wouldn’t it be cool if we were all robots?
me: It would
I’d be happier
Well, I suppose I wouldn’t be
But, I wouldn’t be miserable either
Guest: heck no you’d be rollin around town on your new robot motorcycle
me: That WAS my childhood dream
So, unidentified user, mind identifying yourself?
Guest: what if you could just preserve your brain and maybe one other essential organ, but have a robot body?
me: I’d keep my uvula
Guest: <—– moot
oh splendid. I was thinking about keeping my cocyx
maybe by then we’ll have some kind of growth powder I could sprinkle on it and have a full grown tail!
me: And be every furry’s dream
Guest: no way i’d still be a robot
with a human tail
me: By saying you’re moot, does that mean you’re called moot or it doesn’t matter who you are?
Guest: are you daft kid ?
sn: moot
me: On the forums?
Guest: abso truckin lutely
me: Oh. Nice to meet you.
Guest: i put on my wizard hat and robe
me: No thanks
So, what brings you to StevenGarone.com, moot?
Guest: oh I thought this was robotfanfic.com
me: Close, but you mistyped a few words
Guest: well my apologies fine sir, I must go save the internet!
go ahead and message me anytime you have some cool robot stories. keep up the good work
me: We DO have a robot fanatic section
It’s just still under construction
Guest: fan fiction
me: Oh, I misread
That will come later
Much later
Guest: do you do that alot?
me: I try to
Guest: ok good because i mistype a lot
me: Life is more fun when you don’t read things correctly
Guest: i meant robotfanatic.com
it’s like you read my fingers
me: Well, that’s my day job
I’m a finger reader
Guest: smashing
me: At night, I’m Giant Toe
Guest: Keep them robot stories a flowin’
me: I will, sir
Guest: tcheus

It’s safe to assume that unless it’s really personal, I’ll post all the guest IMs here.

Steven Garone.

So, I wrote of this interesting time-line, which was to be followed up by the events that were to’ve transpired were Aly to move to Arizona. Turns out, she’s not moving here. She feels as though she wants to earn happiness in an unhappy place rather than come where happiness is given to her.

Maybe she has a point.

More now than ever I’m realizing that nothing is changing here. The biggest change comes when people leave. So, maybe that’s what I need to do.

I have a lot handed to me here, probably more than I deserve. I have a good job, a family, and a sweet ass ride. I have the chance to continue in all these aspects and have a life that many people would envy. I’m sure me from a few years ago would envy me now, but I don’t have what I want in life.

I’m still living from paycheck to paycheck, granted the paychecks are larger. I’m still living with a roommate, granted the roommate is a cool one. I’m still living in a small apartment, granted it could be smaller. I’m still alone.

Through the years, I think I’ve become more and more distant from the people around me and from the idea of a relationship. There was a time when I couldn’t imagine myself single. Now, I can’t imagine myself in a relationship. Maybe that’s because it’s been almost two years since I was in a relationship, a real one.

Probably the MAIN problem is that I don’t know how to start off a healthy relationship. In high school, it was easy. “You want to be my girlfriend?”
“Sure.”
“Cool. Let’s do immature things!”

Now, it’s tougher. There’s dating involved, and sometimes not dating involved. At what point is it a date? At what point is it two friends watching a movie while one is contemplating what he needs to do or not do in order to make it a date?

It’s a game and I don’t know all the rules. I don’t even know if there ARE rules.

Alright, I know some of the rules. I know how easy it is to manipulate people into doing what you want them to do. I know how you can make women sleep with you after meeting them, as long as you find the right kind of woman. I don’t want to do that, though. I don’t want to be that kind of guy.

I just want to find that person I can be comfortable with. Someone I can joke with and have a good time with. Someone I can hold hands with and watch TV with.

How do you explain that to someone? How do you come out and say you don’t care about the rest of the world and just want to hold them close and enjoy the moment? Really, that doesn’t go over well on a first date.

Steven M. Garone

Let me tell you all a little story, if you care to know it…

About 8 years ago… Maybe 9, maybe 7… I was trying to make my dent in the world as a writer.  This all started because my friend Casey and I challenged each other to see who could write more faster.  We would spend hours a day sitting in front of computer screens and writing our epic tales.

Neither of us were very good, but I’ll admit I was the worse of the two.  That didn’t dampen my spirits, though, because I thought I was good.  The rose colored glasses of my father saw that I was good.

So, I thought, as a writer, I should seek out other writers on the interwebs and talk with them about writing stuff.  You know, like real writers do.  So, that’s what I did.  I went on AIM, did a profile search for those who were interested in writing.  I found several screen names, but only two that are worth talking about: ErinJannel and ForeverWildPoet.

ErinJannel  was a poet.  I don’t know what she’s doing these days or if I got the screen name right, but she was a poet who wrote poems that seemed to coincide with how my life was.  I thought she was inspired.  Turns out that everyone goes through the same problems from age 14 ’till 30.

Then there was ForeverWildPoet.  She asked me to call her Raven and talked about how depressed she was with her life.  She spoke of how she wanted to end it all.  I talked to her, walked her through her problems, and helped her to realize there’s much to live for.

This started my reputation as a counselor.  People would come to me with problems and I’d talk them through those problems.  Soon, people sent their friends with problems to me and I was helping them.  But, I digress.

Raven and I became close.  We spoke all the time, mostly about her life and her family and why she wanted to just run away or end it all.  After a few years of this, she professed her love for me.  I was 16, she was 14.  I was in Arizona, she was in New York.  There really wasn’t a whole lot that could be done, so I told her she shouldn’t love me and that I cared for her but couldn’t return those feelings.

I really don’t think it was the same between her and I after that.  She began meeting guys for dating purposes and having them talk to me for to get my approval.  I didn’t approve any of them.

One in particular I didn’t approve was Nick, a 25 year old who was trying to get with a 17 year old.  This would, invariably lead to the downfall of Raven and my friendship.  Nick tried to convince me that he was a good, upstanding person.  Perhaps he was.  I was convinced he was a predator trying to latch onto a 17 year old girl.  He sent me copies of his social secuirty card, his military ID, his AAA card, two college ID’s, his driver’s license, his home address, his high school diploma, some credit card, and a couple of letters from the Army and the Marine Core.  None of these, however, were able to convince me he wasn’t a 25 year old preying upon a 17 year old.  Raven, who by this time expressed she no longer wanted to be Raven and insisted I call her by her given name of Aly, fell pretty hard for him and no amount of talking to her seemed to sway her from him.

Her and I stopped talking, except for an occasional hello here and there.  This hello was usually followed by me asking how she was, if she was still dating Nick, and if he was still 8 years older than her.  Three years have gone by since then.  At one point, I convinced Aly to see other people, since she was still young.  She did, for a bit, and then went back to Nick.

Years ago, her and I made a deal.  She had to stick it out until she was 18, and then I’d allow her to run away to wherever she wanted, as long as she didn’t off herself first.  Her choice for running was always Arizona, to me.

About a week or two ago, she sent me a text message simply saying, “Aly misses Steven.”  We talked and I nearly convinced her to run off to Arizona, where I’d offer her shelter until she got on her feet.

So, here I am, preparing for if she comes here and stays here.  There’s more to the tale, but now’s not the time to tell it.

Thanks for reading.

Steven M. Garone